Announcing the long-awaited Links relaunch

... are you ready for it??

Well, friends: Today is the day. The day I have long promised and threatened. The day on which Links, long a pro bono enterprise, decides to put on its big-girl pants and try to pay its (that is, my) mortgage. 

Today, after lots of research and thought and conversation with you — you beautiful, eclectic not-quite-strangers — I’m relaunching Links with a new look, a renewed focus on original content and a paid subscription tier to help support its continued growth and evolution.  

Getting to this point has been … an odyssey. I started Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends in 2014, when I was 24 years old, and shortly before I became the first digital culture critic at The Washington Post. My indulgent bosses let me write Links during the workday and told me on *only* one occasion that the profanity and highly personal tone were getting to be a little much. If you had told me then that this newsletter would become a major part of my life and work, I would have assumed you meant it got me fired. 

But instead, this little newsletter connected me with people and opportunities I’d otherwise never have. Six months after launching, Links landed in The New York Times. Six years later, I moved it to Substack. And today, I’m really excited (and only slightly nauseated) to announce the next phase of this project.

Here’s the TL;DR: Links will largely remain free for any/everyone. But in order to support more original, in-depth writing and reporting, of the kind that I know you guys love, I’m also introducing a paid subscription tier with some additional content and features.

What’s changing?

Everything, babe. All the time, everywhere. But in the specific context of this newsletter, I’m introducing a paid subscription tier with additional special features to (a) allow me to keep writing Links long-term and (b) free me up to spend more time on newsletter projects. This new tier will cost $7/month or $70/year. Last weekend I paid roughly $7 for a Panera breakfast sandwich consisting of a slab of rubbery egg on defrosted ciabatta. I daresay a month of Links provides at least as much enjoyment.

What will a paid subscription include? 

Paid subscriptions will include both of Links’ regularly scheduled weekly newsletters: 

• The Saturday edition: a round-up of digital culture and technology articles, culled from the many, many hours I spend reading the internet each week. More than a decade of obsessive RSS feed management goes into creating these recommendation emails — I follow *hundreds* of news sites, blogs and obscure newsletters to find you things to read.

• The Wednesday edition: original essays, articles and analyses of internet culture and technology, often on topics chosen by readers. Recent editions included a round-up of internet-infamous personal essays and a trend piece on performative hydration. 

Paid subscribers will also receive: 

• Free access to linked articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Atlantic, via those publications’ gift article programs 

• Early access to experiments and features, including a likely online book club

• All posts to IRL, my nascent personal blog

• A free link on your birthday (mysterious!)

• My sincere and almost frightfully bottomless gratitude

I am also offering a “founding subscription,” which is for very wealthy/generous readers and my concerned relatives. It entails a single additional perk: We will, should you wish it, become actual, literal Google Chat friends. (This is essentially an expensive joke.)

What will a free subscription include? 

Free subscriptions will include all Saturday editions (link round-ups) and most Wednesday editions (the originals). But they won’t include free access to The New York Times et al., and you’ll miss out on posts to IRL, the book club and other new features. 

Some Wednesday editions will also be reserved for paid subscribers. Those will often be the more personal, edgy or off-the-wall ones — things I’m not prepared to leave in my Google results forever. If you ever want to read a paywalled article and can’t afford to subscribe, however, just email me and I’ll send it, no questions asked. 

What types of new content will this change support? 

Links is a digital culture newsletter for people who miss the old internet — it’s interested in big-picture questions about technology and how it shapes our lives, but also *fun* and serendipity and weirdness. Links will always be about the links. (It’s ... right there in the title.)

I’m not just a consumer of journalism, though — I’m also a full-time freelance journalist and essayist. My work on technology, culture and assorted other topics has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Elle, Stateline, The Atlantic, OneZero and Cosmopolitan, and material from this newsletter has been republished or adapted for publications including Slate, The Cut and Poynter. I love writing for other publications and find enormous meaning in that work. But I have so many wacky ideas for stories and essays I’d like to write for *you,* specifically, if I only had the time and space (read: money) to pursue them. 

For instance! It’s been almost 10 years since Gamergate, a movement I covered for The Washington Post in 2014. I’d love to put together a multi-part package, preferably with other writers who were there at the time, about its long-term cultural and political legacy. Other entries in my unwieldy “idea dump” spreadsheet:

• An essay on the wild, telling and vaguely traumatizing experience I had with an extremely high-profile right-wing influencer before they became famous. (This is such a tease, and I apologize for that, but I’m legitimately still scared to type their name on the open internet.)

• A deeply reported, on-the-ground feature on rural Airbnb boom towns, where short-term rental sites have simultaneously saved and wrecked absolutely everything since Covid

• In-depth reading guides on Mormon influencers, mommy bloggers and the rise/fall of online dating apps 

• A virtual book club, which to me feels like a very natural extension of Links’ friendly vibes and general literateness 

I know you guys are interested in this type of work — I had the pleasure of meeting some of you by phone and Zoom in December. And I’ve heard from many of you that you feel like Links has recently been better than ever.

That change is a direct reflection of the time and effort I’ve recently been able to devote to this project. Just think what I could do with more of it!!

Why should I subscribe now? 

Two reasons! First: The first 100 subscribers will receive a free Links sticker, designed by the illustrator Elena Lacey. I am almost childishly excited about these, and not only because my virgin laptop is in desperate need of decoration.

Second: I’m a bit nervous about this whole thing. Can you tell? Is that coming through???? Your prompt subscription will immediately benefit the mental health and well-being of another person on this earth. 

Can I support the newsletter in another way? 

With all that said — of course, absolutely. I understand the subscription model is not for everyone. If you value what I do here and would like to support it another way, please consider: 

• Buying me a coffee on Ko-fi: This is quite literal — I recently realized that working from my house all day was wearing me down, so I’m fast becoming a neighborhood coffee shop fixture. 

• Forwarding the newsletter to your friends, coworkers or acquaintances: Links reaches almost 18,000 people in 127 countries and all 50 states, thanks *entirely* to word of mouth recommendations. Going forward, you can also use a personal referral link — find it here — to earn free subscriptions. 

• Sharing this relaunch announcement on social media or in your own newsletter: If you don’t know what to say — which, same? — a repost is also much appreciated. I’ll be announcing the relaunch shortly on Threads, Instagram and LinkedIn.

As always, I am so grateful to all of you for your readership and support. It remains to me a sort of incomprehensible magic that I — alone in my attic in Buffalo, New York — can reach out and speak to unseen people all over the world.

It’s difficult to imagine you reading this. I don’t even know who exactly “you” are! But you’ve already made so much possible for me just by being here. Thank you, truly. And warmest virtual regards.  

Caitlin