Seven Years of Historians At The Movies

Here are the plans for where we go next

Seven years ago today we launched the global empire what is soon to be the global empire before you. Historians At The Movies began on a Sunday night from Lake Placid, Florida, where I was teaching high school while writing my doctoral dissertation. Back then I was living in a small duplex surrounded by gopher tortoises, which I’d move across the road and post on twitter. It was lonely. I was removed from my friends at graduate school and since Highlands County cared so much about their childrens’ education to offer 34k per year as a salary, I couldn’t really afford to do anything. So I got active on twitter.

One night I realized National Treasure was on Netflix and remembering an old conversation about how archaeologists got Harrison Ford and historians got Nicolas Cage, I suggested we all watch it together. The idea was that it was summer and that historians, who spend all their time doing “thinking” could use the night off. So we invited everyone. I didn’t even know what a hashtag was. We just created everything on the fly. But by the end of the night, the film’s writers had joined in, along with some of the most preeminent scholars of early American history, as well as people who just loved movies about lemons.

It was a huge hit. We trended that very first night. But I assumed we were done. No, everyone said. Again. Next week. You do it. Fine, I thought. So I scheduled a watch party for Lincoln. And then Marie Antoinette. And Coco. And Trading Places. And then we are off to the races.

Flash forward seven years with last night’s viewing of Bloodsport and we have watched nearly 400 films together every weekend since July 2018. I never, ever expected to keep it running so long. HATM has been there for me through a dissertation defense, breakups, cross country moves, you name it. I’ve tried to kill it multiple times and y’all just wouldn’t let me. Now we even have a podcast.

For me, what I am proudest of is the community we have built over its time. From its earliest days I wanted our Sunday nights to be a place where anyone—no matter who you are—felt welcome. I’ve tried to reflect this via choices in movies (and the representation in them or storylines found in them) and in our podcast guests. I don’t think that there are many podcasts with a more diverse lineup than ours. And that’s by design. The thing I want people to know about me as a person is that no matter who you are, you are welcome around me. You are safe here. And I want that reflected in HATM.

And we’ve had millions of people we’ve reached via social media. We trend on Blue Sky every week. And look at the guests we’ve had on the podcast. We’ve had Oscar winners and Nobel Prize winners, and Pulitzer Prize winners, and everyone else in between. At this point, there are few people we can’t get on the pod.

I am incredibly indebted to the people who I rely on to make HATM happen. First and foremost are Juniper Blackwell and Rachel Gunter, the left and right hands of this community, who I often call upon when I need a break or I need thoughts on the direction of Sunday nights. Jake Harper has also recently offered some needed nights off. Fletcher Powell has produced the podcast since Day One, often splicing together episodes with only a day or two notice. Ariella Archer has been our biggest cheerleader. And then, there are the people who offer paid subscriptions right here on Substack. I cannot thank you enough.

---

So what’s next?

So we begin Year Eight this week with some questions. And these are not questions designed to pump algorithms. I legitimately need your feedback, so think hard on this and if you have thoughts, hit me.

We need to figure out a direction here. I recently rebranded both this Substack and the podcast to Reckoning with Jason Herbert, reflecting what I hope to be an opening of topics that we discuss. Movies and history will always be an important component of this, but I feel compelled to interject my voice into things I am passionate about, whether it is public lands, what it’s like to work with Tribes, my home state(s) of Kentucky and Florida, or even just the role of a simple man, trying to make his way through the universe.

Unfortunately, my current professional role, as much as I love it, keeps me from seeing Reckoning to its fullest expression. Simply put, I am bound by the need to pay bills to keep from growing this place out. The new mandates on returning the office don’t offer the flexibility we need in booking guests. I want to be a national voice here, but in order to do so, I need to focus full time on building this platform. If I can focus solely on writing and the podcast, I can build this into a self sustaining enterprise within two years.

Further, because I work for the federal government, there are issues that I simply cannot tackle here. And that’s not because of the current administration. That’s because as a federal employee I don’t want to ever accidentally represent my thoughts as those of the taxpayers. There should a line. And I want to honor my responsibilities by working as ethically as I possibly can at all times.

But guys, I love to cross lines.

I want to fight.

What I think we need now are two things:

We need branding experts to help me figure out how to position Reckoning. We recently retitled HATM to Reckoning as a way of opening things up to new audiences. By centering my name, we’re creating a focal point from which to operate. Was this a good idea? I think so, long term. HATM was still relatively small, and while having a rabid fan base, needed to be more accessible from outside audiences. Our social media is kind of all over the place. We’ve got almost 15k followers on Blue Sky and a smattering of that on Instagram and TikTok. We definitely need a smarter strategy here. But I need real, hard advice on positioning this. So if you’re a branding person, so know someone, hit me up. My email is historiansatthemovies@gmail.com

We need funds. Right now our substack subscriptions offset the cost of running the podcast (servers, subscriptions, etc.) but that’s about it. We’ve got a bunch of readers on this platform now (well more than all the other sources combined) so we are onto something. But what I need are investors to help me realize that idea of bringing Reckoning to its fullest potential. I want to be free of any limits keeping us from addressing the things that matter in society, along with sharing exactly how I make my jambalaya. But I don’t know where to look or who to approach. So if you’re interested in investing, or know someone who might want to help take this to the next level- historiansatthemovies@gmail.com

So that’s where we’ve been and where I want to go. It has been an amazing seven years and I am so excited about entering our eighth year here. Thank you all for being part of this community whether you’ve been here since July 2018 or you’ve just found this place. If you want to help grow the audience, share this substack or subscribe to the podcast. You can find audio versions of what I just wrote right here:

Or become a paid subscriber. Help us build. Help us grow. What we have here is the potential to be something different than anything else out there. You can do that on the button below.