Building A Writer Platform, Igloos, and Other Things That Melt

On the ephemerality of what we are doing on the internet

This January, a group of friends, led by the previously successful attempt from an engineer among us, decided to build a large igloo. The Michigan lake effect snow was not the ideal texture. (If you’re not from nearly-Canada, the ideal is wet, heavy snow that sticks to itself—we had light and fluffy which is difficult to pack.)

We devoted two weeknights to this—six late-twenty/early-thirty somethings and it was pure joy. The physical challenge, playing like it was a snow-day, clumsily crouching and packing snow bricks in our heavy winter gear: it was a delightful way to make space for connection and enjoyment against the darkness of this winter.

We had made great progress and with two days of snow forecasted, we planned to spend Saturday building the roof.

Except that forecasts change.

Friday afternoon brought mid-thirties temps (2 degrees above freezing for my Celsius friends) and sun directly beaming on our masterpiece. We made something fun and shared and the change of environment brought it to a close.

Sound Familiar?

I’ve been thinking about the igloo a lot in the wake of all of the TikTok ban, unban, and all the uncertainty around the outcomes for the longstanding social media platforms. In the last five years, so many creators have brought us necessary conversations, and ideas, and worlds we wouldn’t have known on our own.

I am so thankful to have enjoyed the digital spaces made by so many. I’ve been challenged and discovered so much and that is a gift.

The background behind this ban, (and false alarm and gray area in which it all now rests) and the other platforms that have lobbied for this to happen, are just blatantly wrong and deeply troubling on so many levels. That is a different essay. (And please note that it is not lost on me that there are so many greater atrocities to grieve and call out which have transpired over the last couple weeks, but you’ve come here for discussions on writer platform and algorithm ethics, so I shall stick to that at present.)

What I want to focus on this week is that I think when writers and publishing professionals alike talk about building an author platform¹, we’ve made the mistake of talking like something permanent is being made.

In my last essay, I shared what a former colleague and mentor instilled in me and we would always share with writers and public thinkers:

This could all be shut down tomorrow.

We have all been building an igloo. And we can do it with all the best practices, even if the algorithm is not the ideal snow in this metaphor, we still don’t control the environment.

What We Hold When It All Starts to Melt

If you are a creator who has lost the largest social media platform in your content ecosystem, I am sorry. I don’t care if it is TikTok, bot-infested Facebook, even Vine. I really hope your audience is finding another space to flourish in.

But I also think it is important to hold that if one is building an author platform not because they enjoy the making, but because they enjoy the serotonin boost of the praise, influence, and status that can be afforded them: it is just an igloo, It is ephemeral.

Two days before this was taken, those walks were well over a meter tall.

When it was shared in the group chat that the igloo was going down, I hyperbolically quoted Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias. For those who haven’t encountered it, Shelley describes the ruins of the statue of an ancient king in a desert wasteland.

And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

So many have gone before us, crafting kingdoms in their names. And either due to the the changing cultural tides, the obsolesce of the media platforms they have used, or just the straight up moral failings of those creators, they have nothing to look on any longer.

Is it worth it to share one’s creative work or ideas publicly? I do very much think so.

But my hope is that the validation of your work comes in the making of it. The way it pushes your craft and asks you to examine yourself and how your work serves those it is made for.

Not the following. Not the pursuit of influence. Not the validation of engagement rates.

When the audience is not there, may you still find the work still worth making.

May the creative work be a wonderful space to invite your digital audience into. But may we also respect that this is not where your audience lives.

The internet is not where we live.

May we respect our own work to depart from this ephemerality and make within the flesh-and-blood reality of our lives.

We are building igloos. And may they serve their purpose while the environment you build them in lets them stand.

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What I’ve Been Thinking On Lately

I’ve read a few things this week that have been helpful this past week:

• My friend KJ shared this essay with me on the tension between marketing copy and the actual book. I’ve thought about it repeatedly throughout my last couple work weeks.

• This essay on the aftermath of Bishop Budde’s beautiful sermon was helpful as I have been lamenting.

• I started Maria Bowler’s book Making Time while I was on a getaway for my birthday this past weekend and am loving it so far.

1. It may be confusing that I use the term “platform” in two different ways. I can expound on this in a couple weeks, but for ease of this week’s conversation:

There are social media platforms—Meta, TikTok, even Substack, etc.

There are author platforms—the avenues in which readers are able to find you and you are able to share your work and ideas with them.

There is some overlap in these things and also they are distinctly different. I will try to indicate the specific use of the word with a modifier from this point forward.