Vogue Etiquette: Carole Radziwill and Jalil Johnson on Substack Rules and Newsletter No-Nos
Unsubscribing, oversharing, and emailing everyone you’ve ever met—Carole Radziwill and Jalil Johnson break down the dos and don’ts of modern newsletter culture.
Reported by Vogue.
Substack has done something remarkable: it convinced an entire generation of writers, stylists, journalists, and general opinion-havers that their thoughts are worth $8 a month — and then left everyone scrambling to figure out the social etiquette around actually collecting. The newsletter economy is booming, the rules are nonexistent, and the inbox chaos is very real.
According to Vogue, two people well-positioned to sort this out are Carole Radziwill — former ABC News producer, author, Kennedy-circle fixture, and writer behind The Voice of Reason, which counts over 12,000 subscribers — and Jalil Johnson, the New York-based stylist whose fashion and culture newsletter Consider Yourself Cultured has already pulled in more than 15,000 readers. Together, they mapped the social minefield of modern publishing: how often to post, when to promote, and what never to do with someone's email address.
The Do's, the Don'ts, and the Deeply Petty
On the most contested question — is it acceptable to subscribe someone without asking — Johnson is firm: "I feel terribly violated." Radziwill, characteristically, has zero qualms and hands out lifetime free memberships to strangers who've read her work. Posting frequency is where they find more common ground: both agree that a newsletter should feel like a treat landing in your inbox, not a recurring obligation. Radziwill learned this the hard way after a friend told her that three posts a week was simply too much. She scaled back to one long Sunday essay. Readers, apparently, are grateful. On cross-promotion — Instagram, X, everywhere — neither blinks. "It's a small business," Radziwill says flatly. Johnson's take: "Promote, promote, promote, promote." Milestone announcements? Fine. Disclosing revenue? Johnson calls it gauche unless the newsletter is literally about money. Radziwill redirects to the IRS. And if someone unsubscribes? Johnson refuses to even look at the analytics — "I don't want to be sad" — while Radziwill sends a thank-you note and reserves her pettiness exclusively for friends who refuse to share her work. She is, she notes, keeping a list.
What this conversation quietly confirms is that Substack has invented a new species of social anxiety — one where the personal and the professional are permanently, uncomfortably intertwined, and where asking a near-stranger to share your newsletter is the modern equivalent of a faux pas at a dinner party.
The new etiquette isn't about which fork to use; it's about knowing the difference between building a community and just cluttering someone's inbox.
Read the original at Vogue.
