Dear indie friends,

This week, the world once again found a new reason to panic.

A new word.
A new fear.
A new invisible thing crawling through timelines, television screens, headlines, algorithms and exhausted conversations.

Hantavirus.

And before anyone could even understand what it really means, the machine already started doing what it always does best: spreading anxiety faster than information itself.

Fear travels fast now. Faster than songs. Faster than kindness. Faster than nuance.

But maybe that’s exactly why indie culture still matters.

Because somewhere between all the noise, there are still people creating things that cannot be mass-produced:
a fragile melody recorded at 2AM,
a handwritten message under a Bandcamp release,
a tiny radio show connecting strangers from Belgium to Australia,
someone sending a demo not to become famous… but simply to be heard.

Maybe our answer to this endless era of panic isn’t silence.

Maybe it’s contagious love.

Not the naïve kind.
Not the fake motivational poster kind.
Not “everything is fine” denial.

No.

The stubborn kind.

The kind that survives despite layoffs, wars, algorithms, illness, isolation, broken hearts, streaming numbers, political madness and exhaustion.

The kind that still says:
“I made this song for you.”
“I listened.”
“I’m here.”
“You are not screaming into the void.”

Because the indie scene has already survived things nobody talks about enough.

It survived the collapse of physical music sales.
It survived platforms paying fractions of cents.
It survived AI floods.
It survived gatekeepers.
It survived scenes disappearing overnight.
It survived venues closing.
It survived burnout.
It survived loneliness.

And yet… every Friday, every week, every month… someone, somewhere, still uploads another song.

That is resistance.

Not violent resistance.
Human resistance.

And maybe that is our real strength: we continue anyway.

Fear isolates.

Love connects.

Fear tells you to protect yourself from everyone else.
Love reminds you that the whole point of being human is the opposite.

This week, I kept thinking about how strange our era has become.

We are hyperconnected, yet emotionally starving.
We can contact anyone instantly, yet people feel abandoned.
We can generate infinite content, yet sincerity suddenly feels rare enough to become revolutionary.

So maybe indie music has a responsibility now.

Not to save the world.
That’s too heavy for a song.

But maybe we can slow the collapse of empathy.

Maybe a playlist can still open a door.
Maybe a late-night radio show can still comfort someone.
Maybe discovering a tiny artist with 17 listeners can still change a life.

Not because the music industry says it matters.

Because humans do.

Spotify can count streams. Instagram can count clicks. TikTok can count seconds of attention.

But none of them can measure what happens when a song arrives exactly at the right moment in somebody’s life.

No dashboard tracks that.

No AI can fully quantify the strange electricity of hearing:
“Someone else understands.”

And this is where indie culture becomes dangerous in the best possible way.

Because genuine connection spreads.

Quietly. Organically.
Without permission.

One recommendation.
One message.
One underground radio show.
One repost.
One community.

That’s how scenes survive.

Not through perfection.
Through transmission.

Contagious love.

No, this doesn’t mean ignoring reality.

The world is complicated.
Health matters.
Science matters.
People suffer.
People worry.

But refusing fear as a permanent lifestyle?
That matters too.

Because panic is profitable now.

Outrage is profitable.
Division is profitable.
Doomscrolling is profitable.

Hope is not profitable.

Which may explain why it feels so underground these days.

And maybe that’s where we come in.

The indie world was always built in the margins anyway.

Tiny clubs.
Bedroom studios.
DIY labels.
Late-night broadcasts.
Discord servers.
Handmade flyers.
Bandcamp pages.
Voices with no guarantee anybody would listen.

Yet somehow… people did.

And still do.

So no.

We won’t become fear merchants.
We won’t reduce each other to statistics.
We won’t let paranoia become culture.

We choose something else.

Songs.
Conversation.
Solidarity.
Dark humor.
Warmth.
Noise.
Imperfection.
Humanity.

And yes… love.

The contagious kind.

This week’s atmosphere belongs to the artists who continue creating despite uncertainty. The ones who release songs without knowing if the algorithm will care. The ones who still answer messages personally. The ones who still believe music can build bridges instead of walls.

You know who you are.

And if you are reading this while doubting yourself, your art, your visibility, your future or your place in this scene…

Keep going.

Somebody out there still needs your sound.

Even if neither of you knows it yet.

The world keeps inventing new reasons to retreat into fear. So maybe our quiet rebellion is simple:

To remain open anyway. To create anyway. To support anyway.

To dance anyway. To love anyway.

And if that spirit spreads from one listener to another, from one artist to another, from one tiny underground scene to another…

then maybe contagious love was always stronger.

See you my indie friends. Wherever you are. Wherever you may go.

Mitxoda

https://mitxoda.be/episode-54-from-ostend-with-love

This week’s Top 10 isn’t about winning prizes, it’s about love, support, and staying in it together.

Listen Back to the last Friday Salon Indie de Mitxoda here.

Every Friday at 4:00 PM (Brussels time) a new episode of Le Salon Indie de Mitxoda will take place on salon.mitxoda.be, don’t miss it.

Stay loud. Stay human.

Stay together. Fear spreads fast.

But love always travels further.
🖤 Mitxoda

END 😆