How to Attract More Assholes on Substack

Keep growing and sooner or later, the critics will find you

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you had a great weekend! Before we get into today’s issue, would you please press the Like button for me? It will help raise visibility of the issue on Substack. Thank you!

A lot of writers here are growing like weeds in the summertime, and it’s great to see. However, with that growth, often comes criticism.

I am seeing more and more writers here detailing how they have ‘encountered their first troll’ or suddenly people are arguing with them in comments for the first time.

Sadly, it happens. There’s a couple of reasons why.

First, as your network and influence on Substack grows, your words are exposed to a wider audience. A natural byproduct of this is you will draw in a lot of new readers, and some of these readers will likely disagree with you. That, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing, in fact you could argue it’s a good thing. Civil disagreement is how ideas are refined and pushed forward.

But arguing for the sake of arguing is something different. And if you’ve never dealt with it before, it can be a bit jarring at first.

Most successful writers on Substack are also good community builders. You enjoy connecting with your readers, and as a result your readers often cheer you on and celebrate your success along with you. And you do the same for them. You have cultivated a supportive and happy community where most everyone encourages each other.

Given that, it can be a bit unnerving when you suddenly encounter someone who seems to be going out of their way to pick a fight with you. Who tells you how you are wrong, your ideas are dumb, you don’t know what you are talking about. It is a complete disconnect from the typical supportive environment you find on Substack.

The sad reality is, success, even perceived success, attracts critics. It can even attract assholes. Some people simply get upset if they see someone else getting something that they want. For Substack, it could be you ‘bragging’ about having X number of subscribers, when the critic only has a tenth that number. It could be you ‘bragging’ about your income from Substack, when the critic is still waiting on their first paid sub.

The next time you see someone suddenly start an argument with you, try not to take it personal. I know it’s hard, but the odds are this person is simply upset that you are achieving, in their mind, a level of success that they would like.

Here’s an example I had to deal with:

In the Spring of 2012, I wrote a post on my blog announcing for the first time that I had signed a book deal with McGraw-Hill. I was pretty excited, and got a whole slew of positive comments, emails, texts and DMs that morning. But I also got this:

Within an hour of publishing that post, I got an email from a friend.

“They’re talking about you and your book. In a private group on Facebook.”

“Who is?”, I asked.

The friend gave me a list of names. These were industry peers, several of them I had considered friends up till this point.

“What are they saying?”

“Just that you don’t deserve a book, it won’t be any good. They think you copied your idea from another book.”

Over the coming months, more criticism came out. One guy in my industry tweeted out that no one should buy my book, I wasn’t qualified to write one. He suggested another book from another author.

It stunned me that suddenly people were coming out of the woodwork to criticize me and my book. A book none of them had read, all they had to go on was a title and a few sentences to describe it.

Success, or even perceived success, draws criticism like a moth to a flame. It took me a while to figure this out. Prior to this, other than a random smartassed comment left on my blog every few months, I had never really dealt with any trolls or arguing on my blog or really even social media.

But the second I announced I had a book deal, the critics came out of the woodwork. That was all it took. In the years since, I’ve seen the same thing play out with others in social media. They start out small, build their network, then one day they reach a tipping point where they start to monetize their efforts in some way, and boom….the critics find them.

Happens every single time, like clockwork. Everyone loves you when you aren’t monetizing your efforts. The second that changes, some people will be pissed. Just the way it is.

So what’s the best way to handle criticism on Substack?

This really applies to any online criticism.

First, is the criticism warranted? Is the person attempting to make, at least in their mind, a valid point? Let’s be honest, some people are simply socially awkward. They may come across as abrasive and abusive when they don’t mean to be. If you are making a point about a topic that someone else is passionate about, they might start their criticism with ‘That’s just not right!’. And such a response can immediately put you on the defensive.

It’s worth remembering that every online conversation has three sides; Your side, the side of the person you are responding to, and the side of every other person that will view your exchange. Whenever I reply to someone who is being difficult, I always try to consider how this will look to the third party who will come later and read this exchange. Yes, some people will act like assholes, but if you reply in the same tone, someone may come later and only read your reply and think ‘Damn…they sound like an asshole!’ So it’s best to not give others more fodder to respond in kind.

So how do you tell if someone is sincere in their disagreement, or not? One thing I look for is specificity. The more specific someone is in their criticism, the less likely they are simply ‘arguing to be arguing’ or trolling. Generally, trolls are less specific and use ad hominem attacks.

In general, I will engage with someone constructively until they prove to me that they aren’t interested in a constructive exchange. Typically at that point, I block them and move on. Life is too short to argue with strangers on the internet who want to troll you. I don’t waste my time, attention or energy on people that haven’t earned it.

Substack is still a wonderfully supportive community, and it’s by far the most civil of any social media platform I am active on.

But sooner or later, if you continue to grow, the assholes will eventually find you. When they do, try to remember that it’s not your fault that they are being jerks. And if I see them, I’ll have your back :)

Mack

PS: Next Monday, I’ll debut my Marketing and Movies series by examining some of the business lessons you can learn from the movie Moneyball. See you then!