# notes --- - [[{2.4a1} we should not bring the machine of social media into walled gardens]] # highlights --- > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > I’m noticing this platform has become a really good way for women to monetize their diary entries — lists, random thoughts, and (easy to write) roundups of “what I’ve been doing” do really well on this site.  Substack is making everyone into writers the same way Instagram made everyone into photographers, but there’s one big difference: the entrepreneur thing wasn’t built into Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger’s original vision.* > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > writing… it’s held on such a pedestal, when it’s just another medium for “expression” and monetizing your identity.” > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > Social media is encroaching on what was a once a respectably literate walled garden — the machine is now in the garden. > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > Even skillful and “serious” essayists can’t resist the seduction of popular Substack tropes (list of content I’m consuming, list of things that make me happy, list of my favorite restaurants) > > these are notes! for your notes app / digital garden! > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > Today, I can barely tell anyone apart.  Many of the Substacks I follow use these big, figurative words that don’t really make sense in an attempt to go viral, which on this platform means getting subscribers and notes and comments. It’s like there’s this internet language that “works” for engagement (literal language, but also sense of style, and a range of trending topics to touch upon) but it all coagulates together and creates a whitewashed, boring internet. > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > A friend pointed out that ==even these peoples’ bad days look the same== — it’s never “I thought about killing my boss,” or “My group dinner the other night made me super anxious but I posted it on Instagram anyway,” it's always like, “wallowing, languishing, reading by the lake, journaling, feeling blue by the window.” > > [[{1.2a1a1a} online authenticity paradox]] > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > There are a lot of people trying to monetize noise. > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > Huizinga goes on to get curious about what happens when people publish diary-like entries on Substack: > > “I often feel the call to write about heavy life experiences for a number of reasons, ranging from seeking solidarity with others to wanting to work through my own feelings. Across my blog and my personal diary, I write to connect, to illuminate, and, selfishly, to salve personal wounds. Predictably, these reasons often blend and overlap. However, I have an ongoing fear of crossing a line. Of offering excessive personal access for the sake of it, conflating it with “good writing” when it’s really just a cumbersome confessional - a self-gratifying expulsion.” > > > [[Huizinga, Madison - 2024 - Look At Me No Don't]], [[i often feel the call to write about heavy life experiences]] > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > ==I think a certain set of millennial women think they miss Tumblr, but they really miss a specific moment of anonymity and creation on the internet.== [[a certain subset of millennial women think they miss tumblr]] > [!quote]+ Updated on Sun Oct 13 2024 12:06:58 GMT-0400 > > The ghost of Tumblr was wandering the internet for the past ten years, and has made itself at home on Substack.