my strained relashe to self promoshe
i want to write it, i don't want to make a tiktok about it xx
Angels! I have to confess after we handed in our final draft for Make It Make Sense yesterday, I had a BIG sleep. I had a big sleep, and then I celebrated with my family, and do you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t really read the news. Shocker!
So! This is going to be a smaller newsy today, but I know you’ll forgive me because u love me xxxxx
★WHAT I’VE BEEN PUBLISHING OVER ON CULTURE VULTURE ★
And just this morning we had a piece from the wonderful
about shame, fandom, and the Jonas Brothers:✿⊰𖡼𖥧𖤣❀ BEL CHIMES IN ❀𖤣𖥧𖡼⊱✿
This section is written by the refreshing-as-a-house-chardonnay-on-a-steamy-day (and co-author of our debut book Make It Make Sense) Bel Hawkins. Each week Bel comes here to chime in about the things she’s been loling at, yearning for, or totally mystified by. Luckily for us, she also writes our Sunday advice column ‘Wait, But What?’ for all our paying supporters who want to make sense of the world!! Upgrade your plan to get her newsy here!
My strained relashe to self promoshe
Crush, crush, crushes, how are you? Luce and I just handed in the final draft of our manuscript, so I feel like I've just come home from a seven-day music festival bender with one shoe and a bag filled with nothing but empty Smirnoff double black cans. Aka insane.
BUT, in the periphery of all that (and I guess, to be honest, kinda related), I've been thinking A LOT about the fraught economics of what it is to create things these days (be a 'maker'? is that a cringe word? Can't tell, maybe not) and the pressure to create and maintain this habitual visibility.
I was thinking about it after both reading Rebecca Jennings' Vox article, 'Everyone's a sellout now', and the recent obliteration of the media in Aotearoa (slash everywhere). It's like... what is happening? How can we live in this world and make interesting shit and not feel like we have to buy a ring light and a cottagecore desk set up to make it? It's destabilising the (flawed, but needed) traditional media landscape while also making anyone who makes things feel like they have to turn their lives into a performance for others to watch and feel invested in...
UGH, but I love watching it, and I sometimes love making it, and I love that it's opened doors for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to do what they're doing. I don't think it's all terrible, but I don't think it's all good either. Sometimes, when I'm out and about in the real world, I watch people film TikTok dances in roundabouts and supercut their lives into films we won't believe unless we watch right through to the end; it's like a Truman Show but we're all living in it.
It makes me think of something a successful female entrepreneur said to me years ago when I was starting out and feeling really cringe about sharing any of my work online, which was, "If you don't do it for yourself, nobody else will."
Words to live by, but it's getting more complicated by the day. I have so much respect for people who can survive out here and not let the incessant pressure of more more more swallow them whole. These three rules are what keep me sane throughout it, which I thought I'd share, because I wondered if they'd be useful for you:
not to post to get attention when I'm lonely
not to lie about my life online when my reality is not cute
not to post things that make people feel anxious/like shit about their own lives
Imperfect but useful to think about. Thoughts?
PS — Adored your sweet messages over the weekend about last week's WBW and cannot wait to send you the next one, which is on one of the great loves of my life: female friendship.
Go gently! Go touch some grass! xo
⊹˚. ♡.𖥔 ݁ ˖ IN THE NEWS⊹˚. ♡.𖥔 ݁ ˖
“Article 23 targets new offences like external interference and insurrection, and penalties include life sentences.
It was fast-tracked through its final stage by the city's pro-Beijing parliament in less than two weeks.”
“Famine is imminent in northern Gaza where 70% of the population are already suffering with catastrophic levels of hunger, a UN-backed report said Monday, as the EU’s top diplomat accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war.”
All 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food to eat, with half of the population on the brink of starvation and famine projected to arrive in the north “anytime between mid-March and May 2024,” according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).”
Croatia passes law making femicide a specific crime
“Croatia's parliament has approved changes to the criminal code making the killing of women because of their gender a distinct crime.
Croatia becomes the third country in the European Union after Cyprus and Malta to recognise femicide.”
☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★ ON THE WEB ☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★
MrBeast and Prime Video announce ‘largest game show in history’ (Tech Crunch)
The return of Gamergate is smaller and sadder (The Verge)
☆Other good shit☆
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Totally understand the self promotion conundrum! I've taken myself (mostly) off of social media, which has given back time to write and create on my own terms. But if I don't have a ~public persona~ that invites new readers in, who's going to engage with my work? idk!!!