Substack is positioning itself as Ellis Island for TikTokers.
Free letter today 🫠
Good morning everyone.
I want to thank my readers who trust Feed Me as a place to break exciting, conversation-starting stories. On Sunday, one of you shared a story about the building that acts as the set of Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment. After Feed Me covered the story, The New York Times, Gothamist, and The Sydney Morning Herald picked it up. The links from those sites obviously help Feed Me’s brand, but I think more than that, instances like this illustrate the specialness of the relationships I’ve built with some of you. It’s really cool.
Los Angeles, I’m thinking about all of you.
has been doing great roundups of ways to help the city:
Last night, I went through this list and donated cash to some GoFundMe’s that that have yet to reach 20% of their goal.
Substack is positioning itself as Ellis Island for TikTokers.
Some of you keep your cortisol levels low and don’t have the Substack app on your phone. The rest of you have probably seen notes on your Substack newsfeed about how Substack is warmly welcoming TikTok users to the platform in the days ahead of a potential TikTok ban. Earlier this week, Substack’s CEO posted about a new movement to bring users over from one social media platform to another.
“We want to help creators save their audiences, and build a sustainable livelihood of subscribers, before they lose what they've built,” he wrote. This morning, Substack announced the access of live video features for all publishers, proving that they’re doubling down on video efforts on the platform.
I spoke to Chris last night about how is first week on TikTok is going (he’s getting a lot of comments about being hot), and how he thinks TikTok users can find success in the Substack app.
It’s been two days since you posted about Substack’s TikTok Liberation Prize (powerful name). How is that going so far? What have you learned about TikTok (and how it’s different from Substack) since playing around over there?
Chris: It’s going pretty well. It’s been great to see creators like Aaron Parnas and Laila Mirza have fun with it, and to see people already on Substack largely embrace creators bringing new audiences here. Ultimately, we think people should own their audience, and we want creators to be able to turn their TikTok followers into Substack subscribers before it’s too late.
I had never posted on TikTok before, and trying to figure it out was challenging and fun. A lot goes into making a good video. I went live, and was surprised to learn it’s entirely ephemeral – it makes me think people might enjoy some of the tools we’re cooking up over here. I also couldn’t get over the cowboy hats and mustaches and stuff that kept flying in over the person’s face. I don’t think we’ll try to build anything like that.
I also got a push notification after telling me that I made $1.20 which, combined with what i’ve heard about the creator fund and the ads game over there, made me think that some TikTokers may be pleasantly surprised to discover the value of paid subscriptions and a direct relationship with their subscribers (example from Violet Witchel here).
What would make a big TikToker successful on Substack? This isn’t the usual model on this platform.
Chris: I don’t think Substack will work for every TikToker, not even every big one. The thing that works on Substack is when you have a following. If people are thinking “man, I will really miss this person when this app gets banned”, when you have a unique and valuable perspective, that’s when it’s likely to work.
I joked on Notes that we are going to rescue all the smart people from TikTok, and that’s only half a joke.
In terms of how they’ll use Substack, we’ve seen TikTokers such as Leo Skepi and Lisa Remillard succeed by offering experiences they can’t get anywhere else. They use live video to provide their paid subscribers with real-time, personal interactions, creating a sense of belonging that drives loyalty and growth.
Beyond short form video, TikTokers have the opportunity to experiment with other formats including long-form video posts, and written posts, Chat, and Notes. Just like a publisher who primarily writes can play around with video features or completely ignore them, TikTokers can stick to video or try out Substack’s community tools. This flexibility can help creators unlock new ways to deliver value to subscribers beyond TikTok's video-only platform.
How did you decide on the prize size of $25k?
Chris: We thought it would be fun.
We’re aiming to inspire a movement – millions of people coming from TikTok to the Substack app. We’re confident that Substack can be a great home for smart TikTokers because the model supports all types of culture makers–writers, podcasters, and video creators–and we think it would be cool if this moment of transition brought people to a place where they had more control and ownership.
We’re obviously working on this ourselves, but we figured others are helping too. It’s likely that someone will crack the code and help bring hundreds of thousands of new subscribers to Substack—many of whom will go on to pay for Feed Me, Throwing Fits, The Free Press, and The Contrarian. We should recognize that person, offer them the opportunity to become a Substack Creative Advisor, and award them a meaningful prize that reflects their brilliance.
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I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if you take the headphones off of any chick’s head below 14th St. there’s a good chance she’s listening to a Dear Media podcast. The network has gotten some good national attention since being founded in 2018, but I don’t always hear their team being mentioned in conversations with New York’s media elite (get Michael Bosstick on The Grill Room). This week, they got Ivanka Trump to record her second podcast ever with them. I listened, and they teased about her starting her own podcast at least once.
is joining as ’s managing editor! MAGASIN IS GETTING TOO BRILLIANT AND POWERFUL!!!!
Glossier has touched down in the midwest. The Mall of America installation include a photo booth and
When is the last time someone profiled Jean-Georges Vongerichten? The chef’s Tin Building is falling apart from the inside (“The Tin Building by Jean-Georges… is losing its parent company more than $100,000 a day on average, or $83 million in total, according to publicly available financial records. The building’s losses are staggering, according to two investment analysts who research similar properties, including Chelsea Market and Eataly.”). There’s no natural foot traffic on the FDR, and you have to cross roads to get to it, whereas Eataly and Chelsea Market are both in busy areas. At least his menu at Chez Margaux seems to be making members happy.
A big job just opened up at Khaite. The luxury brand is hiring a Global Director of Brand Marketing, which makes me wonder about their relationship with Chandelier Creative (who was working on their campaigns as recently as last year).
Erik Baker, who teaches the history of science and capitalism at Harvard University, published a moving essay about Erewhon. “Accounts of working at Erewhon in the late 1960s were isomorphic to contemporary accounts of working for Steve Jobs or Ralph Nader… all of us felt like passengers on a very fast vehicle bound for unknown places.” The essay is in excerpt from his new book about how entrepreneurial work ethic exhausted America. Nice.
A top banker told FT, “I feel liberated. We can say ‘r***rd’ and ‘p**sy’ without the fear of getting cancelled . . . it’s a new dawn.” Not sure what kind of top banker would say that, unless he works at Jefferies. What do you think about wave of corporate MAGA culture?
We know! We know! We know! The couple of the year has already been announced, and it’s “fashion” and “sports.” On February 7th, two days before Super Bowl Sunday, GQ and Bode will be staging a fashion show at Hotel Peter & Paul in New Orleans, “to celebrate the increasingly intertwined worlds of fashion and sport.” Hotel Peter & Paul is part of the Ash Hotel group (where New York’s hottest olive purveyor Allegra Lorenzotti and the creative director behind Stissing House and Le Dive, Xavier Donnelly, both work!).
Let’s talk in the comments.
Not the TikTok-ization of Substack 😩 we will never know peace
Another pull from that FT article: “Some Wall Streeters also feel able to embrace making money openly, without nodding to any broader social goals. “Most of us don’t have to kiss ass because, like Trump, we love America and capitalism,” one said.”
My brother in Christ, you work on Wall Street! What manager of yours was saying you had to denounce the free market? The victim complex on these guys…what ever happened to Gary Cooper?