Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
I put this photo in Substack Notes, but taking my own advice and doing my best to also make sure I put this sort of stuff on my own blog, too. Substack can go away tomorrow, but as long as I keep paying my yearly server bill and domain name registration, this post will never go away.
A few words can change your life:
Say it, and be done.
“What did we do before talked about politics all the time?”
A great question posed to me by one of the most politically adpet people I know.
It’s wild, in that social media has conditioned us to constantly talk about politics, at least since 2016 or so.
That was the start of Trump’s foray into politics, when Twitter became as absolute shitshow, but where I’d stay until 2023 for some reason.
But I think social media has just made us think and connect like being online has been the answer the whole time, and everything leading up to it was wrong.
As if the before times, when not everyone had a personal computer at home, or a laptop that they could use on the couch, or a smartphone so they could check it constantly.
Maybe the current mode of living was created by companies that never had our best interest in mind.
Because, honestly, the more we’re online, the more we’re seeing ads. Even if we’re not using an ad blocker, we see ads on social media. Pre-roll ads on YouTube videos.
What if the reason we’re so perpetually online is because it’s in the best interest of those that build computers and sell the ads?
What if it doesn’t have to be this way?
From ‘On a Saturday Afternoon,’ by Aimee Bender:
But even though I am making steady proclamations about who I will go for next, and why, and how it will all be different, it is brutal to imagine the idea of meeting a new person. Going through the same routine. Saying the same phrases I have now said many times: the big statements, the grand revelations about my childhood and character. The cautious revealing of insecurities. I have said them already, and they sit now in the minds of those people who are out living lives I have no access to anymore. Awhile ago, this sharing was tremendous; now, the idea of facing a new person and speaking the same core sentences seems like a mistake, an error of integrity. Surely it is not good for my own mind to make myself into a speech like that. The only major untouched field of discussion will have to do with this feeling, this tiredness, this exact speech.
The next person I love, I will sit across from in silence. We will have to learn it from each other some other way.
Ahhh, that line, “it is brutal to imagine the idea of meeting a new person.”
This from Matthew Ferrara:
Imagine if you produced direct content as frequently as you produce social media content. But rather than 1% or 10% of people seeing it, it gets received by 100% of your audience. Got your attention?
Keep making Reels that 95% of your audience won’t see?
Or just email 10 people and reach all 10 of them?
Emailing 10 people means we might get rejected 10 times.
Making Reels is safer, knowing it’ll largely go unnoticed, but we still did “the right thing” according to mass marketing gurus.
“I do think that social media is largely a trap… for users and for brands,” says Seth Godin over at Link In Bio. “It’s purposely built to create insecurity and false proxies, metrics that get people to work for free to support the business model of the social media companies, as opposed to their own goals.”
Spending time and energy for “Likes” benefits the people who said “Likes” were valuable in the first place.
Bands have been re-releasing albums for decades.
So yes, you should re-share that post you wrote 8 months ago.
Talk about your first show 20 years ago, the award you won 10 years ago, that feature you had 5 years ago.
Celebrate your year old music video with a quick interview with the director.
Celebrate the five year anniversary of your favorite song. Favorite gallery. Favorite photo.
Everything doesn’t need to be new new new. Most everyone has never seen any of your work.
Show it to them.
Night walks and chasing lights and shadows, always looking for that perfect sky as a backdrop. Always fun just getting out for a bit with a camera and seeing what you find.
I’ve been reading Apple / Mac blogs since like 2003. Started with MacRumors, and of course found the almight Daring Fireball, and have been checking those at least once a day for over… 20 years.
But I think I’m done.
Everything now just wants to have some AI element, or an even thinner iPad… my new MacBook Pro M3 is fucking FANTASTIC. Such a great computer. I love it so much.
But I think I’m good. I just need a solid laptop and… that’s it.
This image from Noah’s recent video shook me. What a shot.
