Hey folks, happy holidays, and welcome to my possibly-feeble attempt to create room for myself, my work, and my words outside of the corporate social media hellscape. My name is sarah day, and I am determined for this website to be more than just a store...I want it to be the virtual living room of my internet presence. As our benevolent facebook overlords drive us closer and closer to outright societal collapse, as the corporations drive marginalized peoples from their platforms in droves, as the platforms themselves become increasingly devoid of anything that bears resemblance to artistic or intellectual honestly, I ask myself: at the end of the day, why are we all working so hard to make a home for our work in such hostile terrain?
The answer is pretty obvious: most of us need the money. We live in a rapidly-declining capitalist wasteland, in the midst of a pandemic that is raging out of control. Most of us rely on apps like Instagram to try and make a hustle work, oftentimes on top of a normie job. But what many of us have come to discover is that we cannot find freedom on these apps, only more clear signs that the state has failed us: failed to provide shelter through the storm of this pandemic that they have allowed to ravage this country, failed to provide basic services even before the pandemic began, failed to protect us from predatory corporations that want every crumb of data that we can crank out, and failed to give us the resources that would allow us to divest from apps without sacrificing our one window that's left to both the outside world and to an income stream. The more I've thought about this, the more I realize how connected this cycle is...really, it's more of a downward spiral. If violence is at the root of the state, everything that springs forth from it will bring more violence. If the marginalization of BIPOC, disabled people, and queer people is at the root of the state, every avenue that the state controls will marginalize BIPOC, disabled people, and queer people. Part of the call for this week's Instagram boycott was for each of us to start actively divesting: to move our audience and our platform away from the app (and you can read more about the boycott on For the People by clicking here). This is the best way I can think of to start that process without putting my work behind a paywall (or moving onto a new app where a lot of my existing community won't be able to find me). Plus, truth told, I pay a shitload to have this website and I've already worked my ass off to make it beautiful, so why not REALLY live in it?!
So this is my website's housewarming party, complete with a group trip to egg the old landlord's house. This is me moving online houses in the hopes that this website can become the true home of my work, the living room, the salon. Welcome in, and please pour yourself something warm to drink. If there are stories you want to tell in this space, if this space can be of service to you or a platform for you, I think that would be wonderful. I don't really know yet what my--our--potential is beyond the limits of Instagram. I just know that I want to be able to share my work my way, in a way that feels good, in a way that feels like it honors me and my time. And I want that for you, too. I want that for all of us. So, cheers & solidarity folks. I love you.
P.S. I wanted to include a brief note about Patreon, since that's come up a lot in my DMs over the past few weeks as I've been having my own nutty about art theft & the challenges of maintaining control over my IP on instagram. I am not saying an outright "no" to Patreon...in fact, in the long term, it may be the right move. But...I am hesitant to use it unless I can do so at such a scale that the barrier to entry is extremely low **and** it's a financially sustainable use of my time. Long story short, I'll keep you posted. To everyone who has already expressed an interest in subscribing, y'all are angels, thank you, and we'll see what happens!