I Want Substack To Be Worse, Not Better
You Heard Me
Firstly, apologies if you just get this email in your inbox and don’t know about or (rightly) even care about Substack. This will maybe still be a fun read, especially if you enjoy roasting frustrated nerds.
But if you happen to know what a Notes feed is, I am speaking to you:
I don’t think you’re doing self-indulgence correctly. Good God, you like to whine. Whining about AI. Whining about Substack. Linking to midwit thinkpieces whining about both. Scroll down your Notes feed and perform a sentiment analysis. Whiny is the word you are looking for.
Do you remember maybe twenty years ago when people actually still used Facebook and you’d periodically see a colleague or your aunt or someone share a petition with words to the effect, “NO, Facebook. We WON’T pay to use this site! Sign here.” That’s what you all sound like when you whine about the Substack having reels or whatever it happens to be today.
Inevitably, I have a post in my Substack drafts called Neurosis Is The Flight From Authentic Suffering. It’s a Jung quote that speaks to what I see on the Notes. Because I promise that being neurotically upset about Substack is a flight from the thing in your life that is actually upsetting you and screaming out to be alchemised finally. Whatever that is… that would make a great Substack post.
Great because it would be seemingly worse. It would presumably be stripped of the thinkpiece pretensions and fumbling attempts to appear literary. If you want to whine, whine. I’m kinda whining right now if you consider a rant a variant of a whine. (It must be from the whine region of France. Hiyooo.)
This is the way in which I want Substack to be worse. If a single platform is going to steal all of blogging (but at least they kept it alive) then that can’t just include homemade attempts to write like salon.com in its mercifully brief heyday. It must also include the LiveJournal era. Some Substack pieces need to be that unmistakable combination of family recipe, Geocities link round-up and sexual fanfic about a dead celebrity -all in lower case and all somehow in the same post- from blogging’s real peak moment.
What I’m saying is I would like to see platform users doing self-indulgence correctly. Like this. Here, on a post. That will facilitate tangling with what’s actually vexing you that instead comes out as fussy grumbling about things you cannot control and ultimately don’t matter. You are not annoyed that Substack will inevitably include more AI features. You are scared the changes in the world will make it impossible for you to achieve your dreams. But you believed that five years ago, too. Write me a post about that. You’re welcome.
And, really, I’m speaking to myself here. (Substack, innit.) I’m now in my last month in Paraguay before returning to Tasmania for the Spring and Summer. That means firstly I am super busy because my workload now combines with all those lovely tasks that come with moving. But also, again this happens with any move, I’m in my feels a bit about leaving this city and this apartment that I love, even though I can’t open the bathroom window ever because there is a huge beehive right there and the bees swarm the window whenever I turn the light on. This is the view from my balcony. You get it.
And I never know how much personal stuff to include because this Substack is also, I guess, my ‘business newsletter’ that shares Rune Soup content and the podcast and so on. People subbed for magic content, not someone catching feels because they’re moving out of an apartment. The thing is those feels, plus gratitude for this wacky country in general, plus frustration at this highly inefficient country, have been the only things on my heart. Perhaps it’s my fault for not using social media. I can’t just trauma dump in a reel or TikTok or something. (Lol, maybe I will start using Substack’s reels function.)
So that’s the way I want Substack to be worse. As an invitation to myself to make it worse. Not very often. Just occasionally.
Just when it’s whine o’clock.
Yes. I’ve been thinking about this so much, too—just had a fabulous international trip without international cell, and even hotel WiFi didn’t really work because I had a (merciful) phone error that my son only corrected two days before we left. Point being: I had an interruption in the pattern of feeling like every experience had to connect back to the larger meaning-making apparatus in some way, like the connection between minor irritations and privilege. Sometimes things (and people) are just annoying, and underneath that annoyingness is a longing that is much more painful (for all parties, actually, even if they don’t match up—hence, annoying).
I am also moving, and also conflicted and sometimes (now, 5am jet lag, coffee), opened the door to the deck and said to myself “if there is something magical out there it will really mean something” (in addition to the moon over the mountain, a given) and, lo, three huge elk standing right in front of me, two with enormous antlers, not moving. Just looking. The entire town silent. Their visits always feel like a royal emissary has arrived; what to make of that moment I have no clue, but know that I want to cry. In fact, it’s only because of this post that I didn’t blow by those feelings and land back into some information quicksand that totally separated me once again from myself and this experience. Thank you.
Also: kept that Jung quote for future reference. Amazing.
I love you Gordon.
I'm spending all of my social media time on Substack - and you have hit the nail on the head.
Love it.