One of the weirdest things to me is how people will say they’re friends with someone but not even peep their shit. You can forget about sharing it too. I’ve never understood this. Even online friends I meet I will try to view their stuff and share it if I can. You see on the side bar of my website are a few people’s stuff. Even if they are people I don’t agree with often; I still try to share their stuff. I’d actually like to go more in depth about how sharing, and viewing, your friends content can help dramatically.
Let’s start with why you should do it. How would you feel if you put in hours of work into something and your friends and family didn’t even want to glance at it? Pretty shitty right? Same for your friends. Even something as simple as my blog here takes a lot of time, well now it does. I have to come up with ideas, do bits of research, type it up, edit it, and then last bits of fact checking. When I first started I just wrote out blog posts and didn’t care. I’m putting in more effort these days. To where some posts I write will take up an entire day off. With my claymations an 8 second short will take 2 hours to make, and that is if I put in no effort. The fact I could send it to people and no one watch it is pretty disheartening. It’s 8 seconds of your life.
What exactly do you lose? Sure, mine is an 8 second video which is shorter than how long it takes for me to walk outside my apartments. What about videos that are 10 minutes long? Sure, 10 minute is a bit of an investment but you can at least watch it for 3 minutes and see if you like it. I’ve listened to some people’s music that I didn’t like just to support them. Same with watching some videos. I’ve watched Twitch and YouTube streams, and I hate watching streams, just to support my friends. Especially in the age of social media and metrics. Doing something as simple as giving your friend a follow/subscription, like, and view drastically helps them find an audience. It prevents Twitch and YouTube from hiding them.
“But I don’t like their content.” Have you tried giving suggestions? Usually content struggles because the creator isn’t sure why people don’t watch it. Most people just give negative feedback as “this sucks”, “it’s fucking retarded when you said x”, or “this part is so dumb!” This feedback is negative and some of it lets you know which parts people don’t like but it isn’t really helpful. If I know something sucks but not what about it sucks I’m either left to endlessly mull about it, or assume it’s just people being an asshole. This is where friendly criticism helps. You can tell your friend something you don’t like or guise it as a suggestion.
My friend at Drink a Beer and Play Games posted a link to his podcast and to a video review. When watching his review I realised it is actually pretty good. However, I noticed at the end they just seemed to toss a recommended beer out of nowhere. To me it didn’t make much sense. I suggested to him to try and make the beer also part of the review. Relate it to the game. “This beer packs a good punch like the game’s combat packs.” Just some stuff like that. Try to write about the beer and how it pairs to parts of the game. He really liked the idea. I hope it works for them and will allow them to stand out from other reviewers. With that said their reviews of games were already really good. As for his podcast, I’ve listened to it but I kept getting distracted. I should give it another listen or two to get an idea for it.
I lost nothing watching his content and I was, hopefully, able to help him. He really liked the advice. My friend Mike does Twitch streams. When I am awake and he streams I try to retweet his streams. I don’t know if he notices, but I try to help. Same with other friends who are streaming. I may hate streaming, but I know others like it. With my friends who make music I listen to it and see if I can offer advice. If not I try to share it with people who might like it more than me. Sharing a link is no effort. Most people won’t even do that. I’ve met people who are artists and their friends won’t even share a link to their art. Even if the art is amazing. Why? I’ve always wondered this. It helps your friend a lot and takes no effort on your part. It’s the ultimate friend move.
Now, I have talked a lot about online stuff. I want to switch to real life stuff. I remember when Kim had her art on display at an art show. None of her friends went to go see it. Only I went. It was a free show too. It costed us nothing. My friend Shaun was in a band called Thieves of Sunrise. I went to every free show they had and even some paid ones. Not only was the music good but I got to support my friend and his band. The band was pretty thankful that I went to their shows often. Eventually the other band members started to talk to me before shows. A thing I feel bad about is when my friend Tony works on a game and I never buy it, with the exception of Doom 2016. The games he works on always sell well but they’re just not my style. I do wish to support my friend but I also don’t wish to waste 60 bones. My friend Vys is in a band called Hard Men Working Hard. Every CD I buy. Even if there is just one track on that CD I like. I buy the entire one to support him and his friends.
I just don’t understand people refusing to help their friends, or family. Getting my friends to view my videos, or even read my blog, is hard. I just kind of post shit now and have no expectations of people actually viewing it. I have the stats on my blog and it comes a lot from random people and a growing Chinese audience. Which is interesting. In fact, Americans make up some of the lowest view counts for my blog. When I decide to dive deep into server side stats, not blog side, Texas makes up almost none. Meaning, almost none of my friends and family back home even read this. I could say anything about people back home and it wouldn’t cause a single conflict. It’s honestly depressing. My latest claymation only got views because it was a YouTube short. I got some subs from it and a high watch time. So, that’s good. People seem to like what I am making, just not my friends and family. It’s disheartening that the people I care about the most can’t be bothered to even check out my content; despite some of the stuff I do for them.
So, why should you do it? It helps. It makes your friends feel good. Sometimes we pour days, weeks, and months into something. Only for no one to even care. No one sees it because no one shares it. If it isn’t something you can share on Twitter or Facebook right away it might as well not exist. Even then sharing content on those sites is also pretty rare among friends. Try talking to a friend who makes something, even if you don’t like it. Ask them how they do it and what they put into it. You’ll be surprised the amount of effort people put into something that no one sees.