(12) this is an idea-dump
Slowly witnessing the fall of Instagram, maybe? Lots of Newsletters for you.
Random trend prediction: Instagram is dying. The visual social platform apparently is looking towards short format video or cannot go past something more innovative than the photodump and I, personally, am not into it.
BRING BACK THE *BLOG*, MAKE *READING* TRENDY
01
I actually don’t think Insta is dying (jeje do not be surprised by me contradicting myself, it happens very often— yes, I’m seeing that with my therapist, moving on…) I just think that the platform has gone boring filled with ads and photodumps, the creativity seems gone. Maybe it is not the app’s fault, maybe it’s about the content format.
I did a very intensive cleanse a while ago and I keep deleting people and posts from my home page and feed in an attempt to really see what catches my eye. Why did I follow people I barely know? I guess just for the aesthetic. Am I really into that summer vacation forever vibe? No, boring, unfollow. How many more “cool french girls” do you need on your feed? At this point they are not even being original nor cool.
It’s like, the Matilda Djerf-ication of everything and it’s all around social media. I just want to stop seeing that. To stop seeing the same of the same of the same. Ok at this point I am just criticizing without even getting to a point, let alone do I have an opinion that backs up my information, this is purely subjective.
Let me rephrase by changing the whole argument: I don’t know which platform is incubating original thoughts, ideas, storytelling, visuals… but I do know it is not Instagram anymore. What about Substack?
02
Let’s talk about fast-paced internet dynamics. The algorithms want you to produce, produce, produce in order to be seen. How do you produce an idea? It’s not magic. Creative people are not just thinking of innovative things every single second. Well, maybe Virgil Abloh was one to do that, nah that’s just what anyone who is not in a creative field wants to believe or anyone who actually is but has a completely different process feels like.
Ideas are not hot bread. They take time. You think them, you work them, you make them make sense, you materialize them, they change along the way, you make them make sense again, they are done, uploaded and seen. What happens next? They are received, someone thinks about them and the process begins once again.
If anyone has them as hot bread is simply because they were already made. Fast ideas are copied ideas.
Watching social media, both, as a hobby and as work has made me notice that from everything out there, there’s only few refreshing things to see.
03
This leads me to the power the internet gives us of creation and curation. There’s a lot out there to be seen, to be read, to be heard, to be known… The post-internet era is one of remix and selection: pick what you like, arrange it, send it. This is an easy way for creativity to flourish. The other way is actually creating. Being original while creative doesn’t have to mean that you are going to make something never-seen-before, it shares the same value as curating which is: having a style.
Receive the ideas *think about them* and begin your own idea process
Any social media platform can house them, I know, but when the 15-second visual mediums or the 280-character text have been thoroughly used, you are just left there with thousands of mm IDEAS sinking into you with no use.
I guess that’s mostly what I want to say: Why would you use something if it’s not going to spark something in you? Why would you be all passive and receive all of this information if it’s not even going to change something in you?
You better believe these questions are also for myself. I’m just tired of watching and liking.
04
So back to the question: What about Substack? Substack makes me slow down. It feels like the slow-fashion of social media platforms.
I became fan of my mail inbox when I started reading Brain pickings by Maria Popova, I found the most amazing piece of content that I wanted to read every Sunday. Then I found Substack, a platform for newsletters, podcasts and community. I just love that my favorite place on the internet is not an app (well, technically, it is now) but something that has been there all the time: your e-mail account or this webpage.
It reminds me of the RSS feed people used back in the early internet days to see the latest blog entries of any webpage. When every “platform” was an actual webpage designed in the most specific or weird way possible, when they had a very specific theme and you could just spend hours in there. That’s what Substack feels like.
If you are new to Substack I’m going to leave my favorite profiles and pieces I’ve read in here. There’s also my Recommendation section somewhere in my homepage but I’m showing it here, too. I’m going to add independent newsletters as well at some other point.
Please show me your favorite:
05
For random stuff…
Rambling I want to read forever…
Cool Listing…
Queen of Playlisting…
Dude. This post hits haaard. I recently was having an internal crisis thinking about content creation and feeding into the noise vs. posting with intention here on Substack. I'm really glad (and grateful) we found each other here, where slowing down has become an unexpected delight. <3 sending you a lovely weekend
aww grateful too and always excited to get to read you here <3