let's talk about schadenfreude, let's talk about competition in youth, let's talk about being an average joe and all the bad things that may be

pre-season update from alex hi!!

the garden of death, hugo simberg 1896

happy Monday and for anyone living in the future, what’s Tuesday like? plz let us know in the chat.

We’re a week and a day away from starting Season One! I know what essay will be published first. I’ve been writing it non stop this weekend, except its not really an essay so much as 10 essays rolled into one. which isn’t a good thing, like I need to pull out almost all of it and pick out juuuust the right stuff. The special stuff. The winning stuff.

I judge so much of what I create based on a “will it win” mindset. ‘Will this be a banger,’ I used to ask myself before every single tweex. I don’t do that aaaas much on Substack but that’s like saying I used to take five tabs of acid at once and now I just take 2 so its chill no big deal all good.

And maybe it is all good! I don’t know. How much competition is too much? Is all of this postulating simply a loser’s way out of realizing he will not win? Like, if I was a real winner, a champ, like I’d always thought I’d become, would I even need to be doing any of this deconstruction bullshit? Or is it precisely because I’m such a stinker that I have to waste time putzing around in the loser lounge asking everyone ‘hey isn’t it weird how much we all want to win?’

No way they’re doing that in the Victory Villa. No, they’re sipping rosay and talking about Teslas that haven’t even been built yet. Here’s some stuff I am gonna cover today and would like to chat about in the comments section.

• I want to talk about how fucking weird schadenfreude is and what I’m learning about why it exists and also if you guys get schadenfreude and if so what is it about?

• I wanna hear from y’all about what growing up was like for you in terms of competition.

• Oh also I wanna talk about Sam Altman saying AI will replace “the median worker” and how this idea of average plays a big fuckin part in creating the need to be special. Aaaand this took me down a rabbit hole of different terms we use to describe the ‘average person’ which was of mild yet sustained interest.

Ok, gonna go into all this in more detail now behind the paywall please come join!

As a reminder, when Season One: I’m (not??) The Best launches on Oct 10, I’ll bump up prices to $7/month and $70/year. So if you wanna LOCK IN a $5/month or $50/year price forever, become a paid subscriber now!

---

Here’s what paid subscribers get in season one

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from these first 18 months of writing BAT, it’s that you all - the readers - are fuckin smart and cool and wise! So much of what I’ve understood so far about family and parenting and life has been from engaging with y’all in the comments.

And so I would like to formally invite you to join me on this Season One journey by becoming a paid subscriber.

Not much will change for free subscribers, don’t worry. The big difference will be that I’m gonna focus my time on engaging in the paid-subscriber threads and spaces. I’ll explain why in a minute.

Paying subscribers will get:

• weekly paid only threads q&a on topics relating to what we’re working on 

• behind the scenes posts from me about this whole thing (I’m going to play around with doing these as audio which paid subscribers can listen to via Substack or right in their podcast app like Apple Music or Spotify)

• Full access to every essay this season

• Perhaps most importantly, an invitation to help me figure this shit out