X Articles
My X feed is flooded with its Articles format ever since they extended the feature to all Premium subscribers in January:
All Premium subscribers can now publish Articles.
— Premium (@premium) January 12, 2026
Long-form writing works on 𝕏.
Try it out and build your following. pic.twitter.com/Qgtnv40NRa
It's a logical move to capture more audience attention and bring the long-form publishing format to a massive distribution platform. The 'audience-market-fit' is also ideal given how much of X is about hot takes and think-pieces, heretofore crammed into unintuitive 'Threads' that read like an incessant volley of text messages from inattentive friends.
To support the launch, X announced a $1m prize for the Article writer who creates the most viral article:
We’re trying something new: we’re giving \$1 million to the Top Article of the next payout period.
— Creators (@XCreators) January 16, 2026
We're doubling down on what creators on 𝕏 do best: writing.
In 2026, our goal is to recognize high-value, high-impact content that shapes conversation, breaks news and moves… pic.twitter.com/4hKBJNvNIg
Again, excellent marketing: a relatively immaterial amount of money to X overall, but enough to drive a footrace for creators to compete.
The result of these two moves, though, is that my X feed is awash with X Articles, often from the same creators. It makes the consumption experience 10x more daunting, knowing I will have to wade into a long-form piece of writing to get any nuggets of insight (or at worse, get nothing other than genericism). I'd like to think it's a short-term boost of the Article format driven by the $1m prize pot. My fear is that X becomes a swirling vortex of clickbait AI slop.
Let's see how it plays out.
P.S. What happens to Substack?