Say It Anyway

On the noise, the backlash, and the quiet cost of having a voice online.

Thick Skin, Thin Spots

To be a writer, especially one who insists on existing out loud on a platform like Substack, you need skin like armor.

Not just thick, reinforced, industrial-grade.

Most days, I have it.

But there are places, small, inconvenient, human places, where the armor wears thin. Paper thin. And on those days, every word finds its way in.

I used to think the noise lived only in my head, a crowded, caffeinated chorus of thoughts all trying to be first, loudest, sharpest. But then I started publishing, and I realized the outside world is just as noisy, only now the voices come with catchy usernames and avatars.

Everyone has something to say.

Everyone wants to be heard.

Even me.

Especially me.

So we sit at our keyboards and fire off responses like we are in some digital coliseum, thumbs as weapons, sentences as shields. And what fascinates me, what exhausts me, is how often the loudest reactions come from people who have entirely missed the point.

They latch onto a single word, a phrase, a tone, something that scratches against them, and suddenly the whole piece becomes irrelevant. Now it is personal. Now it is war. And you, the writer, become the easiest target.

There is a particular genre of commenter I have come to recognize. Not the overtly angry ones, those are easy. They announce themselves immediately, like a storm you can see rolling in.

No, I mean the calm ones. The reasonable ones. The ones who gently explain that actually, you are the problem.

If you are struggling financially, maybe you should just live smaller.

If something feels unjust, maybe you are framing it wrong.

Maybe, have you considered this, you should adjust yourself to better fit the world as it is.

It is fascinating, really, the way advice can sometimes sound like a polite request for your silence.

And then, of course, there has been a shift, a noticeable uptick in a certain kind of voice, louder, sharper, more insistent. The kind that arrives already angry. The kind that does not ask what you meant, only how dare you say it.

Since figures like Andrew Tate have gained traction in these spaces, there has been a new energy in the room, one that demands women soften their tone, shrink their delivery, sweeten their truth so it lands more comfortably.

As if the problem is not what is being said, but how unpleasant it is to hear.

And all of it, the anger, the correction, the noise, starts to gather. It rumbles. It presses in. And suddenly that armor you were so proud of does not feel quite as solid.

Little dents. Tiny punctures.

You get tired.

But here is the inconvenient truth, I chose this.

I chose to write the piece.

I chose to hit publish.

I chose to say exactly what I meant.

So I stand by it.

Even when it stings.

Even when I have to remind myself, sometimes repeatedly, that behind most of these comments are just people, people with their own noise, their own fears, their own need to be heard.

And yes, probably a few bots, because of course there are.

There is a strange irony in all of this. On one hand, engagement is the currency. Comments mean people are reading, reacting, caring, in some form.

On the other hand, the sheer volume, the endless scroll of voices, can make the whole thing feel overwhelming. Not just writing, but reading. There is so much brilliance on this platform, so many essays I will never get to, so many voices calling out at once.

Sometimes I wish we could all just gather in one enormous ballroom (wink wink), every writer, every voice, say our pieces out loud, hear each other properly, maybe even laugh at the same time. It is a ridiculous image, I know, but also a comforting one.

And then there is the quiet pressure humming underneath it all.

You have to grow.

You have to publish.

You have to be consistent.

You have to be worth subscribing to.

Because if people do not pay, do not click, do not stay, then what are you.

It is a brutal little question.

And yet, I keep coming back to this.

If I am going to be here, if I am going to write at all, then I want it to mean something.

Call it resistance. Call it stubbornness. Call it survival with a slightly sharpened edge.

I have a quick wit, a sharper tongue, and a love of words that refuses to behave.

So I will use them.

I will write into the noise, through it, even, hoping that something lands, that something cuts through the fog of all this shouting and posturing and performance.

And maybe, this is the part that keeps me going, maybe none of us are actually alone in this.

Maybe all these voices, scattered across screens and cities and comment sections, are part of something larger, a kind of messy, imperfect chorus.

And maybe, just maybe, if enough of us speak at once, not perfectly, not politely, but honestly, something might shift.

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