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Gym+Fritz's avatar

Thanks. The firehose of info, or whatever, gets stronger every day. I feel lucky to have found you, Matt & Walter, Sasha, el gato, Shellenberger, Eugyppius, Khan, Ruy Teixeira, and a few other of more specialized interests. Hard to understand the Bulwark thing. . . . It’s sad what happened to my former favorite Bari Weiss & TFP, does anyone know who is funding her? And the non-transparent censorship is disturbing.

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Yuri Bezmenov's avatar

Appreciate your kind words. You have great taste in substacks. I have written a post about The Bulwark before, they are insane and could be astroturfed through USAID.

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JWM_IN_VA's avatar

Yep, I track them (Bulwark) very closely in the past few months and they are literally nuts and living in an alternate universe.

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The Radical Individualist's avatar

I have conversations with progressives on a regular basis. One of them recommended the Bulwark as being centrist and unbiased., so I checked it out. Good Lord! They were pushing the "Trump said someone should shoot Liz Cheney narrative." Bulwark readers don't want to understand, they want to believe.

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JWM_IN_VA's avatar

Centrist?!😆😳 N F W

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Gym+Fritz's avatar

A Racket video ended a few minutes ago, and Substack automatically shuttled me to “Bubble Pop” which I had never heard of before. There suddenly was an attractive women speaking (plus clever graphics) very positively and persuasively against the suppression of LGBT rights. This technique of Substack is disturbing; and would make sense if it was algorithmically driven based on what interests me. I greatly appreciate hearing people like Ruy Teixeira present a center-left take on events, but I really don’t want to have crazy far-left ideologues pushed on me, no matter how clever or attractive.

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Danimal28's avatar

Agreed. Bulwark are OrangManBad Inc.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

I love Yuri's descriptive synopsis of almost all these new "rock star" Substacks: "Orange Man Bad."

Repeat 20 times in each article or podcast, 365 days a year.

We get it already.

See my article on Mayor Pete: The other Meme of the next four years is: "Democracy under dire assault. The fascists have taken over."

The fascists and dictators didn't take over when they told 330 million people they couldn't attend religious services for a year, or go to a restaurant or visit their grandmother in a nursing home or that they had to get an experimental injection of poison to keep their jobs or travel or be in a school play or on the football team.

They kicked me off of Facebook multiple times.

None of these acts represented any kind threat to democracy or Americans' freedoms or "rights."

... Okay; I feel better now.

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JWM_IN_VA's avatar

That's because they wanted us in camps and still do.

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Holly MathNerd's avatar

I have no idea how these things are calculated. I've cracked the top ten in Culture five or six times. It's typically when something is gaining traction with regard to the number of views. Then, a day or two later, I drop off. Do you know how they calculate these things? Just curious, from a data nerd perspective.

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Nathalie Martinek PhD's avatar

I'd like to know this too!

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Do you think being listed or ranked has helped you grow your Substack?

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Holly MathNerd's avatar

Yes. I gained about 30 paid subscriptions during the handful of days that I was in the top 10, at least both times that I was paying attention.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Thanks for the feedback. So if you should be listed and aren’t, this would harm a writer’s Substack business.

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JWM_IN_VA's avatar

Yeah, that's what I am suspecting.

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Richard's avatar

I had the same question as Holly. Trying to decide whether to be depressed by this or not. If this is revenue, I will be depressed. But who the hell reads The Bulwark. Only thing I can figure is leftists who don't get enough Orange Man Bad from the MSM. Or I suppose it could be the same weirdos reading it 100 times a day.

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Danimal28's avatar

The science category worries me a little. Communists replaced religion with 'science' long ago and it is still very prevalent.

Good summary, Yuri.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Your Local Epidemiologist is No. 1 in "Science." She was actually a "consultant" or "advisor" to the CDC in the Biden administration. I don't know if she was a paid consultant or not.

She's being paid somehow - she has, I think, 380,000 subscribers, including "tens of thousands" of paid subscribers. She's being paid for being a stenographer for the Authorized "Science" Narrative.

She also gets all-expense paid junkets to various global conferences. Two weeks ago, she was posting from a TED Talk conference in Kenya. I wrote about that junket at my Substack.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

... I also can't stand the sanctimonious and presumptious title of her newsletter. "Lady, you're not MY local epidemiologist."

... Nor is Fauci "the settled science."

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Jonathan Epps's avatar

And for Gay Pride Month, they astroturfed taboo gay porn in the top ten of the fiction stack. I know most people don't give a shit about fiction, but I work hard at making relevant, well-written, and engaging novels, so to see these powerful platforms give the spotlight to literal sleaze is disheartening and infuriating.

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Shirlee's avatar

Bill Rice Jr’s Newsletter recent post here on SS addresses this same issue. It’s a good read also.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Thanks for the plug, Shirlee. This, I suspect, is a bigger issue than many people might think. If genuine truth-seekers can't reach enough people on Substack, where can we do this? Our voices - the sane voices of the "adults in the room" - are being crowded out and diluted. By design, I suspect.

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2001_Odd's avatar

My feed is constantly polluted with leftist narrative trash - and it ramped up noticeably last year come election time. I have to go hunt for updates from authors that I subscribe to, but get tripe brought to the forefront unasked and unwanted. 2 years ago my substack experience was much different.

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J6Matt da Silva's avatar

Great points. I fear my own substack is too much of a mishmash to fall into one category nicely and maybe I need to change focus. There are clearly posts that hit, posts that miss, and posts that I enjoy writing and they form a (dare I say it?) Venn diagram.

I wall also add that I've never heard of Parnas before reading this and that I'm not sure I can forgive the slight. To read that he's the Left's version of Joe Rogan (Joe Rogan is the Left's Joe Rogan) and then see the pictures of a man who looks like yogurt but in human form. I shuddered.

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Vxi7's avatar

But how Yuri is humor? I think I never laughed here... Should I?

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patrick.net/memes's avatar

I suspect that Substack will not ever allow the poasters to overtake the TDS establishment.

Substack feels a bit like a honeypot for dissent, where you can write what you want as long as not many people can see it.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Well put, Patrick. Exactly. It's not "freedom of speech" that matters the most, but "freedom of reach."

The key to the operation of the Statists is the never-ending op to suppress the reach of dissidents who are onto these people and organizations.

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Philippe Gosselin's avatar

Sam Harris in Culture? Did I woke up in the Twilight Zone?

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Based in Paris's avatar

I've been thinking about this, and I'm legitimately concerned about the psychological impact of this slop.

I have seen and heard people voice concern that they are in *physical danger* being in the US, being in an interracial relationship puts them in harm's way (so much they had to move to France), and Evangelical Christians want to "kill" them.

I'm not being glib or rude. I think the clicks for cash model is bad for our well-being.

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mani malagón's avatar

Yup, if you got in early enough to be part of the "founder's syndrome" there were some real treats to read, — Brownstone Institute provoking writing. Now dull white-noise,mind embalming pavlum, announces the roaring herd's stampede into the fresh feeding grounds.

This point is spot on: "Health Politics: 10 / 10. Hello, based department? Everyone on this list has been justly rewarded for speaking out against COVID tyranny with rigorous scientific analysis. Perhaps this category was created to keep true independents segregated from the Politics shills."

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Hillary's avatar

How is Jessica Valenti still relevant?

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Yuri Bezmenov's avatar

Because too many people want to read about "Abortion, Every Day".

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Hillary's avatar

Yikes...I'm old and did my feminism in late sixties/seventies. Jessica Valenti and her ilk betrayed their misguided re-branding of feminism with their slut walks and other bogus empowerment advocacy that just happened to align with what porn steeped young men wanted.

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JWM_IN_VA's avatar

I've noticed the following:

1, they typically lockdown their comment sections

2, they do not engage in dialog on Note Restacks

3, if you happen to actually engage one, assuming it's not AI BOT, they will not concede even the most basic facts and will stalk you on Substack.

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Brettbaker's avatar

The amusing part about Noah Smith is he'll occasionally start making a fair amount of sense, but then realizes he's sounding like a real nationalist and back off.

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Yuri Bezmenov's avatar

Side effect of the testosterone treatments.

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biologyphenom's avatar

I've been putting out world exclusives for free within my subtack fo 15+ months. Real life accounts of what happened to people during the biggest crisis in living memory for mos tof humanity, global lockowns not some alleged lab leak virus from Wuhan and yet almost no on is interested. When i was on X before sudden ban i was 'dave independent researcher' see what i was posting about here..

https://biologyphenom.substack.com/p/newsuspended-from-xtwitter?utm_source=publication-search

In my experience if you are authentic it's very difficult to be be popular for various reasons. It's a big awakle club too with lots of money to be made if you play your cards right! People should'nt kid themselves this 'speaking out' arena is primarilly a BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY for 99% of people. It's not really about collaboration, pursuit of truth and accountability when everyone is competing against each other.

https://biologyphenom.substack.com/p/scottish-covid-19-inquiryfeature

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Klaus Hubbertz's avatar

👍👍👍 🔥🔥🔥 🧨🧨🧨 !!!

You're on the list !!!

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