Another day, another loop. About the only thing that changes are the bass lines.
LIKES
“So, Clubhouse is a place where people who love having meetings are having even more meetings?” @ChloeCondon
Video by Kai Pilger from Pexels
Daily Loop #37
Daily Loop #36
Got stuck in the snow close to my house. Had to shovel out my car, with no gloves. At one point I was laying flat on my back, staring up at the stars, and realizing the absurdity of everything.
I ate some cookies and shook my fist at the universe, but life is short, so I got working on this loop.
For this one I stacked three audio clips from my Instagram feed, and then sampled it. Enjoy.
LIKES
“I just don’t understand how kindness and gratitude is such a big ask of managers,” @brianne2k
target from Norah Lorway on Vimeo.
Video above by Alex Green from Pexels
Daily Loop #35
This track started like three years ago. I’ve learned a bit about Abelton Live through the years, but what really stuck out is that bass line. Somehow, even back then, I was big on bass. It makes sense, having played bass for 30ish years, but something about a synth bass just gets my blood flowing. It’s in my DNA, maybe.
DAILY LIKES
“Social media managers don’t have to build their own personal brand to be good social media managers. SMMs do not need to be creating their own content every day to be good at their jobs. We are online EVERY DAY for our work. It is okay to take time away. Be kinder to yourself,” @nicoletabak
“Said fuck it and raised my photoshoot prices to $1k minimum,” @moodydarkroom
Social Media is a Job
You’re not overwhelmed with managing your social media, you’re over worked.
“Comedian in 1985: i made a joke about how women shop and now i am famous
Comedian in 2021: i do sketch, standup, improv, satire, i make dumb lil videos on tik tok, i have a podcast, a web series, 3 features, 5 pilots, i’m on twitter 22 hours per day & can’t afford rent,” @Brittymigs
And then this:
“As an ex-social manager, idk who needs to hear this but CREATING the social media content and MANAGING the social media content needs to be two separate jobs,” Health Magazine Associate Editor Taylyn Washington-Harmon.
People have full time jobs, with benefits and vacation time and an HR department to make content for companies. Like, for-real paychecks, and paid time of for when they’re sick.
So are you feeling lazy that you’re not writing, planning, designing, and scheduling content a week in advance? Do you feel like a failure for not growing your audience by 10% week after week?
You’re not bad at this, it’s just that you’re one person. One person can only do so much.
The common strategy these days is to create a few versions of each piece of content, and then post across several different social media platforms. Let me tell you, that’s work. That’s a job. That’s a paycheck.
On top of your creative endeavors, or small business? Yeah, that’s a LOT.
So do what you can, and be proud that you’re even doing what you’re doing – even if it’s not a lot. Because, dammit, social media is a job.
Daily Loop #34
These loops are a daily exploration of where sounds and samples and bass lines can transport my mind. Sitting down to make this I was in a sour mood, but bit by bit, literally – bits and bytes of computer processing and circuits – this came to life, and my heart is happy.
DAILY LIKES
“At what point do we say that we cant do this anymore? i feel like im basically reaching that point,” @_pem_pem
Video by Oleg Magni from Pexels
Daily Loop #33
Ever have one of those nights where you’re just like, shit, there is so much music I haven’t listened to yet?
So how’d I get to watching an interview with DJ Muggs? Well, as I’ve been getting back into actually making some music again, I’ve been going back to some of the music in the mid 90s that formed my musical taste today. That includes Cypress Hill’s ‘Black Sunday,’ of course, so I had to dig a bit!
And if you watch the video above, he talks about Led Zeppelin, and Kraftwerk, like… fuck, I’m a “rock guy” and I still haven’t submersed myself into any of their records. Which is why I stay up too late on Monday nights, wondering if I could just make a pot of coffee and listen to music until the sun comes up. I mean, I won’t, but at least my frenzied brain will take 45 minutes to slow the fuck down to fall asleep.
LIKES
“Strictly only ever want to be having a good time from here on out,” and “don’t be in a toxic relationship with urself,” @chipzel
“I don’t want a future where only people good at the internet get to make music,” @kazzmlaidlaw
Video by Ruvim Miksanskiy from Pexels
Embrace Whimsical Links
This from a recent Twitter exchange, in response to the wonderful “Algorithm is Gonna’ Get You” article, written by Danielle Evans.
“Been thinking of dropping off IG for awhile. I gotta build up my own art sites and creator spaces. Just wish there was a positive online pool of people that congregate outside of algorithms and ads. That fosters connection and drives people to my art and projects. Maybe ello?”
@shootbydaylight
I just feel like leaving everything up to that “community pool” is a rough these days. It’s too centralized. Remember DIGG? StumbleUpon? Is the answer sites like Dribble, or Vimeo, or Flickr?
My dream is we get back to our websites, and letting the whimsy and awe of links do their thing. That happened for me recently with one of my daily loops. I noticed one video got a few more plays than the others, and discovered it was linked from another website – neato!
There was a time when we didn’t drink from the “content firehose” for hours everyday, bombarding our eyeballs with fear and dread mixed in with “oooh, a pretty picture of a sunset!” I think for our own health and sanity we need to back away from cramming everything into one site, one network, one silo.
Daily Loop #32
The first day of February, 2021. Hoping got a little less drama this month than last, but I won’t be holding my breath. It’s not the first time I write a number in the the title of these without it being the actual day of a month. Welcome to day #32 of 2021.
Below are some more of the things I like from Twitter and Instagram, about the only reason I stay on either site at this point. They’re not posted here as embeds, as I don’t trust either social network will be around in five years, and then five years from now you’d see nothing below.
Also doing my best to link to the actual persons website, when available. Websites are pretty great.
LIKES
Don’t Let Your Likes Disappear
Photo: Lyndsey Hansen Sunderland from Twitter
Each day on social media a 400 page magazine shows up on your doorstep, bursting at the seams.
And everyday, the previous day of wonder and delight has begun its walk into obscurity.
This is why I added the LIKES section to my Daily Loops videos. I know from doing the “blog thing” over several years that there are times when I’ll go back through my archive and find something I forgot about.
In that moment in the past something grabbed me, it was enough for me to hold onto it, to put it on this site, my little corner of the internet. Even if I don’t have hoards of readers, I have me, and I want to re-live and re-experience some of that magic.
So my LIKES section is a collection of things that catch my eye, or my ear. For a bit I was embedding the Tweets or Instagram posts, but I fear that one day they could disappear.
And to think some people aren’t even on Twitter or Instagram, and they can’t see that magic, those bright colors, the rich hues of music and noise.
So now I’m adding those things to my site, adding a link to the source (of course), and looking forward to 2025 when I can come back here and see the magic that got me through the pandemic, this moment in time that people will talk about 100 years from now.
Stop Handing Out Flyers
There was a time when we didn’t spray a firehose of images, videos, and words into our eyeballs for multiple hours, every day. Around the clock.
During that time we still made albums, published magazines, made videos, and everything else.
The thing I hear a lot, if we abandon social media, is how will we be found? How will our music get heard? How will our videos get watched?
Look, they will.
Back in the day you’d hand out flyers for the show you were playing that night. Put the flyers in the local music shop. Hand them to anyone wearing Chuck Taylors or a nose ring.
Social media is where you hand out flyers, but at a certain point you gotta head back to the venue and play a show.
We’ve all bought into the 24/7 social media marketing life style, heading both directions; both as the consumer and the advertiser.
But there comes a time when you gotta put the phone down and work. You’re going to have to miss that meme, or that person who did the thing, or that random video.
Trust that the wonderful people in your life will send you some of the highlights. Also be okay with missing shit.
Like, how many memes have you missed when they first came out? Then you discovered it three months later. Still funny, right? Great. What’d you lose? Nothing.
Get into your studio, your space, put on your headphones and make your art. That’s the thing that people will discover three months from now. That clever Tweet or funny IG story is nice and all, but it’s gone in a day. Poof.
Put your top stuff on a site. Your writing, your photos, your music, your whatever. Give it a home where people can find it. And keeping filling it up. Keep adding. Make it your home.
People will find you when they find you, and it’ll probably be for your art, the magic you bring to the world.
Photo by Mick Haupt from Pexels