11 Comments

I guess I'm Gen Z (25) but my impression is blogging was a bigger cultural phenomenon 10+ years ago. I remember looking for books on the Arab Spring a few years ago and many of them were explicitly about the role that blogging played in the various revolutions. Whereas I don't see anyone talking about how the blogosphere has influenced more recent social movements (but more on Twitter and TikTok).

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Makes sense! And nice substack name!

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Great to hear about your achievements Matt! I think Substack has a lot of pull for a particular "free thinking" kind of demographic, I'm not sure this appeals to Gen Z or at least what I've seen of them. Well done again! All the hard work and consistency is paying off.

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I turned 21 last week 😭😭 so I'm already out of the 20yo club. I'm trying to write consistently on my Substack, but there is no need to worry: there's no way I'll take your crown

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Well,I am 25. I started a substack nearly a year ago. My consistency has not been at the most optimal.

But I am Nigerian btw.

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You're pretty damn precocious. I looked through the substacks I followed and the other young people who stood out were:

Dwarkesh Patel

Ruxandra

Max Tabbarok

Tailcalled

Aaron Bergmann

Dwarkesh started the podcast at around 22 I think, and it was quality from day one (though he's blown up hugely recently). Though I would say podcasting has a less steep learning curve than writing.

Max seemed to have started writing in undergrad, but he only got on my radar seriously in the past year or so. I haven't checked his backlog, but I'm assuming that reflects a real difference in quality.

Aaron started putting out interesting stuff at like 20 though he's slowed down recently.

From my experience reading internet writing, having interesting content as an undergrad is pretty damn rare. Eliezer has some interesting scattered writings as a teenager, but didn't really hit peak form until 24, 25 or so. Scott started his livejournal at 22, but again, in my opinion, only really started to put out truly interesting stuff at 24/25.

I'm excited to see how you develop as a writer.

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Wow, interesting. I didn't know how young Dwarkesh was. Yeah, Aaron is pretty young.

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20 year olds unite!

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I'm Gen Z (23), but I'm not sure if that says anything about me culturally, other than indicating some degree of inexperience. Also, was wondering if you recognized the title of my substack, since I expect most other people would not.

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Austin Scholar is another one. They have 3k subscribers and graduated high school either last year or this past year if I remember correctly.

Their Substack is about self-educating and I find their posts interesting.

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Ah! I've been outcompeted.

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