If you want to be taken even halfway seriously as a commentator or opinionator, for the love of all that is good and holy, STOP TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF!
Stop explaining who you are, what you believe, why you are addressing the topic, or why you think it is important. I click away from the majority of Substack articles now because the author is observably more interested in talking about himself than about his purported subject.
- Lesson One: No reader cares about you.
- Lesson Two: You are not the topic.
- Lesson Three: Stick to the topic.
- Lesson Four: You’re not fooling anyone when you use yourself as an example every single time.
There are few things more tiresome than someone answering questions about themselves that no one has asked. I would rather read Victorian manuals of lady’s etiquette than the new modern genre of “in case you want to know what it’s like to be (fill in the blank), I’ll tell you everything about myself you never wanted, or needed, to know.”
It is the ideas that are important, not the personalities that promote them.