05/28/2026
SATURDAY!
The most nerve wracking part of this weird job I have is the part where I somehow have to let everyone know about the shows.
There’s not, like, a trick to it. It’s been more than 15 years of social media-ing and it’s still just a guessing game. Sometimes you spend a bunch of time on a poster, font, text placement, drop shadows and transparencies, and it’s just like nahhhh sorry we aren’t gonna show this one to anybody.
Sometimes you’ll get a little automated message, recommending more emoji usage, or a shorter caption “for maximum reach”.
I feel like I’m back in 5th grade and the teacher is telling me that stories need an introduction paragraph. Even then I remember being like, no that is not how stories work. That isn’t how attention works. Readers aren’t THAT dumb. A story that starts, “My name is Chris, and last summer I played baseball”, is way more lame than a story that starts, “Two strikes.” I don’t give a s**t if it’s not a complete sentence, it works. Under this very word I’m typing is a little box that says “help me write”, just in case I’m worried any of my remaining humanity will accidentally bleed through onto the page. Anyway, now I’m rambling.
All of this is just to say I’ve still got no idea how any of this works. But I’ve learned a few tricks. Like getting a sweet dog and using a pic of her instead of a poster.
This Saturday I’m at Barncastle in Blue Hill. It’s kinda the best. Tickets are available now, and it’s a little cheaper to get them today instead of waiting (plus then you risk not having a spot). If you’ve never been before, then you should come. If you have been before, then you should come again.
A long time ago some social media person told me that putting a link directly in the post reduces reach, because the sites don’t want to encourage any sort of movement off-site. It makes sense I guess. Who am I kidding, none of this makes any sense. But that’s why I’ll put the link in the comments instead of here in the post.
Even in a world of 10 second videos and ad campaigns and a.i. posters of your favorite band riding a dragon or whatever, the thing that still works better than anything is people telling people. A friend calling you up and saying “hey we should go to this show”, or “you should check out this song”. We’ve still got that. So tell your people, remember to be a human, and tell me how damn smoochable this dog is.
Now, a few emojis for engagement: 🐶 💋 🏄♂️
