1,000 Fans
The Internet is so full of self promotion it's easy to get burnt out on it. We have an insanely efficient medium for making things and telling people about it, but it gets noisy when everyone's making and telling. Sooner or later, the artists outnumber the audience. For example, I make a podcast every week, but I almost never listen to other podcasts. I've occasionally written a blog here (2 last year!) but aside from my friends' Anna's and Colleen's, I don't read blogs either.
Truth is, I've wanted to get famous for a while, (or at least Internet Famous) so I haven't felt like I had any time to be a fan. In other words, I haven't had time to like people--I've been too busy trying to get people to like me. And if that doesn't sound great reading it, it doesn't feel great writing it either.
I think this is how most of the Internet works, and it's pretty unsuccessful. Even by its own modest standards, most of the Internet isn't famous--I'm almost positive that I'm not--so it's time for a drastically different approach.
No more self-promotion.
I've heard that for artists to support themselves, they just need 1,000 true fans to buy what they make and spread the good word. Instead of trying to collect those fans, I'm going to find 1,000 people that make excellent things, and try to be an excellent fan for them.
I'm going to find 1,000 things to love.
A few guidelines:
1. Most should be strangers. Not all, though.
2. Most should be unknown. Not all, though.
3. I'd love to say that a new post will come out every day, in which case I'd be done in 3 years, but that's pretty darn unlikely. Let's say at least once a week, in which case I should have this wrapped up in two decades. Wait, what did I just get myself into?
4. I'm open to suggestions.
In conclusion, I'm going to be like this turtle.
Spoiler alert: Turtles Eating Strawberries may or may not be Thing I Love #138.
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