While I spent much of the 90’s exploring the American West and even a bit of the UK and Europe, it wasn’t until I arrived in Asia in 2004 that I began to travel in earnest. Based among the mountains and rocky outcroppings of South Korea, I made diving into the greater region a priority, using the peninsula as a launchpad to see as much as I could.
Like a lot of youngish people who wash up on this side of the Pacific, I was immediately drawn to the Southeastern countries, where I joined the patchouli-reeking hordes lounging on Thai beaches, scrambling around crumbling Khmer temples, or floating down emerald Lao rivers in a psilocybin-induced stupor while hardscrabble locals picked out weeds for their dinner.
It was intoxicating, thrilling, and at times obscene, yet no matter where I ended up there was always that one person—often a dreadlocked Aussie or Euro Douche™ in elephant-print hippy pants—reminding me how much better it had all been before I came along.
“Phnom Penh used to be like the Wild West, mate,” he’d say between derisive sips of Chang beer on Bangkok’s Khao San Road. “You could buy hand grenades and bales of ganja right there in the market. You could shoot water buffaloes with RPGs. Now it’s full of yahoos. I wouldn’t even bother… and don’t even get me started on Thailand.”
This idea of people who have experienced something longer attempting to gain status by belittling newbies is of course nothing novel, but it still stings, and amplifies that little voice inside asking, “Am I really too late?”
I saw this clearly in the days of the Seattle grunge explosion. I recall catching Nirvana’s famous show at the Motorsports Garage International in September of 1990 and being transfixed by Kurt Cobain’s incandescent performance. While the band wouldn’t truly blow up until a year later, there were already hundreds of people at that gig, and I somehow felt like I was hopelessly late to the party. And from there on out there was never a shortage of older, long-haired scenesters whose sole mission was to remind me how much cooler everything had been before I’d gotten word.
Perhaps this sense of being perpetually tardy springs from the fact that I was a late bloomer. Puberty didn’t strike until the summer before I entered high school, which meant I spent the two years of unending middle school hell as a squeaky-voiced child while classmates grew to be grunting, mustachioed ogres.
This was driven home by the dreaded locker room sessions after PE class and football practice; some of the dudes boasted chest hair, brillo pad pube forests, and rods the size of unripened zucchinis, while I cowered in the corner of the showers in hairless, cherubic form. I had yet to receive the invitation to manhood, and it felt like actual life passing me by.
I’ve been blogging in one form or another for nearly 20 years now, and over that time I’ve migrated back and forth between several platforms. I started with LiveJournal, which was great until Facebook lumbered in and sucked the air out of all competing social networks. LiveJournal was eventually bought by a sketchy Russian company, which caused nearly everyone left there to jump ship.
I then ended up at Wordpress, which is great if you’re building big websites but way too overstuffed to be useful for a tech-challenged writer like me. It was like trying to fly a 747. After that I spent a couple of years posting at Medium, which like Substack makes it possible for writers to make a few shekels, but I grew to dislike the stupidly strident SJW buzzword tone of many of the promoted posts, not to mention the annoying “clap” feature, which most of my readers never got the hang of.
I again defected back to Wordpress, but hated having a wrestling match with the ever-ballooning console of confusing features every time I wanted to post a piece. Plus, Wordpress was always trying to get me to pay them. The balls!
Substack grabbed my attention a couple of years back when some journalists I liked moved here and began not only producing cool content, but also making money. The platform immediately claimed the mantle of quality simply because it attracted the best writers, while also making it possible to get paid.
Being surrounded by talent and potential earning a buck is very seductive for a writer, though there are already rumblings that the model is played out. Substack is over-saturated they say. Just recently there was an article about how it’s become “just another social media site.” I’ve once again arrived too late, it seems.
This may be true, but if nothing else, I just like the look and feel of things here. Like Medium, it’s very clean and extremely user-friendly, and after just one post I’ve added scores of people to my roster of followers. I can mainly thank Facebook for that, as most people who read me regularly come across my work there.
Facebook, for its myriad faults, became my default blog over the years, but is now so stuffed full of ads and spammy algorithm-curated dreck that it annoys me far more than it inspires and to the point of being nearly unusable. I guess Zuckerberg’s site is one of the few places online where I can say I was there when it was kind of cool.
As far as generating revenue at Substack, I’m choosing just to start by offering free content. After all, blogs and self-publishing require a lot of energy to keep up, and the last thing I want is to ask for people’s money, only to fail to deliver.
While I’ve been very fortunate to make a part-time living from writing over the past few years, this cash has all come from big companies. Other than selling books, I have yet to ask my friends and readers for a dime, and while crowdfunding/subsciption models seem the way forward for so many artists these days, I refuse to even make it an option until I believe I can consistently put out a good product. After all, I got into writing because I am compelled to do it. It’s my passion and if I can make a living from it, all the better, but money has never been the prime motivator.
While I’ve been chewing on starting a Substack for some time now, it wasn’t until I recently did a guest piece for Chris Arnade Walks the World that I clued into just what a good site this can be for a creator. If you see an orange checkmark next to my name, it’s not because I’m somehow already important. It’s just because I’m listed as a writer at his Substack (with its very substantial following). I’m still starting from the ground level here at The World According to Tharp, but guys like Arnade have shown me just what can be done with this platform.
As for what to expect content wise, I’ll aim to keep it travel-oriented, as that’s the niche I’ve settled into, though I’m sure to mix it up with personal storytelling, food & booze pieces, and even the odd foaming-at-the-mouth political screed. What I can promise you is that the writing will be for my enjoyment, which is usually how the best work gets produced anyway.
While I’ve recently secured some very sexy bylines, the articles I do for those big mainstream sites and magazines are more-than-often sanitized to the point of being anodyne. I am grateful for the opportunities, but the stuff that lights a fire in my belly is something Condé Nast or Nat Geo would never deign to put out.
So what the hell. Let me give blogging one more go, even if it’s just to a smattering of folks for absolutely free. A while back I had dinner with a journalist friend in Seoul, and he congratulated me on the gig that had brought me up there, remarking, “It’s really tough to get paid as a writer these days.” After decades of scribbling away, I’ve learned this firsthand, and even if I’m late to the party here at Substack—even if it’s packed out the door and the keg is down to the dregs—I’ll keep raging away, because it’s all I’ve really ever known.
I always enjoy your voice - you have a great way with words! Now excuse me, I have a party to attend and I don't want to be late (or in THS-speak, "tardy")
Hi Chris.
I would suggest you add “Buy me a coffee” at some point as many other Substack writers have done. For those that write fewer articles than Tara Henley or Matt Taibbi it gives one another way to support writers.
In regard to one of your points: my veteran co-workers at Suncheon National University in 2003 were awesome as they were extremely kind and helpful. As a result I ended up staying in Korea until 2019. Way beyond my goal of two years. Miss the country and my Korean friends immensely.