Moving elsewhere...

To new chapters!

Blogging has resurrected itself in the form of newsletters, and Substack is undeniably the premiere locale for this evolution. Lots of people have substacks. Organizations even run multiples based on interests. It’s the new podcasting. Everyone has one and everyone is here. Hell, it’s why I chose Substack to start putting out my weird and esoteric thoughts on culture and narratives. This site has been very good to me and for me, and I’ve really enjoyed the past ten months here of growing this small audience into a slightly less small audience and people reading my stuff.

But I have to draw the line somewhere.

No platform is perfect, and it’s easy to find moral disagreements with just about anything in the virtual space. But Substack (given its ubiquity) is certainly a lightning rod of bad decisions that add up to something in which I don’t really feel like participating. The platform is allowed to make money off Neo-Nazis. It’s their right to earn their money wherever they want. Doesn’t mean my gray-matter-to-digital-letters process need to add to that enterprise. The platform recently enabled subscriptions through the App Store, but that comes with a whole mess of complications. Tthe implementation of user-convenience ends up hurting both creatives and subscribers by adding fees for the use of Apple’s infrastructure, further leeching money from the users who have some to entities with thirteen-figure market caps.

But it’s theit recent integration with Polymarket that really felt like a Rubicon moment. It’s probably not as bad as the others (and certainly isn’t as bad as Neo-Nazis), but the explosion of online gambling is bad enough without putting virtual tickers onto posts and gamifying literally every aspect of public culture.

That doesn’t even go into the seriously questionable betting markets that seem to encourage serious insider trading. It’s so bad that there’s now an entire industry on better on insider trading itself. Morally, that’s a line I don’t want to cross. And it’s people’s money to spend as they will. But it (like cryptocurrency) is an unregulated market where those in control can prey on users who don’t (or don’t want to) know better. Between the level of corruption in the business community and the rotted state of the executive branch under the leadership of a convicted felon who has no qualms with being the most corrupt president in the history of the United States… I just can’t. And I can say that without even touching on the insane weirdness of press secretary Karoline Leavitt abruptly ending her White House press conference in such a way that made 2% of those who bet on its length a 50x payout. I’m not saying this is an insider job, but given where everything is, it’s really hard to not be at the very least suspiscious.

I just can’t ignore this anymore. Others are more than welcome to stay (and I don’t judge anyone who does; moving is terrifying), but I need to go somewhere else.

So I moved to Ghost.

I’ve already migrated my work there and have started putting out new posts to get that ball rolling. I also ported over all subscribers (including the lovely, wonderful people who so generously do paid subs). If you’re getting this in your e-mail you should have also gotten a different one earlier this morning with a review of last week’s episode of The Pitt. In the next few days I’m planning on writing about the most recent season of The Traitors, a review of Scream 7, a March catchup post, and (of course) lots more Pitt. I’m also planning on a weekly series on the films of Christopher Nolan in the leadup to The Odyssey (which should start in about two months), and am aiming for three posts per week: two free and one for the (again extremely lovely and very attractive) paid subscribers.

This isn’t the end of my writings. Far from it. The whole reason to move is to make something that didn’t gnaw away at my brain stem every time I sat down to write. Ghost feels like the ideal platform because that’s where some of my favorite writers landed when they reached their breaking point here.

I also can walk away knowing that this isn’t about the eyeballs that a platform like Substack can bring. This is about the practice of writing, and even if no one was reading I would still be writing just to settle these thoughts and theories that regularly ping-pong around my skull. Podcasting doesn’t cut it. It’s easy to ramble on and stumble into points. But writing? Writing is just… the best.

If I don’t see you, that’s too bad. There’s a lot of other outlets out there and even more ways to entertain yourself. I totally understand.

And if I do… well… there’s a whole lot more to come.

Toodles!
-Matt