I wrote a post about scaling back the use of my Substack page on 12/27/23 but, honestly, I pulled some my punches since I didn't want to be banned from using the format format.
How I'm feeling about Substack (and most of the major blogging services) by this point. (Image by storyset on Freepik)
Since I'm ambivalent about whether anyone goes to my Substack page at this point, I'll just repost what I wrote there before delving into how I'm actually feeling about all this:
The Original Post
Based on the output I’ve been posting here, it’s clear I’m not really the Substacking type. So, I’m going to just go ahead and make it official that I’m shifting 99% of my focus in 2024 to my Wix site and will only repost here with the overviews covering what I’ve been doing over there. So expect the trickle to continue for a while…
This is frustrating because when I signed up here, I was expecting this to be my primary blog but clearly this format doesn’t contribute well to that. A lot of that had to do with me not fully understanding that this isn’t a blogging service and that blogs don’t really work in the email newsletter format unless you already have some kind of dedicated following. It reminds me of when I tried Medium for a year: it only works if you either a) have dedicated readers because you’ve been published somewhere else or b) are some kind of grind-monster who’s basically 24/7 selling yourself or your work. I’m neither a professional nor interested in working this beat as a side-hustle. I blog as a hobby since I already have a full-time job.
Simon Reynolds recently posted an opinion piece about blogging over at The Guardian and it captures a good deal of my own feelings on the subject. Blogging, he points out, is a bit of a relic held over from the 2000s. It’s been replaced by social media and podcasting and most readers put there attention over in those realms, rarely engaging with the community that once existed in the comments sections of those blogs. I certainly remember that period since it happened while I was in high school, then college, and then becoming a young professional (2002-2011). I even had a number of aborted blogs on Blogspot and Wordpress (each of them named Ars Nihil, by the way) but life always got in the way of really fleshing them out. I also had roughly the same problem I had with Medium and now Substack: it’s hard to comment effectively on someone else’s work if you don’t have the time, don’t believe you’re adding anything valuable, or feel like you’ve walked into a room with a hundred parrot-people screaming insults and inside jokes at each other. There’s too much going on in the real world - I never need that aggravation when I come online to escape it.
(And this isn’t even addressing that whole recent controversy this place has been dealing with lately…)
Like Reynolds, I like blogging since it allows me to channel my weirdness into something more productive. He summed it up nicely by writing:
I miss the inter-blog chatter of the 2000s, but in truth, connectivity was only ever part of the appeal. I’d do this even if no one read it. Blogging, for me, is the perfect format. No restrictions when it comes to length or brevity: a post can be a considered and meticulously composed 3,000-word essay, or a spurted splat of speculation or whimsy. No rules about structure or consistency of tone. A blogpost can be half-baked and barely proved: I feel zero responsibility to “do my research” before pontificating. Purely for my own pleasure, I do often go deep. But it’s nearer the truth to say that some posts are outcomes of rambles across the archives of the internet, byproducts of the odd information trawled up and the lateral connections created.
I enjoy writing but I’d also really love it if I could get more people to read it regularly without needing to pimp myself to achieve that. I get that The Grind basically requires you do that but I’m not here selling self-help seminars, muscle enhancers, or my questionable artwork. I write because I love it. I read because I’m interested in other people’s thoughts and takes. I learn because of these things. Connection should’ve been the purpose behind all of this but instead we’re still screaming and advertising.
At least with my Wix blog, I don’t have to deal with all that shit. I can just post whatever weird-ass thing comes into my orbit and hope that somebody else wants to learn more. Should I figure out how to do SEO better? Maybe, but I have little interest in monetizing. I have other plans for those goals that don’t involve me making posts about the 500 articles I’ve save in Pocket for four months or all sorts of random subjects (old dead poets, backgammon, eggs, disco, survivors of plane falls, pilcrows, etc.). [1] I already hate how social media is so focused on arguments and sales pitches - blogging’s supposed to be the respite from those things.
So, yeah, 2024’s posts are going to focus (almost) exclusively on my main blog and just getting back into the groove of posting there with more frequency. No guarantees I’ll be regular with those entries but I’ll keep trying. While I’m not deleting this Substack page (perhaps against better judgement), don’t expect anything more than just summaries directing you to the other place. I blog because I need to dump things from my brain and wish to share what I find. I can no longer do that through this place or its format of choice.
This isn’t a goodbye but rather a “Catch you on the flip side.”
[1] Those particular eggs are going into the “I’m writing a novel” bucket, something I’m now getting more serious about after two decades of fits and starts.
Thoughts Not Mentioned (Pardon the Rambles)
I've been unimpressed with Substack for the past year for the same reason I was frustrated with Medium: the disconnect to what is promised versus what you're actually getting. Both are/were touted as cleaner, more efficient ways to blog and get eyeballs on your work. What actually occurs (as with everything else online these days) is that only the established or the grubby get anything out of it.
Used to work for the New York Times? Great, you already have readers.
Trying to sell some self-help seminars or boner pills? Promote yourself in a hundred other comments sections like an 8-hour job and you might get something eventually.
If what you're selling sounds like something that'd appear on the podcast If Books Could Kill, I'm not interested in taking you seriously.
I'm not doing this for financial gain - I write because I enjoy the process of writing, wish to bolster my writing skills into something better, and share whatever geeky thing is taking up space in my brain at the moment.
Oddly enough, the best place to blog I've tried was also the one that didn't really promote writing: Tumblr. While I didn't mention it in my Substack post, it was my most successful blog for a while and I usually enjoyed posting/reposting pictures and albums on there.
Even though I was outside of the intended demographic - it catered to teens while I was in my mid-to-late twenties - the vibes were pretty good save for the problematic bits (seeing my feed filled with Steven Universe fans arguing with each other daily about a show I've never watched was irritating). It was still a long way better than where I went to kill time (Anonymous-era 4chan, 2004-2009). Some residual cringe due to the passing of time has been felt, maybe, but never severe depression due to the lack of faith in humanity I used to feel before then.
Finding out that Substack's got an Nazi problem and their leadership's lackluster response has given me serious pause about using it ever again. I might just park my ass here on Wix and maybe get my own domain with Ghost.io at some point in the near future.
Aside from finding those views morally reprehensible and viscerally disgusting, I have loved ones who are/would be actively targeted by those groups on multiple fronts. If there's any more traction for this shit, I know some people who'll be dead before I can even say goodbye to them. This isn't just about sour grapes. This is legitimately dangerous.
Similarly, these sites (Substack, Medium, etc.) often feel like just social media with the capability to blog but not as blogging services themselves like Blogspot or Wordpress. They simplified the older models but it feels like a deal with the devil was made in exchange to treat it like Facebook or Twitter and I don't want that. Just simpler blogging, please.
I sometimes think about it like someone holding out a bunch of dog treats and all of the writers are trying to be "the doggies" who bark the loudest for those treats...
Rant time: It kills me whenever someone wants to drag out Free Speech to bludgeon any criticism towards something they've said or done. Did something change from when I took civics in high school? My understanding is that free speech in the context everyone wants to use it is a.) specific to how it's described in the United States Constitution (which only governs one country in the whole world and doesn't apply outside said country) and b.) only pertains legally to how the U.S. Federal Government cannot take action against someone for something they've said or written.
It doesn't actually absolve anyone from accountability or consequences socially for something they've expressed. It doesn't stop businesses from deciding they don't want you associated with them. It doesn't mean you can just insult and threaten anyone with no repercussions. It just means the U.S. government can't jail or fine you for what you've said. Nothing more, nothing less.
Put more simply:
If you're acting like an asshole on a particular website, that website's allowed within their rights to kick you off and ban you for life. If you don't like that, tough shit - they're a business and the most you can do is either move on or boycott.
I'd also be allowed to call you out in the comments and say that you're being an asshole, which you can either ignore me or throw a fucking tantrum like a toddler.
If it's my own blog, I can just tell you to piss off and block you myself.
The U.S. Government wouldn't be allowed to enact any punishment towards you, though, except shrug and say "Out of my jurisdiction."
Just because they can't do anything about bad behavior online doesn't mean the rest of us have to lie down and just take the abuse.
The stuff about Simon Reynolds's Guardian post mostly applies but I'll also admit that my lack of readership was due to laziness on my part. I'm guilty of not spending time in properly engaging with other bloggers and communicating with them in a way that attracts readers, something I'm remedying in 2024.
Being more a general-focus blog also doesn't help (specialist blogs tend to get more interest) but, like I said before: I want to get readers but also want to talk about whatever's interesting to me first. It'd be great to build that readership organically and I'm certain that trying to grub my way to one is going to be counter-productive overall. Fingers crossed that I can make that turnaround without too much trouble.
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