Here Come The Twitter Bro Dads
What a fool belieeeeeeeeeeeeeves
I’m heads down on a big client project, which means one of two things: the newsletter doesn’t go out, or I dip into the archive and spruce something up. Everything after the essay is all new: three killer reads (including one mind-melting article about watching soft porn with your teens), those good tweets (with our first Bluesky piece of dadvice) and photographic proof that dads reading this newsletter met up in 13 cities last weekend. I know, I can hardly believe it myself.
Imagine, for a moment, you are the father of a small child. This exercise might come easy for some—you might be reading this with one falling asleep in your arms. Others might need to wind their brains back to a foggier time. A few might be peering into the future, gazing into the crystal ball at a day yet to arrive.
You’re six months in. Your progeny, still a baby, those Michelin Man arm rolls present and delicious. It’s been a year, all told, if you count the pregnancy—which your wife definitely can, but the jury’s still out on how tough that was for you. You’re doing fairly well, all things considered. Everyone is healthy, relatively happy, and spirits are fine, even with sleepless nights commonplace. Your brain is learning to cope with what is—agreed by recommended medical professionals—an altogether unhealthy amount of sleep.
“How is the baby sleeping?” your friends will ask, sometimes sympathetic parents, their own sleep-deprived days nothing more than a hazy memory.
“We’re tired, but we’re making it work,” you’ll offer, or words to that effect.
And on your way to work one morning, running solely on a combination of fumes and caffeine, you open Twitter to check in on the live-streamed dump fire, a social network cosplaying as the final days of the Roman Empire. You’re hoping for a few minutes of distraction, and the warm feeling of schadenfreude in watching whatever was left of Elon’s reputation wash away, and then you see this:
You’ll notice two things here—the pixelated details and a missing hyperlink. Because I don’t want to pour fuel on the fire. When I first saw this tweet I had stern words with myself, closed the laptop, and walked away to prevent the rage response. That’s giving these people the oxygen they clearly crave. It’s engagement through enragement, the primary currency of a platform inexorably working its way towards self-destruction, threadbois winding folks up while the ship goes down.
It’s a sentence so lacking in empathy, so devoid of understanding, wilfully ignorant to the plight of any fellow parent in the middle of it. I’ve got many friends who have children who aren’t sleeping, for all kinds of reasons—neurological conditions, ongoing chronic illness, night terrors. Is that their fault? I’ve had a few weeks of my own five-year-old up in the middle of the night, unable to settle. Is that my fault? I am hoping karma will do its work on this man—because, even through the pixelation, of course, it’s a dad, could you imagine a mum ever tweeting this?—and he will soon learn the two most terrifying words in the life of a parent: SLEEP REGRESSION.
The sweet spot on the Venn diagram of "influential Twitter bro" and "new dad" is producing some truly horrific "content.” Parents who, like Bean Dad, continue to go to horrifying lengths in an attempt to instil grit and determination in their child. Another leading financial influencer suggests a fresh approach to pocket money, offering them a loan they can repay in the future, with interest (I wish I were kidding).
Early in the days of this newsletter, I dusted down my Computer Science degree to explore the concept of garbage in, garbage out, and the danger of putting too much poor-quality input into your system. I spent a big part of that essay ragging on social platforms and the “Mount-Tamalpais-weekend-hiking Product Managers” that treat our attention as a resource to be captured, held hostage and monetised ruthlessly. And whilst much remains the same, I’ve felt a few things shift in myself. Over the last few years we’ve made some great friends that have come about thanks to my wife sliding into another mum’s Instagram DMs. We’ve launched a global community of dads on WhatsApp. And I’ve learned how important the Instagram dads can be, men like Tom from The Dad Vibes or Fun Dad Dean who hold up a mirror to the struggles, big and small, of fatherhood. These dads put words into the world from a place of love, empathy and understanding—telling others “I know how you feel, and I feel it too,” rather than pointing a finger and questioning your parenting abilities.
Surround yourself—in your life, in your ears, in your feeds, in your screens—with great dads. It will make all of this easier. One of the nicest side-effects of TNF has become this cabal of dads, active across various parts of the globe and corners of the internet, who encounter artefacts in the wild and bring them back—digital hunter-gatherers, returning with a carcass for the whole tribe. These get shared in the Dadscord, we tuck in together. Some are great and offer wise advice. Others aren’t and are shot down accordingly.
When I shared the “95% tweet” up above, one dad said:
“If I'd have seen [that post] in the wild, I'd have felt like I wasn't doing this right, fallen into feeling inadequate, and so on. This is a much nicer corner of the internet."
Be careful of whose advice you listen to. Surround yourself with dads who call bullshit when they see it and are there for you when you need it. Remember, every kid is different; what works for one won’t always work for others. Comparison is the thief of joy—stop me if you’ve heard that one before.
However you’re feeling—today, tomorrow, and the next day—you’re doing great, dad. And you’re doing better than you think you are. Because we’re always hardest on ourselves. Remember to breathe. Unclench your teeth. And to take every piece of advice with a pinch of salt. (Including this one.)
3 things to read this week
“Being Interesting Is a Burden—Join the Dull Men’s Club” by Katy Schneider in New York Magazine. A report on the Dull Men’s Club, a Facebook group of 1.3 million men who delight in the mundane, celebrating life’s simple joys. Roundabouts, barcodes, TV remotes, they’re all game. This kicked off a great discussion in the Dadscord, where Ivor coined the idea of “refuting competitive interestingness.” So much of social media is so performative, so it’s great to delight in the shared joy of the mundane. This essay and discussion led me to kick off a #dull-club channel in the Dadscord and it is already delivering stellar results.
“It’s Family ‘Sex Scene’ Night” by Anya Kamenetz in The Cut. Remember the awkwardness of watching anything remotely raunchy with your parents? Why not revisit that trauma with your children? Jokes aside—this is a smart piece posing a thorny question: in a world full of porn that is extremely violent, easily accessible and infinitely growing, does it make sense to approach it another way? Parents are watching shows like Big Mouth, Never Have I Ever and Bridgerton and using them as jumping-off points for essential discussions. This article also contains the line, "Boys generally don’t want to get a boner with their parents,” which honestly makes it a must-read.
“Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the Art of Children’s Literature” by Chris Ware in The Yale Review. Have you been waiting for an in-depth, 2,500-word retrospective on the work of an iconic children’s author, delivered by one of the world’s greatest cartoonists and observers of the human condition? This week, you’re in luck. The mind behind Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (one of my all-time favourite books) goes deep on the man behind such cult children’s classics as Busy, Busy Town, Cars and Trucks and Things That Go and What Do People Do All Day. Ware captures the quiet complexity of Scarry’s brilliant world, offering a fresh lens on books that shaped so many childhoods.
Dadurdays #1: Field Report
Last weekend, around 80 of us met up in 13 cities across the world. Blimey.
After seeing the bearded to non-bearded split in the first few photos, I set probably 20 trees on fire by asking ChatGPT to calculate the bearded to non-bearded dad ratio across the cities. We were a solid 2:1 in every city until New York delivered 6:5. You know New Yorkers, always gotta do things differently. I’ve kindly requested a few Brooklyn dads grow beards between now and the next meetup.
Our big ol’ group chat is rolling up to 500 dads in 30 cities. We'll be doing another Dadurday in the first week of December: a weekday evening, no kids, just dads. Check out dadurdays.org (yes, I kinda made a site) for all the details on how to join your local group. Event details will be posted there.
Look at that! From humble beginnings … we had even more photos, but we’re well beyond the point where this email will get cut-off in your inbox.
Oh: and if your city is not on the list and have been wondering “Hey, when is this coming to my hood?” then today is your lucky day. Instructions on starting a local Dadurday group are here. We’ve already added four new cities from dads who threw their hands up. The next one could be yours.
Good Dadvice
This is the end, my only friend
How did you like this week’s issue? Sure, I phoned it in with an essay re-run, but this week’s links were on point. And those beards? Mon dieu! Back to regular service next week.
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I think the Dull Men's Club story is the one I've been waiting my whole life to read -- it's crazy how this has been on my mind lately; I'm exhausted with trying to keep up with what I see out there. Isn't being a suburban dad enough? 🤣
You’re not doing this right until you read them….Captain Underpants by Dave Pilkey!