Joseph Lamour

Bio

Washington DC native Joseph Lamour is a writer, an artist, and a musician — sometimes all at once. Joe loves to write about the intersection of social issues and pop culture, food, love, and strange things on the Internet. You can see his words on MTV news, Apartment Therapy, and others in addition to Mic. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Joe's work has been displayed in galleries in New York and DC, the Pentagon, Smithsonian, the Pentagon, and the White House (under Obama, of course). You‘ll probably hear him singing if you’re near him for more than 45 minutes.
Childhood snacks are the perfect pandemic comfort food
By Joseph Lamour
When I was a kid, one of the most amazing commercials ever created would run in between reruns of Seinfeld and Friends. The short, sexy saxophone-infused ad for Viennetta, a British frozen dessert cake, is at the same time deeply hilarious, and…
A new book warns falling sperm counts could lead to human extinction
By Joseph Lamour
“When infertility threatens mankind with extinction, the survival for Earth's population falls on one disillusioned bureaucrat,” Siri tells me, when I ask her for a synopsis of the 2006 film, Children of Men. This week, I found that our reality…
Our coronavirus precautions made the flu disappear this year
By Joseph Lamour
We’re a full year into the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, although the “feels like” temperature on that is 20,427 years. As we around the bend on February, there's some good news: The flu has virtually disappeared this season; reports…
How do I come out for the second time?
By Joseph Lamour
My sister and I have a coded phrasing that we use when we discuss queerness around our parents. “When he called me ‘sweetie,’ I knew his shoes must be shiny,” my sister Loree will say, to avoid the inevitable winces from our religious kin. We both…
The natural wine world is white as hell. These BIPOC sommeliers are changing that
By Joseph Lamour
What’s whiter: a riesling, a Gewürztraminer, or the people who make either of them? That might feel like a pretty blatant jab but face it, the wine industry has historically been an overwhelmingly caucasian institution. This, thankfully, is…
Lil Nas X’s revealing TikToks tell his story of fame, depression, and "contemplating ending it all"
By Joseph Lamour
Country-rap doyen, space elf, and Wrangler model Lil Nas X is the latest celebrity to open up about his mental health struggles. It’s increasingly clear that if more people were this candid about depression, the still-permeating stigma would…
To all the people handling the pandemic well: what's your deal?
By Joseph Lamour
We’re a year into the pandemic and I have officially fallen from my pedestal of hermit-in-quarantine bliss. This tumble was both figurative and literal: Last weekend, midnight snack in hand — a sandwich, two cans of Dr. Pepper, and a bowl of ice…
How to transform bodega flowers into a fancy bouquet, according to a florist
By Joseph Lamour
This Sunday, countless noses will be ambushed by the scent of roses, peonies, anemones, and all the other Valentine’s Day classics. And of course, many of us will wait until the last damn minute to get something for the object of our affection, and…
Here's the crap we're inhaling while we spend all this time indoors
By Joseph Lamour
Home used to be where the heart is, but now home is basically where everything is. Movie nights, Zoom meetings, and naps galore are happening in our unmade beds, overused office chairs, and sometimes, after too much wine, the living room rug. In…
How did Amazon skim nearly $62 million of their drivers’ tips?
By Joseph Lamour
Successful companies love business jargon for good reason. These words act like bells and whistles just circling back to a whole lot of nothing. Jargon like that keeps a business’s status quo, and Amazon is an exemplar of this tactic. This time, it…
Behind the righteous rise of natural wine
By Joseph Lamour
The term “organic” has been so overused in our culture that it’s become a nebulous indicator of virtue and goodness more than anything else. There’s an organic version of everything, from kale to condoms, so it’s safe to say that this is an enduring…
Here’s how Johnson & Johnson' one-shot vaccine stacks up against the competition
By Joseph Lamour
While much of the world is still a frightening virus-infested place, there is evidently a light at the end of the tunnel. Several lights, actually, in the form of vaccines that companies are racing to produce. Today, there are ubiquitous headlines…
Behold, the performative wokeness of Black History Month is upon us
By Joseph Lamour
Though there are silver linings to the cloud that 2020’s trash fire left us with, last year took a toll on many of us. One of the bigger issues that came to light was institutionalized racism. And while the devaluing of Black lives is a 24-hour-day,…
Jay-Z just took a $10 million step toward addressing racial injustice in the weed world
By Joseph Lamour
Since the beginning of the war on drugs, Black and brown bodies have been offered up as scapegoats and unwitting culprits, penalized at outlandish rates for non-violent drug-related crimes. As cannabis inches toward decriminalization, a call for…
Black Food Fridays on TikTok is giving us the Black history we didn't get in school
By Joseph Lamour
Fun food fact that you might not have known: In the late 1700s, the then French colony of Haiti had become one of the biggest exporters of sugar in the world and was wealthier than the 13 colonies of the United States at the time. I’m going to say…
The Buss It Challenge is a testament to young Black resilience
By Joseph Lamour
This entire week, I’ve been repeatedly rapping the phrase “throw it like a stripper, yuh” — to no one in particular — from Erica Banks’ “Buss It.” Though this behavior is concerning to all of the people I live with, the 2020 single and its catchy…
Thanks to maskless Republicans, the Capitol insurrection might turn out to be a super spreader event
By Joseph Lamour
For some Members of Congress who sheltered in place during the terrifying insurrection at the Capitol building in Washington last week, another threat, this one viral, loomed large inside of their Republican counterparts. Representative Pramila…
How to role-play without feeling super awkward
By Joseph Lamour
Men’s fashion at its most buttoned up really does it for me. Period drama, particularly: both the early 1950s-60s suiting of Mad Men or the Regency-era gentleman in ornate jackets and breeches in Bridgerton have this effect on me. It may be the…
Can you really judge a Black man's politics by his hairline? (Yes)
By Joseph Lamour
It takes effort to turn the might of Black hair from luscious to atrocious, so an unfortunate haircut or style is very noticeable to me and most of my community. And we like to point it out, too. That’s why a ubiquitous rumor about a small subset of…
Our very favorite bottles to pop on New Year's Eve, and beyond
By Joseph Lamour
The vaccine may be here, but most of us haven't gotten it yet. So as much as we're anticipating those glorious antibodies — and the opportunity to drink at a crowded bar agains — we'll have to wait. At least through the winter, the couch is your…