The first five years of The Drift – and the next five
An anniversary, plus a new home for our newsletter
When we launched The Drift in June 2020, we made a commitment that the core of our magazine would always be, well, the magazine: the lovingly and meticulously edited issues that arrive on your doorsteps and on our website, each the product of months of joyful toil. That was our priority. In between, we’d throw issue launch parties, run short reviews, preview upcoming pieces, recirculate older ones to our email subscribers — and not do much else, focusing on making sure each issue lived up to what some have called our unreasonably high standards. And, thankfully, the world cooperated. As we all know, nothing important has ever happened in between Drift issues.
Just kidding. But if The Drift’s lifespan has coincided with a period of apparently ceaseless global turmoil, it has also been a time in which we’ve grown our operation beyond what we ever dared to hope for, thanks to the generosity of our readers and to your interest in fresh ideas and great writing from outside the established media hivemind. As we prepare to celebrate our fifth birthday this summer, we’ve been thinking about how we can find new ways to keep in touch with our readers while we’re preparing our issues. Our editors and contributors are constantly thinking and talking about ongoing developments in politics, culture, and literature — and now we’d like to do more to invite you into that conversation.
Today, we’re taking the first step: we have joined Substack. Moving forward, we will still deliver you new Mentions, pieces from the Drift archive, announcements about events and publications, close readings of missives from oligarchs, and everything else you’re accustomed to receiving. But we’re also going to be debuting new features in order to bring you more commentary from our writers and editors, as well as peeks behind the scenes of the work we do at The Drift. To continue getting our newsletter in your inbox as always, you don’t have to do anything differently. But if you are on Substack, you’ll be able to leave comments, share our posts, and engage with our staff and other readers. Of course, we’ll also keep bringing you the print issues — and the parties — you’ve come to know and love.
To help us grow into this new phase, Erik Baker has stepped up to become our first senior editor. A historian at Harvard and the author of Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, Erik has been part of The Drift from its inception. He has served as an associate editor since Issue One, and has written for us on the fortification of American universities, what disinformation can and can’t explain, working conditions at Amy’s Kitchen, how to understand “deaths of despair,” and the social Darwinist underpinnings of vaccine resistance. Erik will remain involved in all facets of The Drift, but he will take the lead on shepherding our expanded digital offerings.
For now, the newsletter remains free, but we hope you’ll consider subscribing or donating to the magazine to help us keep doing what we’re doing — and keep growing. At a time when independent and free-thinking media is under attack, we’re more reliant on reader support than ever.
Everything we have achieved at The Drift in our first five years has been possible only because of this extraordinary community. Thank you for being a part of it, and we hope you’ll stick with us for the next five.
love a good five year plan ❤️
Really glad to have found you guys. Thank you for the thoughtful and thought-provoking work you do.