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

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.6	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:13.0	Evan Pusheck is known professionally as the nerd rider.
0:17.8	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.
0:33.2	Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech is arguably the most important and most well-known
0:37.4	speech of the 20th century.
0:39.2	It's 1667 words and 17 minutes long, absolutely riddled with big, difficult terms.
0:46.3	But as the name he goes by suggests, the nerd rider goes very deep on pop culture as well.
0:51.6	He'll talk, for example, about the death that Bruno Mars owes to James Brown.
0:57.4	If you want to understand why, at weddings across America and the world this year, thousands
1:03.8	probably millions of people will be lunging their pinky fingers over their heads.
1:10.4	You have to go back to 1967.
1:17.8	The producer GoFan and Putubwele is an avid consumer of video essays.
1:23.0	He talked with Pusheck about this new genre of nonfiction born on the internet.
1:28.0	He is GoFan.
1:29.9	On YouTube you are the nerd rider.
1:31.7	How did you end up here and were you always sort of a very studious learner type?
1:37.9	No, I wasn't.
1:41.0	In high school I definitely wasn't.
1:42.6	I was sort of a kind of class clown.
1:44.2	I'm still really goofy, but even back then I was obsessed with things that I didn't
	...

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