Thoughts + Things
from the week of January 27th
Friday Lunch Special, as much as I loved it, eventually felt limiting. So in this new year, as Pretend It’s a Newsletter moves back into her normal bi-weekly rhythms, I thought I’d try something different. The working title is Thoughts + Things, and who knows if it will stay around. It goes a little something like this:
I’ve been spending a lot of writing time trying to wrap my head around why we continue to use social media and share ourselves on the internet. It’s getting increasingly worrisome that the landscape of the internet could change at any moment. I’ve spent more hours than I’d like to admit laying awake at night trying to decipher my why when it comes to staying, particularly on Instagram. I don’t have any big answers, but if you’re thinking about this too, you should email me so we can think about it together.
I have had a string of weeks that have been less than awesome. I know that I am not alone in this, it seems like we’re all in this shitty little boat at sea together. I’ve been thinking a lot about why we share what we do in the spaces we attach our names to, and one of the reasons I keep coming back to is that feeling of “wow, I'm not as alone in this as I thought.” I crave it. I eat it up. It’s the thing that keeps me fighting for a healthy relationship with social media. I had that feeling this week when an email landed in my inbox from Clara from Hmm That’s Interesting called how to have a nice day. I read it from bed and as soon as my feet touched the floor I implemented as much of it as I could, and wouldn’t you know it? I had a nice day.
In that same vein, I am always looking for earnestness, and this newsletter from Shit You Should Care About about being the ugly friend was earnest and insightful into the ways we view ourselves.
Just a little love note from me as I put my consultant hat on here: I have been on a soapbox for a while that everyone who has a business should build a newsletter list and it’s never been more relevant information as it is to the current moment. If your livelihood at all relies on social media, consider building yourself a website if you don’t have one, and for the love of all things good, compile a newsletter list. Even if you don’t use it.
And if you’re an individual who longs for the days of perfect social media site Tumblr, and who loves to collect internet ephemera- I would also urge you to make a newsletter. I think it’s going to become increasingly important for us to use our voices to share information away from trend cycles and algorithms. I will go on a support independent creators rant another time, but know it’s all I’m thinking about right now– how we can close some of the massive loops we’ve opened up with the corporatization of style and taste, and how the main way to do that is by voting with your dollar for the work of your favorite creators and buying things that are made by real people and not massive corporations.
One person whose internet presence always feels like a north star is Kathleen Illustrated. She’s a perfect example of someone who has turned her interests into a community, and her videos are entertaining unexpected, and deeply interesting. I’ve watched hours and hours of her videos and all of them are 12/10. Most recently Kathleen’s Trend Predictions video made me feel like the captain of my own style ship and had me making plans to embroider on some button-downs I never wear.
Something that has given me joy this week has been re-discovering a deep love of eBay. I’ve been trying to spend no money at Amazon because Bezos does not need any more of my money, in addition to how they treat their employees. I’ve found that I can use eBay as a delightful alternative. This week I was reading Ina Garten’s delightful memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens, and I decided I needed to snag a cookbook of hers. I found one from a bookseller on eBay for $6 with free shipping.
Another thing I’ve been focusing some attention on is Valentine’s Day. I am already valentines for my friends and hoping to bring 5th-grade levels of excitement to the day. I wish we could all get those little valentine’s Day mailboxes for our desks. Are those a real thing or is that something my nostalgia brain just made up?
P.S. Speaking of Valentine’s, I’m hosting a book swap in Nashville on February 15th! More about that soon.
P.P.S. If you made it this far at 3:30 PM on a Friday, then you deserve to know a tiny secret: I’m rebranding this newsletter and I am finding the process endlessly inspiring. I can’t wait to share it with you, but in the meantime here’s a taste:
Thank you for your support. It means the world to me that you’d continue to extend the invite into your proverbial living room. The newsletter is my favorite place on the internet and I am consistently thrilled to learn that it means something to other people. If you want to support what I’m doing, here’s a little list of ways you can help out:
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We should all bring Valentines mailboxes to Switchyards. I'M IN IF YOU ARE.