Why are you doing this? A question no one has asked me.
I have been trying to start a newsletter for a while now. About a year ago I asked my Instagram followers what they’d like to see me write about in case someone had a really good idea that had never occurred to me. Maybe I had forgotten that I was actually an expert in something. It was my first time using the question box feature on Instagram, and I was sad and hurt when no one replied. Not only was I not a secret expert in something, no one was clamoring for me to do a newsletter about it. And then of course it turned out that I did not know where the question box answers went, and there were in fact very many answers from very many nice friends and even one from a man I do not know well, who said, “I admit I don’t know your areas of experience.” I wonder if he knows he is not required to fill every Instagram question box he sees.
In that same Instagram story I’d also asked about alternatives to Substack and got a reply from a former coworker gently asking why I might not want to use Substack, so I marveled at her curious mind and replied back that the company platforms transphobes and terfs. As it turns out, she runs Substack’s communications department. You may have noticed that this newsletter is coming to you from Ghost, not Substack, as I can only assume I would have been shadow banned there. (No but really, consider moving your Substack over if you have one.)
This was all a year ago, and I still feel the pull to put some writing out into the world, though not in an over-sharing, journaling sort of way. You don’t want that from me. Here's a real excerpt from March 5th: Just ate a bunch of jellybeans. Not a lot going on.
I Carrie Bradshawed [couldn’t help but wonder] if the pull might just be the result of seeing countless TikTokers leave their jobs to become full time content creators over the past few years. Though I am currently employed full-time, I am not immune to the understandable entrepreneurial bullshit I think many people feel drawn to right now. Who could be blamed for wanting a side hustle in 2024? If your company lays you off, how lucky that your cool pots business is there to fall back on. If your landlord raises your rent, phew, how convenient that the proceeds from your gorgeous and charming newsletter can cover it. (Heavy blame coming your way if your “side hustle” is landlording or Airbnbing, to be clear.)
But a lot of those TikTokers actually seem stressed out and miserable. The fact that we all have to work to stay alive is unforgivable, and I remember thinking, even as a kid, that there was something not right about how my parents had to go to work every day. Every Monday to Friday? For the rest of their lives? No summer break? Today there’s precarity everywhere you look, and it does not feel right or remotely okay to exist in a world where genocides are happening and you still go to your dumb job or write your little journal about too many jellybeans (Starburst kind).
I also suspect it is key to pretend like you are not doing a side hustle, so of course that’s not what I’m doing. And I harbor no delusions that this newsletter will lead us to the revolution. But I’d still like to write it, if that’s okay. (Who is this for?) There is an old Tumblr post (sorry sorry sorry) that makes the rounds periodically that I can’t help but embed here.
Singing, dancing, and making art like this newsletter from Malin von Euler-Hogan, I think OP meant to type. In ToDaY’s SoCiEtY those things are not only skills to get good at, they’re skills to perform, market, and monetize. I’m so jealous of those singing birds, who I bet don’t even know about the Affordable Care Act, and the bees who probably get free medical care from the bees who are doctors. Buzz buzz, seems like you're getting plenty of exercise.
If I could be so corny as to conclude this and answer this question that, again, no one asked, I just want to write this newsletter because I am a person who sometimes writes. This is a thing humans do, the way birds sing and bees make hives. Many pals said they would read my writing about anything, so that’s what this will be. I’ll be checking the records of who subscribes and simply praying that it is at least 50% not family members.
My brilliant friend Martha (subscribe to her culture & astrology newsletter here) reminded me that you can always go back and delete, and you better believe once I figure out what I’m doing here, I will. Thanks for reading. Less meta navel-gazing in the next one… maybe!
