I have been putting out snippets of my life, thoughts, ideas and style for many years. As a deep and somewhat overthinker, it is to be expected that I often cycle back to the same question:
‘Why do you bother?’
There have been different answers to this question throughout the years. In my earlier blogging days it was about keeping a writing habit. Writing is my play, it makes me feel alive and putting it out into the world triggered my motivation to keep it up, unlike my unopened private journal which I never seemed to have the time or energy to write. In my earlier days on IG I was motivated by a strong feeling of duty and purpose. I had been immersed in ‘kid-culture’ for my whole career and had a unique knowledge of how kids engaged with media, games, characters, education and so on. I’d only ever shared these insights with the companies who funded the research and as I built up a strong foundation of knowledge, I felt a rising pull to put my thoughts into the world to help parents. I wanted to be a voice of reason in a noisy space, helping them see the kids’ point of view and empathising with them about the challenges of raising kids in a contemporary, digital culture. I selfish keeping this knowledge behind a corporate pay wall and wanted to do something with it. Later down the line during lockdown when my account tripled in size I was motivated by connection and community. I was in the right place to take on the form of a leader, providing ideas, motivation and camaraderie to parents who felt like they were losing their minds with homeschooling. I also felt committed to coming out of the pandemic in a good place, not letting go of the reflections and making the necessary adjustments to life to start a positive new chapter - by motivating others I instilled confidence in myself to do this. It worked.
Making content, as any creator will tell you, is time consuming and requires effort. I can put a bunch of thoughts on stories or a good caption together in record time, it’s not that so much that takes my time anymore. It’s the mental baggage around it all, this is what costs a lot more of my energy. As time has moved on, the internet has become a different place, even in just the last few years. I liken it to a digital game of typing on eggshells. Humour is misinterpreted. A comment on one thing is seen as excluding another thing. Nothing is ever good enough, the standards are ridiculous. It’s exhausting. It’s unfortunate, because I don’t actually think this is how most people think, a lot of people don’t even interact, they lurk, admiring and engaging from afar and going about their lives. It’s not that deep. I should also point out that I have had very mild experience with any criticism or meanness, I’ve never been trolled, partly I believe because of the size of my account; I’m not big enough to get trolls and I probably don’t share quite enough of my life to attract them. I did see a ‘meangirl’ conversation happening in a comments section once (they didn’t directly name me but it was obvious it was me they were talking about). I stumbled into it because I was an engaged follower of one of these accounts and was interested in their posts. The snickering back and forth between these two women who work in the play industry and were both people whose work I admired (from afar). It stunk of misunderstanding and judgment and I’ll be honest, it stung. I’d love to say I was able to take that aforementioned confident stance and say it riled me up to ‘show them’, but truthfully it hurt, dented my momentum and I still think about it occasionally.
When you ‘go public’ and have a voice online you can’t control the stories people tell themselves and others about you. You put out crumbs and people join the dots resulting in different pictures. It’s something I find hard to ignore or let go off. Then there’s the impact on real life relationships too. I think when people meet me IRL who have seen my content and made their own story about me assume I have strong opinions on their parenting. I don’t. I couldn’t care less (no offense). I think they presume I’m happy all the time and don’t have any worries or problems (I do all the time, sorry to be so dull like everyone else). I think they see me as someone who is uninterested in coming to things or is too busy to bother (my social life is not that interesting, honestly i’m lonely like a lot of parents). The other consequence of sharing things about what you’ve been doing is that people don’t feel the need to catch up, ask questions or dig deeper - they’ve seen it all online so why bother? People also feel like they come across as a stalker if they reference any of your content they have watched, but let me tell you now if you find yourself in this situation, it’s weirder to have watched it and pretend you haven’t than talk about it. It’s actually pretty nice when people remember things - afterall people put things out to be seen otherwise they wouldn’t bother.
‘Why do you bother?’
I have never wanted to be an influencer. I am so so grateful that when I was pivoting my career and my account was growing a lot that I didn’t drop everything and go all in on social media. SO SO glad I didn’t do that. All of this circular overthinking gets wearing and I’ve accepted that whilst I’m better at moving on, I’m not sure it’s something I can train myself out of. Sometimes I listen to women in interviews or on podcasts and read their writing and I feel a burning of jealousy when I hear them talk freely and own where she’s at. I gasp - how can she say that without having to explain away everything or add a million footnotes to acknowledge a million nuances? Having a following online has made me more self-conscious in that way, but it’s not always necessarily a bad thing. Since putting myself online I’ve become a lot more knowledgeable about all sorts of topics and issues, it is important to be considered (to a point) and that has been a good thing. Despite the mental gymnastics involved, overall it has sharpened my point of view and perspective on some things and connected me to a diverse mix of people from all walks of life. This has been on the whole very healthy.
From a career point of view, it a very valuable asset to have an audience. It’s appealing to people who hire me, it keeps me plugged in to a group of people who are insightful and interesting and it has allowed me to apply my skills and knowledge in ways that without it I wouldn’t have had the opening. I’ve been strict with the type of work I’ve engaged with online, I knew very early on my account wasn’t an ad machine, this was a space to come to for a certain energy a person might be looking to tap into. I also feel I’ve lucked out with who I attract in my following. I have made friends, had thoughtful discussion, been inspired, received some heartfelt motivational messages and experienced great support and cheerleading all of which are very valuable. But there’s no getting around the fact that I’ve slowed down on the need to grow. I feel more need for privacy and want to get out of the mindloop when I’m doing something of ‘collecting content’. My hope is to be able to take a picture and not have IG come into the thought process. I used to think about growing my account a lot, now it’s so far at the bottom of my to-do list it’s fallen off. I have no idea about the algorithm. I couldn’t care less about keeping up with the latest features or using the right hashtags or having a schedule and consistent stream of posts. It’s freeing to just say - I have a great audience, they are more than enough, I will create for them.
I think the need for constant posting has created a sea of samey selling. It’s boring. Repetitive. And often soulless. The internet used to be a lot more fun. Personal even. I throw no shade at anyone who creates the type of content I think is yawnable, there truly is space for everyone, but I don’t want to be part of that. I want to keep the community I’ve got. I want to do things my own way and I’m reconnecting with that.
I’ve written here about how I’m currently embarking on a deeper creative exploration (see previous posts to catch up). As part of that journey, social media, a space I used to think sparked my creativity, is one that I’ve put up for review; I’m being frugal with my creative energy, we shouldn’t scatter it around willy-nilly, it’s precious and by being more economical with it by doing more with my thoughts and ideas in longer deeper form before chucking them into the world I am hoping to return to a quality over quantity model. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one feeling the need for more of that in their life.