Launching Attention: make tech fun, make fun of tech

It’s pivot time!

tl;dr: 12 Challenges is turning into Attention, a new publication to make tech fun and make fun of tech.

I started this blog as 12 attempts to make the internet a bit better. I did that for 6 months — with schemes like gifting a domain to King Charles, co-founding a directory of personal sites to connect interesting people, writing a guide that went viral in tech circles on coping with Big Tech bullying, and trying to find the most viewed videos on TikTok.

I realized that what I loved most about 12 Challenges were the fun parts: the ridiculous, absurd, silly and outrageous parts, like launching a campaign to save Apple from competition, writing about high-performing scrambled eggs, or starting a TikTok account to help people use TikTok less.

After all, following the tech world can be pretty depressing. A handful of billionaires and their minions hold insane amounts of power over most of humanity, and it can feel hopeless to fight back.

Over the last few months, I started thinking: why not try have fun with it?

Attention!

That’s why today I’m launching a new publication called Attention — a good old-fashioned website with a simple mission:

Make tech fun, make fun of tech

You can think of Attention as the hypothetical lovechild of Wired, The Onion, People vs. Big Tech and Led By Donkeys: using fun as a weapon to Do Something about tech.

Attention will feature:

• Playful tech analysis and activism — make tech fun!

• Satire ridiculing the tech world and its bigwigs — make fun of tech!

• Interactive mini-sites (‘creative coding’) — make fun tech!

Plenty of brilliant people are doing the serious thinking about what’s wrong with tech. Attention will be a space for the fun stuff — a space which I think simply doesn’t exist right now.

And also, a space for more than just one person. I don’t want to be a solitary blogger. As I build Attention’s website, pixel by pixel, I hope to persuade other internet misfits to join in (could that be you? Reply to this email if so!).

So if Attention will be a standalone site, what about this Substack? It will be renamed Directing Attention, giving you a front row seat to Attention’s journey. You’ll receive a mix of new Attention content, and behind-the-scenes stories about bringing fun to tech in 2025 and beyond.

I have to say, I’ve absolutely no idea how this is going to go. All I know is that Attention feels like the perfect vehicle for things I want to create, and that I’m seriously excited to get started.

Thanks for reading, back soon!

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Coming up next: links to brilliant pieces of content from all over the internet that Attention draws inspiration from, in case you’re struggling to figure out what the hell this thing is.