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Nick Ang's avatar

I started a substack a little over a year ago thinking it would be this "middle scale" as you call it. Then substack released checkmarks and Notes and a flurry of features that mirror other social media platforms, and I want to blame them for making me veer off course and write unpalatable posts while thinking hard how to be useful on here, but I think it's just me. Me, immersed for over a decade of lurking and occasionally jumping on The Stage.

I blogged when I was in uni on a WordPress site. I assumed it would be anonymous and read only be a handful of weird nerds and friends who actually cared. And when I look back at the posts there and the intimate, regular connections I've had with 3 people over a year or two of posting, I feel sad and hopeful. Sad that I'm still struggling to find my way back to that (it's hard because I need to resist the allure of The Stage). Hopeful because I can see Substack working like that WordPress site, maybe even better, and the intimate connections can return. I just need to write like I used to; that is, for the few, not the lurking masses.

Thank you for writing this piece, Dean!

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Mak's avatar

Just to answer a few of your question:

Do you remember life on the Internet before the feed?

As an experiment, I cut nearly all social media use this month. The first few days were bad. I felt like an addict trying to quit. I never realised I had (or maybe I should say “have”) an instant reaction to pull out my phone whenever I was even half bored.

I realised by the fourth day, the new void meant I was starting to ask myself difficult questions. Pulling out my phone was a way to keep me distracted and avoid answering them.

Do you feel the stage effect when posting?

Yes on Twitter but no on Substack. I suspect it’s because I personally know most of my subscribers to my newsletter so there’s less pressure to perform. But my audience is starting to grow so that might change.

It would be interesting to know if people who have large following, started to feel the stage effect once their followers expanded beyond people they knew personally.

Aside from your Internet friends, are the people in your life active on social media?

No. Useless they have a business or service they are selling. It might only be my feeds but social media just feels like people trying desperately to get approval from other people or people try selling some shit to me.

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