I dropped a banger.

There has been a lot of stupid discourse around Bluesky vs. Twitter and my reaction has generally been this:

Everything Twitphiles cite as defects on Bluesky are, for me, the feature. And nothing was more illustrative of that fact than me going viral over the weekend for a completely normie and earnest tweet about public libraries, which was actually just a subtweet about the dumb fist-shaking at news paywalls going on in the mentions of a political commentator's tweet, who wrote an op-ed on the new stupid war some orange Kool-Aid man decided to cannonball into.

Wow. Incredible sentence. I definitely don't need an editor.

It was heartening to see the outpouring of love for public libraries.

But wait.

Am I a library influencer now? Maybe this is my next chapter!

Well, to that end, here is a fuller encapsulation of the beauty of the public libraries. Please, put a reminder in your phone to (1) sign up for a library card, (2) explore your library's website to see what services and resources they offer, and (3) if you're feeling adventurous, go down to your library and check it out.

Obviously every library is different and their offerings will vary by state and county. Go to your library website and see what you have access to.

Libraries flat out save you money.

Right off the bat, let me completely undermine my credibility as American's preeminent library influencer – but also earn back the public trust with my transparency – by saying I just lied to you (kinda). Obviously, libraries offer all of their services for "free" but as a librarian pointed out, these are not "free" services because we've already paid for them with taxpayer money. So let me put it differently:

1. Buy fewer books.

But also, libraries DO save you money. One of my commitments to myself at the start of the year was to stop the consumerism rot that I found myself in. In addition to a bunch of self-imposed rules I made about my hobby spending – no new LEGOs or plamo kits until my backlog is halved – I also put a partial no-buy policy on books.

I am a rampant book buyer. Maybe it was because my family never had the money to be able to participate in the Scholastic Book Club buys at school, but once I had disposable income, all bets were off. I would even buy books at the airport.

AT THE AIRPORT. That's ACTUAL MSRP pricing! Insane behavior!

But my TBR pile – that's "To Be Read" for those not in the library influencer game – was out of control. So I'm not buying any new books for myself this year unless it's some sort of limited edition or special occasion kind of thing. The only books I've bought so far were in Australia, where I picked up some stuff that wasn't in my library system or published in America.

Ok, yes, I bought Han Kang's "The Vegetarian" and "Human Acts" but only because the Australian versions have way better cover art. I'M NOT A ROBOT.

But that's a huge drop for me. In the first six months of a year, I would have normally have picked up 30+ books. At $10-20 a pop, that's $300-$600.

And it's not like I'm reading less. In fact, I'm reading more. I've been tearing through books I've checked out at my library and I do think I've subconsciously made reading more of a priority BECAUSE the books have to be returned. The due dates encourage me to make it a daily habit. There's a reason the TBR is covered in dust. There's no actual incentive to deal with it. It will always be there.

And for the book collectors out there who want the physical copies of the books they love: you can still have those! I listened to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" – JFC what an absolute comedic banger – and realized that I actually don't own the book. I plan to fix that by chasing down a used copy somewhere. Buy the books you love! Just try them at the library first.

Lastly, remember that you can always request the library buy a book you want. When Ben's Naomi book was coming out, I asked mine to put it on their acquisitions list and they did. I've requested lots of other niche books as well, like other tennis books, graphic novels, and hobby books. They're very receptive!

2. Buy fewer audiobooks

Ok so let's say checking out books saves me $800 a year. Add any audiobook subscriptions you have to that cost savings. I used to be an Audible person, but I cancelled last year once I discovered how easily you can download audiobooks via Libby. Just log in with your library card and voila.

An Audible subscription is $15/month. And that doesn't even include audiobooks that you might buy separately. Libro.fm is also $15/month (it gives you one credit a month) and is my preferred audiobook retailer because it supports independent bookstores and also why would I voluntarily give Jeff Bezos more money. But whenever I buy audiobooks as gifts – it's a good gift! – I use Libro. Sign up for free and you can select your favorite independent bookstore to receive credit for the sale. Win-win.

So if you're an audiobook listener, your library card will save you at least $200-$250, which I calculate as the membership fees plus a few extra books you'd purchase throughout the year.

3. Learn a new language

Hey, do you use Duolingo but hate the unwanted harassment of that little green owl nagging you worse than your own mother? I DO NOT RESPOND WELL TO NEGGING.

What if I told you there's another way, one that has zero nagging and costs zero dollars?

Check your library. Mine offers two language learning options, with subscriptions to Rosetta Stone and Mango. Yes, I know there's a free tier of Duolingo, but if you are paying for the Super tiers or the Family Plan, your library could save you over $100 here.

4. Cancel some of your streaming subscriptions

If I were a better person, I would cancel my stupid suite of streaming subscriptions – Netflix, Max, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Hulu, AppleTV, CrunchyRoll, Criterion — and only use Kanopy. But I can't because of bundling deals (Max/Disney/Hulu/ESPN and Amazon Prime), family (Netflix), or specialty reasons (CrunchyRoll, Criterion).

But damn, I am always amazed by the fantastic curation of movies on Kanopy. MARIE ANTOINETTE, INTERSTELLAR, BEST IN SHOW. They have ANORA!

They have a great selection of World Cinema – the Korean offerings are great and overlap almost completely with what other streaming platforms offer – and it has a very deep catalog of British TV, rendering a subscription to Acorn redundant.

And this is really nerdy, but there are also a bunch of lecture series from Great Courses. I watch/listen to those a lot while I'm gaming lol.

Oh, and Kanopy is available on most SmartTVs so you can stream directly on the incredible TV you just bought WITH ALL THE MONEY THE LIBRARY SAVED YOU.

For real though. I mean, we're already at like $1000 annually (I'm very bad at math) and we haven't even hit the newspapers and magazines yet.

And don't forget the DVD and CDs available at your library as well. There's a host of fantastic movie and TV content.

5. Stay informed for free.

Ok, so here we are. I have finally babbled my way through it and arrived at the spark that started all this.

Thanks to Google and Facebook completely decimating the news media ecosystem, combined with the internet normalizing the idea that ALL CONTENT SHOULD BE FREE, people are now convinced that they shouldn't pay for anything*. This is ironic because here I am trying to convince you to use a thing that allows you NOT TO PAY FOR THINGS yet people keep wanting to PAY FOR THINGS.

Just not journalism, I guess idk.

*This can all be traced back to Napster but my whole rant about that will have to wait for another time.

It's very likely that your local library will give you free access to 90% of the news websites and magazines that you're looking for. Yes, there are absolutely reasons to dunk and roll your eyes at the super normie take, that yes, you should read The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal but you should. And if you don't want to give them your money, well the joke's on you because you already have.

So just get access from your library! All the links and instructions on how to access those websites with your library card number should be on your library's website. At my library, they're under a tab called "Digital Resources".

Outside of that, via an app/website called PressReader or something similar, you have free access to all those weekly/monthly magazines that you can never bring yourself to buy because they all cost like $6-10 bucks now.

PressReader is perfect if you have an iPad and it works great on web as well. I haven't used it much on my phone but it's a pretty advanced app so I suspect the rendering is great.

6. Get free tickets!

Click around on your library's website – or just ask a librarian – and you'll quickly learn that you can get a bunch of free or discounted tickets to local museums. Through my library I can get a free General Admission ticket to the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. That's an easy $20 right there.

7. Skip Starbucks.

If I needed a quiet place, I used to just go to Starbucks. It was like autopilot. And then, sitting there, I would spend $10-12 on coffee and a pastry to justify my time there.

Now? I just go to the library. Sure, there are no hot cups of joe, but we all carry our own hydration these days. Check your library's policy and maybe you can just bring your own coffee. But it's great to just have a big table, spread my stuff out, and just do whatever. I go to the library to just futz around on my computer or iPad, read, journal, even scrapbook.

Your library might also have free meeting spaces that can be reserved if you need a room for meetings.

And there's also fun social opportunities as well. My library has weekly D&D sessions and a great collection of board games that anyone can play. I know this because I donated those games.

8. Community services

I was donating a couple of bags of books to my library last year when I stopped to take a look at a cork board on the wall. That board had so many great resources that our community really does need. There were pamphlets for a car service to take seniors to appointments. Lots of information for ESL tutoring and literacy programs, job searches, stuff on estate planning, grief counseling, substance abuse and suicide prevention numbers.

Libraries need your support

Don't take your local library for granted.

Since the current climate is to think of government as a profit-generating business, we need to use the ones we value to justify their existence. With libraries, every book you check out and service you use goes towards keeping your library funded and open.

Scientific American: Political Attacks on Libraries Endanger Small-Town Democracy

And not to state the obvious, but libraries are under threat. We know that because Project 2025 explicitly threatened them. And now here we are.

So please, support your local library. Try and break your automatic consumption habits. Teach your kids to love the library. Talk to your librarians and tell them what you'd like them to add to their services.

Congratulations, you got to the end of this. Now go get your library card.