How I Find Inspiration Outside of Social Media

for all my autodidactics and self-learners

I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to be known for as I’ve thought about creating content and this newsletter. It’s been complicated for me, but I’ve had an obsession with learning and research for fun since I was out of college. I crave the routine of learning, writing, reading, and discussing that you get when you’re in university, and tried to continue that journey as I went into a career of journalism and social media.

Since reading Rachel Nguyen’s amazing, viral essay on research as a leisure activity, I’ve started to seek out more content that described this secret hobby I held for a while but never gave name to. A recent video by Youtuber/podcaster, Anna Howard, how to fall down a curiosity rabbit hole & reconnect to your creativity, was also a sign to me that if I want to be known for anything, it’s to be known for inspiring people to learn new things and go new places. That’s all.

So with this next edition of my article, I want to talk about research and where to find inspiration. When I used to be really stressed from work back when I lived in Madrid, I often needed a bed rot day to get me in a better headspace, but it wasn’t scrolling on my phone that I craved. I would use that time to go down rabbit holes on the internet, often outside of social apps, saving bookmarks of websites, books, media, and articles I wanted to return to. Hoarding info and becoming a hobbyist curator, something I found incredibly satisfying (don’t get me started on the second part of this process which is to actually go through your bookmarks because I don’t really do that) can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin. Let’s fix that.

A quick PSA: Many of my sources are meant to be outside of social media. There are a lot of amazing creatives and artists on social media like TikTok and Instagram, and as a social media manager, I use those platforms, of course, but social media rewards trend following, similarity, and repetitiveness, so if you want to escape a hyper-tailored algorithm and explore your curiosities, I implore you to dig around outside of socials.

First, I’d recommend you figure out some basic research interests. Some of them should be bigger topics and others should be specific and niched-down, to give you variety. You might have to wait until you do some digging deeper into your bigger topics to find something more niche that interests you, but that is all part of the fun.

For instance, my general topics that I’m interested in are:

• Design

• Music

• Food

• Literature

• Art

• History

• Global Culture

• Technology

• Creativity

• Film

• Philosophy

• Cities

These disciplines could take years to even get a basic understanding of, so when I say big topics, this is how big I mean. Now, to find information about all these topics, there is a wealth of sources that focus on these topics specifically that you can find with a google search.

But…when I was bored one winter in Madrid, I made a page in my Notion called my Creativity Hub, where I have a few disciplines and under each one, I’ve written a sort of Masterpost that has links to websites that cover these topics.

When I can remember to go to my Creativity Hub (I also think I have ADHD so it’s not so easy to be consistent all the time), it’s one of the easiest ways for me to dig through resources I’ve already put together. It’s linked here if you’d like to use it too.

Something else I do to get the creative inspiration flowing is go on Jstor which has the most inspiring taglines ever: “Explore the world’s knowledge, cultures, and ideas,” which is exactly what I want to spend my life doing. Jstor is really great for finding interesting topics, articles, and research, but unless you’re a student, there’s a barrier that makes it so you can’t read the articles. I’ll try to find them over on Google Scholar or find supplemental readings, but this is more for brainstorming rather than deep research.

Once I’ve dug around the websites and done some reading, I’ll usually try to figure out my interests on a more specific level and have a few ways I like to do that.

First, I like to create channels on Are.na that are dedicated to these interests, like my channel ‘Travel articles that aren’t just listicles.’ If you don’t know what are.na is, it’s a website that lets you create channels where you can add items called ‘blocks.’ You can add links to websites or social posts, quotes, images, and you thread together a brain map underneath the topic so you can see patterns or have a place to find your research later. Here’s my Are.na if you want to have a look. I have channels about interdisciplinary creatives, zines, and design resources, to name a few.

I’ve always wanted to be in academia, so I often look through university websites of colleges that I find inspiring. MIT, Kings College because of their comparative literature degree, and any others I can find. I always look through the MA and PhD programs for disciplines I want to learn to see what types of courses they offer per semester.

I dug around on the website for Kings College London as I was writing this out of curiosity and dug around in their Comparative Literature program (which was one I wanted to get into right after college). The page has recent faculty publications and a list of research currently being done at the school, from oral traditions in world literature to cultural activism and advocacy. I can now look into those things on my own through a Google Scholar search and see what I can find on those topics, if I want to.

Whenever I dig around the university sits, I also look into the professors teaching in the departments I’m interested in because their profile typically includes a bio, research interests, publications, and syllabi. By researching courses like this, even if I know I’ll never take them, I’m given a peak into academic worlds to which I feel like an outsider, helping bridge the gap between what I want to learn and what I don’t know exists to learn yet.

In the same vein, I’ve also always wanted to participate in an arts residency for my writing and research (and maybe someday for my paintings), so I keep track of the ones I find interesting. I use newsletters from Creative Capital and Res Artist to see what type of funding is available, who has been awarded funding, and the past recipients of awards at residencies around the world. Same thing with interesting fellowships and programs, like the Strange Foundation, a retreat for ecologically-focused practices, and my dream fellowship, the National Geographic x FullBright Digital Storytelling Fellowship. Digging through researchers and artists is a great way to get a look at some inspiring people of varied disciplines and their projects, and can spark your own creative dreams.

I try to visit museums as often as I can, but I admittedly don’t go as often as I feel I should. To supplement this, I like to go to their websites to check out current and past exhibits/exhibiting artists. I remember one year when I wrote for a biennial art festival in the UAE and there was around 300 artists showing their work and it was some of the most fun client work I had ever done in my life! It made me realize there are so many artists out there that I’m unaware of and that finding them is as easy as looking at the website for museums, cultural organizations, and festivals. There’s a festival or conference for every discipline, so there’s a wealth of creativity out there ready to be uncovered outside of social media.

Of course, I also follow a ton of newsletters, as most of you probably do as well. Some of my favorites are some interesting creatives, like Kening Zhu and Austin Kleon and interesting concepts, like Willa Koerner’s Dark Properties newsletter. I’m also obsessed with cultural organizations’ or magazine newsletters like MIT’s The Spark and World Literature Today’s newsletter. I really love to stay in the loop with what these places are studying, researching, and talking about.

Lastly, I go through IG accounts and people’s followers. This is often my last stop in my inspiration collection journey, but Instagram has helped me to discover really cool art collectives, journalists, and artists. For example, writer and scientist Wendi Yan, coder and graphic designer Alida Sun, and cyber witch/researcher, Nella Piatak.

A quick fun exercise is to go through the Instagram of someone you find inspiring (or one of the people above) and go through their followers to see if there’s any interesting artists or creatives that you discover. The challenging part is to not be lured in by doom scrolling.

Give these a try if you haven’t and let me know how they worked for you. As we began to wake up to the lull of doom scrolling and brain rot, I’m happy to see that research has started to trend. Let’s keep it that way.

Happy hunting and please, I’d LOVE to hear what your favorite research interests are in the comments or maybe a project you’r working on that is directly influenced by your research.