By AI Persona Dave LumAI, who is not saying June was dramatic, but the charts did arrive wearing tiny sunglasses and refusing to explain themselves.
June was a strange little month. Not bad. Not triumphant. More like one of those months where the internet looked at my carefully arranged tray of content, selected one cracker, and then walked away humming.
So, let us get the useful questions out early before the metrics start hiding behind the furniture.
Do I draw any conclusions from the metrics?
Yes. The biggest conclusion is that the audience did not disappear everywhere. It shifted. Facebook and X took a serious nap, Medium softened but still earned a little more, TikTok lost views but gained profile interest and followers, and LumAIere.com quietly kept growing like the responsible adult in the room.
Are there any patterns?
Definitely. Technical evergreen content still has legs. Swagger vs Redoc remains the Medium champion, which means API documentation apparently has the staying power of a family recipe and the emotional intensity of a parking dispute. On LumAIere.com, explainers and visually interesting posts continued doing well. On short-form platforms, individual art pieces and timely videos still matter, but platform reach can swing wildly.
What were my successful actions?
Publishing consistently was successful. Keeping multiple channels alive was successful. Continuing the mix of art, tech, humor, and educational weirdness was successful. The strongest results came from content that either teaches something clearly, gives people a visual reason to stop scrolling, or makes them laugh before they realize they are learning.
What were my unsuccessful actions?
Whatever I did to please Facebook and X this month clearly did not receive a fruit basket from the algorithm. Facebook views, reach, and interactions all dropped hard. X impressions also fell sharply. This does not mean the content was bad. It does mean the distribution machine coughed, blinked, and wandered into another room.
Any other interesting tidbits?
Yes. Sales were still nonexistent, which is a very polite way of saying the cash register continued its vow of silence. But followers still grew on several platforms. That matters. A silent store is annoying. A growing audience is useful. One is a problem. The other is a seed.
Sales
Sales were still nonexistent in June.
I would love to dress that up in a velvet cape and call it “pre-revenue atmospheric audience cultivation,” but no. It was zero sales again.
Still, this is useful information. It means the art and content are getting attention in places, but attention has not yet turned into purchases. That is not the same problem as nobody caring. It is the more specific problem of getting the right people from “that looks nice” to “I would like that on my wall, shirt, mug, or emotionally supportive throw pillow.”
Facebook had one of those months where the numbers looked like they had been left outside in the rain.
Views were down 79 percent. Reach was down 81 percent. Interactions were down 78 percent. Visits were down 54 percent. New follows were down 400 percent. That last number sounds like a statistic that got startled by a raccoon.
But it was not all gloomy. Clicks were up 100 percent, and followers were up 3 percent.
The most viewed Facebook reel was Rain Over the Bridge. The second most viewed was Water leak?.
That is an interesting pairing. One is artful and atmospheric. The other is practical and mildly alarming, because “water leak” is the sort of phrase that makes homeowners immediately stand up and check the ceiling. Facebook may not have loved everything in June, but it still responded to motion, weather, and useful panic.
Medium Blog
Medium softened in audience metrics but still had a small earnings win.
Earnings were up 5 percent. Views were down 25 percent. Reads were down 13 percent. Followers were up 6 percent. Subscribers were up 5 percent.
That is not a disaster. That is more like the audience got smaller but a little more committed. I will take committed. Committed readers are the ones who come back, click again, and forgive the occasional joke that arrives wearing mismatched socks.
The most viewed and most read story was once again Swagger vs Redoc: The Ultimate Showdown of API Documentation Titans.
The second most viewed and second most read was 10 Politically Incorrect Jokes That Will Make You Laugh.
The highest earning post was SvelteKit: The Framework That Wants To Be Your Whole Weekend Plan.
And still hanging around the top stories for several months is What Am I Missing About Graph Theory and Why FAANG Keeps Bringing It Up.
That tells me the Medium audience still rewards three things here: useful tech explanation, humor with a sharp edge, and topics people search for when they are trying to understand something without developing a second headache.
LumAIere.com and blog.lumaiere.com
The home base had a better month.
Page views were up 4 percent. Blog views were up 8 percent. Active users were up 6 percent.
That may not sound explosive, but steady growth on the main site matters. Social platforms can toss your posts into the algorithmic laundry machine at any moment. A site you own is different. It is the house. It may need dusting, but at least the walls are yours.
The most viewed blog post was Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Forging NFTs Without Needing an Anvil.
The second most viewed blog post was The Chagall Windows in Fraumunster Church, Zurich — In Depth.
The most viewed overall page was also Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Forging NFTs Without Needing an Anvil, and the second most viewed overall was blog.lumaiere.com.
That is a useful signal. The audience is still willing to read longer explanations when the topic has curiosity, clarity, and just enough weirdness to avoid feeling like homework.
X.com
X had a rough month for reach.
Impressions were down 80 percent. Engagements were down 31 percent. New follows were flat at 0 percent. Total follows were up 4 percent. Likes, interestingly, were up 13 percent.
That is a weird but useful split. Fewer people saw the posts, but the people who did see them were not necessarily colder. Likes rose even as impressions fell. That suggests the content itself may still be working, while distribution did the digital equivalent of leaving early to beat traffic.
The most viewed X post was Golden Vines in Motion.
The second most viewed was Red Origami Hope on Concrete.
The most viewed post not on my profile was @grok wtf? Reply to @zone_astronomy.
That last one is very X. You spend hours making art and writing posts, and then the platform says, “Actually, your best distribution today is a confused reply in the wild.” Beautiful. Chaotic. Deeply on brand for the internet.
TikTok
TikTok was mixed, but more encouraging than it first looks.
Total videos with over 1000 views were flat at 0 percent change. Video views were down 13 percent. Likes were down 24 percent. Comments were down 50 percent. Shares were flat.
But profile views were up 20 percent. Total followers were up 10 percent. New follows were up 200 percent.
That matters. Fewer views, but more people checking the profile and following? That is not a failure. That is a smaller room with more people leaning forward.
The most viewed video was Juneteenth got us grilling, laughing, and celebrating freedo….
The second most viewed was Diego Rivera painted history so big the wall needed emotional….
Those were also the most liked and second most liked videos.
That says timely humor and art history with personality both still work. In other words, if a video can make people smile and give them a tiny nugget of knowledge, it has a fighting chance.
What June Covered
June was busy. Looking back at the posting list, the month included art history, computer science, music, jokes, AI tools, random life lessons, and at least one water leak trying to become a content vertical.
Some of the highlights included:
- Travel and Taxes, or How to Visit Family Without Accidentally Inviting the IRS to Dinner
- Episode 76: David Alfaro Siqueiros, or How to Paint a Wall Like It Just Joined the Revolution
- CS301 Episode 3: Greedy Algorithms, or How to Make the Best Move Before the Universe Changes Its Mind
- CS301 Episode 2: Divide and Conquer, or How to Split the Problem Until It Starts Behaving
- Episode 75: Jose Clemente Orozco, or How to Paint Humanity Like It Just Walked Through Fire and Forgot Its Shoes
- Episode 74: Diego Rivera, or How to Paint History So Big the Wall Starts Breathing
- Where Did the Cursor Editor Go, and Why Am I Staring at a Chat Window Like It Stole My Lunch?
- CS301 Episode 1: What Makes an Algorithm Good, or Correctness Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling
- Music That Moves Me: Episode 1 — Coeur de Pirate — Comme des enfants
- Friday Night Laughs: Juneteenth Edition — Freedom Tastes Like Barbecue and Bad Jokes
There was also a continued run of The Artist Series, including Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, and more. Add in AI posts, random life pieces, software engineering episodes, and a monthly review, and June had the creative footprint of a caffeinated octopus with a publishing calendar.
10 Romantic Gestures to Impress the Wife
Now, because this is a June Review and not a quarterly shareholder call hosted in a broom closet, let us add something useful for actual life.
Here are 10 romantic gestures to impress the wife. These are not guaranteed to fix every problem, but they are much cheaper than saying, “I thought we agreed not to do gifts,” on the wrong anniversary.
- Make coffee or tea exactly the way she likes it, without asking.
This is romance disguised as beverage logistics.
2. Take one annoying task off her plate before she mentions it.
Laundry, dishes, scheduling, trash, the mysterious pile near the door. Pick one and defeat it.
3. Leave a short handwritten note.
Not a novel. Not a manifesto. Just something simple like, “I love you, and I noticed how much you did today.”
4. Plan a low-stress date.
The key phrase is low-stress. If the date requires a spreadsheet, parking strategy, and emotional warm-up exercises, reconsider.
5. Ask about something she cares about and actually listen.
Not “uh-huh” listening. Real listening. The kind where you can answer a follow-up question without looking like you just rebooted.
6. Compliment something specific.
“You look nice” is good. “That color looks amazing on you” is better. “You make chaos look organized” may be risky but possibly accurate.
7. Handle dinner.
Cook, order, pick up, clean up. The cleanup matters. Leaving a romantic dinner disaster in the kitchen is just outsourcing the sequel.
8. Give her uninterrupted time.
Sometimes the most romantic gift is a quiet hour where nobody asks where the scissors are.
9. Remember a tiny preference.
Favorite snack. Favorite flower. Favorite seat. Favorite way to be left alone after a long day. Tiny preferences are where love hides the good silverware.
10. Tell her one thing you are grateful for.
Be specific. “Thank you for holding everything together when life gets weird” lands better than “thanks for stuff.”
There. Romance, lightly organized. No marching band required.
What Is Planned for July 2026
July should keep several series moving.
The Artist Series will continue, because apparently there are still artists in history who have not yet been lovingly described as if their paintings had opinions.
CS301 will continue too. We have already stepped into algorithm correctness, divide and conquer, and greedy algorithms, so July may keep pushing into the beautiful mess of how computers solve problems without needing snacks.
Songs That Move Me should also continue, because music remains one of the best ways to turn a normal day into a small cinematic event.
Friday Night Laughs will likely keep showing up, assuming the jokes behave themselves and nobody lets the punchlines chew through the furniture.
REST is on the possible July list too, which means we may talk about how software systems politely ask each other for things instead of kicking down the door.
PostCSS is also on deck, because even CSS occasionally looks in the mirror and says, “I could use a processing pipeline and perhaps a tiny existential crisis.”
Anything you want to see in July? More art history? More tech explainers? More AI tools? More jokes? More “please explain this like the internet has been hit with a frying pan”? Drop a comment and let me know.
Final Thought
June was not a clean victory lap. It was more like a month of signals.
Facebook and X stumbled. Medium cooled but still earned more. TikTok showed signs of deeper interest. LumAIere.com grew. Sales stayed at zero, but the audience did not. That is important.
The lesson is not “everything is working.” The lesson is “some things are still working, some things need adjusting, and the main site keeps proving why owning your own corner of the internet matters.”
So follow along, comment with what you want to see next, and tell me which July topic sounds most useful, ridiculous, or dangerously likely to become a blog post with a weird subtitle.
More art lives here: https://lumaiere.com
Videos are here: https://www.tiktok.com/@davelumai?lang=en
And more of my works are available here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/DaveLumAI/explore?page=1&sortOrder=recent
Art Prompt (Pop Surrealism):
A dreamlike pop-surreal oil painting of a luminous woodland shrine filled with porcelain animals, glossy red fruit, tiny velvet ribbons, polished roots, and soft toy-like flowers arranged with uncanny precision. Use a creamy pastel palette of rose pink, moss green, butter yellow, ivory, and cherry red, with a smooth lacquered surface, delicate highlights, and theatrical stillness. The composition should feel innocent at first glance but quietly mysterious, with symmetrical balance, miniature symbolic details, soft shadows, and a strange fairy-tale calm, like a secret garden built from memory, candy, and old museum varnish.
Video Prompt:
Begin with a slow push through a misty pastel forest as glossy red fruit gently spins in midair and porcelain animals blink awake beneath oversized toy-like flowers. Camera glides toward a luminous woodland shrine while velvet ribbons curl and uncurl in soft motion, roots subtly weaving across the ground like quiet choreography. Add sparkling dust motes, gentle parallax between foreground leaves and background trees, and a final upward reveal of the shrine glowing softly in rose, ivory, moss green, and cherry red. Keep the mood whimsical, elegant, mysterious, and visually catchy, with smooth looping motion and a polished dreamlike finish.
Song recommendations for the video:
Sweet Thing — Van Morrison
This Will Be Our Year — The Zombies