Category: CommunityCategory: Community

It’s not just about walking away from social media, but where we’re walking to next. As I’ve been saying, social media loses power when we build community in other places. The following is by Heath Racela from ‘I Won’t Tell You to Avoid McDonald’s’

“I can spend the next four years shouting about each and every little decision, or I can spend that time working on building the alternative. I’m not exactly sure what that looks like yet: is it an alternative to the corporate media? Is it some alternative to our current political system? Is it just simply being engaged in mutual aid at the community level? For each of us, it will look different, but I think small, local community building is going to matter much more in the coming years.”

More from me:
COMMUNITY WILL BEAT THE ALGORITHMS
YOUR COMMUNITY WILL OUTLAST ANY PLATFORM
HOW TO FIND COMMUNITY
COMMUNITY WITHOUT PLATFORM

I first saw Sleevenote on Substack. It’s a new music player with no streaming option, playing only music files you’ve bought and own. From their website:

The time has come to get serious about supporting music makers and valuing the music you love. Audition stuff on your phone and what you LOVE, you buy and put it on your Sleevenote.

I’ve been emailing with CEO Tom Kell a bit, and we’ve definitely hit upon the irony of the statement “nobody buys music,” and that everyone just does streaming now. Says Tom:

The statement “nobody buys music” is not true with the relatively healthy vinyl resurgence. The thing is people aren’t buying things that they don’t need to buy, and when buying vinyl (and to a lesser degree merch), music fans are often compelled by the motivation that they are “supporting the artist” with these purchases, and getting some form of physical and tactile experience (for however fleeting) in response. When subscription-based music access came along it cut the legs off the need to buy digital music, for a like-for-like experience – music on your phone. With Sleevenote, all our efforts are going in to making digital music feel more special, and now our ethical responsibility is, if we’re helping make it feel more special, it should now be worth more, and we do everything we can to put friction in the way to achieve that. In the topsy-turvy digital world, people pay for the removal of friction, ads are added so an ad-free version seems valuable.

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I recently asked “What’d we learn this year,” and Shane Valle offered this inspiring lesson:

“Of the 19 times someone performed one of my pieces of music (I’m a composer) this year, 17 of those times were because I directly reached out to an individual musician or ensemble, not because they were passively consuming or interacting with me or my content on social media.”

Finding musicians and ensembles to approach takes time and effort, and results aren’t promised. Posting to social media is much easier, and gets us off the hook – we get to say “hey, I tried!”

If the work we’re doing is magic, if it has the power to transform and uplift and inspire, then the work required to get it out there goes beyond just the work.

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Maybe quitting social media is more than apps and hacks which lean heavy on the SELF HELP industrial complex.

Maybe quitting social media involves other people who want to quit. Other small businesses folk who want to find new ways to market their work. Other creative people who could use the support of other people who seek the same escape.

Social media platforms isolate us, making us feel like we can just figure out the algorithm, the scheduling, the pacing, the engaging.

Then we try to walk away and look around and notice we’re alone. With more likes or comments, we lose the validation, the comfort, and we go running back. Or we buy a dumb phone, or a device, or set time limits on our apps, or try to go cold turkey.

This is why we need support, we need each other. Tough things are worth doing together with other people.

We have potential fans beyond the social media platforms, we just have to let them know we exist!

3/16/2026 – Max Pete, “YES, I ONLY HAVE ONE HAND. YES, YOU CAN ASK.”

1/6/2026 – Rabbit Cavern, “Do you want to be friends with a crow?

1/3/2026 – Elise Granata, “Flyering as a Spiritual Practice“

12/29/2025 – Mel Mitchell-Jackson

12/15/2025 – Mel Mitchell-Jackson

After listening to you chat with Amelia on Off The Grid I made a bunch for my tutoring offers! Here’s one in San Francisco after a few months of sun and fog fade!

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12/14/2025 – From WBEZ Chigago (link via Jen):

The 51-year-old graphic artist, Derek Erdman, swears there’s no catch behind his quirky side project. Instead, he describes his public art stunts as acts as civil disobedience, or “civil d” for short.

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