The Nazi in the Haystack

An entirely predictable update

(original post here)

Six.

Six Nazis.

That, if the research being revealed about this is accurate, is how many Nazi Substacks there actually are – assuming they are actual Nazis and not just ordinary assholes.

Six.

Fucking.

Nazis.

There are, if I recall correctly, somewhere in the area of 500,000 Substacks. We’re talking about .0012 percent of all Substacks.

One thousandth of one percent. Barely.

Six.

Fucking.

Nazis.

To put that number in context:

- My two ultra-Orthodox brothers-in-law have, between them, three times as many children as Substack has Nazis.

- Those numbers could be off by 200%, and my brothers-in-law would still have more kids than Substack has Nazis (if anyone should hate Jews, it should be their wives’ uteruses).

- If the Substack Nazis were ultra-Orthodox Jews, they wouldn’t be able to pray together because the minimum number needed is ten.

- If the Substack Nazis were cookies, Cookie Monster could count them, and he can only count to ten.

Six.

Seen from another point of view, Substack might have an entirely different problem than the one being discussed. It might reasonably be said that to be considered a major platform in the new media landscape, that to claim you have reached a certain mass, you have to have at least a base number of Nazis. Until you pass a certain Nazi Threshold, you haven’t really “arrived,” media-wise. Now I don’t know that the base Nazi Number is, I’m not in the new media biz, but I’m pretty sure it’s more than six, so in actuality, Substack might have a Nazi shortage. Substack may be running low on Nazis.

The six Nazis have a combined 29 paid subscribers.

There are at least 2,000,000 paid subscribers on Substack.

Thus .00145% of the paid subscribers on Substack subscribe to Nazis. If that’s enough to make you leave Substack, I suggest you leave Planet Earth while you’re at it. The purity you’re looking for doesn’t exist.

These aren’t Nazis. These are Not-Sees. One one-thousandth of one percent of Substack – 0.0000000003625 percent of the 8 billion people on Earth, according to my probably wrong calculations – even knew of these Not-Sees until someone shouted “Nazis!”

Of course, yes - Nazi or Not-See, one is too many. If they break the rules, they should get kicked, they same way I would be or you would be for any other infraction.

So why do I care?

Two reasons. First the selfish one:

I write for a living. I’ve been writing for thirty years. I am published around the world, translated into many languages and I still struggle to make ends meet. Trust me, there are faster way to get lower middle-class than writing. So when I heard that people were leaving Substack, and writers earnings were being impacted, writers who had nothing to do with any of this, I thought, “You have to be fucking kidding me. Over assholes playing Nazi?”

No.

Over six assholes playing Nazi.

And second, the whole societal/human species/billions of people crammed together on a tiny blue rock reason that I mentioned in my original post:

Because now the word Nazi is officially one step closer to death. The next time someone hears it, they may not listen. They may shrug, as I do, and think, “Really? Another one? Why, was someone wearing leather boots?”

So was it worth it?

Over six “Nazis?”

For me, no. Not even fucking close (and please spare me the “all it takes is one apple to spoil the bunch” shit. We’re not fruit. We’re sentient beings. We can change course if conditions change). The word “Nazi” is already on life-support, and every incident like this only nudges the plug just that little bit further from the outlet. The word “anti-Semitism” isn’t far behind it, and “racist” may already be dead. Benjamin Netanyahu (enough with this “Bibi” shit; we don’t call him “Joey” Stalin) built his career, and fortune, on the Holocaust. The guy can’t order breakfast without mentioning it. “These eggs are runny, it’s Bergen-Belsen all over again. Vote for me.” For the record, this is Bergen-Belsen:

And this is a Nazi:

And this is how a Nazi has fun:

Perhaps it has something to do with a larger problem – people are condemned, as they should be, for being Nazis, but nobody faces any admonishment for labelling people Nazis. Or racists. Or homophobes. Or transphobes. Or misogynists. Sometimes, they even get rewarded. Handsomely. And so the words die.

Verbumocide, in the first degree.

And that is a damage far worse than anything financial, and utterly irreparable.

So enough about the assholes, and one last final word here to the non-assholes, or to those of us who envision our lives as a grand, spiritual journey whose only goal is to become less of an asshole: do me a favor, a man raised on actual Nazis, Nazis who filmed themselves kicking dogs to death in streets and laughed as they did, Nazis who played Wagner while forcing children into gas chambers:

Think before pulling the Nazi Alarm. Or the Anti-Semite Alarm. Or the Racist Alarm.

Or you may just end being the asshole yourself.

Yours in the fetal position,

S.

PS: Don’t despair if the Nazi numbers creep up. My sisters-in-law will be pregnant again soon.

illustration by Orli Auslander