Paperwave Is Now S-Rank!

See you on the other side.

Paperwave Is Now S-Rank!

Hey Paperwave subs! Long time no see. Thanks so much for all the interest and wonderful comments you’ve left over the years. I have a Paperwave update to share, so let’s jump straight to it: Paperwave is now S-Rank, and the primary home for this content is now a standalone website: s-rank.blog.

S-rank hosts an archive of all previous Paperwave newsletters, republished as articles. And it is expanding to include a few new things as well - more on this in a moment.

For your convenience, bigger, essay-style posts will still be sent to you in email. If you still want to receive them, you don’t need to change anything. These posts will still be sent directly to your inbox. The sender will change from Substack to something like newsletter@s-rank.blog or similar, so please check all your email folders soon to make sure they’re coming through.

If you don’t want S-Rank emails, you can unsubscribe any time. All Paperwave subscribers (that’s you!) have already been imported into S-Rank, so please unsubscribe from one of those incoming newsletters, not here on Substack, to ensure you’re removed from the mailing list.

Important note: The S-Rank website will also host smaller bite-sized posts and other pieces of content that will no longer be emailed directly to you. So if you’ve enjoyed Paperwave and want to keep up with my writing, visiting S-Rank now-and-then is the best way to do this.

There are a few reasons for this change:

1. First off, let’s talk briefly about the name change itself: I’m still very fond of “Paperwave” as a project name, and I do still have a lot of things to say about tabletop gaming (you should see my mountain of half-finished drafts). But ultimately I found Paperwave a little limiting. I would like to share writing about internet culture, AI, publishing, small retro games, and other topics important to me, and I felt a more general-interest name would be a better fit for that writing, while still serving as a home for all of Paperwave’s topics too.

2. Although I found the newsletter format to be really excellent in some ways - most notably the convenience of having new content pushed directly to you rather than you having to go and seek it out - I found it limiting in other ways. I have a huge collection of small things I’d like to share. Indie projects and books to recommend, discussions, and more that didn’t feel meaty enough to “intrude” into your inbox with. It didn’t feel right to email you two paragraphs about a cool indie gaming zine I enjoyed. I’ve sat on dozens of 200-word “I really love this one cool thing” posts I didn’t feel I could send as an entire email. But they feel perfect and valid to publish on a small standalone site.

3. I’m increasingly of the opinion that centralized social media platforms are a mistake. I’m really happy with the newsletters I’ve published on Paperwave and I would be sad if (when) some corporate shake-up causes it all to go offline. Substack has been a good home, but who knows what the future holds? I believe it’s safer and smarter for people to host their personal work on a platform they own and have more control over.

In other words, it’s time for small blogs about weird topics to make a comeback.

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I would love to have you join the community at S-Rank. And of course no hard feelings if you choose to unsub for now. (Reminder again you’ll need to unsubscribe from one of those upcoming S-Rank emails, not here). If you do have an interest in these topics, leave a comment! Ask a question. Suggest a follow-up. I’ll read them all and would love to connect with more like-minded people.

I want to close with a genuine and heartfelt thank you to everyone that has read and commented on Paperwave over the last few years. I hope to see you over at S-Rank. I work at a publication that gets literally millions of daily visitors, but the ~1000 subscribers reading, liking, and commenting here a few times a month feel more special in many ways. Everyone’s comments on these newsletters have always been insightful and interesting. I’m looking forward to keeping those good vibes going, and doing my small part to bring back a tiny portion of that “old internet” feeling.