I listen to Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO and he often mentions how he cultivated his brand and practiced his algorithm harnessing skills by putting up a daily post on Twitter, way back in the day. This helped him in a number of ways. First, he was forced to sit down, come up with a spicy or catch 140 characters, and then put it out there. This created discipline, made him face fear, overcome perfectionism, and also allowed him to experiment with what works the best for gaining (or losing) an audience.
This reminds me of 🌿 Getting off the algorithm because it goes back to game plan step number 1 - scroll with a goal. In this case, I’m interacting with social media, and the time line, but deliberately.
Now I have an idea to recreate his daily ritual. Only, I am going to also add a twist. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Forces that divide us, and I’m curious about the echo chamber that each streaming platform creates. I plan to post the same thing on each platform, under the same username (or similar user name), and just see what happens.
Now, if I could just get the nerve to actually do this…
Update 3 May 2026
I did it, and it did launch me down a bit of a rabbit hole. Surprisingly it ended up launching me down this digital privacy rabbit hole. Let me put the pieces together here:
I got a bit consumed with all the platforms. I started on X and Bluesky, but then decided to expand to also Substack and Threads. Threads is a fairly new algorithm (I think), so its easy to get a lot of engagement there. I also think a lot of substackers are on Threads because of the easier engagement hits.
I started publishing essays on Substack. I got three of them on there, and I’m actually quite happy with the quality. All just personal musings, really, reflection pieces of my life. I ended up with 2 or three subscribers, and one person who would reliably interact with my content.
I found her a bit creepy. I realized after some naive hope that she was a well meaning person (and she may still well be), that she was also trying to monetize her work. Im not entirely sure what she was selling, but her substack articles all ended with a call to action to buy or do something. Now, I don’t blame her for that at all. The whole internet in that realm is screaming at you to monetize your brand, own your brand, create a community. If I’m being honest, its what I was there for too.
Throughout all of this, Id get fine engagement with my posts on Threads, and very little visibility on X and Bluesky. I could feel the algorithm getting its claws into me, and the desire to pull refresh and see if I got any impressions on my posts.
Then I put one note/thread/tweet/post out there that made me delete (almost) everything. I wrote “Why are we all okay with our phones listening to us?” Or something like that…
And I got nothing. Nobody interacted, very few people saw it. Its not like I was getting shadow banned or something, since I didn’t have what you’d call an ‘audience’, per say, but the silence was palpable. And I wonder.. I wonder what people were thinking. It occured to me that they might think of me as a crazy person, paranoid, conspiracy theorist…something like that, or that they didnt see it, or that they were afraid to engage?
I started learning more about internet privacy, and surveillance (at first thorugh the guise of surveillance capitalism, then later as government surveillance), and decided I was going to DeGoogleing my life, and have since started that process.
I’m not trying to fully disapprear, and honestly, I’ve lost my ability to log into the substack (which I’m bummed about), as I might continue writing, and would like to post anonymously long form essays just to have a place ot collect them.
But I do think that maybe now I’ll be putting those essays on a self hosted digital garden that doesnt force insincere community, and instead is secure in itself, in its own existance, and if community surrounds it, better, but not required.