In a lot of ways, this was my first “business as usual” year of running Burnt Toast.
We’re not a first year scrappy start-up anymore. I wasn’t writing a book at the same time, like I was in year 2. And I wasn’t launching a book at the same time, like I was all of last year. I do take on a select few speaking engagements here and there. And we had a few “big” moments like that New York Times profile, launching Big Undies (def a year highlight!!!), and releasing the paperback of Fat Talk. But otherwise: Every day that I came to work this year, I worked on Burnt Toast and only Burnt Toast.
And for the first time in over 20 years, I haven’t obsessed about what my next career move should be. I’ve just… liked my job. So much. I love writing this newsletter, I love making the podcast, I love working with Corinne and Tommy and I love, love, love being in conversation with all of you every week.
I’m so proud of how this community has contributed to the larger work of fat activism. We are over 60 percent of the way towards our December fundraising goal for NAAFA. (Please, please kick in a few bucks if you can!!) We raised over $36,000 to fight for reproductive rights and more in North Carolina. Burnt Toast is also a monthly supporter of both NAAFA and ASDAH. And we talk constantly here about how to name and navigate anti-fatness everywhere we find it.
One thing about this “business as usual” year is that didn’t include the giant subscriber spikes of years past. I launched Burnt Toast in 2021 with about 700 people on the list. We hit 10,000 by the end of that year, 20,000 by the end of 2022 and 46,000 by the end of 2023. We’re ending 2024 with over 63,000 of you getting these emails. Which isn’t exponential growth, but it is steady, healthy growth — and that is still incredible to me. Around 8 percent of you are paid subscribers—so thank you, especially, for making literally all of this possible.
If you haven’t joined us yet, maybe it’s time to treat yourself? Paid subscriptions—including Extra Butter!— are 20 percent off until next Friday. Join us here!
What Did You Love Most Last Year?
Now here’s a look back at some of your favorite parts of this (not so) ordinary year.
The email with the highest open rate:
Is it sometimes tempting to put the word “Ozempic” in the headline even if the story has absolutely nothing to do with GLP-1s? Yes though I would never mislead like that! But I have been talking and writing about semaglutide for two solid years now and it doesn’t feel like we’re done yet, especially as Trump’s public health nominees seem split down the line on the “lifestyle versus drugs” debate around weight loss. They are entirely missing the point, of course, and so I’ll have to keep writing about this next year. But I will be grumpy about it!
We Need To Talk Again About Ozempic and Food Noise
What happens when people who grew up thinking that their basic hunger was a problem encounter diet culture messaging around food noise?
Everybody feels bad for thinking about food—and desperate to find a way to stop.
The essay that brought in the most free subscribers:
You knew divorce would be in the mix somewhere! This essay includes quite a bit of personal reflection, plus it’s the most critical piece I’ve written about the institution of marriage as a whole. It made plenty of (married) people defensive. I’ve also heard from women who said it’s what helped them finally decide to leave.
Is (Heterosexual) Marriage A Diet?
We are in a golden age of divorce memoirs. They show us women on the other side, finding, or re-finding, themselves. They are stories of liberation. And so it’s not surprising that we are also seeing a backlash to this new joyful divorce narrative.
But it is surprising that so much of the criticism comes from feminists.
The essay that the most people went paid for:
You’re going to see this same trend when we discuss the top podcast episodes next week: Influencer criticism sells. I have mixed feelings about this. I think cultural criticism is an incredibly valuable genre of writing and I don’t think it’s the most important aspect of body liberation journalism, by far. Nobody is getting better healthcare because I articulated the anti-fatness (and MAGA connections) of the 1000 Hours Outside lady. And yet—influencers have enormous influence. See November election results. So yes, this is part of the work now.
“Inside Kids Cannot Possibly Get the Exercise They Need.”
1000 Hours Outside is not just a diet—it’s also conservative Christian propaganda masquerading as a trendy parenting philosophy.
The story with the most comments:
Was also the piece you got the maddest at me about! Which makes sense. Consumerism is a fraught conversation and I (a multiply privileged white lady with a major online shopping habit) am a fraught person to try to interrogate it. I don’t believe in absolutism, I’m always trying to break up with perfectionism, and I like my little treats—so for some of you, I’m just always going to be a little too Cher Horowitz to do this subject justice. One of the most common notes we get when people cancel a paid subscription now is, “Burnt Toast has become a shopping blog.” And yes, we did start using affiliate links this year.
But there are many more of you who are interested in the nuance of these shopping conversations and also wrestling with questions like, how do we buy less fast fashion when so few sustainable brands are size inclusive? And who maybe want to see someone with compulsive over-shopping tendencies try to find ways to do better without defaulting to restriction. So love it or hate it, the shopping content isn’t going anywhere next year—but neither are the hard conversations about how and why we buy.
5 Problems I’ve Solved With Shopping
For better or worse, I have solved quite a few problems recently with shopping!! Could I have done it another way? Were they even problems to begin with? Am I the entire reason we’ll never solve capitalism?
I’ll tell you what I bought, and you can tell me what you think in the comments.
PS. One more thought about comments: The quantity of comments on posts has gone down a teeny bit this year, I think because we’re having more conversations in Substack Chat. I’d love to know if you have any strong preferences about Chat vs. comment section? I like both, plan to continue using both, but it would help me think about how best to use them both if I knew more about how you use them.
The story with the most shares:
Not shockingly, the piece that you shared the most (via Notes or other social media platforms) was the piece that originally converted the most folks to paid: My deep dive on 1000 Hours Outside after I re-released it without a paywall right after the election. This one did so well because the white Christian momfluencer role in Trump’s reelection is so important to understand right now. But it’s also a good reminder to me to do these re-releases periodically as a way of making some of our biggest stories accessible to a wider audience.
If we control for the rerun, the runner up in this category was a piece I wrote in April critiquing a takedown by The Washington Post of anti-diet dietitians. I’m surprised this did so well because it’s a somewhat inside baseball topic! But there are definitely no end of opportunities to talk about the way anti-fatness pervades mainstream media health and nutrition coverage… so expect plenty more of this next year.
I’d love to know: What was your favorite essay of the year? Did it make it into this list or was it more of a sleeper hit?
What Did You Not Love This Year?
Here’s some of what didn’t work so well this year—and what we’re learning from it.
The email with the lowest open rate:
LOL, okay, it was the year’s other milestone essay — the one I write on the anniversary of our launch date in June. So maybe not that many of you are reading this piece either! Process stories are a particular niche, I guess. But I like cataloguing in this way because it definitely helps me to look back over the years and see how far we’ve come.
The newsletter that brought in the least free and paid subscribers:
I’m actually very fond of this deeply relatable reader question about feeling compulsive around chocolate cake. But I get why it didn’t gain traction more broadly. I think anyone who has been in anti-diet spaces for a minute has heard similar advice. It’s still valuable to lots of folks! But I admit, my own interest in continuing to identify restrictive thought patterns with food is a lot less than it was a few years ago.
So I’d also love to know: What did you not like this year? Any particular essays that annoyed you, but you forgot to tell me about it at the time? Here’s your safe space (plus a reminder that you can be honest and kind!).
We have one more podcast episode of 2024 coming at you next week, but Burnt Toast will otherwise be on winter break until just after New Year’s. Wishing you all the best for whatever this holiday season looks like for you! (Whether or not that includes matching PJs.)
Endlessly grateful to be doing this work with you.
—Virginia xo
Quick comment before it slips my mind - comments in the post, please! I find the chat function tedious, hard to navigate, and I just don’t think to look there.
Count me as someone who's here for this: "to see someone with compulsive over-shopping tendencies try to find ways to do better without defaulting to restriction. So love it or hate it, the shopping content isn’t going anywhere next year—but neither are the hard conversations about how and why we buy."
Also, because I'm a multifaceted being, I may also have a compulsive over-shopping part of me, but I also have a digital minimalist side of me. Which means I have very few apps on my phone, so no Substack app for me. I read all my newsletters straight from my inbox. And so on the Comments vs Notes/Chat question, I'm all about the Comments.
I'll also just share how I much I love the cohesive diversity of content -- fat liberation, personal/cultural marriage and divorce commentary, fashion/clothes/shopping, dismantling perfectionism and on and on. It's one of my absolute favorite online spaces and I'm grateful for what you've created and cultivated here.