What's next for Feed Me?
Three years of writing a daily newsletter and talking about new media.
Good morning everyone. Today I wrote about what my last year on Substack has been like.
Today’s letter also includes: The New York fashion brand that was model scouting at the Harvard/Yale game over the weekend, why beauty brands are using photos of empty products in their campaigns, a rare Feed Me discount, and smoking weed on Thanksgiving.
“In just three years, Emily has turned Feed Me into a cultural obsession. She has an uncanny ability to tap into what her audience craves, building not just a brand but a movement. She is one of the most influential founders of the independent media revolution and she’s only just getting started.” - , co-founder of Substack
Feed Me’s three-year anniversary.
I’ve written a newsletter almost every weekday for the last three years. Hundreds and hundreds of letters. I started writing on Substack in the summer of 2020 in an attempt to make sense of what was happening on all of the screens around me. I called my newsletter Feed Me because I was writing essays about culture and short horror stories inspired by my various newsfeeds.
This morning, I looked back on some of those early newsletters that only a few hundred of you received. It’s the first time I’ve read them in years, and I’m realizing I was probably depressed. I’m a little jealous of that version of me who was writing to basically nobody, with all the time in the world.
My life is mostly spectacular. Highlights of 2025 include:
Marrying my husband Jake.
Writing features about Zyn and young men in America for GQ. I’m so grateful for my editor Daniel Reilly’s patience, and I’m trying to figure out how to integrate the kinds of stories I do there more in this letter.
The baby cows at a dairy farm near the house I rented in Sag Harbor over the summer. I visited them weekly and they made me happy.
Watching Gangs of New York for the first time at the Museum of the Moving Image, and hearing Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks discuss the film afterwards.
Eating burgers and soft serve at Roll-O Dairy Bar with my high school friends last month. None of them know what Substack is.
Every swim at any beach I went to.
My friend Emma’s wedding in her parents’ backyard.
A sandwich I ate in my apartment with ham and butter that
and I smuggled home from Paris.Jess Testa’s profile of me in The New York Times. That story changed Feed Me’s business, putting the newsletter on so many of your radars.
Spending a week at Golden Door with my sister where we hiked several miles every morning.
Producing Expense Account, Feed Me’s first podcast hosted by
.
I did not start Feed Me with the goal of building my favorite media business in New York. I consider myself an artist who has always liked to make things on the internet. In this case, that instinct turned into one of the top business newsletters on this platform.
Over the last year, I’ve sat across from dozens of middle-aged men at bars who have asked me what I think the future of media will look like. It seems like investors and media commentators have the luxury (or the bore) of always thinking about “the future of media.” I’m thankfully not burdened by these questions every day, although I like to think about them sometimes. Occasionally these experienced people tell me I should hire an operator for my business, usually suggesting someone who looks like them.
Every morning I wake up to a blank letter with a blinking cursor, and for that morning, the future of media is just writing the letter. Feed Me is a business built through consistent, daily improvisation. I don’t feel the same uncertainty and urgency as other media operators because my business is profitable and “default alive” as some startup people like to say. I’ve also learned that there’s tremendous upside to running multiple experiments/bets at once. If one bet doesn’t work, there are other ones on the table that will work out. And even with the bets that don’t work, I learn for the future and usually have a lot of fun too.
Meta, American Express, Block, Walmart, and Uber all advertised with Feed Me this year. My audience grew over 140% YoY and my revenue grew 280% YoY, in part thanks to advertising revenue. I reinvest that money into my small team and group of contributors, our office, designers, podcast production, Feed Me parties, merch and travel. We also donated over $10k to Food Bank NYC in the wake of the SNAP news earlier this month. Feed Me remains a bootstrapped operation with no outside investors.
I threw parties in London, Los Angeles, and New York. Two of the women at the party in London told me that they became friends in real life after meeting in the Feed Me comment section. On top of getting a newsletter every day, paid Feed Me readers have been given the opportunity to interview Zohran Mamdani, Alison Roman, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Audrey Hobert, Nikki Ogunnaike, and Keith McNally – all for about $7/month. The Feed Me comment section is my favorite corner of the internet and I would be nowhere without my curious, affable, smart readers. People with radically different beliefs can, in fact, coexist in comment sections.
And now for my second-most asked question of the year (the first is what a typical day looks like for me): What’s next for Feed Me?
I’m going to start sending a monthly West Coast newsletter. For the last few weeks I’ve been toiling over how to assemble the ideal group of writers in LA and SF, and then I had an unlock: I can just fly out there once a month and write about what I see. If you have tips about real estate, restaurants, neighborhood drama, or anything newsworthy that you think would make sense for my California readers (20% of my audience), shoot me an email. I’d love to meet some of you in 2026.
The newsletter is the heart of Feed Me. I used a term in an interview with Semafor’s Max Tani last year: Studio Mindset. At the time, it was more of a manifestation than a hard business plan, but it played out. The idea is that Feed Me is a studio, and the podcast, merch, and parties spin out of the newsletter. In the fourth year of Feed Me I plan on continuing to produce surprising projects on and offline. I really want to make another movie.
I’m taking a week off in January. Off off. No guest writers.
I’m offering new paid subscribers a special offer. Through the end of the week, you can get an annual subscription to Feed Me for $60. A paid subscription to Feed Me gets you access to everything below the paywall, plus the comment section and exclusive chats and events.
On our latest episode of Expense Account, Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal discusses how the influx of Chinese students to NYU has made Chinese food in the city better, and his breakfast order at Katz’s.
Per the most recent episode of Berlant & Novak, there is secret menu cacio e pepe at Il Buco.
Substack launched a new category last week: Film and TV.
Over 200 women in San Francisco celebrated Friendsgiving together. It went somewhat viral on X, the joke being that it’s surprising there are more than seven women in SF. I asked one of the hosts, Madison Kanna, how it went. “I’d just say though that the event was about feminine energy and dressing up with the girlies and not any sort of political statement (lots of people seem to be reading into what I’m doing),” she said.
BODE was apparently scouting models on the bathroom line at the Harvard/Yale game over the weekend. I got an email from a college reader who was standing in line for the men’s bathroom with his friend (who is in a final club at Harvard), when a woman came up to them, asked if they’d ever modeled before, and gave them her email. A few hours later, he emailed me, “Wait I just looked up the woman who came up to us, it was Emily Bode, like the founder of Bode.” I reached out to Emily and haven’t heard back yet.
Photos: Sameer Khan/@fotobdy courtesy of the Harvard College Dean of Students Office According to documents obtained by Adweek, Food52 is actively exploring a sale. Mark Stenberg reported that the food media site “is not profitable and has worked to build up its media business under CEO Erika Badan, who took over at the company last April from Barstool Sports.” This story fits in nicely with my newsletter from earlier this month — we’re about to witness some big changes in food media in 2026.
Beauty brands like Fara Homidi and Merit are featuring photos of thoroughly used products in their marketing. The Merit team told me that their most recent campaign led to over 40k people joining the Black Friday waitlist in 3 days (“our biggest waitlist ever”). One of the most successful beauty content categories is “empties” – the products that people actually finish, as opposed to the awful lipstick that has been sitting in your makeup bag for years, untouched. It’s fun to see messier marketing suggesting the best gift is something you’ve already used and loved.
Last week was about Lizza, this week is about Lizzo. The singer is the latest pop star to launch on Substack (Charli XCX, Dolly Parton, and Audrey Hobert are also here). Her first newsletter is about culture’s obsession with weight loss.
WSJ reported that dispensaries claim the day before Thanksgiving (I don’t believe “Green Wednesday” is a thing) is the second-biggest day for weed sales after 4/20. And Bloomberg reported that more people are stocking the fridge with THC drinks instead of wine on Thanksgiving, which I could see going terribly wrong.
I read Tatiana Schlossberg’s essay about her battle with cancer on Saturday night in bed. I fell asleep holding myself.
And lastly, will be in London this week. If you’re throwing any parties you think she should report on, email cami@readfeedme.com
“Feed Me remains a bootstrapped operation with no outside investors.” Will always be the biggest flex ever. And I can’t believe my Feed Me dreams are coming true, LFG L.A.
Feed Me is truly one of probably three Substack newsletters (of the maybe 30ish that I subscribe to and which regularly publish) I read in full as soon as it hits my inbox/Substack app - I look forward to seeing what lies ahead in 2026!