Alan Jacobs wrote an excellent blog post a couple of weeks ago, titled “bring back the blog“, which I recommend you read. Blogging is an art form that has largely gone away, replaced mostly by social media and podcasting and Youtube, but also in some ways by the newsletter boom of the last couple of years, best represented by Substack. The old school blog (like the one you are reading right now) is kind of a relic. Which is sad in a way, but that’s just how the internet works.
I’ve tried for a couple of years to branch out to Substack and the newsletter model, because I really do admire that platform and the people publishing over there. But, I have found, it is just not the right platform for me. Like Alan Jacobs, I came of age during the time of the blog (albeit right at the end of that epoch) and I always think in terms of blogging. To that end, I’m going to end the Substack and just focus my work here. I’m also going to take the reminder from Alan to heart and try to use this blog as a wider catch for things I’m thinking about, more akin to social media than it has been. But we’ll see how that goes. Above all, I’m just going to stop chasing clicks and fighting against my inclinations; blogging is what I know how to do, and that’s perfectly acceptable and good.
So, you’ll see soon here a series of posts of things I originally published over on Substack, including the Politics of Charity series that I wrote last year, and that I’m mostly pretty proud of. Thank you, as always, for your continued reading, those few of you who do.
Justin DaMetz 