Newsletter #11
A social media reckoning
How we receive news & information is fundamentally broken. This isn’t a partisan take; FOX is no longer news but cheap, grifting, entertainment programming. CNN clouds reporting with bias and inaccuracies. Print publications have given up on proper journalism and have become paywalled, advertising platforms anchored on opinions, not facts. Left, Right, and in-between: it’s all fractured without a clear playbook on how the pieces come back together. Such is the case with Twitter, a platform which used to be great at serving up verified, sourced, information, for both news & sports, but is now a cesspool of doomsday scrolling and bots.
Post-election I’ve seen my Twitter following drop (assuming 99% of that is from people deleting their accounts) significantly, and it seems the daily active usage among real humans has plummeted. It’s depressing, as I’ve always believed the inmates run the Twitter asylum, regardless of the warden, and it seems like many people are just choosing to unlock their cell doors and walk out. There isn’t much else out there, unfortunately. Bluesky promises to be a near duplicate in terms of UI/UX, but I’ve found it is still in the primitive stages with its algorithm. Sports and news hasn’t found its way to Threads, and Instagram remains much more of a museum than a town square. Substack provides a great alternative for quality journalism, but it’s a labor-intensive process to consume.
All this to say, both the platforms and the content itself are fragmented, without unified solutions, which scares me just as much as the political age & climate we exist in. Without truth in information, we’re left to self-destruct, which is why it’s especially important now to put forth the additional effort to find trusted sources and support their endeavors, even if it’s inconvenient. On that uplifting note…
Art/Sports I’m Into
Laura Edelman’s Newsletter
My friend Laura is an art advisor who recently decided to start a Substack. She sends out a curated newsletter of art pieces under $10k, an especially great resource for those looking to start building collections, and I imagine her publication will feature that + additional valuable content.
As evidenced by my above rant, I love consuming information, and Laura contributes a keen eye and perspective. Highly recommend subscribing, and also reaching out to her if you want to shoot the shit about all things art.
Artist of the Week
Michael Gac Levin
Speaking of more affordable art…stumbled upon the work of Michael Gac Levin because a friend, My.Pet.Ram, is putting on his show Object Relations, opening tonight (6-9pm at 48 Hester Street, for those in NYC). If you were planning on couch rotting tonight, head over instead!
His work is calming, and feels unquestionably ‘NY,’ interlaced with the influences of folks like Hockney & Hopper. Something about his paintings make me feel joy and hope, which given the current state of things, seems important. Also, my friends at The Art Kollective are featuring the piece below, Autumn Sorcery, 9x12, at a very accessible price point.
Hit up their DMs if you’re interested; I’d be thrilled if someone who reads this ends up snagging because it’s a personal favorite.
Sports Photographer You Need to Follow
Elsa Garrison
Any time a big New York Sports moment happens, it seems Elsa is inevitably there to capture it.
The first woman staff photographer at Getty, she’s shot all the biggest events, and has a tremendous amount of versatility across various sports, with a knack for extracting out the perfect story.
A Hall-of-Fame resume and always a treat to feature, make sure to give her a follow.
Paid Subscribers
I have a bunch of drafts this week that didn’t quite make the cut, but are definitely worth subscribing and seeing…