Summary

Instagram has just dropped an all-new algorithmic bombshell and IG expert Alexis Bushnell has broken up with the platform for at LEAST a month while they get their shit together (or not). So let’s chat all about it! Join me and Alexis as we talk about social media boundaries, online activism, and how to stop doomscrolling and absorbing the constant horrors of our modern age. 

Love Alexis? Me too. Find her all over the socials at Alexis Bushnell, and join her FREE Facebook group Acorn: a nourishing environment for small biz at this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1113646632168497

You can also listen to her podcast Social Media for Humans on all podcast platforms. Upcoming “WTF Do I Do with My Social Media Now” workshops are being held on the 19th and 28th of September 2022, so check out the Acorn group for the details as those become available!

Ready to dive in and join the Social Media for Humans Club at an incredible discount? Boom: https://socialmediaforhumans.club/

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PS. If you’re not on my mailing list, you are missing out on all the delightful chaos! Sign up at bit.ly/CaitNotes to get on the list. As always, thank you to Leave Nelson B for music and Jen Hearn for photography. DRINK WATER, LOVE YOU!!! 

Transcription

55 Doomscrolling

[00:00:00] Hello, my friends it’s Friday again, when you’re hearing this we’re recording on a Wednesday and, uh, today’s topic is how to stop doom scrolling, and, break free of social media addiction, and the chaos that it can bring. So, um, to help us with that, I am bringing on a friend of mine, Alexis. She is a social media guide and founder of Social Media for Humans, a movement changing the way social media works from the inside. She busts myths and provides an honest jargon free explanation of algorithms and strategy in order to help business owners and individuals use social media effectively, ethically, and in a way that is sustainable for both the human running the business and the planet.

Outside of trying to ruin Zuckerberg’s master plan, she enjoys walking, dog agility with TiLi, her Bichon Frise. We have to say it very French and my pinky is out, uh, and [00:01:00] playing chess. So hi, Alexis. Please please say hello and catch me up on anything we missed.

Hello, hello. I mean, I feel like the, the bio is kind of a misrepresentation of me at this point, cuz I just ditched Instagram, but uh,

that’s cool. I love it. Let’s let’s jump. Let’s jump right in. Tell us why you ditched Instagram. Why are you so mad at Instagram right now?

Okay. So rewind, rewind. When they first brought reels in, I was like, I hate reels. I hate like, I just hate short form content. I also don’t like stories. Doesn’t work well with my brain.

I don’t remember stuff. So Snapchat style stuff does not work for me. Um, and the short form video is just like, wow, it’s a lot of noise and flashy sound visual things. And I’m just like, wow, I cannot, this is not happening in my brain.

Um, but when they first brought them in, everybody was complaining. I was like, it’s fine. If you don’t engage with them, they show you fewer. Amazing. It’s all [00:02:00] good. We can just curate our Instagram experience to be reels free and happily mine was until until, uh, but yeah, they changed the algorithm and were like, you know, We don’t care what you personally want. We’re just gonna push reels at you.

And I literally couldn’t open the app without just being like, oh, I hate it. I hate it. Hate it, immediately closing it, which made my job quite difficult. Cause I manage social media for people.

Yeah. That’ll cause a conflict

For sure. So, over- we had a bank holiday weekend, which is like a three day weekend. For people who don’t have bank holidays.

we don’t call them bank holidays, really? Like, I guess we do. I don’t know. It’s a weird, it’s a weird UK U S thing. We just have like labor day, like the day that banks are closed. Like, but we don’t say like bank holiday. I imagine that you do you just like have [00:03:00] them on like, like a random Monday or something?

No, they’re on set days. They’re on set.

Okay.

Um, so there’s like an, this was the August– is it August? Yes. August bank holiday. Yeah.

Um, that’s so weird. Nothing happens here in August May we have Memorial day and it’s September, we have labor day. Um, you know, but like somebody has to like, die or something in order for us to get– in February, we get president’s day.

Yeah, we get like, I don’t know, six, six a year or something. It’s fine. Okay. Bank holiday discussion over. So you had a long weekend

yes. Had a long weekend. Um, I did, I had plans with people, so I was like, you know what? I am just gonna log out of Instagram. Like I can’t even delete the Instagram app because I have clients who I post on Instagram for.

So I couldn’t even get the like buzz of I’m gonna delete Instagram from my phone. No, can’t do it. Can’t do it. so I signed out of like my account and I was like, okay, I’m [00:04:00] done for the weekend. That’s it. And, uh, on the Tuesday I came back and was like, yeah, I need to not be on Instagram.

This is so much better for my brain. Um, so yeah, I decided I am gonna have at least September. Off Instagram and see A) if they revert the changes, I don’t think they will, but you know, we can, we can wait and see, um, and figure out what my business looks like without Instagram ’cause, uh, Kind of viewed as an Instagram expert and now I quit instagram.

Yeah. Yes. So you, you’re an Instagram expert, like we just had you in passion Pacers teaching us about engagement on Instagram and hashtags and everything. And now it’s like, well that, I don’t know if that still matters. [00:05:00] Who knows? I actually put, yeah, hashtags if they still matter” as my little like, hashtag separator in a caption, I said, “hashtags if they still matter.”

And then I put like, you know, my, my block of 30 hashtags or whatever, and someone actually commented and said like “hashtags if they still matter” made me giggle. And I’m like, yeah, because I don’t, I don’t know. Like I get all my Instagram knowledge from Alexis and Alexis is currently angry at Instagram.

And, and I don’t know, I don’t know what’s going

on.

Yeah.

So they, they killed hashtags as well, which really got my back up, cuz I, I love a hashtag.

Yeah.

And they were like, there was research that came out, I think HootSuite did it, that was like, if you post without hashtags, you get better reach and engagement now than if you use hashtags. And I was like, I hate my life.

That’s so frustrating. So, I mean, we are, we are gonna dive into the doom scrolling a little bit, but I also wanna talk about like, when you are [00:06:00] sort of existing as a business in an online space, right? So as a social media expert, first of all, you have to be so on it. Like, I, I can do content writing.

I like to do content writing for social media, but I don’t like keeping up with like the minutia of mm-hmm , you know, we use hashtags here. We want longer form content on here. We want shorter con like, you know, I know Twitter, I have a character limit. but you know, sometimes like a short caption on Instagram is doing really well.

And sometimes they’re like, no, Instagram should be a micro blog. Like you should give a lot of content in a caption. And I’m like, I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. So if I wanna write a blog, I write a blog. If I wanna post something on Instagram, I post it on Instagram. And , I am just kind of vibing and that seems to be working for me, but you being an Instagram expert, a social media expert, like you have to keep up with all these changing trends and that would be exhausting to me.

and I’m sure it is exhausting to you [00:07:00] because we talk a lot. We talk a lot about how exhausting your job is when we have worked together. I love, and I want to call out specifically, that you, as an Instagram expert, decided for your own need to quit Instagram, because it was no longer a safe and sustainable platform for you.

And so can we talk a little about like your self concept and if that caused like an existential crisis for you? how did that affect your self concept as an Instagram expert to be like, well, uh, I guess not.

That is a good question. And I, not entirely sure I have answer for you at the moment. That’s definitely. I definitely like, it was definitely the right decision and it didn’t it. I wanna say it didn’t massively impact my self concept.

To a degree, because [00:08:00] a lot of what I teach is like “you do you,” like figure out what works for you. Do that. Find solutions that work for you, not like just the algorithm or whatever. So it felt very much like, well, I am practicing what I preach. Yes. But there is definitely also a part of my brain that is like, your job is Instagram and you just quit Instagram. What are you doing?

Yeah, I bet. I love it for you though, because it really speaks to, I think neuro divergent business owners. So as a neuro divergent coach to neuro divergent creatives, And you as a neuro divergent social media expert to neuro divergent people who need to put stuff on social media, We as the experts give this beautiful permission to people to be like, “if it sucks, don’t do it.”

You don’t have to follow what other people’s social media advice or creativity advice or productivity advice is. You can make the one that [00:09:00] works for you. and then we also get the lovely smack on the ass of being like, I have to listen to myself now. so just kudos to you for making that decision and making it fast as well.

I wanna say like within a week of Instagram’s latest, whatever nonsense changes you were like, and I’m out. Congrats, you win. Mic drop. Catch on the flip side. Like I’m not doing this anymore and you just refuse to negotiate with terrorists about it. And I love that for you.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think you’re right.

Like, it, it is, it is so difficult sometimes to take your own advice. And I think, especially because I feel a responsibility to the people who I teach to know what is happening on Instagram. The reality of what is happening on Instagram is different to “the research says this, they have announced this, they’re saying that it works like this.”

they are not the same thing. And so there is [00:10:00] stuff you can only know if you are on the platform and you are actually using the platform and testing things and figuring it out. At the same time, I really felt like the way they changed it meant I couldn’t teach it ethically anymore.

Because a lot of what I am about is like, yes, the algorithms kind of want you to do these things, which are unfeasible for most people, which are sketchy as hell in a lot of ways. They benefit really not cool content. Um, and people who just push out shit.

Yeah.

And I am just, I’m not about that. I have always been like, let’s find solutions that mean you don’t have to do those things. You can run your business ethically. You can put content out there that you’re proud of, that works, that resonates with the people who you wanna work with and who you wanna reach. [00:11:00] And let’s figure out a way to do that alongside how the algorithm works. And now that there isn’t a way to do that.

You can’t do it without reels and reels are inherently in inaccessible because you can’t even reduce the amount you see. They are just boom, in your face all the time. And, uh, nothing you can do about it. so, yeah, it’s definitely, uh, bit of a mind fuck. Um, but yeah, it’s, uh, it’s weird.

Yeah. It is, it is like, you know, I go in every week and like, check my numbers, my followers, my reach, stuff like that. And I’m like, ah, am I talking to people? Are, I don’t know, are people signing up for my shit? Like that? That’s my metric of success. Right? Like I say, stuff that resonates with people.

I love when they comment. They’re like, ah, like I feel like the algorithm gave this to me cause I really needed to hear this today. And I’m like, [00:12:00] great, awesome. I am glad that this floated across this, the stream of the internet to you, like, that’s why I’m doing this. You clearly didn’t get here from a hashtag cause Instagram decided no hashtags, but like.

I just put stuff out and if it finds the right people, that’s great. But what I don’t wanna do is be like creating and creating and creating because time that I’m spending creating, just to like appease the Instagram gods, is time that I’m not spending like focusing on my clients, who are already here and in my circle and need me, like to provide for them the services they have connected with me for so yes, I’m I’m with you on social media is very chaotic. Um, but you’re focusing now on Facebook and LinkedIn. So I’m excited to see how those go, especially whatever you learn about LinkedIn. Cause I think that could really work for me. Um, especially if I don’t have to be making all this a fucking Instagram content.

[00:13:00] Yeah. See I wanna love LinkedIn. Okay. I love the, the connections I have on LinkedIn. Amazing chef kiss. Love them. The user interface on LinkedIn just makes me wanna cry, it is so slow. It’s ah, it’s just a mess. And it makes it really difficult to use the platform. I will hit like on something and scroll, cuz I’ve got nothing to really add to it as a comment and I’ll scroll and I’ll find something else.

I’ll be like, oh, I’m gonna leave a comment here. And as I start leaving a comment there, it loads all the comments from the previous thing that I liked and the entire page moves and I have no idea what’s happening and I’m like, it’s 2022, uh, feel, feel like, maybe…

speed it up, y’all.

Like taking 30 plus seconds to load this might be an issue you want to look into. Yeah. I mean, on the [00:14:00] plus side, definitely not gonna get doom scrolling on LinkedIn. Cause, uh,

no, I don’t think

that is work

that is not where the kids go to doom scroll.

but yeah, like speaking of Facebook, I think. Facebook is where a lot of people get news. Um, like I get a lot of sort of breaking news on Twitter and Facebook.

I don’t really get news on Instagram. Instagram is more for like pretty content. Yay pictures. Um, so because you have broken up with Instagram for at least 30 days, let’s not talk about her. let’s, let’s talk about Facebook and doom and the burning of the world and the that…

Like we go on these, on this nice little platform that used to be about poking and farming and, uh, putting, I used to have like an app on Facebook called pieces of flair, where I made like a little bulletin board with the little buttons on it. And I was like, I gotta switch out my flair. Like that… that was Facebook. I remember when this was all farmland, you know, [00:15:00] and now it’s,

I, I really miss when you could throw, they had like super poke and you could throw sheep at people. It was, it was a simpler time.

It was a simpler time. And now it’s full of ads and sponsored posts. And Ben Shapiro keeps showing up in my feed and like, I don’t want him, but the, the doom and the, like, to me, it’s like two sides because like, we wanna be informed. We want to show support for the causes that we care about. But it’s like if I shared every single post about causes that I care about, there would be no space for me to like, I don’t know, show you my cat.

And you know, we’re all on Facebook for cats too. So like, how do we manage, how do we balance the very real reality of like, needing to talk about important causes versus wanting to just have a safe place to like exist online and chat with your friends and like be silly. [00:16:00] Because then we get call outs and we get “you don’t, you don’t share the memes about abortion rights.”

And it’s like, Ugh, do I have to care publicly about everything? So let’s, that was a bunch of stuff that I just threw at you. Let’s get your feedback.

yeah, I feel you. And I will say I have kind of for probably the past year, maybe now I have been very much like, action over sharing shit on the internet. I happened to actually put up a post when, uh, Russia invaded Ukraine. And, um, I was like, here’s some things you can do. Here’s some ways you can help, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, and like also this is hard and awful. And why is there just endless stuff that we have to process?

and somebody “called me out” in quotes. Uh, cuz they were like, oh I bet you only do this [00:17:00] for when it’s like somewhere close to you. You don’t care about the wars going on elsewhere in the world. And I was like, literally I write to my MP on the regular. He is probably incredibly pissed off from hearing about all of the stuff I wanna complain to him about.

actually, I am complaining a lot in private ways. Everywhere. Um, and so I feel it, but I also think I know what I’m doing. Mm-hmm and sometimes I will post stuff online and I am also very conscious that the more I post, like, you need to know about this, you need to know about that. Here’s this meme, here’s this thing that you need to read about whatever.

It just kind of fuels the hopelessness of a lot of other people, because it’s this constant onslaught of information and bad things. So I tend to try now to share stuff that is [00:18:00] proactive. So rather than like, here’s this other awful thing that is happening in the world, to be like, you can spend 30 seconds to sign this petition to yell at the government about sewage in our water.

because it, it feels good to take action. Like it helps our brain to actually be like, okay, I’m actually doing something.

Yeah.

And we have kind of, we use social media to get that by constantly sharing all this stuff that’s going on in the world that is awful. And instead of actually doing something that is useful, that’s not to say that sharing information isn’t useful, but I feel like, especially if you are on social media, you know, that there is stuff happening.

Like most of us are pretty aware of what’s going on those suppose who aren’t aware are probably maybe willfully ignorant of things. Uh, and [00:19:00] they’re not listening anyway. So I kind of choose the, uh, action, like I say, real real action, cuz I can’t think of a better word at the moment, over it’s

tangible, like in real world action.

Yes.

Do stuff.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. because A) it actually makes a big impact, even if it’s only a like in a small area. And B) like, it stops to some degree, the spread of, well, the world is on fire. There’s nothing we can do about it. We might as well just sit in a hole and cry.

Yeah. yeah. The sitting in a hole and crying is the, the part that I really wanna speak to because it’s like, I do want to be informed about these things. And I do want to take action and like a lot of the action that I take is small and basic, and it’s signing [00:20:00] petitions and it’s donating, you know, a nominal amount to causes that I care about every month.

Like I have, um, I donate to my local rape crisis center because that’s important to me. I donate to, um, abortion funds because that’s important to me. I have some like budget set aside for like people in need, like direct funding. Um, that comes up in like a lot of groups I’m in, um, like every Wednesday, uh, group I’m in, they call it where the money resides Wednesday and it’s basically a reparations post it’s for, People of color to like post their needs and white people to fund those needs.

And I’m like, I can do that. Like, I can do that for 20 bucks a month. You know, I can buy half a tank of gas, cuz gas is expensive now. Or, you know, I can buy a pack of diapers. Um, like whatever that is. And I also, people tend to come to me for like, just spreading the word about their needs. So I’ll get like a DM and be like, can you please like, share that my car broke down?

And like I do door dash and I can’t make rent. Like I need to [00:21:00] fix the car. And so, um, you know, I can share people’s fundraisers like that. I can, I can do some things, but I try not to just be like, Hey, uh, here’s how the world sucks. Day number 2 million, uh, 400,072, you know, like I don’t, I don’t wanna be that, I wanna be a nice, bright, shiny spot on the internet, but I, I don’t want to ignore important causes. So like I do share, I share some memes, share some stuff.

but like, so I think that their pipes are finally fixed, but like, are you familiar with Flint, Michigan? Yeah, over in the UK, like, you know, about Flint, Michigan, because of all the memes, because of being like it’s been three years and Flint, Michigan still has dirty water.

Like cool. Now I know that. Are we yelling at someone about it? Like I can leave a really angry voicemail. What are we doing about it? Or are you just [00:22:00] telling me that it’s year four, that Flint has dirty water? Like, so balancing, just sort. Cool. Now I know that the world is a little bit worse and it just erodes me every day to learn that the world’s a little bit worse versus like click on this thing, vote for this guy.

Uh, send 10 bucks here. Like action is great. I love action. I can do action. Like if I’ve got 10 bucks, the cause has 10 bucks. But then then the problem is every cause needs 10 bucks. And I can’t afford to give 10 bucks to everything that matters all of the time. So then am I enough of an activist if I don’t give to every single thing, that’s when the sharing comes in and the, the blah, blah, blah.

Sort of amazing that we have let capitalism leak into our charitable activist stuff.

Right, right. It’s like, oh, if you’re not doing all of it, you’re not doing enough. [00:23:00] Like let’s hustle, let’s hustle this charity, let’s hustle the cause. Excuse me, you sneaky, sneaky. We don’t hustle in this family.

Yeah, it’s it’s is wild. It’s wild. And I think it comes back to like what you were saying when you were saying like, you donate to rape crisis because it’s important to you. And I think that’s what we need to remember is that there are different causes that are important to each of us. As a collective. We got everything covered.

Mm-hmm

like, we’re good. But we are allowed to have things that are specifically important to us, for whatever reason And it’s much, much better. We can have more impact if we focus on those things that are, that we know about, that we, we can do something about regularly than trying to be everything to everyone and making like very little impact anywhere.

Like I’m, I’m very much, I think a like go deep rather than go broad [00:24:00] person.

Yeah. Like grass. Sorry. I’m, I’m also very into soil health and climate change, right? so like, I’m gonna talk about lawns, like just grass, very shallow roots. it’s not sequestering carbon. It’s not, um, diverting like rain water, so you can get flooding also really susceptible to drought versus like native plants with very deep roots in the soil.

they’re more drought resistant cuz they can get water from deeper. they are native, so they’re not gonna like invasively spread. They help the native pollinators and they’re also sequestering more carbon. So like don’t be grass. Be be a really awesome native Bush with flowers. Like be supportive and go deep on a few causes versus trying to do a little bit of everything for every cause, because what all these causes need is people who care [00:25:00] deeply.

Yeah.

Oh, that was a great metaphor. I’m gonna put it on a reel.

You should do. It was beautiful.

Thank you. I make metaphors about plants. A lot.

Also, grass. Grass is a lot of work

It is! It’s a lot of work

No one wants to be grass.

You have to mow it all the time. And that’s that’s doom scrolling. Doom scrolling is like mowing the lawn of social media.

Mm-hmm right. Let’s see what shallow things I can just be upset about vaguely. But I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to care deeply about every single cause. Like, even if I do, like, I care, I care, but I cannot put deep action into every cause that I care about. I wanna rephrase that. You can care. Like we’re empathetic people.

We want the world to be better, but like I’m not a union organizer. I don’t know shit about that. [00:26:00] You tell me how to support a union being organized and like, I’m there. Like whether I have to go to the Starbucks and tell them they’re doing a good job, or whether I have to stay away from the Starbucks, I will do whichever one is correct.

but like, I can’t walk into a Starbucks and be like, y’all wanna unionize? Cause that’s not me. That’s not my deep roots.

Yeah.

I love it. I’ve I’ve created a new metaphor for myself. I’m very here for it. um, let’s also talk about curating the, the social media experience because I get a lot of unfollowing guilt.

Like if I’m like, you talk too much about shit, that just, just feels like downer all the time. I need to like snooze you for 30 days and like take a little break. Um, I do it a lot when people are like on a new diet and I’m like, we don’t do that here. So I gotta snooze you. Sorry. I love you. Bye. See you in a month, um, when you have chilled the fuck out and put the smoothies down [00:27:00] mm-hmm so.

Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about unfollowing and the guilt of that and like the block button. How do you personally curate, especially as a professional social media-er, like, how do you curate your personal and professional experience on the apps?

I am, uh, I I’m gonna blow your mind now. um, I do not see the newsfeed on Facebook at all. I only. I only use, desktop for like, I’m, I’m a dinosaur at this point. I love desktop. I hate mobile and I have a newsfeed eradicator for Facebook installed on my browser. I never see the newsfeed unless I go to someone’s profile. I have no idea what they’ve posted. I literally go on Facebook. I hit groups. I, I mooch through the groups. Even if I’m friends with you on Facebook, I do not see what [00:28:00] you are posting.

Oh my God.

Best thing I ever did

I didn’t know that was an option.

Yep. There is a, there is certainly a Chrome extension. I imagine it exists for other browsers too. It is called newsfeed eradicator. Amazing. Best invention ever.

What the fuck. That would cut down on the doom scrolling immediately. Cause what do I do when I go on Facebook?

I just scroll and just see people’s shit. I share it. I comment. I’m like, oh little Susie is so big. Look. First day of sixth grade. Like you can just not? That’s so weird because I do love seeing what my friends are doing, but so much of it is memes and posts and ads.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So your feed is just curated.

Yep. It really is. It doesn’t [00:29:00] exist. Yeah.

So you don’t know if you have people that are just posting constant chaos, you don’t even know,

not a clue.

That sounds so peaceful.

it really is. It is the best thing I did for my Facebook account ever.

Oh my God. Actually, a client of mine, um, recently made like a new profile and just added like a select few friends. And only joined, like the groups that she interacts with regularly. So like she’s in passion pacer, she’s in my run like hell toward happy group.

And she’s like, this is amazing. Like she just made herself a little bubble to exist and, and I was like, that sounds delicious. But like, I use this for work. Like I have to like reach other people, I guess maybe I don’t, maybe I can just go be a hermit on the internet.

You can turn it on and off. You know, you can set times like in your [00:30:00] calendar so you can be like, okay, I’m gonna look at the actual newsfeed on between three and four this day. And then just hop on, turn it off, have a doom scroll for an hour, then turn it back on again. But yeah. Wow. It’s a good time. There is also a, uh, an extension that hide the trending topics on Twitter. Cannot tell you how much that changed my life.

That’s so good because when I get on there and I see it’s JK Rowling, immediately, I’m like, what did she do? And I click it and you know what? I don’t care what she did because I know it’s bullshit.

Mm-hmm

like her latest thing. I’m just gonna tell you, I don’t know if you know yet she wrote like one of her new Robert Galbraith books, uh, about like a poor embattled author. Who is being canceled. And she says, it’s not about her.

This is my, my Mora [00:31:00] Moira, Moira rose voice. Oh, she got canceled and doesn’t understand why we’re making fun of her. Um, You bitch, like, why didn’t you just stay quiet? Like just write Harry Potter, which has… it doesn’t hold up to critique.

Mm-hmm

it’s got, it’s got bad vibes in it. JKR it’s got bad vibes. You’re making a whole bunch of millennials very sad every time you speak

mm-hmm

and she doesn’t care, cuz she’s got a butt ton of money. And a TERF army, but like, yeah, if I could like not see her name, that’d be, that’d be great. But that’s also how I find out the celebrities die. But I guess I could find that out on Facebook.

That’s true. That’s true. Yeah. I will say on Twitter, it’s more difficult because even though I have like the trending topics hidden, people still tweet about stuff just in my feed. [00:32:00] So I do still see like news and stuff, but there is so much less temptation to just go down that hashtag hole. Like here are every angry post about JK Rowling it.

I totally do that

— getting more and more infuriated.

My God, I do that like on Joe Biden’s posts. Right. Because, you know, I think maybe let’s eradicate all student debt. That’d be, that’d be tight. And I like retweeted somebody and hoooo, my like mentions because in the act of retweeting it, now anybody who’s commenting, it tags me in it. I don’t care. I don’t care about your argument about student loans. I was just here to dunk on Biden for one second, and be funny, and go away. Stop tagging me.

They’re not doing it on purpose. They’re just arguing on the internet. So I like didn’t use Twitter for a week while that died down.

You can, there is a mute conversation option now, which stops you getting notifications, but there is, it’s [00:33:00] not the most. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. I’ve seen people post that they’re like, well, I’m gonna mute this now because my mental health and I’m like, I’m proud of you. I’m proud of all these people on the internet I don’t know.

Yeah.

I love them.

yeah.

Okay. So yeah, you answered that fast. I was like, how do you curate your feed? And you’re like, it doesn’t exist.

Yeah. I have no feed. But I do think we need to sort of disconnect from this idea that being friends on Facebook is some like personal judgment on us and also the other people that we are friends with and like be okay with not being friends with people on Facebook.

Yep.

Like it is kind of wild to me, I think because I’ve, I’ve been pretty ruthless for most of my life on Facebook, to be fair, about just unfriending people. because I [00:34:00] don’t need that.

I really need to get better at that. I it’s like a six month process for me and I have to feel really bad and like journal about it three times before I unfriend someone like more recently, I’ve just been like, you know what?

This is not for me. Like, it’s nothing against you. I just don’t want your Facebook posts up in my shit. And so I must set you free.

Yeah, exactly. I think like from like a coaching perspective, is it not good to demonstrate boundaries so other people can learn, Hey, it’s okay for me to unfriend people when I don’t wanna see their shit in my feed.

It’s okay for me to not like this person, even though everybody else does

yeah. I’ve had that breakup. I’m like y’all are gonna find out , but it’s like even like taking a break from Instagram [00:35:00] itself, like you’re unfriending Instagram for a month, you know, like everybody else loves it. Everybody loves reels.

I will go down a reel hole myself. Just scroll ’em scroll, scroll, scroll. I find that a lot of the reels on Instagram are like people teaching you how to do reels on Instagram, which is interesting. They’re like this, grab this trending audio and put five pieces of text like this and kick, kick to the music.

And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t care when I do a reel, I’m like, look at my cat and I’ll just like zoom in and out on my cat. Like I’m not, I don’t think I’m Instagram’s target audience and maybe my target isn’t on Instagram. Like, I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe they’re not.

But I think a lot of the problem is that Instagram’s target audience is not on Instagram and has no intention of being on Instagram, but they’re determined to build a platform for those people when they don’t want it.

Yeah. So the people who actually are on Instagram, Instagram [00:36:00] don’t want, and the people Instagram want don’t want Instagram. Yeah. So, uh, like that’s gonna end well.

That’s just TikTok. You’re just trying to make it TikTok. Yeah. They’re and people who want TikTok are over on TikTok.

Yeah. But we can’t, we can’t let another social media platform do well. We have to have all of the people all of the time!

Capitalism needs to stop. Yeah. because you’re just making everything boring. You’re just making everything the same shade of beige. Stop it. Let tick TikTok be chaotic. Like let quit buying each other, like stop it. we’re at like a good place right now.

Social media’s hard. Yeah. It’s hard. Anyway. I think we have ADHD squirreled away from the topic at hand, which is great because we’re coming up on the end of our recording time. So, let’s tell the people how to find [00:37:00] you and especially about your, what the fuck do I do on social media now, workshops coming up because, um, you, this episode is coming out on the ninth.

So your September stuff, please, please tell us about it.

Okay. Um, yeah, I run the social media humans club and, uh, we are having sell it September through September. And I’m also rerunning, a workshop I did, uh, in August. I’m rerunning it three times so that I can cover all of the time zones, which is called, what the fuck do I do with my social media now, because that is a question I am getting asked a lot.

So basically, the workshop is literally you come and, uh, you tell me what you’re currently doing on social media and what is not working and what is working. And we figure out what the fuck you’re gonna do with your social media, or indeed without social media. Um, so it is very bespoke, uh, in a group setting, but, uh, it is bespoke.

So you can join [00:38:00] the social media for humans club. It is 30 pounds for a month. Uh, and you also get just tons of accountability calls. So you actually have to show up and do stuff, which can be hard, but it’s okay. Cuz we got you.

I love it. I love it. Uh, what are the workshop dates this month?

the 19th and the 28th. Um, the big biz ideas, brunch that is just a little social chit chat event where anybody can turn up and be like, oh my God, what do I do with my business at the moment? I have this business problem. And we just kind of throw that ideas about and figure out stuff for you. It’s very organized, as you can tell, uh,

I love it. We’re neurodivergent we need, we need space to like finger paint our thoughts, so, okay. I love it. So refresh with [00:39:00] the workshop dates. Those are 19th and the 28th, you said of September? Yes. Okay. Wonderful. And your social media for a humans club is 30 pounds, which is, I don’t know, I’m gonna call it like $35.

I I think so, uh, depending on the exchange rate

depending

on the exchange rate, it’s under 40 bucks a month. Um, so if you are a person listening, struggling with social media, especially a neuro divergent person, struggling with social media for your business, Alexis is your guide and expert, and just Sherpa up that mountain.

and she is also not telling you this, but I think is the best part, uh, running an amazing sale on an annual membership. So you can now get that for 250 pounds, which is about like 310 ish dollars. I wanna say it’s like 3 12 when I looked at it yesterday because I was tempted, um, [00:40:00] which is like 44% off regular price.

And that gets you this social media club for a year. And honestly, like as a person who exists in a lot of online coaching spaces and buys a lot of courses, that is, it’s basically free. Like , that’s such a good deal. So you should buy it. That’s that’s my testimonial. I have learned nine thousandy amazing things from Alexis in just the conversations that we have had and free trainings that I have received from her. Um, so it’s, it’s about time I pay her for something. So I’m probably gonna go, I’m at least gonna sign up for a month so I can, I can do one of these what the fuck do I do now workshops. So that’s my pitch for Alexis.

Well thank you, you’re so much better at doing this than I am.

It’s it’s because I have just gotten comfortable being uncomfortable and it’s much easier to like talk up somebody else’s thing than mine. [00:41:00] yeah, Alexis is rad and knows so much things and you’re just a really affirming person to work with.

Thank you.

Like, like we had a conversation, I’m just gonna tell the people what I learned from you about, like, I felt like Twitter was better for my writing and not like necessarily my coaching. And you were like, so just talk about writing on Twitter and it hadn’t occurred to me that that was a fucking option that like I could just do writing stuff on Twitter.

And I was like, what the fuck? I thought my strategy had to be all encompassing and really complicated. And you’re like, no, just do what you like to do. Blew my mind, blew my mind. That’s worth 30 quid.

Well, I certainly hope so.

Yeah. Yeah.

I hope so.

For sure.

And I, I am, I am definitely very affirming is a good word, but I, I tend to feel like solutions focused. I very like, okay. Tell me your problem. And I will find a [00:42:00] solution for it. You will, might take me a few days, but I will get there. Yeah, I guarantee it

I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay. All right. I know that it is, uh, a little bit later for you there probably like dinner time when it’s lunchtime for me. So I will set you free now. Um, but give us all your social handles except Instagram. Cause we’re not talking to her, but where can we find you on Facebook, Twitter? your podcast, like gimme all the things.

Uh, the podcast is, uh, social media for humans. You can find it on all good podcasting platforms. Um, I have a Facebook group, which is acorn a nourishing: ecosystem for small biz. Uh, so you can come and join that and get some free support over there. I am on Twitter as a Alexis Bushnell, and I am on LinkedIn as a Alexis Bushnell if anybody is out there and on LinkedIn. Hi.

Yeah, I’ll go find you. It’s weird. Cause I feel like my LinkedIn has to be like very polished and like professional. No, I need to just go be gay and chaotic there. Like I think I would kill on LinkedIn. [00:43:00]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

People need gay chaos. Okay. Mm-hmm um, I love you. Thank you for being here. You are a treasured human in my life and I’m so excited.

Thank you for having me.

Bye.

[Blooper]

um, And here is a bio of Alexis that was solid, uh, solid talking there.

My coffee hasn’t kicked in, but Hey, here’s Alexis .