I was up late and couldn’t sleep. I’m still trying to import things over from Substack but its being difficult and some things aren’t loading. I guess this is what I get for constantly switching things, but I really wasn’t happy with the lack of personal branding on Substack.
To me, The Artsy Brain isn’t just a blog, but its a community and a whole concept. It’s about art, and writing and poetry and things the world is leaving behind. Blogs are one of those things as well. Substack has some great advantages, but in the end, its just another type of social media. I could already see the changes made in recent months and how it was affecting writers there.
The addition of notes which is like status updates, I think that’s a positive, but others didn’t care for it. My big concern was the push for video and podcasts over written content. It started out as a newsletter platform, now its pushing for large creators with massive followings and their podcasts.
We’ve seen that with Instagram and Youtube and I didn’t care for either one. I don’t want to have to move again when I’ve grown even more, so here I am. If I can get all my subscribers moved over, knocking on wood.
I don’t want to go on about Substack. A lot of people are happy there. I just seem to prefer my own little corner of the internet. I paid for this for one year, so I don’t have to worry about monthly costs adding up. We’ll just see about getting it to grow through authentic and real essays, poems and art.
I woke up around 2am to check on my import only to see it had stalled out so I started it over again. Maybe I don’t know as much of what I’m doing as I like to think. Although, I readily admit I’m flying by the seat of my pants on most days.
Either way, I’m up in the middle of the night typing this blog out. I try to not compare myself to other bloggers. I see some very well thought out think pieces, and how to articles and other cool things. Here I am rambling about random things on my mind.
One cool thing, Halloween is in 12 days. Though I posted my poem about the death of the Halloween spirit. I still feel that way, though its starting to cool down here finally. Everything is still so expensive. I saw a bag of chocolate candy for $30.00. Its insane. I don’t even know how many kids we’ll get this year. Our neighborhood is aging so we don’t see as many kids as we used to.
Though pick up trucks full of kids tend to cruise by and eveyrone jumps out with only about half of them in actual costumes and asking for trick or treat. We still hand it out to them, but my son calls them Candy Raiders.
Years ago I would dress up to hand out candy and set up a whole spooky scene in our yard with a fake dead body we made out of trash bags, pillows and sheets. It was fun times and people would really freak out at it, and there were lots of people.
Since after Covid and lockdowns, things have never quite been the same. People still come out, but its just a lot more transactional and people don’t enjoy the really spooky stuff anymore. Plus, I’m old and tired and just don’t have the energy to put together a costume and a whole thing only to have a few people even appreciate it. I still love Halloween, I just miss the old days.
Now, I’m showing my age, I sound like a “Back in MY day!” but I guess it really wasn’t all that long ago. Covid changed a lot of things. Back then we went to comic and horror cons which were often like a big party with people dressed up like Marvel characters and a variety of artists and crafters and some celebrity guests.
Now prices are insane just to get in the door. Many of the vendors are resellers or selling AI slop merch and the panels are loaded with A list celebrities. People go in, stand in line for four hours to pay hundreds for celebrity autographs and photos, only to leave right away and skip the vendors entirely.
I used to vend at these things when I wrote books and met a lot of cool people and made some good contacts and had a lot of good memories. Since Covid,it all changed. Now the events are over saturated, plus the things I mentioned earlier.
Now, I see shows cancelling like crazy because of low ticket sales. That’s because it used to cost 30-50.00 for a weekend, now that may get you a day pass at some of them. I don’t know the solution, I just look at it all as a fond memory of a time when things were simpler.
I hate to drag politics into this, but the current political climate is a big factor in all of this, both Halloween candy costs and costs of comic cons. Tariffs, taxes, wars, cuts to healthcare and saftey nets. It’s all added up and its all hitting the working people. That’s who pays for everything while the wealthy all lines their pockets.
That was the other things that irked me about Substack is the amount….like TONS of these online gurus selling courses on how to make tons of $$$$ on Substack. I have a feeling the only ones making money out of that is the guru. When it comes to any kind of coach, be it art, acting, writing, etc, I’m skeptical of anyone whose primary income isn’t that craft, but selling courses on how to make money doing that thing.
Like if all thise works so much, why aren’t you out doing that? It sure isn’t altruism. There I go sounding crotchety again. You if you’re new here, you may have notices my blog is pretty much like my journal. I just kind of barf out anything that comes to mind. I don’t like to outline these things unless I have something specific to say.
I try to keep my essays authentic and real, and usually stream of conciousness. I feel too many of us sanitized our thoughts way too much over the years. Now you all get the real unpolished deal. I also tend to publish 2-3 times a day. Not always an essay. Sometimes a shorter thought or a poem. I hadn’t written poems in years until I started blogging again.
I mine don’t rhyme, there is a name for that kind of non-rhyming poetry but I forget what it is. Once again, I keep them pretty raw and real. It’s almost 4am now and I think its time for a snack. Thank you all for reading and feel free to drop a comment if anything I mentioned resonates with you in any way!
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