# Twitter's Silent Majority

Happy Labor Day, yo! I'm honored you have allowed a small place in your
inbox for this little ol' newsletter. I'll be eating a cheeseburger in
your name today. On a potato roll. Or maybe a pretzel roll. Those are
the roll rankings, everyone knows this. \
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And now the links:\
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**According to Wired Magazine, Thrillist makes north of \$100 million a
year**. I wrote about what I see as a growing trend: [the content-first
startup](http://seanblanda.com/the-rise-of-content-first-startup/).
After I wrote that post, I interviewed DuckDuckGo founder Gabe Weinberg
for 99U on his [book about gaining traction with a new
startup](http://tractionbook.com/). He views content as one of the 17
"[traction channels](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/04/in-the-pursuit-of-traction-have-you-considered-all-verticals.html)"
that businesses can use to draw attention to their product. His caution
to me: when you're a hammer, everything can look like a nail. Don't
assume content is the best or only way to build an audience. Tough
medicine for us writer/journalist types.\
**— Related**: GE runs a pretty robust content shop. [This is
why](http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/dont-sell-a-product-sell-a-whole-new-way-of-thinking).\
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Here are [71 ways to monetize digital
content](http://www.foliomag.com/2014/71-ways-monetize-digital-content#.VACrDGQbBme).\
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Ferguson. Gaza. ISIS. The events this August have brought out lots of
strong opinions on social media. I'm sure you, like me, wish that social
media was a place where we could have great discourse about the hard
stuff in the news. Instead, we get stories like the feminist critic
Anita Sarkeesian getting [run out of her home for voicing her take on
women in
games](http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/27/6075179/anita-sarkeesian-says-she-was-driven-out-of-house-by-threats).
On the internet, the innocuous can seem like a personal attack and the
extreme always gets the attention. It feels like the only solution is
to [stay far, far, far,
away](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/07/fashion/social-media-arguments-cant-win-propositions.html) and
only have the hard conversations in person. And it turns out [that's
exactly what a "silent majority" is
doing](http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/).\
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This is why [you shouldn't always do what you
love](https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/dont-do-what-you-love-41312c943e2).
This is also why healthcare is such an important issue. But lets talk
about that in person, k?\
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And now for the newsletter's end of summer review: In the northeast
U.S., this mild summer was a welcome reprieve after the worst winter of
my lifetime. But it turns out, [everyone else is having an awful summer
except for us and parts of
Russia](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mntp/201407.gif). \
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**I've always had two suggestions for high school students:** either
fight like hell to try and go to an Ivy League school (the networking,
man, the networking!) or save your money and go to a cheap public school
that allows you to have a life and explore your interests. Well, the New
Yorker contends I [may be wrong about the whole Ivy League
thing](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/poison-ivy).\
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**ENDORSEMENT: It's the 100th anniversary of the start of WW1**. Did you
know Belgium [flooded its own
country](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Yser#Battle) to
sabotage a German advance? Did you know there was an [hours-long treaty
on Christmas 1914](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce)? Did
you know Franz Ferdinand was killed hours after surviving another
assassination attempt in what has to be [the most massive coincidence of
all
time](http://www.npr.org/2014/03/06/285893848/how-bad-directions-and-a-sandwich-started-world-war-i)? I've
spent 12 hours these past two weeks [entranced by the Hardcore History
podcast](http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hh) about how truly
gruesome/interesting/relevant WW1 really was. Seriously, I was nearly
late to work on Tuesday because of it.\
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**NYT: **"It was their early rush into what Dr. Allen calls pseudomature
behavior that set them up for trouble. Now in their early 20s, many of
them have had difficulties with intimate relationships, alcohol and
marijuana, and even criminal activity. **"** Why being the cool kid in
middle/high school [makes you more likely to have stunted social skills
as an
adult.](http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2014/06/23/cool-at-13-adrift-at-23)\
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**Quiz**: [This is a post about young people being
entitled](http://m.pw.org/content/the_problem_of_entitlement_a_question_of_respect).
In what year was it written? The answer may surprise you.
\#[clickbait](http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/08/news-feed-fyi-click-baiting/)\
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**Email is still king when it comes to continually engaging your
readers**. Like usual, Quartz is ahead of the curve with [its new
email-focused homepage
design](http://qz.com/246831/quartz-has-a-new-look-and-for-the-first-time-a-homepage/). \
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**Continuing a thread about "luxury cities" from last week**: People are
moving to places like Texas and Georgia [because "real wages" are
better](http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/08/krugman-on-housing.html) there.
Also people are [supposedly happier in the
suburbs](http://www.citylab.com/politics/2014/08/overall-americans-in-the-suburbs-are-still-the-happiest/378964/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email).
And with that, [lets allow Ben Folds to play us
out](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34u_3Z9_LUw).\
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Thoughts? Complaints? Links for next week? Reply to this newsletter. I
promise I'll read and reply to every email.\
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-Sean\
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P.S. You should know, this edition was written live on an Amtrak train
from Wilmington, Delaware to New York, New York. Go Amtrak.