The office of Sebastian Curi, an artist, illustrator, and animator in Los Angeles, CA, via workspaces.xyz. I am absolutely in love with this.
(thanks, Bill)
Author: Seth Werkheiser
RUNNING IN THE SEVENTIES
Saw a recent Twitter thread from Jimmy Watkins / Running Punks.
Note: I’ll be so happy when someday I can say “saw a great post from so and so’s blog” instead of Twitter, but hey, we’ll get there.
Anyways, Jimmy / Running Punks was not feeling great mentally, be he went out for a run and had this amazing interaction with an older runner.
The part that really got me was this:
“We had a great chat. He was 73 years old, and we ran 10km in 59 minutes together. The route we took was one I take nearly every day.”
In my peak fitness a few years ago I ran a 10K in about 54 minutes or so, and that’s in my early 40s. I hope and dream that I’m able to run a sub hour 10K by the time I’m in my 70s.
But seriously – read that thread (here) while Twitter is still operational.
WHAT’S THE GOAL HERE?
One of the things I keep thinking we’re all going to “miss” if we’re not all on social media is the immediate satisfaction of posting something off the tops of our head at 10:32pm on a Tuesday night, and then seeing five likes and one person responds with an emojii.
That’s the dopamine hit. The rush. Insert your coin (write something, upload a photo), pull the lever (hit send), and watch what happens.
Over and over we do this, for fucking years. Half a decade. Or more. On different platforms.
We post, we hit like, we reply, and this somehow how keeps everyone coming back.
Because if we post something on our blog (like this), there is no response. I can’t see the immediate feedback, the reations, the comments (they’re turned off), the traffic.
I also think how if a few of us got together and started some sort of “group blog,” posting things through the day that we find interesting, it wouldn’t be enough.
We need to sit there, hit refresh, and see the new thing. The fresh post.
I remember the allure of the Christian message boards I used to frequent back in like 1998 or 1999. You’d hit refresh and there’d always be something new at the top, whether a new post, or a new reply.
With Buzzgrinder in 2001, I thought, “why not put the message board on the front page?” I mean, I thought I was smart shit, but the blog had already been invented! Hah.
But still, with a small crew we posted every hour on the hour, usually from 8am through 4pm, no matter what. There was always something new when you came back because we weren’t on websites for HOURS A DAY like we are now.
And hell, I made a concerted effort to avoid Twitter today and I think I was still on there like three hours total. Fucking christ.
And with that whole, well… websites just aren’t interesting enough to keep coming back to, that’s why we keep being pull back to social media.
Have we thought that maybe we weren’t meant to keep tabs on every news outlet, video feed, music stream, and entertainment stream all day and night?
How much is enough?
We’re already spending two, four, six hours a day on these sites. At what point does a social media platform come along that can match the pull? The rush?
I just don’t think we’re meant to be this connected to the fire hose of updates. I love my friends, but I don’t need to see the coffee they got on Tuesday afternoon, because I’m trying to keep up with 300 other friends, too.
But to what end?
At the end of the day there’s no destination, and the entire journey is made of fast food and cheap jeans.
BUILDING ON YOUTUBE
It’s been fun uploading my mixes to Mixcloud over the years, and I finally got around to building a Goodnight, Metal Friend website. Now I finally got around to uploading my mixes to YouTube, and it’s been fun.
Check out Goodnight, Metal Friend on YouTube.
People search for specific things on YouTube, like “dark ambient mix” or “background music,” so it’s been fun seeing some of these mixes getting 50+ views. And almost 23 hours watched in the last 28 days, which blows my mind!
OBJECTS IN MOTION
In 2020 I think I ran about 1100 miles. Late last year I stopped even syncing to Strava. I’m still running, just doing my best to have less technical items to deal with. All my runs are logged in my watch, then to the Fitness app. Whatever. No one gets to see them, no comparing my heart rate to someone else.
Thinking how I wish I wrote big blog posts for some of my epic runs and races. Something to scroll through here on my blog, rather than just a bunch of numbers and metrics. Sort of like how looking at a playlist on Spotify doesn’t have the same pizzaz as a CD booklet or gate fold.
BANDCAMP FRIDAY IS WONDERFUL
Bandcamp Friday is magical if you allow yourself to believe in magic.
“#BandcampFriday is a day of being overwhelmed by the power of creativity! Wow, there’s just so much choice out there!! Where do we begin?”
Penelope Trappes
Do I get a lot of emails? Sure.
Do I see a lot of Tweet threads from 100 people about music to check out? Yes.
Somehow this is a bad thing.
Without social media (at the moment), there is no source or curation for this. Music sites don’t do much around this probably (definitely) because a post about some band farting out a Nirvana cover gets more clicks.
So yeah… lots of people are throwing lots of links around to a lot of music, and it’s absolutely impossible to keep up with it all.
The best way to handle all of it?
Shut your mouth, click a link, and just buy something. The end.
THE RICH RUIN EVERYTHING
The corporations bought up the blog thing and fucked it up (I was there when AOL was filling up the search engines, churning out websites, buying HuffPost, Seed).
The corporations bought up podcasts, and things ain’t working out, so now we’re gonna hear how “Podcasts lose their edge.”
No. Cheap podcasts that are profitable and also reach 1,000,000 per episode, and make lots of money for dude bros in suits are dead. RIP.
Now Spotify has a new AI DJ. Fuck off.
We had a thriving internet community with message boards, and email lists, and music blogs and websites, but then we relented. We all fell for the shiny objects called Facebook and Twitter and streaming music.
“That’s where everyone is,” is the biggest lie the devil ever told.
Not everyone is on Twitter.
Not everyone streams.
If you’re looking for the Superbowl Audience, sure, you better play your cards right and make the music that millions wanna hear.
But there are still record stores. Go shop at ’em.
Local music stores exist. Go buy some strings.
Bandcamp exists. Go buy a digital album, or a shirt.
Yes, the biggest players make the biggest noise, but the dam is breaking.
Layoffs, mismanagement. The consolidation of power isn’t natural.
Start your website, your email list, own your music, and talk to people and build your communities.
GROWING YOUR BUSINESS WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA
I’ve been on a tear against social media for like, a decade or so, so it was refreshing to hear Amelia Hruby frame my distaste in such a new way.
(Also available on Apple Podcasts)
She really breaks down this whole thing about running a service business (coaching, editing, copywriting, etc) without using social media, and using actual, for-real selling techniques like emailing people, and talking to people!
Going that route instead of just throwing things up on the social media, and when the algorithms throttle your reach you can say, “well, I tried,” and blame the social media platforms for your lack of new clients.
And also – if you’re offering a service, you don’t want to scale. There’s only so many clients you can take on. Only so many hours in the day!
Like I posted on socials a few days ago:
Buy a domain name.
Set up a website.
All the stuff you shovel onto social media every day?
Put that on your website.
And here I am, a few days later putting that social media post on my website.
ALWAYS BE BLOOMING
Oh boy, James Victore never disappoints.
The quote below is in response to someone asking how to move forward creatively even though they’re older now:
Yes, “to do” is the answer. Action!
Action, action, action! Create, create, create
Shut up, stop waiting, and just make the thing. Take one step closer to the doing the thing.
Maybe you can’t direct a play tomorrow, but you can start writing the story. Sketch up the logo. Talk to someone who might want to do the same thing.
Action.
LOVE JON MAKES BEATS
I have zero idea how he does anything with that Octatrack MKII, but it sure looks cool, and Jon’s delivery is my viiiiibe, man. Give me laid back and chill over all the glitzy, in your face, over the top music stuff any day. A true wizard at work.
I love how he talks about using presets, which goes nicely along with this video of Andrew Scheps talking about using less things instead of more. Just because you have 1500 snare sounds doesn’t mean you should take a month searching for the right one, when you can just focus on writing a great song instead.