On Medium: The Puzzle of Why Zulie Rane Blocked Me for Criticizing Her Sales Advice
Read on for the follow-up to my criticism of Zulie Rane's advice on how to succeed as a freelance writer. This time I draw some lessons about the creator economy from Zulie Rane's decision to "block" me on Medium for levelling that criticism.
An interesting article. As someone who's spent hours debating efilists and antinatalists, I've noticed their tendency to use flowery/pretentious langauge in order to conceal putting their arguments in a more concise manner. Of course, it's possible that they weren't acting with any malicious intent. Still, I often found myself being drawn towards those words even though I knew deep down that there was something logically incoherent about them. But words such as "putting people onto a tightrope that's hung above the pits of hell" can leave an impact, especially on those who are likely to have a somewhat vivid imagination.
ReplyDeleteYour other article also reminded me of an anecdote I had heard about a while ago from someone I know (not sure of the veracity of the claim, but the person who told me this was connected with those people, so I trust them). They told me that the editor-in-chief of The Statesman, a famous newspaper in India, was told that that their sales were declining and that they should probably write their articles in a more "toned down" language. The editor replied that it's actually a good thing that the sales are declining, since this suggests that their articles are of a level that not many were able to reach.
Ultimately, I do think that it's something that has to be balanced. I intend to launch my own blog sometime in the near future regarding philosophy, optimism, and anti-antinatalism. If that endeavour ever comes to fruition, I would like it to be something that's honest yet also reaches a wider audience in a relatively accessible manner.
There certainly is a balancing act here. It's the old problem of being true to yourself or emphasizing your persona to be popular. I remember how these games were played even in public school, when the other teenagers and I used to form cliques. Were we being true to ourselves? Is it even so easy to come to know ourselves? Does everyone have a true self or do we create ourselves in moments of deep reflection, all the rest being play-acting, performative gestures, and neural impulses? Are we born with character or do we have to train ourselves to distinguish our personality?
DeleteAnd then there's the nature of the competition. Does the cream rise to the top, or is a free society a race to the bottom? We can sell ourselves or we can explore the truth regardless of whether doing is popular, and we can compromise to varying degrees.
Indeed. The point about our "true self" is definitely one worth pondering, particularly when what it means seems to be transforming into something quite capricious.
DeleteBtw, any thoughts on this *intriguing* mission?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLbDl6mjrU
There's a text version available in the description. Even though the article talks about beauty when it starts, it also has an eerily emotionless tone to it (at least in my opinion). Your thoughts would be sincerely appreciated.