About Landline
Landline is a pop culture and history newsletter from your millennial friend with too many interests and not enough friends willing to talk on the phone. It features writing on pop culture, reviews of books, music, TV, and film, and convos and interviews about all the obsessions I think about through a historical lens. Paid members get a weekly pop culture and history recommendation post called “Sidebar,” access to chat, discussion threads, and comments, occasional podcast episodes from me (riffing on a topic of interest), and periodic digital zines.
I’m calling this newsletter “Landline” as an embrace of the millennial technology (along with AIM) that was my first means of sharing my hot takes, deep dives, and investigations with a captive audience (mostly my grandmother).
For me, history is a way of thinking about the world and our place within it; it helps me assign meaning to relative chaos (or what some might call “life today”), by trying to understand the stories we tell about our shared past. This may include the public debates about Confederate monuments (what story are they telling about the Civil War and why are we still debating this???). These are stories that change based on the demands of the moment, and who is doing the telling. For a modern-day example of people reflecting on the same events in wildly different ways, see the ongoing competing public narratives of Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. He is likely far happier with the image of him that emerges from his 2002 “Cry Me a River” music video than Britney’s portrayal of him in her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me. (I’m not a Timberlake apologist, which is also an important tell about the bias of history.)
Each week, I’ll share some writing on a topic that touches on these interests in history and pop culture. Ideally, it will feel like this tweet:
In other words, if you’ve ever wanted a space to talk about both the Titanic and the Kate Winslet vehicle of the same name, this newsletter is for you.
About Mary
I am a historian, writer, and podcaster who you may know as the co-host of the Dolls of Our Lives podcast or the co-author of Dolls of Our Lives: Why We Can’t Quit American Girl. I am most at home in moments when I can think with history about pop culture. Specifically, I love thinking about the stories we tell about ourselves and the meanings behind our pop culture attachments. I grew up in Connecticut and got my Ph.D. in History in 2018 from the University of Connecticut where I studied the history of using books as medicine (among other subjects in American history).
I started Dolls of Our Lives (then called American Girls) in 2019 with co-host Allison Horrocks. My podcasting work has been featured in The New York Times, A.V. Club, Book Riot, The Paris Review, Podcast Review (A Los Angeles Review of Books Channel), and other outlets.
In 2023, I co-authored Dolls of Our Lives: Why We Can’t Quit American Girl. Combining history, travelogue, and memoir, it explores what the American Girl brand meant to generations of fans. It has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, The New Yorker, Book Riot, Anne Helen Peterson’s Culture Study, The American Scholar, and Library Journal, among other outlets.
Why Subscribe?
I get it. We’re living in a time where everything seems to cost more than it’s worth. I love a deal, and always think twice before adding another bill to my life. That said, subscribing is a tangible way to support what I do. Consider what a cup of coffee at my beloved Dunkin costs. (If you think I’m there for the coffee, you don’t get the culture, but regardless.) For less than the cost of mediocre coffee that will fill you with overwhelming, if unnecessary, New Englander pride, you can support my writing and research. In a world where it feels like so many of our structures are failing (and in so many ways), and where it’s hard to influence anything on an individual level, a subscription to my newsletter makes a meaningful difference in my ability to do my work. It’s also what inspires me to support so many other writers and podcasters whose work I treasure.
You can gift a subscription.
I totally get that some readers may want to subscribe without the financial ability. If you’re a contingent worker, gig worker, grad student, or have some other situation that makes it financially precarious for you to subscribe, email me. You don’t have to explain anything, I’ll just add you.
What a subscription gets you:
Everyone will get the weekly free post.
Paid subscribers get my weekly post, a weekly post of links and recommendations, called “Sidebar.” and a weekly episode of my voice-memo-style podcast (called “Hello, Friend!). Members also get the ability to comment on posts and respond to the weekly voice memo in the *69 thread as part of the Landline community. I also periodically make and share digital zines.
Thanks for reading, subscribing, and supporting my work. In the words of the ancestors, thank you for being a friend!
Contact
Have a topic you’d like me to write about or make a thread on? Email me at MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.com with “Newsletter Idea” in the subject line.
You can also find me on Instagram. I love it when you say hi!
