In the maze of thoughts ... “Go big or go home!” Well, I'd rather be home.
No, I’m not kidding. If someone told me this, I’d genuinely reply: “Then I’m going home because that’s where I’m ‘Me’.” You may have noticed that one thing I value a lot is authenticity. One could even say I have an … authenticity kink X3 (gosh, that’s such a stupid joke). It sounds a little odd because for one, I’m more often than not “behind a mask” (which isn’t a mask at all, more like the expression of my true self because this meatbag doesn’t cut it), and for two, being authentic nowadays is “undesirable”. But the latter is probably one of the main reasons why me and likely many others seek authenticity. Yes, it’s a risk. Sometimes you encounter a genuine sack of shit of a person. But there’s quite an important silver lining: You know they’re a sack of shit outright so you can avoid them like a cat avoids a cucumber on the floor (unless you’re our cat because then you just don’t give a single damn).
But why am I talking about this. An inspiration came from two places: my probably the longest following on YT, Skallagrim, and reply to one of my discussions from BSky when I got into a talk about socmed and algorithms. The former pretty much aligns with my views on “getting big” and the latter, especially one answer, gives me an insight into how people perceive and use social media and what motivates them. Curious? Well, you know what to do.
When I started this writing endeavour, I did it to toy with just putting my thoughts out there into the “blender”. Just letting the inner workings of that sponge I carry in my head out into the wild without any broader motivation. Sure, I occasionally peek at statistics to just see the numbers, what kind of writing has what impact but in the end, it’s just numbers. What I like to observe more is who interacted with the result. Was is just my “inner circle”? Or did I somehow let out a thought that appealed to a wider audience? If so, what kind of audience and how? Did they like what I said? Did it have some impact, positive or negative? Was the impact so high that it deserves further proliferation? All these are interesting in their own way. Even more when someone who’s already more established gives my ramblings a small boost and suddenly the floodgates open. My reaction to these is always: “Oh dear, this is about to cause some shitstorm.” Luckily (seriously, I’m still shocked I haven’t got piled on due how I approach some things, but I’m absolutely on some people’s shitlists), the interactions have been good. There weren’t many, but they were largely good. And I’d like to keep it that way.
“But why, Rawi? You have all the data. You know what has the impact. You could start using it to grow, maybe even do this stuff for the living.” Woah, stop right there, buster. First off, I like having hobbies. You know, the things I do just for my own pleasure to take my head away from the serious stuff. And I’d very much like to keep these hobbies without turning them into a job. I already work mostly with my head and I’d like to have those brain cells have some time off instead of working all the time. “But Rawi, having a job that’s also your passion …” causes that passion to go away because it becomes a mechanism for survival. And do you want your entire life be in a survival mode? I highly doubt that, even if you’re into “feeling in danger”.
Secondly and this very often comes with “getting big”, your audience or customer base changes. Take “big” YouTube creators (using the term here intentionally to cover all the forms of videos they create) as an example. Thousands, sometimes millions of “subscribers”, videos coming out in a span of days … and they’re all the same. Same style of thumbnails, similar structure, same sanitised and ear-grating language (seriously, algo-speak is my pet peeve). Everything is this highly predictable, squeaky clean, reeking of the hospital disinfectant. Everything is how the customer wants it. Who’s the customer, you ask? YouTube. Yup, it’s not your community, not your subscribers. Because if they were your customers, you’d spend the effort into giving them what they want without having to bend over to rules you have no control over. Because doing so gives control to them. Remember who creates the “algorithm”. And they do so freely because they know you’ll bend over. This way they remove your freedom. This way they dehumanise your community into assets. And by the way, you can’t please them, ever. Because it’s not their goal. Do you want a historical example? Look up “Normalisation in Czechoslovakia”. It was during 1970s shortly after the USSR invasion (or as they call it, “liberation”) and it’s very much the thing that’s happening on corporate social media in the West.
How about another example, something that extremely likely affects your day-to-day life because you probably spend around eight hours there. If you work in a large company or corporate, you’ve absolutely been present at some form of meeting where the “executive” talks about how the company is doing who are they working with etc. And let me tell you something you probably already know: BULL-FUCKING-SHIT! Ok, that’s a little harsh but vast majority of that drivel is exactly that. Sure, you’re probably working on something either internally or for an external customer but I use the word customer loosely here. Why? Because they’re not a customer. They’re an asset. Just like you are an asset. Ever thought why a certain department is called “Human Resources”? How delightfully human-oriented, being called a resource. You know what else is a resource? Coal. And what do you do with coal? Or would do in the past? Throw it into the fire. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. Take a guess who’s the actual customer. That’s right, shareholders. You know, the people who do absolutely nothing for the company and only rake in the dividends. Do you know what an organism that benefits from the host is called? Parasite. But I don’t want to get into this rant. There are plenty already. The point is, they’re big so their customer base shifted.
And this is why I’m not motivated to go big and where my motivation aligns with Skall’s. I’d lose authenticity. I’d stop doing things people like (or dislike). I’d stop doing what I like. All to please someone or something that doesn’t care in the first place. This is why I don’t like algorithms and why the thought from the algorithm discussion kept lingering in my mind until today. The discussion was about how algorithms are dangerous and force on you what someone else wants to watch. One of the participants was defending the use of algorithms so things can be found and engaged with. My response to that was that people managed to do that all the time through actual contact or by actively seeking instead of being fed things, using Mastodon as the example of the algorithm-free network on which I somehow managed to build some small reach. Their response was that they tried Mastodon but could never have to pick up, no matter what they tried for promotion. The final response from them was: “But yes, if you want a social site where you’re not bothered, then Mastodon is the place.”
If you want a social site where you’re not bothered … Wait, what? You get into a social site to get bothered? Am I missing something here? I thought being in social spaces is about connecting to people that I can’t connect with easily in real life. To share my interests with those who I wouldn’t be able to normally. To be, you know, human and extending that humanity by using the online space as a form of a highway or a railway. I’m not interested in building a following. I’m not a cult leader for crying out loud. So yeah, I in fact don’t want to be bothered on social media. I don’t want to “walk on a stage and perform a sermon for my underlings, praising salvation, while considering them lesser beings”. I want my social media to be like a cosy cafe in which I sometimes get in, grab a tasty snack, maybe draw or write something and chat with cosy folks. Because such connections might one day come in handy in an unexpected way. To borrow a quote from Winnie to Pooh:
I don’t want to walk behind you for I don’t want to follow. Nor I want to walk in front of you for I don’t want to lead. I want to walk beside you and be your friend.
R.R.A.