Category: InternetCategory: Internet

Did a surprise Substack Live today on a whim. Just me, a webcam, and my cat (Blue) losing his mind in the background. OBS melted down half the time (I have no idea what I’m doing), but here’s some threads worth pulling out:

Serving the people who already showed up

I keep saying this because it never stops being true: Notes is just social media. Chasing the feed means a few winners and everyone else shouting into the void. The only sane move is making your best work for the folks who already subscribed, not every stranger on the internet.

Why I nuked every platform except substack

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn — all deleted. The only “social” thing I use now is Substack Notes, and even then it’s more of an on-ramp to my newsletter.

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I was honored to be asked to be Bree Noble’s podcast recently to talk about musicians trying to “make it all work” in 2025, coping with social media burnout, the vanity metrics, and how to maybe build something sustainable without sacrificing your sanity.

A lot can get distilled to the fact that a lot of what you post isn’t seen by like 95% of your followers. Or the gut-punch that every artist has felt, when you do everything “right” on social media and still get just four likes. As I put it on the show: “You reached fourteen people. That’s disheartening.“

We dug into what actually works, like playing a Tuesday-night show to fifteen people and making fans, or how grabbing a few emails after a set beats begging a platform to show your post to strangers on the internet.

Bree is a legend, and has spoken with so many artists over the years. She talks to Elaine Ryan about balancing gigs and sync work, Marc Christian about booking high-end events, Raven Rae about sustainable music careers – check out all of those interviews here!

Instead of “just launching” a new product or offering, see if people care first.

See how Mel Mitchell-Jackson does this to gauge interest on upcoming classes; they set up a section called Future Classes, which full descriptions and an email sign up for interested folks.

From Yancey Strickler’s post, “The internet is dying on the outside but growing on the inside.”

Hidden transcripts are drafted, revised, and designed in dark forests safe from outside view. Public channels are where dominant powers dictate and control narratives. As authoritarian regimes around the world increase their monitoring and persecution of those who do not fall in line with the dominant story, these spaces and their security become increasingly important.

This is the second time this week I’ve referenced this quote from the South Central Run Club: “Instead of broadcasting our runs and making us vulnerable to surveillance, we stopped putting it on Instagram to make people feel safer to come and hang out.”

Social media has us believe we must broadcast everything, announce our every movement. Of course they encourage this, as more posts equal more ad impressions, more “time on site.”

Rip up the script; engage outside of public view, in safe places, in supportive communities, and watch your creative orbit expand into something more real.

Saw this at the bottom of The Oatmeal’s very excellent post “A Cartoonist’s Review of AI Art.“

As I said back in 2023, “stop telling fans to follow you on platforms that are built to limit your ability to reach them.”

If you (or the Oatmeal) drive 1,000 people to Instagram and they all follow you, you’ll be lucky if 100 of those people see your next post.

So why not just focus on getting 100 new email subscribers? That’s a lot easier than trying to update several other platforms just so 90% of your followers won’t see your latest stuff.