Gimme Schalter
By Ty Schalter
The latest thoughts, hottest takes, and coolest work of Ty Schalter, a professional writer & talker (@FiveThirtyEight, @ThreeOutPod). Lots of sports, geeky stuff, social commentary and more.
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Nothing To Lose But Our Blockchains
...and there was much rejoicing.There are many terrible things about Twitter, but this is one of the great things: A predatory, exclusionary, larcenous or otherwise harmful project can get hate-wiped off the map before it even incorporates. Whether it's a bar…
The Easy Lie I Gimme Schalter No. 13
But as Gruden's firing leaves the news cycle, and attention turns to the actual subject of the investigation, I want to highlight the fact that just because plenty of Football Guys are racist, sexist, homophobic and/or transphobic in their hearts, doesn't mea…
Seeing the Seams | Gimme Schalter No. 12
Meg and The Athletic got everybody talking about this story by showing that everyone was talking about it; got everybody to pay attention by showing that everyone was paying attention. By committing what had to have been months of effort by many skilled peopl…
Looking On My Work, And Despairing
OZY had a lot going for it that its contemporaries didn't: senior leadership that wasn't all white guys, a lack of baggage around its founders and origin, and a business model based on attracting traffic with interesting articles (as opposed to, "Step 1: Make…
Testing Our Mettle | Gimme Schalter No. 10
But somehow, the consistently less than 20 percent of Americans who are hardline anti-choice extremists have spent the last two decades driving all of the abortion policy at every level of our government exclusively towards their hard-line position.Again: 4/5…
Over the Hill | Gimme Schalter No. 9
The cast of Cheers looked old to me when I was a little kid, and they still look old to me now.I turned 40 last week.No, nobody threw me an Over the Hill party. I can't remember the last time I heard of one actually happening. People my age are a lot closer t…
Always Remember. | Gimme Schalter No. 8
One of the many experiences that inspired me to launch Gimme Schalter was launching a pretty cool football podcast with a couple of amazing people, pulling a bunch of A-list guests, doing two shows a week for nearly a year and having absolutely no one listen …
The Price of Dreams | Gimme Schalter No. 7
The proprietor of MGoBlog since 2004, Cook's been a primary inspiration of, and template for, countless indie sports bloggers from the mid-aughts onward. A gifted writer, meticulous thinker, and enormous sports homer, Cook was also blessed with the kind of da…
Thinking Good Thoughts | Gimme Schalter No. 6
Campus Life (née Youth For Christ, later Ignite Your Faith) magazine was an exemplar of its subject matter: an Evangelical-parent-approved knockoff of stuff kids actually liked.Though the magazine reviewed both Christian and secular media, the latter was alwa…
Today. | Gimme Schalter No. 5
"What Do Fiction Writers Owe Their IRL Inspiration?" by Alice Bolin, for New York magazine's VultureOne of the benefits of traditional book and magazine publishing is the perspective gained by time passed. Books can't be turned around like blog posts, and the…
The Greatest Ability is Availability | Gimme Schalter No. 4
Gimme Schalter's first issue was an attempt to reconnect with the online audience I'd spent 12 years building. The second issue featured my exploration of how Zoomers were creating content and building audiences online. It shouldn't surprise you, then, that b…
A Sporting Past, Present, & Future(s) | Gimme Schalter No. 3
I stepped inside and saw it absolutely packed with people wearing green. A hush, followed by a rising "OhhhhHHHHH" let me know I'd somehow picked the wrongest place in the world. People started talking, yelling, singing, I couldn't understand. They were getti…
Failure, Success, Gratitude & Growth | Gimme Schalter No. 2
From Zork to Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade, my wife and I have loved video-game RPGs all our nearly 40-year-long lives. But throughout months of trying to play Genshin Impact with our kids, a dark thought has haunted us: We’re getting too old for this …
Gimme Schalter: A Journal of Everything Awesome
This summer, I've taken a hard look at every available digital-media platform and how I engage with it. I'll be launching all kinds of new content ventures in a bid to see where people like me and where people don't. I've got a couple of upcoming debut byline…