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Tedium — A newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail
This long-form newsletter, active since 2015, takes on the questions that nobody thought to ask and makes them interesting and compelling, uncovering fascinating stories along the way. The design of the website has been refreshed for the first time since 2019.
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I've been reading Tedium for years and it's one of my favorite newsletters. Unbelievable how in-depth Ernie Smith goes in every one of his articles and how well-written as well as well-researched they are. The occasional guest newsletters written by others are also amazing!
Hey all, this has perhaps been a long time coming, but I’ve been very active in the newsletter space for many years and have many hundreds of issues of Tedium to my name. This has been a deep-dive focus of mine for nearly 7 years, and I hope to keep it going a lot longer.
Tedium relies on sponsorships to keep going, as well as advertising (our partner is BuySellAds), and we sort of treat the web and newsletters and equal citizens when it comes to telling interesting stories.
I recently wrote a post about my process for researching issues, in case anyone is curious about how the editorial element comes into play: https://tedium.co/2021/09/10/dig...
The design is brand new, and is perhaps my most ambitious iteration of the site. I run everything on Craft CMS, and custom code my email templates so that they can be more visual in nature.
Anyway, hope you dig! Reach out if you have any questions—cheers!
You got me to check out Craft. Really interesting CMS product. I love the new design. I have been a longtime reader since the Tumblr days of ShortFormBlog. Congrats on keeping it going for this long!
@anthony_derosa Thanks! It’s been a learning process along the way, but everything I’ve done has informed my work since. Gonna keep at it!
One of the best newsletters at work today. Always thoughtful, always finding a unique angle, doesn't look like anything else out there in all the very best ways, and just plain great. (I particularly loved this from a while back, a rallying-cry for indy bloggers, which also feels prescient about the reasons indy newsletters have exploded in the years since: https://tedium.co/2019/01/01/201...)
I've been a reader and supporter on Patreon for a while now, and proud & happy to be so. Firm recommendation here.
@mike_sowden1 I’m glad to see the newsletter space grow—it really shows the value of people having independent places to raise their voices!
Stellar, both in content and product. But does not do what it says on the tin: Have yet to find anything tedious about it
@uri_bram That is always the goal. I think convention can get in the way of originality, so I try to ensure that I’m offering my own flavor on things from a design standpoint.
Just signed up for the newsletter and I'm super excited to get my weekly dose of offbeat news. Granted, I don't really know what I'm getting, but I think the surprise will be worth the shot.
Love the honesty of the website, the genuinely interesting stuff in there, and the feel that it gives me. Just like talking to my more research-oriented friends.
As Anil Dash notes, it is simply a "must read". And the new design is beautiful, easy to navigate. Ernie does exactly what he says he'll do: make otherwise boring things interesting. But the more fascinating bits are his deep dives into the history of things that usually don’t have histories written about them. That's the skill set. Which makes it my morning coffee read (I live in Greece, 7 hours ahead of Ernie) every day.
@gregbufithis Thank you Greg—this is a really great compliment, for which I appreciate. :)
I think I've read every issue going through the archives (I'm sure Ernie noticed my IP address those couple weeks).
Tedium.co is the only non business related website on my whitelist, so there's a compliment.
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