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Am I limiting my potential by hating the idea of being on social media?
Posted by on September 27, 2025 at 1:23 pmThis is going to be a bit of a long post, and my goal with it is to spark a conversation and hear what everyone has to say on this. I am not sure if I'm looking for advice — I'm just trying to organize my thoughts.
This is something I've been thinking about for the last few days, specifically after I rewatched one of my favorite movies with my girlfriend. We watched Sweet Smell of Success, which is essentially a story about a super powerful man in 50s New York, all because he writes a newspaper column. It got me thinking that it's far easier nowadays with social media, and don't get me wrong, I don't have aspirations for power (especially politically), but an audience would make my dreams of creative projects far easier to market.
I am a professional writer. I don't write books (at least not yet), I write articles about travel, culture, books, and movies for a bunch of online magazines and have been doing it full-time for over three years now. My articles have appeared in some of the biggest magazines in the world, like Reader's Digest, Grammys, Thrillist, Islands, Hearing Things, Independent Book Review, and others. It was always my dream as a kid to be a professional writer, and I am grateful that I can make my living this way and travel full-time as I do it. And yes, I have been on the road for almost two years now, non-stop, and I have lived and traveled and adventured through more than ten countries; I lived in a small village in Vietnam, I drove a motorcycle through all of Laos, I camped through England and Wales, and now I'm shacked up in a little hilltop village in Italy.
On top of this, I play chess a lot, professionally, and I have played in some of the most prestigious competitions in my country and in other places, and I had an elo of 2150 at my peak (for those of you who know chess). I am also a photographer, since both my parents and my grandpa are as well, and my photographs were shown in a professional exhibition and gallery once. I am also a musician, and I love and breathe music. I played bass and guitar in a jazz-blues band, and I was the vocalist for a death metal band for two years (most people I meet are surprised by this until we hit up a karaoke bar and I whip out some Lamb of God). I am not trying to brag here, please don't get me wrong; I just love a lot of things, and I really invest time into my passions and hobbies, and I am happy about that.
Now, to what's been on my mind. I absolutely hate the state of social media nowadays; I consistently have long periods where I disable all my accounts and put down my phone (the longest was two years when I was a young university student — I am 26 now). That is not to say that there aren't good creators out there who make decent content, but the constant slop is overtaking everything else.
Am I limiting my potential by hating the idea of being on social media myself? I have a private Instagram account where I mostly share my photographs, but my audience is basically my family, my friends from back home, and strangers I met on the road. I have so many ideas for creative projects, all noted down and planned out in Notion, but I always get stuck in the marketing phase, and I think that if I were to grow a decent social media following, that part would become much easier. I want to share cool travel stories with people, stories that are genuine and that don't fit the narrative of travel creators, like when I kayaked through a jungle and met a man with a crossbow at the end who rolled me cigarettes in mangrove leaves; I want to share my music and my covers; I want to share my photographs; and I think my goal ultimately is to get my followers to be invested in my creative projects. The one I really want to do soon is to write exclusively through Substack and make a living that way, because if there are any professional writers here, you know how tied you are to editors' whims and wants, and how tiring that can be.
I have professional equipment already: a great camera, a good microphone, a good laptop for editing…everything I would need to get started. Also, I have done social media management for a bunch of magazines and creative projects, so it's not like I don't know how these platforms work. My only barrier right now is hating the idea of being out there. Ideally, I'd love to live in a world where social media is not a thing, but that's never going to happen, I'm starting to realize. Instagram is the new newspaper column that J. J. Hunsecker wrote in that 50s movie, and he'd think it incredibly dumb that I'm not seeing that.
What are your thoughts?
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1 Reply
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Honestly at this point it may be time to actually write a full book in a niche subject. I’ve been a chef for 20 years, and last year I put together a cookbook/small travel guide. The idea was I focus on regional dishes, paired with tour advice. It’s done shockingly well without any social media at all. If you’re already writing at a professional level and seemingly interested in publishing a book I’d say just do that. Let your publisher handle marketing, unless you want to self publish at which point that’s a whole new can of worms
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You are able to work without it but yes it can possibly open many other opportunities for you. So start small. Just post your articles on substack. You can also post videos as well as your photographs there. Long form media such as long from video and articles seem to be best suited for you. Also at some point filtering the people who really are wanting to be part of projects into your own site/tiered subscription platform. Also remember it can be anything you want it to be. If you can only post once a month do that. All this aside be willing to document your life. You don’t need to consume on social media to create. However you need to find ways that are sustainable to you to document your life/work/what you want to share.
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Your social media algorithm is what you make it, if you’re being fed ‘slop’ its because you’re consuming it.
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No. You are just aware of the emptiness of the networks
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Sadly, yes. You are limiting yourself. Social media is essentially a built out business card to spotlight your entire brand. By staying off socials completely, you GREATLY reduce your reach.
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I know photographers and creatives that have made it part of their brand that they are not on social media. Honestly, if you can do it and find it to be emotionally fulfilling, keep doing it! There might be more opportunities if you were on social media, but at what cost?
I would say that one exception might be Pinterest. It is really more of a search engine than a social media site, and you don’t have to consume and engage to find success there like you do elsewhere. It’s ideal for all the things you do, and can get eyes on your work that might not have found it otherwise. Just a suggestion!
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