Substrate

there is nothing more joyous than seeing a conversation bloom and meander and twist and blossom in a safe and intimate group chat among friends. it feels to me like a unique type of mediated communication that i struggle to find an in-person analog to. that wild, freeform energy of people you love all sharing and expressing and listening and hearing all at the same time is so exciting!! it feels like this explosion of simultaneous and related thoughts that all still coalesce and move together maybe it's similar to a group of people all talking together in-person! but so many in-person practices and etiquettes don't really translate to the group chat, so it feels more sudden and energetic in a way like in the group chat, it feels like there's a talking over each other but in a way that is responsive and doesn't feel rude! and in the group chat, you don't navigate that anxiety of "do i speak now, do i not, is what i'm gonna say gonna be ignored" as much, in my opinion i think it's partially because in speech, there is a limit where truly only one person can be talking at a time. in the group chat, through text, everyone can be constantly talking and listening all at the same time and there is a brilliant energy to that!! anyway those are my unstructured thoughts about the group chat. shoutout to the group chat!! hopefully i get to be in one one day

“Yancey Strickler, a co-founder of Kickstarter, on the internet retreating to safe spaces – well, safer spaces: Podcasts are another example. There, meaning isn’t just expressed through language, but also through intonation and interaction. Podcasts are where a bad joke can still be followed by a self-aware and self-deprecating save. It’s a more forgiving space for communication than the internet at large. Dark forests like newsletters and podcasts are growing areas of activity. As are other dark forests, like Slack channels, private Instagrams, invite-only message boards, text groups, Snapchat, WeChat, and on and on. This is where Facebook is pivoting with Groups (and trying to redefine what the word “privacy” means in the process). Obviously, the various spaces mentioned above are wildly different, but it is interesting to try to bucket them all together into this trend. And it is something that resonates with me about newsletters…”