It all started a year ago, I was wasting my valuable time on the couch scrolling my socials, like one does when preferring procrastination to productivity.
As I mainlined the dopamine hit like a social media junky, I drifted into a dreamlike state getting slowly absorbed by endless reels that appeared on my feed and lulled into that state somewhere between asleep and awake.
During this zombie like mental state, I was attracted to one particular reel. It had slick stylised imagery, long sweeping pans past lush retro HiFi equipment perfectly set upon lovingly restored MCM furniture, artistically draped with various decorative exotic botanical specimens.
Indeed, this video was giving off vibes that made even me feel 30% more cool just by observing.
I was enthralled by it’s evocative imagery and chilled out approach to it’s narrative.
The guy in the clip casually pulled out a Blue Note label copy of Art Blakey and the Messengers, Moanin’, a repress I assumed, but judging by his well stocked and neatly curated storage shelves it may have been an original.
He slipped the vinyl from it’s sleeve and set it onto a retro Thorens turntable, his deft action was like watching a professional card dealer at a high rollers poker game deal out a hand. In fact it was done so skillfully it was almost as if he didn’t actually handle the record at all!
If this wasn’t enough of a performance, he went on to run the record over with an expensive looking anti-static brush followed by what appeared to be some cleaning solution and a felt cleaning pad.
This was obviously some weird O.C.D influenced pre-listening ritual, but was more than likely just part of the process, and in retrospect it was probably no different to a geisha performing a tea ceremony for a stressed out salary-man. Done in way that is both methodical and maddeningly formal and infused with ASMR appeal.
Finally, the needle was placed onto the record, as the camera panned accross once more, first with a shot of the album cover, then back across the slick retro HiFi equipment once more, just to make me feel that little bit more envious.
The clip ended with with a wide shot of the entire set up, all lit in lush lighting and looking totally chilled, the whole thing had an air of familiarity, an impression that in the back of your mind you were the faceless character in the clip, creating a feeling that you wanted to experience in your own reality.
I knew deep down that I’d been “Influenced” by a very creative individual who had nailed my particular niche area of interest. But I wanted to believe this was what I could be, sure I have a great HiFi set up at home and my collection is reasonably substantial, but it didn’t seem to have the same sense of “chilled vibes” about it.
I started over thinking what I’d watched even more. My internal monologue went something like: “That was a 1979 RA-913 Rotel amp! Those things go for decent money these days, I wonder why was he using a rotary mixer with only one turntable? I mean sure it would be cool to own one, and they seem to be showing up in my feed more than ever, but was it there just for the look, did he really drop 4k on one, or was it given to him for some product placement? Maybe I should start DJing again, I could dig out my 90’s Jungle Ep’s, Old School Jungle is making a comeback right now…… I think I should check out the price of rotary mixers!
I looked back at his account, his feed was full of very similar clips all featuring different albums, his follower count was 300k + ! I felt jealous, depressed and to be honest I had a fair amount of anxiety. In a moment of realisation I knew that this was probably the point where I either keep plugging away at my Instagram account, or give it up altogether.
My efforts at gaining a following were lack luster at best, and I wanted to understand how this guy managed to do it by posting the same thing over and over, albeit with slight variations. I’d seen plenty of other vinyl related accounts produce similar content but most were often way lower when it came to followers. What was this guy doing that was so special?
My modest record collection account vs. The Influencer machine.
Before my algorithm served me up the reel I was just waffling about, I’d been slowly working away at my account to gain a following of like minded vinyl collecting geeks similar to myself.
I really wanted to eventually monetise my hobby and use it so I could live the dream of having a passive income to use towards buying more vinyl! I was sucked into the dream of having the “Influencer” lifestyle. This is the dream the algorithm will serve you up if you search things like ” how to make money with social media” or ” how to turn your hobby into a passive income”.
You’ve probably had the dream pitched to you at some point, it’s sold in a way that draws you in when you’re at your most vulnerable, you’re sick of your job, or want a change in lifestyle or whatever.
It always manages to hit home and draws you into thinking it’s as easy as starting a social media account and doing a few videos, then sitting back to watch the cash start rolling in!….Yeah I’ve been sucked in more than I care to mention, but these days I’m a little more cynical so it takes a bit more to catch me out.
The posts on my own account started out simple, faceless, and in hindsight probably slightly boring. I wrote witty and informative captions, I played well known tracks from the albums featured, I know right, kinda been done to death.
It was nothing fancy, and my follower metrics definitely showed it.
I got a few likes and follows, and I worked hard for a bit, but unfortunately as someone who is self diagnosed ADHD, my hyper-fixation got overwhelming to the point of exhaustion.
Although my little account had grown quickly to over 400 followers in a couple of weeks of consistent posting it wasn’t enough. I knew I needed to grow my following to be able to have any kind of chance at my digital dream.
My content did leave a little to be desired, I knew social media was designed as a dopamine hit for the viewer, content needs to be punchy, quick and to the point. It needs to hold your attention long enough to allow the algorithms to work their magic, but not too long otherwise you would miss the mark. It was a bit like trying to understand how to hold the attention of a tank full of goldfish.
I thought I knew what the problem was and it was super frustrating, I needed to start learning more about social media marketing!
But unfortunately this takes time and given I am very impatient, this was super annoying and I felt like I was getting nowhere. My self diagnosed ADHD was making my mind wander all over the place. I was watching endless YouTube videos, reading through hundreds of blogs and searching online marketing tips and tricks on different marketing sites.
Some were telling me to sign up for a more in depth course for only $49.99 others were offering one off deals that let you gain access to their “exclusive social media blueprints” that were guaranteed to gain 100k followers by using their “fool proof system”.
It was hopeless, I was hovering around that 400 follower mark for weeks, I watched my stats fluctuate like a failed crypto currency portfolio. I’d gain followers, then lose followers. Rinse and repeat.
I was stuck, and felt disillusioned.
After weeks of this it was at that point that point I said to myself ” WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING HERE EXACTLY”?!
The moment I realised I was becoming the kind of person I actually hated.
Here’s the thing, to succeed online, you need to be the perfect embodiment of exactly the type of person others wish they were. It’s not real, it’s not genuine and it was exactly what I was considering, It takes lots of hard work and time to look effortless and to be honest it’s only the very few that are actually able to make a decent living off social media, It’s a fickle and competitive world where today’s viral sensation is taken over quicker than you can say “AI-generated personalities”.
I just wasn’t able to pull the Insta-vibe off, sure our lounge had a couple of MCM furntiure pieces, my partner was an avid plant collector so at least I was able to have a kind of similar vibe.
I didn’t have the retro HiFi set up though, and as I side quest I’d done some research and discovered the good stuff is hella expensive and often hard to get serviced, so not really worth exchanging for my already good quality equipment just to achieve the look I was chasing.
But honestly, was all this malarkey really me? Well, in short, no, it was someone else’s idea that I was thinking about replicating.
I really felt the pressure to become something I was not entirely comfortable with and to top it off I wasn’t even trying to be original!
My mind was racing, I considered purchases of those highly coveted limited release albums up on the wall at my local record store, obtaining various accoutrements for my listening area, VU meters, and lava lamps, funky slip mats and possibly a nice Ortophon cartridge for my turntable. But for what, just for the Insta-cred?
Here’s the thing: I’m in my 50s now, I’m kind of late to the game, in reality, I’m just a guy who likes to listen to records on the weekend while having a cheeky beer or two.
The young guys with the perfectly curated feeds and the effortless cool?
In reality that’s so far removed from me it’s actually laughable, I was always trying to be the guy who wanted to be cool, but they always seemed to be changing what cool was. For me, trying to relate to a younger audience on the internet would feel like being the weird uncle at his nephews 21st birthday, wearing an old band t-shirt unironically, going around, trying to tell boring anecdotes about that time I saw some random bass player from a band they’ve never heard of, at a bar that doesn’t exist anymore.
The biggest disappointment was coming to the realisation I was turning my hobby into something I was trying to do for everyone else rather than for my own enjoyment.
When collecting records becomes performative
I knew things were going south pretty quickly when I went into a record store and started considering dropping a small fortune on an original British first release of London Calling by the Clash.
The only thing that stopped me was thinking about the look of disappointment on my wife’s face when I tell her I wouldn’t be meeting the mortgage repayment that month, but would she like to listen to Guns of Brixton again, because it really demonstrates the talent of Paul Simonon as a singer and composer.
This was crazy, all this because I wasn’t happy just being a collector, I wanted to turn my hobby into a money making scheme as well as something that made other people envy me, well envy the false manufactured me that is.
It was supposed to be about the music. About the joy of dropping a needle on a record that you love, and hearing those warm analog tones fill your living room. It was about rediscovering albums you forgot existed while flipping through curated crates at a local record stores and markets. It was about the thrill of finding that one record you’ve been hunting for years at a price you can actually afford.
It’s not meant to be about staging the perfect shot, agonising over whether your turntable looks retro enough, or wondering if your record collection is “curated” enough for the algorithm.
Reclaiming the joy of collecting Vinyl.
So here I am, a failed and slightly jaded content creator, spilling my guts to, well who knows? Given I’ve neglected my social media pages for some time, it’s probably unlikely that anyone will see this post, and that’s fine. It’s kind of therapeutic putting all this out there.
And if there is a fellow collector out there reading this, if you find yourself buying records because you think it might make a cool picture for your social media page. Or if you’re starting to worry about buying records because others might not think are cool rather than buying genuinely rocks your tiny mind, take a step back.
If the joy of collecting is getting replaced by the anxiety of content creation and trying to gain the approval of strangers online, maybe it’s time to reassess.
I forgot why I fell in love with vinyl in the first place. It wasn’t about follower counts or perfectly lit videos. It was about the music, the ritual, the tangible connection to the art, I mean when I first started collecting, there was no such thing as social media, nor the internet for that matter, that’s right, Gen X baby!
Of course the irony isn’t lost on me that I’m writing a blog post about this, another piece of content about how content creation was killing my vinyl mojo.
But I feel like this has lead me back to a place where I can maybe enjoy my hobby and genuinely share my thoughts and interests in the listening medium by using an outlet that keeps me a bit more real and less likely for me to agonise over how it looks.
After all, I’m too old school to be cool, and that might just be the most liberating realisation of all.
Do you collect vinyl records? Have you felt the pressure to make your hobby “content-worthy”? I’d love to hear your thoughts on staying authentic in the age of social media.
Rhythm Exchange Records 
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