On Yearning

Full text of a recent Q&A for Dazed Magazine

The UK-based magazined DAZED just ran a piece this week titled “In 2024, everyone is yearning—but for what?” It’s about the Gen Z trend of talking about one’s vague “yearning”, which has become something of a meme. This was all news to me when the author of the piece, Dominique Sisley, reached out to me for comment. The article ran yesterday, with a small portion of my commentary on it included. I’m sharing the rest of what I said via email to her below. The part that is actually quoted in Dominique’s article I’ve pulled out and put in a block quote.

You’ll also notice that this newsletter has the same name, but new branding. I hope you like it. Everyone should know the joy of driving a stick shift well—I didn’t learn until I was in my late 20’s, when I learned on some icy mountain roads in Italy and then got over-confident and nearly sent me and my future wife over the side of a mountain in the backroads of Slovenia. It was a skill worth mastering, though. (Okay, let me be honest: I haven’t mastered it yet.) The effort was all worth it, though. So I’m glad the stick shift made its way into the art…

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Young people on the internet are talking a lot about longing, or yearning, for something right now. Do you believe that there is something distinctly mournful about this time we’re living through, or do you think these feelings are no different from what we’ve always felt as humans?