Imagine an Oasis of art in a vast desert of ‘content’.
Imagine a place without likes and metrics where everybody talks about literature, culture, art, movies, real life away from screens and click bait.
Imagine a place where people have a laugh AND are able to thrive in their own creative work.
Imagine a place that offers support rather than snark, hard won advice on the craft rather than second hand platitudes. Humanity rather than false fellowship for engagement.
Just imagine.
The Crumbling Old Empire
Social media is the single biggest distraction facing creators today.
I speak from bitter experience.
You sign up with pure intentions- to share and collaborate and meet like-minded people. To have fun and showcase your work and to improve in your craft.
But it doesn’t turn out that way.
What happens is you either get ignored and become discouraged or even worse you become successful and along the way you not only become addicted to the platform but the quality of your work massively diminishes.
You develop content-brain as each day you spend you peak creative energy feeding the algorithm the bite sized chunks of easily digestible nonsense that it craves.
You degenerate from essays and paragraphs down to fortune cookies and quotations.
Rather than actually writing you merely write about writing. You become a commentator rather than a practitioner.
This is why there are seemingly no great new voices emerging in the written or visual arts. The environment doesn’t allow for it. The conditions aren’t there on these platforms for artists to thrive.
We have all been seduced by them into making a terrible bargain.
Every one of us have sold our time, our energy, our creativity to these platforms, just for the possibility of gaining some online clout.
I fell for this too. I wasted untold hours on this nonsense.
But I’ve had enough. And so I’ve decided to do something about it.
The Revolution Will Not Be Centralised
For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be a writer. I spent my teens and twenties entirely offline, working day jobs, living life, work on my writing skills in the hours I could snatch away.
I honed my skills in true autodidact style.
But words without eyes to read them are pointless. So I chose to play the online game. And I was good at it, given the years of private practice I had put into honing my prose skills.
I grew a twitter account, I grew an email last. I became known as a writers writer in my little corner of the Internet.
But the frustration with the cultural environment was always there.
Silicon Valley clearly turns you into your own unpaid publicist. Centralised web2 has clearly reduced people’s attention spans, their ability to handle depth and nuance and thoughts that do not fit into some pre-delineated ideological camp.
People are siloed by algorithms. People are lonely. People are bored to death.
The problem is scale. The problem is centralisation.
See, all of the great art of the past was created by small groups. It was created in pubs and cafes and salons where artists would band together and conspire and collaborate on making the kind of art that they wanted to see in the world. Not on merely copying what was already popular in the mainstream.
This is what we need to bring back. We need online spaces that are exclusive, that are limited in number, that are designed to attract people who can bring the New World beyond the stale Monoculture into being.
Well, I have created such a place.
And this is your invitation to join us.
Our Paris is The Internet
I’ve decide to build a way out for those of us who are tired of the distractions and want to actually create, collaborate and have some fun.
I’ve decide to create a space where we can talk with other people who are also tired of the metrics and the vapid way people act when under the influence of algorithms.
I have decided to open the doors to The Soaring Twenties Social Club.
This is a private, invite only Discord group, an online bohemian cafe for the new Lost Generation. An online pub where we can get feedback on our works in progress, where we can talk about great books, cinema, music and how we are all digging our way out of the rat race via our creativity and wit.
We can talk freely without algorithms, metrics or character counts.
It’s in a place like this that art and culture can thrive. It’s in a place like this that we can thrive.
That is, if we choose to participate in the New World and leave the old Monoculture with it’s fear-mongering and lazy and derivative art behind.
Entering The Soaring Twenties
In the Soaring Twenties Social Club there are
Poets
Designers
Programmers
Lawyers (but the good kind)
Marketers (but the good kind)
Business owners
Gamblers
Essayists
Musicians
Storytellers
Rat Race abandoners
Idlers
Bohemians
And every other kind of interesting, weird and unique type of character you would hope to find in a literary salon.
There are people from Britain, the US, Australia, and all over Europe. It’s always 5pm somewhere.
There are people who know how to create books, create websites, create visuals, create furniture, create apps, create mischief.
There’s one guy who really likes scythes.
The energy is transformative in there. My own recent increase in both the quantity and quality of my output is down to this group and their encouragement, feedback and expertise.
And you are invited to join us.
To maintain the vibe we have built over the year the numbers will be strictly capped at 300 members.
But- at the risk of using bullshit scarcity tactics- there are still some stools left at the bar. There are still some tables that are reserved if you want to join us and come and claim them.
Membership dues to join the greatest creative space on the Internet are $8/mo. That’s the cost of a beer a month, or maybe just a coffee if you have fancy taste and live in the nice part of town.
If you want to improve your craft this is the place for you.
If you want to radically reduce your time scrolling through nonsense online this is the place for you.
If you want to be a part of the Soaring Twenties optimistic artistic renaissance future this is the place for you.
And the cover charge is just $8/mo which will buy your author time enough to provide the members maximum value for money.
If you’ve read and enjoyed my work and want to both support me and more importantly do yourself a favour then this is the place for you.
The Soaring Twenties Social Club is flashing in red neon. You can hear the music and conversation coming from inside. You can hear the laughter and the banter.
The entrance is right here.
All you have to do is press the button to get in: