Recently, about 5 full days ago, I created a Substack account with the intent to do something. I already was doing something on social media, but, all said and done, that endeavour was not quite working out. A couple of hours ago, I made my first posts, and now I am wondering why I did, and why I bother.

I’m not new to posting my work online (albeit, I’ve only posted visual art and bedroom beats up until this point, not writing); thus, this experience is not new to me either. I anticipate that this Substack might just die out within a couple of days, like my Cara account or my poorly-maintained ArtStation portfolio. If it lives longer than my Instagram account (no new posts for almost a year now), then we’ve hit a massive milestone.

I suppose this document briefly describes my thoughts of the matter of moving to Substack, and is more a journal entry than any sort of formed opinion.

I began posting music on SoundCloud as early as 2019, starting from a third-party connection called the GadgetCloud (my software of choice at the time was KORG Gadget—but this is for another story). These was the first establishment of my online presence. It was also a new experience to me, and I did not know exactly what to anticipate or treasure. There was none of the chaos or inundation of news headlines or the endless scrolling feed. Very quickly, I was isolated in my little corner of the internet.

What I treasure the most from those days were the “niche corners” of the internet that I stumbled across often, especially after acquiring a Discord account. They were easy enough for me to find, being an artist facing against the draconian eldritch being known as the “Instagram algorithm”. These online spaces seemed to be quiet, if sometimes a bit isolated, corners of the internet that lacked the pulsing overstimulation of scrolling feeds. For me, they were small Discord servers (most of which are now permanently lost to me), or my old SoundCloud profile, which was as quiet as the drop-off zone at my junior high school late in the evening. More recently, though I only know of them through passing word, they appear as little blogs or profiles under mysterious names, with aesthetics that seem curated not for an idea but for an individual. (I’m realizing as I write this that I am describing, almost exactly, the Tumblr blogs that my friends send me. Maybe I should make a Tumblr account in conjunction with this one?)

These spaces have always appealed to me because they’ve seemed like “safe” places to be, where my increasingly brittle mind is not overwhelmed by information—at least, that was my experience while they lasted. As much as I want others to see my art and writing and music, I honestly hope to maintain a small core community that never becomes something larger than a blog or a down-low profile. Then again, that sacrifice might have to be made in order to share with others or have an opinion.

In any case, I struggle to tell whether these “niche corners” of the internet are real or just an impression, because I’ve never truly explored them, at least since I first created my online presence. Perhaps the “niche” corner of the internet is just a myth, a phenomenon one perceives while growing up but then grows out of. Whatever they are, I’ve gotten further away from them. My horizons have expanded, dramatically.

Most of my online presence currently is on a number of Discord Servers and social media streams dedicated to activism for Palestine. There has been virtually no art posting from me at all, outside of old friend groups. In a way, that is a pressure off—keeping up with perceived social media demand was always a drag for me. On the other hand, I’ve never felt as stressed or suffocated from the online world before. This, I believe, is not due to the topics being discussed in the areas where I lurk, but rather due to the reasons why I joined these groups.

It is important for me to take note of the context in which I am writing this. I have a maths exam tomorrow afternoon (or this afternoon now, it is already tomorrow), and this past day I have been struggling to study for it. Earlier this evening (or yesterday evening; it is now the small hours of the morning for me), I was posting artwork from a comic which I wish to pursue (among many other comics) alongside my studies. That was evidently a form of procrastination—putting off the exam because I don’t want to deal with it, or can’t. This writing now, too, could be considered procrastination. Why do I write? Just to procrastinate? If my life was perfect, would I have a need for writing? For drawing?

The impending exam itself is a suffocating concept. Time is the only buffer which I can utilize in order to do well on the exam, and time is running out fast. I’m getting a neuropsychological assessment in order to figure out why I can’t focus on a single thing at any given time—but that too is a different story.

What surprises me about my experience of joining Substack is that it isn’t any different than the past times I’ve joined social media platforms. It seems to only be a stone’s throw from joining any social media—any endless, scrolling social media feed. In fact, being here, for me, is not much different than being on Twitter. Nothing is different. I feel just as confined as I always have felt on social media, just as suffocated between the ever-expanding bubbles of loud voices, razor-point opinions, and amalgamated information. All of these things are here on Substack too, even if not presented in the same form. Perhaps it’s not the presentation—or even amount—of information that matters.

In fact, now that I am on Substack, I feel disappointed. I’m surrounded by a mass of people whom I perceive as smart, which is just as off-putting as it is amazing—not too unlike teenage Jenny Diski sitting at the dinner table with Doris Lessing and Lessing’s writer friends. Which begs the question—what was I expecting? Some sort of quiet courtyard, where information is released and absorbed rather than catapulted, and where I don’t feel the need to have a very formed thought process or sense of self Furthermore, why should being surrounded by smart people make me feel like there are eyes on me (still)? What exactly was I running from, then, if this is implying that I was seeking refuge, peace?

Was joining Substack a calculated decision on my part, a calculated “migration” for something better, or simply a fight-or-flight response?

Well, we could point to a couple of things immediately. Insecurity, for one thing, for associating “smart people” with pressure (as if I could never measure up to them), or for assuming that people on Substack fit my vision of “smart” in the first place. The impending exam, which I quite literally described as suffocation further above, is no help either. Since this exam is not being studied for by writing, using Substack is not providing relief from the suffocation. Then, my flight from social media–a whole story in itself; all untold elements here are probably familiar to those who have moved to Substack for similar reasons. This is probably not helped by the fact that Substack is increasingly marketing itself as a social threads application. But I don’t think that’s it. All of this begs yet another question—if moving to Substack is supposed to be some sort of improvement, why even bother at this point? I don’t think the question of whether my move to Substack is a calculated decision or fight-flight response can be answered immediately in this way, but a lot of these considerations make me think that my move here is leaning towards the latter explanation.

Joining Substack, for me, looks more like hanging out around the edges, tending to small things that are niche and matter to me, but not being much of a contributor to the greater discourse. I stand alongside the “smart people”, but then fix their plumbing or their electric meter rather than write with them. Then, for the rest of my time…what do I do? I have to do something in order to be paid. The most logical outcome is that I am wasting time and space, and that I must reform my ways. I can only imagine the comments on my work, on my lackadaisical “opinions” that aren’t much more than reflections of my mental state at the time of writing. If only I did more research—granted, though, I have dyslexia, so how realistic is the notion that I’ll ever reach a reading quota?

Another way to put it, which avoids all the self-pity as seen in the previous paragraph (see my perfectionist insecurities and need to suck up to people?), is that we’re in Kowloon Walled City, and I…well…that analogy doesn’t actually make much sense now that I think of it. Never mind. It’s two-o’clock in the morning anyway. I need to stop writing and start sleeping.

Well, we made it this far…how amazing. There is not much more time before an obligation of mine, which I have been putting off for far too long. I just can’t focus. Is this truly a neuropsychological condition, or just laziness? Could laziness also be classified as a neuropsychological condition?

This is an opening concept for The Girl Who Didn’t Have a Mouth. She, I believe, will be climbing a hillside in order to capture images of birds. There is no time left for me to write–I hope you enjoy this, or at least the rest of your week.

Ideally, each of these posts will simply be a post of progress, not of a completed story. The completed story will come later. If I try to achieve a completed story within these posts, this project will fail in its entirety. This is not to be a measure of my creativity or my capability, but of my commitment. So I tell myself. Be committed.

The Girl Who Didn’t Have a Mouth is taking a walk. She’s always been into birds, and while she doesn’t research them (who could focus enough to do such a thing?), her observations have led her to believe that birds should not alight upon fully-insulated television cables.

She is the namesake for the comic that this clip will be from. The Girl Who Didn’t Have a Mouth. I hope to create it before the world catches up with me.

She does not have a name, either. That will come later.

Published 2024.1215.2347

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