The Privilege of a Platform
On two years of "leaning in", and other media lessons at the close of OnlySky
Last week a shoe dropped that I’d seen coming for quite some time—so it wasn’t shocking: more like letting out a breath I’d been holding for a while.
But at the end of OnlySky, which launched in January 2022 and changed hands in April 2023, before closing today, March 7, 2024, it seems important to mark the experience.
No, this is not a grand vent or ugly tell-all.
This is a personal reflection, framed around the complex times we live in, and further shaped by my own peculiar character and writing journey. As with most things in life, writing for OnlySky was a tremendous education—about industry, about writing, about secular discourse, and about myself.
In my final post for OnlySky, I didn’t simply want to tell folks where I’d be going next. I wanted to thank readers for giving the site a chance. I wanted to consider goals and missteps, and to reflect one last time on the work our industry needs from us now. I called it “We’re going to need a bigger village”—because we will, and we do.
In that piece, I also noted that it was a privilege to have a platform—and it is.
It always, always is.
For years, I imagined what it might be like if I ever “arrived”, and had the power or means to make a bigger difference in my community. If I could have defended my dissertation, and found a tenure-track job in academia. If I could have sold a book to a major press, and made out well in the fiction market. If I could have found the living stability I need to be able to invest fully in my community.
If, if, if.
This is another of those ifs that didn’t work out.
But it was still a privilege to have a platform at all, however brief and small.
And that fact is what merits the following reflection on these past two years of nonfiction writing, in my first Thorough Thursday piece, for the paid subscribers who are now helping me to make this platform a viable new home.
Thank you to everyone for supporting the work, however you do—and not just mine (by a long shot), but also the work of everyone trying to keep thriving, thoughtful discourse going in a world of increasingly corporate and clickbait-driven news.
We’ll get through this latest bursting bubble somehow, I’m sure.
This is the first week of a new posting schedule for Better Worlds Theory, which will now show up four times a week. The new structure runs from Monday Media Review to Tough Times Tuesday, to Rewind Wednesday, to a deep-dive for paid subscribers on Thorough Thursday. Over the weekend, Patrons and then other viewers will also have access to a weekly YouTube post addressing speculative fiction. Thank you for your patience during my adjustment to a new workflow, and thank you so much for your support of the work: whether it be through reading, commenting, sharing, and/or upgrading your subscription. It all makes a difference, and I hope the coming work continues to merit your investment.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Better Worlds Theory to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.