i built the anti-instagram cannabis app. here’s why.
easyhour notes - 003
i used to drink.
nothing dramatic. no rock-bottom moment. just the kind of drinking that quietly becomes part of the routine — a couple glasses of wine to unwind, a few beers on the weekend, enough that i started noticing it in my face, in my sleep, in the low hum of anxiety that followed me everywhere.
so i stopped. and i replaced it with a couple hits from a joint.
what happened next surprised me. not the high — i'd smoked before, when i was younger, just to get high the way most people do. what surprised me was everything else.
the anxiety got quieter. the days had more color. i started noticing things i'd stopped noticing — the wind on my skin, the way a good song actually sounds when you're paying attention to it. i'm self-diagnosed adhd, clinically diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and cannabis just made the days feel possible again in a way that nothing else quite had.
it didn't change my life. it just made it easier to be in it.
and then, because i can't leave anything alone, i started getting obsessive about which cannabis. different strains, different terpene profiles, different effects. i tried a strain called purple pistachio and the flavor was unlike anything i'd ever had. i kept the packaging for almost a year so i wouldn't forget it.
that's when i realized i had a problem — not with cannabis, with memory.
i was trying all these things and forgetting most of them. which ones made me racy. which ones were perfect for a slow morning. i started a journal on my ipad. i eventually thought: someone should make something better than this. and then: i should make something better than this.
while i was building, i kept looking at what already existed.
reddit communities. instagram accounts. strain review sites. other apps.
and i noticed something that bothered me.
there are so many places for loud cannabis culture. the dab bros, the ounce blunts, the influencers doing sponsored posts for brands they've probably never actually tried. the algorithms surfacing what's popular instead of what's right for you. the performative side of a culture that, at its best, is actually the opposite of performative.
but almost nothing for the other kind of cannabis user.
the intentional one. the person who takes a beautiful photo of their joint at golden hour because they genuinely love the moment — not because they're building a brand. the person who wants an honest recommendation from a real human who actually tried the thing. the person who uses cannabis the way i do: quietly, deliberately, as part of a ritual that belongs to them.
cannabis helped me find simplicity again. it keeps things quiet. it keeps me present. sunglasses when it's too bright.
the world needs more of that. more ways to disconnect, to slow down, to be somewhere for a minute without performing it.
i built easyhour for that person.