Academic Coach Taylor
"A collaboration between a very honest, funny Ph.D. student and Photoshop."
-someone on the Internet
Inspired by Feminist Ryan Gosling, Netflix binging, and a passion for typographic impact, Academic Coach Taylor was a 2012-2013 academic advice meme/internet persona. Academic Coach Taylor hosted the Tumblr “Academic Coach Taylor Has Some Advice for You” at academiccoachtaylor.tumblr.com, with complementary web presences on Facebook and Twitter.
I began Academic Coach Taylor as a late night self amusement, interweaving Friday Night Lights with academic tough love. By the time I ceased production, Academic Coach Taylor was a C-List Tumblr celebrity, a firm yet comforting voice to an entire generation of digitally intrepid graduate students.
Academic Coach Taylor was voted HuffPo Comedy's #1 “Site You Should Be Wasting Time On” for the week of March 28, 2012, and was featured in the “Brilliant” and “Highbrow” quadrant of New York Magazine's Approval Matrix (in between Sailor Stripes and The Death of Adrienne Rich) for the week of April 3, 2012. Under the persona, I was invited to do some fun writing for ProfHacker and the now deceased website Slacktory. The experience and connections I made as Academic Coach Taylor formed the foundation of a later landmark project: the Journal of Visual Culture special issue on Internet Memes, released to the public December 2014.
I began Academic Coach Taylor as a late night self amusement, interweaving Friday Night Lights with academic tough love. By the time I ceased production, Academic Coach Taylor was a C-List Tumblr celebrity, a firm yet comforting voice to an entire generation of digitally intrepid graduate students.
Academic Coach Taylor was voted HuffPo Comedy's #1 “Site You Should Be Wasting Time On” for the week of March 28, 2012, and was featured in the “Brilliant” and “Highbrow” quadrant of New York Magazine's Approval Matrix (in between Sailor Stripes and The Death of Adrienne Rich) for the week of April 3, 2012. Under the persona, I was invited to do some fun writing for ProfHacker and the now deceased website Slacktory. The experience and connections I made as Academic Coach Taylor formed the foundation of a later landmark project: the Journal of Visual Culture special issue on Internet Memes, released to the public December 2014.