Day 14: Digital fire (Pomona to Las Vegas)

Yesterday while driving to Vegas I listened to a podcast on the mechanics of social media addiction.

We're fucked.

Part of why we keep reaching for our phones is because of the randomness the engineers have sprinkled in. They'll boost our reach on certain posts and not others to keep us hooked on the promise that our next post could be the one that blows up.

It's hard not to chase those flames.

The quick reward that this engagement creates is a direct hit of sugar to our pre-historic brains, and these companies are handing out free cotton candy. We are all basing the value of our art by the quantity of fire emojis we receive.

That's twice now that man has discovered fire.

I'm living out the real life version of this right now. This tour has been amazing in many ways, but as the first of four bands, the quality of the reaction we receive, and of our sales, depends on how many people show up early to see us play.

Last night for example, the room filled up after we performed. The crowd trickling in was lukewarm, and it turned out to be our worst merch night. But two nights ago, with the same schedule, we had our biggest crowd and proportional results. We can only control our part of this lottery; what we do on stage.

That's our version of the algorithm .

So why go through all the trouble? Why drive thousands of miles to roll the dice instead of just staying digital; load up the zeros and ones and let the al-god-rithmn call the play?

It's tempting.

According to the expert I was listening to, the dopamine we receive from social media engagement is the equivalent of fast food. Empty calories. The dopamine we receive from doing a difficult thing and seeing it through, changes our brains for the better. It builds character: I am a person that creates and accomplishes.

Humanity has been based on the latter one.

Everyday I take a moment to feed content into the slot machine and everyday I tell myself how silly it is. It's ok to play the game, I suppose, good things can definitely come from it. But what's not wise is to base the merit of our art and our message on the amount of comments we receive. That's cheap.

The value we create and receive can only be measured in claps, not clicks.