I don’t know what the status of censorship at Substack is at the moment but last year I assume that Substack was relatively free of censorship because just as my Substack was starting to move up into the next level of subscribers I got hit by multiple attacks from other Substackers. At the time some of them were in the thousands of subscribers and others like Sagehana and Frances Leader were trying to get there, probably around the same readership as my blog at the time. And clearly they’d identified my followers as a way of increasing their followers so they banned me from their Substacks and took to insulting me, swearing like a trooper both, on my own blog to seemingly drive my subscribers away to their blogs (and that seems to have worked). There were not so occasional threats as well, in fact I’m still getting them.
The Dunedin election (in which I stood) shortly afterwards also didn’t help as I suspect that it was a little too local for most of my followers most of whom are not in Dunedin.
My substack has floundered a little since partly because I’ve been focused elsewhere (business mostly) and it took a fair bit of time to get from 800 to 900 subscribers which is where I sit now.
Where are my attackers on the # of followers list?
Frances Leader - 3K+ subscribers (not that great as Ray Horvath has got to the same spot, more or less, without the insults)
SageHana - 9K+ subscribers (*he* gets a lot of help from Steve Kirsch & others so in that frame this following is somewhat unimpressive). Some like his style, I don’t and as he has yet to say that he’s not a gal I think that I don’t like his honesty either. Sage has also threatened my family so no love lost here.
Getting away from the unpleasantness I can remember a time where “Margaret Anna Alice” (not her real name) was in the few hundred subscribers, maybe a hundred or so more than myself. Margaret has now got to 34k+ subscribers so that’s a pretty good effort. I don’t want to take anything away from her newsletter as I see nothing at all wrong with it but, as well as the content, it is marketing that got her to where she is something that I was a little more reticent to indulge in. Maybe I shouldn’t have been as 34k subscribers is basically my estimate of the minimum needed to pay yourself a modest salary off this Substack venture.
So amongst the larger accounts, where do they and we sit? And apologies but I don’t know the bot percentages of the really large accounts so some of these # followers might ….. be a little fake.
200 - 300+k
Robert Malone seems to be out the front - 313K+ subscribers, but how many has he gained since he turned up here with much fanfare. Not many I’d suggest. His content is a little light and he is firmly in the germ theory corner.
Alex Berenson is a little behind that at - 250K+ subscribers. Alex is of course suing Twitter. I wish I had enough dosh to sue them as I lost my account at the same time that he did and have again recently as well (handle description was “Canary in a coalmine”). Alex is of course in the germ theory corner as well.
Steve Kirsch is not far behind - 242K+ subscribers but maybe a little more organic and although he has more content than Robert he’s also firmly in the germ theory corner.
None of these guys would seem to take much notice of you but in my view both Robert and Steve raise socks to “shout at you”. It’s astounding that they get the time to do so but if the former PM of NZ (John Key) spent most of his time doing this (he did) then why not.
None of them like any mention of germ theory criticism, whatsoever. And they are not going to get into an argument about this ever. Ad hominem, not engagement, is the strategy. Make of that what you will but I don’t have any doubt why this is the case. Germ theory is bunk.
15-70k
So what about the accounts who do criticize germ theory, where are they on this leaderboard?
Sam Bailey would be the most prominent I would have thought. She’s only got - 15K+ subscribers, not even as many as “Margaret Anna Alice”
Or as many as;
Jessica Rose - 67K+ subscribers (Jessica does seem willing to entertain the idea that germ theory is “overrated”)
2nd Smartest guy in the world - 20K+ subscribers
James Lyons-Weiler - 20K+ subscribers
The Naked Emperor - 19K+ subscribers
All of whom are solid germ theory advocates (except maybe Jessica of late)
But I’m not sure about Sasha Latypova - 29K+ subscribers, germ or terrain can somebody advise?
Less than 15k
I’m not necessarily sure where some of these fit on the germ theory belief scale, certainly they are probably more radical in their oppositon to the tyranny on display over the last few years than anybody above (yes even Sam).
Edward Slavsquat (not his real name) - 10K+ subscribers
Colleen Huber - 7K+ subscribers
I’m going to leave it there, I think that I’ve made my point. Germ theory is getting a lot more eyes than terrain theory is and that’s due to a hammer and stick and definitely not due to a carrot.
Germ theory sucks but has all the money behind it.
32k here.
Can you point to Sage threatening your family? That's worth documenting (and I keep track of most everyone).
Interesting stuff. I rarely even care about how many subs I have. I'm more concerned with staying true to *my truth* regardless and I don't want to change my opinions just to gain subs either. I'm not trying to make money from Substack, so that helps a lot. If there comes a time where making a bit of money I'm open to it but, for me, I'm more concerned with the times we are living in and doing "something", even if it's just being a keyboard warrior. It is very interesting though how some people seem to mysteriously "go viral"... (no pun intended lol)