sometimes, you aren’t the smartest person in the room

can we please be honest about substack as a platform

“Oh, I feel JUST like Carrie on Substack.”

Carrie Bradshaw at least had the nerve to be a terrible human being, which actually made her an interesting writer. She was a horrible friend and girlfriend — hence the column! It was from lived experience people!

Lately it seems that anyone with an iPhone and a stable Wi-Fi connection deems themselves the voice of Generation Z.

Substack seems to be a pseudo-intellectual dumping ground for clickbait essays on some 22-year-old’s opinion on life and love.

Which is fine — yet, a lot of these essays are written with the obvious intention of keeping the reader at arm’s length.

Okay, your boyfriend dumped you. Well, what did you learn? Did you weep? Did you not eat? Do you regret it? Do you feel silly? Do you not care?

What makes your experience so unique that you must use 800 words on it?

To be a writer, one must have lived experience worth sharing. One must be vulnerable. You cannot tell me about how love has failed you and not tell me how it made you feel. If it made you feel small and humiliated. Or larger than life itself.

In your 20s, the only experience you have is your vulnerability. What wisdom or authority do you have to pass down to someone your age or younger? You’re 23. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I trust the judgement of a person that hasn’t learned the skill of vulnerability? Self-compassion? Your words are just noise. Noise that just floats into oblivion with everyone else’s noise.

The most human and mature thing an adult does — that makes them an authority on life — is accept that they are not the smartest person in the room. There’s always someone that has more knowledge. You can always be taught the same lesson by life over and over again.

I know I have.

I don’t write because I have answers. I write because I’m willing to admit I don’t.

I pray that twenty-something women spend time thinking about what they truly desire. Not performing their interests for a fake audience. Every thing that makes someone slightly interesting gets ran into the ground by individuals attempting to perform coolness rather than just embodying it.

Tik Tok after Tik Tok of young girls preaching how to maximize their lives. Listening to podcasts, reading Substack essays, collecting “physical media”. Just one more thing to add to the rotation. Every post is a curated information dump.

You aren’t good enough. Do these hobbies you have no interest in to prove that you are.

I’m not a human being. I’m a product. Purchase me for the low, low price of my identity and try me out.

There’s a 30 day return policy.