It’s Me Van Lathan

It doesn’t matter where you know me from, you don’t really know me. That’s because for large parts of my career, I’ve been inauthentic. By the time I learned TMZ had a culture problem, I’d been robbed of a lot of my ability to adequately address it. That’s because I had to focus on being the Black guy of the office, and attempting to mitigate the cultural damage one institution could do. I assure you this sounds a lot more dramatic and noble than it actually was, but it was on my mind nonetheless. I should say, I enjoyed my time at TMZ, immensely. My co-workers, people who you guys probably think are ghouls, were perfectly lovely and interesting people … and they never really knew me.

It was there that I developed the character of Van Lathan. The know-it-all rapscallion, porn and race obsessed. The red blooded American Black man. My current shop, The Ringer, kind of market-corrected that guy. It’s a place that has an uncanny appraisal of what I do well, and puts me in positions to be who I truly am whether it’s Higher Learning, The Midnight Boys, or Ringer Tailgate.

Still, there’s more work to be done. For me to exist in this hellhole of a world, I have to work out what’s in my head. I’m going to do that on this Substack.

Why should you care about that? I get the question. My answer is we’re likely the same. We’re trying to fit who we actually are and want to be, between meetings and shifts. We’re brawling echo-chambers and algorithms. We want to be decent but uninhibited. We want to be brave but safe. We want to experience bliss, but we don’t want to give anything up for it. We’re human.

Hopefully, when you read me weekly, you’ll get a better sense of who I am, and through our intellectual bond, a better sense of who you are. Maybe even a better sense of who we are. If there is a we left, I assumed there was, but I can’t be sure.

I’ll probably anger you, this is my form of affection. I competed with the world for my father’s affection until the day he died, but one way to always get his attention was to incite him. Now I’m competing for your attention, so I’ll incite you. The only thing I can promise is that it will always be honest, but more importantly, entertaining. I am a clown with a beautiful, zany nose. You will have fun with me. I promise.

And as always,

Fuck You If You Disagree.

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