Ephemeral content

I’m currently very much enjoying Cody’s “Alone Atop Mt. Fuji” pop-up newsletter. There’s something about this type of content that’s appealing to my brain. And I’m not talking about the fact that it’s a newsletter or the fact that I enjoy Cody’s writing and pictures. I’m talking about the finite nature of the project itself.

Contrary to most online projects that are open-ended, pop-up newsletters have well-defined boundaries. You know what you’re getting when you sign up and you know it’s gonna end at a specific point in time. I don’t know why, but signing up for something like this feels oddly different in a weird way. Maybe it’s because it speaks to the transitory nature of life itself, or maybe it’s because it’s just different from “regular” online content.

I think impermanence is an under-explored concept when it comes to digital content. I should probably build something around that and you should sign up for Cody’s newsletter.