Welcome New Readers!
Handful of Earth reaches 500 subscribers
It’s been quite a while since I welcomed new readers at Handful of Earth. The publication crossed the 500-subscriber threshold last month, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to do so.
500 subscribers may not sound like a lot on the internet. Indeed, the number pales in comparison to many large Substacks, not to mention other platforms where short-form video content dominates. That said, I started from scratch here and am humbled to have this many readers just a year and a half after committing to a regular publication schedule. A big thank you to each one of you for your support!
I am particularly proud of two things that Handful of Earth has achieved in its short history.
First, the publication has something that is quite rare in an online ecosystem characterized by entrenched audience capture: an ideologically diverse readership. Readers range from communists to paleoconservatives, secular Buddhists to Catholic integralists, terrain theorists to public health professionals, Trump supporters to Democratic Party workers. While I personally associate more with some of these things than others, that is less important than the fact that Handful of Earth is a space where different ideological streams can converge because of a shared desire to get closer to something greater than ideology: the truth.
Second, to the extent that I can tell from my subscriber list, Handful of Earth has a relative balance of male and female readers. This may seem like a trivial point, but I increasingly believe that an effort to counter the sex-polarized American virtual world is essential. Online spaces that address the themes covered on Handful of Earth—culture, politics, and technology—are often more segregated by sex than the in-person public sphere. As voting patterns in last month’s election demonstrate, this segregation exerts a very real impact on politics. Well before that, the ossification of male and female online spheres had already begun to overdetermine many aspects of social life in the United States and beyond. Handful of Earth is but a mere drop in the bucket of online discourse, but the fact that it is an independent publication read by men and women alike is an important step forward.
If you’ve made it this far, I have three requests. Even if you can only act on one of them, it will will be a great help to Handful of Earth.
Once I reach 1,000 subscribers, I will be able to add new features to Handful of Earth. If you find value in my work and would like to see the publication grow, please consider sharing it with a friend today so we can get to 1,000 sooner rather than later.
As of writing this post, 1,371 people currently follow me on Substack. This means that I have 844 followers who do not yet subscribe to Handful of Earth. If you follow my profile and are enjoying the content but don’t subscribe, please consider subscribing now.
I’m always interested in feedback from my readers. If you have any suggestions for the publication, are interested in collaborating, or want to share your thoughts on one of my pieces, leave a comment below or send me a direct message. I’d love to hear from you.
That’s all for now. Thanks again to all of you for your support. I’m grateful to have you with me on this journey.
Congratulations, Vincent! And some very good thoughts, especially with regard to drawing readers from across the increasingly balkanized landscape.