I’m not saying creating content isn’t fun. It is. Being creative is fun. Being able to share it, with little to no friction or interference from anyone is fun.
Then there’s “The Game.”
If you “just” want to be creative, share it with no further plans or hopes, excellent. But being a creator, one who’s able to monetize on their passion, talent, skill, and hard work — that’s a different animal. Especially these days.
I can’t remember if it was Scalzi, Scott Stratten, Gary Vee, or someone else who said something to the effect of “don’t build your house on rented land.” And building an online presence, playing The Game, is still very much like that.
Social media is an incredibly useful tool. Whether it’s finding friends, finding your niche, building your business, or get inspiration. It’s amazing, and it scaled back the world to something that literally fits into your pocket through your smartphone.
But social media is also a volatile and unpredictable landscape. It’s like living on an active volcano, you never know if or when you’ll need to grab all your stuff and go.
Having this website, and shifting from social media to this place is a step in the direction of not living on said volcano. It’s still somewhat “rented” — I don’t think anything on the internet is permanent. But it’s definitely more reliable than any social media platform.
I actually think the proliferation of social media is a good thing. It puts the ‘social’ back into the concept, fragmenting monolithic platforms into communities. It forces us to choose, since nobody can keep up with everything all the time. Or rather you can, but in my opinion it’s a wasted effort. Social media in 2022 is about going deep, not wide. (That was true even before, but hardly anyone did that.)
I have a Vero, a Mastodon, a Hive (@dinchamion), I’m on Glass and I still have a Twitter and Instagram profiles. (I deleted Facebook, but c’mon — it’s 2022. Of course I did.) Still figuring out each, still finding my way to each pocket of community. On Vero, my photography has a much better traction than my blogs. Mastodon seems to be what I want from a social platform. Hive is still in its infancy, and unsure how it’ll go. Glass is for photography only, and it’s more about connecting with fellow shooters. Instagram and Twitter are… well.
There still are platforms that are the de facto standard for measuring “influence” or whatever you want to call it, that can be presented as reliable and believable clout. And it’s a good thing we have those, because against all other consideration, I’ve removed all tracking and analytics from this website. This is my home, and as much as I want to, eventually, transition my creativity from hobby to a full-time profession, I also believe in a more open, more carefree internet. So that’s that.
My point here is, if you want to become a full-time creator, you have to play The Game. But how you play it — that’s up to you. This is the internet: we are allowed to change the rules.
PS.: link in bio! ;-)
