International Continental Penpal Café
Next codename is WL.
Another Sunday, Another Naive Weekly — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
81 people from 26 different countries joined the first season of Penpal Café. Only South America is missing from the habituated continents. It is a lot of countries and a lot of people. Ten times more than I expected. It took a couple of evenings this week to pair everyone. Only a handful of the members had missing information, so in the end, I wrote 76 personal emails with information about their new penpal.
These are all some of the best emails I have ever written. I’m blown away by the compassion in the answers to the application questions and the excitement people are sharing when presented with their penpal. Thank you for walking together with me into the internet wilderness. I am delighted to have people like you surrounding me, supporting and participating in a softer, more poetic, and caring internet.
With care,
Kristoffer
Ps. I will organise a season two of Penpal Café later this year. You can join the 12 people on the waiting list (click the image) or keep reading this newsletter in the months to come.
EYE CANDY
How Many Plants — Care guide for your plants.
READER INTERVIEW
Jessica Harshman is an ex-New York women’s fashion buyer for a mega corporation turned part-time self-employed wardrobe/image consultant focusing on vintage/secondhand and part-time explorer/journalist of alternative health and wellness in Costa Rica.
K: How would you like to be remembered online?
Jessica: As an authentic, honest, and loving person. As someone that had a positive contribution to the internet by way of writing and sharing vulnerable person stories, my alternative healing journey, and the ecological significance and aesthetic fabulousness of shopping vintage. To sprinkle inspiration into the www would be nice.
K: What stones do you carry in your bag?
Jessica: Typically a chunk of double terminated crystal quartz, a tiny dalmatian jasper and feathers from a Northern Flicker. It varies though on the bag and the day. I wear laboratite, smokey quartz, green amber and pyrite. Stones rock :)
K: What do you have saved in your bookmarks?
Jessica: I forgot about bookmarking. Thank you for the reminder.
K: What is the strangest being you have encountered while surfing?
Jessica: I’m more of a land creature than a sea or www one… The rainforests are home to some very strange beings and recently I saw Dead Man’s Fingers at night which literally look like Frankenstein rotten fingers but they’re edible saprobic fungus.
K: What is the most touching you’ve experienced online?
Jessica: I met my fiancé online. Gracias, Hinge.
K: Where do you escape to when your internet is crashing?
Jessica: I live in Costa Rica and the internet often crashes so I’m plenty prepared for web outages and I quite enjoy them. I’ll go for walks, watercolor, read, journal, organize around the house, cook, nap, smoke a joint, play the flute, pull tarot cards, put on a face mask…
K: How do you prepare for an internet exploration?
Jessica: Cross-legged, socks, herbal tea, notebook, AirPods, piece of shungite (to protect against EMFs). Ideally sitting in front of a window or outside.
K: What is the deepest ocean you went diving in?
Jessica: I’d like to write “my mind” but I know I’ve got much deeper dives ahead.
K: What do you have open in your tabs?
Jessica: Google Image: “Peter Pan Costumes”, Spelling of “Chutzpah”, MontanaEmuRanch.com and The Minimalist Baker Blog.
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
Lofi.cafe — the only sound you need today.
How Many People Are in Space Dot Com.
FIELD NOTES
It's Not Cancel Culture — It's A Platform Failure
Strong first edition of Charlie Warzel’s Galaxy Brain newsletter. Before Charlie became an independent writer he was chronicling the internet as a staff writer at New York Times. In this post, Charlie conspires how the context collapse of social media could be to blame for online harassment.
The Fetishized Life Without Friction
Halle Kaplan-Allen calls for more friction in life as opposed to the convenience culture and automation obsession of Silicon Valley. Maybe it is okay to making a phone call to order dinner instead of tapping the button of an app?
How the New York Times A/B Tests Their Headlines
New York Times only split test one in three of their headlines. Points for that if you ask me. However, as becomes evident in this post, the headlines that are being tested tend to become more dramatic with time. I’d appreciate it if we could leave clickbait behind.
INTERNETMEZZO
World Wide Map — Explore 30 years of Internet citizens.
GUEST GARDEN
Plant a seed in the Naive Weekly guest garden. I’ll share a few each week in the newsletter.
“I failed yesterday. Today I’m gonna make it up.” — Niels on April 6, 2021
“There are two types of relationships: hook and click. Hook is where someone catches the other on a line and the game is to keep the tension. Click is when you're buckled in next to someone on a journey.” — Callie on April 5, 2021
“Tak for alle de seje internetting, der give klout på kontoret!” — Jakob on March 24, 2021
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
Last week this letter was sent to 753 people. Thirtyfour are crazy enough to chip in every month/year to support me making time to write. Logo by Studio Hollywood. Print by Luka. Photograph by Ana Santl.