Why?
Always the first question that explodes in my mind. Why do I feel pressure to learn every social media venue out there? Why do I spend hours working with them when I only meant to spent ten minutes on YouTube trying (in vain) to learn but ended up spending and hour and a half?
It makes me crazy. However, I now have three, whole, videos on TikTok now and I've gotten more views on them than FB posts about my grandbabies, and that is saying something.
Viral is a word I'll never embrace. The chase of the elusive quest 'it's gone viral!' is meaningless and fleeting. I'm like...good for you, but I plan on using the finite hours in a day for something other than posting countless videos of myself and hoping one of them will hit the mark.
I must accept the fact that it is pointless to achieve expert status on all the social media venues available. When would I ever find the time to write? Seriously. One could dive into TikTok, 'X', Instagram, the ever-devolving Facebook platform, YouTube, WhatsApp, Snapchat, WeChat...for eight hours a day. I have to figure out how to do some of it but give priority to writing. Oh, and lest I forget...the droning YouTube tutorials that we hapless authors must watch ad nauseum before we even begin to understand all the options available on the social media venue we are pursuing. AAArgh. (Pirate voice)
I'm thankful for social media in spite of the learning curve, but it is often frustrating. I have to laugh, though. You should've seen my husband and I walking through the Coastal Discovery Museum grounds on Hilton Head Island...tourists behind and in front of us...as I hit the TikTok video button and lifted my phone to speak an introduction and flip it around for the (supposed) camellia garden walk-through video. When I got home, to my dismay, I realized I'd only gotten the intro...and when I flipped the camera around the other way it somehow paused the video. I spent the next two hours patching together pictures to complete the video and figure out all the effects, filters, gifs, and hashtags that one uses to adorn the videos. Good grief. Though I appear as pleasant as punch on this abbreviated video that I later (somehow) posted on TikTok...I was an emotional disaster by the time I was done. I could not believe how long it took.
ZOOM was a pretty hilarious learning curve, too. I didn't know I was expected to mute at first...or that I had an option to use a profile photo to attend and not be on camera if I didn't want to...I adore
ZOOM now, though. When I discovered the touch-up function for my face...I fell in love with it. If you don't know about that option, it's worth seeking out...you'll lose ten years instantly.
GRAMMERLY and PRO WRITING AID are other 'helpful' tools that writers talk about. So I downloaded both. Now, I have so many writing aids pop up as I write that I can't even see what I'm writing and it is impossible to limp over to the icons in my toolbar and figure out how to turn the darn things off. Sometimes I think the creators of these programs call a global meeting once a year to discuss the necessity of incorporating irritating glitches in order to frustrate creative minds all over the planet. If we quit creating due to technological futilities, AI may step into the void and take over.
I think this theory has legs.
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