When I was reading Cara Miller's thoughts on blogs, expressed in Writing the Genres of the Web, I came to a realization. Miller's work is undoubtedly helpful. It has a strong grasp on its audience and good tips for people who aren't familiar with the Internet as a business tool, which, technically, should include me. Miller asserts that blogs should be focused on their niche and that blogs which stray from this path risk losing wider market appeal. Again, this is a helpful tip, one that is true in most cases, especially ones where a corporation or influencer is running a blog out of a business website.
The trouble is that I loathe the idea that I am a business.
I hate branding. I hate sanitization, I hate packaging, I hate marketability. I think part of the reason I'm so terrible with graphic design and, therefore, CSS is because fundamentally they must be used as tools of the market. They work so heavily with advertising, and that's the part of being in a creative industry that I loathe.
I have friends who are fantastic creatives and graphic designers. They've managed to build careers for themselves that don't compromise their creative visions while also maintaining a level of professionalism that seems unimaginable to me.
I just don't know how I can sell myself to other people. Well, I know how, people like Miller helpfully describe how to do it, but I just don't want to do it. Like a petulant child, my mind recoils from the notion, kicking and screaming all the way. Words like brand synergy and analytics and search engine optimization. They require an awareness of the audience that I feel would unravel me.
Andrea Lunsford's analysis of the digital audience is a bit of a balm. In Writing Addresses, Invokes, and/or Creates Audiences, she blurs the lines between creator and audience that I find comforting. I enjoy the thought that I'm on even footing with the people who enjoy my work. I've always been happiest when I'm creating in tandem; this is why I'm studying editing rather than creative writing. I want to help others lift their work higher. The things Lunsford describes of a pre-digital audience are things that terrify me—I hate the idea of being idolized or cut off from anyone who stumbles across my work. I hate the idea of marketing my work to a specific audience, really, because anytime I've been marketed to as a specific audience, I've found the attempt shallow and vain.
As noble as I'd like to think this anti-marketing urge is, it's undeniably something I need to work past, at least a little. I cannot realistically enter a creative field like writing without being willing to market myself and my skills, and I can do that without compromising my own morals about sanding my edges down. I just need to figure out how.
So for now, these musings are going on my barebones HTML-only site with stupid rickroll jokes and random GIFs I find funny. Until I get with the program, this site is gonna be unbearable to look at.