A Substack Writer, Rurik Skywalker, Just Claimed You're Raping Him by Not Paying for His Shitty Writing.
I will continuously defend free subscribers and I refuse to join Rurik's "writer's strike" to force people to pay for content that reeks of entitlement.
I just stumbled onto one of the most retarded articles I have read in a long time, and surprisingly it’s from someone getting paid to be retarded by a large amount of people. Now I’m not claiming that his audience is retarded because there could be multiple reasons why they choose to support this writer, however, I have a haunting suspicion that many of them won’t be paying him in the future.
The writer in question and one I don’t personally follow,
, was brought to my attention by , a great journalist and fellow anti-censorship fighter who fought in the trenches with me against Jonathan M. Katz and his “Substackers Against Nazis” cronies.I personally highly recommend Morg’s work, because it’s always well crafted, straight to the point, and authentic. And I want to take this time to thank Morg for bringing this to my attention through his article, “Are free readers parasites on Substack?”. Now, why don’t we move on to Rurik’s false rape cries?
On February 6th, Rurik published an article called “Writer’s Rise Up!” And in this article Rurik claims that his free subscribers are essentially raping him, because they are reading his content for free, instead of paying for subscriptions. I have a problem with this, mostly because:
That’s not rape, you malaka. You’re just a tool.
Your writing isn’t good enough to convince your free subscribers to pay for your content.
Your content is priced out of its real market value.
Now anyone with a moral compass or working brain would understand that. Yet, Rurik is incapable of honestly understanding, that by being genuine with his audience, politely trying to figure out payment options with his audience, and by researching the market, he very well might have been able to come up with a plan to convert more free subscribers to paid subscribers. And Rurik should be grateful for his success, because nothing in life is guaranteed.
Rurik created his publication, The Slavland Chronicles, almost two years ago on March 11th, 2022. And the very fact that he has over 5,000 subscribers should make him realize that he has been blessed. Seeing how most Substack writers only achieve a couple hundred subscribers after a year or so of work, it should be humbling to Rurik, however, it seems that the success has only gone to create a false sense of entitlement.
I have read some of Rurik’s work and I’m certainly not impressed. He seems to be less of an original writer and more akin to some of the talking heads that you find on Twitter. These talking heads identify trends on Twitter and then capitalize on them by curating these talking points so they can monetize a created identity around them. In actuality, they don’t have any original thoughts nor can they actually battle with authentic thinkers in the market of free ideas. Case and point when Jackson Hinkle, who seems to be Rurik with more success, went on Tim Pool’s Timcast IRL and was unable to form a coherent rebuttal to objections from Tim and crew as they bitch slapped him for his ideas on communism and the Soviet Union. Ultimately Hinkle looked like a complete grifter. If you want to see that, click this link and go to the 1:49:30 mark.
By the way, like Rurik, Jackson Hinkle is a complete grifter as you can see from this video that was taken 5 years ago when he was 19.
Hinkle is still a cultural Marxist but he has latched on to MAGA as his bread and butter. The same feeling is easily picked up by any conscious reader that views Rurik’s articles. If you look at his article’s comment section, you get the idea that people are picking up that feeling too.
According to Rurik:
“There is no easy way to say this, folks. Our casual readers are simply not supporting us financially at the level that some of us deserve. Yes, I know. It is still hard for me to believe even now as well.”
“Now this, both legally and morally-speaking, is technically classified as rape by the Hague. The fact that I am severely underpaid is a heinous crime that I think nobody can, in good consciousness, deny. But I don’t want to relive the feeling of revulsion that I’ve been feeling at the defilement of my blog by callous, cruel, casual readers today.”
Sorry old sport, no one has ever taken the Hague seriously and that’s not rape, that’s entitlement. You are not entitled to your subscriber’s wallets and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking as much. I know that Rurik is being a bit tongue-in-cheek about all this, but it comes off douchey and in poor taste. He’s essentially attacking his own audience in an attempt to grab money from them. And to be honest, Rurik is a bit of a cunt.
Even one of my paid subscribers,
, who also subscribes to Rurik was quick to comment on Rurik’s article and correct him:My paid subscriber wasn’t the only one to ridicule Rurik for his entitled position, in fact there were quite a few.
in particular had an excellent take:I couldn’t agree more with their statement, because I have seen so many writers get a taste of success and immediately sell out to suckle greed’s tit. And I don’t want anyone to think that this is an attempt to convert one of Rurik’s former paid subscriber over to my platform, so let me just say, I don’t write anything similar to Rurik and I don’t personally need their money. I mean I am broke but a couple of bucks isn’t going to purify my soul; which is a lesson Rurik would do well to understand. It’s better to be a man with a good heart and no money than a man without a good heart and a fat wallet; for avarice is the corruption of the soul when man covets material things.
Below is another example of Rurik not understanding or caring for his audience:
Free subscribers join a publication’s subscriber list for a multitude of reasons and above, Nick, points out that he was once a paid subscriber but is ultimately canceling his paid membership because Rurik is disappointing. I agree Rurik certainly is disappointing for trying to guilt trip his audience into supporting subpar writing with their hard earned cash.
And look, I know I’m being harsher to Rurik than Morg was, however, maybe I’m just far more fed up with this kind of entitlement because I have seen it so much in recent years.
But speaking of Morg, we should take a look at his very reasonable approach to Rurik’s entitlement:
“Rurik is obviously being a bit tongue-in-cheek in his post, but underneath that, you can see that he is frustrated that more people are not paying for a subscription. I suspect there are many writers who feel the same way. It can be demoralizing to keep putting out content and not get paid for it.”
Writers will always write, with or without patronage. It’s something that we do because it is our art and our souls reach out to the divine through our written musings. However, you can tell when someone is in the game for money when the hold the same opinion as Rurik and not the opinions that Morg and I share.
“However, I think it is important to keep in mind that there are so many great writers on Substack that it is hard for readers to allocate limited funds to pay for subscriptions. How many subscriptions can a reader afford to pay? 5? 10? 20? After a certain point, a reader has to draw the line.”
“Perhaps this is a weak point in Substack’s business model? Maybe there needs to be some sort of bundling option for publications? I do not know how this would work, but maybe just selling subscriptions to one pub at a time doesn’t scale well because readers only have so much money to spend?”
Morg is right, there are hundreds of really good writers on Substack and it is a competitive market of ideas, so you can’t expect to “rape” your customers and steal their wallets to fund your ego. Since the market is so competitive, you have to be incredibly savvy when it comes to marketing and a very talented (or at the very least experienced) writer. And as far as the bundling option goes, I’m already working on that myself, but if Substack brings that to the table then I’m all ears. Oh Morg, by the way, if they start bundling content you’re the first person I’m approaching.
“I make it a point to have a How You Can Support My Writing section after the end of each article. I include a discounted subscription option, Buy Me A Coffee, and a Bitcoin address. I didn’t see anything similar on Rurik’s article page. So he is effectively leaving his readers with only one way to support him: paid subscriptions.”
I also do something similar where I have a Stripe payment link set up for donations that I include at the end of my articles. Though I haven’t received any donations and with the majority of my compensation coming from paid subscriptions, it’s still a good idea to include a work around for those that want to support your writing and message without the hassle of subscribing.
“I have found my readers to be incredibly generous, too. I have asked for help several times when I didn’t have offline work because of the weather, and a number of readers have donated help via Buy Me A Coffee or bought paid subs. I cannot convey how relieved I was to get such help; my readers saved my ass, and I will always be grateful to them.”
“God bless each of you who helped me when I needed it. Thanks so much. 🙏🏻”
Amen brother, my subscribers are some of the most generous people that I have had the pleasure of conversing with. When my subscribers found out I lost my job, they leapt at the opportunity to lend a hand. Perhaps if Rurik was a better man, he would receive greater blessings.
“So if you are feeling frustrated that you don’t have more paid subscriptions, consider what I’ve written here. Keep writing, and keep growing your base of readers. You will likely get more paid subscribers as you continue to build a relationship with your readers, and your readers share your content.”
The moment you give up writing, is the moment you lose all momentum. I have run across so many really great writers’ publications that are completely dead despite the fact that they could write much better than I could, however, I never gave up. Perhaps it’s my past, but failing doesn’t stop me from working round the clock to develop my skills and become a better writer. So don’t give up and don’t just stop writing because you feel defeated. Make sure you build a community and work towards showing your community that you actually appreciate the support they give you. And make sure you reward them for their loyalty and support.
Now, I want to finish off this article with a quick poll, which is something that Morg also did on his publication. Understanding that times are tough and also being a working class guy like many of my supporters, I want to keep the price as low as possible so people can support me and the new writers that I am bringing on. Because of Rurik’s entitlement, I have been incredibly humbled to realize that my writing is exceptional enough to have people pay to support me. And to welcome more of you into the Liberty Magazine community, I want to lower those prices and let you choose which option you think is best so that you can view more of our content.
Please don’t consider buying a paid subscription until the poll is over in three days. I don’t want you to buy one and potentially spend more money than you absolutely need to.
And finally, thank you all again for reading my work and I just wanted to finish this by saying God bless you. I look forward to hearing what you have to say in the comments.
If you would like to support my work then you can:
Donate to Liberty Magazine’s Stripe account by clicking this link.
Gimme a break, Rurik. Just cuz you're butt-hurt, that doesn't mean you've been raped.
I'm not even reading his “shitty” writing. So, there.