Am I Talking About My Substack Too Much?

Last night, after grabbing some ramen with Brent, I ran into my sister and her husband on the enchanting cobbled streets of West Hollywood. Not to get TOO LA VS. NEW YORK but as someone of bicoastal-lite experience, I can assure you that running into someone you know out and about in LA — not at a gym or a glorified rabbit food restaurant — is a very unique occurrence. It makes me feel like I’m on some TV show about my life. Oh my god! I just got ramen! Oh my god, hi! We proceeded to “catch up” for five minutes and throughout our whirlwind conversation, I managed to pepper in NUMEROUS references to my Substack and my TikTok about my Substack and how my sister and her husband should TOTALLY subscribe to my Substack because it’s free and yes, it’s MY Substack.

I wonder if this is all grating. I wonder if no one really cares. I wonder if I’m succumbing to the rule of threes because I can’t fully venture out of my own subjectivity and hear myself, from another person’s perspective, utter the harrowing words, “Subscribe to my Substack!”

This is a passion project and I’m not trying to make money off of it. But I have a compulsive need to keep track of stats. Deep within the real of my subconscious, there’s a cranky old man screaming about reaching a specific target of page views and open rates just because he has a strange fixation with numbers. I’m terrible at math, but I freakin’ love numbers. I sign up for any loyalty points program ever, even if I am only briefly visiting a city. A month and a half ago, I was thrilled when I got $3 off an almond milk latte at a coffee shop in East Harlem that I frequented 7 days straight. As many of you already know, gazing at my AMC A-List rewards page soothes my soul. When I unlock another $5 discount because I balled out on MacGuffins chardonnay and NERDS gummy clusters, I actually feel better. Like, wow I did that.

Tomorrow, I’m going to watch Problemista and though I’m very excited about the film, I’m also looking forward to accumulating more AMC A-List points. With the popcorn, candy, and hell, maybe a glass of AMC chardonnay, I will be well on my way to unlocking another $5 discount that I will use for Dune: Part Two. Sunrise. Sunset.

I refresh the Substack Dashboard and want the same sensation of arbitrary accomplishment. And yet, it hasn’t happened.

There’s a Vox piece about artists and self-promotion and the labor of doing your own marketing for a book or film or album. Meanwhile, I’m doing TikToks, LinkedIn posts, and X posts for something that won’t make me any money ever. Literally, just doing it because I can’t help myself. And so, this Substack post is a call for accountability.

Am I talking about my Substack too much?