Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

Meg Lewis recently posted “The Grown-Up’s Guide to Growing Down,” a permission slip to skip acting our age:

“The way out is to tap into humanity, love, joy, curiosity, and play. Just like we were all born to do. The adults want us to think doing this is nonsensical and ‘childish’. But ‘childish’ is a term created to keep us alienated from what we were all supposed to be this whole time.”

Grown ups say we need to be on every social media platform, save 10% using the code BORING for our lame Square Space site, sand off all the corners of our personality, and definitely listen to what everyone says on YouTube.

Instead, we can just never log into LinkedIn again.
We can stop playing venues that serve alcohol.
Stop chasing book publishers or record labels.

We can make the things we want, the way we wanna make ’em.

So hey, sign up to hang out with Meg and I on Thursday’s Escape Pod Zoom call, and hear how Meg is navigating her own Candy Land world and soak up the inspiration from her and others living how they wanna live!

ESCAPE POD #118 W/ SPECIAL GUEST MEG LEWIS
Thursday, May 7th at 2:00pm EST
Replay available if you sign up.
Register for the Zoom call here: https://luma.com/jzdkvpp2

I get to talk to a lot of creative people, and whenever I mention the whole “having a website,” folks tune out. I think this happens because for the last decade we’ve been hammering our creative round pegs into the templated square hole website builder platforms, and they feel gross.

Not to mention we’ve been throwing our best work onto social media platforms, where at least we get some LIKES and replies on occasion, right (even when hardly anyone sees them).

For me, posting to my site (like right now) is lower stakes writing. I don’t need to think about if an algorithm will pick it, or if someone might misinterpret me and leave a nasty comment.

This site exists between something like Morning Pages, which no one will see, or a full-blown email newsletter, which goes to thousands of people.

Here is where ideas germinate, in public, with just enough tension. Something I write is likely to be referenced a week from now, or even a year (or more) later.

“My blog posts inform the posts I haven’t written yet, they become the solutions to problems I didn’t know I had. They get referenced in member calls and workshops. They become subconscious scripts for future conversations I’ll have months from now.”

Good ideas have to start somewhere.

The isolation of social media is apparent when we fall into a doom scroll, or go down a rabbit hole of the latest drama. When we finally “snap out of it,” we realize the time that’s passed, and the missed text messages from friends.

Breaking up with social media is hard, not just because it consumes so much of our day, but our life. Social media soothes, takes the edge off, lets you unwind after a long day at work, which sounds much like how we describe cigarettes, alcohol, and other various substances.

Like a toxic partner, social media keeps us from our friends and family, from our hobbies and passions. It doesn’t demand our attention, but it makes it irresistible.

We can delete the apps and go cold turkey, but I believe the way out is other people. It’s community. It’s relationships. Maybe that includes the Social Media Escape Club Zoom calls. Or maybe it’s joining a group on campus.

Whatever it looks like, it’s making eye contact and talking with other people just like you, to help you realize that you’re not weak, or stupid, or that you don’t have willpower.

We need to understand that lots of people get paid huge salaries to keep us coming back for more. The cure, though, is even more people who want to see us blossom.

As Substack co-founder Hamish KcKenzie recently said “email is an important distribution channel. It should not be your only one.”

I’m pretty he didn’t mean “if you’ve built everything on Substack and Substack goes away tomorrow, you’re fucked,” but well, the shoe fits.

Email lists are wonderful, of course, but only until Substack has an outage, or KIT suspends your account (I’ve heard that happen), or Gmail banishes your email to the promo folder (or worse).

The entirety of your work shouldn’t live on a platform you don’t own; not Substack, not Instagram, not YouTube. A website you own, on a hosting service you pay for, via files you can back up – that’s your safest bet.

Publishing your work on your own website ensures your biggest fans can find it, even when they don’t get an email from you.

​Join us later this week to talk about what a real owned presence looks like; things like your website, RSS, print, word of mouth, direct relationships, and more.

Thursday, April 30th at 2PM EST
Sign up here. https://luma.com/7asv89sv

From Lauren Bliss over at Thought Enthusiast:

I recently took a month off from social media, and while I initially thought it would be detrimental to my work, like I needed to stay tapped into trends and what other brands are doing, it actually had the opposite effect. I felt like I had more creative ideas because my brain wasn’t bogged down by endless content (and constant bad news).

This is why some people say to take walks without listening to a podcast, or eat without watching YouTube videos – we need to give our brains time to process and sort things out! By doing so we might actually think of our next great idea!