How Substack became the hottest social media platform

While TikTok and Instagram reels make headlines, Substack has been racking up cool‑girl points in the background.

Founded in 2017, Substack has grown into something culturally potent. By 2025, the platform had 20 million monthly active subscribers; by 2026, that figure had climbed past 35 million.

But the real flex is not the growth. Instead, it is the cultural relevance bagged that brands keep clamoring for. Somewhere between inbox essays and cultural dispatches, Substack became the internet’s most aspirational place to think out loud.

Once a tool for writers evading layoffs and editorial restrictions, being on Substack is now shorthand for having taste, intellect, something to say. It appears in TikTok “what I did instead of doomscrolling” roundups, Instagram monologues on “how to be chic,” and Gen Z manifestos about escaping brain rot and digital overload.

Though very much online, Substack is still framed as its opposite: slower, more intentional, and somehow healthier than the feeds its articles are dissected on. Its growing roster of celeb writers—from Charli XCX to Rosalía—has only reinforced its reputation as a platform where culture is shaped by people at the forefront of it.

So, what makes Substack so cool? Is it the freedom to publish without editors? Its alignment with a cultural mood where being “intellectual” is aspirational again? Or is it that being big on Substack signals a hand on the cultural steering wheel?

How Substack Became Cool

For Jayne Kitchen, 31, a Canadian Substack writer, the appeal is as much about status as it is about substance.

She told Newsweek she began posting after taking “cultural online research more seriously,” drawn by Substack’s reputation as a place where content felt thoughtful. At the heart of its sudden heat, Kitchen said, is a new type of online star, “the intellectual influencer,” whose audience is naturally made up of likewise cultural tastemakers.

The aspirational influencer has not disappeared, she said—but looking good is not enough anymore. Kitchen said that people want to learn something, and to her, Substack’s mixed‑media format is perfectly suited to the recent “resurgence of blogging.”

Kitchen’s theory is that Substack is winning ambition, not attention, by occupying a specific sweet spot between free posting and paid subscriptions, because its algorithm helps users find writers to follow—providing Substack creators with the luxury of taste, instead of being forced to churn out trending content.

“It’s also aspirational to creators who want to earn a living making content, but don’t want to dance on TikTok to self-promote,” Kitchen said. “They see writing as a higher-brow form of content in the age of ‘online cringe’ and like other platforms, the algorithm seems to reward high performing long-form content because it keeps users on the platform.

“And writing a newsletter to fans that devour every word while getting paid for it? It sounds like Gossip Girl. Who doesn’t want that?”

In January, Kitchen went viral on Instagram under @didoriot after framing the Substack writer career—whose “cover girl,” she said, is Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg—as the modern equivalent of the glossy journalism jobs romanticized in early‑2000s rom‑coms.

In her telling, being a Substack writer is the new it‑girl career, idealistic, slightly elite, and defined by freedom and creativity.

“There is a yearning for freedom of the press and a return to independent media,” publicist Jamie L. Turner told Newsweek.

Turner said the shift to Substack could shape the future of media, drawing more celebrities to the platform, turning it into an attractive career option for Gen Z creatives amid rampant corporate layoffs.

Lauren Patterson, co‑founder of That Random Agency, seconds this, arguing that Substack’s core appeal is “ownership, plain and simple.”

She told Newsweek Gen Z watched creators build careers on Instagram only to be “buried” when algorithms changed.

“Substack is the antidote,” she continued, referencing the subscription model. “You’re not performing for a feed or chasing reach.”

For creators exhausted by the ‘post every day or disappear’ pressure, Patterson frames the return to newsletter writing as almost rebellious.

“Substack gives me a feeling of control over my audience,” media executive Travis Pomposello agrees, telling Newsweek the email-based format offers direct connection with readers, eliminating the need to worry about algorithms.

For, Dr. Paromita Pain, a professor of global media at the University of Nevada, Reno, “monetization” is the engine beneath the vibe and a key selling point.

News anchor turned communications CEO, Alison Maloni, said the platform’s appeal is similarly direct, resting on ownership.

She added that creators can communicate directly with readers rather than relying on unpredictable algorithms or traditional media gatekeepers. Substack, she said is “completely different” from other platforms because it supports longer‑form work and community around ideas.

“People are craving longer-form content,” Maloni told Newsweek. “Why are podcasts doing so well? We want the full story.”

That craving is also why Substack’s cultural rise has tracked alongside its widening roster of public figures.

Stars like Charli XCX and Rosalía have launched Substacks, further cementing that the platform is no longer just for policy obsessives and media insiders—it is for creatives shaping the conversation, too. Even George W. Bush has joined the platform, highlighting how broad the Substack tent has become, and the experts believe the authentic expression the platform allows creators will continue its prominence in the cultural climate.