On Clapping With One Hand

I get a little bummed when I notice that none of my friends take time to read my work. Even "100 reads" doesn't mean what it says. It means 90 people clicked, saw an uninteresting wall of text, and left. The other 10 are me, refreshing the page, listening to the player, or originally posting it.

There's no fanbase. There's no one waiting to hear my take on a band's music in an extremely structured format. My words are not valued. ...But I work so hard to make each one something I'm proud of; I stay up late and wake up early on Fridays and Saturdays to make sure something good reaches the editor not quite late enough to make her mad. I wonder sometimes just how many people actually read, not even like, just read, the damn things.

I post it to Reddit, Digg, my Facebook wall, Twitter. It's tweeted and Facebooked a few more times. I post about my series on /r/RockBand and the Rock Band forums. I try to get my articles and the series out there more than anyone else.

I'm sure it's the subject matter. It's a narrow topic that's hard to get people interested in. I should write one of the more broad articles I have in my head. But M2G2 has become this beast in my mind, one that must be upheld until some unforeseen marker. It's a streak for the sake of being a streak.

Why do I do this? I guess I want a portfolio. It's something I can cling to say, "I do something extra." It's also not like I don't get something out of this. I've enjoyed writing about and experiencing both bands I love and bands that are new. Now I know about many new bands I didn't before and have a much richer vocabulary when it comes to genres and musical history. I like knowing a little bit about a lot of things, so this is something I enjoy.

But it comes at a cost every Friday night. It causes me stress sometimes when I really want to pick a band that works. Pick songs that work. Write about it in an interesting way. With the only benefit being for myself, my tolerance wanes.

I don't mind that Soap gets 100 times more viewership than all of my heartfelt work combined. I know the Internet is a fickle mistress, but I would hope my friends would ease the tide. I specifically take time to listen to my friends DJ on the radio or in recordings of live shows. I compliment a friend's photography and always subscribe and do my small part to give kudos to YouTube videos or Reddit posts. Whatever and where ever I have friends showing off their work, I try to make sure they know at least one person appreciates it.

And sometimes I wonder if I'm alone in that regard.