🔓Behind the scenes of Untangled.

PLUS: A personal offer, from me to you.

Hi, and welcome back to Untangled, a newsletter and podcast about technology, people, and power. In ‘Technically Social’ I argued that technological affordances shape our relationships, and, as an example, mentioned that TikTok is encouraging more one-sided relationships. Then I realized, Substack isn’t all that different. You read my newsletter, so you have some sense of who I am and what makes me tick, but I know very little about you. I’d like to change that! So in this issue, I’m going to bring you behind the scenes of Untangled, share how I’m thinking about its future, and extend a personal offer, from me to you.

This is me in my office in LA. It’s where all the writing happens, and, ya know, mostly doesn’t happen.

Half of the time, ‘writing’ is me staring at a screen, waiting impatiently for the words to come. They do, eventually. Slowly, and on their own terms. Over the last year and a half, I’ve actually written 56,032 of them for Untangled — that’s a 200-page book, y’all! Finding the words, it turns out, has a lot to do with reading: for each essay, I read roughly 5+ academic papers or reports to understand the literature on a given topic, and 10+ news articles to understand how the topic is being covered.

I’m proud of the consistency of Untangled. When I started, I didn’t know if I’d have enough ideas to write 3-4 substantive issues a month. But so far, that hasn’t been a problem. I keep a running list of ideas for new issues that I add to whenever one pops into my brain — there are 35 currently on my ‘Ideas’ Notion board. Most of them are half-baked and fuzzy — but they at least calm the anxious thoughts that sound something like, “what are you going to write about next??” I’m also proud of the quality of each email. I don’t know about you, but I get enough emails. Too many, I’d say. So I will always respect your inbox, and it’s my sincere hope that you value the quality of each issue, not the quantity.

In the beginning, I wasn’t sure how I was going to grow Untangled. I avoided social media for the last decade, so I didn’t have a readership I could port over from Twitter. Hell, my first-ever tweet launched Untangled. I started Untangled with what was, at least at the time, a hot take: Crypto is not decentralized. I’d say that essay, which pointed out all the ways in which power could centralize within technically decentralized systems, aged quite well. That email went to roughly 50 people — mostly friends and family. Today, there are 3,486 of you, half of you open every email, and 5% click a link.

I owe a lot of that growth to Substack and fellow newsletter writers. Incredibly, 80% of the Untangled community actually comes from Substack features. The vast majority of you found me from one of the 27 newsletters that recommend Untangled. Thank you to

Nick Martin

,

Molly White

,

Brandon Silverman

,

The Connector

,

The Gradient

,

New_ Public

, and everyone else who has recommended Untangled to your readers!

📣 This brings us to intermission, and an important ask!

• If you write a newsletter, enjoy Untangled, and think your audience might find it interesting, consider recommending it! It makes a real difference.

• If you don’t have your own newsletter, that’s okay, you can still help: just send a quick note to a Substack newsletter you read and say something like “Hey, just wanted to stop by and say that I’m a big fan of your newsletter. Also, check out Untangled by Charley Johnson — I think you and your subscribers might enjoy how he disentangles the effects of technology from social systems like race, gender, and power. If you like it, consider recommending it!” Easy peasy! Plus, it would make my day. 🙏

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming: roughly 1.5% of you pay for Untangled. I’m forever grateful to those who do, but I also want to kick that number up to 5-6%, which I’ve heard is the Substack average. Below average? Untangled? Nope, not possible - the li’l kid in me who strived real hard for straight A’s growing up won’t stomach it.

While I grew out of that phase long ago, I have been thinking of ways I could make the paid edition more valuable. Fill out this li’l poll and help steer me in the right direction:

So what does the future of Untangled look like?

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• I want to write more special issues. I spend a lot of time on special issues like The Primer, Technically Social, and The Check List because ultimately, I want you to find value in Untangled beyond its analysis of the latest emerging technology, or whatever is going on in the news. I want to offer you a new lens or framework from which you can interpret this strange tech-mediated world of ours.

• I want to analyze solutions as much as I do problems. Listen, I have a soft spot in my heart for reframing problems because, as I’ve written previously, “Problem-setting is the key prerequisite to recommending solutions. Therefore, the real power lies in who gets to frame the problems.” But I’m also practical and know that some problems won’t ever be framed the way I’d like, so I need to operate within those constraints from time to time. Plus, I went to public policy school and worked in government for nearly a decade, so I have thoughts about how to regulate and govern data and technology.

• I want to write more about complex systems. The two disciplines that most shape my thinking are science and technology studies (STS) and the study of complex systems. In 2011, I attended workshops at the Santa Fe Institute and a multi-day training with Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge, and I became fascinated by complex systems. But to date, I haven’t written much about it or the ways in which it intersects with STS. That will change with an upcoming essay on the concept of emergence, and I hope to write more essays that bring these fields together.

• I want to write more about my facilitation practice. As you know by now, I’m a facilitator and organizational strategist at heart, and I recently launched The Facilitation Leadership Lab with my friend and colleague, Kate Krontiris. I’d like to share reflections on facilitation more often — and I mean, what needs more Untangling than people, processes, cultural differences, and group dynamics?

These are my thoughts, but I’d like to hear yours. Among the options above, what would you like me to prioritize? Pick one!

Now, a personal offer

If you email me, I promise to respond. I want to get to know you - so pop into my inbox with a bit about who you are, a question about me, an idea for Untangled, feedback on a post, whatever. Let’s chat!

Esther Perel wrote, “The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships.” I couldn’t agree more. Relationships mean everything to me. You spend time reading things I write. I spend a lot of time writing essays for you. So click ‘reply’ and let’s get to know one another a li’l bit, shall we?

Okay, that’s it for your behind-the-scenes tour of Untangled. Next week, for paid subscribers, I’ll dig into a doozy of a question: what is ‘information’?

Until then,

Charley

p.s. I’d like to wish a happy Mother’s Day to my sister and mom. In addition to being an incredible mom, my sister edited everything I wrote growing up. I owe my writerly skills to her.

My mom passed a few years back but I know she would have gotten a kick out of Untangled. When my sister and I cleaned out my mom’s houseboat, I found some of my old writing for the Huffington Post, printed out and tucked away in a cabinet. My mom didn’t always get what I do for a living. Sometimes I think Untangled is my attempt to explain to her what I do.

My mom and sister, kicking it.