Tax-Day Terror
Support Unpopular Front
Dear Unpopular Front Reader,
When I started Unpopular Front, I had no idea anybody would read it. I began with what I thought were pretty niche and obscure topics, and I was pleasantly surprised that there was an enthusiastic audience for them. Pitches that no editor in their right mind would accept became the bread and butter of this publication. I think that the eccentricity and eclecticism still reign, and you get something here that’s unlike anything else out there.
Not to toot my own horn too much, but I think this newsletter has a pretty good record of covering things quite a while before the major news media gets to it, and with greater depth and more penetrating analysis. For instance, The New Yorker just had a big piece on groyperfication of the GOP, but if you’re an Unpopular Front reader, you’d have known all about that since 2022. Or how about the turn of the tech bros into raging reactionaries? Again, this newsletter theorized that a couple of years before the media. If you value being at the leading edge of politics and ideas, this is the place for you.
But it takes work. This is my full-time job. I’ve been able to keep most of it free because a growing number of you have chosen to pay, and I’m writing today to ask if you’d consider joining them. Maintaining a subscription-based service requires some diligence: people let their subscriptions lapse or mean to sign up one day and never seem to get around to it.
Many of you have just received tax refunds from the government and are itching to spend it. Well, for me, as a small businessman, it goes the other way — I just had to pay a big bill.
A paid subscription is $5 a month or $55 a year. It unlocks my weekly “Reading, Watching” supplement, but more than that, it’s what lets me keep doing this at the depth I want to, without a paywall creeping across everything or ads crowding into the margins. I’ve never raised prices, despite inflation and all the rest. I know it feels hard to justify paying for something on the internet, which barely feels real, but 5 dollars is less than most things at a Starbucks, and it’s less than a beer at a bar most places these days. Would you buy me, a writer whose work you presumably enjoy, one coffee or one beer a month?
I especially ask my colleagues in journalism, academia, and the arts to consider a paid subscription if you have ever used Unpopular Front for ideas in your own work — you could even expense it!
One thing I definitely guarantee if you sign up for paid: you will never again receive an email like this one!
In any case, thank you for your continued support.
All the best,
John