Relay was fully IRL over Memorial Day weekend in Nashville. We drank a bit, schemed a little and overall got after it. There was square dancing in an overpriced country bar. There was steak tartare. And far too many Miller Lites.
It was on the heels of a chaotic week with lots of big life decisions on the docket and I (James) kept repeating on a loop in my head “be present be present be present you’ll miss this when it’s over”.
We hit plenty of spots — a mix of Nashville institutions and some new additions that have managed to carve out their place. All of them are worth a stop in if you need a night out.
Stay tuned for the Relay Nashville city guide but until then, lets get into it.
“The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
— Robert M. Pirsig
“We shape our tools and therefore our tools shape us”
— John Culkin
Top of Mind
“we went from something smart that would demand a listener's attention in a way that was challenging and new to something that sounded like every other thing: some dude talking to some other dude about apps that some third dude would half-listen-to at 2x speed while texting a fourth dude about plans for later.”
Reading Dan Sinker’s piece on what he has deemed the Who Cares Era, and Will Tavlin’s piece Casual Viewing about the Netflix business model, feels like finding ideas that sprang out independently in different places but from the same source. They’re dissecting this collective sense of mediocrity and mindlessness that everyone can feel we are headed toward; or maybe we’ve already arrived. Tavlin expresses it plainly when describing Netflix’s brief “Play Something” feature to close his article: Play Something, as in: play anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, if a user is on their phone or cleaning their room. A feature whose thesis Sinker, and all of us if we’re being honest with ourselves, is in direct opposition to.
ClearSpace launched “Ozempic for screen time”
I guess the concept of The Screen Time Network is that you share your screen time so you can be shamed. I think the goal is to lower it.
The YC-backed app, ClearSpace, has rolled out a feature that allows users to share screen time just for the sake of being shamed for it. We love the desktop leaderboard design but the mobile app could use some work. It mostly seems to be a joke network in an effort to onboard users but its virality could work. Royce, the cofounder and CEO, is hilariously tweeting at TBPN asking for coverage on their new The Screen Time Network.
Adam Friedland Could Be the Millennial Jon Stewart. But Does He Want That?
“The 38-year-old comedian started his YouTube series The Adam Friedland Show mostly as a joke. But in the wake of an election that podcasters helped swing in Donald Trump’s favor, he’s fielding interview offers from politicians desperate to connect with disaffected young voters any way they can—even if it means getting trolled on camera by the former cohost of a podcast called Cum Town.”
A few years ago, my cousin introduced me to a YouTube live stream called Friendship Simulator, which ran 24/7 (cursed, I know). The stream was a marathon of old podcast episodes from a few New York comics: Adam Friedland, Nick Mullen, and Stavros Halkias. The show was mostly crude humor, and I definitely don’t recommend listening, but it unintentionally brought listeners into their based political takes. Some refer to them as Bernie Bros, but in this GQ article, they’re called the dirtbag left. Love the dirtbag left.
Adam Friedland didn’t swing the election, and neither did Tim Dillon. But the fact that both of them got mainstream coverage on this topic back-to-back weeks shows how out of touch old media is.
Best of Substack this Week
Economic Lessons from the Screwtape Letters -
Washed Weekly: Weed Gummies & 28 Hours in an Airport (Washed Media, aka my Favorite Podcast Network)
ICYMI: Happy Hour Edition
The Relay boys will soon be equipping our cutting edge contact lenses and going nocturnal. The future gets crazier everyday.
After many years of soured feelings between Meta and Palmer Luckey, Zuck and his CTO have publicly apologized in an effort to partner with Anduril on their $22B IVAS contract.
U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles and the DHS are claiming Mayor O’Connell doxxed their law enforcement agents.
A few of us at Relay loved the Rick Rubin x Anthropic collab and a few of us really hated it.
The Vogue cover would have been plenty from Hailey Bieber this month but the glow-up continued with a $1B e.l.f acquisition yesterday.
It’s Not That Deep, Randy
should have been included last week, but a real loss for all of us
3/4 of Relay are Nashvillians and couldn’t feel this more
Thanks for reading — or for mega scrolling all the way down here.
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Hoping to see statistical analysis on ways to navigate getting off “the bus” when pregaming. Maybe next week? 👀
@james we were not square dancing and i would expect you to know that