Five for 2025
A recap of my inaugural year on Substack and what 2026 may hold
A year in review isn’t really my thing.
BUT!
I haven’t posted much on Substack since concluding Performance and since I’ve started work on a new novel I doubt I will be posting as much as I did in 2025.
I have not posted much fiction on Substack. If you are interested in my fiction, I have couple of short stories here and here, and you can also purchase my novel, CONTENT here (and if you haven’t purchased and you like my writing, please do so as this is my sole source of income currently and it would help greatly—I want to keep my Substack free for as long as possible). If my numbers tell me any story it is that fiction does not interest Substack readers as much as non-fiction essays, or, at least my fiction does not interest as much as my non-fiction essays.
That being said, there are some exciting things on the horizon—my work may be appearing in other publications outside this Substack!—so I thought it would be fun to reflect on my first year here (first post was in March 2025) by listing the top five most read pieces of mine and my reflections on same. So from lowest to highest:
#5
When I first posted my old review of The Smashing Machine documentary, it seemed to incur little interest. Then the feature film based on the documentary came out and views shot up from Google searches alone. The Rock’s performance in the dramatization was quite good though the film itself was mostly a shot for shot remake of the documentary and didn’t really provide any new insight, save that The Rock could actually act given the right set of circumstances.
#4
The first entry on the list from my long aesthetics essay Performance. It was a pleasure sharing this essay in serialized form as it was one of the few new writings I had. Readers may notice that some artwork which appeared in the original postings has been removed. That’s because my daughter Emi, who did the artwork, is about to be featured in a national art magazine and they get exclusivity. Sad to see it leave my posts but happy it is helping boost her art profile to greener pastures. Regarding this particular installment, I’m not sure why it resonated as it is equally distributed among my subscribers and Substack but I think its my addressing pop-culture and the oft-used and oxymoronic (or really just moronic) term “Cultural Marxism” that led to it getting some reads.
#3
Now, I’m fairly sure why this installment, about the literature and life of Yukio Mishima, got some traffic. When I shared Performance with others before it was published, most commented on this section, so I was fairly confident it would get some attention. And it did. Though I was certain of that I am not certain why it made an impression over other parts, parts I’m more proud of, but that’s the wonderful mystery of sharing your writing. If I had to guess, I think it's just the vector of where my writing finds its readers, as Mishima is a writer of interest in said vector. So its topical for lack of a better word.
#2
This piece, about the art of Mark Rothko, is one I’m quite pleased with and I’m equally pleased it found a strong readership. The title was inspired by Mark Edmundson's great book Literature against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida: A Defence of Poetry. Most of the reads were shared “directly”, meaning someone shared a link, and it seems to have been read widely from that share. Who shared it? I can’t say for sure, though I have some ideas, but I am certainly thankful they did.
#1
My first post on Substack is also my most read. Most of the reads come through the Substack App itself so, just to hazard a guess, I think Substack purposely pushed this piece as to “encourage” me to continue posting to the platform. Then again, any time I share it, it gets some traffic, and once again I think it is just topical. David Lynch died at the beginning of 2025 and I posted this in March 2025 and The New York Times recently listed the film as #2 on list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century", a list I take a lot of issue with. I might even take issue with Mulholland Drive’s place on the list but best-of lists are kind of pointless and subjective.
Even this list is subjective. Just because these pieces were the most clicked on does not mean they are the best, most influential, etc. It just means they were selected for reading more than other pieces due to a confluence of topicality, my own reach and “influence”, algorithmic placement and just the mood of respective readers. Regardless, I appreciate you all for reading.