I'm done with social media promotion

Village near a Pool, Meindert Hobbema, c. 1670

Parents, y’all did not prepare me for the feeling of bliss that falls upon a house when your children go to sleep. I love my daughter, she is an ever brightening light into my life. But I also love when she goes to sleep. She just went down, now I have free time!

So a couple of updates from me. Nothing major.

First, I’m done with social media promotion. I hate it. I think it stinks. Two issues were what put me over the edge: I hate the algorithm, and I’m not a content creator.

1.) I don’t want to do the algorithm’s dance. I don’t want to post everyday. I don’t want to hashtag. And that’s what it takes. I felt gross only keeping my channels open to try and shove my writing in people’s faces.

2.) I’m not an influencer. There’s so much cringy stuff on social media and there’s so many people watching cringy stuff. It seems to me that’s what it takes to get looked at from a promotional standpoint and I’m just not interested.

I deleted Facebook, still have Instagram but I changed the password and don’t plan on logging in often.

It is hard in my mind to let go of “growing my audience” through those channels but I don’t think it’s worth it for me.

If you love my writing, share it, subscribe, recommend it: interact with it. And please drop me a line that you did. I’d much rather have growth that is chock full of deeper connections with you all. That feels much better than making y’all watch me dance.

Second, I’m done with AI art. I don’t have a heavy conviction on this, but the more I use images not made by humans, the less I like it. I don’t love stock photos either (you’ll see them in my last two posts).

Luckily, I found that the National Gallery of Art (nga.gov) has a database of public domain images. So for most posts, I’ll have an accompanying piece of art that’s at least in the ballpark of the piece.

One thing I’m committed to doing is studying the artist a little if I use their work. I love art history so this will be fun for me. If I find anything interesting, I’ll include it.

The image for this post was painted by Meindert Hobbema. I discovered a piece of his at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City and loved it. He was a Dutch master who loved painting landscapes in the countryside. Later in life, he got married, worked in a tax office and painted much less. I kind of love that about him. Art isn’t everything.

If you like art but don’t know much about art history or want to learn more, I highly recommend Russ Ramsey’s Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith. It’s a feast of stories about artists and their work (from Michelangelo up to Edward Hopper) told with the shepherding heart of a pastor who happens to love good art.

Thanks for reading.

-Sam