Hi, I'm Meg. I write about what I see.
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
It’s incredible how she can always be funny, incisive, and eloquent, all at once. Actually, it’s maddening that she’s this good.
Benjamin E. Park, Historian
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
A masterwork on modern capitalism, care work, and sexism, honestly. Subscribe and pay for it—worth every penny.
Lane Anderson, Matriarchy Report
Companies like Google, Meta and OpenAI want us to believe our attention is a commodity that belongs to the highest bidder. But attention is really a reality shaper. What we pay attention to determines what we observe. And what we observe frames our existence.
The people in charge of platforms know this. They want to use algorithms and AI to construct a reality that profits them even as it impoverishes our present and future. I don't think we should let them.
Pocket Observatory is a space where we can reclaim our attention from the attention economy.
Mary Oliver said, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
To pay attention is to attend. And to attend is to stretch toward in the way a supplicant stretches forward in supplication. Here, I share my observations about what we attend to and what attends to us.
My instruments of observation fit inside my skirt pocket - a pencil, a pad of paper, a camera.
I use my pocket observatory to collect old light from trending topics, detect atomic insights in kitchen crumbs and listen for the cultural frequencies moving through us all.
My work has been featured in:
Publications like Harper’s Bazaar, Slate, and the Guardian US.
Books like Jessica Grose’s Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood and Pooja Lakshmin’s Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included)
Podcasts like Vox’s Today, Explained and NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders and documentaries like The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe
Hello Fellow Observer!
One observation on its own is a curiosity. But enough observations from enough people over enough years can help map a corner of existence.
If we're going to observe a new reality, we need many pocket observatories attending to many different possibilities. Pocket Observatory readers are fellow observers.
Free Subscribers
My writing covers everything from capitalism to care work to chives. Every subscriber has access to all public pieces.
Pocket Observatory Members
Pocket Observatory couldn't exist without you. Thank you.
- Access to The Observatorium, my dynamic archive.
- Membership to The Pocket Observation Project, the individual social research project that helps you pay attention.
Pocket Observatory in an independent website, run by a single person - me. It requires hundreds of hours of work each month.
I am not funded by data-hungry venture capitalists. I do not collect your data and sell it to the highest bidder. I do not host third-party ads that track your online habits. I only make money when my readers pay me.
If you value my work, consider financially supporting it once in a while or once a month. Every penny helps keep Pocket Observatory open.
