Feedback could be good, but is often bad, and not just bad, but weird bad.
I’m again getting another round of people telling me they’re hearing “behind the scenes” the perennial “Chloe is harming the community” claims. What community and what harms, nobody seems to be able to specify, perhaps out of politeness, or perhaps because he criticism is vague, I don’t know.
This is a good time to mention that I’m actually working on a long piece about why people don’t warn you about bogus stuff or potential pitfalls or harms. And why typically people are disincentivized to actually warn other people about actually harmful actors. And being attacked and smeared of course is one of those disincentivizing factors. It’s interesting how there at least a few people who feel comfortable warning others about me. It’s very important to point out this is never publicly publishing, nor a situation where I could respond. Often the people doing it are completely anonymous, even to the people they’re privately warning. So it’s a case where a person is hearing this from someone anonymous they met in some online group on social media.
My suggestion if you’re somebody who’s received these “warnings” (about anyone really) and don’t know what to make of them; ask for specifics. Because it seems like nobody knows what anyone actually means anymore. That’s something I keep complaining about. If it’s just “Chloe was rude” then I don’t know what to tell you because they may be right about that! I’m not an influencer, and unfortunately a very nice and attentive content creator probably isn’t going to give you the blunt truth, which is rarely welcomed, and why I’ve spent time working on something to explain the dynamics at play. It’s something I started to discuss in “Don’t blame the messenger”.
I still sometimes get people leaving weird pandemic denial comments on old substack posts that I haven’t managed to close down comments on, and I got a real weird one this week. It was chock full of dan brown style monarchist bloodlines conspiracy fiction, horrendously blatant jack murphy style eugenics, and ridiculous science denial where they preposterously claim viruses don’t exist. And then, bonus, they hit the like heart on their own comment! Who knows what compels people. But people also often reply my newsletters with bizarre PR talking points too. Most often it’s pro-crypto talking points that are obviously trying some left-wing tactic to undermine my opposition to crypto. I’m working on something to address that too.
Disclosure: I actively work at trying to avoid audience capture.