Content note: This newsletter is intended for adult readers and contains strong language and discussion of mental health and financial insecurity.
Please read with care and discretion.
Welcome to the dark side of the moon. We have cookies.
Look what I came across on Substack today:
“Is there anyone here who actually writes? I mean… real essays, stories, ideas, not just growth metrics, follower counts, and engagement hacks. I’m genuinely asking. If you have something you’ve actually written, share it with me. I’d love to read it.” —pulled directly from Mary Ellen Johnson’s page.
And I think it’s utter bullshit. I find it repulsive.
People, humanity, women, men, cats, dogs, pink, blue, yellow, purple, whatever-the-fuck have been writing and expressing themselves since the dawn of time. And who are you, Miss Johnson, to define what is REAL WRITING vs NOT?
If you can pick up a pencil, hell, if you can verbally dictate to a fucking smartphone note—listen to me carefully, as I’ll only say it once—then maybe only a couple dozen more times if you’re lucky—you are a writer. Just like you are you and I am me. Writing is a form of expression. It doesn’t fucking matter if I write a short story FOR MY CAT, that’s writing. If you draft a pamphlet and pin it up in your local cafe, that’s writing. My gosh darn grocery list is a body of work.
It honestly makes my blood boil. And why? Because to me, this reads as clickbait. Mary Ellen Johnson dismisses growth metrics and engagement hacks, then invites people to share their work beneath her post. The vibe: she’s expressing distaste for the engagement game while benefiting from the engagement her post invites. Engage, engage, engage. Relate, relate, relate. Sound familiar? Now, keep in mind, I have muted and blocked her profile. Why? Because it’s not worth any more of my time and attention (as soon as I submit this half-opinion half-vent piece). But I want you to read my article, so if you’re interested, keep on.
Let me make myself clear. I don’t hate that writers want an audience. I want one too. I just asked you to keep reading. What bothers me is acting like you’re above the engagement game while inviting everyone else to play it with you. We didn’t choose this world; we were born into it. If we’re going to play, can we at least admit we’re playing?
Maybe that’s why this particular flavor of gatekeeping pisses me off so much. My generation has already spent enough of its life being told which invisible goalpost we need to reach before we’re allowed to call ourselves successful.
For those of us born in the 90s, we find ourselves hopelessly enmeshed in a mishmash cloud of forgotten, doomed, spiteful collection of voices that don’t have any place to go.
I’d like to pull a couple quotes from a few (hand-picked, but largely at random, sorry, I’m a flawed human) voices from my age group:
“My conservative dad likes to say that it’s all a pendulum and it will eventually swing back in our (millennials, not boomers) favor. He’s been saying that for 20+ years and is still saying it’ll happen one day. I’m going to be dead before things finally become favorable for our generation…”
“…You can be like me in a LCOL space making a nice penny off your work, with a house, a really decent 401k and $30k in the bank and you are still a major accident or cancer diagnosis away from being totally and completely fucked.”
“The constant pivot. Having to be resilient. So God damn tiring.”
“Relationship drive business decisions. You can send e-mails and reply to posts online, but when you finally have an interaction with someone on a personal level that is when you get results, connections, and build networks.”
I can’t speak for everyone in my age group; I was born in 1998. If we are allowed to give ourselves pronouns, as is commonplace today. (Look at any form you’ve had to fill out recently: please select your gender and preferred pronouns). I don’t care either way. It could have “cat” down as an option, and I would be half curious myself just to circle it because I CAN, hello, America, we may be in a shithole mess, but at least I’m allowed to have my own newsletter in the 21st Century. Let me enjoy the spoils of war before they get taken away, or worse, regulated. How fun is that. Regardless, all that to say, I consider myself more millennial than Gen Z, so I count myself as gen y leaning with gen z influences. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
Here’s what I was taught growing up, and I believe many of my peers may recognize themselves in a few:
-go to school, no not just high school, what are you, an illiterate beast? You HAVE to go to college, pay it all off in 4 years while getting good grades, then go to GRADUATE school, because that’s what actually counts.
-you’ll get a job right out of college if you work hard enough
-what do you need a part-time job for? there’s enough around the house for you to do. (parents denying part-time job opportunities)
-summer break? I need you to look after your siblings this summer (you are left alone for the summer, living off PB&Js and cereal, while caring for who knows how many kids your parents had; for me, it was looking after two half-sisters, starting at age 7)
-what the fuck do you have to be depressed about?
-if there’s a speck of food on your plate, I swear to God (insert whatever punishment was your household favorite)
-use credit cards for everything then pay it off at the end of the month. (yet they never taught us how to use them. I learned about interest rates at the ripe age of seventeen)
-go into student debt because, of course, your high paying entry job will have it paid off in no time, right? (right…..?)
-make sure you get yearly health checkups (with what insurance you bastard)
-why aren’t you married yet?
-don’t rent. buy. You should have enough money saved up for your first house by the time you’re twenty-five.
-match your company’s 401k then you’ll retire with over $5M in your retirement account.
-travel the world while you’re young
-save money, travel when you’re retired
And if you gave me a week, I could come up with a list of fifty more. But our time together is almost up.
Good riddance to those who think just because a few people read their blog, they’re some sort of genius whose intelligence should be worshiped at the altar of their choosing. Kind of fucked up if you ask me.
But, hey, here’s the beautiful part in all of this, especially dear readers who find themselves in a similar generational sandwich like me: you are literally whatever you want to be.
Yeah, so our parents lied to us. We have to put on our big pants and pay our big girl bills unless we want to find ourselves living in the streets.
You, me, the person next to you, the person you last called, we are all just one big inconvenience away from not being able to pay our rent, vet bill or next car part, but I’ll be damned if someone uses Substack’s algorithm to draw in subscribers with a genuine-slanted call-out to new, young, blossoming authors that if you engage with her, then both you and her will benefit. Be warned, Miss Johnson and other profiles like hers operate like fantastical siren songs: luring unassuming internet audiences to click and engage, boosting visibility and metrics, while creating the impression that one person can meaningfully read and engage with all 1k+ replies.
Can you recognize the siren song?
Comment “I hear the siren song”. No, you don’t a reward, I just get to smile, knowing that my article reached someone, anywhere.