I met Jeff at a "Covid Contrarian" Symposium in Huntsville several months ago. He was as funny at the speaker's podium as he is at his word processor.
I've now added his photo to this list. (I've learned you can only post so many photos when you send out an email dispatch, but you can add many photos after you have sent out your emails.)
- I started off scrolling through my list of current or past subscribers - paid and free, which would include formerly "paid" subscriptions I have "paused" to try to save money. I then simply clicked on the name of these authors and ascertained their current subscriber numbers. I copied and pasted the names of the site and their subscription numbers. Next, I ...
- Looked at the recommendations of those authors for other Substacks ... and did the same thing. If I didn't recognize a site, I went to it and scrolled through the archives of these authors to see if they meet my criteria as a "Covid Contrarian" or "freedom writer." If they had more than 1,000 subscribers and met my criteria, I posted them in my master working file. Next, I ...
- Looked a the list of people who subscribe to all of these sites. (When you click on someone's name, you get a message that "X, X and 6.9K+ people subscribe to this author." If you click on that link, you get a page or two of actual subscribers. Many of these subscribers are Substack authors themselves. So I could click on these authors and go to their sites. I paid particular attention to authors/subscribers who had an orange check next to their name, signifying these people had at least "hundreds" of paid subscribers.
With the above approaches, I found numerous other sites, including a good number I was not familiar with.
- I also looked at Substack's own "leaderboards" - which are rankings from more than a dozen subject categories. As noted, the main leaderboard that helped me add 15 or so sites was the "Health-Politics" leaderboard. I also looked at "Politics" (which might be the biggest category on Substack) and "Science."
- From my Substack ap, I get recommendations from Substack's algorithms or AI that anticipates newsletters that might interest me. For two days, I paid close attention to these recommendations and found a few more sites that I'd not heard or or that I had forgotten about or missed.
I also looked at my own recommendations for sites I might have once recommended but hadn't read in a while.
- The final phase is going on right now. My readers are letting me know Substack authors that meet my criteria that I have missed. On Sunday or Monday, I'll research these sites - see if they indeed meet my "Covid Contrarian" or "Freedom" writer criteria and if they have more than 1,300 subscribers I'll add them to my list - which will now have to be re-ranked or numbered.
All of this took about 20 hours of work. In scrolling through so many Substack newsletters, I did learn a few neat or interesting things - a few oddities stuck out. I'll mention some of these oddities in note(s) to come.
I'll update your numbers to reflect your subscriber boost. You write the most important Substack on the planet IMO ... because your Substack has the greatest potential to "stop the shots."
That should be/will be a very big development for "our cause."
AMD has noted many times that her site exploded exponentially when Steve Kirsch plugged her work and linked to it. When well-known authors promote lesser-known authors that makes a huge difference for the growth of the latter group.
TEXT OF TWEET: Inside the arteries and veins of the vaccinated - i find it constantly now
TRANSCRIPT OF ATTACHED VIDEO
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
- Video shows a tray with 7 test tubes each filled with white clots in liquid (presumably formaldehyde). These appear to be white and gray, thin and curled, like worms. Camera pans back and forth over the trays.
- John O'Looney is the owner of Milton Keynes Family Funeral Services, which is based in Milton Keynes, UK. https://www.mkffs.co.uk
JOHN O'LOONEY: September the 30th 2024 and here are 7 different people represented in these test tubes. And this is clinical waste that I'm about to dispose of. But these are 7 different people who came in to us and were embalmed, and during that process this spilled out of their arteries onto our embalming table tray, and, and was kept
and I'm documenting it now before disposing of these, these, this clinical waste, to prove to people that this is coming out of diseased vaccine recipients.
Each one represents a person murdered by the state who will never see justice unless we get it for them. And I devote my life into getting that justice for them.
Thanks Bill - very honoured. In many ways I wish this list (and my Substack) were not necessary - because we would be free and government would be telling the truth.
I started on the side of the road holding a sign, graduated to Twitter and banner drops when the deaths in Australia increased, got banned, and then started writing on Substack.
***I just had a massive bump in Subscribers and now have 5,041.
Massive bumps happen when a large account re-stacks or references my articles. I am not on social media so this is the best way new people 'find' me.
My articles will ALWAYS be free. I also do not have many paid subscribers because I work on a gift model. Jesus knows what is good for me.
Edit:
for those interested, these are some small (but truly excellent) Australian Substack authors who are doing critical work in the covid landscape:
Thanks, AU. Glad you got a big bump recently. I'll update your numbers. A couple of the Aussie sites you mention have enough subscribers to be in the Top 100, which I'm probably going to expand to the "Top 125."
I was probably familiar with about 50 percent of the newsletters on my updated "Top 137" list. I was surprised I didn't know about so many newsletters with at least 5,000 subscribers. And I've probably identified a few "up-and-comers."
IMO, Transciber B is one of the most important Substack newsletters on the Internet. You are archiving hundreds of vital interviews/transcripts of heroic and important figures. If we have a nuclear war tomorrow, I hope all of your files are safely saved for use by future historians and writers.
Thanks for your kind words, dear Bill. About being surprised by what you found-- me, too. I am continually surprised by what I'm finding, and so often I find myself shaking my head, saying, how in blazes did I not know about thus-and-such? That's the power of censorship, but that's also the nature of the new media-- anyone can start a Substack, and as you show here in your post, in recent years many Substackers have become very influential very quickly.
Under another identity I participated in the blogger wave of the mid-2000s, so I am familiar with that-- and I would say that Substack in many ways is merely an echo of that. What is profoundly different now, however, is that so many vital voices, including experienced professional journalists such as yourself, are leaving and/ or deliberately avoiding mainstream media and making a go of it on uncensored / less censored platforms. As a reader, one who used to read a lot of what I used to think of as high quality print and digital mainstream media (even as I then watched the whole blogger phenomeon with great interest), I now avoid the mainstream media and I look to a self-curated number of Substack blogs (and some others). Though readers such as myself are not the majority, for me and for others like me, this is a profound cultural shift. Again, my thanks to you for reporting on it.
I have an example of this from a story I posted on my local Substack, The Troy Citizen. I re-ran an old story about all the well-known musical acts who had performed at Troy State University. That list came from looking at decades of old yearbooks and, originally included about 50 famous acts. After I posted the story, readers kept adding acts I'd missed. I think the updated list is now about 90 musicians!
By crowd-sourcing this research question, I came close to publishing the definitive list.
Re: My point that subscriber numbers don't necessarily perfectly correlate with "story reads" or "page views." (Readership levels are important to probably every writer, all of whom want to "reach" as many readers as possible).
I now have 6,954 total subscribers. However, the vast majority of my articles are not read by this many people. For example, my Robert Reich story was read by about 4,400 people (my "page view" metric). Recently, my "page view" numbers have ranged between 3,800 and 10,000 with the average being maybe 4,400 reads/"page views."
However, I have written scores of stories I originally posted at my Substack newsletter that generated a very large numbers of reads - figures much greater than my subscription numbers.
For example, a few stories that were later picked up by Zero Hedge generated more than 100,000 reads at ZH. I've had stories that curators of other popular websites linked to that massively increased my audience of readers. (Brownstone, Real Clear Markets, The Daily Sceptic and Conservative Woman also regularly or ocassionally run my articles ... and the story reads at those sites don't usually show up in my metrics).
The best example is when Citizen Free Press links to one of my articles (which, for some reason, the site no longer does). However, Citizen Kane has linked to about 20 of my articles. One article on a man from MN who died from a vaccine injury produced more than 74,000 reads at my Substack (my all-time "read" record at Substack). Most articles that were picked up by CFP generated at least 20,000 new/extra "reads" for my Substack.
When this happens, my brand and reach are dramatically enhanced.
So writers love it when some other site(s) link to your article. I know that "cross-posts" from popular Substack authors can provide a significant boost readership levels - as well as subscriber numbers and paid subscribers.
For example, Dr. Meryl Nass cross-posted one of my articles about a month ago. This significantly increased the page views of this article, but, more importantly, produced approximately 90 new subscribers (almost all of whom were free). Prior to this, most of my articles had been generating, on a net basis, 0 to 3 new subscribers (or, often, I lost subscribers after a story was published). So you can see the boost I got from Dr. Nass's generous cross-post.
Jenna McCarthy cross-posted another of my articles and this also produced about 20 to 30 new subscribers.
This post explains why the "Share" button is so important. Substack authors can't expand our reach or subscriber numbers without other people sharing or linking to our articles.
... While I have "only" about 7,000 total subscribers, Substack-provided metrics tell me my cumulative "page views" are approximately 1.7 million in the past 2.3 years.
That is, I don't have a huge number of subscribers, but my writing has actually been READ by millions of people around the world.
... Also, I wrote all of these articles for my Substack newsletter. So while my Substack subscriber numbers pale in comparison to the Top 40 on my list, my readership numbers are often pretty impressive. Directly and indirectly, Substack made this possible.
This is a good list even if I am not on there. Matt Taibbi is a good journalist but I cannot recall much he's written in the Medical Freedom/Covid contrarian space. Sasha Latypova thinks that a lot of the Your Local Epidemiologist type of pages are astroturf operations in which government funds pad the paid subscribers numbers to give the appearance of consensus. Considering the degree of Ai generated copypasta available I agree.
I like the Last American Vagabond though he seems to do a lot off of substack. A lot of the smaller writers in the space dive into other topics related to government corruption or corporate malfeasance or the esoteric and spiritual aspects. I have no doubt it is difficult to classify some of the writers so thank you for your time and effort!
i tried to edit my comment but i think substack locks you out if you make too many changes/typos and try to fix them! https://amysukwan.substack.com/ belongs on that list too, i don't know of any other substack that matches elite quality writing with the funniest memes...
LOL thanks for the recommendation. If it is based on subscriber metrics alone I am at about 3.5K free subs but over 4,000 across the two newsletters. Then again I am sure that these lists are difficult to compile and oversights are common…
Authors with more than one newsletter are harder to quantify. For example, I now produce TWO newsletter but my Troy Citizen newsletter is definitely not a "Covid contrarian" site. Still, it would boost my total subscribers by approximately 500 if I counted those people (although I have a small degree of over-lap - people who subscribe to both sites).
I'll definitely add your main site in the updated list and apologize for the omission in "Round One" of this ranking project.
LOL no worries! Thank you for doing this all. I know I am far from a heavyweight in the space and although I appreciate my close to three dozen paid subs, this is most definitely a labor of love for me. I love the freedom to write and meme exactly how I am thinking with no pressure or narrative steering.
This did have me wondering if they put my top newsletter as the one with the lower stats. I more share music and my apolitical forays into nature on that one, with about 40% overlap beteen the two newsletters. I would guess that I am around 4K total unique subs but growing slowly and steadily on both sites...
Here’s a little anecdote about my experience of censorship.
You might be aware of Nextdoor, a social media platform on which you can connect with people in your neighborhood and local area. It’s important because not only can you discuss national topics of importance but also local issues like special tax levies on the ballot, school board meetings, weather, trash pickup, snow removal, lost pets etc.
I was “permanently banned” back in 2021 for challenging Covid policies such as natural immunity, posting factual information (actual documentation) provided by the FDA about the vaccine EUAs, what the law is re: Informed Consent, The Great Barrington Declaration, etc. The last post was July 29, 2021.
I asked a lot of common sense questions and posted actual government provided documentation.
Then boom, gone. Last fall , I tried to get reinstated. Nope.
Tried again in December. Nope.
Then a few days ago, an avenue cane came available- a formal process to challenge the ban (which apparently had been initiated by a few anonymous neighbors declared gatekeepers.)
I showed the last few posts and proved that virtually EVERY SINGLE THING I had posted was proven factual and worse, was known at the time to be factual. (Must have fallen into that “malinformation” category: true but goes against official government policy.)
I kid you not, within MINUTES, I had my account back.
I’m curious, how many others out there had the same experience? WAS it just a few neighbors, a local entity or something more widespread?
Thank you for sharing your experience with Nextdoor. I have heard many similar stories of people getting banned for even mildly questioning the jabs or other covidan policies-- especially in 2020 and 2021.
The owner of Nextdoor wants your data— they are farming you for your data. It's really that simple. Some people consider that a reasonable trade-off for the convenience of being able to communicate with neighbors quickly on a broad spectrum of issues. Some don't. I'm in the latter camp.
I was just saying to my wife that we all have to suffer because of the number of people who do not expect or demand any privacy.
This means that most websites and _all_ apps will farm you for your data these days.
Similar with the number of stores, cafes, and restaurants which won't even accept cash anymore. Because fools put up with that, the options of everyone who wants to use cash get more and more limited. And that means even less privacy:
That issue worries me too, Patrick. Thank goodness we have a few "contrarians" on Substack who are trying to raise awareness of this ominous threat - which is no longer a hypothetical "threat" ... as you note, it's happening right now.
Personally, I suspect "Covid" might have been rolled out primarily to advance this monitoring and "social credit" project ... and get the planet closer to a "cashless society."
My sense is that most people are a lost cause in this regard, they won't make the effort to think about it beyond surface level gee-whiz-it's-so-modern-plus-I-need-to-fit-in convenience. (Hmmm sounds familiar with medical issues, too.)
At the same time, I believe that well-organized and highly focused political action to protect privacy, especially at the state, county, and munipal levels, can have some important successes.
The more I think about these big issues and trend the more convinced I become that "thinking" (and acting) at the LOCAL level is the best strategy our side can employ to fight these trends.
I can't quite figure out a great solution because there is money to be made in betraying privacy, but no money to be made in protecting it. Usually, whatever makes money wins.
The European rule requiring notification of cookies was a disaster, annoying billions of people and doing nothing to protect privacy.
A better rule might have been to notify people of 3rd party javascript, like hidden Google javascript which can see everything you view or type and report it all back to Google. That shit is on more than half of all web pages, even the FBI's "anonymous" tip page.
This is probably why Google is one of the biggest lobbyists in DC - to prevent any restrictions on their mass surveillance.
Was asked to join some time ago. I’m not savvy on these things, so nope for me. Plus, why the hell do I want to listen to my neighbors when there are so many excellent sub stackers?
Send a few of your neighbors (who might one day be open to re-assessing their thinking) this list! Tell them to pick five or six newsletters at random and simply start reading.
I have done that but all my closer neighbors have not made the jump necessary to advance their thinking by joining a substack. Mostly I receive no comment when I forward a newsletter to nearly anyone. Kind of sad.
I was relating some of your stats to my wife . . . one, the fact that about 5 million subscribers to this tranche of newsletters, worldwide. VERY small percentage of Americans and smaller yet as percentage of world population!
So, maybe 1 or 2% of all Americans have bothered to read one of these substacks; the rest are either brainwashed by MSM or read and watch no news at all -- oblivious to the world of reality. again, sad.
Chris Bray isn't precisely a "covid contrarian" Substack blogger, but he writes about lockdowns often enough to be mentioned. And, Tell Me How This Ends, his name for his blog, pretty clearly refers to what lockdowns have done to us.
Thank you, Bill, for all your time gathering this info and sharing it with all of us. I would be a paid subscriber to a hundred of these writers including you, if I was able. I try to keep up reading such wonderful articles. I’m a retired teacher heading toward 80 and a strong conservative that can’t believe so many people have been hoodwinked into believing the liberal lies. The ignorance of Americans in the ability to see/understand common sense is startling. These young people often have no clue about reality. I pray every day for America , DJT, and his wife. He does have common sense.
Besides Taibbi, Everybody should also subscribe to el gato malo (22), kunstler’s clusterfuck nation (43 I think) and Don Surber. Go on now…you are welcome.
And the mental retardation exhibited by Robert Reich, Dan Rather and their followers would be humorous if it weren’t so pathetic and just plain sad. They truly inhabit another realm, or I wish they did at least.
Huge debt of gratitude to Matt Taibbi, he asked a direct question to Chris Hedges on Useful ideots: "What about forced injections", and the answer that came back was the equivalent of setting fire to his entire body of work by announcing: "Tangential Tangential Tangential", fuck you Chris Hedges, just like Chomsky and Howard Stern, bottom of the ocean
I'll get to my "Addendum Notes" a little later. Right now, I need a break!
Thank you!
Jeff Childer's Coffee&Covid has become my #1news source. Highly recommend.
I met Jeff at a "Covid Contrarian" Symposium in Huntsville several months ago. He was as funny at the speaker's podium as he is at his word processor.
I've now added his photo to this list. (I've learned you can only post so many photos when you send out an email dispatch, but you can add many photos after you have sent out your emails.)
Please put it in a table with datawrapper, as described here
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-top-100-covid-contrarianfreedom/comment/86171410
Yep, me too. I will second that one. Jeff is a blast, man!
Unfortunately the $500 buy-in subscription level is above my value, specially relative to most other substacks!
Addendum Note No. 3 ....
Re: How did I do my research?
Here's what I did:
- I started off scrolling through my list of current or past subscribers - paid and free, which would include formerly "paid" subscriptions I have "paused" to try to save money. I then simply clicked on the name of these authors and ascertained their current subscriber numbers. I copied and pasted the names of the site and their subscription numbers. Next, I ...
- Looked at the recommendations of those authors for other Substacks ... and did the same thing. If I didn't recognize a site, I went to it and scrolled through the archives of these authors to see if they meet my criteria as a "Covid Contrarian" or "freedom writer." If they had more than 1,000 subscribers and met my criteria, I posted them in my master working file. Next, I ...
- Looked a the list of people who subscribe to all of these sites. (When you click on someone's name, you get a message that "X, X and 6.9K+ people subscribe to this author." If you click on that link, you get a page or two of actual subscribers. Many of these subscribers are Substack authors themselves. So I could click on these authors and go to their sites. I paid particular attention to authors/subscribers who had an orange check next to their name, signifying these people had at least "hundreds" of paid subscribers.
With the above approaches, I found numerous other sites, including a good number I was not familiar with.
- I also looked at Substack's own "leaderboards" - which are rankings from more than a dozen subject categories. As noted, the main leaderboard that helped me add 15 or so sites was the "Health-Politics" leaderboard. I also looked at "Politics" (which might be the biggest category on Substack) and "Science."
- From my Substack ap, I get recommendations from Substack's algorithms or AI that anticipates newsletters that might interest me. For two days, I paid close attention to these recommendations and found a few more sites that I'd not heard or or that I had forgotten about or missed.
I also looked at my own recommendations for sites I might have once recommended but hadn't read in a while.
- The final phase is going on right now. My readers are letting me know Substack authors that meet my criteria that I have missed. On Sunday or Monday, I'll research these sites - see if they indeed meet my "Covid Contrarian" or "Freedom" writer criteria and if they have more than 1,300 subscribers I'll add them to my list - which will now have to be re-ranked or numbered.
All of this took about 20 hours of work. In scrolling through so many Substack newsletters, I did learn a few neat or interesting things - a few oddities stuck out. I'll mention some of these oddities in note(s) to come.
Bill - thank you for this!
I am thrilled to make it on your list. I just topped 1900 subs the other day. I started my stack in May.
A Midwestern Doctor has said he/she will be writing a post about our latest survey. Hope to get many more after that.
https://laurakasner.substack.com/p/results-of-the-2024-worldwide-embalmer
I'll update your numbers to reflect your subscriber boost. You write the most important Substack on the planet IMO ... because your Substack has the greatest potential to "stop the shots."
If nothing else, the pics and the video are very compelling.
If AMD links my last two stacks, hopefully it will take off. 🙏🙏🙏
That should be/will be a very big development for "our cause."
AMD has noted many times that her site exploded exponentially when Steve Kirsch plugged her work and linked to it. When well-known authors promote lesser-known authors that makes a huge difference for the growth of the latter group.
AMD covered our survey last year in her stack (I think it’s a woman too). But that was before I had a substack.
If only 😔
Mercola called AMD a woman when he said “she writes for his newsletter”.
No kidding! Holy cow. Really had me fooled; always figured AMD for a guy, amazing. I will keep it a secret.
Curious why “if nothing else” ?
Meaning if they don’t find what
the embalmers are saying to be compelling, the clots are frightening to look at.
1,000%
Relatedly:
John Olooney ( at ) OlooneyJohn
10:52 AM October 20, 2024
https://x.com/OlooneyJohn/status/1847923736659272019
TEXT OF TWEET: Inside the arteries and veins of the vaccinated - i find it constantly now
TRANSCRIPT OF ATTACHED VIDEO
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
- Video shows a tray with 7 test tubes each filled with white clots in liquid (presumably formaldehyde). These appear to be white and gray, thin and curled, like worms. Camera pans back and forth over the trays.
- John O'Looney is the owner of Milton Keynes Family Funeral Services, which is based in Milton Keynes, UK. https://www.mkffs.co.uk
JOHN O'LOONEY: September the 30th 2024 and here are 7 different people represented in these test tubes. And this is clinical waste that I'm about to dispose of. But these are 7 different people who came in to us and were embalmed, and during that process this spilled out of their arteries onto our embalming table tray, and, and was kept
and I'm documenting it now before disposing of these, these, this clinical waste, to prove to people that this is coming out of diseased vaccine recipients.
Each one represents a person murdered by the state who will never see justice unless we get it for them. And I devote my life into getting that justice for them.
This has got to stop.
1:02
[END]
Agree
I agree Bill Rice Jr
And congrats to you, too!
Come on now readers. I cannot be only at #61 Contrarian! :)
But that's 61 in the world - which has a population of 8 billion people!
Thanks for your great work. You are helping move the needle (pun intended) and change some of these deadly false narratives.
I recently discovered “Welcome to Absurdistan“ by Elizabeth Nickson. She provides not only a unique voice but also serious muckraking/reporting.
I'll go check out her site and add her if she has enough subscribers to make the Top 100 (Now Top 125). Thanks for the heads-up on her site!
The Breggin’s recently interviewed her, she’s definitely red-pilled! Great interview!
She’s outstanding!
Thanks Bill - very honoured. In many ways I wish this list (and my Substack) were not necessary - because we would be free and government would be telling the truth.
I started on the side of the road holding a sign, graduated to Twitter and banner drops when the deaths in Australia increased, got banned, and then started writing on Substack.
***I just had a massive bump in Subscribers and now have 5,041.
Massive bumps happen when a large account re-stacks or references my articles. I am not on social media so this is the best way new people 'find' me.
My articles will ALWAYS be free. I also do not have many paid subscribers because I work on a gift model. Jesus knows what is good for me.
Edit:
for those interested, these are some small (but truly excellent) Australian Substack authors who are doing critical work in the covid landscape:
Shifted Paradigms: https://www.shiftedparadigms.org/
Democracy Manifest: https://democracymanifest.substack.com/
And one from Scotland who chronicles the Scottish covid enquiry:
https://biologyphenom.substack.com/ (has 1.6k subs)
Just thought of another one: Cafe Locked Out (7.5k subs)
https://cafelockeddown.substack.com/
Thanks, AU. Glad you got a big bump recently. I'll update your numbers. A couple of the Aussie sites you mention have enough subscribers to be in the Top 100, which I'm probably going to expand to the "Top 125."
You are going to age like fine wine. A true hero for truth
I wish I was wrong.
Ditto. I’d give anything to be so completely wide of the mark that I could walk around in sackcloth and ashes for a few weeks!
Thanks for including Transcriber B's Substack. I am honored.
This is a very interesting list to see. I am familiar with almost all of these sites, but a few are new to me.
I was probably familiar with about 50 percent of the newsletters on my updated "Top 137" list. I was surprised I didn't know about so many newsletters with at least 5,000 subscribers. And I've probably identified a few "up-and-comers."
IMO, Transciber B is one of the most important Substack newsletters on the Internet. You are archiving hundreds of vital interviews/transcripts of heroic and important figures. If we have a nuclear war tomorrow, I hope all of your files are safely saved for use by future historians and writers.
Thanks for your kind words, dear Bill. About being surprised by what you found-- me, too. I am continually surprised by what I'm finding, and so often I find myself shaking my head, saying, how in blazes did I not know about thus-and-such? That's the power of censorship, but that's also the nature of the new media-- anyone can start a Substack, and as you show here in your post, in recent years many Substackers have become very influential very quickly.
Under another identity I participated in the blogger wave of the mid-2000s, so I am familiar with that-- and I would say that Substack in many ways is merely an echo of that. What is profoundly different now, however, is that so many vital voices, including experienced professional journalists such as yourself, are leaving and/ or deliberately avoiding mainstream media and making a go of it on uncensored / less censored platforms. As a reader, one who used to read a lot of what I used to think of as high quality print and digital mainstream media (even as I then watched the whole blogger phenomeon with great interest), I now avoid the mainstream media and I look to a self-curated number of Substack blogs (and some others). Though readers such as myself are not the majority, for me and for others like me, this is a profound cultural shift. Again, my thanks to you for reporting on it.
Wow, what a great resource and thank you for sharing. I’m honored to have made the list!
The list/resource will get better.
I have an example of this from a story I posted on my local Substack, The Troy Citizen. I re-ran an old story about all the well-known musical acts who had performed at Troy State University. That list came from looking at decades of old yearbooks and, originally included about 50 famous acts. After I posted the story, readers kept adding acts I'd missed. I think the updated list is now about 90 musicians!
By crowd-sourcing this research question, I came close to publishing the definitive list.
First "Addendum Note:
Re: My point that subscriber numbers don't necessarily perfectly correlate with "story reads" or "page views." (Readership levels are important to probably every writer, all of whom want to "reach" as many readers as possible).
I now have 6,954 total subscribers. However, the vast majority of my articles are not read by this many people. For example, my Robert Reich story was read by about 4,400 people (my "page view" metric). Recently, my "page view" numbers have ranged between 3,800 and 10,000 with the average being maybe 4,400 reads/"page views."
However, I have written scores of stories I originally posted at my Substack newsletter that generated a very large numbers of reads - figures much greater than my subscription numbers.
For example, a few stories that were later picked up by Zero Hedge generated more than 100,000 reads at ZH. I've had stories that curators of other popular websites linked to that massively increased my audience of readers. (Brownstone, Real Clear Markets, The Daily Sceptic and Conservative Woman also regularly or ocassionally run my articles ... and the story reads at those sites don't usually show up in my metrics).
The best example is when Citizen Free Press links to one of my articles (which, for some reason, the site no longer does). However, Citizen Kane has linked to about 20 of my articles. One article on a man from MN who died from a vaccine injury produced more than 74,000 reads at my Substack (my all-time "read" record at Substack). Most articles that were picked up by CFP generated at least 20,000 new/extra "reads" for my Substack.
When this happens, my brand and reach are dramatically enhanced.
So writers love it when some other site(s) link to your article. I know that "cross-posts" from popular Substack authors can provide a significant boost readership levels - as well as subscriber numbers and paid subscribers.
For example, Dr. Meryl Nass cross-posted one of my articles about a month ago. This significantly increased the page views of this article, but, more importantly, produced approximately 90 new subscribers (almost all of whom were free). Prior to this, most of my articles had been generating, on a net basis, 0 to 3 new subscribers (or, often, I lost subscribers after a story was published). So you can see the boost I got from Dr. Nass's generous cross-post.
Jenna McCarthy cross-posted another of my articles and this also produced about 20 to 30 new subscribers.
This post explains why the "Share" button is so important. Substack authors can't expand our reach or subscriber numbers without other people sharing or linking to our articles.
... While I have "only" about 7,000 total subscribers, Substack-provided metrics tell me my cumulative "page views" are approximately 1.7 million in the past 2.3 years.
That is, I don't have a huge number of subscribers, but my writing has actually been READ by millions of people around the world.
... Also, I wrote all of these articles for my Substack newsletter. So while my Substack subscriber numbers pale in comparison to the Top 40 on my list, my readership numbers are often pretty impressive. Directly and indirectly, Substack made this possible.
This is a good list even if I am not on there. Matt Taibbi is a good journalist but I cannot recall much he's written in the Medical Freedom/Covid contrarian space. Sasha Latypova thinks that a lot of the Your Local Epidemiologist type of pages are astroturf operations in which government funds pad the paid subscribers numbers to give the appearance of consensus. Considering the degree of Ai generated copypasta available I agree.
I like the Last American Vagabond though he seems to do a lot off of substack. A lot of the smaller writers in the space dive into other topics related to government corruption or corporate malfeasance or the esoteric and spiritual aspects. I have no doubt it is difficult to classify some of the writers so thank you for your time and effort!
i tried to edit my comment but i think substack locks you out if you make too many changes/typos and try to fix them! https://amysukwan.substack.com/ belongs on that list too, i don't know of any other substack that matches elite quality writing with the funniest memes...
LOL thanks for the recommendation. If it is based on subscriber metrics alone I am at about 3.5K free subs but over 4,000 across the two newsletters. Then again I am sure that these lists are difficult to compile and oversights are common…
Authors with more than one newsletter are harder to quantify. For example, I now produce TWO newsletter but my Troy Citizen newsletter is definitely not a "Covid contrarian" site. Still, it would boost my total subscribers by approximately 500 if I counted those people (although I have a small degree of over-lap - people who subscribe to both sites).
I'll definitely add your main site in the updated list and apologize for the omission in "Round One" of this ranking project.
LOL no worries! Thank you for doing this all. I know I am far from a heavyweight in the space and although I appreciate my close to three dozen paid subs, this is most definitely a labor of love for me. I love the freedom to write and meme exactly how I am thinking with no pressure or narrative steering.
This did have me wondering if they put my top newsletter as the one with the lower stats. I more share music and my apolitical forays into nature on that one, with about 40% overlap beteen the two newsletters. I would guess that I am around 4K total unique subs but growing slowly and steadily on both sites...
Thanks for the add...
Here’s a little anecdote about my experience of censorship.
You might be aware of Nextdoor, a social media platform on which you can connect with people in your neighborhood and local area. It’s important because not only can you discuss national topics of importance but also local issues like special tax levies on the ballot, school board meetings, weather, trash pickup, snow removal, lost pets etc.
I was “permanently banned” back in 2021 for challenging Covid policies such as natural immunity, posting factual information (actual documentation) provided by the FDA about the vaccine EUAs, what the law is re: Informed Consent, The Great Barrington Declaration, etc. The last post was July 29, 2021.
I asked a lot of common sense questions and posted actual government provided documentation.
Then boom, gone. Last fall , I tried to get reinstated. Nope.
Tried again in December. Nope.
Then a few days ago, an avenue cane came available- a formal process to challenge the ban (which apparently had been initiated by a few anonymous neighbors declared gatekeepers.)
I showed the last few posts and proved that virtually EVERY SINGLE THING I had posted was proven factual and worse, was known at the time to be factual. (Must have fallen into that “malinformation” category: true but goes against official government policy.)
I kid you not, within MINUTES, I had my account back.
I’m curious, how many others out there had the same experience? WAS it just a few neighbors, a local entity or something more widespread?
Isn’t Nextdoor somehow affiliated with FB?
Thank you for sharing your experience with Nextdoor. I have heard many similar stories of people getting banned for even mildly questioning the jabs or other covidan policies-- especially in 2020 and 2021.
The owner of Nextdoor wants your data— they are farming you for your data. It's really that simple. Some people consider that a reasonable trade-off for the convenience of being able to communicate with neighbors quickly on a broad spectrum of issues. Some don't. I'm in the latter camp.
I do it the old fashioned way- talk to my neighbors…😉
There is much to be said for this!
I was just saying to my wife that we all have to suffer because of the number of people who do not expect or demand any privacy.
This means that most websites and _all_ apps will farm you for your data these days.
Similar with the number of stores, cafes, and restaurants which won't even accept cash anymore. Because fools put up with that, the options of everyone who wants to use cash get more and more limited. And that means even less privacy:
https://slaynews.com/news/imf-chief-boasts-cbdc-could-harvest-very-useful-data-social-credit-score/
IMF Chief Boasts CBDCs Harvest ‘Very Useful Data’ for Public’s ‘Social Credit Score’
That issue worries me too, Patrick. Thank goodness we have a few "contrarians" on Substack who are trying to raise awareness of this ominous threat - which is no longer a hypothetical "threat" ... as you note, it's happening right now.
Personally, I suspect "Covid" might have been rolled out primarily to advance this monitoring and "social credit" project ... and get the planet closer to a "cashless society."
My sense is that most people are a lost cause in this regard, they won't make the effort to think about it beyond surface level gee-whiz-it's-so-modern-plus-I-need-to-fit-in convenience. (Hmmm sounds familiar with medical issues, too.)
At the same time, I believe that well-organized and highly focused political action to protect privacy, especially at the state, county, and munipal levels, can have some important successes.
The more I think about these big issues and trend the more convinced I become that "thinking" (and acting) at the LOCAL level is the best strategy our side can employ to fight these trends.
I can't quite figure out a great solution because there is money to be made in betraying privacy, but no money to be made in protecting it. Usually, whatever makes money wins.
The European rule requiring notification of cookies was a disaster, annoying billions of people and doing nothing to protect privacy.
A better rule might have been to notify people of 3rd party javascript, like hidden Google javascript which can see everything you view or type and report it all back to Google. That shit is on more than half of all web pages, even the FBI's "anonymous" tip page.
This is probably why Google is one of the biggest lobbyists in DC - to prevent any restrictions on their mass surveillance.
Those are good points.
yup. I was a member and quickly realized "farming" is what is going on besides lots of rummees discussing inane stuff.
substack authors with real brains and people who actually "read" books as subscribers is more worth my time and effort.
I killed "Next door" pretty quickly.
Ditto!
Was asked to join some time ago. I’m not savvy on these things, so nope for me. Plus, why the hell do I want to listen to my neighbors when there are so many excellent sub stackers?
Send a few of your neighbors (who might one day be open to re-assessing their thinking) this list! Tell them to pick five or six newsletters at random and simply start reading.
I have done that but all my closer neighbors have not made the jump necessary to advance their thinking by joining a substack. Mostly I receive no comment when I forward a newsletter to nearly anyone. Kind of sad.
I was relating some of your stats to my wife . . . one, the fact that about 5 million subscribers to this tranche of newsletters, worldwide. VERY small percentage of Americans and smaller yet as percentage of world population!
So, maybe 1 or 2% of all Americans have bothered to read one of these substacks; the rest are either brainwashed by MSM or read and watch no news at all -- oblivious to the world of reality. again, sad.
Good advice…
Chris Bray isn't precisely a "covid contrarian" Substack blogger, but he writes about lockdowns often enough to be mentioned. And, Tell Me How This Ends, his name for his blog, pretty clearly refers to what lockdowns have done to us.
Thank you, Bill, for all your time gathering this info and sharing it with all of us. I would be a paid subscriber to a hundred of these writers including you, if I was able. I try to keep up reading such wonderful articles. I’m a retired teacher heading toward 80 and a strong conservative that can’t believe so many people have been hoodwinked into believing the liberal lies. The ignorance of Americans in the ability to see/understand common sense is startling. These young people often have no clue about reality. I pray every day for America , DJT, and his wife. He does have common sense.
Besides Taibbi, Everybody should also subscribe to el gato malo (22), kunstler’s clusterfuck nation (43 I think) and Don Surber. Go on now…you are welcome.
And the mental retardation exhibited by Robert Reich, Dan Rather and their followers would be humorous if it weren’t so pathetic and just plain sad. They truly inhabit another realm, or I wish they did at least.
Huge debt of gratitude to Matt Taibbi, he asked a direct question to Chris Hedges on Useful ideots: "What about forced injections", and the answer that came back was the equivalent of setting fire to his entire body of work by announcing: "Tangential Tangential Tangential", fuck you Chris Hedges, just like Chomsky and Howard Stern, bottom of the ocean