An Ethical Box, A Honeyed Trap

My Final Substack

How can one sum up how it feels to navigate the fractured, confusing landscape of social media and the internet today?

That feels about right. Whatever sort of creator you are—art, books, film, news, informational content—figuring out where to put your energy is hard. So many of us have a day job that isn’t centered around our creative lives. It’s just a cold, hard reality. Which means our creative work can be a second job, essentially. Trying to get the word out about work feels like a third job.

The last thing we need on top of that is to start over and over again trying to build an audience on yet another social media platform. Whether it’s the X-ification of Twitter, Zuck’s capitulation/unmasking, TikTok’s groveling theater, or this very site’s more problematic creators—there are plenty of reasons for anyone with an ethical bone in their body to ponder their own usage of said platforms. Assuming, of course, you disagree with these developments. Not everyone will.

That being said, there are plenty of things to be concerned with beyond these more recent news. The way they use your data. The way they sell it. The way they use your work to train AI. Even the way, Meta, for example, really just leaves their customers to the wolves when it comes to their advertisers. The number of scam websites that advertise across Meta platforms is alarming. To the point where pretty much any product I’m offered through there, I start off assuming it’s a scam. The sad part? Two out of every three I have bothered to dig into is a scam. The website is fake. The product isn’t real. Meta doesn’t care as long as they’re getting paid the ad dollars.

Retreat to Nowhere?

Let’s get one thing out of the way. I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this. Each site/service I mentioned (and there are others) has their own particular brand of ickiness. I suppose there are those who will have a simple approach. Any step out of line of their defined parameters of what constitutes a “good” platform, and they’re out of there. I worry about this stance, as much as I understand it. Both for the individual in question, and the health of social media in general.

The reality, right now, is that most of the major social media platforms in the US are in the hands of people who are either far right, or more than willing to curry favor with the far right. Which is frightening for those of us who don’t agree with that ideology. But walking away from those platforms completely, while seeming like the simple solution, raises questions for me:

• If we marginalized voices flee major platforms, do we become even more marginalized?

• Have we boxed ourselves away from relevance?

• Should we “stay and fight.”

Which is why I think, ultimately, it depends on what the platform is doing or not doing, how actively it’s participating, whose pockets our work ends up lining, and other factors. But here’s the thing that always haunts me:

Is the “stay and fight” and “stay and be part of the conversation” line of reasoning just a way to forgive oneself for compromising your beliefs?

You Are A Part of the Problem

Which leads me to the big one. The thing that, for me, ultimately made me decide to step away from Substack, even though I’m an independent author who is still struggling to find an audience, and I’ve managed to finally start making connections. Despite the fact that there are people on here who I really enjoy. But, to me, this next question has been a good guiding light as to whether I stay or go from a platform:

Am I helping to legitimize far right ideology?

When I started writing this, I wasn’t planning on leaving Substack. Ultimately, I was thinking that the “stay and fight” or at least “stay and represent” aspect would win out here, despite my worries about that being a flimsy excuse. For the record:

• I’ve left TikTok

• I’ve left X

• I’m planning on leaving Facebook and Instagram

So, I’m already removing my presence from pretty much every major platform. I’m on BlueSky, and having a blast there. I’m encouraged by things like Flashes and Skylight, (built upon BlueSky’s open code) and will engage with those as soon as I can. In fact, part of dragging my feet getting off Instagram is waiting for Flashes to come out. But, there’s still a lot of fear. I’ve got my serialized fantasy novellas, Dharktyde Racers coming. And I’m working on my MM Romance / Spy Thriller Every Devil You Know. I’m going to need all the help I can get to get the word out about those.

You know what overcame that fear? Two things:

• Elon Musk’s “gesture”

• And Substack embracing, with wet kisses and open arms, extremists

Whether Elon’s gesture was an “oops, I accidentally did a Nazi” (twice) or deliberate, the reaction was truly frightening. Because it was legitimizing for a lot of people. As step beyond 47 taking office, even. And then I read about Substack trumpeting their relationship with The Free Press as described by Skye’s excellent post, which I also linked above. And, it made it really simple for me.

Sticky Hands

I am part of the problem if I stay here. That’s how I feel now.

Because it’s kind of brilliant of Substack to not only platform but partner with these far right, extremist elements, and then get a bunch of people who range from harmless to directly opposing that ideology to join them, isn’t it? That’s the honeyed trap. This site has great features, and it has the illusion of being a site that advocates different voices and free speech.

I believe in free speech. I believe in it strongly. But there’s a difference between saying someone should be able to say something, giving them a megaphone to say it, and putting them on a pedestal with a large banner advertising what they’re saying through the megaphone.

I started my career as a graphic designer. Sometimes laying things out in this way, as I have above, really just simplifies things for me.

And, I’ve got to be honest. Seeing people I respect going back to TikTok after what they did has been, well, gross for me. I don’t want to judge those people, because I did the same thing here! It’s a hard choice to make. If I was more established there, I know it’d be harder to walk away. But I can’t deny my own feelings. I don’t think these are bad people, just people struggling with the right thing to do. But seeing it from the outside, especially with creators who built their audience, partly, by railing against injustices, really kind of threw my own hypocrisy back in my face.

TikTok is probably hovering in the orange right now, which is where Substack has been for a long time. I doubt they did what they did out of ideological alignment, but out of survival. If it survives, it’ll probably be by selling to an American interest. Who will probably have ties to Trump. Which means their gross groveling would swiftly move into the red. Substack, meanwhile, has done a big belly flop into the red and splashed around joyfully.

What I’m Doing

I don’t want to help legitimize any of these platforms. It’s true, I might be putting myself into a box. But the rise of BlueSky has given me some hope. There have been a lot of calls for people to start their own sites. But, let’s face it. Unless you’re already established (and even then), getting people to go to your website is not easy. We’ve all become too accustomed to quickly scrolling through an aggregation of content. I don’t think abandoning social media is going to do anyone any favors, long term.

We just need to build better social media. Better platforms. And they need to be out of control of corporations and rich oligarchs. Maybe the social media landscape will become more fractured. Maybe the audiences won’t be as huge. But at least I won’t be breathing the same air, and helping legitimize, ideologies I abhor, that are currently actively harming people I love and care about.

• I’ve got a website. There are membership tiers there that you can join and support me, as well as get access to exclusive behind the scenes content AND my upcoming fantasy series Dharktyde Racers will be released through there.

• I’ve got BlueSky. My posts there are kind of: 70% books, 20% film, and 5% action figures, and 5% whatever.

• I’m going to be finding a new newsletter partner. I’m looking at Substack alternatives, so any suggestions are great. Everyone subscribed to me here, I’ll move over.

• I would like to revive my TikTok content (mostly BookTok) on Skylight. We’ll see how that goes once it launches.

I hope to see you out there. Until then, this is Jon, signing off.