# Substack Notes

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

In the wake of the 2024 presidential election, many people are reconsidering how they follow the news. A lot of this has to do with X, which was once a lively platform to follow and comment on current events. Elon Musk bought the site formerly known as Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 and has transformed the site into a megaphone for right-wing misinformation. With Musk formally joining the Trump administration, the site will become little more than a vehicle for government propaganda. 

The number of people who use X has dropped precipitously since Musk took over, losing one-fifth of its daily active users over the last year. The users "that have stayed on X now largely see posts that skew toward the political bent of Musk himself," the Washington Post reported last month. X also "has secretly throttled traffic to the New York Times and other sites Musk has vilified," including sites hosted by Substack like Popular Information. Meanwhile, Musk directed engineers to increase the distribution of his own tweets. The resulting change in the algorithm "artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000." A recent experiment by Fortune found that all X users are bombarded with Musk's political musings, whether or not they follow any other accounts related to politics.  It is becoming increasingly clear that X is no longer an effective place to distribute or discover reliable news and information. Here is your guide to the alternatives. 

Popular Information has the rundown on some Twitter/X Alternatives for those who want to move away from the Muskrat hellhole, such as Bluesky and Threads.

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

🎉 Celebrate Your Substack, No Matter the Size!

📢 CONGRATULATIONS on starting your Substack! Whether you have one subscriber or a thousand, every step forward is worth celebrating. 🎊 👇 Drop your Substack link below I will personally check out every single one of them and curators of my publications to amplify them because I believe in the power of connection and community. 🤝 🌟 What’s in it for you? I might discover gems that align with my…

[orchidscurse]

queer cinema i love you horror movies i love you transgenderism i love you!!! 📺🩷

[akajustmerry]

i am sharing some personal thoughts about n*il g*iman under the cut. its been on my mind a lot. getting me down. so i am just getting it out. ftr i wholeheartedly believe and support his victims - those who have been publicly identified and any others. i wish him nothing but rot, and i hope the victims get the justice and peace they need. purely personal thoughts below the cut. cw for mentions all things relating to the ongoing case(s) ie. rape, sexual violence, etc.

taking a moment to just say that the neil gaiman case(s) have honestly fucked a small part of me up for the moment.

it was one thing for me to know that gaiman had shitty coloniser politics that didn't align with my own as an Indigenous fan (dudes briddish, like...not dismissing these things a non-serious issues but there are just things that don't surprise me when it comes to white male british authors), its a whole other thing to cognitively comprehend first hand accounts and recordings of neil gaiman committing and admitting to heinous acts of violation and violence.

it was an easy thing for me to un-pedestal gaiman when his zionism and anti-blackness became obvious and more public, it's another thing (painful and sickening) to have to reckon with the fact that he leveraged people's love for these works to manipulate and harm them. its a different thing to know that the money he got from fans like myself buying those books, films, shows was being used by him to silence and harass these victims and still at this very moment is being used to do that.

something that has really affected me is that in the vulture article, the journalist discusses how ocean at the end of the lane was ("allegendly") a novel he wrote as a means to trauma-plot his shitty behaviour towards women. several friends allege in the article that he wrote that book because he was refusing therapy to deal with the harm he was doing that stemmed from his childhood trauma. if you followed me for a while, you might know that the ocean at the end of the lane is not only my favourite gaiman novel, but my favourite fantasy novel, period. it inspired a lot of my own work but most significantly that book quite literally helped me not to killl myself. i say that without exagerration. it changed my life in ways i struggle to make legible. i carry a copy whenever i go on long trips and own 3 in case i lose one.

it brings me to tears to know the circumstances under which that book was written - however directly and indirectly - are circumstances Gaiman uses to gaslight and DARVO his victims. it genuinely makes me nauseated to know that a book i love so much has not only financially supported gaiman in violence towards these women (as all his works have), but also is something he ideologically uses to justify his actions toward them. it feels so cruel and heartbreaking that book is not just poisined by association, but is implocated directly in his literal rape and trafficking of these women.

for so many years of my life its been a habitual thought, that when i am feeling dangerously hopeless, i think of ocean at the end of the lane or read it and it helped me remember that i exist (as i said hard to really make legible how that book makes me feel sorry). its like a permanent pathway in my brain for years, and now every time my brain habitually goes to go down that path it makes me feel worse. "worse" doesn't even cover it but i am too sad and angry to think of a better word.

i don't really want to say a lot about this, but when i was younger about 10 years ago, gaiman interacted with me several times as a fan online. we were even briefly mutuals for a week on Twitter after i shared a selfie buying my second copy of toateotl at an airport. these interactions have also been poisoned for me in my head. especially, after learning these kinds of interactions were something predatory for the victims and were how gaiman victimised some of the women.

i am not saying any of this to say that i see myself as being equal to the victims. i am not. what they have been through by him is infinitely worse than anything any fan, including myself might be feeling. i don't want anyone reading this to think thats what i am saying. i know i will be fine. there are plenty of other writers who are better in every way, who have also inspired and moved me. i am not without. this is not me saying gaiman was the only author i cared about. this is also not me saying that i'm special for any of this either. i know many ppl are feeling the same or similarly. i am just trying to articulate why this so personally saddens me as well as the genral disgust at everything else that has come to light, thanks to the staunchness of the women who came forward.

nevertheless. against my better judgment or anything that makes sense, i do feel like something tinily fundamental has been scortched in me. nothing, of course, to the degree of the victims. i respect, admire, and thank them for revealing the truth and wish them nothing but the best. it's just so hollowing, so gutting, to have a story and memories you at one point loved so much that a piece of your brain grew around them...only for these things to be party to actions so vile. i truly hope neil gaiman rots in perpetuity for all he has done.

[adharagranley-writer]

i have a substack now! if any of you want to go there and subscribe to read my random writer ramblings and thoughts that would be very appreciated (i'll giggle and kick my feet in the air if i get subscriber & comment notifications).

any other substack writers here?

[camcorderrevival]

23.9.24 - first year does something evil to the mind. but ive let it all go. or i will, at some point.

[moonlittowl]

[kk-iki]

i'm angry and i wrote about it. it's not a good read, i don't think, but it's honest.

as a forewarning, just to be entirely candid. . .@deerprey, if you happen to read this one, it's not about you. i promise.

[daportalpractitioner]

i've brought my cosmic reports back but on substack.

i also write about my personal experiences + bits of other spiritual content here and there. if you love my astrological insights, don't hesitate to subscribe (: see you on substack grls!! ♡︎♡︎♡︎

[sageispunk]

just did my first live reading of a short story🫣

[first-saturn-return]

Saturn return for people with Saturn in Aries born in the 90s

The Saturn return for people with Saturn in Aries born in the 90s will be a great opportunity to filter how you want to exist online.

Subscribe to the free newsletter: https://firstsaturnreturn.substack.com/p/saturn-in-aries-in-2025

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Substack Crash Course - Section 2

Using Substack Notes for Audience Growth Summary of my Udemy Course “From Zero to Substack Hero.” Dear freelance writers, this is a new series upon request from my readers. I recently developed a course titled “From Zero to Substack Hero” and published it on Udemy and shared it on Content Marketing Strategy Insights owned by Dr Mehmet Yildiz who kindly allowed me to use his Substack Mastery…

[alicewritten]

virtual journal, 10/11

studying for my statistics exam & having the usual existential crises, which are very useful for character growth

i don’t know what to make it of all of this desire to be good !

[orchidscurse]

trying out something new this month!! my first in depth album analysis is now up on my substack. honourable mentions include: the monkees and dustin hoffman. go give it a read if this speaks to you.

[ecrivaine-musings]

Creation as an act, in whatever form you chose, is inherently uncomfortable. Finding a way to reach in and pull out coherent fragments of yourself, and then bring them together to be larger than the sum of their parts is a brutal alchemy. One that is both a pain and a pleasure, addictive in its self intoxication.  

paperbackstacks, 'my dreams would swallow me if I let them'

[trauma-tits]