Ben Roy

I talked to 3 friends over the holidays about a model I have in my head for classifying all the media I consume because I’m that kind of nerd, and I want to share it because I think it’s useful for folks who care about content, whether that’s as a creator or as a consumer. >It’s also just fun to make up graphics and pretend like I know things about stuff, so buckle up for some chart art. The model is pretty simple. It combines two well-known spectrums together: the purist-tourist spectrum, which Virgil Abloh came up with and has been discussed in creative circles forever, and the timely-timeless spectrum, which is a marketing 101 idea. I’ll elaborate on both below, but here’s a visual to start. Let’s unpack this a bit. On the x-axis, from left to right, we have the purist-tourist spectrum, which covers the range of target audiences that a piece of content might have. A purist is an expert or someone with domain knowledge. They’re high context people who can appreciate the finer things in their niche because they know what to look for. A tourist on the other hand is a low context person that’s new to a niche but keen to learn. Side note: In this framing, “tourist” does NOT carry the negative connotation of not-belonging that it usually does on social media… instead, it’s meant to signal fresh eyes and curiosity. Next up, on the y-axis, from top to bottom, we have the timely-timeless spectrum, which covers the range of how time sensitive a piece of content is. For clarity, let’s say that “timely” means responsive to the present discourse and “timeless” means evergreen. When you slam these two spectrums together it creates 4 quadrants with different characteristics, and I labeled those with different grey boxes to denote the kind of creator that makes content at each intersection. I’ll define each of them quickly. Clockwise from top left we have: Insiders. These creators make content that’s timely for purists. They’re very plugged into the web of people and information in their niche, and they have access and insight that’s highly esteemed by other insiders. Scouts. These creators make content that’s timely for tourists. They go deep into new topics like insiders do, but they’re focused on making complex ideas accessible to a wider audience. Guides. These creators make content that’s timeless for tourists. They focus on curating the core ideas in a niche and explaining them to new people. Artisans. These creators make content that’s timeless for purists. They go deep on topics and add original insight to their domain. Often this sort of content becomes canon and is referenced by other purists. Let’s rip through 2 examples in real life to illustrate this further: tech media first, then crypto media second. Feel free to read both or skip to the topic you resonate with most. Here’s a tech media mini map with some example brands/creators. Starting from the top left and going clockwise we have… TBPN. The Technology Business Programming Network is insider media. Jordi and John host a 3-hour daily show covering The Current Thing in tech. They have a massive fan base because they’re high trust people that are widely connected and their content is very aware of the niche they operate in. It’s timely content for purists. WSJ Tech News Briefing. This particular Wall Street Journal podcast is an example of scout media. They have good, bite-sized coverage of tech industry news that I can send to my college friends without context to help them understand current events. It’s timely content for tourists. Wired: 5 Levels Series. My favorite example of guide media is this series that Wired does where they find an expert in a deep tech category like machine learning or zero knowledge cryptography, then they get them to explain their subject at different levels of complexity with an emphasis on education. It’s timeless content for tourists. Acquired. This podcast is the epitome of artisan media. Ben and David publish ~10 episodes per year that spend 3+ hours each covering a well-known business like Google, LVMH, or the NFL. Every episode has a long shelf life and millions of people make time to listen whenever an episode drops. It’s timeless media for purists. Next up, here’s a crypto media mini map with some example brands/creators. Starting from the top left and going clockwise we have… CounterParty TV. Threadguy is one of the biggest steamers in crypto, and CounterParty is his company and daily show. It’s an example of insider media because he gets the best guests in the industry to come talk about current topics, and people tune in because they get to hear from folks who don’t otherwise do interviews. It’s timely content for purists. CoinDesk Daily. As one of the oldest publications in the industry, CoinDesk publishes a lot of content, but their Daily series is an example of scout media. These videos cover what’s going in crypto in terms of regulation, price action, and company announcements in a way that's accessible for people who just want to follow along with headlines. It’s timely content for tourists. Coinbase’s Earn series. This video series was an entry point into crypto for a lot of people. It’s an example of guide media because back in the day it helped newcomers learn about the industry with the added incentive of letting them “earn” some coins in the process. Even though it was technically corporate media, I think it fits well as an example of timeless content for tourists. The videos are still helpful. Cobie’s essays. Cobie’s essays are the best example of artisan media that I can think of in crypto. I’m not sure whether he thinks about his writing like that, but in terms of essays that get referenced as canon in the industry his stuff is at the top of the list. There’s something shiny about distilling a decade of experience into a few thought pieces. It’s timeless media for purists. Now, there are lots of ways to analyze both the tech and crypto charts. We could geek out in 34 directions if this was an in-person chat, but to keep things tight, I’ll only share one pattern I notice before moving on, which is that purist media (in any domain) tends to be a point of reference where groups of people gather around the same podcast, essay, or video and use it as shared context… then on the flip side, tourist media tends to be an individual exercise in downloading knowledge like that scene in the Matrix where Neo learns martial arts by being plugged into a computer. TLDR: Purist content is social in nature while tourist content is not. Ok this is the part before wrapping up where I have to admit that there are some problems with the mini map we’ve been using. An obvious one is it’s rare for creators and brands to fit cleanly into a single category, and the grid struggles to capture that nuance. There are other good critiques as well – we’ll see if they come up in the comments – but friction aside, I like this model because it helps me make sense of media in different niches. There’s a quote from an old statistician that’s relevant here which is, “all models are wrong, some are useful,” and that’s the thought I want to end on. Even though these things have pros and cons, I think forcing a model onto the world is a worthwhile exercise because that process helps you understand where it does reflect reality and where it grates up against it. You learn just as much in either case. -BR P.S. Here’s an empty version of the mini map if you want to play around.

I grew up on the internet, and I love it, but something broke in me during the COVID era and its aftermath. I worked remotely in the crypto industry for 5 years, spent all my spare time on Twitter, and got stuck in a doom loop of e-addiction that I couldn’t unplug from. It fried my brain. So, I took a break this year to reset and reckon with my relationship to the world wide web (and to tech in general), and this post is a set of notes to share how I’m currently thinking about the internet and how to stay mostly sane while juggling the pros and cons of being online. - Let’s start with the obvious, which is that humans are more online than ever before. I could point to statistics, but I think this is intuitive. - The main distinction I see in my life from before and after COVID is that at some point the internet stopped being a tool I used every day and instead my online-ness became a default state of being. I was always on. - It’s become obvious to me that we’re not built to live terminally online lives. We’re not built to fill every gap in our day by doomscrolling, checking messages, and generally consuming global information streams at the speed of light. It’s sensory overload. - Being so online has implications for our personal lives. Common side effects include increased anxiety, depression, envy, and insecurity. That, along with shrinking attention spans and disrupted sleep. - Being so online has implications for wider culture as well. People are becoming more average over time because we’re all consuming the same content curated for us by TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X and so on. This is often talked about as “algorithmic flattening,” and what that means is when we all consume the same inputs, we create similar outputs whether that’s in the form of art, startups, research, or even thoughts. We're all losing our floofy spiky uniqueness and being eroded into a standard shape, which crushes originality and creativity at a societal scale. - Anyone who is very online understands these issues in a visceral way. We see it in our lives, and we know that being hyper online has some problematic secondary effects... and yet, so many of us have given up trying to set boundaries. We make excuses. I make excuses. “Oh, it’s just an hour and I deserve this time to scroll” or “Oh, the whole world is moving more online anyway so why bother trying to swim against the current?” - The reality is most of us are addicts. I understand this is uncomfortable language, but so many people have been completely defeated by the dopamine engineering of casino capitalism. Together, we’re willingly dripping poison into our lives instead of reckoning with our individual choices and the systems that we live in. We are, as Neil Postman said back in the 1980s, amusing ourselves to death. - This is not meant to be a drive-by guilting. And yes, in part, I’m talking to myself because I’m easily among the worst offenders in this category: I’ve done everything wrong and I lived in a dystopia of being plugged into endless, multi-screen slop at 2x speed for years. The reason why I’m writing this is I realized that I need to wake up and get my head in the game before my life is vaporized into a puddle of infinite digital regret, and I can’t imagine that I’m alone. I keep asking myself, “Don’t I want more than this? Isn’t life supposed to be more than this?” - Ok that was the worst of this crash out. Deep breath. All is not lost. - I concede that the internet is fun, funny, and a great place to learn. I concede that the internet is a magical tool for connection. I’ve made many of my closest friends online. I concede that the internet is an abundant place to find opportunity. Every job I’ve ever had as an adult is a result of having an online presence. - I think the supermajority of people would agree that there are a lot of great things about the internet, so what am I saying here? - I’m not saying that people should log off forever. In modern times that’s not even possible, and plus I like being online. I would never want to disappear completely. The question I’m wrestling with is, what’s the line? How much of the internet do we use and when do we say, that’s enough? - I’m not in the business of prescribing particular answers. A mentor once told me that most areas of life are morally neutral in the general sense, but that doesn’t mean they’re morally neutral for YOU specifically. For example, maybe one person can drink alcohol no problem, but another person can’t because they have an addictive personality. So, for internet stuff the question of what to use and what not to use (and in what measure, and when) is personal. We have to make those decisions ourselves. - That said, I think the through line is everyone would benefit from being more intentional with their relationship to the online world. - Some different practices that I've found helpful are limiting my attention to one social network, reducing complexity on my phone, and only doom scrolling and checking messages a few times per day. That, and a digital sabbath: one full day of no technology per week. Also, I do as much work on paper now as I can. - If you want to think more deeply about what good digital hygiene could look like for you then check out Cal Newport’s writing, Jenny Odell’s book, and the Center for Humane Technology. If you’re more philosophically inclined, then Sherry Turkle and Wendell Berry are worth reading as well. - For what it’s worth, I’m hopeful. I feel confident that I can claim my life back from being perma-online while still enjoying my favorite corners of the internet. I also think culture is shifting and pushing back against the default online-is-always-good position, which is encouraging. - One thing I am haunted by though is how much internet addiction is a system problem vs. an individual responsibility problem. - Let me give you an anecdote from another industry to help make this point. In the early 2000s, British Petroleum popularized the phrase "carbon footprint" as a way to individualize responsibility for carbon emissions and shift attention away from the largest corporate actors. It was a very effective propaganda campaign, and today when it comes to climate issues many people think about their personal carbon footprint vs. regulating the world’s largest emitters. - The question this brings up for wicked problems like climate change, internet addiction, or otherwise is... to what extent are people responsible for solving issues on their own vs. to what extent are large actors responsible for making changes (usually via regulation)? - The only answer I have is: probably some of both? I don’t mean to make this post too political, but the more I think about the modern internet and it's impact on society, the more I wonder what regulating aspects of it might look like. - I know people panic when reading commentary about regulation because how dare you take away muh freedom, but I think Isaiah Berlin’s distinction of “freedom from” vs. “freedom to” is relevant here. Shouldn’t people, if they so choose, also be free from algorithms that have been optimized by the smartest people in the world to suck them in and siphon their attention? - At a minimum, I think everyone can agree that Big Tech is big business. We know the internet is not a neutral place and that algorithms are not neutral. This has implications across business, politics, education and more but those conversations are beyond the scope of this post (and mostly above my pay grade). - Alright back to some positive thoughts. - I do think individual choice is very powerful. - I would encourage everyone that read this far to explore what having a healthier relationship with the internet could look like. I know doing work on this has been worthwhile for me. - When trying to make changes in my life something I’ve noticed is that carrots are stronger than sticks, and by that, I mean spending time on activities that I’m excited about seems to be a better counterweight to overusing the internet than trying to force arbitrary limits on myself. I think humans are more driven by incentives than deterrents, so maybe the answer for all of us is simply that we need to fall in love with real life again. That’s what I want. - I realize a lot of what I’ve talked about can feel overwhelming, and it’s difficult sometimes to know where to start, so what I’ll say as I wrap up is this doesn’t have to be that deep. Stuff as simple as not having your phone in your room overnight or making sure to eat breakfast before logging on can be incredibly helpful. Small changes can have meaningful impacts.