I’ve tried Substack twice. I really gave it a go. Both times I barreled through the saloon doors full of optimism and good will, convinced it was the right platform to share my writing. Both times it took only a few months before I started to loathe the place. (I don’t know why I came back a second time thinking it would be a different experience than the first.)

The main reason I felt it was an option for me is that I mistakenly thought it would give me an audience. This was a mistake in two regards.

First: it doesn’t. It suffers from the same “look at me” problem of every other social media platform. Everyone is trying to be somebody. Everyone is trying to be the smartest. Everyone is interested in virality. It’s all about what is next. Every interaction has some type of transactional motive behind it. There is also the problem of these spaces themselves becoming a main topic of conversation: people on Substack talking about Substack. It feels so empty.

Second: fuck having an audience. This was a trap I fell into. I don’t want an audience. I don’t really care. I don’t want likes or comments or to have a conversation. I’m sorry. I want to make things and document and organize what I’m thinking. I want to share those things, but that’s different than having an audience as defined by these platforms. Again, it all becomes transactional and pandering and full of carnival barkers. Fuck having an audience.

There are many good people and excellent writers on Substack. I will continue most of my newsletter subscriptions. But for me, as a writer, it’s not a place I will participate again. I am opting out. I don’t want to subject myself to any kind of “platform” like that again. I don’t want to be one of a billion heads of cattle grazing in someone else’s pasture. Making moos. Mooing alongside the beef next to me. Them mooing back, but I can’t hear it over the other mooing. Mooing just to moo. Mooing with a Subscribe brand on my ass. A cacophony of same.

So I will put my writing, all of it, here, on this site. I don’t know what that looks like specifically, but I know it feels good and right and free.

A lot of what I put here might be meta-commentary about what I put here and how I do it because I’m figuring it out as I go. That might seem hypocritical considering my disgust at the meta-commentary on platforms like Substack. But I don’t care. I’ll do what I want and do it for myself. I don’t want the guardrails. My meta-commentary will be about exploration, not captivity.

I’d rather be part of the counterculture. That’s what feels right for me. And always has.

So:
I will make my art
I will organize my thoughts
I will blast those into the void
I will do it on my own terms