FOID REPORT

girl unhinged is scary! take me to the fringe, i want soup

SIXTEENTH POST

July 23, 2026

I didn’t post last night.

I had too many things to do, too much to report on!

I was Outside yesterday. At my last stop of the evening, several people told me they were “excited to see what I wrote about in the Foid Report”! I said I was too, because it’s always a surprise to me what’s going to get posted. I don’t plan these. They just sort of come out, like a fountain of words, spewing everywhere.*

*That’s kind of a lie. I have a lot planned here. I just don’t sit down and go “today I’m going to write about a list of dudes I saw while out in New York”, it’s more that I have… a gigantic tangle of things that will come out when it’s good and ready.

Speaking of, here is a small and incomplete list of characters and types of guy I encountered yesterday:

It was refreshing to be around the cryptocurrency brothers. Those that are left have a healthy sense of humor, and a clear-eyed perspective on their industry.

I have to admit: they are a lot weirder, a lot more varied, and a lot more dimensional as people than the “tech” crowd overall. Several of them asked me my opinions on the “AI” scene, the “SF” scene, and many conversations were had about the differences in engineering serendipity for people who don’t follow the same rules as what they’re used to.

The west coast crowd has some major differences. None of these are judgements, they are simply differences.

For example, the Californians will lean in to your theme and/or bit much harder than the east coasters. They will read a partiful, they will stick to a theme, and they will do their best to meet it. They will arrive earlier, but they will also leave earlier.

Above all else, these people seem to value optionality. Unless you invite their entire group chat ecosystem strategically, they tend to be terrified that something slightly better might be happening somewhere else, and will remain glued to their phones the entire time, texting their friends to make sure they are at the most maximally interesting event. If interesting events aren’t on the table, they’ll still spend time searching to make sure there isn’t a corporate-sponsored event they can attend. They like to go to these things, post pictures of themselves publicly enjoying it, and then privately dunk on these same events.

It can be quite spiteful and sarcastic, which I find a little strange. They definitely like to feel invited, and they do very much value these events existing, but privately they are full of disdain and cynicism and often don’t see the “point”. It makes for good online discussion though, which is why I’ve said before that in SF, Twitter is Real Life.

To contrast this. East Coasters are often far more cynical. They will not lean into your bit. They will simply come as they are. They will show up somewhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours late, but they will also stay well past when it’s time to go. They enjoy the lateness, enjoy the feeling of being on their own schedule, and they do also seem to enjoy simply meeting strangers more. They are less likely to crowd within groups, but more likely to come, see that no one else they know is there, and then leave. They drink more, by far. They eat less. They are interested and will show up for technical things, but they will consider an event low-rent, cheugy, or tacky more quickly than SF-ers. They seem to demand higher quality, the ability to expand their circles, and free drinks in interesting places much more than the SF crowd. They also have less of a habit of doing ketamine out in the open while the sun is out, though this is changing.

This sounds quite rude of me to say. I really do value trying to create containers for these people’s storylines to move within. I enjoy putting together spectacle that also allows for emergent behaviors. It seems to me that a lot of people don’t consider how vital these spaces are.

We talk about the erosion of third spaces, but corporate-sponsored third spaces are really all we have left in the financialization wars. There are increasingly few places you can go without spending money, but it’s still totally acceptable to make fun of the corporations for spending the money for you. Criticism and high standards are what make events good, and it’s necessary that the audience care enough to engage in the first place.

I’m having my mind shoved in a blender quite frequently these days. It’s making it difficult to stick to writing. I’ve been sitting inside a lot, which is why the report has been less a report of a scene and more about what’s on my mind. To be fair, I’ve been drinking from a firehose. The next week or so should feature a return to Outside.

I feel terrible, because I forgot someone I used to work with's name, and another guy I just straight up didn't recognize. It's because I have too many things in my head. I forgot my own zip code yesterday!

But, to give you some examples, here a not-exhaustive list of companies and ideas that are bouncing around in here right now:

Today I am talking to neobanks, high-risk payment processors, industrial production improvers, bringing rare molecules into spaces they haven’t existed in before, and shifts in how data is formatted. Then I am going to a “pool” party, in that there are billiards and tropical drinks with Capital Enjoyers. It’s either that or a strange event promising heady conversation on AI hallucinations.

I could wait until tonight to post this, but maybe this will be a rare double feature.