Pure Innocent Fun: Essays

Books

A blast of nostalgia that harkens back to a simpler time with addictively witty essays on NSYNC, Passions, and The O.C.-from the beloved pop culture critic and host of the Keep It podcast. In this inviting and joyfully raucous collection of sixteen original essays, written with a rare combination of humor and sharpness, Ira Madison III combines memoir and cultural criticism to offer an updated pop-culture manifesto. As a teenager in the early 2000s, Madison's life changed when he read Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Inspired by the revelation that discussions of pop culture could be rigorous, not only reserved for the likes of At the Movies or Buffy the Vampire Slayer message boards, Madison went on to make a career of dissecting pop culture from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Britney Spears. Here, he reveals his journey to becoming a prominent cultural critic and screenwriter, sharing stories about growing up as a Black, gay man in Milwaukee and unearthing the pop phenomena that shaped ...