Survey #10 Round-up
Hi all,
Welcome back to the newsletter! I know it’s been a while. I’ve had a busy couple of weeks with the new job, a trip to Montreal Jazz Fest, marathon training, the World Cup, and falling off my bike in an embarrassing and painful fashion.
But we back! I’ve missed writing this and I’m hoping to resume a more regular cadence going forward. More programming notes below.
Here is the link to the new survey, which closes on Friday, July 31st. Linked at the bottom as well.
Onto the round-up:
Survey Results
Q1: Pickleball - approve or disapprove?
Results:
Highlighted Free Responses
“Easier tennis :) so good for you! Also, it looks dumb so hopefully humbles all who partake.”
“It's a great way to exercise and socialize with people, and its low barrier to entry. But as a tennis player get them off my court”
“If the normies are happy, let them be happy.”
“If I had to choose I guess I net approve, it looks stupid but if it helps people stay active without injuries then I think it's a net benefit.”
“idk, why not just play tennis”
“I think it’s harmless! Let’s not shame people for moving their bodies and having fun doing so”
“...I fucking hate pickleball. It’s a disgrace, an infected zit on our sports landscape.”
“I think harmless? I think if you did a statistical analysis you’d find a weak, but definitive correlation with ineffectual “in this house we believe” liberals.”
“The only argument I can think of against pickleball is that it has a really stupid name tbh. If it had better branding I think people would actually like it more.
Commentary:
As someone who played tennis in high school, but also as someone who absolutely sucks shit at tennis, I feel conflicted.
One of the issues with tennis is that it’s kind of hard to play with people who aren’t similarly matched to you in skill level, and is therefore kind of hard to casually play in general. Pickleball seems like a sport where the skill range is much more compressed than tennis, which makes it more accessible as a casual sport but also seems to limit the high-end of how good or impressive you can be at it.
I think that’s where some of the animosity and skepticism towards the sport comes from. I’m sure there is some kind of professional or high-level pickleball, but that is not a professional sport that anybody really cares about. There is no Michael Jordan or Serena Williams that represents the sport as an icon and gives it any cultural cache or cool-factor. And everyone who plays it seems to be either a retiree or a yuppie who has too much disposable income and wears On shoes and records his games on his Apple Watch.
But who knows, maybe one day there will be a Marty Supreme of pickleball and we’ll all clamor for an A24-branded paddle.
Q2: How much do you typically exercise each week?
Results:
Highlighted Free Responses
“...I think its good to exercise everyday, helps with mood and just overall energy levels.”
“...I am confident that 3-4x week is the perfect amount of exercise if you want to stay fit and also enjoy your life.”
“I love working out. More I workout the more I can booze and the better I can sleep”
“I strive to do multiple things just okay: yoga, climbing, cycling, volleyball, lifting, & ~mystery~”
“...I wish I could unlike that natural high people get from running but my unnaturally flat and duck toed feet means I look unseemly and awkward for whatever short distance my body allows.”
Commentary:
I’m honestly pretty impressed by these results! Assuming you guys are being honest.
Of course, everyone I know is an over-educated coastal elitist who cares about their health, blah blah blah. I’m sure the average American probably gets like 500 steps a day and probably couldn’t run a mile or do a push-up to save their life.
I’m in the “most days” bucket, like most of you, and marathon training season (which I have just started 🙃) usually keeps me pretty active. Similar to what some of you mentioned, maintaining regular exercise is basically necessary for my mental health and general stability.
Plus, I will basically always see myself as a fat kid.
I do think this general exercise obsession has kind of gone too far amongst a certain type of person (like myself), though.
And I sometimes think that maybe my personal fixation on exercise and well-being is at the expense of other hobbies or living a more fruitful and interesting life. It makes me feel a bit like that Bryan Johnson guy who is constantly trying to optimize his life by harvesting his son’s blood and monitoring his boners or whatever. Sure, maybe you extend your expected life span by a couple of years, but what if you just get hit by a bus one day or something? Was it worth skipping out on a lifetime of beers and Taco Bell?
On the other hand, running seven miles in 100 degree weather on a Saturday basically gives me a mental blank check to eat and drink whatever I want for the rest of the weekend. Maybe that’s a good enough of a balance.
Q3: Have you ever watched a UFC fight?
Results:
Highlighted Free Responses:
“I assume they are punching? Can’t be better a than WWE, at least they wear slutty little outfits and do flips.”
“unbelievably stupid”
“I dont like watching people hit each other but I get that its pretty good entertainment.”
“Great sport surrounded by horrific culture...is mysogny and toxic behavior intrinsic to the UFC as far as the lifeblood of the sport, or is it incidental?”
“I like the idea of it, sure. It’s pretty pure competition when you think about it, just two people beating the shit out of each other. The only problem I have is that the very nature of the sport means your elite talents are CTE to the max.”
“I don’t like watching super violent sports. Don’t really enjoy seeing people beat each other up.”
“Got into UFC when it was the only sporting event being televised live during covid. I think its appeal is pretty niche given the brutal nature of the fights, and its audience has been limited even further thanks to Dana White being one of the biggest douchebags on Earth. But the product itself is actually pretty great, if you're into that kind of thing.”
Commentary:
I was motivated to bring up this question from the recent UFC fight on the White House lawn on Trump’s 80th birthday. You know, just a gladiator fight to celebrate the longevity of the king in front of his castle.
I’ve seen a couple UFC fights, mostly during Covid when there wasn’t much else to watch. I agree with what some of you wrote in — it’s a pretty compelling sport if you’re into that kind of thing. I’ve enjoyed watching guys like Adesanya, Ngannou, and Diaz at times. These guys are charismatic, unique, and thrilling fighters to watch.
But unfortunately, it increasingly seems like a lot of fighters are just actually pretty bad guys:
If these survey responses are any indication, UFC is starting to feel like America’s sleeper favorite sport that you might miss if you spend too much time in a NYT/HBO Max/Bluesky bubble. It’s not unlike other Paramount+ copaganda programming that will hardly get covered on Ringer podcasts but is infinitely more popular than The Bear.
Sports and politics have always had points of crossover, but much like every other aspect of life, political values are seeping their way more and more into our professional leagues. And whereas leagues like the NBA or the NFL may be coded in certain political colors due to the fanbase and the surrounding culture, UFC is basically just full-on embracing MAGA.
In 2026, I unfortunately think this is probably an effective way to actually build a media enterprise, even if I don’t like this particular flavor of polarization.
For UFC president Dana White, tying yourself to Trump — who himself is a master of maximizing TV and media attention — is an effective way to automatically buy yourself some engaged, loyal viewers for your growing league. Plus, you’re probably never going to manage to win over many liberal elitists with your violent bloodsport anyways. I mean, did you guys see the box office for The Smashing Machine? 1
That being said, we’ll see what happens when Trump is no longer so central to our culture. Will Dana White have to find a new horse to hitch his wagon to? Do we think Marco Rubio likes rear naked chokes?
Q4: How much money does someone have to make per year to be considered "rich"?
Results:
Highlighted Free Responses:
“once calculated that if someone gave me a lump sum of $350,000 in my 20s I could have enough money for the rest of my life.”
“1m = ~500k post tax in ca. I think with 40k a month i wouldnt have to think about the price of anything I want outside of a home like food, flights, rent, money for parents, etc. maybe?”
“I think it’s weird that a lot of people who I would consider rich do not consider themselves rich”
“if you are earning this much [$250,000] per year and you are single without children and debt free, you can easily afford all the hallmarks of what makes someone wealthy in this country (property, travel, luxury commodities) and it would take a fair amount of work/incompetence to spend to such a degree that you don't feel rich anymore”
“I feel like that number [$500,000] crosses the line to fuck you money. But also think you can earn way less than that and still have all the luxuries you may want in life (property, travel, nice things, etc.).”
“I think it depends on the city — less sure goes a lot farther elsewhere”
“rich is in the eye of the beholder but many "middle class" or "comfortable" people are just rich.”
“I arbitrarily picked my number because I really do think it depends on your lifestyle and where you live. 150,000 in most middle America cities can get you pretty far, but gets you a Hanoi Hilton shithole in Bushwick. 500,000 seems to me that it would get you pretty far wherever you go.”
Commentary:
Interesting range of responses here, which I think does speak to: a) different conceptions of wealth and b) the different parts of the country and lifestyles amongst my readers.
Like some of you mentioned, the area you live in definitely has a substantial impact on how far your dollar goes. Making $180k a year in San Francisco would hardly have you feeling “rich” these days:
That being said, some of the numbers some of you submitted seem dubious to me. The lowest answer submitted was $100K. Unless that was a typo and someone forgot a zero there, I have a hard time seeing how that makes you rich, even if you live in like, Bumfuck, Idaho. I definitely grew up thinking that $100,000 would be a very comfortable salary, but $100K today is equivalent to ~$72,000 in 2016 terms (the year I graduated high school). Sure, still a pretty good income, but not exactly Scrooge McDuck.
On the higher end, one of you answered $1M / year. I think this would unquestionably make you rich, but I think this is a bit of an overshoot. It depends on which numbers you look at, but the 1% of incomes in the US is somewhere between $450K - $700K. Even if this might not put you in the top 1% in places like Massachusetts or California, I think it’s fair to say that if you’re making more money than 99% of Americans you are safely “rich.”
I was recently motivated to ask this question after Julia told me about the HENRYfinance subreddit - HENRY standing for: High-Earning, Not Rich Yet. It’s been amusing / frustrating to hear about the people who post on this subreddit who don’t consider themselves rich despite making $300-400K or more a year.
I’ve always been interested in the phenomenon of people having distorted perceptions of their own economic status. People are so reluctant to think of themselves as well-off, but it goes the other way too - people don’t want think think of themselves as poor, either:
Instead, we all like to think we are still among the humble and non-privileged “middle class”:
You could certainly extrapolate a lot about American culture and politics from this observation. But I don’t really feel like doing that here today so instead I’ll leave you with this tweet and let you draw your own conclusions:
Q5: Would you rather give up kissing or sauce for the rest of your life?
Results:
Highlighted Free Responses:
“The only valid answer is I’m lost in the sauce.”
“how can you give up good food?”
“Currently, I use sauces a lot more than kissing”
“Do people understand how much flavor is erased from the rest of your life if you can't eat sauce? What is the point of living if you can only eat dry, bland food?”
“A life without kissing is just not worth living. Just properly season things and have a huge glass of water and it’ll be fine. Kiss all the time, sauce occasionally (i mean never)”
“I love sauce but I love kissing my baby more”
“I know too many people (all dudes, make of this what you will) who willingly live without sauce and don’t think about it. Kissing, on the other hand, is the bedrock of romance. To live without kissing is to live without romance. To live without romance is to not live at all.”
Commentary:
Please consider all of these sauces:
Soy sauce
Fish sauce
Salsa (literally translates to sauce)
Barbecue sauce
Hot sauce
Buffalo sauce
Oyster sauce
Hoisin sauce
Hollandaise
Tomato sauce
Pasta sauce
Tzatziki
For all those that chose to keep kissing, say goodbye to all of those sauces and all the foods that entails: pizza, chips & salsa, pulled pork, eggs Benedict, buffalo chicken dip, and basically all Asian food.
Yeah, it’s a no-brainer for me. Good-bye to kissing.
I’ve been posing this question to people in my life for at least a few months now, and the split has been about similar to the results here. I have to say I am surprised by how many people feel so adamant about choosing to keep kissing.
People say there is no substitute to kissing, and that’s true. I could always give Julia a lick on the cheek or forehead but I’m not sure she would like that too much.2
But similarly, there is no real substitute for soy sauce, and that’s essentially the deal-breaker for me. To lose almost all Chinese food, and therefore my main connection to my culture, heritage, and effectively my family would not be worth it just for smooching.
I understand that kissing is more common in other cultures outside of just sucking your lover’s face, like in casual greetings to your friends, or when you’re about to have your brother executed for betraying you, or when you’re a weirdo quarterback who kisses his son on the mouth. But I’m Chinese so I don’t do any of that stuff. Pass me da soy sauce.
Next Survey
Here’s the link to the next survey. I’ll be closing it in just shy of 4 weeks, on Friday, July 31st. The following round-up should be out on the following Monday, August 2nd.
Programming Notes
Having taken some time away from this newsletter, I’ve found that not having a deadline on the surveys or the round-ups kind of takes the wind out of the sails a bit. It seems to reduce motivation for you all to respond to the surveys, and it gives me less of an impetus to actually write this thing.
So I’m walking back my no-deadline thing and going to try to do this at least every 4 weeks for the time being. I may adjust this in the future, but I figure this gives me plenty enough time to write and come up with new questions.
I’m also shifting the cadence a bit: I’m going to aim to get this out on Mondays now instead of Fridays.
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That’s all for now. See you all in a few weeks.
— Nathan
For the record, I actually liked the movie. Even though I did not contribute to it’s box office total (sorry Benny Safdie).
Since I’ve been watching a lot of Sex and the City recently, I would guess that Samantha, Carrie, and definitely Charlotte would give up sauce. My girl Miranda is giving up kissing in a heartbeat though.