CREATE MORE THAN YOU CONSUME

 

Cover image for The Four Hundred Club book by author Keli H

 

The last twenty-four hours or so of my life have been a small turmoil. And when you hear why, you might call me dramatic. It's a relief, but almost funny, to think this what I have the privilege of calling a turmoil now. I remember the days when my turmoils were how I was going to pay my bills at the end of the month. I'll take being called dramatic rather than visit that place again, any day. 

My trouble is that my social media conundrum is continuing. Do I, or don't I, delete my social media? I think maybe I know I want to, but I'm having a lot of resistance to doing it. 

I started my social media journey in the year 2016, when I downloaded Instagram for the first time. All my friends had it, and it seemed silly that I held out for so long. I was in my fifth year of university at that time, in medical school. My first ever picture was a group shot of our rotation at a small clinic just outside of Mthatha, where I was studying. I wonder if that picture is still up ... I'm not going to check as I write, because honestly, I don't even enjoy checking my Instagram anymore. 

So I'd been at it for a few months, posting pictures of friends and parties and life at the hospitals or clinics I rotated through (this was before IG introduced video). I was probably in my final year of university by the time I decided I'd like to have a lot of followers. There wasn't even anything in particular that prompted the thought, except maybe comparison to all my other friends who seemed to have lots of them. I googled how to get more social media followers. Anyway, nothing became of that because I lost interest or persistence in making that happen. 

I first got Tik Tok in 2023, so it's been a little over a year now. My following there hasn't grown much either. But I must have wanted it to, because I recently found a piece of paper on which I had written some random things I hoped to manifest into existence (I'm a great believer in the metaphysical), and I had written that I wanted 100,000 followers on each of my social platforms. 

So honestly, social media must have had some social importance to me at several points throughout the years, because recognition on it is something I seem to have consistently wanted. But now I seem not to be interested in social platforms at all. Why?

Is it because I feel unrecognized? I post helpful content around books and publishing and business, primarily, but also some aspirational lifestyle things. But still, my videos don't take off. Am I throwing the towel in because I'm giving up trying hard to be seen? 

Have I lost interest because social media has become a drain on me? I avoid logging into accounts as much as I can, because nothing about it excites me. I don't enjoy checking notifications - who has seen what, who has left comments, how many messages I got. It's just another demand for my attention. Or another thing to manage. I want a simple, uncluttered, obligation-free life - and this includes the reduction of pressure to treat my social and personal life like an admin task. I just want to live my life. 

But there are also reasons I am scared to delete my social media - specifically Instagram and Tik Tok; I enjoy this blog and will probably keep writing it for as long as it gives me joy, without thought as to who's viewing it. 

A very big reason I'm scared - and I casually mentioned this at the tail end of a previous post - is because I worry about becoming an irrelevant person. Not for selfish reasons - my business depends a lot on my personal brand. I've gotten some opportunities from people discovering me through my videos. I've gotten opportunities for collaborations, for speaker events. I have become a trusted figure of authority in my field because of the confident content I put out. Will I still be able to maintain myself as a Key Person of Influence (as business coach Daniel Priestly puts it) if I scrub my socials? 

Another, probably equally important, reason I'm scared to delete social media is because it has played a positive part in shaping me. Like all families, mine is also not perfect. I was raised with a couple of limiting beliefs - we all were, so don't think I'm complaining about my family. But I was able to get exposure to different thoughts, opinions, discourses, and ideas from social media; allowing me to become a holistic person who could see the world in different ways. I follow accounts that teach me about business, about personal development, about etiquette. I've learnt a lot of great things that have raised me through adulthood, into an even better adult. What if I am missing out on the opportunity to grow further if I delete my accounts? 

So anyway, last night, in an effort to make sense of what I should do, I went on a googling spree. I googled 'do rich people use social media'. I'm a future-thinking person, and I intend to be very rich (I've lost care of judgement at this point, because a few paragraphs up I shamelessly admitted I wanted to be social media popular). So I was wondering what the future version of me would choose to do in this situation. The answer I came back with was that rich people use social media, just in a different way to you and I: 

They use it to create more than they consume

This thought gave me some peace. The purpose of my social media wouldn't be about followers and popularity and arbitrary social metrics. My accounts would simply be a place for me to create things when I felt inspired to. Nevermind the number of likes on posts, or the comment engagement ratio, or the amount of DMs. It would just be a fun place for me to post my pictures (Instagram) and videos (Tik Tok), in the name of creation. I am an artist at heart, and creation is what I do best.

So I woke up this morning feeling a little less pressured about the whole thing. 

During the day, while researching for my new Four Hundred Club book, I looked up the Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal. She did something I'm hoping to do as well: create an entire literary universe around a group of friends. My research led me down a rabbit hole. Did you know there are over 180 books in the Sweet Valley High universe? Now that's a lady who knew how to create more than she consumes, I thought cheerily! That's book after book that was pushed out. She probably just enjoyed her days writing and thinking and plotting novels instead of worrying about silly things like social media accounts. I felt heartened by this and vowed to use most of my day to work on The Four Hundred Club, rather than open my social apps. 

A little later, struggling to keep any kind of momentum on my manuscript, I decided to look up how long it took Francine Pascal to write each Sweet Valley High book, considering she got through 180 of them in her lifetime. And that's when I found out that she used ghostwriters to write the majority of the books, letting them push out roughly one per month. 

I don't actually know why this disappointed me. I, too, have worked with a ghostwriter once (Theresa Bhowan Rajah was actually hired as a ghostwriter to turn my research into a manuscript for Creating Literary Art, before we decided to co-author it). I think it's the idea that Francine most certainly did not create all that work. I'd thought she was a mean, green, creator machine whose example I could follow in my endeavour to create more than I consume. 

I spent a lot of the late afternoon and evening feeling unsettled by this. Is it even going to be possible for me to follow my newfound mantra that had given me such hope less than a day ago? 

For now, my social media remains intact. I will log a blog post about what I eventually decide.

For more articles written by Keli H, the author, visit this blog's home page on keli-h.com

 

Keli H is the award winning author of the 400 series, which includes The Four Hundred Club and Splitting an Empire. The 400 series is high brow contemporary fiction revolving around the lives of wealthy circles. Keli's other works include Creating Literary Art. She is also the founder of The KREST House, a storytelling empire.