Open Thread: Behind The Newsletter

I feel like the gap you have is a really interesting one. In a weird way, it slightly mirrors my own because I left the US to live in the UK in like 2015 and I didn't really get back until 2019. So there was this huge chunk of American internet culture that I still feel like I'm always play catch-up on, but you have this thing where you left for a really wild era that is over. And it's really rare in life that one era really ends and new era begins. So I'd love to hear your thoughts about what Tabs was like then and what it's like now. It's kind of like that Brendan Fraser movie where he comes out of the bunker, Blast From The Past. 

Haha yeah. One of the factors that led to my deciding not to keep doing Tabs was it was early-2016 and it was all about Trump. Everything was about Trump. And you know, I hated him then and I hate him now. And I didn't like writing about him. Though, looking back at the archives, I did mention Trump a lot more than I remember mentioning him. It was so inescapable. All through 2015. My sense was right, 2016-2020 were just all Trump, all the time. And if I had been doing Tabs then that would have been every single day and it would have just been exhausting. I did to some extent intentionally skip that era. And the fact that the election happened in November — it was not a coincidence that in December I started to think, "maybe I could do it again." It wasn't quite over, as it turned out, as we learned in January, but it was pretty close. My sense was that things were going to change. And the media landscape has been so monotonous for so long, but I think it's actually a great time to do something like Tabs again because suddenly there are more things to think about. I'm really excited to think about other things!

Oh I am so excited. It's such a relief to not have to plan your entire day off the insane ramblings of one old awful man. When you say the media's gotten monotonous — I don't know if you know this, but when Tabs was coming out, back when I worked in a newsroom, when it published, you could hear the office stop as people read it. And then it would be talked about at those awful media open bars during the week. I feel like you have a really unique God's eye of what the media looks like.

I suppose it happens with every media bubble, where everyone starts doing a thing, the thing starts to work, and then the minute it starts to work, everyone says "the thing's not going to work anymore! It's all over!" And the newsletter is the thing happening right now. But for you to come back to doing a newsletter makes me feel like it's not a bubble, but just a thing that's always out there that you can do.

The first time I did Tabs there was kind of the same feeling, where people were saying, "is there a newsletter bubble? Is newslettering a thing?" It was like the TinyLetter era. At the time it was hard to monetize and it was really hard to making a living doing it at all and most people didn't. It's easier now, but like, I feel the same now as I did then. It's a medium. The inbox has always been there. It's always been a way to reach people. It's a great way to distribute stuff that you've posted elsewhere that I think is underused. Although, less so now. I feel like media companies are better about putting together newsletters now that just promote the stuff that they're posting. But I have my ideas of what I think work in an inbox and a lot the newsletters that are really booming now don't really fit that. Like I've never felt like the 5000-word essay is a great thing to get in the form of an email.

It's kind of like someone called you on the phone and then delivered a podcast into the other side. 

In terms of the new version of Tabs, is there stuff you're planning to do with it now that just weren't an option or weren't something on your radar the first time around?

I'm doing the open threads on Fridays. I've been really [wary]1 about doing community stuff on the internet because I know what kind of trap it can be in terms of just moderation and safety and not making yourself miserable. Running an online community can just be a miserable job. I'm [wary] about getting into that. I have been thinking about doing a Discord!

The Defector/Discourse Blog universe excites me a lot in that way. It's like the Gawker days, but they seems less chaotic inward and more chaotic outward, which I like.

Because it's like, rather than taking all those crazy people and then putting them under the thumb of a rich crazy person [Nick Denton], it's like, they just made their own thumb and are now pointing it outward. That metaphor is insane. You're going to have to edit that.