Viral recommendation newsletter Perfectly Imperfect is free from the algorithm

thefader.com:

Tyler Bainbridge and I are sitting outside the New York City TikTok hotspot Fanelli’s on a muggy September afternoon, joking about being play-pretend downtown scenesters taking up the corner of a busy SoHo intersection.

It’s actually pretty funny, given the former Facebook software engineer is the main person behind Perfectly Imperfect, the 84,000 subscriber-strong Substack that’s made him a semi-reluctant authority on NYC cool — not that he’s really complaining.

His only gripe is with the sheer amount of shameless self-promotion that's currently taking up a large part of his inbox. Originally started in 2020 by Bainbridge and college friends Alex Cushing and Serey Morm (the latter of whom is no longer involved), Perfectly Imperfect is a biweekly email newsletter sharing recommendations — as specific as books to as general as “walks in the cemetery” — from a rotating roster of buzzy A-listers, influential creatives, and emerging artists alike.

Spread across disciplines as varied as songwriting, meme-making, and scamming, its guests have included pop star Charli XCX and experimental producers Body Meat; indie sleaze icon Meg Superstar Princess alongside The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri; and rising indie rocker MJ Lenderman a few scrolls away from Red Scare podcast host Dasha Nekrasova.