Right now, JD Vance is promising to dismantle liberal nonprofits and any other entities that stand in his way. He's using Charlie Kirk's assassination as the reason, but we all know they were just waiting for the right opportunity. The internet continues to boil over with hot takes on the assassination. The governor of Utah went on national television to tell the world the shooter was dating a trans woman and held a “leftist ideology.” Liberals say the shooting had to be a false flag attack. Now they say the shooter grew up MAGA.
Meanwhile, states are planning to ban all "porn" of any kind, even if it's not really porn but just expresses identities and sexualities they don't like. And RFK Jr. is gearing up to go after all vaccines, starting with his least favorite one, the Covid vaccine. The EPA is compromised. The FDA is corrupt.
The CDC is a shell.
Billionaire oligarchs are consolidating their control over the media. They're also using the Kirk assassination as an opportunity to purge one more layer of journalists from their ranks, maybe the last good ones.
You can find a thousand writers telling you what you want to hear. You can find a handful telling you what you need to know.
And they’re not getting much traction…
On a personal level, my Substack has flatlined. The staff have quietly admitted they rigged their algorithms back in March. More and more of us are noticing steep drops in subscribers and followers. Honestly, only the dumbest hot takes gain any traction here now, liberal or otherwise. Over the last week, I've seen "journalists" propose that liberals simply abandon red states, as if reality were so simple. It's a terrible idea, even on a logistical level, and yet that post has a thousand likes. If it's not that, it's a plagiarist, or someone who leaned on AI to write all their posts. If it’s not that, it’s some dude with no actual understanding of the climate crisis telling us China is going to save the world with solar panels. And if it's not that, it's the health and wellness slop I've been ranting against for years. And if it’s not that, it’s endless rounds of virtue signaling.
You have to look hard for nuanced takes on the climate crisis, on public health, on pretty much anything that actually matters. The voices I care about most on this platform are withering. Most of them get a handful of views now. At best, we read and support each other with what we’ve got. At worst, some struggling writers here lash out at their own networks and start feuds.
Substack has been having trouble generating profits. They seem to believe their only recourse lies in wooing MAGA billionaires and pushing rightwing drivel by the likes of The Free Press, a publication that promotes every horrible viewpoint you can imagine. I guess it never occurred to Substack that letting anti-vaxxers and white supremacists run wild on their platform might be driving away business?
Or perhaps it did occur to them, and they don't care.
Even TikTok is going to look like a completely different place soon.
Did you hear...?
The Trump administration has announced a deal concerning the social media app. They haven't named the buyer yet, but everyone seems to already know it's a group led by Larry Ellison. If that name sounds familiar, it should. He's the CEO of Oracle, a major software company. His son David heads up Skydance, the company acquiring Paramount and installing a bias monitor over at CBS.
They're the ones who canceled Colbert. Maybe you don't care about Colbert. I don't, not really. But as I said weeks ago, it was a sign of things to come. It was a red flag for the rest of us. And now it's happening.
It's grim news.
For the last few years, TikTok has been the one place where you could go to get honest takes on current events, from Covid to Gaza. You can count on them installing their own bias monitors there. They've already hired a hate speech manager, who just happens to be a former soldier with the IDF.
It's all unfortunate. My return to Substack was going well. Even though I had to finally paywall my content, things were looking up. I was going to support my family with my writing. Now, that's not going to happen.
It's gone.
My teaching career ended because higher education willfully sold itself to corporations and fascists, long before Trump began his reign of terror. My writing career is ending because platforms are doing the same thing.
It's safe to say that writing on Ghost and posting on Bluesky is my last move. I don’t have to ask the heads of Substack what they think about my work. They’ve already made it very clear they don’t like doomers and want their readers to do anything but sit around and “doomscroll.” It would be nice if I could eek out a living, but I don't know. If I'm not fighting fascists and spineless corporate sycophants, I'm fighting trolls who would rather point out mistakes or launch crusades against me than support the work I'm doing.
If I had a dollar for every person who said they loved my work, but they were going to stop supporting me for one tiny little grievance, I would have a retirement fund. Over the last few months in particular, I've lost hundreds of subscribers this way. Just today, someone told me they found 90 percent of my work well-researched, relevant, and informative. They still didn’t like those “periods” where I focused on public health, even though they agreed with almost every word.
How am I supposed to run a newsletter where I do everything right, but it doesn’t matter? Beats me. This or that journalist or YouTuber can talk about losing followers, and thousands rush in to boost them. I’ve tried that, too. I was mocked. At this point, it would be absurd for me to think there’s going to be a miraculous flood of support at the 11th hour. By this time next year, I might be delivering groceries.
I guess that's okay.
I'm going to keep writing. Of course, I've got a few things to figure out over the next couple of weeks, in terms of what that's going to look like as we head deeper into an age of mass surveillance fascism, hyper-polarization, and growing apathy. I’ll probably stay on Substack, but I suspect a paid newsletter here isn’t going to be playing a very big role in my family’s future.
I plan on staying here for the long haul. For anyone who subscribed on Ghost or Substack, I’m not going to vanish. You can join me on Ghost or just let your subscription run out over here. I’ll plan to keep my paywalls down, to keep things simple as we undergo (sigh) another transition.
Last month, I started another publication to focus on other topics. That one also tanked, largely because I just don’t have that in me anymore. I can’t talk about creativity when I know what’s happening in the world. Besides, between AI and these anti-porn laws, I don’t know how much longer we can truly be creative. There are legit writing coaches on here who are struggling now. It doesn’t matter how talented or creative you are if the tech oligarchs decide what content gets attention. So, I’ll be refunding those subscriptions. I just can’t keep that going.
There's a bigger picture here.
For the first time in my life, I honestly don't know what to do. When I was getting my PhD ten years ago, life was difficult, but it still felt doable if you worked hard enough and made enough sacrifices. You could still go into a career like teaching and believe you were going to make a difference in the world, that you were going to be okay, even if you were never that financially comfortable.
Now, that's just not true.
Meanwhile, ICE is offering six-figure salaries. All you have to do is sell your soul. All you have to do is agree to treat other human beings with astounding cruelty.
My life started hard. I was raised by a paranoid schizophrenic. I have complex PTSD and deep anger issues. I spent the first half of my life working through all that. I thought the second half of my life would get a little easier.
Silly me.
The strange thing is that even when I was dodging threats on my life by a schizophrenic mom, I always knew what to do.
Now, not so much...
If I ever sounded like I was begging or complaining, that's not the case. I'm just trying to say that if you also feel like you don't know what to do, maybe for the first time in your life, you're not alone. All the people who had life figured out, the ones with massive talent and intelligence, I think they're all struggling. We're all making impossible decisions now, facing choices we never thought we would.
When I decide what to do, I’ll let everyone here know with the simplest instructions I can produce. Divesting from Substack feels inevitable. I’m not giving up on them. They’ve given up on me, and I’m accepting it. Regardless of what “side” you’re on, nuance isn’t doing well here.
We’re all living far astray from the future we envisioned.
That's our future now.
A turning point.
Hey Jessica, thankyou for all you do, your insights and information. I appreciate your work and will continue to subscribe. Alison.
Hi Jessica. I really appreciate your work and will continue to support you. I’m renewing my subscription here.