Substack Has Been The Most Toxic Social Media Platform For Me
Digging into why it makes me feel icky so much of the time and why it sometimes works for me anyway.
Toxic: very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way
I almost didn’t use the word “toxic” here because it’s so overused these days but it really is the word that best applies to my experience with Substack as a social media platform. And that doesn’t mean that Substack has been bad for me or that I’m leaving or any of that. But it does mean … something.
Is Substack Social Media?
I first realized that I was having a problematic relationship with Substack early in 2024, which is why I wrote this back then:
That piece really explains what I thought Substack was going to be for me, what it turned out to be for me, my experience of community on Substack both good and bad, and what I might need to do to pivot if it was going to be a place I wanted to remain. I won’t say it all again here, because it’s all in that piece, and most of it is still accurate and true for me.
But here’s something that isn’t in that piece that I’ve been sitting with for months and months:
Why Does Substack Make Me Feel So Icky?
The thing is, I have heard all about how social media can make people feel terrible for all kinds of reasons. In fact, I researched and wrote about that a bit in one of my books, a book about Internet Addiction. Comparisonitis, the ever-diminishing-returns of the dopamine hit, the brain’s reaction to the scroll … I understand it all. But it never really applied to me. Social media never really made me feel bad.
This is partially because I haven’t ever actively used most social media platforms. I’ve been on them, particularly in the early days. I’ve used them for work for myself and for a variety of clients and employers. I’ve had fun with them here and there. But I stopped using Twitter long before it became X because frankly I just didn’t get it. I never really started using TikTok because by the time it came around, I really didn’t get it. And in between the only one that I ever spent a lot of time on was Instagram.
In fact, I have spent quite a bit of time on Instagram over the years, to the point where sometimes I’ve deleted the app and taken intentional pauses because it didn’t feel great for my mental health. But Instagram never actually made me feel bad. And Substack often does. Why?
It’s a question I’ve really been trying to answer for a while now.
Substack is About Substack
I don't remember ever going on Instagram and seeing people post regularly about how to use Instagram, how well they’re doing on Instagram, how to do better on Instagram, how everyone else is using Instagram, why they love Instagram.
Every other post in Substack Notes feels this way to me.
Yes, I keep working to curate the Substack Notes feed. I mute those posts. I like and comment on the beautiful art and meaningful words that I do enjoy seeing. Nevertheless, most days if I scroll Notes, I see more of those types of posts than not.
Why Does This Feel So Bad? It’s Not Comparison-itis.
I’ve taken long, honest looks into my soul (by which I mean written rambling journal pages and had late night conversations) to try to figure out why all of these writings on Substack about Substack bother me so much …
I really don’t think it’s an envy or comparison thing. I don’t look at people’s numbers of comments and follows and this and that and think, “why don’t I have that?” It’s just not a thing I do. I’m really the least competitive person I know in pretty much every aspect of my life.
I deeply believe it’s my job to put my creative work into the world and that it’ll find who it’s meant to and if that’s one person or one million it’s all the same. I believe this because my life has been changed by books I found in the dollar bin at used bookstores in tiny towns, the names of both the towns and the books I don’t necessarily remember.
I rarely look at my “numbers”. I was about to write something here about not noticing people’s blue checkmarks and realized I had to go look that up because I couldn’t even remember if they are blue or orange on this platform. I actually still don’t remember what specifically they signify.
So it’s not that. It’s not, “that person is doing better on Substack, I feel some type of way about it.”
Why Does This Feel So Bad? Automatically Getting Swept Up …
Despite not caring about the numbers, not believing there’s a right way to “do Substack,” I have found myself periodically swept up in Notes, checking out the posts people are writing about exactly those things - how to “do better on Substack.”
I found myself signed up for a pricy annual subscription to an account that provides Substack tips and annoyed every time I engaged with it because it felt like the only person profiting from the engagement was the person I was paying to tell me how to do that. (I’m sure plenty of other people have benefitted from that work; it’s just not right for me.)
How can I simultaneously not care about this and also get so wrapped up in it that I find myself reading and even subscribing? Sometimes I see a post advertised in Notes and I go read it just to find myself annoyed with every point the person makes about what Substack is or how to use it.
Why would I even read those? This certainly has something to do with the brain. The way it latches on to things.
Scarcity / Abundance Mindset Activated
I think, for me, it’s this. I came to Substack because I thought it could be a source of income for me. It is no secret that I’ve been having a really difficult financial time; I just shared some pretty vulnerable stuff about that in a newsletter published yesterday. Substack has not proven to be financially helpful to me in any significant way. And yet, I suppose I still want it to be, believe it could be, imagine that if I just did something more right that it would earn me more money.
I am struggling with a scarcity/ abundance mindset right now across all of my life. I want to believe in abundance, that the world will provide what I need. I don’t naturally trust this. Due to various circumstances of childhood/ trauma/ personality/ whatever, I have a scarcity mindset that I consistently have to work to neutralize. I believe that I have to work extra hard all of the time to possible even maybe have enough (be enough). I believe that if I slip even just a little bit, whatever I do have goes away. I don’t want to believe this. I do all kinds of personal growth work to move away from that scarcity mindset. But it’s my baseline … and so, when I’m stressed (ill, hungry, tired, scared), I revert back to it.
And so, I’m enticed, I think, by the idea that if I could be enough/ do enough, do better, do it right, then I could crack some Substack code and find it providing me with a six figure income so I wouldn’t have to worry about money so much anymore. And so, in moments of dis-ease, my brain latches on to all of those posts that suggest it.
And why doesn’t that feel good? A little bit because it’s not actually true. But more than that, it’s because it causes me to view my experience and participation and choices here as something that is deeply mis-aligned with who I am and what I believe. It causes me to act change my voice, interact in a certain way, try to play some kind of little games in order to do this thing “right.” And my soul knows that isn’t right, so it feels bad.
What Makes Substack Different For Me?
I don’t have qualms about doing work online, including to promote the things that I create, that aren’t necessarily soul-aligned. As long as they aren’t actually actively against my beliefs, I think there’s benefit to playing certain games … I’m familiar with SEO, I used hashtags when they were the bit thing for discoverability … none of that is problematic for me.
But it’s problematic for me, personally, on Substack. Why?
Maybe because this is more of a playground for me. Maybe it’s because this is where I share all kinds of writing and research about a topic I’m deeply passionate about (the complex relationship between art and writing) and if I play too many games out of some scarcity mindset then it doesn’t feel like I’m doing what I came here to do.
Maybe I’m not sure, yet.
Substack Newsletter Subscriptions
Substack isn’t just Notes, of course. It’s a platform where you can write a newsletter and others can subscribe to it.
I used to subscribe to literally hundreds of newsletters and I actually read them almost daily. I loved the experience the way that I loved blogs in their earliest days, when my Feedly was filled with hundreds of people’s writing that I’d intentionally found and chosen to keep reading.
And then, I stopped enjoying the Substack experience and unsubscribed from a lot of them. And some of that was specifically because so many other people had fallen into the exact same stuck place that I had … their Substack newsletter started to be more about Substack than about the topic of their newsletter. Or they stayed on topic, but you could tell that the way they chose to write and publish and share was heavily influenced by the Substack norms and trends.
Which isn’t bad, per se, but it created a weird echo chamber loop that just made me feel worse.
Plus, I think I stopped believing in newsletters as subscriptions. I think I got jaded. I got jaded about a lot of aspects of artists supporting artists and Substack epitomized the worst of it for me.
Now, don’t get me wrong - artists can and should and do support other artists. I love supporting other artists and makers and crafters and creators and performers. I want to take the money I make and give it to people who inspire me with the things that they make.
And yet … It feels like we as creatives have been sold some kind of lie about this in terms of how we make a living. How many people do you know trying to sell a Substack subscription - and how many Substacks can they themselves afford to support by paying for a subscription? How many people do you know who have had an Etsy store … and how many items could they truly afford to buy from other Etsy sellers? How many people do you know who have set up their own website with Shopify and are working night and day to create and promote and market and share in order to sell … and are they able to support other sellers to the extent that they would like to?
I love that we can all do the things that we want to do, believe in, are good at and that we can easily put them out into the world and possibly sell them. I love self-publishing in any medium and don’t think that there should be gatekeepers determining who can be published.
But I don’t really believe that all of us creators making tiny bits of money in our own little spheres can support one another. It takes something bigger given the system we live inside of. We are all scrambling and it’s not working for most of us.
Or is that just me? Is that just where I’m at in this current stage?
Substack: The Good Things
I have made a lot of wonderful connections here, particularly with women who are also in midlife and also trying to figure a bunch of similar things out as I am.
I have enjoyed some awesome creative collaborations - my book’s virtual Substack tour, a Substack blackout poetry exchange.
I have discovered so many great writers and publications.
It continues to be a place where I like writing and sharing my writing. It’s part newsletter, part blog, and it works better for me than Wordpress ever has just from a technical ease standpoint.
I just have to be mindful about how I use it. I have to keep the app deleted so that I’m not scrolling and automatically latching on to the parts that don’t feel good. I have to pause and ask my body what it feels like as I am engaging with it and stop when how I’m engaging feels bad.
And really, that mindfulness is true for anything we do, isn’t it? Used slowly, intentionally, with a mind towards genuine expression and connection to others, Substack can be a beautiful non-toxic place. If I’m careful.
If you read this far, perhaps you like my work. The work takes work. Support it if you can:
Katherine, I followed your thought process all the way through in this essay (with pleasure!😊), and I could be wrong, but I think that what you’re justifiably uncomfortable with is, 1) pyramid schemes, and, 2) capitalism.
I have often felt similarly with my regular work as a self-employed carpenter. I would love to be able to provide normal regular homeowners like me the kinds of prices that I myself could afford, but in reality, it is the rich people who can afford to pay me the kinds of fees I need to make a living. I haven’t solved that conflict yet except to say that I do work for both, and I don’t have a lot of money saved up for retirement as a result.
In that same respect, you’re asking if Substack writers, who are trying to make a little money as writers, could successfully support enough other writers so it all works well together, and everyone makes some satisfactory income. I have wondered about this too, and I don’t think it works. There has to be readers on here who are not writers trying to “make it,” but rather already have healthy incomes and are simply looking to consume and compensate good writing. “Outsiders,” in other words. Consumers for our product. Without them, we are sort of like a pyramid scheme, aren’t we? Are they here? I don’t know. Heather Cox Richardson would certainly say they are.
I totally understand your feeling. I loathe the substacks about growing on substack, and yet in the past I've subscribed to 3.
I also had 1 to 1 coaching from someone well respected here who proved terrible for me. They destroyed my individual style and voice and were part of the reason I left, before making a comeback.
I love it here. But part of the reason I love it is I dont need substack for money. Don't get me wrong, I WANT substack money and I work hard to get it, but my purpose here is different to that. If money was a key factor I'd have left long ago. I know I am very privileged to be in that position.
Substack gurus are the most visible and annoying people who seem to be making the most money. But I always console myself that the best selling substack of all time is run by a history teacher.