Substack's Nazi Problem Is Our Nazi Problem

Plus, the Pajiba 10 and the week in review ...

We’ve been absent for the last couple of weeks here on Substack for a few reasons: The holidays, a death in my family, and Substack Nazis. I’m sure that many are aware that the powers that be who run Substack have decided to take a hands-off approach when it comes to Nazis on their platform, which is not ideal. It’s frustrating for us, and we are relatively new to the platform; others who have been here for years and whose major source of income is Substack are more than frustrated; I’m sure they feel a combination of anger and helplessness, like the many thousands of people who built sizable audiences on Twitter only to cede them to Elon Musk.

There’s been a lot of debate surrounding Substack, but two pieces have been most instructive for us: Platformer — one of the best and most popular Substack newsletters, designed to cover exactly this sort of issue — is taking a wait-and-see approach. They’re still trying to encourage Substack to change its position on allowing Nazis to post freely on their platform, and there is some reason to believe that Substack will cave to the backlash.

Then there is writer Cat Valente, who is tired of her career (and sources of income) being dictated by techno-libertarian assholes and Nazis trying to chase her away.

It is exhausting just trying to exist with any level of moral consistency online nowadays. And the people who keep being handed the keys to several kingdoms don’t ever bother to worry about it. They just let us tear ourselves apart trying to do the right thing while they feast. It’s all a game to them. It’s not remotely a game to us. So there’s no equivalence.

But if all a Nazi has to do to disperse and thus at least temporarily silence legions of established free voices is make a free account on a free website, we are fucked. Because none of them will ever flee a platform that hosts leftists or even moderate rhetoric. They love it when we’re concentrated in one place where they can dive in and start gnawing on the wires. It’s no fun at all to just hang out with other Nazis, other Nazis never get upset or hurt, and if no one’s getting upset or hurt, it makes Nazis sad and bored. They’ll follow us wherever we go. They literally followed us here from Twitter, and they’ll follow us to the next one, whereupon we’ll run as soon as they find us and set up shop.

And so that’s where we are now: If we leave, we have to start all over, which will be annoying and inconvenient for us and our readers, and how long before the Nazis follow us to the next platform and the next? It’s all bad. The best we can do is to carve out a little space of decency within it.

That said, I understand why someone might choose to stop subscribing to our Substack. While 90 percent of the income goes to us, 10 percent goes to a company that has decided to play Switzerland while the Nazis overrun France, only Switzerland is also collecting credit card fees.

It’s unfortunate, but for now, anyway, we’re going to continue to create a space of decency while continuing to call out Substack. In the meantime, we’ve got an election to cover and a deranged dictatorial madman to keep out of office, and we will be returning to that in earnest this week here on Substack.

In the meantime, our week in review begins with The Pajiba 10, the 17th annual one, which we published on the last day of 2023. As Tori noted, the list is made up largely of people who have been on Doctor Who or seem like they would fit right in on Doctor Who.

We kicked the year off with a prediction about 2024’s box office, films to look forward to this year from women and non-binary directors, as well as this weekend’s new releases, Night Swim and Netflix’s Good Grief.

On the TV side of things, Alison raged about The Curious Grace of Natalia Grace, I explored the powerful 5th episode of Doctor Death, season two and the ending of Netflix’s bland Fool Me Once. Chris dug up five cozy TV mysteries to watch this month while Dan reviewed Chappelle’s new special (not a fan).

On the Internet side of things, we had an interesting week. Petr explored the Dead Internet theory, Chris wondered why Amazon was meme’ing the jizz-in-a-bathtub scene in Saltburn, I looked at the ongoing feud between Katie Nolan and Jason Whitlock, and Kayleigh tackled Taylor Lorenz and the Recap Industrial complex. Kayleigh also explored the popularity of those Stanley mugs teenagers and suburb moms are carrying around.

Finally, on the celebrity side of things, Gypsy Rose Blanchard had a good week, and so did Katt Williams, but Ian Ziering got into a fight with the Hell’s Angels. Oh, and I also got lost in a rabbit hole trying to figure out why Mel Gibson — an antisemite — is so obsessed with the Hannukah story.

Enjoy your final regular season NFL Sunday, and for those in New England, enjoy your cozy snow day.