I’ve long since unshackled my web browsing from social media and instead use RSS feeds to keep up with the haps. I love RSS (here’s mine) because it sprinkles in front of me the things I’m interested in and it’s independent of social media. I own my feed.

I treasure the independent web and want to see it flourish, so, as a minuscule effort to support the things I enjoy reading, here’s a selection of my subscriptions.

I know some of these are newsletters, but some newsletter platforms, like Beehiiv and even Substack, support RSS subscriptions. One of them is a podcast, but podcasts run on RSS, so. Also it’s sorted alphabetically rather than by topic because it just felt more equitable that way.

32 good things

1. Animation Obsessive: Every week, one free in-depth article about the history and art of animation plus a roundup of industry news, and one paid. I’ve learned so much. rss
2. Before Mario: Artefacts from the history of Nintendo, mostly before its videogames. rss
3. The Beard Bunker: A small community of Warhammer players who play Warhammer the way I yearn to play Warhammer: with storytelling, dedication and laughs. rss
4. Breakfast and Travel Updates: When New Zealand band The Beths goes on tour, the guitarist writes a daily diary, with wonderful focus on the quotidian details of logistics, urban infrastructure and breakfasts. rss
5. Brr: Everyday life at Antarctica research stations! How people exist for months in frozen winter darkness at the actual South Pole! Except the writer’s contract ended, so it’s currently on hiatus. rss
6. Cabel: Cabel Sasser, cofounder of Panic, the Mac developer, game publisher and console creator, is also a general dork about town and a treasure. rss
7. CRPG Addict: I wrote about this attempt to complete every CRPG a few years ago, and it’s still going with as much detail, sharp critique and historical insight as ever. rss
8. The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Now on its third run, this site publishes a daily diary entry equivalent to the date Pepys lived it. The comments are very useful for explaining words and other things! rss
9. Digital Antiquarian: Videogame history, engaging, story-led and well-researched and written unashamedly from a personal perspective. rss
10. Dirty Feed: I think it’s the sheer dedication to researching ridiculously minor details of the filming and broadcasting of old British comedy shows that appeals to me. rss
11. DJ Food: Eclectic British turntablist of the old school, designer of record sleeves, and historian of psychedelic culture. rss
12. Garbage Day: It helps me understand what on Earth is going on On-Line. rss
13. Goonhammer: News and commentary on Warhammer and other tabletop games, covered by a community of acerbic, energetic and passionate writers. rss
14. Hardcore Gaming 101: Under this enduringly terrible site name lies a trove of writing on an eclectic list of lesser-known old videogames. rss
15. Hit Points: Friend Nathan Brown’s keenly insightful and entertainingly angry/exasperated/bemused newsletter about game industry travails. rss
16. Ian Betteridge: Media and tech writer who coined the 99% correct Law of Headlines. rss
17. Iron Sleet: A small community about grimdark modelling and gaming with a focus on kitbashing and storytelling. Lovely. rss
18. Linus Akesson: A musician, programmer and electrics wiz who playfully-earnestly does weird things with C64s. Also good at writing interactive fiction! rss
19. MacStories: Well-written and thoughtful Mac and app nerdery. rss
20. McMansion Hell: Presenting American suburban luxury architecture in all its terrible splendour. Kate Wagner is so good. rss
21. Monty Don’s Tips and Advice: On the first day of the month, a fine guide to what should get done in the garden, with lovely photography (including of Monty’s dogs). rss
22. The Online Photographer: Venerable photography blog from an old photography master that covers all angles of the pursuit of taking pictures, cultural, technical, personal. rss
23. My Perfect Console: Good friend Simon Parkin’s Desert-Island-Discs-for-videogames podcast gets great guests and Parko is a fine interviewer. rss
24. Phil Gyford: Weekly life updates from the charming website designer and creator of pepysdiary.com and Ooh Directory. rss
25. Read-Only Memo: Wes Fenlon’s newsletter about game emulation combines great commentary and interviews with people in the scene. rss
26. Robert Yang: Game design criticism from a super-sharp designer with an always-challenging and always-expansive lens. rss
27. Seb Emina: An old friend, literary editor and playful creator of unexpected things. rss
28. Teeth: A newsletter about tabletop RPGs by my friends Jim and Marsh, who hawk their own RPG – called Teeth, actually. rss
29. Things Magazine: Very long-running series of collections of design, art and all sorts of links and things. rss
30. Uses This: Various interesting professionals talk about the software and hardware tools they use to do the things they do. rss
31. Waxy: Andy Baio is one of the web’s goodies, and he’s often one of the first to spot new fancies. rss
32. Zarf: Andrew Plotkin is a legendary figure in interactive fiction and I aspire to hold even half of his enduring enthusiasm for and insight into games. rss

One final recommendation: Ooh Directory, a directory of blogs and other frequently updated, usually personal or specialist-interest websites. I find its index of recent updates a delightful timesink.

Feed readin

I use Feedbin to subscribe to feeds. It’s a service that keeps tracks of what I’ve read between various devices. I use the app Reeder as my main way to read, and it can subscribe and sync feeds itself over iCloud, but I like that Feedbin means I can read on any browser, I can save links to it, it has great filter tools that take out stuff I know I don’t want to see, and it’s reliable and elegant in use.