I deactivated my Twitter account on July 1st. I’m pretty sure I joined in 2007. Today is Wednesday, day five, which is probably the longest I’ve gone without looking at Twitter in over ten years. It’s been a long time coming. The second issue of this newsletter was about how I felt like the algorithm was poisoning my creativity. Over the past couple of years I tried to ween myself off by hiding the app on my phone and setting up screen time limits. Neither of those tactics was successful. Within a couple of weeks I incorporated the extra swipes into my routine and learned how to quickly disregarded the time limit notification. I didn’t even see them anymore, they just became part of the protocols for getting to my drug of choice.
Great piece, Mickey. Your presence will certainly be missed on the Twitters. I honestly don't know why I'm still there. It's not even really routine at this point, since I've cut down using it so much I've never even gotten a tweet-limit thing since those have been put in place. Who knows. Been contemplating starting something like this weekly newsletter thing as well. Might be part travelogue, getting memories and stories from my three years of ballpark trips on digital paper. Not sure yet. Also been contemplating revisiting my own abandoned novel... though I have to figure out how to actually write a novel first... I have a prologue and two chapters and it's over 28K words... so so talky. Hope you're doing well. If you ever head to Netflix to picket, I'm usually there late Friday mornings. Cheers!
I am so incredibly touched that my corner of the internet spurred such tangible art directly in your community :). That sounds like an amazing way to get the creativity kickstarted in a whole new direction. If you ever want eyes on your novel, I wrapped up draft 5 (!) of my own recently and I'd love to look at yours.
Thank you for sharing the art you made (and for also being the reminder I needed to get the fuck off Twitter for good).
It's a detox leaving there, but it helps your writing once you're clean. Start eating vanilla ice cream like in Trainspotting. Try not to soil the bed.
Once you stop thinking, "this would be a good tweet" you're back like Gandalf in new shiny threads. You'll realize you don't need to march for a cause while seeing Barbie and Oppenheimer at the same time while ranking the greatest films of Scorsese as people scream "Scorsese sucks!" at you.
And don't let Zuck win. Do you think he stops and watches The Social Network every time he passes it on TV? I do. I bet when his wife walks in on him he changes the channel and when she asks what he was just watching he replies, "sports".
I left twitter last September/October when elmo took over. I downloaded threads yesterday and already regret doing so. Not bc I’m afraid it will make me extremely online like twitter did but bc it just overwhelming and chaotic. I think distance and rewiring of those dopamine receptors impacts a return to that type of environment. And that’s a good thing.
Gonna miss you on Twitter as you're one of my go to accounts but I totally get what you're saying:) I'll be curious to hear how it helps your creativity. Glad you have your newsletter so we can keep up with your interesting work Mickey!
I’ve been off of all social media for 9 days. The first three days I had thumb twitches. My goal was two weeks but I feel so balanced and creative that I’m unsure how (or if) I’ll return. Thanks for always being a light!
I turned a busted spec into a series of novels that all come in right around 40k each and it's a blast. I think as screenwriters we're conditioned to use as few words as possible so it's a nice middle ground between that FadeIn life and a 150k doorstopper. Highly recommend!
That's where you went! Weirdly I found out right away, on Monday, when I went to look at a DM I'd sent you that had the most up-to-date logline for something... You weren't there (though, unlike Gordon, I still believe in your existence)
I feel ALL of this. Every day seems to begin with the urge to walk away from all social media, and by noon I've just accepted I really like crack - er, social media - and by dinner I've recalled how maybe I need to stop already. I'm disciplined about how I interact with it...mostly...but it takes a toll. Good for you, going for it.
Great piece, Mickey. Your presence will certainly be missed on the Twitters. I honestly don't know why I'm still there. It's not even really routine at this point, since I've cut down using it so much I've never even gotten a tweet-limit thing since those have been put in place. Who knows. Been contemplating starting something like this weekly newsletter thing as well. Might be part travelogue, getting memories and stories from my three years of ballpark trips on digital paper. Not sure yet. Also been contemplating revisiting my own abandoned novel... though I have to figure out how to actually write a novel first... I have a prologue and two chapters and it's over 28K words... so so talky. Hope you're doing well. If you ever head to Netflix to picket, I'm usually there late Friday mornings. Cheers!
Absolutely love the postcard idea
I am so incredibly touched that my corner of the internet spurred such tangible art directly in your community :). That sounds like an amazing way to get the creativity kickstarted in a whole new direction. If you ever want eyes on your novel, I wrapped up draft 5 (!) of my own recently and I'd love to look at yours.
Thank you for sharing the art you made (and for also being the reminder I needed to get the fuck off Twitter for good).
It's a detox leaving there, but it helps your writing once you're clean. Start eating vanilla ice cream like in Trainspotting. Try not to soil the bed.
Once you stop thinking, "this would be a good tweet" you're back like Gandalf in new shiny threads. You'll realize you don't need to march for a cause while seeing Barbie and Oppenheimer at the same time while ranking the greatest films of Scorsese as people scream "Scorsese sucks!" at you.
And don't let Zuck win. Do you think he stops and watches The Social Network every time he passes it on TV? I do. I bet when his wife walks in on him he changes the channel and when she asks what he was just watching he replies, "sports".
I left twitter last September/October when elmo took over. I downloaded threads yesterday and already regret doing so. Not bc I’m afraid it will make me extremely online like twitter did but bc it just overwhelming and chaotic. I think distance and rewiring of those dopamine receptors impacts a return to that type of environment. And that’s a good thing.
Gonna miss you on Twitter as you're one of my go to accounts but I totally get what you're saying:) I'll be curious to hear how it helps your creativity. Glad you have your newsletter so we can keep up with your interesting work Mickey!
I’ve been off of all social media for 9 days. The first three days I had thumb twitches. My goal was two weeks but I feel so balanced and creative that I’m unsure how (or if) I’ll return. Thanks for always being a light!
I turned a busted spec into a series of novels that all come in right around 40k each and it's a blast. I think as screenwriters we're conditioned to use as few words as possible so it's a nice middle ground between that FadeIn life and a 150k doorstopper. Highly recommend!
That's where you went! Weirdly I found out right away, on Monday, when I went to look at a DM I'd sent you that had the most up-to-date logline for something... You weren't there (though, unlike Gordon, I still believe in your existence)
I feel ALL of this. Every day seems to begin with the urge to walk away from all social media, and by noon I've just accepted I really like crack - er, social media - and by dinner I've recalled how maybe I need to stop already. I'm disciplined about how I interact with it...mostly...but it takes a toll. Good for you, going for it.