a brief addendum

in response to my critic(s)

I think this piece from Sam Kahn is a good, if not entirely fair (what is? I’m certainly not), response to my last post. And in thinking through it, I’ve some to see some of the merits and demerits of Substack more clearly.

As one of my commenters pointed out, it isn’t Substack, per se, that I take issue with. It’s an “influencer model” as opposed to an “institutional” one. The value and vexation of Substack derive from the fact it hews, for the most part, to an influencer model. What Substack offers that traditional media doesn’t is the live drama of writers bitching at each other and being a mess in real time. (See: this exchange right now.) Writers on here are shaping themselves into characters, which is fun to watch and often involves real creativity. But by the same token, the influencer model encourages writers perform polemically, often sacrificing subtlety and charity along the way (you could call this Blake Smith Syndrome). (Arguably, the tone of my last post, which I think Sam is fair to dislike, was the product of this climate and its incentive structure.) Another thing that bothers me about the influencer model is that it fosters the myth of the writer as an independent operator. Writing is a social enterprise, and I think a lot of the best writing is produced in conversation and collaboration with others. This is even true in cases like that of, e.g., Kafka, who read his writing aloud to his friends and sought feedback often. Editing is a formalization of what is always implicitly true—that we write in conversation with others and should be responsive to their criticisms, when their criticisms make sense. In a way, this exchange is like an extended editing process taking place in real time, and it thereby demonstrates the value of editing.

Substack does not have to conform to the influencer model. As Sam says, it is what we make it. The people who use it could opt for the institutional model if they so desired. But at the moment, Substack is largely an adventure in parasocial performance. I don’t think that’s exclusively a bad thing—a lot of great literature is largely a matter of parasocial performance, honestly; just look at Eve Babitz!— but there are some obvious pitfalls involved. Also, if Substack were just another place where the insititutional model prevailed, it would lose all of its distinctive edge. So I don’t think it’s even desirable for Substack to try to emulate institutions.

What I don’t think I said that Sam ascribes to me:

-I don’t think I am “nostalgic for the heyday of newspaper reporting.” I’m not saying reporting is exactly the same as it was eighty years ago, or that technology hasn’t altered the ease with which some reporting takes place. Even so, reporting requires more resources than individual posters tend to have at their command.

-I don’t think I defend the actually existing legacy institutions. In fact, I’m pretty explicit that these institutions ought to be reformed. The point of my post was not to defend legacy media as it exists, much less to defend any particular publication, but to rather to point to some structural features of newspapers and magazine that allow them to produce work that is, on the whole, better in some respects and for some purposes than work produced by lone individuals. I’m clear, for instance, that publications with these features can (and do) exist on Substack. (The Free Press, which Sam mentions, is one of them, although I’m not a fan of it for some fairly predictable reasons.) For this reason, I regret using the language of “legacy” instead of the language of “institutions.”

-I think a lot of my remarks about Substack’s “wretchedness” are clearly hyperbolic jokes, and it’s uncharitable to read them as serious statements. As noted, one thing that is either bad or good about Substack/“the influencer model,” depending on your attitude and your appetite for drama, is that it encourages and rewards people who play a bit for dramatic effect. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-“The real point isn’t whether Substack is ‘better than’ or ‘a replacement’ for legacy media. Certainly, there’s no reason why the two can’t co-exist.” I agree, and I’m not advocating that Substack be abolished. But I still think it’s worth clarifying what the respective merits and functions of the two things are, especially because I’ve seen people on here explicitly defending the idea that Substack is a viable alternative to magazines and newspapers. I guess I’m not prepared to go further than I originally was. Substack doesn’t compete with institutions, and it shouldn’t, because a lot of what makes it fun is that it’s a place where people are messy. See above.

What I agree with:

-“What is at stake here really is the question of whether you want public space to be homogenous or heterogenous. If homogenous — if you like the idea of there being relatively few ‘established’ outlets, of a few books that everybody reads together — then you get a cozy atmosphere and a certain ease-of-use.” I agree that heterogeneity is good, and I agree that new technologies facilitate it.

-I agree that there are some good things that are published on Substack that would not be published in more mainstream publications, and that this is generally a good thing (although I also think that there have long been literary magazines and small presses that do publish such things and that we all ought to be going out of our way to support).

-I agree that I could’ve been more generous or tempered, but hey, I think one of the merits of Substack is that it allows writers to think out loud and give vent to their meaner impulses (much of my reflexive irritation would’ve been edited out of an article, for better or for worse).

What I don’t agree with:

-“That’s the real value of Substack — and of new media as a whole. What we’re really on the cusp of is a whole different way of being — which is to be boundlessly expressive and creative, without first having to fight for access to column inches or a gatekeeper’s seal of approval.” Sam is right that I’m less optimistic than he is about the fruits of this democratic experiment….which is to say, I am indeed an elitist, not in the sense that I think writers with Credentials are better or that the existing system rewards the writing that is best, but in the sense that I think a lot of writing (both on here and in publications) is pretty bad. (That’s separate from the question of whether it’s good that the bad writing exists, or whether it’s good and kind of exhilarating that the bad writing can be published in all its messy rawness. On the whole, I think it probably is, because I think the chaos and jostling of views on here is valuable….just not in the same way, or for the same reasons, that a literary magazine is valuable.)

My least politically correct opinion is that gatekeepers are a good thing because hierarchies of quality are real. Sorry! That isn’t to say I approve of the gatekeepers we have (except myself, to the extent that I am a gatekeeper; Sam, this is a joke), but it is to say I am not entirely optimistic about the products of a totally unfiltered commons. Or, more specifically: I am optimistic that the spectacle of a totally unfiltered commons will be a wild ride, and I am optimistic that it may enable a select few very talented people who would otherwise have no outlet to emerge. I am not optimistic that the majority of what it produces will be great. Which is fine! The whole exercise can be great for other reasons.