i’ve been kind of going bonkers thinking about social media again. i guess it’s just been a hard transition for me, going from chronically online bedroom artist willing to bare his soul to anyone willing to listen to someone who finds it hard to post or say anything at all. i can’t help it, though. the new digital landscape feels so evil and wrong to me. actually, i feel so strongly about it that i can confidently say it is evil and wrong. or maybe feeling this way is just a sign that i’m getting older. i don’t know.
back when i was very active online (let’s say 2010-2014) everything was entirely different. the billionaire elites hadn’t yet found a way to commodify endless doom scrolling, so what we were left with was a chronological timeline of posts from only the people we were following. one of the incredible perks of this was you eventually hit a point where you reached the bottom. the posts started looking familiar and you’d go, “oh, i saw this yesterday. i guess i’ll go do something else.” and then you went. and. did. something. else.
moving from a “here are the posts shared from only the people you follow” framework to one that essentially says “our algorithm will decide what you see and it often won’t be people you even know” had another kind of interesting effect. it began inflating numbers to the point of complete obscurity. years ago, if you had 10,000 followers, it meant you were really doing something. 50k meant you were probably doing it as your job and 100k+ was reserved for youtubers who hadn’t got caught up in a weird sex crime.
today there’s no shortage of normal people you’ve never heard of with 300k making almost no money and struggling to keep peoples attention. it’s common to even see accounts with over a million followers complain about going live to only ten people. think about that for a second. how do you fuck up your platform so much that someone can have over one million followers and still have posts that flop? i guess the answer is that you do it purposely. you implement the same lose/lose/win/lose reward system that keeps people coming back to casinos.
oh my god okay whatever who cares. i’m officially shifting the focus. my intention wasn’t to write this much about social media. i’m at the point where i keep jotting down sentences and then deleting them because it just feels like unnecessary detail. that and sitting here actually investing time into complaining about it all doesn’t feel very righteous and cool, it honestly feels more like i’m sitting in a rocking chair with a blanket in my lap while i make you listen to me talk. the point i’ve been trying to make can be summed up like this: it all is soul crushing and makes me very sad.
i admittedly dedicate an embarrassing amount of time thinking about it all and going in circles. at least i have in these last few years. i think about it over and over while going back and forth and worrying. where do you find the ambition to create and post when your only options are to saturated platforms that encourage and reward inauthenticity and deception. doesn’t that go against why i even started making and sharing art to begin with? and wasn’t that why my music was so special to me? because i allowed it to make it’s way into peoples lives when they needed it the most? wasn’t there a magic in it all?
“no! are you joking? dude, you’re in your 30’s now. grow the fuck up. you wrote poems on tumblr and got lucky, it didn’t mean anything. just do your job. do your job. do your job.”
then, at the peak of my frustration i realized how often i would actually reach for my phone and start scrolling just because i didn’t want to think about it anymore. what a mess.
that night when i couldn’t sleep i decided to check my ask page for the first time in over a month. i can’t tell you what an energy shifting experience that was. i laid there in bed and scrolled past a hundred messages i hadn’t even read yet, all talking about how important flatsound is to them and how much they love the newest album. what the fuck?? here i am worried and anxious and feeling so disconnected from everything and all the while people are writing to me every day to try and have a genuine connection. why wasn’t i answering them! and why aren’t i blogging? what was i even so worried about? i deleted tiktok from my phone on the spot.
so that’s kind of where i am currently. no tiktok, no random youtube video essays about things i barely care about to begin with, and i still use instagram but with a no mindless scrolling rule. i’m only on there to promote my stuff in what i hope is an authentic way and talk to friends and leave. i guess the goal right now is just to be more intentional and present. are these platforms actually evil? does posting more on here even matter? like with almost all things in life, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. don’t stop posting online, just don’t fall victim to it’s chokehold so much that it gets in the way of what matters most. indulge in the content and discussions that inspire you. use that inspiration to create something beautiful and share it with people.
i’m going to do just that while choosing to believe that there actually is a little magic in it all. there always has been, i’ve just been too closed off and disconnected to feel it lately.
thank you to anyone who reads this blog and and leaves a comment or uses the ask page or posts on gentle earth. it means a lot to me that you’re here.
and for you… a small gift before i go. above is an ambient piece that didn't make the cut for the new album. i really love it. actually, while listening to it now i’m wondering why i didn’t just add it to the record. maybe a deluxe version of the album is in order at some point haha.
i hope you have a wonderful day 🌿