Subscriber Count
The Number is Deceiving
Subscribe!
The obsession over subscriber count is concerning. The main problem that I want to address is that your subscribers are human, hopefully, and not a number. It is easy to downplay your subscribers when it’s a number. You only have 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 subscribers….
Perspective
I would like you to imagine…. your subscribers, or followers, in a room or venue.
Now to put this into perspective.
72,000 for Taylor Swift Concert
70,000 for NFL game
6,000 for our AAA minor league baseball team
3,000 on cruise ship
150 for commercial flight
70 seats in a standard movie theater.
30 people in a classroom
I currently have 4 subscribers. Substack only shows 3 when I click on subscribers. And, one of those people is myself.
It definitely is not a complaint, merely an observation. I like to have a smaller group of followers, or subscribers. I generally post, write, create for myself.
My hope is that you SEE your audience. If you have 30 subscribers, I definitely think you would be sweating in a classroom while you read your blog, explain a concept, or express an idea.
Now, imagine you are the on the stage where the movie screen is and the theater is filled to come see you talk.
I definitely would not call Taylor Swifts single night concert a failure if she had 70,000 people show up to watch her perform.
But, for some reason, the number of subscribers, or followers, holds different weight. Just because we are behind screens, doesn’t mean that people don’t see you.
Performance and Satisfaction
The other thing I often think about is once subscriber counts go up. There is a general sense that performance needs to improve or be sustained. Which is difficult for the person’s mental health.
There is no way you are going to be able to keep everyone happy, either. The more people that follow you, the more opinions and beliefs there are to manage. Without a solid foundation of self, mental health issues usually increase.
There are numerous cases of this happening to “influencers.” Content creator can lose themselves in creating something for an audience and not for themselves. This can lead to burnout, substance abuse, etc. So my pledge to myself is to stay true to me. Be myself. Whether I have 2 subscribers or 20,000. You will see me. Not someone I perceive myself to be or want to be.
Why
I suggest you find “why” you are writing. I have chosen to create and write for myself. I write to improve my vocabulary and writing skills. I write to reflect on past posts and see how much I have improved or changed. There are even things I read that I wrote a year ago that I didn’t remember! I like to write about my own thoughts, opinions, and experiences. Just to have a place to document them and return to them for reflection. It isn’t to gain followers or subscribers. I won’t guarantee that there will be posts every week, month, or year. I write when I have the time. I have plenty of ideas to write about just no obligations to write.
So I urge you to SEE your followers. I will never take the amount of subscribers, or followers for granted. Nor, will I ever ask you to subscribe. My blog is my own.
All the Best,
C