The Monday Media Diet with Emily Cody

Emily Cody (EC) is a writer and brand consultant. She writes Cool Kids Table on Substack.

Tell us about yourself.

I’m a writer, brand consultant, adjunct professor at FIT, and professional overthinker based in New York City. I also run Cool Kids Table on substack, where I write about culture, and cool women. I went to school for journalism and accidentally ended up in the brand world but a through-line of my life has been asking questions. I spend a lot of time translating intuition into language.

Describe your media diet.

A mix of Substacks, group chats, and ambient internet. I read the usual suspects: New York Mag, Puck, Business of Fashion, but I’m a sucker for a print publication when I’m feeling disciplined or near a deli with a good magazine rack.

I also read a lot of brand and consumer news. Line Sheet is probably the only publication I read daily without fail. People, Brands, Things (which I make fun of but check consistently) is great for tracking collaborations, Clare Moore’s Open Tabs is one of the better pulse checks on brand events and launches, and Sarah Shapiro’s writing is consistently smart about what’s actually happening on the ground.

I spend an inordinate amount of time on Reddit. A few years ago I tweeted that Reddit is Instagram for hot girls. I stand by that and won’t be elaborating.

I’m pretty picky about podcasts. Fashion People is a favorite, and I hate to admit how much I enjoy the chemistry on How Long Gone. The Zach Lowe Show for basketball always, and Cannonball with Wesley Morris — his episode with Samin Nosrat convinced me to finally watch The Bear.

What’s the last great book you read?

It was two summers ago now, but I still think about Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I read it coming out of a breakup, and it stayed with me for the way it handles friendship. There’s a passage about love being a constant and a variable at the same time that I think about often.

What are you reading now?

I’ve just started reading The Power Broker for the first time. I’m coming up on 14 years in Brooklyn and have developed a weird hyperfixation on the triple cantilever of the BQE, how it’s being repaired and how it ended up there in the first place. I don’t even live in that neighborhood!! I’m excited to sink my teeth into all 1300 pages of it.

To balance it out, I also just started listening to When the Going was Good, Graydon Carter’s memoir, on my runs. I contain multitudes.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

It’s very calculated. I start with a full skim and mentally flag everything I want to come back to. Then I do a proper read including ads. I maintain that magazines are best read either on the floor or with your body contorted into a weird position.

Once a month I’ll pop into Mulberry Iconic Magazines and camp out with a stack of Apartamento, Yolo Journal, The Gentlewoman (lol). From the ages of 12-22, I would go to Barnes & Noble, grab every Vogue (French > American) and curl up in a leather chair until they announced over the loudspeaker that they were closing. Sitting on a stack of dusty Cherry Bombe magazines with a deeply mediocre iced coffee feels like the adult version of that.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

I have loved Molly Beth Young and Haley Nahman’s writing for many years and continue to enjoy what they put out into the world. Smaller Substacks or anyone who writes well about work without turning it into productivity advice. Steff Yotka had a wonderful piece recently about how being online used to feel like a treat and now feels like a chore.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?

NTS Radio. Maybe it’s considered famous, but it’s great for discovering music without the algorithm yelling at you. This might be the year I ditch Spotify for good.

Plane or train?

Train, especially outside the U.S. There’s something very comforting about the steady rocking of a train. I do some of my best thinking there.

What is one place everyone should visit?

The California Coast, specifically Topanga Canyon. Even though it’s developed a reputation as a haven for crypto bros cosplaying as religious leaders, I’m spiritually a West Coaster and Topanga feels like a balm for my frantic nervous system. You can go for a morning surf at Surfrider, hike Tuna Canyon, grab lunch at Endless Color, then end the day with a campfire and a cocktail. It’s grounding in the most uncomplicated way.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

I recently rewatched my mom’s favorite film, Casablanca, and fell into a rabbit hole about its release which was pulled up by nearly a year because of the war. It premiered in New York 1942, right after Operation Torch (the Allied invasion of North Africa) and then went wide in January 1943, timed with the Casablanca Conference, when Roosevelt and Churchill met. TLDR: the release of Casablanca was a calculated move by Warner Bros. to align with significant World War II developments and FDR’s interventionist efforts.

It sent me down a whole spiral about state-sanctioned propaganda and whether we’ve actually moved away from it, or just renamed it. In the 1940s, Hollywood was openly aligned with the state. Now the same narrative work happens in service of corporate interests, it’s just quieter, and we don’t call it propaganda anymore. (EC)