This is the Rise of Small Creators
#RiseofSmallCreators is Ratafire’s mission, meaning fighting for the survival of small online creators. We believe the internet belongs to every small creator who posts content and since is a place hardly anyone has not posted anything, everyone online is at some point a small creator. As small creators, we are big in number, and we created most of the internet.
Ratafire means the rise of small creators.
Before I go into all the all the anger I must first talk about why #RiseofSmallCreators is important to me. For me, the Internet dramatically changed the number of people who get to experience what does it feel like to be a creator. This is unthinkable before because, in the past, only very few get to be in the patronage system (patronage itself is totally outdated because it has always only favored few people). Bringing back the patronage system is not the Internet’s way of thinking.
In the past and to some extent it still is that critics, media and the academia tried to set the taste of our culture. They have a massive amount of power in saying what we should consider being great creation. The Internet offered an opportunity to forever change that. To me, being able to decide for myself what is great creation is something I can’t live without.
It is magic for me, and I never identify myself as someone other than a small creator. I don’t have a massive amount of followers, but I work hard on all of my creations. I get to breathe the beauty and the bitterness of being a small creator. I think it has shaped my character, washed away the youthful arrogance and taught me patience.
Small creators are against all odds. Here are some throat cutting problems small creators are facing, and I will start from the most frustrating ones and then to the less pressing. I am in fact angry about most of them. You heard right, anger has long since surpassed the frustration and there simply have to be solutions.
Small Creators Lack Traffic
Traffic is the biggest problem for small creators.
Some are advocating that it is a digital Renaissance. It is not, at least not for most who post online. Now especially, small creators more often than not don’t feel there is any natural traffic. There are two reasons why natural traffic feels hardly present nowadays.
First of all, we are about to enter the second half of the Internet revolution. The first half has now officially ended with the fact that the social grid is created. It is not that there won’t be any new huge social sites, but we now already have a generation of working and strong social site.
Social media is above 10 years ago, which means we are not at their most rapid growth phase anymore.
What was worse, it feels like that every site out there now is algorithmically against small creators. I don’t think this is right.
I think it is important to create something that can work for small creators with less traffic, and it has been something Ratafire has been working on for more than 2 years. Even now I don’t know whether it worth it. It took us too long to perfect every detail that aimed to make low traffic work. Still, we need you, small creators to join us, to make them finally work.
The gradual model, the game-like mechanics, and every page design. So join us. I think it will be different from what you have seen on every existent site.
Join #RiseofSmallCreators, and together, we will have a chance to fight. Right now we are too small to offer you direct traffic, all we can give you is a chance to fight.
Small Creators Are Constantly Underestimated
I am sure you have heard of some version of the 1% and 2% and 20%/80% rules of the Internet, which all roughly means a few people created everything online, and everyone else is pretty much not worth mentioning or are simply consumers.
I used to believe this, for it seemed to be the consensus of the entire internet industry that I am a part of. I asked myself whether what I propose is impossible.
This law just like many other laws has its limitation. It doesn’t work when a group is still small. When a group is small, the percentage of the creators in it is larger. This effect is obvious in fandoms.
Now the Internet is a strange place, its size can be designed and recreated by each site. Which means with some correct structure, we can create spaces where traffic flows differently.
Rise fo Small Creators Will Win
I will not lead you into a war if we can’t win it. There are two reasons why first small creators are big in number. We are the majority, silent or not. However, we have to group together to become something big enough.
The second reason why small creators will is we are what the Internet is about, and this is our one-time historical trend to ride. The Internet, whether it is easily grabbed by monopolies or not, offered a chance for groups of people who are really into the same thing to connect regardless of where they are. The structure we are building should be around this basic premise.
So join #RiseofSmallCreators, and we will stand a chance.
