Follow the Leader(board)

I joined Substack to get more people to read this bullshit site on WordPress.

Failed.

But like every action there is an equal and opposite unexpected consequence. (You thought I was going to type reaction didn’t you…)

I ended up getting more followers and traffic on Substack.

• I don’t write full stories there — just teasers that link back to this site.
• I don’t write new stories there — just recycle stories that are more than 3 years old and haven’t been read by anyone in more than 2 years.
• I don’t link social media there.

Despite this lazy and ass backward approach, I gain about 3 new “followers” and a free email subscriber or two per month. I’ve been more or less frozen in place on WordPress for three years.

Is that a problem? As my wife would say:

“It’s fine.”

Which means nothing is fine at all. Fuck. Why can’t people just do what I want them to do and use the website I want them to use?

While stewing in my own cesspool of anonymity, I read another Substack post celebrating that he was 43rd (or was it 44th) on the Substack “humor” Leaderboard.

There’s a leaderboard? That right. In the enshittification of the internet, step one is “gamification” of every fucking thing — including readin’ and writin’. Found their leaderboard after 20 minutes of being lost in the Substack app.

Scan, scan… no Kieran. Shit.

You know this gamification doesn’t work. You know it is the simplest of manipulative techniques that even a two-year-old child can see through in 10 seconds.

But goddamn. 30 minutes ago I had never heard of this leaderboard. Now I’m pissed I’m not on it.

How do you get on this Leaderboard?

“In settings, pick your first priority category” the Substack help file said.

Checked. Been there for months — maybe even years.

“All categories except “Staff Picks” are automated based on a writer’s performance on Substack with factors including the total number of paid subscribers.”

Fuck. I don’t have any paid subscribers. Of course I never even clicked “add paid subscriptions”, but that is beside the point. What kind of oligarchy capitalist bullshit is this Substack?

Why can’t free publications with hardly any mentions get a little link from an impossible to find “leaderboard?”

Why do only those who beg for crumbs (and plead for subscriptions like meth addicts at the freeway exits) get consideration?

Do the oligarchs at Garrison Keillor and Friends really need more money after all those millions (of pennies) they made on PBS?

Just because I want to spread my bullshit for free doesn’t make me a second class citizen. (Of course it does, this is America, but let’s just go with the all people are equal lie for a minute).

I’m already sucking off the government’s teat with my state worker pension and new social security check. I don’t need to impose another “tax” on the good readers who are already “paying my salary” with the state taxes on every sale, and the FICA withdrawals from every paycheck.

I should put a sign on every post “Your Tax Dollars at Work” — but I’m sure governments at every level would quickly put an end to that bullshit before the taxpayers get out their pitchforks and kill us all.

Substack gives away the game with even the link to the Leaderboard “substack.com/leaderboard/humor/paid“. There’s no leaderboard for “followers” or “subscribers” or “free.”

Despite their fuzzy words “…automated based on a writer’s performance on Substack with factors including” there are no other factors. “Paid” in the URL says it all.

Substack is all about the stacks — of cold hard cash. She who gets the “paid” subscribers and pays the fees to Substack gets all the prizes — even to be tagged as a leader in a category that no one could find on a page no one else is looking for.

Welcome to the new aristocracy on the internet — Substack — where all the techniques of enshittification and gamification ensure the already “rich” writers get richer.

PS

As Rick James would say, jealousy and envy is a powerful drug. And one that fuels this bullshit blog.