Dust and Tribe’s last Instagram post is dated December 22, 2021. It’s a photograph taken at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley while on a jeep camping trip. The caption reads:
Clarity
Avoid confusion and find the places where the air is clean and breathe deeply. This is the literal definition of inspiration.
Instagram is not that place.
The jury is in on social media. There is no controversy. The modicum of entertainment and usable information we get here will never be worth the harm that we are all complicit in perpetuating .
Narcissism, anxiety, body dysmorphia, consumerism, aiding and abetting the development of increasingly invasive and manipulative algorithms, isolation, depression, addiction, one-upmanship, the erosion of intimacy, the truncating of language, the absence of conversation, factionalization . . .
Using the platform is a tacit agreement that we are OK with all the above, that it’s all just the price of doing business.
Not anymore.
We gave up selling merch because we refuse to be just a logo in somebody’s life. We refuse sponsorships because the only money we respect is that which comes from people willing to invest in experience. We have been pioneering wilderness work in the Muslim community since 2012 and we will absolutely not allow our community to be tokenized by corporations eager to flex their “inclusive” brand.
We are an adventure company grounded in spiritual work that has always recognized our wild places as the antidote to all of this nonsense. The overt hypocrisy of our participation in this disgusting charade is plain.
We’re done here.
But you may not be, so the account is staying up with bio links updated as a kind of portal to get you the hell out of here.
When you’re ready.
Tawfiq was-salam.
About a week or so later, we drafted this blog post expounding on our reasons for leaving Instagram. It’s now one year later, and we feel the same. Perhaps even more militantly so.
What happens when you give up your social media account?
Things get quiet.
And in that quiet you can reflect on the noise. Some of it was worthwhile. There was a lot of entertainment and a few lasting connections that endured our abandoning of the platform.
But most of it really was just noise. It was exciting to see someone we admire appreciate our posts. It was an honor to entertain inquiries about the work we do and the events we host. However, very little of this translated into anything of substance. Social media engagement is lazy, passive, and fickle.
As a tool, we celebrate the power of social media to disseminate information, build coalitions, and raise awareness. There is evidence for this.
There is also evidence making plain these outcomes are manufactured and manipulated. There has recently been introduced a bipartisan bill to ban TikTok. There are concerns about how the Chinese government might weaponize user data. Embedded in this legislation is the reality that user data can be weaponized. TikTok is no different than Instagram, Facebook, or any of the other Meta properties in this regard.
The only difference is the government behind the app.
Dust and Tribe is not that interested in conventional politics. Even so, we are deeply suspicious of power, and in the information age there is no question that social media conglomerates represent an enormous concentration of both information and therefore power. We refuse to contribute.
Instead, we’ll continue to carve out some space here for sharing things we believe are important. We invite you, as we did one year ago, to engage with us through your comments and our Contact Form. It’s not sleek or sexy, but we don’t track your behaviors and you can come and go as you please. You can jump into one of our chats, get on our mailing list for blog/event updates, or just bookmark us and check back from time to time.
We’re looking at other ways of building community, perhaps through a range of modern and old-school tools that might allow us to express the various facets of ourselves even as we hope to reach others.
Our guiding principle is to do the things we love in alignment with the things we believe.
All else flows from this.
Leave a comment below for posterity or join us in the D&T Chautaqua Discord to discuss this post with other adventurous spirits from around the world.
I appreciate the genuineness you guys uphold. I think this was a great move, even though I actually initially got into this all through your IG. But I’ve come to realize I just don’t want kinda noise in my life. If it’s something in my control, it feels good to shut it out.
I also haven’t really thought about the impact sponsorships could also have on using the community. Props to u all.
Also I love Death Valley
Thank you for the support and validation, Anas. We made these choices understanding that in so doing we would severely limit our exposure.
We’re fine with that. Quality over quantity. God will bring us into community with the people meant to expand this work, insha Allah.
And yes- Death Valley is wonderful!
I left Instagram, my last foot in the social media world, shortly after this post. In fact, I immediately recognized the picture when I saw it, as I printed the entire post and kept it handy on my desk to remind me about the importance of seeking clarity on a daily basis and its relevance to getting closer to God. It’s tough leaving social media completely exactly because of the reasons you mentioned, but I also agree that the idea shoved down our throats of “spreading awareness” is a fallacy. What end result does awareness bring, anyways? I take the revolution and ineffable human rights violations that occurred in Syria as an example: so much information and proof was shared with the whole world, yet what did that result in? Nothing, or very little, if I’m going to be the tiniest bit optimistic. If we want to bring into reality tangible changes, more must be done than just raising awareness – a LOT more. You did the right thing cutting ties with social media, and you’ve got many brothers and sisters behind you, with their Duas as well 🙂
I read this comment out loud to my wife because it encapsulates everything we hope to create with Dust and Tribe! We want to meet the doers of our Ummah, the people who question and seek and act on the answers they earn.
God has truly blessed us with your company, Sami. Looking forward to sharing the rough and the smooth, insha Allah.
Tawfiq was-salam!
Reading this put a smile on my face after a long, tough day at work. Astaghfirullah, God has honored ME with your company and the company of this blessed group, which has made my life better in more ways than I can recount. May Allah bless this group and all in it, and guide the Ummah to all be doers isA 🤲🏻
Looking forward to the rough & smooth as well ❤️
Long long time ago, I can still remember
How those posts used to make me smile
And who knew when I took that chance
To “Follow” the Tribe
That we’d become buds for life
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read we were all Identified
But something touched me deep inside
And that day, Instagram died
So bye, bye, dear Dust & Tribe
Drove my Prius to the rio but the rio was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking coffee ‘n chai
Singin’ “I don’t care about no shares and likes,
I don’t care about no shares and likes ”
…
Now for a year, we’ve been on our own
And Melt stops fat on a rollin’ stone
But that’s not how it used to be
When the jester DM’d the king and queen
Had a profile that was a smokescreen
And a voice that came from you and me
…
And while we read a book on Heart
They searched for the moon in the park
And they sang nasheeds in the dark
The day that Instagram died
They were singing bye, bye, dear Dust & Tribe,
Drove my Prius to the rio but the rio was dry
Them good ole boys were drinking coffee ‘n chai
Singin’ “I don’t care about no shares and likes,
I don’t care about no shares and likes ”
Helter skelter in the summer weather
Hiding from the rain in a BlueRidge shelter
Eight miles high and driving fast
Held our own Olympics in the grass
The players laughed, everyone got a pass
While the ladies on the sidelines clapped
Now the lakeside air was sweet perfume
While the fire crackled under the moon
And we all planned to meet next June
Oh, but we never got the chance
….
For a time we were locked down in place
A generation without a face
No one knew when it would end
Reality morphed with every click
People moved on to Tok n Tik
Cause entertainment’s our only friend
…
I went down to the REI store
Where I’d seen the Tribe before
But the man there said they’d gone away
And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The links all were broken
And the people I admire most
My dear friend and the author of the post
They packed a U-Haul for the coast
The day that Instagram died
And they were singing bye, bye, Dust & Tribe
Drove my U-Haul to the rio, but the rio was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking coffee and chai
Singin’ “I don’t care about no shares and likes,
I don’t care about no shares and likes ”
Coffee and chai, I love it 😂
Very impressive!!
Subhan Allah.
There is only one person we know that could write something this wonderful and entertaining . . .
Thanks for stopping by, Weird Al!
HAHA I love this!! Sang it all the way through
I’m very grateful for the fact that there exists a collective of great individuals that is Dust and Tribe to connect people with each other and with nature. I will insha’Allah continue to follow you all in whatever medium you all decide on! (carrier pigeon anyone?)
We are grateful to have been introduced to you and your work and look forward to exploring how we can bring those worlds together, insha Allah.
While carrier pigeon may not be the best option, we believe the ills we encounter in our use of social media are a kind of mandate for believers to find a better way. Rather than be boxed in by communication paradigms designed to stoke the fires of rapacious capitalism, what if we went back to the drawing board to imagine a communications network exclusive to believing people?
We have the resources to do exactly that. But we need to put aside the distractions first, and that’s not easy.
By design!