What is Pocket Observatory?

What is Pocket Observatory?
Meg Conley is doing some of the smartest and most challenging writing on the intersection of women, home, money, and care. She is an exquisite writer, constantly surprising me with the turns and clarity of her prose.
Anne Helen Petersen, Culture Study

Hi. My name is Meg Conley. Pocket Observatory is where I share my observations. I write letters, maintain a (free!) dynamic archive of everyday human experience and manage Pocket Observation, a reader-funded attention reclamation project.

My tools mostly fit inside my skirt pocket – a library card, a pen, a notebook, a little camera. (Even my Mac Mini - fully funded by a reader! - can fit in my pocket, if needs must.)

Pocket Observatory is an independent site free from the influence of venture capital, algorithms and billionaires.

My work is entirely dependent on the support of my readers. Consider becoming a paid member of Pocket Observatory so that I can keep working. You'll get exclusive content and access to Pocket Observation as a token of my immense gratitude.

Join Pocket Observatory

The letters

Observations dispatched twice a week

I document intersections of tech, capitalism and care work. I pay attention to Christian Nationalism, the New Right, climate change, the creator economy, artificial intelligence, historical context, human rights, grief, and culture shifts. Sometimes I get wrapped up in the cosmic web. When I am very lucky, I get to follow quantum crumbs. 

Subscribe for Free

Letters with my observations are sent out to all subscribers twice each week. Paid members receive additional exclusive letters every week.

A masterwork on modern capitalism, care work, and sexism, honestly. Subscribe and pay for it—worth every penny.
Lane Anderson, Matriarchy Report

The Observatoreum

A dynamic archive of everyday experience

Tech oligarchs and far-right extremists know that their power depends on manufactured information scarcity. Information is a wiggly word. So let’s define it. I mean information as Michael Buckland discusses it in Information And Society, information as “related to human knowing and everyday experience.” 

The Observatoreum is my personal offering in the face of billionaire-enabled scarcity. This archive is a way to keep information safe without keeping it to myself. The Observatoreum is open to all subscribers.

Paid members can access exclusive archive objects related to Pocket Observation. They can also choose to add their own observations to The Observatoreum. More on that in the next section.

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Here is an incomplete list of Objects

Articles by me and many others, etymology, books, cultural artifacts, organizations - from churches to tech companies, research notes, audio, video, a selection of my personal zettelkasten, newspaper clippings, art, historical figures, pop culture moments and high-resolution art files ready for your downloading pleasure.

Learn more about The Observatoreum here. 

It’s incredible how Meg can always be funny, incisive, and eloquent, all at once. Actually, it’s maddening that she’s this good.
Benjamin Park, Historian and Author

Pocket Observation

An Attention Reclamation Project

Paid Pocket Observatory members get to become a part Pocket Observation, an attention reclamation project. They can also contribute observations to the Observatoreum. 

Learn More about Pocket Observation

Directed monthly observations and access to exclusive writing

Each month I send out a Pocket Observance. Each Pocket Observance is a series of prompts designed to help you sit down and think beyond algorithms, headlines, and the mono-narratives of the powerful.

Pocket Observances are specific, quirky, curious. They cover current events, interior lives, exterior walls, design, science, politics, technology, etc. There will also be prompts related to things Western cultures stopped formally observing during the Great Enlightenment. Let's get metaphysical. 

Each person approaches the monthly observance differently. Often ruminating on the month's observance is enough! Sometimes, they record their observations through writing, images, audio. I encourage each person to create an archive of their recorded observations for themselves, their family, the people who come next. Each archive preserves human knowing and human experience. I think that's really special – and increasingly vital.

Pocket Observatory members receive my Pocket Observations each month in exclusive newsletters. I also put each of my observations into The Observatoreum, where they interact with other Objects.

Enter the Observatoreum

Would you like to see how your own observations interact with other Objects in the Observatoreum?

Paid members can submit their observations anonymously each month. They are helping to keep information without keeping it for themselves. I think that’s really generous.

If you’ve ever wished you could have been a part of Tolkien’s Inklings or swirl a drink by the fire with Emerson and Alcott, Meg’s writing is pretty damn close. I’ve never paid for a subscription so fast.
 Camille Andros, Author

Publications like Harper’s Bazaar, Slate, and the Guardian US.

Books like Jessica Grose’s Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood, Katy Kelleher's The Ugly History of Beautiful Things and Pooja Lakshmin’s Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included)

Podcasts like BBC's The Coming Storm, Vox’s Today, Explained and NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders and documentaries like The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe