If you do leave, I hope you'll find a way to keep sending these missives from a place with less social media DNA, as they are lovely and inspiring every time.
I kind of cross my eyes to get out of notes and into my inbox for all the reasons you mention. I don't do social media period and resent being hosed by it to get to the writers I follow. Bless you for raising this. And yes, please, include me on the please notify if you start publishing somewhere else. I love reading these very much--so very grateful for your work!
Fwiw, in terms of alternate platforms - I've heard good things about Buttondown, Ghost, and beehiiv, although I don't have experience with any personally. Echoing the sentiment that I'd love to continue to receive the newsletter in some form!
i started reading this newsletter when it was first assigned to me for a class in junior year. i'm now about to be a sophomore in college and have enjoyed reading it in my email inbox when i have the time. i would love to keep reading what you write in another form, but i also understand the exhaustion social media brings in the current climate.
I used the app until Notes was launched, and then deleted it within a couple of weeks because it was hateful. It's much easier to avoid Notes without using the app, BUT as someone with a social media addiction and high levels of peevishness and annoyance, I still find the existence of Notes irritating and, as a writer on the platform, hard to avoid entirely.
Same. Everything in this post resonates. I miss the long incubation periods away from other people, when I'm alone with my writing and the faith that it will reach someone. When Notes is in your face every day, it is hard not to get sucked into the same trap that all social media sets: giving the platform the time and attention that your actual creative life deserves.
It is frustrating that even when you log from browser, you still see notes. I've never really used the Substack app, but it seems like there’s no way to escape the notes until they introduce a feature that allows us to disable them.
I have a love-hate relationship with notes. Recently, my experience hasn’t been great, as they tend to promote shallow content that I’m not interested in seeing on my timeline. If I wanted that, there are plenty of other apps to choose from.
That said, I’ve also made wonderful connections through notes and discovered amazing writers I wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. However, I find myself scrolling too much instead of enjoying the in-depth content in my inbox. I even switched back to receiving everything in my inbox and created a separate email for it! As you can see, it’s quite a dilemma.
I feel like you're writing my Substack diary 😂. I switched to receiving newsletters in my inbox as well, lasted for 1.5 months before I switched back. I don't want to fight it anymore. It's the first social media platform that got me. Let's see what comes out of it. I'm a generous user of 'hide note', 'snooze', 'show fewer like this' to curate my feed.
I love your newsletter. There's no reason to leave.
Yes, get rid of the app and stop thinking that you're "on Substack."
Substack is just an apparatus--a pretty good one given it's free and has amazing discoverability. It's a way for you to bring your work to the world and connect with your readers.
We don't have to be on the platform the way we're "on Instagram" or "on Facebook;" the platform is for us to use. In this, it's unlike any other.
This is your little corner of the internet universe. Stay.
deleting the app and never ever looking at notes on the web actually helped me get rid of that fatigue! i open the website once a week or so... that said, i don't like the way people have started writing on here and have retread from posting at all... so will be amaze if you started a blogspot account or something tbh... ✨✨
Yes, I do the same thing, get the email and occasionally come through to comment/like. I've only seen Notes a handful of times and it doesn't seem that engaging to me.
This is what I do, too. In fact, I have never found an app that I like. Absolutely minimal apps to sustain modern life (I can deposit a check, that's about it), no notifications on anything....makes everything better and less bitter.
Getting rid of the app is everything. I just read the newsletters I like, for the most part. Or else I bring Twitter-joke energy to the occasional Note and no one laughs! Alas.
So how do you manage Notes now? Your original post says you’re back, attested to in some way by your Notes comment here. How do you strike that balance?
Yes but what if I (person you have never met and have no obligation to) want to know which Jane Austen to reread next (or is the answer always Persuasion?)? Thanks for all the many thoughts you have shared here, always enjoyable. I don't know about notes I just read your things (and about 5 other writers) in my inbox and have really appreciated them. But fair enough... if you do go, you will be missed!
i just had to chime in and share that for me, too, there is something uniquely, outlierishly annoying about Notes specifically. and i am a tumblr veteran - no stranger to crossing paths with absolutely deranged takes!! - but the particular flavor of Notes Posting makes me feel a kind of spiritual misalignment like nothing else on al gore’s internet. i can’t really articulate why and all attempts at doing so quickly fizzle out because i can feel myself becoming the problem… but regardless you are not the only one who feels this way about Literally Just Notes, It’s Something About Notes. i had to delete the app and just log in manually whenever i want to do something which is annoying but better than leaving myself to the temptation of Notes.
SO not just you. I *loathe* Notes. It’s bad enough in the “friendly” zone. But tiptoeing out into the hateful nearly Nazi zone? Yeah nope. I almost responded to a man who always refers to Trump as Daddy.
all of this lol. Notes make me feel the specific kind of hyper annoyance that collapses into weird despair (??) - they just feel evil idk. at least on tumblr the derangement is interesting. i've never seen a Note that had something to say
I read your piece and wanted to restack it, but then I'm trapped b/c it says "restack with a note" and I'm wondering --- would that go into the "notes" area of substack? If so it's better to just restack without a comment...?
Same, granted I haven't written a newsletter in forever, but I was blissfully unaware of Notes because I don't use the app. I read via email and login using the web.
If you save blgtylr.substack.com/publish/home to your bookmarks and don't actually visit the Substack homepage or app, you will never see notes again. I always forget they exist and spent five minutes trying to find them after reading this post.
Me, too--I have the few stacks I read bookmarked on my computer and just go directly to them. Easy to skip Notes altogether. On my phone, I switched settings so that it opens to my Inbox--again no Notes.
I’ll miss you but my relationship to Substack is different than yours and I totally understand why you would want to leave it. If you decide to migrate to a different platform let us know x
This is exactly how I feel. I never have to log into substack, I only read newsletters that come to my inbox (most of the time, when I want). I wouldn't want anyone whose thinking I value to be beset by a wave of random opinions every time they try to write
Your articles on Craft in fiction are among the best things I discovered this year. A bit selfish, but I hope you continue publishing them post-substack, if you decide to leave.
God thanks for saying what so many of us are thinking. This is the first thing I've written on this platform in months. I get sick every time I open the feed.
I’ve had minimal exposure to “notes because I always read your newsletter right from my inbox and hardly ever go to substack, except when I feel compelled to leave a comment (like now), which I try not to do, since I almost always regret doing so, thinking, later, who am I to say anything? Anyway, at least I’ll still have the email versions of your substack posts when you go, and I hope you’ll find a better place to post, and that I’ll find it.
I totally get it but yes, I will feel the loss. I don’t comment much but your writing has given me so much to think about and has introduced me to so many ideas and writers that I’ve found invaluable.
I'm applying to writing MFA programs now, and a few weeks ago a good friend forwarded me your post looking back at your statement of purpose. I found it incredibly helpful. Incidentally, I'm considering taking a 3-6 month internet fast, so I totally get where you're coming from. Best of luck with wherever your writing takes you next.
Brandon, your posts have been incredibly useful to me as someone with LC and to my LC friends and others with whom I share your work. I greatly appreciate your labors in (and beyond) the fields of acrimony, as you so aptly put it. I hope you'll be able to continue this work in some way, but in any case, please know how important your work has been to us. Also, *#$!!@&*## the haters!
If you do leave, I hope you'll find a way to keep sending these missives from a place with less social media DNA, as they are lovely and inspiring every time.
100% agree. PLEASE, if you do something different (like just sending out an email blast), let us know.
I kind of cross my eyes to get out of notes and into my inbox for all the reasons you mention. I don't do social media period and resent being hosed by it to get to the writers I follow. Bless you for raising this. And yes, please, include me on the please notify if you start publishing somewhere else. I love reading these very much--so very grateful for your work!
Co-signing this. I love your newsletter.
This. 100% this.
Fwiw, in terms of alternate platforms - I've heard good things about Buttondown, Ghost, and beehiiv, although I don't have experience with any personally. Echoing the sentiment that I'd love to continue to receive the newsletter in some form!
Also, there's an option in the app to open to your subscription inbox instead of Notes; helps me avoid it.
Oh my gosh thank you!!!
Yes - this is what I do, and I also (as someone said elsewhere) cross my eyes and go to my Inbox on the web version.
Me, 532! I would love to continue to read your eloquent thoughts on life and things.
Added to the list of folks who echo this sentiment. I love your writing and hope you continue on elsewhere.
i started reading this newsletter when it was first assigned to me for a class in junior year. i'm now about to be a sophomore in college and have enjoyed reading it in my email inbox when i have the time. i would love to keep reading what you write in another form, but i also understand the exhaustion social media brings in the current climate.
This is...so beautiful!!!
we will all miss you and your work ❤️ it helped me discover i don't actually hate writing!
That is the nicest, most remarkable thing anyone has ever said to me. That’s wonderful. Thank you.
There is a solution, my friend. Get rid of the app. Changes everything. I wrote about that here, one of my most popular posts:
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/why-i-deleted-the-substack-app-and
I will check this out because mannnnnnn, it's....dire.
Yes, I refuse to use the app. So I've never seen Notes and I have no idea what it is...
I used the app until Notes was launched, and then deleted it within a couple of weeks because it was hateful. It's much easier to avoid Notes without using the app, BUT as someone with a social media addiction and high levels of peevishness and annoyance, I still find the existence of Notes irritating and, as a writer on the platform, hard to avoid entirely.
Same. Everything in this post resonates. I miss the long incubation periods away from other people, when I'm alone with my writing and the faith that it will reach someone. When Notes is in your face every day, it is hard not to get sucked into the same trap that all social media sets: giving the platform the time and attention that your actual creative life deserves.
I deleted the app less than a month after installing it. It doesn’t really help. 😅
It is frustrating that even when you log from browser, you still see notes. I've never really used the Substack app, but it seems like there’s no way to escape the notes until they introduce a feature that allows us to disable them.
I decided to embrace the platform with all it's got.
I have a love-hate relationship with notes. Recently, my experience hasn’t been great, as they tend to promote shallow content that I’m not interested in seeing on my timeline. If I wanted that, there are plenty of other apps to choose from.
That said, I’ve also made wonderful connections through notes and discovered amazing writers I wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. However, I find myself scrolling too much instead of enjoying the in-depth content in my inbox. I even switched back to receiving everything in my inbox and created a separate email for it! As you can see, it’s quite a dilemma.
This is my behavior exactly. I even notice I’m doing it. Why not spend that time reading newsletters I’ve already subscribed to?! 😲
I feel like you're writing my Substack diary 😂. I switched to receiving newsletters in my inbox as well, lasted for 1.5 months before I switched back. I don't want to fight it anymore. It's the first social media platform that got me. Let's see what comes out of it. I'm a generous user of 'hide note', 'snooze', 'show fewer like this' to curate my feed.
I love your newsletter. There's no reason to leave.
Yes, get rid of the app and stop thinking that you're "on Substack."
Substack is just an apparatus--a pretty good one given it's free and has amazing discoverability. It's a way for you to bring your work to the world and connect with your readers.
We don't have to be on the platform the way we're "on Instagram" or "on Facebook;" the platform is for us to use. In this, it's unlike any other.
This is your little corner of the internet universe. Stay.
deleting the app and never ever looking at notes on the web actually helped me get rid of that fatigue! i open the website once a week or so... that said, i don't like the way people have started writing on here and have retread from posting at all... so will be amaze if you started a blogspot account or something tbh... ✨✨
Same. I don't use the Substack App. I just receive your newsletters via email and it's a wonderful thing.
Yes, I do the same thing, get the email and occasionally come through to comment/like. I've only seen Notes a handful of times and it doesn't seem that engaging to me.
This is what I do, too. In fact, I have never found an app that I like. Absolutely minimal apps to sustain modern life (I can deposit a check, that's about it), no notifications on anything....makes everything better and less bitter.
Getting rid of the app is everything. I just read the newsletters I like, for the most part. Or else I bring Twitter-joke energy to the occasional Note and no one laughs! Alas.
Am doing that right now! Will just read newsletters via my email, which I did for a long time.
So how do you manage Notes now? Your original post says you’re back, attested to in some way by your Notes comment here. How do you strike that balance?
If you start a new newsletter on a different platform, I hope you do one last post here to direct us to it!
+1
Yes but what if I (person you have never met and have no obligation to) want to know which Jane Austen to reread next (or is the answer always Persuasion?)? Thanks for all the many thoughts you have shared here, always enjoyable. I don't know about notes I just read your things (and about 5 other writers) in my inbox and have really appreciated them. But fair enough... if you do go, you will be missed!
The answer is almost always Persuasion, but have you recently read or reread Mansfield Park? It's actually perfect Autumn/winter reading.
Thank you, and no not for a couple of decades so will take your advice.... so guess that means your work here is indeed done.
i just had to chime in and share that for me, too, there is something uniquely, outlierishly annoying about Notes specifically. and i am a tumblr veteran - no stranger to crossing paths with absolutely deranged takes!! - but the particular flavor of Notes Posting makes me feel a kind of spiritual misalignment like nothing else on al gore’s internet. i can’t really articulate why and all attempts at doing so quickly fizzle out because i can feel myself becoming the problem… but regardless you are not the only one who feels this way about Literally Just Notes, It’s Something About Notes. i had to delete the app and just log in manually whenever i want to do something which is annoying but better than leaving myself to the temptation of Notes.
Okay, I’m glad it’s not just me, lol.
SO not just you. I *loathe* Notes. It’s bad enough in the “friendly” zone. But tiptoeing out into the hateful nearly Nazi zone? Yeah nope. I almost responded to a man who always refers to Trump as Daddy.
all of this lol. Notes make me feel the specific kind of hyper annoyance that collapses into weird despair (??) - they just feel evil idk. at least on tumblr the derangement is interesting. i've never seen a Note that had something to say
I don't use the app, so I never see the Notes part of Substack. I log in via my web browser and only use it through the Web portal.
Exactly. Ditto. https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/why-i-deleted-the-substack-app-and
I read your piece and wanted to restack it, but then I'm trapped b/c it says "restack with a note" and I'm wondering --- would that go into the "notes" area of substack? If so it's better to just restack without a comment...?
Same, granted I haven't written a newsletter in forever, but I was blissfully unaware of Notes because I don't use the app. I read via email and login using the web.
If you save blgtylr.substack.com/publish/home to your bookmarks and don't actually visit the Substack homepage or app, you will never see notes again. I always forget they exist and spent five minutes trying to find them after reading this post.
Might be key.
Me, too--I have the few stacks I read bookmarked on my computer and just go directly to them. Easy to skip Notes altogether. On my phone, I switched settings so that it opens to my Inbox--again no Notes.
I’ll miss you but my relationship to Substack is different than yours and I totally understand why you would want to leave it. If you decide to migrate to a different platform let us know x
This is exactly how I feel. I never have to log into substack, I only read newsletters that come to my inbox (most of the time, when I want). I wouldn't want anyone whose thinking I value to be beset by a wave of random opinions every time they try to write
Your articles on Craft in fiction are among the best things I discovered this year. A bit selfish, but I hope you continue publishing them post-substack, if you decide to leave.
Listen, I get it. Protect your peace, but know your missives will be missed!
God thanks for saying what so many of us are thinking. This is the first thing I've written on this platform in months. I get sick every time I open the feed.
I’ve had minimal exposure to “notes because I always read your newsletter right from my inbox and hardly ever go to substack, except when I feel compelled to leave a comment (like now), which I try not to do, since I almost always regret doing so, thinking, later, who am I to say anything? Anyway, at least I’ll still have the email versions of your substack posts when you go, and I hope you’ll find a better place to post, and that I’ll find it.
Cosigned--I am using Substack from a desktop so I never see Notes unless I literally click on my profile
Same. The fewer apps the better so I have no idea what notes is....
I totally get it but yes, I will feel the loss. I don’t comment much but your writing has given me so much to think about and has introduced me to so many ideas and writers that I’ve found invaluable.
I'm applying to writing MFA programs now, and a few weeks ago a good friend forwarded me your post looking back at your statement of purpose. I found it incredibly helpful. Incidentally, I'm considering taking a 3-6 month internet fast, so I totally get where you're coming from. Best of luck with wherever your writing takes you next.
Brandon, your posts have been incredibly useful to me as someone with LC and to my LC friends and others with whom I share your work. I greatly appreciate your labors in (and beyond) the fields of acrimony, as you so aptly put it. I hope you'll be able to continue this work in some way, but in any case, please know how important your work has been to us. Also, *#$!!@&*## the haters!
I think you might have the wrong Brandon. I don’t think this is the Long Covid one.