[AKN #52] 1 year krappiversary

5 lessons from writing a newsletter for a year, best way to deal with online haters, and a shout out to the homies

Sup homies?

One year of me in your inbox. Crazy, right?

I started this in what I thought was the middle of the pandemic, but retrospectively, I guess it was actually the beginning.

We were so naive…

You and I spent a lot of time indoors this year.

But thankfully, we used that time productively!

Just think about it…

We learned how people die of heat stroke at 82 degrees Fahrenheit.

We learned why the Challenger exploded on national television.

And we — of course — learned way too much about viruses, vaccines, how vaccines are made, and how to cook chickens by slapping the shit out of them.

What a year it was and thank you for being along for the ride.

On to the newsletter!

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LIVE: 5 things I learned from writing a newsletter every week for a year

A year of krapp!

Given the milestone, I thought it would be good to reflect on the 5 things I learned from writing a newsletter every week for 52 straight weeks.

1. The people who love it rarely reply

The default reaction when someone REALLY likes your email is to not say anything at all to you about it.

This took me a while to wrap my head around. 

Over the last year, I would routinely go long stretches of time where I would think "damn does anyone even read this?"

Sure, I could see the open rate...but what does that even mean? 

I open emails and throw them out all the time.

But then I started to see readers in person and they would say things like: 

"Your newsletter is one of my favorite things I read all week."

At first this behavior flabbergasted me.

Why don't you reach out if you like the content so much!

...until I realized I DO THIS ALL THE TIME.

I looked at how many newsletters I opened and never replied to and thought “God dammit. I am part of the problem!”

Me and the rest of the voyeurs just consume content and never tell the creator we like it.

I now try to make it a point to reach out whenever I like something someone did. Even if I have to look them up in the Yellow Pages.

So know that if you start to publish content, silence does not mean it was not read. 

In fact, it might mean they are a super fan of yours. 

But don't worry! You will get replies!

2. The people who hate it reply immediately and frequently

Online consumption is about watching and not reacting...unless you hate something, in which case, game on. 

I write about a broad range of topics so I never expect everyone to agree with everything I say. 

But I still get blind sided by the occasional "wow where the fuck did that come from?" email.

Digital communication allows people to forget they are talking to a real human being.

But honestly...I love the hater emails. 

I see it all as data. 

• Did that person make a good point before they insulted me?

• Is there some nugget of truth in what they responded with?

• How excited am I that I can drop the pleasantries and use rhetoric to burn a hole in to this person's soft nougatty center?

I bathe in the hate.

Haters force me to be better with my prose or inspire me to write an article about Internet nihilism.

Plus, these people come nowhere close to how harsh I am to myself.

3. Create it. Hate it. Send it. Watch feedback (kind of). On to the next one. 

If you have made anything and released it to the world, you are familiar with moving from the feeling of "I love this!" to "I hate this..."

"I love this" peaks around the middle of the piece. 

"This is the best post I have ever written!"

"I hate this" peaks just as you are about to send it out. 

"This is dog shit..."

That process is normal. The key to overcoming it is to just send it. 

I am not recommending sending out a bag of flaming turds just to say you did.

But I am recommending that if you are banging your head against a keyboard as you move into hour five of editing a 500 word piece, there is a good chance you are being a bit precious about sending it in order to protect your ego.

The only way to know if it is terrible is to show it to another human being. 

Of course, you have to deal with the first two lessons of this post and determine if that human being’s opinion means anything…

But thats show biz, folks.

In all, you write this for yourself. 

So while feedback is helpful, if you don't agree with it, say fuck it and move on. 

4. The only way to figure out what you like to write about is to write about it

A lot of people ask me for assistance on getting started writing a newsletter.

I wrote about this a lot here, but the main thing is JUST WRITE. 

The key is to actually write and actually send it to people.

Your blog/newsletter/Xanga doesn't need to be about something.

It just needs to be SOMETHING.

You learn about yourself as you ship more pieces of content out.

I did not realize how much I cared about Internet nihilism until I wrote about it.

I did not develop the “Live. Laugh. Love.” framework for this email until I started realizing the types of things I was finding myself gravitating towards in previous editions.

Additionally, you actually learn what you think as you write.

For example, I started off the draft for this post with a large list of things I learned.

As I tried to expand on the other ideas, I realized I hated them. So I whittled it down to five lessons.

The act of creating this document is what actually helped me come to these conclusions. I did not start with these five in mind.

I got here through writing and editing it a bunch of times.

There are no tricks. No hacks. 

Just you and the cursor discovering yourself in real time.

5. Maybe the world actually does need to hear from you

No one knows what you think until you put it out in the world.

But you know what they do know? 

What other people think. 

Because those people don't shut the fuck up.

They are on Facebook telling your family members about how COVID is fake. 

They are on TikTok explaining how you are 18 doublings away from turning $1,000 into $1,000,000,000. 

This is the world we live in now.

You can choose to push out your thoughts to the world or you can allow someone else's thoughts to take priority in your loved ones’ skulls.

Speak up or let the war be won by a bunch of Internet trolls.

Thanks for reading the last year and I look forward to giving you a 2 year recap :)

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LAUGH: Appropriate way to deal with haters

This is the exact way to respond to a Debbie Downer.

praddy 🌻 @munchkxn

@SashaLG @BREElluminati here's another one i found 😭

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LOVE: To the homies

Ok. So fire prevention plans got pushed to next week again, but gang I promise I will do it next week!

For today, I wanted to use the LOVE portion of the newsletter to shout out all of you homies who have said nice things over the last year about the newsletter.

It has meant a lot.

I like writing this and I like hearing that you enjoy reading it.

I look forward to continuing our weekly Tuesday tradition, but before you go I have an ask for you.

If you have ever found yourself enjoying the newsletter, please take a minute and forward it to one of your friends.

We would love to welcome another homie into our tribe.

Thanks for a year of support and see you next week :)

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Closing time

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are strictly my own. Who else’s would they be?