Why I quit TwitStack, Instawho, and AppleJack
At the last writing conference I attended, using social media to build your brand, i.e., you, was considered the new norm. Attendees were told that publishers want you to build an audience in the tens of thousands before they look at your work. In other words, do all the hard work marketing yourself while writing your novel so the publisher doesn’t have to. I did not do this for my first self-published novel, which sold 3,000 copies with little publicity. I credit a good story that had a dragon in the title for this success. Dragons sell, and I’m good at titles. Four years later, with a nonfiction book written, I took the social media brand-building idea to heart. For the last three weeks, I twitted on Twitstack. It did not go well. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.
In those three weeks, I posted and commented a few hundred times. I entered into one disagreement that was a decent, human exchange. I thought, for the moment, that wow, these conversations don’t have to be as stupid as people say they are. That didn’t last.
I entered the fray when a grad student criticized a white male teacher who wouldn’t let her bring her child to class. 280 characters was enough to include an example of a female teacher of color being much more open to the child in the classroom. Contrary to the post, I pointed out that the teacher may have made an unsympathetic choice because he was an unsympathetic person and not because he was a white male. Some people agreed that making this a thing about race and gender wasn’t a rock-solid statement. So far so good, but then my suggestion that temporary measures (I’ve let students bring their children to classes in emergencies) can be reasonable became “proof of the problem” to many Twitstack Twitters. You see, to this group, the college and university classroom should also be a daycare in order for single mothers (and one would hope the less common single father) to go to classes if they did not have someone to care for her child.
This is a nice idea, but here are three reasons it’s naive to assume colleges and universities should include childcare inside the classroom concurrent with classes: 1) babies and children can be disruptive, and the classroom is full of students, all of whom pay to learn in a non-disruptive classroom. It is not fair for them to be told, well, this semester you are paying to take organic chemistry and listen to a colicky baby. 2) Lawsuits. Because college classrooms are not a daycare and 99.99% of professors are not licensed in childcare, having children in the classroom is a liability. Something happens to little Jenny and that college is screwed. Coincidentally, I was reminded of this a week later when a similar suggestion was made at our college, and an administrator (not white, not male – as if that should matter, but it does on TwitStack,) said, “Ah, no. We aren’t covered for that”. 3) That teacher who said the college classroom isn’t currently set up to handle children is right. It’s not. The end. Complain all you want, but please don’t do it unless you have a plan to find the huge amount of money it will cost to start and run daycares at colleges and universities that can have certified caregivers to support everyone from infants to toddlers all the way to that age when a child can stay home alone, and do this 5 days a week from 7:30 am to 10:00 pm and then from 7:30 am to around 2:00 pm on Saturdays. If you can’t do that, the answer must lie elsewhere. Harsh, maybe, but so is the world. Making universities accessible to all is a laudable goal, but it ain’t realistic.
I couldn’t let go of this exchange. Me, part of the problem? I had less than 10 minutes for lunch today because a student needed help and I choose to help her to eating like a normal person (if you have ever seen a dog devour a snack in two bites, you know how I ate my sandwich today). I understand why many people want the classroom to fix societal and familial problems. It’s the one place, K-12, where everyone goes. After high school, it’s supposed to be the way people find good careers (unless you are rich, then you go to expensive universities for the connections to other rich families and get the good career that is waiting for you once you earn the degree – colleges and universities are complex entities serving multiple masters). I teach at the community college level. One former college president called us the backbone of and steppingstone to the middle class. I am proud of that. I reject the idea that showing up every day to teach students how to read and write at the college level, advocating for each one as best I can, and highlighting every service our college offers to help students succeed is not enough. Not only is it impossible for universities to be everything for everyone, but arguing that they should ensures the real problems, lack of safe and affordable childcare in this case, remain.
Wow, maybe I just wrote my way to acceptance of that exchange? Someone should teach students how powerful writing can be. Oh, wait, I do that! Is my job awesome or what? Still, accepting that exchange is a long way from wanting to have an exchange like that every day, for the rest of my life. I have been off Twitstack for three weeks and I can already say I feel better. Not only do I feel better, I wonder why I wanted to get into these heat of the moment, fad of the day, mini-parallel monologues with righteous people in the first place. Oh, wait, it was to build readers. Well, looks like I’m going to have to find another way, because I’m not going back.
Instawho was harder. That’s where I humble brag. Pictures of my honeymoon in France or our family trip to Yellowstone, check. My dogs, check. My kids – no, mind your business. The models I build and the deer living in the woods nearby, check. I also like to look at images of nature, cityscapes, and other people’s model builds. Of course, if I really want to see images of anything, I can search for them in an image search, find millions in 2.5 nanoseconds, and be looking at them on a larger screen. I guess, besides the mind-numbing ease of having Instawho on my phone, it being gone isn’t that big of a deal…once I figure out another way to humble brag. Oh look, there’s something that rhymes with AceBook. Check.
AppleJack, that app where you can post your favorite apple-based bakery recipes and then have them rated by the cultural appropriateness of the match between the dish and your ethnicity does not exist. Oh, I’m sure a version of it does somewhere, but I just liked the sounds created when I said, “apple jack” and am frustrated with those trying to make our group the only relevant thing about us. If food tastes good, we all should be grateful to whoever came up with that recipe and eat it! I’m not doing that imaginary one either. That’s it. I’m out. (Smart sounding idiots and the idea of no thank you)
My world is now much smaller. I will both suffer and prosper because of that shrinking. I will suffer, in my mind if not anywhere else, because that elusive post meant to launch me to celebrity status won’t happen (as if it was guaranteed to happen). I will self-publish books instead of finding a publisher, which could fit in either category. Time will tell on that front. I will prosper because I can do something better with my time; namely, write decent essay-length pieces that require me to think, build discipline, and can lead to finished products in multiple forms. I am prospering because, for the last three weeks, I’ve been thinking about my family, my students, a few friends, a presentation I have coming up, and my writing group. I have not, and this feels good, spend any time worrying about people I don’t know.
The world is small when it comes to what matters. I don’t need, nor can I handle, 1,000 friends, let alone eight billion. I have my writer’s group, ensuring I get feedback so I can continue to improve. I have my family, who are way more important than random strangers. I can live like this. If people like yourself enjoy these essays, I’m satisfied that I may have given you something valuable to think about. Hell, maybe you even contact me. I’m all in for long-form communication. I have the luxury of a satisfying full-time job. I will not pimp my sanity for the hopes of a publishing deal.
With that full-time job, I can afford $100 dollars a year to have my website and post these thoughts. It can be a landing place for anyone who does find my earlier novel or my latest work of non-fiction to see what else I’m writing. This is a personalized plan that emphasizes my sanity over extra income. For me, it’s the right choice. In fact, it’s the outgrowth of all my latest work. Turns out, I’m becoming the setting-boundaries-guy. I like it.
How about you? Have you let any boundaries slip? Is it time to protect your well-being? Good luck, and remember that there are no 280-character limits to real thought.
Update:
I’m less than 2 months (best estimate) from having my book ready for sale, and I’m realizing how much I may be able to use twitstack for both sales and protection. Damn! However, messing with a little guy is harder if the little guy has access to big microphones. I am approaching it differently this time, though, because I can’t do it like I did the first time around. I’ll let you know how it goes in another month or two. My new bio states, “Boundary setting enthusiast.” So, back but with boundaries.
I am still off Instawho and AppleJack.
Update 2:
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay on Twitstack. I just felt lousy every time I used it. Emotional Contagion is real.
