Welcome back to the Culture Journalist. To kick off our 2024 programming, we’ve cooked up a special, New Year’s-themed episode for paid subscribers. Elliot Aronow—a fashion and music media veteran and founder of the minor genius newsletter, which focuses on helping artists unlock their “minor genius”—joins us to discuss balancing the pursuit of creative work with needing to pay your bills and making art that is meaningful in a culture industry with twisted incentives.
Along the way, we get into the importance of creating your own IP even if you’ve already landed your dream job, why so many music publications’ year end lists feature the same handful of songs, and how modeling one’s career after “minor geniuses” like Ian Mackaye and Chloe Sevigny can be a path towards success on your own terms. Finally, mirroring the one-on-one work he does with clients, Andrea and Emilie ask Elliot to help them work through some creativity dilemmas of their own.
