Writing in the face of obsolescence

I hobbled away from Kent State in 2010 with a degree in journalism and the accompanying debt. I moved back in with my parents and worked two jobs: I freelanced for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and held a parttime gig at the local Family Video.

The Post-Gazette stopped printing a daily paper in 2019, switching to a digital daily edition, with physical copies only available on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Family Video closed all of its stores in 2021.

I am all of 38 years old and yet my first jobs out of college could barely be explained to a modern high schooler. I might as well have worked my way through switchboard operator school with a job at the rotary phone factory.

It is unsettling to recognize that the fast-crunching jaws of social change have been making quick lunch of my career. I distinctly remember my dad questioning the future of magazines when I planted my declared major flag in the ground, but my professors figured some video skills and a Twitter account should keep us market-ready. What they should have done was nudge us all toward the computer science department, but who wants to admit their obsolescence? 

Rachel Signer, a natural wine journalist, wrote a newsletter recently titled “What Does It Mean to Be a Writer Anymore?” She detailed her less-than-ideal experience releasing a book mid-pandemic — and amid seismic changes in the publishing industry. In the years since, I think many writers have experienced something similar: We’ve done everything we were “supposed” to do, to no avail: pivot to video, self-promote on socials, learn SEO, become an internet personality, pivot to newsletters, include your first-born son in your contract, etc. 

“I know that we can reinvent ourselves again and again,” Signer writes. “I could still find a trade to help me get through the low points of being a writer. I could return to self-publishing, as I did with my print magazine, for my third book—which is currently in proposal phase. Or I could try harder to be an influencer, and see if having more followers propels me to the publishing limelight.

“All of it sounds pretty exhausting, tbh, to this 41-year-old mother, winemaker, farmer, and supposedly, a writer.”

At some point in time, writing started to get shuffled into the quaint, old-timey pile of activities, like knitting or breadmaking. And if you can somehow muscle it into a career? WOW. You must really excel at it… or be an influencer. Like Signer, I’ve thought long and hard how maybe I should be more online, then maybe I could draw more folks to the Hater’s Guide and drop one of my many freelance gigs. But for me, producing more bite-size content to encourage people toward the full-meal content is sort of… not the point. I want you to read the essays because you have a desire for meaty goods!!!

(Notice I said meaty and not nutrient-dense. I know who I am [insane] and what I produce [researched essays loosely based in reality].)

BUT! Maybe the general audience’s tastes will change. Based on what my own friends told me about their 2026 INS/OUTS, plus what I’ve read of culture writers’ predictions, it seems there’s a desire for less scrolling and more long-form content. A perfect climate for the newsletter writer, yes?? And yet I’m still hearing a LOT of sentences that begin with, “I saw this thing on TikTok/Instagram/whatever…” So the soothsayers may very well be full of beans (a trend itself that appeared to have peaked in 2020. Sorry, Rancho Gordo heads).

I’m actually writing about this topic because I have so many other essay ideas that need a little more time to cook. My notes app looks like it belongs to some sort of Carrie Bradshaw-Lexi Featherston crossover: “Has choice overload destroyed fun?” “Is documentation killing the party?” And my desire to put out a well written (or at least legible) essay prevails, regardless of how many people are signed up to receive the Hater’s Guide. I’m sure a journalism professor in 2026 would shriek to learn how little I care about my little letter’s analytics. It got me thinking about my desire to just do the thing well, despite the lack of payoff/paycheck: I’d rather put my energy into a solid newsletter that’s read by 100 people than burn myself out trying to get 300,000 to notice me on socials — although it would be extremely cool if they did!

I do not hate on a single person who has figured out today’s formula. Believe me when I say that I’m honestly in awe of the folks who can grab people’s attention and keep it. But I’m also just afraid of pouring my time into something like the influencer economy when that bubble could burst at any moment. I lived through the media landscape shifting to video, only to find that Facebook was grossly overestimating the amount of time that users spent consuming them. And I spent countless hours at a previous job learning how to make SEO-friendly content, only for that approach to be destroyed by the enshittification of Google Search.

So here we are: Doing it for the love of the game. When friends ask me how the newsletter is going, I tell them that I love doing it. Full stop. I don’t know if they’re expecting some data — X number of subscribers added or lost, click-through rates, annual revenue (LMAO) — but the best I can say is that I get truly hot and bothered by the opportunity to find some academic research or expert analysis on why we should dance more (upcoming newsletter topic tease!!!). 

Spending time reading articles, essays, and books — then cataloging what I’ve learned — itches this very particular part of my brain. And because I am probably psychologically unwell (see also: my unnerving self certainty and love of stale graham crackers), the thrill I get out of the whole process leads me to believe that I will continue to be fine as a writer. How can something that feels so great be my undoing? Why are you slowly nudging addiction literature toward me?

But in any case, I can’t let the headlights of AI, influencers, and brain rot in my review mirror distract me from focusing on the road ahead. Sure, I’m driving a rusted-out Toyota Corolla in this analogy, but I’m also getting the appropriate tune-ups, oil changes, etc. My profession is arguably dying; my career doesn’t have to bottom out with it. 

Long live long-form writing. (Please upgrade to paid. Or tell a friend.)