eugene, season 2 -- the pitch

might go insane and (re)start a newsletter

hi friends—

first of all: most of you are on this email list because you got excited about untitled map app. although that project is technically on infinite hiatus, the ideas and philosophy behind it are very much alive in my head: the ever-growing importance of offline, going for walks, exploring the world, talking to strangers and turning them into friends. and i hope to find a new shape and form to bring these ideas out of my head and into the world

the point is: if you were here just for the testflight, please don't feel any pressure to read on! feel free to unsubscribe, i won't hold it against you, and many thanks for following along

now, i'll try to outline what it is that i'm trying to do here. the shortest version: i'm trying to build a new home online. i want to create a place where i could write about things that i care about — while knowing that there are people on the other end who will receive my signals, and pick up on them, and we might end up having actual conversations

there are many reasons to do it over email. the first is certainty: certainty that the message will be delivered. pretty much every avenue of the public web is reduced to algorithmic curation, and it's just not a game i want to play. if i post a tweet, i have just about no idea who will see it and who won't see it, and i have no control over that either. so email is a good frontier of certainty — something to be cherished by anxious people.

the second pro-email argument would be: space. a room to breathe and slow down and expand your (my) thoughts, not trying to reduce everything to a clever one-liner (not that there's anything wrong with that). just some space to think, and play, and experiment with formats, and find what brings me most fun and joy to make.

which brings me to a third reason, a truly hard one. i sense that because of its design, email is more personal and less performative than any feed-based platform — and so my absolutely wild guess is that this will make it easier for me to write the truth. a very scary idea indeed, when taken seriously; it also sounds somewhat pretentious, and i don't like it

there's this inner conflict when you [try to] make things that you plan to release in public: on the one hand, you want to make something that you enjoy making, on the other hand, you want to make something that other people will like. admitting to this is "ew, gross" — but it's always there. and this latter part is a very strong, paralyzing force: it stops you from following your natural instincts, instead pushing you towards doing things that are more like "safe bets", guaranteed to be received well. plus there's the fear of "oh this thing that i'm interested in, it's too niche and obscure and no one will care about it". the fear of indifference runs real deep.

so i'm going to try to overcome this fear and just trust myself and write about things that i care about and see what happens

most newsletters i know are rather narrow in scope, dedicated to One Thing. that's the general wisdom of online posting: pick one niche and stick to it. for better or for worse, that's not quite something i can see myself doing. i don't want to reduce myself to One Thing. i think a broad range of topics within one newsletter is possible. i think combining professional and personal is possible. i think combining serious and silly is possible.

so what i want to write about? internet, culture, technology, work, meaning, reality, offline vs. online, ideas, media, AI, individualism, loneliness, irony, hope, human connection, alternative futures, kindness, curiosity, imagination.

here are some more concrete questions/prompts that i might want to explore:

- why are people turning to ChatGPT for therapy and to Replika for imaginary girlfriends
- how social norms changed and how ghosting people was normalized
- why do so many people feel so lonely and what can we do about it
- why everyone is tired of dating apps but it feels like there's no alternative
- who is behind the apps that promise to help you with mental health but will scam you out of money
- is there a way to prove that you're a real human online
- how to make new friends in a big city in your 30s
- what's the future of creative work in post-AI world
- why therapy is great but it's not enough (self-care v. community care)
- some great American novels about the internet
- does storytelling still matter
- how to learn to read books again
- what does a good internet look like
- why writing is good for you, actually

so that's broadly what i want to try to do, and i'm curious if this resonates a little bit and so on

i hope this time, after many years of wanting to do a newsletter, i'll be able to commit to actually doing it

many thanks for the read & much love,

—Eugene