Nick wasn’t an idiot.
He saw it coming before anyone else did.
He always saw it coming before anyone else did.
That’s why he was good at his job.
And why he fucking hated it sometimes.
The first red flag wasn’t the takedown.
Takedowns happened all the time. People whined about it. They moved on.
The real red flag?
The person they took down wasn’t moving on.
Most people, when deplatformed, implode inward.
They flail. They beg. They fire off desperate tweets at the Substack account, hoping for a miracle.
That’s what the system counted on.
The energy burns out. The problem goes away.
But this one?
Nick saw the first post within hours. Then the next. Then the next.
It wasn’t dying. It was escalating.
And then he saw the worst part.
Other people were paying attention.
People with influence. People with followings. People who had already been burned before and were just waiting for another reason to turn against them.
This wasn’t going away.
And Nick was the one who was going to have to walk into a meeting and say it out loud.
Nick had been doing this long enough to know that most of PR is bullshit.
Public Relations is not about relationships.
It’s about containment.
The job wasn’t to tell the truth. It was to find the version of the truth that wouldn’t cause a fire.
And if a fire did break out?
It was about making sure it didn’t spread.
The execs thought that’s what he was there for.
Nick, fix it. Nick, spin it. Nick, make it go away.
But what they never wanted to hear was the one thing that was actually true:
Some fires don’t go out.
Some fires burn straight through the firewall.
And this?
This was one of those fires.
He could already see the way the conversation was going to go.
First, they’d minimize it.
"Oh, it’s just another suspended writer complaining. Happens all the time."
Then, they’d double down.
"Well, it must have been justified. Our system works. No reason to revisit it."
And finally, when it got bad enough—when the pressure was too high, when the noise was too loud, when it became a story outside of their control—
They’d come to him.
"Nick, we need you to draft a response."
A response that would say absolutely nothing.
A response that would change nothing.
A response that would be bullshit, and he would know it, and they would know it, but it wouldn’t matter because it was never about the truth—it was about survival.
But Nick wasn’t sure they understood something very important.
This time, it wasn’t just about them.
This time, it was about the credibility of the entire platform.
This time, the person they took down wasn’t just shouting into the void—
They were getting traction.
And traction meant something worse than a PR headache.
It meant questions.
It meant doubt.
It meant people who had trusted them before suddenly wondering if maybe—just maybe—Substack wasn’t the hero of the story after all.
And when that happens?
When the credibility breaks?
It doesn’t just hurt this one case.
It hurts all of them.
Nick had seen companies make that mistake before.
And he knew exactly how it ended.
He was staring at the email now.
The one from inside Trust & Safety.
The one he was about to forward with a very short note.
Subject: Urgent – Press Visibility Rising on Takedown Case
From: Nick T.
To: Internal Leadership, PR StrategyWe need a coordinated response on this before it escalates further.
This is not just another case. It’s already catching traction in digital rights spaces, and external journalists are starting to ask questions.
If we let this go unchecked, we risk losing control of the narrative. We need to decide our position now.
Nick sighed.
Hit send.
Then leaned back in his chair and waited for the inevitable.
Because he knew exactly what was about to happen next.
Sarah isn’t just watching this unfold. She’s been warning about it for months.
🔍 EPISODE FOUR: The Unseen Hands (Sarah P.)
Sarah saw it coming before anyone else did.
She flagged the anomalies.
She warned them about the patterns.
She walked into meetings with data proving that their system was being exploited.
And she was met with silence.
Now, she has a choice: keep watching, or blow the whole thing open.
🔗 READ: The Unseen Hands (Sarah P.)
Sarah had tried. She had tried to warn them. Months ago. She had seen the problem coming before it ever reached their inboxes. Before the first big takedown. Before the first wave of public backlash.
Neutralizing Narcissism: The Awakening Edition
