Marketing 101

The advice “don’t call yourself honest” makes sense because it implies that others, or your past statements, might not be.

Recently, I wrote a post criticizing Doc Malik. My main issue with him was his claim that we’re living under Communism—or soon will be. He argued that we should hide away rather than protest because it’s unsafe to resist. That struck me as irrational, considering he feels safe enough to podcast and blog about these topics openly, without concealing his identity.

I also criticized his insistence that COVID was real simply because he experienced something “strange” and “weird” before he even knew about the virus. He’s not the only one who says this, either. Isn’t it odd that these are the people leading the so-called “resistance”—the ones who keep assuring us that COVID was real? I find that very strange.

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I also wrote that I thought he was doing quite well with his podcast and blog, and likely earning a decent income from them. I even speculated about how much he might be making. That didn’t sit well with someone—I won’t name who—who told me it was unwise to assume anything about his finances. So I wanted to write this short follow-up to clarify that I didn’t make the claim carelessly. I did some research before saying it. Of course, it’s difficult to verify such things, but I did the best I could.

She said this in the replies section to one of my posts on notes where I quote posted the article:

Using inferred substack income as a data point for a conspiracy hypothesis is not wise under any circumstances. You simply don’t know.

True, I don’t know for certain. However, as I mentioned, I did a bit of research before reaching that conclusion. I came across an article¹ published by Substack themselves, which stated that:

Top Bestseller: This view highlights the highest-earning publications in their category, ranked by annual recurring revenue (ARR). It recognizes the consistent effort, quality, and subscriber loyalty required to build a sustainable, high-revenue business on Substack.

I wasn’t looking at the “Rising” section under Health Politics; I was checking the Top Bestseller leaderboard. Each time I return—just checked again, in fact—Doc Malik is listed at number 17, surrounded by others with the solid orange check mark. According to Substack, that mark indicates one of the highest-earning publications in that category.

I even left a comment on their article to double-check this as part of my fact-checking effort. I haven’t heard back from them yet, but I’ll report back if it ever gets clarified. Here’s the comment I posted on the article—see for yourself.

I also don’t want to forget to mention another criticism I had of Doc Malik: the unpleasant phone message he left for Mark Kulacz of

Housatonic

Live – Research. Archival. Overdose Awareness:

Anyway, the reason why I tried to get through to you, get your number, call you, and you were busy last time, and I’m not busy, is, look, I went back through the podcast, and I’m afraid...

I think it wasn’t good enough mate. I don’t know how to explain this to you but, you know, it was about, it was just over an hour but the thing is, what was relevant was like literally just 15 minutes and it was just dragged out and there was not enough substance, not enough facts, not enough details.

I would also say try and work on your presentation. You drag things out and speak very slowly. And it’s just you need to be a bit more punchy, a bit more punchy, a bit more animated, a bit more lively. I mean, I don’t know if you’re just a bit flat that day or what, I don’t know.

But you just, I think your, I don’t know, your style, you just could inject yourself with a little bit more energy, a little bit more animation. So what I was going to do actually was create some clips of the podcast and do a Substack and obviously credit you and reference you and talk about the opioid deaths

and all that kind of stuff. So that was the plan. I’m sorry, mate. I’ve just got a lot of fucking podcasts. I’ve got a lot of recordings and I’m trying to keep the quality of the content quite high. I’m afraid on this occasion it just...

it just wasn’t good enough um i know that sounds harsh but i’m just being honest with you um it just the quality wasn’t up to scratch all right mate bye

Here’s a short excerpt from the video I created. It features a clip of Doc Malik talking about when he supposedly had COVID, with the audio of his voicemail layered over it. I put it together this way because I wanted a creative and effective way to present what I see as an important piece of evidence—that Doc Malik is not the honest or healthy doctor he claims to be.

1. A new view for leaderboards