Social Media and (Writerly) Depression
Apr. 3rd, 2014 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseIf I ever want to sabotage myself, all I have to do is hit "stats" on any number of my websites. What happens when I do that is that I look at whatever the numbers are there and start either comparing myself to a more successful version of myself, or, worse, to someone else. And it can pretty much be anyone. I don't even have to torture myself with the current "it" crowd in SF. In point of fact, I've been known to send myself into a tailspin by noticing that another Tumblr-er has six comments on his/her post about their fan work going live on AO3, and look over at the pathetic one or two reblog/likes I got and think, "OH FINE, F*CK EVERYTHING. I QUIT."
Which is, of course silly, (if only for the reason that, of all the things I do, my fan work consistently gets the most love.)
This, however, is why I could never do a kickstarter/Indigogo kind of crowd funding thing for any project/potential project/life crisis of mine. I would probably be apoplectic with envy within five minutes of the thing going live. Even if I did respectably well, I'd think, "Well, you-know-who went viral in five seconds SO SINCE I DIDN'T I MUST SUCK SO MANY ROCKS--ARGH, I QUIT LIFE. BYE."
I don't know what to do about it, besides stay the [bleep] away from the dreaded 'statistics' buttons. I'm much happier just whistling on the crowded avenue, as it were. This, by the way, is my metaphor for a lot of social media. I sometimes feel every time I blog or tweet or post, I'm shouting into an extremely crowded hallway, where hundreds, even thousands, of people are passing by at any given moment. Attracting even one person's attention is really difficult. And, often, I can stress myself by looking over at other people standing in this metaphorical crowded hall and seeing the crowd they've managed to gather around them.
I was just talking about the whole social media phenomenon to a friend. The New and Improved SFWA Bulletin had a 'how to win at Social Media' type article and one of the bullet point type bits of advice was "be interesting." Yeah, see, that's not really helpful. I doubt anyone sat down to the social media of their choice and said, "My plan! BE BORING! That's sure to get retweeted!" And, similarly, there's really no quantifying 'interesting.' One person's interesting is another person's dull.
But, I'm probably boring you with that. See, that was my plan. I bet I'll get six new LJ friends now.
If I don't, I'll be sitting over here in the corner sobbing and feeling unpopular.
Speaking of articles that I'd love to read, it'd be interesting to know if anyone has done research on the correlation between depression and social media. I feel like maybe I've read somewhere that the internet (or the interwebs, as I hear you kids call it,) makes people more anxious, because they're always expected to be available, are constantly barraged by info, etc. But, I wonder if anyone has tracked this kind of comparing yourself unfavorably to others problem--or if that's just a problem of mine.
:-)
In other news Shawn had a lovely birthday on Tuesday. We went out to both breakfast and dinner which are my favorite things to do and one of my biggest presents to her was that we went shoe shopping and fabric shopping and I DIDN'T COMPLAIN, NOT EVEN ONCE, ABOUT HOW BORED I WAS. I'm such a good partner, aren't I? I bought her some actual gifts, too, but Shawn is easy in that she likes pretty shiny things like a magpie, so Mason and I went to the Tibet store and spend some bauble on some baubles.
And then I worked at Maplewood Library both Wednesday and Thursday, so it's been a busy week for me.
Which is, of course silly, (if only for the reason that, of all the things I do, my fan work consistently gets the most love.)
This, however, is why I could never do a kickstarter/Indigogo kind of crowd funding thing for any project/potential project/life crisis of mine. I would probably be apoplectic with envy within five minutes of the thing going live. Even if I did respectably well, I'd think, "Well, you-know-who went viral in five seconds SO SINCE I DIDN'T I MUST SUCK SO MANY ROCKS--ARGH, I QUIT LIFE. BYE."
I don't know what to do about it, besides stay the [bleep] away from the dreaded 'statistics' buttons. I'm much happier just whistling on the crowded avenue, as it were. This, by the way, is my metaphor for a lot of social media. I sometimes feel every time I blog or tweet or post, I'm shouting into an extremely crowded hallway, where hundreds, even thousands, of people are passing by at any given moment. Attracting even one person's attention is really difficult. And, often, I can stress myself by looking over at other people standing in this metaphorical crowded hall and seeing the crowd they've managed to gather around them.
I was just talking about the whole social media phenomenon to a friend. The New and Improved SFWA Bulletin had a 'how to win at Social Media' type article and one of the bullet point type bits of advice was "be interesting." Yeah, see, that's not really helpful. I doubt anyone sat down to the social media of their choice and said, "My plan! BE BORING! That's sure to get retweeted!" And, similarly, there's really no quantifying 'interesting.' One person's interesting is another person's dull.
But, I'm probably boring you with that. See, that was my plan. I bet I'll get six new LJ friends now.
If I don't, I'll be sitting over here in the corner sobbing and feeling unpopular.
Speaking of articles that I'd love to read, it'd be interesting to know if anyone has done research on the correlation between depression and social media. I feel like maybe I've read somewhere that the internet (or the interwebs, as I hear you kids call it,) makes people more anxious, because they're always expected to be available, are constantly barraged by info, etc. But, I wonder if anyone has tracked this kind of comparing yourself unfavorably to others problem--or if that's just a problem of mine.
:-)
In other news Shawn had a lovely birthday on Tuesday. We went out to both breakfast and dinner which are my favorite things to do and one of my biggest presents to her was that we went shoe shopping and fabric shopping and I DIDN'T COMPLAIN, NOT EVEN ONCE, ABOUT HOW BORED I WAS. I'm such a good partner, aren't I? I bought her some actual gifts, too, but Shawn is easy in that she likes pretty shiny things like a magpie, so Mason and I went to the Tibet store and spend some bauble on some baubles.
And then I worked at Maplewood Library both Wednesday and Thursday, so it's been a busy week for me.