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A couple weeks ago, a post of mine went unexpectedly viral on Threads. As of this writing, it has been viewed 2,380,872 times. This is what I wrote:
To which Noah replied:
And then I wrote:
I did not expect it to be any more popular than any other silly thing I might post on Threads. But for some reason it resonated with people. It might have been the wholesome topic in troubling times. A lot of people replied sharing pictures of their own trees, or commenting that they’d be back on June 9 for Noah’s update.
A lot of people wrote that they were leaving a comment in the belief that engaging would make the algorithm more likely to show them any update that happens on June 9. And of course, when people engaged with the post, that made the algorithm more likely to show it to more people, and it snowballed over the day.
I think people were also amused by the timescale of the reply. Five years is a long time to wait before replying to someone. When I got my reminder about Noah’s trees, I vaguely remembered having set it, but I certainly hadn’t given it any thought since then. Five years passed but I only thought about it on two of those days: the first day and the last day. So it was a very low-effort win.
But Noah is really the master of long scale projects.
You may remember him from his viral “Everyday” video, which he posted in 2006, featuring photos of himself taken every day. He had been doing it for six years already at that point, and unbelievably he is still doing it. Here’s his updated version after 20 years:
Noah has other long-scale projects, too. He revisits the same spots and takes the same photos over time, like his Lumberland series, or his photos of a stone wall near his home, or this one tree that’s growing diagonally.
So five years to reply? That’s nothing. And I have more examples to prove it.
How long is too long to reply?
In 2014, I asked that question on Twitter:
After a year, Tim Chambers replied “One year?”
After two years, he wrote, “Two years, probably.”
Tim consistently replied every year on the anniversary of the original post. Other people did, also, but Tim was the most consistent.
After five years, he wrote, “Not sure, but replying to this tweet may be the only reason I stay on Twitter.”
And after ten years:
"It would be funny if I replied to this tweet every year," I thought. Maybe I didn't expect Twitter to be around this long? Anyway, here we go, year ten.
Ten years of annually replying to a single tweet! That’s impressive!
But then Elon’s transition from Twitter to X was just about complete, and nobody has replied since then. That’s fine, because I wouldn’t even be there to see it.
A twenty year note of congratulations
Just a couple months ago, I got this nice note from Matt Maldre on Bluesky:
Wow. I didn’t even realize that anniversary was coming up. It was nice to hear! And then, perhaps to assure me that he’s not a crazy stalker obsessed with my blog-turned-newsletter, he followed up with this:
Well that’s a nice thing to do. It reminds me of how Paul Rubens (Pee-Wee Herman) apparently kept track of birthdays of people he’d meet, and sent them texts on their birthdays.
Twenty years is a long time. But I think I have one more long reply that beats all of these.
Cindi’s letter
In 1998, my friend Cindi wrote herself a letter on her 25th birthday to be opened when she turns 50. She sealed it in an envelope and asked me to hold on to it and give it back to her in 25 years. I put it in a box and forgot all about it.
In 2017, I came across the letter while cleaning out a closet. I figured that if I’d held onto it that long, I might as well wait a few more years and send it to her. We had mostly fallen out of touch over 25 years, but of course we live in a world where social media means nobody is ever fully out of touch. So in 2023 I messaged her on Facebook and asked for her address, and dropped it in the mail.
I took a picture of it first. I’d held on to it so long, I wanted some sort of record of it just in case the post office lost it.
Cindi let me know that she got the letter, and that reading it was very emotional for her. I don’t know what it said. That’s between 25-year-old Cindi and 50-year-old Cindi. But she did let me know that 25-year-old Cindi told 50-year-old Cindi to tell me she says hi.
I have my entire email archive going back to 1997. I’m tempted to see what the furthest-back email is that I didn’t reply to, and write that person back. It’ll probably be something like, “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. But yeah, that new movie The Matrix looks like it’ll be great!”
So what’s the longest you’ve ever gone before sending or receiving a reply? If you’re reading this newsletter in a year or two, or even more, it’s not too late to let me know. Just hit Reply if it’s in your email, or leave a comment below if you’re reading on the website.
And as always, thanks for reading!
David
P.S. For more of Noah, be sure to check out his excellent newsletter and YouTube channel.