I’m not relatable. I’m not a substack cool girl. I may have had a cool Instagram for a 9th grader, but I lost my edge. Maybe I stopped caring. Or maybe I stopped trying because I knew that I’d never keep up. I’m cool in my own niche way.
I want to be flowery and grungy and spicy and edgy like a cool substack girl. This is my best attempt. I want to be a cool girl on substack so that I can be admired and people will want to pay, and it’ll skyrocket from there. Let’s all just say what we really want, okay? Well, maybe not men.
I’m searching for my voice and finding that I rarely have something to say. Do I need to fill my brain with more information? I feel like I’ve thought my thoughts through and have nowhere to dig. I’m done thinking until I have more juice.
People are cool when they’re embodying their essence. I can see it when their voice comes from the gut, and they’re wearing stark red glasses and high-waisted jeans with a belt that has no sense of current fashion, and yet I want to be like them. But sometimes, I forget about true cool and notice only the universally beautiful.
It’s easy to find beauty in what is obviously desired. I’ll never not think that what’s beautiful is cool, except I want more. I want to work to find beauty. I want to see unconventionality and work for that glimmer of inspiration. I saw a girl in a horrible outfit wearing a tie as a belt. Tie as a belt. That’s cool. I hate your outfit, but I respect the way you did it. No qualms, no imitation, just you.
I recently went “viral” and gained 100+ subscribers. If you’re a pleb on substack, you know this is a shocker. And it wasn’t my writing that blew them away. It was an earnest note about gaining 15 subscribers “from what/where I don’t know” (I later found out they were all bots).
That was the note that went viral. I had nothing to say, and people pressed subscribe. I cannot understand why. I’ve had much to say in the past few years. 65 curated and meticulously edited posts. This was what stuck.
You can be popular on substack and have nothing to say. I remember when someone called out the listicles and diaries on this app, and a swarm of angry notes shedding virtual tears began to populate my feed. Stop attacking my self-expression is what I heard. They probably have hundreds of subscribers interested in their nothing-to-say entertainment. That’s just the way it is.
I posted for the first time with my new subscribers, and most of them didn’t read it. If you’re reading this, I forgive you. Why would you read me? I’ve given you nothing substantial yet. I used to think the most successful people were the smartest. That the coolest substack girls always had something to say. Now I know they know that’s not true.
Cool girl substacks have two things anyone can have ⭐️
They know how to work a virtual crowd.
They show up.
LUCK.
XOXO,
Lila, a cool girl on substack.