The Nerdwriter Conquers the Internet, Plus Kelefa Sanneh on Country Radio

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Evan Puschak, known on YouTube as the Nerdwriter, posts videos dissecting topics from Shakespeare and Tarkovsky to Superman; from Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump. The videos are complex; he may spend weeks editing image, sound, and written narration. He spoke with the Radio Hour’s Ngofeen Mputubwele about what drew him to the essay form, and how he’s found success online. “The essay is not a treatise. It’s not a term paper. It’s not something systematically covering everything about a subject,” Puschak says. “It is an inquiry. . . . The cool thing about the video essay is that you are seeing these people’s thoughts articulated with a whole new toolbox.” As much as he loves the video form, Puschak is crossing over into print next month with a book of essays titled “Escape Into Meaning.” Plus, the writer Kelefa Sanneh highlights some notable tracks playing on country radio stations this summer.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:12.9	Evan Pushak is known professionally as the nerd writer.
0:17.7	His videos on YouTube have racked up millions of views, dissecting a wide variety of topics
0:23.7	from Shakespeare and Tarkovsky to Martin Luther King.
0:28.4	I am happy to join with you today.
0:33.1	Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech is arguably the most important and most well-known speech of
0:37.8	the 20th century. It's 1667 words and 17 minutes long, absolutely riddled with big, difficult
0:45.1	terms. But as the name he goes by suggests, the nerd writer goes very deep on pop culture as well.
0:51.6	He'll talk, for example, about the debt that Bruno Mars owes to James Brown.
0:56.7	If you want to understand why, at weddings across America and the world this year,
1:03.4	thousands, probably millions of people will be lunging their pinky fingers over their heads.
1:10.3	You have to go back to 1967.
1:16.6	Our producer, Gophane and Putubuele, is an avid consumer of video essays, and he talked with
1:23.6	Pushak about this new genre of nonfiction born on the internet. Here's Gopham.
1:28.3	On YouTube, you are the nerd writer.
1:31.3	How did you end up here and were you always sort of a very studious learner type?
1:37.3	Um, no, I wasn't.
1:40.3	In high school, I definitely wasn't.
1:42.3	I was sort of a kind of class clown. And I'm still
1:44.5	really goofy. But even back then, I was obsessed with things that I didn't connect to education.
1:52.8	I was obsessed with Superman and comic books and things like that. But in college and after college, I became really frustrated with this feeling of not understanding what I believe and think about things.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.