One of the biggest mindfucks in life is how little effort and reward are correlated. I spent a bunch of time yesterday trying to write something heartfelt and it just didn’t get there. I spent maybe 2 or 3x the amount of time I normally do writing on this piece and I just couldn’t get it to hit emotionally.
I could feel that I was pushing it too hard. I asked Alex to do an edit and a re-organization of the content. It was a lot more legible but it didn’t have that special sauce. Sometimes working at the problem doesn’t fix it. And because the topic was a little bit too of the moment I had to let it go.
None of which is to suggest that effort isn’t important. You’d be shocked at how showing up and doing the work is rewarded. Putting in a little effort takes you pretty far. And less than you’d imagine so long as you combine that work with social graces. If you are feeling stuck in life go study manners as hard as you can. Then go hang around smart people and watch the work roll in.
So Elon, this isn’t likely to actually make it to you, but this is my blog, I write every day for myself, so why not, I can give it a try and pretend. If it turns out this is any good I’ll ask a mutual friend to send it to you.
tldr: I feel a (parasocial) connection with you & I want more from you (and maybe also for you). I know it feels cool and edgy to wink at taboos but you’re getting rekt by fuck bois, sycophants and opportunists.
I know we are all Galileo in our own mind shouting “and yet it moves” to narrow minded Papists but you realize being a martyr requires your death right? I don’t want you to die.
You certainly don’t remember this, but we met a number of times in the mid-teens. Times like when a friend of mine hosted a blow out birthday party in New York. We sat next to each other in some awful club and discussed chess with a small group. The same friend had a big wedding. I remember goofy dancing. Your sons made snow angels in the confetti. It was nice.
You seemed as uncomfortable as the rest of us nerds. Your autism didn’t seem any worse than mine though. I remember finding that comforting at the time. It has curdled into alienation over time as your fame far outstripped your origins. And I’m sad to have lost the feeling of love I had for you.
Before we “met” I had slight case of hero worship. I remember thinking here is someone just like me. He likes the same science fiction. He dreams about the singularity. He’s neurodivergent. And he wants to get us off this damn rock. And he’s got more money and power than I do so maybe he is worth admiring. I was young and stupid and hadn’t yet gone to real therapy.
I would tell my friends I wanted to die outside the earth’s gravity well. I thought perhaps you might be the man that got us there. Had I not had a chance to see how much you were just like me, perhaps I’d still be a stan.
What I see now from you isn’t power and happiness, it’s isolation and sadness. But I want you to know it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to listen to the flattering dick riders. They want shit from you. They want their agendas and they see your money and power as a way to achieve it. I know you know this.
It makes me angry to see you coddle the parasites. I’m shocked your mother hasn’t told you to knock it off. She seems like a cold bitch who gets shit done. I’m sure she’s told you that you are better than them. The nerds and autists did not inherit this Earth just to squander it for the roar of the crowd. If it is all bread and circus, remember you are a king and not a clown.
Maybe you think their slavish slobbering attention is a fair trade for some of your magic, I used to be emotionally slutty like that too.
Being an attention whore isn’t unusual for someone with distant parents. Shitposters gotta post right? Once again, I feel a kinship to you on the compulsion to post and roast. I’m addicted to Twitter too. We are all filling up the holes leftover from our childhood. I’ve got daddy issues so I’m sure you get it.
And yes, I am projecting my own insecurities. But maybe I can tell you a story that will comfort you in the big wide universe. Maybe it will comfort someone else. Maybe it’s just to comfort myself.
I read you named your family office Excession. I’m also a fan of Ian M. Banks. Since 2008 or so, I carry around a paperback of Excession with me whenever I vacation. Which isn’t a lot. I normally use a Kindle to read but this paperback has become a kind of totem. It signals to my hindbrain that I am in a sympathetic state of rest and digest. I reread it over and over in 20-30 page chunks. It bounces me out of fight or flight now after much repetition, it’s my comfort book.
A picture from September 2014 in Miami. We seem to have come full circle on UkraineHere is a picture of you with the same copy in 2015 while in Sun Valley.
Your love for Ian M. Banks all felt very relatable to me as I’ve been dreaming of a post-scarcity world where my AI space ship friends shuttle me around as they pursue their inscrutable intentions. I want to sublime. Maybe not for a few thousand more years though. But I want to make it through the singularity to the other side, or at very least avoid dying in William Gibson’s jackpot. I feel like you get what apocalypses preoccupied my mind.
Most of my fantasies and fears have been touched by my love for science fiction. I saw in you someone who saw the same possibilities as me. You were very much one of us.
I also see someone being used for their dreams. They are harnessing you and your power to drive the rest of us to focus on their nightmares. Don’t let them steer you.
But your posting is reaching people. It’s annoying to some, but it hits. Maybe it hits too hard. But the isolation I imagine you feel isn’t necessary. Power laws can separate just as effectively as they bring us together. You don’t have to be surrounded by reply guys. There is a path to connection even for the most singular among us.
Now of course, I want something from you too. I want you to get us off this rock before it’s too late. I know it’s a big ask.
My best is advice is to go reread Excession and get yourself out of this persistent “fight or flight” cortisol pump. Get focused back on the shit that matters. Maybe find yourself a nice autistic sociopath who will love you for you. Maybe she can protect you from some of the pain. I’m sure you will figure it out.
I want you go to therapy. Mine is pretty good if you’d like an introduction. She’s an aristocratic 80 something Swedish woman, so you might like her. She’s perfect for working through attachment issues. She’s quite good at dealing with poor little rich kids with mommy and daddy issues. Her neighbors are all billionaires so she won’t be impressed by your bullshit. She has a sub-specialty in sex so she can probably help with that dick riding problem too.
And most importantly, she’ll be the only person who doesn’t want anything from you. And you need that more than anything.
I haven’t bought a new handbag for nearly a decade. While I like fashion I have never been a hardcore accessories person. One generally been of the mind that those are anchor pieces that you keep for years and years. I didn’t see much point in acquiring trends as it just seemed so expensive. I buy more for longevity.
The last handbag I bought was a camel Masur Gavriel bag. I think it was sometime in 2013 but it may have been earlier. I found a photograph dating it no later than 2014 but I can’t be sure. I’d seen a small piece of press about it as it being a kind of super minimalist brand by these two bicoastal pretty girls. I loved the clean look of the tote with a long full leather panel and a bright yellow sunny interior. I found a boutique that stocked it in Los Angeles. I think I paid less than $300 for it.
I’d talked it up to a girlfriend in finance and she bought one. She then talked it up to her friend who happened to be Lauren Santo Domingo and then next thing I knew the nag was absolutely everywhere. It subsequently raided a large private equity round. It’s brand book became so popular a fast casual yuppie food brand called Digg Inn ripped them off. The brand was a genuine hit.
Being ahead on a handbag like that is the fashion equivalent of being in the best series A round in Silicon Valley as the new angel investor. It means a lot but only after it’s been proven out to the IPO. I haven’t felt that kind of kinship with a brand in a while. And certainly not with a handbag. The high conviction I had with Mansur Gavriel should have made me pursue the two designers as I just knew in my gut this bag was fucking it. Really the one that got away for me.
So I am excited that I got a new handbag today. The first one I have purchased since my Mansur camel tote. I’ve literally not purchased a single handbag in that entire time though I did buy a backpack and a suitcase.
I saw this across it across a bunch of fashion blogs over the year. It has hit a lot of mainstream fashion news. So fashionistas are definitely well and truly ahead of me. I am not a market editor or an influencer being sold by fifteen different publicity firms. Though I’d absolutely like to be. There was absolutely a time when I was very much in the scene but let’s be real now I’m an eccentric investor in Montana. I’m cool just in a different way.
Polène Numero Uno Mini in Black Lizard with dust bag.
The bag is called Numero Uno Mini from a French label called Polène. It’s a clean bag. But it’s got a little personality in it’s shape. There were smooth calfskin options but I’d been searching for a modestly dressier bag that would be a bit of a statement for day but also formal enough it could accompany a cocktail dress or make due at a wedding. It works up until you need a clutch because it’s a gala or an awards ceremony.
Polène Numero Uno Mini in Black Lizard with dust bag.
I feel like it’s a bit louder than the bag it’s replacing which was a black calfskin envelope clutch with a gold chain that is bought from Barney’s. I’d got it on sale for like $150 bucks as well it was a house brand I guess. But it was just so damn versatile I used the fuck out of it. I haven’t seen it since we moved to Montana and I’m a bit concerned it’s gone for good. So perhaps this new Mini will find a home in my routine.
I’m very impressed by its quality. The stitching is tight and lean. The hardware is bright and sturdy. The logo is very discretely etched into corners of the hardware and on the feet of the bag. Which is just a nice touch at a $350 price point. Recently it’s felt like everything is a bit shittier and more expensive. So it’s a joy to get something that feels like a great value and genuinely nice. I hadn’t made some dirty compromises with a direct to consumer business. So yeah I’m impressed with a handbag.
My Black Friday purchases are slowly making their way from warehouses in Denver or St Louis or other parts unknown to me in Montana. When I placed the orders I was so excited for the good deals.
But instead I’m just finding new disappointments. Four out of six items I ordered from Splendid will have to be returned. A pair of pants from Lunya is simply made for someone taller than me. And the remaining pieces of the order from Nadaam still hasn’t shipped yet. I hope my new negligees from Skims don’t disappoint as my track record on soft goods isn’t looking so great. Failures all around.
I’ve also had a few issues with trying to order cosmetics. I do a big order with Briogeo once a year. It’s in transit during a very chilly day. It was 10 degrees when I woke up. And I’ll admit I’m concerned about receiving a complete frozen bottle of shampoo. And it is expensive shampoo too.
We’ve had this issue before. Ipsy and Allure monthly boxes show up half frozen in the mailbox for a day. A Sephora order went straight to our mailbox where it sat for two hours before I got the alert it has arrived. It was cold but not fully frozen. I am afraid to look up how much efficacy is lost if retinol is frozen. What about vitamin C? How bad is it to freeze your cosmetics?
Because we live out on country roads and outside the town limits, we find our packages are often delivered by men in pickup trucks doing piece work contracts. They are nice folks but there isn’t much they can do about an expensive skin cream freezing solid in their open pickup truck bed. I would try to buy things in person but we don’t have a Sephora here so that catalog order life remains how people get stuff in rural America.
I used to have concerns about melting cosmetics when I was in Colorado. So perhaps freezing is an improvement. But I’m definitely wondering if we will need climate controlled options for certain kinds of deliveries in future for items that need a moderate temperature band. It could be a brand issue to have your product not work because the chemical bonds got wrecked by extreme weather. And we are all about to get more extreme weather as a normal feature of daily life.
I was having a conversation with one of my girlfriends today about power. We are both exploring the new ways in which we’ve become more aware of our inherent power. Not that we were not powerful when we were younger but rather we have a new consciousness about it’s responsibilities. And it’s relationship to our gender is complicated.
One of the most dehumanizing aspects of Girlboss culture was how it forced female founders into rigid standards of acceptable behavior and emotions. We were surprisingly heavily policed even though we were allowed to use femininity to allure and entice. Girlbosses were empowered. Except occasionally we were only empowered with sex appeal.
Girlbosses looked good on magazine covers and in lifestyle content. It was honestly suffocating even as it was a massive tactical advantage. Imagine being given a cheat code or a level up. Of course you are going to play it but sometimes it takes the joy out of the game.
I am less adverse to the wiles of the feminine as I get older. Now I am able to wield the benefits of mutual viewpoints and seeking common ground. Women are trained to persuade from a young age. We are trained to be accommodating and without hostility or anger. It makes it easier for us to seek out where we might come together.
But those powers of persuasion can also feel manipulative and narcissistic. Men who have felt failed by their mothers can feel particularly hostile towards feminine power. Negative family orientations towards women from siblings to parents can sit in completely irrational and reactionary places for men. I say this because men occupy a similar place for me. Mommy and Daddy Issues can often materialize in stabilizing coping mechanisms. But ultimately it’s not a healthy exchange of power if it’s not consensual.
I dislike having power that I only wield because of my gender. I would prefer to have a less charged environment to pursue my fortunes. But I am also not adverse to playing my hand. You’ve got to play it as it lays. Different women have resolved these power discrepancies in wildly disparate ways. But we are not absolved of the ways in which we hurt men just because we have been hurt by them.
One of the great oversights of the feminist movements may be our lack of a developed gentlemanly style code for women. A theory of chivalry for not playing fair in the gender wars. We certainly expected it of men. If you wield power you must do it responsibly. Peter Parker principle applies to anyone with gifts that can be used for good or evil.
When I was a hippie kid growing up in Colorado I was a fervent believer in a “holiday” called Buy Nothing Day. It was a campaign heavily promoted by a magazine called Adbusters which saw itself a culture jamming organization.
It felt cool and hip and maybe even a bit new to protest excess consumption in the era when globalization hadn’t yet experienced the bitch slap that are the last twenty years of history not actually ending. Teenagers are obviously a bit prone to over simplifying the world and I was no exception.
Now as a jaded veteran of the retail and luxury wars, I think it was the height of white girl naïveté that not shopping one day of the year meant shit. Now I pile all of my shopping into Black Friday. Instead of it being “Buy Nothing Day” it has become “Buy Everything Day” for me. I know how much brands are riding on my choosing to spend and I hold out the bulk of my shopping to extract maximum value.
I bought 2 tee shirts, one cardigan, 3 cashmere sweaters, one pair of silk pants, one cotton robe, 2 slips, 2 bras, and 3 pairs of tights. I bought a jumbo size shampoo and conditioner as well as travel sets. I also bought a luxury face cream, highlighter and other sundry cosmetics even though most of the cosmetics I prefer aren’t even on sale today. We also bought 4 scented candles for the house. Alex bought a pair of Chelsea boots, a new gun safe and a hunting jacket. In other words, we shopped till we dropped. We went full American on the day.
We’d hoped to buy new dishes and a few pieces of furniture as this has also been the year of outfitting the house but alas we just couldn’t figure out enough deals ahead of time. Black Friday is often a mess of confusing offers and marketing bullshit. It’s been made dramatically worse by the wave of direct to consumer brands who claim to give you better deals but often do little more than obfuscate where you are getting ripped off. It’s lowering trust by insisting that you are getting something better when you know you are not.
It’s with that knowledge in mind that I’ve come to terms with the reality of American consumption. I’ve come full circle on Buy Nothing Day. I recognize that shopping is the full contact sport that drives everything else around us. And so long as I’m embedded in that system it serves little purpose to be obstinate or contrary. But equally it serves no purpose to be taken advantage of by these brands either. Getting a deal is a very American kind of battle I’d rather win. As of yet there is no option to remain off the battlefield. But one day it may be gone for good. Until then I’ll buy my cashmere in discount.
Noblesse oblige. Literally translated from the French as nobility obligates. It’s commonly understood to mean that aristocracy has a responsibility to act graciously towards the civilization which has granted them status.
It’s a turn of phrase I’ve written about before, specifically how in our post modern times, we are challenged to understand who is pursuing a life of virtue and what their obligations may be to the rest of us.
No one is sure if they are nobility or peasantry. No one is noble or good. Which means nobody deserves anything they get. Which is about as close to the war of all against all as I can imagine. Hobbes would be pleased.
Humanity has always been rather clever at inventing new classes. We need fresh blood from the bottom to keep revolutionary sentiment in church. Every century we are finding new ways to fight it out for new types of status and virtue.
Business values money. Old money values class. The intelligentsia values intellect. Hipsters value taste. The religious value faith. And around we go with status games as we trade social capital for actual capital just so we can get something to eat.
There is always an emerging new game that upsets the underlying order. The printing press destabilized the church and its priestly cast. The internet destabilized the media and it’s editor cast. You know the drill.
Right now there is a massive internecine fight over which order rules over Twitter. And depending on whose camp you fall into you are probably signaling different things. And that lack of shared cultural values is leading to some pretty silly reactions. A lot of dickriding is happening across every major faction.
Which if you take away the reactionary specifics, is totally understandable. If one class of person values money but the competing group values taste than you aren’t really fighting for the same things. Different values are different.
But you’ve got to be careful with your own reactions. Ask yourself if you are responding out of some shared cultural loyalty that is overshadowing your own common sense. Your attention is valuable and powerful people recognize your attention for the commodity that it has become.
Don’t buy into bullshit just because it’s your team. The chance that someone is making a buck off of your attention sure ain’t zero. And America being a free country and all means you shouldn’t be living enthralled to someone else’s priorities.
As chaos continues to unfurl around the world, the tendency towards hero worship is getting out of control. Cults of personality are having a moment absolutely everywhere, even as we are treated to even more spectacular variants of the Emperor Has No Clothes. You’d think the recent flameouts in finance, technology and politics just this week would make us all a bit more skeptical of authority and yet that does not appear to be the case.
You cannot go onto Twitter without exposing yourself to someone’s daddy issues disguised as a low rent business school case study thread. I was concerned about the information hygiene as platform capacity degraded. But I honestly wasn’t expecting the first disease that actually emerged. Twitter is in the throes of an emotional venereal disease.
If you are not familiar with the term, being a dick rider means praising absolutely every move of someone you perceive as having more power than you. Dickriding is a particularly uncomfortable form of reply guying wherein you praise absolutely every move of the person whose dick you are riding.
It’s especially virulent among regular people without personal expertise or exposure to the problem at hand. Not knowing any better is not however a prerequisite for dick riding. You can lend your credibility to someone else by using your expertise to rationalize just about anything.
Humans love power and hierarchy. I guess it makes us feel safe to believe that someone knows what the hell they are doing when we are afraid. But the sad reality is that we are all human. Even the most accomplished and brilliant among us are still saddled with bias, self doubt, insecurities and blind spots. If you are inclined towards the religious, we are all sinners. Though I’d recommend you combine that with a side of grace as I don’t mean this to be judgmental.
I realize it’s pretty funny to bring up the redeeming power of grace in the context of sexually explicit slang. But I do think it’s helpful to remember that even the worst of us have redeeming qualities and even the best of us have flaws.
So if you are tempted to engage in dickriding because you think someone is better than you, might I encourage you to consider that we are all equals in the eyes of God. Or at very least equal in the face of a good shit post.
I’m a straight woman so I like riding dick but I don’t know what excuse the rest of you have.
My original handle. The very first one I took into social media. Which today couldn’t function as a signifier in 2022 given the acute gender essentialism culture war. The handle was AlmostGirl.
I began writing in university (maybe 2005) about my deep deep deep ambivalence about adopting any culture or identity symbol of consensus success. How I continued to be offered entry into luxury spaces and class identifiers I couldn’t stay. I continued to fail at being part of the status quo. I could only ever be “almost” the thing. As you can tell I’ve been painfully earnest most of my time online.
When I was younger I regretted my inability to fully commit to what I was supposed to want. I’ve really always failed at attempts with adopting conventional status symbols. I always craved being at the norm of whatever was high status. But I just won’t commit to the bit.
As much as I love to joke about getting cancelled on Twitter, I’ve never actually worried about getting dinged. I resisted getting a Blue Check and otherwise pursuing the trappings of being a power user as I was confident that my real world connections would overcome any algorithmic nonsense.
Digital power still resides on a firmament of real world power. I figured I know the right people in real life at Twitter, so short of me encouraging a coup while also being the President of the United States of America, I was pretty safe in maintaining control of my account. This was perhaps a bit naive and I knew it.
The algorithms do in fact come for us all. I got an unprompted warning today that a user on my account (I’m the only user but whatever) had been deemed to be using inappropriate language.
A Twitter warning saying my account AlmostMedia has inappropriate language so is ineligible to run advertisements
At some point I had the power to run promoted posts, otherwise known as advertisements, but because I have angered the language police at Twitter I am now no longer allowed to pay to promote my own speech. I guess I overrode the “are you sure you want to tweet this most users don’t use this speech” warning one too many times.
To be honest I had no intention of buying any paid reach advertising on Twitter. The folks I care about generally seem to get my Tweets and I’ve got no sense I’ve been shadow banned. Well, ok now I am worried but I wasn’t before this goofy warning.
To me this feels like a reminder that Twitter just doesn’t give a fuck about its power users. I am a well networked and well liked (or well hated) account with powerful followers in the core demographics that matter on Twitter.
I sit inside a nexus of media, finance and Silicon Valley personalities that care a lot about the platform even as the platform mostly doesn’t give a shit about us. Which is arguably why we’ve all spent six months giving a shit about Elon Musk buying Twitter. When a power user gets banned from advertising producers it’s not really a problem for the user, it’s a problem for the ad products team who is fucking up making money. You know, their job.
