Welcome to OBSESSED: a bimonthly dispatch about something I’ve watched, read or cannot stop thinking about. 

I’m Cara Michelle Smith — a writer and performer living in Brooklyn. My satire and short humor’s been published in The New Yorker, The Onion and McSweeney’s. I’ve explored the mind of a men’s rights activist, designed a retirement community for millennials and reviewed your dad’s HBO special (he did great!). For the past decade, I’ve also worked as a journalist in New York, Houston and Chicago, reporting on housing and real estate development for various publications. 

But my favorite job? It’s being a mother. And my baby’s name is OBSESSED. 

Think of OBSESSED as a sort of idiot marriage between those two disciplines. A typical OBSESSED dispatch looks like me applying academic rigor to absurdist pop culture theories: Was every single male character in Fallout written for the male gaze? Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan are definitely Aragorn and Legolas — but which one’s which? And look, I’m sorry, but why is this lady heterosexual?

I’ll also write personal essays on the squisher parts of modern living: Taylor Swift’s unjustifiable wealth, and how I contextualize my still being a fan; how my obsession with advice columns is definitely voyeuristic; the reaction I get from women in Brooklyn sometimes when they learn that I’m married, and what that tells us about marriage.  

Right now, there’s no difference between being a paid subscriber and a free subscriber. If you’d like to show some extra support by being a paid subscriber, thank you! But either way, I’m pumped you’re here. 

Until next time,yama kippa yay bo, sada raefa kimbo, in do’ latin he quoth, youje — safez suray! (It’ll make sense if you click it.)