I Am Quitting Short-form Altogether

The time has come. I am done making short form videos and done focusing on Instagram and social media in general.

I’ve been hip to the idea that short-form is poison for a long time. As a cReAtOr, we are told there is no other way, that we must make cOnTeNt and post it regularly. But my life has be ONLY the other way. So I am putting my money where my mouth is.

Instead of pouring my energy and creativity into a platform that serves everyone BUT the creator, I’m redirecting that energy into building out my website and other digital platforms that may pop up along the way.

I am going to run this like a business.
I am going to offer an immersive experience on my own terms, direct to consumer, with a clear payoff for myself, the artist.

And, when I am able, I am going to run ads that take people off platform and to my website, which I’m hoping will be engaging enough to convert into dollars in the form of one-time access payments or recurring subscriptions, because at the end of the day, I need to eat. I need to pay rent. And after that, the only thing I want to do at this point is pay other musicians to help me create my album trilogy, my magnum opus, that I have started writing as of this week.

Flip The Screen

Plus, our eyes see in landscape, so why do we scroll in portrait? If our world is viewed in a horizontal viewport, why are we watching it through the vertical viewport? I asked myself this question in TikTok’s infancy. I had just heard that widescreen was more natural than 4:3 because we visually perceive the world in a landscape format. That was a loud click in my head. The lights went on. I was not a fan of widescreen up until then, but then, right then, I understood. And only a few years later did vertical video come into play.

See Through Me

I cannot be conceived of in short form video. My essence cannot be portrayed in a 20, 30 or even 60 second clip. I’ve been trying to fit my multidimensional being into not only a box, but a box the size and shape of a deck of cards. I am an entire factory of cards. I build houses of cards when I breathe in and build worlds when I breathe out.

It has become futile to fit myself into this box. The funny thing is that others can do it, others have done it, and I so wish I could, but for some divine reason, I just can’t. I can’t put the pieces together to appease the short form platforms and viewers in a way that is beneficial to me and provides a return on my investments of time, money and creativity.

I have no control of what happens to my energy; my being, my essence, when I put it into the machine. I said in 2014 that “I’m not gonna be part of the machine,” but if I am being honest, short form is part of the machine. So what kind of hypocrite am I?

My short form videos don’t click because I don’t know what the average viewer wants. I am not aligned to the middle of the bell curve. I am aligned somewhere off the charts. I am not here to appease–I am here to uproot and uplift, to challenge and provoke; actions not associated with music or media these days, which contributes to my inability to break through the noise.

I am a multidimensional being (like many of us) and I am tired of stuffing myself into the 3D suit, let alone the density and dogma of short form video in general.

Not The Moment, but Part of It

Just today I saw a video of a 20-somethings saying that she was part of the first generation that was going to remember moments of other’s lives more than moments of their own lives. Another load click in my head. How true. I don’t want to be a fake, virtual moment in someone else’s life. I want to share a moment (at a live show) or contribute to the making of a moment in their own life (listening to a record or music video) and that. is. it. (when it comes to music.)

I also don’t want to put more than one official, professional visual to one song. Adding so many visuals to a chorus absolutely dilutes it into bland-land and makes the listening experience moot. It truly does. It makes it impossible for the listener to create their own world around the song. My mother would always say that she disliked watching music videos (in the 90s) because she ran the risk of permanently altering the positive attachment she has with a song due to her natural pattern of creating and associating with it her own images and stories, free from a dictated narrative by the artist or label.

The Viral Go Viral-er

Many platforms have become a place where the rich get richer, in a sense. (Remember, here, that I am talking from a perspective of pure artistic vision, not commercialization or commoditization, or a desire to alter my product or appearance to appeal to a monetized audience.)

The wealth gap grows, and so does the “influencer” gap. Those with millions get more millions.

Those with none or hundreds or thousands grow inch by inch, instead of mile by mile like those with millions do. (But they don’t even need to grow, they already have the ability to not only reach these people on apps, but can culturally convince people to throw money at them.)

In the end…

At the end of the day, this decision is for my own well being and to make a statement that I know I am being abused and frankly screaming into a void, and I won’t tolerate it any longer.

This is different from leaving Spotify, (which is also abusive, but I am not yet ready to remove my music,) because music is all I ever wanted to create. I did not dream of creating short form content to compete with brain rot when I was a kid. I dreamt of creating music and shows that move the masses, and short form does not move the masses, it immobilizes them.

When I pour my essence into an idea and spend time and money to bring it to life, and get nothing from it, it is crushing. And the notion that we as artists need to be crushed and crushed and crushed to make it is bullshit. It’s outdated rhetoric. It is the system conditioning us.

We do not need to endure this any longer.
We do not need to be starving artists.
We do not need to put on a show for the peanut gallery and the platforms.

I say no. I say the buck stops here. I will not use my ability to tap into consciousness and pull out high wisdom only for it to be turned into fodder for the rabid and sleepy doom scrollers to consume, which turns into money for the platforms. These platforms are not where my audience is, nor where I belong.

The platforms have syphoned enough of my energy and compensation.
The gawkers have gotten their free entertainment for long enough.
And the real fans, you know where to find me.