Substack's "Creator" "Questionnaire"
A story of my own erasure
Not too long ago, Substack asked me to be the public face of the company:
I found it odd, but flattering—why did someone who ostensibly runs the ship
reach out to ask me, and only me, to essentially become the global steward of their fast-growing, trillion-dollar brand?
It couldn’t hurt, though. It would cost me nothing, and it seems like this company needs all the PR it can get by boosting the visibility of a big Muslim dumbass. I filled out the “Creator Questionnaire.”
All rudimentary stuff. I expertly and efficiently translated our ironic, devil-may-care posturing into short, pithy answers for “Randa’s” invasive line of questioning.
I was even promised unfathomable riches, a gaggle of buxom babes, and dinner reservations at places that have more of a small plates > entrees vibe:
But here’s where things took a devious, unseemly turn.
The eventual Instagram post featured “Ritam Mehta” as the sole proprietor behind Low Lift Ask. It seems that the rug was pulled out from under me—by a fellow Muslim In Media, no less!
Should I have been more suspicious Ritam’s “lmfaoooo” earlier? Surely it was a blatant sign that these two were in cahoots. His bitchass has been trying to box me out of this cash cow for years, anyway—and now he had found just the avenue to do so.
By identifying himself as the single credited author of Low Lift Ask, Ritam has decided to shun be from public life, and, essentially, render me a flailing, tattered flag in the wind of change.
“[I]t would be funny”…? Yeah, I’m sure it would be. If you were anyone but me, for whom this was a devastating moment in time—it was actually not funny at all if you thought about it for one second.
In response, Randa Sakallah asked me for identifying information—like my Social Security number, permanent address, and my 1Password Master Key.
I was—to put it mildly—incensed.
Randa’s condescending plea to upload a profile photo—as if that were the only thing stopping the bullies at Substack from including me in the Creator Questionnaire Instagram Post—awoke the beast within me.
Here is the photo I chose:
I will now explain the significance of this image, which was selected as a silent protest against my swift and vicious cancellation.
In Avatar: The Way of Water, Stephen Lang’s character, Colonel Miles Quaritch, reawakens as a Na’vi Recombinant, and this fellow soldier’s face is one of the first things he sees. It is a rude and abrupt reawakening into a world—Pandora—that he believed his corporeal form had left behind. Turns out? He hadn’t.
By choosing this still image as my Substack profile picture, I am cleverly hinting—to those who are intelligent enough to pick up on all the subterranean meanings behind all my artistic choices, which honestly isn’t that many of you—that I have been rudely and abruptly reawakened into a world I thought I had left behind: high school. Where merciless bullying and name-calling rule the ecosystem. Where people named “Randa Sakallah” may, at first, seem to be champions of progressive thought, but soon reveal themselves to be liars and snakes. Where I must, much like Miles Quaritch, destroy the previous notion of who I thought I was.
It’s easy to see now, with the evidence all laid out before me, that I was taken for a ride. Rather than hang my head in shame, I am sending this missive out to all of our chud subscribers, in the hopes that you all may come to my defense. I will begin taking legal action against all parties involved, hoping to settle a generous remuneration pursuant to the grave charges I will be filing.
No one will be spared from the wrath of a man who thought he was going to be featured in an Instagram post but wasn’t.
But take this as a warning—if it could happen to me, it could happen to any one of you. Any one of you could become Substack’s baby bitch.
Ritam’s Footnote
this mf said “shun be”
why aren't we connected on linkedin?
Why did you have to call us chuds??