11.15.21
Anti-Social Media
C. Derick Miller – Head Writer
Your Stories on Video
With the Dallas Art Fair in full swing, I’ve had a lot of time to myself this weekend. Honestly, it’s the most time I’ve spent completely alone in almost three years. To some, this would be a blessing. To a writer with an overactive imagination? It’s a curse.
The moment she left on Saturday morning; my brain kicked into high-speed creation mode. Before I knew it, I had already created a new podcast that will be releasing on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t just stop there. I also created the logo, intro, outro, and recorded the pilot episode! This was all completed before lunch! Needless to say, I’m super excited about all the changes coming to my life after the first of the year (pending some type of idiotic disaster). I’m going to do my best to create something every single day from now until death because that’s what artists do. They create.
Now, let’s talk about something else artists do (myself included).
We waste some of our best material on social media posts!
Remember the world before social media? Remember when we knew what the next-door neighbor was having for dinner because we could smell them cooking it rather than seeing a simi professional photo shoot with their chicken breasts as the main subject? Remember when you had to reach out to people individually to check up on them or inquire about the progress of their lives? Best of all, do you remember when you didn’t automatically know everyone’s political standpoint on every single issue imaginable or what their personal beliefs were? I remember all these things and, contrary to widespread belief, they were glorious.
Artists like myself have made it impossible to exist without having an account on every single social media site on the internet. For example, I post a photograph to Instagram and it is automatically uploaded to my Facebook and Twitter account. It saves time and covers a lot of ground. That’s one heck of a journey for a picture of my loaded sweet potato fries from The Company Café!
Random thoughts? I’ve got that down to a science as well! I post it to Twitter and then share it to Facebook. After that, I copy that post and paste it to my account on The Slasher App (that’s a social media platform specifically for horror fans). Are you tired yet? It gets crazier!
Any blog post or memory I post to my official website at http://cderickmiller.com get’s automatically and simultaneously posted to my Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Tumblr. I’m sure there’s a couple more but they slip my mind right now. Are you getting all of this? Do we need to stop so you can take a breath? Absolutely not!
I haven’t even brought up videos yet! Tik Tok and YouTube? You know it! I have accounts on both! I keep track of my cycling routines using Tik Tok and that automatically uploads to my Instagram, which, in turn, automatically shares to Facebook and Twitter! YouTube? You guessed it! It uploads to my website and every other social media site I’ve already mentioned. The podcast? You are correct! Back when I used to record weekly episodes of the Butterflies Make Me Angry podcast, it automatically shared to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio, and every other podcast platform you can think of. It’s also shared to all the above-mentioned social media sites as well. The new podcast is already set up to do the same when January 1st rolls around. I am everywhere.
I hate it.
I despise the day I was ever introduced to MySpace.
Social media is a double-edged sword for an artist. On the one hand, you can get your product and talent in front of millions of people with the simple click of a button. On the other hand, everyone who doesn’t possess or may be jealous of your talent will not hesitate to review your work (most times without even reading or viewing it) and will find like minded individuals to gang up on you.
Keeping up with friends and family? Sure, that’s what it was intended for in the beginning. Now, you can’t scroll once without being bombarded with politics and hate. No matter what side of the fence you stand on, it won’t take much on social media to get attacked by someone who believes the opposite of what you do. If you’re one of those people who normally keep those beliefs to themselves, don’t worry. Some people will attempt to recruit you to their side.
It’s getting old, folks, and I’m not quite sure how much longer I can take it. A large chunk of my being wants to leave it all behind and rely on my website for communicating my upcoming works and things I have for sale. The rest of me believes I will fade away into obscurity because of all the other writers who spend all day everyday promoting their wares on Facebook and the likes.
I’m standing at the virtual crossroads, but my soul was signed away to the eDevil a long time ago. Is it too late to turn back? Is there no way to return sanity and healthy dialog back to the darkest depths of the internet? I don’t know if any other writers feel this way, but it’s downright painful sometimes. Our instinct is to write and write we shall. Four hundred social media sites all at once with the press of a button just so one or two people can see a post advertising our blood, sweat, and tears in its rawest form. Our art.
Are you a big social media junkie or did you laugh it off when all your friends signed up? If you’re not on social media, how do you keep in touch with your family and friends? Emails? Phone calls? Old school snail mail letters? Here at Your Stories on Video, we want to know! Also, we want to try out your ideas so we can take a bit of a social media break. It’s out of hand and they don’t make Tylenol powerful enough to squash the headache!
Until next time, see more at http://www.yourstoriesonvideo.com