You know what would be even more radical tho? Tell us how much money you make thru this gig and what it takes (beyond immaculate taste, etc.) to make it as a writer without taking those corny ad dollars. Serious request.
Haha I started working in magazines out of college two decades ago 👴 and have been a journalist ever since. I've benefited from tons of great editors over that time.
Having something unique to say, a strong POV, seems to be fairly requisite for crowdfunding-era success, and publishing consistently is pretty key if you're going to ask people to pay for your writing. But there's no one blueprint. For our part we started this sletter at our kitchen table in 2020 when the "space" was young, and we have improvised & made everything up along the way. Generally I'll say that reading a lot of good writing all the time is the best way to become a stronger writer yourself.
Idk, it feels like so much of this conversation boils down to the whole "no ethical consumption under capitalism" conversation which should really be "no ethical existence under capitalism." The truth is that at every point in our lives, the big corporations have some control over what we do and how we do it. It's kind of why I have a hard time generally with the idea of "selling out" now, like with the Kurt Vile example, he fully admitted that it was like "well I can sell my music or I can struggle to take care of my kids so it is what it is." That's kind of where we're all at to varying degrees, some of us working jobs owned by companies or who do business with people we may not support or agree with, some who have tried to escape that but still have to participate in a housing market where maybe we're paying a mortgage to a major bank or paying rent to somebody who does unethical shit with their properties, our cars use gas or maybe we own a Tesla which is it's own disaster. So many of the medicines we take are manufactured in a country currently engaged in massive human rights abuses. Hell, two of the biggest internet webhosts are Amazon and Google, so this whole endeavor of just typing this comment is fraught with issues.
The reality is that as long as this is the system that exists, we're all beholden to it whether we like it or not. All we can do is try to make the best choices we can and minimize the damage we do through our unwilling participation and push back and speak out wherever we can. I think when we see people who are actively relishing in the harm they're causing that's one thing, but I'm not going to begrudge everyone else who's just trying to get by.
IMO I don’t mind when an artist or company or what have you, decides to take the check from a Big Evil Soulless Company. I like to view it as “ let me just do this quick and easy thing that probably takes little to no effort and make $$$ that will then fund this beautiful independent utopia im building for my family and my community”. The recent Toro y Moi Mcondalds collab is a great example, sure its an evil company that is poisoning the world but if they want to throw the bag his way that will fund his life, music, his cool new store that he probably employs a few people at,then have at it. Its situations like the Our Legacy/LVMH that I cant help but scoff. Because they most likely got too big for their britches and chose to expand quite a bit they now need the backing of a bigger player. The problem with that is now you’re at the behest of this monster because its going to want its ROI and then some from you, you have essentially tainted your independent utopian well by letting a company like LVMH in.
“They’re reminding us that, even in 2025, things can be made, and life can be lived, on other terms.” If you didn’t stick those commas in there I might have breezed by this. But you know how to write dude. Loved reading this so much.
and how do we reconcile the message of this post with the platform on which it is published (the one that recently took 100m from a16z and then started sending out push notifs with swastikas)
I've been wondering about this too. I think the Plane could easily either just switch to their own dedicated site or use IIRC Ghost as a platform (there are a few other sletters that have switched to it, I think)
But presumably even if they were to switch to their own site or some other platform, if they still wanted to collect subscription dues they'd have to use venmo or shopify or paypal or any of the other systems that all have their own varying forms of ethical issues.
Venmo and Shopify and Paypal aren't directly working with literal Nazis and then saying they feel a moral obligation to work with Nazis in the name of free speech or wetf
To be clear, I'm not defending substack by any stretch, and if BBSP went to another platform I'd follow them there and probably feel better about it. But the two points I'm getting at are that a lot of these sites are backended or bankrolled or otherwise supported in ways we don't love, and I mean...at the end of the day, we're all a little complicit by continuing to subscribe and comment here, right? We're all forcibly embroiled in ethically murky choices daily through no fault of our own. The place I went to undergrad used Aramark Corp for food service, and students were required to buy a meal plan on campus, and Aramark makes a ton of money through private prison contracts as well, so by going to college and trying to educate myself and become a better person, which I hope I did, I also had to contribute a little bit of my tuition dollars to an objectively shitty corporation.
Shopify actually has been challenged on that multiple times for hosting and supporting webstores that sell Nazi merch (not just talking about Yeezy Supply either).
An insightful and nuanced take, as usual. Sometimes we get the bag, sometimes the bag gets us; but the third, secret option - declining the bag - hasn't received its due. These days it is harder and also more important to resist the seemingly inevitable Capitalist grindset, while saving mindspace for the appreciation and production of fine things. 🙏
I usually feel like a dinosaur because I actually am Gen X and I still do often view the world through what usually seems like an ever-more-anachronistic lens of aversion to selling out (at least when it comes to creative endeavors), so it’s nice to see the case against scaling up and “getting the bag” made so well here. There is, of course, the $5 shows/Dischord records model that resonated for me in my youth, but the example that has stuck with me for years and years has always been the NY food legend Kenny Shopsin (definitely not a Gen X-er) once grousing about chefs who would scale up by opening multiple restaurants, asking something to the effect of, “Why the [expletive] would you open more restaurants instead of making the one restaurant you already have everything you want it to be?”
THIS.
You know what would be even more radical tho? Tell us how much money you make thru this gig and what it takes (beyond immaculate taste, etc.) to make it as a writer without taking those corny ad dollars. Serious request.
Haha I started working in magazines out of college two decades ago 👴 and have been a journalist ever since. I've benefited from tons of great editors over that time.
Having something unique to say, a strong POV, seems to be fairly requisite for crowdfunding-era success, and publishing consistently is pretty key if you're going to ask people to pay for your writing. But there's no one blueprint. For our part we started this sletter at our kitchen table in 2020 when the "space" was young, and we have improvised & made everything up along the way. Generally I'll say that reading a lot of good writing all the time is the best way to become a stronger writer yourself.
Idk, it feels like so much of this conversation boils down to the whole "no ethical consumption under capitalism" conversation which should really be "no ethical existence under capitalism." The truth is that at every point in our lives, the big corporations have some control over what we do and how we do it. It's kind of why I have a hard time generally with the idea of "selling out" now, like with the Kurt Vile example, he fully admitted that it was like "well I can sell my music or I can struggle to take care of my kids so it is what it is." That's kind of where we're all at to varying degrees, some of us working jobs owned by companies or who do business with people we may not support or agree with, some who have tried to escape that but still have to participate in a housing market where maybe we're paying a mortgage to a major bank or paying rent to somebody who does unethical shit with their properties, our cars use gas or maybe we own a Tesla which is it's own disaster. So many of the medicines we take are manufactured in a country currently engaged in massive human rights abuses. Hell, two of the biggest internet webhosts are Amazon and Google, so this whole endeavor of just typing this comment is fraught with issues.
The reality is that as long as this is the system that exists, we're all beholden to it whether we like it or not. All we can do is try to make the best choices we can and minimize the damage we do through our unwilling participation and push back and speak out wherever we can. I think when we see people who are actively relishing in the harm they're causing that's one thing, but I'm not going to begrudge everyone else who's just trying to get by.
IMO I don’t mind when an artist or company or what have you, decides to take the check from a Big Evil Soulless Company. I like to view it as “ let me just do this quick and easy thing that probably takes little to no effort and make $$$ that will then fund this beautiful independent utopia im building for my family and my community”. The recent Toro y Moi Mcondalds collab is a great example, sure its an evil company that is poisoning the world but if they want to throw the bag his way that will fund his life, music, his cool new store that he probably employs a few people at,then have at it. Its situations like the Our Legacy/LVMH that I cant help but scoff. Because they most likely got too big for their britches and chose to expand quite a bit they now need the backing of a bigger player. The problem with that is now you’re at the behest of this monster because its going to want its ROI and then some from you, you have essentially tainted your independent utopian well by letting a company like LVMH in.
I’m so thirsty for those Wanderers
“They’re reminding us that, even in 2025, things can be made, and life can be lived, on other terms.” If you didn’t stick those commas in there I might have breezed by this. But you know how to write dude. Loved reading this so much.
and how do we reconcile the message of this post with the platform on which it is published (the one that recently took 100m from a16z and then started sending out push notifs with swastikas)
I've been wondering about this too. I think the Plane could easily either just switch to their own dedicated site or use IIRC Ghost as a platform (there are a few other sletters that have switched to it, I think)
But presumably even if they were to switch to their own site or some other platform, if they still wanted to collect subscription dues they'd have to use venmo or shopify or paypal or any of the other systems that all have their own varying forms of ethical issues.
Venmo and Shopify and Paypal aren't directly working with literal Nazis and then saying they feel a moral obligation to work with Nazis in the name of free speech or wetf
To be clear, I'm not defending substack by any stretch, and if BBSP went to another platform I'd follow them there and probably feel better about it. But the two points I'm getting at are that a lot of these sites are backended or bankrolled or otherwise supported in ways we don't love, and I mean...at the end of the day, we're all a little complicit by continuing to subscribe and comment here, right? We're all forcibly embroiled in ethically murky choices daily through no fault of our own. The place I went to undergrad used Aramark Corp for food service, and students were required to buy a meal plan on campus, and Aramark makes a ton of money through private prison contracts as well, so by going to college and trying to educate myself and become a better person, which I hope I did, I also had to contribute a little bit of my tuition dollars to an objectively shitty corporation.
Shopify actually has been challenged on that multiple times for hosting and supporting webstores that sell Nazi merch (not just talking about Yeezy Supply either).
An insightful and nuanced take, as usual. Sometimes we get the bag, sometimes the bag gets us; but the third, secret option - declining the bag - hasn't received its due. These days it is harder and also more important to resist the seemingly inevitable Capitalist grindset, while saving mindspace for the appreciation and production of fine things. 🙏
I usually feel like a dinosaur because I actually am Gen X and I still do often view the world through what usually seems like an ever-more-anachronistic lens of aversion to selling out (at least when it comes to creative endeavors), so it’s nice to see the case against scaling up and “getting the bag” made so well here. There is, of course, the $5 shows/Dischord records model that resonated for me in my youth, but the example that has stuck with me for years and years has always been the NY food legend Kenny Shopsin (definitely not a Gen X-er) once grousing about chefs who would scale up by opening multiple restaurants, asking something to the effect of, “Why the [expletive] would you open more restaurants instead of making the one restaurant you already have everything you want it to be?”