The internet is ass lately. I realize that that’s likely just my own projections1 or skill issues2, but I’m obviously not the only one yearning for better digital media. I don’t have answers, but I’d like to explore this feeling for a bit.Media companies are just art3 with a business model4. That implies a spectrum: artists on one end with pure intent to express themselves, and businesses on the other with pure intent to monetize. The media companies that I feel most strongly about bringing into the world sit somewhere in between—enough soul that their output genuinely leaves a mark on your life, but enough money flowing through that their structure is sustainable. The media business, in almost every dimension one might evaluate it, is a bad business to be in. But I don’t mean to join the chorus of people moaning about a bygone era of media. To me it’s still the best business on the only metric that matters—it’s the lever that moves the collective unconscious. A well run media company, one that both makes good art and has a way to sustain itself, wields mind control at scale. The right sequence of words or sights or sounds is the closest thing we have to magic.When I say “the internet is ass lately,” what I really mean is that I can’t remember the last piece of internet-native media that made an indelible mark on my life. My feeds are mostly an ouroboros of content about content, which is maybe telling on myself. I contrast that to recently discovering The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock, or watching the Before trilogy, or reading East of Eden, each like a portal to a new version of myself. But wah wah wah, it’s obviously ridiculous to expect a comparable artistic experience from a YouTube video or an Instagram Reel or, unfortunately, many Substack essays. The medium is the message, and you can’t compare some of the single best artistic artifacts of all time to work that’s published at a weekly or daily cadence.Pessimism is wack. I’m itching to see the good in all o