Five More Years

Hey Friends,

Good morning to everyone except Natalie Harp, whose catseye eyeliner will need to be reapplied after Trump rolled on top of her, smearing her mascara across the bed. Hopefully he didn't crush her laptop too, because we have truths to write.

In the news,

• Former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell's phone was seized by the FBI in relation to sexual assault allegations, which converted him to Swal-unwell. Swalwell did not immediately respond to messages from CNN following the raid because he didn't have his phone anymore.
• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are moving back to UK, which has surprised even King Charles. According to one expert, being a normal person and not being royalty is actually really, really hard to do, and mostly not that great.
• The USS Abraham Lincoln has made news after 9 months at sea in Iran for its poor living conditions, including bad food and mental health problems. Just as the sailors started heading home saying things are better back home, Robert F. Kennedy said: "hold my beer".
• One of the largest sellers of everyday goods, Walmart, saw its lowest sales growth in six years, which the Trump administration says means we are in "The Golden Age of America" where everyone is doing great except for Walmart and all of Walmart's customers.

A Half Decade

After ages of writing, I need your feedback.

It's been five years since I started this blog. I've published 361 posts, left behind 17,591,023 typos, and missed zero out of 270 Fridays, including on holidays. I've drawn 226 original illustrations, and reused probably 218 of them, as inflation has made my illustrator (me) more expensive. Some issues take days to write. Some are rushed out the door on a budget. Rest assured, for paying subscribers, your support keeps me committed to delivering, and I always do the best I can.

When The Lorem Ipsum launched, the US national debt was $23 trillion. Today it is $40 trillion. To put that in perspective, that is the equivalent of 340 billion paid subscribers, many of whom are signing up today to support my work.

I haven't missed an issue even for the birth of my child, for spending a week in jail, or the return of Christ – although unrelated, none of those things actually happened over the last half decade, I still assume I could hold true to the schedule. More than likely, if I die, I'll plan ahead and schedule a post to make sure The Lorem Ipsum does not miss a beat, even if my heart does.

Over the years, I've accumulated nearly 6,000 subscribers, thanks to some light marketing and you sharing a post with others. Some interesting reader stats:

• 15% of you are subscribed to 3 or more newsletters.
• 9% read The Lorem Ipsum in bed.
• 2.3% read The Lorem Ipsum while completely naked.
• 0.00116666666% of readers email or comment regularly after receiving an issue.
• 22% don't read any news other than this publication, knowing they can happily rely on the goodwill of The Lorem Ipsum to keep them up to date, instead of being unhappy by reading everything else.
• A small percentage of our readers are actually deceased, mostly from natural causes, but still prefer to read The Lorem Ipsum even post mortem.

The most notable data I've collected is this, and it's the most underappreciated: People actually read this shit. For that, I'd like to thank you.

I've been contemplating how I want this publication to evolve. Here's what I've done so far:

• In-depth thought pieces to explain something like the history of voting and how to protect it, the paradox of weeds, how corporate violence is predictable, and more.
• Run-down articles summarizing my Hot Take on the top news stories of the week.
• And short narrative posts about how to find balance in blank spaces or how to articles teaching you how to be Mick Jagger or how to make the perfect old fashioned cocktail.

And all of this, taking at least 5oo words just to get to the point. That's why some love it, and others hate it.

But I want to know what makes readers tick. What do you want to see from The Lorem Ipsum?

For those of you who are new here (and I see 92 of you here), it's okay if your answer is "you could at least have a welcome email and some free donuts." But for the rest of you, you are here for a reason. Either you want to learn something, you looking for some new small talk material at parties, or you haven't checked your spam filter in years. Whatever it is, I want to know.

What makes a Lorem an Ipsum you want to receive? Your feedback will help me shape future content here.

You can drop your comments below by clicking the comment button at the bottom of this post, or if you prefer, you can reply to this email.

That's it for this week.

Remember: The Lorem Ipsum is actually really good in bed. Try reading an issue first thing in the morning, and invite a friend!

Have a great weekend!