Welcome To The New Internet

I went to the beach this week. It was excellent. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

As you probably know by now, Elon Musk has destroyed Twitter. In less than nine months in charge of the social media platform, the world’s richest man turned it into a cesspool of crypto scams and the far-right politics that have clearly captivated him. 

There are other alternatives, but they don’t exactly seem to be taking off. The main Twitter replacement is Threads, which was brought to us by Facebook. (Note: I refuse to call it Meta as it is against my personal policy to acknowledge PR-driven corporate rebrands.) Mark Zuckerberg tapped into Instagram’s massive audience to help Threads start off with hundreds of millions of users. While it has sputtered since then, Threads probably has enough momentum and critical mass that it will survive to some extent. Nevertheless, it is clear to me that we are in the midst of a much larger shift away from Twitter and its various clones. 

Elon’s trolling and tantrums may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but things have been changing for some time. We have supposedly been in “Web 2.0” for nearly a quarter century and from Facebook, to Twitter, and blogs, the sites that ushered in this era of “user generated” content are all dying. 

I do not purport to know what’s next. We were promised “Web 3.0” a while back and, while Silicon Valley’s vision of a metaverse may one day come to pass, it’s clearly not yet ready for primetime. The last wave of innovation didn’t really rely on new technology. Social media was driven by innovative uses of existing technology. I suspect our next version of the internet will be something like that. 

In the meantime, I remain excited about the newsletter format. Part of what drew me to Substack in the first place was this feeling that there was something like a throwback to the old alt-weeklies and zines happening online where people were making independent and creative content. Obviously, this platform has plenty of its own issues, but a reactionary billionaire essentially destroying a site that functioned as a major part of the public discourse is a clear demonstration of the value of individual communities of readers and writers.

Now that the internet as we knew it crumbling around us, I am going to revive my newsletter and turn it into a weekly-ish update of what I am reading and writing. This way, I won’t be relying on Elon Musk or anyone else to keep people posted about what I am reporting on over at Talking Points Memo and elsewhere.

This will be totally free and, if you enjoy it, please forward it along to friends who you think might like to sign up. I also hope this can become something of a conversation and I strongly encourage you to respond with questions, compliments, and complaints in the comment selection below or just by replying to these emails. 

With all that of that introductory stuff out of the way, here’s what I have been looking at this week.

• Summer is normally slow for news, but that is not the case at all this year. There’s endless legal drama around former President Trump, a looming government shutdown, and a coming presidential campaign featuring dark horse candidates who are setting the stage for some complex electoral math. I genuinely and strongly recommend signing up for two newsletters produced by my colleagues at TPM, the Morning Memo and the Weekender. Both of these are totally free and will keep you posted on the ins and outs of all this chaos without clogging your inbox. The Memo is a daily briefing while the Weekender is a recap of all our best stories that comes out each Saturday. This is obviously a shameless plug, but it’s also a genuine one! 

• In my own writing at TPM last week, I looked at Mike Chitwood, a former Philly cop turned Florida sheriff who has found himself on the frontlines of a fight against one of the country’s most active neo-Nazi groups. I talked with Chitwood about how he’s using a old school brand of policing to take on new school, extremely online hate. I also wrote about a Georgia county where the local GOP has joined other Republican institutions in trying to encourage voting by mail after — in this case literally — challenging the technique as fraudulent following the 2020 election. The GOP is trying to turn away from the conspiracies they promoted amid evidence lying about voting hurt their turnout. I am endlessly fascinated by this whole storyline and plan to follow it. This situation shows that even people who spread the “Big Lie” are still struggling to deal with the repercussions of what they wrought. 

• Ernest Hemingway was born 124 years ago on Friday. The New Yorker marked the occasion by resurfacing this incredible piece by Lillian Ross detailing a 1950 visit the famed novelist made to Manhattan. I have never exactly been a Hemingway fan and this story fully reinforced my view of him as someone with flashes of brilliance that were often overshadowed by ego, alcoholism, and toxic masculinity. However, Ross is a different story. Her piece is an absolute masterclass in magazine writing that shows Hemingway — for better and worse — as he entertains himself with too much champagne, a shopping trip to Abercrombie & Fitch, and an over-reliance on sports metaphors that seem to reinforce his confidence in his own cleverness. The story serves as a glimpse of an old school brand of celebrity who took up residence in Manhattan’s luxury hotels and indulged in store credit on Fifth Avenue. It is also a reminder to read Ross, a vital forerunner to modern journalism who hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention. 

• As a kid, I listened to the Grateful Dead’s greatest hits album countless times. I was basically too young to have seen the original band tour and, after Jerry Garcia died, I was convinced by prevailing wisdom that he was the heart of the band and anything that followed would be a pale imitation. Luckily for me, I ended up checking out Dead & Company, the latest touring project with the band’s remaining founding members in 2019. It was an incredible show that left no doubt how central Bob Weir was to the original Dead sound and left me deeply admiring his new partner John Mayer, whose pop songs I have never had any interest in. I caught D&C on their latest trip to New York for what is being billed as a farewell tour. Weir may not have had the same energy he did four years ago, but watching what may be the end of a long, strange half century trip made it a poignant and powerful experience. The Times had a great piece on the lasting and resurgent appeal of the Dead that ran last weekend. It was a good summary of the tour for those of us who enjoyed it and could be an introduction to the band for folks who might only be able to experience it on Spotify. 

I am going to try to close out these newsletters with music. Speaking of the Dead, for anyone into classic rock, jam bands or both, I would heartily recommend Rose City Band. They are currently making their East Coast debut after a false start during the pandemic. The Brooklyn shows are sold out but you can catch them at the Mercury Lounge on Monday. Check out one of their live shows below. It’s good stuff. 

See you soon.