- My piece about the 1990s was a great success – it had tons of views, hundreds of comments, almost 900 new mailing list signups, dozens of tweets, and shared all over the place, including Substack.
- Many critics were wrong – the 90s was not a good period for me personally yet I enjoyed it despite the conditions of my life, not because of them.
- Negative feedback misunderstood the project – I was attempting to simultaneously permit myself an exercise in romantic nostalgia while knowing that things weren’t as good as all that and all good things must end.
- I aim to cultivate negative capability in my work – being capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
- My value proposition is my writing – anyone can replicate the same political perspective, but not my writing ability.
- I have a niche – a leftist who maintains a commitment to civil liberties and procedural fairness, and who has serious criticisms of social justice politics, who’s nonetheless not willing to follow many “anti-woke” writers.
- The financial viability of this newsletter depends on my writing – people want to be moved and it’s the only thing I’m good at.
- I hope to pursue my idiosyncratic interests while still satisfying the expectations of my readers – so that I can entertain people with unconventional topics while holding down enough conventional topics to stay relevant.
- Success has little to do with who deserves it – a publishing house came to the conclusion that they can make money selling a book I wrote, and they will be proven right or wrong by the market.
Published February 22, 2023
Visit Freddie deBoer’s Substack to read Freddie deBoer’s original post Making the Sausage
