I’m Lucas! I write unconventional takes and stories about tech, culture, and society. As a software engineer and tech lead, I’ve worked on everything from the Dewey Decimal System to vaccinating tens of millions of people.
This is my blog, shadowban. It’s the main spot I post on the internet. It goes out to all your other favorite spots. shadowban is the best place to keep up with me. Read on to see my best essays and viral posts, plus my full bio
Check out my most popular essays:
You may know me from Bluesky or Threads, but if not, here’s my two most viral posts:
- Escape mandatory attendance (12 million views)
- New work laptop hack (8.5 million views)
Get my weekly insights on tech, culture, and society
Tired of the three same takes the internet makes over and over again? Join a community of like-minded individuals ready to challenge their assumptions and explore new perspectives. Each week, I deliver unconventional thoughts on tech, culture, and society. It typically includes at least one essay and a curated collection of my best from around the internet. Together, we can build a more thoughtful and insightful understanding of the world. Are you in? Join now.
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my projects
- gyst — we turn your personality into products so you can make money doing what you love. learn more
- interweave — analytics for Threads. see your personalized threads horoscope!
- blueskies forever - analytics for bluesky
- traumabond — my upcoming pop music album. coming soon! get notified
Anyway, that’s the short version.
The Long Version
I’m mostly known for amassing a following on threads as an OG day one creator. i’ve been shared by massive people like big daddy Adam Mosseri himself and social media expert Matt Navara. this was my first foray into social media. most of my life, i preferred living under a rock and hiding from the world. but i can admit: i was wrong social media
Shockingly, I became most known for writing short stories that have gotten over 30 million views
Some call these “relatable short stories with a twist based on real life events”, yet others have called this “no way, didn’t happen, bullshit, absolute lies, fake story” 🤷♂️
Unfortunately, most of these stories are deeply based in truth, if not exactly what happened edited down to 500 characters or less. in my head, i call them “relatable autofiction”, but since no one knows what that means i keep it to myself
Ironically, i didn’t even start writing stories until later on. i mostly posted about the threads community, joking and collaborating with other creators, explaining stuff like the fediverse, and doing weekly recaps so you didn’t miss out on the best threads content
Many people found me through interweave, an analytics tool i created that has had tens of thousands of users. it is now morphing into a collection of fun Threads tools
Interweave was a fascinating problem to solve because there was no threads api and almost every way to create an analytics tool resulted in breaking meta’s terms of service. so i found a workaround: export your data directly from meta. it worked great in the interim until the official api could be released.
Now interweave is morphing into a collection of fun threads tools rather than just basic analytics (which threads now offers). you will be able to use it to set your posts on autopilot. it will repost your threads automatically and even generate ig posts for you
Threads opened up many opportunities, including the chance to be the technical reviewer for the book Building AI Applications with Microsoft Semantic Kernel: Easily integrate generative AI capabilities and copilot experiences into your applications . so you could say i wrote (or tech reviewed, at least) the book on AI, sort of 🤭
Then I went extremely viral multiple times. It left me feeling hollow. i figured out how to capture attention, but it wasn’t for anything that mattered.
After some soul-searching, I came up with idea for gyst. we partner with creators to make products that align with their values while raising money for charity. our first “product” is actually an event: a variety show event is coming up in March! creators will split profits and a large portion of money will be donated to the National Women’s Law Center
Before social media, I was (and continue to be) a humble software engineer. my code has been used by tens of millions people. during the covid pandemic, i was part of scheduling millions of covid vaccines. i’ve worked at every type of company from non-profit to Fortune 25
Personally, i have 5 cats. yeah, i know. they keep growing exponentially. we first got Reggie, a handsome orange boy years ago. he was our only child for some time and we spent many months just me and him in an apartment bonding. Then we added Sonny and Nori at the same time from a rescue. Sonny is a buff-colored fellow and Nori is a tuxedo cat. Finally (we thought) we got a Maine Coone named Figgy. finally we added Spooky (name tbd). He kept coming to our front and back doors. We had no idea but the cats kept jumping at the window. So I installed cameras and eventually realized he was coming and laying on our back porch. We put out some snacks, but the weather started taking a turn for the worse. on a freezing day, he came to the front porch. i opened the door and he just walked in (while my partner hid in the bathroom with the rest of our cats lol)
Oh, and a long, long time ago, I grew up in the Chicagoland area