So much for all those articles saying that our society doesn't have a counterculture. Maybe it does. It just doesn't look just like the previous one. Like bankruptcy, the transition will happen slowly, then suddenly.
I remember the 1960s counterculture a bit differently. While many members of the mainstream media learned from it, the institutions were generally dismissive and often hostile. I remember a lot of mocking bemusement followed by lame imitation.
My main concern is the money. Substack, for example, is great, but how many subscriptions can one afford? The money is all or nothing. There are no news stand issues, single records or tickets for showings or concerts. Youtube handles money better, but that means creators are dependent on Google, and Google can't be trusted and can turn on a dime. The 1960s counterculture relied on cheap real estate and single bite purchasing. We don't have that.
I can think of an even simpler reason to go long on microculture that wasn’t addressed here: kids these days. As a high school teacher, I see them less aware of and interested in mainstream media every year. Sure, they might follow a few of the popular hits that survive the winner-take-all culture (Beyoncé, Spider-Man movies, Colleen Hoover novels) but most of it passes them by completely. Tens of millions of marketing dollars were spent to revive Indiana Jones at the box office, to no effect on teenage viewers. Meanwhile, they’re fanatical about makeup artists on YouTube and SoundCloud rappers most of us won’t hear about until they die. Born in the mid-2000s, they barely know what living with a mainstream is. And they’re the future!
The money aspect is the one roadblock I see to a mass adoption of Substack.
On one hand, on Substack, a creator has total control. He sees each subscriber as they join, and emails them directly when he puts out something new. He doesn't have to pay Substack to show his work to anyone, nor does he post it knowing that only a small number of them will see it. When he posts, everyone sees it at no cost to him. If someone subscribes, the creator keeps 90% of the subscription fee.
On the other hand, on YouTube, to use one example, the creator has no control over who sees what he creates, or when they see it. On Facebook and Twitter, he has even less control. On none of those platforms does he know who his subscribers are, and he has no way to reach out to them other than by posting to the platform and hoping the site shares it with his followers. There are no subscription fees, so the only revenue comes from ads. The creator keeps between 45% to 70% of the ad revenue on YouTube, and probably less on other sites, and has to pay the site to promote his work.
Based on the above, Substack is the clear winner. The problem is that most users can only pay for a few subscriptions. Sure, a handful of wealthy folks can subscribe to 100+, but the average person probably can't budget much more than $30 per month for Substack subscriptions. That means that most Substack creators will garner very few, if any, paid subscribers, and are working more or less for free, and a very popular YouTuber has no incentive to leave YouTube, where he can make million of dollars in ad revenue.
Basically, it's the same on both platforms-- if you are famous, you get paid, if not you don't. The only difference is that YouTube allows everyone to see everything, while on Substack users have to pay to see certain content.
A potential fix for this would be Substacks that act as curators. A Substack account that acts like, say, The New Yorker, in that it features content by a number of other Substack creators. A subscriber to the curator sees content from numerous Substack accounts that he does not subscribe to, all for one subscription fee to the curator. The curator in turn divides that money between the sites he features. So, for example, Curator Substack shows an article from The Honest Broker, and another from Bob's Substack, and a third from Ma Frickett's Substack. Subscriber pays Curator $6, and Curator gives Honest Broker, Bob, and Ma Frickett $2 each. Just an idea.
This is the most. cogent argument for the transition/revolution going on now. It won't be reported in the macroculture because legacy media NEVER EVER reports on itself or other members inside the bubble.
It's the third rail of journalism from the national to local levels. (Here in Portland, my Substack PortlandDissent is the only voice in local journalism that ever reports on...local journalism. It's great to have that as an exclusive--but sad at the same time.)
The macroculture is also an insulated bubble saturated with "woke" viewpoints and policies that us microculture ppl call BS on. They and their ESG scheming friends want to dictate, not create.
I see a clear story of decline on the one side, and explosive growth on the other. Creativity is just built into the species, if it stagnates here it will pop up there. Great, Disney can die in a fire for all I care, or go the way of Yahoo. Let a million substackers bloom, and all that.
But in the title and repeatedly in the article you promise war. Care to elaborate? Some big old farts declining, and new stuff popping elsewhere, largely unseen or ignored by the old farts, is a great story of a sea change, but it's not a war. Are you predicting that the monoculture will go on the offensive and try to cancel the new stuff? Or that independent creators will somehow go to war with Hollywood? Let's her more about this predicted conflict!
...but where will i get to watch season 17 of [untitled star wars project] and the prequel prequel prequel Fast & The Furious -3?...it seems there has never been a better time to pivot into individuality and to build minicultures out of the microcultures you subscribe to and participate in...or to make handprinted zines with qr codes on them...support the arts that support you and you shall be supported in return...or so one hopes...
A good follow-on to this article would look at the news this week that Spotify laid off Glenn McDonald, its genre wizard, "data alchemist," and the genius behind everynoise.com. (Also, it sounds like, his team? And the remaining others from the old Echo Nest team?) Spotify succeeded because it was able not just to microtarget its users with music from the microgenres they already liked, but was able to let users discover 6,000+ microgenres they never knew they'd like. Spotify enabled microcultures of music to find their music in a way that Apple Music, Tidal, et al simply couldn't come close to. But now it looks like Spotify is shrugging and saying "eh, institutional monoculture / macroculture is fine. Let's just be Äpple Music."
We have the same legacy-media macroculture problem here in Australia, but in an aggravated form (given the fact that in this country, the main newspapers and the main television stations have the same owners).
One example will serve for all: Rupert Murdoch's newspaper <I>The Australian</I>, which has not once made a profit since it was founded in 1964, has had the same foreign editor for almost 40 years; he hasn't improved with age.
I’m grateful for this overview with useful terms and some historical background. Still, I feel that it’s looking at the wrong indicators. Macro or micro, the real story lies in the total commodification of the exchange of opinion and information, which occurs just as much in this intelligent and entertaining Substack as in MrBeast. This will always lead to concentration of “creation” and to a standardization of the “content” bc that’s in the logic of capital. It happens everywhere. Once Netflix was in the position of breaking through (if never micro), and this meant bold innovation. Now it’s back to formulaic shlock. Look at the offerings on grocery shelves: a dozen products variations on same old crap. This happens bc it’s in the logic of concentrating capital to settle on the lowest common denominator. Still, I’m grateful for this way of posing the question.
1) Microculture platforms rely on macroculture advertising. It's all connected.
2) Substack is as much an indie/alt darling to today's culture as Harvey Weinstein was to the 90s. Be careful the company you keep.
3) What you describe is not an impending war, it is simply a shift in demographics and what participants in mass culture deem important. The power may be shifting to new areas, but the dynamics of power remain the same (or, perhaps, are becoming even more concentrated).
All right; but one thing is: who gets to define a "microculture", and when? Usually that happens after the fact, often by years; with a whole heap of survivor's bias and politics. People are honking about "curation", but who really wants to hand (more) power over to "curators"? "Curator" is just a fancy name for "gatekeeper", with all the biases and petty feuds that entails. I dunnoaboutyou, but I got more than enough headaches from those folks already, in music. There's no room for the "undefinable" in their world, as I've found out.
I hope you are right. But I remember writing something very similar about the Internet and the blogosphere 20 years ago. And I was wrong. The old institutions rallied and coopted the new ones. Why do you think that the macro culture will not use government power and regulation to squeeze the life out of the new competitors, who are disorganized and dispersed and small? Make an example out of a few of them, and you may be able to shut the whole thing down or force them in-house or only permit them to work on your own terms? You left out politics and law and compulsion and regulation in your analysis. But people in power never give it up without a fight, and there is almost nothing they won’t do to keep it. For example, it would not take much in the way of government interference to shut Substack down. So, again, I hope you are right. But you’re the one who use the word “war” and the macro culture has access to almost all the instruments of power and the micro culture does not. Who will win that conflict is far from obvious.
I wonder how the microculture camp will weather the inevitable deluge of fake AI content. Dead internet theory will be fully realized this time next year -- I just can't imagine anyone crawling back to macroculture platforms no matter how schizophrenic the alternatives become. The microculture, even when mistaken, or grossly/intentionally inaccurate, still has more sincerity than any establishment media. This guy Ran Prieur has a blog with a great recent entry on the lack of authenticity in the macroculture. People are careening towards misinfo because it is the most accessible/basal mix of addictive content and sincerity, unlike establishment media which has lost the mandate of heaven : https://ranprieur.com/#:~:text=to%20this%20day.-,December,-1.%20Merriam%2DWebster%27s
Well, I hope you are right. Ossification of dominant institutions is an old story, but the biggest and baddest of them tend not to “go quietly into that good night.” I have hope for percolating microcultures, but I fear it will take some time before the wider world realizes that people are in fact well and truly tired of wringing out all the humanity, variety, depth, breadth and truth just to turn more efficient machines of colossal profit. Scale knows no quality and, I fear, big moves will remain all about scale for some time. Greed is just too fierce to reflect. I hope I’m wrong.
So much for all those articles saying that our society doesn't have a counterculture. Maybe it does. It just doesn't look just like the previous one. Like bankruptcy, the transition will happen slowly, then suddenly.
I remember the 1960s counterculture a bit differently. While many members of the mainstream media learned from it, the institutions were generally dismissive and often hostile. I remember a lot of mocking bemusement followed by lame imitation.
My main concern is the money. Substack, for example, is great, but how many subscriptions can one afford? The money is all or nothing. There are no news stand issues, single records or tickets for showings or concerts. Youtube handles money better, but that means creators are dependent on Google, and Google can't be trusted and can turn on a dime. The 1960s counterculture relied on cheap real estate and single bite purchasing. We don't have that.
I can think of an even simpler reason to go long on microculture that wasn’t addressed here: kids these days. As a high school teacher, I see them less aware of and interested in mainstream media every year. Sure, they might follow a few of the popular hits that survive the winner-take-all culture (Beyoncé, Spider-Man movies, Colleen Hoover novels) but most of it passes them by completely. Tens of millions of marketing dollars were spent to revive Indiana Jones at the box office, to no effect on teenage viewers. Meanwhile, they’re fanatical about makeup artists on YouTube and SoundCloud rappers most of us won’t hear about until they die. Born in the mid-2000s, they barely know what living with a mainstream is. And they’re the future!
The money aspect is the one roadblock I see to a mass adoption of Substack.
On one hand, on Substack, a creator has total control. He sees each subscriber as they join, and emails them directly when he puts out something new. He doesn't have to pay Substack to show his work to anyone, nor does he post it knowing that only a small number of them will see it. When he posts, everyone sees it at no cost to him. If someone subscribes, the creator keeps 90% of the subscription fee.
On the other hand, on YouTube, to use one example, the creator has no control over who sees what he creates, or when they see it. On Facebook and Twitter, he has even less control. On none of those platforms does he know who his subscribers are, and he has no way to reach out to them other than by posting to the platform and hoping the site shares it with his followers. There are no subscription fees, so the only revenue comes from ads. The creator keeps between 45% to 70% of the ad revenue on YouTube, and probably less on other sites, and has to pay the site to promote his work.
Based on the above, Substack is the clear winner. The problem is that most users can only pay for a few subscriptions. Sure, a handful of wealthy folks can subscribe to 100+, but the average person probably can't budget much more than $30 per month for Substack subscriptions. That means that most Substack creators will garner very few, if any, paid subscribers, and are working more or less for free, and a very popular YouTuber has no incentive to leave YouTube, where he can make million of dollars in ad revenue.
Basically, it's the same on both platforms-- if you are famous, you get paid, if not you don't. The only difference is that YouTube allows everyone to see everything, while on Substack users have to pay to see certain content.
A potential fix for this would be Substacks that act as curators. A Substack account that acts like, say, The New Yorker, in that it features content by a number of other Substack creators. A subscriber to the curator sees content from numerous Substack accounts that he does not subscribe to, all for one subscription fee to the curator. The curator in turn divides that money between the sites he features. So, for example, Curator Substack shows an article from The Honest Broker, and another from Bob's Substack, and a third from Ma Frickett's Substack. Subscriber pays Curator $6, and Curator gives Honest Broker, Bob, and Ma Frickett $2 each. Just an idea.
This is the most. cogent argument for the transition/revolution going on now. It won't be reported in the macroculture because legacy media NEVER EVER reports on itself or other members inside the bubble.
It's the third rail of journalism from the national to local levels. (Here in Portland, my Substack PortlandDissent is the only voice in local journalism that ever reports on...local journalism. It's great to have that as an exclusive--but sad at the same time.)
The macroculture is also an insulated bubble saturated with "woke" viewpoints and policies that us microculture ppl call BS on. They and their ESG scheming friends want to dictate, not create.
I see a clear story of decline on the one side, and explosive growth on the other. Creativity is just built into the species, if it stagnates here it will pop up there. Great, Disney can die in a fire for all I care, or go the way of Yahoo. Let a million substackers bloom, and all that.
But in the title and repeatedly in the article you promise war. Care to elaborate? Some big old farts declining, and new stuff popping elsewhere, largely unseen or ignored by the old farts, is a great story of a sea change, but it's not a war. Are you predicting that the monoculture will go on the offensive and try to cancel the new stuff? Or that independent creators will somehow go to war with Hollywood? Let's her more about this predicted conflict!
...but where will i get to watch season 17 of [untitled star wars project] and the prequel prequel prequel Fast & The Furious -3?...it seems there has never been a better time to pivot into individuality and to build minicultures out of the microcultures you subscribe to and participate in...or to make handprinted zines with qr codes on them...support the arts that support you and you shall be supported in return...or so one hopes...
A good follow-on to this article would look at the news this week that Spotify laid off Glenn McDonald, its genre wizard, "data alchemist," and the genius behind everynoise.com. (Also, it sounds like, his team? And the remaining others from the old Echo Nest team?) Spotify succeeded because it was able not just to microtarget its users with music from the microgenres they already liked, but was able to let users discover 6,000+ microgenres they never knew they'd like. Spotify enabled microcultures of music to find their music in a way that Apple Music, Tidal, et al simply couldn't come close to. But now it looks like Spotify is shrugging and saying "eh, institutional monoculture / macroculture is fine. Let's just be Äpple Music."
We have the same legacy-media macroculture problem here in Australia, but in an aggravated form (given the fact that in this country, the main newspapers and the main television stations have the same owners).
One example will serve for all: Rupert Murdoch's newspaper <I>The Australian</I>, which has not once made a profit since it was founded in 1964, has had the same foreign editor for almost 40 years; he hasn't improved with age.
I’m grateful for this overview with useful terms and some historical background. Still, I feel that it’s looking at the wrong indicators. Macro or micro, the real story lies in the total commodification of the exchange of opinion and information, which occurs just as much in this intelligent and entertaining Substack as in MrBeast. This will always lead to concentration of “creation” and to a standardization of the “content” bc that’s in the logic of capital. It happens everywhere. Once Netflix was in the position of breaking through (if never micro), and this meant bold innovation. Now it’s back to formulaic shlock. Look at the offerings on grocery shelves: a dozen products variations on same old crap. This happens bc it’s in the logic of concentrating capital to settle on the lowest common denominator. Still, I’m grateful for this way of posing the question.
This piece is too clever for its own good:
1) Microculture platforms rely on macroculture advertising. It's all connected.
2) Substack is as much an indie/alt darling to today's culture as Harvey Weinstein was to the 90s. Be careful the company you keep.
3) What you describe is not an impending war, it is simply a shift in demographics and what participants in mass culture deem important. The power may be shifting to new areas, but the dynamics of power remain the same (or, perhaps, are becoming even more concentrated).
All right; but one thing is: who gets to define a "microculture", and when? Usually that happens after the fact, often by years; with a whole heap of survivor's bias and politics. People are honking about "curation", but who really wants to hand (more) power over to "curators"? "Curator" is just a fancy name for "gatekeeper", with all the biases and petty feuds that entails. I dunnoaboutyou, but I got more than enough headaches from those folks already, in music. There's no room for the "undefinable" in their world, as I've found out.
I hope you are right. But I remember writing something very similar about the Internet and the blogosphere 20 years ago. And I was wrong. The old institutions rallied and coopted the new ones. Why do you think that the macro culture will not use government power and regulation to squeeze the life out of the new competitors, who are disorganized and dispersed and small? Make an example out of a few of them, and you may be able to shut the whole thing down or force them in-house or only permit them to work on your own terms? You left out politics and law and compulsion and regulation in your analysis. But people in power never give it up without a fight, and there is almost nothing they won’t do to keep it. For example, it would not take much in the way of government interference to shut Substack down. So, again, I hope you are right. But you’re the one who use the word “war” and the macro culture has access to almost all the instruments of power and the micro culture does not. Who will win that conflict is far from obvious.
➡️ "The macroculture is frozen. It has forgotten how to maneuver. It definitely has forgotten how to learn."
I wonder how the microculture camp will weather the inevitable deluge of fake AI content. Dead internet theory will be fully realized this time next year -- I just can't imagine anyone crawling back to macroculture platforms no matter how schizophrenic the alternatives become. The microculture, even when mistaken, or grossly/intentionally inaccurate, still has more sincerity than any establishment media. This guy Ran Prieur has a blog with a great recent entry on the lack of authenticity in the macroculture. People are careening towards misinfo because it is the most accessible/basal mix of addictive content and sincerity, unlike establishment media which has lost the mandate of heaven : https://ranprieur.com/#:~:text=to%20this%20day.-,December,-1.%20Merriam%2DWebster%27s
Well, I hope you are right. Ossification of dominant institutions is an old story, but the biggest and baddest of them tend not to “go quietly into that good night.” I have hope for percolating microcultures, but I fear it will take some time before the wider world realizes that people are in fact well and truly tired of wringing out all the humanity, variety, depth, breadth and truth just to turn more efficient machines of colossal profit. Scale knows no quality and, I fear, big moves will remain all about scale for some time. Greed is just too fierce to reflect. I hope I’m wrong.