Pop Candy lives on in the people that experienced that special moment in time. Pop Candy is like the Sex Pistols or Velvet Underground, so many people read it and started their own “band”.
Pop Candy was so important to me in the early early/mid 2000s. I didn't know anyone that liked the same things as me...the same weird movies, the same alt country bands. I didn't know how to discover MORE of the limited things I'd been exposed to, and stumbled across Pop Candy (I think while looking up something about a Wilco cover song they played in concert). I was hooked immediately, and checked the former newspaper's website religiously for new Pop Candy columns, and kept a list of all the cool things you mentioned if it seemed like something I'd like.
I love the etch a sketch story. I had no idea they didn't save the archives. Ugh. I'm so sorry. It puts a sick feeling in my stomach even trying to imagine and comprehend that.
As always, thank you for all the incredible recommendations for so many years. 🌅🌟🐆
I saved many of my favorite pieces from when I wrote for websites, and once in a blue moon someone will republish them or ask me for copy for some research. But yeah, it’s difficult to face the erasure of not only a sense of legacy, but also of who you were when you wrote something. These days I obsessively archive all number of books, TV shows, etc I remember from growing up so I can hold onto the sense of self they evoke. There are advantages to moving forward, but civilization is built on a cumulative effect and losing the past can make it harder to evolve from it.
I followed you on the newspaper and later....your blog...Pop Candy was were I learned about so many books, movies, so much music....then you had your daughter and I followed you to see what books, movies and artists you two shared...
I have a 12...almost 13 year old great niece...I share you and your daughter's interests with her...
I'm sorry your work wasn't archived....but your work lives on in the people who never missed your words.....you had influence on so many people....you still do....we are grateful for your heads up about things in the world we should stop and take notice of....and that's no small thing....I'm a 64 year old Grandmother....and I still look forward to reading anything you put out...sadly...newspapers are not what they used to be....I loved to read several newspapers a day...
Update - I think all the posts still exist but it’s a matter of knowing the exact addresses? Maybe the web crawler bots for Google don’t keep all of them for some reason? I found an old Twitter post where I linked to my guest post and it was still there!
If you click the blue links on top of this particular era of pages, you actually can start viewing a bunch of pages that aren’t accessible via web search (found this while clicking on my guest post) Some links are dead but definitely a lot more is accessible. Just tedious to scroll through. Found a lot of classic regular posts!
Always loved Pop Candy. Wish I could have been at more meetups! BTW, it gets less and less each year but you can find bits of your blog dating back to 2005ish to some around 2014. Dunno why these fragments remain. I even saw a mailbag and some reader guest posts. Sadly not mine BUT I saw your rec for Tele Novella (still going strong and your mention of their previous band, Agent Ribbons which was my rec to you!). If you do a search for “Pop Candy” in quotes and usatoday.com, you find an article here or there.
Here’s a choice article that Whit wrote about going to see Gwar. Sadly it’s not all behind some veiled screen and the later years had a different web structure so you can’t see “hack” your way to see everything.
I wish the Pop Candy podcast survived and was archived somewhere. Loved getting music recs to find at the record store and seeing the bands mentioned before they got popular!
I saw TV on the Radio, Vampire Weekend, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head and many more in small venues for under $15.
I've felt that same knot in my stomach countless times. I recently found some archive discs I made back when, and it was wonderful to read to my passion from another time.
Feeling this. Recently I tried to verify an old concert date by looking for an old Yahoo! group I ran. I knew it would be off the Yahoo! site, but it turns out i didn’t save it to my hard drive in time. So that’s about four years of writing lost from a significant period of my early 30s. It’s hard not to lament that. When the alt-weekly I wrote for was sold earlier this year, I made a point of immediately downloading all my work.
Almost a year to the day after Fox bought NatGeo and immediately fired almost every single fact-checker, copywriter, writer, and photographer etc., they premiered the 2013 version of the movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” on their channel. It was a comedic retelling/detailing of a corporate takeover of an iconic magazine—they didn’t even try to hide the “Life Magazine” reference. I watched it by chance and was riveted by its realism to the NG experience. As the credits rolled, I sent links to the film to many of my brethren survivors. It was as if the writers and producers of the film had hijacked our story wholesale. They took the entire experience of creatives being fed to wolves/Foxes, who then scrapped the whole joint in favor of outsourced, unreliable “news” tweets. The experience was almost exactly like as portrayed—I was basically the Walter Mitty in my department which whittled from approximately 80 to 8 people during the purge, me being the last research editor on board. As such, I lasted the longest: two more years.
Even today, when people exclaim with pleasure how much they love National Geographic, I have to tamp down my urge to correct their grammar tense as there simply is no legitimate National Geographic anymore. It went from the world’s most respected nonprofit and most respected name in publishing to being sold to the arbiter of fake news who in turn sold the picked bones to Disney. It went from trusted news to fake news to all-out fantasy.
Anyone who has been scrap-heaped themselves during the free fall of news outlets will find camaraderie in the film. All over the world, former colleagues still text me when they rewatch it and we bond a little tighter in the afterglow of the trash-fire sale.
Highly recommend to anyone who has had that “it’s not you” conversation with HR.
Pop Candy lives on in the people that experienced that special moment in time. Pop Candy is like the Sex Pistols or Velvet Underground, so many people read it and started their own “band”.
Pop Candy was so important to me in the early early/mid 2000s. I didn't know anyone that liked the same things as me...the same weird movies, the same alt country bands. I didn't know how to discover MORE of the limited things I'd been exposed to, and stumbled across Pop Candy (I think while looking up something about a Wilco cover song they played in concert). I was hooked immediately, and checked the former newspaper's website religiously for new Pop Candy columns, and kept a list of all the cool things you mentioned if it seemed like something I'd like.
I love the etch a sketch story. I had no idea they didn't save the archives. Ugh. I'm so sorry. It puts a sick feeling in my stomach even trying to imagine and comprehend that.
As always, thank you for all the incredible recommendations for so many years. 🌅🌟🐆
I saved many of my favorite pieces from when I wrote for websites, and once in a blue moon someone will republish them or ask me for copy for some research. But yeah, it’s difficult to face the erasure of not only a sense of legacy, but also of who you were when you wrote something. These days I obsessively archive all number of books, TV shows, etc I remember from growing up so I can hold onto the sense of self they evoke. There are advantages to moving forward, but civilization is built on a cumulative effect and losing the past can make it harder to evolve from it.
I followed you on the newspaper and later....your blog...Pop Candy was were I learned about so many books, movies, so much music....then you had your daughter and I followed you to see what books, movies and artists you two shared...
I have a 12...almost 13 year old great niece...I share you and your daughter's interests with her...
I'm sorry your work wasn't archived....but your work lives on in the people who never missed your words.....you had influence on so many people....you still do....we are grateful for your heads up about things in the world we should stop and take notice of....and that's no small thing....I'm a 64 year old Grandmother....and I still look forward to reading anything you put out...sadly...newspapers are not what they used to be....I loved to read several newspapers a day...
I miss them...
Thank you for being you...
Update - I don’t think all the posts exist as I’ve found some “dead ends” with links. But at least some do!
Update - I think all the posts still exist but it’s a matter of knowing the exact addresses? Maybe the web crawler bots for Google don’t keep all of them for some reason? I found an old Twitter post where I linked to my guest post and it was still there!
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/08/guest-blogger-ten-little-bands-ive-seen-and-loved/1
If you click the blue links on top of this particular era of pages, you actually can start viewing a bunch of pages that aren’t accessible via web search (found this while clicking on my guest post) Some links are dead but definitely a lot more is accessible. Just tedious to scroll through. Found a lot of classic regular posts!
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/68494610/1
Sample of content including 2009 video diaries re comic con!
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/introducing--pop-candy-20/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/the-week-in-pop-my-fave-tv-shows-music-movies-etc/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/video-diary-day-2-at-comic-con/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/the-candy-mailbag-answering-your-questions/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/early-buzz-the-doctor-green-lantern-postmodern-books-more/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/a-candy-qa-torchwood-star-john-barrowman-answers-your-questions/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/behold-the-power-of-oates-mustache/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/meetup-update-/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/todays-featured-reader-seth-green/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/greetings-from-comic-con/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/video-diary-five-things-i-wanna-do-at-comic-con/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/video-diary-my-first-day-at-comic-con-09/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/video-diary-day-2-at-comic-con/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/video-diary-day-3-at-comic-con/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/the-lost-panel-everything-you-missed/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/video-diary-day-4-at-comic-con/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/comic-con-pics-n-reflections-why-i-loved-09-but-it-still-wasnt-perfect/1
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/todays-debate-whats-your-favorite-rem-song/1
Always loved Pop Candy. Wish I could have been at more meetups! BTW, it gets less and less each year but you can find bits of your blog dating back to 2005ish to some around 2014. Dunno why these fragments remain. I even saw a mailbag and some reader guest posts. Sadly not mine BUT I saw your rec for Tele Novella (still going strong and your mention of their previous band, Agent Ribbons which was my rec to you!). If you do a search for “Pop Candy” in quotes and usatoday.com, you find an article here or there.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/popcandy/2014/03/31/tele-novella-premiere/7112077/
Here’s a choice article that Whit wrote about going to see Gwar. Sadly it’s not all behind some veiled screen and the later years had a different web structure so you can’t see “hack” your way to see everything.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/07/i-saw-gwar-and-lived-to-tell-about-it/1
I wish the Pop Candy podcast survived and was archived somewhere. Loved getting music recs to find at the record store and seeing the bands mentioned before they got popular!
I saw TV on the Radio, Vampire Weekend, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head and many more in small venues for under $15.
GO WHITNEY!
I've felt that same knot in my stomach countless times. I recently found some archive discs I made back when, and it was wonderful to read to my passion from another time.
Feeling this. Recently I tried to verify an old concert date by looking for an old Yahoo! group I ran. I knew it would be off the Yahoo! site, but it turns out i didn’t save it to my hard drive in time. So that’s about four years of writing lost from a significant period of my early 30s. It’s hard not to lament that. When the alt-weekly I wrote for was sold earlier this year, I made a point of immediately downloading all my work.
Informative
Almost a year to the day after Fox bought NatGeo and immediately fired almost every single fact-checker, copywriter, writer, and photographer etc., they premiered the 2013 version of the movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” on their channel. It was a comedic retelling/detailing of a corporate takeover of an iconic magazine—they didn’t even try to hide the “Life Magazine” reference. I watched it by chance and was riveted by its realism to the NG experience. As the credits rolled, I sent links to the film to many of my brethren survivors. It was as if the writers and producers of the film had hijacked our story wholesale. They took the entire experience of creatives being fed to wolves/Foxes, who then scrapped the whole joint in favor of outsourced, unreliable “news” tweets. The experience was almost exactly like as portrayed—I was basically the Walter Mitty in my department which whittled from approximately 80 to 8 people during the purge, me being the last research editor on board. As such, I lasted the longest: two more years.
Even today, when people exclaim with pleasure how much they love National Geographic, I have to tamp down my urge to correct their grammar tense as there simply is no legitimate National Geographic anymore. It went from the world’s most respected nonprofit and most respected name in publishing to being sold to the arbiter of fake news who in turn sold the picked bones to Disney. It went from trusted news to fake news to all-out fantasy.
Anyone who has been scrap-heaped themselves during the free fall of news outlets will find camaraderie in the film. All over the world, former colleagues still text me when they rewatch it and we bond a little tighter in the afterglow of the trash-fire sale.
Highly recommend to anyone who has had that “it’s not you” conversation with HR.