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 occasional 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. Every so often, 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.
Still not convinced? Check out past editions!
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
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 about 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 intially and almost every way to traditionally create an analytics tool resulted in breaking Meta’s terms of service. So i found a workaround: export your data directly from meta. It allowed us to release a fully function tool before anyone else 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 directly). 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 🤭
Before social media, I was (and continue to be) a humble software engineer. My code has been used by hundreds of millions people. During the COVID pandemic, I helped schedule millions of vaccines. I’ve worked at every type of company from non-profit to Fortune 25.
Personally, I have 5 cats. Oh, and a long, long time ago, I grew up in the Chicagoland area