From Rosalía To Pamela Anderson: How Substack Revived Blogging

Spanish singer Rosalía had a plan for Lux, her new album. Or rather than a plan, a scavenger hunt in which she left clues for fans to decipher what her next moves will be. But before this stunt, the singer had spent a month hinting at her new, more reflective and spiritual phase through enigmatic letters in which she shared her thoughts and inspirations. In contrast to the brief messages and fast-paced videos so common on social media, she has chosen the opposite path: writing long, personal texts. To share them, she selected a platform that is also unconventional: Substack.

And Rosalía is not alone in doing so. Since its creation in 2017, this application — halfway between a blog and a newsletter — has been gaining users, both famous and anonymous, seeking a refuge in an internet that prioritizes calm over anxiety, and text over image.

Initially, Substack was designed to provide writers and journalists a space where they could monetize their writing through letters or newsletters sent periodically to subscribers’ emails. In fact, a few months ago, The New Yorker published an article titled Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack?, analyzing how writers like Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, were using the platform to publish their works in installments.

However, since its inception — and especially after X fell from grace as the go-to social network for written — the platform has attracted creators who, even without being professionals, also seek that calmer version of the internet and want to explore all its facets, from literary to social to more informative. The most high-profile additions to the platform have been, of course, celebrities.

Actress Pamela Anderson, for example, opened an account to respond to the outpouring of support from fans after the premiere of the documentary Pamela, A Love Story, which brought her back into the public eye in 2023.

“I had always feared my computer… I thought it lacked intimacy — the end of the world… but I’m proud that instead of turning my nose up at it… I’m just going for it — we can’t give up…,” she wrote in the first post on her account. Since then, she has turned the platform into something like a diary, visiting it weekly to share her reflections.

Singer Patti Smith does the same, sharing experiences, readings, or even videos in which she recites poetry, as do actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lena Dunham, creator of the series Girls.

However, behind this wave of well-known faces, Substack also hosts a vast community of lesser-known creators and readers who have long been striving, letter by letter, to build an oasis of calm in the face of the algorithm’s voracity.

Ainhoa Marzol, for example, started her account two and a half years ago, after the fall of Twitter and long before it became popular among singers. “Being active on Substack requires enormous dedication — much more than posting a few photos on Instagram, and with far less return — so I don’t think it will ever become essential for celebrities. But I do think it’s a super smart tool for building a more intimate relationship with fans, something that’s much harder to achieve on today’s hyper-accelerated feed,” she explains.

Marzol writes under the name “digital gargoyle,” and her unique analyses of current internet trends have made her account one of the most recognized. “I’m a big believer in controlling your interaction with the algorithm, because if you don’t, it absorbs you. Not everything discussed on social media is interesting. Choosing how you want to spend your time is the only thing that can make up for the fast pace of social networks. And, for me, the sweet spot of acting as a curator lies in that human factor,” she adds. On her account, she also gives weekly space to a friend or acquaintance to share their own experiences or recommendations.

This community spirit is one of the main advantages cited by authors like Laura Sánchez, who runs the Substack account Cartas de odio (Hate Letters), where she shares all kinds of intrusive thoughts. “The Substack community is more willing to interact than on other platforms. To create a profile, you have to have very specific interests, since it’s not yet a mainstream network, so users are more open to debate or, in general, to showing themselves as a real community — the kind of community the term originally meant, not what it has come to signify in the digital age,” she explains.

Both Sánchez, who as a teenager posted her writings on Blogspot, and Marzol, who had a sister who was a “successful blogger,” share the feeling that Substack revives the nostalgia of a time when people used the internet to share thoughts and experiences through writing, instead of Instagram stories or reels. In a sense, Substack brings back the blog culture that flourished in the early 2000s, only to be later buried by social media.

That said, Marzol acknowledges that in 2025 — when everything is susceptible to monetization — it’s hard to recapture the naïve energy that characterized that era. “Anyone creating content in 2025, especially in a long format that takes time to produce, comes at it with a mental market study and ideas about success, gaining followers, or monetization,” she explains.

Substack’s approach to monetizing content is also unique. In general, there is an option to restrict certain posts to paying subscribers, but there are also open accounts where readers can choose to support the author monthly with any amount they like. According to Sánchez, this helps build a large “democratized digital library,” with new volumes delivered weekly to readers via emails addressed to them.

“Deep down, we still like the same things: opening our email and finding something waiting for us beyond bills and spam,” says Sánchez. “In a world that pushes us to go so fast, taking a moment to pause and read feels liberating. Furthermore, although many people may argue that the habit of reading is fading, what’s really happening is the rise of new formats that cater to these new readers. Perhaps the way to reach them is no longer through a major publisher or having a recognized name, but rather by clicking send each week.”

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