I haven’t been surprised by the internet in a while. There’s all the common rants:

Social media sucks! Social media is the life changing wonder stick!

Substack sucks! Subtsack is majestical!

The 90s was the best decade ever! No! The 60s were utopia!

And all the other back-and-forth of opinions and wild fantasies that the internet harbors.

But then Robin Rendle‘s essay fell into my inbox – twice. (H.T. Austin Kleon and Alan Jacobs) His love note to newsletters and hope of a web for all, made for a bout of I’m finishing-this-damn-essay reading.

But it’s how he unleashed his essay, that shook my internet insides:

Using a combination of oldtimey illustrations, and funny, direct copy, he kills.

But it’s the scroll-and-read format of the essay which made it as memorable as the essay itself. I felt like I was slaloming through the piece rather than reading it.

Screenshots are weak.

Experience, read, view, contemplate, or disagree with Robin’s essay in it’s entirety below: