I exited social media completely in 2021, closing all my accounts. I sometimes used my phone for messaging and even calls, but mostly I used it to navigate. I changed my number.
And yet here I am, designing a website, and even registering for Twitter (which became X while I was away; was that to make it smell like a more masculine cheap perfume?), which I always loathed. @joadrwren? Why? Because I have a record coming out this week, and a novel – my first – coming out next month, and that’s what you do, it seems.
The fruit of digital silence (well, a certain kind of digital silence: the record was mostly recorded in isolation, with other members of the band sending in their tracks, and Ian mixing them), a record and a novel, demand digital noise and amplification if they’re to be heard.
And so here I am, swallowing the irony, hitting “publish” in order that I can really publish … and somehow, once again, finding a confessional voice. When all I really want to do is not talk about myself, and talk about stuff, or preferably not to talk at all. And yet, I’m here to say: please listen. So, go listen, or read, or both. And the next blog entry will be about something.
Joad R Wren 