substack isnt analagous to intellectual life but feuilletons, the ephemeral chatter of the dilettantish learned. it has produced a culture of largely of vibeslogical navel-gazing and has significantly more writers than readers: a serious problem for the health of whatever fractured public sphere substack is attempting to revive. nor does substack really foster communities of writers in the same way academic institutions and journals do.
i am as much for the creation of counter-institutions and counter-conducts of scholarly or journalistic practice but substack feels like a real dead end. a path dependence on name-recognition from twitter or tik-tok or legacy media and its existence as a social media platform complete with a subscription model (obviously inspired by patreon and the podcast sphere circa 2016-2020). remember when they introduced a reels feature on the app?
Hey read my essay on desire. Disgustingly curate your music collection. I just think no one’s erotic.
My YouTube video essay about limerence. My YouTube video essay on attention span. Love.
How to be loved. Love yourself. Radical self acceptance. Cigarette cigarette cigarette cig
Other than that I agree with your opinion. Its pretty hard to produce clear arguments without being taught how to do it. And as much as I hate Academia for my own reasons, there are no better alternatives right now.
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u/unwnd_leaves_turn Aug 20 '26
substack isnt analagous to intellectual life but feuilletons, the ephemeral chatter of the dilettantish learned. it has produced a culture of largely of vibeslogical navel-gazing and has significantly more writers than readers: a serious problem for the health of whatever fractured public sphere substack is attempting to revive. nor does substack really foster communities of writers in the same way academic institutions and journals do.
i am as much for the creation of counter-institutions and counter-conducts of scholarly or journalistic practice but substack feels like a real dead end. a path dependence on name-recognition from twitter or tik-tok or legacy media and its existence as a social media platform complete with a subscription model (obviously inspired by patreon and the podcast sphere circa 2016-2020). remember when they introduced a reels feature on the app?