As anyone who reads this blog knows, I set it up in order to attract an agent/publisher for the important self-help/memoir that has now been sitting on my laptop for years...
I will not give up in my quest, no matter how hard it proves to be (it can't be anywhere near as hard as surviving two decades of severe bipolar disorder), and the manuscript is currently with several different agents/editors/publishers, but the long and the short of it is that nothing has really come of any of my ridiculously hard work! (insert paws over eyes emoji)...
So... what to do now?
Recently, I've been thinking that perhaps I need to up my 'PR game' and post videos as well as commit to more plastering on social media.
This 'brainwashing' came from the latest reply I had from a literary agent who basically said:
"We won't touch you unless you have at least 10,000 followers".
Having thought about it, I'm now incensed - we writers do so much in terms of proposals, submissions, synopses, sample chapters, real chapters, entire manuscript, etc etc etc, the least the fricking agent can do is help with the PR.. but apparently not!
WTAF?
Interesting meeting
I had an interesting meeting with a video producer/editor yesterday called Sam Skeggs and we discussed all sorts of aspects of social media, gaining traction, filming content, editing, podcasts etc, etc, and my homework was to join Instagram and TikTok and do some research...
Now, I know I’m showing my age here, but TikTok is absolutely, completely & utterly, truly horrendous!
Why?
Because:
It epitomises everything that is wrong in society today
It has zero educational value at all
It promotes the unhealthy culture of fakeness
It feeds the validation epidemic
It is addictive and timewasting
It is total shite
I do understand (not really) why people prefer to watch or listen to content rather than read it - even though reading is vastly more therapeutic than listening, or watching crap on TikTok..
Anyway, for anyone who doesn't read, I've shared a recording of why I am not a fan of social media which you can listen to here (scroll to fourth audio post).
My TikTok 'experience'
I was honestly so shocked by how contrived and fake, especially the girls were on Tiktok, and it made me really, really sad – it’s so obvious why they’re all struggling since so much value is placed on looks (btw they look terrible) and not on educational content or inner value at all.
On the call yesterday Sam (who is much younger) said to me:
‘You’ll find yourself scrawling TicTok at 5am'
I immediately thought:
I will absolutely not be on it at 5a.m, I will be asleep!
And of course I was ... but, and this is exactly my point – if it's addictive enough to have people scrawling instead of sleeping at 5a.m then it’s obviously terrible for your mental health!
I am about reading and writing, I’m about going back to nature, reconnecting with oneself and the environment, I'm about self-awareness and slowing down to contemplate the best scenario for the brain and mind. Social media is just not a good fit!
It doesn’t feel right to me, and as soon as I am able (i.e when my book is published) I will be ripping all of my resurrected social media down again.
The problem is that they make these platforms utterly impossible to figure out how to leave!! TikTok was so ridiculous that I still have a bloody profile!
Anyway, the outcome of all of this is that I agree that I need to be more 'visual' but I do not agree with social media!
As a compromise I am going to try to film some content for YouTube, which hopefully Sam can help me edit, and then between the blog, the books, and the videos I've got a bit of everything, and that will have to be enough!
If the book fails after all of that then I can't reproach myself because I've done all I can!
I'm certainly not going to make myself ill again over bloody social media!
The Madness of Crowds
Bascially, what’s going on in all of this is a generational change for the worse and it’s actually horrifying.
My parents had the aftereffects of the war, projected to them from their parents who served and fought in it, subsequently they suppressed all their emotions and swept everything under the carpet.
My generation had a confused sort of transition stage where it was more acceptable to be who you are, but probably best not to talk about it, and now the youth of today have all this gender chaos and confusion as well as social media and gaming addictions to cope with too - all of which is simply awful.
Men don't know whether they can open doors to women without the women feeling like they are being patronised, kids don't know whether they are him, her, they, them, X, Y, Z, L, G, T, B, Q, BLM, etc, etc, and no one has a clue what is politically correct or whether they can even talk about it!!
It is utter chaos and totally bonkers!!!!
Add to this the pandemic and...
Is it any wonder that everyone is mad?
This is all something that the amazingly clever writer and journalist Douglas Murray discusses in his book The Madness of Crowds which I will be starting ASAP.
I have added a YouTube video featuring Douglas below which is not only fascinating but EDUCATIONAL TOO!
I think social media needs to be censored to educational content only!
Wouldn't that be better than a sea of fake eyelashes, blow up boobs, and people lip syncing to terrible pop songs? Save all of that for WhatsApp!
Just a thought...
Thanks for reading,
Speak to you soon,
TR
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