On today’s Escape Pod Zoom Call we got talking about experiences with magazines when we were younger:

• One story was about a computer magazine with a program written by a young Bill Gates.
• Another was about buying magazines (plural) with a baggie full of change.

We don’t just talk about the XYZ’s of quitting social media, but about getting back to the core life experiences that made shit cool before techbro platforms flattened culture and gamified everything.

I had a great chat with Brie-Anna Willey of Business for Nerds today, where we agreed that it’s okay to not be good at social media, that maybe we should make our websites more like IKEA instead of a grocery store, how your old work is new to someone, and lots more.

My childhood included a home foreclosure and a family split because of it. Calling my parents in their later years meant talking into an answering machine, “hey guys, it’s me, Seth” and then my dad (usually) picking up the phone. “We’re here, we’re here, yes, hello!?”

They screened their calls to avoid debt collectors.

Somehow my sister and I have avoided any major financial disasters, so long as you don’t count credit card debts that come and go every few years.

All that so say, I’ve got some shame around money and (of course) taxes.

I had a phone call with a good friend and we laughed about a tax situation I’m currently facing (don’t worry, it’s fine). We shared our collective money horror stories and I felt better afterwards. Shame crumbles under the weight of laughter.

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Here’s a bit from my interview with Rusty Pilgrim:

Q. I have to be honest —my opinion of marketing is pretty close to that old Bill Hicks joke where he says, “Are there any marketing people here? You? Great. Kill yourself. Seriously —kill yourself.” That’s more or less how I’ve always felt.

But your approach is completely different. In fact, it’s so different that I wouldn’t even call it marketing. Was there a specific moment or event that led you to take this path?

A. Lots of Seth Godin books, starting with Purple Cow. Make something remarkable, and people will make remarks. It five people like it, maybe they tell five more. If they don’t, start again. Either re-work everything, or play to the crowd, or double down and find the right five people who might enjoy what you’re doing.

Not everyone is going to love what we do, and that’s okay. Even the most famous people on the internet are complete unknowns to most of the world. So to me it’s all about making a thing that you can make, making friends, having fun, building community. If that leads to paying some bills, great. If not, at least you’ve enriched the lives of those around you.

Michael Gilbride talks about spending big bucks in hopes of a big return. Most of the time we call this gambling!

“Instead of spending a sh**load of money on a music video and praying it goes viral, what could we do that would guarantee her music gets in front of her target audience?”

The artist had a song about body dysmorphia. Rather than making a music video and hoping her target audience would see it, she ended up booking a performance at an outpatient center for eating disorders.

In doing this, she’ll perform in front of an audience more likely to appreciate her message. That’s the guarantee, the possibility of making one fan.

Spending thousands on a music video may lead to the same outcome, sure, but performing in one space for a few people is a safer bet.

From What People Deserve by Sky Fusco:

“You can’t get enough of a thing you don’t need, and I wonder: Maybe you also can’t get enough of a thing that never ends. It’s like these apps are the cockroach of addictions. They just won’t die, and they’re designed that way.”

The scroll never ends. You can never catch up. Everything optimized to keep you engaged.

Sky mentions how social media isn’t like other vices, since you need to leave the house to go buy alcohol or drugs. Consuming enough shuts things down – whether temporarily or by death.

That’s the sinister thing about social media. “I don’t have a problem with it,” says most people. But some people can’t have just one drink. They can’t just post something about their business on Instagram and duck out.

Read more here.

CJ Chilvers has a slightly more PG-13 way of saying this (do shit that doesn’t scale), and provides some great examples in the meantime:

• I’ve seen an author put his phone number on the front cover of his book.
• I’ve seen newsletters set up booths at events just to subscribe a few dozen people — because both parties know each other are real and engaged.
• I went to a bar to meet the inventor of podcasting. He asked people to show up to discuss his podcast and what was on their minds — maybe a dozen or so did. That was more than a decade ago and we’re still telling our readers about it.
• I traveled seven hours to meet at a bar with two like-minded content creators. It led to several podcast episodes, countless blog posts ideas, and an event.

See the rest on his website. As I said back in 2024:

“Yeah, but Seth, I just want to post my thing (on social media) and go do other things,” you might say.

Well, you see the results that “just posting” gets you.

Also, how can talking to your fans, audience, and readers be a waste of time?

Setting a timer for 15 minutes and communicating with real people five days a week will probably get you more results than the hour you spend making one Reel for 153 “people” to see (and which will never be seen again after 12 hours).

Does it scale? Fuck scale, do the work.

It’s tempting to find a shortcut, a “growth hack.” But doing the thing that seems slightly uncomfortable (or absurd) stands to make more of an impact, like our Social Media Escape Club member Jes talking about handing out their email list on a clipboard during a show. That led to 35 new people signing up.

Does that scale? Nope. Do it anyways.

I won’t be thinking about platforms when I’m dead, and I’d like to think about them even less right now.

Recently I got to hear Kato share some wisdom she received from her time working with playwright Paula Vogel:

“…most playwrights, you’re not writing for your current generation. You’re not writing for your peers. You’re actually writing for the generation coming after you. That’s who’s going to pick up your work. That’s who’s going to have the energy for it. That’s who’s going to make things happen.”

Vivian Maier passed away in 2009 and her photography didn’t become widely known until months after she passed.

In my conversation with Ryan J. Downey, he explained how all the work he did at MTV News over 15 years was wiped out when Paramount Global took the archives offline.

The music blog I wrote from 2001-2008, the very foundation of my entire career, is gone now, too.

What do we contribute to future generations when all our work is erased from the internet after we die, or does it even matter?