Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
I love this so much:
Recently there was a cold snap and a road nearby iced over – it was in the shade and cyclists kept on wiping out on it. For some reason the council didn’t come and salt it.
Somebody went out and created a sign on a weighted chair so it didn’t blow away. And this is a small thing but I LOVE that I live somewhere there is a shared belief that (a) our neighbourhood is worth spending effort on, and (b) you can just do things.
From Matt Webb of Interconnected.
Sure, leave it until January 6 of 2026 to finally update my About Page.
That photo above is from like 2008 or 2009.
The shirt is from the music blog I started in 2001, freaking 25 years ago.
I see this quite a bit. People posting photos of old tech, old gear, things from the 90s, colorful iMacs – “bring this back.”
Yes, do it. You don’t need permission. You don’t need the OK. Just fucking do it.
Write in cursive, buy a Polaroid camera, make a mix tape, burn a CD, buy a VCR from the thrift store, get a skateboard, collect old magazines.
No app, no platform, no techbro is gonna deliver this to you on a plate, so make the retro tech 90 worship life that you’re craving.
2025: NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA
2024: BYE, INSTAGRAM
2023: OVEREXTENDING FOR WHO?
2021: PUT YOUR HEALTH ON YOUR CALENDAR
2020: NEW YEARS DAY ADVENTURES
2019: DEFINE YOUR OWN SUCCESS IN 2019
I forgot all about that very adventurous New Yeas Day in 2020! Wild to think how that year turned out.
On the first of the month I’m reminded to download my photos from my iPhone. I do this so I don’t have to keep paying Apple a monthly fee that just keeps going up, and I just like having my photos right where I can see them, in folders.
For December I have 215 photos, 54 screen shots, and 18 videos. I’ll keep that saved locally on my MacBook Pro (just 3.5GB), and start a new folder for January where I’ll dump the photos from my Nikon throughout the month.
Then, in February, I’ll move this January folder to my external hard drive.
My folders goes all the way back to 2002, but it’s not nearly as organized. The total is about 57,000 photos, which takes up 207GB on my 2TB drive, backed up regularly to BackBlaze.
Yeah, I miss the search functionality (finding all the photos of bikes, or cats would be great), but I love only paying .99 cents per month for iCloud instead of $120 a year.
Sometimes you just wake up at 4am and can’t get back to sleep so you start planing out a podcast series that you’d announce and launch on the day you host a big online event. What if?
We’ve all seen it – people waiting for their drinks at Starbucks. Arms crossed, sighing loudly while scrolling on their phones. Waiting, waiting, waiting for their drinks.
Then someone walks in, no wait, and walks out with their drink.
I get it; get people to order on the app. Less interaction, no friction, no need for someone to take the order.
In and out, money in the bank.
But I just looked and there’s like a dozen people here in this space, none of them having a pleasant experience.
How does that bode well for a business? A brand?
People in and out, and on their way.
And a business place filled with people rolling their eyes and getting the wrong order (like me) and just walking away.
Got this old rotary phone at a local antique market for $10.
50 years old.
25 years since I started Buzzgrinder (music blog).
20 years since I had a full time job.
18 years since I started Noisecreep (for AOL Music).
15 years since I started Skull Toaster (metal trivia).
10 years of Metal Bandcamp Gift Club (buying albums for strangers).
10 years since I started running.
8 years since I started working with MNRK Music Group.
5 years of Social Media Escape Club.
Tom Williams from the band Stray From The Path:
No-one gives a fuck about first-week numbers anymore, anyway. People care more about finding the record at your merch desk for the first time and buying it right then. I clearly remember asking (our label, SharpTone Records), ‘Why do people pre-order records?’ and being met with a minute of silence.