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Before we get into today’s essay, I’ve got a quick favor to ask of you.

AMA: Ask Me Anything

I’m publishing a Q&A post next week.

Please reply to this post with any questions you got for me!

I’ll be choosing the top 20-30 to answer for next week’s post.

Thanks!

Back in high school, I’d listen to Childish Gambino’s album Because The Internet and plan how I’d make my dreams come true with the internet.

Most people don’t realize Childish Gambino — real name: Donald Glover — started out with a comedy YouTube channel while he was at NYU. He then leveraged that into a role in the show Community while rapping on the side. From there, he leveraged the rap/TV career into producing and starring in hit show Community and a role in the 2018 Star Wars movie. “I got fame, my A&R’s a computer,” he raps on All the Shine.

All from a YouTube channel. All Because The Internet.

I love the internet. Like Childish, I owe my success to it. Twitter legit changed my life. But I have a confession. Whenever I’m on screens for too long, I get a visceral urge to go from bits to atoms and make some shit out in the real world.

From Bits to Atoms

I’ve always loved working with my hands since I was a kid building legos, painting, sculpting, making duct tape wallets, building birdhouses, whatever. Now that I work on my own schedule, I’ve had a lot more time to get back into shit like this that I used to love as a kid.

Like last week after working on my laptop for hours, I was walking to meet my fiancée for sushi and had a few minutes to spare so I stopped at an art store and grabbed a sketchbook and a few markers. As I sat at the table waiting for her to arrive, I doodled ideas for book covers and TikToks. It felt refreshing, the smell of the markers bringing me back to summer camp as a kid.

Sometimes there’s no higher ROI activity for your internet business than getting off the internet. “Name a higher ROI activity than logging off,” tweeted Jack Butcher. He’s right. Sometimes to build online, what you really need is to go offline. I think this is why digital nerds like myself geek out on art supplies, mechanical keyboards, cameras, desk set-ups, gear, gadgets, plants, clothes, hiking, rock-climbing, workout equipment, ice baths, self-cooling mattresses, etc. We are obsessively longing to connect with the physical world.

Now that the weather is getting nicer here in NYC, I’ve been taking my dog on long 2-hour walks through Central Park, often on airplane mode whilst playing one of my favorite albums. Recently, I’ve been going beyond just observing my surroundings and I’ve started to question my surroundings. When I see a nice font on a subway ad, I question why the designers chose that font and color. I think about why that design might have been considered superior to alternates. I think of better options for ad copy and ad images. I wonder how well the ads are performing. I think of how I’d make the words pop better in Photoshop. My designer friend Nico says he does the same thing. Anytime he sees terrible design on a pizza shop or bodega, he gets angry. He imagines how he’d fix it. His girlfriend thinks he’s crazy, but I get it. I feel the same way.

Whether it’s walking down the street imagining a design in Figma or thinking about tweets while you’re on a date, we’re bringing our digital selves with us wherever we go. Even when I’m offline, I’m often thinking about my online world. Even though we go offline to spend time in the physical world, our experiences on the internet come with us.

From Bits to Atoms and Back Again

There’s a weird trend that I’ve been noticing.

In 2008, there was a strong offline-to-online pipeline. You take family pictures and post them on Facebook. This still exists now. You post engagement photos on Instagram or whatever. But what I’m finding now in 2023 is the online-to-offline pipeline is getting stronger everyday. We consume a piece of content online and bring that into conversations and experiences offline.

Every time I listen to The Tim Ferriss Podcast, I discuss it with friends. When Balaji Srinivasan went viral for his $1M Bitcoin bet, it felt like all my friends were talking about IRL. When Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber were beefing on Twitter, my fiancée was talking to me and her friends about it.

How many times have you heard someone say “Did you see that piece in the New York Times”? Really, they’re just saying “Did you see that thing on the internet?” As I’m sitting here at a coffee shop, I just heard a woman start talking about TikTok to her friend. The internet stays with us. It doesn’t matter if you’re offline. The internet is part of us now. It’s wired in our brains.

The internet and social media in particular have a heavier influence on our offline lives more than most of us would like to admit. If you want to stand out on social media, admit it. Embrace it.

Bring the web offline and back online again

Bring your passion for tech and the internet into your offline world — and then post it back online. Because most people are afraid to admit their love of the internet offline and be seen as weird, you’ll stand out.

“I cherish the time I spend online. I don’t consider it a second class citizen or a guilty pleasure vs the real world. its often more interesting and rich. I suspect many on here, by selection, feel the same but it’s low status to say so,” writes AI influencer Roon. Be unashamedly low-status IRL and you’ll be high-status on the internet.

• If you only make TikToks in your bedroom because you’re afraid what people will think out in public, you’re going to get beat out by someone who doesn’t care what people think and makes them in Central Park.

• If you spend 2 hours/day on Twitter and haven’t met anyone IRL from Twitter, then you won’t be having as much fun as the people who make friends and go to meetups.

Last week, I showed you my hoodie that says Balaji Was Right. I designed it last June and wore it when I moderated a crypto panel. On the streets, the hoodie gets a lot of funny looks. But at the crypto panel where everyone is digitally native, it got a lot of love and compliments. When Balaji went viral this week, I started sharing the sweatshirt around. I’ve only gotten 2 sales, but I got a shoutout in a popular crypto newsletter and I got mentioned by a couple podcasters in their conversation with the man himself Balaji.

Jack Butcher is the master of internet-inspired apparel. Hell, I just bought a sweatshirt from him that says INTERNET on it instead of a college name lol. You might’ve seen Jack Butcher’s mega-viral NFT collection Checks based on Twitter’s updated verified checkmark. My friend and co-author of today’s piece Jordan Mix took Butcher’s Checks and brought it into the physical world, designing a pair of Nikes with checkmarks. Nike checks hah. This led to Jordan doubling his follower count, multiple job opportunities, and getting a bunch of DMs from people like me who thought what he was doing was cool. Jordan and I have since become friends all from a pair of Nikes.

As a digitally native creator, it’s getting easier and easier to lose touch with the physical world. The easy advice is to say “Log off, go relax for a while”. I agree, but it’s no longer that simple.

If you’re a very online person like myself, you’re often thinking about internet things even when you’re offline. Tweets pop into your head, DM convos replay as you’re falling asleep. So the answer isn’t as simple as turning off your phone for a few hours. The internet is still with you in your mind.

Sure, this may freak some people out. It may very well be a symptom of internet addiction hah. But I’m choosing instead to embrace it as a techno-optimist. It’s ok that when I’m offline I’m also somewhat online. In fact, I strive to bring my online life to my offline life. I throw parties for my internet friends, wear internet-inspired clothing, and talk about shit I saw online. If I’m an internet nerd online, why shouldn’t I be IRL as well? Why separate the two?

Not everyone is willing to show their passion for the internet offline. To stand out, be the nerd unashamedly shows their passion for the internet offline. Film TikToks in public, wear funny internet t-shirts, talk about the content you consume on here. Bring the bits to atoms and back to bits again. Then watch what happens next. You may get some laughs, but you’ll gain the respect of your fellow nerds both offline and online. And at the end of the day, respect from your fellow nerds is all that matters.

Reminder: Ask Me Anything

I’m publishing a Q&A post next week.

Please reply to this post with any questions you got for me!

I’ll be choosing the top 20-30 to answer for next week’s post.

Creators Corner

3 things that helped me be a better creator this week:

🔥 Internet builder? Check out Jordan’s new blog Work 8, Earn 24 for all things building and earning online.

🐦 If you want to take Twitter seriously, check out Birdy for free bio A/B testing. I just bought the pro version with 15-minute A/B tests.

🤝 Nat Eliason is a creator’s creator, a true gem of creator economy. Check out his most recent piece How to Get Over The Fear of Creating Things.

Thanks for reading nerds.

Create some cool shit this week.

Jason Levin

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