A soulful treatise for how to navigate the post-AI creator economy with your humanity intact.
Or, how to reclaim & protect your humanity in the post-AI creator economy
- TLDR: I’m publishing a treatise and instruction manual about the future of the creator economy. It will only be available as a high-quality printed artifact. No digital version will ever exist.
- I’m pretty tired of internet media, and I want to make something heavy. Something that lasts. A piece of writing that won’t disappear into the digital sludge of the internet, but
- I’m writing an in-depth treatise on creativity, business, marketing, and the internet that is the sequel to the Ungated Manifesto. It will be both more practical, and far more spiritual at the same time. Make of that what you will.
- It won’t quite be a book, nor will it be a “zine”. I’m aiming for a secret third thing that’s about 7-10,000 words of my best writing and poetry, put together with the highest quality design and materials I can find. This will be an artisanal physical object, crafted with care, for humans, not mass produced slop.
- I’m going to use the highest quality materials I can find. I want something that, when I hold it in my hands, makes me s
- The quality of your attention is the quality of your life. The internet, and screens more broadly, are destructive to quality of our attention, keeping us stuck in the shallows. Physical media, with care paid to every detail, changes the quality of attention, and creates a human experience that cannot be had through screens.
- The price for the first printing is $75, plus $7 for shipping in the US, or $14 for international.
- The first printing will be 100 copies.
The Why
The internet as we knew it is gone.
I spent 8 years making a living in the creator economy. Writing, podcasting, selling courses, memberships, sponsorships, the whole deal. Then I left for awhile. Went to work for a startup. Didn’t work out.
Now that I’m back, the landscape of the internet feels unrecognizable. Everything has been gobbled up by centralized platforms. Everything is fragmented. AI slop is everywhere, and growing all the time. The content marketing playbooks I once relied on aren’t working in this landscape. Something’s gotta budge.
We’re all living on the frontier now. The old internet, and the old playbooks, are not coming back.
The What
Attention is currency. On screens, I feel like I’m squandering my life. There’s very little return.
Physical books, however, do something different. Heavy things. I slow down. I grab my mechanical pencil. I enter into a conversation with the text. The conversation deepens through the day, each time I glance back at the object on my desk.
Personally, I don’t read much on the internet anymore. Screens leave my attention feeling scattered, jumpy, shallow.
But each morn
I’ve been reading a small handful of high quality books. Lately, I’ve been devouring Christopher Alexander’s Timeless Way of Building, Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces,
These are works that nourish me. That have adp
This is an experience I want to create for my homies. To
The Frontier is a physical artifact containing my best writing. I say artifact because it won’t be a newsletter, or a “zine” or a book. I’m aiming for a secret fourth thing.
The things I read on the internet don’t sink into my bones. They don’t change me. They keep me on the treadmill of chasing the next hit of shallow content
The quality of your attention is the quality of your life. I want to create an object that deepens the quality of attention paid to it. Something that, by its nature, cannot be experienced on screens.
A little backstory. I made my living as a creator for about 7 years. In 2023, I shut down my business to work for a startup. That didn’t work out, and now, two years later, I’m back. But the internet business world I once knew is gone. “Slop” has always been part of the landscape, though we never called it that. But now it’s an inescapable fact of life. AI is everywhere. The open internet no longer exists. Centralized platforms are becoming more rigid and centralized.
I find myself doing things quite a bit differently than I used to. What I’m sharing in this artifact is
The TLDR: An experiment in artfully-crafted physical media for a world drowning in digital slop.
I’m writing a soulful treatise about resisting the forces of mechanization and homogenization which have gripped the creator economy. future of the creator economy.
It will only be available in print. No pdf’s, digital versions, or anything. The Frontier will exist only as a high-quality physical artifact, designed with care and attention to detail, on the best materials I can find.
My goal is to write something timeless, which you enjoy keeping on your shelf, and reading multiple times for years to come.
The creator economy, and the internet at large, is buckling beneath the weight of the best practices that have defined it for the past 20 years. Something new is emerging. We’re all living on the frontier now, whether you like it or not.
Those who are selling you certainty. Who are stoking your fear. Are charlatans.
The backstory: For months, I haven’t been reading much on the internet. There are lots of things that catch my attention, and that I tell myself I should read.Instead, I’ve been spending time
3 Promises
- This writing will never be available on the internet. It cannot be read on a screen. There will be no PDF or digital copy. The Frontier will only ever exist in physical form.
- I will go to great lengths to write, design, and print something that feels timeless and artisanal. Something you’ll want to read and revisit multiple times. An object you’ll enjoy holding in your hand, and be proud to keep on your bookshelf.
- I will strive to write something valuable. That meaningfully untangles knots in your relationship to creativity, marketing, online business, and the internet as a whole, such that you feel better equipped to navigate the changing, turbulent landscape of the “creator economy” and build deep, lasting connections with your fans and customers.
This is an experiment. I’m pre-selling the first issue to see if this idea has legs. Once I get 20 pre-orders, I’m committing.
As of right now, estimated print/ship date is early December 2025.
The cost for the first edition is $65. Plus shipping.
Here’s the link to pre-order your copy.