Ross Barkan (@rossbarkan): "Glad to be an inflated name. My goal is to stay inflated. When you go to sleep at night, dream of “Ross Barkan.” When you’re awake, wonder merely “how can I make Ross Barkan happy?” Know everything you do will be in service of the greater good (Ross Barkan) and if you do anythin…"

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Glad to be an inflated name. My goal is to stay inflated. When you go to sleep at night, dream of “Ross Barkan.” When you’re awake, wonder merely “how can I make Ross Barkan happy?” Know everything you do will be in service of the greater good (Ross Barkan) and if you do anything that I wouldn’t like (Andrew Cuomo apologia, celebration of Imagine Dragons) you will, over time, suffer. This is the nature of the universe.

Oliver Bateman Does the Work

I would say Substack is the place where the “island effect” is more notable. Substack names like “Ross Barkan” and “Cartoons Hate Her” are inflated, while posters of the people like “Catturd” and “Autism Capital” battle in a far larger and more competitive ecosystem on X.

There’s a principle in ecology known as the island effect. I’m sure I’m not getting this precisely right, but that basic idea is that when there’s a lack of competition in an isolated environment, strange things tend to happen.

Nate Silver

Apr 6

8:33 PM

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