Group texts resist this temptation for many reasons. The largest of which is that performance isn’t necessary on the scale of talking with a few friends or family members. Also they’re much more likely to call you on your crap if you do start performing too much.

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…”

A+ thread IMO private spaces feel more conducive to conversations that get closer to the truth, allowing for misunderstandings & developing ideas. No matter how real you think you are or you try to be, we are all engaging in some kind of performance for a larger crowd on here. The internet is less fun when people move from public to private thinking. Whether due to change of job, status, or competitive landscape, it's noticeable. Have had to do this for certain areas & it feels limiting at times, & mostly leads to less discourse/diversity of thought. The counterpoint is that when you find your braintrust, you can let things fly at a faster pace and with higher variance on quality and reasoned judgment. This leads to *different* discourse but in reality, personally building a diverse braintrust is harder than we like to admit Not to go on an "intellectual dark web"-toned tangent but final point: I sometimes worry that the attractiveness of public thinking that seemed to dominate for past 7-10 years has eroded recently because of 2 core forces that create a cycle of withdrawal or dilution of thought. 1) Widespread hate on social media today across all groups and how it's nearly impossible to make a fringe point without it being hated on. And related, our industry deals with confrontation *horribly*, specifically in the co-opetition world of VC. 2a) A widespread exhaustion & recognition of what is the over-intellectualization of thought & simple content. This leads to a ton of dilution in our feeds filled with abstract tweets, 9 min reads that should be 2, historical allegories for things happening in 2019, & book thread 2 b) Further explained: Many now take simple concepts, abstract them away to much more complex language/narrative as they recognize the arbitrage in doing so due to the value it brings to personal brand (IMO this is 90% of people) 2 c) OR they are so wrapped up in their own rhetoric they think communicating this way is dominant. In this case, I think we can cycle back to the difficulty of building a personal braintrust that is diverse and truly challenging.