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“What the hell is Substack,” a friend who subscribes to Gauche asked us this week. Oh no, we thought. Our own readers don’t get it. Should we have resurrected the Square Space website instead? Is this confusing people?
Substack bills itself as a new economic engine for culture, which is a very odd turn of phrase, we think. It’s essentially a platform for newsletters, articles and podcasts, free from editorial guidelines which many of its members are bound by in their nine to fives.
It swelled during Covid, with more people working from home and finding they had more free time. Writers and commentators realised, you know what, this is pretty useful. I’m getting a lot of intel and wit that I wouldn’t normally find in a newspaper. I like this user interface. And I can make money from this too. (We shan’t be monetising Gauche for a while at least, rest assured.)
Substack is one of the major outlets home to what we’ve called the New Punditry: a school of journalism defined not by erudition but by engageability. This is not to say that erudition isn’t welcome: rather, that when present it is more a means to an end. The end in question being audience engagement.
Some might decry the threat which these new platforms (including TikTok) pose to traditional media. This strikes us as small-minded. They make for a richer landscape: more diverse, more interesting, and indeed more complex. In our lead essay this week, Will Hosie takes a closer look at what makes a New Pundit: and how to tell the good from the bad. His starting point? The presidential heir and TikTok darling Jack Schlossberg – excerpt below.
We also have new book reccs, interviews, features, and a guide to Marseille: by all estimations the destination of the summer and by now very much over. But you know, details.
We hope you enjoy reading – and see you again in three weeks.
Love,
WH and DT x
Excerpt: The New Punditry
Artwork by Claudia Everest-Phillips
The first person I messaged when I found out Jack Schlossberg was to be made political correspondent for American Vogue was Caroline Calloway. Caroline is someone with whom I am loosely acquainted and whom I very much like. “Caroline,” I began, “I have a question only you can answer. Because you are just about the only person who I imagine has, somehow, come directly across this man.” The question was: what is he like? “Ugh,” Caroline replied. “I fear to report he’s perfect.” And “not to be confused with Connor Kennedy,” she added: Schlossberg’s cousin and Taylor Swift’s ex who attended Harvard at the same time as him.
Schlossberg is the only grandson of the 35th President of the United States, John F Kennedy, and his wife, Jackie. Blessed with dynastic genes via his mother Caroline, an attorney, he earned a joint MBA-Law degree from Harvard which he attended from 2017 to 2022. His father is Edwin Schlossberg, a designer, artist and the author of eleven books, who was appointed to the US Commission of Fine Arts under Obama. He counts among his cousins Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is running for office as an independent in the 2024 US Presidential election. Schlossberg was 24 when he attended his first Met Gala. He will now be sharing an office with the people who organised the party.
“Schlossberg is slated to be paid just as poorly as every other Vogue contributor,” the Puck newsletter announced. As a general rule, Gauche is told, that means $250 per article – though rates vary. His contract “requires [Schlossberg] to create up to four monthly Instagram videos of his reactions to ‘key news’ moments in the election cycle” (presumably via TikTok duets) and “as many written articles as he wants to accompany them”. The presidential heir is massive on TikTok (182.4k followers pre Vogue appointment; 355.1k now) and on Instagram (221k pre Vogue; 316k now), where he gained notoriety for goofy videos in which he impersonates stereotypical Americans voters. There’s Jimmy, who supports Biden because he “cares about the economy”; and Anthony, who worries about “Bobby” Kennedy’s pitch to halve the US military budget.
Typical comments on his videos read thus: “Is he on meds, off meds, or just needs meds?”; “I’m 25 and tight btw”. Yes, besides being a Kennedy, Schlossberg is drop dead gorgeous. To search for him on TikTok is to open a Pandora’s Box of compilation videos that see him singing topless, wearing a feathered jacket on a dancefloor and posing in exceptionally tight cycling shorts – usually set to a Lana Del Rey soundtrack (National Anthem, obviously).
The announcement that JFK's grandson was to be made political correspondent – or, as one press release fawned, “combine his background in law and business with the self-described ‘silly goose’ tendencies he displays online” — struck some as absurd; quixotic; nepotistic. Which, of course, it is: but we at Gauche feel this misses the point. The point is it’s engaging. Print publications continue to exist largely thanks to the famous names they are able to score, either for their covers or their mastheads. It generates clicks, traction, and appetite. Because it is only human to love celebrity.
Schlossberg for Vogue is a big get, no matter how pooterish or un-analytical his opinions might be (no one’s buying a fashion magazine for searing political commentary). For him, it’s a reason to wake up in the morning which few dilettantes of his calibre are afforded, and enjoy the clout of working for a magazine that once counted Joan Didion and Noël Coward among its writers. Also, the shoot they did to mark his arrival was very nice and might make for a couple of fab additions to his Raya profile.
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Click here for the full article.