Scrolling Towards the Void

To celebrate today’s debut of Brent’s new one act play, ‘Fracture’s Void,’ we revisit the essay that launched this podcast: “Brent Henry’s Sexcellent Adventure and Other Lives I Might Be Living,” a candid and absurd exploration of alternate lives, questionable choices, and the search for meaning in a world that rarely makes sense, all spawned by a case of mistaken identity.

This essay was originally published on July 4th, 2025.

You can read the full text essay here.

For more information, visit www.brenthenry.net

To subscribe to Scrolling Towards the Void, visit www.brenthenry.substack.com

You can find Brent on Instagram here.

In this episode, Brent reads his October 17th, 2025 essay, “My Animal Magnetism?,’ unpacking his unlikely devotion to the popular dELiA*s direct-to-consumer catalogs from the 1990s. What begins as a sheepish admission morphs into a meditation on culture, identity, and the current crisis of masculinity.

Links referenced in this episode:

dELiA*s catalog Tumblr

“Goodbye Cat Gentleman” - a 2024 one act play about a recent divorcé whose resurgent dating life is thwarted by his obsession with dELiA*s catalogs.

In this episode, Brent reads his October 3rd essay, titled, “This Niche is Killing Me,” which recounts his harrowing foray into the world of Instagram niche content creation and analyzes how well he may perform in the event of being charged by a bear.

You can read the essay — which includes images and a bear-attack survival flowchart — here.

You can become a free or paid subscriber to Scrolling Towards the Void by visiting https://www.brenthenry.substack.com

In this episode, Brent reads his September 12th, 2025 essay “O Teacher! My (Substitute) Teacher! The Collar Bomb Mastermind,” about the unknowability of truth and the complexity of being human, framed through an absurd piece of personal history centered around the notorious Pizza Bomber bank robbery and murder plot detailed in the 2018 Netflix Docuseries “Evil Genius.”

In today’s episode, Brent reads a piece of original short fiction titled, “Just Say No (to Vampirism or Not-Enough-ness),” about the regretful aftermath of a Craigslist vampire conversion gone right.

You can read the story text here.

You can become a free or paid subscriber of Scrolling Towards the Void here.

In this episode, Brent reads his August 8th, 2025 essay, ‘Longing For a Better Broken Arrow,’ about how is search for the perfect version of the 1987 Robbie Robertson song devolved into disappointment but revealed something about the nature of longing and desire.

You can access a playlist featuring the songs discussed in the essay here:

Apple Music

Spotify

Youtube

You can become a free or paid subscriber to ‘Scrolling Towards the Void’ by visiting brenthenry.substack.net

You can find Brent on Instagram here.

In this episode, Brent reads his July 25th, 2025 essay titled, “Is the Yungblud Army Here to Save Us From Our Collective Nightmare?: On the performative intimacy of a budding British rockstar weighed against the ongoing discourse of the Gen Z Stare,” about how a torrent of unsolicited social media content from the official Yungblud fan account, most focusing on the topic of intense eye contact, paralleling the ongoing discussion of the Gen Z Stare, causes him to consider if we are (probably not, but maybe?) approaching a moment of cultural reckoning over longing to truly see each other again.

You can read the print edition of this essay and see pictures, graphics, and evidence of the Yungblud army’s onslaught here.

You can become a free or paid subscriber of Scrolling Towards the Void here.

And you can find Brent on Instagram here.

In this episode, Brent reads his July 18th, 2025 essay, Our Shared Symbology of Dread: How Carrie Bradshaw helped me connect with my ancestors, process my emoji trauma, and come to accept things as they are, about how what started as an ambient watching of season 3, episode 2 of HBO’s And Just Like That… spiraled into a deep contemplation of how he compares to his ancestors and an examination of existential dread stretching from 1730s Germany to 2025 Carrie Bradshaw.

Death by Dumb is a reader supported publication. To read more, or to subscribe to free or paid versions, please visit brenthenry.substack.com.

Some footnotes included in the print version of the essay:

1

Footnote: I recognize that my ability to trace the family history discussed in this essay is a privilege—one tied to the fact that my ancestors came to this country voluntarily and, though fleeing religious persecution, their story unfolds in the wider context of settler-colonial systems that erased and displaced Indigenous communities.

2

Footnote: As I reflect on the military service of my ancestors, I want to be clear that my intention is not to glorify war or romanticize its violence, nor the often troubling history of American military expansion and imperialism and the Military Industrial Complex, but to consider how the fear, courage, and uncertainty they experienced, when faced with the very real threat of imminent death, compare with my present day life and anxieties.

In this episode, Brent reads his July 4th, 2025 essay “Brent Henry’s Sexcellent Adventure and Other Lives I Might Be Living,” a candid, funny, and deeply personal exploration of alternate lives, questionable choices, and the search for meaning in a world that rarely makes sense, all spawned by a case of mistaken identity.