JD Shadel is Chief Editorial Officer at ESC KEY .CO — and yes, they're a team of one. Their work on tech and modern life appears in The Washington Post, Condé Nast Traveler, VICE, BBC News and others.
BTS @ ESC
This week the category is, reclaim your lunch! To mark ESC KEY .CO’s first Q1.3, we’re packaging nine crunchy-fresh ideas about our digital discontent into a big mental meal plan. But first, we present a monologue about the aspirational lunching lifestyle. It may be our most unhinged long-read yet.
TL;DR Briefing
Your TL;DR Briefing on things worth tracking — and talking about over your next power lunch. *Wink.* This time the thing is “The Right to Be Lazy,” a wildly timely 1883 book and the first selection for the new Public Domain Reading Club.
Power Lunch
In 2021, Tiara Darnell, a producer at Spotify, relocated to Mexico City. She soon opened its first Black soul food restaurant, the diaspora-connecting and now-closed Blaxicocina. We set the table at this intersection, discussing everything from “overnomadism” to burnout and finding new purpose.
World Wide Weird
The British nightlife trade group recently announced all the clubs could close by 2030 without urgent action. ESC KEY .CO speaks with longtime music journalist and cultural insights agency founder Andy Crysell about his new book, “Selling the Night,” and the big forces reshaping club culture today.
Paywall Satire
It's for the good of JDs everywhere that today ESC KEY .CO, the only lifestyle newsletter on the internet, simply asks you to share your email address.
TL;DR Briefing
Your TL;DR Briefing on things worth tracking — and talking about over your next power lunch. *Wink.* This time the thing is how making a whole bunch of people feel like you “get” each other is inarguably the key to success and fatigue online.
TL;DR Briefing
Your TL;DR Briefing on things worth tracking — and talking about over your next power lunch. *Wink.* This time the thing is the cognitive dissonance in fashion around “AI.” It won’t stop the climate crisis but it might take your photographer pal's next gig.
World Wide Weird
What are red flags for spotting the spin? Award-winning investigative reporter and co-creator of the Pulitzer Center’s AI Spotlight Series, Karen Hao reveals a simple framework for readers who want to embrace skeptical curiosity and hit, well, the ESC key on the hype.
TL;DR Briefing
Your TL;DR Briefing on things worth tracking — and talking about over your next power lunch. *Wink.* This time the thing is the tens of thousands of words of reporting and research we read so, well, you don’t have to.
TL;DR Briefing
Your TL;DR Briefing on things worth tracking — and talking about over your next power lunch. *Wink.* This time the thing is a year-long study into the design principles behind trans tech, from the researcher who more or less defined the field.
World Wide Weird
Or, at least, the best of ’em do. Oliver Haimson’s new book, “Trans Technologies” from MIT Press, boldly asks what tech could look like reimagined as a tool of liberation. He sat down with ESC KEY .CO for a (very long) chat to reveal a (very timely) bit of the answer.
World Wide Weird
A weird revolution is making group travel arguably “cool,” as content creators turn algorithmically curated audiences into IRL travel companions. These digital collectives show us the shifting paradigms — and income disparity prevalent — across the fragmenting social web.