Independent Newsletter Spotlight: Delia Cai of Deez Links

I learned about Deez Links, Delia Cai’s newsletter in April when a screed about media parties went viral. The piece decried the nerdy monotony and social-climbing atmosphere of such soirees. As someone who has planned (and had fun at) a few Media Events™, I didn’t entirely agree. But wasn’t that the point? I admired the unhinged YOLO tone of the piece, which was published in Cai’s guest-written “Hate Reads” column, which anonymously publishes “dastardly shady opinions,” about topics like menswear, Miley Cyrus, and Berlin.

Mostly though, Cai rounds up and critiques what she’s reading, watching and scrolling (the titular links). Recently, she wrote about Annie Hamilton’s personal essay-review of Tavi Gevinson’s zine about Taylor Swift and considered how dated the glorification of glossy magazine offices in 2000s and 2010s rom-coms like Friends with Benefits seems now. She speculated that, any day now, we could see our first on-screen “‘Substacker meetcute’ (‘he was a paid subscriber from the very beginning!’).” In a crowded field, Deez Links stands out for Cai’s unflappable irreverence, whether she’s breaking down the latest discourse cycle or discussing the industry’s current bleakness.

Maybe Cai is so good at writing a newsletter about media because it was one of her first media jobs. In 2016, as a fellow at The Atlantic, she was tasked with synthesizing media news and trends for an internal email. “I was trying to be funny about it in those newsletters, and my boss was like ‘this is not that kind of a thing,’ but I really just like the format,” Cai recalls. 

Soon after, she started Deez Links. Cai continued to publish the newsletter after being hired as a creative strategist at The Atlantic and through a stint as a “trends lead” at BuzzFeed. Eventually, the savvy insights and effortlessly funny writing showcased on Deez Links helped her land a correspondent position at Vanity Fair in 2021. With her first full-time writing gig, she put Deez Links on hold.

In May of 2024, Cai was laid off and relaunched Deez Links as a full-time gig. Today, with around 500 paying subscribers (and over 22,000 total), subscription revenue is her primary source of income. Earlier this year, La Colombe began sponsoring the newsletter. Deez Links paints a striking picture of media in 2024: a world in which running a newsletter looks like a more stable and lucrative gig for a talented writer than working at Vanity Fair.

The newsletter star spoke with Study Hall about her editorial strategy, why she has nothing she would write a “Hate Read” about right now, and relatability online.

What is the publishing philosophy behind Deez Links? 

I started it because I was just like, “Oh, I just want to have something funny to send to my friend.” It’s more formal than a text in a group chat, where some of the funniest and more interesting conversations were happening. My mission for it was [to write about] what I instantly want to talk to my friends about, and then make it a bit bigger and formalize my thoughts. I wanted it to feel like this chatty, somewhat authoritative riff on the trends and the big story, like an email from your best friend who is bored at work and she is just telling you how she feels and what’s going on.

What’s the story behind “Hate Read”?

I started it while I was waiting to get laid off this spring. A group of us [at Condé Nast] all knew we were going to get laid off in November, and then it didn’t happen until May. I was having a lot of conversations with other people who are on the [layoff] list, and we were just like, ‘What are you working on? Like, what are you doing?’ 

We were dreamscaping in terms of, what’s a fun thing that you guys wanted to do? One was trying to get people to start a zine but I didn’t actually know how to make a zine. I didn’t know where to print it or how to do art direction. But I was like, “What I do know how to do is a newsletter.” [I wanted to do a] zine of anonymous reviews because no one can really be that catty anymore online.  

Were you surprised by how the pieces went viral? 

I was surprised at which ones went viral, to be honest, because my whole goal was to see if this could get picked up. I wanted people to talk about it. I was surprised that the menswear one was the one that broke through first, and then it was the media parties one. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised because what are the most militant factions online right now? The menswear one got really big because @dieworkwear picked it up. There were so many that I thought was going to be just as viral and just as divisive.

What would your “Hate Read” be about?

I’m feeling very content right now. It’s one of those days where everything is nice. I hate weddings, except the ones that my beautiful, amazing friends are having, but otherwise, I hate them.

Are you concerned about the gradual collapse of X, and this need for outlets and newsletters to develop a new engagement strategy? 

For sure. Choire Sicha, who writes New York Magazine’s “Dinner Party” newsletter, did a thing where they had some high school students visiting and he asked them to do a Google Forms about where they get their news. 52% [of 19 students] said they got it off of Instagram. I was surprised. I thought people that age would just be on TikTok. But it sort of also made sense to me, because I feel like Instagram is the new Facebook, the center of your real social life. There’s been a lot of talk on how a lot of these newsletters are aggregating links, and [whether] that is good or bad. I’m like: we need these newsletters aggregating links because where else are we finding out what to read or what other people are reading? 

[The way we keep up with discourse] is moving towards newsletters and atomizing. Except you have to read and subscribe to a whole bunch to get a sense of what you were able to [see] for free on Twitter.

In your post about Annie Hamilton’s essay about Tavi Gevinson, you wrote “Being earnest/cringe is an admirable feat if not entirely revelatory anymore, so the only compelling strategy left online is to aim for all the usual receptors for deep body horror relatability, then mire the effort with a thin shadow of doubt.” Can you elaborate that?

Sincerity online used to feel like a revelation especially in the very beginning of being on Twitter, for a writer who’s online. It humanizes you beyond the name of the article. 

In the age of the influencers and parasocial relationships, [performative relatability] it just became a way of relating to people. [Influencers] figured out how to telegraph their humanity to me on this screen that I look at all day, so I’ll feel affinity for and bond with them. Now everyone’s over sharing constantly and people have recognized this is a performance, and that you can play with that performance. I’ll use myself as an example. I’ve met people who only knew me online first, and they’ll just say, “Oh, you come off as this very chaotic person online, but in person, you’re really quiet, you’re really calm.” There’s definitely a part of me that’s intentional about that.

People are realizing there is this gap or this performance, and you can play with that. You can really twist it and get a certain reaction from people. In the era of social media and Twitter and digital media that I went to college during, you sort of assume, this person [just] tweets this way. And now, everyone knows everyone has a little shtick online.