Anti Social Behaviour

On Connections, Suspensions & Calls To Action

Last week my Instagram account was suspended for no apparent reason. I’d been pretty quiet on there of late and then posted an old pic that got a few more reactions than usual so maybe ‘they’ suspected I had employed a bot army or something, but the upshot of it was, it really made me recognise how flimsy and unreliable these social media channels are, and how powerless that left me as an artist that depends on being able to reach people about my work.

I was informed that I could appeal - with a small warning at the bottom of the email stating ‘If you don't take action, your account will be permanently disabled’. The ‘appeal’ I was invited to submit was simply to upload a video selfie turning my head at different angles. There was no human interaction, no explanation of how or why my ‘activity’ had potentially violated the terms of use, and the language they employed felt both intimidating, reprimanding and suspiciously scammy. In fact I was extremely concerned that the whole thing was an elaborate scam and I was being conned into uploading a video version of myself that could potentially be used for nefarious AI thieving. After some research, I determined that it seemed to be an actual Instagram request and so I complied and waited. And waited. I discovered from anecdotal stories online, that it could take uo to 30 days to resolve and if my appeal was unsuccessful, there would be further no recourse to action, no way to escalate my case or speak to a manager or submit a complaint. Luckily for me, two and a half days later, my account was reinstated, but with no further illumination as to what had flagged it.

On the same day, my father was locked out of his Facebook account for ‘going too fast’. When he told me this, I was sure he must have misread or was being scammed, but no, ‘going too fast’ is a real violation on Facebook, meant to filter out bots, which mass send friend requests or comment on posts. Now my dad is the kind of dude that will only take the train cos he thinks the bus is too slow and just for old people but he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary or extraordinarily quickly when the FB blocking occurred. I have since read stories from people complaining of receiving this message simply because they scrolled repeatedly past videos from people they didn’t know that they didn’t want to see. Facebook wants its users to engage with its content. His account access was also restored within a day or two, and he also still has no idea what he did to trigger the suspension.

There’s a part of me that didn’t really care, Instagram can be a black hole of scrolling sometimes and I didn’t mind being forced to stop. I love getting lost in looking at images; flowers and people, art and food, vintage, arty, beautiful photography, I’m not getting out much at the moment so I enjoy seeing my friends out and about in the world doing things, and I learn a lot from people I follow on Instagram, from understanding the news of the world to finding new music to love and things to read. It can be a wonderful portal to culture and discovery. But most importantly for me as an independent musician/creator of stuff, it’s a way to directly share my creations with people who have indicated they’d like to hear about what I’m making, and to direct them to where the creation/event information is. In marketing terminology, that’s called your ‘call to action’, or if you’re really up on this stuff like I wish I was, your CTA. I have a lot more followers on Instagram than I have email addresses on my mailing list, so Instagram feels like a powerful tool for getting the word out about anything - also sometimes sending out an email feels too intrusive and demanding unless I have very big news to share. I have almost given up on Facebook as a way to reach people, it feels like very few posts I make there actually get seen by the people I’m connected with. I’m not sure why or how that works but it’s certainly made me more grateful for Instagram, because I do feel more authentically engaged with a community on there, and less like I’m being force-fed idiotic videos and accounts of people I have no interest in. Do you ever see the people you actually know on Facebook anymore?

Anyway, the timing of the suspension was especially frustrating as I have been working very hard behind the scenes on new music and projects and was excited and finally ready to announce Fix Your Heart Or Die out July 18th (click that link to presave it now and I’ll love you forever!), from upcoming long awaited album Transatlantic Light - but I couldn’t!

If I was an influencer or an actual small business that suspension and possible permanent disabling of my account would have had devastating real life, financial implications on my livelihood. I should probably think about my ‘music career’ like that too but we all know the reality is that those two words don’t really go together anymore, LOL, RIP etc.

I’m grateful to be able to share this announcement (and call to action) with you all here now, and so grateful that the Substack model is inherently different to social media channels, in that should I decide to leave Substack in the future, I would still be able to contact you, my lovely readers, and invite you to join me wherever I went next, as I have ownership of the data on here and can take it with me. That is a great and empowered feeling, and at complete odds with the tenuous and helpless realities of social media.

The way I see it now, Facebook is like yelling your big news from the top of an overpass, hoping one of your friends or someone who might be interested happens to be driving by at that time, Instagram is like yelling your news in an algorithmic ocean full of other people yelling their news at the same time as tides and waves move you all around in mysterious and unknown ways and hopefully you’ll find yourself near some people you know and the powers that be won’t pluck you from the ocean or the overpass for some perceived infraction, and Substack is like sitting at a big dinner table where you might make actual friends and exchange phone numbers and sharing your news with people that will respond in a pleasant and normal fashion. I had to leave Twitter some time ago as that felt like being adrift in an ocean full of evil hungry sharks and every now and then you’d spy a pal bobbing around and wave hi but couldn’t ever really get close enough to converse.

There’s a reason why we are all hounded for our email addresses when we purchase something as innocuous as a mascara or a six pack of beer - emails are gold for marketing because you know you can reach a real live human being at the other end of it. Sure, the recipient will likely just delete the email without reading but there’s a greater chance of breaking through and ‘getting eyes on’ whatever you’re spruiking than there would be with posting on social media, where we have little idea of who will see it.

And what is abundantly clear to me from thinking about all of this, is that connection is the desired outcome of most things we put out into the world, whether that be a new song or a photo or a little story of our travels, our kids, our pets or our dinner.

Sure I write songs and make music to please myself, and I’d do it regardless of whether I could put albums out or not, but when that music connects with other people out in the world, there’s a real thrill and feeling of joy that’s hard to explain. That thrill is carried along the little invisible spiderwebs of connection shooting between us all, making us feel less alone in the world and like something meaningful is being generated and exchanged. Music is most fufilling when it’s a two way street. Feedback is a beautiful thing.

This new song that I’m inviting you to pre-save (for those confused by this, it simply means it will appear in your Spotify/Apple Music/Amazon Music or whatever you use on its day of release without you having to search for it, and it will help me to appear slightly more popular to the algorithmic streaming board, who will then decide whether to help push my song out further into the world), has felt deeply meaningful to me since the idea first hit - you can hear the phone demo and read about the anatomy of writing the song while on tour below -

The song itself is a human call to action, a loving kick in the behind and reminder to take care of what matters and let go of what doesn't. It cheaper than therapy and is far more sing-a-long fun and it has the beautiful rock’n’roll fever machine that is The Great Beyond plus an added ramshackle children’s choir hovering in a corner, urging you to listen to your heart’s CTA. Here’s that pre-save link again!

I know this missive is full of mixed messages, railing against the lack of ownership we have with our social media accounts, loving on the connections we make and find online and through what we make and create, praising the empowering nature of platforms like Substack because I believe being independent and owning your own empire is the only way to go for smaller niche artists like me and trying to play by the current music marketing methods and urge y’all to presave my music to bump my algorithms. Take from it what you will!

But if you are a creator of some kind, I hope you will think about how you are at the mercy of the social media powers-that-be and try to find a way to own your own data for getting your news out there, and if you are a lover of music and other creations, I hope you will recognise how vulnerable independent artists are to the platforms they rely on, and do what you can to help them along by clicking their links, following them on streaming services and socials, sharing etc - it really does mean the world and make all the difference to those of us trying to exist outside of the machine.

Thank you for being here!

Lo x

PS Now is a great time to subscribe to fantastic new Substacks by brilliant independent artists

Historical Hysteria

by Queen Kwong and

S.G. Goodman

’s Gas Station Delicacies.