Yes, I’m THAT Joel Stein
You might remember me from the late Second Millennium, when thousands of people would print millions of copies of my sophomoric musings and physically transport them to the homes of people who largely did not want to read them. This, all agreed, was unreasonable. The solution was either to fire me or create the Internet. I, too, was surprised at society’s choice. Which was both.
In case you are as old as me and you’re thinking, “I can’t quite place the guy in the photo? Was he in Will & Grace? Dharma & Greg? Turner & Hootch?” No. Despite my TV-sitcom looks, I toiled in the mines of old media. I was a staff writer and columnist at Time magazine for 20 years, whereI wrote 22 cover stories. I was a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Entertainment Weekly. I wrote the books Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity and In Defense of Elitism: Why I'm Better Than You and You're Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book. I taught at Princeton, wrote for a couple of sitcoms, and appeared as a talking head on I Love the 80s and any other TV show that invited me on, and some that did not.
I am married and have a son, so don’t bother sending me that email you started.
What Can I Get For Free?
These weekly columns, which I’ll post on Fridays, will be an exploration on how to find meaningful work in this new world, where we are being replaced by AI and robots and Republicans.
What If I Pay?
If you’re shelling nearly as much as you do for Netflix to read my column, then you’re a person who likes me so much I’m guessing we’re closely related. Therefore, I trust you. So every month, I’m going to tell you an additional story that I hope you don’t share around the internet where people relish getting other people in trouble. It might be a story about a celebrity I interviewed or worked with on a show. It might be an old Q&A with a celebrity that never ran anywhere. Point is: The people at Substack told me that readers pay for celebrity stuff.
Also, you’ll get stock tips based on private knowledge from execs at the companies. Shhh.
