Announcing Paid Subscriber Perks and Content

Glenn is a jealous, homo-hating whitebread dumb as a box o rocks morherfucker.

2024 was a watershed year for me. In late 2023, I came to the realization that being an academic is an utterly stupid career choice, so I didn’t apply to Ph.D. programs (a possibly unwise decision), and I had to scramble to find a normal job even though my resume consists mostly of scholarly papers I’ve written and things I’ve done in R, and papers and things I’ve helped other people write and do in R. I managed to find one, and other than some lobbying work I do on the side, it’s incredibly boring. So, after I got an interesting article by Wayne Hsiung in my inbox in July, and then watched a debate between Bentham’s Bulldog and Richard Hanania in August, I decided I would spice things up and try my hand at Substacking.

Apparently, I already had a newsletter from when I started subscribing to other people’s blogs a few years ago, and this was during my Agamben phase. (Don’t we all have one?) I never planned on writing about the state of exception, but “United States of Exception” is a clever enough title, so I decided to keep it. I also figured that no one would notice my profile picture is an AI-generated image of Michel Foucault in the style of Pablo Picasso, so I kept that, too — and on that, I seem to have been proven right.

My first article was a comparison of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (who?) on the issue of factory farming, which I haven’t gone back and read in a while so I can’t say how good it is and I’m not going to link it here. A few weeks later, I inadvertently got into a feud with a major league Substacker, The Most Least Remarkable Person on the Internet, and went viral. Which is to say, I had 500 irate people in my comments and I’d never felt so alive.

That was three and a half months ago. Since then, I’ve published a total of 47 articles and racked up just over 1,000 subscribers. (I have in fact stacked the subs.) Readers have shared countless words of encouragement, including “IDGAF about you or your backwards, incel way of thinking,” and “you’re just another jealous, homo-hating whitebread dumb as a box o rocks morherfucker,” and “How do you believe this is great writing? You sound like tomorrow’s case on Court TV.” Multiple people have also mistaken me for Glenn Greenwald, even though that’s totally ridiculous because Greenwald is a different queeny, heterodox, vaguely libertarian, anti-interventionist gay vegan blogger who was also once affiliated the Cato Institute, goes by Glenn, and often overstates his claims. You can tell us apart because unlike Greenwald, I don’t have gay voice and my name isn’t actually Glenn, although I chose it as an alias long enough ago that I don’t remember why, but it was around the time I was into folks like Greenwald and Chomsky.

Seeing as how there are so many people who enjoy the idea of reading about the state of exception, but not actually reading about the state of exception (and given, also, that I would like to not have to have an employer), I’ve decided to turn on paid subscriptions starting today, January 2, 2025. For now, the price is the Substack standard — $5 per month or $50 per year — but I may raise it in no sooner than a few months. (So if you’re going to buy a subscription, do so now!) I plan on paywalling somewhere around one-third of all articles, maybe less, and increasing output so free subscribers keep getting the same amount of content as they do now. But we’ll see if I have the bandwidth for that.

(I’ll also give anyone a free year-long paid subscription who starts a new recurring donation of at least $25 per month to the EA Animal Welfare Fund or any FarmKind or Animal Charity Evaluators recommended charity and sends me a receipt.)

Paid subscribers will receive the following perks:

• Paywalled articles: Access to everything, including the entire blog archive.

• Chat: Access to the official United States of Exception Substack subscriber chat.

• Monthly video calls: An invitation to join me on a monthly paid-subscriber-only video call, with the link posted in the chat each month. (If these get too large, I’ll increase the frequency to twice a month. If they’re still too large, this will become a perk for founding members only.)

• Request articles: I’ll create a thread in the chat each month where you can suggest any piece of literature or media you’d like me to review, up to two per subscriber per year — including your own blog or articles — and if it’s a reasonable length and I don’t think it would alienate too much of the audience, I’ll write a post about it. (This will also eventually become a perk for founding members only.)

• Advanced access: Occasionally, I’ll share links to article drafts in the paid subscriber chat for you to offer input. I will acknowledge any substantive contributions in the footnotes when the article is published. (If this gets too chaotic, I will only do this for founding members.)

• Podcast interviews: If you can prove to me that you have something interesting to say — at least interesting enough to justify an hour-plus conversation — I’ll record an audio or video podcast with you and post it on the blog. No limit on the frequency, as long as you’re sufficiently interesting.

• Mutualism: I resolved long ago not to lose any money on Substack, so I’ve intentionally abstained from buying any paid subscriptions until I start getting paid subscribers. If you’re one of my favorite blogs, then if you buy a subscription to me, I’ll have more money coming in from the website and it’s more likely I’ll buy a subscription to you.

• Life advice: If you want it, I guess you can ask the chat or something.

• Naming rights: For various amounts of money, I’ll name or rename my online alias ($10,000), newsletter ($50,000), or first-born child ($2,000,000) after anything you want.¹ Do you want the blog to be called Glenn Is a Jealous, Homo-Hating Whitebread Dumb as a Box o Rocks Morherfucker? You’ve got it! At least half the proceeds will go to the EA Animal Welfare Fund.

To mark the occasion of opening paid subscriptions (and to convince you to buy one), I’m going to be posting articles at a very fast clip for the next few days. I’ve curated the topics to reflect the diversity of content I typically post, and each will be available in full to both paid and free subscribers for at least a week after it’s published. Here’s what I have planned (I’ll be adding links as I publish them):

• In Praise of Ineffective Altruism. In which I argue that organizations and volunteers (but not funders) should sometimes support sub-optimal charitable interventions.

• Climate Change Is Worse Than Factory Farming. I was skeptical, too, but I think there’s a plausible argument here.

• I’m a Gamer. I’m not, but you’ll find out why I say I am.

• Americhuds Deserve Less. On the recent H-1B controversy and the crisis of meritocracy on the right.

• You’re Wrong About Luigi Mangione. In which I get pedantic.

• Insect Liberation Now! My long-awaited response to “they’re eating the bugs!” by Amos Wollen, where I explain why we should be optimistic about farmed invertebrate welfare.

• Caring More About Caring Less. A follow-up to an earlier article defending apathy. Once you read this one, you’ll know I’m a Serious Blogger because I’ve coined my own term.

So there you go. That’s what you get if you become a paid subscriber to United States of Exception (or, if you give me $50,000, whatever you want it to be called). I don’t have much else to add, and since brevity is a virtue that this blog often lacks, I’ll end it there. I hope to see you on the other side of the paywall!

1. Subject to my veto, but you’d be surprised how little I care about my image.