If you’ve ever taken a high school language class, you’ve maybe encountered a form of close reading dissecting the many devices used in literature. Does the author use formal or colloquial language? What motifs are used in the text? How do form and content work together?
You aren’t asked these questions because you’re expected to pursue a career in literature. You aren’t asked to do most assignments, like write an essay, for example, because you’re expected to make a breakthrough on problems exhaustively studied by experts. Writing helps develop your own analytical voice. Understanding how to methodically work through a question is a muscle that needs to be constantly trained.
Yet in light of the rising critiques of the bias, disproportionate representations, and scarce job prospects seen in traditional journalism, masses have, as a response, begun to rediscover this form of textual analysis to make sense of our current social and political sphere. Old and new writers have found a home on Substack, where they can freely express their opinions without the constraints of an editor at their back. Many of us, disillusioned with major news outlets, have discovered newsletters covering marginalized voices and underrepresented stories. So while the “oversaturation” of writing platforms like Substack or Medium has exposed smaller communities to a newer, wider audience, I like to think that the abundance of people wielding their intellectual freedom outside of a formal classroom has the potential to create accessible spaces where knowledge, curiosity, and creativity can openly thrive… So why doesn’t it?
The resurgence of blogging in the last few years has naturally led to a mass migration of social media users to essay-format platforms. This past year, Substack amassed over 2 million new paid subscribers and currently has a total of over 20 million subscribers. To sustain this upward trajectory, and perhaps prevent shortened attention spans from pivoting elsewhere after experiencing the writer’s high, Substack introduced new features to keep its newfound audience seated. The On Substack publication run by the platform’s management team credits the addition of notes (basically tweets) as one of the drivers of Substack’s significant growth. Instead of merely publishing articles, users can now also put out status updates on subjects ranging from midnight musings to quotes from other publications. Notes provide a simple way to share one’s thoughts on any subject matter and receive engagement without the added task of research, drafting, or editing. Following their introduction, these short, sharp, and often morally superior attacks on current culture have begun to dominate the app’s discovery pages. Occasionally, these notes will be extracted from a longer essay expanding on the same point. Often, this longer essay will just be one out of the thousands on the app that advances the same general takeaway, which leads me to my second problem.
I am by no means a stickler when it comes to what people write about on their page. I also would not expect every newsletter I read to make transgressive breakthroughs, as I don’t have those expectations for myself. However, I do object to claims overstating the recent strides cultural commentary has made this past year in developing spaces for progressive discussion.
I won’t deny the fact that Substack has achieved some significant strides in reviving many people’s love of writing. Substack has additionally exposed me and so many others to great ideas while allowing writers to monetize their content and make a living doing what they love. But the excitement of reading articles on the app began to subside once I realized that I was reading the same conclusions reached in the same manner. Think essays on performative femininity, parasocial relationships with media figures, the correlation between trend cycles and consumerism, etc. None of these topics are inherently flawed, and I’m sure there are interesting points to be made about each. Yet when cultural commentary writers are pigeonholed into social media analysis and fail to apply any historical research into the topics covered, you begin to ask yourself, does this observation aim to reveal pitfalls in modern-day society, or are these just repeating trend cycles and masquerading it as commentary? I don’t believe the recent growth of users is exactly to blame for the redundancy I’ve seen on Substack. As previously mentioned, the newcomers led to more frequent updates undertaken by Substack’s team, such as trending pages, direct messages, and newsletter rankings to secure the app’s growing popularity. Substack became a viable competitor to other social platforms, but instead of upholding what made it so unique, Substack caved into the algorithmic and fast-paced rhythm seen on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. While they were intended to maintain the stamina of Substack’s growth, these developments simultaneously fostered an environment where quantity has triumphed over quality, and devoid, sweeping, almost superficial aphorisms have replaced curiosity. Substack, like most other social platforms, was ultimately plagued by the internet flu, or in other words, the online philosophers’ problem of the week, quickly exhausted once the same point was recycled over and over again.
Besides my basic frustrations over the repetitive content seen on the app, the trend cycles piercing platforms centering art, politics, and all other forms of analytical writing do reveal some worrisome consequences. In the act of reiterating what’s already been said on the news, online, and in our circles, we weaken the muscle of writing to the point of paralysis – a point where eventually, all we can critically consider with a careful eye is what’s familiar. We step into the process of writing an essay with a set conclusion, and consequently no curiosity. Capitalism or anti-intellectualism become the foundation of the piece, a base that we build our analysis atop of, rather than being the end conclusion reached after research and investigation. Consequently, when the focal point of such analysis presents itself, with its many faces in the real world, there is little independent written about the matter. Capitalism and its consequences are only examined when discussing low-quality clothing from SHEIN and the death of personal style, rather than the devaluation of local textile markets in African countries for cheaper Chinese goods (which are typically produced in horrific working conditions). Anti-intellectualism is reduced to American college students’ inability to finish a novel, and the global cuts to education and research are seldom considered. We distance ourselves from the topics we aren’t informed enough on to make an opinion on, and in the end, writing and the skills acquired through that process are no longer transferable.
When considering what I personally would like to see in independent journalistic writing, I often fall back on Toni Morrison’s advice to young writers. Morrison, who despite mostly receiving accolades for her writing, was also a skilled editor at Random House. She also often provided young writers with a plenitude of advice. In a 2013 interview with the New York Public Library she said, “You don’t know nothing. So do not write what you know. Think up something else.” Morrison explained how she would usually say this to the creative writing students she taught, and I know the kind of online newsletters that fancy themselves in cultural criticism don’t necessarily concern themselves with creative non- fiction. Still, I do think there is some benefit in going into a writing project with a basic idea in mind and a strong motivation to gain more knowledge because naturally, the more you learn about a subject the more your opinion will change. The cycle of “trending discourse” that has afflicted many bloggers today reveals a larger issue with the way opinion writing is treated today. When we run with the idea that one must develop a clear thesis and layout before undertaking the drafting process, an idea that has been drilled into the minds of young writers and academics for as long as anyone cares to remember, we kill the potential of so many possibly insightful projects. Deciding that our own limited, probably one dimensional, perspective is the most important perspective will drive us to solely seek information that supports our main argument, or engaging with those that challenge it in a superficial manner.