What 8,900+ readers hate about the state of writing today

plus: fewer boys than i thought, infidelity stats, and more results from the internet princess reader survey

note: this post is too long for email and includes a lot of images, so may be easier to read it on your browser or the app.

Here is the first thing I’ll say about the internet princess reader survey: I don’t think I realized how truly random a sample size can get when you send an email out to a subscriber list of 130,000 people collected over four years of prolific posting across all major social media platforms. Multiple responders to the survey asserted that they don’t know why they get my emails, don’t remember signing up, don’t know who I am, and don’t understand what this blog is at all.¹ And those are from the people who chose to open and respond! (I found it touching that even within this group, there was a vast spectrum of emotion present: one responder said that they didn’t understand what was happening when they started getting the emails but liked the writing enough that it became a welcome surprise; another said they really want to unsubscribe but can’t figure out how, and for that reason they plan to sue me).

All this to say: this poll has been filled out by many, many people. 8,950 people as of right now! I read through hundreds and hundreds of write-in responses, and I wish I could have read them all. Several of them made me cry. The whole thing felt at times very overwhelming — parts of this survey were silly, of course, but there were also parts that were very serious, and it really did feel like a very serious thing for so many people to share a real, vulnerable part of themselves with me. It’s actually a big deal to try and share any real part of yourself with anyone, and I don’t take it lightly that I bore witness to that here. It all made me feel much less alone. Thank you so much for filling it out!

(NOTE: I’ll generally say “readers” instead of “polled readers” for the rest of this post just for brevity/ease of communication, but of course all this data only represents the answers of the polled group.)

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DEMOGRAPHIC INFO

• according to this poll, i have more gender non-conforming readers than male ones. lol. i was surprised by this!! before this survey, i would have guessed that men made up about a quarter of my audience. the results showed less than half that — 11.9% — while non-binary readers polled at 8.6%, genderqueer at 4.3%, and 2.5% of respondents selected “other”.² (out of curiosity, i checked my instagram analytics, where i found that men do make up about a quarter of my followers over there. interesting.) if you are a man, what’s your read on this?

• (I asked my readers to guess what this number would be, and the guesses varied from 2% to a very optimistic 45%. interestingly, both the highest and lowest guesses tended to come from men.)

when men read this blog magical things can happen

• i’ve always thought of my readership as skewing pretty young; when explaining my work to strangers that i often say my blog is popular with teenage-to-college-aged girls. so i was very surprised to see that the majority of my readers are older than me: 63.6% of readers are 23 and older, with about 4.5% being older than 40. the largest group was 23-27 (38.8%), and the second-largest was 18-22 (32.2%). exactly eighty people older than 60 responded to this poll, and I want to get to know all of them.

  

• of all the results in this whole survey, I think I was most surprised by how few of my readers are in high school. when i started this blog, high-school-aged readers made up a good chunk of my audience — i would have guessed a quarter to a third. now, they’ve polled at the shockingly low 4.16%. i have more readers over 40 than i do in high school! i was genuinely confused by this for a minute because it was just so different than how i conceived of my audience when i started my blog, but then i realized something both completely obvious and strangely affecting: i am three or four years older than i was when a lot of people first started seeing my work, so a good amount of those high school girls are, well, three or four years older now, too. the majority of 14-18s moved into 18-22s. we’re growing up ! :’)

#how i’m feeling now

• on this note, 41.5% of readers work full-time. 26.7% are in undergrad, 11.1% are in grad school, and 22% work part-time (this was a select-multiple question). approx 6% are not in education, employment, or training; 3.7% are in part-time education; 2.9% are in community college; 0.4% are in trade school. popular write-in answers include retired, on disability, on a gap year, and freelancing. exactly one person self-identified as living on family money (congrats!).

MY ANSWER: i am full-time self-employed. for the curious: i am fully financially independent and 100% of my income comes from writing. it varies every year, but about half my income annually now comes from substack and the other half comes from my book deal.

• on this note, 39% of readers work in a field related to writing, criticism, or media. 61% do not.

• the vast majority of internet princess readers (approx 83.4%) identify as left-wing, socialist, or communist. the biggest chunk is left-wing, although it’s just a hair bigger than “socialist” (34.8% and 34.4%, respectively). 14.2% are communists. I did not include a write-in section because I lovingly knew that too many communists would want to write in their specific ideological subgroup and it would make it too hard to generalize the data. I know i was right because a bunch of people wrote theirs in the open-comment question anyway.

• 0.6% of polled readers identify as conservative! that’s not nothing, which is kind of interesting. if you’re conservative, email me and let me know why you subscribe, unless the answer is that you want to kill me or something, in which case i would rather not know.

MY ANSWER: when someone asks me how i identify politically, i tend to say i’m a Marxist feminist, because that feels most broadly representative of what i believe about most things. on this poll, i would say that i’m a communist. but for the record i am a pretty bad communist — i don’t do enough of the reading.

• 15.8% of readers are connected to an organized religion. 59.9% are not. 24.3% feel religious or spiritual, but are not connected to an organized faith.

MY ANSWER: I was raised sort of half-in and half-out of the Catholic Church (my mom left the church when I was a baby, but other close family members were very religious and I sort of split the difference), and now practice a non-rigorous Catholicism that feels very important to my stability and sense of self (although, being non-rigorous and also coinciding with my generally non-Catholic beliefs about women and sex, some would certainly argue it’s not Catholicism at all, lol). it’s complicated, etc, etc. i’ll save it for the book. for the record, i gave up food delivery for Lent this year.

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MEDIA CONSUMPTION

• novels are by far the most prominent part of my readers’ media diets. this wasn’t surprising, but was interesting to me because fiction isn’t a huge part of my life! i think fiction is wonderful, obviously, but the vast majority of what i read is non-fiction. it’s also slightly frustrating that i know so little about the breakdown of what types of novels people are reading. i didn’t want to make this question (and survey in general) untenable by adding too many sub-options, but maybe i should do a big reading-specific survey sometime in the future because i’m just always really curious about what people are reading and why, how they think about/engage with book & essay culture, etc. (if you answered this question, please feel free to give more details in the comments.)

• 64% of readers consider Substack a primary part of their media diet. this is in some sense a huge number, but i think it’s still relatively lower than one might expect from the readership of a substack blog. it’s honestly nice to hear that i have some demographic diversity in this respect, or that i have a lot of readers who aren’t super into “substack culture” — as much as I love substack, I also want my work (and all our work) to feel separate from and bigger than the website that hosts it! plus the culture on the app can sometimes feel so all-consuming, especially when you make your money there (I always say the psychological toll is like if your performance on Twitter was directly tied to your retirement plan), and it’s nice to be reminded that it’s not actually the whole world.

• i was slightly surprised by how few readers counted literary journals as a major part of their media diet (11.1% and 10.5% for major and indie, respectively, and i’m guessing there’s almost 100% overlap between those two answers). the lit mag scene is such a heavily-reported-on part of life in New York it’s funny to be reminded that it’s still so niche, even within a writing-based community like this one.

• popular write-in answers include fanfiction, poetry, comics, and twitter/social media.

MY ANSWER: i would say my primary daily media diet is composed of non-fiction books, substacks, and essays from lit journals and art magazines of all sizes. will get into more detail on this in my upcoming post about reading.

• as for why people read the things they read, the answers were spread out pretty evenly. the number one answer by far was “to expand consciousness or challenge myself intellectually”. (that is so awesome!!!) the least popular answer by a significant margin was “to be part of a community that reads similar things”. this was a bit surprising because I think that’s actually a big part of why I read: I love being a part of the discourse about viral essays on twitter, I love texting the group chat about new pieces from writers we like (or don’t like), I love being able to talk to people about the new it-book of the season. i’m curious how you all feel about this! does the idea of reading the same things as the people around you not really appeal to you, or does it just not really feel like an option, or is it a part of your life but isn’t especially meaningful/notable, or did that answer feel redundant bc of the way the question was worded, or … so on and so on. let me know what you think.

MY ANSWER: expanding consciousness/challenging myself intellectually is probably my biggest reason. reading is also very tangibly a part of my job: i do research and background reading almost every day for my book and for substack, and I also just like to keep up with the community and so on. honestly all these answers feel true in some way to me but the other most relevant ones are: to be a part of a community that reads similar things, to understand my own experiences, and to learn tangible new information.

• 54.4% of readers identify as critics. 45.6% of readers are fans. i’m a critic, but its complicated — I wrote about it in depth here.

• The Barbie movie had mixed reviews among internet princess readers. nearly 60% said they enjoyed it, but with reservations. 10.5% said they disliked it artistically, and 18.8% disliked it politically. 15.1% have (or want to have) no opinion. one commenter predicted this would be the most revealing question on the whole survey. do you agree?

MY ANSWER: to be honest I found the Barbie movie generally unaffecting both artistically and politically. I think politically I mostly just found it incomprehensible. The most interesting thing about it to me was the reception.

• 50.9% of readers consider themselves “very online”. another one of those stats that is objectively quite high but still feels pretty low. 15.4% do not, and 33.7% say they were at one point but are not anymore.

MY ANSWER: proud to say that I used to be but don’t feel like I really am anymore. obviously I still spend all my time On The Computer but I don’t feel locked in like I used to — I don’t feel like my online life is bigger or more real than my offline life. (potentially to the detriment of my career.)

• when asked how they feel about the internet, the largest group of readers — about 44% — say they generally like the internet but feel reservations or have criticisms of it nonetheless. 24.4% say they’re broadly critical of it but still participate for reasons they mostly don’t understand. only 2% feel few reservations about the internet, and a tiny 0.5% say they’re ambivalent or have no opinion.

• I received literally thousands upon thousands of detailed pet peeves, annoyances, gripes, and criticisms about the state of writing today. there are far too many to represent here (I tried my best and could only get through a few hundred of them — they were very detailed!). some names were named (i will not name them). here were some of the themes I saw repeated most often:

  • an annoyance with writers (particularly on substack) who “don’t read enough” or cite their sources, and instead make broad, “vibes-based” criticisms that aren’t concretely rooted in reality

  • people hate “let people enjoy things”, “it’s not that deep”, and other defensive responses to media criticism

  • many readers are exhausted by a monotony of white, wealthy, urban (especially NYC-based) women in the essay space, and the presentation of their experiences as though they are universal

  • many criticisms specifically of New York based writers who write as though New York is the centre of the universe, or as though everyone everywhere should be automatically familiar with their references. I have thoughts on this — maybe will drop them in the comments.

  • there’s a distaste or annoyance with writing, both fiction and non-fiction, that feels like it exists to advertise the author’s own perfect morality or feels overly based on “performative” identity politics

  • others express frustration at writing, particularly personal-essay writing or blogging, that feels too “apolitical” or not in touch enough with material political reality

  • many readers describe a feeling of repetition, like the same ideas and styles are being recycled again and again, perhaps at the behest of “the algorithm” or to maximize engagement without much intellectual effort

  • frustration with writing that discusses a topic without meaningfully engaging with the history of thought around that topic

  • everyone thinks most book covers are ugly now

• and here is a very small sample of a few responses I found interesting:

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SENSE OF SELF

• 54.6% of readers identify with mommy issues over daddy issues. this made me feel at home; i’m a mommy issues girl too, obviously.

MY ANSWER: mommy issues. daddy issues too but they’re not the main event and also not really the usual kind.

• 39.4% of readers identify as mentally ill. 23.3% do not. 17.1% say they used to, but don’t anymore, and 14.4% say they don’t identify with the label even if a doctor might identify them that way.

MY ANSWER: depends on the day… i would generally say yes, but sometimes i find the label “mentally ill” restrictive and reductive, and I also think I fear my own over-identification with it.

• 9.9% of readers say it is not important to them that they understand themselves. 90.1% say it is. this is i think the most polarized question on the whole list.

MY ANSWER: it is important to me that I understand myself, but I think I asked this question in part because I sometimes question the utility of that impulse, and the limits of endless self-interpretation as way of living in the world.

• 62.1% of readers identify with indulgence over repression, and 37.9% identify with repression over indulgence. I used to ask people this question frequently, because the tension between indulgence and repression has always felt like one of the singular defining forces in my life and i’m very curious about how it feels for other people. one of my friends once replied that the dichotomy is kind of a trick: if someone lives their life with constant self-enforced repression, they probably have a deeply-held fear of indulgence, and therefore indulgence might actually be the more defining force in their life, and vice versa. if you answered this question, would be curious to hear more about what it meant to you.

MY ANSWER: I identify much more with repression, in that much of my daily life revolves around self-imposed rules and restrictions that I feel I need to follow in order to prevent bad things from happening to myself and others. but of course my alignment with repression is a result of how badly a part of me has always wanted to indulge with no limit and no control, and how powerless I feel I am against indulgence when it takes me.

• 79.3% of readers feel like they are performing for an unseen audience even when they are alone. easter egg alert. that’s a lot, but there have been times in my life when I assumed that feeling was basically completely universal, so it’s valuable to be reminded that it isn’t.

MY ANSWER: yes, of course, but not nearly as much as I used to — or maybe I just spend less time worrying about it.

• the most common “default” negative emotion among my readers is anxiety, followed closely by shame. popular write-ins included frustration, loneliness, dread, and boredom. the least common selections were envy, anger, and despair. these were the responses that were the most emotionally affecting for me to sort through — thank you for answering the question so thoughtfully and honestly.

MY ANSWER: shame.

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LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS

• 69.5% of readers have been in love. 14.4% have not, and 16.1% say maybe.

MY ANSWER: I have been in love. Probably three times total, or maybe four. (is this a lot or a little? or normal? let me know.)

• 57.8% have experienced unrequited love. 23.2% have not, and 19.1% say maybe.

MY ANSWER: I think i’d say no, but leaning “maybe”. i’ve had unsuccessful crushes and unfulfilled fantasies but don’t think i’ve ever felt true unrequited love in the obliterating, all-consuming way i see it described.

• 11.7% of readers have cheated on a partner, and 15.7% say “sort of”. my boyfriend was scandalized by how high this number was; i thought it was surprisingly low.

MY ANSWER: i have never cheated on a partner. BUT what makes it an interesting question to me is that i’ve probably done things that, while not inappropriate or harmful in any of my relationships, might be considered cheating or cheating-adjacent in some other relationships with different agreed-upon boundaries (similarly, there are things other people are totally fine with that I would probably consider to be a huge betrayal). i want to say so much more about this but monogamy and fidelity are such huge and loaded topics it feels like there’s no way to say something quick about them if I want to represent my thoughts accurately at all. whatever. as usual, i’m curious what YOU think about all this.

• 34.7% of readers consider their romantic partner the primary relationship in their life. hooray for romance! but I was really excited to see that close friend(s) is a close second, with 26.6% of readers. almost 9% list their own artistic or intellectual work as their primary relationship, which I also thought was very cool.

• another one of my blind spots was visible in this question: it genuinely did not occur to me that some of my readers are parents or grandparents! a few people wrote in to say that their primary relationship is with their child. other popular write-ins include: “myself”, “God”, and a pet.

• 63.8% of readers feel like they currently belong to an in-person community, and 17.1% feel like they belong to a mostly-online community. 27.3% do not feel like they belong to a community at all. (this was a select-multiple question.)

MY ANSWER: i feel like i belong to a strong social community, certainly, and to some degree feel like i belong in both an on- and offline literary community (aka i would answer “yes” to this question). but i also think community is a difficult thing to define, and I think both the communities I just referenced work a little differently from, like, the type of community one might find in a church or around a school. my boyfriend (who is a comedian) says one of the things that defines his sense of community is that he knows he can go to a specific comedy venue and will literally always see people he knows — there’s a physical place where he can go basically anytime on any day and be with people who aren’t necessarily his close friends or anything, but who are knit together nonetheless, and care for each other, as a result of their shared love of the thing they do. my experience of the literary community is kind of like this, but writing is just I think functionally less social, less collective, and less performance-based than most other art forms, so I don’t feel as much like there’s a physical locus of community in the same way. although there’s always the Drift parties!!!

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MISCELLANEOUS

• almost 30% of readers have had a weird pet. this was one of my proudest demographic pulls, since the reported national average (in the US) for exotic pet ownership is reportedly 13.3%. i’m very proud to have more than double the typical percentage of weird-pet owners.

MY ANSWER: i was an absurdly devoted rat owner from ages 12-18.

my sweet girl .. i miss you so much every day

• 67.1% of people say their parents are together, while 32.9% say the opposite. in retrospect, this was probably my worst question in terms of wording and framing; I realized almost immediately after publishing that it becomes very hard to answer if you have one or more deceased parents, a close lifelong step-parent, or pretty much any type of alternative caretaker situation. this is completely my fault — i’m very embarrassed to have made this mistake. i appreciate everyone’s attempts to answer it anyway.

• a clean 20% of readers have dropped out of an academic institution, while 80% have not.

MY ANSWER: i of course dropped out of college in disgrace after five amazing months of a physics degree.

• 53.4% of readers think they shop less than the average person. this is obviously in some sense an impossible question, because what does average mean? we almost certainly all shop more than the global average, but i am pretty sure i shop less than the average person in my demographic (i.e. 23-year-old girls in big cities who share my general social class), and probably a little less than the average American or Canadian overall. what’s interesting to me, though, is that the wording really just makes it a different kind of question (i.e. a more psychological one, more ultimately about self-perception). most respondents FEEL like people who consume less than the people around them. if this were a more expansive survey, I would be so interested to see how people’s answers to this question compared against their actual spending habits.

MY ANSWER: oh god. my first instinct is to say i think i shop the normal amount, but “normal” is famously a loaded term. i always tell people that because i have no classic vices (don’t drink, use drugs, etc) my one true vice is online shopping — i literally use it to get myself to sleep like some people use weed. but i am pretty good at not actually buying anything and instead just recreationally e-window-shopping (although now that I type it out like that, seems to indicate a deep spiritual vacancy in its own way). ultimately i think i make a relatively small number of higher-price purchases, probably about 1-3 new clothing items per month. (the average American apparently buys 4-5 new clothing items per month.) but i would guess that i’m spending more money per item than the average American. so … who knows.

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the end! thank you for reading and for filling out the survey. and a huge thank you to my boyfriend Liam for making all the charts i used in this post. <3 <3 <3

1. which i’m actually curious about because i’ve obviously never added anyone to my subscriber list without their request. i’m guessing the majority of these are people who accidentally clicked “subscribe” on someone else’s recommendation, as can happen on the substack app. i wish substack made it easier to avoid doing that — i don’t care about The Numbers enough to like having a bunch of subscribers who don't want to be here!

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• popular write-in options included lesbian, genderfluid, and agender.