Meghan Daum on career-reinvention, flyover country, nuance, and Gen X

February 22, 2022

Deviate

00:00 / 00:58:55

“My pandemic essay was so badly received; I got massively dragged on Twitter for it, practically canceled. And then it ended up in Best American Travel Writing.” –Meghan Daum

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Meghan discuss what it means to be called “the voice of a generation” (4:00); why Meghan moved to Nebraska early in her career, and what it’s like to live and create in the provinces versus the metropole (9:20); the difficulty of continuing to make a living as a creative person, and mid-life career reinvention (16:00); Meghan’s essay about moving to rural Virginia during the pandemic, how it was poorly received, and her anxieties about living as a “geoarbitrage” outsider (22:30); Meghan’s career pivot into commenting on the culture wars, and how social media algorithms made this cultural rift more of an issue (35:00); and Rolf’s concerns that the politicization and performative certainty of social discourse will make young people less open to the vulnerabilities and uncertainties of travel (44:45).

Meghan Daum (@meghan_daum) is the host of The Unspeakable Podcast and is the author of six books. Her most recent book, The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2019 and is just out in paperback.

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