Reprint, ‘Freedom & Control,’ 28 Oct. 2025
Staying in control of your writing in the post-internet age.
[Read the original post here.]
Dear S⸻
Yeah. Popular platforms like Substack do take the sting out of design; you don’t have to code, typeset, or illustrate anything, becuase you can use A.I. to make images. The blogs all look the same, too. Only your voice matters. Not your real voice, though. An A.I. voice will read your stories and essays to people who don’t have time to read it themselves. You ask why I don’t post on Substack much. I don’t trust it. A long time ago another writer asked me about my mailing list; I told him I prefer the ability to control the way things look and feel. That’s true. More than that, though, I don’t want to play in someone else’s garden. I haven’t forgotten how Google erased Dennis Cooper’s blog, for example, vanishing ten years’ worth of his writing. Big technology companies don’t want to enable artists’ voices. They want users. They want content. They want an escalating series of raises from venture capital firms.
I’m not saying ‘don’t use these platforms.’ I’m saying ‘be careful.’ I’m saying if you give up freedom for convenience you’re no longer in control. I’m saying writing is control. That’s why I love it. I’m saying maybe Substack and the people who make it are fine now—despite how they enable Nazis and other bigots, something I can’t look past—but they’re all the same. They’ll turn on voices one at a time. That’s their right. It’s their platform. For example, they can take this post down, but it will live forever on my site. It’s untouchable.
Cheers,
—BP
28 Oct. 2025