Seventy-five years ago last summer, we put out a call for new writers and over 650 people applied and while it nearly killed me (would’ve been a wonderful way to go, thank you all very much!), it also filled me with wonder and glee, because everyone is just so fucking fascinating! We asked applicants to list their areas of expertise and let me just say upfront that there are a lot more birdwatchers out there than you’d probably guess.
Here are some other niche topics that people were ready to write about at the drop of a hat.
- what people are fighting about on Twitter
- falconer
- sensitive, white girl Ikea decor
- being in the Midwest (cheese)
- which craft stores are ethically sourcing their wool
- why pie charts suck
- Having multiple conflicting feelings at the same time
- Mitski’s right hand in the Geyser music video
- Nora Ephron
- trying not to be a U-Haul Lesbian and also being a U-Haul Lesbian
- Bottle-feeding kittens
- my dog & her various doggy woes
- being Very Online™
- homophobic 80s-90s action/horror movies
- Cate Blanchett
- large appliances
- screaming and crying in socially inappropriate spheres
- Sandra Bullock’s entire filmography
- Vermicomposting
- unlikely instances of near death experiences
- the neopets stock market
- animals that look like people
- Kristen Stewart’s facial expressions
- Apocalypse prepping
- Satanic philosophy and history
- why queers love My Chemical Romance so dang much
- casseroles
- cultivating hobbies in your 20’s to feel alive again
- a fascination with straight people’s behavior
- I also am extremely into bees. Like, my dudes, you have — I swear to you, on my mom, that this is an absolute fact — never, ever met someone who knows or cares about bees as much as I do. Everybody says, “Oh, I love bees; hell yeah, save the bees!”… but they’re only ever talking about the European honeybee, apis mellifera, a species transplanted from its original endemic territory to support large-scale agriculture, a practice that has had a purely negative impact on the earth and upon ourselves ever since humanity’s shift to agrarian society from hunter-gatherer culture circa 3000 BCE. Have any of these people who “love bees” even HEARD of solitary species? Do they know about thyreus nitidulus, the neon cuckoo bee? It’s blue! It’s beautiful!
- intersectional Satanic feminism
- boobs??!
- eating a 1lb bag of Sour Patch Kids in under an hour
- MILFs
- Cringey mid-2000s teen dramas that had too few lesbians
- Paul Giamatti’s film and music career
- baseball caps worn backwards
- Amish romance novels
- everything about donuts
- wholesome thirst trapping
- the Venn diagram of Janelle Monae and Carly Rae Jepsen fandom
- insulting men who say gross stuff to me in my DMs
- …cooking pasta?
- saying embarrassing things that make me want to die in a hole
- going on 100 first dates without ever getting a second
- Committing to a bit that was never that funny to start with, but now that I’ve started you can pry it from my cold dead hands
- knitting penis-shaped pillows
- identifying what episode of The Nanny it is based on C.C. Babcock’s hair
- running long distances very slowly
- puppets, just all types of puppets
- communications cables and antennas
- girl groups of the ’60s
- moss
- The Devil Wears Prada Cerulean Monologue
- telling people to quit things they should quit
- power tools one can rent from Home Depot
- Hayley Kiyoko (I’m a three-time award winner of the “Most Likely to Mention Hayley Kiyoko in a Piece Not About Hayley Kiyoko” award at [redacted publication])
- Irish country singer Daniel O’Donnell
- golden retrievers
- geology, specifically volcanoes
- Fyre Festival
- The Boys Are Back In Town
- Film bros and how to shut them down
- ruining vegan cakes by accident
- having two straight women as best friends
- loud eyeshadow
- horses, Jodie Foster
- Which Lana Del Rey Song to Make Out To
- Mid 2000’s MySpace/Emo Culture
- lesbian weddings (not my own)
- Charcuterie Boards
- the perils of being Very Tall Indeed
- media to watch while stoned
- escape rooms
- 18th century satire
- basket-weaving, I am not kidding do you want to see a picture of my basket
- Hannibal Lecter
- History of the ball-point pen
- swords
- old dyke stuff
- I’m not a sex toy expert, but I’m sure I could learn
- drawing ugly stick figures
- 70’s soft rock
- A-Camp
- Big Little Lies, the audiobook of Big Little Lies
- middle aged actresses
- Bath and Body Works candles
- consuming popular media years after everyone else and letting people enjoy it again vicariously through you
- how to take care of a backyard above-ground pool impulsively purchased at Target in Denver, a place with no water and weird weather (an ongoing investigation)
- spending money I don’t have to support women on Kickstarter
- a deep knowledge of 1800s British literature that I did not ask for
- treating your plants as your children
- HORSES
- Should a Duggar ever come out, I am READY to write that article yesterday
- aggressive inline skating
- Barbra Streisand; circus history
- identifying British birds
- being an Appalachian in New York during the Year of Our Dumpster Lord 2019 when the New York Times seems determined to profile everyone I’ve ever been to Walmart with
- being friends with theater people
- how to make couples fall in love with you even when they totally thought they were just going to “try” a threesome “once” lol
- Linoleum
