we’re all trying to grow on substack, jan

And it is so not sustainable

I don’t know how to say this without sounding lazy, like a hater, or a pessimist, but I’m saying this mouthful anyway. Prepare for a run on sentence (yes you’re supposed to read it rapidly as such).

I think the rapid influx of content creators, trends, the rapid turnover, and everyone constantly aiming to push the boundary creatively or stand out creatively and the hyperfixation on growing a platform and creators teaching other creators and the pyramid scheming here’s-how-I-make-$60k-off-courses-sold-as-a-course is not only unsustainable but also forcing creativity into a hyper-capitalized bubble in a way that makes me want to throw my laptop into the fucking ocean.

* LARGE GASP FOR AIR *

This is definitely some byproduct of late stage capitalism. I don’t know exactly what yet, but I know it is and when I get my fingers on the answer, oh, it’s over for you ALL.

I can feel it in the way everything (even our most personal creative impulses) has to justify itself economically, creatively or with some analytic metric.

(P.s, scroll to the very bottom for an announcement, then come right back..I’ll wait..)

Thanks!

But ya, you can’t escape. With every new platform (or old), there’s 1,000+ hungry piranhas sharing ways to make it big as their entire life’s work. It seems nearly impossible to just make things anymore without a growth strategy, without monetization potential, without treating our very existence as a product to be optimized and sold.

I see people posting on Threads about how to get famous on Threads with a link to a book about * checks notes * getting famous on threads. Well, no shit Sherlock — that’s how you grew on threads.

But truly, this started years ago, post Covid-19 lockdown.

The pandemic broke something in how we relate to creating and consuming online, and we’re still living in the aftermath of it.

During the lockdown, people got famous off doing damn near nothing! Whipped coffee, kitchen dances, half baked tweets that turned into book deals (hehe this was probably me but I wasn’t trying okay).

We all watched it happen in real time. We watched people stumble into audiences and entire careers seemingly by accident (again, me), and it revealed something both intoxicating and poisonous: that you don’t need credentials or years of work or even talent. You just need to be in the right place when the algorithm smiles on you. Now, me? I’ll give myself more credit because I was channeling for Aries, Leo, Capricorn, and every sign under the sun and damn, those hit. Good times.

But now everyone wants that, and that’s actually okay. It’s just now…people are chasing something that came so authentically before.

Everyone saw that it’s possible, and everyone who spent the pandemic consuming instead of creating feels like they missed something crucial, like they were on the wrong side of the equation while other people were building empires.

Now, there’s this frantic overcompensating energy. Everyone’s trying really hard, and my timelines are so fucking noisy because of it.

Underneath it all is the fact that during the “height” of COVID, we all saw how precarious everything was — how quickly jobs could vanish, how institutions couldn’t protect us. Now everyone’s building their own lifeboat, their own personal brand, their own multiple income streams. Because the social contract of how to live, what to be, the 4 step success plan from college to marriage to buying a house to baby…is broken. We all know it.

Everyone is trying to individually create their own safety net out of content and followers and subscriptions.

Now, I’m a marketing manager. I love this shit for clients. But, I’m also a Gemini Moon who loves duality and as a consumer — holy fucking shit, I can only consume so much. I can only pay for so many subscriptions. Matter of fact, Netflix, Disney+ Hulu bundle, apple storage, etc, etc is like $100.

Like I said, late stage capitalism.

Every creation has to top the one before. Every graphic has to be more polished, more eye catching. Ever notice how every trend burns out in a week instead of living and breathing and spreading naturally?

Do you remember when gangnam style flash mobs spread across the world and you’d never know if a group of people would break out in dance in the mall? I used to pray it’d happen to me.

Remember when a trend could actually exist for a minute, when it could spread organically, or through magazines? Shit, even rumors. Remember when we all got to participate in the same cultural moment for longer than a news cycle?

We used to let things breathe. A song could be popular for months. A dance could spread slowly across continents. A meme could live long enough to have a full lifecycle. Now everything is born and dies in the same week. And you’re already late if you’re not on it within 48 hours. And if your version isn’t better, isn’t more creative, isn’t somehow elevated beyond what came before, good luck charlie.

It’s a constant churn cycle. It’s not really building on culture. It’s just building on frantic energy and dopamine spikes. Running as fast you can to catch the next moment, which is arriving in precisely 2 minutes and you better be ready with something better, something more, something that outperforms.

It’s fucking exhausting to see and I barely play the game.

There’s no room to just make something and let it be what it is. No room to experiment or fail or make something kind of lackluster because you’re learning. Everything is immediately compared, ranked, measured against an endless scroll of people who seem to be doing it better.

And then there’s the authenticity thing, which might be what pisses me off the most.

I KNOW that part of me is so annoyed (cue hater energy) because being authentic is exactly who I have been this entire time, and now it’s a strategy rather than a simple existence. You don’t try to be authentic. You just are. The girlies used to shame me for being so open on social media regarding my highs AND especially my lows. Now, creators use it as a strategy worth performing and packaging for maximum engagement. Like, fuck off dude.

Watching your natural mode of being get turned into a monetizable technique is a terrible feeling akin to theft. Everything I stood and stand for got commodified and now I’m supposed to buy it back. What is this, digital gentrification? Folks taking over my neighborhood, stealing my steeze because now it’s cool and trendy. (I am half serious, half laughing cause can you really be mad? Perturbed, annoyed, yes, but mad? No, I’m going to still tell you to be authentic.)

Underneath it all though, I just can’t keep up.

I’m not talking about metrics. I’m actually not that concerned with metrics when it comes to myself, which is a huge barrier to my own success online. I’m more concerned with showing up consistently to challenge my bipolar depression. Showing up is for me, and it’s damn hard. Now, consider that against the rapid churn and production this life is now asking for. It keeps ramping up.

I’m a creative that likes to flow with inspiration, with what’s on my heart, and let it simmer. I look up to Solange especially — in awe of her creative process. That’s how I want to be.

I don’t have it in me to record a reel multiple times a week. (Cue: potential laziness). I don’t have it in me to get dolled up and film myself talking to my phone with the specific cadence everyone’s adopted, that rising inflection, tons of words and pop ups designed to keep you watching. I don’t have it in me to learn the new graphic design trend, master the new editing style, figure out which audio is trending this week. I get dressed up and look nice once a month. Maybe. MAYBE.

Maybe I really can’t keep up, but I also refuse to believe that this way of creating is sustainable.

I can record the reel, do beautiful edits, learn the new design trends, etc, etc…if the churn weren’t so intense. I will likely always be behind on trends, because I am not all consumed.

And this is hard for someone like me.

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I know what hyperdrive feels like. I’m an overachiever burnout in recovery. I know overdrive leads to success.

Kevin Gates once said, “I don’t get tired.”

Well bitch, I do.

I’ve watched it happen, and I’ve lived it myself. I know exactly where it leads after that. I know the exhaustion that comes from treating your creativity like a chore. I know what it feels like when the brain finally says ‘no more’.

So watching the hyper commodification of creativity, and hyper creativity makes me feel insane. To me, creativity comes from a deeply intimate, emotional experience with self and the world. Am I silly for questioning how intimate creations of sincerity can arise when constantly analyzing life to transform it into a creation? In that, I mean if the motivation begins with what to post, and the creativity rises thereafter, is that backwards? Is it forced?

Doing it for the gram. Going on specific excursions for content. Everything being good…for content. What about creativity for the sake of it?

I know i’m not the only one who can see what’s coming. I know so many people feel this, they just don’t say it because saying it feels like admitting defeat. It’s like admitting you’re not “committed enough” or you don’t “want it badly enough” or that you’re envious.

To be honest, I think I just want something different, and always have. My purpose, my roots may just be different. It may not result in the most success or the most money or the most deals, but I don’t think I want the content creation steroids they’re selling.

Especially when I know the ease that comes from simply being and creating from a sustainable place.

I can’t keep up, but the pace itself is hostile to creativity, to human limitation, and probably other things I can’t really think about right now.

When everyone is simultaneously trying to stand out, the baseline for what counts as standing out keeps escalating, rising like an arms race that benefits these platforms while burning creatives out.

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The most interesting part, what always makes me want to scream, is that I’m participating in it right now. I’m writing this essay about the creator economy machine on a creator platform, and some part of me absolutely hopes it does well. Hopes people read it and understand it and share it and subscribe. I can see the machine clearly, I can name it, I can feel sick about it, and I’m still here.

One, because I love writing but two, cultural irrelevance sucks and for many, it’d be economic nuking oneself to just up and leave.

Like I said before, even this, being honest about the impossibility of it all, is a proven engagement strategy. Vulnerability sell, but this is just me.

I’m adding to the noise while complaining about the noise, and to be honest, I don’t have a freaking solution to that.

I just know I’m tired. I’m fucking exhausted, and I don’t stay caught up. I just consume as best as I can while also “creating more than I consume.” However, I see the rapid changes enough to know: this excessive churn is not the hill I want to die on for success.

I’m tired of the loop where the real product is “how to make it as a creator” rather than actual creative work. I’m tired of watching authenticity get sold back to us as a technique. I’m tired of the pandemic hangover energy, everyone moving too fast because they feel like they’re behind, like they missed something crucial. Like they watched people get famous off basically nothing and now they’re racing to catch up to a lottery win that already happened. I’m tired of trends that don’t get to be trends, that die before they finish spreading. I’m tired of the pressure to make every single thing I create better than the last thing. I’m tired of platforms that won’t let you just exist. The architecture itself doesn’t allow for simple or slow being.

So ya, I don’t know what next. I’m sticking to slow platforms where visibility doesn’t cost too much or carry mass pressure: Substack, Pinterest, Threads.

I’m going to keep writing and moving as I move. Probably going to keep posting slower than I “should.” Less consistently than the 60k-in-a-month girlies recommend. I’m going to keep showing up when my brain allows it, and I’m going to try not to feel like a failure when it doesn’t. I’m going to get dressed up once a month, MAYBE, and that’s going to have to be enough.

I’m choosing to be human in a system that’s not really built for humans. And maybe I’ll fail by its metrics. Maybe I already am.

But I just refuse to believe that the alternative (the excessive constant creations and performance, the treating of my own existence as content) is what success should look like.

Even if everyone else is doing it, even if it works for them, even if I’m the only one who can’t keep up…I literally refuse to do so.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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★ I hope this brought you clarity! :) I’m here to help build philosophical foundations — so you can trust yourself, make decisions with confidence, and live a life you love according to your standards. Quick announcement: I’m launching a 10-week philosophy series on Substack next week, and it’s really exciting work. 12 philosophers (ancient + modern), rigorous inquiry, the kind of depth work that changes how you see everything. Paid subscribers get access to The Examined Life. Become a paid subscriber HERE. I’m excited to connect with you there, but most importantly, thank you for being here right now <3. Stay tuned.