The Difference Between Self-Promotion and Self Absorption
(Just warning y’all, there’s gonna be a ton of first world problems whinging in this post)
I’ve been feeling a bit disgruntled this week, and up until this morning I didn’t really know why. Truth is, life is fucking great, the sun is shining, everyone I know and love is happy and well and everything in my own life is exactly what I want it to be. I’m making wicked money, having fun, feeling generally satisfied with everything, but for a tiny background sense of ‘blah’ that I wasn’t quite able to identify. Until this morning. It hit me when I turned on my computer after a run and a shower: I had (and still have) tons of fun and satisfying work to look forward to for the day, but before I got to that I had to get through my ‘social media’ posting for the day. Online communities, twitter, tumblr, networking profiles…it Just. Never. Ends. I know I sound really fucking spoiled but I’m not used to doing things I don’t enjoy. One of the reasons I’ve always worked so hard is cuz doing so grants me the ability (and huge privilege) to do work I love on my own terms, and when it comes to this social media campaign I’ve embarked upon I’m miserable. It feels like such a waste of time and so damn self absorbed.
Maybe I’m just from an outdated mindset, I dunno, but it feels weird to me to inject myself into conversations solely for the benefit of gaining ‘exposure’, and ‘following’ strangers I’ve never spoken to simply to get my ‘follower’ numbers up seems totally ridiculous to me. Truth is, I’m a social hermit. I don’t want to talk to random avatars on the internet or build a ‘friends’ list of people I’ll never speak to, and it feels odd and calculating to do so based solely on the chance that a potential customer will read what I write and hit me up for a show.
I hate every moment of engaging in social media, with the one notable exception of silently perving my favorite writers on tumblr. I LOVE tumblr. There is a ton of really important work being done there but I don’t feel it’s my place to arbitrarily inject myself into that, so I tend to just read silently and post an odd picture every now and then. That’s kinda how I am off cam as well…when I’m one on one with someone or with a group of people I know I never shut the fuck up, but when it comes to interacting with strangers I always listen way more than I talk. I’m not trying to sound all haughty here but I don’t assume that random people are dying to hear about every thought that runs through my head 😀 It also feels weird to me to write about personal stuff in front of a communities I don’t really feel like I’m a part of, so anything I do manage to post ends up feeling really forced and glib to me. Blah.
I probably sound spoiled AND misanthropic, but there ya have it. I hate social media and my little campaign is making me miserable. I’m not going to give it up, but I am gonna pull way back and switch my focus back to the things that I DO enjoy, the things that have worked well for me throughout my time as a camgirl that also have the added benefit of not causing me to want to drive rusty forks through my eyes 😀 I’ll still be on tumblr reading and enjoying myself and I’ll still use the rest of them somewhat begrudgingly, just not on a daily basis.  I know as an independent camgirl I’d be foolish to avoid social media entirely, I’ve just decided to step back a bit.
I feel better already getting that weird vent/pity party out. That’s one of the things I love about having my own websites, as irrational as it may seem I feel like these spaces are mine to use however I choose, like they’re somehow kind of ‘protected’ spaces outside the frenetic mindset of ‘following’, ‘liking’, and joining ‘circles’. I think I need to grow into this notion of putting everything out there online just for the sake of ‘being out there’; it feels unnatural to me and I think in embarking upon this campaign I probably vastly overestimated my own tolerance for vacuous sociability.
You can still find me here, on my other blog and on skype and yahoo but beyond that…meh. I’m taking a mini vacation from the bullshit and doing what I enjoy doing.Â
Pity party over, god I can be a whiny little biatch.  🙂 Have a wicked day y’allÂ
Jesse