I Shut Substack Down

Feat. the loser of Tag Tag

See how great a forest a little hashtag kindles.

It was just a game.

Taking Substack by storm, making 67 as dank as flossing, the #TagTag phenomenon spread like the plague.

I don’t know who invented tag chains, but they were like the newest fad. Like the Sunshine Blogger Award but for Notes. Someone would answer a random question and tag the next person to do so. We were getting a little sick of them.

Well, I was.

And so I did what I usually do when something is boring. I made it fun. I made it a competition. The rules were simple. We keep track of how often we’re tagged, and when we get tagged we tag someone else. Like a game of tag. Tag tag.

But there was just one problem. The original rules let people tag 3 people. Tagging grew exponentially. Within hours the metaverse was flooded with tags, like those starch suds you get when you boil noodles. It essentially tripled with each iteration. And this was supposed to last a week.

On top of that, people were responding to each tag indiviually, so they’d post frickin 11 notes in a row. Our notifications were submerged in Tag Tags instead of, like, normal wholesome content. I stopped Liking things and even reading things.

People were getting an advantage jumping in late or having weird, untaggable usernames. We were running out of questions. Our friends went from people to notification makers.

It was kind of maybe just a little bit chaotic.

So I cut it to 2 days and 1 tag. But of course the word didn’t spread perfectly. Some people ignored it and tagged 5 people anyway. Some people kept responding individually. I even broke my own rules, tagging only 1 person despite lumping several responses together. Of course, my incredibly organized pub chat helped clear everything up.

Trust me, I heard all of your weeping and gnashing of teeth. I felt it too.

And as the day wore on, everybody started blaming me for everything. They tried to organize to flood my notifications and destroy me with my own game.

But I only tagged 17 people. That’s literally 3% of all the tags. Don’t blame the game designer when people cheat. If y’all wanted all the tags to stop then you could have, I don’t know, stopped tagging people.

The Aftermath

It was competitive. It grew exponentially. Not a great combination.

I was counting on the fact that most of us would be on Substack maybe 2 or 3 times a day. But sadly, I thought too highly of us:

And you know what’s funny?

Hats off to everyone smart enough to stay out of this

So what have we learned here? First of all, it’s easier than we think to start a trend. I also think it easier than we think to stop one. Because I know if one of you gets tagged one more time you’ll hook some dynamite up to your laptop and blow it up.

And you shouldn’t have had email notifications on in the first place. That’s on you.

Some people are actually still alive - they just needed a few tags.

And some people need to frickin get a life.

Maybe I’ve made you aware of what you’re consuming on Notes now. You want substance. You want originality. You want humanity, not a bunch of animals howling with the latest alpha.

But most of all, you want revenge on me.

First I was the Girls Are Too Fluffy guy. Now I’m the Tag Tag guy.

Well then. Here’s the final score:

Yeah. Not only did the mob blame me for their riot, but their riot didn’t even work.¹ I knew where their chat was but I deliberately chose not to look for the fun of it. And they ended up condemning one of their own.

And the punishment, as we ‘all’ agreed, was to post something embarassing and cringey that they wrote.

So sit back, grab a slice of humble pie, and ‘enjoy’.

The Adventures of the Panther King

By 12-year-old ❄️Juliette RoseWarden🌹❤️‍🔥

Once upon a time, deep in the Asian jungle, dark with trees in the shadows, there lived a very old and wise panther. He sat on a very dark old stump, two young Jaguars sat by him. They were skilled warriors. They ceaselessly guarded him. One day as he sat on his throne, gazing into the darkness with his big solemn yellow eyes, the bushes gave a rustle.

Immediatley the jaguars were alert. An essembly of little wild animals tumbled out. Soon there was a little crowd in front of him. “Your Majesty” said one little cat “please tell us a story” “Yeah, Yeah” “tell us about when you were little” “Well,” said King. He stared ahead at nothing and began.

“When I was a lot younger, before I was King, I was stolen from my family by a group of evil bears.” “ooooo”

“my family looked far and wide and long. The Bears had hidden me in a place so dark even Panthers couldn’t see through it. Long after the Panthers gave up searching, I was still in the forbidden place. Until one day, I saw a tiger coming towards me. Now in those days, panthers and tigers didn’t have an understanding. Later I found out that this tiger was a speacial tiger and was a part of a wild cat team for protecting and rescuing wild life. She said “Little Panther, my name is Tiger~Lily. I’ve come to take you home. I am at your service.” She had white stripes on a black back-ground. A weird combination for a tiger but I asked no quiestions. She picked me up and raced me out of there as fast as she could.

As soon as we got out of the Wood of Mirk, we met the bodyguard of the leader of the bears! “MEAWA!!!” Tiger~Lily roared. It went echoeing down valleys, through tunnels and woods. Making lakes, oceans, pools and streams ripple and splash with its sound and power. It scared rabbits into their holes and foxes to their dens,miles and miles away. I felt the sound vibrated through her to me. I heard a big pounding like an avalanche slowly coming closer. I turned around and then I saw why, a whole group of ferocious, angry-looking tigers coming! Tiger~Lily said something to them in the tongue of tigers, (for up til now she had been talking in regular wild cat dialogue.) Then they turned and attacked the evil bears.

For more had come when they heard Tiger~Lily’s call.

Tiger~Lily raced off with me while the battle raged. After a while, the others caught up with us, dragging the bodyguard bear. (He was dead.)

Later when we set up camp, I found out that Tiger~ Lily could turn into a human! At first I was scared, but then I noticed that the others were at ease around her. She also didn’t hurt me, so I figured I would be okay. Sometimes they needed a human to help do things in camp, like makeing a fire or putting up a fort or tent.

Tiger~Lily quickly put up a few tents, then she took me inside and asked me a few questions. Where I lived, who my parents were, why I was in the Wood of Mirk and so on. By this time she had turned back into a tiger and I told her my parents were Rory and Royal. By the time we were done talking, the other tigers had prepared dinner; Roasted bear meat with a delicious sauce of honey, berries and apples. “That bear meat sure smells good,” I said. “Um hm. Bard, the black eared tiger, is a real good cook. Hurry up, you need to eat and get to bed. You need to get your rest for the journey ahead. We have a long way to go before your a Prince again. Don’t expect to ride on our backs all the time. We’re strong, but not that strong. You are heavy, you know.”

After dinner I was tucked in by Tiger-Lily. Hours later Tiger-Lily came to bed, “why are you not asleep, Shadow?” “I’m scared and I miss my family…….. I can’t sleep.” “I understand about missing your family, but as for being afraid there’s no reason. The other tigers are in a circle around this tent. I’ll be right inside the door. So go to sleep, Shadow.” Afterwards I went to sleep. Somewhat uneasily.

Next morning, we ate some leftover bear, then we were on the march. Hours later we were still going strong. I had ridden most of the tiger’s backs. Tiger-lily most of all. Bard was still stubborn though, he wouldn’t let me ride. Said he still had his pride to keep. We crossed streams, forded rivers, climbed mountains, and down into valleys. When we finally did camp, I fell asleep at once. We camped in a beautiful big green meadow. It had two streams. Each coming from different directions and then crossing each other and continueing on.

That night we could hear wolfes. I could tell by the sound, these were not ordinary wolfes. Bard said they were Hargs. The feircest animals, (besides the tigers) this side of the Wood of Mirk. So Tiger-lily made a speacial type of fire all around our camp. Only a speacial type of animals could make this fire. Anybody knows that wolves are afraid with fire, but this was a speacial type of fire, for a speacial type of wolfes. Around midnight, we awoke with a start, for a long howl resounded to the edges of the meadow.

Bard rushed into our tent crying “Fly! Fly! The Hargs are upon us! Fly with what you can gather, and the cub, we’ll take care of them”. Tiger-Lily and I raced off.

After hours of hard, fast going, we came to the edge of the wood. I was nervous, (for in front of us lay a farm) I knew that humans lived there, I had been taught to be distrustful of humans. Tiger-Lily was a friend of this one. She knew he could get me home.

His name was Clint Barton, he could change into a panther. Just like Tiger-Lily could, because of this he could make the same speacial fire she could. Tiger-Lily went to see him, (leaving me in a tree, of course) and that night, Tiger-Lily, the other tigers, and I spent the night in a house, which was more or less like a cave.

For dinner that night we did’nt have bear meat or anything else you find in the woods, but some strange human food. I ate it because I saw the other tigers eating it. The next day he took us into a small room, in there was a very weird looking machine. By which he transported us home. Next thing I knew I was racing into my parents paws. (After I thanked my friends) I grew up to see a happy kingdom and a long life!

1. I scrolled through every single notification and answered every single question, so we can prove whether or not I missed any.

Which ended up being 12. Which brought my score to 66 - still lower than 74.