34 Comments
Dec 11, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

1) I somehow made my way to TikTok, lord help us.

4) Would you rather be a dragon or have a dragon?

Expand full comment

Great post, Alex! You were born to give advice, although maybe your father doesn't see it that way. BTW, we need an update on his water consumption.

Where do I go after Twitter, or am I staying?

I think I'm staying for now, but I'm spending less time there. I liked your idea of the marketplace and how we don't have to live there, but if we want to create, we sort of need to take our art to the market and show it to people. I'm fine with that. So yeah, I guess I'm pulling away, but I'm not leaving. I tried Post.News, and it's OK, but it's also in beta, which is rough, and also it feels like a dead room, which awful. Honestly, I'm not sure there's a real twitter replacement on the horizon.

What's my ideal form of social media?

Honestly, it probably looks just like the platforms we have today, but it would feel a lot different. Here's what I mean. Social media companies have made a choice to focus on engagement because that fuels their ad-supported model. No issue there for me. But engagement comes in many forms. There's the sugar rush of outrage, that's one kind of engagement. But there are also more nutritious kinds of engagement that take longer to digest and maybe don't taste so sweet, but instead of killing you, they help you grow up into a healthy human being. I guess my ideal social media platform would be one that rewards posts that are good for us, or at least not terrible for us.

Have you ever ventured out of your genre / medium of choice and done something else? How’d it go?

Yes, many times. I've worked in multiple genres and mediums. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I always learn something about myself and why I feel this need to create art and share it, and I can always apply that lesson to the next thing. I'm a big believer in exploring different mediums and genres.

Expand full comment

dear alex,

i love this and you as always!

specific loves THIS time include:

-- deez embers!!!

-- Elon Musk bought the cave and made an absolute mess of things

-- Hell ya i didn't think I could end this one with any sort of hallmarky thing but I sorta did!

-- attending! be an attender! that's a tender thing to do.

-- a cutesy wootsy bucket that you can throw some ideas into.

-- Dead On Arrival, not DObrenkoAlex

-- bookowski

-- I’m 64 come Mebruary

-- Though I may not be the murder she wrote lady

and to answer your questions:

Where are you heading after twitter? Or are you staying?

currently still on twitter AND i joined mastodon. i also am on facebook and have a substack.

What would our ideal social media / networks landscape be to you?

one that helps everyone attain inner peace and joy and eliminate suffering

Have you ever ventured out of your genre / medium of choice and done something else? How’d it go?

as a kid, my genre of choice was drawing. then i got out of that and started writing. then i started playing guitar and my genre of choice was music, writing songs. and then i stumbled into comedy. so i guess i've Always ventured out of my genre/medium. it's going well, thanks for asking!

love,

myq

Expand full comment

Thank you for the great advice, Alex! You’ve given me a lot to think about and a solid direction to go in.

I probably have all the tools I need to express myself and stay close with friends (“attending”). But the itch of going to the market, seeing the sights, and slinging my wares - that’d be the reason to join a microblogging site. Twitter is actually terrible for promoting art IMO, but I think Tumblr might be interesting to explore for that reason.

I could also relate to the second question. In my first screenwriting class, the professor explained that a writer’s first screenplay is often messy, awkward, and personal. It’s a story they need to tell. They need to get past this first script, to excrete it, before they can become a professional and write commercial stuff like Mr. Bucket: The Movie or The 12 Dates of Christmas.

Expand full comment
Dec 9, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

I dunno I have always enjoyed Twitter and still do, even though I am very bad at it. And Twitter today feels exactly the same to me as it did a month ago. But I think a lot of people are enjoying a weird kind of fun getting all in a knot over it, so that's good too.

Expand full comment

Ex-lax for the mind, oh my!

Expand full comment

Substack could be cool if they adopt some aspects of early Medium and incorporate it into their desktop and app to help writers without established social media followings or industry experience gain a following. What I liked about Medium initially was it was a combination of Twitter and blogging. That, with Substack's email/newsletter feature, could make this a really special platform.

Expand full comment

I've always been rather 'meh' about Twitter, so all the talk about the current 'situation' is interesting to me in a non-personal way. I'm actually not that engaged with any social platform at the moment. Substack is the best feeling socialish platform I have played with for ages.

About the 'Or', I totally missed it when I first read the question! I had to go back up and reread it 😂.

Expand full comment

That’s gonna be my 2023 mantra: “OR....?”

Oh, and sure, I’ll shoot you [percentage TBD] gross receipts after overhead. OR....? 🙌

Expand full comment

I think a fractionalized world of social media is so much better. Twitter probably won't die, or slide into irrelevance, and for the record I think the current chaos was exactly what it needed for its own evolution. BUT it is also a very good thing that people are looking around at other options.

Fantastic take, top to bottom, by the way. I mean I'm not really the target audience for this topic, but still. I feel edified. And Michael Estrin (whose comment is right below the dialog box I'm typing in right now) is right that you were born to give advice. Keep it up.

Expand full comment

Can you do a British accent? Then I can shave off some of the overhead and get you back percentage of the gross. And thanks, you're the best. I wrote about it on my Substack, just sayin'.

Expand full comment
Dec 10, 2022Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Haha « I shall not forever be held prisoner inside to my own pity party » - I may very well cross stitch this and hang it right next to my desk 🤍

Expand full comment