Stop shitting on content creators

Particularly because by definition as a creator on this platform, you are one. Surprise!

I’m relatively new to Substack. I admittedly read very few posts or engaged much outside of supporting some friends before deciding to switch my newsletter list here as opposed to my previous traditional email CRM.

Since April, I have read countless shady posts on the platform with the general undertone—or sometimes a flat-out assertion—that social media and short-form video content is shallow, not researched, and most certainly not to be compared in the slightest to the craft of true writing and journalism.

As someone who works in and loves both mediums, it’s been disheartening at best and straight up annoying at worst.

So yeah—this is going to be a bit of a rant. Hopefully one with a point.

Woo, baby’s first Substack rant!

I’ve built a career in both words and video

My career started (and still contains) marketing as a foundation. Plus, it’s what I am just plain good at. I’ve always been someone who loved writing, but like a lot of us, I had to prioritize financial independence over artistic ambition. Particularly, as someone who had to work since the age of 15, I knew I didn’t want to end up hating the creative outlet I loved. After a semester undecided, a fantastic guidance counselor led me to strategic communication (I had never heard of it before) and business at university. I genuinely enjoyed studying communication theory, and I believe that both my coursework and my experience as a research assistant profoundly shaped the way I think, write, and present myself in the world.

The beauty of marketing is that it is fundamentally a bunch of words and ideas, swirled together with business jargon and strategy—all things I excel at. But when COVID hit and I had been working exclusively in tourism here in Rome, I decided I needed to tap into some other skills. A good friend of mine,

Leila Milgrim

, had been writing for the freshly launched Italy Segreta. Although I didn’t have a byline to my name—besides a myriad of blog posts for the company I worked for at the time—they agreed to publish my work. From there, my career as a writer formally started.

That opportunity opened the door to more writing and marketing, including a nearly two-year stint with Italy Magazine. I’ve since written for a variety of travel publications since.

But I’ve also always loved social media

I have always loved social media. I was an early YouTube fanatic and desperately wanted to start a channel back in the early 2010s. I probably would have, too, if people in my high school weren’t so downright mean. Seriously, you would not believe the stories. Did your high school have a park where it would organize Friday night meet-ups to fist fight? Just mine? Cool!

Even when TikTok started exploding during COVID, that same fear of judgment held me back for years before I finally started sporadically posting in 2023. I’m convinced that some internal switch gets flipped after you turn 30. And with it, in early 2024 while recovering from a minor surgery, I flipped the “fuck it” switch and decided I was going to really commit to creating a presence on social media. And I’m so glad I did.

The real irony of content creator shade

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I have seen a lot of content, both on Substack and on Instagram (ironically?) of folks who traditionally consider themselves writers, journalists, or bloggers who lament about having to lower themselves to the depravity that is Instagram Reels or TikTok videos.

They simply can’t produce short-form video content because they value quality. Ouch. They can’t be asked to tackle a new medium and compete with an algorithm—ick!

But the thing is—they’ve already been competing with an algorithm. It’s called Google SEO. If you’ve ever written a headline with a keyword in mind, or formatted a blog post to rank, guess what? You’ve already played the game.

The real issue isn’t that social media lacks depth. It’s that a new generation of creators—often younger, more diverse, and eager to adapt—are building audiences in new ways. And that makes people uncomfortable.

You don’t have to love short-form video content. But stop discounting the people creating it.

Just like the heyday of blogging disrupted traditional print—and television disrupted radio before that—the way we create and consume is always evolving. I’m not here to argue that all social media content is good, or that everyone making it does so with integrity. But many creators deserve far more credit than being reduced to the title of “influencer.”

Digital creators are constantly reshaping how we tell stories, share knowledge, and connect. It takes just as much strategy, voice, and intention to make a compelling 60-second video as it does to write a thoughtful essay.

You don’t have to join us. But stop throwing rocks from inside your algorithmic glasshouse. And if you do decide to step off your high horse, maybe stop shading your fellow creators on the way down.