Sneaky Fucker Promotional Strategy
aka Kleptoklesis
After writing my previous post, I unsubscribed from a ton of substacks. My intentions for being subscribed to them weren’t pure.1 I didn’t read the posts because I liked them. I didn’t comment because I wanted to share reflections. I had a secret agenda. I wanted people to read my comments and go: “ooh, nice comment, let’s read his stuff and smash that subscribe button!”.2
Farming other people’s comments is the recommended best practice for growing on substack. It’s a soul-crushing grind. For most writers, promotion is the biggest time sink. Not promoting is seen as naive. Generally, I want to do things properly. Being an unrelenting tryhard, I dove into the grind.
I hated it.3 Signalling with hidden ulterior motives is soul-crushing. I was contributing to something profane, reducing the level of authenticity on the web. Sneaky fucker promotional strategy. Kleptoklesis.4
After unsubscribing, I’ve continued commenting on posts. I’ve stopped trying to sound like I’ve got shit together, instead writing my honest reactions. This has been very enlivening. Why have I been telling people about things? Why have I been trying to sound all authoritative, telling people how things are? I’m good at finding the right questions to ask.5 Why not go for it, and help people get confused in a directed, productive way?6
I don’t want to tell people about the way things are. Fuck if I know. I feel a resistance towards the centralization of information transfer, an aversion towards netocrat7 content shufflers, and an urge to smash the producer-consumer dynamic of most online writing. I don’t want to produce content for people to consume. I want to inspire people to think.
Lives are complicated, and there is no “one-size-fits-all advice”. Telling people how to think feels ill-advised, given the risk of misconstrual and forgotten dependencies.8
So why do I write online, if I don’t want to become famous, a great pundit?
I write online to find The Others. I write online to process shit in my life. I write online to signal how emotionally mature and fuckable I am. I write because I like it.
Once in a while, someone comes up to me and tells me that something I wrote had a great impact on their life. This feels totally random - my ability to discern life-altering masterpieces is staggeringly low.
Maybe it’s not about performance, but rather a matter of connection. Maybe, when I alter the course of someone’s life, the writing is merely a mirror that happens to capture them in an evocative way.
Anyway, If I’ve impacted you in some way, please let me know. Also, I’ve got some slots open for philosphical guidance, feel free to book one.
Interesting how honesty and virtue/vice easily turns me into religious metaphors. Maybe I should start a cult.
This is a bit overstated - some comments felt connected, but the overall strategy of consuming content related to this substack didn’t. God, there’s such an extreme amount of stuff on the internets, I’ll never get around to reading all of it.
lol, Grammarly goes: “Do you want to sound more diplomatic?”. No, I don’t.
“Sneaky fuckers” is a name for non-dominant males pretending not to be a threat and then going in for the fuck when the dominant male(s) are distracted. It’s called kleptogyny (from Greek klepto- "stealing" and -gyny "female"). I put “Kleptoklesis” together from klepto- and
-klesis “to call, to invite, to summon”.
Coining new terms is a perfectly fine use of my time. Much better than engaging in kleptoklesis.
I know this because I’ve interviewed my coworkers to build an idea of how I contribute
Critical voice: There is a lot of anxiety in the world. Aren’t people already confused enough?
Answer: I think people are either too certain, clinging to their frames like the last drop of water. OR they are too confused, resigned in apathy without knowing where to go. Good questions clear away the fog, gesturing in a direction. It might be an unknown direction (Inwards? Sideways?), but at least it’s something to do.
In Alexander Bard’s book “Netocracy: The New Power Elite and Life After Capitalism”, he drafts a model for classes in an information-driven society. The Netocrats are the upper class— they have access to high-value networks, and control over their own (and other people’s) attention. The Consumptariat is the lower class. They get told by influencers what to think, what to buy, and who to be. Their actions are controlled by the Netocracy, their contribution to society is their consumption.
= PEOPLE MIGHT NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU SAY, AND EVEN IF THEY DO IT’S LIKELY NOT RELEVANT TO THEIR SITUATION
This feels aligned with your north star (?) of Honest Living.
Nice post, Jonathan. Regarding: "Why have I been trying to sound all authoritative, telling people how things are?" I wonder if you were feeling pressure to sound like the writer whose Substack you were posting on? I noticed I feel the pull to conform to whatever style and culture the writer sets with his words, aka more or less guarded or unguarded premises, more or less personal or theoretical, etc.