Substack Has a N*gger Problem.
People write for the shape of the column they attempt to fill. Magazine writers do not sound like copy-editors, who have separate and distinct tones from newspaper journalists or personal essayists. The same poet who disseminates their work via Pinterest and via the LA Review has different tones from the same pen. The shape of the vehicle determine
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I’m also finding that my problem is that I like academics. I like disciplined, layered intellectualism. I like concentrated time and effort in interdisciplinary study. If I didn’t have so much beef with the academy, I would heavily consider becoming a professor. As much as I enjoy making my studies in revolutionary theory and history bite-sized… I
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Substack is a place of commerce that we are pretending is for socializing and artistry. I refrain from ascribing a value judgement to that in particular. I enjoy coffee shops and bookstores as sites of potential connection, I find commerce to be morally neutral. I have two hang-ups: (1) Lying to ourselves about the intention of the infrastructure w
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Again regarding the fact that companies are incentivized to ‘trick’ us into false senses of being/doing; while quite literally enabling a reality that is the opposite of any good they are intentionally building us to believe we are/do.
Chris didn’t answer the question he was asked to answer in that interview for the simple reason that Substack as a corporation (not as a group of individuals) is ambivalent on the subjects of racism, antisemitism, misogyny, Islamophobia, bigotry against the LGBTQIA+ community, ableism, ageism, and so on. Your plan is to try to corral the racists in
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I understand this warped ideology, but it’s cheap. It’s true that you can’t eliminate racism one social platform at a time, so why try that approach, let’s just have the algorithm due the work for us. But 1) that approach has failed as indicated by the countless nasty racist comments non-racists get in their own ‘community’ and 2) as a company you should have values. If non-racism isn’t one just say that.