Something about maintaining human connection on the internet feels so precarious right now; between everything becoming SEO-farmed/hashtag-optimized #content and all the various social media platforms fracturing, it’s getting really hard to just make my own little posts and look at other people’s little posts without having to wade through a morass of bots, bullies, and bad feelings. I spend way too much mental and emotional energy these days yearning for the imperfect but far less toxic era of early 2010s blog culture, even though I know in my heart of hearts that those years are behind us.
Anyway, I am fully aware that most of my audience solely follows me on Twitter, which at this point in time is a severe bummer of a platform to be on. I don’t plan to fully quit the platform or deactivate my account (both because I want to keep my username and because I know my tweets serve as a publicly available resource for some people) but I’ve found that I’m way less active on it these days because it simply does not feel good to be there. I’ll still post sporadically and make whatever important announcements I have on Twitter, but as of now I don’t hang out on it scrolling and participating in conversations anymore.
If you are so inclined to follow me on other platforms, here’s where I’m active these days. Quick note that I am not a cross-poster. It’s not out of principle or anything; I just do not have the energy to repost the same thing across platforms. I know people who do and I admire them for it, but that is simply not me. I genuinely post different stuff on all these platforms, so please do not assume that if you follow me on one thing that you’ll see the stuff I post elsewhere.
Bluesky: @doodlyroses.bsky.social
Since this is the most Twitter-like platform, it’s been the easiest one for me to jump to and dump my random practicing thoughts. If you liked the format of Sharon-on-Twitter the most, this is the closest thing I have to a one-to-one replication.
Newsletter: At the Other Keyboard Substack: doodlyroses.substack.com
This is where I pour most of my posting energy; every Friday I send out a little newsletter that’s a combination of updates on projects I’m working on, musings (both music and non-music related), interesting books/articles I recommend, music or videos to enjoy, playlists I make, etc. It’s a little weekly labor of love and this is what I recommend if you liked keeping up with Sharon as a Person.
Update as of 2024: I moved my weekly newsletter away from Substack because of the N*zi problem, so it is now hosted on Buttondown here. I have also made my newsletter available to all subscribers regardless of whether you pay or not; the newsletter is my primary source of funding for recording, though, so if you have the budget and inclination, please consider chipping in a little!
It’s a long-ish story but when I moved my Patreon activity over to Substack, I created paid tiers so my lovely supporters could continue contributing to what is essentially my recording studio fund. If you genuinely want to keep up with me but really do not have the budget or inclination to pay $5/month, let me know and I’ll be happy to comp you the weekly newsletter subscription. (I would much rather comp you than have you sign up for free trials and cancel them, which some people have been doing—I do my own business accounting and have to log the refunds when you do this, so please save me the trouble and just ask for a comp.)
Instagram (Stories): @doodlyroses
You get a totally different flavor of Sharon posts on Instagram, largely because it’s mostly where I post stuff for my IRL friends. I do tend to treat Instagram Stories as Twitter-without-the-character-limit; I am embarrassingly prone to just posting large blocks of text over whatever random quotidian photo I have snapped, so if you liked getting my long-ish trains of thoughts on Twitter, you’ll probably enjoy my Instagram.
Places where I digitally exist but am not active
Facebook: Sharon Su, Pianist // I never post here and frankly forget this page exists.
Tiktok: @doodlyroses // I signed up just to reserve my username; I still haven’t done anything with it.
Threads: @doodlyroses // Ditto.
Mastodon: @doodlyroses@space-pirates.com // I pretty much never post on Mastodon anymore.
Here // who knows, maybe I’ll bring blogging back.
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