On Wednesday I hosted a talk about Breaking Up With Gmail. During the call we agreed that it’s not “all or nothing,” just a little less of the dumb shit. I’ve still got my Gmail account (from 2005), but it’s a place-holder account for occasional client work and such, and I’ve been paying for Fastmail (referral link) since 2014. Progress, not perfection!

On Thursday morning I did a Substack Live with artist Mel Mitchell-Jackson and we talked about internet platform burnout, leaving stable jobs to pursue creative work, big social media numbers that don’t convert to actual sales (500,000!?!?), the importance of building trust, and why it’s so hard to make art when also trying to please the algorithms; watch it here.

Then on Thursdays Escape Pod Zoom call we did a “show and tell,” where everyone got to talk about what they do, and what they’re up to!

On Monday’s Substack Live, I talked about lots of stuff, like putting the bulk of my work on my own site, and then when it comes time to send a newsletter, I never have a shortage of ideas to pull from. Something to consider with your own website, maybe?

On Wednesday, I had a conversation with label owner Michael Gilbride about the economics of leaving streaming platforms, why physical mail might be making a comeback, and how musicians need to think about learning business skills – woah boy!

On our Thursday call, we talked about Polymarket becoming a big thing on Substack, making promo stickers, the challenges of finding places to post our flyers, getting people from social media to subscribe to our newsletters, and lots more.

Then on this morning’s MINI ESCAPE POD Q&A we talked about the SEO game with Substack and our own websites. If people are searching for your specific project name (“Social Media Escape Club”), Google will usually surface it without big time optimization.

Doing the work is hard, so why do it alone? We had some great discussions this week on our Escape Pod Zoom calls:

• Building in-person communities in new towns through volunteer work.
• My talk with artist David Speed about small scale IRL events, starting a podcast (and more).
• The weaver’s handshake?!
• Unstructured time at conferences can be more valuable than the speakers.
• Inviting authors onto a podcast despite being nervousness about it!
• Do podcasts really need to have a video element?
• “How to make your website your hub with AI taking traffic away from us little people?”
• Someone said out of 50 podcasts they subscribed to, four were active a year later

Can’t make the calls, but wanna be involved? Join our tiny email circles, made up of Social Media Escape Club members! Easy reply-all email conversations with great people. Reply to this email if you wanna join.

THIS WEEKEND!

◾ BREAK UP 💔 WITH SOCIAL MEDIA DAY – SPECIAL EVENT!
Delete an app or two (I’ll be deleting the Substack app) with others. Already deleted all the apps? Great – come support those who are just starting their journey!
ALSO: special treat for everyone who attends live
Saturday, February 14
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST
REGISTER: https://luma.com/sime7eyi

​This Focus Escape Pod is a 90-minute group conversation for people who are ready to get away from Gmail and Google, but want a calm, chill, honest place to talk through what comes next. No pitches or demos or upsells. Just shared experiences, calm conversation, and practical paths forward.

Wednesday, February 25 from 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM EST

​Things we’ll explore during this 90 minute call:

• ​Understanding the basics of forwarding messages, exporting your emails, and more.
• ​Real stories from people who left Gmail and discovered their work, relationships, and inboxes were fine!
• ​How others chose a new provider based on values like privacy or simplicity

This week musician Nolan Green joined our Thursday Escape Pod Zoom call, where he talked about:

• Learning about “recoupables” in the music industry.
• Sending his demo to 30 labels and getting signed by Network Records
• Moving to the Netherlands from the United States
• Embracing happy accidents
• Finding joy in the creation process over live performance pressure
• Trusting that authentic creations will find its audience organically
• His current Netherlands Soundscapes project
• Working as a photographer at CMJ in the early 2000s

Audio replay is available in your Memberful Account. And from our Mini Escape Pod session we got into:

• Website redesign focusing on single message versus multiple interests dilemma (we’ll figure this one out, someday! haha)
• Migration from Substack to WordPress definitely isn’t seamless
• Spam prevention strategies: CAPTCHA, double opt-in, country blocking via Cloudflare
• How personal websites allow authentic expression vs platform uniformity constraints
• Patreon versus Gumroad for paid offerings

Social Media Escape Club isn’t just about ditching Instagram, but the continued discussion and support after we’ve left behind those platforms behind. Hope to see you on an upcoming call!