I discovered “The catalogue of imaginary beings” from the Not-Ship newsletter, which I found on Hacker News.

Social media makes it so easy to discover similar artists, but at breakneck speed. This from Vivian Fong, in “you scroll for hours but remember nothing.”

“… short form content, or addictive social media, allow users to rapidly context switch, and intensity switch, which leaves no breathing room between unrelated stimuli. We scroll and we remember nothing because our brains are not mentally integrating or consolidating.”

Stepping away from social media can be jarring because we’re no longer drinking from the firehose. When we slow down and drink from a glass, it feels slow. It’s no longer bottomless like social media, and if we drink all the water, we need to get up and refill. There’s friction, a bit of inconvenience.

I’m not saying we have gotta go back to corded phones and record players, merely saying the techbros would love for us to forgot that we can discover amazing things without them.

The reason I talk about websites and RSS and building a cozy email inbox is because if we want to escape social media we need someplace to go.

I went to the New Jersey shore this weekend; colder temps, fewer crowds, lots more parking. I saw monster trucks and ate pumpkin pancakes and ran 5 miles in the rain. It was perfect.

The “trick” of spending less time on social media is spending more time on other things.

Deleting an app is the easy part, but then what?

It’s not hard, but it’s hard to do.

For years we’ve posted fun stuff on social media, but then we treat our email list like an ATM machine.

“I recently saw a Reel of an artist explaining how they weren’t making sales because the Instagram platform was limiting their reach.

I clicked around and found their website (it was a store), and at the bottom they had an email sign up form, so I subscribed.

A few weeks went by, and by the time they sent me something, I had no idea who it was from.

This creative person, this spreader of whimsical words and imagery, posting daily their delights and magic. I subscribed, basically saying “hello, keep in touch.”

But instead of their magic and art, I got a menu.

A list of product images, prices, and the “BUY NOW” buttons below.”

That’s from a post I wrote in 2023, and sadly it hasn’t gotten any better.

Just in case you needed a reminder, your expertise doesn’t have to fit into a bite-sized clip, served up for mindless scrolling consumption.

Signal President Meredith Whittaker showed that on this BBC Global Women Instagram Reel, where she passed on the “quickfire questions” format. When interviewer Megha Mohan said she’d go home and question what she’s doing as a journalist, Whittaker offered this:

“Question why we are mediated by seven platforms, largely jurisdictioned in the U.S. that make us supplicate to a format that degrades the integrity of our expertise. Question that, babies.”

There are games to be played, and games to opt out of playing.

(link via Kottke)

Someone registered for one of my calls, but they never received my emails from Luma. People on our calls talk about legit emails going to spam.

These things aren’t new, they’re the result of a mysterious world of email protocols and servers and spam filters that we don’t control. Not quite as bad as social media of course, but it’s not fool proof.

This is why I’ve been talking about RSS so much; when someone hits publish, it show shows up in your RSS reader. There are no algorithms, no spam filters, no promotions tab; you just get it.

As I wrote in RSS REMOVES WEIGHT FROM YOUR EMAIL INBOX:

So with RSS, we control what comes (into our “inbox”). There are no surprises. The only things that show up are what we add, whereas anyone can email us, and as we all know – it never stops!

Sure, nothing is fool proof, it’s technology after all. But that’s why I’m so big on websites, too. If you haven’t heard from somebody in awhile, you can (hopefully) visit their website and find out what they’re up to.

​Frederick Woodruff is joining us to share the story behind his book “I Love You Jeffrey Dahmer,” and what it took to bring it to release.

​We’ll start with a quick check-in, hear from Frederick, and open the floor for questions about the book, the choices behind it, and the work of finishing and publishing something like this.

​Then we’ll open it up to everyone, widening the conversation from the work of publishing your own book to how that kind of work encircles all our lives and to everything we’re making.

This right here from Emma Orlando is basically how our week Social Media Escape Club calls started:

It didn’t take long for social media to enter the chat because it has a funny way of stealing the show even IRL spaces these days. As the coffee went from warm to tepid, we lost ourselves on the trail of online exhaustion, more specifically the fact that it’s a bullshit metric measuring people’s ability to be in the room and how samey it all feels nowadays.

The exhaustion. The bullshit. The shame of some random niece you know being able to go viral, but you can’t even get 10 people to like a post.

I’m not saying deleting social media is for everyone, but if it hurts, if it’s painful, if it’s making you feel bad – none of those things can be good for your art, your business, your mental well being.

There are recovering musicians who don’t play bars.

As creative, magical, artistic beings we can find other ways to do the work. Are the platforms built by techbros the only way to flourish? I think not!

The quote above hits on something else, too – “the chat.” Talking with other people about the pain is the best way to beat it. Social media loves to isolate us, make us feel like we’d be lost without it. That sounds like “toxic relationship” langauage to me, and I want nothing to do with it.

So keep talking with other people. Keep the conversation going, in person, on the phone, in a Zoom call – whatever you have to do to get the feelings of exhastion and grossness out of your system, and find ways to replace it with better vibes.