About

The Pop Culture Experiment came out of Patrick Garvin‘s love for pop culture and his desire to make a site where diehard fans of any pop culture — music, movies, TV, and beyond — could have a place to read about fandoms and write about their own fandoms. This grew into a radio show that appears on BostonFreeRadio.com on Saturday mornings and a newsletter that comes out on Sunday nights.

Patrick has written most of the posts on the site, but in the two years since the site was created, five additional writers have submitted posts. Some of the things have been one-off posts, like Kate Miles’ musings on the music of “Gilmore Girls,” or Alx’s pleas for “Take My Wife” to be saved, or John Hilliard’s witty explanation as to how he tried to teach himself about sports by playing sports-themed Nintendo games. Some of the guest writers have been contributions to Patrick’s series, like Luke Daugherty’s post about “Tomorrow is a Long Time” for the Cover Songs Uncovered series. And then there was Tony Grima, who had his own series on Pop Culture Experiment, waxing nostalgic about the Freestyle dance music of the late ’80s.

You might say that you’ve never heard of any of these writers, and that’s the point. This site was created for Patrick to have an outlet to geek out about cover songs, “Star Wars,” “The X-Files,” Madonna, and LGBTQ pop culture, but he also wanted this site to be a space for others to cultivate their voices. And that means that you could write something on the site or appear on the radio show. Or both!

There are tons of places on the Internet to find the latest news on who is starring in the latest reboot, or what one celebrity said about the other. There are critics who can review and rate all sorts of things, whether it be new albums or the latest episode of some TV show. But there are very few places that allow fans to weigh in on what they love about the things they love. And just as importantly, there are few places where people can make weird, out-of-left field musings about pop culture.The site is meant to feel like a late night conversation with you and your buddies, hashing out what you love and hate about your favorite things, whether those favorite things are Jane Austen movies, “X-Files” episodes, Wu Tang albums, or well, whatever. Ever thought about how J.J. Abrams is to the “Star Wars” franchise what Bob Rock was to Metallica’s career? Patrick did, so he wrote about it.

If you have an idea for something you’d like to write, feel free to reach out at patrick@popcultureexperiment.com.