Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
Walking is so good, from Kate McCusker in The Guardian:
These days, walking is, for me, the exercise equivalent of hiding vegetables in my mashed potatoes: suddenly I’ve covered four miles in one stretch without really noticing. In the evenings, walking 90 minutes home from work is like making peace with the day, however good, bad or unremarkable it might have been.
A 90 minute walk in no joke. (via rebecca toh)
I’ve been thinking about how we get away from social media, or spending less time on our phones, and I think it’s less about dumb phones or apps and more about people.
As Priya Parker has said recently it’s less about “self-help” and more about “group-help.”
Social media has isolated us so much that we thinking breaking free is a solo endeavor, when I think it’s more of a group effort, with the support of other people (I host three Zoom groups per week, ask me about ‘em).
Getting away from social media isn’t just quitting, it’s about starting something else, or a return what came before.
So, where to next?
Woke up to a winter wonderland this morning. After clearing off the deck and stairs, had to get out and take some photos.
Once the snow stops, “the boys come out to play” as my neighbor said.
A fun question posed to Kareem Rahma, about deciding on a “generally unprofitable path,” to which Kareem replied:
“I waited until I was 33 and had worked a couple of corporate jobs. I knew if I failed I could always go back to corporate life. I also didn’t stop working when I decided to pursue the comedy career. I did both at the same time!”
This came up in two different conversations today, regarding the whole “doing the thing love” versus doing something safer, or which makes better money.
Most people I know who are doing “the cool thing” for a living have are doing it after decades of hard work. I don’t know anyone who started making music or art or whatever and like, two months later they could quit their full time job.
“Consistency is key. You can’t be in the right place at the right time without showing up consistently. You have to fail—and keep failing—until you succeed. People see Keep The Meter Running and SubwayTakes, but they don’t see the ten other failures that helped me get here.”
Kareem Rahma over at Feed Me.
I write about writing in ‘PUBLISH OFTEN AND TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK,’ over at my Social Media Escape Club:
Conversations, in varying “live” settings, sharpened my ideas and my ability to express them.
This is how Cory Doctorow can riff about horrible corporations for over an hour and make it look easy.
We can all do this if we stop spending five hours a day on our phones.
We lose in followers, but we gain by honing our craft, finding our unique ways to express the ideas and concepts that will resonate with the right people.
I coulda spent 10 more hours editing and re-writing, but I feel just getting the post out there help me write a clearer post at some point down the road. Maybe that’s next week, or three months from now.
Olivia Rafferty briefly met Ilan Kelman, a Professor of Disasters and Health at UCL, after her talk about Pop Music and Geology. They met recently:
When I sat down with Ilan, I asked him: “what is the one thing related to your research that you wish the wider public knew?” and he said, “there is no such thing as a ‘natural disaster.’ There is just nature.”
Listen to Olivia’s music right here:
Someone asked me recently why I don’t have comments enabled on this blog.
It sort of goes back to this post by John Gruber who writes Daring Fireball: https://daringfireball.net/2010/06/whats_fair
And my hero Seth Godin: https://seths.blog/2006/06/why_i_dont_have/
“First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them.”
Getting caught up in some reply threads on Substack Notes is enough.
Then there’s comments on my individual posts on Substack. Not many, but a few.
Then the number of emails I reply to, as well.
I have a Discord, but I’m shutting that down.
So comments on my two blogs? I just don’t want to invite MORE, you know? I’m about at capacity!
I’m going to write more on this soon, how all the time we spend posting on social media leads us to spend more time on social media replying, checking notifications, responding to DMs… like, is there a better use of 2-3 hours per day?
Could spending 2-3 hours a day on writing, or playing guitar, or walking 10 miles a day be a better use of time?
Today is Bandcamp Friday, where Bandcamp waives their 15% fee of each digital purchase, putting more money into the pockets of artists.
To mark this occasion, I’ve made all my HUNTERTHEN music “pay what you want” for the day. Pay nothing, pay a dollar, pay $10, the choice is yours.
I’m a third generation musician. I joined my first band in high school playing my mom’s bass. But in recent years I just wanted to listen to music to fall asleep to, yet always had trouble finding the music that was just right. So I started making it myself, and have seven releases.
You can find my music in a few Noah Kalina videos, which is a huge honor for me.
Over two hours of mixing and scratching and … whatever else they’re doing? Sooo good.
From Mario Fraioli of the The Morning Shakeout newsletter:
I’ve spent a lot of time this year thinking about and experimenting with how I want to use social media (Notes, IG, and Bluesky). And where I’ve landed after trying to maintain a consistent presence on these platforms and “meet people where they are” is that I just don’t think I want to use social media at all anymore.
I’ve seen this concept for years – “meet people where they are!”
What I’ve found is that I’m expected to become a regular on multiple platforms and engage with them every day. Every post, every like, every comment leads to more things to keep up with – the shares, the comments, the DMs. This is every day, spread across time zones, morning noon and into the night.
Always another post to reply to or share. Another commenter to reply to. Another DM to answer.
I think a lot of us are getting tired of meeting people where they are and stepping off the engagement rat race, as the benefits of playing the game just aren’t worth it anymore.
A lot of those those people we engage with on social media are content to just be on social media, without subscribing, without meeting us where we are.
There’s a time when the quirky eatery leaves the food court at the mall and sets up shop downtown, and I think that’s a lot of us right now.
