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Friends, hello.

Perhaps you’ve been wondering what your old pals from I Love Charts have been up to for the past … decade or so.

Well, would it interest you to hear that one of the things we got up to was making an audio-first production company, Charts & Leisure?

Yeah, I agree — that’s only marginally interesting. But one of the podcasts we are making, in fact launching, this very week might be interesting to you.

It’s called Never Post, and it’s a member-supported, employee-owned podcast about and for the internet. We want to talk about how we love this place and are frustrated by it and want to be good community members within it.

Never Post’s host is the internet’s own Mike Rugnetta. You know him!

It’s produced by deeply brilliant people (with experience at The New York Times, Spotify and other such places), one mysterious anonymous producer and me, Jason Oberholtzer, for whatever that is worth.

We have two episodes up! Please consider giving a listen.

Episode Zero is a special table-setting roundtable conversation about creating independent media with Gita Jackson (Aftermath), Alex Sujong Laughlin (Defector Media), and Rusty Foster (Today in Tabs). You know these people!

Episode One is a proper episode format, covering the disappearance of tween-specific fashion trends, and the epidemic of Posting Disease plaguing social media. Bijan Stephen is on that one and you know him too!

I hope you all have been well. It’s nice to be here with you. I hope this show helps.

It’s funny (and deeply on brand) how this particular moment feels like the real death knell, after there’s been occasion to declare Tumblr dead pretty much every six months since 2013 for one reason or another. (Closing the NY office earlier this year was the one that sealed it for me.) But for whatever reason, this feels like time for a bit of closure.

Thank you for everything, Tumblr. You got me through my 20′s, introduced me to some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met (and the most amazing people I’ve never met), helped find me a career, exposed me to perspectives that were missing from my worldview, and kept me company so many times in so many ways. 

I hope Tumblr continues, in some form, to keep holding space for the countless voices that it does so for as long as the internet is turned on. I’m proud as hell to have been a part of that.

While I’m here, this has been in my drafts for almost a decade. I like it a lot and kept meaning to write about it. I never did. I think you’re ready for it now. Here you go.

via katembowen

While I’m here, this has been in my drafts for almost a decade. I like it a lot and kept meaning to write about it. I never did. I think you’re ready for it now. Here you go.