Substackaversary: A Reflection of Year 1 on this Platform

Ah, yeah! It's Finally That Time! Huzzah!🎉🎉🎉

Jun 03, 2024

Me at Starbucks sometime in April Spring 2024 semester, drinking some yummy tea called Emperor’s Clouds & Mist!

Hello, Hello, Fellow Musers! Guess what day it is? It’s June ~~1st~~ 3th, 2024-exactly one year and 2 days ago since I released into the world my very first Substack essay called

When You Say Anthropology—>No, I Don’t Mean Dinosaurs!

I have sinced released a few other long-read articles called Cultural Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology, and Physical/Biological Anthropology (most recently on May 31, 2024)!

I’m going to (re)introduce myself to any new subscribers (in case y’all haven’t read through my About page, or maybe you have but you don’t want to go back to said page). Then I’ll talk a little bit about my journey to starting this Substack, future posts, and what I would like for this space to be. So essentially, this is a combo Hero post <(Re) Introduction Post>/Review-ish of year/Some Before&After photo updates/Things happening for this Musing’s new Substack year.

Here we go!

(Re)Introduction

Hi there, my name is Kimber, I’m the writer/author/admin/human behind Musing’s of an Anthropology Student! My pronouns are she/her/they/cat mom. Here’s some other random facts about me:

Like many people in my generation, I watched alot of tv growing up, mostly of (spacey) science fiction, with some crime-solving shows mixed in, although I did enjoy other genres as well. Since we’re mostly talking about 1990’s to about 2007, my preferred TV shows were:
-Star Trek (TNG & Voyager, specifically) -Battlestar Galactica+Caprica
-Doctor Who, Andromeda, Tin Man, Full House
-Babylon 5 (watched this with my brother and his dad)
-Land of the Lost, X-Files, Futurama, Animorphs
-Power Rangers (I dressed up as the Pink Ranger a few times for Halloween)
-Spellbinder, Law & Order, plus a few spinoffs, and NCIS

Now, do I remember the stories and plots to all of these series? Hell to naaah! But I do remember my Saturdays and Sunday afternoons, flipping through the TV channels (I was born in the late 80’s so yes I do remember flipping through channels), watching most of these shows, even if I couldn’t remember their names! I do like other genres too, but for some reason science fiction seems to be what I was drawn to. Nowadays, I still like sci-fi, but I’ve also branched out to other shows that are more Earth based and not space-based.

I love Star Wars-I have 85% to 90% of the Original Expanded Universe books (three and a half boxes full, I think is the count). I have thoughts and feelings about Disney taking over Star Wars (mostly good) but this is not the post for that.

I love to read fiction, but due to my career choice, I’ve become somewhat intrigued by non-fiction. My favorite genres to read for fun are science-fiction (of course), some historical, some horror (love me some Stephen King!), some thriller, and some fantasy. Occasionally I also venture towards the more spicy, both in book and comic form.

My favorite color is indigo, but I hardly ever remember the name of that color so I always say purple1. I also love purple too, and I wear it quite often. But anytime I see the color indigo I become entranced and can’t take my eyes off of it until I somehow get pulled away from it. I don’t know what it is about dark blue with a purple sheen, but my god it’s beautiful and the color does not get the recognition that it deserves! And no, I will not call it violet!

I use to play World of Warcraft a lot (WoW), but had to step back from it last year. I’m very excited about the Classic Cataclysm expansion that came out in May and I’m looking forward to being able to take some time to play it, once I get done with my Spanish, ofc2.
—>Speaking of WoW, I play a sassy rogue on WoW, who is also the reason for why I sometimes write “samash” with the subscribe button (Inside guild joke based on her name). She’s an interesting character (okay, I’m being biased here) and she has a tiger that she rides around Azeroth on-the tiger also comes with a backstory. I’ll write about her and my thoughts about gaming in general one day😉

I secretly really want to try out Dungeons and Dragons (aka DnD), but due to having a not-so-great experience with my first ex-boyfriend who tried to teach me but got very impatient with me when I needed more explanation about…well…everything, I’ve been hesitant to try and join any groups. After playing WoW for a bit, I now understand the general dynamics of DnD, but I’d still be a noob who would need help with every single stat (until I don’t). However, the character I would bring into the game would be my rogue and her tiger from WoW-her backstory being that she use to be a paladin who got tired of the hypocrisy in her paladin clan, realized that she had a knack for being sneaky, skinning, and poisons, and decided to join the rogue guild. I guess that would make her chaotic neutral? (I’ve clearly had a while to think about this👀haven’t I?😁)

I didn’t always want to be an anthropologist, specifically an archaeologist. When I was much younger, I actually wanted to be band director!
—>My babysitter was part of the band at her high school and sometimes she would take me with her to band practice if they were practicing inside. I’d be in a little room off to the side taking a nap and she’d be with her classmates practicing. Then I’d get to go to football games and some competitions, and I would watch the band do their routine. Sometimes, though, my little eyes would go to the band conductor and like a cat I’d be watching him move his director’s wand, directing everyone. I don’t know, something about directing intrigued little me.

As I grew older, though, I also wanted to become an astronaut because who doesn’t dream (at least once) of either flying/working/or just being on a spaceship? Ima start calling anyone out who says, “Nope, not me!” and answer with a hearty, “Lies!”

Coming back to earth, I also briefly thought about becoming a paleontologist-Thanks Jurassic Park!
—>Inner child: Raaawwwrrr!

I secretly want to be a NASCAR driver.

Speaking of driving, my pet peeve is seeing people in front of me who don’t use their damn blinker to signal that they gonna do a fucking turn or get in a new lane. 1.) It’s a simple action, 2.) it’s also polite, and while they might not admit it, 3.) some cops might actually appreciate the sight. I’ve got a few friends who can tell you stories of times where I have lectured other drivers (who can’t hear me because they’re not in the same car with me) in an unusual-for-me very loud voice about the importance of using the <expletive> blinker. My cats have even heard this lecture. Salem also has her opinions on it, and Nalia chastises both of us for our colorful language.

Academically

I’m a returning college student who is getting her bachelors in Anthropology in the state of Texas. I choose to keep my school name off of Substack (for now) as much as I can (except for maybe a few videos or pics where it might unintentionally show up) because I don’t want to feel that pressure of having to put that disclaimer that says:

All expressed views are that of the author and not necessarily in line with <insert name of school>.

I also have a student job at said school that involves me looking at rocks that had use as potential stone tools (aka lithics). I will talk a bit about what I do at work in my archaeology post because that is the main focus of where I work. I won’t, however, disclose publicly where I work until after I have graduated with both my bachelor’s and my first master’s degree and have moved on for the same disclaimer reason.

When asked about why I chose anthropology, I use to use The History Channel as my excuse. Something about seeing the pyramids, learning about how people use to use water in those big ass wheels, and so much other stuff would just pull me in. Nowadays, though, I say, “I don’t know why. I just feel pulled towards it. I tried to ignore it for a long time but it never went away, so now I’m finally saying yes to the pull.” When asked, “But what do you do with that degree?” I use to say, “I don’t know-I’m still trying to figure that out.” Nowadays, I still say, “I’m not sure” but now I’d probably add, “Perhaps use it to understand why the world is so fucking crazy and help bring people together in recognizing that while we all have different journeys, we all still bleed the same color blood. Also, is it really necessary to be fighting and killing each other for land when we could actually all live in communities that are diverse but still get along?”

I also feel that same pull directing me back to the museum world, so I’m thinking something in Museum Studies and now Applied Anthropology, which is actually a fairly new field. I know I briefly mentioned it in one of my posts (I think my Linguistic Anthropology post, I actually don’t remember), but I did do a small amount of research (aka googling), and the way that it’s being set up is interesting. I’m not going to go into detail right now, and I’ll definitely be doing a post about Applied Anthropology, but after reading a bit about it, I’m excited about the opportunities that this possible new subfield could open up for anthropology and various professions!

Speaking of reading and writing…

When I first heard about Substack via a podcast (always a Thank You to the podcast series Afterlives of Ancient Egypt at

Ancient/Now

for that), I really just came onto the scene as a reader. My second substack subscription was

Culture Study

. I did not want to write anything, or do anything, I just wanted a place where I could possibly read stories and just escape my emotional wave after my surgery and losing the kittens.

But the artist inside me who loves to create and hadn’t created since 2020 said nooooo, and since I wasn’t paying attention…before I knew what the fuck was happening…I got bit by that pesky Substack bug that I did not give consent to bite me! #HowRude!

I started my page in April of 2023 and for a long few months I actually had it on the private setting. Eventually, though, I turned the private setting off after I started writing my first article-essay post (Ima just stick with that!) and slowly, hesitantly, mostly shyly started interacting with other writers, anxiety be damned.

I know for some this may sound blasphemous, but around the time that I made my writer account was when Notes became a thing. I’m honestly grateful for Notes because I don’t think that I could have convinced myself to interact as much with other writers, and I probably wouldn’t have had the following and gentle growth that I have had on this platform. I’ve been able to meet many writers and have made some fantabulous writer friends on here (

, plus a few others that I call friends but have been to shy to start emailing or DM’ing)-a lot of that I have attributed to Notes. So while I understand many of writer’s concerns about Notes turning Substack into another “social media” platform-and even share a few of those concerns-I’m still very very thankful for Notes. That’s all I’m going to say about Notes for now (this means that I will eventually write a post about it+my thoughts on social media as a whole).

This segway brings us back full circle to why I made this Substack!

Review-ish of Year+Process

I admit, when I first decided that I wanted to start writing about anthropology, I wasn’t sure where I would start. I thought about writing on Facebook but I realized (from my own experience with my FB friends viewing my posts-or sometimes lack of) that I did not really want to fight the algorithm nor did I want to invest a lot of my time maintaining another social media page.

Kudos to you lovely writers who do both, and also keep an Instagram!

After I wrote my first essay/article, I realized that I still didn’t really know how I wanted to format this Substack. And so, as it tends to do, my brain started going into Overthinkerville. 🤷‍♀️How the hell does one title musings?🤷‍♀️Do they just put a title? 🤷‍♀️Do they add musings to said title? 🤷‍♀️Is that what I’m going to do? 🤷‍♀️Is that something I fucking want to do?🤷‍♀️

This led to, “Holy shit, I probably need go into depth about the subfields of anthropology before I even start with a musing!” This is where the idea for the intro posts came about because I’m gonna be frank-I have not been able to find, here on Substack at least, any articles written by anthropologists that goes into depth explaining what the fuck anthropology actually is! Actually explaining in depth the role of each subfield!

*Before any anthropologists come at me with both ancient/modern/post-modern weaponry…please read on first before striking me with said objects and making me a part of an archaeological dig*

I also kept going back to a conversation that I had with an archaeologist on the field school that I participated in the Fall 2022 through the program at my school. He was a friend of one of my professors and had volunteered to come up and help one weekend. I remember he and I were walking down from the site, just talking, and he asked me what I wanted to do with my degree. I remember replying that I noticed a disconnect between how anthropology is presented and talked about within the profession vs how anthropologists present the field to the general public, a lot who may or may not be familiar with the field as a whole. I said I wanted to find a way to close that disconnect. The archaeologist agreed with me about the disconnect and wished me luck. There is more to that conversation that is not relevant to this discussion, but I do identify that moment as the moment that I decided to really start looking for a way to tackle and untangle the disconnect between “professional” anthropology and “public” anthropology.

As with any profession, sure, if you know you know-or if you have a friend or a family member or acquaintance who is in the field or dabbled in any field who can explain it to you that’s great. But that still might not translate to other people.

An example of this is: One day, I took my boyfriend to the state park where I did the field school and showed him the beginning of the path that lead up to where the site was. I did not take him to the site because I’d probably get us lost and also in trouble with the park rangers, but when I pointed in the general direction and he saw the outline of mesa that we had to climb up to in order to get to the place, he said that he began to understand more about the complexity of archaeology and also gained a respect for the profession and the people in it. This was another moment that, looking back, I realized that actually trying to give some visuals about the small and large stuff of the field might help close that disconnect. Mind you, I’ll do as best as I can-I know that it still might not translate to everyone, and that’s okay, because I’ll still try to at least make the small and large stuff fun to read about!

I identify that moment as the moment that I decided to really start looking for a way to tackle and untangle the disconnect.

Now, to be fair, there might be some Substack pages started by fellow anthropologists that 1.) do explain what anthropology is, but the posts might be behind an (archived) paywall, 2.) the anthropologist might already have subscribers who are familiar with their work and thus don’t need an explanation about what anthropology is, 3.) explanatory posts might not be behind a paywall, but may be nested so far deep into the <writer who may not come out right and say that they have degrees in anthropology specifically> anthropologist’s Substack that very few readers are going to be able to find them because the author writes consistently every week, and has done so for quite some time. I’m sure that there could be many, many many other reasons for why there are no long-form/deep dive posts explaining the four main fields of anthropology, and I don’t hold it against the authors~~…too much…~~but it concerned me enough to write introduction posts.

I also feel that an explanation in layperson speak, and not in field speak, will go a hell of a long way to helping the public better understand anthropology as a whole. I also find academia to be restricting and gatekeepy so I’d rather give making this profession more palatable to the public via a platform like Substack a try.

*Okay, commence with the beating and ~~hiding of the body~~ burial!*

Also…Shhhh! Hush Yoda! Write this Substack you do not! Master…sir! *runs away before getting beaten with a short stick*

Observations Made During My First Year Here On Substack (Some non-participant based, some very participant-based!)

Aight, gonna go real anthropology student on you for a long-ass second. Hold onto to ya butts!

During my first year on Substack, there have been two main observations that I have observed. One is pretty damn obvious, and the other one not quite as much, unless of course you actually read the About page or the (re)introduction article(s)/Hero posts.

The first one that I’ve noticed is that most writers (not all) are on here to make a living. To be clear: I’m not opposed to that at all. I’m also not opposed to doing a mix of free and paid as well, or just free. To each their own.

1.) About those pesky Upgrade to Paid yada yada yadas…

Something that I have participantly observed from writers who are in various stages of their Substack publication careers/hobbies/creative journey is that they all have a foundation for their writing. Sometimes that foundation is to earn a living so in-between “normal” posts that are written, some writers will put in posts saying why the reader should become a paid subscriber.

I put participantly because I too have participated in this. A part on my About page is dedicated to why I would love to have a minimum amount of paid subscribers. I have also written about it in a few of my posts because as a newbie I got pulled into that current and did not know how to get out of that mindset except to just go with the flow for a bit until I could get to a safe spot and get out of the river. (Sorry about that y’all! Truly!)

A few writers I subscribe to do write about getting paid subscriptions (To be clear: no more than approximately 3 writers that I subscribe to and none of them are subscribed to this Substack), and I can honestly understand why it might turn people off from becoming a paid subscriber, or even convince them to become a paid subscriber. To be fair, all three use Substack to make a living, so I don’t fault them for talking about money so much. Sometimes, though, they might share another writer’s page who have a good amount of articles and while their page’s focus isn’t about money, real talk: they sure do talk about it to the point that I wonder why I even bothered reading the article other than the catchy headline that does not indicate that the article is about converting people to upgrade to paid subscriptions.

All of this to say is that I’m not saying that pushing paid subs a bad thing to do, because it’s not-I’m just saying there seems to be a lot of it, possibly too much of it at times, and it can be overwhelming, at least to me. To be much clearer, I’m not talking about writers who encourage their subscribers to upgrade at the beginning or end of their posts-I’m talking about the ones who constantly give advice about how they get paid subscribers, even when their newsletters aren’t about that life.

That’s why I went ahead and made the paid option available, and in future posts I plan to only put something about it once on my posts that have a read-time of approxiamentally 10 minutes. Longer posts will probably have no more than two of those subscribe and upgrade! messages (along with one to two links-no more than three-to my Ko-Fi page)

Ya know, this Ko-Fi page!

because right now pushing paid subscriptions is not my main goal at the moment (although I’d honestly would love to have some paid subscribers before the end of Year 2!).

You may see me push my Ko-Fi page a bit, but that’s because it’s an optional tipping site, and/or an absolutely no commitment one-time to many-times-as-you’d-like optional tipping site, and it’s completely up to the person who comes across it how often they would like to toss some coinage/dollar$/currency mine and the kitty’s way!

Click/Tap/Samash this button to Ko-Fi

I intentionally don’t have a lot of posts on my Ko-Fi page because I don’t want it to become another <social> media platform that I have to tend to. I’m barely on Instagram and The Formerly Known As Twitter Now X Place. I’ve been slowly stepping away from Facebook as well, although I’m still on it more so than the other two mentioned social medias. And forget about adding me on SnapChat -I was on it for a little bit then I deleted the app, and have not put it back on my phone since then. I also refuse to get on the Tik-Tok, despite one of my friends constantly sending our friend group videos from Tik-Tok.

Here is a short yet most excellent post I found from

Kristi Keller

via Notes about why a writer might choose a “tip jar” option over paid subscriptions:

Unstack Substack

How To Stop Feeling Awkward About Asking Readers To Pay You

I might want buy you a coffee but I can’t if you never build a Starbucks in your front yard. There seems to be a great internet debate about writers asking for coffee/tip money. I feel like the argument scale is fairly even on both sides. Is it cheesy and desperate to ask for money or isn’t it…

a year ago · 156 likes · 82 comments · Kristi Keller

Here is another note by

Russell Nohelty

that came across my Notes as a re-stack from another writer that I subscribe to. Topic-wise, I at first felt pressure to be the first option, but I’m pretty sure that I’m actually the second one. I aim, however, to be the balanced-as-much-as-possible-even-though-it-may-not-always-work writer (BAMAPETIMNAW). Anyways, here’s the Note-ice:

Okay, I’m pretty sure those are all the Note-tices I’ll be posting for this specific post!…Maybe…👀

2.) Foundations

So that foundations post thing I mentioned earlier…I’ve noticed that many writers tend to write foundation posts, and that some writers revisit “the posts that helped build their substack”. They either restack or repost old posts, or they introduce readers by putting links to said posts on a post introducing themselves to new readers. I have to say-I love this! Truly-it’s a great way to bring in new readers! Also, this may be an obvious thing to do for writers who know that it’s a good thing to do, but for a newbie who’s in the same/a similar level that I’m at with writing a newsletter/blog, I wouldn’t have thought to re-post my first few posts to constantly introduce readers to my early article-essay-posts.

I consider my introduction posts my Foundational Posts for my substack page. In fact, I will probably change the <Intro Posts> grouping on my homepage to <Foundation Posts>. I plan on referring back to these foundation posts for as long as I write on this platform. It doesn’t matter if it’s a regular Musing#, Deep Dive, or Artist’s Corner post-those intro posts are what will help build this substack and that is why they are so damn long and have a shitton of information in them-much like this long-ass post!

Cat Intermission:

Nalia: Purrzah!

Salem: Human, I require pets and belly rubs!

Nalia: I require playtime! I need to chase that red dot!

Both: We need food! Feed us now! Purrleaze? Do you want us to starve? Because we’re starving!

Human: You literally just had food. We literally just played Get The Red Dot!

Both: That was hours ago! Red Dot was one hour ago! That’s sooooooo looooong!!!

Human: So what I’m hearing is…that it’s Greenies time?

Salem and Nalia: Yaaaassss!!!

*Cats get their Greenies Dental treats*

End of Cat Intermission

Things happening for this Musing’s new Substack year: Let’s talk about what posts will be released and Substack for Year 2!

After I’m done with my Intro/Foundation posts, going forward, I can see myself releasing musings using three different methods and with three various titles/subsection/tags-groupings, etc.:
~Musings#1-however many topics can be talked about
~Deep Dives
~Artist’s Corner
~Shout Outs

Other groupings/tags will currently be:
~Hello’s & Thank You’s From The Furkids (aka Nalia and Salem)
~Life & Lemons
~Mini-Series

I’ve considered making Artist’s Corner its own newsletter and independent of this one, but I currently don’t have the energy to run two separate newsletters so it will remain a subsection of Musing’s of an Anthropology Student. I was also considering integrating Deep Dives into the main page, but I’m going to give it another thought for a year before coming to a semi-final decision.

Deep Dives

Speaking of Deep Dives, I have also decided to not make my first Deep Dive about Franz Boas-not really because of anything controversial I found online about him (I didn’t really), just that I am having a hard time forming the post and so I will be releasing a different Deep Dive. What that Deep Dive will be called is still TBD, but I have a feeling that it will draw from one of my Intro posts. For any Fellow Musers who have read my long-read Intro posts, I welcome ideas for the first Deep Dive! I still have plans to make this subsection my paid section, but I will keep my first few Deep Dives free.

After I have churned out a few of those DD’s, a few idea I have about doing paywalled posts:
1.) I may do what some writers do and let everyone read them, but have the comments limited to paid subscriptions
2.) Or I may have a preview of the posts
3.) Or I may do what I originally talked about ages agoooo-release the DD’s as a free post for a week and then put them behind a paywall.

I’m still really liking Option 3, but I do want to keep the other options open as well. I would also like to know what your opinion of these three options are as well, as no matter what I decide to do, this will affect y’all too.

Musings#

After I have concluded my Intro posts, I will be starting my Musing’s# articles. In fact, I already have the name of the post ready, and because y’all are so awesome, fantabulous, and have been so incredibly patient with me with the cat-based mini-series, I will reveal the title:

Musings #1: We Fear What We Do Not Understand

This idea came from a nighttime conversation that I had with my love when he came up and visited in April (2024). Neither of us could sleep, and so-as is normal for us when we’re in the same bed together and we can’t sleep-we began to just talk about different topics and somehow it lead to one topic where I mentioned the phrase, “We fear what we don’t understand.”

A few minutes later, before we drifted off to sleep, I said to him, “Thanks for bringing up the topic that led to the saying. I’m going to make that saying my very first Musing. I’ve been trying to come up with ideas ahead of time and while I wrote some down, none of them felt right to be The First Musing. But this one does. So thank you, my love.”

“Awww, that’s great! Glad I could help!” he replied.

“Comere!” we said to each other. We then proceeded to cuddle and fell asleep in each other’s arms, while somewhere else within the house the cats were doing their nighttime zoomies.

Posting Schedule and Other Types of Posts for the New Substack Year!

I should mention my posting schedule. I still plan to post at minimum 2x a month, especially after I get my archaology article-essay written and posted. I may, however, try to post 4x a month, If you do see 4 posts from me, it’s because I was able to find time to make a buffer and write some posts ahead of time. Most of my articles for this year will not feature events that happen say a week before, or some upcoming event, so I may be able to occasionally pull off posting 4x. Shout-Out posts will be at the end of the month, depending on if this space gets 1 or more subscribers, which I hope happens, but I also understand if it doesn’t.

I promised an update on Subscriber count for this post, and this Stack of Subs is currently at 84 subscribers total!

I know that for some writers that may seem like a micro-amount, but I’m quite happy with it. I remember getting overwhelmed at the fast amount of subscriptions to this page at the beginning. I would love to see that again, but in spurts, so that I can have time to appreciate the amount of people who have chosen to give this space a chance.

As I mentioned in Shout Out post #11, I will be releasing a Creative Writing post in Artist’s Corner. That post will come out on June 19th, in about 2 weeks. See, I’m already doing the 2x a month post! Yay! And yes, I will be reusing the pic at the very top of this post for that post too. It’ll be rare that that happens, but it’s gonna happen! There will be more creative writing posts happening this year, as well as post that discuss mental health, which I kind of touched on for me personally with the mini-cat-series earlier this year. When I talk about mental health, I have this recurring vision of doing a Musings # on the subject with a topic, and then doing an Artist’s Corner post on the same topic, depending on how heavy the topic is, and also what part of the year it is. For example. I tend to get seasonal depression starting late October/early November, and it tends to last on and off through about March. So you may hear me talk about mental health some or a lot during those months, but I’ll do my best to plan ahead and have some light-hearted articles ready to post as well so it’s not all bleh cause I don’t want to scare away anyone. I’m kinda nice like that…I guess…nah, joking aside, I totally am. I’m going to be spending the rest of the warmer months (while I feel more of myself) to come up with ideas of what to post in between posts. I do plan to keep my posts no more than 10 minutes reads at most, but some might be long reads that I’ll try to not make more than 20 minute reads. Those longer reads might be the Deep Dives, but we’ll all see how it goes!

There will also be ocassional posts from Nalia and Salem. Maybe some Behind-The-Scenes post. Y’all know I have to include them in this project! I would also love to do some collaborations and guest posts and/or cross-posts too this year! I’m already in talks with one person (no, I ain’t sayin’ who, don’t wanna jinx anything by saying anything further), but if any of my writer friends would like to collab or guest post here, y’all have my email. We can also slide into each other’s DMs too, just sayin’. Or if there’s someone on Substack that y’all think I would get along well with and is also looking for a collab, let me know who they are/tell them who I am, and <fingers crossed and knockin’ on wood> maybe the Universe will allow us to create something worthy of your readin’ time!

So to compress and conclude this section:
Musings #: Reads will be around 10 minutes maximum (if I can help it)
Artist’s Corner: I will try to make these no longer than 7 minutes
Deep Dives: Reads may be 10-15 minutes but no longer than 20 minutes
Maybe (possibly, hopefully) a collab or two or more!
Behind-The-Scenes posts (those will be explained more after the next section)

What am I hoping to build with this Substack?

Community.

As I said in my April Shout Out post:

A community-that’s what I’m hoping for, an online community. We don’t necessarily have to be like-minded, we just have to agree to disagree and be encouraging of each other. I mean, that’s how most people in the real world get along anyways, amiright?

I’m hoping to build a community, a place where people can just talk. I’m going to be very honest y’all-I’m not sure what exactly building a community looks like. Does it involve daily chats? Weekly chats? Does it involve me prompting questions like I’ve tried to do on past posts?

This is the reason for why I do Shout Out posts-to help make a community.

Hey, wanna chat? Because sometime over this next Substack year, I’m hoping to start actual Chats, and see where that leads. I know that it can be hit or miss with that, but I’m willing to give it a try.

I did experiment with it very early, but I didn’t have a clear understanding of Chat then, so I tried to delete it. Deleted the question, but the conversations are still there (at least on my side, haha). However, after being a part of some chats, I’ve gotten an idea of how to start one.

I’m thinking I’ll start anew official Chat in July, after my summer class. It’ll just be a casual “Hey, how’s your summer going?” but I think it’ll be a good start. You will either get an email notification and/or a phone notification from the Substack app (if you have those turned on).

If you decide to join in, you should be able to do so from both the website and/or the app.

Looking Towards the Future While Remembering the Past!

I will be revising the schedule calendar on the About page to reflect the posting changes. I was originally going to take it down after my Substackaversary post, but I’ve grown fond of having it on there, so I think I’m going to keep it and update it every so often. The page itself has gone through a few changes as well, so go take a read if you’d like.

I had fun doing the mini-series with Nalia and Salem helping out, and I’m can see myself doing more of them in the future, but more anthropology-based; although let’s be honest-Nalia and Salem will be cats and demand to have their thoughts heard in the articles as well, so I will have ~~no choice but~~ to include them ~~occasionally~~. #catmomlife

If I do decide to do another mini-series, I’ll try to spread them out to a month, instead of two months. I thought the two months would fly by and I wouldn’t focus on my posting schedule as much, but it turned out to not be the case. This is where I say, “Damn you perfectionism and your perfectionistic needs!” and give it the middle finger. I also didn’t expect to feel fatigue after about a month and a half of cat posts, but that’s what I’m feeling. Lesson learned-no more two month mini-series for this anthropology catthropology student the near future!

Also, in case you might have missed it (or read only via email/Substack app and not on the actual website), I’ve changed the background of my homepage/posts pages to an off-white-gray tone instead of the purple background I had for almost a full year. As much as I loved that purple background (it is my favorite color, remember?), I felt that it was starting to become too much so I’ve decided to opt for a simpler color background. I also realized that if the purple background didn’t translate to the Substack app, why have it? I also changed up my homepage a bit, and you’ll see new tags there as my Musings # and DD’s start to show up!

Some ideas that I have for future posts, both free and paid:

Paid Subscriptions:
~In addition to putting most of my future Deep Dives behind a paywall, I may also occasionally release a Behind-The-Scenes post from past posts. These may consist of photos of text that was cut out of the posted article-essay (with a photo of the text from the posted article-essay next to the cut-out text), videos of the old post with a video of the posted post. As with the first DD posts, I will keep the first few Behind-The-Scenes available for everyone to see, but afterwards I will put rest behind a paywall for those who decide to upgrade to a paid subscription, with occasional free Behind-The-Scenes posts. I may even make a new subsection called Behind-The-Scenes so that they can be found more easily! But I won’t create said subsection until I release the posts, mainly because I don’t want to jump the gun like I did with the Deep Dives intro post-which I may redo, honestly.
~I have also decided that, as another incentive to upgrade to a paid subscription, that I will send paying subscribers a personal Thank You via email. If you are a direct-to-paid-subscriber, the email will also contain a video or photo of Nalia and Salem doing cat things. If you’re already a Free subscriber and you upgrade to paid, I’ll send you a cat video and cat pic! (If you upgrade from Free to Paid, DM me and let me know which Shout Out post you were on so that I can verify that you get both a cat vid and pic!)
~I’ve been trying to figure out a way to give more of an incentive for why some should become a paid subscriber if I’m not going to be doing alot of paywalled posts (starting out), and I decided that a personal email would be nice because I don’t intend to do seperate Shout Out posts for paid subscribers. I would send a handwritten card, but I honestly am cautious about giving out my address to people I don’t know (and I’m sure that other people feel the same way!) so an emailed Thank You+pic or video of the cats it will be!
<Not that paid subscriptions will happen immediately after this post, but depending on how many I get at once, it may take me some time to get to everyone who immediately paid subscribed or upgraded their subscription to paid. So I appreciate your patience in advance if I take a bit to get your Thank You email to you.>
~Full disclosure: If I start to get enough, a small portion of paid subscriptions will allow me to upgrade my own subscription to a few other substacks and I will be able to support some writers. But the majority of paid subscriptions will go towards helping me with bills, doing less or allow me to stop doing UberEats, and more importantly will help me be able to focus on school and writing more articles for both free and paid subscribers. I just want to be transparent with y’all about that!

Free Subscriptions:
~I know how much many of you enjoy seeing posts by Nalia and Salem, so as I get more into a rhythm of releasing article-essays, I will try to add-in some kitty-commentary along with an occasional Quick Note post from them. I will not be doing another cat mini-series for a while, though.
~Artist’s Corner article-essay posts will continue to consist of my past drawings, and I will also be including some drawings about mental health subjects such as depression and anxiety. I will also be showing some of my work I’ve done concerning emotions, just to name a few general topics. I admit, I’m a bit nervous opening up myself by showing these specific topics that I’ve created art from, but I know keeping them to myself is not the best thing to do creative-wise. So while I am nervous about showing these various sides of me, I’m also excited to be sharing this part of myself with you, the readers who have stayed with me through the ups and downs of my first year on this platform. I send out a hearty and appreciative Huzzah! to all of you!

All Subscribers/Fellow Musers/Followers:
~I will continue with the Shout-Out posts. I enjoy doing them, and I believe they help create a community.
~Chat will be open to all subscribed Fellow Musers to this Substack! I may do a Chat for paid subscribers eventually, but I feel that I have enough Free subscribers to start a Chat for all subscribers this year!
~If you follow me on Notes, while I’ll still promote my article-essays on Notes, I will most likely post random things like cat notes, post an image/video of some interesting nature thing happening, perhaps an image or two/video of what topic I’m reading about for my anthropology class, perhaps some serious posts about current events, and whatever else comes to mind.

I am planning on going back to some of my posts and adding recordings on them. I will be sure to let y’all know when a recording for a post is up!

Conclusion

In conclusion, you have learned a few things about me that you may (or may not) have expected, I have let you in on why I started this Substack, and I have let you in on what I’m hoping to do for Year 2 on Substack! I plan to post at minimum 2x monthly, more if I can, but no more than 4x monthly if that becomes the case. I will be experimenting with both free and paywall material, and will re-evaluate the experimenting in the next anniversary post!

For anyone of you wondering, yes-indeed-of course!-my long-read-intro-foundation-article/essay-post about Archaeology will be released sometime in July. It’s been a long time coming, I know, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as you’ve enjoyed reading my other intro-foundation anthropology posts!

Thank you so much to those of you who have been with me since I released my very first post last year on June 1st, 2024! Since it has been a year, below I have some questions that I would love for you to answer! You can answer them in the comments, in an email attached to this post, and/or you can DM me with your answers!

Questions:

1.) On my About page, I have a list of general topics that I would love to muse on. For my first few musings after my Musing#1, what would you like to read about? <I know I have asked this before, but I’d like to ask it again. I also have to say this: I’m asking for specifics. Please don’t say “Whatever you feel like.” I’d truly like to get some idea from y’all!>

2.) What would you like to see my first Deep Dive be about? After I have a few written out, and they start going behind a paywall, what are your opinions about how I should go about it? Immediate paywall? Keep comments to paid subscribers only? Leave them open for a week and then put them behind a paywall (with a reasonable preview)? I know-I can do it how I want, but it’s important to me to hear your thoughts on this since some subscribers will be affected by this choice💞💜You are why I’m writing this newsletter, so while I get the final say, your voice is still important.

3.) What was your favorite childhood pasttime growing up? What is your favorite Safe-For-Work adult activity now that you are semi-grown and navigating adulthood?

Musings of an Anthropology Student

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