Thank you for this useful recap of the development of your substack (and more). It arrived as I found myself writing a retrospect about my own site just two weeks after I started it that I may or may not post. I found myself wondering how often the kinds of developments you discuss are typical of the growth of these kinds of platforms. As to the politics vs art question. Before I started my own 19-year old daughter went through all my prior substack subscriptions and edited them scrupulously, while searching out subscriptions that made sense for me (such as yours). Her point was not so much to massage my algorithm, as that I should have one platform in which doomscrolling was not the major activity. I am glad to have yours. Congratulations on your anniversary!
Thank you very much for your most thoughtful (and candid) comments. As unpleasant as it is to find ourselves frantically trying to navigate between the Scylla of guiltily insulating ourselves from the waves of mindless filth bombarding us on all sides and the Charybdis of "responsibly informing ourselves" by wading through the mire and distracting ourselves from vastly more elevated pursuits (i.e. virtually anything), it's comforting to know that others are feeling very similar frustrations in these exceptionally, pointlessly ugly times. It's one thing to assume that this sort of thing must be happening all over the place, but it's quite another to hear it directly from those concerned.
Some of this is surely just a "misery loves company" sort of consolation, but parts, I think, are a bit "higher level": as long as there are significant numbers of us valiantly determined to rise above the venal Zeitgeist and move, as the French penetratingly put it, "vers la beauté, there is some genuine reason for optimism. Or so we keep telling ourselves, at least.
And very good for you for having such a wise and caring daughter to look out for you. Let's hope that her generation can do a much better job of things than ours has (a particularly low bar, of course).
Thank you for this useful recap of the development of your substack (and more). It arrived as I found myself writing a retrospect about my own site just two weeks after I started it that I may or may not post. I found myself wondering how often the kinds of developments you discuss are typical of the growth of these kinds of platforms. As to the politics vs art question. Before I started my own 19-year old daughter went through all my prior substack subscriptions and edited them scrupulously, while searching out subscriptions that made sense for me (such as yours). Her point was not so much to massage my algorithm, as that I should have one platform in which doomscrolling was not the major activity. I am glad to have yours. Congratulations on your anniversary!
Dear Jonah,
Thank you very much for your most thoughtful (and candid) comments. As unpleasant as it is to find ourselves frantically trying to navigate between the Scylla of guiltily insulating ourselves from the waves of mindless filth bombarding us on all sides and the Charybdis of "responsibly informing ourselves" by wading through the mire and distracting ourselves from vastly more elevated pursuits (i.e. virtually anything), it's comforting to know that others are feeling very similar frustrations in these exceptionally, pointlessly ugly times. It's one thing to assume that this sort of thing must be happening all over the place, but it's quite another to hear it directly from those concerned.
Some of this is surely just a "misery loves company" sort of consolation, but parts, I think, are a bit "higher level": as long as there are significant numbers of us valiantly determined to rise above the venal Zeitgeist and move, as the French penetratingly put it, "vers la beauté, there is some genuine reason for optimism. Or so we keep telling ourselves, at least.
And very good for you for having such a wise and caring daughter to look out for you. Let's hope that her generation can do a much better job of things than ours has (a particularly low bar, of course).