I don't know what to tell the folks that already are popular online, but it truly is a joy if you can kill the voice in your head that draws you to want to make something viral or go big1. Making things for your friends to enjoy (and specifically for your friends to enjoy) is a real pleasure. And like, no offence to the majority of you, but often when I'm making a post here I'm making it because I hope a few specific people I think are cool will enjoy it (and I'm more happy when whatever my target audience was does enjoy it than if it does well more broadly).
It sucks that the only real option for video (or I guess, that it seems like the only real option for video) is these few big places where, if you aren't grinding toward that big view count you're failing.
Shout out to @catalina & co for specifically fighting against that with trash.cloud
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I do not claim I've completely succeeded at this
This photo gets a handful of views every day. Maybe half a dozen, plus or minus.
Every day, some number of people has a need to refill their pencil, and realizes they don't actually know how to do that. Some of them do an image search, hoping to find some kind of diagram or instruction sheet. Some of them find my photo.
Every day, for the past 12 years.
Yesterday, half a dozen people (or so) needed to refill their pencil and found my photo. Today, half a dozen people did the same. Tomorrow, another half-dozen.
The total view count on this photo is an impressive number, but it's the accumulation of 12 years' worth of views—at no point has it ever been a smash hit. I think that's actually better, though. I'm more proud of the fact that, every day,
every single day,
roughly half a dozen people learn how to refill their pencil from my photo.
My photo is a resource. It has no name, no Brand™, probably nobody is going “yo you should check out this cool photo of a pencil”. I make no effort to advertise it, other than having tagged it properly. But when somebody needs it, they might find it, and it comes through for them.
I'm very proud of having made something that's just there for people, and helps a few people every day. It's one of the best things I've ever done and I would encourage more people to do the same.
