Ask Me Anything
In which I address reader-submitted questions about my work routine, sausages, autism, enshittification, and more.
Welcome to Inconspicuous Consumption’s first installment of Ask Me Anything, the segment where I answer questions submitted by IC readers. You can see lots of additional AMA segments from my Uni Watch days here and here.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
The gloves. What’s with the gloves, dude?
This question presumably refers to my habit of wearing fingerless gloves, even indoors, during the cold-weather months of the year. I’m wearing them right now as I’m typing this, in fact.
I wear gloves for the same reason most other people wear them: to keep my hands warm. For whatever reason, I find that my hands — especially the backs of my hands — often feel uncomfortably cold from mid-autumn through early spring. It’s not so much that they’re cold to the touch (like, if you touched my hands, you wouldn’t think, “Whoa, dude, those are freezing!”), it’s just that they feel cold to me. So eight-ish years ago I started wearing fingerless gloves around the house, and pretty much everywhere else, during this time of year.
I don’t have any circulatory problems (I’ve had that checked out), nor do I have similar coldness issues in other parts of my body. Just the hands. So I wear the gloves. Simple as that.
Do you enjoy the microhistory genre, which looks at culture or history through the lens of a singular topic, such as Mark Kurlansky’s books about salt, paper, and cod?
Yes, I’m a fan of this genre. In addition to the Kurlansky books, I like Gavin Weightman’s The Frozen Water Trade (about the history of the ice industry) and Henry Petroski’s The Evolution of Useful Things (exactly what it sounds like), plus probably a few others I’m forgetting.
Generally speaking, I like microhistory’s obsessive specificity and deep-dive approach. It’s a very inconspicuous-minded genre!
How many presidential libraries have you visited?
None. I haven’t been consciously avoiding them, but I’ve never really thought of them as travel destinations. Maybe I should rethink that. Hmmmmm.
Whenever you were in Bristol, Connecticut, did you ever visit Muzzy Field?
This question refers to my time as a columnist for ESPN, which is headquartered in Bristol. During the period when I was writing for them, I would go up to Bristol once or twice a year for staff meetings and such.
I didn’t explore much of Bristol during these visits, and I confess that I’d never even heard of Muzzy Field — a century-old stadium — until just now. Thanks for introducing me to it! Maybe I’ll check it out the next time I’m in that area.
A while back, someone posted a comment saying that you’re on the autism spectrum. I didn’t know that about you. Have you written about it and I just missed it?
This question is apparently referring to a comment that was posted about six months ago, when I wrote an article about how most pretzel “twists” don’t actually twist. One of the readers who commented on that post was Marcus Halberstram, who said, “Paul has really made a career of being on the spectrum. It’s really inspiring to similar folks who have been told Asperger’s and the like are detriments.”
I realize that Marcus was basically paying me a compliment there (thank you!), but I have to say that his comment really threw me. I’ve always known that I have a somewhat unusual sensibility, and over the years I’ve even joked about how that sensibility might be autism-adjacent (my usual line is “Let’s face it, I’m probably a couple of misfired chromosomes away from being on the spectrum myself”). But I always thought that was more of an eccentricity than something clinical, a feature rather that a bug. It hadn’t occurred to me that an important part of myself — a part that I really like, the part that obsesses over pretzel twists and “Return to Sender” symbols and speed bumps vs. humps vs. lumps vs. bomps — might actually be a classified as a disorder or disability.
Was that a huge blind spot on my part? Back in 2022, the journalist Lauren Ober released a podcast series called The Loudest Girl in the World, in which she talked about how she was diagnosed with autism at age 42. I listened to that podcast when it came out and found it really interesting, but at no point did I think to myself, “Oh, wait — that’s me too.” Should I have? Was it as obvious to everyone else as it apparently was to Marcus (the guy who posted the comment)? Was I the last one to know?
A person close to me, who knows me very well, has a grown autistic child, so I shared all of this with that person and asked what she thought. “Yeah, I think you probably are a little bit on the spectrum,” she said. “But so what? It’s just a label — you’re you, and that’s all that matters.”
On some level, I knew she was right, but the issue still hit at some of my insecurities — and some of my prejudices. I know there’s nothing wrong with a person having a medical condition or a disability, but the idea of being labeled with one myself felt like a stigma. Also, I know that there’s a whole movement that says autism isn’t even a disorder, which on some level is what Marcus was trying to convey with his comment, but the whole thing still made me very uncomfortable, and still does. I realize that says more about me than any diagnosis ever will.
Speaking of which: A professional autism diagnosis costs several thousand dollars, but there are lots of online questionnaires that can supposedly provide a rough sense of where you stand. As I clicked my way through a few of them, there were several traits that definitely sounded like me: Are you fascinated by numbers, dates, and strings of information? Check. Are you a creature of habit and routine? Double-check.
But a lot of other questions were clearly targeting traits that I don’t have. For example, I’m not unusually sensitive to loud noises, I have no trouble envisioning the characters in a novel, I enjoy social situations and meeting new people, and I’ve always been physically coordinated and reasonably athletic. (But as is so often the case with this type of survey, most of the answers weren’t obvious or clear-cut. They were more like “Sometimes yes, sometimes no,” or “Slightly agree.”)
I took a bunch of these quizzes, and they all said either that I’m slightly on the spectrum or not on it at all. So I’m apparently a mild case, at most. I’m still not sure what, if anything, that all “means.” (I have no plans to get a formal diagnosis from a specialist.)
This experience also got me thinking about my childhood in the 1970s. I was a pretty weird little kid, and often an unhappy one. Back in those days, nobody talked about a kid being “on the spectrum” — you just got teased, beat up, and ostracized. Would things have been different if I’d been born in a more enlightened era? Or was I just conventionally nerdy, not neuro-atypical?
As you can see, Marcus’s comment — two simple sentences! — had a big ripple effect on me. It’s something I’m still thinking about.
Update: About an hour after I finished answering that last question, I was checking out the latest articles at TheAtlantic.com, and the article at the top of the stack was by a writer who’d recently been unexpectedly diagnosed with ADHD at age 37. It includes the following:
[My behavior included] my restlessness and fiery temper, my obsessive reorganization of my mental to-do list, and my tendency to write and rewrite the same sentence for hours. Being this way was exhausting, but that was just who I was, or so I thought. My diagnosis reframed these quirks as symptoms of illness.
Sound familiar? What a bizarre coincidence.
What are your thoughts on enshittification? It was originally supposed to apply to things on the internet, but I think it applies to real life as well. The recent post about your toaster reminded me how everything is crappier nowadays, and everyone knows it! How does this affect you, and how do you think it affects us as people living in the world?
As capitalism has become increasingly efficient at extracting economic value from people, situations, and the planet, it has also become more adept at extracting the life, spirit, and quality out of almost anything, often leaving us with a crappy cheapo toaster, either literally or metaphorically. In short, capitalism is succeeding too well. The internet has supercharged that ability, and AI will soon do so even further.
You asked how this affects us. I think the worst aspect of it is that it increases a widespread sense of cynicism and pessimism about, well, everything, which leads to inaction and passivity. At best, you shrug your shoulders and say, “Eh, whaddaya gonna do,” resigned to the enshittified reality; at worst, you want to poke your eyes out. Either way, you experience a form of learned helplessness — which, of course, is exactly what capital wants you to feel.
Is all of that seriously depressing? Yeah. That’s why Inconspicuous Consumption is mostly about sharing enthusiasm and delight, rather than critique, because I feel like we need that now more than ever. (I know I do.)
That’s not to say that I’ve become a Pollyanna, or that I think we should just accept or ignore evil and bullshit when we see it. On the contrary, I think we should all work to advocate for and create the world we want to see. But in an increasingly enshittified landscape, I think it’s crucial to have some sources of joy, inspiration, and revelation. For me, at this stage of my life and career, that’s Inconspicuous Consumption. I hope it provides some of those things for you as well.
Without the daily churn of Uni Watch, do you still keep a structured schedule each day for yourself? Do you have more time to pursue other projects not related to IC? Basically, has leaving Uni Watch changed your lifestyle substantially?
The thing about Uni Watch wasn’t just that I published every weekday (usually several times per day) but that I always had to be “on,” always had to be ready for breaking news. This could sometimes be exciting and exhilarating, but it was also exhausting.
In my post-Uni Watch life, I have a much more flexible schedule. I’m still an early riser (in part because my housemates won’t let me sleep late), but I no longer have to “open up shop” each morning like I did with Uni Watch. I’m producing plenty of content here at IC (more than I expected, frankly, because I’m having so much fun with it), but almost none of it is time-sensitive and I don’t have a set schedule or deadlines, so I can work when I choose and do other things around NYC when I choose. I never have to “drop everything” in order to react to a breaking news story, I don’t have to respond to dozens of emails, tweets, and DMs each day, and I have way more time for other pursuits. I’m also able to visit my 100-year-old mom more often, plus I’m about to start volunteering for an organization I care about, and I’ve rediscovered the joys of the occasional afternoon nap.
The flip side of this is that my income is now much lower, but I knew that would be the case and was prepared for it. I have no regrets about the Uni Watch phase of my career, but this new phase feels right for me at this point of my life.
Is there anything you miss about reporting on uniforms? Anything you’re glad you don’t have to deal with anymore?
Let me put it this way: I have very fond memories of many things, including developing my own beat from scratch, covering the news on that beat, breaking exclusive scoops, adding to the historical record, interviewing industry insiders, learning things about design and manufacturing, building and connecting with a like-minded audience, developing a network of contacts and sources, and more. But I don’t miss any of those things. They were all part of the fun of that project, and now I’m having different kinds of fun with this project.
As for things I’m glad to be done with (aside from always being “on,” as already discussed), consider this: When I launched Uni Watch in 1999, uniforms were athletic gear that happened to be available for retail sale; by the time I stopped last year, they had become disposable lifestyle apparel (with ad patches) that happened to be worn by athletes. That arc is pretty much the definition of enshittification! Again, I have no regrets about the time I spent reporting on that world, but I’m glad it’s no longer my job to be immersed in it.
What are your favorite sausages? Hot Italian, sweet Italian, German brat, Polish kielbasa, Filipino longaniza, Cajun andouille, chorizo, merguez, etc.?
I like all of the sausages you mentioned, and plenty more: salami, pepperoni, soppressata, boudin, weisswurst, knackwurst, landjäger, goetta, seafood sausage, and more. About the only varieties I don’t like are liver sausage (too mushy), blood sausage (ditto), and sausages that include cheddar or other cheeses (for reasons we recently discussed).
As for Rutt’s Hut, which is my favorite hot dog joint, I realize that hot dogs technically qualify as sausages, but they feel like a distinct species to me, so I’d say there’s room on the desert island for both!
Many years ago, I read an article in your zine, Beer Frame, about Glide dental floss. It was the first that I’d heard about that product. I bought it and have been using it ever since. Do you still use it?
I haven’t used Glide in a while, in part because several years ago I switched to a new dentist who gives out travel-size dispensers of Colgate floss, so I load up on those. And not just because they’re free — much like with Glide, I really enjoy the package design, which in Colgate’s case involves a nice little oval dispenser with a pleasingly off-center cap that closes with a very satisfying snap:
I have to say, I’m a total sucker for that off-center cap. Love it!
When you take a photo or shoot a video clip to include in an IC post, it looks like you usually do it on your front porch or front steps. Why?
My apartment is on the first floor, and the porch has an overhang. Thanks to those two factors, the light in my apartment isn’t great. It’s really the only less-than-awesome thing about the apartment, and I can deal with it in most respects, but I get much better photo results if I step outside and take advantage of the natural light (as I did with that dental floss video shown above).
The writer Gurwinder Bhogal has described research as being either fishing or hunting. Do you think about research in this way? If not, how do you think about it? And if so, what can you share about your own research process?
I was not familiar with this hunting/fishing construct until now. Here’s the key passage from the article linked in the question:
There are two ways people obtain info online: fishing and hunting.
Fishing is passive. You don’t know what you want to know and just casually scan the screen till something catches your interest. Examples include scrolling social media, browsing news websites, and idly refreshing the YouTube home page.
Hunting, on the other hand, is an active process. You have a clear idea what you want to know about and consciously search for it. Basically, any time you’re researching something, you’re hunting.
We fish to find questions to ask, and we hunt to find answers. We fish to widen knowledge, and we hunt to deepen it.
I would say I do a lot of both. I often pursue very specific lines of inquiry, but I also stumble upon things that pique my interest and send me down unexpected rabbit holes. Honestly, most of the time I don’t even think of any of this as research — it’s just my way of interacting with the world.
What are your feelings about the availability of generative AI and its impact on your field? Have you played with it at all? I imagine you as someone opposed to using it, but I wonder if you would/have ever used it as an editing companion, data compiler, or even as a search engine to track down obscure information.
The short answer is that I haven’t used it, although that has more to do with laziness and maybe anxiety than principled opposition. I really should have played around with it by now, so I can get a feel for what it’s capable of and develop and a more informed opinion about it.
Since I haven’t yet done that, I’m going to table your question for now. But I promise to get up to speed soon and will definitely circle back to this topic. Thanks for the poke.
That’s it for this AMA installment. We’ll do another one in a few months. If you’d like to submit a question for that next installment (one per person, please), send it to inconspicuous.ama@gmail.com. Thanks!
Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.
Confession time, the AMA’s and culinary items were my favorite part of UW as the years passed by. Love that it’s here as well.
I like the word "enshittification." Not the actual process. Just the word.