Is Substack the New Usenet for Gen-X?

1/28/22

I'm old. Yup.

Does anyone remember Usenet? In the 90's Usenet was the place to be for un-censored discussions on any topic under the sun. It was a distributed discussion system consisting of newsgroups based on topics. Users posted messages (or posts) usually on unmoderated newsgroups. It was text-based unless you were on the binary newsgroups. My newsgroups of choice were alt.misanthropy, alt.bitterness and alt.angst (you can see where my head was back in the day).

Usenet was great at the beginning during the mid 90's. Free-flowing ideas and discussions from a wide-range of people. Mostly it consisted of Gen-X people, the generation that grew up during the birth of the Internet (remember Gopher, Veronica, Archie?). But during the late 90's and into the 21st century Usenet was destroyed by spam, moderated newsgroups, universities removing usenet servers, and the rise of html. By the time Facebook came around Usenet was in the dustbin of history.

In the mid 2000's I basically removed myself from the Internet. I never opened a Facebook page, and I never used Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, and all the other wonderful "social media" platforms (I still don't). Until the past two months. Then I heard about Substack. It reminded me of Usenet, somewhat. A bunch of people with a multitude of ideas writing uncensored posts.

Cool. Then I started reading many substacks and their comments and found that many people were Gen-X. So that's where we all went! Gen-X has been silent for far too long, but with Substack we might have found our voice again.

However ... there are rumblings of Substack going the way of Twitter and all the other censored "social media" sites. What to make of that? Well, most likely it will because the nature of human society is to censor. When it does this Gen-X loser will disappear again until another free site appears for unfettered discussion among souls who aren't afraid to live and learn new opinions.

All hail Usenet and Substack! May you never be forgotten.