01. Great Loves with Madison Huizinga

When we talk about influence, I don’t think of Kendall Jenner selling tequila or Belmont Cameli monetizing his hair. I think about the year of reckless driving I committed after watching Baby Driver, and how much of my unserious personality is a Gilmore Girls reference. I think of how The Paper Kites will always take me back to my first boyfriend's house, to kissing at a bonfire in the woods and sitting in his passenger seat on the ride to Thanksgiving. I am a sum of experiences, emotions, and attachments, but I also believe everything that we watch, or listen to, or read can become a fragment in the mosaic that makes up our identity. I believe that of everyone, which is why this interview series was conceived to get inside other people’s worlds through the art and media that influenced them.

Madison Huizinga is a Los Angeles-based writer and founder of the newsletter Cafe Hysteria, which teeters at the intersection of personal and pop cultural life. She primarily writes about women, media, and growing up on the internet, and her work has been featured in CNN, Dazed, and The Substack Post. Outside of her newsletter, Madison is a copywriter and brand strategist, and has contributed to Polyester, Haloscope Magazine, and the LA Dance Chronicle. When she’s not writing, she can be found in ballet class or spending time outside.

Madison Huizinga photo

Okay, so I guess to start off with, I should just say I’m a big fan of your writing. I’ve been reading Cafe Hysteria for a while, so this is very exciting. It’s like meeting a celebrity for me—and I’m also from Seattle.

Oh my God, no way! Where in Seattle?

So I was born in Olympia, which I guess makes me a liar, but then Magnolia is where I ended up living.

Oh, that’s amazing! I love Magnolia. I’m kind of a cheater too because I’m from Bellevue technically. I mean, I was in the Renton School District, so a bit further south, and then I went to high school in Bellevue. But yeah, then I went to U Dub and lived in Seattle for a little bit when I went there. So I’m a cheater too; I don’t have the street cred of saying I’m from Seattle.

Actually, that’s fantastic though, that we have that in common. But let’s get into it. This interview is about getting to know you through the art and stories that have affected you, so my hope is that you’re not going to get too caught up in choosing things that make you look cool, that you’ll be able to be open.

Okay, great.

So, in your piece on Taylor Swift’s “August”, you talked about music excavating memories and experiences, and specifically that feeling of lying in bed, kind of pathetically as a young girl waiting for a text from a crush. When you were young and waiting for that text, what did you turn to for comfort? Whether that be TV, film, books, or music.

Wow, that’s such a great question, and it’s funny you bring that up because that’s actually the first article I ever wrote on my Substack. For me, when I think about that period in my life, I think about how much I really loved Lorde’s debut album, Pure Heroine. I really felt connected to “Ribs”, of course, I feel like so many people who grew up on that album love that song, but I also love “A World Alone”. That was my top song from that album. I felt like it just captured the feeling of atomization and isolation that came with spending a lot of time online and not seeing your friends as much. That was a big part of my middle school experience, when social media came up. I was kind of experiencing life through Instagram instead of being out in the world. And gosh, Lana Del Rey was also an artist that I really really loved. Ultraviolence was the album that got me into Lana Del Rey, and I just loved the sad music on that album, like “Sad Girl”, “Pretty When You Cry”, “Ultraviolence”. It really accentuated my feelings of sadness at that time, which I loved. And in terms of media, in middle school I loved Pretty Little Liars. That also had that gloomy tone to it. It was through that show that I really started learning about depression, and anxiety, and mental health issues. So I feel like that show helped put names to what I was feeling when I was an angsty preteen. Those three things are big cornerstones of my youth, my like, brooding adolescence.

Pretty Little Liars 2010 (ABC Family)

Would you say you were a very melodramatic youth then?

Yeah, definitely in my head. I wasn’t like… lashing out melodramatic, but I think that in my head I was really obsessed with feeling sad and kind of poking sadness, seeing how deep I could feel it. I also really loved Les Mis at that time, the film adaptation with Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. I loved that movie, and it was one of the first pieces of media that introduced me to really heavy themes of poverty and prostitution, just heavy ideas. I think I was really drawn to that because I thought that engaging with sad media was more intelligent than engaging with happy media, so I thought that it made me more mature and more intelligent because I had the capacity to understand those types of shows and books.

Do you feel like you chose to consume things that you maybe didn’t want to, or didn’t even like because of how they would make you appear?

I would say so. There was a lot of grungy music at that time that I feel like people were really into. I genuinely loved Lana Del Rey and Lorde, but I think like American Horror Story was a show that was challenging for me to watch, just because I’m really squeamish and don’t really like gore. But that was one of the shows people would romanticize on Tumblr, so I tried to get into it. And it was hard for me to believe that everybody was watching it because it was such a gory, scary show. We’re all like 11 and 12 years old! Like, are we all really watching this right now? But I guess they were. That’s something that I didn’t really love that I tried to watch. And some of The 1975’s music. I like their music a bit more now, but back then, I was really trying to get into them and kind of struggling.

That’s actually a great segue into music. Is there a song that teleports you back to a certain age, a place or a moment?

Oh gosh, so many songs do that. The album that kind of defined my high school years is Ctrl by SZA. I really, really love that album. I would listen to it on a loop on the way to high school every day. Like I said, I went to school out of district, so I had to take like three different freeways to get there. It was a long, long drive, and often on the way home it would literally take me like two hours, just sitting in gridlock on 405, which I know you know all about.

Yeah.

Probably the I-5 or I-90, not 405, and I would play Ctrl by SZA on repeat. I think she also embodied this sad girl, like heartbroken vibe. And I would say songs like “Love Galore” and “Normal Girl” captured that. “Normal Girl” is my favourite song on that album. Really takes me back to feeling unrequited love and just like, feeling unworthy, not feeling the most secure with myself. But when I listen to it now, I think about how big those feelings felt at the time, but how small they feel when I look back. So it’s sweet to listen back to the sad music that I loved when I was a kid and think about how far I’ve come.

Ctrl (SZA Album)

It’s really interesting that the memories that come the quickest to your mind are ones where you’re alone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I listen to music alone, like it’s kind of the best. It’s the way that I absorb it the most. When a new album from an artist I love comes out, I love to just lay down right when it comes out, close my eyes and listen to it. It’s almost like a meditative act. I love going to concerts by myself. I love going to movies by myself. I feel like when you consume media by yourself, you absorb it more because you’re not thinking about the other person and what they’re thinking of it. If they’re enjoying it. So yeah, I would say my most visceral experiences with music are definitely alone.

Okay, so we’ve had a lot of sadness. So answering only in songs, what does joy feel like?

Joy, oh my gosh! I mean, for me, when I think about joy… okay, only songs. I’d say “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift really is a joyous song for me because it makes me think of being at the Eras tour with my sisters. That’s a big one. Gosh, what else? I also love all the bigs songs from that like 2010 s era, like “Tongue Tied”.

You’re allowed to give musical vibes if you feel like it’s more of a vague genre-based feeling.

Great, yeah, I love those coming of age kind of songs from that period. Like who sings “Tongue Tied”? I forget.

Oh, Grouplove I think.

Grouplove! Songs like that. I really loved Marina and the Diamonds too, like “Primadonna”. And then of course One Direction. Any One Direction song, but probably the early singles, like “One Thing” and “Kiss You”. Maybe not “What Makes You Beautiful” because I feel like that has been played to death now. I also love this late One Direction song called “Wolves”. That song literally fills me with so much joy. Yeah, any One Direction song, many Taylor Swift songs, and then any songs that really have that hipster 2010’s joyful feeling.

What film or show did you lean on heavily during your first major heartbreak?

Ooh, well, I haven’t really been through a major heartbreak.

That’s fair. What about a betrayal? Or maybe just, you know, you said that sad is kind of a prominent feeling you experienced throughout life. Is there a sad moment that really stands out?

Yeah, I’ve had some really bad like friend breakups.

I think that can be a heartbreak.

Yeah, those have been heartbreak adjacent, and a movie I would always go back to growing up, like when I was feeling really really down - and it was my go to sick movie - was Aquamarine. That movie feels like joy to me. It’s so happy. It’s so summery. It’s just about like, friendship.

Aquamarine (2006) cred: Disney+

That’s such a good one.

I love to watch it every summer. I also loved The Hannah Montana Movie. I still love The Hannah Montana Movie, I think it’s amazing. But I would say now a movie that brings me a lot of comfort is Little Women, the Greta Gerwig Little Women, just because it makes me think of my sisters. I remember when I was going through probably my most recent really really like, low ebb, I watched that movie, and it just makes me feel so warm inside. Even though it has a lot of bittersweetness to it, I think that it’s very real in capturing the joy of childhood, and how you can remain close as adults, but you know, like nothing will ever fully match that kind of happiness of childhood. It is fleeting, but it’s just kind of a part of life. It’s not a movie like Aquamarine, where it’s so fantastical and fictionalized. It feels more real to me, like a more real account of relationships and happiness and childlike joy. So my silly answer is Aquamarine, and my real answer that grounds me is Little Women.

How many sisters do you have?

I have two little sisters. One is four years younger, and the other one is six years younger.

Oh, you’re an eldest daughter.

I’m the eldest through and through.

Do you relate to Meg in Little Women?

I would say I’m kind of a Meg/Jo hybrid. I feel like it’s kind of annoying when people identify as a Jo, but I think it makes sense.

Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet in Little Women (2019)

You’re a writer, so it does make sense to feel like a Jo at least a little.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like I see myself in Jo, but I like to think I’m not quite as stubborn as Jo. I think I have Meg’s like, patience.

Was there a character that you’ve modelled yourself on, either intentionally, or maybe you’ve unconsciously taken bits of how they talk and carry themselves?

There’s a lot from my childhood. Nancy Drew, definitely. I loved Nancy Drew books and the Nancy Drew movie with Emma Roberts. I was obsessed with that, and I also really loved Kit Kittridge, the American Girl doll. I read her books and also loved her movie with Abigail Breslin. She was also a writer, she wrote like a little newspaper and wrote stories about the borders in her house. I would say those two are foundational for my personality, just because they’re very, I don’t know, they’re very intellectual. Like smart and introspective, but also curious about the world around them, and they both have a writerly vibe to them.

Did you always want to be a writer?

You know, I don’t think so. When I was really young, I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I trained in ballet for most of my childhood. I was really into ballet, but I also did like all genres. I was a competitive dancer, I was on the performing arts team, so I really wanted to be some kind of performer. I thought either a dancer or an actor, because I was also in a lot of school plays in elementary school. But writing is something that I was always the best at out of all my school subjects. Like I was always really good at reading and writing, less of a math and science person. I’ve always really loved reading books, but I just had that thought in the back of my head that being a writer is not a viable profession. I thought if I want to major in English, the best I can do is be an English teacher, and I don’t want to be an English teacher. I just had no model of what that might look like. So I kind of did what a lot of creative people do when they suppress what they really want to do and went into marketing. Which, marketing is fun, it can be a very creative profession, but it doesn’t give me the same joy that writing does. It’s only honestly within the last year that I’ve accepted the fact that I really want to be a writer.

You’ve kind of found a calling too, because you’re good at it. You have a lot of great, original ideas that you express well.

Thank you. I think Substack has been such a validating community for me. Not even through gaining subscribers or anything, but just seeing people actually interact with my writing. Like I remember getting my first comment, when I had no subscribers, and someone was like, “Oh, this really resonated with me. I hadn’t thought about it this way,” and that was enough for me to be like, “Okay, I’m gonna do this every single week and just see what happens.” I’m really grateful for online platforms that kind of made self-publishing a thing.

Nancy Drew (2007)

Okay, we’re going to map out three chapters of your life through the art that defined them. I’m going to give you an age, and you tell me what the theme song is, what films or TV shows, and what books are forever a piece of that time in your life.

Oh, so fun! Love it.

So age 13.

I would definitely say Lorde Pure Heroine. The book that defined that period has to be, oh gosh, it’s a toss-up between The Hunger Games and The Fault in Our Stars. I’m gonna go with The Hunger Games though. After reading that and watching the movie, I really fell into that fandom, and I was so obsessed with it online. I also feel like it really radicalized me at a young age, like it taught me a lot about politics and revolution. For TV shows, it would probably have to be Pretty Little Liars. That was the show for me at that time. I was obsessed with the Liars, specifically Spencer. Spencer was my favourite out of the four girls. Kind of similar to Nancy Drew and Kit Kittridge, she was the most intellectual and kind of a classic, almost old-fashioned one. I always attached to those characters that felt like they were very mature for their age.

Do you think you saw yourself in them, or you wanted to be like them?

I think I wanted to be like them. I think I was still such a raw piece of clay at the time that I didn’t have any of those traits baked into me yet.

That’s interesting. Do you think if you consumed different media, you would be different?

Yes, honestly, I really do think that I would. I think a big part of why I am the way I am is because I learned how to read super early. I was the oldest child, and my mom had me do the like, “Hooked on Phonics” reading computer program, and because of that I was reading chapter books very early. Like when I was five or six. I feel like that reading, and all the associations that come with being a reader really made an impact on my personality and made me an intellectual person. So yeah, I feel like if I hadn’t been as interested in books, I would have attached different characters.

Okay, let’s go up to age 17.

Okay, 17. The album is definitely Ctrl by SZA. That album captured a lot of my emotions and feelings at that time, and especially like, at 17 I hadn’t had any experience with romance, and I was just feeling very unlovable and unworthy, and that album just really captured that feeling. In terms of books, I feel like I went through a reading slump in high school because I was reading so much for school. I feel like I didn’t read as much for pleasure. But I wonder what books were out in 2017? Let me look.

You were 17 in 2017?

Yeah, I was! I was born in 2000. Oh, I was starting to get more into literary fiction. Like I really loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, that came out at that time. Yeah, I was getting into—no wait, scratch that, I know the answer—it’s Gone Girl. It has to be Gone Girl, I knew there was something. That was actually a book I remember reading as a teenager around 16 or 17 and it made me realize that I wanted to be a writer because I loved the structure of it. It was such a unique organization of a book from like, a purely structural standpoint. Love that book. And in terms of TV shows, I was rewatching a lot of Glee at that time. I attached to a lot of the characters in that show. Like I really loved Quinn; I just loved the perfect girl that’s kind of fractured in a way.

It wouldn’t have been airing at that time, would it?

No, I remember when it went on Netflix when I was in high school, and I was like, I’m gonna watch this, and I became really obsessed with it. Love, love Glee.

Were you like a musical theater kid then?

No, I wasn’t in any musicals because I was so busy with dance. But I feel like I really consumed a lot of musicals, like I loved Les Mis, obviously, and then like everyone I had a Hamilton phase. I also loved musical movies more so than musical theater. I didn’t see as much musical theater, but I loved Grease and Mamma Mia. All the big music movies.

Gone Girl (Novel by Gillian Flynn)

Okay, let’s do age 25.

My God, 25. That’s like, yeah, that’s me right now, about to turn 26. Gosh, I would say an artist that really defined this last year for me is Audrey Hobert. I love Audrey Hobert, and I think she’s such an amazing songwriter and so specific and concise. Her music, there’s just no fat on it. It’s a 30-minute album, but it just like packs a punch. I just love, love her debut album. I would say a TV show for me right now is Mad Men.

Really?

Yeah. So Mad Men I actually watched my freshman year of college, and I became completely obsessed with it, and it’s been really hard for me to attach to anything else, honestly. It’s my profile picture on Substack; Betty Draper. I think it’s like the best written show ever, and it’s really hard for me to move on from it since I watched it like seven years ago, so I’m going through my third rewatch of it. I’m really stretching it out. I’m just so inspired by that show. It’s a show that’s really about what it means to be known and to know other people. So I love Mad Men, and in terms of books, right now, like everybody else, I’m reading East of Eden, and I’m really connecting to it, really loving it, but my favourite book that I’ve read over the last five years is Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Again, similar to Mad Men, it really just makes me think about what it means to be known and to know yourself. So yeah, those are the media items of my current moment.

Even as a young person, you had what I think some people would consider more elevated taste.

You think? I feel like everyone really loved The Hunger Games, though.

Everyone did really love The Hunger Games, I’ll give you that, but you didn’t say Twilight. I think depending on when you were born Twilight would have been a very popular answer.

Well, Twilight is actually a later-in-life thing for me. Like Twilight I’ve become obsessed with over the past few years. I got really into it during the pandemic with my sisters. I had watched it, but I didn’t like, get it. Watching it as an adult, when your mind is actually more open to it, like I sat down, I was ready to digest it—somehow it really made an impression on me during like, a low period.

I do think it is kind of a go-to for sadness. It’s very much about depression and pinning your worth on another person in its own way.

Yeah, I really love it now, especially since we’re from the Pacific Northwest. I think that it really shows the Pacific Northwest in like a very beautiful and cool light.

Yeah, I completely agree.

Twilight (2008)