Discussing 4 Substack Articles With a Friend

Hi, you are now said friend

Jun 24, 2025

If I were to recommend and discuss Substack articles I’ve read lately to a friend, these are the ones I’d recommend and discuss (click link to read). They’re about: body dysmorphia, cool girls and substack notes, Anthony Bourdain and summer.

So does everyone just constantly think they’re too big?

It’s been a long time since I read something so relatable and raw. It made me think of all those roman empire posts going around a year ago or so: “my roman empire is thinking about losing weight. Not a day goes by without me thinking about it, even for a split second.”

And it’s true, same here. And I bet that’s the case for so many of us, ya know? Especially if you grew up with women in your family having thinness as their roman empire too. I’ve inherited all my ancestors’ roman empires, and many of them were just about losing weight, getting skinny, staying skinny. Being smol smol smol and taking up no space.

I remember how many of my very early diary entries were about me wishing I was smaller in every possible way. Physically, but also personality wise. I remember when I was 12 and me and my friend made our first weight challenge: we would lose 10kg (!) over the summer. Enter my first anorexia round. I lost the 10kg but of course gained it all back.

To this day I’m still obsessed with looking back at photos of myself when I was smaller, wishing desperately that 1) I looked like that now 2) that I realized just how small I was back then. But I didn’t. Because body dysmorphia doesn’t care about your actual size, it will always skew the view of yourself no matter what. At every single size I will look huge, which is codeword for BAD.

I hate looking at pictures of myself taken at the present moment. However, I’ve been around the sun too many times to not realize that I actually can’t trust my own thoughts. So I take pictures anyway, and I ask my partner to take pictures. Just so that in like four years, I can look back and think ok I actually looked super cute, despite me not being able to look at those photos now, in real time.

Photos I hated at the time, instead of a mermaid I thought I looked like a whale. Now a decade later I see a mermaid.

Looking at the photos that Sarah shares in her post, and her comments about her own body in those photos, I realize it’s the same for everyone. It doesn’t matter. We are all victims. Two thoughts exists at the same time in my mind: I can’t believe she thinks that way about herself because it’s simply not true! And: I can totally believe that she thinks that way about herself, even if it’s not true.

FUCK NOTES! Substack is insufferable right now

First of all: the energy in this post? Top notch. Second of all: Everything Luciana writes is true and exactly what I feel about notes (or Twitter or Threads or Bluesky etc). I agree, while also falling victim to this type of expression. There are two wolves inside me etc.

I unfortunately love a feed with short text posts and some cute pics. It just feel like good appetizers when I don’t want to eat a full meal, very digestible. But do I roll my eyes Stanley Hudson style at some of these posts that are clearly just clout and not too far from basically saying “eat pray love”? Um, yeah, I do.

“Being an artist doesn’t make you a good person, and it doesn’t make you empathetic. Being an artist just means you’re insufferable most of the time because all you want to talk about is art, how to make it, how to improve it, and you have very niche and specific interest which makes anyone have a panic attack whenever it’s your birthday and they have to get you a gift.”

Will we ever stop aspiring to be the cool girl? When cool girls are often, honestly, insufferable? They’re not MORE insufferable than anyone else, as humans we are all losers — just in different ways. Some of us are just better at hiding it.

It reminds me of a convo I had with a friend yesterday regarding cool people:

Laughing at this list now, because yes in my lowest moments I get jealous, I too want to be the cool girl. Mysterious, selective, intentional etc. But like my friend replied, they’re not actually mysterious if they’re posting thots and visuals online. Intentional, yes, probably. But like, some are just extremely good at marketing, that’s it.

Anyway, read the article for laughs-only if you want. Nothing is that serious at the end of the day.

But if you wanna get serious about it, the post did remind me of this video essay by Mina Le that sort of relates to Luciana’s post. If you agree and have further thoughts let me know :)

Bourdain & The Trouble With Being Alive

Bourdain, I will never stop thinking about you. It’s pretty clear to me while watching his shows that Bourdain was a cool person who also tried very hard to be just that: cool. He would’ve been cool without the trying. But that he tried very hard, to me, is very clear. It’s also super relatable and shows a vulnerability that I think attracts a lot of people. It’s saying “I don’t give a fuck” when it’s very clear you actually do give a fuck.

But here’s the thing that haunts me:
He saw everything. And still, it wasn’t enough.
What do you do with that?
How do you start to understand why a man who could speak so poetically about the perfect negroni or a homemade plate of food made by a stranger at a street stall? A man who seemed to always be in motion-how do you start to make sense of the silence he left behind?

As someone with depression, this is exactly why I’ll never stop thinking about Bourdain. I’m so happy that he travelled the world and met so many wonderful people. I’m so happy for everything he gave us. But what about Bourdain himself? That feeling that no matter where you are or who you’re with, you just feel incredibly stuck. There is a lid on top of your soul that prevents you to fully absorb all the gifts the world is giving you. You can see it but not touch it. Your soul becomes a pressure tank. You know, factually, that the world is amazing. You love life. But that deep breath that’s needed in order for you to fully know peace just never comes, instead the lid suffocates you. You love life but you just can’t live it.

summer requisites

Ok, things got a little bit dark there towards the end. Lets talk about SUMMER. Lean into your pinterest girl life and read milk fed’s summer requisites list! It’s cute and inspirational but also, to me, highly unachiveable.

And if making a summer altar or organizing your bookshelf by emotional logic (betrayal, girlhood, longing, grief) sounds like too much work for you too, then why not have a Bourdain summer?