I love the idea of having a blog that you update on occasion, more often than social media.
Those platforms made is so that every time you post something, something happens – usually a like. Then a comment.
When you post on your blog, the reaction isn’t quite so quick. Or sending a newsletter. The feedback loop is longer, and the social media platform makers knew this.
Make their product light up when you post something. Make it as simple as possible to post a video, go live, five photos. Try doing that with most apps for modern blogging platforms or website builders.
In school I could find the rockers because they had mullets, Bon Jovi and Motley Crue shirts. We obviously couldn’t carry around our guitars, but there were signals.
Growing up, I didn’t sit in the hallways and randomly yell things as everyone walked past.
“BMX! Dungons and Dragons! Guns N’ Roses!”
That’d just get me some weird looks, right?
Instead, I did what all of us shy nerds did – I carried around my BMX Plus magazines. Finally found an Anthrax shirt. Got some Airwalks from the JCPenny catalog.
Each of those things were a signal.
Once we found our tribe, we didn’t stay hanging out in the hallways at school, or the food court at the mall. We spent our evenings in our friend’s bedrooms and basements, learning Misfits’s covers and such.
This whole “hopping to different platforms to find out people” is a new thing that came about in the last decade, and it looks like it’s burning to the ground.
Start talking to the few people around you, getting a little deeper. Send a few emails. Plan a Zoom call. Meet in real life.
I’ve been taking photos since high school, from film to digital and back again. Nearing 50, I picked up a Nikon ZFC just to get back in the groove of manual mode, and it’s led to some fun opportunities like this; a fun little time to volunteer my enthusiasm and skills so the local library would have some images to use online.
Saying yes to more opportunities to this, even if they’re out of my element.
A rich person wants many things. A sick person wants one thing. And wow, that’s been me this week – a sick person. It was too bad, but it was enough to wreck my normal routine, especially running. I had just done back to back 30 mile weeks, but I know fitness doesn’t disappear in a few days, especially since I’m not training for the Olympics or anything like that.
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?
Google changed it’s motto from “Don’t be evil” to “Do the right thing” in 2015. And now a decade later the “right thing” has taken quite a turn.
“Google on Tuesday updated its ethical guidelines around artificial intelligence, removing commitments not to apply the technology to weapons or surveillance.”
I’m so glad to be moving away from all Google Products this year.
One was from someone I spoke with recently, and they said they’d send me something. It came in a sturdy, colorful envelope, it had their name on it, and the shipping label said “delicious ideas inside.”
The other was an item I ordered from someone I’ve followed on Instagram years ago. I paid $40 for this item. It showed up in a plain box, with a USPS shipping label, with no mention of the senders name or brand. It was sent from MERCH COMPANY, basically.
I realize this person has probably outsourced their order fulfillment to a third party. I get that.
But when you pay for-real money for something, the first thought upon picking up the package shouldn’t be “who is this from?”
When I got the package from the person I spoke with recently, there was no confusion, only delight.
“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.
