Subscribe to the RSS Feed

How do I do that?

First, you have to get an RSS feed reader. On Apple platforms, NetNewsWire is a famous choice, and it's what I use as well. I'm not familiar with RSS readers on other platforms, but there's a bounty of options—free options—that you can find via search engines or in app stores. I've heard good things about Fluent Reader, so that may be worth looking into as a starting point on Windows or Android.

Got your feed reader? Now you can subscribe for real. If you have a desktop/mobile feed reader, just click the big ol' link below, and it'll automatically open the app and add this blog's feed to it. Alternatively, you can copy the link URL, and paste it into your feed reader manually.

Wait first of all...what's an "RSS feed"?

I'll start from the basics. When you hear people talking about "subscribing", you usually hear something like "to my YouTube channel" right after, right? When you hear "following", you hear "to my Instagram/Twitter/etc.".

With those kinds of following, you usually have to make an account with a platform before you're allowed to see anything. You might have to make several accounts with several platforms to follow all the creators you're interested in. That means you have to use their websites/apps, which are often ugly, clunky, riddled with ads, and suck you into the dreadful spiral of doomscrolling, draining you of your attention, energy, and time.

I know this already, what does it have to do with "RSS"?

Most people don't know that, before social media, things never worked this way. Instead of being chained to platforms, people only needed the URLs of creators' blogs, which are free to everybody and require no account. And they didn't need to repeatedly check different websites, either. They only needed ONE app for ALL of their subscriptions, and that app had NO ads and NO doomscrolling. That app is called the RSS feed reader, also known as just an RSS reader, or a newsreader.

RSS is basically an open, liberating version of subscribing/following, and it's existed almost since the birth of the web. Creators simply needed to include a special file on their websites—the RSS feed—and configure their website so that you, the reader/subscriber, can copy-paste the website's URL into an RSS reader. The RSS reader would then detect the RSS feed and show you the creator's latest posts, also fetching new ones automatically in a manner similar to email.

It's the open web's more powerful equivalent to social media following, because you're not chained to the likes of Instagram or Twitter. You, the reader, can choose your app. Creators can choose their platform, or go independent and make a blog. Everyone is united by websites and RSS feeds—technologies that are available to all.

That's cool and all, but I already have subscriptions/follows on social media platforms. What happens to them?

Unbeknownst to many, RSS is still silently alive and well. Get an RSS reader, then copy the URL of any YouTube channel, Tumblr blog, Substack, Bluesky handle, Mastodon handle, or Webtoon comic, paste it into the RSS reader, and be amazed. Most of these websites don't show you a shiny RSS button with an orange icon, like my blog does, but they still serve RSS feeds. You can still get recommendations and find new creators by visiting the websites of Tumblr, Substack, Bluesky, or Mastodon—but you aren't forced to see them, or get sucked into them. The choice is entirely in your hands.

Every single YouTube channel, Webtoon, Tumblr, Substack, Bluesky, and Mastodon...and on top of that, most news outlets, indie webcomics, blogs, and more—all in one app. It sounds too good to be true, but that's the secret social media's been keeping from you all this time. Actually, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are meanies who don't provide RSS feeds, and there are other websites that neglect to create RSS feeds for themselves. But there's a solution for that too—there are sites like RSS.app and OpenRSS, which can generate RSS feeds for you.

RSS really covers everything, huh!

I've been using an RSS reader for about half a decade (as of February 5, 2025), and it's so useful for avoiding social media's toxic algorithms, and for keeping up with creators at my own pace, that I can't imagine going back to the way things were before. I highly encourage you to download an RSS feed reader, like the ones I mention at the top of the page, and join this silent revolution to make your reading, and your life, better.