From the Noise to the Stew
Leaving Twitter, Finding Voice
On March 8, 2022, I began this journey on Substack after leaving my role as a Media Analyst at Media Matters for America. A friend who edits at a much larger publication encouraged me to try this platform. In this space, I could share ideas more thoughtfully and effectively than the then-280-character limit allowed on Twitter (now in its runaway-from-home phase with the quintessential name change to “X”).
At Media Matters, I was incentivized to use my Twitter account to comment on the increasingly unhinged world of right-wing media, from Fox News to Alex Jones. As an African American, my perception of America was constantly shaken by the content I saw daily, much of which was later normalized by so-called responsible media outlets. What I witnessed included rampant COVID disinformation and an insidious campaign to make marginalized histories the problem, rather than what they truly are: a path to clarity in a nation both beautiful and haunted by its past.
That experience still haunts me. It left me jaded and, at times, angry at a country willing to unleash such intentional disinformation, distortion, and malfeasance upon its own people, then mask it as debate. I’m only now beginning to come to terms with what that job extracted from me. Like the Facebook content moderators whose prolonged exposure to violence led to trauma, I was constantly immersed in ideological cruelty, sanitized bigotry, and the exhausting labor of documenting harm. It eroded my trust in media, in civics, and in the ability of public discourse to function in good faith.
So instead of solely relying on the rhetorical battle on Twitter to make sense of it all, I began transitioning that energy here, sharing my voice between Substack and Twitter, and slowly building something more durable than a threadstorm. At first, it felt incomplete. I didn’t yet have my footing on Substack, and my audience here was smaller, quieter. But what I didn’t receive in volume, I gained in value. This community, fewer in number but richer in soul, gave me the space to think more deeply, write more honestly, and build something that could grow at the speed of reflection, not reaction.
The original name, "Nothing New Under the Sun," came from a scripture that my great-grandmother, Blanche Moore, often quoted, according to family lore. The title captured a truth I clung to: that human behavior, including evil, idiosyncrasy, and failure, is an ongoing trend in the human experience. It felt right for a blog born out of trying—sometimes obsessively—to understand the harm and confusion I saw unfolding in my country. History became both a guide and a kind of cold comfort.
Since then, the blog has undergone significant evolution.
It has shifted from reacting to the daily news cycle to documenting historical moments that may not be immediately connected to the present. From writing personal essays to building structured reflections on books and films, all the way to exploring larger ideas. This blog has grown, and so have I. I want to think the nation has, too, but last November gave me pause.
That moment in the fall of 2024, in all its weight, forced me to reckon not just with the country’s path, but with my own. This week, I made the decision to delete my Twitter account—along with the thousands of followers I’d cultivated over the years. I wondered whether I was erasing something I’d built. But ultimately, it felt freeing.
Looking back, I realize that Twitter became my coping mechanism during a perfect storm of loss and transition. In 2019, I underwent my first hip surgery. Not long after, a bad breakup and the death of my grandfather left me with too much idle time and too many questions. I had a new joint and no real focal point. So I tweeted. A lot. I filled that void with the news cycle, history threads, and rapid-response takes. I dissected everything from the Southern Strategy to the rise of a specific style of American anti-intellectualism. I attracted the attention of scholars, journalists, and talking heads.
As I mentioned earlier, when I started this blog in 2022, I was still tweeting, but the shine had already started to wear off. The highs of semi-Twitter fame had faded, replaced by the creeping sense that the national discourse was sinking deeper into denial and degradation. It felt like gaslighting. Like a constant insult to my humanity. Like brain rot.
And in that spiral, I lost touch with why I write, why I reflect on history, culture, media, and theory, why I care.
So the Twitter account is gone. And this blog remains.
I’m rebranding it in a way that reflects that evolution—think Disneyland, but make it intellectual. Instead of Tomorrowland, Frontierland, and Adventureland, you’ll find:
Stew’d Over – reflections and critical essays on history, politics, and culture
Stew’d on Screen – meditations on cinema, pop culture, and visual storytelling
Stew’d and Bookmark’d – insights from the books I’m immersed in
The new name, Stew on This, invites you to linger and simmer with a pot of ideas, engaging with the narrative recipe I offer each week. Life is made of stories. Maybe you’re reading an essay on habitus and what it reveals about how Americans understand themselves and the wider world (stay tuned), or you’re diving into an upcoming dissection of 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933. Or maybe you're exploring the imagineered myth-making of the Walt Disney Company through Henry Giroux’s The Mouse That Roared.
Each “land” represents a part of my thought stream—interweaving history, culture, storytelling, and sometimes, the politics of place and identity.
This rebrand doesn’t mean the content is changing. It means the packaging is more cohesive and intentional, reflecting how I’ve changed as well. And I want to acknowledge something plainly: this work takes time, energy, and heart.
That’s why I’ve adopted a hybrid model. Free subscribers can read the first half of every post, where I unpack the central idea or historical moment. But it’s in the second half, available to paid subscribers, where I stir the pot—connecting those ideas to today’s world and weaving them into the present cultural, political, or emotional moment. Paying patrons also get access to my archive.
Thank you to the readers who’ve been on this ride from the beginning. And welcome to the new ones. You’ve arrived in a kitchen of thought, reflection, and deep appreciation.
Let’s keep cooking.
