I’ve seen creatives — close friends and strangers — torch their mental health trying to make their creative work work for them. I’ve toed the line myself. 

Creative living is difficult. It always has been. But dedicating your life to the pursuit of truth and beauty in today’s world is a challenge no other generation has faced before — a beast that would’ve brought some of history’s creative giants down to their knees. The same demons that tormented our creative ancestors are still around to haunt us, but we have to fight them while the devil himself sets up camp in our pockets.

The biggest threat to creativity since modern public education is social media and its mind-numbing, soul-sucking algorithms — masterfully designed to steal our attention, keep our eyes glued to our screens, and line the pockets of tech titans with more green than Eden before the fall. And they’re damn good at it. 

Big tech companies like Meta, X, and TikTok print hundreds of billions of dollars selling ad space. Not selling to you, but selling you. Your attention. Your time. Your mental real estate. You are the product and you don’t get a dime, not even a thank you. And how I wish that was the worst of it.

Their trap was brilliant. The playbook, simple. The golden years of social media — an era defined by low-res pictures, chronological feeds, and real connection — didn’t last long. Just long enough to get us hooked. Then came the influencers with lifestyles we couldn’t have dreamt of, followed by the content creators who sold us getting rich on social media wasn’t a far-fetched fantasy but a reality well within our reach. A new gold rush. The creator economy promised sustainable and successful careers without going through traditional gatekeepers like publishers, art dealers, or record labels. Ironically, it created much more vicious overlords: algorithmic control and content saturation. 

Algorithms favor engagement over expression. So we optimize for virality instead of craft, churning out shallower, more homogeneous content that flattens culture. They force us to create work that’s easy to consume, instead of work that’s challenging, provocative, or enriching — work that’s worth a damn.

This is compounded by severe content saturation. We have more digital media than we can possibly consume, turning organic discovery on mature platforms into a prayer to an apathetic god. The algorithm rewards those who built large followings early, making it incredibly difficult for new creators to get noticed. This brutal battle for attention results in a superstar economy, where a tiny elite take home most of the pie while the rest of us fight for crumbs.

The financial realities for most creators are bleak. A 2023 study by MBO Partners found that 71% of independent creators reported making less than $30,000 over the prior year, and only 9% of independent creators earned over $100,000. Shocked? Good. Nine out of ten content creators are fucking lying. The superstar creator lifestyle is a myth — one that fuels the mass production of creative work, the dumbification of our culture, and a mental health crisis where passion-driven work becomes a toxic cycle of self-sacrifice and exploitation.

Creator economy superstars sold us a lie: if we want to build something meaningful, we must amass massive followings by chasing trends, conforming to viral formats, and surrendering our creative agency. Bull. Shit.

Last week, I was chatting with a good friend who, for the last year or so, has been seriously considering building a more intentional digital presence for himself and his business. But in the last two weeks, he’s grown to detest social media — its toll on his health, creativity, and productivity finally got to him. He was at a loss, unsure of what to do next. I got the sense he was ready to give up, and I can’t blame him. Social media sucks. But that doesn’t mean he should abandon his dreams of building online. There are better ways.

Email is the antidote. Social media platforms change their algorithms, ban users, and disappear overnight — and your audience goes with them. But an email list? That’s yours. Nobody can take it away. No algorithm decides who sees your work. You show up in their inbox. They open it or they don’t. It's direct, stable, and actually sustainable. Email gives you something that social media never will: ownership. 

Email also slices through the noise. Your subscribers chose to hear from you — they handed you the key to their inbox. That means you can go deeper. Tell better stories, build real relationships, get more honest and personal. This is where trust is built. Not in the feed, in the inbox.

Email isn't a magic bullet, but it's the closest thing we've got to taking back control. The goal isn't to abandon social media — it's to stop letting it own you. Use it to find your people, then bring them somewhere that’s yours. Build your email list. Own the relationship. Get off the content treadmill and into something much more sustainable, profitable, and creatively fulfilling.

I'm building something to help creatives do exactly this. Let me know what you need, or just hit reply. I read everything.

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