Denominator’s Law
The Viral Downfall of Social Media Platforms (but hopefully not Substack)
Don’t you love that moment when you first discover a brand spanking new social media platform? It feels so fresh and exciting. You log in, greeted by all these new features and a sense of discovery and adventure, like something out of Robinson Crusoe. There's a rich tapestry of fresh and interesting content, the people seem polite and respectful, and you think to yourself, "This place is pretty cool—I think it’s worth investing time into." Six months to a year later, it’s almost unrecognisable. There’s trash everywhere, people are holding up signs with garbled writing, others are yelling incoherently, and sitting in the corner by themselves is some guy in tattered clothes and a scraggly beard, mumbling to himself about “free” energy and something about trademarking secret handwritten diagrams. Everything feels dumber, louder, and a tonne more meaningless. You’re wading through a smelly, swampy mangrove of Harlem Shake reboots, clickbait, and memes that aren’t even funny and just hurt your brain.
This, my friends, is the core of Denominator’s Law.
What is Denominator’s Law?
Denominator’s Law states that as a social media platform grows, its content quality inevitably declines to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The more users it attracts, the more diluted the content becomes as platforms bend over backwards to cater to everyone instead of keeping things focused. It’s like that one underground band you discovered in that dingy little grunge bar that suddenly blew up and started making pop songs because, hey, that’s where the money is.
A Slow Descent
This isn’t just some abstract theory I made up on the spot—okay, well it kinda is, but you get my drift. Take Twitter (now X), for example. Remember when it was a place for actual, fair dinkum thoughtful conversations? That’s all but a distant memory. Now it’s a breeding ground for—well, if you’ve spent any time on it in the last few years, I’m sure you’ll pick up what I’m putting down.
How Does This Happen?
Platforms might start out small, niche, with their focus on a specific subset of users. As the platform grows, there’s pressure to monetise. New features inbound. This attracts more users. These new users bring with them more content. The trouble is, it’s not the same type of content that made the platform great in the first place. More and more videos, more short-form nonsense, and a slew of people simply out to game the algorithm, not contribute.
In Substack’s case, it’s already happening. Features like Notes (short-form content), as well as audio and video content, are edging their way in. Of course, these features are great for expanding the range of users and the audience types the platform attracts—it’s a slippery slope into mediocrity. How long until Substack Notes becomes Twitter’s spiritual successor? And you realise Twitter didn’t end up where it is purely by accident, right?
Red Flags, Not Red Herrings—Short-form Content
Short-form content is the gateway drug to the mundane, the worshipping of Algo, the algorithm bot of doom, the terrible tripe transfixed trollop, and creatively bankrupt trolls of toon town. Platforms introduce it to increase engagement. What most of us don’t realise is all it’s doing is training us to have short attention spans and quicker, yet heavily diminished, dopamine hits. It’s like giving your kid candy and a bunch of sweets for breakfast. Sure, it’ll make them “like” you, and they’ll feel good for a short while, but you’re setting them up for a sugar crash and probably a lot of failure later in life.
Constantly consuming short, itty-bitty-sized content rewires the brain. Studies suggest links to shorter attention spans, instant gratification, and—brace yourself—even lower intelligence levels. Yep. People who consume brief, shallow content likely aren’t sharpening their mental faculties as much as they probably try to convince themselves. No one’s doing deep work or coming up with any revolutionary theories in 60 seconds or 160-180 characters, however many it is now.
How Denominator’s Law Will Affect Substack
Does this mean anything for Substack? Does it spell the end of our comfy little online intelligentsia arena? At the moment, Substack does feel a lot more like a thinky person’s platform. The people working at Substack come across as pretty genuine and thinky-like—but not in a pompous way. If they don’t know something, they’re not afraid to say it, at least from what I’ve seen. Substack is a place for longer-form content, deep dives into many subjects—there’s some real substance floating around. As Substack grows, as features such as Notes become more well-known, it’s easy to see how it could start to devolve. Anecdotally, I’m beginning to see it—though I try and keep an open mind and realise that anecdotally means exactly that. Perhaps it’s just the algorithm and my own casual Notes browsing skewing my viewing experience. If we apply Denominator’s Law, it’s not hard to imagine Substack succumbing to the very fate of basically all the top social media platforms. Oh, but Substack is different! Is it? Really?
More people + more lowest common denominator feature pandering = more hot takes, more shills, more algorithm surfers. All who will inevitably drown out the GOATS, the people who made it all possible in the first place—left out in the cold, fending against the same inane BS they would on any other run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter platform.
Does All This Rambling Mean That Substack Notes Is Inherently Bad?
Of course not. However, when platforms start bending to the will of the lowest common denominator for those algorithm bucks, it’s a slippery slope. Sure, Substack and its creators will make money—is that the only thing worth chasing? Why do so many become so obtusely short-sighted? Are we becoming that self-centred that we can’t see past our noses? Are we all just happy to create another Facebook or Twitter? Content with expedited growth in the beginning followed by 15 years of corpse-dragging?
Sometimes I wish I lived in the times of real thinkers and philosophers—though I would have been hemlocked by the time I was 16.
Don’t get me wrong—I love Substack. Substack and its thinkerific atmosphere enabled me to build a solid writing habit. It’s almost been one year since I started writing articles on Substack. Outside of university, this is the most I’ve written for the longest amount of time. It’s great. For that exact reason, I would love to see it continue making its own groove and not devolve into the same old well-beaten path every other platform has found itself meandering down.
Anything We Can Do? What Happens Next?
Is it possible to fight back against Denominator’s Law? Sure it is! Focus on that sweet, sweet quality, baby! If you’re creating content on social media—doesn’t matter what platform—make sure it is good content! Don’t let the algorithm pressure you into creating certain content. And yes, I practise what I preach—I know what content of mine does the best. I have content that does far, far better than my other content. I could easily farm that content and churn out article after article of the same type. That’s not what my newsletter is about. I wanted to write about that at the time, and I’m glad it went over well, but that’s not what I want to write about all the time. Quality content is everlasting.
Use your noggin when you engage! When you’re writing your content, resist the urge to dumb it down. Avoid chasing the dragon of virality—you’ll likely never match that same level of dopamine, and if you’re anything like me, you may even lose interest in continuing. Encourage thoughtful discussions while mixing in humour and sarcasm.
Know Your Enemy! *guitar riff*
Be vigilant and mindful of what you’re up against—rage against that machine and don’t become like a contemporary Zack de la Rocha. How will or does short-form content affect you? Be aware that it might. It’s fun to mess around with shiny new features, but if any platform begins leaning too heavily on this stuff, it can spiral quick, fast, and in a hurry.
We’ve all got a responsibility and a stake in how this all goes down. Platforms will evolve, they’ll come and go, but remember we have a say in how it goes and whether we want to be a part of it.
It’s the Final Countdown—I Mean Thoughts
Denominator’s Law is like gravity—it’s there whether you believe in it or not—and once it sets in, it’s almost impossible to stop. That doesn’t mean you can’t put up a fight. I think Substack is worth fighting for. By focusing on quality, resisting that ever-present pull of superficial content, and posting on places like Substack to promote and elevate good ideas (instead of dumbing them down), we can at least delay the inevitable. We can encourage the growth of a space where great ideas can be incubated and thrive before the great tsunami of turd-filled garbage smacks us unwittingly in the face.
Let’s do stuff that matters, write stuff that matters, and be someone who matters.
Make intelligence great again.
Check out some stats:
Comparison Chart—Platforms, Content Limits, and Audience Engagement Metrics
Platform: TikTok
Content Limit: 15 seconds to 3 minutes videos
Monthly Active Users: Over 1 billion
Average Daily Usage per User: Approximately 52 minutes
Engagement Level: Very High
Platform: Twitter
Content Limit: 280 characters per tweet
Monthly Active Users: 330 million
Average Daily Usage per User: Approximately 31 minutes
Engagement Level: Moderate
Platform: YouTube Shorts
Content Limit: Up to 60 seconds per video
Monthly Active Users: Part of YouTube's 2+ billion users
Average Daily Usage per User: Approximately 40 minutes (YouTube overall)
Engagement Level: Increasing
Platform: Instagram Reels
Content Limit: Up to 90 seconds per reel
Monthly Active Users: Over 1 billion
Average Daily Usage per User: Approximately 29 minutes
Engagement Level: High
Platform: Snapchat
Content Limit: 60-second multi-snap videos
Monthly Active Users: 500 million
Average Daily Usage per User: Approximately 26 minutes
Engagement Level: High
Platform: Facebook Stories
Content Limit: Up to 20 seconds per story
Monthly Active Users: 2.8 billion
Average Daily Usage per User: Approximately 33 minutes
Engagement Level: Moderate
Correlation Observation:
Content Length vs. Appeal: Platforms with shorter content limits often have higher user engagement and appeal to broader audiences.
Lowest Common Denominator: Short-form content tends to be less complex, aiming to attract quick attention, which may lead to a focus on sensational or superficial content.
That's it for now,
As always,
Good luck,
Stay safe, and
Be swell (though don't use too much hair gel).
See ya!
ChatGPT generated information, some data is out-of-date (but it's “good enough” to make a point).
Didn’t some Yeats dude write a poem about the center not holding and the best losing all conviction and shit?
Doh! Too far back in the stream, no retrieval.
The quality of an information stream is inversely proportional to its velocity.
I was thoroughly engaged on a site called The Big View back in the 20-aughts, and watched it totally subsumed by one-liner trolls over an agonizing period of years. The owner finally turned it off in disgust.
No denominator, no matter how low, no matter how common, dares now to call itself Least.
Imo, what we truly observe in operation here is a profit motive severed from the ethical considerations that give human effort meaning.
Henry Ford wanted to make automobiles affordable. The usual quote goes something like, “the best car possible, at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.” And the last clause was not due to idealism, but to having some glimmer of sense about how to accomplish the first two. When he got rich building affordable vehicles, that was the affirmation of his efforts and the validation of his method, not at all the point of them.
There’s a child of thirty I follow, whose substack has so far been rather an anti-masculine screed than a thoughtfully feminist perspective examined, but she’s smart, and sometimes exposes blind spots in my thinking that need the light. I have sensed an increasing desperation for wider reach from her lately, and started reading an entry this morning only to find it solidly, woodenly, AI-chundered “output” with a smidge of human garnish here and there. So it goes.
Great post, thanks
A very helpful analogy for how shorts become addictive.
Give us just enough sugar to get us to want ‘one more’ and we can’t stop until we find ourselves in a reclining chair trying to get our smile back.