curating obscure social medias

I spend a lot of time seeking out music from different countries and regions, and with each passing year the challenge of finding something distinctively local increases.

This is a tremendous loss for everybody—akin to losing a species or an entire ecosystem. I feel I’m fighting a losing battle, but I refuse to walk away from the challenge.

As a writer and culture critic, I operate at the intersection between these corporations and the mass audience. My influence is limited, but if I don’t play a part in trying to revitalize and refresh our artistic idioms, I will have wasted much of the potential of my vocation.

This is why, for example, I listen to so much new music and read so many ... See more

It seems that most people can remember only a few high-level details of a book weeks later—if that. A typical reader might spend hours finishing some serious non-fiction—then maybe it comes up at a dinner party, and they find you can remember like three sentences. Basically no detailed recall.

When you choose whom to follow on Twitter, you’re choosing what types of mindsets and aesthetics to expose yourself to on a regular basis. You’re choosing what types of conversations to have. You’re choosing to be reminded regularly of certain things, and not of others. This is a kind of Programmable attention.

To be transformed by a book, readers must do more than absorb information: they must bathe in the book’s ideas, relate those ideas to experiences in their lives over weeks and months, try on the book’s mental models like a new hat. Unfortunately, readers must drive that process for themselves. Authors can’t easily guide this ongoing sense-making: t... See more

The people I find most interesting on social media are using it as a sort of diary/note to self, not broadcasting to an audience.

Better social nutrition

Social media feels like the “empty calories” of human connection. I’m filling my cup with connections, but they lack nutrition. They’re social donuts.

In its place, I’ve spent most of my social time in intimate and often vulnerable 1-1 conversations, usually while on walks in the woods.

I’ve been more present with my wife, kid... See more

Hyping up your friends is actually a lot more fun than self-glorification. After a decade of Instagram, the whole “Look at this photo I took of what I’m doing” game is growing stale. In fact, it’s a bit asocial just lobbing your solo snapshots into the feed. A true social network doesn’t just make consumption social (Likes, comments, reshares), but... See more

The bike rides. The sleepovers. Your first cigarette. Gossiping about your latest crush. Being consoled when they break your heart. Discovering a new city. Re-discovering your own (at 2AM). The hungover brunches. The tears. The laughs. The love. So many of the moments that shaped us were shared with friends. And then those moments started happening... See more