Share this page!

Charlie Warzel Profile picture
Twitter logo
11 Apr, 6 tweets, 4 min read
Since I've been scooped by @benyt... it's personal news time. Starting tomorrow, I'm leaving the New York Times and going independent. A full-time newsletter where I'm gonna get weird. I am absolutely terrified and excited. Welcome to Galaxy Brain! warzel.substack.com/p/welcome-to-g…
I wrote a lot of words (too many!) about why I'm doing this but what I'm most interested in is building an online community and exploring weird ideas iteratively. I don't want my audience to feel like an abstraction. I want a conversation. I think now is the time to do that
I want to be transparent about all of this. I've not taken a minimum yearly payment deal from Substack. So no big sum - though they're offering an editor/copy editor/fact checker subsidy. They're also giving me a health care subsidy via an exchange they have an account with.
I've always been into internet experiments. Going independent makes that possible Which is why I'm really excited to join 7 other fabulous writers @CaseyNewton @annehelen @nwquah @EricNewcomer @delia_cai @broderick @KimZetter in this Sidechannel venture. Subscibers get access!
My hope for Sidechannel as well as Galaxy Brain is that audiences and writers can continue to interact and feed off each other. They can act as assignment editors sometimes or provide dissent. And all the while it can build accountability and trust. That's what I want to build.
I hope this doesn't get lost. I took this from @annehelen who started this policy when she launched her newsletter and I plan to honor it for Galaxy Brain. my email is in bio.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Charlie Warzel

Charlie Warzel Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @cwarzel

Charlie Warzel Profile picture
25 Mar
spent some serious time reading and reporting on this and i can finally report that NFTs stands for 'no free tweets' we can finally close this chapter. thanks for reading this. that'll be $74,000. nytimes.com/2021/03/24/opi…
in all seriousness it's been super fascinating to try and explore this subject and others through the lens of attention/attention economy. the last few months i feel like i've finally been able to free up a little bit of brain space to think a bit about where things are going...
...instead of just treading water in the moment with the news. right now i'm a bit worried that the ~ attention economy ~ is maturing & if you want to making a living creating online every part of your life is going to be financialized - sliced up and repackaged. feels precarious
Read 4 tweets
Charlie Warzel Profile picture
24 Mar
looks like it's NFT day at the Times! i spent some time thinking about this stuff & talking to very smart people like @ljin18 and @anildash and i think that NFTs are...among other things a way to pay a lot of money to get somebody's attention. nytimes.com/2021/03/24/opi…
i'm not...super bullish about these things! but i do think it's worth paying attention when lots of ppl with lots of money are trying to rethink what an asset is. i am rooting for anything that helps creators. but also worried about adding to the precarity - as @anildash puts it:
anyhow, in the end...somebody bought a gif for $25,000 because they wanted to 'start a conversation' about NFTs and creators and draw attention to it and i wrote a column about it so if anything i've only clowned myself! the internet is magical!
Read 4 tweets
Charlie Warzel Profile picture
24 Feb
so @mtaibbi here is arguing exactly what Alex Jones did on his show Monday. He quotes me but the ellipsis omits the phrase “as we’re taught to do it” which is the crux of the piece as it’s about media literacy as it’s taught (or mostly not taught) in school.
it’s not about turning off your brain. it never mentions the nyt as arbiter of truth (as many have claimed). hell it says flatly it’s not aimed at changing students minds. it’s ultimately about lateral reading. a concept that’s basically: ‘hey, figure out who wrote this’ before
i get it is a provocative argument (especially so if you choose to read only the headline and omit words that add nuance to it). but it really isn’t madness. it’s not saying critical thinking is bad. but more...we are taught to fight every battle when really we can pick n choose
Read 7 tweets
Charlie Warzel Profile picture
23 Feb
it’s a terminator 2 kinda night
hilariously that’s the line that came up when i took this pic of the tv
this is truly the most important movie of my youth
Read 4 tweets
Charlie Warzel Profile picture
18 Feb
brain is deeply warped from internet use so i don’t know what average voters think about stuff but i know that going to cancun pissed off the liberal media and so therefore i wonder if some ppl are...gonna be fine w/ it? it seems like the main virtue of culture war maga politics
like i can just as easily imagine ppl saying ‘lol look how mad they got! what can he even do? stop a snowstorm?!’ and then just forget about it. but maybe that’s a bridge too far? i guess i’m just wary of ppl who think accountability is possible these days
lol i was directed to this message board and wellllllll ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Charlie Warzel Profile picture
18 Feb
What if the way we are taught to think critically about information we encounter is making us more vulnerable to misinformation peddlers? For the second column in my attention series I profiled @holden who thinks our info crisis is an attention crisis nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opi…
What I appreciate about his methods is the logic behind them. Basically, we are taught that engaging with a source that seems dubious or is on a subject we don’t have precious knowledge of (going down the rabbit hole) is virtuous. But it often doesn’t help our understanding. Image
But this is the most powerful idea, I think. That we are constantly chasing and giving time and attention to those who want to abuse it. That we don’t have to do it this way. We can save our time and then spend it on things that matter to us. Image
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @cwarzel has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @cwarzel!

Read all threads by @cwarzel