A Return to (Long) Form
…And we’re back on my unending quest to understand Substack. My nightly routine now revolves around reading often melodramatic personal essays from eloquent 20-somethings. My very dorky PR-heart lit up when I scrolled upon a whole community of comms/media girlies getting in on the action. I feel more connected with my general domain in my Substack circles than I ever do on my overly-optimized LinkedIn.
So. I’m Humbled and honored to announce that I got to chat with Recovering Girlboss Juliette Dallas-Feeney (IG: @juliettedallasfeeney ) who’s also a brand consultant, media mogul, and Substacker. Her publication is as relatable as it is insightful. As a younger PR pro with high (very high) ambitions I find her work incredibly salient.
I kept my questions simple because I wanted to get to the core of it: why do this? As Ali has said, PR is traditionally a “behind-the-camera” career, but in the social media age, a platform like Substack feels like a sanctuary for media pros to take center-stage and connect.
What drew you to Substack, and why now?
“I was an early adopter of Substack, back when it was simply a newsletter-sending app and not yet the ecosystem it’s become. I wrote a few entries for my first Substack in 2023 about using cannabis as a kind of modern ritual and tool for creativity. But I felt like I needed to widen the aperture and create a space that gave me more space to play. So I created Recovering Girlboss, a space to explore ambition, identity, beauty, and digital culture with a little more honesty and context.
After spending 15+ years shaping storytelling for media companies, tech startups, and beauty brands, I wanted a medium that allowed for more depth and nuance. Beauty, to me, has always been a mirror for culture: how we construct identity, how we perform selfhood, and how we express care. Substack gives me a place to write about those intersections — where discovery is guided by connection and curiosity, not (at least yet) by algorithmic noise.”
There’s something magical about Recovering Girlboss and other pubs like it. It speaks the Substack language while still capturing the personality of its author. As media and comms pros, we’re used to tailoring messages to fit each channel. But as social media gets noisier, Substack feels like a sanctuary.
Behind the camera or not, PR has always been about relationships. How we maintain those relationships has changed (a great idea for another column). But in an age where curiosity now feels rare online, feeds are hyper-tailored, echo chambers cycle the same things repeatedly and the mystique of the algorithm reigns supreme, Substack can be a return to a vaguely familiar, long-form space where media pros can thrive with room for depth and fully thought-out ideas.
Which leads me to my next question…
What do you feel it offers you as a creator/media pro?
“It reminds me of the early days of blogging! Before social media shortened our attention spans and optimized every thought for engagement. Writing was my first love, and Substack makes space for that again. I’m drawn to how Substack offers a way to lead with ideas, to own your audience, and to use long-form writing as the creative foundation that everything else can ladder back to.”
I’m too young to have lived through the true blogging era, but I totally see the potential within slowing down and lingering on an idea. Analog has been kinda trendy lately, it’s refreshing to read and write something that follows a thought to its natural conclusion.
Unlike the blogging era, today’s internet runs on niches. I’ve got my comms circle and a digital playground built just for me. The platform’s always happy to keep the content coming.
Good for community? Absolutely. Good for our attention spans? Debatable. But it plays perfectly into the attention-scarce economy we’re all trying to outsmart.
What’s the value or purpose you hope to bring to your readers through it?
“Recovering Girlboss is my way of processing what it’s meant to spend my entire career inside the social media ecosystem, as both a participant and an observer. I’ve been online since the earliest days of brand social, and I’ve watched every shift in how we perform identity, seek validation, and measure worth. I’m interested in unpacking those paradoxes — what it means to be both the creator and the audience, the seller and the sold-to — and helping readers reclaim their attention so they can engage more consciously with the culture we’re all part of.”
And there you have it, folks. I wholeheartedly agree and LOVE when media pros get on Substack.
I forecast a hunger within the collective consumer for creative ideas. Not just snackable bites for social, but full-course cheffed-up conversations that build community and explore ideas deeply.
The language of Substack — its culture, tone and norms — feels incredibly timely. In an age of AI, short-form content, and convenience culture, a platform that values language, thought, and connection is only going to grow in demand.
But what do you think? Do you find yourself craving more from your media? Do you see yourself living out your writer fantasy in a newsletter of your own?
Chat soon,
Sarah