NAAAAAAAAAAAAT

Lol, I had you there!

It's 6+ months since I quit Instagram and Facebook. 

Up until February 2025 I was quite a social media fiend. 

I'd always used it prolifically, sharing working processes and inspired expressions.

But the day after I released my third album overlove, I deleted both Instagram and Facebook. Not deactivated, DELETED - permanently! 

Thousands of posts, likes, followers, and nuggets of content, all important in their own way, gone.

I'm not interested in moralising about it, although I feel that many of its inventors are cynical and don't use the apps, including infinite scroll feature creator and Centre for Humane Technology founder Aza Raskin - who regrets how the highly addictive user experience it enabled has been used to keep people on the platform AS LONG AS POSSIBLE to be advertised to, data mined, and have their attention monetised - says a lot!

Whilst there are many advantages, personally I became exhausted and demoralised by a perceived pressure to share every aspect of the creative process, and put the cart before the horse in sharing content to foster 'connection' that never felt much more than a dopamine hit of validation followed by a crash of loneliness, shame, or disappointment for lack of reach, or whatever metrics mean something in this quantity-over-quality arena.

Much of my academic activity and studio art, including my undergraduate dissertation "Everything Everywhere: Existing, Enjoying, and Surrendering in Today's Climate of Excess" (2014) responded to instant gratification and chasing the waterfalls of a transcendent experience on the pharmakon of the phone, that promises some sort of satiety that the medium itself can simply not deliver. 

So, I just decided to quit!

My life is much better because I'm reading a lot more, my spiritual and creative practices have greater integrity and authenticity because I'm not performing them for content/engagement's sake, and I feel less anxious and more at peace.

As an artist it might seem like a form of self-sabotage to not be visible in the places most people are looking.

But I don't care. I care for depth, quality over quantity engagement and connection and I won't settle for any less in the way I engage with art, or the way I invite others to engage with mine. 

I am still a YouTube user and that might change at some point because I also don't like the way the algorithm hijacks my attention and I'm taken down rabbit holes of content consumption I don't feel I'm consciously choosing, whilst being incessantly advertised to. But it doesn't give me the same feelings of lack, ick, voyeurism, and overwhelm that IG and FB did. 

No judgement, I'd just like to see more acknowledgement that it's not for everyone rather than insistence that these things are must-haves. 

Anyways, you'll find my transmissions in a monthly (or less) mailing list, which you can sign up on the homepage

Gx