💎The community celebrating being "dull"

The Tuesday edition of 💎Cultural Gems💎

💎cultural gems💎

Programming note: We hope most of you will be taking the back half of this week to hang with your loved ones and take a break from the Internet. Instead of our usual Thursday newsletter, we’ll be back in your inbox on Friday with a fun, inspiring read for anyone who wants to put themselves out there a bit more.

In the meantime, here are the cultural moments and media that we can’t stop talking about. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving 🤍

BEING INTERESTING IS A BURDEN. IS THERE RELIEF IN CHOOSING TO BE BLAND?, ny magazine

Over on Facebook, the Dull Men’s Club is finding community in “celebrating the ordinary” of everyday life. After scrolling through the group, it’s a nice break from the “always on” nature of other social media platforms.

“Dullness is for these members a bland blanket, a respite from an increasingly oversaturated, overprogrammed, over-whatevered world. It applies both on- and offline for its followers, who, once comfortably settled into the dull hum (other recent posts range from ‘I have a loose-leaf tea that I absolutely love, but I’m so bad at making it. I have a couple versions of tea steepers and I just don’t think they do a good job’ to ‘I cooked. Don’t fall out of your chair,’ with a picture of something mashed), seem happy to let go of any internal pressure to post anything interesting or to do anything interesting.”

‘EXCUSE ME! HOW MUCH DO YOU PAY FOR RENT IN NEW YORK?’, ny times

As a nosey person, I love getting these intimate peeks into the homes of fellow New Yorkers.

“The first person to invite Mr. Simpson in was a 30-something videographer who lived with his girlfriend in a two-bedroom duplex in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and paid $3,000 a month. ‘That video got millions of hits,’ he said. ‘I knew I was onto something.’”

calebwsimpson

A post shared by @calebwsimpson

💎 Paid subscribers get our full Cultural Gems email every Tuesday. In the rest of today’s edition: Creators are mad at Sephora, YouTube is dominating the podcast space, Instagram is letting users re-build their algorithm, and more ⬇️