Let a Little Shit Run You Out? On Gardens, Goop, and Glennon

This is not a threat to me or anyone else; this is the opening and broadcasting of a message that can reach the masses.

Late one summer evening, a friend and I were walking through my neighborhood when we found a house with something unusual: instead of a driveway, a small pond and wildflower garden were taking up the whole front yard. When I say whole, I mean entire.

We approached to see what the plants and flowers were and how anyone would enter the front door. As we got closer, we noticed a woman gardening. We started a conversation, asking how she got the garden to be this way.

It turned out she had bought the house 35 years ago. She had moved from New York and had enough money to get a car or this home. She opted for the house and never owned a car. It was no coincidence that there was no driveway; she spent many years saving enough money to have it removed.

My friend mentioned he had also moved here from New York but couldn't imagine not having a car. She laughed a little before asking, 'What brought you to Austin?'

"Oh, I got tired of the city. It got gross," he said.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes. I was done when someone on the subway threw shit on me."

"You let a little shit run you out of New York?" she replied.

My friend, stunned, flatly said, "Well, it was more than that."

You can imagine the awkward silence that followed. I turned our attention back to the garden; how do you maintain all of this? It's so impressive.

"Oh, these plants thrive on neglect. I come out here occasionally and do some weeding, but otherwise, it doesn't need much from me."

As we walked away, my friend said, "She seems lonely."

"That woman is anything but lonely," I said. "She might be the most grounded person I've ever met."

I've been sitting back and watching the discourse on notes and in posts about Glennon Doyle's arrival this last week. I'd say you can't miss it, but my boyfriend is on Substack, and he has no idea what I'm talking about—algorithms. It's hard to say with all the users just how many people are affected, but one thing is for sure: It seems very personal to some of you. (Maybe not YOU.)

It reminded me of a post I wrote in December 2023: Looking for Serious Fun.

You should have seen me last week watching some drama unfold on Notes between writers and readers. Think of the audience at a Jerry Springer show or watching the Real Housewives of whatever being recorded while they're having a heated moment.

With wide eyes I watched the comments and re-sharing and the public demands and the threats flew back and forth as I inhaled the popcorn.

Wait, what?! What is actually happening here??!!

Of all the things I thought I might find on Substack, I did not foresee, and I hate to use this language, but it's the only sentence that comes to mind, this subset of people shit all over each other.

How did I not see that coming? Good question.

Maybe for the same reason, I didn't expect to see these same writers who are using Substack to grow their readership and potentially (or not) be able to monetize from it, shit all over the functionality and benefits of the new features the platform has and continues to roll out.

Perhaps this is the glaring undertone that can't be ignored with social media, socialization, and society.

It seems there will always exist a town center, a crowd that gathers and a stake ready to burn it and everyone down.

Because Glennon already has a platform, money, and privileges, she should be more considerate of everyone here.

She shouldn't announce with a video she is here and has a paywall in place.

She shouldn't join one of her best friends for a live and get more access; she shouldn't write in lower caps.

She should not be on here at all.

Because. allegedly

It's a threat to Substack and the ecosystem.

It's a threat to your gaining more subscribers.

It's a threat to you earning money.

She's already a celebrity; doesn't she have enough?

I'll admit the thinking is very relatable. I remember discovering Sophia Amoruso one day in 2013 while working in my office. Today, it's hard to say what I could have been working on if my research had brought me to NastyGal and its owner. What isn't hard to say but admit is that I went into an absolute tailspin. I left my office at Teddies for Bettys to lie in bed and cry before picking my kids up from school.

In an instant, my identity and self-worth were questioned and threatened: She is so edgy and cool, and I'm not; she figured out how to do this, has raised $100mil, and is on the cover of Forbes, and I'm none of that.

I'll never get to where she is.

I wonder how weird it would be today for her to hear from others who took her success so personally. Not only because she publically went bankrupt, has watched #girlboss turn on itself, and had to answer to how many people for it along the way but because I can't imagine she was thinking, 'Oh, I wonder how many people I'll take away from and minds I'll fuck with...'

But that was minor compared to the resentment I felt as I got closer to closing Teddies for Bettys and in the years following.

And I have Gwyneth Paltrow to thank for adjusting my headspace.

I may be repeating myself to some of you, but for the newcomers:

In 2008, I opened the first "lifestyle" store in Texas to offer both lingerie and sex toys, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled it illegal to ban the sale of novelty products. A shoutout to Forbidden Fruits - the real MVPs in Austin who helped pave the way.

Though laws changed to favor sex shops ( but are currently under threat again), mindsets didn't follow. While searching for a location, I faced repeated rejections because I planned to sell lingerie alongside sex toys. I was denied business insurance and loans.

One couple took a chance on me, leasing a tiny house on South 1st Street. I didn't realize the magnitude of their "yes" at the time. All the "nos" came because I was selling "sex."

"Influencers" would shop in my store but never mention it publicly because it wasn't "on brand." When I'd invite someone to visit, I'd hear dismissive comments like, "If I ever need anything like that, I'll stop by," to which I'd reply, "Okay… when you start wearing bras and panties, you should."

Over the years, I grew tired of the uphill feeling. I began feeling insecure, believing what I did was taboo - that I was taboo.

Imagine my surprise when Gwyneth Paltrow from GOOP came online and started promoting vibrators, pleasure documentaries, and vagina candles. At first flinch, I was shocked. "Now you're all okay buying sex toys?" I thought. I had already closed my doors at Teddies for Bettys and didn't feel financially threatened. Still, that old lingering resentment rose in me. And I didn't want to have any of it. Mainly because I didn't have it in me emotionally, but also because this was huge, and I realized how her success was my success. This woman has a massive platform, money, and from the looks of it, zero fucks about what people think.

Overnight, she is destigmatizing, commercializing, and normalizing pleasure and sex. This is not a threat to me or anyone else; this is the opening and broadcasting of a message that can reach the masses.

This is bigger than me.

She is doing the work on behalf of the collective. Work that I can't do alone... And as for the business of selling sex toys and educating people on pleasure, this is definitely a more, not less, situation. ( I mean, even her family/romantic life are a reference for me, now.)

I was reminded of my original mindset when I entered the bra business. Anytime someone asked me about Victoria's Secret, I had the same answer; I couldn't be here without them.

Victoria's Secret played a crucial role. People like to criticize their quality and sexualization. Still, they educated the American consumer about lingerie and bras in a way that reached the masses. In the 90s, it was all about feeling sexy, exciting, and feminine. My first "miracle bra" was an investment of two weeks' coffee shop wages that I didn't hesitate to make - one of those transformative shopping moments I wish more people could experience.

Victoria's Secret helped normalize lingerie shopping in America, making it slightly more like France, where women traditionally budget a third of their income for foundation garments - something I rarely saw from my American clientele. I noticed that once women became more conscious of quality, they often evolved toward the higher-end brands that boutiques like mine offered. They became ready to invest in their lingerie drawers.

Insert Susan Nethero, founder of Intimacy. She appeared on Oprah and revealed that 1 in 8 women didn't know their bra size, explaining why this knowledge mattered physically. They called it a "bra revolution," the industry grew by $700 million that year.

Not only was she marketing the importance of bra fittings to help other shops around her, but she was also showing dreamers like me what was possible. I never realized that you could make millions of dollars a year selling bras.

Each of these women has shown me what is possible— that you can build a business out of the back of your car on eBay without a degree. That you can educate the consumer. That, despite a system that is set against women and pleasure, of policing our bodies and trying to control us, you can rise above that and the judgment. That my little lingerie shop that could, could generate millions a year. That you can go down, hard --wait, DO HARD THINGS! and get back up. You can go bankrupt and continue to be in business.

The amount of shit that has been thrown at Glennon Doyle is enough to make most people not even try. And yet, she persists. Does she persevere? I couldn't tell you. But others, through her community and platform, have.

She is clearly needed because she is in demand. I hope she makes it here ( and everywhere ).

For the record;

A lot of her 200k following came from her mailing list (I imagine a large % of those people weren't even on Substack)

If I'm not mistaken, Liz Gilbert, who happens to be one of her dearest friends, originally found or read Glennon's work in her Facebook group and said, "This woman needs to be heard."

The paywall money is to pay the team managing the Substack. (Why do we always forget that people making money make other people money, and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MAKING MONEY!)

We have no idea how much money she has, and it's not our business.

For those who can't afford it, she's offering to comp their subscriptions.

She's here because she misses interacting with her community but doesn't want to be trolled. She wants her people to feel safe.

I hate that I even have to ask this but where is your heart in all of this?

Not your head.

I keep coming back to that woman's garden. The one that exists where convention says a driveway should be. The wildflowers that thrive on neglect, growing more beautiful with little attention. The woman who laughed at the idea of letting "a little shit" determine where she belonged.

She removed what didn't serve her—a driveway—to create space for what did.

She didn't waste energy worrying about what others thought of her choices. She planted her garden and let it flourish.

Maybe that's what we need in this digital ecosystem—not to run at the first sign of competition or conflict but to cultivate our own spaces with intention, allowing others to do the same. We should recognize that when someone with a bigger platform joins our community, they're not taking our sunlight—they might actually be helping more seeds germinate.