As many of you know, I left Instagram a few months ago. One of the many reasons behind this move was preserving my sanity in the face of the never-ending feed of short form video content. Short form video is addictive and I am prone to addictions, so I decided to remove the temptation from my life. As they say in the Alcoholics Anonymous, if you don’t want to slip, don’t go to slippery places.
I moved to Substack in hopes of starting a newsletter away from the cacophony of the feed. Shortly thereafter, Substack announced a short form video feed in its app. You will forgive me for thinking that this curse is following me wherever I go, won’t you?
At any rate, ever since I quit addictive apps, my quality of life has improved. I can focus better, I am being more productive, I am writing more (way more) than I used to be able to. I am in no mood to let it all go to shit due to yet another social media app farming me for attention (that’s what Substack is now).
I can’t help but feel that Substack did a bait-and-switch of sorts when it comes to writers. They promised a place where writing would be front and centre and attracted a lot of people who resonated with that dream, but then pivoted to catering to the attention economy. They literally went from saying video was not the answer to advocating turning your phone into a TV. They have every right to do so of course. But I feel like they should stop pretending they are not going for the low-hanging social fruit.
I should however point out one small silver-lining in all this. If Substack manages to become a YouTube competitor, that might be a good thing. Gods know we need one!
There is a lot of talk on Substack about Substack. Many seem to believe that the feed there is very positive and non-toxic. I think this is because the place is new and not because of Substack being fundamentally different from other social media platforms. In fact, Substack has its very own Nazi problem. But enough has been written about it by others, so I won’t dwell on it, but there are also earning-related issues and brand identity-related issues.
Going forward, you will continue to receive my emails, but it won’t be through Substack. I have already moved the existing mailing list to my blog and vimoh.blog is where you should direct new folks to if you want them to subscribe to my newsletter from now on.
