Today’s newsletter includes: The New York Times has a new show about New Yorkers (very New York Nico), the repercussions of “comment for link” behavior, a fist fight at one of New York’s most expensive members’ clubs, Cardi B shredded the beauty retail playbook, Puck is hiring, feels conflicted about AI writing on Substack, and one of America’s best tailors will be in Brooklyn this weekend.

FEED ME FALL PLAYLIST

It’s going to be 44° on Saturday night. Plan your movies wisely. By Teddy Kim.

Stay Tuned is a Feed Me guest column about film and entertainment, written by Teddy Kim. Today, he wrote about what you should watch this weekend.

New releases this weekend: After opening to $15.6 million on just 855 screens last weekend, You Can See Everything goes wide on more than 2,500 screens this weekend. With a reported combined production and marketing budget of under $20 million, the doc is well on its way to turning a nice profit for A24 and everyone involved, which does not include [redacted]. Clayface (I guess it’s now a Skydance movie?) opens as the third DCU movie since the James Gunn reboot, delivering a hard-R body horror film written by Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House). Possible Love, which I’ve been talking up for weeks, finally opens in limited release, so go watch it in theaters before it hits Netflix on November 6. Olivia Colman stars in the Sundance hit Wicker, in which her character handcrafts a husband made of… wicker, played by Alexander Skarsgård. There was a time from 2016-2022, when Taika Waititi seemed like one of the hottest directors working. Since then his star has faded some, but he’s back this year with an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel, Klara and the Sun. Jenna Ortega stars as an AI friend keeping a sick girl company. Early reviews have not been great.

FEED ME JOB BOARD

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Brenda Hashtag, Jeremy O. Harris, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Today, Feed Me readers interviewed , the CEO and one of the co-founders of Substack. I have had the pleasure of spending time with Chris over dinners in London, while walking along the water in San Francisco, and at various Substack events. I have a lot of respect for him, and don’t think his job is easy. Below, he discusses being “AI-pilled,” Substack’s algorithm, the publishers he thinks are using Substack well, and his relationship with New York City.

“How do you make Substack a place where more readers discover writing they like? As opposed to being a place where they read writing they’ve discovered elsewhere? I discover Substacks primarily on other sites (LinkedIn, etc), and I think that’s a common experience. Or do you not view reader discovery as a primary issue for Substack, i.e. using other networks for discovery is the strategy?” - Zach

This is the point of the Substack app. When all Substack had was email, writers were wholly dependent on other sites to reach new audiences and grow, but the app is really great for this. People use it to read stuff they are already subscribed to, of course, but they also discover a ton of writing and writers.

People discovered long-form posts in the Substack app over 100m times last month, which more than doubled year-over-year. And it’s not just one-off reading: the app drives over 40% of new subscriptions on the platform.

“You’ve said Substack’s model works because you only make money when writers do. Once brand sponsorships really get going, brands are paying you too. Does that change who the customer is?” - Brad

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Last night, I went to a dinner at Bistrot Ha (Sadie Mae Burns, one of the owners, told me it’s event season at the restaurant) to celebrate New York Magazine’s inaugural “Men’s Style” issue. I recognized Angus O’Brien from the steamy pages of the magazine, but also from a short film called The Pass that I saw for the first time at the Hamptons International Film Festival. It screened in the same selection of shorts as my doc, The End. I said hi and congrats to Angus, and then I sat across from Holden Jaffe and (New York’s Senior Men’s Style Editor) and ate some of Ha’s addicting fried yuba and tuna carpaccio, before zooming off to JFK. I’m writing this to you from my hotel in Paris. I already bumped into in the lobby.

Today’s Guest Lecture is one of my favorites that I’ve published. Every few months I’ll meet someone — sometimes digitally, sometimes IRL, in this case both — who I think is on to something. That’s the best way I can put it, because that’s what it feels like in my gut. When I meet someone like this, I can’t look away from what they’re doing (or writing, or building). Alex Bronzini-Vender and I have mostly interacted online, aside from a few minutes of catching up at a Feed Me party on Shelter Island over the summer. I asked him to participate in a Guest Lecture, and in his responses below, he discusses his cheating Harvard classmates, what outlets his friends actually read, the fact that the most powerful people in America spend hours on social media every day, and getting blocked by Marc Andreessen on X. Occasionally, Guest Lecture responses feel phoned in, and today’s are very obviously not.

Todays’s newsletter also includes: Catching up with Michael Ratner on why he opened an OBB office in London, a new publication started from an NYU dorm, media companies are building apps and mom group chats, Condé’s CEO is out (I don’t blame him), Hailey Bieber opened a cafe, I want to join the crochet and liquor club, Pinterest is actually bad for creativity, and Vox’s is podcast roster expands.

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Lauren Sherman, Jeremy O. Harris, and Lina Khan.

“What was the topic of your college essay and how does you feel about that piece of writing 3+ years later?” - Natasha

Before I discovered that I love writing, and that I’m reasonably good at meeting deadlines, I wanted to major in art history. I love art, and as a high schooler I voraciously read the copies of Artforum and The Brooklyn Rail my parents had lying around the house. My mother taught art history to middle schoolers and now works as an art advisor. (Shoutout to her.) If I’m being honest, at seventeen I was hoping she might find some way to nepo me into the art world.

By then, I was beginning to publish my writing. I wrote about how I felt as an outsider, breaking into media, and about the analogies between what I was doing and the category of outsider art, and moreover, the value of being an outsider. What were the insights that I could bring to well-trodden subjects as a seventeen-year-old?

I find the whole idea of the college essay pretty obscene. It’s a genre with impossible rules. You have to confess, but only to the right sins (I’m such a perfectionist!). You have to aggrandize yourself, but not be too self-aggrandizing. I think I wrote the truest thing I could within those constraints, but the reality is that the college essay doesn’t encourage students to be true to themselves. I understand why a college might want to assess an applicant’s character, but there’s something deeply wrong about distributing opportunity through what is essentially a sob-story-writing contest.

It’s a terrible genre, and I’d happily see it abolished. But in fairness to admissions offices, the people who work in them are not idiots. I get a lot of emails from high schoolers begging for college admissions advice, and I try to help them how I can. Yes, you have to come across as a good person with the right moral virtues, balanced in exactly the right ways: humble but not a pushover, ambitious but not a monster. My essay was esoteric, and more than a little nerdy, and the people reading it understood it perfectly well. Their job is to read, and they are good at it.

“I want to know how you and your friends are using AI. It seems like you still like to engage deeply with reading and writing, and I’m curious if that’s common for your friends/classmates or if you find that fewer and fewer of your peers are doing that.” - Emily

David Wallace-Wells had a great newsletter back in July questioning the narrative that we’re sliding toward a post-literate America. His evidence comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey, which is the strongest record of how Americans actually spend their days that we have.

In 2003, the average American over fifteen spent 21.9 minutes a day reading. In 2025, it was 16.2. But Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 are actually reading more than they used to. In 2003, they read 8.4 minutes daily. In 2025, it was 10.2 minutes!

Our figures are low, and they’re almost certainly inflated by a small cult of heavy readers. Americans over 65 went from reading an average of 58.5 minutes a day in 2003 to 32.4 minutes in 2025. They still read more than us, but they—not us zoomers—are driving the contraction.

So what’s going on? Well, the youngest Americans’ reading habits have barely changed in two decades. It absolutely sucks that boomers read more than us, and their aging portends grim things for publishing. Beyond them, though, the world hasn’t really changed. There was always a small, strange, committed minority of us who read for pleasure, and there still is.

“I thought starting my freshman year at the peak of the recession was scary, but now feels like an even wilder time to be in your formative years in college - you entered post-pandemic and right as AI started to take a chokehold on every part of the world. What advice would you give high school seniors?” - Matt

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After sending yesterday’s newsletter, I met (whose newsletter teaches me so much about how men think about getting dressed) for a focaccia sandwich at Gem Home. I like that laptops are allowed in the back, but the front is still a laptop-free zone. Choose your own lunch adventure. I ended my night at Raquel for a facial and audit of my medicine cabinet to switch out some of my products. (Raquel sent out her first newsletter, , this morning!)

Today’s newsletter includes: New York’s newest Nightlife Editor Dani Brand on the role of secrets in the party scene, $28 scrambled eggs, Ari Emanuel answers your questions about AI and work lessons from his wife, the paper hiring an “Information and Influence Reporter,” I asked Larry McGuire why everyone has been texting me about Nine Orchard this week, Peter Rahal likes suffering, Mamdani-Trump III, and tuxedos are getting wackier than wedding cakes.

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Alison Roman, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Kareem Rahma.

This week Ari Emanuel — the agent-turned-mogul who runs MARI (global live events) and TKO (parent company of UFC and WWE), founded the talent agency Endeavor, and served as the inspiration behind Ari Gold in Entourage — answers your questions about execs who inspire him, business lessons from his wife, and why he decided to write a memoir today versus ten years from now. Roll the Calls is out today.

“When you were coming up, which agent or executive did you most respect?” — Teddy

Gavin Polone—incredible taste and relentless. Jay Moloney. Jay, at a very young age, handled incredible clients. And Bill Block—always curious about the next thing, both physically and business-wise, and truly excited for his friends, their happiness, and their success.

“Is there a future for the independent film business? When directors like Sean Baker come out and say they cannot make a living in indie film what advice would you give to young talented people who want to make movies AND make a living. Should they just start their own YouTube channels or find another career path?” — Kathleen

Yes, there’s a future for the independent film business. With AI, it’s going to become cheaper to make movies, which means you’ll have to raise less money, and your slice of the pie—the piece you own—will get larger over time.

You’ve built your career by being very good at seeing where power is moving before everyone else does. What’s an area of entertainment or media today that you think people are fundamentally misunderstanding—and where do you see the opportunity that other people aren’t seeing yet? — Tatayana

“In 2016, we saw where sports rights and valuations were going. I think people are just coming around to it now. Sports will continue to grow. We are seeing that with TKO. Mark Shapiro and I have a point of view on live events and where they are going—it’s why we built MARI.”

“Through Frieze, Barrett-Jackson, and now Collect-A-Con, you’re seeing collecting across very different generations and price points. What did you learn buying Collect-A-Con about younger collectors that outsiders are missing and where does that make you think the biggest opportunity in collectibles is over the next five years? 10 years? What is everyone missing about this space?” — BB

You’re going to see an enormous transfer of wealth to millennials and Gen Z over the next two decades. That means a whole new generation of collectors who want a whole different kind of experience. I think that’s true in the car market, the card business, and the art world, too. That will be a changing of the guard: who’s collecting and what they collect. Collecting is a great space to be in.

“What is a business lesson that your wife Sarah Staudinger (co-founder of Staud) has taught you?” — Julia

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Last night, I went to Somssi a few hours after the Times review for the new Greenwich Village restaurant dropped (to be clear, the res had been in my calendar for days). My friends Lily, Lizzie, and I devoured their Potato, Potato, Potato (potato wrapped in potato and served on more potato), and for dessert we had fig-leaf custard with early autumn grape granita. If we can’t have figs this year, at least we can have fig leaves.

Today’s newsletter includes: A kickoff to New York Fashion Week with a Lauren Sherman Guest Lecture (masterclass in Guest Lecture responses), speaking to about her decision to go free-stuff-affiliate-link-brand-trip sober (fashion writers — your readers are smarter than you think), Substack is hosting an Emmys watch party with Polymarket and your favorite writers, the Astoria Fig Festival, Sam Altman’s skinny jeans (by Jonathan Anderson), and Zuck is baking something with coconut sugar and almond flour. 🍰

Have a story or some good neighborhood gossip you want me to cover?

Text the Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬.

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Alison Roman, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Kareem Rahma.

This week Lauren Sherman, Puck’s fashion correspondent and author of Line Sheet newsletter, answers your questions about her recent Vanity Fair profile, the most underrated creative director, moving to Paris after years in LA and New York, and the biggest open secret about the fashion world.

“Fuck, marry, kill: New York, Paris, LA.” - Emily

Kill New York. That’s easy. I’m never moving back. Bad weather. Too expensive (no matter how rich you are). Rats. New York is a drug, or a boyfriend who treats you like shit. Once you’re out, you realize how insane and unhelpful it was to be in it. But also like a bad boyfriend, it’s fun when you’re in your twenties.

As for fuck and marry? I’m undecided. Back to the boyfriend analogy, there are always two guys to choose between, right? Both of these places are marriage worthy. Paris feels great at the moment, but I am not committed either way—maybe we’ll be here for 2 years, maybe we’ll be here forever.

“What are you curious about right now that you have no professional reason to be curious about?” - Tatayana

I can make anything about work.

“With the current popularity of northeast kids going to Southern schools, do you foresee them bringing back much of that influence as they grow up and presumably return?” - Andrew

Here is something far more interesting to think about: There will not be college in 20 years.

“Do you ever fear potential backlash to what you might be publishing? How do you remain authentic in an industry that seems to value money and being in good favor over truth?” - Juliana

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Writing to you this morning from the LIRR. The theme I gave myself for my first set of fall reading is “books by people who work/ed in media.” I ordered a copy of Scribble Scribble (Nora Ephron’s collection of essays about the media that she wrote for an Esquire column) per the recommendation of Olivia Nuzzi. I went to a thrift store in East Hampton yesterday and found a copy of Save Me the Plums, by Ruth Reichl, and a book called The Potato Book, which I decided was on-theme because the forward was written by Truman Capote. Reading Capote’s description of eating a hot baked potato from a field in Sagaponack, covered in sour cream, on a chilly October morning, made me shiver in my straight-from-the-dryer $4 Chico’s sweater (that I also got from the thrift store). If you have books that you’d recommend in this category, please leave them below or shoot me an email.

Today’s newsletter includes: Chloe Malle on what newsletters she actually reads on Substack, Puck gets into the video podcast game, OpenAI hired an Unwell alumni, a scoop on David Protein’s Series B, a potential reason for Cameron Winter and Olivia Rodrigo’s dinner, ’s New York store, and a back-to-school AI ban in New York City.

It’s free to browse and post on the Feed Me Job Board. This week, it was used by hiring teams at Ramp, Rent the Runway, and Hearst.

FEED ME JOB BOARD

Guest Lecture: Chloe Malle

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Jeremy O. Harris, Brenda Hashtag, and Recho Omondi.

This week Chloe Malle, Vogue’s Head of Editorial Content, answers your questions about running a magazine in 2026, what newsletters she reads on Substack, how she thinks about the role print plays today, and what she’d wear to dinner if “not a soul” would care.

“How do you see the future of print at your company? Lifestyle journalism (including fashion) has really faced increasing competition from social media, blogs, YouTube, etc., and people have been talking about the “death of magazines” for a long time. At the same time, there is still a strong appetite for news, and some news organizations have managed to build very successful business models through things like paid subscriptions. What do you think the future looks like for lifestyle journalism? (More events? More opportunities to meet and engage with readers? Or is there even a future for lifestyle journalism??)” - Emelie

I actually think it’s a golden age for telling stories, people are hungry for narrative and point of view and now they can consume them in so many different formats, we need to be fluent in all of them. Print is still incredibly important to Vogue, but I want each issue to feel meaningful and collectible–my goal is that if someone buys Vogue at the airport to read on a flight, they’ll think twice before leaving it on the plane because the issue feels like something you want to keep (both physically—we’ve made the paper heavier—and editorially).

A big part of the future is also building a deeper, stronger connection with our audience, whether that’s through our book club, subscriber events, The Run Through podcast, social media, or by encouraging our writers and editors to lean into their own idiosyncratic and niche passions such as birdwatching or photographing a group of appealing arborists in Central Park.

It’s been really exciting to see The Run Through grow in particular. The show is a great example of how our different platforms speak to each other: a print story will come to life with a podcast interview, that interview will live on YouTube, and we’ll run clips across social. I love co-hosting with Chioma [Nnadi] and Nicole [Phelps], and getting to involve some of our other editors and writers too.

“This is SO fun! I’ve been a big fan of Chloe’s newsletter, Malle Wear. One of the things I love about it is how relatable it is - like her talking about her kids and sharing pictures from family vacations. I’m really curious about her strategy - Vogue has always been the pinnacle of ‘can’t sit with us’ vibes, but is she trying to make Vogue more relatable?” - Michelle

Thank you Michelle! I am so happy with how readers have been responding to Malle Wear! I think every editor—at any title—brings their own personality and point of view to the role, and that the most effective way to lead is to be as true to yourself as possible because people smell a rat otherwise.

People ask about this a lot—“how can Vogue stay aspirational if you are making it more relatable?”—but I actually don’t find those two qualities to be in competition. I remember reading the 2003 issue of Vogue featuring the Grace Coddington-Annie Leibovitz-Alice in Wonderland fantasy with Natalia Vodianova and being totally transported, and then a few pages later reading a reported piece on how T-shirts were the chicest Christmas gift of the season. I want Vogue to embrace whimsy and fantasy but I also want people to connect to it in a variety of ways, whether that is me mentioning seeing Minions & Monsters with my children in Malle Wear or Tyler Mitchell and Carlos Nazario describing their epic fashion shoot across Texas on the podcast. Vogue will remain aspirational, but I always want audiences to feel warmly welcomed into its pages. And I’ve always been interested in having a dialogue with our readers – what fun is it if you can’t?

I want there to be fashion, of course, but also culture, lifestyle, and ideas. I often think of longtime Vogue editor Edna Woolman Chase’s edict that Vogue presented “the outward and visible graces of a civilized way of life, the arts of gracious living.” What that meant to her in the ’40s and ’50s is likely quite different from what it means to me, but to me that confirms why we commission an illustrated series of NYC chefs’ favorite farmers’ market vendors to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the NYC Greenmarket or photograph the beach bags of the season with our favorite new novels or feature the bubblegum pink Mario Buatta-inspired interiors of the LA home of our sex columnist . It’s also important to me that Vogue has a wry sense of humor about what we do.

We are the fashion authority, but fashion is better–I believe–when not taken too seriously. Our team has been bitten by the scarf dressing bug inspired by Celine’s fall collection. In addition to a variety of trend and shopping stories, we enlisted a beautiful Afghan hound, Samantha, to model the many ways you can style silk scarves for this year’s installment of Dogue [Vogue’s dog-themed edition].

“Who are some people in the culture who you (not advertisers) find appealing for Vogue right now?” - Lindy

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I was pleased to see many of you on Saturday night at Sunset Beach on Shelter Island. Some readers made a day of it, and drove out to the Hamptons from the city, and got some frosé and Feed Me towels before grabbing the last ferry off the island to drive back to Manhattan. My favorite Gen Z feather-rufflers Ella Devi and Alex Bronzini-Vender made the trip from Long Island, as did . New York Magazine’s Alexis Swerdloff and Sam Hine were already on the island, so they didn’t have much of an odyssey to Sunset Beach’s disco ball. I met two young men from the island who recently paid for a blue checkmark for their clam chowder review Instagram page, Chowder Hour. Expect an interview with them soon. Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Today’s newsletter includes: gives us a baller (gloves off) Guest Lecture interview, Anna Wintour is hiring a new assistant, new money millionaires want to buy second homes in Maine, a Feed Me-exclusive discount to The Holes, and the Mamdani administration runs on Zyn.

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Klein, and Joe Weisenthal.

Today, , author of the bestselling novel Yesteryear, answers your questions about tradwives, rejection in the publishing industry prior to Yesteryear, and adjusting to public life after selling 1.4 million copies of her book.

“Thank you for writing such an amazing book. I couldn’t put it down. Are there any aspects of the ‘trad-wife’ life that you admire? And if so, which elements would you apply to your own?” - Deanna

Trad-wife hobbies I admire: eating fresh food, making meals at home, and avoiding screen time (tho kind of lol for the ones who claim to avoid screen time yet share their kids’ entire lives online).

“How much empathy did you personally feel for your main character (who seems to divide readers) and did that change over the course of writing the novel?” - Eva

I could’ve spent the rest of my life writing from the perspective of Natalie. I think she’s the most ambitious, hysterical, tragic, and fascinating mind I’ve ever occupied. I love her endlessly. I don’t know if my relationship to her changed over the course of writing the novel, but I certainly relate to her even more in the wake of the novel’s publication.

“What has most surprised you, if anything, about how any part of your book has been interpreted either by fans or by the ‘trad-wife’ community?” - Rachel

How open to the conversation many “traditional women” are. I have met so, so, so many conservative/Christian/Republican women on tour. Some of them love the book, some of them kind of like it, some of them dislike it. Regardless, countless have shown up to my signings eager to have conversations inspired from what they read, and that has been extremely cool to witness.

“There is a split between interpretations on whether your book is feminist or inherently woman-hating. How do you define your book? How does your discussion of postpartum depression and psychosis either help or harm our current treatment of mothers?” - Lily

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Last night I watched Jonathan Demme’s Married to the Mob. Alongside the perfect 1988 cast of Michelle Pfeiffer, Alec Baldwin, and Matthew Modine, was a young actor in his debut role: Oliver Platt. In one of my favorite types of twists (sibling excellence), Wikipedia revealed Oliver to be the brother of one of the best food critics of our time, Adam Platt. I thought to myself, Their parents must be so proud.

After poking around Adam’s Instagram, I learned that their father Nicholas Platt lived to the age of 90, and passed away less than a week ago. I read Adam’s essay dedicated to this fascinating man — diplomat, leader of the Asia Society in New York City, Harvard grad, speaker of several languages — and thought about how the old guard of US Foreign service was so damned educated. I don’t want to be too nostalgic for a different kind of elite, but I can’t help but think how things might be different if we still had diplomats like this today. (A few books have been written about this.)

Nicholas Platt, what a great 20th Century life. He and his wife raised incredible kids.

Today’s newsletter includes: Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman answers your questions, an SF entrepreneur is looking to pay a personal assistant $180k, a luxury hotel nightmare, a review of the Nob Hill Spa at the Huntington Hotel, a hot girl book club, Bernard Arnault discovers the power of X, and Stephanie Danler’s new dark novel about wealth and privilege in LA.

Have a story you want me to include in the newsletter? Respond to this email or text the Feed Me Tip Line: 1 (646) 494-3916

Guest Lecture: Nithya Raman

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Jeremy O. Harris, Recho Omondi, and Jeff Klein. Today, we’re talking to Nithya Raman.

In early June, Nithya Raman, an urban planner, activist, and Los Angeles City Councilmember finished second in the L.A. mayoral primary (slightly behind sitting L.A. mayor Karen Bass and slightly ahead of non-mayor Spencer Pratt), setting up a runoff with Bass in November. Bass, who is the first incumbent L.A. mayor since 2005 to face a runoff, has a formidable challenger in Raman, who is young (44), unapologetically progressive (she’s been endorsed by the DSA), and attracts natural comparisons to Zohran Mamdani.

Raman is running on a platform of, among other things, reducing street homelessness in L.A., increasing and speeding up housing production, tackling affordability, and helping revive the film and TV production industry in L.A. She lives in Silver Lake and won overwhelmingly in the East Side neighborhoods we cover regularly in the letter. It felt like a good time to get your questions to her.

“How do you and some of the intellectual heavyweights you have in your corner aim to combat the persistent narrative that ‘urban disorder’ is a byproduct of progressive governance and something excessively tolerated/not addressed by progressives in power?” — Edward

I could give you a more ideological answer, but the truth is that the only convincing response is to demonstrate results.

I am a proud progressive. I believe in the power of government to do good, and I believe in the power of government intervention to solve problems and make our lives better. But that means that progressives actually need to do more than other politicians to deliver results for people. This cannot be a political project of asking people to accept less.

People want clean and safe streets. They want 911 to answer. They want garbage picked up and street lights fixed and city services to work. Those aren’t conservative demands. They are basic expectations of government.

And in Los Angeles, people want homelessness addressed. Angelenos have proven over and over again that they believe in a progressive vision of how to address homelessness: This is a city where people have voted three times in the last few years to tax themselves to provide housing and shelter and services for people on the streets. We owe it to every person on this city’s streets and to every voter and to every taxpayer to really build a response that works to end this humanitarian crisis and keep our streets safe, healthy, and clean for all.

This is why I have worked so hard to bring down homelessness in my district every single year that I have been in office. This is why I worked to ensure that shelter beds and permanent supportive housing units are full every night.

That is what progressive governance should look like. Treating people with dignity. Changing the political norms so that we don’t hide data that voters won’t like, but that we are honest and transparent about what we are doing well and where we are falling short so we can actually fix things. And doing all of this to actually deliver a safer, cleaner, healthier city for all.

“Burglaries and break-ins in the neighborhood are daily and nightly. Last year, three masked men broke into my home while a getaway driver waited out front and LAPD never showed up. What’s your strategy to prevent this sort of crime citywide and keep those who commit these crimes from returning to our neighborhoods?” — Spencer

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If you were traveling during Father’s Day last month like I was, you can make up for it with tickets to Bob Dylan at Forest Hills on July 21st.

Today in Feed Me: A new midtown newsstand selling Iraqi Cokes and old magazines, Recho Omondi on the biggest open secret about New York’s fashion world, Downtown Brooklyn is getting a five-story mall, the latest hobby of Upstate New York teenage boys, and Matthieu Blazy replaced the Chanel bride with a revenge dress.

Browsing and posting on the Feed Me Job Board is free. Roles this week include:

☎️ Communications Manager at The Cutting Room Floor

👖 Creative Marketing Manager at Eckhaus Latta

🎨 Design Director at Day Job

FEED ME JOB BOARD

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Alison Roman, Rachel Karten, and Jake Sherman.

Recho Omondi is the host of The Cutting Room Floor, a podcast about the fashion industry and the people who occupy it. I started listening during COVID and have been a devout listener since. Today, Recho answers your questions about paywalls, New York’s fashion world secrets, and fandom.

“If you were starting a show again today, what would your strategy be with free vs paywalled content?” - Macy

If I were starting from scratch today, I’d probably go all in on TikTok first. Just to test the market and find out whether people genuinely care about your POV. If you build a loyal audience that consistently shows up for you, then maybe I’d experiment with a paid offering that gives them a compelling reason to come along.

You have to be thoughtful about the relationship between your free and paid content, though. If you’re giving everything away for free, the audience will wonder what’s different about the paywalled experience. The paid offering has to feel meaningfully distinct. There has to be a real value proposition. What is someone getting in exchange for their money? That’s something every creator has to answer for themselves.

“Where do you see the most benefits from paywalling your full conversations as opposed to others who share on YouTube? How and where do those benefits show up and how do you approach growth with that in mind? (thinking a lot about paywalling conversations that often happen behind closed doors as a way to mitigate some of the pain of sharing publicly for *everyone in the world* to weigh back in on)” - Cait

For me, one of the biggest benefits of the paywall is that I’m no longer a slave to the algorithm, which has become more and more tyrannical over the years. I like knowing that my audience knows where to find me. I don’t have to constantly chase trends or make content that feels inauthentic just to stay visible.

The other major benefit is the good-faith conversation. When people are paying to be there, it’s an intentional choice, which creates a positive environment. The comments and discussions happen in much better faith because there are fewer drive-by content consumers and fewer people showing up just to argue for sport. This makes it easier to have nuanced conversations, without every subject getting flattened into a debate.

You and Emily seem to have different ways of publishing content. Recho does episodes every other week vs. Emily does a newsletter essentially every day. I’m curious if there’s anything Recho thinks she’s missing out on by having more intermittent content in a time when people are posting at such high frequencies. - Angela

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Today in Feed Me, Jeremy O. Harris discusses the importance of befriending peers (and seeing movies and plays with them), publishers are still figuring out what role Substack plays in their industry, Madrid fears a “Barcelona-isation” of the city, and who is reading Glucose Goddess?

Have a story you’d like to be included in Feed Me? Reply to this email or text the Feed Me Tip Line: 1 (646) 494-3916

Guest Lecture: Jeremy O. Harris

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Audrey Hobert, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Lina Khan.

Jeremy O. Harris is a playwright, screenwriter, producer, and actor. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to moderate a conversation with him (and Pete Ohs and Will Madden) about Erupcja, which he co-produced, co-wrote, and acted in. If you have the opportunity to hear him speak live, you should take it. Today, he answers your questions about developing taste, working with friends, and his favorite book he read during his 23 days in jail in Japan.

“Is there a contemporary playwright or artist right now whose work genuinely excites you and that you feel deserves way more attention?” - Leanne

I produce most of those people. That’s how I choose what it is I want to do next. When there’s someone who is unsung, I cling onto their work like a madman and tell everyone I know to watch it or read it or enjoy it. I’d say contemporary playwrights I’m enjoying right now are Else Went, Tori Sampson, Gracie Gardner, and Misha Chowdhury. I’m missing so many but these are the first I thought about.

“What do you do when you hit an energy slump and need to keep writing? Can any beverage force the muse’s hand?”

No beverage I’ve encountered can force the muse’s hand. At least not a muse that amuses me at all. But everybody meets their muse differently. Patricia Highsmith was drunk 90 percent of her day as she wrote according to her journals. I think her beverage of choice was a gin martini.

“Might be a silly question, but how did you *learn* to write a play? A specific class/program? Watching/reading them? Just starting somewhere and figuring it out?” - Leda

Read a lot of plays. Watch a lot of plays. Act in some plays. Write as you’re doing all of it. This would be how I taught playwriting. Because that’s how I learned.

“What are some practices that help you develop taste?”

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Today’s newsletter includes: A Guest Lecture with Mark Zuckerberg (including a conversation we had on Zoom), Cannes IV drips gone wrong, and Ina Garten is launching a podcast with Vox.

I’m writing to you from the floor of my apartment in Cannes, eating truffle potato chips and salami. The best way to describe the situation here for those who have never been is Disney World for advertisers, but instead of Mickey Mouse and Cinderella, people geek out over and Alex Cooper. The whole festival appears to run on bottles of rosé, which is offered at all times to remedy boring conversations, gaps in the calendar, and the heat. I’m having a blast.

Last night, I stopped by The New York Times dinner hosted by before heading to my own dinner that I hosted with Yahoo. I’ve been working with the Yahoo team for the last few months, and I’ve grown to really admire their CEO Jim Lanzone and chief communications officer Sona Iliffe-Moon (who happened to also be in the WSJ last week). It might’ve been my own espresso martini buzz, but I got a little emotional while watching a (bear with me) drone show with , , , Risa Heller, , , Beehiiv founder Tyler Denk, Willa Bennett, and all in one place — that place being the Yahoo Explorers Society on La Plage du Martinez. My night ended at 1 a.m. by finishing my last drink at Hotel Du Cap with one hand, and shaking ’s hand with the other.

Here’s what I’ve done today so far:

• Spotify Beach hired the world’s best coffee maker, Victor Delpierre, to run the coffee situation at their Cannes set-up. I met him yesterday and was amazed by his coffee skills, so we went back this morning to work and drink more coffee. MVP of my week so far.

• I spoke at Hearst House with Willa Bennett, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen, and Michael Sebastian, editor-in-chief of Esquire. We were discussing the metrics of a successful media business, and all agreed that one of the most important ones for a leader is unseeable to the rest of the world — the emails and notes from readers who tell editors directly how a publication’s work makes them feel. Afterwards, I met a group of young women from the University of Georgia who are studying abroad in France this summer. Ate a mini chocolate croissant and left.

• Sat in the air conditioning at UTA Beach and drank water, while eavesdropping on other people’s hangovers.

• Adobe hosted a “Group Chat,” a format I really enjoyed. They brought together creators like Sammi Cohen and iJustine to discuss “scaling content and reaching new audiences.” They seated each of us at separate tables, and I sat with several newsletter writers and business creators and talked about building a business on Substack. A big topic throughout this week thus far has been taste, developing creativity, and standing out in a sea of content. On the walk home, I got an ice cream cone and thought about how long I’ve been using Adobe products to build my projects. In 2020, I applied for a creative grant for $2,500 to make my documentary, The End. I got it, and it ending up unlocking my ability to book an Airbnb in Montauk for me and my friends to go out to Long Island and shoot the film.

• I just took a nap and ate some strawberries and drank a Coke Zero, and will be back with more updates from the South of France tomorrow.

Have a news tip from Cannes, New York, or London? Hit the Feed Me Tip Line: (646) 494-3916‬

Guest Lecture: Mark Zuckerberg

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Jeff Klein, Mark Guiducci, and Audrey Hobert.

Today, we have a rather surreal guest, Mark Zuckerberg. He answers your questions about Harvard style, “not getting” wearables, and the most interesting things he’s thinking about that nobody is asking him about.

“Social feeds have gone from people you know, to creators you follow, to AI recommendations, to AI-generated content. Is the end state a feed where almost nothing was made by a real person? And is this the goal, or a side effect you’re okay with?” - Brad

Yes, feeds have evolved, but we still design our products to help people connect. Today, a lot of that happens through messaging rather than directly within the feed. Previously someone would post, and you’d comment on that post, and that would be the interaction. Now, feeds act more as a discovery engine where there’s content from your friends, from creators, and increasingly content that’s either been created with AI or by AI, and that’s all in service of helping people learn about the world and find content that helps them connect with their friends.

Even as feeds have changed, the content that typically does the best has a voice or perspective that’s unique and genuine to the person posting it. That’s true on our platforms, it’s true here on Substack. And so I think that human creativity is always going to remain a big part of social feeds.

"I’ve never really bought into wearables because ‘I can just use my phone,’ and don’t want to lug around other devices. How do you make the pitch to folks to add another device? Or: is Meta’s wearable tech trying to move in the direction of being a better version of the phone, i.e. replacing the phone, instead of adding to it?” - Zach

I don’t think phones are going to go away completely, but I do think that glasses will be the next major computing device. Today, when I’m sitting at my desk with a computer in front of me, I still reach for my phone to do a lot of things. In the future, I think you’re just going to do more and more stuff on your glasses, so even if you have your phone in your pocket, you’re not going to pull it out. And eventually you may leave it home more of the time. So I think eventually the question might be: “Why should I lug around my phone, when I have my glasses?”

Glasses are already something that almost 2 billion people wear every day -- people are used to using them in their daily lives. We know that we have to make sure that there’s a style for everyone so we’ve been building a pretty deep portfolio. We have over 70 options now so there’s a style that works for any occasion and at an accessible price point.

“Outside of AI and wearables, what’s the most interesting thing you’re thinking about that nobody is asking you about?” - Montague

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Before we get into today’s West Coast letter, let’s address the news that several of you texted to the Feed Me Tip Line last night: at least half of Kiki’s (a Greek Dimes Square cafeteria of sorts that has restaurants on both sides of Division St.) appears to be seized for tax evasion by the state of New York. One reader embarked …

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If I was looking for plans this week, I’d be heading to the Paul Thek opening at Galerie Buchholz tonight, or the Leonora Carrington opening at L’Space tomorrow night. I’m upset that I’ll be out of town for the opening of Klimt’s drawing show, Women, at Gladstone on Friday.

A Feed Me reader who goes by J.M. made that last one sound quite enticing:

This show of Gustav Klimt uptown is just his drawings. We all know immediately at least one or two Klimt paintings of women resplendent in gold leaf that we love. Rather than a bombardment of work like that, we’re given the drawings, the slight whispers of women that surface on the page as the ideas have still yet to form on the canvas. Gladstone’s uptown location is in the Edward Durell Stone House, the Modernist townhouse Stone built for himself in 1956, which you’ve certainly walked past, with the filigreed masonry on the front.

Today’s newsletter includes: An invite to a Feed Me event in New York later this month, unpacking Hot Divorcee Summer, and a downtown gala hosted by Ari Aster and Josh Safdie.

Have a story you want to see in Feed Me? Reply to this email, or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

Guest Lecture: Petra Collins

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Gwyneth Paltrow, J. Crew CMO Julia Collier, and beehiiv founder Tyler Denk.

Today, Petra Collins — artist, photographer, director, author of STAR — answers your questions about directing Selena Gomez’s music video for “Fetish,” whether imitation is truly flattery, and her self-care rituals.

“You’re really the first major visual artist to come out of Toronto in the internet age. What’s one thing about making it from here that you had to figure out on your own, that you wish someone had just told you?” - Parker

I’m not totally sure. For a long time I felt really held back by Toronto, but then I moved to America and realized every place comes with its own trade-offs. In the U.S. there’s this very individualistic energy where everyone is kind of fighting for themselves, whereas Toronto actually has a real sense of community within the arts. I appreciate that a lot more now than I did when I was younger. Lean into that community and don’t underestimate it.

“You recently were talking about how the Hungarian cartoons your mom introduced you to influenced you so deeply. Would you ever consider animation?” - Tatayana

Yes, completely. I would die to work in animation. Those Hungarian cartoons were so dark and psychedelic and beautiful. I think animation can get into the subconscious in this powerful way. I got into Adventure Time a couple years ago and there is one episode that made me cry for almost a year. Animation is such a beautiful way to speak about trauma and abuse and I would love to make something that touches on that.

“Oh boy, this really made me miss Rookie Mag. What’s the most exciting piece of media made by teens you’ve seen recently?” - Samara

Samara! I miss Rookie too!!! I’m not sure about one specific piece of media, but something that’s really captured my heart lately is this spirit of radical self-love I see in a lot of younger girls online. When Alysa Liu started doing interviews again, I kept seeing all this really sincere posi-core content around her that I loved.

I think a lot of teens now are shedding certain fears and shame that I definitely carried when I was younger, and it’s really beautiful to watch. I also recently read this cute New Yorker profile about a tween girl that I implore everyone to read. I was really struck by how aware younger girls are now of predatory culture and the internet in general.

“‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.’ Is it?? Have you engaged with your imitators? How much do you pay attention to them and how has it changed your own work?” - Eurry

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Before I get into today’s letter: I am haunted by the fact that I included the wrong link in the lead item in yesterday’s newsletter: THIS IS THE LINK TO RACHEL TASHJIAN’S BIG STYLE. (The link I put was to my friend Shy’s burger biz, Shy’s Burgers. I had the tab open because I was wondering when his next pop-up …

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I’m sitting in my sunny hotel lobby in London, and I’m looking forward to meeting some of you this week. If there’s anything I absolutely must do, see, drink, while I’m here, let me know in the comments.

Today’s newsletter includes: on navigating rooms with people who don’t “get” your vision, food newsletter wants to cover New York Fashion Week, and a South Street Seaport restaurant that seems to have appeared overnight.

Have a piece of news you’d like to see covered in Feed Me? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

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Guest Lecture:

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Vanity Fair’s Mark Guiducci, Alison Roman, and ’s Rachel Karten.

Today, Lena Dunham — director, creator of Girls, author of Famesick — answers your questions about living in Northwest Connecticut, what she’s learned about her style of leadership on set, and how her parents have influenced her career.

“If you could choose one of your pets to be able to text with, which would you choose and what would they say?” - MacKinley

1000p my dog Ingrid- she’s so snarky, so un-phased and has real opinions about what and who we watch on TV (yes Kerry Washington, no David Attenborough). She’d be that friend who is available for banter and not available for vulnerability, but you know she’s ultimately on your team (so it’s okay that she’s a massive see you next Tuesday).

“I’m curious what it was like to piece together these highly specific anecdotes from over your lifetime. Did you keep diaries? Does your iCloud have all your old photos and texts, and, if so, did you reference those at all?” - Emily

During the six-year period we were shooting Girls, I kept datebooks- that’s how long ago this was! I used to buy them at Papyrus in Soho 🤣 . They contained my schedule, appointments and to do’s, but as time went on I also started taking notes at the end of the day, scribbling thoughts on not just what I’d done (and what I hadn’t done) but what I’d felt.

I have my entire Gmail inbox from that period loaded onto a chunky hard drive, along with more photos than any one person needs of their own life.

I tried hard to take an investigative approach to my own experiences, something I learned from my friend David Carr and his book, The Night of the Gun.

“I’d love to know how spending a significant time in such a rural and small community impacts your work?” - Rebecca

Yesss Northwest CT! I’ve been lucky enough to travel to some beautiful places, and to me it remains the most beautiful place in the world.

My father grew up in Connecticut, on the Long Island Sound. We ended up in Litchfield about thirty years ago, at first as weekend visitors. But slowly it became our base. When people hear Connecticut they usually imagine something suburban, white picket fences, so I always have to explain that this is a different vibe. Our town is tiny, close-knit and gets barely a bar of cell service. For a long time that was our respite from NY, but now it’s our normal, and what I love most is the space it creates for us all to consume and make art. I am also so heartened by our connection to our neighbors, who do nice things expecting nothing in return and I know we could rely on in a variety of situations. Small-town life really does have a quality of safety and connection that, if you tap into it and aren’t resisting, is what it’s all about!

“What are the most niche corners of TikTok and Substack you’ve enjoyed since you started posting on them?” - Samara

I was lurking on TikTok for many moons before ever posting, and my algorithm was pretty much: chronically ill women languishing to Lana in hospital beds, Australian sex workers counting their cash, and piglets learning to trust. What can I say? I’m a simple gal.

“Nerdy question: Having been a show runner/EP/creator on both Girls and Too Much, what have you learned about your own leadership style and how do you get the best out of your teams?” - Conor

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I spent last night at Oramen, an unassuming (but perfect) Flatiron izakaya that I have been eating at once a week. I wouldn’t leave the table until I finished planning the vacation that I’m tacking on to Cannes Lions. Which brings me to my next question: Will you be at Cannes Lions in June? Email me if you’d like to do something together there.

Today’s newsletter includes: An interview with TBPN’s president Dylan Abruscato, Ezra Klein is hiring an assistant, Prada condoms and Rhode’s pimple patches, and a Palm Heights movie appearance.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Vanity Fair’s Mark Guiducci, former head of the Federal Trade Commission Lina Khan, and restaurateur Keith McNally.

Today, Dylan Abruscato, President of , answers your questions about how he ended up here — at an OpenAI acquired tech show — at this point in his career. There was one question I felt went unanswered in the interview, so last night I reached out to him and asked about this assertion that TBPN isn’t going to change post-acquisition: How can that possibly be true? He responded: “A huge part of our agreement was a ‘Commitment to Editorial Independence’ clause, which was written in to make sure we keep operating the show as is. So contractually, we still have full creative control over all editorial decisions.”

“I think it’s cool that from such a young age you knew you wanted to work in MEDIA. The Page program can be quite demanding (I’m sure more when you were involved than today). I’m curious what influenced you to get on that path, whether it was growing up near NYC or something that you realized while at school at Wisconsin. Did you watch a lot of TV growing up? Do you still watch a lot of TV?” - Emily

I grew up religiously watching SNL and was completely obsessed with becoming a live TV producer. So when I was in college, I interned at NBC. Growing up near NYC definitely helped (I took the LIRR to my internship every day while living at home that summer). The only internship I could land was in NBC News ad sales, but at least I was in 30 Rock every day.

My boss that summer was a former Page, and that was the first time I had heard about the rotational program and its grueling interview process. She mentioned that beyond giving NBC tours, there were actual SNL Page assignments you could apply to and interview for (a real-life Kenneth), and that was it for me.

So I went back to Wisconsin that fall and put all my free time into my Page Program application and presentation. It is basically an American Idol audition or Shark Tank–style process where you pitch your creativity to a panel of NBC execs. I did an NBC-themed rendition of Oh, the Places You’ll Go (credit to my college girlfriend, now wife, for the idea), got the job, started right after graduation, got the SNL Page assignment, and the rest is history.

I’ve since dedicated my entire career to the future of live TV. And yes, I still watch a ton of TV.

“If you had creative control at SNL today what would you change?” - Tyler

I’d make it easier to get tickets! To this day, the thing I get asked the most is, “Can you help me get SNL tickets?” It’s nearly impossible. There’s a lottery, plus a few occasional standby tickets, but most people who camp out on 5th and 6th Avenue for days still don’t get in. Lorne always says that the best seat to watch SNL from is the couch in your home, but I personally disagree. Nothing beats being in that studio when the show is live.

“You were nominated for an Emmy in 2019, any plans to return on the big screen now that you’ve sold TBPN?” - Tatayana

The nomination in 2019 was actually for my work at HQ Trivia. So despite starting my career in TV, the only time I’ve been nominated has been for a daily live show startup. The good news is TBPN isn’t changing post-acquisition, and we qualify for that same Emerging Media category, so we’ll be on the ballot this year.

“If you could have any piece of art in the world hanging in your house. what would you choose, and why?” - EA

The painting that currently lives in my head rent-free is a still life by Anna Weyant of a bowl of persimmons with a birthday candle inside it. I’m not even sure what it’s titled, but I first came across a paper study for the painting during a Nino Mier group show a few years back and just fell in love with the humor and insane detail. That, or anything by Henri Rousseau.

“Jordi and John said they would never do business without you. What makes you so valuable and what’s your advice on how to do business in the age of new media?” - Mark

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is the co-founder of Sourmilk, a Greek yogurt brand focused on gut health. Couchman started Sourmilk with her friend Elan Halpern. The two met at Stanford, went on to work in tech and finance, and quit their jobs last year to go all in on dairy. Kiki has become the public face of Sourmilk on social media, and in this conversation we discuss everything from “building in public” to packaging design.

Topics discussed include:

Building in public as leverage: “When you’re small, you need to find as many ways as possible to create leverage for yourself as a brand because otherwise everyone else will exploit you essentially because you’re trying to knock and get in the door.”

On bootstrapping and not taking outside capital early: “We wanted to avoid that for as long as possible. No paid media, no Meta ads, nothing. Some people are like, I see your ads all the time. I’m like, girl, that’s organic.”

On choosing yogurt over tech: “Everyone else we know is in AI and in a very different area, but it’s not rocket science. It’s very hard. You have to be super gritty, but ultimately you just need to make a product, have an efficient supply chain and sell it for more than you make it.”

I am looking into the weather-related spritz bump that New York bars are experiencing for all of you, and should have some hard numbers to report on later this week. In the meantime, keep your eyes open while taking your lunch breaks in the city — outdoor seating quickly reveals who has a real job, and who doesn’t.

Today’s Guest Lecture is with Mark Guiducci. I first met Mark last June, at a diner on the Upper East Side. I was struck by his warmth and wit, and overall generosity towards me. He made me feel welcome at both the diner, Viand, and his corner of Condé world.

Today’s letter includes: Mark Guiducci on his plans for Vanity Fair, one way to get an internship at Feed Me, the whisper networks facilitating international Chanel purchases, and one of my favorite New York diners is closing.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests include Eliana Gil Rodriguez, Eric Wareheim, and .

Today, Mark Guiducci, the global editorial director of Vanity Fair, answers your questions about landing a job at VF, what Graydon Carter taught him about throwing a party, and how to pronounce his last name.

With the new hires and the editorial direction, I think you’re doing a brilliant job. What does it take to join VF? - L’Amica

“We are always looking for new writers and it really only takes one or two hit stories to spark something. A scoop is a scoop, wherever it publishes. Hit me up, L’Amica!”

What did the title change from Editor in Chief to Global Editorial Director mean to you? Do you feel any frustration around having that title over the classic EIC title? - Natalia

“It means that Vanity Fair is a global magazine, with successful editions and brilliant editors in Italy, France, and Spain. And I’d like to see VF have a larger presence in London soon.

As for the title, I’m the editor of Vanity Fair. I can’t say it really gets me down.”

How do you inherit the VF Oscars Party and keep it relevant, cool, and fresh for today? It seems that was always an important part of the VF lore, and a party that centered it in the conversation. Graydon seemed like one of the best party hosts of all time - how are you thinking about this party now that you’re in charge? - Brooks

“Graydon is one of the best party hosts, and I learned a lot from him. I wrote in my most recent editor’s letter about being an assistant at the Oscar Party when I worked for him at VF fifteen years ago. A lot of credit also goes to Sara Marks, our longtime, highly esteemed director of special events who worked for the Rolling Stones for a decade and is a genius about details. She can be ruthless, but she addresses everyone as “Sweets” in a British accent, which usually softens the blow.

This Sunday, we will have a smaller guest list than in recent years and are cultivating a sense of privacy so that people can let their hair down. So while our red carpet is bigger than ever, the only reporting and photography coming from inside the party will be Vanity Fair’s. We are inviting a mix of legends (including Graydon) and young people who feel very right now, coming from not only Hollywood, but also tech, politics, fashion, and journalism, with a dash of Europeans. The idea is that these are all people who don’t usually meet each other, but will want to. In that way, the party should feel like the magazine itself.”

What does Mark see as the boldest editorial choice he’s made thus far? Can he walk us through that decision, start to finish? - Izzy

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Today’s letter includes: on why nobody could’ve charged for a link aggregation email in 2016, East Village guys are taking sartorial risks in order to dress like JFK Jr., POOG Podcast at London Fashion Week, Boy Smells bottled up the bathhouse boom.

Guest Lecture:

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Lina Khan, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Audrey Hobert.

Today, , writer of , answers your questions about how she decides what goes in her newsletter, planning events with the Substack team, and how her feelings about newsletters have changed over the last ten years.

“Will Welch talked about this amazingly and plenty from an editor’s POV but since you have also interviewed plenty of musicians/famous personalities that define cultural moments, it would be cool to learn about this from a writer’s POV.

In a world of social media where famous artists, musicians, or any personalities that already have a large audience – one they can speak to directly (moreso, even monetize it for themselves) how does a writer and publication demonstrate the value of their coverage? How do you make a subject feel that your perception/profile of them holds value and will discover or broadcast something they couldn’t on their own?” - Yanit

When I first started writing at Vanity Fair, my editor Matt Lynch almost always gave me the same note: context, context, context. He was constantly reminding me that perhaps the most important part of any profile (or really, any story) was to be able to succinctly describe why this person or topic was worth the reader’s attention — and why now.

It’s now one of the most common notes I also give when working with writers myself, because any feature must answer the most implicit question of all, which is “Why should you, the reader, care about this one topic in the broad scheme of things?” Because of course we’re swimming in a deluge of self-promotional messages that everyone is already broadcasting. But no one is ever that good at answering that question themselves. Clavicular can go live until he’s blue in the face, but he’s never going to personally give you a nuanced, sociological read on why live-streamed masculinity is having a moment. Subjects need to be perceived by a third party (ideally a writer with a snappy voice, journalistic integrity, and world-class bullshit detection) for us as a public to make sense of them.

Clout/hype/success is never some entirely self-driven phenomenon. It relies on a delicate web of collab posts and institutional co-signs and of course, advertiser dollars — the latter of which depend a lot a lot on the imprimatur of traditional press.

“Delia, how do you decide on what to include in a letter/what are your routine media sources?? Has that changed significantly in 10 years? Also how do you think your roles in legacy media relates to how you run Deez and vice versa?” - Teddy

I used to just sit on Twitter all day and let that be the primary funnel; now my media diet is more so reading favorite sites, newsletters, and group chats to pick up signal on what’s interesting or worthy. The clearest sign that something is worth linking to in Deez Links is when I find myself automatically texting it to friends and wanting to burn up the whole morning talking about it; that’s when I know I have Thoughts and Feelings (and that likely, others will too).

In terms of the influence of working in legacy media…I do feel more pressure to highlight things that are more conventionally in the “news cycle” or that I know other people/newsletters are talking about as a way of “keeping up” or staying relevant. But I am sure you can tell when it’s forced like that. The newsletter always always always works better when I default to the sniff test of like, do I actually want to gossip about this thing to my friends in the chat?

But also, after working in legacy media, I do have a deep fear of image copyright issues. It’s funny to me to watch a lot of newsletters happily grabbing screenshots, etc. from Getty Images or whatever; to me that is very brave! After getting drilled on the ins and outs of image rights at BuzzFeed, amongst other jobs, I’m too scared for all that. So Deez Links is largely unillustrated.

“Hi Delia, Deez Links has always had a super fun/distinct voice, which especially now feels rebellious. How do you decide which topics are worth your perspective, versus just worth the link? How has that changed over the past ten years, or how has your approach to curation changed?” - Ray

A lot of the links I go long on start out as just a regular link + description, but then I’ll find myself writing like three or four or 15 paragraphs on it, and realize oh, okay, I have a lot more to say other than just “this is worth reading!” I probably had more intention when I started out — real “I’m going to write the definitive essay on XYZ” ambitions — but I honestly felt like I didn’t really have the juice once I actually got going on those. You have to let the obsessiveness sneak up on you.

I also used to make myself read/link to things that felt “necessary” in terms of like, here’s the syllabus today. But that kind of felt like trying to win the Empathy/Informed Olympics. So I think I’m trying to avoid more of the obvious (yet still necessary) stuff and surface the gems you probably aren’t seeing yet.

“What do you think people misunderstand about how influence actually accumulates?” - Tatayana

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Today’s newsletter includes: Mexico City’s most famous grilled fish is coming to America, launching a Substack newsletter can get you a New York Magazine interview, and Isabella Rossellini’s farm is making wool.

Have a story idea for me? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

Guest Lecture: Julia Collier

This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Keith McNally, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Audrey Hobert.

Today, J.Crew’s CMO Julia Collier discusses what she looks for when hiring, the most recent Rollneck Sweater campaign (“We thought about the casting for this campaign as if we were building characters in a John Hughes film”) and that brand trip to Puglia last summer.

“I want to know what the hiring process feels like right now vs. when you got started in your career. Are there any patterns (good or bad) you’re seeing in young people that you’re interviewing?” - Emily

When I was getting started in my career, roles were much more linear: you were hired to do one thing. Now the requirement in creative and communications fields is to flex across many things and pivot constantly to the ever-changing landscape. This is a reflection of how brands need to behave to be successful, but also how younger people naturally think. Social media has changed everything — how we consume news, our access to celebrities, and, of course, the domination of influencer and creator culture — and all at lightning speed.

The qualities I always look for in anyone I’m hiring are excitement, flexibility and a positive attitude. These things may sound obvious, but they go such a long way in being part of a fast-paced culture where working as a team is so important. When interviewing, the people who tend to stand out the most are also curious and active listeners — they ask questions based on the conversation you have had in the interview, which always shows they are engaged and connected.

“What are some lessons you’ve learned from previous bosses that make you a better team leader?” - Tamzin

The best leaders I have worked for were all clear, generous, and most importantly, decisive. They gave context, not just direction, which enabled their teams to feel part of the process instead of executors. Their decisions were always made with conviction — successes were collectively celebrated and failures were learning opportunities. Even in the most high pressure situations, the best leaders I’ve had always made sure you knew that you were in it together — good and bad!

But the main thing I have always carried with me is that first and foremost we are all human beings. This is our job, and if we are lucky enough to work for a brand doing creative and impactful work, then what a gift! But at the end of the day we go home to our family, friends, and pets; that time needs to be preserved and honored. I have always been someone who leads with trust, I don’t need to see you at your desk working until the evening — go home, have time away from the office, live your life, because that is where experience comes from. Having a healthy balance creates the right mental space to think creatively and more freely.

“What tangible materials are you looking for as you seek young talent in the creative brand space? How much is a portfolio of assets and design mockups/use cases weighed compared to just a resume and job experience? Or is it less tangible work examples and more about thought process, ideas and approach now?” - Yanit

Portfolios matter a lot, but not in the traditional sense of perfect mockups. I care less about polish and more about your thinking, how you approach and solve problems. I love to see ideas that didn’t make the cut or were part of a passion project.

Creatives in the brand space have to have a multi-disciplinary approach that balances brand-right decisions with new platforms, mediums, creative partners — they have to think as much about human behavior (where and how the creative output is seen) as they do about how it looks. How does it come to life? What is it intended to do? Image-making has evolved from being about a static shot to being about cultural resonance.

Increasingly, the most compelling work is multidisciplinary. Mood boards, typographic explorations, decks, writing, visual references, and cultural points of view all matter.

“J.Crew does an incredible job at building full experiences — thinking of the Nantucket, Aspen and Hamptons pop-ups. How long do those take to plan, from identifying the locations, to the exclusive merch?” - Sarah

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