About

ESC KEY .CO is a new media outlet for terminally online pros who can't really escape the internet. Each week you get a newsletter with analysis on modern life from journalist JD Shadel, who has long had their eyes on the signs of the times.

JD Shadel, left, has long had an interest in emerging technologies, which, yes, once even included floppy disks. Can you say early adopter? Photo by the author's mother.

Jump to a section of this page and learn about our editorial vision.

→ TL;DR briefing: A quickie overview of why you should subscribe.

→ About the newsletter: Read this and tell us if it resonates.

→ Editorial agenda: ESC = Embrace Skeptical Curiosity!

→ About your guide: JD Shadel wrote this in the third-person. Ick.

→ Why subscribe: Become instantly hotter! (Or something like that.)

TL;DR briefing

Yes, but this is the only lifestyle newsletter on the internet. ;-) ESC KEY .CO by JD Shadel is your field guide for making some sense of our very online era. Subscribers get:

Extra-long reads that dive deep into the currents of the milieu.
Concise briefings on the things to track and dots to connect.
Original reporting into big-tent issues and microcosmic trends.
Sharp analysis on the hyped stuff without the doomer vibes.
Smart perspectives from guests smarter than the writer.
Vintage GIFs from the early internet era like this GIF of a parrot:

After seeing that parrot GIF, you're probably ready to subscribe already, right? If yes, subscribe here. If not yet, keep scrolling to learn why this might be the one newsletter worth adding to your attention diet.

Wander with us, if you will, into a dazzling world our ancestors couldn’t have dreamed up: We awake already tired. Our self-driving thumbs automatically tap to open apps on our always-glowing screens. Pick your poison: Gmail, TikTok or, god forbid, LinkedIn. Then we start scrolling.

Maybe we’re lucky enough to be our own bosses, or at least not yet have received a dreaded return-to-office email, so we may “commute” to our desk, which is probably (a) uncomfortably near our bed or (b) that one precious table by the only outlet in the cafe down the street. There we get the privilege of anxiously checking Slack notifications from our cramped “workspaces.”

Perhaps if we moved to the wilderness of Scotland we could get room to spread out a little? But scratch that. We were up too late last night looking at broadband speeds and real estate prices in the Highlands by the time we realized it was already the AMs. We have our first Zoom call in a few hours, anyway.

Wake up and it’s the same again.

Relate to any of that?

We might sometimes ask ourselves, likely after a few too many overpriced negronis, is this what all those millions of years of human evolution led us to?

Despite all the Big Tech overhype promising boundless progress and our very online era’s obsession with over-optimizing every corner of our lives, well, it doesn’t always feel like we’ve achieved much of anything good. (And if reading this makes you irritated because you’ve cracked life’s code with your portfolio of real estate investments in midwest cities you’ve hardly visited, well, you can kindly close this tab.)

If you sometimes find yourself searching for the escape key, philosophically speaking, then it was written in the stars, you’d hit subscribe.

The new media outlet for terminally online pros like you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Introducing ESC KEY .CO (pronounced as escape key dot co, for those not yet in the know). This is a new media outlet by tech and lifestyle journalist JD Shadel. Shadel spent much of the last decade of their career writing on the internet and also on the internet — always trying to stay ahead of whatever media industry disruption or pivot was coming next.

Shadel knew the internet needed yet another newsletter, so they set out to create one you might actually want to pay attention to. Every week, Shadel sends analysis and original reporting exploring the paradoxes of modern life — i.e., wanting to log off while feeling like we can't really afford to; chasing that mythical work-life balance while our “flexible” careers keep us tethered to our screens even more; and trying to get away from it all when we roam the world only to find ourselves going places made trendy mostly by algorithms.

New media with a helpfully skeptical view on the hype

The weekly briefing that brings you realistic, pragmatic, and sometimes unhinged analysis on the forces reshaping our world.

Editorial agenda:

Why ESC KEY .CO — and why all caps?!

Ah, yes, the enduring allure of the escape key! Each week, we bring you sharp analysis of the forces reshaping how we, the terminally online, live and work in the internet era.

This is not another breathless tech hype newsletter. In other words, we will never write a sentence like “you won’t be replaced with ‘AI’ — you’ll be replaced by someone using ‘AI.’” Nor is this all about “AI.”

Expect pragmatic analysis of emerging tech, modern life, and so-called "knowledge work" from someone who's spent more than a decade covering lifestyle trends and the powers disrupting our lives.

We also won’t play into the woe-is-us doomer moods because girls do want to have fun (and we have to live in this world, after all).

Our point of view

Ultimately, ESC KEY .CO exists because we can hold both of these truths at the same time: (1) wow, this whole very online era feels like it broke our brains. And (2), our brains still deserve to enjoy themselves while they are implanted in our undeniably perfect as-is bodies.

That means we’ll be infusing a playful curiosity and pragmatic analysis into each of our signature columns. Sometimes, we'll put on our oxygen masks and dive extra deep into trends that are a microcosm of our very online era. But we know you don't always have time for that. Our TL;DR Briefings help you connect the dots between seemingly unrelated things worth tracking.

5 recent features readers loved

What the name really means

Sure, it's a reference to the escape key on your keyboard. But it's also an acronym triptych.

Indeed, as we roam through the weird and wild stuff of modern existence, we’ll be guided by our three namesake mantras:

ESC = Embrace Skeptical Curiosity (─ ‿ ─)
KEY = Keep Enjoying Yourself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
.CO = Challenge Obvious (~_^)

Are those acronyms totally extra? Absolutely. We're here for more than the surface level. We're here for the sass. We're here for the absurdity of it all.

In other words, we’re here to document our collective digital unraveling but make it drag — with all the wisdom of a hypocritical friend who’s looking at their own phone while encouraging you to log off. Welcome, pal. We see you.

About your guide:

Who the hell is JD Shadel? CEO?!

JD Shadel immediately fell in love with this garish but iconic sofa in their little hotel in Paris.

When they said “be the CEO of your own life,” JD Shadel heard “Chief Editorial Officer.” And ergo, they started ESC KEY .CO, supported by hot, cool, and genius readers who obviously have the best taste on the internet. Oviously.

Based in London, Shadel is an American editorial director and journalist who has spent the last decade leading award-winning creative teams; covering tech and travel trends for media outlets major and niche; and also authoring a few arguably regrettable personal essays. But, darling, were you a writer in the 2010s if you and your ex didn’t write dueling first person essays about each other in a major American newspaper?

Came of age on web 1.0, came out on web 2.0

A closeted kid in Appalachia, Shadel spent their early years online because it was the only place in a deeply conservative part of coal country where they felt like they could be themself. As the internet got faster, so did their interest in it. Meanwhile, a stack of mid-century Popular Mechanics magazines got them into retrofuturism and old highway maps from the road trips their great grandparents took to visit all 50 states (died with their tally at 49). Eventually, Shadel came out as a non-binary bisexual on social media, because if you weren't vocally queer on the internet, were you even queer?

After completing their master's with distinction in international relations at the University of Exeter in England, they moved with what was then a rarity — a remote job! — to Portland, Oregon in 2013 with dreams of being, yes, an internet writer. (Why Portland? It had absolutely nothing to do with a BuzzFeed quiz.)

Reporting where the offline and online worlds blur

In the past decade, they’ve covered everything from user-experience design of dating apps to the role of TikTok in over-promoting the consumption of ultra fast fashion to the radical quest for an independent queer nation for VICE, where editors named the latter among the Best of 2017. They were the Portland travel writer for The Washington Post. And Shadel currently writes the Future of Travel series for Condé Nast Traveler and is the Editor-at-Large at Good On You, the leading platform rating retail brands on their impacts on people and planet.

They've led editorial and digital for a variety of award-winning projects connecting dots in the travel, fashion, beauty, and tech sectors. And their writing on those topics has also appeared in Condé Nast's Them, BBC News, Bloomberg CityLab, Fodor’s Travel books, and other channels. They've spoken about their work live on Bloomberg, to reporters everywhere from Vox to the Columbia Journalism Review, and on too many panels, including a few they've moderated.

Digital nomad fails and snarky double entendres

Shadel bought the domain for ESC KEY .CO in 2019 because ESC KEY .com wasn’t available. Back then, they had the escapist idea to earnestly become a digital nomad, which would clearly solve all of their problems. So in March 2020, they sold all they owned, moved out of their apartment in Portland and were about to fly around the world with a different ex to Berlin. Yes, March 2020. How lucky! Instead of nomad-ing around the world, they got stuck nomad-ing out of their same suitcases in whatever mouse-infested Airbnbs they could afford in Portland. They're far less earnest now and even coined the term overnomadism in The Washington Post's travel section in 2021 to describe the down sides of what happens in overtouristed nomad hot spots.

Shadel did eventually leave America, moving back to the United Kingdom on the Global Talent Visa, coincidentally on Independence Day, 2021. But ESC KEY .CO didn’t formally come online until November 2024, when they realized that their destiny all along had been to edit a skeptical alt-weekly about the future of lifestyles, generally speaking. That, dear reader, is why this is “the only lifestyle newsletter on the internet.” Yes, because it’s a subtle nod to The Stranger’s snarky tagline (“Seattle’s Only Newspaper”). But also because it’s a double entendre. And there’s nothing that turns you on like a double entendre, is there?

Wristwatch TV! One of JD Shadel's favorite covers from the late 1970s classic "World of the Future" series.

We surveyed all of our subscriber* and we were shocked by the results.

Yes, 100% of surveyed subscriber* said they felt instantly hotter

Results will vary simply because you're already hot just the way you are.

Other benefits to entering your email

OK, sure, fine — we can't promise you'll feel hotter by subscribing.

But we can promise you the following:

We break down tech hype and lifestyle trends before they break you.
Critical analysis that’ll actually help or, at least, entertain.
Field notes on navigating what’s coming next.
Original reporting shaped by readers like you.
And be the coolest person on the Microsoft Teams call**.

**You probably are already. That's why you're here.

Join the ESC KEY .CO society, darling

That’s right — hit subscribe to the weekly newsletter and join a society of like-minded people who, you know, get it. (We know enough of you have had some “community manager” responsibilities at some point in your career, so we’re not going to say “community.” “Society,” while cringe, sounds more like the kind of enlightened organization that would throw a “salon,” right? You know those parties where people talked a lot about the problems of the day? That’s the energy, baby! If you join today, we’re one centimeter closer to having the budget to throw salons.) Hit “subscribe” like it’s the escape key, hey!

What paying subscribers get

When you become a paying subscriber, you become a Netizen. And Netizens get it all:

Full weekly dispatches, zero paywalls.
Complete archive access for future reference.
Pitch and vote on the Tortured Writer column (coming soon).
Early adopter perks in our build phase.
Keep select analysis available for the noobs.

Yes, there’s still the free version for Lurkers, if you haven’t decided you’re feeling it.