Roundy round-up
A listicle (sort of!) with an article, a show, and stores I want to tell you about this week.
Here I am, wanting to publish in the internet’s favorite format: the listicle! But instead of a nice numbered list with concise descriptions I am writing long and drawn out backstories for each item because that’s who I am!
If you want the short version, the list includes: an article sticking with me from the week, two of my favorite supply stores and the show I watched this week (it’s a heist!). If you just want just the links scroll to the footnotes section where they are all conveniently bundled together.
Article from the week that’s sticking with me deeply
I have been emotionally disengaged from Instagram for years now. I use it mostly for my business and am constantly trying to “please the algorithm” with my posts. It’s pretty exhausting. I’ll get one big “win” every 6 months or so (a win being a post that more than 10% of my followers actually see). It feels like I’m playing the slot machines: I win just often enough to convince my lizard brain to keep playing. I feel like I am fighting this unknown and unknowable machine just to get my photos and messages in front of people who requested to see my account has lost its allure.
This piece by Cory Doctorow really summed up for me a lot of things that have been brewing in my mind around social media and other giants in the tech space.
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”1
I bent myself to the will of Instagram for many years, spending too many hours trying to figure out what I could do to reach my followers again. Followers that I earned one-by-one: providing images and words they ostensibly asked to receive. Turns out, I was spinning my wheels using my precious time and energy with no chance of winning that game.
“Once you understand the enshittification pattern, a lot of the platform mysteries solve themselves. Think of the SEO market, or the whole energetic world of online creators who spend endless hours engaged in useless platform Kremlinology, hoping to locate the algorithmic tripwires, which, if crossed, doom the creative works they pour their money, time and energy into:”
That was me! Part of the “world of online creators who spend endless hours engaged in useless platform Kremlinology.” The more I put into the platform, the more the platform asked from me. I was tempering my soul with a mechanical entity and in turn my creative works became undistinguishable from the collective mush the algorithm rewarded.
Not anymore my friends, that’s why we are here instead. I’m tired of feeding my spirit flattened, interchangeable content and wearied of pandering to a tasteless robot. I feel like there is more space here to show the dynamic person that I am. I don’t have just one interest and I work in multiple mediums. I’m so glad you are here for the full scope and if you ever want to leave, it’s your choice to unsubscribe!
New pencil supplier
When my No. 1 most favorite store in NYC (or should I say No. 2 favorite? A pencil joke!) decided to close their doors, I felt real grief. C.W. Pencil Enterprise had been a place I enjoyed immensely for many years, and its proprietor Caroline Weaver was ready to move on. I can’t be mad at her, I know exactly what it feels like to want to move on from a business you poured everything into.2 She moved on to Substack btw and you can follow her newsletter Caroline Finds It.3
It wasn’t just the pencils I loved so much, but the whole experience. I could sit at the pencil testing station, chat to the staff about pencils, art supplies, and office supplies for an hour. Even though the storefront was quite small, I could lose an afternoon inside looking at every single item they had in stock. It was magical.
I haven’t found a place I love quite so much as C.W. Pencil Enterprise. But, I have found two stores that, when combined, bring me close to the satisfaction of C.W…