This summer I gave in to what I had been resisting for months: I made a Substack account and joined the masses posting our most vulnerable thoughts for our 10 closest friends to give their clicks of approval on. I felt as though I had caved in. For months I had claimed that my refusal to join the Substack masses was because I wanted to honor the age-old value of having a real blog, but really, I was just bitter that I was paying for a website domain that nobody was clicking on.
The sense of rebellion I felt against Substack was mirrored with a general confusion about where to put my creative energy. In art school we’re often given mixed signals about where and how to self-promote. Yes, we should stay true to ourselves and honor the traditional value of gallery representation in the fine art space, but we should also be constantly filming our process and turning it into clickbait reels to gain as big a social media following as possible. I’ve struggled to believe that those two forms of promotion can work together. It’s hard to be a mysteriously rock ‘n’ roll fine artist when you’re also supposed to be cold-calling everyone you’ve ever admired.
Every third recommended Instagram reel I saw was a micro-influencer writing about their mid-20s, NYC, post-breakup revelations who was able to quit their 9-to-5 because of their paid Substack subscribers, I wondered if the real purpose was creative self-expression or just another platform to feed the media conglomerate.
The answer you get depends on which side of the internet you’re on. While my Substack feed currently is mostly made up of art school girlie advice and listicles of Pinterest alternatives, Substack as a platform is not as niche and organic as one might think. Substack currently has 35 million active subscribers, and more than five million paid subscriptions. According to Search Engine Land, through Substack, the top 10 authors collectively are making $40 million per year. The 10 top-earning newsletters are all making between one and five million dollars annually. That’s no coffee fund.
While those numbers have grown exponentially since Substack’s inception in 2017, the platform has been able to maintain a reputation of being the scrappy DIY personality of the media landscape. The growth of a media platform composed entirely of independent writers feels reflective of our current media landscape. Broad trust in major news outlets is declining as political vendettas and extremist views take center stage on platforms like X and Truth Social. According to 2025 research from the Pew Research Center, adults under 30 years old are equally as likely to trust information on national news organizations as on social media sites. This lack of trust in mass media signals a larger problem in our society, but also creates a hot market for those wishing to spread their opinions, projects, or advocacy as independent voices.
Perhaps the answer to the social self-promotion conundrum is to dip your toes in every platform and see what feels most applicable to your medium and message. For my photographic work, Instagram will always rule, but I’m trying to explore how places like Substack can help me translate my ideas into different mediums and reach new audiences. The frustration with the pressure we feel to follow algorithmic trends is valid, but it would be a shame not to experiment with what’s working for others. While I’m not ready to sell Substack my soul, I’m letting curiosity guide me into its world. I’ll report back.
