6 non-performative ways to track your hobbies and interests

mark zuckerberg doesn't need to know what you thought of emilia pérez

You know you’ve got a problem when you start to run out of fingers thinking about how many Instagram accounts you’ve had over the years or how many usernames or niches or personal brands. Or how many burnouts, moments of frustration, how many times you compared yourself to another account and felt bad about yourself—not your content, but yourself as a person—as if running an Instagram account with hardly 300 followers and an average of 9 likes on a post was some sort of moral failing.

But I don’t want to talk about the negative effects of social media. I know you’ve heard that enough times, and I’m even tired of talking about it myself. But I did just want to remind you that social media isn’t the entire internet and that there is so, so much more out there than that coveted 3x3 grid.

When we talk about denouncing social media, there seems to be this denunciation of technology as a whole. Social media is time-consuming and has negative effects on our mental health, etc., etc. We know this, so therefore we think the medium in which we use these platforms is the problem itself. We think: We need to be rid of the phones! Throw away the laptop! Open the window and get that Wi-Fi router out of the house, now! But we don’t necessarily have to go full Luddite. Unless you want to. I think that’s very cool.

Social media is a little bit like the Tardis. It seems humongous when you’re in the grit of it, all-consuming and never-ending, but in the grand scheme of things, things here being the entire World Wide Web, it’s literally just a little telephone box on the corner of the street. A street on the wrong side of town maybe but I promised you I’m not going to go into that whole spiel so I’ll stop.

In a YouTube video I watched the other day, the creator mentioned how they were going to start using their Threads account to track the movies they were going to watch. But why Threads? Why social media? When did it become the default to share absolutely everything we do? And only have about six platforms to choose from to do it? It’s wonderful that this person has decided to track the movies they watch. I love documenting as many things as I can as an expert-level notebook collector and a very avid Notion user, but I can’t help but notice that people think social media is their only option. And that they’re forgetting about the importance of keeping things for your eyes only.

I have a reading journal where I write horrendously long, complicated sentences without a trace of punctuation for miles. I would absolutely hate it if someone read it because all I’d be thinking about is how illiterate they’d think I was. Imagine if every time I wanted to write about a book I read, a film I watched or a video game I played, somewhere at the back of my mind I was thinking about how some stranger is going to read this and make a judgement about me, good or bad. Thoughts like that have nothing to do with reflecting and analysing a piece of art we enjoyed. It turns the act of experience and appreciation into a self-reflexive one. The act no longer becomes about the art itself but about what people will think about what I think of this piece of art.

Not only is it self-indulging and performative to think about external opinions when enjoying what should be a fun, effortless hobby, but using social media for this purpose is so restrictive. There is next to no creative freedom with how your profile appears to others. Yes, you can create an aesthetic Instagram feed but how many people even look at that? Doesn’t everyone just scroll their feeds anyway? And what if you thought your content would look better on a 4x4 grid or no grid at all? Good luck. Not only that, it’s boring. Every platform looks the same. The same circle profile picture in the top right or left-hand-side. A name. A bio. A follow button.

Aren’t you bored looking at the same UX design at every corner? What if you could make your space on the internet look like this, or this, or this?

Now I’m not judging the person who wanted to track movies on Threads because I have been there, as I started this piece by saying, more times than I can count. I’ve made way too many Instagram accounts, each dedicated to my interest of the month, aesthetic of the season, personality of the day, and I gave up on them every single time because it became exhausting. And of course it did, no one wants to be on stage 24/7. Eventually, the curtain must fall, the credits must roll, the director must yell cut. And these instructions are for the professionals! I am just a girl– sorry, woman, who eats dry crackers straight from the packet sometimes. I am nobody special. Who am I giving the innermost intricate details of my life to? And for what?

There’s nothing wrong with using technology or a Wi-Fi signal to document parts of our lives. We don’t have to completely close the door on it and pretend it’s not there like weird cousin Ally who once spent an entire summer communicating solely in meows. Instead, here are some things you can do:

Get a commonplace book

Ever since I started using my commonplace book, I’ve felt a little bit more like the person I’ve wanted to become. I’ve always loved words, quotes from books, definitions of words I found interesting, and having one tiny book to put all these things in has given me so much joy. Who needs an endless feed when they have pages of handwritten notes filled with quotes you loved, moments of your life you thought were beautiful, descriptions of art you loved, new pieces of knowledge you want to commit to memory and favourite moments from your favourite books. It’s like holding my brain in my hands. The good bits anyway.

Use Notion

Notion has a reputation for being overcomplicated and overwhelming, and those people would be correct. But the good thing about Notion is that you don’t have to know all of its tricks and features to use it to suit your needs best. Here is what mine looks like: (excuse the squashed panda, he is a GIF)

It’s very minimalist and easy to navigate. It allows me to go straight to what I need without all the bells and whistles. I am completely unaware of the thousands of other things Notion can do but I love my little, simple dashboard. Notion is where I track the books I read, films I watch, articles and pieces of media I like each month (which is what I use for my quiet list series but I still don’t share everything I loved that month with you), posts for Substack and YouTube, research, pretty much everything!

I used to rearrange things and change the style of it a lot but I realised this is a space for organisation, not for creativity. There are other places I can do that digitally, like…

Create your own website

This is the main point I want to get across to you. Please create somewhere online that is completely yours. Look what happened to Vine. The same thing is possible for every other social media site you put your trust in. Even if Substack goes under, at least we have access to our email list and we can take that somewhere else. But if Instagram shuts down, your content is gone forever.

One thing I’d highly advise you to do is to explore the indie web. It’s a wonderful place filled with people who are clinging on to the actually interesting side of the internet. Places like neocities are dedicated to keeping this alive and I love them for that. Once I found out about it, I immediately started making my own website (and yes I will now be adding the bare minimum of code I have since learned to my CV). If that all sounds a bit much for you though, you can do what I did and learn the basics of code, realise this isn’t for you and link your neocities website to a Wix or Squarespace site instead to enjoy the ease of click-and-drag. And no, I’m not telling you what my website URL is—it’s just for me!

Your website will be in the public domain but is there any pressure on you to post 12 times a day? Any unforgiving algorithm on your back? Masses of competition or a feed to endlessly scroll through? Nope. It’s just you and your crazy fonts and weird web design against the world.

I could easily go on and on about the indie web and making your own website but instead, I’ll just link you to this and this.

Start a bullet journal

After I finish reading a book, I like to create a journal spread about it using the masses of stickers and stationery I’ve collected to recreate the accompanying vibe of the book and write a small review. This is a perfectly cosy and relaxing activity that lets me step back into the world of the book I just read and explore my creativity without any second-guessing or anxiety.

You can also use a bullet journal to track your moods, habits, hobbies and whatever else you want. Track your bowel movements, I don’t care. I won’t ever see it!

Use Goodnotes/Penly or other digital notebook apps

Using a digital planner can fill you with as much joy as the offline version above. The sheer amount of adorable stickers made by incredibly talented indie artists is enough to make your heart swell and start throwing your debit cards straight at their Etsy storefronts.

Again you can create spreads however you like and track whatever you like. You can save screenshots of articles and magazines to these apps and annotate long pieces of text like you would on a sheet of physical paper. You can make folders and dedicate each one to tracking a different hobby. The possibilities are endless. And just a quick shout out to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE stylus for providing the smoothest writing experience on a screen I have Ever.

Keep a reading journal

As I mentioned above, keep a reading journal filled with completely illegible scribbles detailing your emotions about the books you’ve read or currently reading. Sometimes, when I put a book down for the day, I find my reading journal to reflect on what I’ve just read or rant about an annoying character. It’s very therapeutic, and I’m also improving my retention so, call me Hannah Montana (it’s the best of both worlds).

Technology doesn’t have to be the bad guy just because it has one annoying cousin called social media. You can choose to ignore tech altogether and pick up some of the things on my list or you can embrace it and find other, unique ways to engage with it.

Need one more thing to convince you? There are no clowns on this side of the divide. You know the ones. The ones that can’t seem to comprehend that not everything on the internet is catered for them and if they don’t like something they just have to tell you about it. Weirdos. The lot of them. But they won’t be lurking within the pages of your notebook. Or between the swipes of your digital journal. Or even the guestbook on your personal website. Because how on earth would anyone ever stumble on a website called lasagnademons.rat.

Make a personal website. Scroll through Papier and buy yourself something pretty. Explore the indie web. Keep your hobbies as something precious just for you.

No Boys Tech Billionaires Allowed.

the cutest art i’ve ever by 단야 (@summernight_12 on instagram)

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hello quiet readers, i hope you enjoyed today’s post! can you tell i’m feeling a little better from last week :) i feel like i had to stop myself from yapping too much about this but i just have so much to say and i feel so passionate about all of this! the internet is still really fun just like when we were kids. social media isn’t everything!!

i’ve been having the *best* time creating a personal website that isn’t for one of the many “brands” i’ve had over the years. god. no wonder i was so burnt out. performing 24/7 will completely drain you. make fun things just for you!

here is last week’s post if you missed it on how winter is making me very miserable lol

thank you so much for being here and for reading and i’ll see you next wednesday <3

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