For the ones who just cannot with paywalls

Oh, gee thanks so much Substack. Once again, I have been blessed with a tantalising taste of what I could be intellectualising my mind and broadening my horizons with if only I had some nice casual spending money to lob around in support of my fellow darling artists and writers.

Look, le sigh, I get it I do. Being a creative is often the worst. You have all this big, beautiful energy swurdling (I am coining this word isn’t she a beaut) inside of you like a maelstrom of madness. There is a way of seeing the world that you possess that feels revolutionary and brilliant and you have a burning loins-er oops-I mean drive to share it in some way with others because it feels meaningful and right and sublime. However, we live in a world where you need money to like breathe and shit so naturally your time must be monetised in some regard in order for you get by. This is all well and good BUT creative work is historically undervalued, creatives are en masse underpaid or not paid at all and regularly have their work stolen or used without credit or permission. Almost all creatives have experienced that expectation of churning out art for the world for free because it’s a ‘vocation’ and the ‘exposure is payment’ so basically you must resign yourself to being a starving artist if you want to spend your one wild precious life doing the thing you love. The alternative is for most that you do what I did and get a boring, meh meh means-to-an-end job that (barely) pays the bills and create for yourself when (if) you can and hope to the universe that you one day be discovered.

BUT WAIT, along comes the I N T E R N E T, the friend of the masses awaiting accessibility and power. The dimensions of sharing, creating and profiting have quite suddenly expanded, and we have this new profound opportunity for humans to pursue their passions and dreams in a realistic, viable way. This is where platforms like Substack shine. These landing pads allow for writers et al. to produce and share their work for free; as far as I know users don’t pay to use Substack’s platform unlike traditional website hosts. Using a tiered subscription-based service the writers create brackets of financial support for their readers to opt into which allows them to produce work targeted to the different levels. Your commitment be it free or a certain amount a month unlocks different perks or means of accessibility. So basically streaming?

I know I sound like a dick but a social media platform by any other name is still a business first and we live in a consumer driven society where relevance is dictated by financial viability. Substack (like all others that came before ehhh RIP Patreon?) and its best interests will always be economic sustainability so at the end of the day money talks and gets you noticed. The more profitable a writer is the more likely their content will be pushed on the layperson’s page. Substack succeeds in a sort of commission-based way charging a ten percent fee on the user’s monthly earnings. That means no advertising. Which is nice. Although it does mean that there feels like an underlying goal of profit for most of the artistic production occurring and are we not tired of a world where everything revolves around money?

I will counter my little complaint with the big positive. I do think it is great that there is so much gorgeous writing out there and it is proliferating our world in a ever expanding, breathtaking manner. I have already found and followed a number of new writers I did not know existed and have been impacted juicily by their contributions to the canon of human thinking and observations. People can write and be supported through donation by their beloved readers and it’s quite a lovely thing actually because makers can now eke out a living doing what they love. Until we get to the inherent flaw that I personally feel victimised by. That is, I just don’t have money to pay all the incredible online writers I love reading and I am tired of every one of them dangling their proverbial carrots in front of my nose only to yank it away behind a paywall I legitimately can’t cross. Essay after essay I spend my precious free time starting to read, get hooked and then “oh thar she blows the great paywall” and I will never get to know resolution. Is this a form of intellectual cock-blocking? Or am I just being a baby? As my hairy husband pointed out while I was right at the peak of my witty and faultless (to me) tirade on the unfairness of subscription based services, “those writers have to eat too though? Don’t you think they deserve to be paid for their work?”

Ugh obviously he’s right (don’t tell him I said that). I do really hope that all artists get paid for their work if that is what they want of course I do.

I have long been reflecting on the prevailing issues of living in a society that has still not truly reckoned with the inherent classicism that is a felt invisible line present for so many. It’s hard not to become bitter if you are caught within the lower bars of the economic ladder especially as the cost of living has been rising in a paralysing way. I don’t want to blame others for what they have that I do not but I feel myself falling back on resentment a lot. If you have never been intimate with the gaping maw of poverty how can you truly know that your actions might be reinforcing or sustaining it in creative, subversive ways?

It just all feels a little too reminiscent of the social construct that the things of the mind and heart-joy, pleasure, art, music, fine dining-are still reserved for the elite who have been the gatekeepers of these forms of elevated culture for time immemorial. Not that the many writers using Substack are the modern age art world Illuminati or anything. I just don’t agree with how the majority falsely market their writings as free and entrap those of us who can’t afford to pay up by giving us the first half of an essay happy as anything only to insert the paywall once you are a few paragraphs in. It feels like a bait and switch.

I suppose I am trying this new thing where I attempt to hold the most generous assumption I can of other people’s motives, purposes, general intention etc. So I will apply that here. These beautiful writers don’t know really how the decisions that honour their labour can trigger feelings of exclusion and failure for those of us with a history of generational poverty. It’s not their fault I have an issue, they are just doing what they should do to get paid like they deserve for all their hard work. I might do the same in their position. I certainly entertained the idea. I don’t mind that aspect at all, I just want to not be misled.

So I implore you dear fellow writers, your work is worth being paid for but I don’t know could you just tell us beforehand that the article is not free? Maybe one day I will be able to give and give and give and that would be amazing. Sadly, that day is not today sir!

Sincerely,

A broke bitch