Unfortunately, I am thinking about Substack again. 

This latest period of anxious hyperfixation was brought on by the recent New Yorker article “Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack?” Though I think the answer is clearly “no,” the author of the New Yorker piece paints an of-the-moment portrait of literary life playing out across newsletters that left me feeling restless. 

Of course I have pondered starting a newsletter! I have gone so far as to register for a Substack account, spend several hours formatting my page just so, and then proceeding to never write a single word. 

Though I envy the writers who have managed to transform Substack into a vehicle for literary buzz and PayPal account deposits, I know I don’t have what it takes to do the same. It’s not because I don’t think I can write snarky Selling Sunset recaps as well as the next former NYU student — it’s because I really, truly do not care to read anyone else’s Substack. I cannot bring myself to care! My inbox is a sea of expired Sephora coupons and articles about unlikely animal friendships shared by my parents — how could one person possibly have the capacity to add thinkpieces about Sally Rooney to that mix? I simply cannot do it! 

Present here is also an element of fear. The rise of Substack writing is symbiotic with the ways that writers — and artists in general — are increasingly expected to exist as a brand; a commodity for consumption. So and so is the ethereal fashion critic, the socialist political analyst, the pop culture connoisseur. Am I afraid because I don’t wish to box myself in — or because I am afraid that I don’t have a point of view? 

I write this blog — obviously. I used to write regularly on Medium, though I think the site has all but dissipated into irrelevance. I sometimes wonder if Substack is doomed to a similar implosion. Having this wee corner of the internet feels different than having a newsletter, though. It simply exists. I can convince myself I am writing in the spirit of Mark Fisher! (She said only somewhat ironically). 

As I sit here and ponder these asinine questions, the fact is really this: I have spent the last 10 or so years waiting around for a formal invitation into the literary community. Literally. I have basically imagined that one day Emily Greenhouse is going to send me a letter formally inviting me into the inner circle of the literary elite. Then I will be taken seriously! 

My bitter streak is no secret. I have aligned myself with the type of modern writer who longs for a literary world that no longer exists, despite the fact I’ve never actually lived in that world myself.  My adolescence was dominated by blogs, and my early 20s was the golden era of Vice and BuzzFeed, before those publications gave way to pathetic union busting and eventual uselessness. 

When I read an article like the New Yorker piece, about what all of these wonderful writers are doing, it’s like I imagine a big room filled with interesting conversation, and I am peering through the window, my heavy breath fogging up the glass. I imagine something concrete and tangible, when the reality is that community is what you made of it. And that is an incredibly frustrating realization because it means that such a thing could never live up to the dreampalace that I have spent so long constructing. 

But maybe that also means I don’t have to wait for the invitation anymore. Maybe it means the power is in my hands.