Social Media
Current location: Milwaukee, WI, USA
Reading: Endless Forms by Seirian Sumner
Listening: Haircut by Petey & Miya Folick
(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status)
Social Media
It hasn't been a great year for social media companies.
They're still raking in money, dominating the ad-sector, and shaping personal, economic, and political discourse, but they're also at the center of many lawsuits and scandals.
The increasingly dominant narrative is that these companies are on a downswing, shamble-walking toward a zombie-like existence of irrelevance, and even the balance-sheet winners are coming to be seen as bad bets: uncool uses of one's time and attention, unfortunate necessities for some types of communication, promotion, and success—a flavor of engagement that drains us rather than fueling us.
All of which, to some degree, reflects my own opinion of such networks.
I get gobs of value from Twitter, as I follow relatively few people and those I do follow share information I find relevant, interesting, and entertaining.
I also benefit from YouTube in the same way I might benefit from a reference library: there's a lot of nonsense on there, but it's one of the first places I check when I need to figure out how to install a bidet on my toilet, diagnose a problem with my car, or learn the difference between oil pastel brands.
The other dominant players in the US—Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok—are mostly distractions to me: ideally avoided, periodically checked-in-on to watch a funny video someone shared on Twitter or to see if the few family members who are only contactable via Facebook have sent any new messages.
Instagram is sometimes useful to me in that I can share aspects of adventures and projects and museum-visits with folks who're keen to engage with such things, and in a format that makes sense for those types of activities and media.
But the algorithms determining who sees what on Insta have become so ultra-fixated on short-form video content that every time I open the app I quickly close it, bummed-out by what it's become: endless torrents of overt status-seeking, cold-selling, and frenzied attempts to claim more of my attention using lowest-common-denominator, value-vacant diversions.
I tend to think all tools have inherent, potential utility, even if that utility isn't immediately obvious or designed for everyone—and these networks are no different.
Different networks and tools will be useful to different people, and I regularly and enthusiastically experiment with new approaches to sharing things I care about and engaging with other people for that very reason, fumbling through the learning-curve of platforms and processes that someday might become relevant to a future version of me.
That said, many of these networks have become actively harmful to discourse, critical thinking skills, and their users' capacity to focus on and engage with and consider things beyond the superficial and ideologically aligned.
As a consequence, I'm not sure how to intentionally and morally use these tools for the valuable things they still offer.
I've established a rough equilibrium for myself, primarily predicted on broadcasting to these networks using separate tools that allow me to schedule and share without having to directly engage with the networks themselves, most of the time.
Even having walled myself off from some of those day-to-day downsides, though, larger questions remain.
Do I want to spend a significant portion of my life (perhaps literally) dancing for strangers on the internet so I can maybe attract more followers and likes, which in turn might help me be more successful at other things I care about?
Do I want to spend my time and energy coming up with clever posts and videos to increase my online social standing—in the process becoming unpaid content-creation labor for these big tech companies—or would I rather invest those finite resources in the work I actually want to do?
I really don't know where things go from here, for me or for this segment of the larger communications industry, as the current batch of alternatives to these networks aren't particularly useful for my purposes and much of the value provided by the Big Social Networks stems from their expansiveness, anyway: they're useful because everyone's on them (even if they would prefer not to be).
I'll be interested to see how our collective priorities shift as the relevance and reputations of these entities change, though.
I doubt they'll disappear or lose their influence over discourse any time soon, but there's a chance they'll be elbowed aside to make room for other alternatives, or for many people come to represent a cluster of tasks and triggers that repel us, which in turn might nudge more of us toward other habits and priorities.
Consider supporting my work by buying me a courthouse cafeteria coffee :)
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Things I've Made This Week
Select, recent works from across my project portfolio.
Aspiring Generalist: The World Needs Uncles, Too
Brain Lenses: Moral Injury (podcast version)
*NEW* Climate Happenings: Climate Legislation, Heat, Fake Meat
I Will Read To You: A Bouquet
Let’s Know Things: Fleet Electrification
Curiosity Weekly / Daily: August 2 / August 2
One Sentence News: August 3 (podcast version)
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Interesting & Useful
Vintage Photographs of Dangerous 1900s Playgrounds — rarehistoricalphotos.com If it seems like today’s kids have gotten “softer” compared to the kids decades ago, perhaps it’s because playgrounds have gotten softer as well.
Mapping the Migration of the World’s Millionaires — www.visualcapitalist.com This graphic maps out the migration of millionaires across the globe, showing the top 10 countries the ultra-rich are moving to and from.
Urban Wildlife Photography Awards 2022 — www.theguardian.com
An amateur photographer who works in digital advertising has won the inaugural Picfair Urban Wildlife Photography Awards for his image of two coyotes on a dimly lit suburban street in Ontario.
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Outro
First, you may have noticed I've got a new project in the "things I've made this week" rundown, and if you're keen to see that develop (it usually takes at least a few weeks for me to find the right cadence, rhythm, voice, etc for a new project) you can go ahead and sign up (for free!) via the link next to "Climate Happenings."
The project is focused on what's become a sort of meta-topic in the news these days: so much of what's happening in the world is related to the climate, green economy, renewable energy, and all sorts of interconnected technologies, politics, and ideologies.
I'm leaning toward doing a couple of emails a week, containing links to what's happening in those spaces, along with a bit of quick analysis and explanation, then sending out a (maybe weekly?) longer-form writing where I dive a bit deeper into a relevant concept or news item, answer questions submitted by subscribers—that sort of thing.
Mostly I wanted a place to put what I'm learning and thinking on that (increasingly large and relevant) cluster of topics, so it may evolve into something a little or radically different as I mess around with it. But it'll hopefully be valuable, whatever final shape it takes, if you're keen to learn more about and/or keep up with that facet of what's happening in the world.
Second, I had several people ask if I was selling any art after posting some of my sketches the last few weeks.
Very kind of you to ask! I appreciate that. But I don't think I'm there yet—we'll see once I get further into my creative recalibration; I'm sort of at the opening-up-long-closed-and-dusty-creative-boxes stage of things, so while selling art may be something I do at some point, not yet :)
What're you up to this first week of August? Opening up any long-closed boxes? Making any changes, plotting any moves, thinking any big (possibly uncomfortable) thoughts?
Send me a quick message and tell me how you're doing. You can reach me by replying to this newsletter or by writing to colin@exilelifestyle.com.
You can also communicate via the usual methods: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or guide to international paper sizes.
If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work: Become an Understandary member / Become a Patron / Buy me a coffee