Idiosyncratic media

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Today, a TRB Pro members piece on idiosyncrasy as a strategy and the emerging and messy contours of our post-text, post-webpage world, as seen in the shifts to livestreaming, Substack's big new funding round, Google Discover as the next shoe to drop, Anonymous Banker on the folly of publishers building their own AI products and why AI browsers are yet another Very Big Deal.

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At one of The Rebooting’s private dinners last week, I asked a publishing executive how he expects his company’s output to change as media slips fully into an AI age. The publisher focuses on newsletters and a “faces” strategy of high-leverage individuals complementing the brand. This executive expects more idiosyncratic approaches. 

While much of the focus of the AI-and-media discussion has focused on the important issues of getting paid for training data and driving efficiencies in a more-with-less era, comparatively less has been placed on the essential question of how publishers can win loyalty in a world mediated by AI.

That's led many to lean on idiosyncrasy, both in terms of the brands they create and business models they pursue. In the Traffic Apocalpyse™, nobody knows what their businesses will look like in three years, so you might as well just do things. That will lead to messy brands and messy strategies.

The best media brands traditionally have institutional voices. Say what you want about The Economist, it is certainly consistent. Humans are by their nature messier than the artificial construct of a brand identity. Humans tend to be contradictory. Media brands themselves will need to become more like big-tent political parties with enough room for dissenting voices and side quests.

A brand like Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me is a case in point. It’s very idiosyncratic because, as Emily likes to say, it’s a product of her experience in the world. That makes it a difficult brand to pigeonhole. The organizing construct, to me, is around what it’s like to be a striver in New York. The flattening of global culture means that audience is worldwide, not just literally in New York City. Brands like Feed Me cut across categories in ways typical media brands do not. 

Fresh Hell is a good example of the type of idiosyncratic publication that will do just fine in a world of AI slop. Tina Brown is a great writer. Her writing has pace. You can feel the momentum, and she knows when to drop in little one-liners that can even elicit an audible chuckle. This is the kind of writing that isn’t optimized to get the attention of algorithms or AI agents. 

These brands are smaller. Feed Me gets outsized media attention as some kind of Gen Z Whisperer because it is today’s version of Gawker, only optimized to a vastly different NYC where al fresco dining sometimes happens in St Mark’s, wearing around yoga outfits is as acceptable in the West Village as in Houston, and TikTok trends like Labubu and Dubai chocolate have as much resonance. For all the New York or Nowhere merch, NYC is as much like anywhere else as it has ever been. The best restaurants end up having outposts elsewhere. You can go to Lucali in Carroll Gardens or in Miami Beach.

Feed Me and Fresh Hell are both Substacks as well. Substack’s $100 million funding round is testament to how it's managed to become a consumer brand – I tense when mislabeled as a Substacker although I've come around to B2B influencer, if for a lack of more palatable options – and also a sign of how text has its limits. Substack’s bet is it can create an everything app that’s beyond newsletters. For instance, Substack-hosted publisher The Free Press has seen success in its livestreams as a conversion tool.