Inside the newsletter making layoffs feel less bleak and more like a group chat

Here at Mozilla, we are the first to admit the internet isn't perfect, but we know the internet is pretty darn magical. The internet opens up doors and opportunities, allows for human connection, and lets everyone find where they belong - their corners of the internet. We all have an internet story worth sharing. In My Corner Of The Internet, we talk with people about the online spaces they can't get enough of, the sites and forums that shaped them, and how they would design their own corner of the web.

We caught up with Melanie Ehrenkranz, the writer and creative strategist behind Laid Off, a weekly newsletter interviewing people about job loss - and everything wrapped up in it. She talks about building a space that's real, not bleak"; the forums and fan theories that keep her online; and how her inbox became one of her favorite places to hang out online.

What is your favorite corner of the internet?

I run a dedicated Discord for Laid Off - we just hit 800 members and it's the most supportive community. It's weird to say we have fun" when referring to a space for people affected by layoffs, but we really do. There was a tight group of members that used to show up each week in the #severance channel to share live reactions to new episodes on Thursday nights. The rest of the week, people could talk about actual severance, that thing that you might get a few weeks or months of, if you're lucky.

What is an internet deep dive that you can't wait to jump back into?

The Yellowjackets subreddit after new episodes drop. The last two seasons have really gone off the rails, but I'm here til the end. I probably enjoy reading people's theories more than the actual episodes these days.

What is the one tab you always regret closing?

My former editor (and friend) Cooper Fleishman has written an incredible Survivor watch guide. I am extremely late to the fandom, but now I'm locked in.

What can you not stop talking about on the internet right now?

Layoffs. I started my Substack, Laid Off, in August of last year. I interview smart and cool people who have been laid off each week. I also work on ~quarterly trend reports to better understand the layoff landscape.

What was the first online community you engaged with?

It's a blur of AIM chat rooms, MySpace, and Neopets. A lot of huddling around my hunking my computer, setting moody away messages, checking changes in my friends' top eights, and saving up for new paint brushes. I miss how slow things were, and not just the actual lack of speed, but how unfazed I was by it. Downloading a Strokes song on Kazaa meant adding another 10 to 20 minutes of load time. I'd just throw on an away message and play outside while the page loaded.

If you could create your own corner of the internet, what would it look like?

That's the hope with Laid Off. I'm trying to build the coolest place on the internet to talk about being laid off. I want it to feel cathartic, not bleak, but no toxic positivity. A space that feels nonjudgmental and inclusive. No assholes. Treat everyone with kindness.

The newsletter and community isn't just for people who've been laid off, though they're at the heart of it. It's also meant to illuminate the cracks in our systems and how work, stability and identity are shifting for all of us. To help us understand what's broken, what's changing and what we might build next.

What articles and/or videos are you waiting to read/watch right now?

I discover the coolest reads and recs from some of my favorite Substacks - as seen on by Ochuko Akpovbovbo, Feed Me by Emily Sundberg, Read Max by Max Read, Bad Brain by Ashley Reese, Extracurricular by Tembe Denton-Hurst, You've Got Lipstick on Your Chin by Arabelle Sicardi, and Gen-Z Gov by Kate Glavan, and the Dirt universe.

I rarely go to a publication's homepage anymore - I'm either reading/clicking straight from my inbox or the Substack app. And with all the brands making their way to the platform, I'll be even more incentivized to hang out in my inbox.

Your Substack has created a space where people can be real about job loss. What's something surprising you've learned from these conversations?

I try to leave my assumptions at the door. What did surprise me was how many conversations are happening. I get notifications all day long of people starting new threads in the Substack Chat and on Discord, covering... everything and anything. People venting about how AI is screwing them over both in the job search process and within their actual careers. People wondering if it's normal for a hiring manager to ask them to take a personality test. Dissecting insensitive language of rejection emails, or swapping getting ghosted" stories. Someone even dropped a photo of their redacted severance contract in a thread the other week for legal and negotiation advice.

Melanie Ehrenkranz is a writer and creative strategist focused on community, technology and power. She leads content and community for Sophia Amoruso's Business Class, a membership-based digital entrepreneurship community and course for founders, freelancers, solopreneurs, creators and side hustlers.

The post Inside the newsletter making layoffs feel less bleak and more like a group chat appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.