A living hall of story and craft
Back to the Ground: Leaving the Creator Economy The Vegas Strip of Socials When I finally stepped back toward art as a career, I did what everyone said you’re supposed to do: I walked straight onto the neon promenade of the platforms. It was all there — the carnival barkers with growth hacks, the slot … Read more
Escaping the Creator Economy and Breathing Again My feed felt like a mall food court during a fire drill — everyone juggling trays, alarms, ring lights, and a brand voice, while even the cows have adopted Gen Z cadence and a serotonin-deprived wink (and it must be said: this is not an indictment on Gen … Read more
How influencer culture turned honest labor into performance — and why I refuse to play along. I make things and I sell them. That’s it. This isn’t content; it’s work. Bookmark it if you want to find it again. Subscribe if your bookmarks look as chaotic as mine. The Uneasy Divide I make things. I … Read more
I do not want to turn suffering into an icon. I do not want to polish it, frame it, and pretend it ever did me favors. What happened to me was ugly—bloody, raw, body-level harm with the kind of psychic splatter that reaches years into the future. Still, I keep circling the same threshold: my … Read more
Rethinking the transactional expectations we’ve built around creativity The Smile Policy I spent fourteen years behind counters, headsets, and glowing screens where the smile policy was as binding as the dress code. You learn the choreography early: the greeting that catches before it lands, the apology you deliver whether or not anything is your fault, … Read more
Every brochure swears there’s help if you need it. Every workplace poster smiles beside a hotline. Every government site has a dropdown labeled Emergency Supports. The language is clean, confidence-colored. Words like accessible, inclusive, no wrong door. If you believed the posters, you’d think the country was a long, soft net strung beneath the high wire of ordinary life. … Read more
He said it with the offhand confidence of someone who has never had to ask permission to take up space. “You’re where you belong — making my coffee.” The sentence slid across the counter like a coin: tossed without thought, bright enough to catch the light, already sticky with fingerprints. I smiled. I handed over the cup. … Read more
Somewhere along the way, “independent artist” stopped meaning free.Now it often means burned out, underpaid, over-algorithmed, and expected to stay grateful for the scraps. We’ve been told that “community” will save us — as long as we perform enough, post enough, and smile enough. That success is a popularity contest, and silence is a flaw. … Read more
Every independent creator eventually hits the same uncomfortable wall: you run the numbers, set a price that actually covers your time, your materials, and your sanity—and then immediately feel guilty about it. Because we’ve all absorbed the same cultural poison: the idea that art should be cheap, that passion is its own payment, and that … Read more
Why everything feels like an emergency when nothing really is If you’ve ever worked in a café, retail store, nonprofit, or corporate office — or even just spent too much time online — you’ve probably noticed it: that creeping sense that every minor hiccup is a crisis. Someone’s five minutes late? Catastrophe. A shipment’s delayed? … Read more