Noot me on Noots

Hello, Cynics. If you subscribe to one or more Substack newsletters, you are now likely drowning in requests to join Notes, the noo feature Substack just launched. Obviously, you should ignore all those other emails, and pay attention to mine.

I like what I have seen so far of Notes, although I think they missed a trick on the name.

Look at that top-tier Note. Now look at the engagement numbers. This is why I need you to join Notes, readers. With your help, that Note could have at least twice the Likes it currently does.

Notes does also have some non-Noot uses. For instance, I was able to use it to highlight this comment from reader (and wonderful friend, ) just by hitting the “ReStack” button on his comment on my newsletter. This is very cool.

Notes also has some less lovely features, like a flimsy commitment to “free speech” that looks like both a cop-out and a ticking culture-war time bomb.

I think this would be a much better and more viable platform if they acted quickly on the rampant racists, transphobes, anti-vaxxers, and others — some quite prominent — that have siezed on the opportunity to build communities of hatred on Substack. Because, let me be extremely clear, the above is not a good example of how you should be thinking about running a social network in 2023 or any other year. Quite apart from discussions of “civility” (often code for “making a certain class of people feel comfortable and unchallenged), letting the baddies in, or not having a plan to deal with them, poses an existential threat to a new social network. Shorter version: If you let the Nazis in, it’s a Nazi bar.

All that said, I’d quite like you to join me in what currently seems like a decent space, and hopefully make it decent-er. It’s worth a go. Here’s the Substack boilerplate:

Noots is a new space on Substack for us to share links, short posts, quotes, photos, and more. I plan to use it for things that don’t fit in the newsletter, like work-in-progress or quick questions.

How to join

Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Noots” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to The Cynic's Guide To Self-Improvement, you’ll automatically see my noots. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around!

You can also share noots of your own. I hope this becomes a space where every reader of The Cynic's Guide To Self-Improvement can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we're reading on Substack and beyond.

I hope you have a good time on Notes, and I hope the management finds its way to getting on top of the hate-speech-peddling culture-jackers before they burn the whole thing down. Because this place is about to be tested. Every other shitlord on the Internet is about to start an account here to see what they can get away with. Good luck, Substack! You’ll need it.

If nothing else, it’ll be interesting.