Matt Klein

Despite age check verifications around the world...

In a given month, Pornhub is still frequented more than The New York Times, Walmart and CNN combined.

More frequented than IMDB, ESPN, Zillow and Etsy combined.

More frequented than Netflix .com. Weather .com. Roblox .com.

Dashboard Culture vs. Camouflage Culture How the Attention Economy killed Camp, collapsed distance, and left us unable to critique a UFC fight on the White House lawn.

If you are not loud, you do not exist culturally, politically, or socially. In the age of the algorithm, cultural value becomes synonymous with measurability. Dashboards don’t give a shit about merit, substance or even truth.

zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/dashboard-...

Dashboard Culture vs. Camouflage Culture How the Attention Economy killed Camp, collapsed distance, and left us unable to critique a UFC fight on the White House lawn.

How the UFC White House fight defines our moment
zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/dashboard-...

Tiny Awards This is the home of the Tiny Awards, which, since 2023, has celebrated the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web.

A final plug for the 2025 Tiny Awards - voting closes on 1 September, so you have a week left to pick your favourite lovely little website from the past 12 months to win a VERY SMALL prize. Great webstuff made by real people, celebrate it while you still can: tinyawards.net/vote/

Tiny Awards This is the home of the Tiny Awards, which, since 2023, has celebrated the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web.

No Web Curios til 5 September, but if you would like some Excellent Internet to help you while away the afternoon then might I suggest you check out this year's Tiny Awards finalists if you've yet to do so? Eleven brilliant little websites for your consideration here: tinyawards.net/vote/

The Creator Economy Is a Race to the Bottom for Human Dignity The hidden costs and house of cards in the age of influence

Like the starlets decades ago, today’s bedroom streamers have stars in their eyes. But dreams in the black mirror are not as close as they appear.

zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/creator-ec...

What do 5,000 dreams about AI reveal about our relationship to it?

Only in ZINE next week: open.substack.com/pub/kleinkle...

You Didn't Notice Anonymous Internet Browsing Was Just Killed What a new Supreme Court ruling means for privacy, free speech and the future of the internet

SCOTUS decision on age verification isn't just legal precedent, it's an artifact symbolizing our moment's anxiety about sexuality, paternalism and privacy online.

These laws curb traffic to compliant sites and drive users to VPNs and noncompliant sites.
zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/supreme-co...

Got home from the Apple Store with new AirPods and spotted dirt on the ear pieces. When I connect them, they connect as “Michael’s AirPods” with his Apple Care still going.

Brought them back. Essentially: “Our b. Nothing to see here. Go home with these new new ones.”

So that’s how Apple’s doing.

How to Build the Good Internet Stepping out of the dark forest and reclaiming a social, handmade and cozy web

“Making for the web is easy, but most of us have forgotten how – ceding our digital agency to platforms and corporate landlords.”

@kleinkleinklein.bsky.social + @sachajudd.com on building the Good Internet, out of the cozy web bits. Good stuff.

zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/good-inter...

Tiny Awards This is the home of the Tiny Awards, which, since 2023, has celebrated the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web.

The Tiny Awards are back, and so am I! After a year off, I'll be a judge helping to decide "the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web" made in the last 12 months. Nominations open until the end of the month, submit anything you love! tinyawards.net

Tiny Awards This is the home of the Tiny Awards, which, since 2023, has celebrated the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web.

For the past few years, me, Kris at Naive and Matt at Reddit have been running the Tiny Awards, celebrating the good bits of the web. THEY ARE BACK IN 2025 AND NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN! Please tell your friends and share the link, as a small act of resistence to everything being shit: tinyawards.net

A spot on 2025 experience:

Attempting to delete your 23andMe data as the company files for bankruptcy, preventing a new buyer from accessing your DNA, but the site keeps crashing. And this is the most interaction with the brand in 8 years as the experience was truly useless.

Can understand the concern.

Curious what signals this as a playbook for brands to exploit darkness, and not an essay centered on humans, helping them navigating said dark change.

New working hyp:

Employee tenure is not long enough to instill fiduciary duty on brand work. As a result, you get a lot of work chasing the trend because employees want to resonate for now, not build for decades.

Brands require an Executive of Stewardship. Chief Legacy Officer.

Cultural Singularity & The Need for Friction: The Business Case for Thinking the Inverse How "Hyper-Optimization" threatens creativity and how slowness will save us

Cultural-Singularity: When culture folds back in on itself amidst hyper-optimization and AI. The solution? Friction.

zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/hyper-opti...

Cultural Singularity & The Need for Friction: The Business Case for Thinking the Inverse How "Hyper-Optimization" threatens creativity and how slowness will save us

"The issue is just that “creativity” — especially online — is getting harder to surface and our platforms aren’t necessarily asking for it."

zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/hyper-opti...

Bring back Vine, you cowards.

Thanks so much! ❤️

So appreciative to have you reading!

The Most Important Image of 2024 What The Costco Guys on Fallon reveal about our media environment

sur l'environnement médiatique qui change: lu et aimé
zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/costco-guys

ZINE | Matt Klein | Substack Overlooked cultural trends explained. Webby-winning intel on our media and social shifts to understand tomorrow. Click to read ZINE, by Matt Klein, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of sub...

ZINE is read in 49 states (and 133 countries.) But I’m desperately seeking a reader from: Alaska.

For the first Alaskan subscriber, I’m offering Founding Membership for life.

If you know any peeps in Alaska interested in decoding social shifts, give ‘em a ping!

ZINE.KleinKleinKlein.com

Arousal Quantified: 7 Trends Revealed via Pornhub's Data What millions of searches and clicks say about sexual desire

Read the full analysis and data points here: zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/pornhub-tr...

The surge in android and animated sit beside a hunger for authenticity, while a deadly tension mounts between public legislation and private browsing. These aren't contradictions — they're constellations. Spots of light revealing the complexities of being human.

07. Hentai, Anime & Cosplay: Hentai held the top spot as the most searched term for now four years in a row. Data reveals this may not be naivety, but favorability. Interest in hentai (or cosplay) isn’t a flee of reality, but a reinvention of it.

06. Trans Porn: In '22, the category grew +75%, becoming the 7th most popular category, where it remained in '24. Trans porn is more popular in countries with higher rates of Catholicism and murders of trans people. There's a tension between human sexuality and social politics.

05. Wellness & Care: Searches for therapy, therapist, massage, trainer and mindful are sweeping as we simultaneously face a wellness crisis. The perceived sacred, gentle safety of disclosure and healing is doing something for us.

04. Synthetic Seduction: Android, AI, robot, machine, 3D and NPC searches are growing as we witness post-human eroticism. But mechanical fantasies aren't an escape from humanity, but another expression of it.

03. Size Matters: Searches for big, bigger, biggest, etc. are swelling, perhaps signaling a crave for the physically overwhelming and undeniable as a reaction to our everyday digitally disembodied experiences. Or maybe bigger is just hotter.

02. Elder Eros: Milf, dilf, daddy, mature, cougar, granny, and gilf searches are soaring but this may not be driven by young people interested in old people, but old people interested in the old people as nearly 1-in-5 Pornhub visitors are now 55+.