On Substack, media, and why you should subscribe

(A Steady) Diet of Nothing – a newsletter about nothing, for nobody.

I’ve resisted making a Substack all summer, despite it seeming to be the current trend among writers of every stripe. To me, an endless barrage of individual emails sounds like a stressful and wildly individualistic way to go about creating and receiving content. Is this new-pamphleteer approach a productive reaction to an increasingly monopolized and corporate media environment? To eschew the collective safety of a publication for the ed-board of one? As writing gigs (and jobs) become more and more scarce, is there another option?

Ultimately, I’ve decieded that I’m not convinced by the arguments for or against this platform and those like it. Certainly the option to pay writers directly for their services is more appealing and concievable to the “conscious” consumer than laundering their clicks through ad space. I have to wonder, though, if this isn’t a recipe for more crisis GoFundMe’s, as full-time writers’ rent is made subject to the whims of their readership’s shifting opinions, or, more likely, their own unstable incomes.

And with that, here I am, caving in to the immaterial pressure of my Twitter feed. I present to you "(A Steady) Diet of Nothing”: a newsletter about nothing [culture and politics, probably], for nobody [listless email acolytes]. While I don’t claim to be a particularly insightful or skilled writer, at least compared to my peers, I hope that this brief, self-effacing prologue is engaging enough to solicit your click – for you to offer up your valuable, occasional inbox real estate.