Almost every morning I wake up to some spam e-mail with a self-help message. It is usually about some sprint, some “you-can-do-it-too” malarkey that rarely applies to me or anything I would want to read. In the world of blogging, online writing, or whatever the hell you want to call these trifles we tend to post, there are plenty of cliched and convoluted stories composed by cliched and convoluted archetypes we see circling our inboxes, feeds, and timelines. Most of it noise, of course.
From the top, the habits of some highly successful self-help writers cascade down, lifting other writer’s works in the meantime. One wonders what their secret is. Any ribbon of advice should be followed and if it only were, it may be you in that picture of the beach landscape, some golden lad with his feet up, reaching millions of views a day, laptop in lap, exotic cocktail by his side. The digital nomad who makes ten thousand of dollars a month is not only successful, but in a true gift-as-grift, wants to show you how this life can be yours for the taking. In fact, it is almost all they ever talk about.
The Dunning-Krueger Effect, loosely speaking, goes something like this — You are so bad at something that you lack the ability to properly gauge your performance, and therefore, you think you are good at it.
The Pareto Distribution, loosely speaking, dictates that almost all of the resources of a given system are based on the dictates of the few. The “80–20 Rule”, as it is sometimes referred. With this concept, those with resources will invariably accrue more resources.
I kid some of these writers. They are nice boys. Some of their suggestions are good ones. There is some practical advice there. But does following the generic advice of the passive-online-income crowd take more than it gives?
I wonder what type of writer you would need to become in order to satisfy the needs of us sensitive writers — who scrape the bottom of the barrel, never being able to rise above the noise.
It has been suggested, over and over, that to become successful in online writing you need to post countless times a day. You need to keep them short and you need to write content that people want to read... hell, this is even the spirit that inspires people that have a lot to say (do they, really?) on Twitter (X). You know the deal.
But one could ask whether anybody really wants to read at all. Online writing needs to be short. Concise. And spaced appropriately as to not intimidate the reader with a big block (gasp!) of text, because we pass these articles up frequently. And slowly, with the additions of these parameters, the ease with which they are employed, and the calculability they entail, we become less writers and more bloggers. Slowly we become more radicalized in our political opinions — as audiences tend to radicalize the writer, not the other way around. Slowly we drift into worrying about word count, conciseness, likeability, or its opposite — “hate-reading” is all the. . .rage, nowadays.
To run yourself through the mill of blogging is to strip away any sense of the self to not only appease the algorithm, but to become algorithmic in and of yourself. You strategize and plot much more than you write, concocting schemes in your habits, your opinions, your frame of mind.
When a platform like Medium announced the 100 followers requirement for earnings potential, a bevvy of newbie authors offered follow-for-follow opportunities. One could have predicted this outcome, as Medium was already hurling quickly into an abyss of column writing advice, earning
sharing articles, stat braggadocios, and then of course, all the ironic articles copying this trend, but set in the tone of satire or farce.
What will you become then? How do these forces shape us as we “stat” and “earn” our way from the present and into the profitable future?
The goal here appears to be making consistent writing profitable. Fair enough. But I know I can’t get there. It feels out of touch. It feels like taking financial advice from a friend who won the lottery — writing does not have to be “good”, only “for the good”, as in moral grandstanding. Blatant racism is tolerated when lobbed from one side, mediocrity is rewarded when cloaked in self-help guides, identitarian catchphrases and bumper sticker wisdom. Unfortunately, selling advice is much more profitable than following it.
You are much better off in this world if you be less an anchor, less a rock or stone, but more a feather in the wind, blowing in whatever direction the momentum is pushing. The truth is elusive. What works for these kings of productivity will nary work for you.
JSV
2023
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Oooofff this got me thinking. Which is a great sign. Amazing article. Thank you.
Amen.