Tedium | An Offbeat Digital Newsletter

Tedium. The newsletter all your other newsletters look up to.

Since 2015, Ernie Smith's Tedium has been hunting for the end of the long tail, and we've yet to find it. But we'd sure love it if you followed us on our journey. Especially now that we're ten friggin' years old and we're still using a Street Fighter II slogan as our subscribe button. Validate the use of obscure video game slang as a successful subscription strategy. Click the button.

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This is a newsletter that existed before Substack. (We even turned Substack down!) Our goal is to outlive it. But we will be unable to do so unless you put your email in this box and let us invade your inbox with these messages that we send when we feel like it. It's an important obligation. Are you up to the task?

Tedium. The newsletter all your other newsletters look up to.

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Saving One Screen At A Time

Pondering the screen saver, a cultural artifact which can mean one of two things: Fun animated graphics and screens that automatically go dark. The difference matters.

Pinpointing The Actual Problem

A blog post from Automattic lays out their decision to pull back on the WordPress project. But in the process, the company may have accidentally explained why competitors were able to one-up them.

Tic-Tac-D’Oh

Dell decides to rebrand its machines along a 3x3 grid—and ditches a number of popular product lines along the way. (Was it worth it?)

Divisible By 5

That feeling of dread that you’re feeling about 2025 doesn’t need to need to define the way you approach the world. Perhaps you need a push.

Detecting Parasites

Our year-end award for best blog post goes to a niche website known for its air purifier reviews. But the post reached way beyond its traditional audience—and may have helped change the way Google operates.

Data-Driven Deception

A story directly exposing how automakers were selling consumer driving data that ended up in the hands of insurers made a true ripple that drivers will benefit from in the years to come.

The Calm Voice Of Chaos

This year’s Tedium awards start off with a shout-out to a prevalent voice that brought protest music back to the masses: The endlessly prolific Jesse Welles.

Christmas on Repeat

Despite often being terrible, we watch the same holiday movies every year. Why's that? Well, it's not often about the movies—it's about our memories.

The Thrill Was Never There

A famous punk-music personality reveals he was in it for the money—a revelation that has upset fans. But to be fair, it was the algorithm that pushed him in that direction.

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