The Astukari Newsletter #100
(Hey, we’ve reached episode 100! Yaay! Alright, on to the normal stuff)
Weekly Update #005
(Taken from IndieHackers)
Hello all,
I feel as though my "niche", per say, is being uniquely at the intersection between business/technology and art/media. I feel like for the most part these two sides have always been at odds with one another, especially recently with the debate around NFTs and art generation.
On my blog, I often call out the BS of one side or another, as the nuance of an issue often fails to hit if you're entrenched in one side. But at the same time, as a creator, I see opportunities to combine these two categories in ways I don't see many others doing. I've talked about iterative publishing before, as an example -- this is something that would not have been possible pre-internet, back when monolithic publishers released monolithic apps (in this case: books, games, albums, etc.). I think as of right now it is underappreciated -- it really is only done in games, and even then is considered controversial due to some bad actors in the early years. But I think the future will go by this new iterative format.
I'm also thinking of multimedia storytelling in a new light now. Last week I discussed TikTok, and while before I couldn't really think of ways that I could create content for such a platform (30-second videos when I make writing that takes hours to read...) I've realized that there's a lot of ways you can approach all of this, much of which people haven't explored. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out, and you have to try/retry different mechanisms and experiments (ask my Instagram followers) but eventually you can hit that sweet spot where you can 1) give something of value, 2) have it be easily digestible in that format, and 3) be relatively easy to produce. I think those 3 are the key to setting up anything long-term and worthwhile on a platform, and from there you can just experiment and see where it leads you.
New Releases
Blog posts: Some Brief Notes on Programming & My Life Principles
Monday Morning Coffee: "Taste" in Public & He's Talking About TikTok Again
Astukario: I'm Getting Cancelled
Podcast: Making Mistakes, Post-Internet
Instagram: The Art of Shinkiro
Other links: Pinterest, Quora, JBR Subreddit, JBR Tumblr
Updates
Creative Focus: Boys & Girls Part I — 29/44 chapters edited. It’s speeding up!!!
JBR Focus: Taking a little bit of a backseat to JBR content. But don’t worry — things are far from dead. Got a lot of stuff coming after this wave of Astukari focus.
Astukari Focus: Thinking about strategies for content on Insta and TikTok, since those are the “last bastions”. Everything else feels (sorta) figured out. I have some good ideas and not-so-good ideas.
Other Stuff
Currently Reading: Finished The Odyssey and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Both are OK. At least I’m now beginning to catch up on my Goodreads goals.
Currently Watching: Lex Fridman’s podcast with Kanye. Seen it about 3 times now, I think. What an incredible interview — two people hashing it out, one clearly in a bad place, the other genuinely trying to help while also calling out the others misdeeds. Family drama but on a grand scale. The writer in me loves it.
Currently Listening: Fighting game OSTs. Is it bad the only thing I’ve put so far in this category is videogame music? I swear I listen to other stuff. Anyway, just finished SF3EX’s soundtrack, looking towards KoF and CvS next.
Currently Playing: Vampire Survivors fortunately kicked away my Fallout 76 usage. About 100/120 achievements. Not usually an achievement hunter but in this game in particular cheevs = game progress.