Alex Burns

Achieving perfection is the most efficient way to discover how little it offers.

21st century privacy : Why do teens have so many randos on Find My Friends? Do CCTVs work? Who ought we most fear surveillance from: corporations, the government, or each other? Should I tell Claude my secrets? Should I use a period tracking app? How much will people trade privacy for safety and convenience? What is being lost, and how might we... See more

Have killer voice. How do you develop killer voice? Be confident. How do you develop confidence? Read oodles and write oodles more. If you’re sending a “list newsletter” you better have one hell of a point of view because, well, there are oodles-upon-oodles of list newsletters out there. Generally, like with much good writing, the magic for readers

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Read the newspaper

To that last point, consider getting a newspaper subscription, even just for one day a week (I’d go with Sunday, personally). It’s a slower and more resonant way to process the week’s headlines. No clicking away. Also, if I might submit some superficial rationale here: sitting in the kitchen reading a newspaper looks and feels... See more

Part of what makes fall so accessible to Gen Z is that you can create content about it from inside your bedroom, with a string of orange LEDs, a hot beverage, and a few pumpkin throw pillows. Summer doesn’t offer the same accessibility: Conjuring summer on the feed means vacations (costly) or bathing-suit content (not everyone’s thing). Fall is a... See more

This is second-order vanity. The term was coined by David Foster Wallace, in his 1987 novel The Broom of the System. “A vain person is concerned that people not perceive him as stupid, or dull, or ugly, et cetera et cetera,” his character explains—that’s first-order vain (the classic). “Now a second-order vain person is a vain person who’s also... See more