“Build your following” content is parasitic — the lowest form of creativity
We’ve arrived. Late stage capitalism has reached its zenith.
The primal instinct of the individual to be successful at something has been superseded by the desire to be successful whilst doing nothing.
- The fastest way to passive income is by building a large, compliant audience.
- The easiest way to build a large, compliant audience is with the promise of something desirable and seemingly out of reach.
- The cheapest way to promise something desirable and seemingly out of reach is to sell it without being in possession of it.
That’s right.
I’m referring to the phenomena of the “build your audience” creators economy.
It has seeped into the feeds of anyone who runs any kind of self-propelled business or freelance service. Now, even once original and well-meaning creatives are falling prey to the instant gratification of content that generates clicks.
It’s ubiquitous and it’s ruining the internet.
No wonder, it taps into a basic human urge to be admired by others.
But not all that glitters is gold…
The ass went seeking for horns and lost his ears
Saudi Arabian Proverb
Sounds horrible, right?
It’s only a metaphor…
Don’t be an ass — do this instead.
Reset your algorithm and consciously curate your life
My algorithm was fucked.
A cursory hover of the mouse over a video with a click-bait title and before you know it you’re burrowing down the rabbit hole of false promises and aspirational twaddle.
All of a sudden I was being force-fed content that added nothing to my life and led not to the fear of missing out, but the fear that I was doing it wrong. As a freelancer I fell into the trap of thinking that I needed to acquire the latest analytics because seemingly everyone on my feed was proffering the importance of such tools.
It’s a vicious circle but it’s easy to break.
Step 1:
Deep clean your algorithm — click “I’m not interested” on any video or creator whose primary agenda is making you part with your hard-earned cash for the promise of more followers, views, passive income streams.
Step 2:
Actively curate your algorithm to better reflect who you are, what you value and what piques your interest naturally.
Steer well clear of anyone pushing unsolicited advice on how they did what they claim to have done whilst clearly still being in the process of doing it.
Documentation of a journey is a valid learning resource and learning on the job is common in many industries BUT in the age of internet transparency, a service rendered has to provide quality and as the old adage of web 2.0 maverick, blue_beetle goes
If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer, you’re the product being sold.
Ultimately, the grass is always greener mentality leads struggling freelancers to waste time pursuing somebody else’s metrics of “a following”, whilst contributing to the retention rate of a bandwagon creator and compromising on the time they spend on their own work.
Delineate your skillset
If you work for yourself and you actively chose your profession it’s important to remind yourself of these questions:
- What do I actually get enjoyment from in Life?
- What skill am I ACTUALLY providing to others?
- Where can I find materials that will elevate my practice and improve, not my numbers but my level of service?
- How do I make this skill sustainable so that I can do it professionally whilst still enjoying life?
8 billion people are not passionate about ‘Search Engine Optimization’.
They’re just not.
And the world needs more affiliate marketers like a whole in the head.
Yet, like lambs to the slaughter, blindly chasing views and followers is how creativity meets its end.
Produce something for its own merit, because you find value in it, not because others tell you that it’s trending.
You are individuals.
Yes we are all individuals — The Life of Brian
What weird, kooky, eclectic, heterogeneous thing are you actually into?
What have you spent the last ten years of your life doing on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons?
If you are an illustrator, musician, UX designer, language teacher, plumber, copywriter, programmer, you are providing a genuine skill which may or may not generate income from one client overnight but will give you the longevity to keep doing what you want to be doing in the long run.
If you are regurgitating already popularised productivity hacks, selling the promise of followers through audience retention or pushing a course that makes well-meaning but naive freelancers part with their hard-earned money then you are not providing ANYTHING of value
The message is simple: find the thing you are strangely good, that gives you value, let it tick along in the background for a few years and when you have something to show for it, share it with the world.
Organic Growth doesn’t come from paid ads or jumping on the bandwagon
A following is not about an ever-increasing number of digits on a miniscule screen, from which you measure your self-worth.
It’s about connecting with real people who’ve chosen to follow work, or commission your services because they resonate with something that you’re doing (and this is the key word) differently.
Kevin Kelly’s 1000 True Fans theory prophesized the advent of a time in which niche creators could add infinite value to the lives of their genuine supporters grâce à the internet. Over time these webs of organic connection will lead to referrals from similarly-minded enthusiasts whose estimation of your work will engender a cult following who won’t just unsubscribe and forget about you when they get bored of your hustle-based approach to boosting numbers.
If you lived in any of the 2 million small towns on Earth you might be the only one in your town to crave death metal music, or get turned on by whispering, or want a left-handed fishing reel. Before the web you’d never be able to satisfy that desire. You’d be alone in your fascination. But now satisfaction is only one click away. Whatever your interests as a creator are, your 1,000 true fans are one click from you. — 1000 True Fans, Kevin Kelly, 2008
The best clients that I have worked with have almost always come to me through word of mouth.
They are discerning but they don’t expect something for nothing.
I established a dialogue and connection with their friends and family (who they rate) and so their follow is worth that of a hundred harvested through paid ads or the idea that I can teach them how be successful in their business and creative endeavours, which I know nothing about.
After tweaking the specifics of my poor, ailing algorithm I was also pleasantly surprised to find genuine creatives whose work had been buried under the drone of content-creating content creators.
People like:
- Will Rochfort, a British artist who embodies the principles of 20th Century Realism in his uncannily nostalgic narrative paintings.
- Neil Hallinan, an expert in movement, posture, breathing and holistic health of the body whose work just strikes a chord with me and provides answers to questions that i’ve been sitting on for a long time.
- Alison Young, a young American singer-songwriter whose silky voice evokes the golden age and works in perfect harmony with the tight playing of the coterie of her folk, blues and soul inspired collaborators.
Their work is extensive and crafted by time, curiosity and focus and a complete disregard for how many people were watching them.
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone… — Blaise Pascal, Pensées
Spend a lot of time alone, focusing on the intricacies of the thing that you are naturally curious about.
Examine it, practice it, re-examine it, tinker with it, play with it, experiment with it…
…and then….
Work in collaboration with and alongside others
The medium is not the message.
At least if it is, then it’s a pretty two-dimensional one (yeh, that’s a dig at you)
Great communicators know this. Great ideas are derived in flow and one of the best flow triggers is collaboration.
- It stimulates novel ideas and generates untapped avenues of discussion
- It incorporates alternate perspectives and provides unique stories from lived experience.
- It breaks the echo chamber of repetitive though and regurgitated content.
Working alone is a sure fire way to construct brittle feedback loops that constrain creativity and rely on existing ideas, projects, creations to prop up a dwindling career.
In a nutshell:
Reset your algorithm. Find passion in the process. Reach out and connect.
Freddie Kift writes about language, communication, flow, collaboration and technology.
