Build Real, Not Viral

This week in the world seems somehow worse than the last.

As expected, the terror we've been raining down abroad has come back to remind us Americans that we either fall in line with the terror, or get shot in the face four times. Black Americans know this game all too well—what it means to be "kept in line" by police, slave catchers, your own military.

But as someone with an internet job, what became crystal clear to me in the wake this time, was just how many bots and fake accounts (and fake protesters) were being deployed by both the state and foreign adversaries to warp reality.

"She was obviously resisting." "She put his life in danger." "Commie got what was coming."

I'm sorry, but these are not real people. I know this because I live in the world. I live in the American South and I go outside. Real people do not have this level of apathy for murder and death unless they are deeply, deeply troubled. Death makes most folks queasy.

This week made my topic for this newsletter even more clear.

Subjugating your audience or brand growth to one platform—or equating your audience to the voices on one platform—is a recipe for disaster. Not because the internet as a whole isn't a real place, but because every single platform is filled and riddled with unreal things meant to make you question what you know is reality and separate you from the real, true humans within your community who want to see you and hear the story you have to tell.

When I meet with clients and advise them on growth strategy in the digital age, I always tell them to focus on building a community on the internet as a whole—people you know are real and will support you. Never focus on "increasing Instagram followers" or any other platform-specific metric. It's a recipe for disaster.

Twitter's downfall made this laser clear to me. These billionaires are the dominating force driving the desire to disconnect humans from reality. They do not do it for the love of the social game. At this point, they are all government contractors over anything else. And as I've already said, our government is committed most of all to keeping us in line.

So if Zuck woke up one day and decided he just didn't want to do the consumer product thing anymore—just like Jack woke up one day and decided that exact thing—people's whole livelihoods would disappear. Same for TikTok, which is actually in this process of change right now.

I'm from the Myspace generation, which didn't just "disappear." It sold every single one of our email addresses and data points to a programmatic advertising tech company (heyyy Viant!), which sells that data to companies and brands to target us on whatever platforms we migrate to as platforms die and get reborn. I know that the social media platform that is king does not reign forever. I also know that many of these platforms are run by straight-up N*zis, and those are simply not the baskets you want to put all your eggs in.

Focus on building real community with real people.

Here's the test: If a platform disappeared tomorrow and took your audience with it, what would you still have? That's your actual foundation. Everything else is just amplification.

Here's what that actually means in practice—broken into three tiers:

Your Domain + Website
Not Instagram.com/yourname—YOURNAME.com. Even a simple landing page works. This is where all roads lead when platforms collapse. Host your portfolio, your story, your contact info here.

Email List
Use Beehiiv, Substack, ConvertKit—doesn't matter which. This is your insurance policy. When algorithms change or billionaires have tantrums, you still have a direct line to your people.

Master Files + Backups
Keep every piece of content you create. Download your posts periodically. Export your email list weekly. Screenshot testimonials and important comments. When Twitter became X, people lost years of their work. Don't let that be you.

Your Payment Infrastructure
Own how you get paid. Gumroad or Shopify for digital products. Stripe for direct payments (not PayPal—it's not stable enough). Patreon or Ko-fi for recurring revenue. If you only monetize through TikTok Shop or Instagram affiliates, you're still vulnerable.

Pick 1-2 platforms where you'll engage deeply, respond to comments, and build actual relationships. This is where you LIVE, not just post.

Choose based on your medium:

One pillar piece per week. Film one long video, write one essay, record one podcast episode. That's your anchor content.

Now take that pillar piece and break it into 5-10 micro-pieces for 3-5 other platforms. This is where you cross-post but don't live. Check once a week, respond to notable comments only. Automate what you can (Buffer, Later, etc.).

Examples:

Use platforms for intelligence: Each one tells you where your people are and what they respond to. Extract that data, but don't mistake followers for community.

Focus 80% of your energy on Tier 1 and Tier 2. The remaining 20% handles all of Tier 3. Most artists burn out trying to "be everywhere." You can't. Pick your battles.

Email is great for talking AT people. But where do they talk BACK?

Your brand identity is the throughline. Content-first, audience-focused, rooted so deep in your core message that it stays consistent everywhere—whether you're posting a Reel or hosting a workshop.

Gone are the days of brands being on a stage with their audience watching them. We are in the era of real, actual community building—and here's the upsetting kicker—which will also require us to put our phones down, turn our devices off, and get outside. Talk to people. Interact. Throw and host events. There have to be touchpoints with that community to make it real.

I'm not saying this as a person who always knows what and who is real or not. I'm sure I've argued with a bot or two on the internet, giving away my energy and getting riled up for what—and whose—gain? I'm always tempted to use AI as a sounding board for my writing, even though I have a Communications degree from a top-10 school. When I needed new business headshots at work and didn't feel like taking them, I faked it.

Not a guru. A scout.

Knowing all this about myself, no- I did not start The Artist's Way. But I did start something: freewriting. By hand. With a pen and paper in a journal. Telling my grandmother's stories.

Every morning and night I would start and end the day just freewriting all the stories I can remember my grandmother—who passed in 2021—told me about herself.

A few things I learned:

Handwriting is a physical skill that becomes harder over time the longer we don't utilize it. My hand cramped. My letters looked shaky. It felt vulnerable in a way typing never does.

The stories of our lives are often told again and again through the people that came before us. Remembering and documenting those stories is what connects the dots.

Nothing develops your writing voice like writing. Not typing, not asking Claude for advice, nothing. Just the physical act of moving a pen across paper, watching your thoughts form in real time.

There are some things that have to be done IRL. Some relationships that have to be nurtured offline. Some skills that require you to log off.

I'm not done with this experiment yet. I'm going to keep going for the rest of the month and report back. But already, something is shifting. The stories are coming back. My grandmother's voice is getting clearer. And my own voice—the one I've been looking for—is starting to show up on the page.

Here's what I want to know from you:

What platform are you most dependent on right now? And what would happen if it disappeared tomorrow?

Reply and tell me. Let's be honest about where we're vulnerable so we can start building something more stable together.

Next issue: How to extract value from your skills without selling your soul (or: productizing services for people who hate "productizing services").

P.S. - If you're interested in working with me one-on-one to build your platform-agnostic strategy or monetize your creative work, you can schedule a consultation through my [Calendly]. For more on my background and services, check out my [LinkedIn].