The world beyond social media beckons, with Amelia Hruby

This week on Imagination State, we are joined by Amelia Hruby - feminist writer, podcaster, and creator of Off the Grid, a podcast and community for people reclaiming their attention from social media. With Off the Grid and as the founder of Softer Sounds, Amelia helps artists and entrepreneurs build thriving creative lives beyond the extractive attention economies of social media. A former philosophy professor and the author of Fifty Feminist Mantras, Amelia’s work spans feminist philosophy, digital well-being, and spiritual practice.

In our conversation, Amelia revisits her imagination origins, from her early days in North Carolina to Chicago, where activism, feminist theory, and community radio reshaped her worldview and creative practice. She shares how she came to see social media as fundamentally misaligned with her values of liberation, gentleness, and integrity and what happened when she finally decided to leave. 

We talk about imagination and attention: what we lose when we outsource our creativity to platforms, what opens up when we escape, and how podcasts and voice can create spaces of connection that resist the flattening effects of screen living.

This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered what we give up when we spend one month of every year in billionaire-controlled social media landscapes, and what becomes possible when we step into a different world altogether.

Imagination Invitation:

Amelia invites you to keep a “should diary.” For one day, write down every time you think I should… or I shouldn’t. Then revisit the list to notice which “shoulds” are truly yours, and which come from systems and expectations outside of you. This is a self-liberation invitation.

Mentioned:

• Amelia Hruby’s podcast: Off the Grid
• Off the Grid theme song by Melissa Kaitlyn Carter
• Softer Sounds, Amelia's feminist podcast studio
• Amelia's first book Fifty Feminist Mantras
• Amelia’s upcoming book (Fall 2025) Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media

Ideas? Visions? Imaginaries? Email [e-mail].

This episode was edited by Angela Ohlfest, typographer from Simon Walker, music from Cosmo Sheldrake.