IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

New Year, New Strategy

I shouldn’t be surprised that I got screwed over by a billionaire.

Zuckerbot is the “good” social media baron, but holy fucking asscrackers is that a low bar. Phoney Stark’s Twitter escapades are taking much of the negative press away from what’s happening with Facebook.

I am not leaving Facebook entirely. The Important Announcement is that I am pulling way back from Facebook, relocating to this here Substack as my primary base of social media operations. And I’ll explain why, hopefully without boring the shit out of you in the process. But if you don’t want to read any further because you just don’t give a fuck regarding my rationale, but you DO give a fuck about receiving my new sweary history stories, you’re going to want to follow me here (free or paid — your choice). Below is the thing to do that:

If you’re not yet convinced, or just curious about my reasoning, keep reading. Also know that there will be an enticement; there are certain posts I know my Facebook followers enjoy that, moving forward, will only be available on my Substack (free). I’ll get to that in a bit.

I began my Facebook page with a fitness focus in the spring of 2011. It took nine years to build it to 80,000 followers. In April of 2020 I switched to writing Sweary History, and it has since rapidly grown to over 300,000 followers. Over 70% are women, and I think that’s cool.

Alas, Facebook started losing money, so they killed the reach of business pages like mine. My friends have all suffered as well. We’re experts at creating content that gets lots of engagement, and we have all seen a dramatic drop in reach. Mine went down about 80%.

Why did they kill our reach? To boost ad revenue to stop the financial hemorrhaging. Forbes published an article last April about the end of organic reach. Facebook wants business pages to pay to reach their own followers, and they want them to pay a lot. The problem for people like me is that it fucking worked, so it certainly won’t change back to the way it was. Check out what happened to Facebook’s stock price after they made the change:

And I gave The Eye of Sauron (I shit you not, that’s what his employees call him) a bunch of money to make sure you, my followers whom I spent almost thirteen years collecting, saw this post. Because I want you to join me here, either free or paid. That thing again:

I have over 20,000 free subscribers to my Substack, and its monthly reach is rivaling what I’m getting with over 300k followers on Facebook, because the emails get through and I have open rates that blow away the industry standard; when people get an email from “Sweary History with James Fell” I guess they’re like fuck yeah I wanna read that. And so, Substack must be my new focus, as there is no algorithmic fuckery, and no ads. Well, I’ll sometimes ask you to buy my book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down, but there aren’t any other ads. No scammer bots here either.

I’ve always had a problem with Facebook, in that I was kind of addicted to it. I have ADHD and crave the dopamine hits and the money it made in equal measure. But here is the simple reality of the dramatic drop in reach:

It’s not paying off anymore.

Facebook is no longer worth the immense amount of time I spend on it. Again, I’m not dropping it, but I am cutting WAY back.

I averaged four or five posts a day for thirteen fucking years. It’s been exhausting; I fear it has rewired my brain and not in a good way. Conversely, I’ve made amazing friends and learned many cool things. My Facebook following is one of the best on the platform. The comments section was always a hoot, but now there are far fewer comments, because algorithmic fuckery. I just like saying algorithmic fuckery. It’s not really that, because there is no gaming this new system. It was just a platform-wide killing of reach to force us to pay.

For the past few months, despite the reach being far less than what it was, I nevertheless posted like mad because it was the holidays, and I had a new book to sell. Now that it is a New Year, I will only sometimes be posting brand new stories on Facebook. I will average approximately two new history stories a week. So, I’ll be dropping from around thirty posts a week on Facebook to only a couple.

Will you see those two posts a week on Facebook? Statistically speaking, no, you probably fucking won’t. And that’s why I paid for you to see this post of mine so I can make my appeal for you to

I mentioned an added enticement to convince you to gimme yer fuckin’ email. This, plus most history stories, will be for all subscribers, either free or paid.

One of the things people love about my Facebook, at least back when they saw the fucking posts in their feed, was my quippy remarks and clap backs. For example, this one that went so viral many prominent websites wrote articles about how it initiated a dogpile of similar replies from other professionals.

And this one blew up big too:

And so, as an added attraction for you to get a free subscription, I will still be seeking out opportunities for such social media engagements and screen capping them for your schadenfreuding pleasure, but they will only appear on my Substack.

I will compile such online encounters into a regular Substack feature that, again, will not appear on Facebook. (UPDATE: Five of “Clap Backs & Commentary” have now been posted and they’re super popular.) If that is something that appeals, and you would like a free subscription, I once again beseech thee to

There is another reason I’m doing this switch to Substack. As I mentioned, I’ve invested a lot of time in Facebook, and it was hard to not spend hours on it every day because it paid off both in cash and in dopamine. Now that it doesn’t pay in either currency, I finally have the mental capacity to pull back from it. Rather than experiencing happy hormones, seeing how the reach has gone to dogshit results in frustration more than anything else.

The aspect of this new strategic direction I am most excited about is that it will result in a lot of extra time in my day, time that will be put to good use. I am writing a new book with a working title of Greedy Sexist Religious Bigots: A History of Humanity that is the most ambitious project I’ve ever undertaken. A lot of that useless scrolling time will instead go into research and writing.

I’ve written a rough introduction to that book that you would have seen if you were a free subscriber, but probably missed if you were relying on Facebook. But if you get a free subscription, you won’t miss my next free history story about a badass pirate queen, or any of the other cool stories that will follow it.

I am sad for the loss of community that I built on Facebook. You folks have taught me much and brought me immense joy in reading your insightful and hilarious comments. But it doesn’t have to be lost. We can move it over here. Substack also has a comment section, and I will be engaging with it a lot more. I’d love to see you here.

One more fuckin’ time, you can go either free or paid …