the new internet

The public arena of social media is a battleground between our most Compressed Identities. But it’s in private DMs, small group chats and offline conversations that I often find the most open and insightful conversations that show me who people are and how they want to be seen.

New Media is opinionated about the internet’s infinite scale . It chooses to reject or play with the internet’s scale, opting to be handmade, limited quantity, or geared towards small groups of people who actively choose to receive it. New Media is not something to be fished from a stream, but a sacred pilgrimage one may embark upon.

The web hasn’t had its artisanal moment.

We don’t need more subscribers; we need more heartbreak, laughter, and / or deep metaphysical talks about the afterlife in cemeteries on rainy evenings.

But going viral sounds awful. Give me living rooms, tiny venues, a zoom room with 12 people searching for something.

It needs to be a space where you don’t measure your success by the metrics of more likes, more traffic — but by how deeply and truly you inhabit your own creative essence, in public.

The contradiction of our current era is that our most open spaces are where we’re most closed off from our full selves, and our most closed spaces are where we can be most open.