Once upon a time, in a different life, I was tasked with running a blog vertical devoted entirely to help men, who read a sports site, become slightly better at things. Not exceptional. Not great. Not even very good. Just—adequate. We gave advice on anything and everything—cooking, grooming, relationships. We weighed in on matters surrounding identity, etiquette, culture, and taste. People who love to give advice usually don’t find it very difficult to deliver. The real trick, however, was stretching it into the “ideal” 500-750 words—enough to satisfy search engine algorithms, and to justify giving the advice in the first place.Most of the time it was worthwhile—often nuanced and sometimes even emotionally taxing. We tackled the real, complicated stuff: grief, dating, sex, parenting, workplace politics, even the art of perfecting a family recipe. Other times, it was a completely absurd way for people who love to talk to keep talking, whether about their mustaches or favorite tomatoes or whatever else.Now that blog is dead, and the search engines have been rendered useless by AI. So, in tribute, I asked some friends from back then—friends of Defector, too—to share a little unwarranted advice of their own. Nothing overwrought, I told them. No long tirades. Just give me a tip.
***
