GLITCHING OUT

During the golden age of the internet, back when tech CEOs posed for glamour shots with floppy disks and we believed information would set us free, there was a theory floating around that humanity's big problem was lack of access to knowledge. Fast forward to now: AI companies are scraping the entire internet, platforms rise and fall like empires, and we're doom-scrolling ourselves into digital oblivion. Are we any smarter as a species? Are we making better decisions? Or are we just watching our digital history disappear down memory holes while speedrunning toward cyberpunk dystopia?

I'm Arikia Millikan. I've spent nearly two decades in the trenches of digital media — from the front lines of disaster journalism to the collapsing newsrooms of New York City to the experimental edges of independent publishing. I've watched platforms promise revolution and deliver extraction. I've seen careers evaporate when websites vanished overnight. 

Throughout my career, I’ve come to believe that journalism is critical to the overall well-being of humanity. Without independent journalism, our biggest problems run unchecked. Tyranny abounds. We forget why things didn’t work out the last time we went down this path. The cycles keep spinning. We take one step forward and two steps back. 

The world needs journalism, and journalism needs journalists. I’ve personally experienced just about every problem in the industry, and I know there’s a better way to support journalists than the status quo of decaying digital publishing infrastructure and enshittified, extractive systems.

GLITCHING OUT is my monthly newsletter tracking the disastrous state of digital publishing — and the possibilities emerging from the wreckage. Platform collapses. Algorithmic manipulation. The quiet erasure of our digital heritage. But also, the people building something better. The glitches that reveal what's broken and hint at what could be.

This isn't standard tech coverage celebrating Silicon Valley's latest extraction scheme. It's a field guide to what happens when systems crack — and a critical look at what shines through.

The platforms are burning. What are we building to outlast them?

<3 Arikia