Reflections on a Busy Year; and a New Approach to Substack for the Next!
The Digestif is coming back
Happy Holidays to you all! I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas or Hanukkah — spending time with family, drinking and eating too much, regretting how much you spent on presents, and so forth — and I’m trying to use this time to be a bit less online and reflect on how I want to structure things for the new year.
And this Substack has been on my mind, because I should do it more, and I haven’t been. It’s not hard to do, but it’s easy to set aside when you’re doing too many other things; and besides that, it hasn’t been fun to write. Links for every story; weekly lists of every story; blah.
So, I’m doing something different in 2025 and returning to what this medium is best for: blogging.
Instead of putting my thoughts on Twitter, in Instagram stories, or in messages to my friends, I’ll pop them up here, releasing both as a weekly assorted newsletter and individual posts for longer topics (like my first out, suggesting my favorite YouTube videos I watched this year). Expect links to my new pieces, but also quick thoughts on politics, tech news, films I’ve watched, albums I’m enjoying, workout tips I’ve implemented, and cool stuff I’ve read. And that fits me.
The Best YouTube Videos I Watched This Year
In 2025, I'm making an active effort to use social media less — only checking in on Twitter for messages, not ambiently scrolling for things to buy on Inst…
After I wrote my big Rubin piece, I was strongly pushed to fall into the “online political influencer” beat. “Do Crowder next!” “Take down Paul Joseph Watson!” And it wasn’t solely from Twitter and Reddit. Notable editors reached out, asking that I hit them up the next time I have a story like this, and it was flattering, but I didn’t want to. I don’t just dislike most people in that space; I’m bored by them, and there doesn’t need to be another Will Somner. I have no more interest in writing long pieces on online loudmouths than I do in writing weekly screeds on “THE PROBLEM WITH THE WOKES!”
I’m interested in a much wider range of topics, and it was a risky move in the short term, but I rejected that beat — or any other — and it has paid off. 2024 was by far my most productive and rewarding year of writing (despite The Spectator’s prolonged pre-sale limbo).
I’ve had short pieces every week for the New York Sun on fashion, watches, workout equipment, sneakers, tech, cars, music, cologne, and more; book reviews in The Washington Examiner on lingerie, Joan Didion, and American fashion history; a monthly print cocktail column in The Spectator; and long pieces there on VR, expensive coffee, a progressive challenger to Biden, video game design, and Las Vegas (my favorite piece of 2024). Out now is my new piece on crypto, which I’d been slowly working on for more than a year.
What will 2025 bring? More of the same, along with a couple of huge projects I’ve been working on for a while, and you’ll hear about first here.
And, of course, a revamped version of this Substack, now with comments open.
See you next year; and Happy New Year!