hey! been a while. 👀

*future meme about how I missed you or whatever*

big year, lots to tell you if you stick around. dj news, writing news, life news — later.

i would put 98% of my sanity on writing. whether it’s long form, short form, jokes, features, shorts, pilots, the key to surviving this year (and many others) was writing.

i’ve oscillated between the two wolves in my brain a lot this year, through more low fog than usual but i’ve grown to appreciate the fog as a new atmosphere to adapt to. i don’t know how to describe it fully but i feel like i’m outgrowing myself which means i may start being seen through the fog. dunno how i feel about that.

the wolves dealt with grief, confronting fear of loss and embracing that i’m gonna be spongebob big guy pants okay. it used to consume me and when it didn’t, i feared i’d grown numb to its effect but i’ve just become familiar.

the wolves dealt with a general lack of trust in the social fabric of the world, but chose to weave something new IRL with friends as they welcomed new life in their world, too. i’ll have a mf uhhhhhh reason to keep going… for here, please. and a drink.

ultimately, we land at the irksome bit with the fog — needing visibility but enjoying virtual anonymity. not to get austenian on y’all but i be longing for a simpler time where every aspect of my creative process needed to be captured to further commodify myself to increase shareholder value. as i grow, more people want a piece and i’m happy to share, to commune, to give, but i fear i’ll run out of… me.

2024 largely left me disinterested with processing this phenomenon on Substack — surely there’s other stuff people want to read like:

• “The Y-ification of Xing Your Z Out Of Your Life”

• “Healing From K When You’re LMNOP”

• “Hate As A Love Practice”

sure, the platform is enticing — readers can meet writers, writers can meet readers, and hopefully they both become each other in some way. but i foresaw it becoming the very thing i’d seen countless social media sites become within my lifetime [for a deeper dive into that, read my cybernomads series from last year. i discussed the four c’s that built the early internet: community, communication, connectivity, convenience].

before the great digital migration to substack in the last 2 years, with the disenchantment with Twitter, Meta, and soon (for the 8th time?) TikTok, i used this space to be a place to organize my thoughts and feelings into a structure to inform my philosophy about culture, yes, but mostly to supplement my screenwriting.

as that part of my life got busier, this space became talking to my friends about theories, media, culture, etc and organizing these conversations and enlightenments felt more fulfilling in real life, where we could discuss in person, warmly, assuming the best in one another, rather than trade cold comments and responses with strangers. i suppose it was a subconscious reinvestment in my community, communication, local area connectivity, and active divestment from convenience.

so, here are some loosies that almost were and may come back in some way, shape, or form, whether it will be public or not.

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Blurred Borders: Cultural Shifts of the Social Media Era"

“if you’re driving culture, then why is it going off a cliff?”

• age-old triumvirate of culture: the artist, the audience, and the critic — lately, they seem to be jerking each other and themselves off in a way that doesn’t seem pleasurable and everlasting in a “what’s the point?” way.

• artists reach for a fifth minute of fame rather than a fifteenth, encouraged to sell out to brands to make ends meet because their slice of the pie becomes smaller and smaller, and they’re encouraged to capitulate to an audience by giving them what they want. artistic integrity are actively discouraged by all these forces and where integrity lapses, AI will find a way...

• audiences are increasingly having their experiences tailored for them and while some seek friction, many seek comfort and familiarity. we’re eroding our ability to have complex emotions in favor of binary good-bad characters/artists who literally tell how they feel rather than show us.

• everyone is a critic, and lately, inflammatory rhetoric to get an increasingly more mercurial reaction is the name of the game. good critique is an art in and of itself, with a respect for craft and craftsmen, but social media has given arbitrary power to arbitrary loud voices that buyers and sellers listen to (whether it’s streaming,

a new flavor of kool-aid: the influencer

• as the moniker of celebrity aged, a new name rose: influencer. what does that mean? *elaine benes voice* whatever the hell you want it to mean.

• in an attention economy, it doesn’t matter who you are – it only matters who’s looking. and everyone’s looking to capitalize on that gaze.

• there are no more stars, just anyone with the energy for the antics necessary for success and the indomitable, ambitious spirit of a Great Value Marty Supreme doomed to either expose themselves or be exposed (or overexposed) until disposed by the attention economy. this used to just be celebrities, but now it’s anyone.

• celebs go on podcasts and streamers for more reach – timothée chalamet just did the december wiggathon for Marty Supreme with influencers. late night is going the way of the dinosaur because why watch old white guys when you can go on a podcast with no writers and chat “openly”

  • i believe this is why netflix is pushing into unscripted podcasts, they don’t have to be WGA and they’re just a talk show.

a great unbalancing: intention, interpretation, and impact

• no one moves with intention anymore because they’re afraid of how it will be interpreted or worse, how a misinterpretation can affect the rest of their life.

• social media’s ecosystem seems built on misinterpretation and creative decontextualization — will it ever crumble?

• how has this affected our personal, professional, and cultural relationships? what happens when no one cares anymore? who’s fighting to maintain this organized chaos?

the personal isn’t always political: the self, the system, and the sounds of our own voices

• we’ve made too many midwit social media wordsmiths, prolific podcasters, and comedic clapbackers the heroes of a romanticized resistance, reclamation, or “revolution” because they critiqued the system in a way that will make them a niche microcelebrity

• in what ways has our inability to look outside of our own experiences and encouragement to look within and narrativize ourselves as radicals diluted the ability to enact change? who benefits? how?

no business like show business because it’s all show business

• social media is all about a curated performance of the self, which makes life — if you only live it online like too many people — a performance, no matter what the size of the audience is. both consumer and consumed until when?

• as we’ve all become brands, what have we lost? what have we gained? what’s the endgame?

SubwayFakes (RIP MetroCard)

in 2017, i pitched a series called “Take The L” where I invited a bunch of comedians onto the L train (famous for being the best line to cry on) and asked them to tell me about an embarrassing NYC moment. we actually shot it (got the call sheets and footage to show for it), taking the L back and forth between Canarsie and 14th, but the sound was horrible — never made it off the hard drive.

i was ahead of my time a bit, as i sometimes find myself to be with some projects, and we didn’t have the tiny mic technology. bummer BUT Kareem Rahma got the block on fire with his series and this is not a post dragging him or accusing him or Andrew or Rami of theft, hell nah — they carved out a lane in culture, and i gotta give them their respect (this all lands on a point later I promise).

here are my subway takes that i’ll never do:

freedom of speech also means freedom of shut the fuck up

we don’t need to chime in on everything; sometimes, shut up. no one said don’t stand up to injustices, just that not everything deserves a reaction, a response, a read, a rundown — see? too much talking. pipe down.

don’t put me in a situation

quickest way to get me to never fuck with you again? put me in a situation. think back to the last time you got caught up – lemme guess, you were in a situation, right? who put you there? delete their number.

if you get relegated in the english football league into league one, you should have to play in the MLS to earn back your spot

united states football culture is ass, full stop. it’s getting better for sure, but there’s no urgency, no passion. it’s the retirement league — game’s gone? get ready to learn big mac, buddy.

nothing would make me want to play at my absolute best more than being Wolves and having to play the Columbus Crew to get into the Premier League. that being said, it would legitimize people in the MLS fighting harder because they could sneak their way into the Prem one day.

we should have “to catch a redditor” where people go find who’s talking spicy to them online

chris hansen hosts, and instead of law enforcement, go to their jobs, to their mom’s house, thanksgiving link ups, church group, etc

a lot of people don’t think they can be touched, let them be proven wrong. track down individuals, groups, bot farms in different countries – let people know how the hate is being delivered to them.

there should be a cultural aptitude test and curriculum for when you turn 40

allow people to catch up with the new cultural trends, technological advancements, and adapt to the moment we live in, or chase a dream they regretted leaving behind.

we pay into it with taxes from our jobs, there’s no threat of being fired when it’s your turn to take that time off, and there’s a federally mandated stipend. the program can be foreign or domestic, but the mandated amount of time should be no less than a year, no more than 2, and kicks in at 40 (maybe even 65).

follow-up question-phobia plagues our culture

not just stereotypically heterosexual first dates, many people on several spectrums suffer from this. get your curious george on, ask that man in the yellow hat why he only living with a chimp. see? it’s wild, right? what was that about? see, two more questions right there.

ask 5 follow-up questions to get to the root of anything. gotta have discernment — lot of gullible mfs out there. Curious George Gets To The Bottom Of It — streets need it

the passive voyeurism of social media puts us in parasocial relationships with people who could be actual friends

many people don’t have friends because they think friends are followers and that they are passive characters in some grand story where we’re arcing towards some third act showdown with demons, an ex, employment, etc — ignored one day, underwritten another, whole time writing themselves of a show that could be found family, platonic, romantic, full of travel, love, camaraderie and memories.

if you insist on making your life a TV show with you as a main character, make it one worth watching, not just looking at. get yourself a will they won’t they or an ensemble.

our interiority is the next to be colonized

social media convinced us that we don’t need third spaces, stole our privacy and data, and all that’s left is our inner thoughts and they’re gonna get all of our inside thoughts.

think about that person who’s in therapy but comes online like “chat, my therapist said—” those are inside thoughts or ones we should share with friends privately but the private is public, and when these social media companies see a lick they will be there…

trust me, if instagram could put ads between our literal thoughts they would

the internet created an ecosystem of reactors who need a generator to create so they can react with pithy sentences or posts

this allows the reactor to have all the power while remaining empty, devoid of informed perspective — just agree or disagree and if I’m on TikTok or Reels or Twitch I can just stitch my reaction/my face to someone else’s creation and call it mine, all mine!!! technically theft but so normalized that no one cares.

why else is AI “popular?” it supercharged this process for losers, by losers.

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…they tried to kill ya favorite bitch

i was hit by a car this year while on a bike this April— did a flip, split my wig, woke up in an ambulance. i almost died *dave chappelle voice* i almost fucking died. BUT you’ll be happy to know that i had the EMTs dying laughing with jokes, i simply refuse to miss.

hit and run, i wasn’t in the wrong, they never got the person who did it and the only real facts of the case: i almost died, hit the “that’s all folks.”

i was going to write about it here, on this site, but chose not to. it still is a bit prickly to talk about but the one thing that clicked for me afterwards —

so many unsaid “i love yous.”

unspoken disdains for people’s behaviors and conduct (yeughh).

i’m content with my output, but want more people to see what my people and I cook up but…

i used to love being online, outside, perceived, all of it and then i really saw the writing on the wall for social media, online life, media, etc and swung to the other side of the pendulum — almost complete obscurity — and guess what? I love it here.

writing, working on my craft, deepening my personal relationships, playing soccer and uno, chatting shit, free from curating a performance of self, gave me so much in 2025:

all this from the comfort of my relative invisibility. a comfort zone— ah fuck, I got to step out of this don’t i? shit…

i took a bit of space from the world and relearned how to like things from a healthy distance, made new friends, but how does anyone know anything about what i’m doing without me saying it? documenting it? is there a way to connect with the world

how could people know i have ideas like Take The L that go on to be successful with Subway Takes? do i have to engage in constant performance to be considered authentic? is that even considered authentic?

how would anyone know that DJ culture will permeate and make everyone a DJ and brands will make their own “radio…” when i told Pauly this in 2021?

how will people understand that the endgame of AI in TV and film will be people going from wanting to see themselves in characters to seeing themselves for real in the content they consume, and when studios and AI companies lock into that, it is a pack up for culture?

are we all doomed to be dopamine junkies with our relapses in the hands of these social media platforms? or are we doomed to sell ourselves in the very marketplace that sells us to each other forever?

i would love to discuss these things but without sacrificing the peace i enjoy in my life — every time i let random jerkoffs on the internet into my peace, i crash out (more in than out but you get it).

do i need to microdose that element of the world we live in to chase more visibility? can i have it all? (accidental liz lemon, my fault)

but this is the fog. there’s a line for me to cross somewhere in the thick of it, and i genuinely don’t know if i’m over it already by writing this. i can’t see but if i don’t take a step i’ll remain here forever…

so. how about this:

• i’ll be louder, but only when i’m saying something worth listening to like say some dj sets

• i’ll be more visible, but sparingly — i don’t want to overstay or overstretch in places that make me uncomfortable

• i’m going to write myself back into the world as Octavia Butler would want it.

• i’ll find the line and post up whether it’s on IG or here.

let’s go knicks, big up the arsenal, read more, write more, watch more, chat more, and we (are begrudgingly) outside in big 26.

…in february. february big 26. i’m doing a digital dry January — if I see more headass film discourse from people about OBAA, Marty Supreme, or Sinners, i’ll pull up their IP addresses.

watch afcon. dead the diaspora wars. love y’all 🌱