I got to be a guest on the Off The Grid podcast – a dream come true!

We spent this episode tracing our 20+ years of being online, from back in the days of AOL and Tumblr, through the chaos of Twitter, and into today’s mix of Instagram, TikTok, and Substack. Yikes!

“We were doing things that just were interesting to some people, not 10,000 people, whatever. I didn’t have a massive following or whatever, but it was enough to like get neat conversations going.”

Along the way we talked about how our early internet experiments shaped the work we do now, like when Ameila left social media years ago:

“When I left social media in 2021, people thought I was going to be back. They were like, ‘This is not a viable option if you want to be a small business owner and I proved them wrong.’ … But in 2025, everyone’s like, ‘Oh yeah, we all got to get off social media.’ Like, nobody questions it anymore in the way that I used to face a lot of fear, anxiety…”

We also talk about the importance of having a website, and how email became the lifeline for our creative projects. I also shared why I shifted my paid subscribers off Substack, what worked, what didn’t, and some lessons learned about paywalls.

Amelia Hruby, PHD will be our special guest on Thursday’s Escape Pod Zoom call with Social Media Escape Club Members. Start your trial membership and join us – details here!