If you prefer the short version, I’ve been working in secret on a really cool show. Finally, as of this morning, I can reveal it. I want you to be the first to see the trailer:
Now, for those who like the longer version:
Meet people where they are.
A couple of books ago, I learned something from some of the activists and organizers I was writing about. Many of their fellow travelers, these subjects of mine felt, were building movements for pluralism but being exclusionary in their way of working. They gatekept instead of inviting in. They seemed more interested, as the old line goes, in finding heretics than converts. The remedy, these people told me, was to meet people where they are. This applied to Trump voters, but it also applied to people simply encountering unfamiliar concepts.
Meet people where they are.
It’s a good mantra to live by. And it’s why I’ve been working on something secret, until now, alongside my new book, MAN IN THE MIRROR. In the old days, you just wrote a book and dropped the book and the book was the thing. In the new world, often annoyingly, but maybe in certain ways for the better, the book is part of a conversation, but it is not the whole conversation. I realize that so much of the conversation now is happening in other places, whether on Substack or in spaces like YouTube, where a great many people spend hours going deep on various subjects.
So I’ve decided to make a YouTube show building on, but certainly not replacing, the book. Whereas the book takes a tremendous amount of reporting and digging and investigating and interviewing and document sifting, and renders it all in (hopefully!) smooth, polished prose designed almost to conceal the labor, the YouTube show is going to do something different: I’m going to take one piece of evidence at a time from my extensive reporting, and show it to you, and analyze the light it sheds on the case of Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny.
Today, the trailer drops. I’m so excited to share it with you here. The first episode will be out in a matter of days, and I will share that again as well. I want to know what you think of this approach in the comments.
And…come meet me during my book tour. An initial rundown of dates here:
And don’t miss this special offer to share my behind-the-scenes process and artifacts with those who are with me on this project from the very beginnings. Thank you!
Anand, this is incredibly creative. I appreciate you leaning in to the YouTube world. I will definitely watch your series and can’t wait to get my signed copy of your new book! Currently reading The Persuaders! Thank you for all your contributions to help keep us informed and educated. Good luck on your book tour!
One of the values in using video to go deeper into a topic could well be that it helps some, like those who get bound up in the minutiae of grammar, to see the creative enterprise and, yes, perhaps the rawness, lying within what you have created. I look forward to this next step in your work.