An important reminder about all social media including Substack Notes
The truths they don’t want you to know about
I find myself spending a lot of time on Substack Notes. It’s a happening sorta place, yes - a scene. My posts “do well” on there too. Heck, the founder of Substack
interviewed me about Notes last year:
So why do I scroll and feel angry that other people are also “doing well”?
Because I am a monster, sure, but so are you. So are all of us.
There are two main trap doors that send me deeper into my unworthy hole:
everyone is posting
When you scroll through a “feed,” it feels like everyone is posting!
False.
Almost no one is posting.
You just don’t see those people because they’re not posting.
Trust me, the math checks out. But I know it’s complicated so here’s an image
the cool people
“Ok fine sure buuuuut all the cool people are on there!!” I hear you thinking.
False.
The cool people are not there. The cool people – the actually cool people – are not on social media. They are free. They escaped, and they can’t tell us how, for doing so would render their escape null and bring them back to the void.
“I find myself”
Notice how I said that earlier? “ I find myself spending a lot of time on Substack Notes.”
That’s some real passive voice bullshit. Reader, heavens me, I found myself here idk what happened but I guess I might as well make the most of it by scrolling till I burn my emotional landscape to ash.
Na bro you got yourself there. You don’t hafta do it. You can run through fields of dandelions or forests of dandy lions.
Even if free will isn’t real (verdict still out), you have the illusion of free will which is actually better.
Stay on your phone - I don’t think there anything y default wrong with that but feel bad and mad at yourself whenever you do, maybe that’s a nice sign to try something diff idk.
No matter what, just be like a train and choo choo choose (it’s sentences like this that I’m being told are keeping me from a Nobel Laureate).
comments
What do yall think???
so pay me maybe
I just met you
And this is crazy
But I’m a writer
So pay me maybe
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more reading
switching to a "dumb" phone made me feel pretty dang smart
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What's the one thing we all hate but can't stop doing?
This is episode 6 of Both Are True’s Season One: I’m (not??) The Best — multi-month deep dive into the ideas of competition, comparison, testing and achievement. Here’s a lil riddle: what’s the one thing that we all hate but can’t stop doing? No not taxes or brushing our teeth or using a random tub of chapstick we found on the floor of an airbnb in the mountains.
I posted 300+ Threads in 3 days
I got on Threads as soon as that shit went live, spending the next few hours in the haze of a dopamine-fueled daze. The genius of this app, your honor, is the vibrating. I have ALL my phone’s vibrations turned OFF because I am a conformist rat with no self control. But somehow Marcus Z. managed to evade my supposedly big-on-privacy iPhone’s settings and it went buzz buzz buzz in my clammy little hand as long as I had the app open.
This is making me rethink my approach and I don't know what to do! I tend to use notes when I don't have enough to say in a post and I don't want to "bother" subscribers with something less thought out, but maybe I should be reaching out to those that have actually signed up for my ramblings instead or reaching into the void. Much food for thought, thank you.
(Despite the substack claim that followers increase subscribers, that has not been the case for me, so my reliance on notes may be incredibly stupid.)
dear alex,
this is a beautiful song:
"I just met you
And this is crazy
But I’m a writer
So pay me maybe"
thank you and love you!
myq