Whenever I see people being hopeful about returning to the way things were, there’s always someone saying “we can never go back,” and I think that’s hilarious.

Like, are we really going to jump to yet another social media platform? Did we all jump to Mastodon, or one of the 19 different Instagram replacements? I keep having conversations with people who are done with signing up for new services, creating new accounts.

And sure, is this cognitive bias? YES. My job is talking to people who dislike social media, who want to get away, who seek a different path – heck yes, I am biased.

On the other hand, are you thumbs up with Musk / Zuckerberg / Mosseri? Are you ready to invest your time, effort and energy into the same old same old?

Are we content to keep following 3000 people? Reading 30 new articles every hour? Watching 5 hours of video per day, 13 seconds at a time?

Or are you ready to buy DVDs and CDs and magazines again? Talk to your neighbors? Seek community?

I know which direction I’m heading.

If you ever feel like sending a weekly newsletter to your subscribers is too much, Brick has sent me seven emails in 12 days.

​Maybe you’re curious about leaving Google – Gmail, Workspace, Google Search, Photos, Drive.

​There’s plenty of videos to watch and articles to read on the subject, but it might be helpful to talk to people who’ve actually left some of those Google Products!

​I left Google Workspace years ago and use Fastmail and Proton. Other people on the call have various stories and new tools that they use.

​This isn’t a webinar and there’s no pitch. It’s a group of people who’ve been down this path (or are just starting to think about it) trading real experiences.

Monday, August 31 at 9:00 AM → https://luma.com/wh4686yh

Thursday, September 3 at 2:00 PM EDT → https://luma.com/1q9brs2t

One hot summer I ran a 5K race. Afterwards, leaning against a railing and sweating buckets, a man approached.

“Good race?”

“Hah,” I panted, “yeah, a little hot.”

“Have you heard the good new of Jesus Christ?”

Now, this conversation goes differently with someone I’ve known for 20 years on a back porch after a nice dinner and beverage. That’s because of trust, something the person who approached me after that race didn’t earn.

We’ve spent so much time building trust on social media platforms, with stories, photos of our pets, our travels, our bookshelves, our weekend adventures, and then when it comes to our website, it’s just “are you ready to convert?”

The trust can’t stop on our websites, it has to get bigger. More stories, pet, travels, whatever… if we’re doing all that on social media platforms to impress strangers, what does it say when our website is just a static business card?

This from “I almost killed my podcast,” by Becky Isjwara. Becky does a podcast called Small Creator Big World with Bhav Sharma.

Every community is shaped by the people running it. The alternative was to shut ours down entirely because I felt so icked out by what it had become. That would have meant running away from the problem rather than deciding what we actually wanted this space to be.

I’m sorry to the entrepreneurs we disappointed by not becoming the community of your dreams. There are many brilliant communities out there built for you.

There’s a weird space for everyone. We’re committed to keeping ours our kind of weird.

I post this on Social Media Escape Club (also a weird space – see our upcoming gatherings here) because getting away from social media requires a destination. Simply deleting a social media app is one thing, but figuring out what to do next can be difficult.

Becky’s Small Creator Big World started out as one thing, then through some well intentioned advice, became something else which didn’t sit well with Becky.

But this is a journey so many of us need to go on, even for Becky who isn’t “escaping social media!” The challenge in “what should I do?” is protecting your vibes from the (as mentioned before) well intentioned advice.

Grow. Streamline. Niche. Double down. Most of the time that sort of advice comes from a good place – the people we trust and admire just want us to do well! But deep down we have to honor ourselves, and the vibes we seek, the peace we want in our bones when doing the work we wanna do.

Comedian Anthony Jeselnik on the fragile nature of digital media.

What do you think about our Netflix specials? Things we’ve done — there’s no physical media anymore. That can all go away, and you’re left with nothing. And that’s wild to me: a corporation… who knows what you get canceled for, can just be like, “All your work is gone.” It’s gone, as if it never existed. There’s nothing. Nothing.

This is why I’m so big on having a website, and maintaining some sort of digital archive of your work. I wish I had learned this a decade ago, as most all of my early blog work and Skull Toaster metal trivia are wiped out by unpaid hosting bills, or hasitly deleting social media profiles.

Download and back up your work. Request your files and images and videos from the social media platforms. Tuck them away on an external HD and make sure that’s back up, too (I use Backblaze).

“Don’t just tell people to subscribe to your newsletter,” is something I said on a recent Substack Live.

This sign up box in the footer of the Autonomous website caught my eye:

Workshop Notes
Drops, build logs, and what broke this week. From the workshop floor.

Getting people into your world is the first part of the journey. Them signing up for your email list? Well, that’s on them. But offering something besides “updates” goes a long way.

Words matter. Language has power. Hype your newsletters beyond “updates,” or “the latest news.”

You might have heard it’s a good idea to have a website, but what’s that even mean in 2026?

​In our August call, we covered a lot of ground, and a lot of folks were saying “I got so many ideas from this call” in the chat as we were winding down:

• ​Forget passive discovery – think of the handful of people you send there from social media, your newsletter, or a conversation!
• ​Highlight a big thing on your site – lead with your new book, album, offering. Make it super obvious when people visit your site.
• ​Show what people missed – show photos of your recent get together, talk about conversations you had on your last Zoom call. Give people a taste of what they’re missing out on.

​Bring your questions and challenges and bask in the collective energy and wisdom of the group.

Monday, September 14 from 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM EDT → https://luma.com/j00b1jfi

Thursday, September 17 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT → https://luma.com/0fdqi9f5