if we had each others’ mailing addresses this would be my holiday card to you
Hello you radiant souls,
I’m just gonna get real syrupy right now and say it: thanks for sticking with Deez Links throughout this crazy year.
Back in January, this was still a silly lil email that I sent to a few hundred friends, co-workers, and Twitter pals who generously humored me with entrance to their inboxes. Half the time, I thought it was kind of embarrassing and self-indulgent. Like, who the fuck was I, a not-actual reporter or even “real” writer, to be telling you what I thought about all of [gesturing in an overwhelmed manner] all of this?
But the other half of the time — especially when you guys tweeted the newsletter out or emailed back or sent over amazing links of your own — doing Deez Links felt like some fantastic scam that helped me meet amazing people, geek out over niche content, and of course, talk shit about everything from “great millennial novel” discourse to our least favorite media bros.
Along the way, you’ve given me the space to be more confident, curious, and clear-eyed — both as a ~writer~ but also as a jittery 26-year-old in the world.
Huge thanks to the team at Substack, for continuing to provide a killer platform that enabled Deez Links to grow to 2,500 beautiful subscribers. To Claire Landsbaum, for putting Deez Links in fucking Vanity Fair, christ. To Revue, for graciously including Deez Links in the poll that put us on the map. To Suchandrika Chakrabarti, for making it all feel even more legit via an interview for the Freelance Pod.
To Chris Gorman, Natalie Daher, Karen K. Ho, Abby Connolly, Stacey Lastoe, Matt Ortile, Dan Oshinsky, Cates Holderness, Kaylen Ralph, Matt Daniels, Matt Pearce, Alex Laughlin, Max Linsky, Stephanie Talmadge, Erica Cerulo, Taylor Lorenz, Jenny Zhang, Irving Ruan, Hilary Weaver, Joan Wong, Brett Williams, Adam Chandler, Julia Carpenter, Brittany Spanos, @bagdogs, Gary Yeh, Alana Hope Levinson, Alvin Zhou, Anita Badejo, Nicholas Thompson, Katie Hawkins-Gaar, Jessica Pressler, Molly Young, Caitlin Kunkle, Sophia Benoit, R.O. Kwon, Alyssa Smith, Lori Keong, Anna Hoffman, Kate McKean, Oset Babur, Rebecca Leber, and Melissa Stanger, for sharing your wisdom and expertise through Q&As this year.
And most of all, to everyone who’s ever read, subscribed, forwarded, shared, and told your cool work friends about Deez Links: thank you for making this the best passion project in the world.
I’ve got a few things already cookin’ for early next year: the first Q&A is with someone I’ve admired forever, and just FYI, this might be happening soon. I also have a few non-Deez, fictiony projects I’m letting myself get serious about, which you know I will obviously keep you all posted on.
Oh, and you can bet your life we’ll be doing up Deez Links’ fourth birthday as indulgently as possible. WHAT KIND OF CAKE SHOULD WE GET?? Lmk.
xoxo gossip girl
JUST KIDDING you know it’s-a-just-me,
-delia