🐛 Last night, I found a steamed caterpillar in my dinner.
He was crucified on a cavolo nero leaf; an organic, pesticide-free vegetable I'd paid a premium for because I wanted real food...
...at risk of encountering real bugs.
As nervous as I was to finish my dinner, the bug was a more effective certificate of authenticity than any label, and in that sense was there because I'd paid him to be.
Unless, of course, they add the bugs on purpose.
Sprinkling bugs into a sterile web
You thought the internet was the dawn of a new age, but it's starting to look more like 1990-2020 was the thirty-year larval stage (🐛) of something dramatically different, fairly scary, and only now becoming clear.
While we wait for it to unfurl its new wings, we're sprinkling bugs into our content so that people know it's really us behind the keyboard.
everything is lowercase, littered with intentional typoos and, if you're an AI startup, written in ugly-cool Instrument Serif.
The result, it seems, is a functionally dead internet — no conspiracy needed.
I won't labour the point because I know you already see it, and you don't need another commentator. So I'll move on to what I think comes next, and why you should come bouldering with me...
This is a blog.
It's my thing, you probably have your thing.
Growing a blog in 2025 is probably about as easy as getting your idea for a sitcom aired on primetime TV on November 18, 1993, the same evening Nirvana released their MTV Unplugged album.
It's hard because the platforms that host our content today are in late-stage decay, fully gamed by those with the most cash to throw at it.
They are enshittified.
TV was such an enshittified platform in 1993 that it never actually recovered, which is probably why the unvarnished, genre-bending, live performance from Nirvana hit so hard.
I am not Nirvana.
And you are (probably) not Nirvana.
But this is today's TV.
So, to stand a chance of getting aired on primetime, we need to move on from enshittified platforms, and to experiment in pastures green...
The next platform is real life, with a twist
I think we're going back to IRL events. Touching grass.
But not like how some people went 'back' to vinyl when Spotify made music too available. That's an affection for the past, but it's not necessarily 'the new medium'.
(The equivalent here might be intentionally offline events, like these.)
Instead, I think we're going forward to new formats of in-person experiences as primary content, with a multi-format, multi-channel 'echo' from whatever you're doing to nurture or break the world around you.
It just has to be real, and matter.
Introducing: Out Venturing
I thought going bouldering in Vauxhall would be a great place to start.
The idea is that we show up in person around activities and challenges we care about, talk about what's broken, and maybe start some ventures together.
Think of it as a live-action, choose-your-own-adventure version of ProblemKit.
See you there?
If you want to come but the event is full, join the waiting list, and I'll have a word with VauxWall to see if we can lift the cap without breaking the venue.
If you don't love bouldering, send me ideas for the next one. How's that for touching the culture?