Welcome to my computer room. This blog is an emotional and psychological scrapbook of the Internet. But before I explain what that means, let’s start with what you get by subscribing.
The opening plea for cash:
Free Tier:
Internet culture analysis from the perspective of a Terminally Online oldhead
The Computer Room podcast, which is like This American Life but about weird shit online
Long-form deep dives into digital subcultures and digital sexuality
Armchair psychoanalysis for the Digital Age
Monthly exhortations to read McLuhan from none other than Clinton Ignatov
A monthly column about fandom by Monia Ali
Guest posts from other interesting characters
Paid Tier:
Active Discord community (monthly book talks and movie nights)
Case studies about how people use the Internet
IRL events in Chicago and New York, online events worldwide
Early podcast releases
Killed articles
Full archive access including an advice column with dozens of crazy guest posts
The unfiltered content that won't run anywhere else
Okay, got it. Who are you?
I’m Default Friend. A hater once called me “some bitch with a blog,” which feels right, if a little dismissive.
I’ve been writing about Internet culture as Default Friend since 2018, and under my government name for much longer. If you can believe it, I wrote the very first article ever about femcels.
Something that’s important about this blog is that I don’t have an agenda. I try to be as non-judgmental as feasible about my subjects. I avoid parentheticals with qualifiers. Nobody is too “problematic” to speak to or report on with respect. That said, I’m also not “politically homeless,” or “tribeless.” My MO is to tell interesting stories about communication technology, with a special but not exclusive focus on the Internet.
In my previous life, I was a crazy Art Bell fan and hosted a humble tribute show alongside a Florida-based anthropologist called Post 2 Post AM. I've wanted to make a narrative feature about Bell since maybe 2010 and will desperately pitch anyone who asks for a movie idea. In the mean time, I made this, which is the best thing I’ve ever made:
For a brief time, I also co-hosted the often too-confessional femcel podcast After the Orgy (RIP) where we interviewed everyone from Marc Andreessen to Tao Lin to Neil LaBute.
I’m best known for three things:
I helped resurrect Angela Nagle's work on Tumblr
I wrote a manic, garbled post about how I thought Zoomers would be more sex negative than Millennials that made a lot of people really mad
I make a lot of weird, but so far prescient(!!), predictions about Internet culture
Now I write for Tablet Magazine, have a column at the Washington Examiner, and appear in publications like The Critic, The Spectator, The Dispatch, and UnHerd.
If you’re wondering what I look like, this is the most flattering video that exists of me on the Internet:
Just a few of the topics covered here:
The long shadow of 2012 Tumblr
Usenet
Text-based roleplaying
Fictosexuality
E-dating
Digital subcultures
Media ecology
You might also find these introductions to my work helpful…
There are many imitators but few are as terminally online as I am.
Below is a recent photo of me without the black and white filter and without color-saturating my nose off. Enjoy.
Want to contact me?
Find me on Twitter @default_friend
Email me at defaultefriend@gmail.com
Send me a message on Discord at default_friend#7482
