How to trick yourself into moving forward as a creator

Thinking on the mental tricks creators use to keep going in the face of self-doubt, fleeting attention, and constant audience churn.

Hi,

This year at a Loscon panel, somebody asked how we can avoid being the internet scapegoat of the day. As a white-het-cis-man there is almost no chance that I will be that person, and I know that, but the crux of my answer was:

1. You are probably too small and insignificant for the internet to care about you.

2. Even if you weren’t, there are only 365 days in a year and 8 billion people in world, so the odds the internet picks you, for good or bad, is small.

3. Even if they do pick you, it’s only one day, or maybe a week, and then they move on.

It’s important to note that this is only partially true. Lots of people get ganged up on more than once, and many, especially marginalized creators, can get dogpiled by lots of people even if they aren’t the “flavor of the day”. It’s even possible for that hate to last months or years.

The truth of it is less the point, though, even if the three things I listed are mostly true for most people. The point is that believing those things allows you to trick …