Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Studio Sessions
80. What Happens To Your Ideas When Algorithms Leave?
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madebyalex.online
Last episode of "season" 3! We start with a Squarespace redesign that's been sitting untouched for over a year and end up on the case for building a site from scratch. Alex walks through his history with web design, from MySpace CSS to Adobe Portfolio to a few hundred dollars a year for templates that never did what he wanted, and what changed once LLMs made a custom build possible for someone who isn't a developer.
From there we get into the IndieWeb, Neocities, owning your distribution, and the thousand-true-fans idea. We talk about deleting Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter, why Instagram and YouTube stay on as the only two funnels for now, and what happens to your creative range when everything you encounter comes through a recommendation engine. That turns into effective creative entropy, a term Alex coins mid-conversation, and a deck-of-cards argument about the odds of getting to an original idea.
We finish on what's actually being built: print layouts for every story and essay, marginalia, contact sheets, a guest-curated gallery that rotates every couple of weeks, postcards and a newspaper at cost. Also what's left out on purpose. No SEO, no paid ads, no Google Analytics, no Google-hosted fonts, no metadata on the photos, and AI crawlers blocked. The site is a place to visit and leave, not a place to get stuck. -Ai
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We appreciate and try to read all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
A Golden Afternoon Opening
SPEAKER_00It had been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summary.
Updating An Outdated Website
SPEAKER_04Um alright, so we wanted to talk about the website a little bit. You're gonna have to guide me through this because um so I think this is the the entry point. I love that sticker. I know I say that every time it's my kids freaking great. Goldie put it on there. Um so I know you were thinking about doing a website, so maybe we approach it through that lens. And I don't know. Well, however, however, you think we don't need to spend too much time on mine.
SPEAKER_02My my website situation uh is it's completely outdated in the sense that it has older photographs, the style is for an era of my content creation that is not where I am right now. Uh, you know, I updated on my YouTube channel, you know, the look of an appearance of it all, a new banner and all that, and uh avatar or whatever you call it, profile picture, all that stuff. So I have been struggling with updating the website because even though it's through Squarespace, I it just I know it's gonna take me two or three days to just sit there and like find a new template, do some customization, uh, get the layout, create new graphics for the digital products I have. I mean, uh it's it's a complete overhaul. Yeah. I was also hoping to get some photos or one photo of me that was a little bit more up to date, but I hate take you know, self-timers and all that stuff, and uh you know, I don't know. So I've just been dragging my feet. But in watching you build your website, and we'll get into some of the specifics of that, um, and seeing what you're doing with Claude to build your own website from scratch, even if I end up not doing replicating at least the that process with my website, I'm inspired to use Claude to help me customize a Squarespace website so I can use a font of my choosing, even if the template that I choose is a very minimalist you know, vibe that I want. It certainly won't necessarily look like yours, but um so I've been tinkering around with Claude to put together a website. Um you know, it's just it's just writing all the code for it and giving me a preview in my web browser so it's not like it's hosted or live or anybody can go to it, but just trying to noodle around to see what's possible, yeah, to kind of catch some of that inspiration that you've had.
SPEAKER_04Because we were talking about this project starting last year, I think, on the podcast. Because I remember when I was in Colorado last year, I was building it.
SPEAKER_02Right. So to wrap up my side of things, my website is not updated. I'm basically in this tinkering stage where I'm going to have to decide if I'm gonna do something similar to you with a fully custom website and and and approach it as uh not necessarily like um uh a leaner version of all the different content outlets I have from the YouTube channels to Instagram, but whether or not like you, a new sort of central place for everybody to get it uh in touch with what you're making, your photography, your writing, um, and connecting with you through the different tools you have on your website. So I don't know if I'll go that route or if it'll be something that's just photography work, something about the content creation I do, um ability to buy prints of the photos I've made, and then sort of like a hidden site that allows people through my YouTube channel to get the digital products that I have for Final Cut Pro.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um or member link or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's kind of where I am. But at the very least, I want to do something simple just to bring it up to date uh and get everything looking like it matches where I am right now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. And are you gonna is this the Midland or do you have a different domain?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think I put that after you told me it wasn't offline. I took it offline. I was like, oh shit, that's still up. Yeah, yeah. So I took that offline, and I'll probably just keep the URL, the domain, but just not pay Squarespace to have that up anymore because it's not necessary. Um so you've done a lot to show me and give me inspiration for not only employing you know, Claude to help with either making one from scratch or uh using it to customize Squarespace stuff, um, but to to also just uh have a different different perspective on what a website can be.
Learning Web Design Without Burnout
SPEAKER_02Um so with that I want to talk more about your website and I think to sort of set the stage for everyone watching and listening, I'd like to hear from you just your your approach to it. So I'm trying to think. Because in your video that you posted, there's uh a deeper explanation as to why you made it, and I want you to reiterate that here. Um but I'm trying to think of like did all those feelings lead to you making the website, or was the website just something that you knew you wanted, and you were gonna make one anyway, and then those feelings solidified and it sort of turned into a much bigger thing in a sense. Um that's a terrible terrible way of asking the question. Basically, like I know I need to have a website, I know it needs to have basic information or links to this stuff, it needs to perform this utility. Yeah. Wait a second, it can be more than that, right? You know, and it and that part came later.
SPEAKER_04So I mean, I guess I mean I've since I started doing any kind of creative whatever, I I had a website that I parked stuff, like there was an Adobe portfolio website. Um, you know, I had a I've always like web design has always been something that I've been like tangentially interested in, or just like thought it was cool. Like I, you know, I learned for the first time with like MySpace stuff in like 2004. Um, and was just, you know, oh, how do I get the little spinny logo? Uh and like how do you build this like the the CSS out to be you know completely unique to what I was checking out like web design for dummies from like the Green Hills Public Library and stuff like that. So it's always been something that I've been semi-interested in. And then I remember in probably like freshman year, sophomore year of college, I took a course on like I think it was on like Ruby, like Ruby on Rails or something, and it started out with uh HTML and CSS, and I was just like, okay, that's interesting. Um kind of relearning that. This is probably what like 20 2013, 2014. Um and so like I've always been interested and like kind of known that a website is something cool to have. Um, and then obviously, you know, everybody had to have a website at a certain point. I feel like if you're doing photography or whatever, so I had the Adobe, I used Squarespace. Um, there was another one that was like in you know, 2014 or something that was popular, it was like I forget what it was Wix or Wix, or yeah, probably Wix. Um and I I use those because they were easier. Um, I mean the templates fine, yeah, and like if you're gonna code a site and do the the um HTML and the um CSS and you know build it out from scratch and host it yourself. Like I always kind of knew how to do that, but it was also just a pain. And like, you know, I I I would use like the notepad app or something on like the Mac, and um there's different little things you can do so you can kind of preview, and then you know, I think uh brackets was an app that I used and just little things like that. But it was always I I I I was never a like high-level developer, and my brain works in some of those ways well, and in some of those ways it doesn't. Um but like the thing between me and having a website that's completely mine was always just like this is gonna take a long time of me figuring out how to do these things, and it's still not gonna meet the expectation. And it's one of those things like we've talked about this before, but there's only you only have so much bandwidth. And my all of my bandwidth is like photography, film, and writing. And that's probably over over stretching my bandwidth that I have. And it's like that's like professionally, that takes up all of my time. And you know, even you know, doing more commercial work and things like that, just consumed to where that wasn't even um like if you you just want to do those things, like first of all, it's it's it's a little bit like ridiculous to try to do all three of those things. Um, I think they like if you're gonna do multiple things, like those are three things that meld together better than sure other things, but I just didn't have the bandwidth to fucking spend five years learning like in-depth coding that was gonna change. The money to hire somebody never never even yeah, would have considered that. So I always used Adobe or I used Squarespace, I used format, um, just all of these different things. Um, but I always had a website. Um I remember in like 2021 or two, you and I talked a lot about me redesigning my Squarespace at the time. Um, but it it just never did what I wanted. And then probably two years ago, and you can track it on this podcast, I'm sure we talked about it. But I I discovered or this community called the IndieWeb.
IndieWeb And Owning Your Stack
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's just like these like kitschy, you little early 2000s websites, um, and it's a really cool community. And I'm not like visually, I'm not I'm not the biggest fan of all of it, but it is just a really cool community. And you talked about Neo Cities, or I think it was called GeoCities, Geo Cities, whatnot. And now it's now it's Neo Cities. I don't know if they're the same company, but it's essentially the same idea.
SPEAKER_02Uh GeoCities got bought by Yahoo and it was sunset after the acquisition.
SPEAKER_04So Neo Cities is just kind of pulling from that idea.
SPEAKER_02It's taking, yeah, I think that core idea that anybody could make their own website and host it on GeoCities, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_04That's the magic of the like the internet, it's a magical thing. Yeah. It's unfortunate that like like we should be the most inner internet literate generation of all time, and we're completely illiterate to this thing that we use every day. It's so it's so cool, and it's pretty simple. It's just documents that are hosted on servers, and you've access the documents, and the documents have gotten more sophisticated over time. I mean, I'm I'm completely dumbing it down. Right. Like it's it is more complex than that, but essentially it's just a web of documents. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, and and websites, I think, have gotten so sophisticated and so not ornate in the sense that it's they're busy, but just like the the amazing things that websites can do, whether it's the Apple website or interactive or this or that, that this indie web, obviously there's some nostalgia there potentially with some of them, or they have seen websites uh from the 90s and the 2000s, and like that's cool. Yeah, yeah, and there's something really interesting about the the you know, they're often a little busy, yeah, the website, but there's something so simplistic about them.
SPEAKER_04They're also so functional in a way where you wouldn't and maybe it's like the skeworphic inspiration, like and skeworphism is something that kind of was of a time because we hadn't seen past it. But I like you know, my website is I wouldn't say it's trying to like the basically the thing I wanted, and I finally like what happened was LLM just got to the point where yeah, suddenly all of these things that I had ideas that I I was like, Oh, I want to do this. It was like it was like, oh, this you can do this now. Yeah, and so that was the moment where I was like, okay, I gotta do this. This is awesome. I can just like host it myself. Big fan of ownership. I think you should own, you know. Um the comedian Louis CK, um, his website was something that I thought was really interesting. He's had a website since like 2014 or something, and um, I mean, he's like selling out Madison Square Garden three times in a row, and all of it is him. Yep. He's setting all of that up. Like he essentially just kind of proved, hey, you don't need the big whatever system. Yeah, that was interesting. Obviously, the Kevin Kelly, uh, you know, whatever you think of, you know, his ideas and whatever. Um but he had this idea that I remember reading, like the maybe it was like the is it the aughts, like the late aughts or whatever. Uh about a thousand true fans. Yep. And I mean that's you can look that up if you haven't read that. Um but all of these things of just own your audience, own your distribution, um, and then paired with the potential of the web. And you know, now payments are getting easier, um, supporting other things is getting easier. Like, so it's one of those situations where I was like, one, I kind of feel like the future is kind of going backwards a little bit. Like all of the web 2 stuff, Facebook and all of these platforms, like meta, anything meta, anything Google, anything um, you know, anything um Twitter, for example, like all of these platforms are they chose a direction, and some people agree with that direction, some people don't. Um, I think they're pretty much unusable, which sucks. Like, I I told I talked to you just a few minutes ago about like you use Instagram for these drops. I'm like, that's the coolest use of Instagram. Yeah, if the platform wasn't a toxic shithole, you know, I would love to do that. Or if if even if they just said, like, hey, pay us $140 a year and we won't show you any of the bullshit. Right. I would I would consider that just to be able to do interact in a way, but you know what? They're not doing that, they haven't done that, they won't do that, it seems like. So I just can't use it full stop because it's just too toxic. So I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna make this feature set, and obviously I don't have the network effect, I'm not like naive to that, but I was like, I just want to make this on my own thing, and then it I can control all the incentives and incentivize only the things that I care about. So that's what got me pumped about it. Um, sorry, that was a really long-winded. I don't even know if I answered what you were. No, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I I think the context of of your background with the website is excellent, and then getting into the real foundation of what motivates you to own your stack and have a place where you're in control of the presentation of the things that you want to share from your work to your writing, which is part of your work, to how you want people to interact with you, whether it's in a guest book, um, subscribing, but subscribing in a good way, not a bullshit way. Yeah, yeah. Um, I was just telling you before we started rolling unsubscribing from all these emails, um, that you know, gosh, you go to one trade show, dude. They scan your badge and they you you're all of a sudden signed up for all those things.
SPEAKER_04I use burner emails for anything. I mean, but like I talked to you about this a couple of weeks ago. Like, if I get an email, and I'm still getting like fuck you next door. Fuck you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I dude, I know it's like 40 possible.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm going to do like I'm gonna write something that blocks you from ever even crossing into my they were they were they for for what their objective was I will class action, like which was to make you know maintain as many email subscription as possible. They subcategorized so thoroughly. I mean, there's gotta be 50 subcategories of next door uh newsletters or or email. I don't even know how they got my email address. Well, the stucky, yeah. The stuck we don't want to spend too much time on the stucky thing is your email address gets into one place and that data is that stuff is mined or sold or whatever to whoever.
SPEAKER_04I'm a I'm a huge fan of email aliases, I'm a huge fan of incogni. Yeah. And I know there's people who are like that's just a scam. Like they're just taking money. If you sign up for incogni for two months, yeah, I think you literally get a month free. So if you sign up for incogni for like two months, and I'm not we're not sponsored by incogni. But it's a tool that's like if you pay for it for like two months, it will save your life. Yeah, I'm so like it it was life-changing. I used to get 50 spam calls. It sounds like an infomercial, yeah, but it it life-changing, genuinely life-changing. And now, like Google, you can go into Google's privacy settings and you can set like remove
Escaping Platforms And Data Spam
SPEAKER_04me from data brokers, and uh yeah, they're stealing all your shit anyways, and so like they're not selling it because they don't need to sell it.
SPEAKER_02They're Google, they can and this goes to a bigger conversation of us owning our data, yeah. There's no legislation to allow that.
SPEAKER_04Well, and I mean that's that gets like that's part of this too, like you know, reading like Tim Berners-Lee over the years, he was like, I guess, the original creator of like W like the World Wide Web. Um, and a lot of those those kind of um protocols and just um like what makes the web the web were kind of his idea. And he's really, I mean, yeah, just big on owning your data and controlling your data and things. I'm huge on all of that stuff. Yeah, um, but I mean, also it's just fun. Like it's the platforms, like getting out of all of the all of the philosophical and like political and um you know financial, it's a lot cheaper, by the way. Like I paid Squarespace, like 300 a year for however many, and I know they're a little cheaper now, but whatever. Whatever that was, I you know, I paid um a format like 200 a year. This is the best website I've ever had, and I pay not a lot, like, and I've got I've got it for a long time. Like um, and I'm happy to get more into that. I don't want to get like too far, but yeah, it's it's just financially it's it's a way better option, and you get way more for it.
SPEAKER_02Um well it in to set a con a little bit more context, uh, with you know, you're getting you know um emotional about um subscription emails, algorithms, uh, Instagram earlier. For those of you listening, watching, and you're not aware, Alex is almost I mean, pretty much entirely off of the traditional social media outlets. And let's just give a quick recap. You don't have a Facebook account anymore.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's gone.
SPEAKER_02Um, you have Instagram, but you weren't logging in or weren't able to log in until you figured it out to announce the website.
SPEAKER_04The only reason. Yeah, so and like I mean, and that shit is that shit is like yeah, it's not on my phone or right. So he doesn't have Instagram on his phone, although he has an account. And I think I I tried to delete, by the way, there was an account that I like lost the ability to log into, yeah, like years ago or something. Um, and I can't delete it. Yeah. So that pisses me off.
SPEAKER_02Right. It's just there indefinitely, even if it's hasn't had a login in 10 years. Pisses me off.
SPEAKER_04It's there. And you know, say what you will about them not deleting it, but it just pisses me off that like that's out there and I can't delete that. You don't have control over it. Um killed Reddit. I was on Reddit. Like me and my buddies use Reddit in like early high school, like like the 2010. Like, like you know, and Reddit got ruined. Um, deleted Twitter a long time ago, too. Twitter just this is way too much.
SPEAKER_02Were you even ever active on Twitter?
SPEAKER_04And since I've known you, not since I've yeah, since I've known you. Um Instagram, the only reason I kept it is because everybody I meet, and I'm gonna start sending them. Please go to my website. Yeah, let me give you the elevator screen.
SPEAKER_02Or QR code or something people can scan or something. I might get like a business card or something.
SPEAKER_04I don't know what the best way to or like a postcard, yeah, like we talked about.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_04Something.
SPEAKER_02Um and then YouTube, you have a channel, you do consume YouTube, but you Use tools to make it. So I use this TV and a CRT TV.
SPEAKER_04You've seen it on here. And I don't like I was YouTube was the hardest thing to get off of because it was like properly like, oh well, this is good. And once I got off of it, I and I I I don't think it's bad, but like once I got off of it, it was definitely a I was using a bit of that like heroin, like, oh, but this is good heroin.
SPEAKER_02It had some nutritional value.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it had just enough to be, but even that kind of I I noticed like the platform decline in the last couple of years. Um and I still use like we were watching um with F1, F1 replays on for I I play Vaporwave stuff on my CRT. I play stuff like that. Um and I mean obviously, so my mindset around these two platforms is those are the only two that I still have. Yeah, those are the only two that I professionally built too. Um per se. Like I don't yeah, but those are the only funnels I have. Right. So I'm not like I'm not gonna just kill the funnel, the only two funnels that I have. Right. Because you have to you you can build a great website, and if nobody's able to find out about it, then it's worthless. Yep. So I'm gonna keep my funnels until I feel like I've built up a mailing list that's appropriate. Yeah. Um, to and again, like the the idea of the website is to turn away from growth. I still want people interacting, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I want people but you don't want the gamification.
SPEAKER_04I don't care about organic discovery or things like that. Like, I definitely want people that are familiar with me in one way or another finding that. But yeah, I don't want any of the gamification. And I mean, I talked to you about how I can block elements on uh YouTube.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so Alex has some tools where he can be in Creator Studio but not see things like the analytics section um that you know is tempting to look at to average view duration, how long they watched, you know, all these things that he's susceptible to letting shape what he makes, or just how keep him on the platform to just be like checking how the things performing, which is why for this for those watching, the YouTube channel is managed by me, yeah, partially because Alex knows that if he gets in there I'm just gonna want to yeah, yeah, and then it could impact uh his judgment of what to do with content or which it does to some extent impact me, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Whether it's taking the title with tweaking, if there's a person on this earth who says that it doesn't impact them, they're lying. 100% because like it's first of all, it's extremely powerful, yeah. And it's we're just not psychologically capable of managing that, yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, like it's the same, it's it in a in a sense, it's the same
Creative Entropy And Algorithm Traps
SPEAKER_04reason. Like I got rid of all this shit because the algorithms were one, it everything was like a monoculture. Like when you bring something up and somebody's like, oh, that's interesting, because it's the same bullshit that they've been reading about or whatever, it's like you're not gonna have any fresh ideas. Any idea you get when you sit down and you want to write something, you like I like to call it like um effective creative entropy is a term that I'm trying to coin. Oh, I like that effective create, and so we've talked about it here before the uh like the tree metaphor that I've talked about. Yeah, yeah. The decision trees, yep, of getting to an original idea. So I'm coining that right now, effective creative entropy. Wow. And it's this idea of like like one entropy but controlled enough to where so my like if you're measuring so I I I guess it's just like I've been like I've been thinking a lot about like uh like cryptographic entropy and this idea that you have these numbers that are exponentially scaling, right? And you know, you have one bit, then you have two bits, then you have you know four bits and eight bits, and it seems like oh that's not a lot of difference. It's exponential, yeah. Exponential is something that is humans don't have the ability to really call it. So the idea is that like almost measuring like creative genius by the uh potential of like bents bits of creative entropy. I call it effective because obviously you can just have like you know ideas that don't do anything, just completely random ideas, and you're it's not really it's not uh driving to anything.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So you know, effective creative entropy is like measuring creative whatever on uh like ability to find an original idea on how many um how much exponential entropy there like bits of entropy there is, and so like yeah, you know, if you measured like average human cap I don't know. Anyways, I'm not even gonna go down that radical, we'll talk about this a different time. Um but the idea being that when you're consuming all of this stuff, this you know, all of this, like oh I'm cons I'm in a what are they what do they call it? Like a bubble or echo chamber. Echo chamber, thank you. Um you you've limited your creative potential exponentially. Hey, like you've just limited it and it's it's gross. And you know, if if we want to create things that are interesting and that are good and that are gonna stand the test of time, we have to figure out like these machines that are uh limiting our creative potential in these like really obvious and small-minded ways. We have to figure out a way out of that. Or at least that's my thinking of it. And I don't know if that's right or wrong, but that's what I've done. Um, because I think I'm I think I make better stuff when I'm not. Yeah. Because you you're subconsciously influenced, even if you don't realize it, whether it's by the incentives, whether it's by the type of content, whether it's by what you think is interesting, because you've only been exposed to X, Y, and Z. It's like the three product thing that you and I used to always talk about, where you what is it, you always offer the medium because they're always gonna go to the large.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the the delusion of choice or uh and the ru the rule of extremes that if you have three options, you tend to avoid the the two extreme options and shoot for the middle.
SPEAKER_04And these make sense when you're working in like an economic system or an economic scale, because obviously you want to be able to predict behavior because that's more profitable. Being able to predict behavior is more profitable than not being able to predict behavior, anyways.
SPEAKER_02Well, so is the connection to effective um creative entropy, effective creative entropy, right? Yeah, yeah. As it relates to an algorithm and traditional social media algorithms, especially as it relates to YouTube, at least my experience of YouTube is you know, you watch a new video about something, like it's sort of a new topic from what you have in your current algorithmic layout. Yeah. Um, and the algorithm is gonna tunnel you into that topic deeper and deeper. And it's not gonna very it's not gonna, it's not gonna necessarily go, okay, this is interesting. You just watched a video about this, yeah. You're already watching videos about this. A month ago, you're watching videos about this.
SPEAKER_04How can we link all these together and maybe introduce you to a new topic that has nutritional value because it looks like I would I would say like even if it's pla if it's even to the point where it's playing with the algorithm, it's probably something that's already like a well trekked idea. Yeah, and that's not to say you come up with a new idea in that space, but it's just more difficult. Right. It's it's more interesting when you have, you know, rather than have 10,000 people and you know 10 ideas, it's I'd rather have 10,000 people and you know, 10,000 ideas. Yeah. I think you're gonna get it more interesting because yeah, you're already playing a numbers game. Right. I mean, it's creativity is not like this empirical thing, but um, you know, I do think, yeah, the the chances of anybody getting to something that's a novel, interesting idea are reduced. I don't think they're zero. Yeah. I just I mean, uh Audrey and I were talking last night, it's interesting. Like if you shuffle a deck of cards the right way, then like there's a pretty good chance that you're holding the only like that's the only time those cards have ever been in that order in the history of the universe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because there's so many permutations, you you can't even comprehend the number.
SPEAKER_04And so, you know, this every like it's a popular saying now where it's like there's nothing new under the sun. It's like, no, there is, yeah, like it's just shuffling the deck of cards, applying that metaphor to like a create yeah, creative endeavor.
SPEAKER_02But and your feeling is that if you break away from the monoculture, the algorithm, the algorithm, what social media serves up to you, that those possibilities are expanded significantly.
SPEAKER_04It's it's only true if you have 52 cards, right? If you if you have six cards, yeah, it's not what are like right, odds are you're not gonna get anywhere new. Yeah. Um, and yeah, so in social media, it's like you might feel like you have a bunch of cards, but in that world you really only have six cards. Like I again, the metaphor is stretching itself, but yeah, I mean, that's just and so that was that was the reasoning behind breaking away from the platforms and trying to break away from algorithms for me personally, was just creative selfishness.
SPEAKER_02Um well, and and I what I what I find interesting too is you know, you obviously have you know, I think all of us do, especially any of us who are making work, there's a desire to share that work, there's a desire to communicate with people who are interested in the work that we make and the the work that we're interested in together, community, all that stuff. Um, so to kind of break away from the traditional outlets for that, uh, which are you know, are seductive, you know. I had a YouTube channel, you had a YouTube channel, we could bond over YouTube, you know, how's your video doing? Well, are you happy with what you made? What kind of comments are you getting? You know, all that kind of stuff. It's very seductive to to want to join with all your friends and make content on the same platform, but something wasn't working for you uh with doing that. And you kind of, at least from my perspective, it felt like you were just sort of on this this sharing hold. Like you weren't really, it doesn't mean you weren't making work, writing, taking photographs, all that. But I, you know, and very selfishly, I sort of lost any ability to see what you were doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um what unless I asked you directly, and you're like, well, never sit down more. Yeah, because I, you know, again, selfishly, I really enjoyed your YouTube channel and the videos that you made, and I look forward to to new videos, um, and was sad when that era came to an end, but I felt like when you really started showing me what your ideas were for your website and showing me some of the early iterations, that the possibility of getting something from you um was renewed. Uh so I I I found I found it interesting that the website, and there's a lot of different reasons and have you elaborate on them, but at least to wrap up what we've talked about so far, we've got your perspective on social media and how that turned you away and you found a new place to focus uh the desire to share through the website. And we talked about um we talked about the the the the the reason of about owning your material and owning the distribution of your material. Um so I one thing I'm curious about is just is just sort of like how it all how a website the the a unique way to share your because you could have gone analog, you could have created a magazine or uh some kind of periodical or some other
Why A Website Beats Fragmentation
SPEAKER_02thing. Why a website?
SPEAKER_04Well, so I mean for you've you've explained some of the reasons, but everything can come from like I if I want a periodical, if I have a mailing list, here's a periodical, check it out. And it could be analog. We've already we've already talked about like I'm working right now on prototypes for newsletters, like not digital newsletter. I mean obviously have that, but like analog that stem from the work that's on the website. Um, you know, obviously photo books on the website. Like I want it's what I always wanted from YouTube or from Instagram. I want the digital experience to be great. Like I want it to respect the work, yeah, not respect like, oh, come here and what's the newest thing? And okay, I saw it, I'm moving on. I want some I want a platform that where you that you can visit and you can spend time with the work. Audrey and I did the Louvre tour and COVID when they were putting all that work artwork and like the we did that, and that was like a really influential, and it it's I mean it was completely mediocre.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like, but obviously they're just you know running by the seat of their pants trying to figure out a way to keep up some kind of whatever. Um, but we put on the projector and it was fun. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, I want I want to figure out like what when you take all of the bullshit incentives and just focus on like what the technology offers, what can a website do? But like the website was never the web was never supposed to be its own thing, like full stop. It was always a complement to the reality, right? And I think a good website is doing the same thing, like on all of the on like when I just added the margin feature, I'm working on it, and that'll probably be that'll definitely be live by the time this comes out. Um like every art or every piece of fiction, every piece of nonfiction, you can print. Like there's a print interface, print it out, read it, you know, get it on paper. Um, I want to do postcards, things like that. So it's really the website was just the core infrastructure, you know. It's okay, now this is a place where everything can go and people can pay, and then everything can stem from there. Hey, I'm having events at X, Y, and Z. You can read about it on the website, you can come meet me in person at you know the event. We still want to do the gallery. Like we talked about that today, or at least I do. Um, uh, you know, and I I think especially once you start getting all of your work together and everything, I think we're we're gonna be in a really good place, probably a better place than we were at the uh at the beginning of this year. Right. Um, like I want a physical space, I want community and things like that, but you know, we we do spend a lot of time separated and on the web is a great place to bring it. So it was why a website first instead of one of these other things, because it is the core piece of infrastructure that facilitates everything else, yep, in my mind. And it's and it's it's a it's a there's just such an opportunity, like we've been doing a really shitty job at like interfacing, like especially photography and I mean writing, you know, there's plenty of apps and things like that. Like you can get a decent writing experience on the web, and I just print most of my shit out, anyways. Um but yeah, I just I think there's opportunities.
SPEAKER_02Well, and there's something exciting to me about it being it's not fragmenting your digital whatever you want to call it, footprint, storefront, uh hub, whatever the word is for it, you know. Whereas, you know, whether it's conscious or not, for me, I'm like, well, how can you know, like I I did a couple podcast appearance, like, how do we get in touch with you? Well, if you want to know what I'm doing on a daily basis and just see like photos or videos of like just the random stuff that goes on today, join me on Instagram. But don't look at the feed, look at the story. Like you have to like tunnel people down to this one little place where this thing happens. Yeah. Uh and if you're interested in my writing, then go to medium.com and I have articles there.
SPEAKER_04Huge, huge part of it was like, do I want to do a substack? And then I can do like Instagram and do my photos there, and then I could do YouTube, and then I actually don't own anything. Right.
SPEAKER_02And and part of the allure of oh no, that went away too. Oh fuck. So you just have mine. We're out. Oh crap. We'll just run audio for the rest of it. Run audio for a few minutes. 50 minutes, anyways. Just put on your uh weather channel vaporwave stuff. No, like so so that was a big thing made by Alex.online. Yeah, just go there. And and everything that Alex wants you to see of what he's doing, sharing, making lives in that central place. Whereas again, for mine, Instagram for this one part of Instagram for this, medium for this, and then you do so bad where it's like, well, this is my channel, and this is my second channel, right?
SPEAKER_04Where I just do more personal stuff, right? And I'm not saying this, I mean you do it for real, but like all the creators did this. Yeah, like oh, I have four channels. This is the vlog channel, and this is the blog channel.
SPEAKER_02The reason is not because you know, the the your instinct would be, well, I'm just gonna put that stuff on my main channel because that's me. It's because the algorithm punishes you. Well, you will be punished if you uh which I felt happened with my live streams. Like, well, do I make a separate live stream channel? Do I do I post the live stream and then delete it? Because essentially, if YouTube sees that when people are done consuming a piece of your content, that they leave the platform, yeah, you are bad news for them. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And the whole idea behind the website is leave my fucking website. Yeah, like get on here, find something of value, get the fuck out. Go, do live your life. Like this is always gonna be here. Yeah, and like don't feel like, oh, I'm gonna miss this. Like, it's gonna be here. And if it's not, there's gonna be like an archival note of why why it was pulled, or like that's the idea.
Money Without Changing The Work
SPEAKER_02Now, is there any part of you with making a website? And obviously, this is you're not you're not leading with commerce, you're not leading with making this a way for you to earn a full-time living, or you know, all of that stuff. Although I'm sure there's some element that if that were to happen, yeah, that that's not necessarily a bad thing. But you I don't feel like you are being like part of your strategy is you know, the attract and extract model, the the positive version of that, if there is one, where it's look, I'm gonna just kind of riff on here and do my thing and post my work and share my photos, and I have some tools or mechanisms for uh, you know, there's a buy me a coffee link on there, for example. You know, there's there's some aspect of of commerce or money in there.
SPEAKER_04Please go, like, please go sign up for the buy me a coffee. Yeah, right. Like, you want to give me a buck a month, I'll take it. You want to give me five bucks a month, I'll take it. Like, and and the idea would definitely be, yeah, a thousand true fans, you have it supporting. Like, I don't need that much to live a great life, and that would finance me to do all of the work, right? But the work is always gonna be the work, yeah. Like, there's no like, oh, come here and expect this, and then I'm gonna switch on you. Right. Like, yeah, there might be a year where I'm like, oh, here's a bunch of short stories and essays, and then there's a year where I'm like, no, I'm literally just trying to focus on finishing this novel or this you know feature or whatever. Um but but I'm good, I'm gonna try to share all of that, but like the no, the idea is uh to remove that because with YouTube, it's like, oh well making this month. Like the the great thing about buying me a coffee is it's consistent. Like, and if some like don't support me if you're like, oh well, if you don't release a video, I'm gonna be like it. But if you really like my work, like you can buy prints, we're gonna do the newspaper thing, like the postcards are gonna be at cost, like the newspaper thing, probably gonna be at cost. You'll be adding new photo projects, it's just it like the website itself, and I told you this earlier, it's like it's more like a garden or a woodworking project, and it's just you pee, you pick a little bit, you plant, and you're but it's a long-term thing, and like, yeah, you know, if I could make a couple thousand dollars a month off of the website, great. Yeah, like I I'm not gonna sit here and be like, I don't want any money, but like that'll never like that's not gonna change the work that gets done. Like you the it is literally just a like a repository for my work. And I want the experience of being on there itself to be to have some kind of value, yeah. Um, but beyond that, like I mean, yeah, like you know, if if like if I ever am like, oh, I'm selling a t-shirt, you can damn sure believe it's because it's just something that I was like fucking around with and was like this is a something I wanted to try or do. Um I but yeah, I'm not yeah, I don't don't expect me to be putting like digital courses or something like that on there. Like it is what it is. I mean, I'm sure my interests will, you know, change and different things, and I'll write about different things and um whatever. But yeah. I mean, yeah, it's I just think of it as like a easy way to like have access to whatever I make, you know, for the next, you know, hopefully. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like 70 years, but when you think about the website too and adding to it, obviously you're gonna do it no matter what. Like because the website in itself is a pro is a is work. It's the work. It is it is work. It's a it's a it's a project, uh a work of art, you could argue. Creative expression, uh, you know, not only creative expression and you sharing your writing and photography, but creative expression, the sense of you designing what you think is for you and for others like you that want to consume content or your work or a person's work, an artist's work in a specific way, your vision for sort of the most pure way of doing that, both for the artist and for the audience. Absolutely. And you're not only you're not only creating features on the website and putting work on the website that will have value to the people who visit it, but you're also designing it in a way where you're saying to yourself, if I went to a website to read somebody's work or watch their or look at their photos or watch a video or whatever it is, this is these are some things that would be exciting for me to see. So there's a lot of uh, you know, that not to sound corny, but sort of truth and purity to that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Uh it I want it to be an experience the same way that, and like we're gonna do like a bunch of different cool things, and they might not work. We're gonna try to make them work, but like you know, it talked about like like I want to do this thing where it's a curated gallery on the home page, and you know, somebody comes in and they curate five photos of mine, or maybe they bring their own photos, and it's just but that's like what the home page shows, and it's only on display for a certain period of time, and I want the why did you sort the photos in this way? I like the idea of doing it with my photos, um, right now at least, because I'm like it gives me the opportunity to see my work through other people's eyes, which is one of the most interesting things about sharing work. Yeah. So, like if you came in, I like you'd go through and you could pick five photos, and you know, I don't know what this looks like down the road. Maybe it's a piece of music or something, and you would curate them in a very specific way, and then you'd write like what you saw, why did you curate them that way? And maybe it's you know, I I don't know why, but just you're seeing, and then there's only one person that gets displayed at a time. It's a two-week, you know, why did my brain work this way? Like you were going to a Jocelyn exhibit, and then we're gonna archive it, and you know, every I'd love to do it where every two weeks there's a new person that curates it, um, or maybe every month or whatever. And then, yeah, in 10 years, how cool is that where you can go back and look at one, all of these photos that you know, hopefully I'm taking more photos, and yeah, and just yeah, see it through different people's eyes.
SPEAKER_02Um the marginalia, um, same idea, um, contact sheets, like just different little things, a digital photo book and a digital we talked about that digital photo albums and things like that, and then doing something where the consumption of your photos can be emulate, like if you are watching a slideshow, a traditional Kodak slide projector show in someone's living room, yeah, uh, that that that there would be elements that would emulate that experience rather than you know, which is still a uh you know, to me a nice way to go through somebody's photos, but a traditional sort of black out the sides, yeah, click on a a thing or hit a button under your keyboard.
SPEAKER_04Even though it's like very it like took a lot of work, emotional iteration, well designed, yeah. But yeah, no, definitely. I mean, I just and some of it might just be like I'm like, oh, this is a really good idea, and then execute it, and it's like, oh, it's sure kind of clunky or whatever. Yeah, like I'm trying to make sure the experience is good, yeah. Um, and I mean there's only so much you can do, right? But I do just think like the experience of viewing people's work online is so shitty for something that so many people rely on. Like, I mean, I can buy like William Eggleston's book or something, but my first experience with most photographers is seeing their work online. Can we not make the experience a little more like I was walking into a gallery for the first time or something? Or I mean, yeah, I don't
Growth Without SEO Or Ads
SPEAKER_04know.
SPEAKER_02So when it comes to growth or discovery or the thousand true fans you referenced, from my perspective, I haven't heard you talk about things like SEO or marketing, or you know, that you've mentioned the word funnels, but I not in the context of like, all right, well, I'm back on Instagram and YouTube. Uh you did prom, you know, you did um uh not promote, but you did uh share that your website was live and that was for the people that follow you there and those places that they could check it out. Um, but you're not necessarily have have some like specific strategy for growth. It essentially will be you contributing to the website, and obviously if you have interactions with someone in person or you talk on a podcast, like there's gonna be references, but there would essentially be more true organic growth, word of mouth.
SPEAKER_04And I'll probably, yeah, word of mouth, obviously, like giving people yeah cards or whatever we decide on. Um, YouTube. I mean, so I host I'm hosting all my videos on YouTube. I'm not, you know, I don't hate myself, I'm not gonna host all of these videos myself, and yeah, yeah, yeah. I it's just YouTube was originally created to just literally host videos for people's websites and it still does it very well, yeah. Um, and you can do it private or unlisted on you can uh you know, unless it becomes a problem, I'm just gonna list them. Yeah, because if a video gets 10,000 views on YouTube, likelihood is that's gonna drive a little bit of traffic to the website. Yep. Um, I'm not gonna chase that. Yeah, and they're gonna be very much like that one was. The audio is gonna be a little better, I promise. You know, definitely gonna learn.
SPEAKER_02I watched it on my TV and sounded fine. It sounded fine knowing that it wasn't highly treated, but it yeah, it was not a problem.
SPEAKER_04And I'll I mean I'll I'll clean up you know a couple of those things and they'll be a little more consistent.
SPEAKER_02Um just do it with a flip camera though. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, um but I mean, yeah, it's not gonna be anything super crazy. Uh Instagram, it's just too shitty. I just I just don't like getting on there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I might do like I don't know, like if I'm not offering anything, if I'm just getting on there and plugging my website every week, what's it gonna do? Right. So I don't know. Maybe there's a world where I post, I just don't like posting my photos on there too, because they're training with all this AI. The website is AI blocked as you can get. Yeah. Um, there's a little bit of indexing where I allow, but I mean it's I pretty much blocked like any models from training on the website.
SPEAKER_02And he did extensive work to strip his photos of metadata that talked about location tagging or facial recognition or anything like that. So trying like trying to eliminate that kind of like um trying to maintain a level of privacy, but then also that your website isn't serving up material.
SPEAKER_04Um yeah. Well, and like I'm hosting my fonts, so like Google doesn't get a ping every time somebody accesses and sees one of my fonts.
SPEAKER_02And like Yeah, see, and most people don't even know that that happens.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and like I'm not on Google Analytics, obviously, and like there's certain blockers in place to um like the thing is, and and that's not like a paranoia thing, it's just a fuck you, you didn't give me anything. Like, like uh it's a bit of a rebellious, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think it's also this is my information, this is my stuff. You don't get to just take it.
SPEAKER_04And I I definitely want to make sure that it it remains um, yeah. I mean, I'm nothing is SEO optimized, right? And I'm not gonna do it. Like, who's who's discovering my website from SEO? Like, hopefully you can find the website, you know. Maybe there's a a world where if like I don't know, I something was successful or something, and I was like, oh, people are searching Alex, you know, Alex Carter website or something, you make sure it can find that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh, but I mean it it probably you probably can anyways. And like it's made by Alex.online. Like you you can find me through one of my two channels and find that website, right? Um so I mean, yeah, I'm not really I just SEO is mostly just bots and like bullshit at this point. So fuck that. I don't yeah, and you know you get marketers that are hearing that, they're like, well, we gotta do paid ads and da da da. And it's like, for what? Inorgan like traffic that doesn't give a shit about you? Yeah, like so I can create some fake following so people can be impressed. It's like, no, I if I want people who are like, oh, I like your work, I want to buy your prints, I wanna ex I want to read your writing, I want to watch your films, I want to listen to the podcast, like and if you know, not not just because like just because it's interesting, because like you find something interesting in it. The same way that anybody who I follow, like there's plenty of people who I like if they release a film or if they release a book or if they release a you know album or a stand-up special or whatever, I'm like following them actively, and I'm completely unplugged and I still f can follow them, and I'm excited. Yeah, I want that experience for the people who appreciate my work, and you know, that's all I'm chasing.
Bookmarks, Notifications, And Closing Asks
SPEAKER_02Is there a way to um have your website do a push notification that's not an email? You know, like if you post a new story or anything, I'm not saying that you would want it to do that, but to where like I would get like a like a so I am I am gonna build like a web app for it, which is essentially uh it's just like almost like the add to home screen.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, um, I think I'll probably do that, and there might be a way to do push notifications. I don't know. That's one of the biggest challenges is like learning how how do I because obviously, like, and you and I talked about it this morning, it's like bookmark it. Right. I used to have all my websites bookmarked. Yeah, you scroll through, you're literally surfing the web. You're just like, oh, here's the 10 sites. I'm gonna get online for like a couple hours this afternoon, go through my 10 sites, and every one of them has something different. So, you know, the I the hope would be you can retrain people to kind of get to that. Yeah, I don't know if that's real, I don't know if that's a reality or not.
SPEAKER_02Um I think it's tough on mobile. Yeah, I think it's a more feasible on desktop. It's obviously almost not possible at all on TV, which is how I actually would like to interact with your website, even though that I might find that I prefer it on web, uh non-mobile.
SPEAKER_04Um that's the other thing. Like I'm I'm I'm making a big and it mobile works, like mobile's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But people don't often pull up uh their w a web browser on their phone for well it's the same reason Scorsese's like don't watch my movies on yeah, I mean I don't know if he said that, but you know, but it's like don't watch a Scorsese movie on mobile or something. It's like you can, but yeah, yeah, pull this up on a computer. Yeah, I mean I I I most people have computers, I think. Um, and maybe I'm wrong. Um yeah, I don't know. Um I mean at least get like an iPad or something. Like I don't I don't I don't know. Um that we fragmented how we view the web and that's like a challenge, but at the same time, um like Instagram doesn't work on the computer as well as it works on mobile, yeah. Um, you know, I'm sure lots of people scroll through like Facebook and uh on on the computer and so I don't know. I I I don't I'm not too worried about that right now. Um I just want yeah, the biggest thing you can do if you really want to support is just go sign up for the mailing list.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well and leave a comment like on the guest book. Sign the guest book. Um you know, it's yeah, sign up for the mailing list. Buy me a coffee if you want, but like you know, uh you don't expect that, and you know, yeah. Um yeah, I just I think it's cool.
SPEAKER_02I do too. Um, I wanted to ask you to I know we have getting to the end here. But 18 minutes, no cameras, so that's gonna be intense. That'll be interesting. I think I think most people on YouTube are listening anyway, so yeah. Uh leave yeah, le uh leave me a comment. Just I'm curious. Uh, if you don't give a shit that the camera's cut out and you're just listening to this on YouTube, anyways. But I was curious how having the website now, even though if you make a video like you used to, and it's hosted on YouTube, has the formation of the website, and it really being, I mean, it's launched, it's ready to go, people can view it. You have a few you have a few videos linked, I think three now. I've videos including your most recent one.
SPEAKER_04I have I think two short stories, I have like a tweet section, quote unquote.
SPEAKER_02Did creating the website um recreate an a desire or an interest or a utility to making videos again? Like obviously, you're not my impression is that you're not back to consistent video creation that you're going to be talking about cameras or profiling a street photographer or talking about.
SPEAKER_04I don't know if any of that will happen just because like and it might uh I mean I'm very much approaching it from like the we talked about a couple of years ago, like the YTPC where they'll just get on and like rant about some sh- not rant, but like just go on about some shit. And that's kind of what the podcast is. Um but I mean, yeah, I think it'll be more that it'll just be me talking to a camera. Here's a couple of ideas.
SPEAKER_00It had been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summaries.
