Goodbye to Substack

Don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you

Say goodbye to Formerly Dangerous.

The Substack era is over. And, hey, thank god for the Substack era. It is an era marked by chaos and constant experimentation with formats. And while I enjoyed the overall Substack toolbox, I do not regret leaving this platform. I think they stand for some transparently shitty things, and they’ve got the same venture capital brain rot that has ruined all kinds of businesses and people in the last twenty years.

As I launch this new incarnation of my overall publishing venture, I am 55 years old, and I hope to build something here that will be part of my life for not just years, but decades to come. I plan to continue creating and publishing human art as long as the wheels don’t come off the whole goddamn system, which, unfortunately, seems to be a genuine possibility at this point. I am not a pessimist, but I was born when Richard Nixon was President, and the first lesson I absorbed as a child was that the President of the United States was a criminal who abused his office for petty personal reasons. I was ten years old when Reagan took over, and I was radicalized as a result. I was a punk when I was a teen, and the things that spoke to me then were counter-cultural, a reaction to and rejection of the conservative mainstream. When I look around pop culture in 2025, I feel like it is every bad thing I’ve lived through previously, but rebooted and turned up to eleven, and it is hard not to be discouraged.

What I plan to do at Ghost is what I have been doing since I started reaching out to an online audience. I am creating a resistance space where I am going to do my best to curate art for you. My art. Other people’s art. Whatever I feel like curating. I am going to push back against corporatization and commercialization in whatever ways I can. I am going to spotlight things from the past that shine a light on the present. I am going to make things that make me happy, because joy is an affront to the kind of shitheads who are currently ruining our world. And all I ask from you is a small donation in the coffee can on the piano to help me keep the lights on.

That’s how you should think of it, anyway. Many of you are already subscribed, to one newsletter or another, but things are going to work a little different over here. My prices stayed exactly the same from day one of Substack to the last day I was there. While your subscriptions will transfer over to Ghost automatically, the prices are not going to be the same, and I would urge you to check things out. There’s a new feature at Ghost where you can bundle both of my newsletters together for a special price, something I wish I’d been able to do here. There’s not going to be a ton of free content at the new site because, quite frankly, I don’t think free content makes much sense. There’s a lot that goes into the creation of this work, and giving it away doesn’t really work. I’m not a news site. I’m not trying to game the system with SEO to drive traffic. I’m creating work for you to read, and if you want to read it, you know how to access it. If you don’t, then what does making it available for free do to help? Nothing, in my experience.

I appreciate each and every person who has supported this version of the newsletter. I have learned a lot from this experience, and that, combined with the twenty-plus years of web publishing before that, have left me with an even firmer idea of what I want to publish, and a fiercer dedication than ever to owning my platform completely and only giving my money to companies that deserve it. I don’t regret working with Substack. They were not this company when I signed up here. I do regret waiting this long to make this change, though, and I hope you will consider any and all financial support you offer them in the future. Right now, more than ever, where and how you spend your money matters, and your decision to spend any of it on me is something I do not take lightly.

I’ll see you at Ghost next week with some thoughts on Superman, One Battle After Another, and where we are as 2025 starts to wrap up.