An absolute banger this, Craig. It all needed to be addressed.
As to this: 'Why the hell have we become programmed to compartmentalise our interests to segment our audiences to make it easier for people to assimilate our personalities into their digital content consumption schedule?' my hunch is that because everything online is geared around an advertising business model (apart from Substack, God love them) things that make demographic data easier to compile will be rewarded. I.e. if your niche creates an audience of fellow 'writing about writing guys' then that is a very particular and easy demographic for grammar app, productivity software, course creators and stationary sellers to market to. It all becomes a self fulfilling loop. Which is very sad.
I enjoy hearing who you were before you became the "you" you are now. Your writing and ideas also give me such an intriguing peek into a world I know nothing about. When i was addicted to Twitter, it was what became Weird Twitter, thus I have no experience with the Twitter neighborhood you called home.
I too found myself mindlessly nodding along to the trope that niching down is key to building an audience. It’s refreshing to see someone challenge the premise of audience building and the conventional wisdom to get there
An absolute banger this, Craig. It all needed to be addressed.
As to this: 'Why the hell have we become programmed to compartmentalise our interests to segment our audiences to make it easier for people to assimilate our personalities into their digital content consumption schedule?' my hunch is that because everything online is geared around an advertising business model (apart from Substack, God love them) things that make demographic data easier to compile will be rewarded. I.e. if your niche creates an audience of fellow 'writing about writing guys' then that is a very particular and easy demographic for grammar app, productivity software, course creators and stationary sellers to market to. It all becomes a self fulfilling loop. Which is very sad.
I enjoy hearing who you were before you became the "you" you are now. Your writing and ideas also give me such an intriguing peek into a world I know nothing about. When i was addicted to Twitter, it was what became Weird Twitter, thus I have no experience with the Twitter neighborhood you called home.
I too found myself mindlessly nodding along to the trope that niching down is key to building an audience. It’s refreshing to see someone challenge the premise of audience building and the conventional wisdom to get there