/j6fa47v3npds55qlrkqjfd0xv26b)
When people hear "alternative social media," they usually think of a different version of what they already know. A Twitter replacement. A Facebook replacement. A place to move their followers and keep doing the same thing, just on a new platform with a new logo.
LavishMade is not that.
I do use the phrase "alternative social media," but when I say it, I am talking about something much smaller, slower, and more human than the big feeds most of us grew up on.
This post is my attempt to explain what I mean by it and why I care.
What most people mean by "alternative social media"
If you search for "alternative social media," you will see names like Mastodon, Bluesky, maybe Discord or other open source projects. They exist for some good reasons.
- People want more control over their data
- People are tired of one company owning the whole conversation
- People are looking for spaces that feel less hostile or less noisy
Most of those "alternative social media" projects still chase some version of the same dream. They have very large user counts, public timelines, trending topics, and some form of growth graph that needs to go up.
You still post into a big crowd. You still worry about reach. You still feel that pressure to perform.
Why I care about "alternative" at all
Underneath all the features and buzzwords is something simple, your attention.
Every time you open a social app, you are making a choice about where your attention goes. Your attention is not just a resource for advertisers, it is your life. Your time, your focus, your energy.
Most social platforms are built to mine that. To keep you scrolling. To push more clips, more takes, more outrage. They do not care if you feel better when you close the app. They care that you stay.
So when I say "alternative social media," I am not only talking about a different set of buttons. I am talking about a different relationship between you and the place you are visiting. A place that does not treat your attention as something to harvest.
This is the stuff I think about when I work on LavishMade. From there, we try to make decisions that match those beliefs.
How LavishMade fits into all of this
LavishMade is an alternative social media platform in a much smaller sense. Think more neighborhood, less megacity.
Here is what that means for us
1. Small on purpose
Lavish is not trying to be everything for everyone. It is a small internet for people who care about writing. People who care about art. People who love movies, or music, or books. People who create. People who care about real life and connection.
We want posts that feel like you. Messy drafts. Notes from your day. Photos from an event you actually went to with people you actually know. Not endless clips tuned to capture strangers.
If that means slower growth, that is fine. Slower can be good.
2. Local and real world
Right now LavishMade is rooted in Oklahoma City. We have Lavish IRL events in local spaces with actual coffee, actual crafts, actual faces.
Most "alternative social media" projects live entirely on servers. Ours has a physical side. We like the idea that you can see someone’s post and later bump into them at a workshop or a photo night.
The internet does not have to be separate from real life. It can support it.
3. Less about performance, more about presence
Big platforms teach you to ask questions like "How many likes did I get? How did this perform?"
LavishMade is trying to shift the question to "What do I actually want to share? Who do I want to share it with?"
We are not chasing viral reach, trending sounds, or engagement tricks. We want a place where it feels normal to write a quiet post, publish a blog that only a few people read, or share a deep dive you made for yourself first.
Attention here is not something you fight for. It is something you give on purpose.
Why we still use the phrase "alternative social media"
So why keep using the phrase at all?
Partly because people need a way to find us. If you are searching for "alternative social media," you are probably already feeling that something is off with the major apps. You may not yet have words for what you want instead, but you know you want something different.
Calling LavishMade an alternative social media platform is a way to signal that
- This is not TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook
- This is not trying to turn you into content
- This is a small, slower place for writing, art, and local community
It puts us in the same broad family as Mastodon and Bluesky, while also making room for our own little corner of the internet that cares more about attention, presence, and locality than follower counts.
What we are actually trying to build
Under all the labels, LavishMade is an experiment I care about a lot.
I want to see what happens if we build a platform where
- The goal is not to chase an algorithm
- The focus is on small circles, shared work, and local events
- People come to share what they are making and thinking, not just to keep up
That is what "alternative social media" means for me and for LavishMade.
Not a perfect answer to Big Tech. Not a grand solution to every problem online. Just one honest attempt from a small team to create a place where you can sit down, breathe a little, and put your attention where it matters to you.
Not a perfect answer to Big Tech. Not a grand solution to every problem online. Just one honest attempt from a small team to create a place where you can sit down, breathe a little, and put your attention where it matters to you.
If that idea pulls at you, even a little, then you are probably who we built this for.
/j6fa47v3npds55qlrkqjfd0xv26b)
/j4mylynobqor32cxjw5gekk740tv)
Emily Richardson
3 days ago