The year was 1054.
Joe Biden was beginning his first term as a U.S. Senator. The New York Knicks just won their first NBA championship. And Michael Cerularius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, just told Pope Leo IX to get stuffed. (That last thing is referencing the Great Schism of 1054, or the ecclesiastical separation between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.)
What I’m trying to say is that I’m thinking about separating This is bullshit and so can you into two newsletters. Or something. And while I try to figure out what that means, I’ll be going dark for a few weeks.
I’m currently tossing around a few ideas—should I split this into two newsletters? Should I start an OnlyFans?
“Yeah so three months in he just pivoted to porn, I guess.”
—My readers
When I started This is bullshit and so can you I thought: “Wouldn’t it be HILARIOUS if I wrote a weekly newsletter where one week I explained an intricate economic concept, then the next week I wrote a satirical piece about Steph Curry and QAnon, then I rounded out the month with a startlingly honest and uncomfortably raw portrayal of what it’s like living with obsessive-compulsive disorder?”
This appears to be a bit of a miscalculation.
I think I’ve inadvertently built two warring factions: those interested in my explainer series—like “how the f**k is inflation measured” and those interested in my content about obsessive-compulsive disorder.
I’ve come to realize that going from a piece explaining how inflation is calculated to a piece where I’m insinuating my obsessive-compulsive disorder is face-f**king me might be a lot to ask of my readers.
So I’m going back to the drawing board.
As I’ve said before, I have big dreams for This is bullshit and so can you. I want this to be more than a newsletter. I want this to be an institution.
I want this to be the next Wall Street Journal—but with fewer political musings and more dick jokes. It’s fitting, too, since many of my past lovers have said I possess the raw, sexual magnetism of an early-2000s Rupert Murdoch.
Now I know none of you actually give a shit about any of this. I’m looking at you, mom—would it kill you to hit the ❤️ button every once in a while?
But either way, you probably won’t hear from me for about a month. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions on how to improve This is bullshit and so can you, drop me a quick note in this Suggestion Box:
Thank you for reading this.
I love you.