Your Best Pop Culture Purchases Of 2015

Your Best Pop Culture Purchases Of The Year

So many of my favorite pop cultural experiences came to me via streaming video this year — Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Jessica Jones, Orange Is The New Black — or else on DVD — Mad Max: Fury Road, Spy — that I’m tempted to say that the best money I spent on entertainment this year was my ~$14 monthly subscription to Netflix. Even though I was disappointed by the reboot of Wet Hot American Summer, gave up on House of Cards, and even after four or five episodes am not as enthralled by Master of None as everyone else seems to be, Netflix is, right now, close to my ideal creator and distributor of content.

Netflix is what I take with me to the gym and on the train. It’s how I treat my brain to the occasional massage courtesy of old Sherlock episodes, or Buffy, or Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. It provides me with vintage AND contemporary Lily Tomlin. If only it could somehow pick up Catastrophe and Transparent from the why-do-they-have-to-be-evil geniuses at Amazon!

Runner Up: everything I spent related to Hamilton, including the soundtrack on iTunes and my one ticket to the show.

2nd Runner Up: the $9 I spent at Housing Works to buy the first Outlander book. Jamie and Claire enmeshed me so completely in their time-travel romance that I snapped up every single one of the sequels, no matter how silly their names, and even ended up recapping the (Golden Globe-nominated!) TV show for Vulture.

What was your best pop culture purchase of 2015?

Nicole Chung, The Toast: I’ve been buying the Hamilton cast recording for literally everybody in my life — my bestie! my mom! my in-laws! my sister! my kids’ babysitter! — and then annoying them by asking if they’ve listened/gotten addicted yet, and that has been enormously satisfying. (For me. I don’t know if they would all say the same.)

Jazmine Hughes, The New York Times Magazine: This ($20).

Which I technically bought last year, but then lost (during my interview for the Times! Should’ve know it was a sign), so I’m buying again.

Helaine Olen, Slate: The second to last night of Jenny Lewis’ Voyager tour in Santa Ana. We sprung for the seating upstairs (with food and drink minimums) instead of general admission. $250.

Mike Dang, The Billfold: Can I say $350 on Hamilton tickets? Even if I haven’t gone yet?

Nicole Dieker, The Billfold: Can a Crock-Pot count as a pop culture purchase? If not, it was definitely my HBO Now subscription, $16.43 a month.

Joshua Michtom: Does baseball count as pop culture?

On my birthday in June, I bought myself a new Mets hat, the old one having grown grimy and also a bit small for my large head. As it happened, the Mets made the World Series this year. I do not attribute this to my hat purchase, but a nice thing about the hat was this: because I don’t have cable or even a TV, I watched most of the playoff and world series games at my neighborhood bar here in Hartford. Although Hartford is every bit as proximate to Citi Field as it is to Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, the Mets run a very distant third place in local esteem here. Mets fans are so rare that if you say you like baseball, people usually just say, “Yankees or Red Sox?” If I hadn’t had a comfortable Mets hat to wear at the bar, people would have just seen a man sitting alone at the bar drinking and assumed that I was a standoffish alcoholic. With the hat, they could understand that I was a deeply committed and tormented fan.

This was nice because now, lots of the regulars at that bar, whom I’d certainly seen many times before, know something about me and have a reason to say hello when we see each other elsewhere in the world. Just last week, I walked past one of the bartenders on the street late at night and he said, “Hey! I have something for you!” He opened up the trunk of his car to reveal a box of fleece slippers with the logos of different sports teams, each in a clear plastic bag with a little price sticker that said $15. He dug out Mets slippers and handed them to me, and refused to take my money.

John Herrmann, The Awl: The little hoof chew for the dog. Four dollars, too big for him to keep in his mouth. He just picks it up and drops and and picks it up again until it’s time to go back to sleep. Solid spectacle. Great value.

Alex Balk, The Awl: The $35 I spent on a year’s subscription to the London Review of Books are the only thirty-five bucks I can say for sure I didn’t waste this year. It’s my favorite magazine going right now, and the fact that it only comes out every other week means you’ve got time to get through all of it without the pressure and worry that a new one is going to arrive before you’ve plowed through the current issue. Also, the reviews are so thorough that I can tell myself I don’t even need to read the books in question, which saves both money and time. A winner all around.

Lindsey Weber: Does my Slingbox count? I got it recently and like HOW have I lived without it. It slings the cable from a cable box (on the east coast, my parent’s) to my apartment, computer ANYWHERE and it’s like a cordcutter gamechanger. Cost only $150!!!!!!! …. and my parents pay the cable. I am truly a millennial now.

NOTE: This is a homesickness remedy for a pop culture addict who has recently changed coasts.

Alexis Coe, author of Alice + Freda Forever: It’s a tie between good tickets for ABT and taking a friend to see Magic Mike XXL.

Nicole Cliffe, The Toast: HAMILTON, MOTHERFUCKER. #noregrets

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.