Intro
On the first day of October 2018, I’ve started writing a weekly Turkish newsletter about global media and technology trends as a part of the project we started in our media support NGO. Yesterday, after more than seven years and 352 issues, I sent out the last weekly version of the newsletter. Because of funding issues (and the unspoken burnout after years of nonstop writing about media) it’ll become a monthly newsletter.
Part of me feels confused about losing a routine I had for seven years but the other part feels a kind of relief. Especially because now I have more time in my hands to do new things and try out ideas I’ve been keep postponing because of the time limitations.
Greetings from Sangarius. Hope you’re all doing well.
Mission Control
Inbox: 83
RSS Reader: 2228
Upcoming Events/Travel in Next 30 Days: 1 (Plus another potential one I’m waiting for details to be confirmed.)
- Since I have a new space opened in my weekly workload, I’m thinking about how I can make use of it the best way. If you wanted to ask me about collaborations or whether we can work together, this is an even better time.
- I want to make some real progress on the things I’ve mentioned in earlier Weekstarters but had to put it on back burner because of the recent surprises.
- My office also needs some attention (both physical and digital one), this week seems calm enough to work on that as well.
I also have a Now page on my website if you want to check what I’m up to in a more detailed way.
Afraid of Getting Stuck
The feeling of relief and burnout I mentioned in the intro is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Especially the reasons behind it because it wasn’t about having too much work or something like that. I realized the main reason behind it this morning: it was because I was feeling like I’m just repeating myself.
When you write about a topic every week for seven years it’s impossible to not repeat yourself — no matter how large the topic is. And I’m not saying that you should never repeat yourself or revisit a topic you talked about before. But when it comes to media and technology discourse, it was getting way too repetitive. Sure, there were main hype topics each year so I needed to write about those but underlying arguments or how people reacts to certain things were always the same. So I had to repeat myself analyzing those topics, just changing the topic or actor name.
It gets really exhausting when you’re fully aware what you’ve been writing each week but people doesn’t. Like, I had to write at least three newsletters saying “Google doesn’t target your news website specifically, it’s something else I’ve talked about it before” because whenever a news outlet saw their Google traffic is dropping, they’d start a conspiracy theory about Google and how it censors news in Turkey. Since 2024, each newsletter had at least several links to the older issues mostly because I had to remind people we’ve talked about this before.
All of this and more made me feel like I’m stuck in a loop, forced to forever repeat myself. Which triggered the burnout feeling. I wanted to explore new areas, do more creative stuff, and help people discover new things (whether in media or somewhere else) but this was a newsletter I needed to put at least one and a half days work on (and didn’t pay enough because it’s and NGO project). I love the work I’ve created and how it helped many people to figure things out but it wasn’t an easy job.
Hence comes the relief. I love having certain routines in my life but my brain always craves for new things to think and learn about. When I get that feeling that my work is stuck, it drives me nuts. I need to be able to create new things, experiment, be the guy who always comes up with the weird stuff. Otherwise I feel like my brain is dying.
I know most people would be sad to lose something safe like that in their lives and feel disoriented but I feel relieved and excited. Now I have more mental space and energy to do what I like and I know that this will feed into everything else I do.
A little update for those who’re curious about the military service stuff I mentioned last week: I’ve received the health board decision and they delayed the final decision one more year — because rules say I need to be seen by the board three times before the final decision to make sure my ADHD is not “getting better”.
Song of the Week
This song is just the perfect 7:23 break from everything around you.
Global Frequency of Weird
(Decided to add a new section to share new and cool stuff from friends, collaborators, and people whose work I get a lot of inspiration from. Title of the section comes from a post I wrote years ago and ended up in a very special zine.)
- Jay Springett writes many interesting things but his recent series on “Little Guys” aka AI designed as companions and friends is a must read. Latest installment is about Sony AIBO and Furby.
- Paul Graham Raven’s Worldbuilding Agency always gives me deep questions to think about. If you want a taste of it, his weekly post from the week before on the value of worldbuilding is a good starting point.
Reading Log
“A geologist will tell you that a fault is where separate blocks of rock meet and slide, creating earthquakes. But a psychologist, say, or a poet, a novelist, an artist, will tell you something different. A fault is where a new version of the world is taking shape, where everything we know threatens to rearrange itself beneath our feet. A fault is where futures lurk.”
Rocks, tarantulas and the subtle poetry of a walk along the San Andreas fault – Geoff Manaugh
“Fear-mongering is not the way to convince people to find agency in emerging machine intelligence and incentivize creating and building. It is how a few incumbent cultural entrepreneurs try to fill the moat around their own increasingly tenuous status within institutions struggling to keep up with profound changes.”
Is European AI A Lost Cause? Not Necessarily. – Benjamin Bratton
“For example, when an object appears in the frame, AI often misunderstands its purpose for being there. For example, a hanger can be used to hang clothes, but it’s also often the weapon of choice when parents in China physically punish their children. That dual use inspired another one of Mu’s videos last year, where midway through pretending to hit his “son” with a hanger, the boy’s shorts mysteriously come off, and Mu looks like he suddenly forgot what he’s doing and decided to hang up the shorts instead.”
The Man Who Makes AI Slop by Hand | WIRED
Outro
That’s all I have for this week. Definitely a good start for the week, hopefully the rest will go the same way.
Hope you’ll have a great week too. See you around!
If you’d like to collaborate or need services, Tuhaf Studio is accepting new clients. For speaking or panelist opportunities, contact London Speaker Bureau Türkiye. To support my work regularly, you can contribute through my Patreon.
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