the substack issue

after the substack urge, welcome the substack issue were notes are more important that articles

I joined Substack in August of this year after notes were introduced and when the app was booming. Like a lot of people, I was enamored by what this app offered, from the stylized blog to the community aspect, Substack appealed to me greatly.

From the start, I was feverish to finally share my writing in a like-minded community that appreciated quality, embraced change and diversity of opinions, and was welcoming to those ideas even if they challenged their preconceived notions. People were kind in the comments section, supporting each other to create more, create better, and further the author’s own reflection without being a snob about it.

However, things have changed, both because of me, and because of the app.

According to people long before me, the change started when Substack introduced notes.

These days, notes are more popular than articles, and not for good reasons. Personally, I believe notes were introduced to share snippets of articles we love and want to share with our subscribers.

These days, and I’m guilty of these, notes are used to share Carrie Bradshaw in front of her laptop with a simple sentence like ‘me writing to my 3 subscribers who are all my friends’. I know that I am guilty of this because I have a note with +700 likes as of today with a similar vibe when my most popular article has +200 likes.

Now, reading an article and reading a note is not the same commitment, of course, an article is longer, and with our shortening attention spans, it’s easier to be on notes when you’re on the metro than to read a 5 minutes-long think piece on Rory Gilmore. I totally get that. However, counter-argument, we didn’t come to this app to be on notes, did we?

The second change occurred after the US election. I won’t pretend that most people on this app aren’t either American or Indian and with Trump winning the US presidency, a massive exode from Twitter to Substack has occurred for the simple reason that Twitter’s current owner is a massive Trump supporter and the richest man on earth. Eat the rich, I’m on with the program.

This second change meant that more people joined substack to almost exclusively use notes, to follow people expecting a follow back, and to unfollow when they don’t get it. Substack isn’t like Instagram or Twitter. It thrives on long-form content, and it should remain like that with short content being used to share quotes from articles, and maybe a couple of memes, but memes shouldn’t be the main share on the platform because that’s not the point.

If you wanna do that, go on Threads or Tiktok. I’m not trying to police how people use this app, but it enerves me to see notes get more likes than actual articles because it means we’re transforming a good social media app into brain-rot, once more. I don’t want to hear anything about how ‘it’s not that deep’ and other forms of anti-intellectualization. Anti-intellectualisation is the main reason Trump won, so think again.

It is that deep. How we use this app now when it’s booming and everybody and their mom are switching from Twitter to Substack, will dictate the updates we get from the app. It will dictate the direction the app will take as it tries to sustain engagement.

I’ve noticed something else with the boom of Substack: alt-right and hyper-masculine content is coming. It’s already there, in a minority but it is there. I’ve already gotten transphobic comments, comments about my leftist views that don’t engage me, just criticize. I’ve seen people get bullied, I’ve seen people get told to ‘fuck off’ and that’s not how this app used to be, and I won’t allow it to become another derivative of Twitter, not on my watch. I’m a mama bear.

So because of that, I’m going to change how I use substack, and it’s for me that I’m doing this. Because these past few weeks I’ve been logged in to a ridiculous amount, caring too much about likes and engagement, rarely commenting on the posts that I read anymore, and it needs to change, for me.

I’m not going to use notes too much anymore unless it’s to share articles and quotes I love. I’ll maybe share a cool picture of my cat because my cat is beautiful and I’m obsessed with her.

I’m going to read more, comment more, thank the writer for their pro-bono work, and spread some genuine positivity.

I’m going to write less, but better. It doesn’t matter that I get 10k views a month or that I gain 100 subscribers a month, I want to become a better writer, a better critic.

Maybe you’ll follow me with those changes, maybe not, I’m not trying to convince you or change your habits, I’m not your mom. However, it felt important to me to highlight the changes I’ve noticed on this app and the downgrade in the quality of content I’ve noticed both from me and from other writers. I hold myself to a high standard, and you should too.

You deserve better than what Substack is doing right now.

From Marseille with Love,

*vapes away*