The summer ends

Hello from Portland!

No weekend issue this week. I just got off the stage at XOXO Fest and as much as I love a tight deadline, it just seemed like too much to fit in. Though, I will say I think the Democratic National Convention ended up being a tremendous bummer. But more on that next week.

Today was my last live show of the summer and the last performance of what I’m calling Garbage_Day_Live_v1. I’m running on fumes and beginning to have physical reaction to the thought of being on a plane. I’ve had an absolute blast though. And I wanted to take a second and thank all of you who’ve come out to a show. It’s been so cool meeting all of you. I’ll have some kind of recording of the shows up in the next few weeks, along with an update about what’s next for Garbage Day Live. (We’ve got something exciting planned.)

After every live show this summer, I’ve encountered the same sort of bewildering experience. People come up to me and ask me a bunch of questions about the internet. Or sometimes just excitedly talk at me a whole bunch about what they do online (it’s cool and I like it and please keep doing it). As someone who started this project deep in the fever dream of COVID lockdown, I’m still not used to actually thinking about other people reading this, but I’m getting there.

My big takeaway is that, for the most part, people are actually still excited about the internet. They may not be racing to download Threads or generate images on Midjourney, but we are all much more online than we used to be. And contrary to what you might see from tech critics on X or even in this newsletter, I have not encountered the supposed tech malaise we’re all feeling. No one has the manic Online All The Time energy of the 2010s. But it does seem like people now are just trying to carve out digital spaces they like and ignoring the rest. This is good.

A woman at my show in the UK came up to me afterwards and asked how she would go about “learning to use Facebook.” She wanted to connect with people in her small village and share community news and events, understood that Facebook was the best way to do it, but, as an older woman who had sort of missed the beginning of the social media boom, was nervous about trying. I confessed that I had never been asked that question before and suggested she experiment and see what worked best for her. But the earnestness threw me and I’ve been turning it around in my mind ever since. These spaces might suck and treat us like data cattle, but they’re all we’ve got for now and until we have somewhere better to go it’s worth remembering there are people who still rely on them.

I also want to take a moment to welcome all the new readers. After basically remaining flat for the last six months, readership has suddenly jumped. Around 10,000 new readers have signed up in the last month. That’s crazy!!! Thanks reading! Don’t be stranger. Reply to emails, yell at me about typos (or Magic: The Gathering combos) in the comments, buy a sub and join the Discord. I try and read everything you guys send me even if I can’t always respond.

Also, there still seems to be an issue with some folks suddenly losing their paid plan. If your subscription isn’t active anymore you’ll see a green button below that you can hit to resubscribe. If you want to. If you don’t that’s cool too! Everyone subscribes to too much stuff now because late stage capitalism is hell, but reader support helps keep this crazy project going.

Now that all the live shows are over, I have some downtime. I’ll be fixing the referral program which seems to have broken for some reason. And I’ll be doing some much needed general admin and upkeep around the newsletter. *Insert animated GIF of a little construction worker here* There will also be a VERY BIG announcement next week about the future of Garbage Day’s audio offerings 👀

Stay tuned.

—Ryan