We’re back from the holiday break! (Sort of.) This interview with the inimitable Mike Pesca was recorded on Boxing Day (December 26) and released (in slightly rougher form) shortly thereafter to paying subscribers. Now it’s available to freeloaders people with different commitments, too.
Host of The Gist and author of the newsletters Pesca Profundities and The Gist List, Mike has turned the humble “bonus segment” into a multi-level rmarketing scheme multi-tiered pricing philosophy. How does he do it? We’ll find out!
We also talk about the hardest part of the creator economy (discovery), the incentives that reward martyrdom and outrage, and, most of all, Mike’s December 26 Substack post No One’s Nice To Bari Weiss. The CBS News editor-in-chief has been all over the headlines after spiking delaying a 60 Minutes segment on CECOT, the notorious El Salvador terrorist prison, that was on the cusp of airing. Is it because the segment needed to “move beyond the forty-yard lines?” Or is something else going on?
Also: a discussion on a mega-viral Compact article by Jacob Savage about systemic discrimination against white millennial men. (My conversation with Jacob, also recorded on December 26, is up for paying subscribers.) Plus a cry against Hamilton erasure, and why my lack of grip strength is more than made up for by my alarmingly hyperextensive fingers.
Housekeeping
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🤝 The Founding Member hangouts are coming back! Starting next year, we’ll do them monthly (still figuring out the best day and time). To join in, upgrade your subscription to Founding Member.
📖 Order my book, The Catastrophe Hour: Selected Essays, on Amazon or directly from the publisher here.
📺 Visit The Unspeakeasy on YouTube.
