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it’s always been true, but it bears repeating now: if you don’t have a way to keep up with your work outside of insta / twitter / fb / whatever else, you are doing the bidding of silicon valley.
i get it - a lot of people get valuable exposure and leads from those platforms and can’t afford to completely disengage. but you definitely *can* afford to take the two to five minutes it takes to setup an account on substack / bear / pika / whatever and provide regular updates about your work, public appearances, job postings, etc.
the effort required from you to do this is (for someone already pursuing a creative career) almost trivial. but so many people refuse to do so, and as a result become unwitting servants of silicon valley - and now that silicon valley has literally been directly installed into the government, they’ve also become unwitting servants of the standing administration. your exclusive presence on these platforms is a brutal weapon that these companies use to keep your fans hostage on them. shouldn’t you at least *try* to take that weapon away?
Mar 4, 2025
Related Recs
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it doesn’t matter how many left-wing posts you signal boost, because all engagement on the platform, no matter what political valence it has, works to the benefit of the platform holder. your continued presence there does more harm than any good any post you promote could produce.
additionally, you being there increases the pressure for your friends to be there, and your friends being there puts pressure on their friends, and so on - and all of your engagement is producing value for zuck, who - as you’ve pointed out - is now a lapdog of the right.
i retain my account solely to communicate to the few people i only have contact through it, and i am literally right now this second working on a concrete escape plan for me and just about everyone else i know (and hopefully many people i don’t).
Jan 21, 2025
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I have to disagree with the people who say that we need to “stay” and “fight“ for IG to be a better platform because in actuality, it’s our presence and engagement that gives them data, and therefore money. As long as they have those 2 things, they make their bottom line and won’t really care about its users desires unless they’re making a move for the optics.
If we REALLY want to hold them accountable, we need to impact the money they make, which means permanently deleting or marking your account as inactive & never coming back. They’ll only care if they’re bleeding money— so make them bleed.
Feb 22, 2025
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obviously just uninstalling the apps help, but that's easier said than done because we usually have a reason we're using social media in the first place.
changing the way you receive information is really the key. the problem with social media is primarily that it trains you to have a passive role in receiving information / art / media, and that's what makes it possible for it to suck so much of your time away.
- for news, download an rss reader and actively seek out and follow some writers and publications you trust
- for events, subscribe to local newsletters. many venues have them, and if they don't, there's typically a local publication that has one specifically for events.
- for communication, just try to get the numbers of people you'd otherwise DM, or better yet, just start a discord (or something similar) for your friend group. my friend group has one, and it basically functions as our collective twitter feed.
i could give more specific advice if i knew your particular use case, but those three things alone will get you a long way.
Aug 27, 2024
Top Recs from @dotmatrices
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spent the last two weeks working on an interactive guide, recommendations database, and digital library (link depot) to help get people off of social media. the first draft is done now, and it's at the link to this post.
it's still very much a work in progress (the library is especially thin atm) - which is why i wanted to share it here before unleashing it upon my IRL friends and the general public. i welcome any and all feedback, bug reports, and suggestions for things to add. i will be pushing updates to it out like a madman in the coming weeks, so be sure to check back every so often to see new additions to the database and library.
additionally, i am still on the hunt for newsletters from local venues / community organizations / magazines / newspapers, etc. the only cities i have remotely covered so far are nyc, orlando, denver, brisbane, and little bits of worcester and chicago. if you know anything in your area that fits the bill, send it my way!
Jan 27, 2025
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it is your civic duty to mercilessly mock generative ai users as much as possible
Jan 18, 2025
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chronological feeds on social media are a dying breed and it's so important to maintain the ones you still have
Apr 7, 2025