Balancing my account
There are three types of internet users, I've realised. First there are the consumers, they feed on the content the web provides, without ever thinking that it's possible to put stuff back. To them the internet is a more-or-less a "read only medium".
Then there are the transporters. They don't actually create any content, they just help move it around. They're the people who forward on each email joke they get to everyone in their address book. They're also the bloggers, myspacers and facebookers who fill their pages with stuff other people have made.
Finally, there are the creators. These are the people who actually generate content. Despite the vast number of web pages, they're actually rarer than you'd think. The internet acts like a vast hall of mirrors, infinitely reflecting small amounts of content to make it look like much more. This is all very well and good until you actually try to access something a little further away - like a child reaching for the apples at the back of the greengrocer's apparently heaving shelves - and realise it's just the same thing that you've already seen before. The apples at the back are actually the reflections of the apples at the front.
Like everyone else, I started as the first type of internet user. I grazed (does anyone really "surf"?) around the web just amazed at all the stuff that was there.
It wasn't until I set up this web site that I started to be, in a small way, a creator. The stuff here might not be particularly good, but at least it's mainly my stuff, that doesn't exist anywhere else. Of course, you could say the same about any site in my blogroll. But that's because I won't link to a blogger who's just linking or re-hashing other people's stuff.
That's not to say that you can't be a good blogger without being "creative" in the classic sense of the word. It can be as simple as just talking about who you are and what you're doing. If you're writing the words yourself, it's an act of creation.
Recently two of my favourite bloggers (and favourite people!) both packed up shop within a few weeks of each other. Miss K and Siobhan are both highly creative people, working in creative careers, which is one of the reasons that their blogs were so good. It wasn't that they ran out of things to talk about, they just seemed to run out of desire to talk about it on a blog.
That's purely my interpretation, of course. And I can kind of grudgingly understand and respect their reasons for doing it, even though I miss their blogs terribly.
I myself ran out of things to talk about about a month after starting my blog. I think it's a testament to my dogged determination that I didn't let that stop me blogging! And I'm not going to stop now, despite a general down-turn in the things that used to inspire me. Another factor that probably influences my blogging is that I don't have other outlets generally for creativity, which means I'll always keep chucking stuff here, whether you like it or not!
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Yesterday, while I was churning out a tranny-based Sherlock Holmes story, I found myself thinking why am I doing this?
(I guess a few of you read it and thought something very similar!)
I had to think about my motives, and it comes down to a realisation I came to a while ago.
I realised that what I was trying to achieve was to try to balance my account with the internet. I can't deny that I've got a hell of a lot out of the web, this is just my attempt to put something back in. I might never be a net exporter of content, but at least I'm trying!
Oh, and one last thing, there's nothing wrong with just consuming. If you really don't feel you have anything to say, then it's not a crime to just sit back and enjoy. What is a crime, I think, is not giving feedback to the people who are trying to put stuff out there. I feel guilty of it too, I don't spend enough time just saying "well done" to all of the fantastic stuff that I see on the web every day.
That's it. My brain is empty. Now I just need to think of the next blog entry.
Then there are the transporters. They don't actually create any content, they just help move it around. They're the people who forward on each email joke they get to everyone in their address book. They're also the bloggers, myspacers and facebookers who fill their pages with stuff other people have made.
Finally, there are the creators. These are the people who actually generate content. Despite the vast number of web pages, they're actually rarer than you'd think. The internet acts like a vast hall of mirrors, infinitely reflecting small amounts of content to make it look like much more. This is all very well and good until you actually try to access something a little further away - like a child reaching for the apples at the back of the greengrocer's apparently heaving shelves - and realise it's just the same thing that you've already seen before. The apples at the back are actually the reflections of the apples at the front.
Like everyone else, I started as the first type of internet user. I grazed (does anyone really "surf"?) around the web just amazed at all the stuff that was there.
It wasn't until I set up this web site that I started to be, in a small way, a creator. The stuff here might not be particularly good, but at least it's mainly my stuff, that doesn't exist anywhere else. Of course, you could say the same about any site in my blogroll. But that's because I won't link to a blogger who's just linking or re-hashing other people's stuff.
That's not to say that you can't be a good blogger without being "creative" in the classic sense of the word. It can be as simple as just talking about who you are and what you're doing. If you're writing the words yourself, it's an act of creation.
Recently two of my favourite bloggers (and favourite people!) both packed up shop within a few weeks of each other. Miss K and Siobhan are both highly creative people, working in creative careers, which is one of the reasons that their blogs were so good. It wasn't that they ran out of things to talk about, they just seemed to run out of desire to talk about it on a blog.
That's purely my interpretation, of course. And I can kind of grudgingly understand and respect their reasons for doing it, even though I miss their blogs terribly.
I myself ran out of things to talk about about a month after starting my blog. I think it's a testament to my dogged determination that I didn't let that stop me blogging! And I'm not going to stop now, despite a general down-turn in the things that used to inspire me. Another factor that probably influences my blogging is that I don't have other outlets generally for creativity, which means I'll always keep chucking stuff here, whether you like it or not!
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Yesterday, while I was churning out a tranny-based Sherlock Holmes story, I found myself thinking why am I doing this?
(I guess a few of you read it and thought something very similar!)
I had to think about my motives, and it comes down to a realisation I came to a while ago.
I realised that what I was trying to achieve was to try to balance my account with the internet. I can't deny that I've got a hell of a lot out of the web, this is just my attempt to put something back in. I might never be a net exporter of content, but at least I'm trying!
Oh, and one last thing, there's nothing wrong with just consuming. If you really don't feel you have anything to say, then it's not a crime to just sit back and enjoy. What is a crime, I think, is not giving feedback to the people who are trying to put stuff out there. I feel guilty of it too, I don't spend enough time just saying "well done" to all of the fantastic stuff that I see on the web every day.
That's it. My brain is empty. Now I just need to think of the next blog entry.
BUt feedback isnlt always great anyway. One problem I've seen sometimes is that groups of content creators can become a form mutal back slapping societies lauding praise on one another, when honestly sometimes much of the work is mediocre. There's less of this in the blogging areas, but I've been on Art sites where it could get very incestous. Another problem I think is the internet has become a place where people expect something for nothing, so theres a percentage out there who if they do give you feedback, they seem to you owe then something for it, above and beyond the content. And when it comes down to the feedback itself, I don't know about the rest of you, but some honest constructive criticim to help improve the work would be more appreciated than half a dozen Flickrites or who ever just saying "You're hot".
I've created content at an amature level over for many years now, paper based art work and comics, computer based graphics, animation, code, game stuff and in the last year or so, blog and photographs. Always the feedback has been limited. I've come to the conclusion that the creation of content for free just has to be something you do for your own reasons, you will never get back from others anything near what you put into it. So either be selfish and do it for you, do what you like when you want to. The only other way is to try and make some money out of it.
NOw I;m worried that I might of cuased offsense with this comment :(
And that's not just me back-slapping. ;-)
I also miss Miss K and Siobahn. They were making use of the medium in very creative, highly personalized ways. Very successfully, I felt.
You do this as well. You have a very personal way of writing, particularly tinged with a sharply observant sense of humor, that I envy at times greatly.
As our culture becomes more throw away simply because technology makes things faster, more efficient or more ephemeral, and more of our lives become "subscription" based on that technology, it gets harder to sustain the effort to imput things back.
As prevalent as digital art product is in my work field, there's still an underlying predjudice that it is of significantly less value than a physically executed work. Most of the time they are not even referenced as art at all, just images to suit the moment. I think that carries over pretty much across all creative outlets. Words on paper (versus words on screens) are somehow assumed to be more real.
I didn't realize till I started blogging, how much conscious effort it takes, even just to make a list of the activities of a day. Trying to give more, only quadruples that energy requirement. And often you do it in silence, for silence in return. I think all bloggers want engagement with their efforts. The types of engagement Helena talks about take more effort and more thought, so they are always going to be on the few side. That's always going to frustrate me personally, though I understand it.
Sometimes a slap on the back is just enough to keep me going at least.
I tend to consume more than I produce, but I try to keep active on blogs and forums to make sure I'm not a sponge.
I even found a torrent site that only allows you to download if your DL to seed ratio was at least 1.0
I think a great way to get feedback is to blog or post something that requires a response. That way, people are more likely to respond, and can also get the buzz of having contributed.
I'm thinking more of quizzes/surveys rather than just passing on memes (unless the meme is a quiz/survey!)
The great thing about the anarchy and free nature of tghe internet is that you can consume in one place and contribute in another. For example I can balance my consumption of tranny related content with being an electronic agony aunt elsewhere (there would be a lot of rough looking trannies if a was a tranny agony aunt).
Things have moved on in that time, though. People have come along who are better and more prolific producers than I, and for a while now I have been content to browse on what they do, and just leave my own original content to quietly draw a small passing-trade. The nearest thing I have to production now is my Flickr stream; not the Rachel one, which is just typical tranny shots, but my bloke one which, I hope, keeps a few people amused from time to time.
I found m'self thinking, why doesn't she do this more often.
-C.M.
As to running out of things to 'say', well, yes I think there's a danger of running out of statements to make. Having something to say; conversation, so to speak, is quite another matter.
From a personal point of view I don't just blog. I've got software out there (no names) and I write stuff for non-TG sites. It's a hobby I guess. Not as much as shoe collection, but a hobby. :D
You do those things because you feel you need to. because if you don't you'll be forever thinking "why didn't i have a go at that?"
I find your words haunting, due to I to read Siobhan's journal and though at times it was just the mad ramblings of a creative mind, I to have missed it sent it has gone. When the net was young I had a point of light on it, then my life got busy and that went away. But in the recent days I have found my way back but it’s still at the starting stages. I’m still mostly a voyeur of what’s there to see and learn. But some changes have come into my life that I guess were there before but just now surfacing! And in that journey I have found site’s like yours and Siobhan and find that I’m not alone on that road. The incites you and others like you have been able to give me bring me great comfort, and brings light to my being as well. So keep up your writings even if you do not see it you have influenced many people, and there’s more to come. I hope to at some point to journal some of my life for others to glean from, but it’s one step at a time. Just like this post on your forum for me is a big step out of the darkness into the light of the world. So in the name of the many who read your blog’s and share in that part you share with the world that you never hear from, know we need people like you out there to help speak for the rest of us!.
Ps your Debt to the net has been paid in full.
Creative production has ceased for now , so I'm not sure there's much left to balance out.
But you are right on one thing there are only a few sparks of starlight in a dark sky of dogma on the net.
Yep Miss K & Siobhan were a couple of those sparks, so was Katherine Everson before she winked out without a trace one day.
I'm a dippy-iny-outy person, who reads what is interesting me at that time, so I admit that I tend to read this blog only when I'm feeling like dressing, then as that goes, so does my reading of this blog.
Therefore, let me take the opportunity to say that it is consistantly imaginative, creative, interesting, funny and worthy of reading. I tried a blog and failed because I can't think of enough interesting stuff to say to keep myself engaged, let alone keep a viewer there. So while I may from time to time leave a sarcastic remark, or peculiar attempt at humour, for all those other times when I leave without trace...
THANK YOU
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