I’ve decided to step away from social media, and from platforms whose values and practices I no longer feel I can reconcile with my own.
I don’t believe that remaining dependent on companies such as Meta or Spotify is consistent with the person I want to be. I have serious ethical concerns about the ways these platforms make money, the political and material interests they support, their relationship to violence and injustice, and the extent to which their products are deliberately designed around dependency, attention and addiction. I am also increasingly uncomfortable with allowing algorithms to decide what enters my consciousness every day, exposing me repeatedly to material that is neither chosen by me nor aligned with the values by which I want to live.
I have removed from Spotify the music that I am able to remove, and I will be looking for other ways for people to encounter and support my work. That may mean smaller platforms, direct relationships with audiences, physical releases, live performance, independent spaces, mailing lists, or forms I haven’t discovered yet.
There is inevitably a fear in doing this as an artist. These platforms have persuaded us that visibility, community and even the possibility of a sustainable creative life depend upon them. I don’t want to make moral and ethical compromises simply because I have been told that Meta or Spotify can deliver an audience to me. Instead, I want to put my trust in God.
I want to trust that the people who are meant to find my work will find it; that I will find my community; that meaningful relationships between artists and audiences existed before these corporations and will exist after them; and that I do not have to surrender my attention, principles or conscience in exchange for reach.
I think genuine community-building, especially for smaller artists, is the way forward: DIY, intentional, mutually supportive, and innovative in how we make, share and circulate our work. I want to be part of building those alternatives rather than continuing to depend on systems I no longer believe in.