Alex Rabinowitz has his mind on pop culture and pop culture on his mind.
His highly lauded blog, Pop Culture Brain, is like TV Guide for the Tumblr generation, offering a steady stream of network news and creative musings that covers everything from Jersey Shore trivia to Honey Boo Boo. In just four years, it’s racked up more than 81,000 followers.
“Popular entertainment as a reflection of our consciousness and as a great unifier is something that is of immense interest to me,” said Rabinowitz, who credits his parents’ “voracious” eclecticism for his early immersion in pop culture. “I love the escapism of the media that I cover and want to take it apart and examine how it all works as best I can.”
Of course, Rabinowitz is no stranger to the media. The 24-year-old serves as an associate editor at AOL/Huffington Post, and he applies a similar hard-news aesthetic to Pop Culture Brain (no Kardashian news here). The New York-based writer mixes posts with reblogs, links, and pictures.
Rabinowitz credits Tumblr for bringing in a wide array of unique sources he cultivate his high-minded blog with. He regularly pulls from Hollywood Reporter, HitFix, Collider, and of course, Huffington Post, along with podcasts such as Nerdist, Firewall & Iceberg, the Jeff Rubin Show, and WTF with Marc Maron.
“The amount of free, enriching, entertaining and informative content out there is astounding,” said Rabinowitz, who’s also served as editor for the celebs and television tags on Tumblr—a function that makes it easy for users to find cool stuff when searching the site. “And of course watching TV, seeing movies, viewing Internet videos, going to the theater is where the real keeping up is done.”
While he is a fan of Community, How I Met Your Mother, and Homeland, Rabinowitz said he was looking forward toward ABC’s Last Resort and NBC’s The Revolution, “though it’s probably going to be bad,” he joked.
The important thing, at least when it comes to Tumblr, he said, is staying “true to yourself and tastes.”
“Let your interests dictate the content rather than what you think will be popular,” he said.
“Trust that there are other people out there that like what you like and that you will connect with them.”
Photo via @AlexRab/Twitter