There’s a podcast I like called “New Creative Era” hosted by Joshua Citarella (well known for “Doomscroll”) and Yancey Strickler (Metalabel) for being about the internet in a way that reflects my own experiences and concerns (this doesn’t mean I think they’re always perfect, etc.—I’m just saying I never hear anyone talk about the internet in quite this way, and it’s very relevant to my work and life). They recently put out a new episode in which Strickler talks about not wanting to publish anything because it will just end up another blip that people scroll through while sitting in the traffic of apps owned by Meta, et al. 

One thing Strickler said that I had to immediately type up in my Notes app: “What we’ve done to build audiences I don’t think builds meaning.” Exactly, I thought. It’s an obvious thing, one of those obvious things that manifests as a frustrating feeling first and becomes so frustrating that you might never get to the words unless someone else articulates them. The lack of meaning-building is why I no longer care about growth if it’s not quality; it’s why I am not going to play games with the Instagram algorithm anymore; it’s why I am producing a digital magazine “at whim,” without pressuring the work when all that does is make it just another blip that people scroll past. 

Because there is a content deluge that is distracting plenty of people—me among them, at times—I try to work against this tide. I publish here things that I’ve thought about a lot that don’t really have mass appeal; it’s a newsletter that comes to your inbox, but really it’s a digital publication, which is a fancier way of saying “blog.” I maintain a DIY approach to imagery. I have occasional spirals about how to use Instagram and then I decide I’ll just start taking pictures with my camera again, the way I have my entire life, and share them even though they get no views, because at least if someone stumbled upon my profile, they’d not see desperation for the algorithm’s approval oozing from my pores but evidence of an actual life lived, an actual perspective. 

I’ve been putting my thoughts and little digital trinkets onto the world wide web since I could get on Geocities in the late ’90s and make the background of my page a garish selection of Jones Soda bottles, atop which I placed my favorite song lyrics. I got good enough at this kind of thing that when I was in college, I’d code entire web pages in notepad and got odd jobs as a web designer. Which is all to say: I’ve never put an audience ahead of meaning-making and tinkering online has long been an important creative outlet for me. 

On Monday—my birthday—I’ll give you a deeper rundown of my professional landscape (which is sort of inextricable from my personal landscape), but today, let’s get into the culture recommendations, my monthly attempt to refocus away from algorithms and back toward an older way of being online. I honestly think this is the best work I do every month? Or is it because I’m just talking about culture and the self that I enjoy it so much?