QuartZ 

In the wake of continuing and upcoming societal collapse and renewal this year as Quartz captain I've decided to steer the ship in a new direction. Quartz is a marketplace, but it's always been a community. I've been wary lately of ‘do as we say not as we do’ narratives, and I've been seeing them everywhere. On instagram for example, the platform itself amalgamates all our individual efforts and collects its fortune off labor it entices but rewards just barely. It's a marketplace, but we are the products. The culture on Instagram however is to be an individual, to slowly grow your following person per person and represent yourself as an individual but with oft lacking returns. I think we can do something different. 

When you go to a quartz community market your friends are your customers, your neighbors' success signifies your own and we grow and build and enhance together. When I create space for a new market this is always the goal, for everyone to benefit. In the bay our queer community is strong and solid, across barriers folks are creating pockets of space, events, classes, pop-ups to support our work. TO craft something different in the face of struggles for survival and capitalism's constant pressure to conform. Over the past few years I've often had the feeling that what we really want to see is already out there, someone's doing it, we just don't see it. We have a visibility problem, and the way the platforms say we should use them is a part of that problem. BUt what if we tried something new.

My new vision for the quartz instagram page is for it to act less like an individual brand advertising markets, and more like an online community bulletin board. A space for all the bays queer creatives to display the events they are creating. From classes, to dance events, parties, to pop-ups. In short it will function more like a marketspace. Where we all benefit.

To do this I'm inviting all queers of the bay to send collaborative invites through the instagram platform for thier posts that they would like the audience and followers of @quartzoakland to see. If an organizer feels like adding quartz as a collaborator on their post will help their event gain traction, I invite them to do so. There may be some exceptions to this; like events on dates that are conflicting with dates of already planned Quartz events. But for the most part i want this to be open space for queer bay area folks to spread word of what spaces they are creating.

Why now? in 2026 I learnt the instagram algorithm is shifting. no longer penalizing multiple posts in a day like it used to. This means adding a bunch of collaborative posts wont lower the visibility of already planned posts like it used to. Namely tho we are living through increasingly difficult times and having spaces to gather and celebrate, learn, resource ourselves, revolutionize and make money is more important than ever. queer art can be a way out and as an anarchist I'm always willing to find unconventional yet effective ways to do so. 

If you are a bay area queer who has been wanting to create a space of your own but nervous that it won't be seen let this be a resource to you for greater visibility. If you're already organizing events and always looking for new avenues to promote, maybe you'll finding adding @quartzoakland as a collaborator on your next post will give you a boost. The more we all rise the better we all do. And of course there may be great benefit to the quartz page in this process, opening doors to each collaboration to find and support each other, growing and amplifying our voice come 2026 and beyond.

note: this mutation is an experiment, its subject to change, evolve, or end. But while we're here I hope you'll consider being a part. It's time we get bolder in our connectedness, lets let our difference be our superpower.