How to Build an Online Following from Scratch

Introduction to the Course
We live in the age of connectedness. Correction, we live in the age of world-affecting-connectedness. Everyone in this globe is within reach. Everyone is online and in attendance. Rupert8195? NintendoAmy? TheOnlyWayisJack? CousinLelo? They’re GO status.

The tools are set in place. You don’t need an editor. You don’t need grammar or sentences or words. You don’t need an institution, preparation, or facts. Learn the lingo. Be hip like a California coder. Stay positive. Offer hope and support. Don’t analyze. Make it easy, punchy. Repost something funny, something maddening, something relaxing, distracting, entertaining. Make a difference. Repost something that makes people stop and wonder, can I give this a heart emoji?

Is nobody listening? Keep posting and obey this one rule: if you feel anger, don’t. We are all angry. That’s a fact, but who cares? Answer: nobody. Nobody cares, not even if the facts are factual. Massage the truth and make it user-friendly. Some guy tells me, “Hey, asshole, there’s a train coming,” and just to spite him, I stay on the tracks. Someone says, “The Earth is dying,” and who wants to hear that? Answer: nobody.

Users want what they don’t have. Give it to them. Grab two handfuls of love and smack them together until a large, multi-colored cloud rises. Add piano music. Hold hands with someone attractive. Most effective locations: a mountaintop or a beach.

Are you still angry? Fine, then, get it out of your system. Find a cause, a clique, a mob. Join. Go to the meetings. Don’t just add to the noise. Rise above it. Scream: lives matter, so die, motherfuckers, die, die, die!!!!!! Repeat until someone actually dies. Use that moment to repost a quick candlelight memorial. Lead with a message of inspiration. Be the light. Show that you’ve grown. More importantly, use a cursive font.

Use those magic filters that clean your face, the ones that make the anxiety disappear with the tap of a button. Have you seen the video I reposted of the shy, plain woman that belts out this incredible song? She was a nobody, then she changed the world. And then the world went back to its shitty state five minutes later, but that’s cool. That means I can fix it again and again and again. See? Hashtag optimism. Watch the heart emojis float from here to Cupertino.

You like art? Great. Art is so useful. So valuable. What is it? It’s whatever you decide. You don’t need to learn art history. Anyone can do it, especially you, because self-belief is crucial, and learning takes too much time.

Here’s how you do it: find something online. Cut, paste, save. Change the name, the colors, the melody. Now it’s yours. You made it. Hang it on a wall or blast it on a speaker. Use your cam, then twitch the shit out of it and watch it fly. Get a thumbs up from the friends that owe you from that time ten minutes ago when you gave them a thumbs up. It’s tit-for-tat. That’s how friendship works and followers follow. If someone trolls you, tell them, Well, that’s just your opinion. Someone tells you that your art is redundant, that some dead dude named Picasso or Picanha or Pikachu already made the same point a hundred and fifty years ago? Block them. Those are NOT your friends. Art is about uniting people, about coming together as one, about ME saving YOU.

It’s all a mirror. Friendship is a mirror. Politics is a mirror. War is a mirror. Religion is a mirror. The Earth melting down? Fish swimming in plastic? Rhinoceros turning into a mythological creature? That’s art and guess what? Art is a mirror.

Look at you, an essential human being, changing things, affecting them. Just be yourself, even if that requires ten selfies. Find the pose that elevates your profile. That means, I guess, that just like art and friendship and war and religion, you’re also a mirror. So, when I say, be yourself, I mean be me. Because you’re not you. You’re me. That’s my opinion, so what I’m asking is, Do you like me? I need to know, now, always.

About the author
I’m an artist, but don’t Google me. You won’t find anything. Not everyone can change the world. I certainly won’t, and that’s in part because I don’t care about posts, tweets, memes, and pics. I don’t use something just because some startup, corporation, or dude in a garage puts it in front of me. If there’s a button to like, I don’t like. If there’s a heart, I don’t heart.

A work of art has an intention. Its meaning originates from the language and the rules set by the artist, not solely from context. It offers layers of depth. It is precise and economical, but complex. Rembrandt’s eyes are just painted, but they project as much life as those from any living creature. What makes them relevant is that in the midst of such vivacity, there’s an air of melancholy and decay. And that’s just the start.

Propagandists paint poor people swimming in an ocean of garbage and expect the audience to change their ways. The propagandists’ intentions are bathed in righteousness, but they dumb the issue down to a point of condescension. If they respected their audience, they would assume that I already know poverty is awful and that I don’t care. Because I don’t. If I did, I’d be working to fix it. So, what do you want to say to me now?

I understand the irony of wanting to share this essay with you, but my criticism lies not with the act of sharing as much as it does with the quality of the content that is being shared. Innovation and experimentation have lost ground to a culture that devours comfortable, derivative work, and as much as I’d like to blame someone, it wouldn’t help the cause. I used to live under this idealistic notion that our collective decisions had led us forward to the best of all scenarios and that art played a big role. But my ego got the best of me. Even if it were possible for me to share a vision where art succeeded in refining our civilization, it would be unnecessary. Each generation adapts to the offerings of the era and tags some of them as great regardless. Therefore, any art will do. Star Wars as philosophy? Marvel as mythology? Trump and the Kardashians dictating domestic policy? Sure. Any outcome will be justified anyhow while we continue to exist in a haphazard, reactive way. That’s the way it’s always been.