This July, the brand I created, Design Milk, turns 18. I started it when I was 27. I’m not the same person at 45 that I was at 27. When I started DM, I didn’t name it after myself for numerous reasons:
I’m with you, Jaime. But I just turned 65 so I’ve been wrestling with the idea of retirement, and while I like the idea of it, I also know there’s going to be a huge transition if I am not on the Internet every single day. I know that’s how I’ve identified myself for a long time. But as you said, it’s just not what it used to be when I started to in 2006 and it’s not that pretty of a place anymore. I miss the days of just the regular old Instagram without the algorithm, making us feel bad about ourselves (if we let it).
But here’s the good news for you. I didn’t start my blog till I was 45, so you’ve got a whole world in front of you to do whatever you want and I know you have so many talents to create any world you like for yourself. So yay!
I have been thinking a lot about the transition of not being online so much. Will I miss it? Will I kick myself for not stopping sooner? Can I even do it and when? I'm not sure yet. I'll be watching your journey 👀 but if you leave the Internet, please do keep in touch 🫶
All of the above. I don’t FEEL like a “senior” at all but I’ve been working since I was 15 years old, so it might be time to just see what else is out there in the world and live a little bit more in the present. And travel more! I’ll always check in ❤️
Feeling all the way seen, as you write words I’ve been speaking for the past six months. It’s definitely not a crisis, to your fantastic point - I like the term Middlescence, while often referenced with words such as difficult and self-doubt it’s filled with readjustment, transition and learning. These years are also glorious, empowering rights of passage and while they are tinged with pain too - I’m here for all of it and what lays on the other side. 🩵
Ah! I never heard that term before - thanks for letting me know about it. Why has society so miseducated us about it? I'm glad that women our age are on line talking openly about it now.
I appreciate this so much. I can't bear to put anything on Substack with a carefully crafted search-engine-optimized headline. I just want to write, you know? I love that you know yourself and what you want and that you recognize all the multitudes contained inside you. Much more than I did at 45. ;)
🫶 I’m not sure I know exactly what I want though. I’m pretty nostalgic at the moment, but I’ll work my way through that and get back to being a futurist in no time! 😁
I feel so similarly to a lot of these points you listed and i never even built a brand on the internet! i want space and to tell my stories, to give real recommendations, in a place that isn't striving for forced content and algorithms and paid ads. well said and thanks for sharing your multitudes here with us!
It's rare to see real recommendations anywhere now. Everything is an affiliate link!
I think you can find ways to stay true to yourself if you can avoid the pull to be mimetic, and continue to create what you want. It is disheartening, though, to see the decline in engagement, which is part of what is so frustrating about the algorithm.
I love hearing your perspective on social because I never delved into any of the monetization of it... So I only use the tools how I want to use them. But if needed to monetize my reach that would be an even major major bummer. It seems like the business of media, like a like of culture work, is high labor, small margin - and unpredictable revenue streams (even more so now). It seems like a co-dependents dual nightmare and happy place. Like Neverland - the desire to play with your friends and make forts and cook good food and tell great stories, smoke good weed with our friends, etc... But those dang Pirates keep coming thru trying to ruin our fun!
For media, the tool/method has become the media and that's what's challenging. Social feeds have become a condensed stream of unrelated topics and snippets of experiences or of larger pictures - I want it to go back to being just a tool. It was great when we pushed new blog posts to Twitter and hundreds or thousands of people clicked through to read the story. Not anymore. It's disheartening and while I want to use it as a tool again, I'm unsure (right now) whether it's even worthwhile. I much prefer having these kinds of exchanges vs. getting a single emoji on an IG post--this is so much more rewarding.
I'm so glad I found this post in your end of year review today – relating hard to your experience! "I hadn’t found my “people” until I found the Internet. It is difficult for me to imagine a life without it."
Relating to your breakdown of how to build 1M person audience now. There's got to be a better way. Maybe there's an older, wiser internet users who can re-imagine a way to build audiences without the selfies, dancing, talking to the cam.
Ah loved this, can relate! I’ve the same feelings about social as I’m starting out with my own venture but I can’t bring myself to join the trend-chasing of it all. The last time I logged in to insta it was predominantly war-related content and it felt like such emotional whiplash to expect to see friends and instead….something extremely opposite. So I’m not even convinced it’s a marketing tool anymore tbh. Anyway, super exciting and curious for your next adventure, I’ll be in the same boat!
Thank you for this. I'm in a similar space of reinvention, and not so sure about where the internet comes into play with all of it. I appreciate your shares!
Thank you for this. Yesterday was my 20th anniversary of when I started blogging. Last September, the website I was mainly known for turned 18. Months before, I decided to step back and have a breather. I ended my podcast, stopped blogging on there, and came over to Substack under my own name to try and get a sense of what’s next. Now 46 and also perimenopausal, I, too, feel like as much as I love writing and the internet gave me a space for that, a career, and connection with a host of folks, I feel a bit lost with all the shenanigans of what the modern internet, including social media, is today. Man, things were a lot simpler when I started out 20 years ago 🤣 When you said you went back and forth about stepping away, jaysus, that resonated.
I found myself missing Baggage Reclaim and have tinkered about with various bits and yet I also still feel a bit lost and wonder whether I’m going through a slow breakup. So, yeah, thanks for the reflection. ❤️
Hi! Oh wow we have a very similar life path. Next month, Design Milk will turn 18 and I turn 46 this year. :) Sounds like we're both right on time. It's nice to connect with you here! I'm confident we'll find the right path, but it's nice to have some company while we figure it out.
"This period of my life is marked by deep introspection and expansion, in which I’m seeking quality over quantity, substance, depth, texture, nuance, surprise, tangibility" OOF. I felt that. You've helped me articulate why social media is no longer feeling like a place for me, why I'm here and why I won't do Notes. Thank you for sharing.
Wow wow wow so many great points in here. It's refreshing to hear the idea that humans evolve but brands are static - I have struggled with the comparison trap looking at other "personal brands" when I know I'm much more fluid. Hard to find a happy medium though! 🥴
I think taking breaks is so important, but a lot of people's businesses now depend on feeding the machine 24/7 so it's hard to justify the break.
If you can figure out how to ignore the addiction machine and still get something out of it, then I salute you! 😅 Not an easy task. I hear from a lot of friends who take social or tech sabbaticals that they actually feel better and happier without it. To me, this is telling.
I feel this so deeply, thank you for sharing! Evolution, while being a chronically online person for your work, has been really interesting and challenging over these last few years, of what I like to refer to as the social media hamster wheel.
funny I have always called it a hamster wheel as well! Like, it never ends... and that makes it inherently exhausting. The infinite 24/7 treadmill of FOMO makes us feel like we could always be doing more, more, more.
There’s something about seeing ourselves in others that feels supportive, like the web of the universe catching the sunlight for a millisecond. A few years back, I stepped down as CEO of the business I created in 2006. And I am still untangling my emotional self from that space. And social media??? Sigh. I write books now and I am finding that, if I want to keep writing books with major publishers, I need to figure out how to be in the online social spaces as both they and I have evolve…. Which brings up so many, many questions about what I actually want out of this one precious life.
Hi~ Thanks for sharing this - it's so hard to detangle yourself from a previous life experience, especially one that felt like part of your identity. Work and life were so intertwined for me. It was A LOT of work to retrain myself to exist fully as a person without the business.
I resonate with the ick of social media trending whatevers… and growing my coaching practice offline is a challenge. I’ve been putting off biting the Insta bullet (again) until I have a content strategy figured out, but yeah… if I’m honest, I don’t wanna get sucked in. All this just to say, thank you for sharing. I don’t have clear answers either, but feels good to ask together.
I can imagine it is hard for any entrepreneur or small biz owner right now to cut through the noise, do something different, keep up with trends/templates, and post with frequency. It's exhausting. It's a marketing slot machine where most winners only get a few purchases, if they're lucky and no repeats. My advice right now: find an offline way to engage with your community through events, conferences, local meetups, and other non-social media engagements because--despite how connected we are--word of mouth/personal referral is still the best way to get clients in any service industry.
I’m with you, Jaime. But I just turned 65 so I’ve been wrestling with the idea of retirement, and while I like the idea of it, I also know there’s going to be a huge transition if I am not on the Internet every single day. I know that’s how I’ve identified myself for a long time. But as you said, it’s just not what it used to be when I started to in 2006 and it’s not that pretty of a place anymore. I miss the days of just the regular old Instagram without the algorithm, making us feel bad about ourselves (if we let it).
But here’s the good news for you. I didn’t start my blog till I was 45, so you’ve got a whole world in front of you to do whatever you want and I know you have so many talents to create any world you like for yourself. So yay!
Ah! Thank you 😘
I have been thinking a lot about the transition of not being online so much. Will I miss it? Will I kick myself for not stopping sooner? Can I even do it and when? I'm not sure yet. I'll be watching your journey 👀 but if you leave the Internet, please do keep in touch 🫶
All of the above. I don’t FEEL like a “senior” at all but I’ve been working since I was 15 years old, so it might be time to just see what else is out there in the world and live a little bit more in the present. And travel more! I’ll always check in ❤️
Feeling all the way seen, as you write words I’ve been speaking for the past six months. It’s definitely not a crisis, to your fantastic point - I like the term Middlescence, while often referenced with words such as difficult and self-doubt it’s filled with readjustment, transition and learning. These years are also glorious, empowering rights of passage and while they are tinged with pain too - I’m here for all of it and what lays on the other side. 🩵
Ah! I never heard that term before - thanks for letting me know about it. Why has society so miseducated us about it? I'm glad that women our age are on line talking openly about it now.
Agree 💯💯💯
I appreciate this so much. I can't bear to put anything on Substack with a carefully crafted search-engine-optimized headline. I just want to write, you know? I love that you know yourself and what you want and that you recognize all the multitudes contained inside you. Much more than I did at 45. ;)
🫶 I’m not sure I know exactly what I want though. I’m pretty nostalgic at the moment, but I’ll work my way through that and get back to being a futurist in no time! 😁
I feel so similarly to a lot of these points you listed and i never even built a brand on the internet! i want space and to tell my stories, to give real recommendations, in a place that isn't striving for forced content and algorithms and paid ads. well said and thanks for sharing your multitudes here with us!
It's rare to see real recommendations anywhere now. Everything is an affiliate link!
I think you can find ways to stay true to yourself if you can avoid the pull to be mimetic, and continue to create what you want. It is disheartening, though, to see the decline in engagement, which is part of what is so frustrating about the algorithm.
I love hearing your perspective on social because I never delved into any of the monetization of it... So I only use the tools how I want to use them. But if needed to monetize my reach that would be an even major major bummer. It seems like the business of media, like a like of culture work, is high labor, small margin - and unpredictable revenue streams (even more so now). It seems like a co-dependents dual nightmare and happy place. Like Neverland - the desire to play with your friends and make forts and cook good food and tell great stories, smoke good weed with our friends, etc... But those dang Pirates keep coming thru trying to ruin our fun!
For media, the tool/method has become the media and that's what's challenging. Social feeds have become a condensed stream of unrelated topics and snippets of experiences or of larger pictures - I want it to go back to being just a tool. It was great when we pushed new blog posts to Twitter and hundreds or thousands of people clicked through to read the story. Not anymore. It's disheartening and while I want to use it as a tool again, I'm unsure (right now) whether it's even worthwhile. I much prefer having these kinds of exchanges vs. getting a single emoji on an IG post--this is so much more rewarding.
I'm so glad I found this post in your end of year review today – relating hard to your experience! "I hadn’t found my “people” until I found the Internet. It is difficult for me to imagine a life without it."
Relating to your breakdown of how to build 1M person audience now. There's got to be a better way. Maybe there's an older, wiser internet users who can re-imagine a way to build audiences without the selfies, dancing, talking to the cam.
I’m glad you found it too! I read your posts a while back I think we have a lot in common! I’m down for a virtual chat any time :)
I was just thinking that - let’s have a new years chat!
Send you a DM
Ah loved this, can relate! I’ve the same feelings about social as I’m starting out with my own venture but I can’t bring myself to join the trend-chasing of it all. The last time I logged in to insta it was predominantly war-related content and it felt like such emotional whiplash to expect to see friends and instead….something extremely opposite. So I’m not even convinced it’s a marketing tool anymore tbh. Anyway, super exciting and curious for your next adventure, I’ll be in the same boat!
You’re right. It’s not a marketing tool anymore. It’s just a town square where everyone is yelling at each other. No thanks 🙅♀️
lol right?! No thanks, let’s go to the park 😅
Thank you for this. I'm in a similar space of reinvention, and not so sure about where the internet comes into play with all of it. I appreciate your shares!
Thank you for this. Yesterday was my 20th anniversary of when I started blogging. Last September, the website I was mainly known for turned 18. Months before, I decided to step back and have a breather. I ended my podcast, stopped blogging on there, and came over to Substack under my own name to try and get a sense of what’s next. Now 46 and also perimenopausal, I, too, feel like as much as I love writing and the internet gave me a space for that, a career, and connection with a host of folks, I feel a bit lost with all the shenanigans of what the modern internet, including social media, is today. Man, things were a lot simpler when I started out 20 years ago 🤣 When you said you went back and forth about stepping away, jaysus, that resonated.
I found myself missing Baggage Reclaim and have tinkered about with various bits and yet I also still feel a bit lost and wonder whether I’m going through a slow breakup. So, yeah, thanks for the reflection. ❤️
Hi! Oh wow we have a very similar life path. Next month, Design Milk will turn 18 and I turn 46 this year. :) Sounds like we're both right on time. It's nice to connect with you here! I'm confident we'll find the right path, but it's nice to have some company while we figure it out.
"This period of my life is marked by deep introspection and expansion, in which I’m seeking quality over quantity, substance, depth, texture, nuance, surprise, tangibility" OOF. I felt that. You've helped me articulate why social media is no longer feeling like a place for me, why I'm here and why I won't do Notes. Thank you for sharing.
Happy to hear that & to help! So over the fleeting nature of social...
Happy to see you here. And, thanks to the Internet for making sure I saw you were here!
Hi! So glad. These are the times when I truly love the Internet. 🫶
Totally. It's such a love/hate relationship.
Wow wow wow so many great points in here. It's refreshing to hear the idea that humans evolve but brands are static - I have struggled with the comparison trap looking at other "personal brands" when I know I'm much more fluid. Hard to find a happy medium though! 🥴
It’s a trap! 😁 a way for tech to force us to become something to be consumed. It is the antithesis of being a human being.
Ugh yes. Exhausting isn't it!
Yep the internet is a place both full of clouds and thorns, and you stay here long enough, you get to see the best and worst of both.
A break (especially considered how the internet is these days…) is more than understandable and frankly, recommended!
Hopefully we could all find some clarity about ourselves and our goals before returning here, and maybe it’d be a bit easier to stomach then!
I think taking breaks is so important, but a lot of people's businesses now depend on feeding the machine 24/7 so it's hard to justify the break.
If you can figure out how to ignore the addiction machine and still get something out of it, then I salute you! 😅 Not an easy task. I hear from a lot of friends who take social or tech sabbaticals that they actually feel better and happier without it. To me, this is telling.
I feel this so deeply, thank you for sharing! Evolution, while being a chronically online person for your work, has been really interesting and challenging over these last few years, of what I like to refer to as the social media hamster wheel.
funny I have always called it a hamster wheel as well! Like, it never ends... and that makes it inherently exhausting. The infinite 24/7 treadmill of FOMO makes us feel like we could always be doing more, more, more.
100%!
There’s something about seeing ourselves in others that feels supportive, like the web of the universe catching the sunlight for a millisecond. A few years back, I stepped down as CEO of the business I created in 2006. And I am still untangling my emotional self from that space. And social media??? Sigh. I write books now and I am finding that, if I want to keep writing books with major publishers, I need to figure out how to be in the online social spaces as both they and I have evolve…. Which brings up so many, many questions about what I actually want out of this one precious life.
Just found you here. I’ll be following along.
Hi~ Thanks for sharing this - it's so hard to detangle yourself from a previous life experience, especially one that felt like part of your identity. Work and life were so intertwined for me. It was A LOT of work to retrain myself to exist fully as a person without the business.
I resonate with the ick of social media trending whatevers… and growing my coaching practice offline is a challenge. I’ve been putting off biting the Insta bullet (again) until I have a content strategy figured out, but yeah… if I’m honest, I don’t wanna get sucked in. All this just to say, thank you for sharing. I don’t have clear answers either, but feels good to ask together.
I can imagine it is hard for any entrepreneur or small biz owner right now to cut through the noise, do something different, keep up with trends/templates, and post with frequency. It's exhausting. It's a marketing slot machine where most winners only get a few purchases, if they're lucky and no repeats. My advice right now: find an offline way to engage with your community through events, conferences, local meetups, and other non-social media engagements because--despite how connected we are--word of mouth/personal referral is still the best way to get clients in any service industry.
💯 this. Offline is the new online!
yes!
It's a marketing slot machine where most winners only get a few purchases, if they're lucky - BRILLIANT TRUTH.