Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

From Joshua Heath Scott of JHS Pedals and Art House Grandview:

“I believe I have learned from everything I have made. I have obsessively adjusted my approaches and products. I have improved everything all the time. But it is still math, and the reality is that if you do not put things out there, you have fewer chances. Both are true. In the last twelve months I have released more than a pedal per month while making what I know is some of my best stuff, but I still cannot tell you which of them will be the ones.”

This doesn’t just pertain to guitar pedals, but for how we make our offerings, write our newsletters, book our events, pitch our work, and everything else.

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Got this question recently, about community building. I’m a big believer that audio and visuals help build trust, which helps build community, as it’s you on display, in real life, unlike words on a page which can look very similar to other words on a screen.

What if my writing is the regular gathering? Maybe I don’t want to do a ton of video content—that’s okay. What if I treat my writing and sharing my work, and inviting others to comment/reply/engage, as the gathering I’m hosting every week? It’s been an interesting shift of perspective!

When I started a music blog back in 2001, we wrote it real by-the-books at first, just the facts, and nobody said a word — no comments, nothing. It wasn’t until we opened up and showed our actual personality that people started sticking around.

I still talk to people from that site 25 years later.

I’m not saying you need to publish six times a day like we did. I’m not saying post daily. I’m not saying start a podcast. But building community is about showing up in front of people, regularly, and inviting them to comment, reply, engage. If you want those things, you need to model that. You can’t just hope it happens.

So lean into email, because the inbox is intimate in a way social media ain’t. Bring people into your newsletter — “hey, I was talking to so-and-so about this.”

If you want to use names, ask for permission. Otherwise, it’s okay to generalize (like this post).

So much of building community is proving there’s community, beyond a like or a comment. Bring other people’s conversations into the forefront. My rectangle on a Zoom call doesn’t have all the answers, but all our rectangles together, we get closer, and you can say that in writing just as much as on a Zoom call.

Now, is all of this slower going without video? Sure. Video gives people the cues, the body language, the vibe, all that trust-building happens faster when they can witness you. But you can still do it with words, you just gotta be more intentional about it since it won’t come up easily. Be vulnerable, bring other people forward, make it a safe space, and know it’s not gonna happen overnight.

I’ve been doing my calls since 2023, writing online since 2001, none of this is quick. Challenge accepted though. Give it a shot.

I wrote, “maybe centralized kingdoms of power and influence aren’t the answer” back in January of 2024.

Now Mark Zuckerberg writes, “the history of democracy and economics has proved that centralized power stifles human potential.”

I mean, he’s talking about the fantasy world of “delivering personal superintelligence,” but he’s right about one thing: centralized power stifles human potential.

It stifles creative potential, artistic potential, (ahem) home ownership potential… large platforms like Facebook and Instagram wield so much power, determining who wins and who loses on a minute to minute basis. I know they don’t owe anyone free traffic, but it’s their digital roulette table system that stifles the creative efforts of millions (unless they pay up, of course).

If you’re going to leave social media, you need somewhere to go. Somewhere to put your attention.

Like leaving the house – where are you going? Leaving a bad relationship or workplace – you need to physically and mentally go somewhere else.

So leaving social media isn’t just about newsletters and websites and screen time, because honestly we’re taking multiple hours per day and putting them somewhere else. Where do we move that attention?

For me, that’s been walking. I’ve started a movement practice, as Cody Cook-Parrot speaks of in their book The Practice of Attention (affiliate link).

Take a moment now to consider what forms of movement feel accessible, enjoyable, and grounding for you. Maybe it’s dancing alone in your kitchen, stretching when you rise in the morning, biking along a trail or to work, tending your garden.

I can just slip out the door for 20 minutes, see a neighbor, pet a dog, see a cat, listen to the crows – things that much more enjoyable than the firehose of “content” I get from scrolling.

Just as we don’t stare at social media for three straight hours, I also don’t walk for three straight hours a day. But a mile here, an hour walk there, and by the end of the day I’ve covered 10 miles. This is something (at the time of writing this) I’ve done for 63 days in row (and covered 720 miles).

So maybe try spending 10 minutes writing lyrics, or painting, or writing, or humming a melody into your voice notes – what could add up to hours per day that would “feel accessible, enjoyable, and grounding for you?”

Where could you put your attention? What could your “720 miles” look like for your creative journey?

This from Jésabel DC at Config 2026 (this quote at the 1:08 mark):

“Technology wasn’t better in the early 2000s because designers were more ethical or more thoughtful. It was better because they hadn’t yet be handed the business model that rewarded trapping the user.”

She says “in the early 2000s the internet was a place you visited,” and then you went on with your day. I like to say that I just want to visit the internet, I don’t want to live there.

I was asked recently on a podcast interview what I’m running from in regards to social media, and I’m not sure I gave the best answer but I’m still thinking about it (which is why we appear on podcasts and face questions we’ve never been asked before in real time).

But I guess I’m running from one thing – the idea the social media is neutral, when it’s in fact user-hostile, designed and built by people with multiple vacation homes ensuring I spend hours everyday scrolling, engaging, and filling my head with every last drop of drama, turmoil, atrocity, and outrage.

That’s what I’m running from, I suppose. As Jésabel DC says, I am running from “the business model that (rewards) trapping the user.”