This is a great analysis! I agree completely that there’s something distinctive about how Substack makes longform writing into a social experience, and how desperately people have wanted this online—prior to Substack, it really felt like there was (almost) “nowhere to go” if you wanted a social media style experience alongside a true commitment to the written word. Not images, not video (even though I’m a very visually oriented person!)
I’m very excited about the quantity and quality of the writing here, and the optimism testifies to an unmet need in the social media and “content creation” landscape. I’ve seen a lot of anxieties about how Substack Notes are too much like social media, how the follower feature will cannibalise subscriber numbers (which btw I think is a false and myopic fear, but that’s a totally different topic)…but overall I think it’s been very positive, precisely because it cultivates the community around writing that writers NEED in order to continue working. As you said, writers don’t need much, but they need something. People don’t want to write into a void, and people who are not vloggers or Instagrammers (like WHY do I need to take a photo or record a video just to discuss a book I like!) want a different way to communicate with each other!
Thank you! I agree with your point about writers needing an infrastructure that keeps them going, and there's a whole tangent I left out of the post about that. Pretty much, video, photography, and other visual mediums operate within a self-sustaining mechanism that incentivizes and bolsters their creation. For example, a person can consistently make quality videos, and based on a certain outcome—whether it be engagement through likes, views, or even monetary benefit through endorsements and brand deals—it will provide them with the validation, motivation, and sometimes resources to make even better videos, resulting in even more beneficial outcomes, and so on and so on...
I’m not saying these rewards are in any way necessary, but having an environment where the outcomes of writing alone are enough to motivate one to sustain the effort they pour into their work without also having to outsource energy creating within a medium they don’t like much to begin with would be something worth getting excited about. To your point, you don’t see instagrammers or vloggers using writing to funnel people to their work nearly as much as you see it the other way around: writers forced to moonlight as short-form video content creators simply because writing cannot sustain itself as a creative practice through external validation of any kind, but perhaps through likes, followers, paid subscribers on here this is changing a little bit.
It’s been interesting to read a “long timer’s” perspective, though after a bit more than a year on Substack I don’t think of myself as a newcomer, either. I am a little taken aback by the fairly recent tone of positive elation, but then again, the Substack algorithm also led me to this post. I still don’t know if any media platform that could match the discovery vibe of walking down the stacks in a library, but, I am grateful for Substack for the same reasons you’ve mentioned—it’s serving an audience starved for more word content, and a place to write from. So, we adapt, I guess.
I think there’s a lot to be said for this recent vibe shift being an “inevitable honeymoon phase”—and I guess we don’t know yet what comes after. I’m always curious to see how long the new star authors last with posting frequently and drumming up enthusiasm. For a while, I followed Margaret Atwood with interest, in part bc we live in the same city and her take on local politics was funny, but I get the idea she’s got other things going on these days.
However, it’s hard to argue that this strategy of bringing in big names works to grow the overall audience pool of the platform, and for writers, I think that’s good. If there’s something writers want it is readers—not just any readers, even, but “our” readers. People who will engage with the words in a meaningful way, who will be touched by them, etc etc. Outside of the now long gone heyday of LiveJournal, I can’t think of another platform where writers and readers could discover one another and engage in fairly organic ways, which did not need to be driven by “promoting your blog on insta” or whatever. Substack is doing this better than all the other platforms, at least for now, and I’m hoping that the possibilities for community building on here will allow writers to keep it that way.
Sure, there are also problems with this rapid growth spurt; I could name any number of issues, from slow (or nonexistent) tech support to rather opaque guidelines on who gets to try out new shiny features (I’ve been wanting that automated AI reading my post thing from the get go and still haven’t heard back from “the team”), but on balance, for a free to use app, I’d say this is a very conscientious effort for a commercial enterprise. Maybe that’s not so bad, after all. :)
From my experience, the enjoyment of reading an established author’s novels doesn’t always translate to reading their work on here. Writing a newsletter usually calls for more personable and consistent output, which is much different than popping up once every few years to promote a book and then fading back into hermeticism until the next one. That’s why some big-name authors drop off or don’t even try Substack at all. To your point, this allows room for other writers to build a readership that feels like their own, validating writers and writing that are not already traditionally published successes. A conscientious effort, for sure, flaws and all
Is it taboo to talk about the reasonable assumption that the Substack Notes algorithm promotes content that is pro-Substack? Is there really a happy vibe, or are we being shown people who are taking their cues (consciously or not) from what is rewarded visibility and simply doing the same?
Honestly, if so, even though it sounds manipulative, that’s a huge plus for Substack in my opinion. We’ve seen what social media looks like when it relies on promoting content that triggers “sticky emotions” like outrage, anxiety, and depression. It sucks! We scroll longer and they make money, but it’s vampiric!
To intentionally use your algorithm to offer an alternative online experience, one where we feel welcomed, included, passionate, curious, and prosocial? Points in my book.
Of course they’re transitioning to a model where they own your subscribers (can’t take your “Followers” with you when you jump ship to the next underground spot, but you could take your email list), and I have no doubt some portion of my views, likes and subscribers are bots who are designed to boost my consistent engagement on the site… but I really like it here.
Glad to have been directed to your lovely and incisive analysis on this night I’m stuck awake. Cheers!
...great read and breakdown of "the moment"...even with the best hopes and interests in mind "social media" eventually eats itself...not sure if it is the media or society as the cause but it is hard to keep "nice" things nice...i'm headed off to play on my favorite social media app now...lunch with a friend at a deli...
Totally agree with this! I’m new here and not technically a ‘writer’ just someone exploring a journey with capitalism. And I find the whimsical writers positivity in the notes really discombobulating because I’m worried I’m going to get sucked into wanting to be a whimsical writer when I know I don’t 😅 I like the idea that non writers can express themselves here because we need a spectrum of types of people on any platform, particularly one with thought leaders on.
But I also do love that I can post a still picture of some flowers I saw and that might gain as much traction as if I tried to film a video of myself on instagram for way more effort. I feel like one like on here is worth 100 on instagram now a bit like inflation 😅 I had a re stack with a note the other day and I thought I might pass out. It’s definitely refreshing.
But a cyclical head definitely needs to be screwed on. I also feel skeptical reading Substack owners pieces about Substack and I’m like yes it’s about passion sure but you’re about bottom line at the end of the day and let’s not pretend you’re not.
Anyway I’m rambling as I said not a writer but I love this post!
Thank you! I feel the same way about one like on here feeling like a hundred on instagram. It’s interesting to think about why that is. I think it says a lot about what we value and our connection to what we post here compared to there.
Agree wholeheartedly with this post. For me it’s two things:
1) Just the novelty of encountering other people online thinking thoughts that require more than 280 characters. After a decade of Twitter I’d almost started doubting where most people could do it.
2) Every week when I send out my post I get a few people writing personally to respond to it, and it feels more like getting a handwritten note in the mail than “a reply to a post.” Something very personal about it. Good vibes.
I should clarify— I like it here, and I’m very much thankful it’s here, and I’m glad to be here. And I’m glad to hear that you’re fired up about it! There are very good reasons to be fired up. And it’s definitely been a while since I’ve seen any ugliness, I’m happy to say. Of course, that’s partly because I unsubscribed to a bunch of cranks across the spectrum, thus now avoiding a lot of it, and also some of the biggest grousers actually left, with weeks of fanfare, earlier this year.
For what it’s worth— I was here when notes started, and this forced grin “up with people” vibe has always been here. If it makes people happy, it’s okay with me. But I found that a lot of the same people were eager to jump into the ugliness when we had various substack controversies and all of a sudden everybody felt they had to take a side. This happened three or four times over maybe a two year period.
Right now things are calm, but I’ve seen this movie before.
This is a great analysis! I agree completely that there’s something distinctive about how Substack makes longform writing into a social experience, and how desperately people have wanted this online—prior to Substack, it really felt like there was (almost) “nowhere to go” if you wanted a social media style experience alongside a true commitment to the written word. Not images, not video (even though I’m a very visually oriented person!)
I’m very excited about the quantity and quality of the writing here, and the optimism testifies to an unmet need in the social media and “content creation” landscape. I’ve seen a lot of anxieties about how Substack Notes are too much like social media, how the follower feature will cannibalise subscriber numbers (which btw I think is a false and myopic fear, but that’s a totally different topic)…but overall I think it’s been very positive, precisely because it cultivates the community around writing that writers NEED in order to continue working. As you said, writers don’t need much, but they need something. People don’t want to write into a void, and people who are not vloggers or Instagrammers (like WHY do I need to take a photo or record a video just to discuss a book I like!) want a different way to communicate with each other!
Thank you! I agree with your point about writers needing an infrastructure that keeps them going, and there's a whole tangent I left out of the post about that. Pretty much, video, photography, and other visual mediums operate within a self-sustaining mechanism that incentivizes and bolsters their creation. For example, a person can consistently make quality videos, and based on a certain outcome—whether it be engagement through likes, views, or even monetary benefit through endorsements and brand deals—it will provide them with the validation, motivation, and sometimes resources to make even better videos, resulting in even more beneficial outcomes, and so on and so on...
I’m not saying these rewards are in any way necessary, but having an environment where the outcomes of writing alone are enough to motivate one to sustain the effort they pour into their work without also having to outsource energy creating within a medium they don’t like much to begin with would be something worth getting excited about. To your point, you don’t see instagrammers or vloggers using writing to funnel people to their work nearly as much as you see it the other way around: writers forced to moonlight as short-form video content creators simply because writing cannot sustain itself as a creative practice through external validation of any kind, but perhaps through likes, followers, paid subscribers on here this is changing a little bit.
It’s been interesting to read a “long timer’s” perspective, though after a bit more than a year on Substack I don’t think of myself as a newcomer, either. I am a little taken aback by the fairly recent tone of positive elation, but then again, the Substack algorithm also led me to this post. I still don’t know if any media platform that could match the discovery vibe of walking down the stacks in a library, but, I am grateful for Substack for the same reasons you’ve mentioned—it’s serving an audience starved for more word content, and a place to write from. So, we adapt, I guess.
I think there’s a lot to be said for this recent vibe shift being an “inevitable honeymoon phase”—and I guess we don’t know yet what comes after. I’m always curious to see how long the new star authors last with posting frequently and drumming up enthusiasm. For a while, I followed Margaret Atwood with interest, in part bc we live in the same city and her take on local politics was funny, but I get the idea she’s got other things going on these days.
However, it’s hard to argue that this strategy of bringing in big names works to grow the overall audience pool of the platform, and for writers, I think that’s good. If there’s something writers want it is readers—not just any readers, even, but “our” readers. People who will engage with the words in a meaningful way, who will be touched by them, etc etc. Outside of the now long gone heyday of LiveJournal, I can’t think of another platform where writers and readers could discover one another and engage in fairly organic ways, which did not need to be driven by “promoting your blog on insta” or whatever. Substack is doing this better than all the other platforms, at least for now, and I’m hoping that the possibilities for community building on here will allow writers to keep it that way.
Sure, there are also problems with this rapid growth spurt; I could name any number of issues, from slow (or nonexistent) tech support to rather opaque guidelines on who gets to try out new shiny features (I’ve been wanting that automated AI reading my post thing from the get go and still haven’t heard back from “the team”), but on balance, for a free to use app, I’d say this is a very conscientious effort for a commercial enterprise. Maybe that’s not so bad, after all. :)
From my experience, the enjoyment of reading an established author’s novels doesn’t always translate to reading their work on here. Writing a newsletter usually calls for more personable and consistent output, which is much different than popping up once every few years to promote a book and then fading back into hermeticism until the next one. That’s why some big-name authors drop off or don’t even try Substack at all. To your point, this allows room for other writers to build a readership that feels like their own, validating writers and writing that are not already traditionally published successes. A conscientious effort, for sure, flaws and all
Is it taboo to talk about the reasonable assumption that the Substack Notes algorithm promotes content that is pro-Substack? Is there really a happy vibe, or are we being shown people who are taking their cues (consciously or not) from what is rewarded visibility and simply doing the same?
Honestly, if so, even though it sounds manipulative, that’s a huge plus for Substack in my opinion. We’ve seen what social media looks like when it relies on promoting content that triggers “sticky emotions” like outrage, anxiety, and depression. It sucks! We scroll longer and they make money, but it’s vampiric!
To intentionally use your algorithm to offer an alternative online experience, one where we feel welcomed, included, passionate, curious, and prosocial? Points in my book.
Of course they’re transitioning to a model where they own your subscribers (can’t take your “Followers” with you when you jump ship to the next underground spot, but you could take your email list), and I have no doubt some portion of my views, likes and subscribers are bots who are designed to boost my consistent engagement on the site… but I really like it here.
Glad to have been directed to your lovely and incisive analysis on this night I’m stuck awake. Cheers!
...great read and breakdown of "the moment"...even with the best hopes and interests in mind "social media" eventually eats itself...not sure if it is the media or society as the cause but it is hard to keep "nice" things nice...i'm headed off to play on my favorite social media app now...lunch with a friend at a deli...
Lunch with a friend at a deli is also one of my favorites. I'm glad we haven't found a way to ruin that one just yet
Totally agree with this! I’m new here and not technically a ‘writer’ just someone exploring a journey with capitalism. And I find the whimsical writers positivity in the notes really discombobulating because I’m worried I’m going to get sucked into wanting to be a whimsical writer when I know I don’t 😅 I like the idea that non writers can express themselves here because we need a spectrum of types of people on any platform, particularly one with thought leaders on.
But I also do love that I can post a still picture of some flowers I saw and that might gain as much traction as if I tried to film a video of myself on instagram for way more effort. I feel like one like on here is worth 100 on instagram now a bit like inflation 😅 I had a re stack with a note the other day and I thought I might pass out. It’s definitely refreshing.
But a cyclical head definitely needs to be screwed on. I also feel skeptical reading Substack owners pieces about Substack and I’m like yes it’s about passion sure but you’re about bottom line at the end of the day and let’s not pretend you’re not.
Anyway I’m rambling as I said not a writer but I love this post!
Thank you! I feel the same way about one like on here feeling like a hundred on instagram. It’s interesting to think about why that is. I think it says a lot about what we value and our connection to what we post here compared to there.
Agree wholeheartedly with this post. For me it’s two things:
1) Just the novelty of encountering other people online thinking thoughts that require more than 280 characters. After a decade of Twitter I’d almost started doubting where most people could do it.
2) Every week when I send out my post I get a few people writing personally to respond to it, and it feels more like getting a handwritten note in the mail than “a reply to a post.” Something very personal about it. Good vibes.
I should clarify— I like it here, and I’m very much thankful it’s here, and I’m glad to be here. And I’m glad to hear that you’re fired up about it! There are very good reasons to be fired up. And it’s definitely been a while since I’ve seen any ugliness, I’m happy to say. Of course, that’s partly because I unsubscribed to a bunch of cranks across the spectrum, thus now avoiding a lot of it, and also some of the biggest grousers actually left, with weeks of fanfare, earlier this year.
For what it’s worth— I was here when notes started, and this forced grin “up with people” vibe has always been here. If it makes people happy, it’s okay with me. But I found that a lot of the same people were eager to jump into the ugliness when we had various substack controversies and all of a sudden everybody felt they had to take a side. This happened three or four times over maybe a two year period.
Right now things are calm, but I’ve seen this movie before.