First Month, Adventures in Cursing, Progress on Odds and Ends

👋 Hello all!

Happy Friday, I hope you’re doing well.

The TL;DR: We’re one month old! 🎉 The FUCK DEBT book project inspired some spirited feedback. Our first debt cancelation is slowly working through legal review. Interviews for the Benjamin Test are underway. Finally, I will be offline for two weeks of much-needed vacation with my family.

One Month Old!

What a month! It feels simultaneously very short and very long, and I’m incredibly grateful for the support and encouragement I’ve received from everyone I’ve talked to. We’ve accomplished much more than I anticipated in one month, and I’m pumped about the future!

Thank you. Please enjoy a celebratory snack and raise a beverage of your choice! Cheers — and keep the party going by forwarding this email to a couple of your friends! 🙏

FUCK DEBT? Oh my. 🤭

Phew! That got some attention.

For those just joining the party: “FUCK DEBT” is the name of a collective art book we’re creating. The goal of this book is to illuminate the enormous burden carried by young people with student loans, the corrosive effects of debt on our society, and how hardship can bring people together in mutual support.

A few of you sent me notes sharing that you were uncomfortable with the in-your-face profanity. Thank you for speaking up. It led to some good conversations, and I want to elaborate on why I’m pushing those boundaries.

The gist of the concern is that they want this project to be meaningful and thoughtful, not crude and inarticulate. They make an interesting point — cursing can cheapen an experience when there are better, more appropriate ways to express thoughts and feelings.

That’s legit — and from my perspective, that’s almost exactly the point: the student debt crisis is just that — a crisis. It’s an overwhelming, circuit-blowing, mind-numbingly huge financial burden on the shoulders of the people least equipped to deal with it.

I believe “FUCK DEBT” is the most succinct and articulate expression of the reaction many of us have when faced with such horrors.

It captures the spirit of the moment.

“FUCK DEBT” isn’t about being pleasant. It’s about making noise, making some people uncomfortable, drawing attention, and catalyzing that inarticulate frustration into purpose and action.

To wit —

First Debt Cancelation

The Dead Ledger Society was started with a big idea: that we can buy student loans for cheap and forgive them outright. We’re testing our thesis on a loan with a balance of $45,000: we’ve raised the money to buy it, identified a licensed debt buyer to handle the transaction, and (if it works!) we will cancel the debt for pennies on the dollar.

Very cool. 😎

We’re in the hurry-up-and-wait phase, wherein lawyers are examining the deal and figuring out how to make this happen.

My hope is we’ll have this complete by the end of August. I expect it may go into September. I’ll share more as soon as there’s more to share!

We will be looking for more loans after this one, and if you’re feeling inspired to join the hunting party, a little donation can go a long way.

The Benjamin Tests

One of the ways we’re learning about the student loan industry is by making payments on people’s loans. We’ve made a couple of $100 payments, and we’re starting on interviews with the folks who took out those loans to pay for their education.

Those interviews will be published on YouTube over the next few months. I recommend subscribing to our channel for updates and notifications when they finally come through!

https://youtube.com/@DeadLedgerSociety

If you or someone you know is interested in receiving a $100 payment on your loan in exchange for a friendly chat about the awesome things you’re doing and your experience with student debt, get in touch: [email protected]

Oh Right, The Book Project

Conversations on cursing aside, where are we at this week?

I met with the marvelous Head of Publishing at Kickstarter to get a big reality check on my high falutin’ fantasies about the book publishing industry.

She introduced me to some amazing publishers, a lawyer specializing in licensing art for publication, and a few wonderful and successful projects on their platform.

Like all good things, this will take a while to do right. There’s a tremendous amount to learn about publishing an art book, and she encouraged me to keep my eye on the most important thing: find the artists and artwork that will make this a phenomenal success.

To those ends I’ve spent my evenings reaching out to galleries, agents, publishers, and activist artists. I’m putting my neck out there and tempting the monsters in the art world to land some cornerstone pieces — OBEY, Gagosian, Banksy, Ai Weiwei, the estates of Haring and Basquiat, LaChapelle, Sherman, Ultratom, FAILE, Swoon, and many others.

If there’s an artist you love — painter, sculptor, illustrator, photographer, musician — tell me who they are, or better yet, forward this email to them. We have pages to fill and plenty of room at the table for anyone with something to say about debt.

Maybe that’s you?

A Long Awaited Break

I’m on vacation with my family for the next two weeks, so I don’t expect to make another official update until I return. I’ll be off-grid for a good portion of that time, so forgive my tardy responses to your emails and inquiries.

I’m excited to share more when there’s more to share.

Cheers!