Zach WeinersmithI'm sure there's a tendency to always view the past as better, but the social-media-ification of the Internet has really sucked a lot of the joy out of entertaining people. When it was peripheral to the broader Internet, you spent most of your time making stuff. Now you gotta learn 8 to 12 platforms that mostly want you to act like an employee of their algorithm.
It's bad for consumers too, I think. Reddit has recently gone more in this direction and now I have beloved small reddits that don't pop up on my feed, and meanwhile it's trying to get me to watch videos of people making stupid food recipes, half-true mystery factoids, aliens, personal gossip-sharing, etc. I assume they do this because it works but it's seriously degraded the experience.
How to rebel? That's the question. Personally, I'm leaning into making more depthy more thoughtful stuff. Bea Wolf - longform poetry. A City on Mars - a three-year research project. Oddly, traditional publishing feels like part of the rebellion, because even a bottomline-obsessed publisher still gives a damn about what's in the books and what it says about them. They look bad and feel bad about making trash. Social media breaks that relationship.
One more thing that sucks? Because I can't directly tell my followers about new books and things anymore, since almost nobody reads RSS and facebook/twitter/instagram only feed people viral content, I have to be *way more annoying*. Have you noticed how authors don't just make books but have to *become their books* in online branding personae for months at a time? That's because it's the only way to reach you.
Last thought - I'm fairly along in my career and I'll be OK. However, what frightens me is you see talented young artists who don't even recognize the problem. They adjust their energies to these algorithms, reap "likes" for what they're worth, sell disposable products that are only of interest because they're made by an influencer, and they don't even hate it!
Oblomov@ZachWeinersmith they'll pay the consequences the moment the algorithms change and they'll be wiped from everybody else's timeline. We already see a lot of this happening on platforms like YouTube. Even more seasoned artists can get swept by this “chasing the algorithm” (I recall @davidrevoy almost fell into the hole, but then quickly realized that art wasn't worth sacrificing for it).
@ZachWeinersmith
November last year has been a missed opportunity to break out of this cycle, with too many “heavy*” users not realizing the importance of their choice for platform for migration, and preferring leaving one algorithm-controlled hellhole for another instead of using their influence to move people out of the system completely.
*I use the term to indicate users with a sizable following who would have been followed to whatever their choice would have been.
gracealexander@ZachWeinersmith completely agree. It’s a problem in our society!!
Brian Owen@ZachWeinersmith I'm not exactly sure how we'll build it, but we owe these young artists something better.
lehenry@ZachWeinersmith I still rely on RSS, but the limitation of RSS is discovery. Once you find a creator that fits your interests, you can follow and see all updates, but to find new ones, Social Media is better.
Heath Borders@ZachWeinersmith honest question: is running your own email list too expensive? It seems like having direct contact with your customers is worthwhile. Brady Haran (of Numberphile, et al) is doing this.
malba@ZachWeinersmith It does help the pornographic or just very horny artists, to exist, I think. Payment processors deny service to pornographic art, so not having an extra human in the loop to snitch on the artists is good. Also, it prevents puritanical sentiment from ruining a good time. And it might not help them to make a living, per se, but it might help tiny creators in completely unknown genres to get seen at all.
@ZachWeinersmith How would I have found out about Samet the Turk, or 5d Lexi, or Ultraviolent4 otherwise? How would Ironmouse or VTubers in general have gotten their careers off the ground?
Alan 🎲 
@ZachWeinersmith Hi, I’m Almost Nobody. I follow SMBC using RSS (in emacs 🤓)
Rafa Font 🌻 🇪🇺 🏀@ZachWeinersmith What do you think of a newsletter or similar? A list of people that have opted in to get information directly from you.
@rafa_font Yes! Newsletters and podcasts have grown a lot, which is funny because it's like 1990s internet resurrected.
@ZachWeinersmith Maybe this is my point: no need to learn 12 platforms. Keep the core one, the one which grants you more direct access and is more respectful, and that would be the newsletter.
Then for more personal usage choose the one you like best (Mastodon obviously 😁)
I would still have doubts about Substack. I think they go in the right direction but I'm not fully convinced (I use it though).
KewlCat@ZachWeinersmith Wait a minute. Isn't all that your publisher's job!? Advertising? Reaching people who might enjoy your work in order to sell it to make a profit (for them) or to make a living (for you)??
BTW thanks a lot for https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/rss ;-)
Karawynn Long 🦊✍🏻🏳️🌈😷♿Hahahaha. If only publishing actually worked that way for more than 1% of authors.
@karawynn @ZachWeinersmith more like "pub_leech_ers" you mean?
@KewlCat @karawynn I haven't met any bad actors in publishing. I'm sure they exist but like... if you just want to make money, I doubt you go into editing books. I think the deal is just that publishers gotta make a profit. If you have a pre-existing audience, you are lower risk, so they are more likely to buy your books and/or pay you more. But honestly, the fact that Bea Wolf got published shows it ain't just about money. That was insanely risky.
@KewlCat @karawynn I would also guess (and it is just a guess!) that the bankable stuff is partially done to allow more risky bets. So yeah, if some pop singer wants to make a generic picture-book, by all means. This is a huge percent of all modern picture books. On the other hand, if the company is making money, you can find the Maurice Sendaks and give them a shot.
"the bankable stuff is partially done to allow more risky bets"
That's always been only half the story, but also publishing used to work a lot more like that than it does now. Year by year, decade by decade, the publisher rights land grab has expanded and the basic level of support afforded the average author has eroded.
The Big Five don't make many "risky bets" now (when you have a million bucks, buying a couple hundred $1 lottery tickets is no real risk).
Most of the editors and other staff are lovely (and have wealth or alternate sources of income bc publishing pays for shit and NYC is ridonkulously expensive). But that profit motive informs the whole system, and the system screws over most authors by buying their books but putting little to no money or time into marketing them. 95+% of books are like $1 lottery tickets for the corporation. +
... in that if they take off under their own power (one in a million chance), the publisher wins! and if they don't, they haven't lost significant money. When you have a million dollars already, you can buy a lot of $1 lottery tickets. But they don't have the personnel to do right by all those books.
The top one or two percent of books have major marketing behind them, and are *almost guaranteed* to succeed.
Also, I haven't read Bea Wolf (because MG is not my area), but from what info a quick search turns up I would bet big money that 1) it's extremely good and 2) was well timed to take an existing adult/YA trend (classic greek retellings) into MG, and therefore was *not* a particularly big risk from a publishing standpoint. Even discounting your existing fanbase!
There are also clues that BW had a significant marketing push behind it. For example, those blurbs. That means Macmillan was courting top authors on your behalf. That's not an effort they make for most published books.
The fact that you got reviewed in every major trade review pub plus NYT etc means M probably positioned it as a lead title for the season, and probably splurged on full-color printed ARCs, distributed widely.
In other words, it really looks like you hit the publishing jackpot. Which is awesome, and I'm genuinely happy for you! But realize for every one of you, there are probably a hundred other people -- with books ranging from competent to fucking brilliant -- who get no publisher support and therefore crash and burn.
Elio Campitelli@ZachWeinersmith I'm proud to be one of those nobodies that uses and loves RSS. Yours is in my "Webcomics" folder, which I read almost every morning.
S.T. Veje@ZachWeinersmith I still maintain a few RSS feeds that I keep up with, yours included, but it does feel like it's just the last few stragglers holding on ... who knows how much longer.
Dr Richard Hussey@ZachWeinersmith The pseudo death of RSS feeds has been a major part of the problem for me. I lost track of so many webcomics when my collection of feeds broke or was inaccessible for a while when Google Reader was killed (and some other issues that were more on my side).
June 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵@ZachWeinersmith Forever relevant BDG video, it just captures the de-humanization these platforms do so well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPHK494AUxE
building your online brand
previously unreleased footage of Hugh Brandity's seminar entitled "Building Your Online Brand"this is where brian david gilbert is: http://twitter.com/briamg...
Paul Bernhardt (moved to @ZachWeinersmith Still here for your RSS feed! I don't know how you are supposed to use the internet without an RSS reader. Randomly checking websites to see if something new is on the front page? Garbage.
I don't care if people put the content in the feed or not, I am super happy to come to your site. I just need to know there is a new post and what it's about! RSS is the best.
Aaron@ZachWeinersmith Just adding myself to the (seems sizable here, actually) list of people using your RSS feed.
Tyler Benson@ZachWeinersmith if it makes you feel any better, I enjoy your RSS feed. It’s my primary way of following your posts. I wish the preferred alternative was for everyone to use RSS instead of the recent resurgence of newsletters.
Gabriel N@ZachWeinersmith do listen to Naomi Klein’s interview on “On The Media” this week regarding the use of social media and personal branding: it is an eye opener, it makes you rethink the whole thing.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/naomi-kleins-journey-mirror-world-on-the-media
Lana Sinapayen@ZachWeinersmith 'How to rebel?' Cory Doctorow's book The internet con promises to answer this question but I haven't finished it yet
Chris White finds this vexing@ZachWeinersmith I’ve seen this in music too: the way to be successful for a lot of musicians is to grind videos on IG/Youtube for other musicians. Solo performances focusing on chops, quick tutorials, funny covers. Some of it’s useful, but it’s overwhelming for people learning and sets up a weird idea that music is all about a feedback loop of leveling up between other musicians. It’s not really music per se.
Kevin McFadden@ZachWeinersmith would love to read a summary of a day in your life covering how you balance all the things.
MacCruiskeen@ZachWeinersmith Bottom-line obsessed publishers don't feel bad about trash--see how much trash is published. But they still have people working for them who feel bad about the trash, are trying to squeeze out some good stuff, and even make the trash a little less trashy.
punIssuer@ZachWeinersmith I think you might like Cory Doctorow's view on this. Teaser: he named it Enshittification.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
elle mundy
Daniel Hakimi@ZachWeinersmith it's easier to control your experience on old reddit and in *good* reddit apps, and harder on New reddit and the official reddit app. But yeah, not ideal.
Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】
@ZachWeinersmith Captialists love making social interaction monetizable.
Ferrichrome@ZachWeinersmith Yeah, I felt this a lot when watching a video about Freddie Wong’s channel (RocketJump)
His channel was based on short form, 2-4 minute special effects videos. When the YT algorithm switched to long term content, his channel suffered and he had to shift to something else
@Ferrichrome Right, and this sort of thing makes everyone risk averse.
Seventeenth Magpie@ZachWeinersmith im too young to have used the internet the way you say, but I think about the difference between homepages and websites and timelines.
Timeline: your cool thing passes me by, I don’t know who you are unless I click on your cool thing (incentivise making it as eye catching as possible?)
Homepage: I know who you are, I go to you and see what cool things you’ve made.
The latter means the creator has an identity online beyond whatever they’re currently doing.
Talking out my ass
TransitBiker@ZachWeinersmith I just use mastodon.
@ZachWeinersmith the algorithms encourages quantity over quality
Shannon Cuthrell@ZachWeinersmith The soullessness of online entertainment is a result of the underlying incentive structure: On one hand, monetization gives everyday people a chance to make money from their content. But it also adds an incentive to chase the high of views/clicks rather than making something that truly resonates beyond the end-user's limited attention span. It's a short-lived high that's ultimately unfulfilling long-term. Thus, the output will be soulless.
Kaiyalai@ZachWeinersmith I think it all started to go downhill around 2015, give or take a year, but I may be misremembering