Otis Chandler

Watching this from inside the media, I’ve experienced two contradicting feelings. First is a kind of powerlessness from working in an industry with waning influence amid shifting consumption patterns. The second is the notion that the craft, rigor, and mission of traditional journalism matter more than ever.

I don’t want to call the “young people are screwed” meme a myth, exactly. I want to call it a narrative . It’s a story that people are telling themselves, and the stories we tell about the world do shape the world. After all, affordability is the number-one buzzword in politics.

Smashing, a new app curating the best of the web from Goodreads co-founder Otis Chandler, is now available to the public.

On Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook, and almost every other big social media platform, the link is deprioritized in favor of keeping your eyes on the platform at all costs. This has had disastrous consequences for journalism, art, and the fundamental connective nature of the web.