Video is VERY seductive. I pray that readers find a way to keep reading and not to be seduced away too often by media that’s always one tap away.
And video has a way—using ominous music and bad logic—of making completely ludicrous, targeted conspiracy theories seem plausible and start to function as very effective propaganda, as YouTube has so unfortunately demonstrated.
I pray that video on Substack will always be a window to the beauty of the people and the world all around us, and not a trap allowing bad political actors to magnify our worst impulses.
It’s up to readers to keep thinking, and making conscious choices.
I felt the same about Notes when it launched, and thankfully it proved me wrong. Let’s hope this push for video does too. I fear for the future of this platform, but I am also hopeful. It’s so weird.
Video is veeeery seductive! I have been already feeling like an outlier not daring to use video podcasts and make zooms to save into my publication. Video is big because it shows some part of you. But why do we eclipse writing yet again.. I hope I am wrong too, I just don’t know. Is it all about the attention span of people nowadays? Or is it going to be ised more like a tool for free expressions and creativity?
I am not a fan of video either, but may enjoy getting more insight into creative contributors I enjoy reading. My thoughts is it will enhance the sight.
They will be. Because it costs money to do what they’re doing.
Video only works on platforms built for it. It’s only truly profitable and generates decent ROAS on TikTok and YouTube.
That’s why Reels on meta is hot garbage. The algorithm isn’t designed to handle video.
When it inevitably loses them money - they, like Meta, will push it even harder to justify the sunk cost.
That’ll lead, just like it did for Meta - much of the old guard who were early adopters pulling up stakes.
That’ll lose more money, and we’ll go into erratic feature bloat territory - see FB, Insta, Twitter, Snap that’ll screw the algorithm even harder.
Best case for this is that experience so much backlash or that it crashes and burns so spectacularly they can’t ignore what an idiotic decision it was in the first place.
I'm not totally with you, @Lance. I get what you're saying and actually I AGREE with you...but I wonder, and this is just IMO,...if there's and "and" here.
Thinking about Michelle's statement about the long from writing, that's what I do on my substack...but I also have art, a podcast, and videos, including speed drawings FOR my art section.
If it's used to get more people here to partake of the rest of the content...like I do Monday coffee videos, but then the rest of the week is writing (okay, and the speed drawing on Wednesday)...people start conversations over the videos.
I do get that I'm not a main 'video' person, I use it as the salt on my substack...SO maybe this doesn't apply, but I wanted to throw that in for consideration.
I think you make a valid point, Jaime. I don’t see this move as necessarily bad, although it does taste a little sour. The Substack team haven’t really given us a reason to doubt their intentions so far, despite the various minor controversies that never quite stick. I’ also wary of overwhelmingly negative people like Lance. Maybe he’s right, but I choose to believe that he isn’t until proof surfaces that he is.
I also agree with you on some points, but as with any of these rabbit holes that eat up our time, we must be vigilant and guard ourselves against useless viewing and choose wisely what we do, read, and watch.
That’s not a problem unique to Reels. Video content has that problem - it’s bad on YT and TikTok. It’s the nature of the medium. We’re visual, horny creatures by default and sex sells. Happened in film, TV, and then internet video.
Lots to complain about with meta, but that’s not a problem unique to Zuck.
Any visual platform will have that. It’s what gets views. Views are incentivized on every video platform because they have the existential need to do that. Gets people on platform and drives revenues.
Without guardrails - that’s tech for you. None of them, not meta, not google, not TikTok, want the guardrails because they know losing that content loses them money.
Business is never about the smut, my man. Illicit or not. It’s all about the money. To believe otherwise is to be naive.
Don’t think this video option will ever crowd out good writing. I still love going to the library and actually checking out books I choose to read. I also like reading with my Kindle, but call me old fashioned, but holding a good book is still my preference. Seeing the written word is powerful. I enjoy Substack’s options
As each new iteration of tech appears it’s important to realize the “old” tech is still viable. TV was supposed to have killed film. “Video killed the radio star.” I think we’re moving to a model where the new leaders/avant gaurd (?) will employ each form of expression. Be your own integral content studio/media conglomerate! Employ them all.
Let’s have a little faith. I thought this way when Notes launched, yet with every new addition that seems wonky the Substack platform and community manage to save it. I’m, let’s say, cautiously optimistic on this one.
All right, I get your point. But I won’t start jumping to negative conclusions until I see some proof. So far, Substack has been a positive experience for me. I’ve been here for two years. So until proven otherwise, I trust the team.
Agree, but just as we look back in history & see that communism/socialism has dismally failed, politicians still want to control our lives and interject their values whether right or wrong on the public. I have my own mind, and choose to think independently. Having the grace to try to see all sides of an issue and accept/respect people is sadly a privilege dying trend.
Normies need a constant face to look at it, it seems. Words aren't good enough for the shallow mind that needs words to come at them from a face in the style of a conversation. The normie seems afraid of using the inner voice in their minds to read and write words. Words must from mouths, preferably pretty ones!
I wonder...if the push to video isn't championed by the people who don't have an inner monologue? Just spitballin'. Maybe they can't interpret words on white as well as when someone is talking to them? As it is now, if there is a video and no transcript, I just unsubscribe. I know I am not going to appreciate anything they're trying to say.
".if the push to video isn't championed by the people who don't have an inner monologue?"
You picked up what I was subtly dropping, well done. That's my thought exactly, we're seeing the effects of so many people who have no inner monologue and how they practically demand things to SAID to them so they can avoid reading. Reading requires inner monologue and thus some form of intelligence.
I finally fired a therapist who insisted on providing a list of feelings on the wall for her group.. When exploration of feelings is the issue, picking a feeling off a list is an intellectual, not an emotional, decision. The list of emojis has the same emotional interference.
I will probably get flamed for this comment and I don’t really know why I’m making it other than to say this post made me weirdly emotional, in that I find it deeply unsettling and it gives me a really, really icky feeling.
It’s not just that it’s video when this was supposed to be a space for writers—I can live with more types of content because, after all, this place is just a platform. It’s that this is part of a long pattern of behavior where Substack makes editorial choices that pick winners, basically selecting who they think the cool kids are and featuring those people, often over and over again. That’s not to denigrate the work of anyone featured in this project—all the names I see are amazing creators who deserve attention!—it just seems like these videos are all Substack produced to feature whoever Substack deems is cool enough or good enough, and it feels weirdly exclusive and makes it seem like we’re in a rigged system somehow? I think the argument y’all are trying to make is that this will bring more people to Substack and a rising tide lifts all boats etc etc, and I’m not trying to say that I think featuring certain creators detracts from others…Frankly, I’m probably just sad because I don’t think I will ever be one of the Substack cool kids, and every time you roll out a new feature like this I just feel crappy. Sad girl rant over!
Samantha, I share your reaction except with a different emotional component: instead of sad, I feel defiant. Even in high school (aeons ago) I was always more of a rebel and never wanted to be part of the "cool kids". I just had a look at your Substack and I love it. I bet there are enough of us here who're NOT into the cool kids.
Samantha, I had the exact same reaction as you did. I published a post of my own before I read this. And I'd say we both had that same weird and negative emotion.....thank you!
Video is what is killing the Internet. It's too easy and too enabling of attention-seekers who have no intellectual substance. Reading and writing prove the mind is capable of transferring concepts from one person to the other. Reading spurs critical thought. The Internet's ongoing penchant for pushing everyone towards video is simply enabling intellectual laziness and dishonesty.
I don't want Substack being flooded with normies putting their faces if front of videos of normies pulling pranks on each other next to videos of normies reacting to the pranks being pulled next to a normie in the corner with her boobs out looking to get you to like their channel...
The video element of the internet is enabling the "enshittification" show to speak. Substack is one of the few places keeping sanity online by keeping it about reading and writing and you'll notice we don't have all the click-bait, attention-seeking, brain-rot the other platforms have.
I won’t let me restack it 😢 I had the same feeling! I think they want it to be more artsy than youtube and more high level and focused on promoting the big names, the cool kids with a high subscribership. The big will always get bigger… I think I will just focus on building my tribe here, and continue to be genuine through my writing. Lots of feelings triggered.
Someone figured out how to restack it so it is possible, but it appears Substack is always changing how they do things. I appreciate the kind feed back and I think we all don’t want Substack to become Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc…
Thank you for your reply, J.K.! Today I did something out of the blue, I posted my first TikTok video as a note, exploring this somehow. I am brand new on TikTok, looking for how writers promote their work there. But TikTok in itself is full of weird lives and time-consuming or time-wasting stuff... I am very curious about the level of response a note with a TikTok video attached would get. It's worth exploring, I guess. The short video is my creation, based on my creative process with doodles.
“I hope you understand it’s been done before but not by you.”
Thanks so much for this. It’s been my mantra this week. Write what you want to write. Say what you want to say. You’re the difference.
Guess it’s also the right time for me to have started posting video. I filmed one for my most recent newsletter and it was nerve-wracking, but ultimately satisfying. I love that we have multiple tools to tell our stories and perspectives. There’s always a great enhancement to the platform. Thank you!
That’s exactly my thoughts as well. I came here to escape the attention-sucking mind numbness of Instagram’s reels (thankfully, I don’t have TikTok). I thought this was supposed to be a community for just writers. There are plenty of other platforms for video-creators. This is so disappointing to me.
What is Instagram & TikTok? Not on my devices. Facebook is the only social platform I have, because I am a grandmother of two extraordinary 12 year olds, and love to see their photos and activities.
Me too! I think I could eventually see myself having some video podcast, but I don’t want to have to do it sooner than later.. I just want to write and get my tribe around my writing 🥹
This just made me want to run from Substack. Is this videos tab going to eventually devolve into a reels and tiktoks-type space, feeding off the attention economy in much the same way as Instagram and TikTok and sucking us away from what most of us came here for – the written word? You may succeed in increasing the average time spent on the app, but it won’t be quality time and will likely ultimately detract from time spent reading. Why isn’t the written word enough? This is so disappointing to me.
Very well put and had the same sinking feeling from the announcement. I really liked that Substack was a platform for writers. At least it has been deployed as a separate tan to help ignore the video feed, although as you mention having it there pulls at the attention!
Right?! I now have a deep-seated fear that videos on Substack are going to do to the written word what reels did to photography on Instagram. It makes me think that all the “creator economy” stuff Substack’s been posting of late has been utter BS, and that their ultimate goal for Substack is the same as every other app’s – to get users addicted to mindless crap.
It isn't enough because the venture capital funding them demands more user growth. So we get a half-baked Twitter clone, and now a half-baked YouTube clone.
Exactly right. I fear that the average Substack subscription will be worth less — because more and more of them will just be scrolling through videos on this app rather than reading. At least email inboxes are meant for reading. What is the Substack app meant for? If you try to be everything to everyone, …
This! I had the same feeling 😳 Difficult to not see ourselves being compared in any way to the cool creators and see originality placed at an even higher rank.
There are closed captions on the Originals videos in web, we'll take a look into why they aren't showing up on the app yet. (In general, we try to always show the captions option when the creator has made them available.)
Speaking for myself: don't make captions optional at ALL. If video presenters want to use the platform, they should be required to make their content accessible. (And I'll add that blind audiences for Substack content can use screen-reading/text-to-speech tech to "read" written content here, but are going to be completely shut out of video content, even with soundtracks/narrations.) It'd be nice to regard Substack as an accessibility-driven platform -- a leader! -- not just another "we value all users equally" lip-service platform.
Thanks for sharing that perspective, makes a lot of sense. Captions are always autogenerated and turned on by default. We allow people to turn them off because sometimes the autogenerated captions are inaccurate to the video, or there isn’t speech but our detector is picking some up.
Back in the prehistoric dawn of streaming, Hulu was an early adopter of a requirement for any content submitted to it; that requirement was along these lines: "If you haven't made the effort to caption your own video streams, we not only will NOT caption it for you: we won't accept it for streaming on Hulu." (As I recall, Hulu's CEO had seen one of his in-laws struggling to watch uncaptioned content, and was appalled.)
I agree with you, Jasmine, about the limitations of auto-captions. But the failure by "video creatives" to provide their own -- presumably accurate -- captions is a genuinely godawful bit of cultural laziness (which Substack's apparently willing to acquiesce in). Captioning technology isn't difficult or expensive; it's just regarded as a "frill" of value only to an audience we're willing to write off. It's like accepting videos shot in unlighted settings simply because the creatives can't be bothered.
Why is this named "Substack Originals?" Isn't everything on Substack original? The name demeans that which is already here. "Substack Original Videos" would have been an honest title for this new venture.
Substack started like a great alternative to the fast-food rectangles provided by Twitter and the brainless videos from other platforms, and now it's devolving toward the very formulas it was created against. Yes, these videos are slick, but don't be fooled by them! A video is not a written essay. Also, you should wonder, in particular, why, of all the people they could have featured, they chose to feature, at least in the video I saw, ... the elephant in the room (by which I mean a certain commodified identity). One would have hoped that the creators of Substack would have the courage to be different than all the other big platforms, that they would emphasize thinkers who dare to be different. A quick search of the writings of those featured will tell you that they are just as conformist as the other platforms. This doesn't bode well for the future. What a disappointment!
It's great! Now we just need a way to embed substack media into an actual substack post the way we can with a youtube video or spotify podcast. That can't be so hard, can it?
Video is VERY seductive. I pray that readers find a way to keep reading and not to be seduced away too often by media that’s always one tap away.
And video has a way—using ominous music and bad logic—of making completely ludicrous, targeted conspiracy theories seem plausible and start to function as very effective propaganda, as YouTube has so unfortunately demonstrated.
I pray that video on Substack will always be a window to the beauty of the people and the world all around us, and not a trap allowing bad political actors to magnify our worst impulses.
It’s up to readers to keep thinking, and making conscious choices.
I felt the same about Notes when it launched, and thankfully it proved me wrong. Let’s hope this push for video does too. I fear for the future of this platform, but I am also hopeful. It’s so weird.
So true.
I hate video. Not seductive to me. But I know I’m an outlier.
Are you an outlier? I don’t know. But, either way, I think hating video is very wise.
Video is veeeery seductive! I have been already feeling like an outlier not daring to use video podcasts and make zooms to save into my publication. Video is big because it shows some part of you. But why do we eclipse writing yet again.. I hope I am wrong too, I just don’t know. Is it all about the attention span of people nowadays? Or is it going to be ised more like a tool for free expressions and creativity?
I am not a fan of video either, but may enjoy getting more insight into creative contributors I enjoy reading. My thoughts is it will enhance the sight.
I pray that you’re right. It’s up to us. To keep finding and promoting the best of the best.
Exactly!
I skip all videos. I hate them. I’m here for the long form writing and I hope that won’t be crowded out.
The best thing about substack is that we are the curators of it. We can follow long form writers if we like, and we can follow filmmakers if we like!
Isn't that true of other platforms as well? The user curates the content he wishes to see on YouTube too.
Yes to some extent. I was just pointing out for those who don't want video on Substack that they don't have to see video on Substack.
They will be. Because it costs money to do what they’re doing.
Video only works on platforms built for it. It’s only truly profitable and generates decent ROAS on TikTok and YouTube.
That’s why Reels on meta is hot garbage. The algorithm isn’t designed to handle video.
When it inevitably loses them money - they, like Meta, will push it even harder to justify the sunk cost.
That’ll lead, just like it did for Meta - much of the old guard who were early adopters pulling up stakes.
That’ll lose more money, and we’ll go into erratic feature bloat territory - see FB, Insta, Twitter, Snap that’ll screw the algorithm even harder.
Best case for this is that experience so much backlash or that it crashes and burns so spectacularly they can’t ignore what an idiotic decision it was in the first place.
I'm not totally with you, @Lance. I get what you're saying and actually I AGREE with you...but I wonder, and this is just IMO,...if there's and "and" here.
Thinking about Michelle's statement about the long from writing, that's what I do on my substack...but I also have art, a podcast, and videos, including speed drawings FOR my art section.
If it's used to get more people here to partake of the rest of the content...like I do Monday coffee videos, but then the rest of the week is writing (okay, and the speed drawing on Wednesday)...people start conversations over the videos.
I do get that I'm not a main 'video' person, I use it as the salt on my substack...SO maybe this doesn't apply, but I wanted to throw that in for consideration.
That's all.
I think you make a valid point, Jaime. I don’t see this move as necessarily bad, although it does taste a little sour. The Substack team haven’t really given us a reason to doubt their intentions so far, despite the various minor controversies that never quite stick. I’ also wary of overwhelmingly negative people like Lance. Maybe he’s right, but I choose to believe that he isn’t until proof surfaces that he is.
I also agree with you on some points, but as with any of these rabbit holes that eat up our time, we must be vigilant and guard ourselves against useless viewing and choose wisely what we do, read, and watch.
Reels IS hot garbage. The driving force there is underage T&A.
Yeah but no.
That’s not a problem unique to Reels. Video content has that problem - it’s bad on YT and TikTok. It’s the nature of the medium. We’re visual, horny creatures by default and sex sells. Happened in film, TV, and then internet video.
Lots to complain about with meta, but that’s not a problem unique to Zuck.
Any visual platform will have that. It’s what gets views. Views are incentivized on every video platform because they have the existential need to do that. Gets people on platform and drives revenues.
Without guardrails - that’s tech for you. None of them, not meta, not google, not TikTok, want the guardrails because they know losing that content loses them money.
Business is never about the smut, my man. Illicit or not. It’s all about the money. To believe otherwise is to be naive.
Don’t think this video option will ever crowd out good writing. I still love going to the library and actually checking out books I choose to read. I also like reading with my Kindle, but call me old fashioned, but holding a good book is still my preference. Seeing the written word is powerful. I enjoy Substack’s options
As each new iteration of tech appears it’s important to realize the “old” tech is still viable. TV was supposed to have killed film. “Video killed the radio star.” I think we’re moving to a model where the new leaders/avant gaurd (?) will employ each form of expression. Be your own integral content studio/media conglomerate! Employ them all.
So do I. It’d be both a shame and a signal to move on.
Did we learn nothing from virtually everywhere’s failed attempts at pivoting to video?
I have zero desire for *yet another fucking video platform.*
Whoever is doing the market research is a fucking idiot - and you can quote me.
Let’s have a little faith. I thought this way when Notes launched, yet with every new addition that seems wonky the Substack platform and community manage to save it. I’m, let’s say, cautiously optimistic on this one.
Let’s not. Not when it’s not deserved.
Notes made sense.
This *only* works for people into making video. The core of Substack doesn’t.
Faith is for the clergy. Unless you want a company run by a fucking haruspex.
All right, I get your point. But I won’t start jumping to negative conclusions until I see some proof. So far, Substack has been a positive experience for me. I’ve been here for two years. So until proven otherwise, I trust the team.
Same. All I've had is positive experiences.
Everywhere. All the time.
Tools I paid for are now free? I get to interact with my readers for the first time in real time?
...yeah, i'm with you, Andrei...until proven otherwise, I trust the team.
Agree, but just as we look back in history & see that communism/socialism has dismally failed, politicians still want to control our lives and interject their values whether right or wrong on the public. I have my own mind, and choose to think independently. Having the grace to try to see all sides of an issue and accept/respect people is sadly a privilege dying trend.
We also see that capitalism has dismally failed, of course.
And we wonder why print is flatlining
Quite true. I don’t know how to feel about this push for video. As if words on a white screen are not enough anymore.
Normies need a constant face to look at it, it seems. Words aren't good enough for the shallow mind that needs words to come at them from a face in the style of a conversation. The normie seems afraid of using the inner voice in their minds to read and write words. Words must from mouths, preferably pretty ones!
I wonder...if the push to video isn't championed by the people who don't have an inner monologue? Just spitballin'. Maybe they can't interpret words on white as well as when someone is talking to them? As it is now, if there is a video and no transcript, I just unsubscribe. I know I am not going to appreciate anything they're trying to say.
".if the push to video isn't championed by the people who don't have an inner monologue?"
You picked up what I was subtly dropping, well done. That's my thought exactly, we're seeing the effects of so many people who have no inner monologue and how they practically demand things to SAID to them so they can avoid reading. Reading requires inner monologue and thus some form of intelligence.
I think you’re onto something with the inner monologue idea.
I finally fired a therapist who insisted on providing a list of feelings on the wall for her group.. When exploration of feelings is the issue, picking a feeling off a list is an intellectual, not an emotional, decision. The list of emojis has the same emotional interference.
Okay?
Not for me.
I will probably get flamed for this comment and I don’t really know why I’m making it other than to say this post made me weirdly emotional, in that I find it deeply unsettling and it gives me a really, really icky feeling.
It’s not just that it’s video when this was supposed to be a space for writers—I can live with more types of content because, after all, this place is just a platform. It’s that this is part of a long pattern of behavior where Substack makes editorial choices that pick winners, basically selecting who they think the cool kids are and featuring those people, often over and over again. That’s not to denigrate the work of anyone featured in this project—all the names I see are amazing creators who deserve attention!—it just seems like these videos are all Substack produced to feature whoever Substack deems is cool enough or good enough, and it feels weirdly exclusive and makes it seem like we’re in a rigged system somehow? I think the argument y’all are trying to make is that this will bring more people to Substack and a rising tide lifts all boats etc etc, and I’m not trying to say that I think featuring certain creators detracts from others…Frankly, I’m probably just sad because I don’t think I will ever be one of the Substack cool kids, and every time you roll out a new feature like this I just feel crappy. Sad girl rant over!
My thoughts too. Same names and faces, because they will pull the views. Rinse, repeat.
You wanna surprise me? Don’t feature any creators with more than one 500 subs on their newsletter/s.
There are more “small” creators than there are “big” ones. Bet you those vids will get views.
Try a bottom-up approach.
Samantha, I share your reaction except with a different emotional component: instead of sad, I feel defiant. Even in high school (aeons ago) I was always more of a rebel and never wanted to be part of the "cool kids". I just had a look at your Substack and I love it. I bet there are enough of us here who're NOT into the cool kids.
I love this way of looking at it, Jessica. And thank you! ❤️
TheNotCoolStack?
Samantha, I feel this! I often find myself really disheartened to see the same names over and over.
Glad I’m not alone, Caroline!
Samantha, I had the exact same reaction as you did. I published a post of my own before I read this. And I'd say we both had that same weird and negative emotion.....thank you!
Guess I like we are ALL the cool kids!
More reading, less viewing.
Video is what is killing the Internet. It's too easy and too enabling of attention-seekers who have no intellectual substance. Reading and writing prove the mind is capable of transferring concepts from one person to the other. Reading spurs critical thought. The Internet's ongoing penchant for pushing everyone towards video is simply enabling intellectual laziness and dishonesty.
I don't want Substack being flooded with normies putting their faces if front of videos of normies pulling pranks on each other next to videos of normies reacting to the pranks being pulled next to a normie in the corner with her boobs out looking to get you to like their channel...
The video element of the internet is enabling the "enshittification" show to speak. Substack is one of the few places keeping sanity online by keeping it about reading and writing and you'll notice we don't have all the click-bait, attention-seeking, brain-rot the other platforms have.
Video will kill substack.
I won’t let me restack it 😢 I had the same feeling! I think they want it to be more artsy than youtube and more high level and focused on promoting the big names, the cool kids with a high subscribership. The big will always get bigger… I think I will just focus on building my tribe here, and continue to be genuine through my writing. Lots of feelings triggered.
Someone figured out how to restack it so it is possible, but it appears Substack is always changing how they do things. I appreciate the kind feed back and I think we all don’t want Substack to become Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc…
Thank you for your reply, J.K.! Today I did something out of the blue, I posted my first TikTok video as a note, exploring this somehow. I am brand new on TikTok, looking for how writers promote their work there. But TikTok in itself is full of weird lives and time-consuming or time-wasting stuff... I am very curious about the level of response a note with a TikTok video attached would get. It's worth exploring, I guess. The short video is my creation, based on my creative process with doodles.
Never be afraid to experiment!
I wish I could restack this
Why can’t you? I give you my permission. I don’t know if the tech isn’t doing that though.
could be user error, but it doesn’t look like I can unless it’s a link :/
“I hope you understand it’s been done before but not by you.”
Thanks so much for this. It’s been my mantra this week. Write what you want to write. Say what you want to say. You’re the difference.
Guess it’s also the right time for me to have started posting video. I filmed one for my most recent newsletter and it was nerve-wracking, but ultimately satisfying. I love that we have multiple tools to tell our stories and perspectives. There’s always a great enhancement to the platform. Thank you!
can't wait to see what you create, Chevanne!
Thank you! 🥰
These videos are basically stealing the soft white underbelly format. It’s cheap and degrades an app design for writers.
I came here to escape video content. I thought the entire identity of Substack was writing
That’s exactly my thoughts as well. I came here to escape the attention-sucking mind numbness of Instagram’s reels (thankfully, I don’t have TikTok). I thought this was supposed to be a community for just writers. There are plenty of other platforms for video-creators. This is so disappointing to me.
Wow, same here. Now it sends a mixed message.
What is Instagram & TikTok? Not on my devices. Facebook is the only social platform I have, because I am a grandmother of two extraordinary 12 year olds, and love to see their photos and activities.
Me too! I think I could eventually see myself having some video podcast, but I don’t want to have to do it sooner than later.. I just want to write and get my tribe around my writing 🥹
This just made me want to run from Substack. Is this videos tab going to eventually devolve into a reels and tiktoks-type space, feeding off the attention economy in much the same way as Instagram and TikTok and sucking us away from what most of us came here for – the written word? You may succeed in increasing the average time spent on the app, but it won’t be quality time and will likely ultimately detract from time spent reading. Why isn’t the written word enough? This is so disappointing to me.
Very well put and had the same sinking feeling from the announcement. I really liked that Substack was a platform for writers. At least it has been deployed as a separate tan to help ignore the video feed, although as you mention having it there pulls at the attention!
Right?! I now have a deep-seated fear that videos on Substack are going to do to the written word what reels did to photography on Instagram. It makes me think that all the “creator economy” stuff Substack’s been posting of late has been utter BS, and that their ultimate goal for Substack is the same as every other app’s – to get users addicted to mindless crap.
It isn't enough because the venture capital funding them demands more user growth. So we get a half-baked Twitter clone, and now a half-baked YouTube clone.
Exactly right. I fear that the average Substack subscription will be worth less — because more and more of them will just be scrolling through videos on this app rather than reading. At least email inboxes are meant for reading. What is the Substack app meant for? If you try to be everything to everyone, …
This! I had the same feeling 😳 Difficult to not see ourselves being compared in any way to the cool creators and see originality placed at an even higher rank.
Love this idea but can we get closed captions?? 🧏🏻🦻🏼
There are closed captions on the Originals videos in web, we'll take a look into why they aren't showing up on the app yet. (In general, we try to always show the captions option when the creator has made them available.)
Speaking for myself: don't make captions optional at ALL. If video presenters want to use the platform, they should be required to make their content accessible. (And I'll add that blind audiences for Substack content can use screen-reading/text-to-speech tech to "read" written content here, but are going to be completely shut out of video content, even with soundtracks/narrations.) It'd be nice to regard Substack as an accessibility-driven platform -- a leader! -- not just another "we value all users equally" lip-service platform.
Thanks for sharing that perspective, makes a lot of sense. Captions are always autogenerated and turned on by default. We allow people to turn them off because sometimes the autogenerated captions are inaccurate to the video, or there isn’t speech but our detector is picking some up.
Back in the prehistoric dawn of streaming, Hulu was an early adopter of a requirement for any content submitted to it; that requirement was along these lines: "If you haven't made the effort to caption your own video streams, we not only will NOT caption it for you: we won't accept it for streaming on Hulu." (As I recall, Hulu's CEO had seen one of his in-laws struggling to watch uncaptioned content, and was appalled.)
I agree with you, Jasmine, about the limitations of auto-captions. But the failure by "video creatives" to provide their own -- presumably accurate -- captions is a genuinely godawful bit of cultural laziness (which Substack's apparently willing to acquiesce in). Captioning technology isn't difficult or expensive; it's just regarded as a "frill" of value only to an audience we're willing to write off. It's like accepting videos shot in unlighted settings simply because the creatives can't be bothered.
I hope so. Let's see what happens.
Seconded.
Video and writing do not co-exist. It's an antagonist vs protagonist reality.
Why is this named "Substack Originals?" Isn't everything on Substack original? The name demeans that which is already here. "Substack Original Videos" would have been an honest title for this new venture.
Good point.
Substack started like a great alternative to the fast-food rectangles provided by Twitter and the brainless videos from other platforms, and now it's devolving toward the very formulas it was created against. Yes, these videos are slick, but don't be fooled by them! A video is not a written essay. Also, you should wonder, in particular, why, of all the people they could have featured, they chose to feature, at least in the video I saw, ... the elephant in the room (by which I mean a certain commodified identity). One would have hoped that the creators of Substack would have the courage to be different than all the other big platforms, that they would emphasize thinkers who dare to be different. A quick search of the writings of those featured will tell you that they are just as conformist as the other platforms. This doesn't bode well for the future. What a disappointment!
It's great! Now we just need a way to embed substack media into an actual substack post the way we can with a youtube video or spotify podcast. That can't be so hard, can it?
Ha good idea! Adding to our list
Thank you Jasmine! I appreciated your chat presentation today. Many good ideas bubbling up.