I hope everyone is having a lovely holidays. By the time this goes out I should be somewhere between Green Bay and Detroit on my way back to DC for New Years. It’s time for my 2023 year in review. This year’s will lean more into the personal with plenty of tech news looped in.
That’s because while a lot happened externally, for me, it was a year of turning inward. I explored what I wanted and what fulfilled me. I walked into the shadows while women from the famous Taylor Swift - to the fictional Gloria from Barbie - to the magick of Rebecca Auman - told me it was ok to be successful and feel what I felt - societal expectations be damned.
This quote from the Taylor Swift Person of the Year article in TIME encapsulates it well:
“Maybe this is the real Taylor Swift effect: That she gives people, many of them women, particularly girls, who have been conditioned to accept dismissal, gaslighting, and mistreatment from a society that treats their emotions as inconsequential, permission to believe that their interior lives matter. That for your heart to break, whether it’s from being kicked off a tour or by the memory of a scarf still sitting in a drawer somewhere or because somebody else controls your life’s work, is a valid wound, and no, you’re not crazy for being upset about it, or for wanting your story to be told.”
Wanting your story to be told … this is what sits in my gut. Part of my voice goal for the last three years has been to build my expertise in being a thought leader at the intersection of technology and democracy, but part of it has also been to be the one who tells my story. I didn’t want any one else shaping my time at Facebook without at least my perspective being shared as well.
Beyond that, I mentioned a lot of introspection. Thanks to help from Rebecca and others I explored more about spirituality, tarot, and astrology. I talked to her about that in one of my favorite podcast interviews this year titled “The Things We Whisper.” (Also, one of the titles of my newsletters this year.) One of the things I did as well was start a Google doc to document times when I felt happy, and times I did not. I didn’t regularly keep this up, but it has been helpful to look back on themes.
I felt happiest when:
I spent time in solitude.
Had quiet mornings in nature with coffee - at shore or cabin.
Got a good night's sleep.
When I traveled with things that made me happy, like a Bluetooth speaker, travel candle, and Aeropress coffee.
When I spent time solving puzzles.
I got out of sorts when:
I attended meetings and conferences I didn't need to be at.
I slept in. Sleeping in always makes me feel guilty.
When I had a full day of meetings.
I was in the desert air.
I had too many days in a row around a lot of people.
I also tried a few things this year that brought me great joy. That included hosting dinners at SXSW and one for women to celebrate one another. I guest lectured at numerous university classes with my most popular one being where I made the students be content moderators. One student said it was the best part of the entire course. (That made me melt.) I also hit some milestones presswise, getting to be on the Circus and On with Kara Swisher. Jeff Horwitz also documented some of my story at Facebook in his book Broken Code.
The last thing that brought me so much joy was this newsletter. Forgive me for being sappy, but writing this and hearing from all of you meant so much this year. I can’t thank you enough for that. I hit my goal of over 5,000 subscribers and am pleasantly surprised at the success of paid subscriptions. Your support means the world to me.
I also want to acknowledge the community of writers I’ve found on Substack - especially women. It’s one I wasn’t expecting and didn’t know I needed.
, , , , and so many others have inspired and helped me this year. I encourage you to check out their work. Jamie’s book, Main Character Energy, is one of my favorites from this year. I really hope it gets made into a movie.Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.
With that, let’s get into the external 2023 review. We’ll start with my 2023 predictions. Here’s what I wrote in that newsletter:
There would be dueling Congressional Hearings, with the House and Senate holding hearings on the same topics but from different angles. This sort of happened, but I expected more contrast than what happened.
We would see the continued rise of right online media. Rise might have been the wrong word here, but we definitely saw a change. X became more right-leaning, and Tucker Carlson leaving FOX was not on my bingo card.
Campaign online strategies would shift. I think I got right my predictions about how campaigns would find a way to use TikTok and the role of influencers. I think the others we need to wait to see how 2024 plays out.
Major 2023 elections will preview what we might see in 2024. We definitely saw this, especially with some of the uses of AI.
Impact of AI Tools Grows. The impact of the tools grew, but a lot of it was, and still is, speculation about the impact of AI.
All Things TikTok. I’m still pretty proud about how, after their hearing in March, everyone thought they would be banned, and I said it wouldn’t happen. And it hasn’t.
Judiciary Enters the Chat. It entered the chat, but we haven't felt the impact yet. This was clearly a two-year prediction where we’ll see the real impact in 2024 and after.
Hollywood Vilification of Tech. This didn’t come true this year due to the strikes, but we’ll see more next year as more movies and television shows start to come out
Let’s take a look at my most popular newsletters and some of my favorites.
Popular Newsletters
Honorable mention to How I Mapped Out My Post FB Journey which isn’t from this year so I didn’t consider it eligible for the top ten, but it was up there.
My Favorite Posts
Platforms and Politicians: A New Chapter - About Trump being let back on the platform.
Cambridge Analytica Five Years Later - The next time you want to refer to this scandal I ask that you understand what they did and didn’t actually do.
The Things We Whisper - A post about how some of the most important conversations I’ve had with women start with a whisper of a thing we want to talk about but aren’t sure if it’ll be accepted.
Panic Responsibly - My mantra for 2024. I opened an online swag store with this phrase this year!
Art of Long-Term Planning - About my process of doing personal and career planning.
I launched a podcast this year! People from 72 countries have listened and here are some of the more popular episodes:
Finally, I want to share some of my favorite music, podcasts, and books from 2023. The music and podcasts lists are from my Spotify Wrapped so those are in order based on how much I listened. My book list is in no particular order.
Top concerts
Taylor Swift Eras Tour
Garth Brooks Plus One Vegas Residency
Top Artists
Taylor Swift
Eric Church
Chris Stapleton
P!nk
Tim McGraw
Top Podcasts
Top Books
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz
Broken Code by Jeff Horwitz
The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall
Main Character Energy by Jamie Varon
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver
Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand
Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka
Come Up for Air by Nick Sonnenberg
Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself by Luke Russert
Thank you again for all of your support this year. I can’t wait to see what 2024 brings us.
PS: Here’s Gloria's full monologue from Barbie that is worth re-reading - or watching.
“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.
You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.
But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.
You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know.”
PPS: It’s also worth watching the monologue from the series finale of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel where she talks about wanting a big life and needing to go out and get it.
Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.
Thank you so much for including me here--I’m truly honored. I was actually coming here this morning to say I heard you on NPR yesterday and I was like IT’S KATIE! :) I’m so glad you started this newsletter and I loved reading your year in review.
I'll give you a counter take on the Gloria speech. I hated it. I also hated the book Reviving Ophelia
Book by Mary Pipher when it came out, which basically blamed all the ills girls face on Cosmopolitan magazine. To me, this speech tells girls that they cannot win and I HATE that message. It's saying, no matter what, the chips are stacked against you because boo hoo it's so unfair. That is a message and a lesson I will NEVER EVER give to my daughter. Because that message set her up to play the victim and to blame others and circumstance and the outside world for her troubles. I love being a woman. I think being a woman is an advantage. I will never blame challenges I face on the fact that I am a woman. I will never tell my daughter that there is such a narrow path to happiness because she is a woman. What a sad way to raise a child.