One Friday night in 2018, I found myself at the center of a small, crowded room, screaming until I went hoarse. It was the week of the Kavanaugh hearings —just a few days after Christine Blasey Ford described being assaulted by a man who would later be appointed to the highest court in the land—and as I stayed glued to the news at work, weeping at Ford’s words and tensing up every time someone raised their voice in my vicinity, I, like many of my friends (especially the women and the survivors of sexual assault), felt like I was slowly unraveling. I realized I wasn’t alone that awful week when my friend Maya Kosoff, a writer and founder of content agency 18 Olives , organized a group outing to Montero’s, a beloved Brooklyn Heights karaoke bar where a big group of media girlies could all rage to our heart’s content, making our pain communal instead of solitary.
It was just one night, and it didn’t structurally change anything, of course, but howling along to Hole gave me something visceral and physical to do with my fury. (Yelling the lyrics, “You should learn when to go, you should learn how to say NO ” at the top of your lungs feels really good, I can attest.) “I think karaoke can be cathartic and a good emotional release regardless of the circumstances—have you ever seen a recently heartbroken woman sing “You Oughta Know” at Sing Sing?—but doing it after the hearings felt even bigger, almost akin to a primal scream,” Kosoff told me recently.
Be.