Adjacent Weekend

This week: how centralized platforms tip into something darker than bad UX, what Blumhouse's low-budget model reveals about Hollywood economics, a graphic designer drawing from Arabic hardcore, Jon Hamm on escaping Don Draper, and the surprisingly rich history of a woman most of us have never heard of.

Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet

Mike Masnick extends Cory Doctorow's "enshittification" frame with sharper teeth: when a platform consolidates enough control, degraded user experience becomes the precondition for something closer to authoritarian control over public discourse. This is a long, careful essay that earns its argument rather than asserting it. Come away with a cleaner vocabulary for why decentralized protocols feel urgent rather than merely idealistic.

Liberalism.org · 18 min read

Blumhouse & The Hollywood Horror Hit Machine

Jason Blum built one of the most consistently profitable studios in Hollywood on a model that looks almost perversely simple: cap the budget, keep the upside, repeat. This piece walks through how Blumhouse actually works — the contract structures, the creative constraints, the calculated bets — and why the model holds lessons beyond horror. Less a fan piece, more a business case study wearing a monster mask.

Workweek · 15 min read

James Stuart is railing against boring design with techniques inspired by the spirit of Arabic hardcore music

James Stuart's work looks like it's been through something — reconfigured flags, shredded collages, lettering that feels percussive. This profile digs into where that sensibility comes from and how a genre built on aggression and refusal ended up shaping a visual practice. A good reminder that the most interesting design influences are rarely the ones you'd expect.

It's Nice That · 10 min read

who the hell is Lady Bedford?

Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford, was one of the most powerful literary patrons in Jacobean England — a woman who shaped the careers of John Donne and Ben Jonson while navigating a court where women's influence was always meant to be invisible. Julia Carpenter's profile is the kind of piece that makes you feel genuinely cheated by the history you were taught. Sharp, fast, and controlled fury.

Julia Carpenter · 12 min read

Jon Hamm on Your Friends & Neighbors and Don Draper's Ghost

A decade after Mad Men ended, Hamm is playing characters who share Don Draper's surface — charming, opaque, morally slippery — but are written to be understood rather than mythologized. Frazier Tharpe's interview gets at why that distinction matters to Hamm, and what it takes to inhabit a type without being consumed by it. Good reading whether or not you've watched the show.

GQ · 14 min read

I Love This Record — "Traditional and Public Domain Songs" by Marisa Anderson

Marisa Anderson takes songs that belong to everyone — old folk material, hymns, ballads worn smooth by a century of handling — and finds something in them that feels entirely her own. This appreciation is less a review than a slow account of why certain guitar playing stops you in place. Best read somewhere quiet, ideally with the record on.

Bandcamp · 8 min read

Jay-Z Locks Back In

After a year that tested his reputation in ways he couldn't fully control, this piece examines how Jay-Z is choosing to re-enter public life — and whether the posture of elder statesman still fits. Frazier Tharpe holds two things at once: the genuine cultural weight of the subject and the honest question of what's being managed. Worth reading slowly.

GQ · 15 min read