The economics of being your annoying, self-promoting friend on the internet

Like, subscribe, supply, and demand

A few years ago, I noticed—and I think we all did—a real sign of the times in a place where it really matters.

The place? The Bachelor franchise.
The sign of the times? The use of “content creator” as a common descriptor for a contestant’s profession.

At the time, we all knew that people were beginning to make money by creating content online, but it took a while for the world to create a label or title to make it sound a little more official. When The Bachelor makes it a thing, it’s a thing.

By now—whether it’s thanks to reality television or something else—”content creator” has started to roll off the tongue pretty naturally as a career option. When people take a patronizing tone about it, I can get pretty frustrated. You shouldn’t have to be a fan of the things someone is putting out online to appreciate the time, effort, strategy, and skill it takes to make that content successfully. We all spend an embarrassing amount of time navigating various social platforms, and to delegitimize the economy on those platforms simply because we don’t always understand it is, quite frankly, shitty.

Again—it’s The Bachelor’s world and we’re still living in it.
(Even as the ratings have taken a dive.)

All of that said, I never wanted to be a content creator. In fact, I still rarely think of myself as one—even though, by definition, I work in ~the space~.

I’m not an influencer in the way of many reality stars. I don’t post cool GRWM videos or score cool collabs with major brands.

But I do quite literally create content and put it online, not only in this newsletter, but also with my podcast and the bookstagram account that goes with it.

In the nearly-eight years since I left my office job, I’ve experimented with lots of kinds of content creation as a supplement to my freelance work. I love having the opportunity to express myself creatively and to connect with people around the country and world. Making content for public consumption has also forced me (in a good way!) to learn lots of new skills and put myself out there in ways I never expected.

Here’s the weird thing: no matter how much I want to distance myself from that “content creator” label, once you’re investing the time and resources to create content consistently, the train sort of leaves the station and it’s impossible not to care about the things you never wanted to care about.

Let me explain.

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Currently Reading: Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

Claire Lombardo’s debut novel is one of my absolute favorites, and I’ve been eying her second one since it was announced a few years ago. Imagine my excitement to get to pick it up when Matt and I were away for a night for our wedding anniversary this past weekend! Claire’s writing is so beautiful that it literally could make me cry and I love the way she writes about the details of the human experience.

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My first venture into content creation actually launched back in 2016. I was just figuring out life as a freelancer and, in the absence of existing writing clips to help me get business, I’d been advised to start a personal blog and update it frequently so potential editors would have something to look at while deciding whether or not to work with me. I’d never wanted to be that annoying friend who was constantly sharing about my new blog posts on social media, but once I was writing the posts, I had to find a way to get the word out about them.

And so I became that annoying friend who was constantly sharing about my new blog posts on social media. Oops.

For a while, the blog was a big part of my online footprint. I was investing the time and effort into keeping it fresh, so I wanted people to read it. For people to read it, I had to promote it. And when I promoted it, more people came, which made it more of a thing that seemed worthy of promotion.

It’s something of a vicious cycle, and one that I’ve experienced again and again in my professional life online.