Wannabe: Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me

by Aisha Harris Narrated by Aisha Harris

Overview

BEST READS OF 2023: New York Times Book Review ¿ USA Today ¿ The Skimm ¿ Bookpage ¿ St Louis Post-Dispatch / BEST HOLIDAY GIFTS 2023: Publishers Weekly / MOST ANTICIPATED READS OF 2023: ELLE ¿ The Millions ¿ Essence

“Aisha Harris is one of our smartest, most entertaining modern cultural critics (...) which might as well be parlance for, “Read me immediately.”-ELLE

Aisha Harris has made a name for herself as someone you can turn to for a razor-sharp take on whatever show or movie everyone is talking about. Now, she turns her talents inward, mining the benchmarks of her nineties childhood and beyond to analyze the tropes that are shaping all of us, and our ability to shape them right back.

In the opening essay, an interaction with Chance the Rapper prompts an investigation into the origin myth of her name. Elsewhere, Aisha traces the evolution of the “Black Friend” trope from its Twainian origins through to the heyday of the Spice Girls, teen comedies like Clueless, and sitcoms of the New Girl variety. And she examines the overlap of taste and identity in this era, rejecting the patriarchal ethos that you are what you like. Whatever the subject, sitting down with her book feels like hanging out with your smart, hilarious, pop culture-obsessed friend-and it's a delight.*

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2023 - AudioFile

NPR podcast cohost Aisha Harris passionately dissects pop culture, delivering an honest portrayal of her life. Her musings are funny, tender, and sometimes searing rebuttals of others' critiques. Harris examines the "Black friend" trope by referencing the TV shows "New Girl," "Scrubs," and "Happy Endings." She compares the development of serialization, reboots, remakes, sequels, and reimaginings to the dwindling amount of original content and ponders the current nostalgia trend. She explains why she doesn't want to have children by referencing movies like KNOCKED UP and shows like "Catastrophe." Her casual style creates a tone of friendly conversation. For example, as a comeback to criticism of an article of hers that went viral, she exhaustedly sighs, "Whatever . . ." A.L.C. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 04/24/2023

“Pop culture shapes us, and we shape it right back in an invigorating feedback loop of creativity and interpretation,” contends Harris, host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, in her refreshing debut, which reflects on the music, movies, and TV shows that have had a formative impact on her life. In “Isn’t She Lovely?” Harris recounts how as a teenager she took pains to tell people she was named after a lyric in the Stevie Wonder song and not Another Bad Creation’s 1990 hit “Iesha,” lamenting that this impulse was driven by internalized anti-Blackness and her desire to distance herself from the “unusual Black” spelling, which she feared would mark her as “ghetto.” Harris is an astute observer of the artist/audience relationship, as when she suggests that fans pressure artists to become politically outspoken because fans construct their own identities around their cultural tastes, and so wish for their fandom to express their values. Other pieces explore the racist pushback against casting a Black actor as Ariel in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid and the lack of narrative closure offered by the endless parade of Hollywood reboots, remakes, and prequels, serving up insightful perspectives in animated prose that affirm Harris’s status as a first-rate cultural critic. As incisive as they are entertaining, these essays are a treat. (June)

From the Publisher

[E]nlisting movies and TV to explain the world is Harris’s expertise, arriving at ‘inadvertent self-formation by way of popular culture.’ For readers already inclined to read culture to understand themselves, WANNABE is a compelling affirmation that they’re looking in the right place.” — New York Times Book Review

“Aisha Harris is one of our smartest, most entertaining modern cultural critics. The nine pieces offer insight on Stevie Wonder, the Spice Girls, Pen15, and New Girl—among many other pop artifacts, of course—which might as well be parlance for, ‘Read me immediately.’” — ELLE, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023

“Refreshing . . . an astute observer of the artist/audience relationship . . . insightful perspectives in animated prose that affirm Harris’s status as a first-rate cultural critic. As incisive as they are entertaining, these essays are a treat.”  — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“…lively essays… this collection offers a thoughtful and incisive discussion on how pop culture, whether intentional or not, influences the way we move in the world….vibrant, well-researched view on how current pop culture both reflects and informs our society.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Come for the hot takes but stay for the thoughtful analysis that will stick with you long after the last word.” 
— ELLE - Best New Books to Read in Summer 2023” round up

“Aisha Harris is the pop culture maven millennials have been waiting for. In this collection of essays, Harris brings a refined, journalistic scrutiny to subjective nostalgia, which makes Wannabe a truly magical summer read.” — BookPage, Top Summer Reading Collection

“Like many of us, Aisha's brain has been molded, sculpted, broken, busted, and reconfigured by pop culture. But what distinguishes her, and what makes Wannabe such a joy to read, is that she exists in the intersection of critic's critic and Black girl's Black girl—deconstructing what, how, and why we consume in concert with her progressive recognition that she never quite needed to find herself because she was always there. It's like if Nola Darling, Rob Gordon, and Nora Ephron had an atheist baby." — DAMON YOUNG, award-winning author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir In Essays

“Harris teases out the connections between her identity and her love of pop culture with wit and elan.” — THE MILLIONS, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023

“Harris, an astute observer of the artist-audience relationship, hosts NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, and her refreshing debut essay collection weighs in on the music, movies, and TV shows that have had an impact on her life. She explores the racist pushback against the casting of a Black actor as the lead in The Little Mermaid  and the lack of narrative closure promoted by Hollywood’s endless parade of reboots, remakes, and prequels, serving up insightful perspectives in animated prose.”
— Publishers Weekly, Holiday Gift Guide of 2023

"If you’re looking for engaging nonfiction for your next trip or just love all things pop culture, add to cart ASAP." — The Skimm

"An incredible journey through pop culture’s enduring and indelible impact. In Wannabe, Aisha Harris unpacks the (sometimes better, often worse) ways that pop culture has shaped her own life, charting a course for the rest of us along the way. Harris’s essays are brilliant, incisive, heartbreaking, and completely unforgettable. This is one of those rare books you’ll pick up and not be able to put down — it blew me away." — SUSAN RIGETTI, author of Whistleblower and Cover Story: A Novel

"[Wannabe] probes a number of timely questions about our relationship with culture in the public dialogue, in an era when our preferences are an extension of ourselves — a prescient analysis at a most essential time." — SHAMIRA IBRAHIM, culture writer and essayist

“[T]hought-provoking...essays….Adorned with witty remarks, tongue-in-cheek humor, and an unmistakable grasp of Internet culture, the memoir reads like an intimate gossip session, inviting readers to share Harris’s enlightening epiphanies.” — The Progressive

Kirkus Reviews

2023-03-21
An interrogation of movies, TV, and music and their impact through the lens of a Black millennial.

In this debut collection of lively essays, Harris, co-host of NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour,” ranges from topics such as how to critique Black art and the cultish behavior of superfans, aka stans, to how parenthood and the desire to have children are depicted on-screen. The author shows how pop culture narrowly depicts Black and brown people and lays out the entertainment industry’s uneven transformation to more equitable representation. The strongest essays are the personal ones, such as “I’m a Cool Girl,” which shows how Harris took her cues on dating from romantic comedies such as Sleepless in Seattle and She’s Gotta Have It, featuring the powerful protagonist Nola. “I’m drawn to her,” writes the author, “because she’s emanating domination and superiority, wielding the quintessential Brooklyn artist life in the kind of vast, chic, exposed-brick Fort Greene loft that no twenty-something could afford today without self-identifying as a trust-fund baby, influencer, or both.” Later, Harris speaks to how she was often the only Black girl in her friend group and how she just “wanted desperately to blend in and bury the inescapable self-awareness of being The Only One at a time in my life when existing as anyone already really, really sucks to begin with.” In some of the more academic essays, the author cites numerous studies, articles, and opinion pieces, which can feel like padding in an already-slim book. Furthermore, since pop culture contains many genres and is always expanding, one wonders whether many of the current TV shows, movies, and songs Harris references will be remembered by readers in five years. Still, this collection offers a thoughtful and incisive discussion on how pop culture, whether intentional or not, influences the way we move in the world.

A vibrant, well-researched view on how current pop culture both reflects and informs our society.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175056236
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/13/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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