In 1948, Vogue published its 658-page Book of Etiquette, compiled by editor Millicent Fenwick, featuring how-tos, dos and don’ts, and the proper politesse for a remarkably varied set of scenarios. But as Fenwick writes in the introduction: “Etiquette is based on tradition, and yet it can change.” Some 75 years later, Oh, Behave! is a new monthly Vogue column in which experts sound off on today’s ever-evolving social etiquette.

There was a time when etiquette meant knowing which fork to use. Now, it’s knowing how to ask friends—and complete strangers—for a penny for your thoughts… and then charge $8 a month for them. In the age of Substack—where everyone has a newsletter, a niche, and a payment tier—the rules are murkier. How often is too often? Must one subscribe back? And at what point does self-promotion become self-indulgent?

For this installment of Oh, Behave!, Vogue turns to two writers who know their way around both a sentence and a subscriber list. Carole Radziwill—the former ABC News producer, author, and Real Housewives of New York City alum (who approached the franchise with a journalist’s detachment) and a bona fide member of the Kennedy orbit—now pens The Voice of Reason, a Substack with more than 12,000 devoted readers and plenty of opinions to match. Alongside her is Jalil Johnson, the New York–based stylist behind Consider Yourself Cultured, whose sharply observed dispatches on fashion and culture have quickly attracted a loyal following of over 15,000—and who can often be spotted at fashion parties layered in jewelry, from pinky rings to chains, dressed with studied ease.

Together, they tackle the social minefield of modern publishing—from unsolicited subscriptions to subscriber envy, inbox overload, and the delicate politics of asking your friends to promote your work. Because if Substack has taught us anything, it’s that writing may be personal—but the audience is very, very public.

On Operating a Substack

Vogue: Is it ever acceptable to subscribe someone to your Substack without their consent?

Carole Radziwill: I think it’s encouraged! I mean, I wasn’t aware that you needed consent to subscribe someone to your Substack? I subscribe to so many people—I give lifetime free memberships to people I meet on the street who have read anything I’ve written!

Jalil Johnson: I think it’s terribly gauche if you just take someone's email and automatically subscribe them without letting them know. I have a caveat, though! If you are migrating from another platform to Substack and already have a database of follower emails, in my head, those readers have already agreed to subscribe to you. But when it happens to me, I feel violated! I feel terribly violated. It also clutters your inbox. Like, I already have over 11,000 unread emails—I’m very ashamed of that—and this is just adding onto the number.

How often should a Substack land in someone’s inbox—when does it become too much?

Radziwill: ​​When I first started publishing, I did three posts a week. I would write a long essay on Sundays and a follow-up on Tuesday. And then on Thursday, I would make a list of things I was interested in—what I like, what I don’t, what I wear, all that kind of fun stuff. But it soon became too much to keep up. It literally took all my waking hours to write and publish. And a couple of my friends, one friend in particular, was like, ‘Carol, this is too much! Every time I open my inbox, there’s a letter from you!’ So I settled on writing a long essay every Sunday, and people love that.

Johnson: I mean, if your newsletter is not news-oriented, I don’t think it should be coming into an inbox every day. I think that a couple times a week is good. It should be like a treat for your newsletter to enter someone’s newsletter, versus a chore.

Is cross-posting your Substack everywhere (Instagram, X) overkill?

Radziwill: No, absolutely not overkill! This is the deal: My Substack, “The Voice of Reason,” is my own media property; it’s a small business, and as a small business, I have to promote it. I look at my Instagram, which has many, many hundreds of thousands of followers, as the marketing arm of my media company, so I promote my small business there. I mean, that’s like asking Apple if it’s overkill to have stores and a website and online advertising. No one would ever ask that of Apple.

Johnson: At the end of the day, Substack is a business, and the goal is to grow. So you should promote, promote, promote, promote!

Is it ever okay to ask friends to share your Substack?

Radziwill: My friends? It’s always okay to ask my friends to share! And if my friends ask me to share, I share. The Substack community, people who aren’t technically my friends in real life, share—and that’s the beauty of Substack as opposed to other social media platforms. There’s a real sense of community, and people are helping each other out. You promote someone’s Substack, and they promote yours—a high tide floats all boats. And people who will not share my Substack are not my real friends. I’m keeping a list and circling and checking it twice. You think Taylor Swift is petty? I’m petty.

Johnson: There are nuances to this. For instance, someone DMed me one time—I had probably met this person once at a party—and they were like, ‘Oh, can you please share?’ I felt very uncomfortable by that. Don’t do that. I think if you are really close friends with someone, that goes beyond just the cordial, like, ‘hi’ at a party, then maybe you could talk to them. But if it’s just someone that you see socially? Don’t do that.

Is it gauche to publicly celebrate subscriber milestones (“We hit 10K!”)?

Radziwill: No! It’s not gauche to advertise your company. That’s why you're doing it, so as many people as possible have access to it. I actually recently hit 10,000 followers, but didn’t post about it. You just reminded me—so now I’m gonna go post about it.

Johnson: No, I think it’s important. I remember growing up looking at all these YouTubers announcing their subscribers; people being like, ‘Oh my God, I worked to this!’ I think it’s a wonderful thing to share your achievement in reaching this number. If you’re doing it in a way not to be bragadocious, then I think it’s totally fine.

If someone subscribes to you, should you automatically subscribe back?

Radziwill: No, I think everyone has different criteria for subscribing to Substack, and one shouldn’t be held hostage to subscribing to a publication because that publication has subscribed to you. It just might not be reciprocal. I’m such a socialist, but this is more like a capitalist endeavor: there’s supply and demand, there’s value added and value taken away. Substack is not some socialist program where everyone gets the same… But I send a thank you note. I have manners.

Johnson: I think it’s on a case-by-case basis. I like to see what the newsletter is giving before I put it in my email.

What should you do if someone unsubscribes from you?

Radziwill: I think you should send them a thank-you letter for subscribing and then hope that in the future they might like to resubscribe. Because you never know what people are going through, you know? Someone could be having a bad month and really can’t afford the extra $8 subscription. So I’m not petty when it comes to spending other people's money. I'm only petty with my friends...and my enemies.

Johnson: Nothing. I think it would be terribly uncouth to reach out to someone who unsubscribed and be like, ‘Why did you unsubscribe?’ There is a section on Substack where you can see how many times people are opening your newsletters and who unsubscribed, but I don’t look at those things because I also don’t want to be sad. I would stay up all night like, What did I do wrong?

Is it ever ok to disclose how much your newsletter is making?

Radziwill: Disclose, like to the IRS? Or to friends? I don’t think it’s okay to discuss the revenue of a private company. I don’t think many private companies are out there discussing their revenue streams—no one does that.

Johnson: If your newsletter is about money, I think it helps with the storytelling, but I think it goes back to intent. If your intent is to share how much you’re making or inflate how much you’re making to appear greater than, or again being (using my favorite word) braggadocious, I think it’s terribly gauche. You shouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing how much I'm making.

Is it ever ok to mention your Substack in casual conversation?

Radziwill: I mention it to strangers on the street. If you stop me on the street, I’m gonna tell you about my Substack. People are like, ‘Oh god, she’s talking about her Substack again.’ A lot of people still don’t even know what it is at this point—it’s a social media platform that combines the best of Instagram and Twitter. It’s like OnlyFans, but for your brain and not your body.

Johnson: I feel like people who do pottery always talk about the pottery they’re making, so why can’t you talk about your Substack?

When can you make your newsletter paid-only?

Radziwill: Well, that’s the problem, because I am a socialist at heart, so I think everything should be free—like if people really want it, they should get it for free, like library books. But it’s a balancing act when the value you provide is worth paying for access. It’s the same as asking a small business owner if it’s ok to charge people for their product? Of course! And in that way, I must say, it creates a much healthier community because people are there because they love what you’re doing. They’re not going to pay to hate someone.

Johnson: For me, I see my newsletter as my portfolio; I’ve been given freelance writing opportunities with different publications because of it. Everything is accessible to everyone because I want as many eyes on the piece I’m writing, but I paywall my archive.

What is your best-performing send?

Radziwill: Because of the Love Story series, I wrote a series of four or five posts that all did very, very well, given the subject matter about everything that happened in the summer of 1999. In fact, my best-performing one was a two-part story I told about a feud I had with Graydon Carter—it was epic. It started in 2002 or 2003. We had a falling-out over something he had published about Carolyn Bessette. (It’s the reason I started writing. It’s the Substack now, so thank you, Graydon Carter!) It was a major feud, and it lasted until a few months ago when I ran into him at a holiday party and we kind of buried the hatchet. That was my best-performing Substack, and it was a two-parter. Everyone was like, “We need to hear the end!” And I was like, “Oh, you will honey.”

Johnson: The best performing sends are always the ones with a bunch of outfits in them—like, “These are the looks for the summer.” The ones that don’t perform necessarily well for me, but I really enjoy them—I’ve only done them twice, and I want to do more of them—is party coverage. I did this whole newsletter about the Studio 54 party that Valentino hosted and I loved, loved, loved writing that, but I don't think it performed that well.

On Being a Substack User

Do you read newsletters once they arrive in your inbox or save them all for a reading session?

Radziwill: No, I save them all separately in my inbox and then I’ll go down and read them. A few I’ll read when they first come in—I like this girl, Liz Plank. She’s so hilarious and so clever. I’ll read that when it first comes in. But for the most part, I will wait until the end of the day or the end of two days.

Johnson: It’s a tiered system. The newsy ones that I subscribe to, I read as soon as they hit my inbox. It’s kinda like a car—once it dries off the lot, it starts depreciating, so the longer that the newsy ones stay in my inbox, the information depreciates. For the newsletters that are more fashion and shopping-focused, I will try to read them on the day or save them for another day. Unless it has a really catchy headline, and I’m like, “Oh, I have to read this now.”

Is it rude not to subscribe to a close friend’s Substack?

Radziwill: Well, close friends should give their friends a free lifetime membership—at least in my experience. Me and all my close friends all gave each other free lifetime memberships. Well, actually, my best friend subscribed because I didn’t know about the free lifetime membership—sorry, Cassandra!

Johnson: It shouldn’t feel like an obligation. You should just genuinely feel like you want to support your friend, so you’re going to sign up for the newsletter. I feel like if your heart is leading you in that direction, you can pay, but I also don’t think you should pressure your friend to pay for your newsletter.

How do you decide what tier to pay for?

Radziwill: I usually start with the free subscription. I’ll read whatever I can read. If I see that I’m reading a lot, I subscribe monthly—like Jessica Yellen, who I read pretty regularly. So if I’m reading enough a month to justify the expense, then I’ll upgrade it to a yearly. But I’ve also subscribed to yearly to new journalists and struggling journalists or writers just to support them, even if I’m not reading.

Can you ever unsubscribe from a close friend’s Substack?

Radziwill: No, never. Never. Oh my God, that’s like crazy. You can’t unsubscribe from a close friend. If a close friend of mine unsubscribed to my Substack and didn't tell me, that’s friendship ending! Don't unsubscribe to my Substack. Those are fighting words.

Johnson: I think that would be terribly awkward. No. There are ways that you can just hide it in your inbox.

What about a random Substack?

Radziwill: You can unsubscribe from a Substack you were kind of interested in but weren’t sure about, and then you weren’t reading it as much, or you don’t know that person. Sure. People have unsubscribed from my Substack, probably for the same reason.

Johnson: If I don’t know the person, I don’t feel bad unsubscribing.

What do you do when you feel someone’s overcharging?

Radziwill: I’ve never felt like someone’s overcharging. Most Substacks are in the $5 to $10 range. I guess if I feel someone’s overcharging, I don't know, that’s when I feel broke. So maybe I have to unsubscribe!

Johnson: I pause the subscription.

Who do you think should start a Substack?

Radziwill: Anyone with something intelligent to say who prefers to express it in words rather than pictures should start a Substack. People who like pictures, you know, maybe you go to OnlyFans.

Johnson: Martha Stewart—I think it would just make so much sense for her to be on Substack. I would also love to see Sade. I want to know what’s going on with her. And Dario Vitale. Dario has great references, and I would pay to see his reference archive… Also, this is my free advice to all businesses: They should have a presence on Substack. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have to start one, but I think they're doing themselves a disservice by not being aware of what’s happening on there.

Who do you think shouldn’t start a Substack?

Radziwill: Some of the people I see on TikTok just like to hear themselves talk. I think Substack is not for people who just like to hear themselves pontificating on any subject, whether they know anything about it or not. TikTok is a better place for that.

Johnson: If your whole intent and brand is linking to Toteme, Khaite, and The Row, then I think you need to go back to the drawing board, because there are plenty of those already on the platform. And I don’t want extremists on there.