I love the way you network with this thing, with the @mentions and incorporating works from others around here. You really have the whole newsletter vibe down. It's awesome and I feel like I can learn a lot from you Simon K Jones. Looking forward to the next installment.
Thanks, Jenny! It's taken a long time to figure out a lot of this stuff, but hopefully that makes it quicker for other people to get up and running. :)
Always excited to start a brand new storyline, Simon. As someone who worked in the finance sector straight out of school, you judged this one perfectly. From the chummy punches to the passive aggressive “I’m joking” it really was a toxic culture at times with a lot of people that worked there thinking they were masters of the universe.
Ironically, I’m writing about a movie for this weeks article that is along similar lines. Although not American Psycho!
It’s horrifying the “sigma” culture that’s built up around young men online regarding that movie and how it directly ties in to monsters like Andrew Tate. Even Christian Bale had to come out and explain that Bateman is not a hero. For which he got tons of abuse 🤦🏻♂️
The last line was a perfect reality check after the “wondrous” Magick of drug taking
Really looking forward to Nisha and Kaminski getting their teeth stuck into this case!
Thanks, Daniel! That' a really interesting and valuable point of view. I'm glad the toxic culture here rang true for you. Hopefully it didn't feel overly forced. I was trying to capture that sense of everything appearing to be 'amazing'....right up until it really, really isn't.
I've had to wrestle with bad takes with two of my favourite movies: American Psycho and Fight Club. I saw both when I was about 19 and thought they were astonishing on just about every level. Also hilarious. For a long time I always said that Fight Club was my favourite movie of all time. It might still be - though I haven't watched it for years.
Seeing them both get hijacked by men who don't seem to understand satire or subtext has been depressing. The potential for readers to misinterpret my own work is always there in the back of my mind.
Is it really surprising that a newsletter about Substack is devoured by the tens of thousands of people imagining they can type for food on this platform, still believing that there's a secret sauce about to be revealed?
Newsletters about Substack are like self help and personal development books: unlimited demand. If any of them 'worked', people would only need one.
A little flashback to "Midnight on the Firing Line" at the top of the chapter. Ok, not all things go back to Babylon 5, and elections happen... Still, will we get Louis Santiago, or Marie Crane? Either way, Clark waits in the background to work with the shadows.
I'm not physically reactive when reading, but the prose about Nisha's jaw was laugh out loud funny.
Ugh. Toxic 1980's "Wall Street" culture in 1970's London. Half the audience, I'm sure, twigged to how this chapter was going to end.
The silver lining of Timothy (and Jean) not having to figure out how to get home naked doesn't overcome the dark cloud of splat.
I love the way you network with this thing, with the @mentions and incorporating works from others around here. You really have the whole newsletter vibe down. It's awesome and I feel like I can learn a lot from you Simon K Jones. Looking forward to the next installment.
Thanks, Jenny! It's taken a long time to figure out a lot of this stuff, but hopefully that makes it quicker for other people to get up and running. :)
Always excited to start a brand new storyline, Simon. As someone who worked in the finance sector straight out of school, you judged this one perfectly. From the chummy punches to the passive aggressive “I’m joking” it really was a toxic culture at times with a lot of people that worked there thinking they were masters of the universe.
Ironically, I’m writing about a movie for this weeks article that is along similar lines. Although not American Psycho!
It’s horrifying the “sigma” culture that’s built up around young men online regarding that movie and how it directly ties in to monsters like Andrew Tate. Even Christian Bale had to come out and explain that Bateman is not a hero. For which he got tons of abuse 🤦🏻♂️
The last line was a perfect reality check after the “wondrous” Magick of drug taking
Really looking forward to Nisha and Kaminski getting their teeth stuck into this case!
Thanks, Daniel! That' a really interesting and valuable point of view. I'm glad the toxic culture here rang true for you. Hopefully it didn't feel overly forced. I was trying to capture that sense of everything appearing to be 'amazing'....right up until it really, really isn't.
I've had to wrestle with bad takes with two of my favourite movies: American Psycho and Fight Club. I saw both when I was about 19 and thought they were astonishing on just about every level. Also hilarious. For a long time I always said that Fight Club was my favourite movie of all time. It might still be - though I haven't watched it for years.
Seeing them both get hijacked by men who don't seem to understand satire or subtext has been depressing. The potential for readers to misinterpret my own work is always there in the back of my mind.
I rewatched Fight Club last week.
American Psycho is on this weeks rewatch list.
Is it really surprising that a newsletter about Substack is devoured by the tens of thousands of people imagining they can type for food on this platform, still believing that there's a secret sauce about to be revealed?
Newsletters about Substack are like self help and personal development books: unlimited demand. If any of them 'worked', people would only need one.
A little flashback to "Midnight on the Firing Line" at the top of the chapter. Ok, not all things go back to Babylon 5, and elections happen... Still, will we get Louis Santiago, or Marie Crane? Either way, Clark waits in the background to work with the shadows.
I'm not physically reactive when reading, but the prose about Nisha's jaw was laugh out loud funny.
Ugh. Toxic 1980's "Wall Street" culture in 1970's London. Half the audience, I'm sure, twigged to how this chapter was going to end.
The silver lining of Timothy (and Jean) not having to figure out how to get home naked doesn't overcome the dark cloud of splat.