Hey, Substack, what have you be up t-
Okay, so I guess in the few years since I've checked on Substack, things have certainly gotten worse there. To be fair, I just couldn't vibe with it when I heard about it and tried it a while back. At first I was excited to make a list of writers to subscribe to, this grand idea I would start every day at my dining table with a wonderful coffee(I am pretty amazing at making coffee, not gonna lie), in my satin robe(the damn thing broke trying to contain my tits and I'm to lazy to repair it), sun shining on me as I checked my minimal deviceâ„¢ and read through my chic little brain food articles, after an hour of this I'm on the cutting edge of what's hot, cool, and I know what is starting to get cheugy, and I put it all down to start my yoga routine once the clock chimes 7am.
Okay, back to the real world. That dog in me did indeed quit after a couple days, and quite frankly I take little blame for this. This shit is often boring! The interesting articles my favorite youtubers were talking about are not happening nearly as often as I was hoping! And even worse, my broke ass is being hounded left and right to throw a dime their way before I'm even settled in enough to feel it's justified. (By the way, I do think I'm going to pay for premium on Bearblog here soon, but I don't really have much use for the extra features, it would just be to show support. Is there a way I can just donate, or am I playing myself for even suggesting that?)
In regards to the actual stuff I tried to read on substack, it was hard to sift through the muck, at least what I would consider muck personally, to find newsletters that offered something to read that felt not only relevant to my own life, but providing novel insight that justified me taking the time to read through as much as these people love to write. And hey, good for them, I recognize these people are putting down just as many words as I am here but with more pizazz and a college degree to boot. But often I felt like these people were as out of touch as a lot of these "pseudo-intellectual commentary youtubers" that I've been seeing more of(who are often just parroting these articles anyway...). It's just exhausting. I want to hang out with the cool and smart kids too, and I love a good theory or whatever, but often this all feels more like a subculture that is straying from its roots in data, analysis of that data, well-researched topics or people with personal experiences of something niche and interesting, to just grabbing onto hot topics with nary a google to see if perhaps a trend is rooted in something deeper or if history is repeating itself. I know it's shocking to hear, but I actually don't need a youtuber freaking out over how wasteful labubus are as if that's some sort of news to me. And wouldn't you know it, I don't need another substack fashionista waxing poetic in her essay as to why fast fashion is bad and getting worse. When you are online, "spreading awareness" means nothing here unless you're talking directly to the Labubu and Temu collector in her DMs. As for me, I've got better shit to read, quite frankly.
And that isn't to say Substack doesn't have potential. It's partially my fault for not sifting through them all to find the gems. But good god, there's a lot to sift through and it's hard to even know how to sift. And the elephant in the room is now I'm reading there are actual as in actual Nazis on the platform with little chances of them leaving. I know, it's a little lame to police a platform over opinions but this is the hard line, because after this line gets crossed you become twitter or 4chan, with a userbase so insufferable that it's impossible for normal and civil discourse to thrive. I'm pretty open-minded but the older I get the more I understand that a privately owned platform that wants to seem usable to the 90+% of normal people has to take a stand against the small percentage of extremists (and I mean the real ones, the ones that harbor the hatred of antiquity and call for extermination, not some annoying guy with shitty politics) and be directly hostile to them. As I see it, there really is no other way, in practice you just can't choose both. Standards are needed to ensure quality.
Worse still, these users (or newsletters? idk) were making money off their subscribers. This platform was helping people like this pay their bills through textbook hate speech. I'm not sure how this company thought this would ensure their platform was profitable. A lot of people jumped ship and took a lot of money away from the platform, not to mention you're making the website radioactive to a lot of potential customers. Yeah, maybe the grift can make some cash here and there, but I wouldn't call 4chan or twitter incredibly profitable businesses. Did they think trump was going to give them money for being cool with his fanbase or something? lol, I'm kidding, but maybe I'm not wrong...100 mill in funding (remember, this money is effectively a loan, though) and a 1 bil valuation is CRAZY, and fully a sign of the times. There is a certain type of people in power right now that couldn't care less the politically extremist reputation of the website and it's hard not to speculate this type of person actually adores the platform for it's ability to not only keep these accounts untouched but to skim their money in the process. But with all the money today, I see little to no longevity among most normal people. What is here that anyone really wants, that isn't looking for a newsletter that echos their fringe belief system? Normies go to youtube, or instagram, or whatever quick and easy spot they can scroll through some quick dopamine. The whole reading a set of paragraphs thing is really only fun to those who remember hanging out on the computer or who like to read books for actual fun. It's a weird spot to try and attract qanon schizos who dream of a "traditional life" from their decaying apartment or lonely men on their homestead that only connect online once a month to mass download books on soulseek and make about 3 posts on an imageboard. If I had to guess, substack is hoping for the collapse of the current social media giants so that they can swoop in and be the new scroll-candy, since it seems they didn't think the whole collapse of mainstream journalism websites through (they aren't collapsing from lack of interest or desire for an alternative, people are just not paying them any money to read their articles). One billion fucking dollars for what is effectively Blogger without the customization options but a more streamlined way to monetize. I can see the vision but I don't see it thriving yet, and at this point I'm happy about that. What do you mean "RSS feed except I overpay" isn't going to be popular? What if all these powerful people think it's cool?
God, and can I just say that the more people there that are professional in any other way than what is appropriate for the articles (aka I want journalists, sociology majors, literature majors talking about their areas or expertise or putting their degrees to use, I don't want grifting podcaster #56 talking about how he would solve all politics in america) the shittier this place will become, and fast. I'm not saying I want Literal Who's making articles about The Culture War, but I don't want some grifting politician with a ghost writer adding gunk in there either. I'm really so glad not to be a part of this, but if things are true about the scope of influence increasing (but in what circles?) I worry I'm going to get infected by its disease either way. That's how it all seems to work these days, and I know I sound like an old loony when I say that, but I was around when the term "Demisexual" was first used in a fanfiction (most likely by someone in their teens) and the term circulated on tumblr, and now I'm living in a world where I encounter people in the wild who identify as such. I was there when a huge amount of tumblr accounts that had been known to sow discourse between left leaning people about minor disagreements about what was precisely morally correct were outed as part of russian misinformation campaigns. Much of what these russian accounts tried to start infighting about are still starting infights today. I remember when a lot of right wing podcasters were exposed as paid russian government shills. And yet, these people suffer no real consequences, and a lot of them still got their bag, and they get all their talking points parroted by not only annoying normies, but actual people in government power. I'm going to be a little paranoid when I see the patterns come into view.
As usual, I'm in the winning for the "longest bearblog post" contest. But past all this, Substack is just too annoying and in-your-face about needing your money on a platform level. God damn, those emails. I don't hear much about the interface adding features or reworking its design to make for a better user experience, which since it doesn't really claim to be minimal and seems to be rather rolling in cash at the moment indicates a slack in improving the platform for their users on a base level. Simple is fine when it's solid, but extra features can also be easy to digest as a user if the features serve the purpose of the website. At the very least, add some fun and weird shit like "this newsletter is blocked by 12045 users" or something like that to add interesting metrics any visitor could look at to see where the newsletter stood among the userbase, maybe throw a dislike button or a star rating you could give when logged in, or a reddit-like voting system. What, scared of a little democracy? Lol, I'd say full anon-enabled message systems like tumblr if I could figure how that would fit into the format. If you're going to enable the most hateable people on the planet, at least add some PVP! I know they got the money for this! Oh wait, they can't even get their notification system to work right...
I can't tell you what to do I suppose but if you're just begging to read spicy thoughtcrimes there are better ways, and if you genuinely feel like your speech is being suppressed in some way I would genuinely consider not only talking with the people in your real life circle but really looking into the science, history, what have you that is informing the supposed controversial way you feel. Maybe you are right, I don't know, but you're going to have to not only show the facts that back that up but seriously consider the opposing arguments with empathy. No one cares about something you just copied from some internet dingus or that you just decided one day out of vibes. Put yourself on trial before other people do so and they refuse to let you meaningfully represent yourself. Also, uh, being a literal card-carrying nazi is just goofy 15-year-old edgy boy shit. That one has so much shit disproving it, which you are welcome to research, but come on man. Is the american education system really this bad now? Who am I kidding, of course it is.
Of course it is.
Is it any wonder a place that gives information the platform and set-dressing of actual journalism is prone to groups of people whose entire belief systems are made on a foundation of misinformation?
(Like much of the internet, the cult of personality has big, big numbers just begging for a place to posture erratic thinking. Wouldn't you know it, someone these days wants to profit off that desire.)