Volume 1

The inaugural REJECTED newsletter launches with some very mild, casual feelings about what's been profitable in the arts these last few years. (Is it any wonder this got rejected?) And a 'toon.

Advice For Succeeding in Today’s Artistic Climate

TV & Movies

      As you may have noticed, trauma is a hot commodity at the moment and Hollywood is just as game to exploit it as we are to consume it. For us the audience, there’s nothing like working hard all day long, finally getting the kids to bed, and turning on the TV to relax with a show about a man who blew up his family. We’re really not trying to escape anymore as much as we’re trying to turn the volume up on our central nervous systems as high as it will go at all times. Anything less, and we’ll be scrolling on our phones as your show plays in the background. Themes that feel good, like a romance between two people that works out, or musicals that make us smile and nothing else, or just an alternate universe where a family is generally happy, we no longer want to see. We want media that reminds us it’s a privilege just to be alive. We want romance that ends with both people dead in a ditch. We demand a family drama where they all end up murdered on Christmas. We need to see a dozen children drowned in a lake. We require TV that absolutely obliterates the idea that entertainment should be fun. If you can make a show that’s an enhanced rendering of the news we read about at breakfast, we’ll binge it for hours.

Music