Inside Anne Helen Petersen’s Community of Anonymous Nerds

In 2021, writer Anne Helen Petersen made a bold decision: She and her partner decided to move from Montana to Lummi Island, a nine-square-mile piece of land off the coast of Washington State only accessible by ferry. Sure, the location was pretty remote, and the closest big-box grocery store was a boat ride away. But the reason for her move was what raised a few eyebrows: Petersen relocated so she could live near her best friend. Two additional friends followed suit and bought homes nearby soon after. “I am the least lonely I’ve been in a long time in my adult life, which is an interesting thing to say when you live on an island of 900 full-time residents,” she says now.

Because of that move, the topic of friendship has begun to pop up more and more in her uber-popular Substack newsletter, Culture Study, which has more than 200,000 subscribers, plus a related podcast. It covers topics that mirror Petersen’s interests and daily life, including pop-culture analysis, productivity, and anything that might fall under the umbrella of “culture.” A former academic with a PhD in media studies, Petersen became known online for her multi-thousand-word features on topics like millennial burnout and the cool-girl phenomenon, and has also written books covering the power of remote work and the “can’t even” generation.

But as Petersen began to prioritize friendship more and more in her real life, she couldn’t stop thinking about what we lose by not making those relationships a pivotal part of our lives. “I'm a personal essayist at heart, and what's going on in my own life always influences what I'm writing and thinking about in the newsletter,” she says.

In November 2023, Petersen published a piece called “The Friendship Dip,” discussing a new survey¹ that found people in their 30s and 40s have fewer close friends than people in their 60s. “The way our society is organized, we have a prolonged stretch of adulthood that is not conducive to forging or sustaining friendship or community,” Petersen wrote. “In many cases, I’d say it’s actually hostile to it.” The Friendship Dip, as she calls it, is the stage in life where family and professional obligations take priority over social calendars, ultimately contributing to deep and pervasive loneliness.