When I started this website, and when I more recently started my YouTube Channel, I had no expectations of getting many followers. I still don’t. But then the question arises: what’s the point?
I started creating an online presence way back in about 2011 when I started my first blog and wrote the book, A Train Called Forgiveness, in real time. After that, I started several other blogs, the one that got the most traffic was Hip Diggs, a site about living a minimalist lifestyle.
I worked my ass off trying to get followers, trying to sell books, coaching services, and online courses. I put the work in. I lacked the skills or money for marketing. I finally said fuck it, I’m just going to keep a personal website and give less shits about followers.
If we’re being 100% honest…
I switched my website’s url from danerickson.net to danstevenerickson.com a few years ago. They said .com is better than .net. That didn’t really help me at all, actually get less traffic than ever now. But my timing was right because if you search for Dan Erickson now, you get flooded with the guy who wrote Severance.
By the time I created this site, I’d already accepted the fact that getting seen and followed on the Internet in any volume is very unlikely for the everyday Dan. I also was tired of commercialism and trying to sell myself. Still, if I’m being honest, I think most creators want an audience, myself included.
I love to write. I love to play music. I love to share what I do. And if I’m being 100% honest, I always have and still do wish for a larger audience. But I’m not going to trade hundreds of hours a month to get 50 more followers. So what’s the point?
I’m beginning to think it’s pointless.
I’m moving closer to retirement. I have some choices to make. Where to live? What to do? I mean, I’d have more time to work on creating a larger audience, right? Sure, but based on my own experience with being an online creator, that’s a vain goal.
We only get so many years on this planet. We need to live our lives to the fullest, however that looks for you. For me, I’m torn. There’s one side of me that would like to move to a major city and perform music in retirement. There’s another side of me that wants to move to a very rural area, cut myself off from social media, quit all this pounding my head against the wall, and just live simply.
For now, I’ll keep creating out of passion, simply to catalog some of my 1500+ songs, and write down my thoughts. But as for creating an audience? It seems that everybody is too busy, I’m too old, or the online world just sucks. – dse
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