Tom Beck

@tombeck.eth

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Build in public. Create in private.

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Cool idea! I'm honored to see one of my essays included!

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Content coins are a bad idea because any individual piece of art is already (and always has been) worth nothing. The primary value that art possesses is in the aggregate. Individual pieces are (mostly) useless. This is why the only times artists have been able to capture even a tiny sliver of the value they create is in creating scenes. Impressionism, punk, the factory, bloomsbury, the beats.

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I'm swiping these ideas for horror sci-fi stories.

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I write more with AI because it makes writing the same as reading.

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I'm increasingly convinced that social media (and, hell, why not, any platform on the web) is not the place to share art. By "art" I mean activities that involve craft, using skills honed over years and decades, in the service of individual expression. Artists should try to see more clearly what web platforms are: highly efficient meme vectors. It is a place to share memes and shitposts and other ephemera. Perfect for slop! That algorithms bury everything after about 6 hours is a feature, not a bug. I might even go so far as to recommend that artists abandon web platforms (except as places to chit-chat and waste time) and instead focus on revitalizing older, IRL spaces where the weight of art has an impact. Less a wholesale rejection of technology and more a clear-headed reassessment of where it fits in an artist's life.

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Just published: "Fiction in the Age of the Phone" I explore why we're all comfortable reading nonfiction on our phones but reach for physical books when it comes to fiction. It comes down to what I call the clash between "the hyperlink mind" and "the dream mind." I also propose two potential paths forward for fiction writers in the digital age. Read it here: https://paragraph.xyz/@driftless/fiction-in-the-age-of-the-phone?referrer=0x33514A171B0eC657a0237Dd388fAA4f39eE2a2E4

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I've been thinking a lot about why I never read fiction on my phone, despite consuming countless nonfiction articles there. Anyone else notice this pattern? Working on a longer piece about this for my @paragraph newsletter, The Driftless, probably coming out this weekend.

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Apparently it will now cost 25% more to watch Canadian YouTubers

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My toddler after I spend two hours cooking dinner

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I really enjoyed @danicaswanson's article on thinking about systems for writing. Social media is designed to highlight the ephemeral. We all know why: it keeps users addicted and scrolling the feed (which can be sold to advertisers). But how might you design a social media experience that highlights persistence? 🤔 https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson/quality-writing-is-systemic?referrer=0x33514A171B0eC657a0237Dd388fAA4f39eE2a2E4

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Extremely excited to learn that my essay, "Farcaster is a Car" won first place in the @kiwi contest! Huge thanks to the judges, and to the Kiwi and @purple teams. If not for this contest, there's a good chance I never write this essay. I had the idea months ago, where I left it sitting in my notes app. But when I saw the contest, I just knew I had to finish it, and share it.

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If it’s on a social media feed, it’s content. If it’s in a museum, it’s art.

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The social media feed is a liminal space—and we’re all stuck in it.

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I really enjoyed this article from @sach. I've been trying to think of interesting ways to utilize LLMs in writing and this spurred some promising rabbit holes.

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"Wallet" feels like the wrong analogy. "Passport" feels like a better fit—an invitation to explore a new world.

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I finished a new essay, "Farcaster is a Car" which I'm submitting to the @kiwi Farcaster 2026 writing contest. It tackles the question of marketing and growth by reimagining what social media could be. The ideas were inspired by Nassim Taleb's insight that new forms of technology have a tendency to fix problems introduced by previous technology. It got me thinking: what problems in Web2 social media can Farcaster fix? The answer I came up with was context collapse. In this essay, I draw on an analogy between Farcaster and the early automobile, from historical, practical, and cultural angles. Using crypto (and AI) technology, Farcaster has the potential to unlock a "mobile self," turning users into builders who can create their own contextual experiences while maintaining continuity across the web. https://paragraph.xyz/@driftless/farcaster-is-a-car?referrer=0x33514A171B0eC657a0237Dd388fAA4f39eE2a2E4

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Instead of grass, I touched ice this weekend.

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Thinking about my writing for 2025, I feel ready to go all-in on the "slowcore" approach. It starts by reframing how I write online: - Remove the marketing lens from sharing my work - Share because a piece moves me, not to grow an audience - Choose platforms and methods that feel low-stakes and enjoyable I plan to start with my Substack, "The Unnerving." Pivoting it to a digital (haunted) garden for my creepy stories. An archive of sorts. More to come on that shortly!

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Great piece that explains why you should read history. Not to "learn from the past's mistakes" as some tedious people think, but to correct this little quirk of the brain that tends towards doomsdaying. When you read history, you realize, 1) some things are eternal and it’s better to come to terms with them than fret needlessly, 2) almost nothing is eternal, even and especially what was once thought eternal, and that progress is possible, solutions can be found, and we can make things better, and 3) everyone always thinks the world is ending, and they have always been wrong (so far). https://substack.com/home/post/p-153316573

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