So I'm doing this Notes thing and you should too
If not a Twitter killer, at least a Google Reader replacement
I’ve been using Substack Notes since it launched and Bluesky Social for a few days now. I wanted to share my thoughts on Twitter, Bluesky, Notes, and predictions for social media generally.
But if you just want to try them out yourselves, I believe if you’re subscribed to this here newsletter you automatically already follow me on Notes. To actually see my shit and the site in action, you could start with this, my first-ever note.
Or a more recent note:
Bluesky is the latest single from Jack Dorsey who gave birth to Twitter. Still in beta, you need an invite to join, of which I have none unfortunately. But if you happen to get in, I was able to grab the “cathy” handle, lol.
Thots on Twitter
I am… how you say, a Twitter power-user. An addict, perhaps. Extremely online.
Twitter has been extremely good to me over the past 12ish years. In the early days I got hooked when I learned I could “@” mention a writer at a huge publication and have a back-and-forth immediately or close to it.
Until recently, Twitter was by-far the biggest driver of new readers to this here newsletter and my OF. And I’ve connected with so many brilliant people on that platform. It’s also been useful, though not always straightforwardly good, to have one platform to see what “everyone” is talking about that day. As someone once said, every day there’s a main character on Twitter. Your job is to not be it. Well, my babies, I’ve been it a few times now.
Plus, in a lot of ways Twitter (especially plus Tweetdeck which removes the algorithm) replaced Google Reader for me. It made it easy to subscribe, RSS-like, to most of my favorite writers.
For these reasons and some I’m probably forgetting, I genuinely fear Twitter’s days possibly being numbered.
And I’ll say Twitter’s demise is likely not solely due to Elon. I read a headline that said “power users” were ditching before his takeover. Plus, social media pros have been talking about the rise of “dark social” for the past 5-10 years. People have long fled the troll-infested, heavily surveilled waters of mass social media for algorithm- and ad-free social spaces like private Discords, Slack channels, Telegram groups, etc. where unpaid human moderators reign.
So perhaps, Elon or no, no one social network was always going to connect everyone who likes to read (at least short-form).
I don’t see Notes or Bluesky as likely full replacements for Twitter, less due to functionality and more due to my doubts about any one platform ever having Twitter’s ubiquity.
Substack is (perhaps not shockingly) thus far populated disproportionately by writers and long-form readers. Bluesky, as far as I can tell, is postrats and TPOT. And, again, the move to Mastodon, Discords, Slacks, etc. will likely continue.
Thots on Notes
Even if it never fully replaces Twitter, Notes is still useful. It’s driven a ton of new subscriptions since I joined. Since I started posting on Notes, I’ve gotten twice the traffic from Twitter that I have from Substack, but 11x more free subscriptions from Substack. And my one new paid sub was from Substack. (Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to break out the percentage coming from Notes vs other parts of Substack.)
And Substack’s inbox (the other way to read the Substack newsletters you’re subscribed to besides your email inbox) is probably an even better replacement for my dearly departed Google Reader. Its big drawback is that it only supports Substacks and no other blogging platforms.
Inbox + Notes seems like it could become a very powerful combination.
What I like about Notes: No advertising. No algorithm. Thus far a smaller, higher quality userbase than mass social networks.
What I don’t like about Notes: We already have trolls, anti-semitism, racism, sexism, etc. I believe — based on who’s investing in them, who they offered paid deals to, who they’re promoting, what they choose to censor, etc. — that the people running Substack are, let us simply say not progressive. Plus, it’s a walled garden rather than an open ecosystem.
I am not at all opposed to replacing the ad model with a subscription model. However, I’m also highly sus of the idea that this is going to ameliorate the ills of the modern web such as polarization, outrage farming, cancel culture, etc. Notes is still, at core, the old model whereby all us writers still need to form hot takes to get attention to get clicks to get subscribers to get paid. Luckily Substack also lets writers recommend other Substacks to their readers without the social posting aspect.
The “read to get paid” category of newsletters probably mostly get to escape the outrage-for-clicks method of new reader acquisition. Since reading these newsletters will put money in your pocket. I’m talking newsletters for stocks tips, industry coverage, product/marketing advice, Lenny’s newsletter type shit.
But how to ethically get new readers to newsletters like mine is still not totally clear to me.
There was a time when people like me didn’t have to outrage farm. Well, not exactly like me.
Had I been born into the right family at the right time, I would’ve been a nationally syndicated columnist. I would’ve had the attention of everyone who subscribed to the papers that ran my column. I would’ve been paid indirectly by advertisers who couldn’t know whether they were paying for my analysis or someone else’s reporting.
But not only was I born into the wrong era, but into the wrong kind of family. Also, the wrong gender. There were always only so many nationally syndicated columnists, who were overwhelmingly white, straight, Ivy League educated men.
Today, you pay me. And you (correct me if I’m wrong) don’t see any money in your pocket as a result. The only reasons you have to pay me are you think my writing should exist, you like me personally, you want to connect with and broadcast your thoughts to other like-minded people through commenting on my posts, you want to read my Friday diaries, and/or paying me signals something about you to others.
I wanted to become financially independent before going full-time on this newsletter because I didn’t want to go the way of Weiss, Greenwald, and Tiabbi who, once freed from the shackles of their NYT, Guardian, and Rolling Stone fact-checkers and editors went full culture-war populist nonsense. Incentives matter, and I’m not so haughty as to think I’m immune.
But thus far I’ve been pleased to see it’s just not in me, at least not yet. My revealed preferences seem to be freelancing for clients and posting nudes rather than farming outrage for attention to boost this newsletter. Which is funny, because divisive takes were very much a staple of my early punditry career. Perhaps I got most of it out of my system. Been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt.
But I wonder when/whether I can make this newsletter profitable enough to not have to freelance/hoe in addition. If past is at all prologue, it could go two ways. On the one hand, most things I put my mind to tend to happen, and sooner than I expect. On the other, it took me 15 years of continuous writing to make one dime directly from Sex and the State. On the third hand, nearly every, if not every, employer I’ve had since 2011 has said Sex and the State influenced them to hire me. In a sense, all my dimes have come from this newsletter.
Remember when experts were predicting that all these people would have a profitable blog or YouTube channel or online course one day? The reason the “creative economy” hasn’t really changed mass employment patterns, and probably never will, is that in most media winner takes all. A few power players get the vast majority of the money and attention, and everyone else gets almost none.
Now that I’m writing this all out, I realize I think I have mixed feelings about being a “winner.”
On the one hand, I want as many people to read me as humanly possible. I want to “influence the conversation.” I want to be world-famous and remembered long after I’m dead for putting forward some ideas that were very spicy in my time but have since become widely accepted, in part thanks to me. (The price of being remembered is that my bad ideas are included.)
On the other hand, being famous sucks ass. Most people are stupid and not worth engaging with. I dislike harassment. I just want to write my newsletter for a handful of very smart, efficacious people who will challenge me and incorporate my better ideas into their work in politics, policy, and social science.
Am I more of a narcissist or an elitist? Which do I lean into?
Only time will tell.
In the meantime, have you tried Notes and/or Bluesky and/or some other Twitter replacement? How’s it going? What are your thoughts?
Below is from Substack on how to do the thing.
How to join
Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to Sex and the State, you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around!
You can also share notes of your own. I hope this becomes a space where every reader of Sex and the State can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we're reading on Substack and beyond.
If you encounter any issues, you can always refer to the Notes FAQ for assistance. Looking forward to seeing you there!