Monitoring the Situation #2: Alana Newhouse

Magazines at some point made a decision that the primary audience they cared about were the advertisers.

The summer of 2020 marked a turning point in American media.

Alana, you've thought a lot about the relationship between establishment media and the upstarts and new media.

And the way that I see it is that there was basically a, what I call a pyramid of media...

The independent space is filled with some very, very interesting people and also a bunch of absolute limit decks and nutcases, right?

So I don't see this as the independent media trying to horn their way in to the legacy space, I see it the other way...

And when you look at sort of the impact that, you know, a couple of really, I would say, sort of cornerstone moments happened...

And in order to observe the space and watch for that properly, one of the things that we have to remember is 2020 was a match, but it dropped on Tinder.

Maybe give us the history of kind of what went wrong in legacy media.

Well, so my view is a little bit colored by my particular investment in magazines as a, frankly, I think it's an American art form.

And what eventually happens, certainly for local newspapers, is that they, obviously it begins with, when the internet begins to eat away at advertising...

As the business model starts to come apart, it is my contention that consciously or not, many of these legacy outlets decided to make themselves feel better with politics.

But I think there was also this quality problem that you and I talked a lot about...

and the beast is not 24-hour news cycles anymore.

What I want to say about ads is really important, but when you think about what is this new model, a lot of it is subscription, right?

And many people were optimistic and had reasons to be, but one of the arguments was, hey, ads leads to more like BuzzFeed, like content appeal to the slot that you were describing...

How would you comment on sort of how that's played out or how the business model has changed the underlying content?

And that was the, as far as I'm concerned, the original sin of post-war American media was this decision to actually make this, to bring a third party into their relationship.

And this is why I think the Substack model too, where Substack took a hard line We are not an ads business...

I also think that there was something that happened. So let me just say something about what I think is, if the last five years were about a kind of move to the fringes...

And one of the things that's a mess about it is that there's no hierarchy.

not the kind of elite of mediocrities that we've had in the last few decades, but a real elite, is very possible now.

And I think, as you mentioned, there's a lot of change happening in the media...

But you have to try to build something. It has to be an institution.

And at some point, the glow off of an industry or off of a possible career goes away, right?

Yeah. And that people really do want institutions.

So, and I'll tell you how I think the paradigm was misunderstood.

The dominant conversation that I saw happening was actually between people who deeply believed in the sense-making institutions of American life, media, universities...

But the thing that I think we're looking at now, I think it happens completely right.

We've been talking a bit about slop in this episode.

So the piece is actually the editor's letter for our November print issue.

And the federal government is considering overriding those states in support of companies for an instrument that is incredibly unethical.

And so something about it feels, I mean, it obviously feels to me deadening and depressing...

but I'll get there. Everything comes back to the absence of God.

I agree with what you say I mean i think in some ways the if any if the llm's have taught us anything it's it gives us a better understanding of the human mind...

So I think there's something, I don't know, I guess I have a little bit more of an attitude that the kids are going to be all right.

What I guess I would say is, and maybe here's where numbers actually make a difference.

I guess it's there were guardrails in the 90s this is the thing that doesn't exist with the internet...

But I also worry about the language that is used and kind of codified to sort of demonize some of these products...

And I think you could extrapolate that out to sort of like, you know, people who are well adjusted and have, you know, sort of are able to filter information...

I think there's a way in which we don't have answers for what to do about big radical moves that don't include the government.

Totally, totally. There's a little bit of a mot and bailey where you're talking about sort of critique of institutions.

And I find there's a particular kind of blackpilling.

And really, it's like the thing that annoys me the most, I think.

Zempick, earlier you talked about the normie revolution, Alana.

The news of the week that was all over our ex-feeds was the fat shaming of the military speech.

And I would say a lot of mainstream media actually play out that narrative...

I think it's in some way, some way fitting, but like the, you know, the kind of politics of aesthetics started with JFK.

I think it's really important because one of the things that we've seen with this administration is a lot of times the most important things that happen, nobody actually knows are going to happen.

And they're wrong in both ways. And the aesthetics is super important because you can see who falls for them and who doesn't in all sorts of directions.

A lot of that means reading the memes.

One other just sort of funny cultural thing that happened was, you know, Emma Watson...

I also think that there's something else at work.

Like you don't get to be a leader who people listen to and get something wrong and then not take responsibility for it.

Otherwise, I don't see why I should trust you the next time there's a geopolitical event to have any instinct.

One of the things that I think is so great about markets and investing is that there a track record if you right...

Like the heroes will be villains, the villains will be heroes.

Yeah. And that it a messy messy moment I will say the receipt that J Rowling put out because she is the best writer to ever exist...

Cernovich replied and was like, okay, now do migrants.

With that, I think we should wrap.

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