Chris Best

It's not that the mainstream becomes the counterculture, it's that the counterculture becomes the mainstream.

Like the upstart, the rival elite, the people who are making the new thing, it kind of wins.

And I'm sure that Barry feels like she's winning right now.

One of the things I always felt was that some of the writers that I respected the most were what you could call heretics.

And the people who drew the most scorn from the media, at the time, it wasn't like the complete ideological enemies.

It was sort of the people who were within the tribe who dared to criticize it.

And it's easy to lob bombs at your enemies, but it takes a kind of a...

a really thick skin to criticize your own side and to raise problems with your own side.

And, you know, like I think Matt Tybee was an example of this.

Those people kind of found opportunity or took refuge in Substack.

And the fact that those people were allowed to speak and push back despite controversy against them and against us, I think it's important.

And I think it actually helps the side.

It helps when you don't silence your critics because when you can actually have valid criticism aired, even when it's tough, even when it's contentious, that's kind of like how these things move and grow.

And so as much as it was, it's been painful over the years when people freak out about these things.

Uh, I think it's worthwhile.

Yeah, I'd say so.

I used to joke with people, it's like, you care about freedom, money, and prestige.

I cannot offer you prestige.

But the other two, we have those.

Part of this was like, we just wanted to help people that are making good things make money.