It’s the end of third quarter and I’m going a review to see what sort of things did well, and which did poorly. Due to the fairly extraordinary event that came in the form of the publication of MIOS: Iran’s PressTV on June 2nd, this is actually the last four months of activity. There were eight traffic events I thought worthy of exploring and I also added the marker for the start of Q3.
There were 142 followers the day the Iran story broke and 756 this morning as I’m tinkering with stats and KolourPaint to combine charts. Growth here has been a fairly linear five per day, with followers now eclipsing subscribers 401 to 355. I’ve made it a point of engaging in Notes which is driving both of those numbers. Had I not done that I don’t think my total audience would have cracked the 200 mark.
These are the eight events in time sorted order with their related stats. A spike of subscribers came and went with the Durov article, which generated a record 714 views for this Substack. The Secret Service Failure likes were clearly Jeff Stein’s recommendation, the Pissboy article bump I think has to do with the long tail of attention it’s been receiving.
Email open rates have varied from 20% to 36% - me “apologizing” to Grayzone and Arturo Tafoya’s suicide, which later proved to be faked, were the most opened. The things that are least opened are announcements about technology things that I felt were so important they should appear in main instead of being relegated to Tool Time. Not a lot of you agree with that :-(
I think what is happening is that, overall, you guys go for a provocative title, you’ll read a mix of news and tradecraft stuff, and only the most focused and/or automated processes bother to look at the things that have to do with Tool Time.
This is what you see as top articles for September 30th, 2024, if you visit a thinly trafficked piece. The first one is a comparison of the declines of Biden and Trump, with a lot of prognostication on what Trump’s inevitable failure means. You guys are interested in Russia - domestic influence operations against us, and conditions in Russia itself.
This area used to be pretty stable, but the combination of growing audience and articles that contain links to older work can push it around - there isn’t a lot of inertia, Secret Service Failure is the one thing that’s proving really durable.
Matching Media & Mission:
The long term issue I face when writing is succinctly described in the section title. There are things I’ve experienced, things I’ve read about, things that I strongly suspect are incoming because I’ve been doing this for a while.
And I do not write about those things in a simple, linear, complete, “this is what I think is happening” fashion.
The are a number of reason I don’t do that.
You guys come here for digestible chunks, not a 90 page NATO CCDCOE monograph on the subject.
The problem is cross-disciplinary in nature when one is as close as we are - you can’t go stick your nose into an influence op without the kit necessary to face the hazards. Operations psychological and operations technical at this level are close enough that they touch frequently.
We are facing an increasingly automated environment - think Ethiopian tribesmen getting strafed by Regia Aeronautica Bredas in the 1930s. We may perceive things, but affecting them from the ground is a whole ‘nother level.
Environments like this are always rapidly evolving, that was true prior to the broad accessibility of AI automation. Advice in this world is like dairy products - check the best by date before you consume.
While I might be an experienced operator with some capability to convey tradecraft to others, I am just one guy struggling to reboot my career after a combination of a long illness and endless hate group attention.
Conclusion:
I am guardedly excited that this Substack has taken off so well. Because the conflict advice herein comes from being close enough to observe directly, I can write a thing like Grifter: Richard Anderson Sharp III, but then take a step back, see what’s going on with Mryia Report Disbands, and realize it’s a broad, systemic sort of thing.
There is a variety of other stuff which I am aware, which will never get any play here. Things like Ignoring Irrelevant Idiocy are done so you, constant reader, can see the messy, interpersonal stuff that swamps social movements … but such articles also let me telegraph a bit:
“I see your dumb ass over there, being a dumbass, and I’m not giving you any attention, no matter how many times you bite the head off a live chicken”.
These 21st century geek shows are a constant misfeature of “chan culture” that have become broadly weaponized. There’s going to be more of that in the world for fourth quarter, but I think much less of it here. We’ll focus on … abstraction … recognition and avoidance … maintaining authenticity without offering an attack surface for such actors.
So there you have it, four months of fairly rapidly growth, and now we stand at the edge of the abyss. The theme for fourth quarter will be running along the edge … without taking a tumble into the maelstrom.
Good job.