social media

Digital Garden, Digital Sanctuary and Salon...

We’ve normalized algorithmic mediation of our relationships to the point where it feels natural to have a feed “curate” who we hear from. But there’s nothing natural about an advertising platform deciding which of your friends you get to see.

Social media promised us connection. What it delivered was optimization—for engagement, for ad inventory, for keeping us scrolling just a little bit longer. And somewhere in that translation, we lost something critical: the ability to maintain meaningful presence and connection in a way that respects both creative process and human attention.

You’re a worker without an employer.

Now, that’s probably not a deal anyone would take willingly—that is, working for free, at risk of severe moral injury and psychological harm, for the benefit of venture capitalists and their mega-yachts. So they’ve had to sell it to us. And they’ve sold us on this idea that they exist as tools for doing what you... See more

most of us are working on behalf of companies that are not our employers . This labor is primarily considered crucial for doing what you love or following your passion. And that labor is... engaging online. Posting on Facebook or Instagram, sharing videos on TikTok or YouTube, networking on LinkedIn, responding to posts, or clicking on ads.

Your... See more

But what we can take away from hearing "wherever you find podcasts" at the end of every episode we listen to is that, sometimes without us knowing, radical systems can survive and even thrive in the modern world of tech and media. They can inspire new creators to make similar systems that are unowned, uncentralized, and a little bit uncontrollable.... See more

I

never

have to ask myself what an algorithm is going to do with a particular podcast episode.

Never .

I only ever think about the story I want to tell and the stories my audience wants to hear. The same goes for this newsletter.

Every place where you see open distribution, you see a huge variety of creators and content.

That's not to say that creatin... See more

platforms don't (really, can't ) support creative work. They support work that's legible to the algorithm, and that work starts to look and feel the same