THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 83

The social media platforms haven’t delivered for a while & the dispersal has gone from a trickle to a drip & the intervals between drips keeps getting longer & longer. Meta makes me pay to access the large audiences I have built organically for years, which I do begrudgingly because I got bills to pay & mouths to feed. These platforms have that weird simultaneously sterile & dirty feeling of an elementary school cafeteria. No swearing, but puke in the corner. I use their advertising & the platforms at all begrudgingly. Seems like a waste to have built up these large audiences. I don’t like the compromise of using them, it feels like a very uneven relationship. Doing something I don’t like to do because I have to is something I try to maneuver out of & get others to do as well. That’s a big reason why I started doing daily writing for this newsletter. I wanted this to be more than a sales pitch. I like that feeling that a company isn’t just trying to sell you something, that there are real people with real minds behind the project. You don’t have to agree with me, but I am expressing what I’ve learned so far as I have since I first started writing zines when I was 12. It’s the reason I like Dr. Bronner’s, it could just be soap, but the wall of text is important! Crucial even! I know I wouldn’t care about the soap if it wasn’t for that wall of text. Soap is boring! I was mediating a blow up between my kids this weekend that started out being about a Magic The Gathering rule & turned into a much larger conversation about listening, methodology & follow through. They made this jump to such hyperbolic conclusions, I see it happen everywhere else, especially online. I think because people sense that there is tremendous injustice just waiting in the wings even if it’s sugar coated. The thing is, that’s not my deal, i’m not a state executioner, nor do I work for these giant companies that hide behind walls of contracts & lawyers. I do this for the people, because I have a clear idea of what I like & what I think the world needs. The world needs more & better communication & connection & context.