Pornokitsch

Jared: Hello, Anne.

Thank you for attending your contractually mandated exit interview. Everything we discuss today will be kept confidential [shared on the internet] and anonymous [you will be named throughout]. We'll be using the contents of this discussion to ensure that our working conditions are optimal and our processes are as strong as possible [we're hoping you drop some juicy bits of gossip].

So let's get started, shall we? How long have you been at... Porno...quiche? Is that how you pronounce that? 

...well, not here any more. 

We'll be keeping the Pornokitsch Facebook page ticking along - it has a surprisingly buzzy community and is a good way of sharing nifty links. We'll see how long that goes. [Posthumous update: is ded]

Anne's on a social media hiatus, but, when she's not, she can otherwise can be found at @thefingersofgod. [Posthumous update: Try the Monsters & Mullets newsletter!]

Jared has a newsletter set up for chats about strategy and culture and whatever he's reading. He's also still lurking about on Twitter at @straycarnivore.

You can find our regulars and guests online at:

• Magnus Anderson
• Jamie Beeching
• David Bryher
• Jesse Bullington
• Becky Chambers
• Selena Chambers
• Joey Hi-Fi
• Stark Holborn
• Adam Kranz
• Sarah Anne Langton
• Rebecca Levene
• Erin Lindsey
• Kuzhali Manickavel
• Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Jon Morgan
• Mahvesh Murad
• Den Patrick
• Adam Roberts
• Mazin Saleem
• Molly Tanzer
• Caspian Whistler

This is it, y'all. The entire Pornokitsch legacy, resting on one final review. There's no guarantee that I'll ever have a platform like this again. Worse: these last words need to be worthy of the ten years of effort that went into building said platform. These words will represent the entire body of my work: now and forever. Terrifying.

And yet, that's not true, is it?

It is very easy to empathise with that kind of pressure – but it is also utter madness.  Approximately 80% of our traffic already goes directly to ‘old’ articles - and that's soon to be 100%. Most people that encounter Pornokitsch, or me, will never even see this review, much less use it as their means of judging the rest of my work.

Understandably, it is a relief when I acknowledge that this piece doesn’t need to be the ur-blog. I can try something new, experiment with something old, or do what feels right to me without having to second-guess my own legacy. I could even phone it in. This post is not exceptional, and that's liberating: I have permission to fail, and that makes it easier to get on with it.

I don't, however, have permission to wibble endlessly. I promise this does lead somewhere, but let's park this discussion of empowering failure for now.

Some days it seems like the only thing she can remember about her day is the commute - day in and day out, Tooting to Kennington, change to the Bank branch, change at Bank, Central Line to Chancery Lane and then the reverse, over and over, yesterday and today and tomorrow forever.

Zach Galligan is coming to save us. Not the Galligan you know, or don’t know, as the case may be. Not a Galligan at all, not really, but infinite worlds with infinite incarnations are confusing enough without quibbling over a name, without searching for the seam on the hero’s mask. Let him be Galligan, then, for it can be no other—there’s no mistaking those boyish good lucks, that charming smile, the glint of pure goodness that flashes in his eye…and the monsters that forever surround him.