Substack’s Heart of Darkness (Vol. 1)

Content warning: Shit’s about to get salty.

The Setup

Way back in early February, thousands of news cycles ago, once legendary (and now disgraced) investigative reporter Seymour Hersh launched a self-titled Substack publication. He debuted with a bang by claiming the U.S. government sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline, which was designed to feed natural gas from Russia to Western Europe, in a covert naval operation.

Problems were: He didn’t name his lone source, he’d long since been discredited and disowned by his former outlets, including The New Yorker, and no other major news organizations could corroborate his extraordinary claims.

Now, I don’t want to get derailed by hypotheticals. Maybe the CIA did blow it up. Maybe Mossad did it. Maybe the ISI did it. Maybe the FSB did it. Maybe aliens did it. Maybe Homelander did it. Bottom line: Somebody blew up the pipeline, though who remains unclear.

Regardless of whether Hersh is the last independent truth-seeker (0.0% odds), a compromised Russian asset (decent odds), senile (solid odds), or a senile, compromised Russian asset (100.0% odds), his wild and reckless assertion served as a perfect disinformation campaign.

By flooding the lane with bullshit, Hersh’s “report” cast doubt, sowed confusion, and made it difficult to figure out which parts, if any, of his claims were true. Better still, critical-thinking duncecaps and conspiracy-loving dipshits latched onto his hypothesis evidence unseen, which exacerbated culture war chaos and further strained people’s already strained faith in democracy.

After Hersh’s post went live—powered by Substack—serious people, with serious jobs, were forced to acknowledge and contend with his claims. You can read all about this madness elsewhere if you’re interested. I went down a rabbit hole when the “news” first broke and considered writing about it. Ultimately, while my corner of the internet is tiny, I didn’t want to amplify the lunacy.

The Punchline

So far, so FUBAR.

But it gets better.

In conjunction with Hersh’s launch, Chris Best, Co-founder and CEO of Substack, garishly welcomed him to the platform and explicitly endorsed his “reporting” by “liking” the Nord Stream sabotage post.

“Likes” are intrinsically vapid and have irreparably broken internet culture. Unfortunately, “likes” also feed human curators and computer algorithms and serve as the currency of online credibility.

In this particular case, the Co-founder and CEO of the very platform spreading (alleged) mis- and disinformation overtly endorsed said (alleged) mis- and disinformation by providing his stamp of approval.

It would’ve been one thing for Best to look the other way while the money rolled in. Moderating content is essentially impossible, and if you don’t let crazy people read crazy shit to vindicate their crazy ideas on your platform, they’ll happily do it elsewhere.

Fine.

But Best didn’t stop there. He took an extra step and publicly added credence to Hersh’s almost-certainly-fabricated account.

That wasn’t simply troubling, or misguided, or naïve.

That was cynical AF.

But it gets better.

Two days after Hersh dropped his “bombshell report,” an independent, investigative journalist named Oliver Alexander—powered by Substack—said he used “open-source intelligence” to debunk Hersh’s entire story.

Alexander’s analysis was probably correct. But maybe it was wrong.

Again, the lane was flooded with shit. Again, the waters were muddied. Again, people weren’t sure what to believe.

And how did our boy Chris Best, Co-founder and CEO of Substack, respond to Alexander’s report?

He “liked” that post, too.

And you know what? Who could blame him?

Hersh’s post quickly earned him the coveted purple checkmark signifying “tens of thousands of paid subscribers.”

Alexander’s riposte quickly earned him the coveted hollow-orange checkmark signifying “hundreds of paid subscribers.”

Substack got paid in both directions. #InvisibleHand

Best, and Hamish McKenzie, and the rest of the techno-libertarian shitheels running Substack don’t actually give AF about truth, or authenticity, or freedom of speech, or freedom of expression, or freedom of anything.

They’re simply trying to make money, which—in a vacuum—is fine. Of course, I’ve seen Substack’s financials, which—in a vacuum—are not fine.

But let me be clear: I’m not going in on Substack management for struggling to run a complex business with impossible moderation issues. Or for grappling with the two-sided conundrum of being a “publishing” platform and a “technology” platform at the same time.

Those are immense challenges, and I don’t claim to have all the answers.

I’m going in on Substack management because the choices they do make, and the few answers they do provide when confronted by these complex questions, are so craven. And devoid of any guiding principle or animating philosophy beyond “growth.”

If Substack is purely a “technology” platform, with no concern for how virulent the “content” produced by its “creators” becomes, then a principled policy would, at minimum, disallow all Substack employees from creating their own publications and prevent them from interacting with users via the social media-like features. I might believe Best and crew were just disembodied stewards of free speech if they weren’t rolling around in the mud with the rest of the pigs.

If Substack is really the best place for independent and overlooked voices to shine, then they wouldn’t exert so much energy promoting right-wing dipshits, Covid conspiracy theorists, and pseudo-celebrities.

If Substack is truly “the home for great writing,” and “values” writers, and wants to help readers “reclaim attention” in a noisy and fractured social media landscape, then they wouldn’t have launched a Twitter knockoff shamelessly designed to attract eyeballs by amplifying short-form content.

Above all, my biggest beef with Substack management isn’t that they make these cynical, craven choices, but that they act like they’re not making them. They pretend to be reinventing the internet wheel, and redefining online culture and civility, while exacerbating many of “social media’s” most intractable problems.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. And frustrating. Particularly because their product is so powerful.

But here’s the reality: I can’t fix these problems, and Substack management doesn’t care.

That’s the tragic origin story for this series.

So instead of being the guy who complains about Substack while trying to get famous on Substack, I want to embrace the dysfunction. I want to celebratethe fruits of Substack management’s many labors.

Strap in, steel your nerves, and prepare for madness.

Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission.

In Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard wakes up in Saigon. His survey of the darkness commences once his boat enters the Nung River en route to Colonel Kurtz’s compound in Cambodia.

But the amorphous power of the internet means I can begin this excursion anywhere.

Immediately jumping to Covid-19 deniers Alex Berenson or Glenn Greenwald, vaccine conspiracy theorist, antisemite, and future POTUS Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., access merchant Matt Taibbi, or proud Michigan alumnus Ann Coulter (Go Blue!) wouldn’t be very ambitious.

My readers expect more creativity.

To make this toxic tour more “fun,” I thought: why not simply show how Substack’s built-in community tools can quickly ensnare you in the most nonsensical trash imaginable?

Elegant, efficient, effective.

Exhibit A.

A few months ago I read a post by a friend about artificial intelligence. A fellow reader left a comment which referenced the movie Wall-E. 

I love Wall-E!

I responded to the comment and said as much, which the other reader “liked,” which made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Then I vaguely recognized her animated avatar, and thought: this woman used to subscribe to my newsletter, then bailed after a few posts. I wonder what her deal is.

I clicked on her name and went to her publication, which promised to teach me that “common sense, isn’t, common.”

At the time, the most recent post on her webpage was titled, “Why Are We So Fascinated With Transgenders?”

Obviously, I should’ve immediately closed my browser tab. But, like a curious monkey, I couldn’t resist, and had to peek inside.

Her fearless and breathtaking essay offered the following crucial insights:

• We need to make “transvestite” great again.
• “In our modern culture, victimhood is good.”
• “‘Tucking it’ is gross, and if, as this individual you really believe you’re a woman, why not get rid of the one thing that makes you not a woman?”
• Acknowledging transgender people is “normalizing deviant behavior” and “celebrating mental illness.”
• “Empowering” girls has “feminized” boys, and made boys afraid of girls, which begs the question: “Could this explain why boys want to be girls?”
• “Transgenders Are Destroying Women’s Sports”
• “Transgenders Are Stealing Jobs Away From Women” and are a much bigger risk to female employment than AI
• Transgenderism is a form of cultural appropriation
• “Why isn’t the trans crowd and those who support them called heterosexualphobic?”
• Bud Light worked with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney because “huge corporations have been blackmailed by the woke investment banking community into subverting their goals and overlooking their fiduciary responsibility.”

This caring, maternal figure also linked transgenderism to autism and Asperger’s, briefly implied Covid deaths are a statistical manipulation, name-dropped one of the biggest shitheads on Substack, suggested transgenderism is a cult, claimed public schools are indoctrinating children into conversion therapy, and—at the very end of the post—admitted she couldn’t empathize with any of this because her kid was normal.

All that in one piece!

For free!

But there’s more!

In the Comments Section, one of her adoring fans warned that if she kept “espousing common sense like this” she’d find herself deported to Guantanamo for “reconditioning.”

Another supporter left two illuminating comments.

In the first, this erudite scholar said all major intelligence agencies, including the FBI, CIA, OSS during World War II, and British Intelligence during World War I, were “homo,” and wondered: “WHY ARE OUR elite leaders putting their HOMO WOKE CUCK'd insanity down our throats?”

In the second, they lamented that our “ELITE DC ‘deep homo state’” hangs out in plain sight nowadays.

The “writer,” “realist,” “satirist,” and all-around empath who wrote this post has “hundreds of subscribers.”

Exhibit B.

On June 2, to “celebrate” National Gun Violence Awareness Day, I wrote a well-received piece called "Watch your language,” and did some shameless self-promotion on Substack Notes. Hey, when in Rome…

Obvi some shitbird just couldn’t resist and left me this well-articulated missive.

America is the greatest country on Earth, or certainly used to be, until the left took over every institution and, as they do with everything, destroyed it… The right to self-defense against all forms of evil is a natural right and, thank God, in the Constitution. Be defenseless against evil — that is your choice. We’ll keep our guns.

Be defenseless against evil!

It took every fiber of my being not to respond. My first instinct was LOL, then I considered a bunch of crying laughing emojis, then I thankfully remembered there was nothing useful I could say to this “real man.”

If a genie granted me one wish, and one wish only, I’d wish for Texas or Florida to secede, and for the ensuing “war” between the “patriots” and the U.S. military to be live-streamed on YouTube.

Few things would make me happier than watching this complete fucking moron haplessly fire his AR-15s into the air while an F-23 wiped out his militia.

It goes without saying this “regular guy’s” blog, with “hundreds of subscribers,” which aims to crush the “cultural evil and left wokeism flooding our institutions and targeting our kids,” compared the LGBTQ+ community to Nazis.

Exhibit C.

Generally speaking, Substack Notes feels way too stuffy and self-serious. The place needs more jokes. So I lobbed the following missive into the ether. Hey, when in Rome…

I just spent six hours at IKEA, my daughter’s soccer camp was canceled because the planet’s on fire, I caught my son chanting “Hail Hydra,” and it’s only Tuesday.

By shitposting standards, it seemed pretty innocuous. Or so I thought, until I received the following reply.

IKEA, you’re griping about IKEA? Some people would consider that cool. The soccer camp was cancelled because the propoganda is working. And as for hail Hydra, it’s better than chanting “I’m queer, I’m here, I’m in your face.” :)

Just so we’re all on the same page, let’s break this one down.

• IKEA, the Swedish furniture store that serves horse meat to its patrons? Dope AF.
• The smoke hanging in the air, which was created by rampant Canadian wildfires, and which canceled outdoor camps across the entire city of Chicago? A [Chinese] government conspiracy.
• Worshipping Hydra, the Marvel Comics creation based on descendants of the Third Reich? Better than being LGBTQ+.

Clearly I needed to see other dispatches from this Nazi cosplayer, so I reviewed his past Notes.

Shockingly, he’s a proud Southern Baptist Texan who wants his home state to secede, longs for the more civilized days when unmarried women with children were shunned, says he’s an anti-capitalist and a staunch believer in the free market, and asks an important question: “At what point will it be okay to say, ‘Slavery was bad, but it’s in the past?’”

Despite all that incredible content, this was his most entertaining Note:

@Substack is there a way to find a note that you wrote? I know I wrote one last night, but I can’t find it anywhere.

Luckily, this self-declared “reader,” “writer,” and “philosopher” only has “tens of subscribers.”

Also, his fiction sucks ass.

Exhibit D.

Before Notes helped writers and readers reclaim their attention, a prominent element on the Substack website, and within the mobile app, was the “Explore” tab, which included "Featured” publications handpicked by Substack curators for site-wide promotion.

Back in March they featured—on purpose—a Russian disinformation agent an analyst who covers Russia, populism, Christianity, and metaphysics.

You know I’m not creative enough to make that up.

The week he was featured—on purpose—his top post declared Putin and POTUS 45 victims of a deep-state conspiracy.

The hard-hitting analysis jumped right off the page with this subtle barb.

But, you’d never hear about it in the West, because the media is controlled by the you-know-whos and the various spook agencies, who are themselves also largely taken over by you-know-whoish interests.

A few paragraphs later this totally-neutral-observer-and-not-Russian-chaos-agent hit readers with this gem:

In that sense, Putin is in a very similar position to Trump. Actually, everything about these two men is extraordinarily similar.

Both became enemies of the main branch of the you-know-who-ish mafia and tried to cozy up to Chabad instead. Both men married their daughters off to the tribe to try to get on the inside track. Both relied on the populist support of the masses and then repaid the trust be staffing their respective administrations with absolute cretins who appear to personally hate them, and their respective supporter base of patriotic peasants. Both men have also demonstrated an unwillingness to address the willful sabotage of their own agenda and their presidency.

At that point I tapped out.

But, more importantly, Substack helped—on purpose—this hero of the Russian revolution grow his subscriber base to over 5,000 sad incels, and earned him a nice badge indicating “hundreds of paid subscribers.”

Well Fam, that concludes our maiden voyage into Substack’s Heart of Darkness.

In the next edition I’m considering playing the six-degrees-of-separation game. But rather than triangulating to Kevin Bacon, we’ll trace direct paths to a bona fide Nazi.

Should be great fun for the whole family.