The world we want happens with other people, not platforms

And not because of some social media marketing hack

Photo by Seth Werkheiser

Relying on a platform to get it right is hard because platforms are made up of people, and it’s hard for people to get it right for everyone all the time.

I was on the phone with my buddy

Dino Corvino

the other day, bumming about the recent election, and he said, “Someone in your town is hungry; make them a sandwich.”

I searched “Thanksgiving volunteer (your town)” in Google and found a local non-profit organizing meals for the upcoming holidays. I told a friend, and we went out and bought three meals for people needing a Thanksgiving dinner.

Today, for me, that’s my answer to all this.

From Embedded:

“It’s time to stop ceding our humanity to these platforms. It’s time to invest back into IRL community. It’s time to stop 24/7 scrolling social media—you will not find the answers there.”

I’ll find more of the answer when I drop off these three boxes of meals later this week because the answer is people, not platforms.

We need more people working on bringing joy into the world instead of uploading vertical videos for no one to see.

As Alice Katter says,

“The systems we live and work in today are human-made; they were created by people. So, why not create something different? That’s the beauty of creativity — it has the power to overcome established rules and even the language we use daily.”

Get to know the people who work at your local record shop, music store, gas station, library, or grocery store.

Say hi to your neighbors. Tell other creative people you like their work. Start Zoom hangs or phone calls with your friends.

Start a blog, an email list, a neighborhood group, a community meeting of artists, or gardeners, or joggers.

Conversely, don’t hang out with people who drain your energy. Set boundaries. Cut people from your life if you need to. Yes, even family. Life is short.

Spare me the “echo chamber” talk. We can have different opinions about economic policies and football teams, but if you think people I love don’t deserve basic human rights, well, go fuck yourself.

Yes, we should continue throwing stones at Spotify and Apple and Facebook and Amazon, but we can also do the work of engaging our communities for the benefit of humanity at the same time.

We can create new systems, new ways of working, new ways to show our work. I know it’d be super cool if I just laid out all the answers for your super-niche category, but I promise that you already have the ideas inside of you.

Do the thing you want to do. Most people won’t see what you’re doing anyway, so you might as well do it how you want.

Email someone way up the food chain. Go to the event. Ask for an introduction. Make your own luck. Your next big break could be one email, one interaction, one person away.

Hitting the viral jackpot on social media won’t save you, but building genuine connections with people around you just might.

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Thursday, November 14
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

I lead the discussion each week, and you’ll probably walk away with 2-3 good ideas, concepts, and/or strategies that you can apply to your own work and life.

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