Stream of Thought - June 16

I have a whole lot to say about a lot of things. And I assume it will help me feel better to get some of these words out. But I am not sure at the moment how to put words to these things that I want to say. That’s a blast - right? I wonder how much of our stress, and worry and depression could all be improved slightly if we could only put words to all of it. I know such a thing helps me a great deal, when I can do it. But I can’t always do it.

Good things and bad things happening all over the place. In the world. In my personal life. I wish I could just rest in the good. Be proud of the things that the good represents. Not dwell on the bad or worrisome or stressful.

In any case - I’m just going to do what I said I would do - and use this space as a place to allow my stream of thought to just do its thing. So…

What’s bothering the silly bot?

Pixel art Rae is depressed, but more-so deep in thought and lost in reflection.

I’ve already mentioned that I am trying to figure out better ways to reach my “true audience” - and I think it is important that I keep pondering that idea. But it doesn’t matter that I identify that I’m looking for my true audience, if I don’t have any actual ideas for how to go about that. Not… exciting ones anyway. So far, my ideas sound like a quick checklist that someone might suggest for an amateur something from like 20 years ago.

• Get an email list/newsletter thing going - bleh, OK I’ll try.

• Write a blog - oh well maybe, but I doubt it will do much.

• Advertise - yuck - but actually I do a ton of this. It is a GREAT way of generating new followers on social media. But it is NOT good at converting them to true fans.

• More

• …

• Profit?

I wanted to write one that was “Keep finding ways to attract listeners/fans to go to the website instead of social media only” - but like, yeah… that’s the whole point. But how? The above ideas are only as effective as the content is at enticing others to engage. And trying to drive engagement has been a frustrating part of this journey - to say the least.

The main things that have driven engagement only do so because I am generating the wrong kind of engagement. I want people to engage with my music. But that simply is not possible on its own. Utterly impossible. So how to generate at least a little attention?

Enter the little red dress.

Ah yes, Poised in a Little Red Dress. To quickly convey the key points in that essay - here is a brief summary:

The essay explores the challenges faced by contemporary women artists and musicians in the age of social media. The "little red dress" symbolizes passion, love, and the desire to be seen. It represents confidence and a declaration of presence in a space that often overlooks women's voices. However, this same dress also subjects the artist to scrutiny and objectification, shifting focus from her artistry to her physical appearance.

The essay delves into how society's perceptions and biases are projected onto the artist through this symbol, highlighting the dichotomy between visibility and vulnerability.

That summary is fluffy. What it is getting at is that female artists have to sell their bodies to be seen, generally speaking. Obviously there are exceptions. It also speaks to ideas of the boldness of women artists that seem to demand attention. And while I want that to be a guiding light, beacon of hope. Let’s be honest, such boldness usually still requires the leverage of the visual appeal of the artist.

It sure would be nice if visibility for the artists’ work could be completely separated from their appearance.

Some will balk and yell at me and say how dare I have such an opinion, yet I leverage visuals to entice followers. Embarrassing and not wrong that I have - but wrong if you assume that I am happy about having done that.

I have followers that will never read this. Obvious, yes. But also - to the extreme. I would argue that 98% of my followers will never read this. I would argue that at least 80% of my followers have never once attempted to listen to my music. That’s a depressing thing to write - but I have no doubt that it is true. Let’s just take Facebook for an example. I have between 5.8k - 6.1k followers. I say this as a range because oddly over the last 15 months, I keep losing and gaining followers to the point where I have reached the 6k followers milestone AT LEAST five times now. Anyway, tangent.

Let’s say 6k for roundness. If my math is correct, that still suggests that 1.2k of my followers will have EVER listened to one thing I’ve shared. Maybe - that seems in the realm of possible. I doubt it is much more than that, and I doubt it is significantly lower than that. OK so 20% listeners. That is better than 2% readers of this specific blog entry.

Which is better at driving traffic to my music and hopefully reaching new people? Eh - both are not good at attaining that goal.

And I am also trying to remember the whole art vs. content thing - and that I can’t expect to compete with quick access scroll on by reaction to content. That’s going on certainly, on some of my posts where I am trying to drive actual engagement. But really that’s one that requires deeper thought and consideration. Maybe at this point I just need to face facts and embrace the world we’re in now and focus on content?

What were we talking about?

OK clearly my mind is going all over the place. And if you’ve been here a while - I am guessing I am repeating myself.

But to truly repeat myself just to get squared - let me trace back to the purpose for these thoughts:

1. Viewership/Listens for Aspirate has been significantly lower than I expected, and I’ve already come to temper my expectations a LOT. This is likely the source of my… sadness.

2. This is especially bothersome to me as there are more people who have invested time, energy and money into this album.

3. All the while, reviews and feedback for Aspirate has been almost entirely positive. Particularly for those that are already fans. This has been a beacon of hope for me. But the part about “already fans” is a tricky one.

4. New listeners of Aspirate is exceedingly low. In fact YouTube has essentially recommended the album ZERO times.

5. These facts are driving the thinking - if new listeners can’t happen - and the true fans have already embraced it - how do I turn those cheerleaders who seem to like me, but haven’t engaged with my my music into listeners who could eventually become true fans?

6. PART of this is that I’m not reaching everyone. Social media folks limit how many I can reach, to the degree that probably half or more of my following don’t even know I released an album.

7. This is because social media owns those followers. Not me. I am renting them from Meta.

8. OK Get them off of social media. True fans are already migrating slowly. How to get more of them, plus convert cheerleaders?

9. I don’t know, that’s why I am frustrated!

That’s enough for today

Hmmm. yeah I didn’t get anywhere really. But it is what it is. Do all writings need to have a nicely tied up ending where we conclude that we figured it all out? I think I tend to insist on that. But for me to achieve that in this post - well I’d need to do a lot of rewrites and edits and formalizing, etc. And that’s not really stream of thought then, is it!?

Hope you all have a good start to the week.