Tag: Press

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Internet Culture Preparedness

Day 423 and Hot Takes

I am a prolific shit poster. I am a haver of takes. I am a full fledged member of the discourse. But Jesus Christ I never thought I’d see the day where the galaxy brains are feeling good about having nuclear war takes. Literally the hottest of takes.

I am in a preparedness Discord with a number of very level headed people. There are people that I would trust to help me think through surviving a disaster. But none of us are foreign policy experts or plugged into the state department. Nevertheless we are speculating on the possibility that Ukraine’s invasion by Russia could take us there. But we are just speculating!

Now I’m not a Bluecheck media personality on Twitter but I do know what it’s like to have an influential opinion. I’ve got a small platform and I try to use my voice responsibly. Or at least make clear when I’m shitposting. Because people will take you seriously. So you have to occasionally do a double take on your takes.

It doesn’t feel like most people are being particularly careful today. There are a few voices that have got things right in the past that are working though thought experiments. That’s valuable. But the bulk of folks are engaging in some terrible information hygiene. Opinions are being had. But also propaganda is being circulated and disinformation warfare is being waged. So far the West is being clearly won by the scrappy Ukrainian narrative. But who knows what will stick. So he careful out there. We are literally at war. Don’t rush to conclusions or to share shit that looks too good to be true. You don’t want to end up pushing an agenda that isn’t your own.

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Internet Culture

Day 421 and Disassociated

My scheduled was packed today. I took several pitches. I spoke with an internet friend about some mutual interests. I did some travel arrangements for a real estate transaction I’m hoping will go my way.

I really felt the need to be busy today. For once I didn’t want to be too immersed in the zeitgeist. I somewhat dreaded checking Twitter. I actually listened to a whole podcast and went for an hour long walk in the freezing winter cold. I spent some time organizing my calendar for next week.

I’m rarely this task oriented. I generally need spaces that are open where I can lay down and soak up the current moment. I’m usually calmed by the drumbeat of information. I thrive on input.

But I couldn’t bring myself to be online. The Russian invasion of the Ukraine is too unsettling. The implications it has for a changing world order. The instability it represents. The second and third order impacts my mind can only grasp out but not fully see.

So I’m going to order some takeout. Maybe something fried. And I’ll watch Netflix. And I’m pretend that I’m comfortable in this consumption mediated disassociation. And I’m going to assume that it’s normal. Because my life is absolutely fine but I’m bearing witness to a tragedy being played live online.

Categories
Finance Media Startups

Day 299 and Hiring An Assistant

I’ve been thinking it is time to hire an assistant. Obviously I need help and the job would be working with me. But I want to train up someone who would like to acquire my unique set of skills. I’d like to mentor someone up on the startup ecosystem that I’ve spent the last fifteen years working through as a founder, operator and now venture investor so they too can take advantage of the incredible network of people that are building today.

I’m looking for someone that would like to get exposure to all the areas where I have expertise. You don’t have to know or even like all areas, obviously this would depend on the candidate, but what makes me an unusual player in startup and venture land is the weird mashup of specialties. So if you want to learn:

1. Angel & seed stage investing analyst skills
2. Media & hype (call it public relations if you must)
3. How one keeps your head on straight in a discourse laden zeitgeist chaos landscape

Then you might enjoy working with me. The goal of this assistant or analyst position would be within 2 years you’d go on to do what I do somewhere else & I’ll sensei you through that journey. I am where I am because of mentors and bosses that taught me the ropes.

As I work closely with my partner and husband Alex Miller you would get exposure to the operational and logistical side of investing as well as startup operations. He’s actually my inspiration for this job. His first job out of college was for Jason Calacanis. Without him none of the other jobs and connections would have been possible. And we owe him big time as without Jason we wouldn’t have Stack Overflow in our life.

I’ve only every met one person who has my particular weird blend of growth, media and investing. I do some traditional public relations and would love to pass that on to someone that could leverage it well for their own startups. But it is entirely in service to my investing and portfolio with the occasional other favor, so it’s much more portfolio services for our investments than a PR shop. But you’d learn our portfolio from the inside out as investment decisions and then figure out how to take these seed stage companies to market with the media. Which is a pretty unique thing so not a traditional gig.

Non traditional backgrounds are awesome. No degree requirements. No credentialism or social signaling. Disabled folks welcome. I’m also disabled so we do accommodations. There is no set schedule as I don’t work one so whenever you work best is great. Any location or geography is fine. Any time zone though I work on mountain. Degen anons with anime avis welcome (encouraged as I’d like someone fluent in crypto). If you are an anon avi who wants to get into crypto investing and figure out how to work the zeitgeist for your meme magic I am here to be your mentor. And then I’m an ideal world I’d be the first check into your startup as this is about the ecosystem. So if this sounds fun slide into my DMs on Twitter and tell me what the one thing you do better than anyone else.

Categories
Internet Culture Media Startups

Day 295 and Long Game

I think most people dislike media because it’s hard to understand where a narrative came from. If you aren’t in the business of telling stories the natural braiding of emotions, motivations and public opinion can seem foreign. It’s like the weather. It’s completely comprehensible how different patterns emerge but you cannot predict precisely how it will play out. There is a science but the specificity of the modeling isn’t so accurate you can predict the course.

This is why I encourage startups that work with me to think about the long game. Give context about your space and your opinion of how it will change and grow. Don’t be afraid to state clearly and in specific why something is the way that it is when talking to a journalist. No one is out to get you.

Journalists just want to show a story that makes sense to regular people. A cohesive truth that can be proven with outside and objective fact still matters to virtually everyone outside of very specific Murdoch outlets (never give a quote to the NY Post).

So much of being covered in the media is not about having a publicist or being trained but is rather about interacting with the 4th estate as if they are human just like you. A reporter will happily tell your story if you can make a case for why it’s true. And no one is coming to “gotcha” over some secret. The Internet may roast you but that’s just the crowds. No one has control over public sentiment. You too may one day become the main character on Twitter. But that’s probably your fault and not a journalist’s doing.

So if you want to live in public think through what the long game might be. And work on convincing others that the future you see is not only good but inexorable. And repeat it with conviction. It’s ok if you get some shit wrong, cancel culture won’t demolish you. Probably. I mean some of you deserve to be canceled but somehow it never seems to happen to the assholes who really deserve it.

Categories
Aesthetics Internet Culture

Day 280 and Scooping

I first started blogging in college because a friend of mine pointed out that I needed to own my digital identity. I had written something about designer jeans in the lesser school newspaper and another student was dunking on me in her personal blog.

Unless I acted swiftly, Google results would be tainted forever he assured me. So I started blogging. Not because I necessarily felt like I was meant to be a writer but because I didn’t want this other girl to scoop my life story. I didn’t want to get “Bad Art Friended” by letting someone else tell my story.

I’m pretty grateful to both my friend James and the “mean girl” Phoebe for launching my social media habits. Every big break I’ve ever had has come from the connections I made on the Internet. If I hadn’t been petty enough to want to own my own digital identity I might have missed out.

Rather like the “Bad Art Friend” piece where one writer uses details from another’s life for her art, whoever is able to own the narrative is the default winner. It’s not terribly fair but it could have been someone else telling my story had I not chosen to write. If the victors write history then there is an incentive to be the one whose narrative wins. And the only way to win in our social media saturated works is to be sure you’ve got the scoop on your own life.

Categories
Reading

Day 273 and The Newsstand

I used to travel a lot. It seems like another life, but before the pandemic airports were my most important liminal space. Even as a child this was true as my father loved taking us on trips. That emotional weight meant the airport have always had significance to me. This persistent exposure to airports lead to me to developing certain affinities and aversions in my routines around travel. But the one that I liked the most was buying something at the newsstand.

There was a period as a teenager where I thought carrying both the The Economist and Rolling Stone (neither of which I read anymore) was just the height of intellectual signaling. And no place was more crucial to signal than inside an airport. I could meet someone in passing that would change my life and they needed to see immediately that I was both smart and cultured. Yes it’s embarrassing now.

But this signaling was part of a wider ritual I felt was important to ground myself. Even if I felt the unsteadiness of traveling, I could bring routine and ritual into it. I knew no matter how much I anxiety or uncertainty I felt around a given trip I could always treat myself to buying something to read from the airport newsstand.

Generally I would pick up some kind of periodical. I’d leave myself time to browse the newsstands for at least ten minutes so I could adequately cover all the weird genres. Because I grew up in a small town and not a proper city, the only newsstand I ever encountered was at the airport. There was simply no place that held as many magazines covering as many topics.

And while I had the Internet very early in my life, the actual transition away from physical publishing wasn’t as far along. It’s not that I loved magazines so much as it was the only place I could find writing that wasn’t a novel was in newsstand. Now of course I read blogs, email newsletters, forums, Subreddits and my beloved Twitter. But the memories I have of finding new worlds came from newsstands. And while I may have literally been going someplace new, it was never quite as horizon broadening as picking out what I was going to read.

Categories
Internet Culture Politics

Day 246 and Culture Bores

Anytime a new conflagration breaks out in the culture war I worry. What if this is the time I finally get information poisoning? I’ll surf the discourse and try to wrap my head around the issue. If it’s just a minor flare up, an outbreak of zeitgeist, my rational antibodies react swiftly and I bounce back from any emotional reactivity without getting sick. But when it’s full blown infection of the entire body politic I am not so lucky. I will succumb just like the rest of the country.

To fight off cultural contagion it will take several days of inflammation. I’ll be hot, bothered and have muddled thinking. It will take all of my energy and focus to see through what is the immune response and what is the infection. And then only then can I begin to consider treatment to get back to an emotional baseline.

Yes I am absolutely torturing a metaphor here but I’ve dealt with several cultural infections over the last year and it’s been a mess. My natural immunity to poor information environment isn’t total. Raging partisans spewing talking points can infect anyone. I’m sick of being infected just because I read the news. No one can be expected to quarantine their entire lives from current events but it sure feels like the isolated forever crowd is winning when someone tells me “just don’t pay attention.”

I encourage you not to be a culture bore. A culture bore is someone who spreads culture war contamination. Sure you might not realize you are infected. But you can take sensible precautions and it makes the informational commons better for everyone

Don’t spread a malicious informational meme unless you are willing to let others get infected. Which you might be. You might be a partisan. I don’t know. That is your right. But then you’ve got to ask yourself if I am sharing some tidbit of bullshit am I doing so because I think it’s beneficial? Or am I an unwitting carrier of some viral nonsense?

Sure I get it. It sucks to consider that your meme hygiene might be bad! I’ve been there. I picked content up from some dive account that only retweets resistance grifters and regretted it later. I’ve liked some kooky tweet from an account who turns out to believe the January 6th insurrection was patriotic. We’ve all done it. But for the sake of everyone else enjoying the information commons and being decent citizens together try not to do it deliberately.

Categories
Emotional Work Finance

Day 233 and 927 Hours of Therapy

I’m motivated by media. If I’m in a bad headspace I can take time to read a book or watch a tv and shake myself out of it with a few hours. I’m a voracious consumer of all forms of narrative, it’s how I synthesize.

You’d have to be a professional to keep track of more stories than I do just by sheer numbers alone. Maybe journalists, authors or publicists read more than me, but even then I’d bet real money I’m still top decile. I never lose a “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” news quiz.

I’m working though some emotions on risk, punishment, hurt, and fear this week. So I’ve been watching a favorite show on all those emotions: Billions. It’s a show about a hedge fund manager feuding with the US Attorney for the Southern District. It’s a terrific portrayal of finance culture and elite consumption. But it’s real strength is it’s portrayal of therapy. Emotional capacity is the key to coming out ahead in Billions.

While I don’t want to give any spoilers, the second season gives us a character named Taylor who is a prodigy. Not only are they intellectually brilliant but they understand who they are. I’m rewatching the show so I’m noticing details I didn’t process the first go around. Taylor says they have had 927 hours of therapy.

The impression I had on the show was that Taylor was in their twenties as they frame the introduction of the character around an internship and graduate school. I wish I had started on therapy in my twenties. Imagine having over three years of intensive emotional work before you’ve started your career. Honestly I’m envious. When I was in my early twenties I didn’t understand jack shit about my emotions.

Maybe by the time I get 927 hours of therapy I’ll recognize my own traumas and motivations as well as Taylor. I’m getting up there in hours and I am admittedly sinking a lot more into understanding what motivates me now than I ever did when younger. It’s not exactly linear progress. Feelings aren’t facts. That makes it a lot harder to lock down what will or won’t work for you. But I’d rather be finding out who I am now. Some people never do. But still I wish I’d had the good sense to invest 927 hours into therapy when I was Taylor’s age.

Categories
Politics

Day 227 and Dog Days

I learned today that the dog days refer to the Sun being in the same portion of the sky as Sirius the Dog Star in the constellation Canis Major. The Romans believed that Sirius added to the heat of summer as the star and the sun rose and set at the same time.

The period between the end of July and mid August is associated “with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck” which frankly tracks. I do feel like I’m going a little bit mad.

I’m planning on a media consumption fast You’d think we’d be inured to crisis, plague, and politics after the last year and a half but as it turns out it can still hit you.

I’ve been doom scrolling all day watching the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. The war has been waged my entire adult life. Watching it all collapse in a matter of days after 20 years makes me feel ashamed. Not that America is finally pulling out our military but that we’ve seemingly accomplished so little when so many lives have been lost and so much has been invested.

And we cannot even support our allies with visas and refugee resettlement. I’m sick to my stomach seeing that we have 18,000 unprocessed visas. The fuck is wrong with us that we cannot find a way to save our allies. There isn’t a damn thing I can do about any of it. That feeling of shame abs helplessness probably means it’s time to put away the internet.

Categories
Finance Internet Culture Media Politics

Day 219 and Crypto’s Publicist

Most industries have interest groups. Publicists, lobbyists, and spokespeople weave together stories, talking points and preferred legislative agendas. Anyone or any group is free to discuss why their preferred business or issue is worthwhile and convince others of their view. We have a marketplace of ideas. Sure, not all interests are good but anyone is free to promote what they believe in. So why aren’t we doing anything for our cause in the crypto community? I say it’s time crypto had a publicist.

Not every country allows for this. The crypto community has an obligation to recognize that when we fight for our own interests it isn’t just we who benefit. The entire world benefits from open, decentralized and permission-less systems. What we do benefits everyone who wants to live in a freer world. It’s time crypto had our own activist DAO to protect and promote our values.

I am proposing the formation of an activist DAO promoting the use of crypto. Our goal is to advocate for positive popular culture narratives about crypto. We vote on our issues, stories and key initiatives through the DAO’s native governance tokens. The DAO will hire publicists and communication professionals to promote our stories in mainstream media along with commissioning content meme-ers and creators to share opinions. Policy is crucial but public perception is faster and pushes the right policy down the right.

As place holder I’ve purchased CryptoCommsCoalition.org. The Crypto Communication Coalition. I am working on a shared collaboration doc in Google Sheets to collect input, feedback, and priorities. Anyone who is interested can participate in our effort. Email me Julie @ crypto comms coalition dot org or DM me on Twitter.

We need DAO creation specialists, legal experts, memers, streamers, Reddidters, governance folks, publicists, lobbyists, fundraisers and a thousand other specialists I haven’t thought of yet. This won’t be easy but it’s an eating our own dog food moment for crypto. We can use our own tools to advocate in a participatory, transparent and open way for our own interests. If banking and big oil can can afford publicists then so can we. gmi.