Photographer Marcel Borgstijn is another photographer leaving Instagram:

“A nipple in a fine art photograph violates community standards, but watching someone’s final moments apparently doesn’t. These aren’t community standards; they’re corporate calculations designed to appease advertisers and political actors while maximizing engagement through shock content.”

That’s been happening, but now there’s a new straw that broke the camels back: “Meta found a new way to violate your privacy.”

While we can wait for congress to enact laws to protect consumers (hah!), or wait for a new centralized kingdom of power to rise up and take their place, Marcel has a much better idea, which is “building our own spaces and inviting people to visit on our terms.”

Yes, he admits “it requires more work,” but goes on to say “when you control the platform, you control the experience.”

It all comes down to control. If you build your brand, your business, your entire livlihood on a platform you don’t control, you risk losing everything for almost any reason.

If you pay your web hosting bill, and keep your domain name current, your website will outlast all of the creepy social media platforms.

From “Directing My Movie” by Joi Katskee:

I’m thrilled to share my music video, Dazed in a Detour, which was featured at a local film festival. I’ve submitted it to a couple of other festivals, but I got tired of waiting to “be picked”.

The response to this work has been so positive, why would I bury it away until another organization “approves” it?

Don’t wait to get picked – just put the work out there and see what happens.

“Creativity is not something to hustle or to use.

Creativity is something to tend to, like you tend to a garden, and it in turn uses you in ways you couldn’t imagine.”

This from “This Is Drastically Changing My Creativity,” a post by Blake Roberts.

I’ve told two people this week (via my Email Guidance offering) to not set up a website. To not set up a webstore. To not start a newsletter.

These two people were still very much in the “figuring it out phase,” to which I stressed that maybe you don’t need to figure it out in public.

Not everyone wants to document the journey. It’s okay to go off and do your thing for a few months, or a few years.

Because what if you fully tend to your creative garden, without the distraction of sending a newsletter, posting on socials, or the dreaded “figuring out” your website?

I believe that if we immerse ourselves in the art, the practice, the work, that in a years time (or whatever feels right) you’ll already know what the newsletter is about.

And you’ll know exactly what sort of website you need.

In March, 36 people signed up for a Zoom chat about organizing our digital photos, and managing our digital files without cloud services.

Let’s do it again, maybe? Sign up here if you’d be into this!

I do a thing called Email Guidance, and I credit my absence on social media as one of the reasons for its success. Here’s a reply I got recently:

“Honestly Seth, I’m feeling so relaxed after reading this advice. Like it’s honestly just so pure and good that it feels right and helps me feel clear and focused about my steps to come.”

By not letting my attention be pulled in 100 directions per hour, I get to be bored and think and do the dishes.

Now, imagine you’re the one making the work that gets that sort of response.

How do you get there? By making and uploading vertical videos 100 days in a row? When do you have time for the work? For the art?

Your paintings can make people cry. Your music can get people through break ups. Your song lyrics could be tattoo’d on someone’s arm.

Spend your hours building your future days.

Taylor Swift controls all her music, and she even controlled the news, driving zillions of people away from social media to her website with a post saying “Letter on my site.”

No, you’re probably not as big as Taylor Swift. But will you get to her level faster playing the same social media lottery with everyone else?

What if you spent hours every day practicing? Honing your skills? Connecting not with legions of people but a few good ones?

Sure, social media can help you find an audience. But a website with a newsletter sign up form can help you keep one.

I don’t publish a paid newsletter, I host weekly Zoom calls with members. Substack’s ability to manage members is very limited, and they haven’t made any meaningful updates to their system in the four years that I’ve been using their platform.

That, along with other folks losing data without any help from the Substack team has made reassess how I want to run my business, which led to moving my paid subscribers to Memberful, who are owned by Patreon.

They were very extremely helpful, getting on Zoom calls with me to walk me through the process and answer my questions, which made the move that much easier. I’ve never had a Zoom call with anyone at Substack. Finding an email address to get the export process started was a challenge, too.

A most gracious Michael Maupin wrote this tonight, after chatting with a stranger for a bit:

Live in the world, but your Substack (and online life) is a part of it. They feed each other. You can’t be online all the time.

OPEN UP. Git yer ass outside.

I only really know Michael via Substack, but we’ve talked once on the phone awhile ago. Online met offline, at least by way of actual conversation late one night.

Same as Michael’s conversation with someone at a closing eatery. Stories shared, and he got a new subscriber to his newsletter. It’s not all about “growing our audience,” of course, but it all takes place one person at a time, whether you’re trying to run a store front, sell a record, or live a good life.