A Letter From the Editor ✏️

Our new print releases in six days

blog.seventy-five // What you’re about to read below is the exact “Editor’s Letter” that appears in the opening spread of our new print issue, which releases on July 19. The letter expands on our mission, this season’s theme, and more.

But before we get to it, I want to mention two things.

First, I’d like to extend an invitation to become an official Creator Mag member. By signing up for an annual subscription between now and the end of July, you’ll receive our next four print editions, tickets to our quarterly Block Parties, and perks like exclusive blogs and early access to apparel drops—all for the price of one cup of coffee per month.

Why do we offer the membership? Not only does your support make our work possible, this guarantee also helps us set a budget each quarter—allowing us to take bigger swings with the stories we tell as we build out our newsroom.

If you prefer one-off purchases to subscriptions, no sweat. Our new print edition (featuring profile pieces on Daren Vongirdner, Kat Abughazaleh, and more stories from around the creator world) is available to preorder here. Thanks to everyone who has bought copies so far—and our 52 annual members.

Second thing: Pop out to our Summer Block Party this Saturday! We’ll have live music, food, drinks, and fireside conversations with Daren, Kat and more. You can RSVP here.

Alright, onto the Editor’s Letter. We can’t wait to share the full print edition with you all soon enough.

— NGL

P.S. Last blog, we reviewed Lydia Lee’s surprise hit short film, Rough Cut. You can read the review here.

If you’ve read my longform writing over the years, you know that my focus falls on particular people or overarching subjects—such as Hollywood’s collision course with YouTube, or the wide-ranging impact of Hank and John Green.

But you also have probably picked up on my tendency to write from a first-person, narrative lens, saving room to tie my own odyssey into the storyline. This is just as influenced by journalists like Rembert Browne, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, or Hunter S. Thompson as it is by filmmakers and creators I grew up watching. As Casey Neistat once remarked, it’s using your unique experience “as the catalyst for the story.”

An overarching theme serves as the connective tissue for the stories, essays, and art you’ll find throughout this issue of Creator Mag. Rather, it’s a question: “WHERE DID YOU GO?”

Purposefully vague, we arrived at this theme due to the profiles we were already pursuing. For Daren Vongirdner and Ava Gordy, the answer was physical, as they left New York City to start over in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For Kat Abughazaleh, it was metaphorical, as she traded her role as a political journalist for the pressure (and eyeballs) that come with her own congressional bid. And for Corey Wagner, it was literal—as in, where did you go for lunch today?

But upon running with this theme back in April, we couldn’t have possibly imagined all of the delightful pitches we’d ultimately receive. You, dear readers, took this vague question and ran in all sorts of beautiful directions. While opening up this issue to guest submissions (for the first time) was a heavy lift for our small-but-scrappy team, each and every contributor made it worth it, and I couldn’t be more proud of the final slate of stories you’ll find throughout these pages.

I’ll end this letter by tying back to Casey. To me, the question might be about where one’s body traveled this season, but also the depths to which they mined their own consciousness, too. Because our perspective shapes how we view our lived experiences—and might even become the reason why we tell our stories in the first place.

And those internal tug-of-wars are, selfishly, the stories I connect with the most on a human-to-human level.

Thanks for reading! Shoot us a reply, comment, or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—we respond to them all.