The Downside of Being a Small Creator
A couple weeks back I shared some articles and thoughts about the shift away from mega-gatekeeper culture toward small creators. This Vox article by Rebecca Jennings discusses a downside of ongoing trends toward “individual brands” (that has been in progress for a number of years): everyone has to promote themselves ever more.
It’s not an effect specifically of the collapse of big culture gatekeepers, but a related aspect of where our society has been moving.1 I just mentally connect these two ideas because if you can’t break through with a publisher, whatever your medium or product, then you have to be/get really good at self-promotion since you won’t have pros doing it for you.
I’m terrible at this. It doesn’t come naturally to me and it’s not something I like doing. Alas. Anyway, I’m sure this is true of the majority of people, so here we all are.
The things is, if we all have to do this to “succeed”, if we’re shifting to a system where everyone must self-promote in a massive free-for-all pool, then we’re moving to a system where most people will struggle. An influencer-like system is one where the vast vast majority of people get next to nothing while just a few people reap most the rewards.
Which makes me wonder if it’s possible to shift to a system/ecosystem that is more localized.
As has been written and talked about a ton elsewhere, there used to be one or more local newspapers in many cities. But most have folded, with just some barely hanging on in major cities, and basically only one colossus thriving—the New York Times, of course.
Gioia was basically saying that individual journalists, in journalism’s case, and individual creators in creative industries’ cases, are on the up and up while the gatekeepers are stagnating. Maybe so, but if all the individual creators are competing for attention in megamarkets like on TikTok, Instagram, or heck, Substack,2 I worry that that just ends up with a different set of the “few” who thrive versus a mass who do not.
Speaking of NYTimes, Jon Caramanica wrote this piece talking about finally getting bored of the blah that is TikTok’s algorithm (which is channeling him to himself). If he and others do stop looking at TikTok and Instagram and whatever similar technology rises to challenge their thrones, what comes next?
P.S. I don’t have a TikTok. As Jennings asked, “Do I need to?”
So, I mean really something everyone’s being pressured (/encouraged) to do, as evidenced by LinkedIn.
I’ve heard mixed things about how Substack might be better for new people to get discovered or is actually just like the others where people with established audiences get all the attention.