Create Offline to Share Online
There is one word I CANNOT say out loud. Or rather, there’s one word I can’t seem to pronounce.
Ouborous.
Oorobooros? Oroobooroos? Oy-boorus?
Y’know. It’s the snake eating it’s own tail:
Sometimes that’s how the internet feels. Everything is a meme of a meme of a meme. Everything is recycled again and again and again. And as creatives who want to share our work with the World Wide Web, we often think we have to package our unique Je Ne Sais Kwah in ways which feel inauthentic & gimmicky.
I’ve written about this before. There’s a constant push-pull of sharing to social media which, especially for visual artists, musicians, and writers, has us longing to get our work seen by people who will truly connect with it, but loathing the process of making ourselves ‘seen’.
The problem is that we start and stop all the time. We come up with lofty plans of The Ultimate Content Strategy Which I Will Keep Up Forever Until I Get Noticed Or Die Trying. We throw everything at the wall for a solid 2 weeks and then forget, or lose the motivation. And then we berate ourselves for it.
I have had some success with social media: with Instagram & Youtube back when I was a ‘bullet journal micro-influencer’ (LOL) and with Substack as I’ve worked on this newsletter. People sent me SELLOTAPE, y’all. Oh, and funded my debut album. And I gotta say, the most important thing?
Just Keep Posting, at a pace that works for you.
So… how do you keep posting?
You have to make it interesting for yourself. You have to make it fun.
This means you’re not spending hours scrolling Instagram or Pinterest for ‘inspiration’ for your latest post. This means you don’t invent a new personality just to jump on the latest tiktok trend. This means you don’t look at what everyone else is doing before you start creating something.
It’s about creating offline to share online.
I’m hosting a workshop about this next Sunday. If you are looking for a new perspective on sharing your work online, then come along.
Maybe you have a new series of paintings coming out. Maybe you have a new EP or you want to share more of your songwriting. Maybe you have a poetry collection that has never seen the light of day. Let’s come up with some new ways of making the ‘sharing’ part of being an artist fun again.
I will be using the time to think about re-aligning my newsletter and Instagram presence for September onwards, so if you’re in that boat too, please join me!
Be good,
🪄🎲 Olivia
🌈 Want more?
listen to my music on Spotify and add it to your playlists
oh yeah, join my workshop next sunday!
forward this newsletter to a friend!
or, subscribe:
Personally, I am quite happy for Substack being a free flow or thoughts about whatever you like. To my mind, it is all about exploring yourself as well as engaging with others. Is it not only natural when you meet people in person to swap anecdotes and share opinions and ideas. Blogs, vlogs and Essays, are just a slow asynchronous form of integration. Quite often it will spark more discussion about or tangential to the subject.
Some day I will write about my experiences growing up on the internet from FTP servers, gopher. PDsoft, MUDs, MOOs and Talkers. In terms of sub culture and new ways of interacting with people, it would be interesting to go back and explain the changes from a personal perspective.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, too.