Facebook vs. Substack
I had a weird realization recently.
Facebook is mostly a list of people who have known you your whole life…
and still never really liked you that much.
People you went to school with.
People who knew you in passing.
People who watched you grow up.
They scroll past your life like it’s background noise.
You can share something deeply personal, something you poured your heart into, and it just kind of… floats there. Maybe a like from your aunt. Maybe a random comment from someone you haven’t seen since 1998.
Most of the time it feels like talking in a room where everyone already decided who you were years ago.
And once people decide who you are…
they rarely update that story.
But Substack?
Substack feels like the opposite.
It’s a bunch of strangers — people who have never met you, never sat next to you in math class, never heard rumors about you in the hallway — and they show up just because they want to hear what you have to say.
They read.
They respond.
They say things like “me too.”
They clap for someone they’ve never even met.
There’s something incredibly beautiful about that.
A room full of strangers who show up not because they have to,
but because something you wrote meant something to them.
And as someone who spent a long time feeling like I was shouting into the void on other platforms…
that kind of community feels a little bit like magic.
So if you’re here reading this — whether you’ve been here from the beginning or just found my writing yesterday — thank you.
Because sometimes the strangers on the internet
end up being the ones who actually see you.
And that’s pretty incredible.