The Numbers Game

The stats that govern social media status lead to an unhealthy view of our accomplishments

I have a numbers problem.

I have become somewhat obsessive about the numbers I am producing as a content creator. This is not a unique problem as we all know. But it is a problem that I have been trying very hard to develop a healthy perspective on.

I do not do good numbers. A “successful” content creator would be suicidal if they had the same numbers as me. I’m not kidding. And yet, if you took all of the individuals who have viewed my content over the years and put them in a football stadium, they would not fit. You would need 3 or 4 stadiums to fit all of those people. Yet I still feel like a failure when I look at my numbers.

I have been attempting to build an audience for my Youtube channel for a little over a year. I currently have just over 500 subscribers. According to Youtube statistics that puts me around the top 15 percent of all YouTubers in the world. If this were a test, I’d have a grade of 85%. Yet I often feel like a failure when I see my stats.

I have written and directed two feature length films that have played festivals around the world. These films have won awards, gotten some great reviews and have international distribution to broadcasters and streaming services all over the globe. But, because they did not make much money, I feel like a failure.

In my music career, I have released over a dozen albums. I have opened for the legendary Bo Diddley and played large festivals in front of thousands of people. I have had my music played on radio stations in Canada, United States, U.K. ,Australia, Ireland and more. Yet I often feel like a failure as a musician.

I know this is starting to sound like the most self deprecating artist bio ever. But I am merely trying to illustrate a point about the numbers game.

I feel like a failure because despite all of these accomplishments - accomplishments that took me over 40 years of effort to accumulate -  I feel further away from my goals and aspirations than when I was a naive 16 year old dreaming of rock stardom in the 80’s. Despite all of my efforts and all of the output over the years, I have not received any of the extrinsic rewards we associate with success. I have not had a hit, I have not achieved fame, notoriety or great wealth. I have an embarrassingly modest following and I am currently unable to eke out a meagre living from my art. I still need to do all sorts of  ’straight jobs’ on the side in order to get by.

Is it perhaps because I have no talent and I suck? I can objectively say “No, I do not lack talent and I do not suck”. I have been paid, broadcasted and distributed enough times to know that I am doing professional, high quality work. 

Here is the real issue: I am trying to do an absurd thing in an absurd industry. 

The entertainment industry is an absolute absurdity. So much so, in my opinion, that I named my company “Absurd Machine Inc.”. This is an industry that is based almost entirely on trying to figure out the whims and cultural appetites of the general public at any given moment. As David Gilmour once said “Trying to second guess what the public wants or likes is a fool’s game.”

And so, here I am, playing the fool’s game. And getting about as far as a fool would get.

But I keep doing it. Every day it is pretty much all I think about, it consumes me. There is this notion that if I can just get one thing to work, it will all have been worth it. There is this other notion that I haven’t truly failed until I give up. Then there is the fact that I am simply ‘compelled’ to do it. I do not know any other way to be. The creative impulse is the only thing that keeps me alive, I truly believe that without my creative endeavours, I would end myself very quickly. So, at the risk of sounding laughingly melodramatic, it is truly a life or death thing.

This is why the numbers game is such a dangerous game for creative types. You risk devaluing yourself and your work based on a random set of numbers that have more to do with algorithms and dumb luck than with any value your art may or may not have to the world. So you have to learn to find value in the little victories, those special moments where some stranger reaches out from across the globe and says “You work moved me deeply”. Those little moments of connection should be seen as a measuring stick of your value far more than your clickthrough rate or your retention rate or your follower count. 

If only a handful of people have been touched by your work, it in no way diminishes it. In fact, how much more special and unique is that? You spent hours or days or in some cases weeks, months or even years creating this thing. By a miracle of technology, that thing really meant something to a small handful of people from different parts of the world. That’s kind of crazy when you think about it.

How cool is that? A stranger that lives 4ooo miles away from you experienced your art. They were so moved by it, that they needed to reach out to you and let you know. Whenever I have those moments, I hang on to them like a life raft in a vast ocean of indifference. Those special little connections make it all worth the effort. After all, when we create, are we not just trying to connect in some simple way?

Fuck the algorithm. For every creator it favours, it ignores a thousand more.