what am I doing here?
thinking out loud about substack
Disclaimer; I don’t entirely know what the point of this post is yet, and I suspect I won’t until I’ve unburdened myself of these thoughts and given it a day or two. Also, it was scheduled lol and I am planning to take (most of) tomorrow offline.
Honestly I’d have deleted this account if it didn’t feel like I’d be abandoning some of my friends. And I’ve had this conversation offline several times over the past few weeks. And I think it’s time I have it here too, despite being unsure of what the ultimate outcome (read: future of my account) is.
Over the past at least four months, I’ve I felt increasingly stuck, mentally polluted, confused, and unsure by and about this website. I feel like for every 5 minutes I spend writing something meaningful I waste 10 hours scrolling through notes. A lot of that is to “build and audience,” which in many ways has led to some amazing connections and friendships on here—and certainly getting my work in front of others and finding amazing pieces by others. I love the discovery and connection that can happen on this site. And the social aspect isn’t necessarily a bad thing or wrong to engage in by any means.
But there’s an overwhelming sense that I’m distracted from research and writing for posts, and also non-substack related activities by the time I put in here and by the mental whiplash of reading so many different notes and posts. And to be honest I can sometimes feel myself becoming worse for it. Even if I recognize it as harmful (which I don’t always), there’s something disheartening about ingesting so much content that’s hateful, angry, or encouraging us to look down upon another. It’s not just overtly sexist or racist posts (of course those exist too), but I see an ever-increasing chunk of content that’s at best extremely reductive and at worst actively dismissive of and unjustifiably critical of another. By and large, this website has been a lot less toxic in those ways than other platforms I’ve been on, but despite my constant efforts to mark posts as uninteresting, block, mute, and unfollow, it seems my feed gets overwhelmed with negativity all over again the next day. My brain feels noisy and stuffy after even 15 minutes on here. Possibly worse, I occasionally find myself contributing to it in the hopes of a like. And ultimately I don’t see myself being able to simply write and post without engaging in any other parts of the feed and even if I did I’d feel I was missing out on or ignoring other peoples’ work who I genuinely care about. Perhaps in a parallel timeline I simply had an email newsletter.
I have a tendency to abandon platforms when I feel exhausted by them. I deleted twitter shortly after musk bought it despite having thousands of followers and consistent engagement because I could see where it was headed. I deleted instagram and tiktok and facebook right after the 2026 election and felt so much more mental clarity after a few weeks. Heck, I’ve even gotten rid of my LinkedIn profile because the incessant AI posts and recruiter messages were overwhelming my mind. Substack is my only remaining social media account (except YouTube but I don’t really interact with others on there other than watching a few creators videos and I almost never watch shorts). When I was three months or so into this account, I made some sort of half-promise to myself that I’d stick it out. That I’d deal with the nonsense while remaining somewhat consistent in my writing, hoping knowing that I could connect with others and hopefully contribute meaningfully while also growing an audience.
I know none of these feelings are unique to me. And this isn’t mean to suggest you should or shouldn’t feel a certain way about Substack or think about things in the same way.
As I started this post with, I don’t want to abruptly cutoff friendships. I don’t want to lose collaboration opportunities or moments where I can encourage other people on here. And as conceited as it I suppose there’s also a little bit of fear that if I have something important to share I won’t have any platforms left to do that. But I’m finding it nearly impossible to stay motivated to keep posting, much less remain as engaged as I have been in general. I’m not sure what my future or lack thereof on here looks like, but I want my readers to know where I stand whether I decide to change how I use my account or delete it. Or maybe after unburdening myself here I will realize I will just keep plugging along in approximately the same way.
I cannot properly express how much comments of support or saying how you were moved by something I’ve written have meant to me.
I love you, my dear substack friends. And I know some of you I’ve built friendships with off of this website too and those mean the world to me. Anyway thanks for reading all of this <3
I definitely get this sometimes. I catch myself scrolling or getting caught up in the subscriber numbers and it can definitely be harmful sometimes. You gotta do what’s best for you!!
aww cmon i just got here!!