What Substack needs more than anything

Possibly the best thing writers on Substack can do today

Y’all, sometimes the world is tiring. Not just tiring. Exhausting. I’ve been staring at my screen for thirty minutes just quietly drinking my coffee and searching my brain for some positive, upbeat way to start and didn’t even notice the time passing until I glanced at the clock and wondered where thirty minutes went. Then sixty.

Everywhere I look, I see Charlie Kirk. And if it’s not Charlie Kirk, it’s Donald Trump and if it’s not one of them it’s Kirk’s wife or who got fired for having an opinion or whether the flags were at half mast when those politicians were murdered, or those kids.

It’s not because of who I follow.

Out of sheer curiosity I went to Substack on my iPad, and I’ve never even logged in to Substack on my iPad. That’s still what I saw.

Not knowing who I was, Substack recommended stuff it thought might get me to engage, which is how algorithms work during the attention economy which is a gross way to describe the time we live in but truth doesn’t care what anyone thinks of it.

The internet, as a whole, seems to keep getting meaner.

Except it’s not the internet. It’s us. It’s people.

Sometimes it feels like we’ve divided into two camps. Those who rage and those who hide from the world because they can’t take the raging anymore. I’m in the second group more often than I care to admit. I should use Notes more. I know that. And I could mute all that stuff. I know that, too.

But to mute things and people, I have to first look at it. You know? And sometimes just looking at it is too much. Feels like it poisons the well I’m trying to write from.

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After making sure what I was seeing in the feeds wasn’t just a reflection of who I follow, I went back to my desktop, back to my own feed. And saw a post I want to share with you. It’s about *why* people have become meaner. And we have —

The post starts by confirming that the internet is getting meaner. It says research by Pew says half of Americans of Americans think we’ve gotten ruder since Covid.

It’s written by Sean Kernan, who I know from Medium. He’s one of the few men who wrote for my History of Women publication. Start a publication with women in the name and you already know it’s going to be mostly women writing for it. So when a man puts up his hand, says he’d like to contribute, suffice to say I took notice.

I don’t agree with everything he says, but who agrees with everything anyone says? Hell, I don’t even agree with some of the stuff I thought five years ago.

We grow, we change, we differ and we debate.

Ideally, we do that politely.

Except that more and more, polite is getting thrown under the bus.

He explains why that’s happening, collectively. He tells the story of volunteering at a shelter for abused dogs and learning how dogs are trained to be mean.

I had the fortunate, but also unfortunate, experience of volunteering at a shelter for abused dogs. I learned something quite revealing about rescued fighting dogs. To make these dogs meaner and more aggressive, they were often kept apart from each other — but not too far apart…

After explaining how dogs are taught to be aggressive, he spells out how and why it’s happening collectively among people online.

I read it and thought omg. He’s not wrong.

The post is called What Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Reveals About America’s Meanness

It’s worth reading, and worth thinking about. And if you go read it, I’d love if you’d leave a comment that says Hi Sean, Linda Caroll sent me. lol. Because as a writer, it feels wonderful when someone shares our work out loud and publicly, doesn’t it?

There’s not enough of that.

There’s not.

Everything isn’t negative. I’m not saying that, okay? Because I’m not. I’m not a doomer and I’m never going to be. But I do recognize that even the universe has both dark and light. Storms and sunshine. Why would we be any different?

The dark spots are growing, becoming more omnipresent. But there are still plenty of bright spots. I see them a lot. Twice a week. Every time I post on Substack. Every Tuesday and Friday I see the beauty of humanity. You give that to me.

Last week I shared a true story about a shockingly beautiful thing one woman did in the middle of the holocaust that would ripple through my family forever, and almost four hundred people hearted and left achingly beautiful comments.

But still. Over ten thousand people read that post.

Ten thousand, five hundred and seven, to be specific. The number stunned me. But it also means under 10% of readers responded in any way. And I know. That’s normal.

People don’t typically respond. I know if 10% of readers “like” a post, that’s a great response rate. Single digit response rates are shockingly common. You can check your own stats. You’ll likely see similar numbers unless you’re real tiny still and everyone who subscribes still knows you. But as you grow? Response rates go down.

You know why, right? I think the problem is the chosen iconography.

That’s what happens when we use icons like clapping, giving a thumbs up, or a heart, which we associate with love. We take those icons literally.

And “we” decide who gets our coveted approval.

It sounds so ridiculous, doesn’t it? But it’s how we are.

I think if every website using like and heart icons changed them to some crazy little gif of a bathroom wall with “I was here” the response rates would go through the roof.

The thought makes me laugh. But I also think it’s true.

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You know what I think Substack needs more than anything?

More of what it started with.

In the beginning, Substack was a funky little site for writers and no one who wasn’t a writer even knew what it was. Tell someone you write on Substack, they’d ask what’s a Substack? I never bothered explaining. I’d say go look. You’ll love it or you won’t.

As Substack has grown, it’s become more like the rest of the internet.

Any site that grows slowly becomes more mainstream.

Even Notes has changed. It’s gone from people sharing great writing to people posting selfies and hot takes. Thanks Facebook and Instagram, but no thanks. Do we really need another site full of me, me, me. Do we need more rage and hot takes?

I think the best thing writers can do today is not get sucked into that.

If you’re a political writer, by all means, write what you write. It’s what your readers want. But if you’re not? We need to focus on our reader. On the craft. On writing stronger titles and stronger openings. Because that’s how “our” people will find us. Rage bait and political newsjacking get short term attention but I don’t think it’s the way to build a long term name as a writer. As always, love to know what you think…

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