A Letter From The Editor 🌴

Plus: Some notes from an airplane

an afternoon in Venice

Neighbors,

I'm writing this to you from thirty five thousand feet in the air.

I'm on my way home to Chicago following a pit stop in San Diego. My brief swing through TwitchCon (my first time attending!) was fun; keep your eyes peeled for a Creator Mag cameo in Maya Higa's vlog, too.¹

Past that, it was strange being back in Los Angeles last week. I moved from Venice around this time a year ago—quite suddenly, at that. While I ultimately only lived in La La Land for ten months, I made the most of it, exploring the city state’s sprawling map and meeting new people what felt like every week.

Still, a lot changes in a year. Three of the folks I caught up with Friday are dads now.² Another is mere months away.

It's hard enough to keep up with people as is, which is why I think I'm so grateful for all the friends (old and new) who popped out for the Block Party Wednesday. Relationships take time to nurture, but they also don't dissipate into thin air simply because you swap zip codes, either.

Our events always leave me with a burst of energy, and I feel like we're returning to Chicago with the wind at our backs. And, per usual, I can't wait to get the new print into readers' hands soon enough.

For now, scroll down to read my latest Editor’s Letter, which appears in Issue Seven.

— NGL

P.S. Last blog, we shared a Block Party recap. You can read it here.

Don’t look now, but the world is on fire.

I don’t mean to hyperbolize. Still, every conversation I have with peers these days seems to inevitably boil down to a core bucket of topics. Existential questions around artificial intelligence. Political violence. Free speech and media consolidation. Never-ending wars abroad. A future controlled by the few, not the many.

Those conversations are important; pessimism is valid. Yet it’s easy to lose yourself when everything feels bleak.

I won’t claim to have all the solutions. Nevertheless, when all else fails, there’s something I keep returning back to: nature, with a good book in hand.

Photo by Cris Campos

What you are about to read is a series of stories created by a dozen contributors—and curated by the Creator Mag staff. These stories are connected through a colloquial phrase, “Touch Grass,” that’s taken off among creators and viewers alike. And over the next ninety-plus pages, we’ll transport you from a Twitch streamer’s animal sanctuary in Austin, Texas to a sleepy mountain city in south-central Japan. We’ll check in with a weekly tea club in Chicago, Illinois, as well as John Chungus, the seventy-something retiree whose viral “Touch Grass Day” led hundreds of thousands to actually, well, ya know.

The words you’ll find in this magazine are utterly human. They will not cure society’s ills. They are sometimes serious, sometimes silly, and consistently imperfect. They are the center of this creative neighborhood we’re building.

We hope you sit with them for a while, and us. Maybe touch some grass in between, too. Oftentimes, a simple, intentional moment of reconnecting with nature (however fleeting) goes a lot further than you think.

Wanna read more? Dive into Issue Seven here.

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

1. Shout-out to the Fourthwall team for hosting a dope “Recovery Brunch” this morning. I’m too scared of needles to willingly try an IV…but maybe next year?

2. I did shake Samir’s kid’s hand. He was pretty cute.