Substack Is Great. The Vibe Is Weird.

A Calm Place to Publish Until the Hustle Crowd Shows Up

I like Substack. I really do.

Not in a “this platform saved my life” kind of way, but in the more grounded way where you notice a tool is actually built around the thing you want to do: write, publish, and build a direct connection with people who choose to hear from you.

For anyone doing anything independent like, music, photography, writing, whatever, that direct connection is not a nice-to-have anymore. It is the whole point.

A lot of platforms let you “build an audience,” but you’re renting the relationship. You’re building on land someone else owns, with rules that can change overnight, and the payout is usually “exposure” with a headache.

Substack, at its best, feels like the opposite of that. It’s closer to having your own little corner of the internet where the default is: you write, people subscribe, and your work goes straight to them.

And the part that genuinely matters, even if it sounds boring, is that you can leave. You can take your stuff and your list with you.

That alone makes it feel more serious than most places online.

The control part is real

Here’s one of the reasons I’m optimistic about Substack: the “ownership” angle is not just marketing copy.

Substack provides export tools for retrieving your posts via Settings → Exports.

It also lets you export your email list from the Dashboard by going to Subscribers and using the Export option, including exporting the full list or filtered segments.

That means if Substack ever shuts down, or if you simply get tired of it and want to move somewhere else, Ghost, self-hosting, whatever, you are not trapped starting from zero.

That is huge. It changes the whole psychological game. It makes the work feel less fragile.

You’re not just chasing attention. You’re building something portable.

Then the vibe kicks in

But after a couple of weeks, another side of Substack started to become impossible to ignore.

How much positivity does a person need?

Not that I’m craving negativity. I’m not trying to replace doomscrolling with doom-newsletters. But seriously.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Quotes. Daily quotes. Endless quotes.

And experts. Experts everywhere.

The platform sometimes feels like a never-ending parade of “here is the cure” content. Cure for your writing. Cure for your productivity. Cure for your confidence. Cure for your business. Cure for your mindset. Cure for your morning routine. Cure for your dopamine. Cure for your life in general.

And look, people are allowed to sell things. I’m not anti-money. If you can make a living writing, great. If you can turn your knowledge into something useful, also great.

What’s annoying is the tone. The constant “I have figured it out, and now I will fix you” energy.

At a certain point it stops feeling like publishing and starts feeling like a conference lobby.

The mechanism behind the vibe

One thing I didn’t expect is how much Substack sometimes recreates the same social dynamics it claims to be an alternative to.

Because it’s not just newsletters anymore. There’s a feed. There are in-network ways for posts to travel. There’s a lot of “look at me” energy that makes perfect sense if the platform rewards attention inside the platform.

I’m not saying that’s evil. I’m saying it explains why the loud, confident, “high engagement” stuff multiplies faster than quiet, thoughtful writing.

The brag economy

Another thing that hits you pretty fast: the flexing.

“How I got 10,000 subscribers in 90 days.”

“How I make 20k a month writing 3 hours a week.”

“How I replaced my job with a newsletter.”

There’s a specific flavor of this that feels less like sharing and more like performing success.

And yes, part of this is just internet culture. But I can’t help wondering if it’s also an American thing, culturally? This way of talking where you’re supposed to present yourself like a walking case study at all times.

Because to me, when someone constantly leads with numbers, money, subscriber counts, revenue screenshots, it doesn’t feel inspiring. It feels like a pitch.

And maybe it’s not always a pitch. Sometimes people are genuinely proud. Fair enough.

But when the platform gets saturated with “growth stories,” it starts to feel like growth is the product, not the writing.

Like the newsletter isn’t the thing. The newsletter is just the proof that the system “worked.”

And that’s when it becomes weird.

“If you have under X subscribers, come here and you will grow.”

These posts make me laugh and annoy me at the same time.

Because no, you won’t grow just because someone made a post announcing they will help you grow.

You’ll grow if people actually engage with your work, share it, recommend it, reply to it, talk about it, and if the platform’s distribution surfaces pick it up and show it to more people.

That’s not cynicism. That’s just how platforms work.

And when somebody says, “Come here and you will grow,” what they often mean is: “Come here and comment, so my post gets engagement, so the system pushes it, so I grow.”

It’s growth talk that pretends the mechanism is something magical or moral, like “good vibes” and “community.”

No. It’s mechanics. It’s attention. It’s distribution.

Again, not evil. Just reality.

The new exhaustion, but with a nice font

This is what surprised me.

On the big social platforms, exhaustion comes from negativity. Outrage, fighting, doom, politics, discourse, whatever.

On Substack, exhaustion can come from positivity.

Not real positivity, like someone having a good day or sharing something joyful.

I mean performative positivity. Strategic positivity. The kind that always points back to hustle and improvement.

It’s the exhaustion of being told, constantly, that you’re one tweak away.

One mindset shift away.
One writing habit away.
One “system” away.
One “framework” away.
One “offer” away.
One “funnel” away.
One “consistency streak” away.

And it sneaks up on you because it doesn’t look toxic. It looks supportive.

But it still creates pressure. The pressure to optimize yourself into a product.

The pressure to turn your work into a growth machine.

The pressure to be “high value” all the time.

And that pressure is exactly what I wanted to escape when I started writing more seriously.

We already have enough platforms that try to do everything at once. Social feeds, chats, stories, reels, networking. Substack doesn’t need to become another “everything app.” Trying to use every feature just leads to burnout. I’m sticking to what works for me: long-form content.

“Dear Substack, connect me with…”

These posts.

“Dear Substack, connect me with writers about X.”
“Dear Substack, introduce me to people in Y niche.”
“Dear Substack, I want to meet photographers, musicians, founders, creatives, etc.”

What the actual fuck happened to the search function?

It’s right there.

Search. Browse. Subscribe. Read. Reply.

But instead, people post these public “connection requests” because they know it drives engagement. People reply. The thread becomes active. The post gets pushed.

So it’s not really about connecting. It’s connection cosplay.

It’s networking, but dressed up as community.

And I get why it works. I understand the incentives.

I just hate what it does to the feed.

Because it turns the platform into a place where everyone is asking to be discovered, instead of a place where people are making things worth discovering.

Follow-for-follow “we can grow together”

And then there’s the follow-for-follow culture. The “we can grow together” thing sounds friendly until you look at what it actually creates.

If one person writes about midnight jazz and the other person writes about hard shell jackets, what exactly are we doing here?

There’s no shared obsession, no overlap, no real reason for either audience to care. You might gain a number. You might gain a notification. But you don’t gain readers.

It’s fake growth. Inflation. Trading empty calories and calling it a meal.

The worst part is what it does to your brain. Instead of asking, “Did this reach the right people?” you start asking, “Did the number go up?”

And yes, numbers matter a bit. They just don’t matter the way people act like they do.

Ten people who genuinely want what you make will do more for you than a thousand unrelated follows who never read anything and never will.

Why slow growth is the best growth

I honestly don’t get why slow growth scares people so much.

Slow growth usually means the subscribers came for the actual work. They like the topic. They like the voice. They stick around. They reply. They recommend you to the one friend who will actually care.

That’s how you get a real base. Not a crowd, a base.

Following interests beats following numbers every time, because interest compounds.

Numbers don’t. Numbers just sit there looking impressive while your open rates quietly die.

If the whole point of Substack is a direct connection, then chasing fake growth is basically missing the point on purpose.

What I actually want from this place

Here’s what I want from Substack, personally.

I want writing that feels like a person wrote it, not like a “creator” wrote it.

I want posts that can be specific, messy, unfinished, and still worth reading.

I want someone to tell a story that doesn’t end in a sales pitch.

I want someone to write a great essay without turning it into “and here are the 7 takeaways.”

I want someone to say “I don’t know” without immediately packaging the uncertainty into a paid course.

I want a platform where not everyone feels like they have to be an expert.

Because honestly, most of the interesting people are not experts. They’re just paying attention.

They’re noticing things. Testing things. Making things. Failing at things. Living.

And then writing about it.

That’s the good stuff.

The “expert” costume

Let’s be fair again: there are real experts on Substack.

There are people who have done the work for decades and can write clearly about it.

But there are also a lot of people wearing “expert” like a Halloween costume.

You know the style.

Confident headline.
Neat list.
Strong claims.
A promise of transformation.
A link to the paid tier.

Sometimes it’s useful. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s just recycled internet advice in a nicer wrapper.

And because it’s written with certainty, it travels well.

Certainty is shareable. Confusion is not.

Nuance is rarely viral.

So the feed fills up with confident cures.

And if you’re not careful, you start thinking that’s what you’re supposed to write too.

You start thinking your normal human thoughts are not enough unless they come with a blueprint.

Politics and hate creeping in

Lately, another shadow has fallen over Substack: politics and hate speech have been gaining ground, with ongoing scandals eroding trust. Creators reported ditching the platform in 2025 amid an “ideological shift,” particularly post-Trump inauguration, citing tolerance for far-right extremism and neo-Nazi content.

Incidents include push notifications promoting antisemitic and neo-Nazi blogs, with Substack blaming “technical errors” while critics argue the platform’s free speech stance enables extremists to monetize hate. Earlier controversies from 2023-2024, like hosting white nationalist newsletters with thousands of subscribers, led to writer revolts and some bans, but issues persist into 2026.

I’m not here for polarized rants or extremism disguised as discourse. That vibe belongs elsewhere.

This is where I draw the line

Personally, I don’t want to build a writing practice that’s secretly a funnel.

I don’t want to think of readers as leads.

I don’t want to measure every idea by whether it “converts.”

I don’t want to turn my personality into a content calendar.

And I definitely don’t want to wake up feeling guilty because I didn’t post something “valuable” today.

I’m not trying to win Substack.

I’m trying to use it.

I’m trying to publish work I can stand behind and build a slow, real connection with people who actually want it.

If the platform helps with that, great.

If the platform tries to turn that into a hustle contest, I’m not playing.

How I use Substack without losing my mind

I’m only here for long-form written content. No notes, no feed-chasing, no trying to do everything at once, that just leads to burnout. We already have plenty of platforms overloading us with too much at the same time.

I treat the inbox like the real product and ignore the rest.

I export my list regularly, because portability is the whole point.

I’m also a reader and a subscriber. I subscribe to newsletters that actually interest me, and I pay real money for the ones worth supporting. I’m not here chasing growth for growth’s sake or obsessing over vanity metrics. When you do that—when everyone’s just hunting numbers and proving growth, you end up with a full theatre with many empty seats. You’ve got a crowd, but nobody’s actually engaged. Nobody’s really there.

I subscribe because the writing matters. Because I want to support creators doing real work. That’s what makes this whole thing sustainable, not the theater of growth hacking.

The part that keeps me here

So why stick around if I’m ranting?

Because the fundamentals are still good.

Email matters. Direct connection matters. Portability matters.

Substack gives you a simple way to publish, and it gives you export options so you can retrieve your posts and export your email list.

That is more than most platforms will ever offer.

Also, the best part of Substack is not the feed.

It’s the inbox.

It’s the relationship that builds slowly, when someone subscribes because they actually want your work, not because you got boosted by whatever the platform is pushing this week.

And there are still plenty of writers who are not doing the guru thing. They are just writing.

Thoughtfully. Weirdly. Honestly. Sometimes badly. Sometimes brilliantly.

But it feels human.

And that’s what I came for.

A request, not a pitch

If you’re reading this and you recognize the same irritation, here’s my suggestion.

Unfollow the noise.

Mute the hustle.

Stop reading posts that make you feel like you’re behind.

Subscribe to a small set of writers you actually like, and treat it like reading, not like networking.

And if you want to monetize, do it plainly.

Not with miracle language.

Not with fake scarcity.

Not with “I will fix you.”

Just: “If you want to support this, here’s the paid option.”

That’s it.

And maybe, just maybe, the platform becomes what it promised to be.

A place to publish.

A place to build something that lasts longer than the feed.

A place where you can write like a human being.

Because that’s the whole point.