Hello. This is Recommend If You Like. We’re an arts and culture magazine. We’ll be publishing seven pieces a week, five essays/articles/whatever you call original work on the internet and two recommendation roundups. The goal is to give you something to talk about and places to go.

We are not owned or funded by a billionaire or even a millionaire. We do have a Patreon. Even sites owned by billionaires and millionaires have Patreons so please don’t hold that against us.

We’re called Recommend If You Like because that’s what I thought RIYL meant for the last two decades. It actually stands for recommended if you like but I prefer my incorrect interpretation and hopefully you’ll heed the call of the title and literally recommend if you like.

I was incorrect on the meaning of RIYL for more than 20 years because that’s how long I’ve been writing about arts and culture. When I started, members of the media would receive CDs, books and films with stickers that had an RIYL sticker. For example, the new Interpol record would come with a sticker saying, RIYL: Joy Division, Talking Heads, Television. Get it? Anyway, that type of recommendation system stuck with me and it’s how I process most all culture.

So that’s what this magazine is. A series of articles, essays and recommendations written by people I’m recommending about subjects they’re passionate about. Since I’m 22 years older than when I began, we’ll be covering and recommending (I promise this is the most any iteration of the word recommend will ever appear on this site) stuff people around my age enjoy. Which means kids stuff.

I may be burying the lede. This is a site for parents. But you do not have to be a parent to utilize and/or enjoy the magazine. I didn’t mention the kid thing up top because it’s off-putting to some. Hell, it’s off-putting to me and I have a kid. Most parenting sites are not for me and that’s perfectly fine. But pretending a toddler’s schedule doesn’t impact my entire being is absurd so, yeah, we’ll be writing about kid and parenting stuff. Also, if you hate kids, that’s your burden.

We’re kicking things off with 10 pieces from nine writers, myself included. Hopefully you like at least one of them. If you enjoy three, we’re doing remarkably well, playing at an MLB All-Star level (we have a baseball piece today, hence the out of left field comparison).

I think that covers mostly everything. If it doesn’t, that’s OK, we only have until the Internet ceases to exist to add whatever we forgot.

Thanks for reading. Recommend if you like. Tell your friends.

Brandon Wetherbee