The gentrification of equity in media and content

My writing for the last several months has focused more on political and current events, but today I need to take a detour back to my lane of anti-racism work, because there is something that has been gnawing at me that I finally can put into words.

Over the last year, the world has been spiraling out of control. We have seen more independent media creators and writers come online, from the Meidas Touch Network to Keith Edwards and many more. These new media and commendatory outlets are working hard to provide the news and analysis that the mainstream media is failing to provide, much of it good and timely—which, again, is something the mainstream media is failing at.

However, the sudden rise of independent media is increasingly turning diverse spaces into less diverse spaces. To be blunt, the whitening of independent media is pushing out the diverse voices that turned to independent publishing due to a lack of opportunities in the mainstream and historically very white spaces. In other words, the neighborhood is gentrifying and BIPOC and marginalized voices find themselves on the losing end of this gentrification process.

Back in 2016, I turned to self-funding my work because the monetization pathways for bloggers and online writers didn’t favor folks writing about race. There were few brands that wanted to work with a Black woman writing about the harms of white supremacy and analyzing current and political events with an anti-racist lens.

Don’t get me wrong, I tried. But most of the brand offers were at odds with what I was writing or my values. I mean, when I found myself trying to promote a sex toy brand and weave that into my writing, I had to accept that despite being recognized for my work, the then-popular ways of monetizing simply weren’t going to work for me.

For a while, I offered a “tip jar” on my site but too often people ignored it. So, when I discovered Patreon, which launched in 2013, it was a godsend. It was a way to get the folks who value my work to commit to becoming a patron, by offering early access to my work—along with occasional perks such as attending my deeply discounted workshops—while allowing me to create an income stream that I could rely on. Given that I was newly divorced and not earning enough money to survive despite being the executive director of a small grassroots organization, self-funding my work through Patreon meant not having to give up the work that drives me.

In the early days of Patreon, those of us who used it were looked down upon by our peers who were getting brand deals and other mainstream rewards for their work. It was seen a little like digital panhandling, which was uncomfortable and frankly stung a bit, but it also meant developing a small but reliable group of people who supported my work and allowed me to breathe a little easier.

Patreon as a model was successful enough that Substack, which started in 2017, would eventually become a rival—and a danger to writers and creators who self-fund their work but whose work isn’t mainstream with access to larger resources. It has always been known in writing circles that Substack only paid out well for folks who were known, but for a newcomer Substack’s referral process could be a good way to build readership. Of course, Substack has long had a Nazi problem, as they platform Nazi and related white supremacist types. At best, Substack is a draw, which I knew almost two years ago when I set up a Substack to grow my readership which became stagnant not long after Elon Musk purchased Twitter and my largest source of attracting new readers dried up.

I have been on Substack since October 2023; I have published 123 pieces, the majority of which were written just for Substack, meaning they don’t appear on my site or Patreon. In that time, I have amassed over 2,000 subscribers, with only 71 of those being paid subscribers, and I have made a whopping $4330 in the almost two years that I have been writing on Substack. That means I have earned a whopping $35 per piece, which I must pay taxes on. When I write for actual publications—even with rates dropping industry-wide from the heyday of a buck a word that many writers used to get—I am at least paid $300 to $500 a piece and don’t have to do all my own marketing and promotion. And, of course, those gigs aren’t easy to get these days.

At the same time, very few of my Substack readers have ever become patrons on Patreon or even subscribed directly to my blog which, despite me paying to maintain, has remained free. From a user perspective, Substack is one-stop shopping; it’s an all-you-can-consume buffet for little to no money. I understand why subscribers like it but for writers, unless you have a massive following and visibility, it is the writing equivalent of sharecropping as I have said before.

However, as more visible writers, journalists and white content creators turn to Substack (and Patreon to a lesser degree), it means that BIPOC and marginalized people get less visibility and make even less money.

For months, I thought it was simply a matter that my work didn’t have the same resonance it once did, until I learned that a number of Black women and femmes who like me have been self-funding their work for similar reasons were also noticing what I was seeing. An onslaught of white folks flocking to self-fund their work and finding that spaces that once held promise for those of us who have never been given equal access to mainstream media are finding that the spaces that did allow us to earn a living have now been co-opted by those who not long ago would have turned their noses up at working in these spaces.

Now, everyone and their mama is offering a “newsletter” and, well, if you already start off with more advantages or resources, it is a lot easier to build your brand, which leads to more subscribers and...more money. Which means that white-bodied people, particularly white men, are better able to earn a living and that the same people who have always been left behind are once again getting left behind.

Years ago, when I got serious about wanting to turn BGIM Media into a Northern New England media space for BIPOC people, I used to hire writers of color and for a few years I could pay them, but we never got the financial support that would allow me to move from commentary and analysis to offering actual news. Eventually, I stopped having other writers because I couldn’t pay them fair wages as pay equity came into play. Instead, some like Samuel James started his own Substack and Samara Cole Doyon became a published children’s author. I still wonder what BGIM Media would have become had we drawn the support that could have allowed us to grow instead of reverting back to a 1.5-person shop.

These spaces in many ways remind me of when I was living in Chicago in my early 20s. I lived on the near northwest side of Chicago in both the Wicker Park and Bucktown communities, very ethnic and very working-class at the time with sporadic gang violence—let’s just say hearing gunshots at 2 a.m. was not an unusual thing. I lived across the street from a bodega where I kept a tab and in-between paydays would have to get diapers and food. Next door was a Polish bakery where the owner often threw in extra treats free of charge because she knew I was a broke young mother.

When I lived there, it was a good space for broke folks and artists who needed a lot of space for very little money. Well, the neighborhood got discovered just before I moved to another neighborhood and gentrification went full force and all the non-white and broke people who had managed to survive for years were pushed out.

Increasingly, that is what it feels like as a self-funded writer. I have a full-time job and there are limits to how much time I can spend on promotion and still write and do my day job and live. Now, for every four people who cancel their patronage on Patreon, I get one new sign up and newer people are less apt to stay past a few months because they either can’t afford it or want more bang for their bucks.

But here’s the thing: If you decide to support the Heather Cox Richardsons or the Meidas Touches instead, have you ever thought about how equity plays a role in whose work becomes more prominent? Most BIPOC writers and indie media people are solo operators, who are juggling outside jobs to survive. Meaning that unlike some of the better-sourced white creators and writers, they literally do not have the ability to write every day. I wish I did.

I am not saying to not support white writers and creators but rather to think about the factors that play into why you may get more value to begin with. Privilege matters in these spaces, in every facet.

Recently ABC News fired Terry Moran for daring to speak truth to power on his personal social media account. In less than two weeks’ time, Moran started a Substack and as of this morning and this writing, he has amassed 90K+ subscribers, with hundreds of paid subscribers. Name recognition due to his prior employment played a huge role in amassing these numbers in such a short time, and most likely having the resources to not have to immediately file an unemployment claim to make sure he can buy groceries and pay the rent or worry in the same way that someone with less privilege would.

Right now, in the independent media space, particularly around news, there is only one Black person that really comes to mind for me: Elizabeth Booker. She is a lawyer and social scientist who provides great commentary and analysis, and she worked in the federal government. Yet she only has 33K subscribers on Substack despite having almost a half a million followers on Instagram. Meanwhile, the Meidas Touch Network that I keep mentioning has 698K+ subscribers on Substack with 977K followers on Instagram plus 2.4 million followers on TikTok. Resources matter and you can’t deny who most likely has them and how those resources allow growth.

When you are thinking about what work to support, consider an equity lens. Consider who has access to larger and mainstream resources and who doesn’t. The bulk of independent writers and creators I support are BIPOC and marginalized folks, but there are a few white folks whose work I support. All but one are white folks who are outside the mainstream, as far as access. Linda Tirado, a working-class writer and journalist who lost an eye due to being shot by the police during the George Floyd protests, is someone whose work I believe in. I should note she is also a friend. While her writing has slowed down due to health issues, I still offer my meager $5 a month support. I know for folks like Linda, despite being a white woman, her status for many years as poor was a limitation to accessing resources.

Part of creating an equitable world starts with examining where we put our money and resources. If you are flush with resources and cash, support everyone. But if you must limit yourself, use an equity lens to ensure you are not unintentionally recreating the same systems that shut out marginalized people. Because right now, we are on course to seeing the media options once again leave people shut out and with that we lose the diversity of thought that comes from having a diverse marketplace.