Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
Go live and make it FUN. Make it wild, weird, or whatever you want it to be.
Make a cat-cam, or read poetry next to a fireplace to lull people to sleep. Live video doesn’t have to be talking heads or video games.
Continue reading “GET CREATIVE WITH SUBSTACK LIVES”Had a nice live chat with Sarah Fay today on Substack – and actually uploaded to YouTube for once.
I really enjoy these sorts of live chats, because I get to talk about stuff I’ve loved talking about for like… decades. LOVE. I love this nerdy stuff. This media outlet stuff. This creative journey, and how it aligns with the machinery of the internet.
From ‘3 Ways to Amplify Your Creator Gravity,” by Alice Lemee:
LinkedIn posts and Substack notes and Skeets (that’s Bluesky for the uninitiated) are not dense. They extend your reach, sure, but they’re more like your planet’s atmosphere—thin, easily dispersed, and quickly forgotten.
Instead, you need density. When I say dense, I mean something that doesn’t have a 24-hour life cycle and can’t be plucked from the top of your head.
This sounds about right:
“No one wants to take a risk. Not elected officials. Not 19-year-olds picking college majors. Because in this economy, everything is compliance now. As the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco warned in his essay “Ur-Fascism,” social systems don’t collapse overnight. They erode through small surrenders, through the gradual normalization of compliance as a civic virtue.”
From ‘Compliance is the New American Dream‘ by Kyla Scanlon.
This was written sometime in 2011, and I found it via The Wayback Machine:
I gave my two weeks notice on Friday. My last day as editor of Noisecreep for AOL Music will be Feb 11. I’ve worked with great people over the past 2+ years, and met some amazing artists, but it’s time to move on.
Living life on the road for six months has been a challenge, with all the logistics, managing money (and my mail), signing divorce papers, long bus rides — but it always works out. Maybe not exactly the way I planned it out (three hour delay yesterday en route to Atlanta), but it’s gone pretty smooth.
I just did the stuff I wanted to do on the side. I worked my day job and then I hung out with friends. I emailed a friend 50 miles away and on the weekend rode my bike there. Then I emailed another friend, and I rode 50 miles. My parents were just 30 miles away, so why not ride there next? On and on I’ve gone, asking friends for a couch to crash on and I’ve made it work. I just did it. Yes, it helped that I could work remotely, but I’ve been doing this “blog thing” for about a decade – I didn’t just “get lucky.” At the same time, I didn’t need to quit my job, or save up any money, or buy a new bike (oops!); week after week I just did this on the side.
Do what you love on the side, a few hours a week. See what happens. If it’s really a priority, and something that feels right in your bones, maybe you can keep doing it.
Can’t believe here I said “doing the blog thing for about a decade,” and here I am now in 2025, having down the blog thing for like 24 years now.
Our most precious asset is time, so spend it with your actual friends. Money is right up there, too. Spend it wisely, and try to include some independent shops and creative folks in the mix.
My HUNTERTHEN music made an appearance in the latest Hotline Show by Noah Kalina.
The track ‘More Immersive’ is from my 2003 release ‘Wizard Box.’
I didn’t even recognize it at first (Noah had asked permission, of course), but when I did it really threw me for a loop, to hear my music matched with Noah’s stunning visuals.
I joke a lot about people being the problem. So many situations, drama, etc. and it’s people that are the problem.
But on the flip side, it’s people who get us through the hard times, help us find our way, bring light to any situation.
It’s the right people that make things better. Hard to find, but worth the effort.
Writing newsletters can be tough because we think it always has to be us us us…. me me me… look at all the things I got going on! But it’s so fun when we show this world we’ve built, talk about the people in our creative orbit. Tell the stories of how we got where we’re at, and the people who made it possibiel.
Noah Kalina from “Newsletter #178 – The Chicken Camera.”
“Sometimes the best thing we can do as artists is simply create the conditions for interesting things to happen and then just get out of the way.”
Creating the conditions for interesting things to happen. Yes. That’s why I started my newsletter back in 2021 (here’s the first post). Write about the stuff I want to write about. Maybe other people will enjoy it.
From that, interesting things have happened from Social Media Escape Club.