Greg's Newsletter Greg Brown

Welcome to Greg’s Newsletter NUMBER 99. I’ll be checking in next edition with a look back at some hits and misses since launching this in January of 2015 (!!!!). And there will be an announcement as well. Stay tuned.
But for this issue, I want to talk about The Blog Era. It’s a new podcast series by my buds Jeff and Eric Rosenthal, of hip-hop sketch comedy/podcast ItsTheReal fame and Pharell’s OTHERtone production company. You can find it on your preferred podcast platform.
It’s a history of an upstart group of hip-hop bloggers (Nah Right, 2DopeBoyz, etc) who bypassed and outran traditional music media gatekeepers and created a new music ecosystem, in turn launching the careers of rap’s future superstars (Drake, J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa, Kid Cudi etc.). As up-and-comers, those artists eschewed the major label route and went direct to the bloggers. The years 2008-2012 were the sweet spot—it was a very specific time, with technology, communication, and cultural forces combining and I’m so glad the story is being told.
And while The Blog Era covers the more mainstream side of the hip-hop internet (if you could even call it that at the time), there were other corners of the internet a part of this, too. Sites and bloggers giving voice and shine to the underground, the emergent, the left field, connecting artists and audiences from Europe to Asia, to the US. Sites like MOOVMT, 92 BPM, Classic Drug References, Renaissance Soul, and Fresh Selects. An absolutely essential crew to my musical knowledge and taste, to this day.
Back to The Blog Era. The podcast has brought back a lot of memories for me. I started following the ItsTheReal guys in 2007-2008, on Tumblr (which absolutely needs its own retrospective!!). I reposted their sketch comedy stuff and chatted with Jeff on GChat (to this day, one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met, who is somehow—despite EVERYTHING he and his bro are doing—will be down for an hour long Facetime sesh whenever).
I also got to witness, firsthand and up close, as Chicago’s Andrew Barber and FakeShoreDrive went from covering and championing the culture to truly being a part of and helping shape the culture from within in the late 2000s (Episode 4 gets into FSD in more detail).
So, yeah, it’s been a little bit fun to reminisce. But also: projects like The Blog Era are so, so important. As our lives have become ever digitized over the years, so too has art, culture, and consumption. There are “Blog Eras” to be told about internet subcultures big-and-small.
We tend to assume that all things digital are preserved, and that’s just not the case. Sites go offline. Chat histories are erased. Videos and songs are taken down. And I’m not advocating that everything should be tracked and documented all the time online—not at all!—but rather that it’s important when people thoughtfully tell these histories.
There are specific periods in my life that crossed over to the online that I would love to go back and document. The online Nike scene in the pre-Niketalk, 1990s era. Early Tumblr. Google Reader and sharebr0 culture of the late 2000s/early 2010s.
There’s something interesting about The Blog Era being released as some of the tentpoles of 2010s media—Buzzfeed News, VICE—are literally dying. We’re in a creator-led world of media and maybe socio-economic forces could have given us the foresight to say “yeah, duh, that was inevitable.” I don’t know.
But a lot of this played out organically, sometimes in reaction to the digital media world and its gatekeepers. The Buzzfeeds and VICE’s of the world, well, they were launched to much fanfare with VC backing and splashy CEOs and executives claiming they were building the future of media.
Turns out, they weren’t building the future of media. It was never going to be a VC-backed, top-down industry. (And despite that, people are still trying.) Simply having a shiny new media entity with some new formats doesn’t so

Welcome to edition #98. So glad to have you. The last several newsletters have been moderate-to—lengthy essay type-things, so let’s make this one a links issue.
To the internet we go!
First, from CNBC: Amazon, TikTok and YouTube are investing in Shopping Network-like capabilities, hoping to capture the livestream wave that’s blown up in China. Some stats + context:
“Of Chinese consumers surveyed by Coresight Research, 74% said they had bought products through a shoppable livestream in 2022. In the U.S., 78% said they’d never even watched one.”
“People want to buy products with meaning or products that they can’t get anywhere else. And that’s really what’s the underpinning of live shopping in the U.S. That’s very different than in China, which is all about just a mass population,” said analyst Quyng Mai.
The CNBC story dropped just about the same time that Meta announced it was leaving the livestream shopping business on Instagram. So, still a long ways to go in the U.S., if it catches on at all. I’m curious if some other live + commerce + social thing takes off here.
Next, from VICE: perhaps unsurprisingly, some people are believing everything they see on TikTok. Not dissimilar to the experiences of older generations on Facebook. We’ve learned nothing!
But why TikTok? We’re consuming so much content, served at scale and personalized, and without any valuable kind of gatekeeping—we don’t have the added trust layer of media entities or journalists who have fact checked things. On TikTok, specifically, the For You page is meant to be an endless scroll without user scrutiny of the content.
I think context collapse—where several “different audiences occupy the same space, and a piece of information intended for one finds its way to another” thereby eliciting a completely different response—has a big part to do with it, too. This happens on Twitter all the time. But a joke-y TikTok meant for one audience can go viral, garner huge engagement to give it some semblance of credibility, only to find its way to another audience who views it with seriousness or shock and as truth.
Finally, I’ve been keeping on the “Do Not Disturb” train for several years. My specific use case had to do with the completely overwhelming notification system I had set up on my iPhone—at times, getting pings from hundreds of Twitter and Instagram accounts. (In hindsight, setting up notifications when any of a list of 300+ people tweeted was pretty twisted s**t.)
I figured out it was better for my well-being to set my phone to DND so that I could open my notifications when I wanted, rather than glancing at the phone every time it dinged. If that meant replying a little late to some texts or group chat messages, it was worth it. I’m reclaiming my time!
at covered the growing DND phenomenon as a positive reaction to the larger consumption environment we're in:
Society doesn’t actually just blindly follow the whims of technology. TikTok made everything short-form and threatened to “ruin” attention spans—and in response, people are actually leaning back into long-form content on YouTube. The constant texts, notifications, and other features on our phones that make us feel like we need to be overwhelmingly available at all times have instead led to people just … turning them off.
I think it was only recently that Apple showed a user if the person they were going to message had “Do Not Disturb” on. So, when it’s on, it does, by default, make it look like that person (me, I’m at the center of the world) doesn’t want to be messaged at all. My reality is just that I’d rather sometimes check my texts periodically rather than real-time. But have I been looking like an unreachable curmudgeon instead?
All that to say: keep texting me! Even if it takes me a bit to get back to you.
OK, that’s all for today! Love you!


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Welp, at the end of last year, I was part of a large round of US layoffs at my agency. Even if they tell you it’s strictly financial and nothing related to performance, it’s still takes a hit to the ego.
Rather than grind myself to a pulp finding the next gig during the holidays, I took the opportunity to slow down, pause, and enjoy the time off. It was a godsend. I did have some conversations with various recruiters and agencies, but I didn’t really hit it hard. (I am now actively looking for my next gig in the advertising/creative/PR/social agency world as a Strategy Director IN CASE YOU’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEBODY).
As a result, I’m spending more time on LinkedIn. Networking, sourcing opportunities, etc. It’s entirely possible to spend whole-ass days on LinkedIn, messaging, connecting, applying. Rinsing and repeating. Because it’s true, you never know where your next opportunity might come from. So many people have been genuinely helpful in this process! Building and strengthening your network is most likely to yield a positive outcome versus straight cold applying to things.
I review every LinkedIn connection request. I’m not interesting enough or important enough to be inundated with connections—and I haven’t tried to be a LinkedInFluencer (yuck!)—so it’s relatively easy.
Enter: Phil Bell.
What might have been an innocuous connection request from someone I didn’t recognize turned into an investigation that had the potential to unearth the underbelly of our geopolitical order.
Let’s dig in.
The first curiosity: Phil’s company
This man named Phil Bell, who sent the connection request, identified himself as employee of a company called “Host Marriott Corp.” Right off the bat, I wasn’t familiar with Host Marriott Corp. but it sounded legit. Maybe the holding company or corporate parent for all of the Marriott hotels? Was this someone from the hotel giant wanting to hire me? Is it even worth looking into it—randos send LinkedIn requests all the time, after all.
Like, this was the moment: right here. I can just ignore it and move on.
But I couldn’t brush aside the curiosity.
So, I went to Google for verification: let’s make sure the company is real.
The first result is a press release from Marriott International, Inc. about the resolution of litigation involving Host Marriott Corp. So, OK, that’s kind of legit, insofar as Host Marriott Corp. is or was a real entity.
But wait! It’s from February of 2000. TWO THOUSAND! Looking at the date of the stories/results on the first page, you see: 1995, 2002, 1995, 2005, 2008, 2006. In other words, whatever this entity is hasn’t been active lately, if it exists at all anymore.
My mind raced. My first thought, naturally was: is Phil Bell a member of Obama/Biden’s Deep State trying to keep tabs on me? A Russian influence campaign? China’s next American surveillance effort? Hell, maybe I’m thinking too small-time here: this could be the tip of the iceberg of a 3-way collab between the Democratic party, Russia, and China designed to keep Trump out of the White House in 2024. But wait: wouldn’t Russia rather have Trump in office? This is some 5D chess. But what do these global and domestic powers, as a unified front, want?
Everything seemed on the table.
What about that profile photo?
Phil’s profile photo seemed so generic that it was borderline parody.
I uploaded Phil Bell’s incredibly generic profile photo and did a reverse image search and nothing of value came up, except that Google suggested that the photo might be related to Gareth Southgate, coach of England’s soccer team. But I mean, look at him. A generic, Anglo white dude you could possibly create. Garth Southgate was born in Watford, Hertfordshire and attended school in Cowplain, Hampshire and then went to Hazelwick School in Crawley, West Sussex. That could just as easily have been Phil, from the looks of him.
Was this an AI-generated profile photo, a la thispersondo

I’ve tried my absolute best to avoid writing about Twitter, in part because I don’t want to give myself whiplash because I paid attention to the day-to-day tomfoolery happening on the platform. And because everybody now has an opinion on Twitter. It’s amazing. A rich guy buys it and now people who’ve never used it are espousing thoughts on what it means for free speech and being concerned about bots.
To that I say: no thanks! I’d rather go listen to my favorite podcast that reviews chain restaurants or the new one my friends Jeff and Eric (aka ItsTheReal) started about air travel, airports, and airlines.
But Elon buying Twitter is important. And I do have some opinions. I’ll keep them at a higher altitude instead of covering:
* How the platform is now devoid of misinformation experts, anti-propaganda teams, engineering talent, and employees who criticize him
* Elon’s strange, continued sharing of imagery from the very, very bad guys from 20th century world wars
* Elon re-platforming tens of thousands of QAnon, conspiracy theory, and right wing accounts that were banned after Jan. 6
* China state-sponsored porn-sharing spam bots overwhelming the legit conversations/info about the recent anti-lockdown protests
* The fact that Twitter is an advertising platform, making 90% of its revenue through ad sales, which are now absolutely cratering
* The new Twitter owner (sorry, I have to try some new ways to say “Elon”) trying to bully advertisers into spending money on the platform, a tactic that’s notoriously successful
* That the famous entrepreneur and now head of Twitter (again, gotta switch up the name) just loves to welcome Nazis to participate in the conversation. Oh, wait, looks like if you’re effusive and public enough in your praise of Hitler, the bossman will step in after all.
So: in some other instance of a platform takeover like this, you might be able to divorce the public actions of its leader from what could happen with the platform itself. Like, hey, the CEO is saying some wild ass things but the developers, engineering and decision making talent will actually be driving the evolution of the platform. But that’s not what this is. This is Elon’s show, company, and it’s how he wants it.
But anyways. My point of view is this: what happens in the end and what ends up being successful is in how you define success. My view of Twitter’s “success” is quantitative and qualitative. Here are some of the questions I would ask to figure that out, with the starting point being this year, when the takeover happened:
* Has the platform fostered a more open space for conversation?
* To the first question, has the platform improved mechanisms to prevent mis/disinformation, coordinated attacks and inauthentic activity, spam, scams, bullying, harassment?
* Has the platform enabled a better flow of quality information?
* Is the platform growing—in conversation volume, active users, and revenue—sustainably?
Those questions seem reasonable to me. More business-minded folks might go right to the heart of whether it makes more money and continues to do that. I would argue that the questions I highlighted above would be great indicators of a financially successful platform.
Now, when social platforms go public, they’re all of a sudden beholden to a different set of standards set by boards and shareholders. They need to make more money and acquire more users, quarter-over-quarter. And so they optimize their platforms to deliver on that. In an attention economy, that means creating mechanisms to keep people refreshing, sharing and resharing content, and consuming more.
That dynamic has created some pretty perverse incentives, where inflammatory content and extremism ultimately generate those results. People get mad online and let others know about it. But at least we get some peek behind the curtain when the platforms do their public quarterly earnings reports. We learn of daily active users, time spen

Hi friends! Been pretty busy around these parts. I started a new job in February and, let’s see what else, oh right—I’m trying to keep two relatively new-ish humans alive. And, ideally, alive and possibly a little smarter each day. I’ve tried to not have my entire identity wrapped up in being a parent, but judging by my tweets from this year, it’s inescapable.
I promise we’ll get back to some of our regularly scheduled content about tech and culture and whatever, but I’ve been jotting down some thoughts that I just need to get out. So here goes!
* The twins have a vocabulary consisting of a bunch of words now. I’m getting one of them to say “meow” which is kind of hilarious. I’m holding out hope that “Gregory” happens soon.
* 97% of parents think they can write a children’s better than the one they just read to their kids.
* Babies are ecoterrorists, not in the climate change definition (although the world may require it!), but in that they are absolutely the worst possible things for the environment.
* There are 3 types of comments we get from strangers: “are they twins?” “looks like you have your hands full!” and “awww/twins.” We were at DFW earlier this year, and a Very Texan grandma came up to me and said "aww, well now, what blessings!" When we landed in Detroit I was expecting a Very Michigander grandma to say “ope aren’t those just the cutest” but it didn’t happen.
* I still haven’t followed TwinTok or Parent IG because for fear of ruining my algorithm, but I might create a burner and start following people in those communities because that seems to be what parents do.
* HOW IN THE HELL DID THROWUP END UP IN MY A—
* Can’t wait til we can just say “boys, go outside, we’re just gonna power-wash you.” And also: “please unload the dishwasher. And take out the trash. And do my laundry. And then yours, too.”
* I’m pretty lucky to have Rachel as my partner in this and we love the boys.
* It’s kind of tough to raise twins but then you realize that you spend like half of your time trying to make them laugh and when they laugh or smile you cannot do anything but do the same, regardless of the mood you’re in.
* I am f*****g mortified about the day that I’ll have to stop swearing around them.
* I’m glad to have this newsletter that one day, the twins will discover, and read through and (probably) find instances of me talking s**t about them. For the record: they’re also going to be way smarter than me. Cooler than me? TBD. OK, yeah.
* The Official Parent Handbook that all new parents receive at the beginning did not contain the chapter entitled “You’re Going To End Up With A Mountain of Plastic Syringes.”
* Weird to google “how to keep small humans from the litter box.” But that’s probably not even in the top 50% of weird things you get to google!
Thanks for checking in! Love you!
Greg


Get full access to Greg's Newsletter at greg.substack.com/subscribe

It’s been a minute and I wanted to come back with something light-hearted and fun. So, today, we’re going to talk about the Canadian conspiracist truck convoy, the impending U.S. version of this thing (that I hope I’m wrong about!), and how social media and influencers are helping drive it.
So, just a refresher: the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” consists of truckers and various support agents using their big rigs and pickups to physically block off the Ottawa capitol and key border crossings with the U.S. And I mean, you know that anytime the word “freedom” is attached to an event or “movement,” white grievances are about to get AIRED THE F**K OUT.
The “Freedom Convoy” is ostensibly protesting a new piece of Canadian legislation that requires unvaccinated Canadian truckers to isolate for 2 weeks upon returning from the U.S. Unvaccinated foreign truckers aren’t allowed in the country. There sure has been a lot of attention given to these anti-vax protesters while *checks notes* 90% of Canadian truck drivers are vaccinated.
To nobody’s surprise, the movement’s leaders and organizers are some combination of the following list: racists, xenophobes, conspiricists, QAnon believers, and more. They’re anti-labor and boyyyyy do they not believe in science. Or the government, obviously. And look: there may be some convoy sympathizers who have a simple, narrow desire to protest vaccine mandates—a position I largely disagree with but one that people can certainly voice their opposition to! But it’s pretty very clear that this movement was built opportunistically by its leaders, laundering far-right ideology into public debate about mandates. This is the right on-ramping sympathizers and adjacents to a bigger platform.
This truck blockade strategy is likely to be employed in the U.S. in the near future. At what scale or frequency remains to be seen. How DHS and other authorities preemptively plan for them will be interesting. But you know an American version has the potential to be even more stupid, more media-able and potentially dangerous than the Canadian variety. In practice, U.S convoys will look like a Trump 2024 x Let’s Go Brandon/Stop The Steal x QAnon x Conspirituality (see below) collaboration. The merch will absolutely suck. And while the venn diagram for those four groups isn’t a perfect concentric circle, there’s enough overlap and the possibility that these convoys make the circles tighter. Fun!
Again, I hope I’m wrong. I hope none of this comes to fruition.
Given my personal and professional interests, I’m looking at two things, specifically: how social media/platforms serve as key organizing spaces. And influencers. Not just far-right influencers who you’d obviously expect. I’m talking—takes deep breath, exhales—health and wellness influencers.
Turns out, a lot of them are very vocally supporting the convoy on social media. From Rolling Stone:
Influencers publicly supporting the convoy, which started in protest against trucker vaccine mandates and has left the country’s capitol city of Ottawa immobilized for the past 11 days, is the natural culmination of the wellness community’s increasing convergence with anti-vaccine or Covid-denying conspiracy theories, all in the name of supporting personal freedom and bodily autonomy. Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a gradual yet palpable shift in the wellness community toward conspirituality, a portmanteau of “conspiracy theories” and “spirituality” constituting a mélange of woo mysticism and distrust toward the mainstream medical establishment, with a healthy dose of libertarianism thrown in for good measure. This strain has infiltrated all corners of the wellness ecosystem, from natural childbirth influencers to yoga teachers on Instagram.
Back to these protests being literal vehicles for far-right ideology. In the U.S., you get the sense that the right is looking for a January 6, 2.0, the next wav