Online Friends: Kai Proschan on connecting with community outside social media
The Girls Book founder discusses going offline, experimenting with digital tools, and keeping creativity fun
Introducing Online Friends: a new, recurring column where I talk to my online friends about the internet—how we live on it, create through it, and are shaped by it. These conversations are informal, reflective, and grounded in real relationships—less “thought leader,” more “DM with a friend who has something to say.”
In a time when social media feels synonymous with visibility, what does it look like to build community outside of social media? For the first edition of Online Friends, I caught up with Kai Proschan, an online friend I met through a fully remote tech job. In 2022, Kai launched The Girls Book, a publication by and for the trans femme community. However, this year, she stepped away from the algorithmic treadmill of the social feed and reconnected with the heart of her work.
Earlier this year, you made a decision to delete your personal Instagram. What prompted that decision?
I wasn’t really having fun on the platform anymore. It’s a great platform for sharing information, fundraising, and networking, but at the same time, when I started to notice my mental health would spiral after spending time on Instagram, I knew I had to leave.
I needed some time away to figure out how I was gonna interact with this platform. My stuff is out there if people wanna find me. They can search my name and find me. I’ve been really enjoying having more face-to-face interactions lately, rather than these parasocial relationships with people online. I still have my Instagram for The Girls Book ‘cause I’m still aware that people still use it, though I’m not as active on that account as I once was on my personal account.
What strategies or tools have helped you stay connected with your community outside of social media?
To stay connected with my community offline, I’ve been helping with the San Francisco Trans March, which will be on June 27. It’s my first trans march as a doll! It’s been good to be more integrated with the community here and see what great work happens in-person.
In terms of tools, I’ve been testing switching my newsletter from Ghost to Substack because I’ve heard about the audience exposure on Substack. Ghost is more of a siloed platform where you host a website; since it’s open source, it doesn’t have the same [political] issues as Substack. Though my magazine is hosted on both platforms, Substack has that more social angle that has allowed me to discover more people and be discovered. It’s been cool to experiment with how different platforms expose your work to different audiences.
How do you think the algorithm subtly influences the kind of work trans people, especially trans women, make?
The algorithm definitely influences the work that trans people create because of how sensational and attention-grabbing content has to be to attract attention, I suppose.
It’s interesting to see different types of individuals on different social media platforms creating content for the platform ‘cause ultimately we’re all essentially contractors for these social media platforms. We hope that with the right mix of content, branding, and putting yourself out there, we achieve some level of success through landing a brand partnership, launching your own brand, becoming an influencer or celebrity, etc.
That’s ultimately kind of where we’re at with these platforms and establishing a place where people can find you digitally so that you can do more storytelling of who you are so that you’re more known. It’s still social, so the whole point of it is to be making relationships with people, yet, there are a lot of relationships that are based purely on vanity, which is rewarded.
With trans women, I see a lot of pretty girls and dolls. I also see people broadcasting situations where they get misgendered for views, making controversy a key to their content. It’s weird that people are constantly thinking of ways to create controversial content because I don’t think our presence as trans women always has to be so sensational.
Has leaving social media changed your relationship to your mission as a publisher and writer?
Social media has definitely impacted my relationship to my mission. I’m seeing the beauties of social media in terms of worldwide access and being able to bring anyone to your platform. Meanwhile, there’s an undercurrent of knowing that we aren’t accepted everywhere, all the time, like we think. It’s a tough place to be.
Offline, interactions and connections run much deeper. I’m interested to see what I can do in that sense to bring my work into real life. Writing is also in an interesting industry right now where we have the rapid evolution of AI and what that’s doing to a lot of these kinds of creator-based careers.
While I enjoy writing, I’m also interested in other types of storytelling like video or audio. There is a general trend that people are reading less, so I think about inclusivity and accessibility in my work, especially if I don’t have social media. To make my own more accessible, I think it’s probably through a visual form.
What advice would you give to other independent creators who feel pressured to grow online but want to build more intentionally?
Be true to yourself. Don’t get caught up in the capitalism of it all. Especially in the United States, everything is geared towards business and entrepreneurship because of the way the laws work.1
It’s okay if things are art and for fun. We don’t have to achieve virality. Do what feels right, do what feels good. Take your time to grow as a human. Focus on sustained growth, like watering your garden, so that you’re not comparing yourself to someone else’s lawn and thinking it’s greener If you’re watering your own grass, then like it’s gonna be fab.
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Although solo freelancers often bear the burden on paying their own taxes, small business owners in the United States—particularly those with generational wealth and other financial priviledges—can benefit from biz-friendly tax laws, such as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which reduced small business tax liabilities.