I find lots of value in doing creative things. There’s a real draw to it too. That is, on top of the benefits of producing it, I find it fun.
I’ve had a few posts on the hackernews front page. An article of mine was read by ThePrimeagen which on its own has 100k views. A YouTube video of my own has over 60k views. Altogether, my content has assuredly reached north of 500k people. That’s a lot.
Yet, lots of my content gets very little attention. My social media accounts have very few engaged followers. My notes are read by very few people. Some of my videos have low viewer counts.
If my goal was to become a niche micro celebrity, I’m failing terribly. I’m failing in a way that’s clearly to do with my own lack of effort.
I know how to make engagement-bait posts. I know how to make catchy thumbnails and ride trends. In fact, I was once a popular voice actor within some more niche circles. I had momentum that I could have ridden.
But lots of the ways to get attention are kind of bad and morally grey. I’ve met some folks IRL who are quite good at getting attention online. A good portion are legitimately insufferable. The qualities that make you excellent at this skill also require you to discount the experiences of the people you affect. I’m fine being bad at this.
More importantly, the strategy I’ve had for my content makes the lack of great attention a non-issue. My goal has never been to amass popularity, it has been to produce content I’m proud of.
When I chose topics for articles and videos, I would refuse to engage on something I thought someone else had done a better job of. I only made my Unicode video because I could not find a way to educate myself from another video of this form. I made the content I wanted to exist.
A cool effect of this is that the content I make is usually exceptionally helpful for a few people. It will not get a wide reach, but my work might have a sizable impact on someone’s life. That’s good and important.
My work also lets me finish a thought. It allows me to let go of an idea. Without a space to work on and finish a thought, it’ll just keep rumbling around in my brain, bumping into other ideas.
In short, I produce mostly for an audience of one. It’s for me. It allows me to produce.