What's not to like?

I first noticed this really at my third start-up. This one during a time when I think thre was a general malaise when it came to Social Media. And maybe a sense of animis towards the Big Tech companies that were being all, like..extractive with our behaviors online.

I felt it for sure.

I was also trying harder than I ever have to grow something into the order of magnitude one could call ‘Greatness.’

Step 1: Have a Great, Imaginative Idea.

Step 2: Bring it into the world and draw attention to it/yourself.

Step 3: Feel the good vibes of support, admiration, and kuddos.

That went pretty well, meaning it all worked out in the end.

Then I got together with some old friends and we did a book. It took, I dunno..correct me if I’m wrong but it felt like 2 or 3 years? Maybe it just felt like that because it started right before the whole Pandemic / Covid thing.

A long time, anyway.

And then when the book hit and was in the world, Go To Step 2. Right?

So I start just banging out whatever I can that variously tickles my fancy, makes me chuckle, seems fitting to the task at sharing the topic, the vibe, the mood — anything and everything I can think of to get the attention of folks and get them to buy the book.

I’m not feeling like I’m one of those asshole drop-shippers who just want to sell no matter what they’re selling.

This is a real thing. Made effectively by hand. Done 100% independently. I’m my own publisher. I commissioned the studio to help do the editing and design, who is also 100% independent.

And people loved it! The first hard cover printing sold out in short order.

Except the very same people who I worked with on the project — well, most of them — literally didn’t like it. By that I mean — they just wouldn’t even click the like button wherever whatever I was throwing down was landing. They didn’t do something like..write a series of blog posts to help achieve the overall objective of Step 2. They didn’t take to Twitter to relentlessly celebarate the remarkable accomplishment of putting a book out in the world that people genuinely admired. I mean, it’s fair to say that most who aspire to put a book out in the world actually don’t get to that point. Maybe that’s not fair, but it sounds about right.

In fact, one of them sent antagonizing messages as a reply to an Instagram post…that they clearly didn’t like and so:

‘WTF are you doing!?’.

I assume this was an indication that they didn’t like what I was posting.

But, rather than posting somethign themeslves, they thought it would be more helpful or maybe more satisfying to their own fragile sense of collaboration, to do something completely unhelpful.

There’s not much you can say to that. I mean — I thought to myself:

‘WTF are you doing?’

But when someone is disregulated to the point that they curse you for doing something rather than nothing, there’s really no where for the conversation to go.

This is all to say this: What makes one decide not to click a little button on a webpage — the easiest, least expensive form of showing support? Are we afraid our behavior will be tracked and then, like..what? We’ll be seen as someone who appreciates genuine, earnest, honest efforts of our friends/colleagues?

WTF, indeed.

I really want to know what you think. I find it bewildering. Drop me a line in the form down there.👇🏽