Questions
It took me a while to convince myself to move over here. Here, it looked like somewhere to share stories and other things that mean something to each individual. In half a year I haven’t become jaded, I haven’t even figured out how to use the app correctly. Let’s not even get into Stripe. So here I am posting arbitrarily, what am I getting back? What do I read? I subscribe to people who I like to read yet while browsing it reads like Twitter (which I quit in 2013 as it bored me) writers bitching about other writers…more fucking city guides…glorified impersonal pseudo journalism that has the whiff of money being stuffed into pockets. Am I off? Is it my algorithm? Please tell me that I don’t have to go along with everybody and make a page, write in the same way as millions of others who are just failed newspaper journalists. I delivered papers from the age of 12-16. Start at 6am everyday. Only day off was Christmas. I had better stories to tell then then the nullified merde being pushed on me. So tomorrow morning I will write a post from the angle of a teenage boy who’s room is plastered with Pamela Anderson posters, who’s hero is Jim Morrison , steals crisps from the newsagent he works at and hates Monday at school as it starts with double maths.
My advice is invest in finding a couple people whose writing you like and subscribe to them. Allow these people to lead you to other good work -- see who they're recommending, linking too, etc. Ignore everything else (especially the feed), certainly don't let Substacks algo lead you around. I found one person whose point of view I liked and she led me to 50% of my current reading on this app.
Just do you. It's what got you here and all you really can do anyway. And it's what the people want!