āØļøDon't mind me, just peptalking myself and spewing it into the void āØļø
Its really strange having a following on social media. I've made so many friends and gotten opportunities I wouldn't have without it. Overall I think I've found a little slice of heaven online. Its 90% kindness in my corner and the other 10% is inevitable. I think the hardest part has been seeing the numbers. It's ingrained in us to view these numbers as a currency. More = better, less = worse. They aren't really numbers though, they are (mostlyš¤) people.
I would never expect the attention of hundreds of thousands of individuals. I wouldn't even expect a room full of a dozen to all pay attention to me so why does it feel like rejection when the numbers drop? I know it's just people's tastes changing, people growing, or expeting something different. Why does it feel like someone is saying "I don't like you"? Why does it feel like something in my life is actively leaving me when I don't even know the username, let alone the person, leaving? I hate that I have to see the stupid numbers when I go to my profile to find a video in my saved folder. I don't want to know "how many people left me" last night. There is always this voice in my head that it means I've done something wrong, that I've harmed someone to make them leave but I will meticulously crawl through my videos to see what could have been misinterpreted or left without explanation and I can't find anything that stands out. I start to wonder if maybe I'm just too stupid to see it. Too ignorant. Too cold hearted. If maybe I'm not meeting the expectations of kindness I set for myself. Maybe I'm not funny, just strange. Maybe it makes people feel uncomfortable. I should dial it back. I should think about dialing back personality to make sure I'm more palatable... but if people don't see the real me, who would they be following?
So I do it. I put myself out there. I make the silly videos with my authentic dopey self on display. I put together a little video, a slice of my day, like a diary. I love capturing all the bits. The lighting, the flowers, the bees and trees. The way my ducks waddle after me or the food I made. Marbles sleeping and her paws twitching. I love film and photography as an art form. Finding the angles and lighting to capture the feelings the moment is giving me in a way I can share with others. Part of it is so my daughter will have a way of knowing me and how I saw the world when I'm gone. I would give almost anything to have something like that from my own mother. To see how she saw the world and maybe have some clues for the unanswered questions she left me with. Outside of art and memories, film is just fun. I love finding music that's inspiring and seeing how each sound can change the entire energy of a clip. Like lining up words for laughs or tears. I would do it all again and again even if no one was watching. It's like a game where I'm trying to find the story in my day and pull out just 1 second from each moment to tell it in a way people who weren't there might enjoy watching with no context. Sometimes i win and people love it! Sometimes I think I've got something really great but no one sees it so I don't get to know whether it was watch worthy or just average. Sometimes people do see them and just dont like them, which I personally find better than not knowing.
Social media is a fickle beast. You have algorithms crawling captions for trending words - Heartfelt messages that use descriptive language beyond buzzwords wont do. You have filters looking at the videos themselves for clips that match what it's looking to push - Was every shot photo perfect? Was the lighting good enough for the filters to pick out my face or cute animals? The sound suits the video perfectly - but is it trending? What's the like to view ratio, what about comments and is that enough or are they weighing saves or shares more? Did I leave a comment somewhere or interact with a post that was too political? Am i off the fyp because of it?
I love data and being able to look for trends but statistics tells you not to play lotto, not how to win. As with gambling, it's about learning your limits and sticking with them. Knowing what you're willing to lose and never going beyond that point. If I win a bit, great! If I lose, I lost what I expected to lose and hopefully had some fun in the process ($10 on lord of the rings slot machines when in vegas was a $10 experience I was willing to pay for, plus they gave me a drink!). While I feel that sense of rejection when seeing the numbers, I know I have lost nothing. Making and sharing the art with the friends I've found is worth the sense of insecurity. Absolutely, everytime, YES. When I think about it objectively, outside of my profile page with my social currency on display, I don't care at all about the numbers. It's about the people. I love seeing what my friends have to say about the ducks this morning. I love chatting about what to grow next season or seeing all the ideas for crafts I'm thinking of. I love hearing other people's stories of their own similar experiences. I love the recipie ideas. I love finding people who want to sew and helping them find the right patterns or machine or troubleshoot. I love talking about tinyhomes and what works and what doesn't. The friendships I've made are invaluable. I get so much warmth, love and support. They don't wax and wane with the faceless numbers. This is why I continue. This is the part that matters. This is what the social mediabexperience is all about, actually socialising.
