Unsubscribing
The Middlebrow suggests you take some time to unsubscribe from marketing collateral, news alerts and announcements glutting your inbox. As this piece was in draft, financial adviser and economy-watcher Barry Ritholtz argued the same thing, noting that recent stock market panics have flooded his inbox with hyperbolic headlines and product pitches that could negatively affect his thinking. He’s been hitting mute buttons, marking spam and unsubscribing to spare his mind from garbage thoughts.
It works. Just reducing the number of urgently-worded morning headlines to scroll through creates better psychic space, especially in the mornings. There’s no attempt here to get to “inbox zero” and this is not an old complaint against “spam,” as Middlebrow’s two Gmail accounts are home to a largely invited correspondence and Google’s spam filters work very well at catching the mass-mailed garbage. The volume here is mostly useless stuff from lists joined in exchange for a discount at point of purchase or to forge some connection with a brand, publication or lifestyle (that seemed a good idea at the time).
One thing that’s made them unwelcome (I’m looking at you, GNC, Express, H&M, Brooks Brothers, J. Crew, Home Depot and even Theatermania) is that many of these retailers contact me at least daily and some think they have something valuable to say multiple times a day. There is no way that they have that much important information to share. Seriously, Phillips, maker of the Middlebrow’s toothbrush? Seriously? Fields Good Chicken – it’s just lunch. No reason to bring it up every day.
Then there are the morning newsletters full of information I am supposed to need to start my day that I mostly don’t need to start my day. Nothing in Politico’s “must read’ morning missive is actually important to me and, if any item were, I wouldn’t learn about it that way. I had subscribed to multiple investment focused morning letters. But I don’t need Investopedia, Seeking Alpha, The Daily Upside and Axios Markets all telling me the same things every morning. So far, Bloomberg, Upside and Ritholtz (natch) have made my cut.
For news and commentary, The Middlebrow seeks originality and a refusal to participate in clickbait. Also, “scoops” rarely matter. Back in my journalism days, we did fight to be first. As I worked for a publication that considered itself nobody’s primary news source, every story had to be unique and some form of scoop. But these days, everything of importance will be reported and aggregated. What does it matter if The Washington Post breaks a story the same information will show up on CNBC.com soon after?
Then there are the arts organizations, including literary publications and theaters that The Middlebrow signed up for out of a combination of wanting to support their missions and wanting to collaborate as a writer. It does the mind no good to receive emails asking for donations to “support new voices,” sent by organizations that either don’t have real submission practices where a new voice without the right social or academic connection stands a chance or that have already rejected The Middlebrow’s work. “We’re publishing the voices that need to be heard today,” they say, leaving off the part that continues, “Not yours!”
In the world of nonprofit arts, “support” is too often a one way street. If there’s no interest in helping each other, keep it to yourself, folks.
The good news is that the culling works. After a few days of diligently unsubscribing, impersonal email volumes have dropped noticeably, especially in pre-work morning hours when just about every news source and advertiser scrambles for attention that they assume will last well into the day.
The next step is to be more disciplined about what gets signed up for and why. Signing up for discounts makes sense, but so does unsubscribing once the discount’s been used. When it comes to information services, it makes sense to ask, “Do I need this emailed to me, or does it make more sense to visit their site at my fancy?” The big question, in all cases, will be “how often will the sender be asking me for money, whether for profit or not?”
Try it. Unsubscribe from stuff. Just not from The Middlebrow.
I would never unsubscribe from Middlebrow. Look what I might have missed! I don't unsubscribe often enough, just as I don't delete emails often enough. I'm lazy that way and now the thought of sifting through thousands of emails is just too wearying.
I had someone subscribe to my newsletter last week and within a minute she unsubscribed. A MINUTE. It's giving me nightmares, so I'm careful about unsubscribing from newsletters that aren't soliciting for something. But the others? Yes, no problem.
Thank you for reminding me. I'm going to do it--but not today