POSTSCRIPT + CODA | Summer 2024

I ran JOURNAL by Marc Pakbaz from June 2014 to April 2023 on Tumblr: included are select unedited original screenshots of that EXP from 2014 to 2022. It was designed as a 3-Column Offset Grid infinite scroll. I was active nearly every morning during that period, was a huge joy, intensely stimulating for me both visually + intellectually. JOURNAL served as my daily awareness practice to start the day with strong freshly-brewed coffee.

To express yourself with complete freedom, to develop an ongoing narrative unmediated for nearly a decade — without a client or any burden of advertising, monetization or metrics — is incredibly fulfilling, a massive privilege.

So many layers with depth — planes of consciousness —now exist within my being as a direct consequence. I’m actively looking to apply the aforementioned EXP to upcoming endeavors!

JOURNAL had around 8,500 posts; when I suddenly decided one day that an archive of highlights is not only more desirable but more effective going forward in context of where I’m at in my life as I now consider (in hindsight) that post-based digital media including Instagram to be an ineffective way to communicate your work because everything resides in a black hole — certainly no one scrolls thousands or even hundreds of posts deep to see your work from several years ago!

Further, relying on for-profit algorithms for exposure to your work once AI exponentially ramps up in the coming years is futile, an unappealing game to say the least! It’s not hard to figure out what type of content for-profit algos heavily favor (provide impressions for) and what they throttle or ignore. Algos are by design based on behavioral reward & punishment (classic psyops) so no doubt they brazenly influence what people post, pushing them to whatever generates maximum profit; that’s absolutely shit for creative expression but more critically, it’s ruinous for artists to be consumed by what algos reward.

Ripe time for change: I’m happy I got out of posting and social media entirely — deleted my Tumblr, Instagram, Substack + YouTube Channel too. I will say that I’m still a big believer in human curation. It’s fascinating to consider what other models will emerge over the next decade.

/MP