Erik, there is great stuff here, and I appreciate your thoughts on it. This is the only place people can find me on the Internet. I left the other social sites behind and have no regrets. I love the community here, the in-depth discussions, and the opportunity to share meaningful discourse with others. I am one year into writing on Substack and it was the best choice I could have made. Looking forward to what is in store for us.
I feel like the whole internet is a disaster for depth and community. How can you have depth with 52000 people (the number of potential discussants on this blog)?
This is great but also a little sad -- because i hunger for the occasional perfect things and feel increasingly out of step with a world that prefers a constant firehose of product that's only okay.
I had similar thoughts. Appreciated the sentiments but also personally strive for quality over quantity. Admittedly probably not a winning strategy to grow an audience.
Right. There is still the problem of scale. We need smaller discussion groups to encourage depth and community. I'm feeling disilusioned so far with the quality of discussions. It's still just Eric broadcasting and a few echoes.
Many years ago, as a young man, I visited the Sistine Chapel alone. Nobody else was in the room. It was Winter, and Instagram was decades in the future, so it was more a pilgrimage than a selfie bucket-list item.
That was a moment.
For the record, there remain a tiny number of active forums (fora?). They are the other relic of the old internet (and are amazing).
I did the same at the Vatican- I was one of the first in line in the morning, and when it opened, I just ran straight through the papal apartments to see the Sistine Chapel alone. It was exactly what you say: a pilgrimage. I didn't realize how lucky I was to be visiting Italy before Instagram existed.
I've been writing "on the Internet" for over 20 years now, most of it was crap and it's long gone but in this rubble there are 200k words or so, maybe less, that I'm quite happy with, it's way more than one could expect of me. I came from the time when Internet was just a service people used to do stuff, now it's aether that makes commerce and slop possible, but I'm an air breathing person, so this shit is suffocating.
Read people not websites, write to and for people, it's fun.
What a great analogy for maximalism in the Sistine Chapel. Also with the Christmas tree. Christmas is a big deal in our home and after almost 9 years of marriage and now a little baby, there is so much of us that gets hung on the tree and not just one side of it, but all around it.
What a wonderful call to action. I've always seen blogs as an attempt to enact on a much larger scale the aims of what came to be called "little magazines." Here is Emerson writing to Margaret Fuller, who was about to start editing The Dial, arguably the first little magazine:
"I wish we might make a Journal so broad & great in its survey that it should lead the opinion of this generation on every great interest & read the law on property, government, education, as well as on art, letters, & religion."
He went on to warn: "I know the danger of such latitude of plan in any but the best conducted Journal. It becomes friendly to special modes of reform, partisan, bigoted, perhaps whimsical; not universal & poetic."
With blogging, we ended up embracing the dangers Emerson saw in such a maximalist approach but enabled each of us to become the editors of our own "little magazines." Not that bad an outcome, I think, and worth putting some effort into preserving.
"In 2025, I want to feel more ghosts of greater presences, here in the last mottes of the internet. It’s time for bloggers to step up."
Hear, hear!
You know, I never associated substack or blogs and the like as "essay" writing directly. But it is. Or, at least, it can be when done the right way. Maybe that's why I saw them all as "essay-adjacent". But yeah, there are voices out there that are worth listening too, when you cut through the crap.
Yours is one of them.
Great post to kick off the New Year, Erik! You've inspired me to think bigger this year.
Just to say about essays vs. blogs: I perused the latest Best American Essays collection (where one of my posts here got listed, but only because it got republished by a small literary magazine) and my thought while reading was often "Much here is good but about half of this could easily be blogs I read this year."
Exactly! Essays were in the New Yorker, random thoughts were in blogs. There were exceptions, such as columnists with sanctioned New York Times blogs. I admit that I fell into that biased thinking. But why can't good writing come directly from the writer? Maybe it's time to think of ourselves as "essayists" rather than "bloggers".
I quit all the social media apps and moved to Substack. My friends thought I went off-grid — little did they know I just upgraded to a neighbourhood where people use full sentences! LOL
There is a hunger out there to start blogging again, I think. And a whole generation on the internet that didn’t come to this “great connector” with blogging being the default way to communicate online–they’re just discovering it’s even an option. Whether Substack, https://pika.page, or one of the other services that have popped up, there are growing options and it’s an exciting time! Let’s keep our “Christmas trees” up year ‘round!
Erik, your post touched a topic I struggled with a lot these last few weeks - the question of quantity versus quality. I love great singular works - music albums, novels, short stories - crafted to perfection and made to stand the test of time. But - as your post echoes - this approach does not work so well for blogs. Blogs are in their essence ephemeral things, not really made to last, but living for the moment. But: A personal blog can be a proving ground for the emergence of more lasting pieces of work - stories or books. So there ideally is not much a strict dichotomy, but rather a complementary relationship.
Beautiful beginning to the New Year! Love the photo of the "sleep-deprived doofus" as you put it (nice chuckle there) and one of Naughton's best works. Most of all your line about the Sistine Chapel "it makes you realize your whole conscious life has been experienced as fragments through the periscope of your eyes", is a line that is so beautiful and will stick with me like so many of your words. Good Luck and much success to you in the New Year.
Erik, there is great stuff here, and I appreciate your thoughts on it. This is the only place people can find me on the Internet. I left the other social sites behind and have no regrets. I love the community here, the in-depth discussions, and the opportunity to share meaningful discourse with others. I am one year into writing on Substack and it was the best choice I could have made. Looking forward to what is in store for us.
I feel like the whole internet is a disaster for depth and community. How can you have depth with 52000 people (the number of potential discussants on this blog)?
This is great but also a little sad -- because i hunger for the occasional perfect things and feel increasingly out of step with a world that prefers a constant firehose of product that's only okay.
I had similar thoughts. Appreciated the sentiments but also personally strive for quality over quantity. Admittedly probably not a winning strategy to grow an audience.
Here's hoping all 52,000 don't feel the need to comment!
Right. There is still the problem of scale. We need smaller discussion groups to encourage depth and community. I'm feeling disilusioned so far with the quality of discussions. It's still just Eric broadcasting and a few echoes.
Needed to hear that! (Not sure if I'll follow up...) And (a sign?) the second time I've come across "If not now, when?" just this morning. Best...
Signs are good
Many years ago, as a young man, I visited the Sistine Chapel alone. Nobody else was in the room. It was Winter, and Instagram was decades in the future, so it was more a pilgrimage than a selfie bucket-list item.
That was a moment.
For the record, there remain a tiny number of active forums (fora?). They are the other relic of the old internet (and are amazing).
I did the same at the Vatican- I was one of the first in line in the morning, and when it opened, I just ran straight through the papal apartments to see the Sistine Chapel alone. It was exactly what you say: a pilgrimage. I didn't realize how lucky I was to be visiting Italy before Instagram existed.
I've been writing "on the Internet" for over 20 years now, most of it was crap and it's long gone but in this rubble there are 200k words or so, maybe less, that I'm quite happy with, it's way more than one could expect of me. I came from the time when Internet was just a service people used to do stuff, now it's aether that makes commerce and slop possible, but I'm an air breathing person, so this shit is suffocating.
Read people not websites, write to and for people, it's fun.
What a great analogy for maximalism in the Sistine Chapel. Also with the Christmas tree. Christmas is a big deal in our home and after almost 9 years of marriage and now a little baby, there is so much of us that gets hung on the tree and not just one side of it, but all around it.
What a wonderful call to action. I've always seen blogs as an attempt to enact on a much larger scale the aims of what came to be called "little magazines." Here is Emerson writing to Margaret Fuller, who was about to start editing The Dial, arguably the first little magazine:
"I wish we might make a Journal so broad & great in its survey that it should lead the opinion of this generation on every great interest & read the law on property, government, education, as well as on art, letters, & religion."
He went on to warn: "I know the danger of such latitude of plan in any but the best conducted Journal. It becomes friendly to special modes of reform, partisan, bigoted, perhaps whimsical; not universal & poetic."
With blogging, we ended up embracing the dangers Emerson saw in such a maximalist approach but enabled each of us to become the editors of our own "little magazines." Not that bad an outcome, I think, and worth putting some effort into preserving.
"In 2025, I want to feel more ghosts of greater presences, here in the last mottes of the internet. It’s time for bloggers to step up."
Hear, hear!
You know, I never associated substack or blogs and the like as "essay" writing directly. But it is. Or, at least, it can be when done the right way. Maybe that's why I saw them all as "essay-adjacent". But yeah, there are voices out there that are worth listening too, when you cut through the crap.
Yours is one of them.
Great post to kick off the New Year, Erik! You've inspired me to think bigger this year.
Ty Graham.
Just to say about essays vs. blogs: I perused the latest Best American Essays collection (where one of my posts here got listed, but only because it got republished by a small literary magazine) and my thought while reading was often "Much here is good but about half of this could easily be blogs I read this year."
Exactly! Essays were in the New Yorker, random thoughts were in blogs. There were exceptions, such as columnists with sanctioned New York Times blogs. I admit that I fell into that biased thinking. But why can't good writing come directly from the writer? Maybe it's time to think of ourselves as "essayists" rather than "bloggers".
I quit all the social media apps and moved to Substack. My friends thought I went off-grid — little did they know I just upgraded to a neighbourhood where people use full sentences! LOL
There is a hunger out there to start blogging again, I think. And a whole generation on the internet that didn’t come to this “great connector” with blogging being the default way to communicate online–they’re just discovering it’s even an option. Whether Substack, https://pika.page, or one of the other services that have popped up, there are growing options and it’s an exciting time! Let’s keep our “Christmas trees” up year ‘round!
Congrats on 52,000!!
Erik, your post touched a topic I struggled with a lot these last few weeks - the question of quantity versus quality. I love great singular works - music albums, novels, short stories - crafted to perfection and made to stand the test of time. But - as your post echoes - this approach does not work so well for blogs. Blogs are in their essence ephemeral things, not really made to last, but living for the moment. But: A personal blog can be a proving ground for the emergence of more lasting pieces of work - stories or books. So there ideally is not much a strict dichotomy, but rather a complementary relationship.
Beautiful beginning to the New Year! Love the photo of the "sleep-deprived doofus" as you put it (nice chuckle there) and one of Naughton's best works. Most of all your line about the Sistine Chapel "it makes you realize your whole conscious life has been experienced as fragments through the periscope of your eyes", is a line that is so beautiful and will stick with me like so many of your words. Good Luck and much success to you in the New Year.
As an obscure but passionate blogger from the Golden Age, I take hope from this. Hi-ho, Silver Age!
Beautiful.
FWIW Substack is becoming my favourite place on the Internet for all the reasons you say.