The celebrity takeover of Substack: mere marketing or rare glimpses of truth?
In the words of one of my favourite culture journalists, on her own Substack, Harriet Gibsone summed up the state of the website by pondering her choices, writing, “Now that every single person is a writer, I have to be something else”, and right now, it seems, all the musicians are becoming writers too.
Substack is currently undergoing an interesting evolution. When the site launched, it was niche, it felt underground and squishy, as if the smaller circle of users genuinely could mould it. The whole point was that it was a place to throw anything, but mostly, it was for words. It was anti-social media in so many ways, as people were free to share whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, craft and publish any piece without needing a commission or a go-ahead, share it on their own terms to an audience who signed up on their own terms too.
It bred some of my favourite pieces of writing I’ve maybe ever read as incredible minds flocked there and roamed free. I think about Cricket Guest’s The Diet Coke Essay all the time, Dani Offline’s piece, Everyone wants to be a DJ, no one wants to dance, is one of the most fascinating and well-put observations on cultural consumption I’ve maybe ever read, and I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve recommended the piece, I will never decenter men, to my friends.
Especially for writers hustling it out in the real world, Substack appeared as a safe haven. I know for me personally, it was a creative lifeline back when I was a freelancer and suddenly, any idea I had was put through a strenuous and often disheartening routine of pitching, persuading, waiting, and regular rejection, but on Substack, you don’t need a green light: you write what you want.
For the longest time, you also didn’t need any level of following, as things seemed to just naturally find their right audience, as writers on the site were also readers and users on there, clearly looking for ideas to engage with. It’s the opposite of brainrot fast-paced content, and it feels, or at least felt, like the opposite of influencer culture.
However, we might be watching that change, and the site has undeniably entered the mainstream, and that was marked clearer than ever the moment Charli XCX launched her own in November 2025 with her first piece, Running on the spot in a dream.
Not really the best piece of writing, it is kind of fascinating as one of the first things we got from Charli post-Brat was this intensely candid essay. Here we have one of the world’s biggest stars sharing what reads like her diary as she meanders through dreams she’s been having and truly psychoanalyses how it feels to make an album. In her second post, she unpacked the pros and cons of pop stardom with the same openness, being equally as willing to admit that it’s really cool and fun as well as confusing, and she’s bored of being in cars.
Then a third came, which saw her unpacking what coolness even is and how she tried to capture it and kill it on Brat, and we find her musing through a series of examples of what is and isn’t cool. The first comment under it reads, “God, this might be one of the most out of touch celebrity takes I’ve heard in a while”.
For me, though, the issue isn’t so much the content but the link right at the top, taking you off Substack to another publication, to an interview Charli did. In that instant, we’re reminded, ‘Ah yes, Charli XCX is on the press circuit’. Looking back at her debut piece with that cynic’s mindset, the entire piece is about her making Wuthering Heights, her upcoming album.
Famous names being on Substack really isn’t anything new, though, and Charli definitely wasn’t the first. Modern literary hero George Saunders runs an incredible writing club on Substack, sharing his tips, while Comedian Cat Cohen has been writing on there for a long time, with Patti Smith sharing constant updates on there, as does Pamela Anderson.
But when it comes to musicians taking to the written forum, things are changing; for instance, CMAT launched Sinceremat in 2024, and for a while, it was golden and honest. She was analysing tour life and sharing recipes, Christmas favourites in the most insanely formatted piece you’ve ever seen, which surely no marketing team was making for her, and then, in September 2025, a mailer went out titled, ‘Did somebody say Euro-Country chart battle??’, which was purely an ad.
It could have been great. I used to work as a social media manager for artists, so trust me when I tell you that almost all of the artists of a certain scale that you follow aren’t actually the ones posting on that account. While they might dip in, that account is for marketing, run by a marketing team, so Substack could have stepped in as a new dawn of artist-to-fan direct contact to claw back control and a sense of connection. It could be an incredible tool to give artists a real voice back to their career as more and more people turn away from social media and find a safe haven somewhere slow-paced, like Substack.
But perhaps all we’re actually seeing is marketing infiltration, and label teams needing to get their grubby claws on anything that could possibly sell anything. Right now, if they can see that the intimacy and intellectuality of Substack is growing in popularity, they’ll be sending in their troops, and by troops, I mean artists, promising them the freedom to talk openly to fans in intimate pieces, but likely all with the end game to one day sign it off with a link direct to a sales page.
