Reshared post from +Max Rubenacker
trough: musing on futility
pondering questions of social media and digital relevancy right now. how to sum up these words in a pithy couple lines to convey meaning and grab your interest? should i make a list? 5 must-haves for success in social marketing perhaps? the guy who wrote it is in more than 300,000 circles and has a snappy profile pic, so he must know what he's talking about. right?
no. you've clicked the link to read more. i already have your attention, those numbers don't matter. they never did. hey there. now that we're both here, i'd like to construct an idea to share with you. i'm thinking about burning fields, lying fallow, resting at the bottom of the trough of a wave, that momentary weightlessness at the top of a jump.
for a while i was on a suggested user list. never actually managed to verify this fact, i certainly didn't see very many new faces, but the ever-rising spiral of numbers told me something was different. then in july after a few months of that, i think partially because i moved to an an area profuse with social media users and partially because i got a Real Job™ and wasn't putting in as many hours here, the growth stopped. pause, then began a slow slide backwards.
now i sit here and muse on numbers, see how engagement on my posts is dropping off, wrestle with the constant UX changes the googs force on us, despair at the people i seem to have lost touch with, and start wondering what i'm doing here. i joined in summer of 2011 when i was depressed and jobless, agoraphobic and prolific. i needed to craft a personal brand, an identity for digital space that would articulate my expertise and build my credibility. whatever this game is, i've done well. i focused on google+ because, honestly, this is the only platform i find myself able to use with any consistency.
consistency… that's a lot of my problem right now. in 2012 i burned the ships that brought me here and dedicated myself to building new things. i created +Friday Art Critique, briefly teamed up with +Samantha Villenave on +Art+Talk, talked to a few community managers about nothing of any substance, chatted with a few big art names. then i was able to be consistent. this year i haven't been able to do that. the content i create and share is consistent, though i don't show up as much as i used to. FAC and its Art Nucleus community spinoff have fallen silent. i haven't talked to sam in ages, and the very idea of doing another art talk chills me with despair.
and yet… something about this place seems to demand attention. will they (whoever they are) still take me seriously if this post only gets a handful of +1s and no comments or reshares? if i don't push something out by 10am every weekday will i fall so deep in google's opaque metrics that i drop off your radar entirely? how low will that number next to my name drop if i throw up my hands and walk away, never to return? does it really change anything?
i am angry. somewhere, someone (lots of someones) tell us that social media is important. the next big thing, a big deal. big big big. i don't disagree. my social adventures got me where i am today, that much more stable in my quest for self actualization. what i'm really angry about is the state of this community i am a part of, the art scene here on g+ and really everywhere i go online.
so, in anger, let me tell you what i am: i am an artist. first and foremost, for now and all the nows yet to come. i am also a lover of the arts. i want to do what i can to help elevate other artists. but there's too much standing in my way. it's like i came to a wall and figured out how to scale it, but now i see no point in getting to the other side. the grass is equally green on both sides.
those conversations i had with community managers were just insulting. i felt like i was being patronized. art+talk felt like i was chasing my own tail in some elaborate self-aggrandizing way. the communities i helped build allowed some of us to grow as artists in a provisional way, but no one at google (or any other social venue) cares about us. what they care about is what we represent. numbers. impressions. clickthroughs. reach. many words… all just data. it didn't matter if i was an artist as long as i was an artist using hangouts or whatever shiny new feature was being pushed that day.
i want to go back to FAC. i want to make things for first friday. i want to do openings in my virtual Infinite Gallery in Art Nucleus, to push that notification button and return to my seat at the table of the great art community here in the plusverse. i want to build things that help me and other artists like me.
so why do i feel so angry and just want to burn down this house to go live in the wasteland beyond the social spheres? i'm so tired. i'm tired trying to keep up with engagement. i'm tired of posting something every day to stay alive. i'm tired of knowing what needs to be done and not having the energy to actually do it. i am burned the fuck out. i do not see the value of this place anymore. i feel it though. i feel it the way i feel the shape of the furniture in a dark room.
what's on the other side of this burnout? i don't know. my artist self demands expression so i try to keep him fed. but something feels wrong. like somewhere along the way we got distracted and forgot what was important. like the act of playing the game of social media overtook the power of the social interactions it was based on. like we got so sidetracked by metrics that we stopped being humans.
i want to burn down this house i've built on google+ and build a tent in its smoking ruin. i want to see what you're working on, i want to show you what i'm working on. i want to get back to being humans together and leave all the other shit behind. if i turn on my webcam i want it to be for our mutual benefit. i want to tear down the walls we've built around our communities and force us to look at each other again, maybe in uncomfortable ways, but genuine ways.
i don't know where all this grandiose thinking will lead me. maybe nowhere. maybe i'll go be a tumblr hermit with my hundred followers and remember what it's like to just focus on doing the work. i don't care about showing in galleries or getting commissions or gaining accolades. i just want to see your faces again, dear followers.
at the bottom of the trough, that's all i can think about. i want to get back to doing what helps you. i don't want to just help the company powering this platform. i care about you. i care about what we can build together. i want us to grow better and stronger together. i just haven't been seeing that happening for a while, and i miss it. i miss you.
