The inevitable ‘year in review’ column

Sure, it’s both indolent and self-pleasuring but I’m giving myself the early Christmas present of a Precariat Musings retrospective

Now vanity is the fruit of opinion; it is born from it and nourishes itself upon it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

When I woke up this morning, I realised yet another year had almost entirely whizzed by. As anybody who reads a newspaper will be aware, that means ‘tis the season for year-in-review pieces. Given I’ve churned out 47 of these musings over the last 11 months, I figure now is as good a time as any for me to get in on the ponderous, navel-gazing action.

A Substack pilgrim’s progress
People, particularly fellow content creators, often assume that this weekly newsletter was part of some grand business strategy. The truth is less mercenary and more egotistical. Over the years, I’ve written lots of op-eds for the likes of the Fairfax (now Nine) papers, as well as online opinion sites such as The Punch (no longer extant) or The Drum (ditto).

By the start of 2022, it had been several years since I’d banged out a ‘Here’s what I reckon about [insert subject here]’ thinkpiece and I was eager to get back in the game. I’m not going to pretend I was unaware that some heterodox American journalists, such as Andrew Sullivan , Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi, were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from their Substacks. Still,  Precariat Musings was always a passion project rather than a revenue-generating exercise. (I never have and, barring some exceptional development, never will charge Precariat Musing readers.)

I wouldn’t have been put out had Precariat Musings led to me making a lot more money doing my day job. However, there’s not much evidence to suggest that happened. Flatteringly, one tech company owner did suggest getting together for a coffee and ultimately commissioned me to produce about $5,000 worth of content for his business. But that’s the only revenue I can directly attribute to Precariat Musings. It’s possible that some clients who hadn’t been in touch for a long time saw one of my musings and, having been reminded of my existence, decided to throw some work my way. But if this did occur, none of the clients in question ever informed me this was how things played out.  

If anything, I fear Precariat Musings might have cost me money and not only by reducing the amount of billable hours I’ve had available this year.

I believe capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all those other economic systems that have been tried from time to time. As regular readers will be aware, I’m particularly down on the neoliberal variant of capitalism that has dominated the Anglosphere for the last four decades. In stark contrast to the Keynesian variety that was in fashion from 1930-1980, neoliberal capitalism has been great for corporations, the senior executives and shareholders of corporations and, more generally, those at the pointy end of the income distribution, but not so great for everybody else.

Somewhat inconveniently, many of my current or potential clients are corporations and most of the individuals likely to commission work from me are at the pointy end of the income distribution or aspire to be. So, I’m not sure constantly championing the redistribution of power and wealth from Capital to Labour has been the wisest customer acquisition and retention strategy.  

After hitting send on some of my more astringent musings, I’ve reassured myself with the thought that few of my clients read my Substack, or likely care much about my political opinions if they do. (Here’s hoping that will continue to be the case in what’s shaping up to be an economically turbulent 2023.)  

Hits and misses
After I launched this Substack, about 20 real-world friends and online acquaintances subscribed. (As flagged, this didn’t involve any financial outlay, just a willingness to have this Substack newsletter show up in their inbox every Friday morning.)

Over the following 10 months, I gained another 40 subscribers, almost all of them strangers to me. At the time of writing, I have a grand total of 61 subscribers.

There’s not much you can learn from such a small sample, but I also posted my musings on LinkedIn, where anywhere from 800 to 13,000 people would view them. Still not a huge sample size, but big enough for some useful data.

Speaking of which, the three pieces that ‘went viral’ this year were:

A musing about ageism (I’m against it):

On the wrong side of 40? Join the gig economy

A musing about flexible working arrangements (I’m for them):

What is it with corporate psychopaths and flexible working arrangements?

A musing about technology allowing content creators to capture more of the revenue they generate (take a wild guess):

Are content creators finally getting their due?

The musings that died in the arse, attracting less than 1000 LinkedIn views, were:

Navigating the West’s emerging social credit scheme

(I thought you readers might be interested in the West developing its own social credit scheme; turns out I was dead wrong about that)

Getting a (digital) trade to fall back on

(For all the talk of digital transformation, it seems there wasn’t much interest in a how-to article about exiting the old economy and breaking into the digital one.)

Some articles deserve an honourable mention for racking up a substantial amount of views and/or generating a lot of likes and comments on Substack and LinkedIn:

Joe Rogan: gig-economy übermensch

The last temptation of the knifed

Who should gig economy types vote for?

Quiet quitting – Labour’s latest rebellion

What happens to a society with too many chiefs and not enough Indians?

Will digital nomadism go mainstream?

Unfortunately, even the LinkedIn data doesn’t yield many insights.

The first musing to go viral, in late February, was one about ageism. But when I wrote another article about ageism in mid-October, it performed solidly but not spectacularly. Musings that hit a nerve covered everything from the attempted cancellation of Joe Rogan, to the probable imminent election of Anthony Albanese, to aspirational voters falling out of love with capitalism, to a panegyric to campaigning journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, to a shitcanning of Davos Man.

Given what happened in 2022, in 2023 I’m planning on sticking with my approach of writing about topics I find interesting and hoping for the best. (I’m at little risk of falling victim to audience capture, simply because I still have only the vaguest idea what topics massage the dopamine receptors of you readers.)  

I’d be nothing without the fans
My lagging stores of energy permitting, I’m hoping to write one or two more musings in 2022, including a ‘Summer Reading guide’ talking up some of the excellent Substack writers I’ve discovered since becoming one myself.

But now seems like an appropriate time to thank all of you who have taken the time to read, like and comment on my musings this year. It’s because of you that I have, somewhat to my surprise, religiously carved out a few hours to author a musing for 47 weeks in a row, no matter what the personal or professional demands on me in any given week.  

I’d particularly like to thank the following people, who’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty in providing positive feedback: Aaron, Azadeh, Charles, Daniel, Dexter, Elizabeth, Fran, Garth, Joey, Joshua, Kyra, Lisa, Lynne, Marina, Mel, Marcus, Maroš, Murray, Scott, Sonia, Sophia, Tim, Trudi, Rachel, Rashida, Richard, Rosalyn, Tracey and Will.

I love youse all.