And that is the realization I have come to when I evaluate most of the artists, thinkers, commentators, writers, and other assorted platform builders currently infesting the internet. They are far too eager to be social.
Now, I am a fairly sociable person when I am out in the world, but I am averse to social media and the kind of online sociability that now seem almost mandatory to anyone creative.
Try this little test . . .
Next time you go online to search for your favorite online personalities, take a moment, lower your head towards the monitor, and inhale deeply through your nostrils. You may detect a faint, yet pungent odor wafting up from the screen. That sickly sweet smell is an unholy combination of sharpened eagerness, blind earnestness, raw ambition, and cold greed, and it emanates from every platform builder caught up in the pursuit of wealth, fame, and recognition. They want you to befriend them on social media and become their facebook pal, these materialist strivers. Go ahead, follow them on Twitter, subscribe to them on You Tube and, most importantly, send them money through Patreon. Receive their monthly newsletters. Watch their latest video. They are so social; so connected; so in the loop. I guess they have to be because it seems that is what it takes to make it these days. And don’t kid yourself, what most people online want above all else is to make it, and they will make almost anything To. Make. It.
Of course, you must be online. You must have exposure. You must find your niche. You must build that platform because you know that subscribers and followers are a new, faceless digital currency you can exchange on the open market. Without them you have nothing with which to trade, no validity of which to boast, and no latent power to yield. So you must dedicate yourself to increasing your numbers and going viral. With any luck, you could land in the mainstream media, which you publicly scorn and claim is dying. Yet you secretly hope for the day you can ride that dying dinosaur and really hit the big time.
And if that is what you truly want, I hope you do.
Me? I’m not interested in any of and I never really ever was. My infrequent attempts to engage in social media in an effort to build a platform always made me uncomfortable and I have vowed not bother with it again in the future beyond this site. I have a social life in the real world, one that needs no supplementation from the web. If using social media is what it takes to make it these days then I guess I just won’t make it. Besides, I got my sights set on deeper things. Higher things. Regardless, I will keep writing, and I will keep focusing on salvation, and by doing so I strive to truly make it by not really making it all.
Now, I am a fairly sociable person when I am out in the world, but I am averse to social media and the kind of online sociability that now seem almost mandatory to anyone creative.
Try this little test . . .
Next time you go online to search for your favorite online personalities, take a moment, lower your head towards the monitor, and inhale deeply through your nostrils. You may detect a faint, yet pungent odor wafting up from the screen. That sickly sweet smell is an unholy combination of sharpened eagerness, blind earnestness, raw ambition, and cold greed, and it emanates from every platform builder caught up in the pursuit of wealth, fame, and recognition. They want you to befriend them on social media and become their facebook pal, these materialist strivers. Go ahead, follow them on Twitter, subscribe to them on You Tube and, most importantly, send them money through Patreon. Receive their monthly newsletters. Watch their latest video. They are so social; so connected; so in the loop. I guess they have to be because it seems that is what it takes to make it these days. And don’t kid yourself, what most people online want above all else is to make it, and they will make almost anything To. Make. It.
Of course, you must be online. You must have exposure. You must find your niche. You must build that platform because you know that subscribers and followers are a new, faceless digital currency you can exchange on the open market. Without them you have nothing with which to trade, no validity of which to boast, and no latent power to yield. So you must dedicate yourself to increasing your numbers and going viral. With any luck, you could land in the mainstream media, which you publicly scorn and claim is dying. Yet you secretly hope for the day you can ride that dying dinosaur and really hit the big time.
And if that is what you truly want, I hope you do.
Me? I’m not interested in any of and I never really ever was. My infrequent attempts to engage in social media in an effort to build a platform always made me uncomfortable and I have vowed not bother with it again in the future beyond this site. I have a social life in the real world, one that needs no supplementation from the web. If using social media is what it takes to make it these days then I guess I just won’t make it. Besides, I got my sights set on deeper things. Higher things. Regardless, I will keep writing, and I will keep focusing on salvation, and by doing so I strive to truly make it by not really making it all.
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