New Creative Era

This week Josh and Yancey sit down in the same room for the first time to answer questions from 250+ people who found their way down the rabbit hole into the New Creative Era DFOS (link here 🤫) after last week’s audio easter egg. In week one there have been more than 900 chats and an organic book club already started.
In this episode, we answer five questions from community members covering community governance, paywalled vs. free spaces, the real source of enshittification, and even how much it costs to run Metalabel.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit metalabel.substack.com

This season of New Creative Era, we’ve been exploring the idea of dark forests. This week we’re exploring one in reality. Together.
Listen in as Josh and Yancey give the first-ever tour of Dark Forest OS, a new Metalabel release that creates shared private internets.
If you listen closely, you just might hear the breadcrumbs to a new world.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit metalabel.substack.com

In this episode, Josh takes listeners through the concept of teleology: the idea that tools inevitably drift toward outcomes embedded in their design, regardless of intent. What does this say about platform technology, political organizing, and competing visions for the private internet?
Drawing on Benjamin Bratton’s “The Stack,” the conversation examines how cloud platforms are assuming functions once reserved for nation-states, pointing toward what some call “network states.” But whose network state?
There’s a sharp line between two visions: one built on social democracy with private cultural spaces flourishing on top, and another where gutted welfare states force people into resource-sharing enclaves surveilled by Palantir and organized through Urbit.
Are we heading towards one or the other? Or both?


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit metalabel.substack.com

Are dark forests just retreat?
Adam Curtis documented how 1970s communes and EST taught people to pursue happiness within themselves rather than pursuing a better society. Are dark forests the same trap?
James C. Scott’s work on the “hidden transcript” offers a different frame. Private spaces aren’t just where people hide, they’re where shared understanding forms, where you say what can’t be said publicly.
Is dark foresting irresponsible or the product of our times? Listen in as we explore.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit metalabel.substack.com

Is curation actually about exclusion? In this episode, Josh and Yancey explore one of the most uncomfortable questions in creative communities: what it means to draw boundaries around who belongs and who doesn’t. Web2’s promise of open platforms and the death of gatekeeping hasn’t led to creative liberation — it’s produced attention economies driven by sensationalism and the collapse of shared values. What does a world where values are protected and explicitly shared look like?


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit metalabel.substack.com