The Meaning of Notes

Why silly memes are so popular on social media

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

A Substack Notes user shared the idea that Notes was used by many people in a meaningless way — a way that was an attempt to help the individual grow, but with limited real value provided:

And there is definitely something there!

Notes was developed as an attempt by Substack to offer a communication around the articles, meant to be brief and inspirational, as a means to attract new subscribers.

The feature then itself added another measure, next to the subscribers, which is the followers. Such followers are following your notes, like subscribers are following your articles.

Another layer, another level, another activity to focus on, next to so many others for those who want to — grow.

Growing, as it has evolved in the social media world, is about building and expanding an amount of followers and subscribers, to become a popular person — or brand — who can monetize themselves.

And for someone like me who see 0–5 readers on every note made in that system, there is really not much growth to expect, but for others, there could be a significant gain from posting even simple memes: There are regularly people who carefully share the outcome of an unusually popular Notes post, having got perhaps several hundred likes, and they mostly tell that they gained a dozen or more new subscribers, at times even paid subscribers.

That’s growth!

If you can do that every day, week after week, it can be the “X factor” that makes the difference between just being here on Substack, respectively being a success here.

As part of the dialogue with

Romaric Jannel

, I wrote the below:

Or, copied here, so that you can read the full text:

I agree that meaning makes sense :)

But social media by large is about posting such that will have no or little meaning to most people. A quite mechanical and “too easy” approach to communication, when comparing to almost every other approach.

Nevertheless, billions of people are doing it, and they must get some kind of fulfilment out of it, some kind of satisfaction that can be said to contribute to some kind of meaning for them.

I am personally somewhat astonished over X, Bluesky, these Notes, and everything else that features small snippets of almost nothing, in an endless scroll. But then again, it’s a bit like life: You can go for a walk in the city, or in the forest, or on the beach, perhaps, and most of what you see there won’t catch your attention. Now and then, however, something does. And that something may be the meaning for you that makes the walk worthwhile. Alternatively, the lack of such meaningful details could by itself help bringing you the relaxation and meditation you were seeking, this then being meaningful to you.

Whatever looks pointless from the outside could, potentially, hold value for the one on the inside.

The point of this analysis is that life in general consists of many details that by themselves are meaningless, unless you look for a meaning in them. And if you look for one, you’ll most likely find one.

People find meaning in birds’ singing, in sunshine, in staring through whatever may be in the sight-line without really seeing it, or in simply closing the eyes and seeing nothing at all.

They also find meaning in memes, silly anecdotes, and phrases of politeness and optimism, like “Hi all, what a beautiful day today, sunshine and warm weather”.

Meaning is connected to a situation, a frame, in which the meaning fills out an otherwise empty space, or a movement, a push, that takes this frame to a new place, allowing for you to see life from a different perspective. No matter how diminutive or seemingly irrelevant a post on Notes may seem to some, it may for others be exactly that spot that was otherwise missing in the picture of life, or that push, that made life evolve in the most needed way.

They can be notes of love or hate, or made of thin air. A word. A colourful picture, a dark shadow.

While it does feel silly that so many people spend so much time on such simple things, doomscrolling, as a modern word tries to categorise the processes of seeking something to rest your eyes and your soul on in a purely digital universe, it is at the same time fully understandable that they are looking for something. And that some of them are looking for ways to participate, say something, not just look. Perhaps initiate a dialogue, or just feel that rapport, I wrote about recently in another article: