Magic talks about THE DIGITAL POLLUTION THEORY in her video “the chronically online will become a new underclass,” and recommends we log off, sooner rather than later.

“We can still build places rooted in clarity and care and connection. I just think that exists in real life. We can still build places that are transformative and more transformative than performative. If we don’t imagine something better and abandon the space, a future will be built for us digitally, completely without our consent, against our interests, and against our human nature. That is a digital pollution theory, you guys.”

“Once I started trying to anticipate what other people would want, I lost my point of view,” says menswear designer Aaron Levine.

Don’t get caught up in how a newsletter to your fans is supposed to look. Don’t assume your fans want something short and sweet, or long and drawn out. You don’t make your art thinking about the audience, so don’t write and share your art in a way that forces you into form that is not your own.

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.

Sari Azout of Sublime talks about a post with a million views doing very little in terms of revenue, but a video with far fewer views being more valuable.

“Attention is cheap and volatile. Trust is slow, expensive and durable, and I think if something reaches a lot of people but creates no relationship, that’s not distribution. That’s just noise.”

We don’t want to build for “eyeballs,” we want to build for the right audience, the right reader, the right fan. To make our work in our own weird, magical way that sends the right signal to the people who appreciate our weird, magical work.

“There’s a way to show up and promote your product where you feel authentically you, and your job is to figure out what that format is.”

There are jobs out there that are one of one, and that’s the job you’re hiring yourself for.

Got this bit from ‘Discoverability for illustrators’ by Tasha Goddard via Robyn Hepburn:

“While emailing is more about outreach than discoverability, I have heard that art directors and art commissioners will actually use the search facility in their email app (e.g. Outlook or Gmail) as a first point of call after any in-house databases – so they might type ‘room illustration, colourful’ or ‘collage illustrator, newspaper’ etc. into the search bar to see if they have been sent any work by a relevant illustrator.”

Keep this in mind when reaching out to art directors and venues and other people you’re pitching for potential opportunities.

Are you asking people to “subscribe for updates” to get people on your email list? Maybe promising a 10% discount?

“Say, “follow our adventures as we leave for tour in a month. Sign up so you don’t miss a single photo of our adventures. Sign up so you don’t miss out on all our crazy tour stories.”

There’s a reason media outlets ask, “got any crazy tour stories?”

It’s because stories sell.”

Remember, you’re competing with Netflix, social media, family, new albums, holiday plans, and a million other things – rework your pitch.

If you’re still using one of those Link In bio services (here is mine), take some time to clean it up. My god, I’ve seen some artists with 50+ links in those things. Do you expect fans to dig through all those? More choices just means your fans aren’t even going to click anything.

Consider putting all the things you’re linking to (YouTube videos, music, upcoming appearances, store) on your own website, then just simply linking to your website. One link to rule them all.