redefinition.
leaving social media, creative communities, and other introductions
Sheer Creativity is a free newsletter about society, identity, and culture from a Black woman’s perspective. Thank you so much for subscribing 🧡 To view the entirety of Sheer Creativity’s posts, click this link.
Listen to the Sheer Creativity podcast, the podcast about creatives for creatives🎙️This podcast incorporates interviews with special guests, personal development, and creative content to help you along your creative journey. I’m excited to announce that the podcast is going social media free in 2024, so this will be the main source to know about new episodes (unless you’re following on podcast platforms, which you should be doing lol) and fun releases coming soon.
Hi, I’m Laraya 👋🏽
I feel compelled to reintroduce myself since this year has shifted my thinking in many ways, morphing me into a new creation. Over the course of the year, I’ve accomplished more creatively than ever before. I launched a podcast and flexed interviewing muscles that I haven’t stretched since college. I joined the leadership team of a nonprofit that teaches performance poetry to youth and adults, and I wrote on my own, submitting essays to literary magazines.
In the past, my creative endeavors were solitary practices, filled with words only my bedroom walls would witness and thoughts I’d never utter in the presence of another being. I’m always asked why I don’t share a lot of my creative endeavors with those close to me. It just felt safer to be discreet. Now that my podcast and this newsletter are available for consumption, I find myself seeking community and sharing more of my passions.
If I were to name this point of my life, I’d affectionately call it the redefinition.
The redefinition is a season full of questions, but I’m no longer searching for the answers in spaces where society believes I should. It’s a radical shift, forged not on a route less traveled, but a path that only I can travel. That used to scare me. Now the explorer within me sails freely with the wind, rejuvenated by unknowns and leaving behind what feels inauthentic at this point in my life.
Currently, my focus for redefinition has helped me decide to leave social media, to pour into my creative communities, and to rediscover old passions.
My desire for meaningful connection led to my decision to remove my podcast from social media. Truthfully, my creativity and my mental health have been negatively impacted by social media since joining Facebook without my mother’s permission in the seventh grade, but now I know the message that she was trying to convey. I’d soon struggle with low self-esteem and comparison well into adulthood. Maybe that’s why I’m so used to being silent about my creativity. My default isn’t to revel in the beauty of my own mind; my past self was quick to trade my gifts for someone else’s, so my creativity never received a chance to thrive.
Since starting Sheer Creativity, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of paying for ads to ensure that people listened to the podcast (really, the system is manufactured to make you spend just to show your content to people who actually follow you). I tried to figure out how to create engaging Instagram Reels when my podcast is audio only. I watched friends reach a million views on videos and found myself simmering in jealousy instead of celebrating their wins, and that’s not a space where I can thrive anymore.
We’re meant to accept that creative endeavors or businesses are required to have a social media presence, but social media is not the only method of marketing, and sometimes not even the best. Social media boasts about community, but it’s quite artificial, a facade that only leaves you more lonely and more stressed about your effectiveness.
My default isn’t to revel in the beauty of my own mind; my past self was quick to trade my gifts for someone else’s, so my creativity never received a chance to thrive.
I announced that my podcast is leaving social media starting in 2024, and I received a surge in new subscribers to this newsletter. My first thought was why didn’t I do this earlier??? In my pursuit of redefinition, many chose to join this creative space that is still being redefined and tweaked. Your presence here isn’t taken lightly; in fact, you clicking subscribe pushes me to bring value into your inbox every week. I formally welcome you to Sheer Creativity, an amalgamation of several topics under the umbrella of society, culture, and identity from a creative perspective. Occasionally, I find the space for my poetry and thoughts I have yet to fully understand. Soon, I’ll add interviews with creatives that you can read. If you haven’t noticed, I’m not one for a niche. Truthfully, the core of this newsletter is just a creative seeking to understand.
Through this departure from social media, I’ve learned that creative communities are chosen. Sure, you can be a part of a community on social media, but the best communities aren’t forced upon you by relentless algorithms but they are cultivated in discussions with people you may not have engaged with before, who can see your gifting possibly before you realize it, who can breathe life into the dream you didn’t yet know you possess. I witness this through the poetry nonprofit I work with.
Meaningful connections drive creativity forward and influence people to discover themselves through new methods of being. In 2024, my podcast will be marketed in a more meaningful way, through deeper connections and in-person conversations that are sure to bring more value and originality. That also means sharing with the community I was born into and have dwelled in for years: my family, my friendships, and the lovely people I come across day to day. I’m super excited to share more of those conversations in early 2024 (stay tuned to learn more).
In this new redefined space, I also am changing, but in reverse. I’m reverting back to what I loved before society told to change (or rather, when I felt compelled to change). I now check out books like I used to at my local library. I’m back in my romance era, giggling at the meet cutes and gasping at the plot twists.
Every Monday evening, I divert from my usual routine to attend a dance class, and whoever started the rumor that all Black people can dance clearly didn’t meet me yet. But I move, and I become more confident with every step count.
I desire to pour into my familial relationships and friendships more than I stress over not having a partner. I welcome my creativity with open arms as my partner, and I give my creative side the chance to evolve, and I evolve alongside it.
I am becoming the dream Laraya at 24 that I wished to be at 15. The redefinition is a time of immense possibility, and I’m glad that you’re here along for the ride.
What does Laraya like this week?
What I’m reading 📖: This post from
about change helped me to feel seen this week. I’m always quite reflective near the end of the year, and I’m excited for what’s to come from these changes.
What I’m listening to 🎧: In my redefining phase, I went back through my favorite artist’s discography: Jon Bellion. He has an album called The Definition that I played incessantly in my high school years. It seemed fitting for this newsletter.
Here’s some past posts from Sheer Creativity:
See you next week 🧡
Excited for you and this chapter you are in. The comparison game is no joke! I should probably sign up for a dance class too, but swimming first! lol