Honestly, there wasn’t a very dramatic reason for a name change. I’m honestly not even sure it warrants a post explaining anything; I just didn’t want anyone to be confused.
The biggest reason behind it is that I’m just a boy standing in front of the internet trying to find his niche.
Forever, the operational tentpoles of internet writing were A) keep your writing short and pithy and B) get super, super specific with your niche.
I don’t know if you know this, but I aggressively don’t do either of those.
“Short and pithy” are MYTHS to me as my house style tends to be RAMBLY and INDULGENT.
And as far as niches, just as I initially resisted all personality typing, I also have refused to embrace a content niche.
Part of that was probably because I have authority issues. It’s also partly because like Belle, I prefer content adventure in the great wide somewhere.
(Also, like Belle, I love reading and s**t-talking.)
All of this was the calculus behind the name change.
Most of my writing/podcasting seems to orient around discussing culture and all that encompasses: movies, books, TV, podcasting, lifestyle, trends, marriage, religion, business, parenting etc etc.
More broadly, though, my philosophy on content has always been to consider stupid things in a serious way or serious things in a stupid way.
This is because the most formative book of my young adulthood was Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs SPECIFICALLY because of its subtitle: A Low Culture Manifesto.
Manifestos are mostly serious and intense works, overwrought with their topicalities and considerations.
Meanwhile, the phrase “low culture” comprises our society's offerings that mostly exist without respect despite captivating the attention of the masses.
Which is how I landed on The Cultured Swine.
We’re probably all familiar with “uncultured swine,” a phrase used to insult someone as an oblivious and unrefined idiot.
BUT, the inverse of that, a “cultured swine,” became very interesting to me as I considered a swine that was informed and refined despite its, ya know, swine-ness.
This creative tension of contrast was where I recognized myself as a bit of a cultured swine.
My attention gravitates towards things that probably make me more of a swine, but I do have an English degree and an appreciation of antiquity, meaning that I’m not like regular swine—I’m a CULTURED swine.