Sydney Nicole Sweeney is an essayist, journalist, and fledgling labor organizer who writes about music, pop culture, and the working populace. Her journalism has appeared online in publications including Cosmopolitan, PEOPLE, HelloGiggles, and elsewhere. She was previously a staff writer at Bustle Digital Group’s Elite Daily, reporting on music and celebrity news.
Prior to Sweeney concentrating her writing practice on the relationship between music and capitalism, she wrote about youth culture, social issues, media, and identity through an intersectional feminist lens — a seven-year-long pursuit that primed the author to ground her recent investigations in Marxist philosophy and leftist thought. Her newsletter, Unsolicited, is a Marxist-feminist plunge into pop-music-adjacent current events, history, and social phenomena.
Sweeney has a baccalaureate in Journalism and Creative Editing and Publishing from San Diego State University. Living in Los Angeles, she works in the corporate world by day, writes for change by night, and is a member of the Communications Workers of America.
Her independently published debut essay collection, Vibe Cheque: Contemplations on Class, Creativity & Power in Music (This Is Why All Music Lovers Should Be Anti-Capitalists) arrives June 2023.
