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Photo: Sorrell Scrutton

Waiting to X-hale podcast

About this Artist

Waiting to X-hale is a queer/woman-of-color-driven podcast exploring the pop culture and transformative social issues that defined Generation X. Karen Tongson and Wynter Mitchell-Rohrbaugh are experts in the fields of pop culture and digital media, and their discussions, debates, and instructive interludes help us reflect on Gen X culture and its enduring afterlives in ways that shed new light on both then and now. You can listen to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, or connect at w2xpodcast.com.

Wynter Mitchell is a digital strategist, writer, and podcaster. She has spent her professional life interacting productively with various tiers of the community, working with talent and influencers. As the owner of digital consulting firm Pablo Jobs, she has contributed her journalism and social media experience to campaigns and strategies for a number of well-known brands and influencers, including National Geographic, Goldman Sachs, News Not Noise, Gates Foundation, Grab Your Wallet, Second Home, Jennifer Lopez, Aerosmith, Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, and Netflix. She is the co-host on the podcast Pop Rocket (RIP) and co-executive producer and co-host of Waiting 2 X-Hale with Karen Tongson. She has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Yahoo, Blogher, The Independent, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, WNYC, and Variety, among other notable publications and podcasts, for her expertise and commentary on the shifts of pop culture in the digital age. Follow her on Twitter @wyntermitchell

Karen Tongson is the author of Why Karen Carpenter Matters (named one of Pitchfork’s best music books in 2020), and Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries. In 2019, she received Lambda Literary’s Jeanne Córdova Award for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction for her body of writing. She is Chair of Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies, English and American Studies & Ethnicity at USC. She is also co-editor of the award-winning book series Postmillennial Pop with Henry Jenkins at NYU Press. Her writing and cultural commentary have appeared in Slate, NPR, Los Angeles Review of Books, PBS NewsHour, Los Angeles Times, The AV Club, Entertainment Weekly, KCRW’s Good Food, BuzzFeed’s Reader, and Süddeutsche Zeitung among many other venues. Tongson is currently finishing a book called NORMPORN: Television and the Spectacle of Normalcy (NYU Press). She is the director of the Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race & Public Culture at USC Dornsife. Twitter: @inlandemperor | Instagram @tongsonator