But why did he quit?
Last month, John Mayer, a guitarist ‘Gravity’ singer abruptly left Twitter, the microblogging site. Prior to hopping off the Twitter bandwagon, John Mayer frequently shared his 140 character musings to his 3.7 million followers.
The abrupt quit left his followers clueless.
Finally, Mayer shared his thoughts on abandoning the Twittosphere, in a recent blog post.
Revealing his reasons for leaving Twitter, Mayer, in short, dismisses social media as a sharing medium devoid of “lasting art.”
Below are key excerpts from his blog post:
“It occurred to me that since the invocation of Twitter, nobody who has participated in it has created any lasting art. And yes! Yours truly is included in that roundup as well.”
“Has any artist, since they’ve begun to give you daily insights into their life created their best work yet? Are the best writers of our time on Twitter?”
“Those who decide to remain offline will make better work than those online. Why? Because great ideas have to gather. They have to pass the test of withstanding thirteen different moods, four different months and sixty different edits. Anything less is day trading. You can either get a bunch of mentions now or change someone’s life next year.”
So in simple, Mayer wants the world to believe that …”He started sharing his thoughts aggressively with the world; owing to his celebrity status people kept following him; listening to what he said; and then, Meyer one day realized, he’s sharing even those of his creative thoughts with all and sundry; which he can develop into something brilliant and life changing… if he had immersed himself deep enough on those strings, like a crazy man, in his loneliness and in his pain and happiness".
Thus after remaining mum, Meyer wants us to believe that what the said was indeed the reason.
So do we have any reason to believe him?
I think we can believe every word of it (though there can be other reasons too).
Creativeness is more about living in one’s own world than living with the world. Creativeness is more about listening to oneself than to the world. Marketers interact with the world, as they have to sell something; a creative person, most of the times creates something not for the world; but primarily for the self. Most of the times, such a creation connects with the world and then becomes a money spinner (if not in the artist’s life time; some time in future when people realize the ingeniousness of the creation; but one thing is for certain,’ true creativity gets recognition’ just remove the time frame).
What is happening is creative people are arriving on twitter with some misplaced notions about twitter—They are keeping a watch on their follower count (Britney and Lady Gaga are examples; Justin Bieber is a marketer so don’t include him); and to get more followers are tweeting fast; without knowing that what they call just musings are actually creative seeds; which when immersed well in self are their next best creations.
What Creative people do if they chose to be on twitter?
1) Just update your fans on what they can expect from you in coming days and months
2) Don’t argue. Your thoughts can be non-decipherable by almost all. That's why you are creative.
3) When someone praises thank him/her in a professional and polite manner. Ignore those who let you know that your creativity is not worth(a creative person learns from self; learning from collating facts is for marketers).
4) If you create something on a weekly basis, like a cartoon or something else: Just tweet your creations. Don’t try to establish friendship; try to keep your celebrity status intact.
5) Remember that you are Creative person and not a marketer. Twitter or any other social network always comes after your creation(when you or someone on your behalf dons the role of a marketer). You are Creative that’s why your fans love you; so they will not betray you, on twitter as well; if they don’t hear from you for a couple of weeks or months.
To conclude, lets hope Mayer doesn't take to aggressive blogging after aggressive tweeting.
--------
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
3 comments
Well said. Couldn't agree more.
BTW in your "So in the simple..." paragraph, where did the quote come from? Did you make it up? I think that summary was excellent. Bless Mr. Mayer's heart. I wish him the best in his gestation. May we all benefit from it, in the future.
@T_________Thanks.
That is my own summary. I can sketch a bit. What creative people are not recognizing is that "Twitter should just be used as a revelation tool for their complete creation".
Post a Comment