Notes from the great heap!

So its the last Sunday of the year. Some look back to “recap” the past, while some prefer to gaze (and speculate) at the “coming future”. The rest, are perhaps too busy grappling with or managing the “present”. Regardless, the world we observe virtually through cybernetic windows, are full of highs and lows, breaking waves of shock, despair and anxiety, also rife with affirmations and psychopolitics, memetic propaganda, thriving in terms of magic-thinking and millions of “independent voices” — of citizens, journalists, activists, best selling authors, veterans, messiahs, etc, etc. Dispensing information, expertise, self-help, even conspiracy, morality, geopolitics, science, art, dissent, debate and discourse. Also malignant behavior, group-thinking, perchance and what they call “discovery”. Services or platforms, such as Substack that we are “actively” plugged into, equates to an “economic engine of culture” as monetization of whatever possible — regardless of our particular mission, broader concerns, target-audience and ambitions.

As an experience, in terms of online reading, writing and interaction, Substack is like a great heap. Tens of millions of “particulars”. Ten of millions of “phenomena and cause” based pages. What underpins is the the neoliberal achievement spirit — the landing page declares “tens of millions of people actively watching, listening, and reading on Substack each week” (Substack, About). Or as Chris Best (co-founder, Substack) claimed as “discovery is built into the product”. Yet the “product” is not really Substack, nor is there anything unique about the founders and the space, but the daily users and subscribers — the makers, writers, content creators, influencers, celebrities, experts, ranters, propagandists, including the mass of “generators” situated at the bottom or middle or top of the same heap.

Substack is a perfect mirror universe of Byung-Chul Han’s “Achievement Society, Burnout Society”. “There’s no better low-effort, high-reward way to engage with all my readers.” (Hung Up, Hunter Harris). Such uplifting hogwash aside for now, the real “effort” is based on labor — made of our concerns, activity and imagination and the overall potentiality which makes the present appear “no better”. Yet the “no better” itself is temporal. The bizarre or exclusive binaries of “politics, pop-culture, food, philosophy, tech, travel, pets, and much more” do not equate to anything sustainable as work, nor employment especially in the long-term.

“A few hundred paid subscribers can support a livelihood” (Substack, About). The word “can” being the neoliberal keystone, underpinning the larger scam of achievement viz-a-viz wealth generation. To be clear, less than 5% of Substack users have achieved the above predicament (approximately 20 million monthly active subscribers). Its a neoliberal market like any. Albeit, our zeitgeist is made of stories and the “art of self-exploitation”. Some people are telling the same story again and again, and so be it. And some are expressing, creating or revealing what they may never have earlier. Yet we can concur, that Substack operates as any social media space — centered around maximization of profits and market domination, unlike most of us as individuals. Whatever its worth, the matter is about innovation and not the given platform nor the popular techniques-of-the-day.

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