What Content Creators Should Know About the Digitally Overwhelmed

The algorithm rewards endless creation, but your real subscribers are overwhelmed.

This isn't really a post for content creators, but for consumers like me who have too many good things to read and listen to. Here's permission, if you need it, to unsubscribe and unfollow even the good stuff.

It started with the podcasts.

I had about fifteen shows that I enjoyed, from the purely entertaining Office Ladies to the educational Read-Aloud Revival to the inspiring M is for Mama to the life logistics Lazy Genius to the cultural commentary Aaron Renn Show.

All good content, all things I would recommend.

But even with my podcast player running twice a day, the new episodes were piling up. I didn't want to listen to the really long ones, the more challenging ones, especially not the news ones--more would replace them the next day.

Some podcasts were repeating themselves, staying on brand, duplicating previous content so that they stayed relevant, never letting an old episode speak for itself.

So I unsubscribed. I currently listen to four podcasts.

I did the same on YouTube, Instagram, and finally here, on Substack. I'd been subscribed to about forty publications amounting to thirty emails a week. The number is closer to twenty publications and ten emails a week. I can actually read that many.

This wasn't like past attempts at cleaning up my digital space. I wasn't unsubscribing because someone had offended me or spread misinformation or was just a downer who ruined my day. I wasn't thinking about how valuable one piece was over the other.

I just scrolled through my inbox from the past few months and saw how many quality pieces I never opened.

I always told myself I'd get to them. But let's be real, if I won't read an essay when it comes out, I definitely won't read it after three weeks when it's buried beneath 130 unread emails.

I had felt that being subscribed to a blog is as good as reading it. Following a political writer gives me points for being politically aware. Following a poet means I support the arts. Following a digital minimalist is as good as getting rid of my smartphone myself.

I had to acknowledge that I’m not the type of person to consume these things--at least, not in this format. I come to Substack when I have a five-minute pocket of time. Nursing a baby. Waiting for a pot of water to boil. Waiting for my husband to get ready for bed so we can read a chapter of War and Peace or watch an episode of The Office. If I have more time, I'm not realistically sifting through 100 unread essays. I'm opening a book.

Some published authors here are much better at writing long form books than essays. (I delicately suggest that editors and the limitations of a physical paper book may be an essential piece of the writing process.) Their essays are still well-written and engaging, the seeds of the books they'll publish in a year and a half.

So I unsubscribed from their substacks and pre-ordered their books.

Shorter essays are usually better for me. Fewer emails are usually better for me. I didn't unsubscribe from anyone because they hadn't posted in three months. I did unsubscribe from the daily posters. That might not make sense to some people -- why not just delete the extra emails and only read the ones that I have time for? I just can't delete an email without skimming it first, so they piled up. That's my fault, not the writer's.

I have space in my reading for one or two longer essays, so I've had to prioritize which ones I know I'll read.

Podcasts and substacks will not continue to be a format for thoughtful, provocative pieces requiring active engagement unless we prioritize volume less.

I really hate it when a great writer becomes white noise.