I've written a lot of stuff. A big chunk of that has disappeared into the ether. Well I think it has, I mean I have a retrospective notion of writing something. I just can’t quite put my finger on what it was, let alone where it is.
I have distinct memories of writing something on my Palm TX PDA using a keyboard that connected via an infra-red light. Probably around the start of this century. It didn’t even have a writing app. Blimey there weren’t even called ‘Apps’ back then; Applications. No, it was in the memos application, which I think had a limit of 4096 characters. Heck, I didn’t even consider myself a writer back then! Which is itself a longer story for another time.
So my point. Did I even have a point? Oh yes. My point is that often bits and bobs are written that are maybe worth a wider audience. Perhaps they don’t, but the decision as to whether they even get that consideration doesn’t even occur. Why? Because the perceived barrier for publication is just so high.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that everyone should be publishing junk. No, I’m saying that you should be given the option to publish junk.
Perhaps you think this is a little odd, what with twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, Substack, Medium, etc, etc, etc...
That is actually entirely my point.
Whenever you use one of those platforms, there is an inbuilt expectation of what that writing should be. Not only what it should be, but also the format it should be. Now, that can provoke some interesting creative solutions. I’ve seen someone post an entire Shakespeare play one 140 character tweet at a time. Not only that, they only posted twice a day, so it added another layer to it. Inspired.
I think what is missing, at least from my viewing of the online world, is the long form content. The amount of times I’ve clicked onto an article with the expectation of a nuanced discussion about something. I start reading the introduction, then. Oh, nope that is all that there is. It’s basically an introduction that someone believes, or is instructed, constitutes an article. Perhaps it does. Perhaps it’s all about ease of consumption. Perhaps long form meandering articles just aren’t the fashion these days.
Which I think speaks to the notion that people write what people want to read. I mean that makes sense, right? It’s important to write stuff that actually gets read.
Important, yes. Exclusively? Not sure about that.
The same goes for topics. Mostly content is created based on what people want. Playing to the popular voice.
I think that’s an important point. You need to keep people engaged in a medium, and one way you do that is to create what they like & want.
It’s a rather nice feedback loop. Create-consume-like-repeat.
It is though, also an echo chamber; people only hear what they like, only read what they like, only view what they like. Suddenly their perception of the world is based on that echo chamber feedback loop. So what is the problem with that? The problem? The problem is that there is a danger that they feel anything outside of that chamber, as being wrong.
That is dangerous.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we should write stuff that people never want to read. No. I think that I’m perhaps saying, we should be writing in a different format. Not exclusively of course, but as an adjunct to it.
Rather than writing a half-page “article” about the crossover between My Little Pony & Britney Spears, let’s try that as a feature-length longer article. I'm not saying that a snippet on the topic isn't valuable, I'm just saying that more words give you more scope.
It's not lost on me that I haven't yet written anything concrete yet, and we are already almost 700 words in. But you see, that is entirely my point. The extended word-count gives you more scope.
I've written about a lot of stuff over the years, some of which I can actually remember. Some of it is good, some of it is trash. All of it is mine.
I guess my point is that it's sometimes a nice thing to give yourself the creative space to write gibberish. Gibberish that some might read. Gibberish that someone might like. Gibberish that was written on your own terms.
So in summary, I like the space I've given myself & I might just investigate that My Little Pony & Britney Spears crossover.
- Article by Nigel Derbyshire, 2024.