Moving back towards analogue?

As things stand at the moment, Substack is a good host for both this blog, and our sister project, At the grassroots. Compared to when we used to host our blogs on Wordpress, we’re getting a lot more in the way of views and engagement here on Substack. It feels as though we’ve really found our feet when it comes to blogging. However, there’s always that nagging doubt in the back of our minds that makes us ask the question – is all of this too good to be true?

Back in the early part of February, in a somewhat introspective post about our activism, I raised concerns about relying on Substack as a long term option for getting our message across:

Thinking about our activism in 2025 10.2.25

As far as propaganda goes, both the Stirrings from below and At the grassroots blogs are doing reasonably well on Substack. However, we cannot afford to take anything for granted in these troubled times. Substack is a US based outfit. The US is going down the proverbial s**tter. Whether it’s government censorship of any dissident voices or the country simply starts to fall apart at the seams, we cannot guarantee that Substack are going to be a reliable host going forward into an ever more turbulent future.

I then flagged up some ideas on how we could possibly move towards more analogue ways of operating, some of which we are tentatively starting to put into practice:

I’ve said this many times over the years but never really followed it through because we had the comfort blanket of an online presence – at some point, we need to think about reverting to analogue ways of getting our message across. The proven, easy ways of doing it are stickers and posters. We have a fair number of stickers and also, designs in the pipeline that can be turned into stickers. These designs can be re-configured to make posters as well.

The more difficult way of getting a message across is the tried and trusted paper. Writing, laying out and getting a paper printed is the easy part. It’s the distribution that has always proved to be a pain in the arse. There may well come a time where if we can’t find a reliable online host for our blogs, a paper will be the only option left open to us. If push comes to shove, the two of us will have to bite the bullet, get a paper out and undertake the slog of distribution ourselves.

When we used to live back in Essex, we were pretty keen on bringing out and distributing papers.

This is the paper archive we have here on Stirrings from below – Papers

This is the paper archive we have over on At the grassroots – Papers

When you scroll down through the archive here on Stirrings from below, you’ll notice that bringing out a paper goes all the way back to our days in the Independent Working Class Association back in the 2000s. That was pretty much before the rise of social media and the start of its use as a political tool. In other words, the days when handing out physical papers and having meaningful face to face conversations with people was still a vital part of political practice. Particularly when you’re standing as a candidate in the local elections. Granted, face to face contact still happens at election time but, there is a heavy reliance on social media and other digital forms of communication. Hosted on platforms owned by tech bro billionaires with some very dodgy agendas. Platforms that we would be foolish in the extreme to rely upon.

Looking back through the paper archives on both Stirrings from below and At the grassroots, I do get a bit nostalgic. We had some great fun with the Thurrock & Basildon Heckler, particularly with this issue that came out in the early part of 2020, a month before the lockdowns came along, when we were lambasting so called ‘independent’ councillors for crossing the floor to join the then Tory ruling group on Thurrock Council. The papers were delivered door to door in the wards of the floor crossing councillors – they weren’t at all pleased by that!

We also used to enjoy handing out copies of Alternative Estuary at various community and vegan fairs and markets across Essex. Sometimes we’d have a stall at these events and they always provided good opportunities to shift a decent number of papers and have some meaningful conversations with people. Since we’ve moved down to Keynsham, we’ve brought out one edition of the At the grassroots paper. The distribution of this last summer and into the early autumn at a couple of events, did spark some interesting conversations:)

Looking to the medium and long term, we know that our already limited reach on social media is going to get throttled out of existence. We also know that we cannot rely on Substack as a long term hosting option for both of our blogs. This means that we have no choice but to start moving back towards analogue ways of getting our message across. With spring now here and the prospect of better weather to come, the conditions for putting up stickers will be a lot more favourable – work is underway to design and produce a range to put up. The anti-war sticker design shown above has already been printed and these are slowly starting to go up across Bristol. The promotional flyers have been printed and distribution of these will soon start.

That leaves the option of a paper. This will happen although what form it will take and who the target audience will be is something that’s still being discussed. If we’re going to go to the expense of printing a paper, we want to get it absolutely right to the point where a demand for it will have been created before we even start distribution. That will take a lot of thought and work. If we get it right, it will have been worth it. Ideally, the production and distribution of any paper would be a collaborative effort involving like minded people from Bristol, Bath and any of the surrounding areas.

We’re far from being the only people thinking about moving at least some of their propaganda output back to analogue. There are a growing number of people who realise that relying on online methods of disseminating propaganda and reaching out to people means that we’re effectively using the enemy’s infrastructure and platforms. We know that sooner or later, we’re going to get bounced off of them, which means we need to start making the switch now.

Many people have reached a point of digital overload to the point where a) they feel overwhelmed and b) they want more in the way of real life, face to face contact and also, printed reading material instead of just staring at a screen. My gut feeling is that there’s a bit of a turn against the digitisation of many aspects of our lives and a desire to step off the digital treadmill and back to a more human way of interacting with each other.

Also, the key point about reverting back to analogue and lessening our dependence on online communication is this – how we interact with our audience is taken off the platforms where what we do can be subjected to surveillance by the authorities. We can fly under the radar more. Yes, the authorities could try inserting spy cops but, given the ongoing inquiry into that practice and the fact that many of us are more alert to those kind of underhand tactics, it’s not very likely. To conclude, there’s a lot to gain by moving back to analogue ways of operating and it’s a journey we’re happy to be taking:)