Our Recommendations For You

Hey there, this is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. Typically, this segment is a perk for subscribers at the Supporter level (check your status here) but we're sharing our end-of-year recommendations with everyone. Enjoy and let us know what you think, and what we should get into this year.

SAM: Whenever we shout out a podcast, book, TV show, or other media or consumable product on our own podcast or in a Behind the Blog, you guys seem to enjoy it and want more. To be totally real with you, I get a ton of great recommendations from you, the readers and listeners, all year long and am always learning a lot from the things you throw in the comments around the site and on social media. The 404 Media community has good taste.

We talked through some of our top recommendations of the year in this week’s podcast episode, but here’s a more complete list of what each of us has enjoyed this year, and thinks you might also find worth digging into.

Things I recommend: 

A “counting” room. We opened a Slack room called “#counting” as an early order of business at 404. The idea of counting is simple: Count. Someone says 145, someone else says 146. The only rule is to count, but there are unspoken rules: No saying anything in counting other than the next number. No one can back to back count. And...that’s kind of it. I think Counting Room is good for team building but I can’t explain why Counting Room is important or even fun, so maybe that’s another rule: no talking about Counting Room. Try it and let me know

Not looking at Bluesky on the weekends or vacation. Specifically Bluesky. Just don’t. Sorry to them.

Voice notes. One specific friend group I briefly guest starred in around 2015 in the suburbs of San Diego used voice notes for literally everything. I thought it was so hip at the time but so not the wave my NYC friends were on (we, instead, used Snapchat almost exclusively to communicate, to the point that a photo of the space above one’s head could be a happy hour invite). Now, if I have something really funny or salacious or even just kind of boring but long, I’ll put it in a voice note. If someone says they’re about to send me a voice note, I am sat. 

Vampire books. I’m reading Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles for the first time ever after looking for a good Halloween type read, and I really regret not reading these sooner. If I could have picked them up when I was a teenager, that would have been ideal. But mid-30s also works.

Saying shit like “radical honesty.” Among ourselves at 404, sometimes when we’re about to say something tough to each other—a semi-frequent necessity when you’re working as hard and closely as we do—we preface it by ironically/sarcastically saying we’re about to be “radically honest” or “radically transparent.” It’s funny because it’s therapy speak and a meaningless sort of phrase, but it’s also self-effacing in that whatever’s about to be said is actually tough to say. And it takes some pressure out of the moment to acknowledge that sometimes, just saying you disagree or are having a hard time or need to take the afternoon off can feel radical when it really is not. It’s just being honest. So relax. 

Being actually radically honest. I guess!

This essay by Kate Wagner, ‘Bringing Sexy Back.’ I thought this whole thing was so good and quotable and put a finger directly on so many things going on right now: “That men use these tactics and tools to control women is a known threat. What is astonishing is the lengths to which some women will go to use these same technologies, claiming that they are necessary to prevent harm — especially that caused by cheating, which is now seen as some kind of lifelong trauma or permanently damnable offense instead of one of the rather quotidian, if very painful, ways we hurt one another. Each of these surveillance practices operates from a feeling of entitlement and control over other people, their bodies, and what they do.” Yes!

This essay by Sarah T. Roberts and Mél Hogan, ‘Left Behind: Futurist Fetishists, Prepping and the Abandonment of Earth.’ They write: “In the case of both Big Tech and governmental surveillance agencies, undergirding a commitment to the inevitable and imminent time after Earth is the appeal of science fiction aesthetics, concepts and projects, all aimed toward the new goal of having new places and opportunities to conquer, colonize and dominate post-Earth. SpaceX’s goal is to land a person on Mars; closer to home are other instantiations of futuristic fantasy, from the NSA’s Star Trek-inspired control room to Apple’s Spaceship. Hermetically-sealed scientists and volunteers roleplay in extreme environments to ready themselves for off-world living. In all of these examples, the playing out of ‘accelerationism’ is both a chronological and technological acceleration, as well as the strategic buying and use of remaining time–to hide, prepare and come up with exit strategies.” Understanding accelerationism through an Evangelical Christian lens—a belief system that requires the literal end of the world and collapse of society to harken the return of Christ, held by people at the highest levels of government in the US—is becoming more essential than ever. 

All of Kashmir Hill’s reporting on chatbots. She just published a story this week about the woman who created the “MyBoyfriendIsAI” subreddit, but they’re all bangers. Required reading for understanding the psyche of people who “date” AI chatbots. On that topic: This story by Sam Apple for Wired was incredible and still lives in my head. I screamed out loud several times reading it.

Going somewhere with no internet or cell service. Which is what I’m doing for the next week. See you next year. 

JOSEPH: My recommendation for a game to play from this year is Hades 2. It builds on the original in almost every way—combat, scope, variety (it flops on story)—and is absolutely worth playing if you have any interest in action games, or even just a game that looks pretty.

If you haven’t played or heard of the original Hades, it’s a game where you are repeatedly descending into Greek mythology’s Hell over and over again. It’s a rogue-like, a genre taking its name from the eponymous Rogue, where you might be doing the same content repeatedly, but you’re getting new abilities each time, keeping it spicy.

I’ve tried various rogue-likes before but never really clicked with them. The randomness led to frustration. What makes Hades and its sequel different is it is more specifically a rogue-lite, meaning you are doing the same content over and over, but in between runs you’re unlocking permanent upgrades that mean you’re able to, hopefully, get just a little bit further than you did last time.

What made Hades so good was that it turned death into something to be excited about. Every time you died and went back to the hub world, there would be new dialogue with its cast of fun characters, new upgrades to unlock, potentially a whole new weapon to select. You were excited about beating a boss finally, but also didn’t feel like a complete failure if you did die. You could go again.

That and the combat was exceptional. Everything was so responsive, so tight. You felt in complete control of your character.

All of that applies to Hades 2, but there’s more. New weapons that have genuinely game changing variations. Many new areas to master. A new permanent upgrade system with a deck of magical cards.

I 100%’d the first Hades. I played it for more than 340 hours, according to the counter on my Nintendo Switch. Hades 2, meanwhile, took me around 70 hours to 100%. I don’t know if that’s because Hades 2 is easier, or I’m just very used to the game mechanics after playing the first one. Probably both.

In Hades 2 I completed the main story, unlocked the secret or true ending, and most importantly, did the increasingly difficult challenges you unlock towards the end. You don’t have to do these, but for me it’s where the game shines. You have to complete all of the game’s content, with modifiers that make the runs much harder, with every weapon. That’s Hades and Hades 2 for me. 

The game is like $30 (it’s actually on sale right now on Steam). I definitely recommend you pick it up.

For a few other quick recommendations:

Mouth to Mouth, by Antoine Wilson: already a very well known book. I barely read fiction so asked a friend for a recommendation, and they pointed to this. Really breezy, and was great in even fifteen minute chunks. A good romp.

Behind the Wings: a great interview podcast all about aviation, space flight, the U.S. military, and more. Always an interesting guest who talks about very wild stuff.

iOS’s customizable levels of do not disturb: want to receive Signal notifications, but not Gmail or Slack ones? Take a minute to tweak those settings in iOS. It’ll help you turn off a bit.

EMANUEL: I’m sitting here trying very hard to think about what are the games, books, movies, products, or whatever I felt most passionate about this year, and nothing interesting comes to mind. 

There are a few obvious choices: I’m a huge Hideo Kojima fan, I loved Death Stranding, and Death Stranding 2 is easily my favorite game of the year. I bought a PlayStation 5 essentially just to play this one game because I didn’t want to wait for it to release on PC. Death Stranding 2 is a game about logistics and optimization. There’s action, there’s stealth, there’s horror, and I think it does all of those things very well, but the thing that kept me obsessed with it is trying to find the most efficient way to deliver items where they need to go while building the infrastructure that makes those deliveries easier and faster. 

I think I put around 70 hours into Death Stranding 2, and went as far as getting a Platinum PlayStation trophy for it, which is something I’ve never done before, because I enjoyed being in that world and doing those repetitive tasks so much. I do have one beef with the game, which is that it made playing it much better than the first game, but it’s far less batshit in that distinctly Kojima way. It does have that juice, but it’s mostly all at the very end, and overall there’s less of it. People, myself included, love to complain about multiple two hour cutscenes in the middle of a Kojima game. But now that they are gone, I realize that they are part of the magic and I do miss them. 

I also spent a fair amount of time playing Arc Raiders with our contributor Matthew Gault this year, and had a ton of fun. The most fun I’ve had with any “extraction shooter” to date. I’m a fan of Embark, which also made The Finals, and worked on Battlefield games previously. They have a really slick aesthetic and cool, new ideas on how to refine existing multiplayer shooter tropes. The basic idea of Arc Raiders is you and maybe a couple of friends drop into a map where you fight drones and collect resources to make better weapons and gear. Other players are trying to do the same, and you can either work together to take down really powerful enemies, or kill them and steal their stuff. That tension of trying to figure out who is friend and who is foe leads to thrilling back stabbing and hilarious interactions with real people. Sadly, we have kind of fallen off Arc Raiders for two reasons. One is that, as with all multiplayer games these days, people are so good at it now that I don’t feel like I can hang a lot of the time. The other is that Matthew has pivoted to Tarkov, which started the whole extraction shooter thing. Still, the time we spent in Arc was really great and I might go back to it. 

All that being said, when I think about what really sparked joy for me this year it’s actually not a game or a book or a show, it’s discovering and rediscovering a few beers I love. I’m not a huge drinker, and it has taken me a long time to hone in on what I like. As a teen I didn’t enjoy beer or alcohol at all. In college I started to enjoy beer but never partied hard. My wife, who I met in college, is from Chico, California, where they make Sierra Nevada, and I really like it, which led me to try and enjoy other IPAs. It’s around this time that IPAs became extremely uncool so I kind of stopped trying new ones because I didn’t want to embarrass myself. 

About two years ago I saw Joe was really into Grimm and other fancy breweries and decided to give those a shot and got really into IPAs again, including double IPAs, triples, hazy IPAs, etc. I now love going to the beer store, trying a few different cans and keeping notes on what I like, so I’m fully leaning into being an obnoxious IPA guy, embarrassing myself, and I’m loving it. I’m still not good at articulating why I like what I like, but I do want to list some of my favorite beers this year because they made me happy.

Number one with a bullet is Lunch from the Maine Beer Company. I had no idea this brewery existed but I was at Whole Foods and wanted a nice beer so picked it up randomly. It’s expensive but It’s really good, crisp, refreshing, with that great IPA bitter slap in the face. The brewery says it has “Aromas of caramel, orange, papaya, grapefruit, and underlying floral notes, with hints of onion and garlic.” I honestly don’t get any of that but I love it. 

My go to is Other Half’s Broccoli, which is a double dry hopped Imperial IPA. I’ve noticed that a lot of my favorite beers use Mosaic hops, which are in this one. It’s a little sweet and super creamy and it’s the kind of thing I’d rather drink at the end of the day because it’s a big can of 7.9% ABV and honestly that will fuck me up pretty good. 

Lastly, I am mostly over Sierra Nevada’s regular IPA, but it is the holiday, which is the time of year they put out the Celebration Ale, which I think is in competition with any IPA at any super fancy microbrew. This is what I’ll be drinking as I chill during the break. Also, definitely not my go to, but this year Sierra Nevada also put out a pilsner that comes in tiny 8 ounce cans, which is sometimes the size of beer I want because I just want a little bit, or because I want to crush three of them in quick succession. 

JASON: In my life, generally, I have tried not to become too attached to things, and I have generally tried not to buy too many items. I have spent a lot of my career writing about how gadgets are disposable, writing about e-waste, and covering the right to repair movement. All that said, I bought way more things this year than I normally do, and it turns out that I like a lot of them very much. I hope that I do not become a gadget fiend, and I don’t think that I will, but I sort of gave myself a bit of a mulligan this year to buy things that I thought I would use for 404 Media, that I thought I would write about eventually, or that made me feel like I was using technology in a more human way. A lot of the things I bought this year (but by no means all) of the major things I got this year I bought either secondhand from Facebook Marketplace or eBay, and I bought with the express intention of either fixing or using very intentionally. 

This year was also a pretty financially reckless one for me because I got married, and when you do a wedding there’s all sorts of random charges that come up or things that cost more than you expect them to and so I entered a slight bit of “fuck it” mode on my purchases this year that I hope to rein in next year. This is far more stuff than I normally buy but I guess such is life. Anyways, without further ado: 

A thermal label printer: I bought a Rollo wireless thermal label printer just last week, upgrading from a previous label printer I had that I liked very much but which printed only 2x7” labels. The Rollo seems to me like the idiot’s choice for a labelmaker, but I was using one at the place we printed our merch and it simply works very well so I decided to pull the trigger and buy one. I cannot recommend a label printer highly enough. You do not need the Rollo, but I recommend getting one that prints 4x6” labels. Basically, USPS will take 2x7” labels but UPS and FedEx will not, and international shipments require 4x6” labels. I am mailing kind of a lot of things internationally these days (zines, merch), and so printing 4x6” labels on regular paper, cutting, and taping them was becoming quite cumbersome. Anyways, here’s why I recommend a label printer: It makes you into something of a superhero. You do not ever have to wait in line at the post office or at UPS. You can return anything you buy easily. You can mail things to your friends easily (Mail I send my friends has increased exponentially since I got one of these). You can print stickers. It makes you feel like you work at the post office or perhaps at a fulfillment center. But still—it has saved me an incredible amount of time and if you ever mail much of anything at all, I suggest getting one of these. 

A teleprompter: I got an El Gato teleprompter because I read all of the ads for our podcast, and it’s remarkably hard to maintain eye contact with the camera while reading a script, and even hard to memorize a script or ad-lib it. I don’t think very many people need a teleprompter (and there’s some good phone apps that have one built in), but this also has saved me a huge amount of time and stress this year. 

Canon Prima 5 point-and-shoot 35mm camera: I bought this little point-and-shoot at a flea market in Athens for $15. I was almost positive that it was going to be broken, but it wasn’t! I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve gotten into film photography, and that has mostly stayed the case in 2025, but I found myself taking my bulkier SLR out less and less and instead shoving this in my pocket. Point and shoot film cameras are cool again and they’e actually kinda expensive on eBay these days, but this was definitely my bargain bin find of the year.

1984 Monochrome Apple II monitor / a neon sign: I got both of these for aesthetic reasons for the background of my podcast setup but I like them both so much. The Apple monitor was like $125 on eBay and is monochrome green which is very cool. I had to buy a little SD-card video player which was like $20 to play an mp4 file on it, but it’s plug and play and works and looks cool. Neon sign you can see more about here but neon sign was a bucket list item for me and I am happy with it.

Karafun, Lumabooth, Canon Selphy printer: As mentioned, I got married this year and I DIYed both a photobooth and karaoke. Karafun is karaoke software that has basically every song. Lumabooth is a professional photobooth app in the surprisingly expensive photobooth app category, but it’s easy to use, works on a computer or an iPad, and I used it at least four separate times this year for various functions. Canon Selphy printer is pretty cheap for a photo printer but works well and was part of the photobooth setup. I already had a mirrorless camera for the podcast, so we got very good quality photos and saved like, several thousand dollars by DIYing this. 

Riso GR 1750 printer: Have mentioned this endlessly on the podcast and in BTB and I am finally ready to write an actual article about this, but I bought risograph printer from 1995 on eBay and have spent the last three months repairing it. It has been endlessly frustrating but also very rewarding. I cannot recommend you do this. But the level of joy fixing this thing has brought me must be noted. 

Riso zines from Jempol: I found these zines on Reddit and I like them! 

The Negative Space: Super8 film scanning at a fair price based out of Colorado. Recommend if this is something you do. 

Giant Couch: I have wanted a sectional couch for 1,000 years and this year we finally got one on Facebook marketplace. It was the game changer I expected.

I think that’s most of what I bought this year. Random stuff I liked, listened to, subscribed to, etc: 

I did not watch that much TV this year but things I liked: Silo, Plur1bus (with some reservations), Fallout. I watched the Hugh Grant movie Heretic on a plane the other day and I really liked it. Favorite albums I listened to this year include The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still by Hot Mulligan, No Hard Feelings by The Beaches, and Primer, which is the music project of our podcast producer Alyssa Midcalf. A very sad year for me books wise, but would recommend you check out Loud and Clear by my friend Brian Anderson about the Grateful Dead’s wall of sound, A Physical Education by Casey Johnston, Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert, and Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams.

Indie media I like: The Handbasket, Aftermath, Remap Radio (especially the HOA podcast series), Defector, Blood in the Machine, Read Max, LA Taco, Hellgate, The 51st, Taylor Lorenz’s newsletter User Mag, Garbage Day. A lot more but I’m blanking at the moment. Lastly, some good YouTubers: Ancient Americas, Benn Jordan, Let’s Talk Religion. OK, see you next year!