My Internet: Kate Lindsay
Paywall strategy, Stuart Little memes, and the millennial pause: We turned Embedded’s signature Q&A on its founder
Twice a month, internet-culture publication Embedded logs on with someone extremely online and asks them nearly the same set of questions: What memes are making you laugh? Where do you get your news? Do you text people voice notes? The series is called My Internet, and it’s one of several recurring formats that founders kate lindsay and Nick Catucci have built since being laid off and starting their newsletter in 2021. Over the years, they’ve expanded it into a multi-vertical operation, with the free interview series drawing readers in and paid tiers that unlock essays, a Friday media gossip column, and a video series. Kate told us Embedded’s growth has been “a lesson in consistency”: nearly five years of publishing almost every week, building an audience entirely their own.
Kate has made her career in part out of naming what the internet is doing, contributing to our vernacular and comments sections phrases like “millennial pause” (first seen on Embedded) and “rawdogging.” She’s been cited as an expert by the BBC and CBC, and co-hosts ICYMI, Slate’s podcast about internet culture. Today we flip the script on one of the internet’s shrewdest observers, asking Kate to sit for her own Embedded Q&A and talk about the business she’s built around the format.
EMBEDDED
Founded: 2021
Format: Twice-weekly newsletter
Verticals: My Internet, a recurring Q&A series about the online habits of interesting people; media_gossip, a Friday sub-newsletter covering the media industry; Screen Time Diaries, a video series documenting what’s happening across Kate’s screens in real time
Tiers: Free (creator interviews, My Internet Q&As), Paid—$5/month or $50/year (Monday essays, Friday media_gossip edition), Founding Member—$75/year (all of the above, plus your name inscribed in the “Hall of Embeddeds”)
What’s been your best-performing newsletter post? Why do you think it hit?
It’s never the ones you expect, but this one is far and away Embedded’s most popular post, so much so that it was syndicated and translated into Dutch, and I still get notifications on it at least once a week. As for why it hit, I think you can’t overestimate the value of articulating a simple truth. I can sometimes hold myself back by not writing something purely because I assume it’s too simple or something people already know. But even if people already know something, it’s validating to see it in writing.
You started Embedded on Substack in 2021 with no existing email list. What has kept you going?
When Nick and I got laid off, we decided to start a Substack to keep ourselves sane during another pandemic summer. We essentially treated Embedded like our full-time job while still receiving severance. It was exciting to finally have no rules and explore all types of content, and I think this freedom really fueled us those first few months. But I had also spent much of my early career fighting for success within traditional media without much growth, and ironically, once we went independent, that’s actually when those editors and publications found my work. It’s always been extremely affirming to carve my own path rather than fight for approval within the system.
What have been the biggest moments of growth for Embedded?
I will always remember that it was Rachel Karten who gave us our first shout-out in her newsletter, and I think we got 500-something subscribers from that alone. Other than that, Embedded has really been a lesson in consistency. We’ll have pieces that pop off here and there, but almost all of our growth came slow and steady from reliably publishing almost every single week for the past five years.
How has the newsletter fed into your other work?
I see Embedded and ICYMI as practically sisters at this point. Often, I’ll write something for Embedded and not even realize it helped me work out my thoughts for an adjacent episode. Sometimes I’ll write something for Embedded that I know could be extrapolated into an ICYMI episode, but want see how Embedded readers respond first. My piece about the phone social contract is an example of one that ended up doing really well, and so that told me it would likely resonate with the podcast audience as well.
While there’s definitely a lot of overlap in terms of the types of readers and listeners, Embedded will always be my rock. It’s the reason I feel even a marginal sense of safety in an unpredictable media landscape.
How do you and Nick decide what goes behind the paywall?
This is something I’ve never been able to get a read on. I can tell you what hasn’t worked: paywalling interviews, paywalling link roundups, and I don’t think paywalling video has either. But I’m having fun with it and I like the privacy of a smaller audience. Otherwise, the things that blow up in terms of paid conversations are almost never what I expected—except for the launch of media_gossip. That went exactly as I thought, because all of us are incurably nosy and self-interested.
How is building an audience on Substack different from other places on the internet? Do you have any advice?
Every day I am grateful to not be beholden to an algorithm that no one can explain and that changes its whims every other month. It means my advice for how to succeed on Substack isn’t sexy, but it’s real: Write for your readers, and if you don’t have any yet, write the newsletter you want to read. Write it consistently even on the weeks you don’t feel like it. And don’t use AI. If you’re using AI to write, I don’t understand why you’re here.
What’s a recent meme or post that made you laugh?
My friend Jehan and I have a shared language of Stuart Little memes. This is the most recent one to make me laugh, but nothing will ever beat this one:
Where do you tend to get your news?
I do my best to not get it, but it finds me anyway.
What are your favorite newsletters?
I always open User Mag, Deez Links, and Casey Lewis on Substack, as well as Garbage Day and Today in Tabs. And then there’s a handful of other newsletters that I should be reading but can’t bring myself to because I’m too jealous.
Do you try to limit your phone use? If so, what methods have been helpful for that?
Yes! Every day is an experiment of how much more I can log off while still being able to do my job. I shared a number of tips here, but the most basic, unglamorous advice is still the most effective: charge your phone far enough away that you can’t use it falling asleep or waking up, do one IRL thing every morning before looking at your screen (truly, even just making coffee), and turn off push notifications. You’re not allowed to complain that xyz doesn’t work for you if you’re not already doing these things as a baseline.
What’s something you’ve observed about the online behavior of Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and/or boomers?
Unfortunately, observing this one thing about the online behavior of millennials is responsible for my whole career.
Do any of your group chats have a name that you’re willing to share?
There’s “just idiots, swarming,” which is all my friends, “sart of like narmal people,” which is a smaller spinoff from a trip to Ireland, “for making swinging plans,” which is me and my husband and his best friend and my best friend, who are also dating, and then “The Lindsay Family Extended Universe,” which is my immediate family plus the husbands.
What’s your go-to emoji, and what does it mean to you?
I’m using this guy 🫡 a lot these days to end any sentence in which I’ve declared that I’ve even remotely achieved something, like sending an email.
Do you text people voice notes? If not, how do you feel about getting them?
I am pro voice note, but I am glad to finally have a space to complain about how maddening it is that listening to a voice note doesn’t register as activity on an iPhone. If someone sends a particularly long note, my phone often goes dark halfway through, cutting off the message and not saving my place. Then I have to start over and regularly tap random parts of the screen so it doesn’t go back to sleep.
What’s your favorite non-social-media app?
Ancestry.com. People talk about falling into TikTok holes—I fall into Ancestry.com holes. I’ve looked up from researching some great-, great-, great-, great-, great-grandfather and realized it’s 1 a.m. I’ve been trying to learn more about my family’s roots in Scotland, so if anyone else from the McPheeters clan is reading, please reach out, because I’ve hit a dead end in 1668.
Have you recently read an article, book, or social media post about the internet that you’ve found particularly insightful?
Yes, but whenever I do, I have a meltdown over the fact that I didn’t think of it. This post from Max Read is my white whale.
What’s the last thing that brought you joy online?
The r/blackcats subreddit. I have two black cats. Black cats are the best cats, and if you don’t believe me, please spend just one minute in black cats subreddit.
Is there any corner of Substack that you frequent that might surprise us?
I just recently started getting into using recipes from Substackers. I made this clotted cream cake by Benjamina Ebuehi for my friend Rachel’s birthday, and it’s so simple and perfect and I highly recommend.
