027: An Exciting Announcement and How To Build A "Presence" Online, Or Whatever
Lessons from 20+ years on the internet
Hi friends,
I was going to ease into this announcement but I don’t want to! I like a bit of drama to start an email!
Starting in May, I’m going to be hosting other writers on Collected Rejections.
I started Collected Rejections in March 2020 with the intention of publishing the essays other editors were nervous about. This project began with work I thought was great but was routinely getting rejected from other publications because the stories were too big, too weird, or because I didn’t have the right background to write those pieces. (No one wants a piece about art history from someone without an art history degree, even if that someone works in the curatorial department of a major museum, apparently.)
I’ve done that! I’ve been doing it for a year now, and I’m really proud of what I’ve created so far. I’ve been able to write really frankly about suicidal depression, rant philosophically about what makes season four of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina so terrible, propose we throw out 30 Under 30 lists, talk about writing processes and publish some fiction, bemoan society’s short memory, scream about cognitive dissonance and moral development, and push forward research about how reading fiction makes us better people. Now, I want to open up the floor for other people.
My plan, for now, is to publish a piece by one other writer each month. Ideally, it would be somewhere in line with the themes above—but also, just something that has gotten rejected a lot. Most editors want pieces that have answers—I want to publish pieces that are still asking questions, still musing about connections. I think we need more of that.
Of course, writers deserve to be paid. So this Substack is now going to have a paid option. Essays that are more than a year old will go into a private archive, accessible only to paid subscribers. The new featured guest articles will be published only for paid subscribers.
Importantly, these twice-monthly free posts are not going away! I will still write two essays per month and publish them for free!
Right now, I’m offering a 25% discount to current readers to upgrade to the annual paid option. Instead of $6/month, it’ll be $48.75 for one year, which is like getting 4 months for free. Subscribe here. This offer goes away on May 16, 2021.
The first writer has already been lined up for May 2. I’m so excited to have her. She’s a fellow historian, and even focuses on the Victorian Era like I do! I can’t wait. If you want to pitch an essay, I’d love to have you! I’ll be paying writers $200 for around 800-1000 words. You can pitch CR right here.
All right, let’s crack into this week’s essay.
A screenshot from Mugglenet’s early history
My first online account on a website was on Mugglenet in 2000. I’m very proud of this fact in a way that I refuse to examine too closely. My username had something to do with Hermione Granger, that’s all I remember.
In the twenty-one years since then (insert shocked emoji here), I’ve done… a lot on the internet. I had accounts on several of the earliest versions of blog platforms, all of which have thankfully been deleted. When I got a Twitter account in 2008 (wow), I learned to link between things, developing a web of my own online existence, and giving people who liked my writing a way to keep up with whatever new iteration of online writing I was trying to do. (Why people liked some of my early work is a different mystery I don’t have the capacity to examine, honestly.)
Many people I followed and who followed me have become friends over the years. I’ve met them in real life, I’ve watched them grow up, get married, have kids. They’ve moved to new countries, become actors, published books. Some have disappeared for years at a time, only to return to the internet ready to party again. Some have struggled with the same struggles I have; I cherish those friendships especially.
The thing about having garnered some minor attention on the internet is that my real-life friends occasionally ask me how the eff I did it. People want me to help them build a brand, get more followers, whatever. I usually give them a few tips, watch them not implement any of them, and shrug when nothing changes.
I’m not taking a stand here—I’m not saying I’m not going to help those people anymore. If someone asks me tomorrow how to be “better at” Instagram, I’ll still tell them what I’ve seen work.
But the truth is, what really works is just being ready to evolve at any time.
It’s the same as regular life.
People act as though social media is somehow different from real life. Sure, it happens through a screen, and everyone cultivates what they present online to some extent. People talk about the highs, and they only post about the lows once they’re lessons learned and in the past. Detractors say that’s what makes social media bad.
But people also do all that shit in real life.
For better or worse, people also only tell each other good things face-to-face and talk about the difficult hard things within certain very close relationships. People keep secrets and lie to each other and are careful about what they reveal at brunch too.
Social media is just an extension of what people do in their real lives. Whoever people are online is a close facsimile to who they are in real life too. That’s almost always true. The crazy stories we hear about people who were leading double lives and telling huge lies on the internet—that’s also who they are off the internet. It’s not like they become a good person when the wifi goes out.
Early into the creation of influencer branding businesses, I heard a lot of consultants advising aspiring influencers to make sure their content sounds genuine. Those consultants knew that most of the time, an audience can sniff out a fake. Really good liars get through sometimes, of course, just like seemingly normal people turn out to be Ted Bundy sometimes.
Failed influencers are often people who were revealed to be making up a version of themselves for the internet that was just a part they were playing. They were trying to be actors, basically, and weren’t talented enough to create a believable character that people could buy into. The people who succeed as businesses, as influencers, as writers, whatever, are people who aren’t putting on a voice and faking a personality. They sound genuine because they’re being genuine. They’re showing a real side of themselves.
If moving everything onto the internet because of the pandemic has proven anything, it’s that social media networks are just digitized versions of our real-life networks. There’s no significant difference. Who you are online is a very real part of who you are in real life.
Sure, your real life can be less glamorous. IRL you have to like, brush your teeth and pay your taxes, and you’re probably not taking cute selfies for TikTok while you do that. Fair enough!
But you’re also rarely telling your friends about that. When was the last time you had a drink with a friend and made brushing your teeth the centerpiece of happy hour?
You didn't. Just like you wouldn’t make that a grid post on Instagram, you don’t talk about it with your friends.
It’s the same fucking mentality.
Honestly, people who are saying that social media is fake are probably people who are being fake on social media. And they’re probably kind of fake in real life.
So, how do you get “good” at social media?
Be yourself. Talk to the people who follow you on Twitter the way you’d talk to your friends, whatever way that is.
Stop putting on airs. Don’t try to be someone else, unless you’re prepared to be acting every single time you log on.
And be ready to reflect your personal evolution in your digital evolution as well. Just like your friends would notice if you got sober, or discovered something new about your sexuality, or decided to change careers… let that be a part of who you are online too.
I am not saying that you have to cut yourself open and bleed for the masses every day.
There are things I don’t talk about online. I will probably never talk about them. I have my reasons. And guess what: They’re also things I don’t enjoy talking about in person! Some parts about us are just for us. And we get to decide what those parts are.
All it takes to build a “presence” online, whatever the fuck that means, is being the person you would be with your friends.
And if you’re trying to build a business online, use the same voice you would if someone came into your store in real life. The two personalities should not be different. Or people are going to be very confused when they encounter the you that’s in the store.
Finally, accept that who you are and what you present on the internet will change, just like you’re still (hopefully) learning and growing as a person. I am not the same person I was in December 2008—I was a freshman in college when I signed up for Twitter! Do you think I haven’t changed IRL?! Do you really think I’m not posting different things now than I was then?! But I still have a LOT of the same followers that I did back then; they didn’t abandon me as I grew, they often applauded it. Any advice you see about always posting the same sort of content was written by someone who has been online for less than five years, I guarantee it. Because frankly, things change too much for anybody to do that! Tumblr falls from grace and we start only watching movies online and we realize that the Royal Family is as terrible to each other as they were to the countries they colonized. Things change! You will too! So should your content!
Now Reading: The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran
It has somehow escaped my notice until yesterday that April is poetry month. Or perhaps I once knew this and then forgot. Either way, I was told this yesterday, and even though I already get a poem-a-day in my inbox, I decided that I’d read more poetry this month to celebrate.
The Prophet is Kahlil Gibran’s best-known work in the Western world. He published the 26 poems in 1923, and it has been celebrated ever since. In line with what I said a couple of weeks ago about wanting to read more work by Middle Eastern writers after reading the Daevabad Triology, I picked this up yesterday and started reading it this morning.
Gibran was a Lebanese-American author, born in the Ottoman Empire but raised briefly in Boston before going back to Beirut for college. He lived in Paris for a little while, then in New York. He became an artist and writer, and though he rejected the title of philosopher himself, he’s often seen as one. He was famous in Europe and the US in his lifetime; his work was banned for being too anti-clerical in the Middle East. He died at only 48 and is interred back in Lebanon.
The Prophet is one of the most translated books in history and has never been out of print, which is rare for a 98-year-old book. It’s about a prophet, El Mustafa, who boards a ship bound for his home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses the human condition. It’s ponderous and heavily influenced by his belief in the fundamental unity of all religions.
As always, thank you for reading. If you want to respond just hit reply. Your message will get to me (and only me). If you liked this and think your friends might too:
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All the best, friends!
Valorie