can an IRL introvert be a digital extrovert?
find out on the premiere episode of my newsletter!
Oh, hi. 👋🏾
Thank you for being here! I assume you have some interest in who I am and what I have to say by you reading this, and for that, I am deeply grateful. You may know me personally or as a writer and former musician/DJ. We may have been colleagues, collaborators, or you could just be someone I’ve never met but have been social media friends with for years. Regardless of how we connected, I am happy to have shared space with you in some form or another.
One of the most interesting things about engaging with people digitally is that we can never fully grasp our impact on others. Certainly, you could be someone who influences hundreds of thousands of people with your shopping habits or lengthy inspirational IG captions, but the true impact of our social media presence can be deeply mystifying. That funny tweet you wrote could've made someone cackle when they were having a shitty day. The hard lessons you've learned and shared could be a wake-up call for someone going through something similar. The informative thread or TikTok you posted could provide someone with knowledge they would have otherwise lacked. I try to remember this when I am feeling irrelevant and useless but as with many things, where there are positive effects, there are also negative ones.
The hyper-connectivity of social media can often distract us from what needs our attention the most. Many of us fall into the dopamine loop as a way to fill insatiable voids instead of simply being present with ourselves and aware of our physical environment. What's been most illuminating in the past year is how stunted our ability to connect with people in the real world has become because we think that we are connected enough through engaging in truncated conversations with dozens of people on apps every day.
Still, the balancing act of being present in the real world and engaging in the digital world seems nearly impossible to master. I've had my share of social media detoxes that have certainly helped me recenter myself, but the reality is, the world we live in is just different now. I could very well live life off of the digital grid indefinitely, happily in my element and checked out from trivial trending topics and an incessantly exhausting news cycle, but I would never learn how to master the ability to create enough distance between my internal emotional world and the cacophony of opinions, debates, and general social commentary inundating my feed every day.
I think about this interview J.Cole did with Angie Martinez a lot. He talks about the "pull" we feel to engage on social media (presumably in a reactive way) and how taking breaks from social media doesn't necessarily kill that urge, it just temporarily removes you from the stimuli it breeds. It got me thinking about how to engage in social media in a way in which you are not being controlled by your reactive urges or triggered by the things you see (although there are some things no one needs to see). Strangely, I think learning how to engage on social media without being dependent on it or giving it power over our emotional responses can aid in some form of self-mastery. There are definitely psychological benefits to limiting our engagement on social media, but I am interested in learning how to utilize its positive benefits while limiting my consumption just enough to avoid its negative aspects. For better or worse, this digital world in a lot of ways is our portal back into the real world. I have been fortunate to meet many IRL friends on the interwebs — I even met my partner on here. So maybe it’s not that our connections on here are surface level, maybe we’re just not sharing enough of ourselves with the people who are willing to embrace us in ways that are truly meaningful.
This leads me to why I started this newsletter. This is my way to engage with you in more than 140 character tweets or IG story rants. It's been quite a long time since I have shared any of my writing (or extensive thoughts) with the world. I have no aspirations to be a staff writer at some publication or to put byline credits in my bio. I just want to speak about what I like, what I'm learning, and my journey as a human and artist to people interested in conversing with me.
For us little guys, the folks who don't have massive platforms and are incapable of curating a digestible image for social media consumption, it can feel like the energy we put into social media is just a drop in the bucket. What difference does it make if I send this tweet or post this photo? You may not be changing the world by being on social media, but you are giving people something to see, laugh at, think about or engage with which is more than a lot of us (especially introverted folks like me) do in our daily IRL interactions. My hope is that in some small way, the energy I'm giving can add to the quality of your newsfeed, timeline, and inbox— even better if you carry something I share with you into your IRL world.
Send me some good energy too! If you make it to the end of this newsletter and enjoyed it, share it with a friend!
Now onto the things you can expect me to share regularly (or as requested)
What I'm Reading
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
I'm not sure how this is my first foray into reading sci-fi, given how frequently I read and how much I love sci-fi films and television shows, but here we are. This book, written in 1993 and set in 2025 (which feels wayyyy too close to home) is a dystopian novel about a girl named Lauren Olamina who lives in a walled community just outside of Los Angeles. Thieves, scavengers, and pyromaniacs make various attempts to destroy her community and throughout the story, she creates an ideology called "Earthseed" (which is also the title of this 2-part series) that is centered on the idea that God is Change. I strangely found this comforting because while the world is a shitstorm, it is not nearly as bad as what was predicted in this book (I mean, we're not far off but here's hoping people don't start using a drug that makes burning people and their homes orgasmic!). I love the theme of change being constant, if this pandemic taught us anything it’s that in order to survive, we have to adapt.
Follow me on GoodReads to check out my reviews, I can’t promise you they’re good but at least they’re honest!
I’m also still thinking about Milk, Blood, Heat a bold debut collection of short stories by Dantiel W. Moniz that I read about a month ago. The other day, she posted this on her IG:
This made me think about a couple of things.
Books are media because by definition because media includes publishing which is the umbrella in which literature falls under buuuuut.
We DO need characters to be free to range into the dark and wrong in literature and tv/film as well as in the perceptions of people who write about other people’s narrative work (the latter of which has been getting on my last nerve as of late).
Is this another case of “two things can be true”? I know that saying is getting played out but if it applies, it applies! Let characters (especially Black ones) be messy, complex, and imperfect or just people who are not defined by their trauma. I love it! And want more of it which brings me to….
What I’m Watching
Run The World (Starz)
Think Sex and The City but Black. Okay maybe that is too lazy of a comparison but that is essentially the vibe this gives me. Set in Harlem, Run The World follows four women (presumably in their late 20s to early 30s) navigating, you guessed it, love, life, and careers. I was a bit apprehensive about watching it at first because I thought it would be formulaic but I was actually really impressed with the first couple of episodes. Is it groundbreaking? No. But it’s a good watch if you’re into shows about Black women friendship which we all desperately need since Insecure is coming to an end this year.
Unlike Sex and The City, this show is very Black. Instead of girl’s nights out at Club Bed, the go-to hot spot is Red Rooster. These ladies don’t bust it open for men who get off on calling them out their names, in fact, they will leave you with blue balls mid-coital for using the word “cock” too much, and if you’re anything like me, and the Black women I know, you understand that this is entirely justifiable. Ain’t nobody trying to hear all that, Todd!
But what we are trying to hear is…..
What I’m Listening To
Spotify continues to dance circles around its streaming competitors. Their “Blend” feature lets you make a custom playlist that combines your music taste with a friend’s. They’re like the iPhone of streaming providers; not being able to create a blend with someone because they don’t have Spotify is kind of like not being able to FaceTime someone because they don’t have an iPhone (I know some of you prefer that but you’re no fun!).
Here's a list of tracks I had in common with a few of my friends, and it is ELITE! But also a relief that I don’t have to dump any of my friends for having awful taste in music 😇🙃
I am also listening to this album on repeat again, a sporadic habit of mine that I’ve maintained for almost 5 years. It just gives me such a sexy relaxed vibe and I love that it manages to sound old school and like a genre-bending LoFi SoundCloud track at the same time. I’m debating if I want to spend $80 on the vinyl, and I keep thinking about what else I could spend that money on — a bottomless brunch, tickets to a standing-room-only concert, or maybe this serum Lori Harvey uses that clearly works wonders. Will any of those things provide a better experience than being able to listen to an album I’ve heard a thousand times on vinyl (through B-52 speakers, of course) that I will inevitably have to flip over every 30 minutes? What are my values? Where do my impulse purchases lie? Find out on the next episode of, well, this newsletter.
Lastly, but certainly not least!
Who I’m Supporting
It’s PRIDE month and while I am fully divested from rainbow capitalism, I am giving $$$ to:
Activation Residency - a Black trans-led artist residency aiming to provide more opportunities for Black and Brown, trans and queer creatives. The residency, located in the Catskills is described as “Exploring synergies between activism and healing. Reimagining intimate gathering. Beautifully curated performances and workshops. Stellar queer informed pleasure-oriented programming. Brisk dips in the pond. Luxury camping. Cozy campfires and stargazing. Steamy hot tub hangs and community dinners.” sounds like a much-needed haven, but also LOOK AT THE PICTURES!!!!
In addition to art-centered programming, they also host ecological and restorative justice initiates. If you’re able, give some money to Black and Brown trans creatives because we know these media companies ain’t!
That's it for this newsletter!
Drop your suggestions for music to listen to, things to watch, books to read, causes to support, or anything you’d like me to talk about in the next one.
Catch me on these digital streets.
Watch My Short Film “One Of The Guys” 🎥
Instagram 🤳🏾
TikTok ⏰
Website 👩🏾💻
Merch 🛍️
💋 ✌🏾
With love,
LaChelle