How To Celebrate 25,000 Subscribers
Lessons learned and full analytics on reaching 25K by 2025, plus a Substack Live party at 4PM today
Comrades: Thank you for helping this samizdat reach 25,000 subscribers!
I am grateful for all of your support. We are also close to reaching the orange check of 1,000 paid subscribers, which was my target at the beginning of 2024. I started this samizdat almost 3 years ago with no previous experience in media, marketing, or publishing. Gratitude to Substack, the real Yuri, and readers like you for making this possible. All upgrades go towards Baby Yulia’s education:
In the spirit of transparency and paying it forward, I will share statistics and insights from the Substack dashboard.
Posts
~400 over ~1,000 days (1 every 2.5 days), which includes 47 Podcasts, 9 Videos, and 12 Memesmith compilations
The average post is ~1,000 words because I don’t want to take more than 5 minutes out of your day - please keep me honest on maintaining the right balance of quality and quantity
2024 new subscriber growth: 40 per day, 100 per post
Notes: ~2 per day
Annual growth
2022: 0 to 2,500
2023: 2,500 to 10,000 (4x yoy)
2024: 10,000 to 25,000 (2.5x yoy)
~3 million total views, ~200,000/month
The Meme News Network (MNN) will soon surpass CNN in viewership:
Geography: Yuri readers are based in all 50 states and 145 countries. Dozens of meetups have been held through the Yuri Comrade Network.
Substack Network effect: Almost all of you found Yuri through Substack. Half have come from recommendations and 40% through the app. My deepest appreciation to the other writers who recommend me. I have ~5x more readers here than Twitter and don’t post anything there except the struggle session videos - conversion to Substack is negligible. My handle is @yuribezmenov22.
For all the new readers who joined recently, check out the glossary and Top 10. I encourage everyone to write on Substack and will do anything in my power to elevate unique voices. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from writing here, it’s that words and memes are powerful. They spark laughter and learning. Samizdats create bottom-up groundswells that top-down tyrants can not stamp out. The most rewarding part is hearing from readers about how it made them chuckle, rethink their perspectives, hug their children extra hard, live not by lies, or take a stand. Many lifelong friendships have grown from these pixels. I hope many more collaborations will take root. This is only the end of the beginning. We are the media now.
More insights from the 8K milestone last year:
***An important reminder on this samizdat’s privacy policy: As an Anon, I take privacy seriously. I will protect the privacy and anonymity of my readers, myself, and any private citizens I write about. I will never fabricate, exaggerate, or dox. However, public figures are fair game for spicy skewering. Unlike the leftists who block, ban, and smear, I am open to well reasoned critiques on opinions and factual errors.
What would you like to see more of in 2025? What stories are you encountering in the world that I can help amplify? As always, feel free comment, DM, or e-mail yuribezmenov22 [at] protonmail [dot] com.
I will be hosting a party on Substack Live today (12/19) at 4PM ET. You will need the Substack App to access it and your notes feed will alert you when it starts. Hope to see you there!
This is glorious comrade, may the subversion of the class struggle long continue!
Congratulations 🎊 yuri bezmenov!!