So… This is different
Substack gets a bad rep. And it’s not all together undeserved. Grifters like Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey have colonized this platform; the former having switched to Substack so that way he could be free of editorial accountability from the platform he helped found. But the platform isn’t altogether defined by the writers who use it. When I created this blog, I was very quickly greeted by the platform offering ways to help monetize the blog. Sure, there’s a monetization option for Blogger as well (forever in my head known as Blogspot) but it’s far more immediate here.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all in favour of writers making enough money to eat; that Substack has been successful for actual journalists like Robert Christgau is spectacular, but that isn’t what I’m striving to do. I think writing should be accessible, both in a linguistic sense, and in a material sense. My first concern is having people be able to read what I’m writing, not monetization. Luckily, Substack isn’t imposing on me having to lock anything behind a paywall, it just caught me off guard.
Anyways, as is (hopefully) self-evident, I’ve made the move from Blogger to Substack. Why? Simply, because Blogger isn’t very good. Using it and reading from it feels like working and accessing a website from 2011. As aforementioned, writing being accessible is valuable to me, and the limitations of Blogger make writing less accessible. It’s old and clunky. It’s also a bit frustrating to write on; my essay on Blue Ӧyster Cult was hamstrung by the platform because it didn’t like the umlaut above the O. And the interface where you enter your writing before a post is published changes the spacing of paragraphs for seemingly no reason. By contrast, Substack at least seems to be a platform built for the modern age, even if it has attracted the Greenwalds and Traceys of the world
I’ll still keep The Murex on Blogger available. I wouldn’t want to get rid of all the writing that’s already there. But this is the new home of The Murex. Stay tuned for more and better writing.