QuarterlyGems (aka QG) is an attempt to reclaim much of what makes the Internet great and resist aspects that have led us astray. We're not here to optimize for "engagement" metrics or harvest your private data or subject you to fake bot reviews. We're here to help you discover culture from the people who matter to you. Then you can get offline and go enjoy these recommendations, not to mention all of the other great things the real world has to offer.
QuarterlyGems is purposefully meant to be "low engagement." We only want you to use this platform once every three months. This approach is meant to be a provocative counterpoint to large social media platforms that optimize for "engagement" (read: addiction) by combining advertising-based business models + machine learning and by design exploiting our frail human psychology to manipulate us to spend more and more time online. QuarterlyGems is designed to do pretty much the opposite. The real world is pretty cool and we just want to help you enjoy it.
You know the feeling: you just spent [redacted] hours scrolling through pithy and gratuitously crafted "content." Some of it was funny. Most was dumb (or maybe "mid" as the cool kids say these days?). And you just don't feel very good about yourself. Contrast that to the feeling of finishing a good book or watching a thought-provoking movie or eating a great meal—and then sharing those experiences with your friends. We want more of the latter, and (a lot) less of the former.
We think a single recommendation from someone you actually trust is more meaningful than a giant review ballot box stuffed by extremely-online randos (and bots) who might be shilling for Big Whatever. When everything's rated between 4.2 and 4.8 stars, that's just noise with extra steps. Our hot take: scarcity breeds authenticity. By limiting folks to one gem per quarter, we're forcing some actual thought into the process. No more mindless star-mashing—just genuine, intentional recommendations that might actually be worth your precious time.
This is a simple product where recommendations are:
Seriously. If you stick around on this site too long then we did it wrong. We'd prefer you go read a (recommended) book under a tree. Or see a (recommended) movie with a friend. Or listen to a (recommended) podcast while you stroll through the park. Or just go outside and touch some grass and listen to the birds. And we'll see you in a few months.
P.S. QuarterlyGems also exists because Matt Sly was itching to make something new and wanted to experiment with writing code with AI, which is pretty crazy. And yes, AI helped edit some of the content on this page too.