New sincerity

I got to talk to Katie Couric about the ways that morning news people try and steal each other's guests by, like, finding out what hotel they're booked into and then sending them a car service and saying, "Why don't you do the 'Today Show' instead of ABC?" Like, all that stuff was really fascinating, but to me, that idea of presence and curiosity was the most important.

I missed the new sincerity movement.

It escaped me, and I did not discover it until I started researching you, and then came across this manifesto from 2006.

And it's still up on your website.

I mean, I'm friendly with Lisa Loeb, and I certainly still have a crush on her, you know? But, uh, there was a sort of reflexive irony embedded in Gen X cultural values that was a rejection of and protection from caring too much.

So it was like caring about not caring.

And having a manifesto was reflective of the idea of The New Sincerity in that we thought it would be funny if we had a manifesto.

And the basic idea was not sincerity in the literal sense, but instead allowing ridiculousness, allowing overlargeness, allowing amazingness to exist without being reflexively defensive against it.

I mean, to some extent, this is just the...

This is David Foster Wallace's new sincerity movement that I think launched his essay in, what, 1993 or something like that.

And I mean, the argument there was... effectively like Gen X version of irony and cynicism and detachment was about critiquing all of the institutions and satirizing all of the institutions.

But that we would move to a culture where people valued sincerity and earnestness and openness and kind of a genuine or non-performative authenticity, even if that comes off as cringe.