In a 2019 interview with Stella Bugbee for New York Magazine , Kevin Systrom (co-founder of Instagram) said “At the beginning, when we were small, there were no influencers. I think once we crossed say, I don’t know, 100 million people, it became clear that you could maybe start to have an interesting business if you were just on Instagram.

I often feel the call to write about heavy life experiences for a number of reasons, ranging from seeking solidarity with others to wanting to work through my own feelings. Across my blog and my personal diary, I write to connect, to illuminate, and, selfishly, to salve personal wounds. Predictably, these reasons often blend and overlap. However, I... See more

I think Substack changed the culture on readers paying for writing, which is generally a very good thing. But that also leads to this urge of trying to monetize everything, even very casual stuff. What it reminds me of is trying to establish my career by tweeting a lot circa 2013-2018, when it seemed to matter. Imagine if that structure pushed... See more

Social media is encroaching on what was a once a respectably literate walled garden — the machine is now in the garden

I think this this is an issue of content creation that we’re seeing on all these platforms — people see others making so much money off of their “unedited” selves and everyone is like “omg this is me too which means that I can do this too and I can show my ‘real, authentic life’ too” leaving the audiences inundated with unoriginal and unnecessary... See more

I’m noticing this platform has become a really good way for women to monetize their diary entries — lists, random thoughts, and (easy to write) roundups of “what I’ve been doing” do really well on this site.

Seems to me, the obvious attraction of being able to monetize your taste—over putting out a probably-more-interesting letter about your actual life—is leading to a lot of very, very similar Substacks.

Today, I can barely tell anyone apart. Many of the Substacks I follow use these big, figurative words that don’t really make sense in an attempt to go viral, which on this platform means getting subscribers and notes and comments. It’s like there’s this internet language that “works” for engagement (literal language, but also sense of style, and a... See more

I think a certain set of millennial women think they miss Tumblr, but they really miss a specific moment of anonymity and creation on the internet.

The musician Halsey gave an interview a few days ago where they said they miss Tumblr because on Tumblr you could be, “Absolutely ridiculous. You could post memes, and then get really serious and post

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