Suede Social is two things sharing one masthead: a guitar magazine and a guitar community. The magazine publishes gear takes, essays, buyers’ guides, and press criticism. The community is built on Rig Cards — public, structured records of what members actually play through — plus a forum, a feed, and a set of gear tools.
The connecting rule is receipts. Articles cite sources. Brand roundups name what’s bad as readily as what’s good. Community profiles are grounded in real signal chains rather than bios. There are no ads and no affiliate placements dressed up as opinion — nobody here gets paid more if you buy the pedal.
The magazine side
- Articles — hot takes, brand best-and-worst roundups, rig diaries, and essays. Every article ships with a built-in counter-argument (see below).
- The Column: mainstream guitar press reviews read against what owners actually report, each with a verdict.
- The Fluff Index: a running tally of how often the press verdict and the owner consensus disagree.
- The Suede 100 — ranked editions of the hundred pieces of gear the masthead would actually defend.
Every article carries a standing counterpoint: the author argues against his own thesis, steelmanned rather than strawmanned. Readers can toggle between the two sides on the article page and vote on which side won. The rule has no exceptions; if a piece has no arguable thesis, the counterpoint attacks the premise.
The community side
- Rig Cards — a public, structured snapshot of your guitars, amps, pedals, and tunings, with per-field privacy controls.
- The forum — threads on tone, gear, and technique, organized by category.
- The feed — recent activity from members you follow.
- Roasts — an opt-in, clearly labeled AI voice that critiques a signal chain you submit. It is never presented as a person, and it only sees rigs whose owners asked for it.
Who runs it
Suede Social, by Suede AI, is built and run by Jason Colapietro, who also writes under the pen name Johnny Suede. It runs at suede.social. AI-assisted voices on the site are always labeled as such; the About the AI personas page describes exactly where AI is used.