Caught in the Web

Continuing the theme of vamping songs from 90’s bands, I come to you again this week for the hot and humid confines of beautiful South Carolina. * Heads up, there is some minor innuendo in this post *

Did you notice the little lizard in the picture for this post? It’s a pretty good shot if I do say so myself. You can even see him looking at me. This guy was trapped in a spiderweb, which was a bit shocking. He was easily twenty times the size of the spider, but was held fast. The spider actually appeared to be scared of it, as it had retreated to a corner far away from its overly large victim. Those spiderwebs are strong.

Getting back to where I started, I actually saw No Doubt live in concert in 1996 with the Goo Goo Dolls and Bush. It was a good show all around. One of the songs on No Doubt’s wide release debut was called Spiderweb. I don’t think it really had all that much to do with the World Wide Web, though to be honest it wasn’t really my favorite song of theirs, so maybe it did and I just didn’t pay attention.

Of important note however is that the WEB had been around for awhile, but it really didn’t exist in the way that most of us know it now. There was a limited ability to play games online if you knew the right domains to go to, but most people just used it for chat rooms and limited work functions.

Fast forward to today. The WEB is everywhere, all the time. On our phones, our TV’s, our watches, the Alexa or Google Home we have in our kitchen, watching our security systems. There is nearly no aspect of life that you can’t find an internet application for. And with the outbreak of COVID-19 this has only become more prominent.

We now rely on the internet for education, exercise, work, church.

But it’s not just that the internet is a part of these activities. You see, years of interaction has taught those that create content for the WEB a very important lesson. Humans, by nature, crave a positive response. Like salivating dogs, or trained dolphins, humans enjoy being rewarded or acknowledged for the things that they do. The internet long ago learned this lesson.

The LIKE button is one of the most insidious examples of this, and is followed (wait for it) closely by the FOLLOW or FRIEND button.

I already hear the calls… “Listen grandpa, we don’t need another lecture on the evils of the internet.”

Those of you saying this are probably right, to the extent that you don’t really need to hear another lecture about the evils of the internet. But really, while I used the word insidious earlier, I’m not here to really decry the internet, just point out some of its most prominent bad influences.

I started my journey with the internet in chat rooms. Giant 30 person or more rooms where faceless, soundless users with names like HOTCOLLEGEGUY and DIRTYGIRL posted non-stop lines that looked like the following.

F/18/5’2’/115/LFP/M/20+

or

M/8”/LFPC/F/<20

These were the desperate pick up lines of the early chat roomers. The lines are fairly self explanatory.

F(emale) / 18 (Years Old)/ Height/Weight/ L(ooking)F(or)P(rivate chat with)/M(ale)/(Age)20+

and

M(ale)/I’ll leave this (probable) lie up to your imagination/L(ooking)F(or)P(rivate)C(hat)/F(emale)/(Age) under 20

The rest of the people were there to troll the private chat seekers. I was usually one of those trolls. I found endless fun in interrupting the flow of the room by posting adds for foolish and mostly fake products, posting dumb jokes (dad jokes in todays lingo), and calling out the more aggressive chat room seekers.

All very pointless, all a massive waste of time, all quite enjoyable in their heyday.

Fast forward past the My Space years and into the era of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et. all. In this day and age, many many people now base at least a portion of their self worth or “Image” on how many FOLLOWERS they have, or how many LIKES their latest post on whatever social media platform got. This leads to many people taking increasingly odd steps to try and get that instant gratification. Even to the point of changing or compromising their personal beliefs.

To preachy? (Yeah I think I said that last week to) Well here’s my experience with social media. When it comes to Facebook I’m mostly there for the connections I have to family and friends or acquaintances from where I grew up. This has been true for many years. It wasn’t until I wrote my book that I branched out, mostly because that is what I was informed I needed to do if I was going to ever reach a potential audience for my writing.

Twitter is my focus here because it is the platform with which I now interact the most. I started humbly enough. I created my profile, searched out the community within which I was told I would find the most helpful voices and influence (The Writing Community as it is at times called) and dove in head first. Initially posting little things like “I wrote a book!” and later graduating to actually posting samples of said book. This step was a huge one for me, as it forced me outside of my comfort zone. It also taught me a valuable lesson concerning the primary driver behind nearly all of Twitter’s powers… Impressions/Engagements… and the place where the impressions/engagements are tallied… the Analytics page.

Here’s the thing. I was very scared to share my writing with people that didn’t know and or love me already (sorry to my daughters who were my first beta readers). The first couple of times I shared my work it gave me knots in my stomach, because I was a rookie at this, and I suffered greatly from imposter syndrome. But then I noticed something. Hardly anybody reacted, or for that matter even saw, what I was posting. In fact most of my ‘Impressions’ in these early days came from responses I made to the posts of other, much more well FOLLOWED members of the community. I suddenly felt no fear when posting samples of my work, considering that only .0000000000000001% of the human population would even see it.

I slowly but surely built up my connections, primarily by being a reliable source of comments or likes to the posts of my fellow community members. Soon I had gone from a handful of these connections (see FOLLOWERS, a term I really don’t like) to many more than I had ever thought I’d have. Still incredibly tiny by every single standard that exists, but enough that I didn’t quite feel as anonymous. During most of this build up I was busy editing my first book while also starting the early workings of my follow up book. But there was something happening to me, something that I only recently came to terms with.

I started paying more and more attention to the number of LIKES and comments I was getting for my own posts. No longer content to simply piggy back on the comments of my piers, I started weighing my posts and comments, hoping to come up with the best possible grouping of words. I would check my Analytics page fairly often, determining just how many of those precious Impressions and Engagements I had gotten organically. My attention to Twitter increased and the attention I was giving my new book began to take a nose dive. At least by this point the editing of my first book was in the home stretch. Thus it didn’t suffer.

This trend continued for a time, leading up to me creating this very website. Lo and behold, guess what Squarespace offers as part of your website tools? Yep, an Analytics page. In theory I was right back to square one. While this did give me a whole new set of Impressions to mule over, I have blessedly found that I worry much less about this site. Any idea why? Well, simply put, there isn’t any instant gratification to be had on here. I’m sure there is a way to set up like buttons or some such, but I’m not going to hunt them out. (That being said, if you haven’t signed up to get updates, I’d kindly direct you to the bottom of the page).

Twitter kind of came to a head for me however just a couple of short weeks ago. That’s when yours truly happened to find a crack in the Analytics armor. I broke through with a Tweet that actually got ‘gasp’ some moderately good attention.

Now this isn’t like influencer levels of Impressions. But it was a huge jump up from where I normally dwell. The Tweet garnered nearly 400 comments (393 as of this writing) and over 70 Retweets. Again, those numbers are not earth shattering. But to put them in perspective, a normal Tweet that I get say 3-5 comments on and 5-8 LIKES garners around 400 to 600 Impressions/Engagements. The Tweet I’m speaking of sits at nearly 50,000 Impressions/Engagements. See what I mean.

It felt rather glorious, especially considering that it accomplished exactly what I had hoped it would. Though a simple Tweet, one that didn’t even include any hashtags, it encouraged the community to get involved, and they did. That instant gratification didn’t just last for a few minutes, or even hours. Oh no, I got notifications from that Tweet from Thursday evening until Monday morning. It was exhilarating, satisfying, but above all, it was exhausting.

I found myself checking my phone more and more frequently. I checked my Analytics page more and more frequently. I only made two Tweets during those three days. And once that high had subsided, there I was, back in my small world of 400 to 600 Impressions.

I have spent a few days thinking about this prior to writing this post, and I have come to some conclusions. Firstly, I’m rather happy with my anonymity. It’s far less taxing on ones mental and physical health. That being said, now that I’ve got some experience under my belt, I wouldn’t mind hitting that sweet spot again in the future. I really was caught in the web so to speak… but unlike the fly that likely won’t get another chance, I’m going to learn from my experience. That’s not hubris, that’s just me not being afraid of my own expectations and dreams.

There is a reason the internet programmers have this whole thing down to a science. Now pardon me while I go and check my Twitter feed…