thejaymo

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Create Something

Some weeks I’ll know exactly what I’m going to make a show about.  An idea will arrive at some point during the week, and will have a structure by the time I come to write and record it.

Back when I was still writing and recording 301 in an hour most of the episodes came about this way. 

Occasionally, I’ll have an idea during the week and start working on it. But I’ll get a little way in and shelve it. The initial vision for the final idea is more ambitious than I can produce in the time I set aside to make an episode.

For example this week:

I wanted to make an episode about repetition and rhythm. 

• an episode about repetition and rhythm. 
• repetition and rhythm. 
• repetition and rhythm. 

It’s a topic I feel strongly about. So I decided that the text needed more room and time to work on it.

What this means in practice of course is that it’s never going to get finished. It will sit in the ‘offcuts’ section of the 2021 301 Google doc and I’ll bring it up again in passing at the end of the year.

So I sit down this morning to write the script for today’s episode with no plan whatsoever. Whatever falls out of my mind and onto the page as I place my hands to my keyboard is what’s going to get made.

This is a personal podcast after all. So I’ll just talk about whatever I feel like talking about.

It’s been a while since this has happened, the last one in tone was perhaps Episode 2050 in December of last year. 15 shows ago. 

Which is quite convenient as this episode nestles between that episode and Episode 150 due in 16 weeks time.

If you are a long time listener or have binged your way through all 11 hours worth of material you’ll know that I really value making this show every week.

The commitment and regularity that it provides is (for me) what makes the show worth making.  

If I wasn’t making this show weekly, would I have written 14 essays this year? On topics like: kennings, Puppets in South India, the WallStreet Bets debacle, the way people think etc? Probably not. Actually in fact the answer is not at all. 

The reason I started this show in the first place was because I wanted to create something and put it out on the internet every week. 

Which come to think about it seems like a good sentence to unpack.

“I Wanted To”

Well, I wanted to do something in 2018, so I started doing it.

Now I’m still doing it in 2021. It is what it is.

“Create Something“

I’m definitely creating something. But I’m hesitant to use the word content.

I’m not a big fan of the term ‘content creator’ either.

Even though I am as guilty as the next for using the term. 

Both about my own work and other peoples. 

Content creator ‘flattens’ what people are doing, creating, making and achieving online. Reducing the output of all types of creative work into content. Its a marketing term.

Youtube is an empty shell, filled with ‘content’ by the users of its platform. Youtube can call them content creators, but I’d rather call them artists.

If we try and break out of using content creator we can – in many cases – only fall back on older pre-internet terms. 

Youtubers aren’t content creators, they are doing whatever film makers do in 2021. People who make podcasts aren’t content creators – they are making whatever Radio has become now. People who write blogs and newsletters are writers, or journalists. Instagramers are photographers and filmmakers. TikTokers are all sorts of people, doing all sorts of things.  And people who make a living live streaming themselves on twitch? Well, they are doing a thing that doesn’t really have a name for it yet.

To reduce people doing these activities down to ‘content creators’ does a disservice to the creativity and the people engaged in them. 

It also provides more power to the companies that need people to keep posting videos, photos, or sending emails through their platforms.

“And Put It Out on the Internet”

Put it out on the Internet, NOT on social media. 

I’m much happier writing this podcast and thinking about ideas within a container that is 5 minutes and 1000 words long. Than chaining and compressing ideas into 280 characters. Instead of a pile of tweets, I’m producing a body of work. 

“Every Week”

This is probably the most important part of the sentence. 

It’s also the thing I respect the most about all the artists and creators I admire online: Consistency.

Seeing people get a newsletter, essay, podcast, video, or whatever out every single week is inspirational. Daily bloggers, and vloggers blow my mind.

It’s why in the arts there is the concept of ‘a practice’. Something you keep doing, keep working on, all the time as part of your life.

The thing that’s inspirational to me about doing something ‘every week’ is that most people stop. 

There are currently 2 million podcasts available online. It’s estimated that 75% of them are no longer in production. 

Of the remaining 500,000 podcasts. Only about 80% are considered active. IE: having posted a new episode within the last 90 days. 

Most podcasts never get beyond their 7th episode. Why? Because doing something semi-regularly or every week is hard. A hard thing I’ve come to enjoy doing. 

And If you regularly enjoy listening to this hard thing week, please consider supporting the show from £30 a year or .57p an episode at thejaymo.net/support

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The script above is the original script. It may differ from what ended up in the audio due to time constraints and editing.