[jboynyc]

This publication was started by Nathan Jurgenson, an American sociologist who was hired by Snapchat out of grad school as a sort of resident theorist. (He was a student of George Ritzer, of "McDonaldization" fame, and applied a similar conceptual framework to digital media, "playbor" etc. Jurgenson also cofounded a conference called Theorizing the Web that in its later years received funding from Snapchat.)

Snapchat provided the funding for Real Life, which has now been discontinued, probably in this context: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/technology/snap-layoffs-r...

As a result, the publication is winding down. (Note the past tense on the about page.)