This Substack is destined for failure. It will not reach a large audience, nor allow me as a writer to support myself. Eventually I will tire of writing these posts, and the collection will fade into oblivion.
Why? Mainly: I have less than 100 Twitter followers. I make maybe ten tweets per year, often merely retweets of nice things people have said about my books. I never tweet about the media. In short, I have not built a brand to transfer over from Twitter. My Baschez score is probably in the negative-fire-emojis range.
And I’m fine with that. That’s the way the game is played. The people who figure out how to thrive in the Twittersphere and transfer that audience to a newsletter will win, and I will not. I’m not saying, “The game is rigged against me,” because I could adapt to that rigging if I wanted to. The rules are not exactly transparent, but they’re not hard to figure out. I just don’t have the talent or interest to succeed at them, in the same way I’m never going to be a champion quilter, square-dance caller, or fly-tier.
My point is simply: Could we ask if this game is at all useful for society? Could we look at the ways it will worsen the very same media problems that we’ve struggled with under previous games? Could we start the thoughtful critiques now, rather than waiting until the trend is over?