On Audience: Posts are Like Farts in the Wind

When I post on Bluesky, I throw most of my posts out like farts to the wind.

Let me explain.

Types of Audiences

There are three categories of online audiences. I'll reuse some words that different platforms use to describe different categories, so bear with me.

1: Subscribers

Subscribers are your standard audience members, but they kinda overlap with the other types like Russian nesting dolls. Subscribers are fellow netizens who exist on the same social media platform as you, and agree to have the platform integrate your posts into their feeds. At minimum, if you post something, and they stumble across it, and like what they see, they will press the like button. If lucky, they'll reshare, and if absolutely serendipitous, they may evolve into one of the other audience types, or even just provide passing-but-appreciated support, financial or otherwise.

2: Followers

Again, a lot of platforms use this word to describe what I call Subscribers, but bear with me. Imagine yourself as a philosopher: "Followers" are your disciples. The members of your tribe. Your friends, (often) your biological or legal family, (especially) your chosen family—the people who believe in your mission and your journey. And, instead of just passively subscribing to potential updates, they actively choose to literally follow you and your steps on whatever journey you have. This section of your audience seeks you out on their own accord.

3: Supporters

Supporters are the subset of your Followers who support you and your journey in one way or another. "Financially?" is probably the first question that comes to mind. I mean, yeah, but also if you've ever had anyone in your community who has given you advice or insight when you were stuck, or lifted you up when you were feeling down: them too. They're your supporters.

Supporters are Followers who are willing to contribute what they can to your journey in some way or another. When they have the money for Little Treat™s and Luxuries, it can often be that. But in times of struggle on either your end, your Supporters', or both, they may surprise you with knowledge, encouragement, or a shoulder to cry on.

Not All Followers Follow Equally

A naivety I've had since crossing over from 300-Follower Andy™-hood on Twitter into Multi-Thousand-Follower Weird-Tutorial-NPC™-hood on Bluesky is… thinking every person a platform calls a "Follower", is what I call a "Follower"; thinking everyone that agrees to let a platform show them my posts… is invested in me and what I'm trying to do.

I've come to realize most people enjoy my presence as a sort of "Feed Seasoning". If the social media feed or timeline is white rice, I'm one of the salt granules in the furikake. If it's plain toast, I'm a drop of jam. I had to realize most people follow me to make me a minor part of their greater social media experience. This isn't bad or an insult against one's personhood once you understand that's where most people's intentions end, but it's easy to feel disappointment and a decrease in self-worth once you understand it. Especially if your IRL, or private-tight-knit-online relationships aren't strong enough to cushion the blow.

Mine were not strong enough to cushion the blow because I was investing energy into my social media presence! And not the friendships!!!

Failing to Consider Audience

If you've paid attention to my posts over the past few years, and what I'm saying in this blog post makes sense to you, you'd probably agree with me when I say that… I didn't do a great job of minding my true audience when I posted. I posted things better suited for what I call Followers or Supporters to general Subscribers, and it didn't season their feeds at all.

Posts about what I'm thinking and how I'm doing? Yuck! They don't know me like that! That's not what they added me to their feeds for! Posts about my shop and Ko-Fi? Listen, they're just trying to get their scroll on before their Uber gets here, they're not tryna tab out and do something they can't swiftly break their attention from.

Y'see what I mean?

Yeah. Oops. Sorry.

I'm in the middle of deleting all of my non-general-subscriber-appropriate posts from my Bluesky using a delete service anyway. I wanna be more mindful of the next things I want to talk about.

Failing to Consider Platform

Oh, Bluesky… it was different when it hadn't reached viable-mass or whatever; felt more like a giant Discord server or something, but now, it's like posting farts into the wind. Your post is seen by whichever Subscribers are scrolling their feeds at the time of you posting. If you trend in certain hashtags or keywords, you have a longer chance of showing up in certain feeds. I do not trend. Not for long, despite what you may think. And I get all upset about it. But only because I post Pearls Before Timeline. I post posts that I know the fleeting, ephemeral nature of feeds and timelines and the low life expectancy for the posts within… …will make me upset about.

I have other platforms available to me where browsing backlogs is easier, increasing the life expectancy of what I post to them. Such as my blog and art gallery on my website, my leaflet.pub mirror, and my mailing list.

HK★TMK | Home

These are all places where people can come to see and interact with my work specifically, not try to engage with a billion creatives in 5 minutes. The backlogs of work posted there are tidy and easy to browse, compared to the hodgepodge of feeds, be they chronological, or trend-sorted. RSS technology allows people to get immediate post notifications, or binge content later in a non-distracting and unobtrusive way.

RSS & You

But all this time I kept… posting… to Bluesky mainly/only; throwing my posts to the wind over and over; getting sad about it.

Why?

B-because that's where I have 7,500 followers…! 🥺🥺🥺

But not all of them are actual followers of my mission, remember? They're mostly consenting subscribers.

Oh yeah…

And that's why, going forward… I wanna make sure that things I post to BlueSky, or TikTok (or whatever replaces it), are things I'm ok with floating away into the gaping hole of time.

I wanna use blogs and newsletters more. Or YouTube, on the occasion that I feel like space, time, and visuals would contribute (and when I feel ok editing subtitles, haha). I want to encourage people to subscribe to me by RSS and e-mail more. And y'know what, if there's friction, because it's a dead technology and they don't wanna, maybe they were just cool being a Subscriber™ on social media. Maybe they just like me as a "Feed Ingredient" in their greater online experience. And that's ok.

Catch ya 'round.