GIVE FANS A CHANCE TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU

Let people get lost in your world.

If you’re an artist, and you’re shoveling everything onto social media, you’re missing the fuck out.

Every smart phone ships with a web browser.

Not everyone has a Facebook account anymore in 2025.

No one in the U.S. can install TikTok right now.

People are ditching Instagram and Twitter because of reasons.

You might not realize this, but some people fucking love music.

Like, that get band names and lyrics tattooed on their bodies. They wear nothing but band shirts. They dig through bins at record shops. They go to shows on Tuesday night.

The people who just load up automated playlists? Those aren’t your people.

Give people who discover you the ability to fall in fucking love with what you do.

If people find your music on YouTube, or Spotify, or Bandcamp, they can click on a URL and be on your website.

But if you website is just everything you already have on YouTube, and Spotify (a bunch of embeds), and a link to Bandsintown, well, what’s the point?

Wow, news and offers, huh? Sounds thrilling.

People still buy vinyl and CDs and cassettes. Yeah, a lot of people stream music these days, too, but fuck them.

Let people fall in love with you.

Give me a fucking bio. Where are you even from? What other bands were you in?

Stop posting every god damn bit of promo, behind the scenes, and assorted other photos on social media platforms and put that shit on your website.

Let people fall into your world and get lost in how damn cool you are.

Uploading all your cool vibes and good taste to fucking Facebook? In 2025? For 96% of your “followers” to never see?

In this economy?

RELY ON NOTHING YOU CAN’T TAKE WITH YOU

From One Thing’s ‘The new rules of media‘ from December:

“Rely on nothing you can’t take with you. For now, Substack email lists and Stripe charges are still portable. If they weren’t, I would move to Ghost, because Substack’s incentive is to get you as locked in as possible. (Patreon still keeps your Stripe info, therefore fuck Patreon.) The same goes for audiences: Direct traffic, through homepages or email inboxes, is the most reliable because no one can take it from you, but it’s the hardest to cultivate.”

Discoverability is a myth propped up on social media’s legion of bots and active users. Yes, some people won, but that had to happen, so other people could see the lottery winners and believe they could win, too.

IT’S EMBARRASSING TO POST THINGS ON THE INTERNET NOW

From Noah Kalina:

I was out taking pictures and I made a picture that I really like. I was working on it and I was like, “This is so good.” And I was like, “What am I going to do with this?”

My natural inclination is to want to post it on the internet, but why? I almost feel like it’s embarrassing to post things on the internet now.

More thoughts here.

DAD’S RECORDS

From ‘Her dad, the 10,000 records he left behind and a viral lesson in grief:

“Since September, the 24-year-old Polish Canadian woman has held a daily “listening party” on her Instagram and TikTok pages, @soundwavesoffwax, to explore decades and genres of music that her father, Richard, loved — punk, disco, pop, jazz, techno, new wave and ’60s psych rock. The project has exploded online, resonating with more than 460,000 followers combined so far — and she still has nearly 10,000 records to go.”

It’s sad that those vinyl records will outlive those social media channels, though.

(via HackerNews)

NETWORKING WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

I spoke with Frederick Woodruff how a musician friend of mine keeps making connection without being on any social media platforms (above). Watch the full clip below!

Escaping From Social Media is Your Central Assignment in 2025 by Frederick Woodruff

My discussion with writer and musician Seth Werkheiser about his timely crusade (and new community) on Substack: The Social Media Escape Club.

Read on Substack

SUBSTACKED

So Substack has partnered with The Free Press. Check out the comments on that post to see how that’s going. Oh, and Substack has a N*gger Problem.

Jesus christ and merry christmas, huh?

This has me thinking about leaving Substack, where I set up my Social Media Escape Club newsletter back in 2021. This was long before they rolled out their Twitter clone called Substack Notes, which has ushered in some major social-media-like vibes.

So yeah, Substack has sort of become social media.

I mean, I love that it’s been the driver of subscribers for me, to the tune of 4,500 people on my email list. But holy moly, being associated with this company is a mental drag.

Thinking of moving my operation to Buttondown, which will cost me $79/mo, but at least it will be without the drama and the 10% cut.

TALKING ABOUT THE WORK

Talking about the work is just as important as making it

Lots of truth in this statement, not just in a big “PR SALES!” sense, but even in how we talk about what we do with friends, and other people in our creative orbit.

Many artists would love for the “art to speak for itself,” but that’s not the world we live in anymore. There is simply too much art, music, news, drama – EVERYTHING – for things to speak for themselves.

Everything has its volume cranked to 11, and it never ends, and there’s more being added every minute, every hour, every day.

We get better at talking about the work by talking about it, not by trying to scream just as loud as everyone else.

Posting on social media can be like screaming, since we all have to scream to get attention on those platforms. We have to dance, or use the right trending audio, or hashtags.

Talking, though, is a lost art. How many people do you know that don’t even like talking on the phone with friends? Let alone creative directors, or booking people, or potential clients?

Talking is a lost fucking art, but it’s exactly what we need to get back to.

FEELING STUCK ON SOCIAL MEDIA

From Seth Godin’s new book ‘This is Strategy.’

When a system creates negative effects, it almost always happens gradually. Each node makes what feels like a reasonable decision at every step along the way, until the descent is far greater than we wished up for.

There’s cultural pressure and momentum to go along and before long we’re trapped – unable to get off social media, in debt, feeling stuck.

Toxic systems don’t go away on their own. Community action and peer support five us the scaffolding we need to build new systems. As those gain traction and power, the original system being to take notice and alter its behavior.

A lot of people feel stuck, and have a fear of missing out. I hear a lot of people say “well, Facebook is how I stay in touch with family” and such.

Until you get locked out, right?

Until that group with 1000 members gets shut down for some unknown reason.

Then what?

AVOID THE ALGORITHIMS

Instead of posting something on social media tonight, email an old acquaintance. Text someone a photo or link. Tell them about a book you’re reading. Send an email to someone you admire. Ask someone how they’re doing. Write a letter. Call your bestie.

In getting away from the algorithms and the walled garden of social media DMs, we return to a wide open world of possibilities.