One Year of Bullfish Hole

Reflections, Directions, and Special Offer

Today marks the one-year anniversary of my first post. It is as good a time as any to reflect on why I started this thing, what I’ve done so far, and where I hope it’s going.

Why I Started

I’m a nerdy wordcel who likes to talk about what he reads.

I had an old blog that I started with the idea of discussing books and ideas in more detail than one can do in normal conversation (even, sadly, in academia). At the same time, I had a second blog that Bradley Campbell and I started for promoting our book on victimhood culture.

Not long after starting those blogs I got married, started taking Korean classes, bought a house, had two kids, lost one parent and two grandparents, finished writing a second book, and did various other things that kept me from posting very often. Bradley also stopped posting to our shared blog as he moved on to other projects.

Rising inflation plus the second child made me cancel the web hosting and domain registration for both blogs. But as I was about to nuke everything, two Twitter mutuals — Alexandra and Holly Math Nerd — suggested starting a Substack instead.

Though it’s far afield of my kind of writing, I was also inspired by the success of Rippaverse Comics and founder Eric July’s admonition: “Don’t wait, create!”

Sure, I’m too much of a risk-averse academic to jump into a real business, but maybe a hobby with potential for side-hustle….

So one summer day I pulled the trigger.

What I Write Here

I’ve spent — probably misspent — large chunks of my life accumulating knowledge about certain aspects of human behavior and how to explain them. This includes reading tons of the sociology of conflict, law, deviance, morality, beliefs, and violence, as well as lots of history and philosophy of science and much general history and anthropology.

My goal here is to share this knowledge with others. I realize many of my interests are niche — how many people are fascinated by the weird symmetry of conflicting rumors that fueled a Detroit race riot? On the other hand, there’s a lot of people out there, and the internet connects us like never bore. I mean, there’s weirder interests than mine that breed full blown subcultures.

My first and longest so-far series is called Explaining Behavior. It’s essentially the written version of a course on sociological explanation that I’ve taught to undergrads and grad students for about a decade now. It is based on a course that I took from sociologist Donald Black when I was a graduate student. It covers the mechanics of sociological theory and different strategies one can use to explain why people do any of the bizarre things they do.

The Moral Cultures series is a spin-off of my work with sociologist Bradley Campbell, including our book Rise of Victimhood Culture. In that book we distinguished three broad moral cultures — honor, dignity, and victimhood — and proposed ways of explaining them with sociological theory. The series looks at aspects of these cultures, from the dueling found in honor culture to the dependence on authority found in victimhood culture. It seems to be popular, so I try to update it regularly. I’ve got some new installments in the works now.

I started another series called How Ideas Behave that examines the sociology of ideas and beliefs. The series covers things like gossip, rumors, religions, and conspiracy theories. Though I’ve taught on those subjects before, I don’t have anything well-polished to adapt, so it’s heavier lifting for me to write each entry. Because of various projects at my day job, I’ve been slower to update this one. If there’s more reader interest, I will pick up the pace.

In the Books series I give detailed summaries, sometimes with commentary and links to related topics, of whatever books held my interest. So far, I’ve had a penchant for history and older (60s and 70s) sociology.  I don’t have the critical wit of Scott Alexander, though sometimes I have similar wordcounts. Given the argument that books aren’t information dense, maybe I’m doing a service with these digests.

In February I started doing a monthly Links post, discussing items of interest from around the internet with commentary. I’ve always enjoyed when other bloggers like Scott Alexander and Arnold Kling do these. It lets me riff on different odds and ends I’d probably never take the time to make a “proper” post on.

There’s also been the occasional one-off post that’s not part of any series, like when I summarized my recent criminology publication or speculated on the nature of elites. So far, I’ve only recorded a single podcast, with two experts on the Amish. I’m working on scheduling more interviews like that one, so expect more in the coming year.

For future content, I’m planning to rotate in some news series. Explaining Behavior is finite and will probably end after another 10 posts. I’d like to start a series on the sociology of violence, and maybe eventually series on some of my weird historical fascinations, like bloody history of post-independence Congo (think Game of Thrones but crazier). Professors don’t generally have much practical knowledge to share, but I am also considering writing some advice on learning Korean language and culture for people who, like me, aren’t 18-year-old K-Pop fans.

Greatest Hits

My most-viewed post of all time was on Naomi Oreske’s book The Rejection of Continental Drift. This was a surprise hit, as I honestly thought it would flop and that I was being stubbornly weird for posting it anyway. It wound up with twice as many views as the second most-viewed post, on Randall Collin’s The Credential Society.

Biggest Flops

My least-viewed substantive post was the second entry in How Ideas Behave, Variation in Knowledge. I made the decision to paywall that series, and I guess it’s not been as big a draw as I hoped (or feared, since that would mean pressure to update more regularly). Not entirely surprising, though, since when I taught sociology of knowledge back in the gap I couldn’t fill the classes. It’s the nichest of my niches.

As for free posts, I’d measure a “flop” not just in terms of views, but in ratio of effort to views. So here some of the biggest flops were also books posts. I put a stupid amount of time into Richard A. Gabriel’s God’s Generals to get a small readership. But as I acknowledge in the post, a lot of that book probably more historical fiction than fact, so maybe my audience is of more discerning tastes. I was also a little disappointed by In Lincoln’s Shadow, though that’s recent enough that it still might turn out to have legs.

Subscriber Growth and Appreciation

Subscriber numbers since then have grown slowly but steadily, with a straight trend line. As I type this, we’re at 142 free, 6 paid. Not huge, but the subscriber numbers double about every three months, so if we maintain that rate we ought to see a lot of new subscribers in the next year.

Subscribers: I really do appreciate you! Your interest and support are the main thing driving regular posts — otherwise I would have let this die off like my old blogs.

While I’m naturally going to gravitate to things that I best like to read and write about, I also want to take your interests into consideration. So please let me know in the comments what sort of content you most appreciate!

Paid Content

I’ve toyed around with different strategies for incentivizing paid subscriptions. My recent strategy has been keeping most new posts free and paywalling the older ones. I’ve seen other substacks do the reverse, and only make older content free. I’m not sure which, if either, is better, but since I’m generally not very current events-driven the old posts are as relevant as the new ones in my case.

I also followed Helen Dale’s substack in adding a tip link so people have the option of supporting Bullfish Hole without committing to a subscription.

Now, to celebrate the one-year anniversary, I’m offering a discount for new subscribers. Click this link for 20% off!

FYI, the offer expires soon.

If you’re either a paid subscriber or a free subscriber on the fence about paying, let me know if there’s anything I can do to deliver more value.

One idea for premium content that I got from Rob Henderson’s substack is to record audio version of my posts. I understand the value of this because as a father of two toddlers, I have trouble finding time to read and so consume a lot of writing through audiobooks. What do you think?

Speaking of premium content for paid subscribers, here’s a secret for you: Just what the hell is a bullfish hole, anyway? Check your inbox in the next few days for the answer.