Join the Colored Solid Background Movement

Let’s ditch the fakes and embrace the real thing!

Photo by Virginia Marinova on Unsplash

Following a recent study conducted while I was taking a shower, I came to the conclusion that Substack is not that different from other social networks. Here, as elsewhere, we don’t always follow each other for the right reasons, if there are such things as right and wrong reasons for following each other.

And so, as everywhere else, human behaviour on Substack is pretty much the same. In this case, men follow women because they are attractive and display their bodies, rather than because they are good writers or have interesting things to say. The same applies in reverse. In every way, I might add. I’m the first to admit it!

For example, I follow Philip Ogley because he has gorgeous hair. I follow Carlos Garbiras because he has Colombian eyes to die for. I follow Sam Aureli because he has a really well-groomed beard. I follow Ginger Cook (GC) because she has beautiful feet. None of this has anything to do with writing!

Have you noticed that most people follow you without ever reading or reacting to your stories? Unless they’re in ghost mode, which would be weird. Can you imagine if we did that in real life? What if we started following people on the street without ever interacting with them? Are you doing that?

Take two minutes to look at your followers or subscribers. How many of them read your work? How many react to your writing? How many of them are genuinely interested in your stories? How many read your work before deciding to subscribe? How many send you private messages?

I have sent several private messages to people who started following me, politely asking what they liked about my writing. I never received a reply from any of them.

Oh, how surprising! It all sounds fake, so fake.

The colored solid background movement

To combat this scourge and turn things around on Substack, I propose launching the ‘colored solid background’ movement. Instead of using a profile picture of yourself, use a solid background color of your choice without any embellishments and see what effect it has on your subscriber count and writing career.

That’s what I did a few weeks ago and it’s been working pretty well. I’m not gaining any subscribers — or almost none! OK, when I had a photo of myself as a handsome guy on my profile, I wasn’t gaining subscribers either. But trust me!

Okay, I’ll admit it: I changed my profile picture to a solid background in the hope of becoming a best-selling author like hope(less) on sundays or Tao Lin. But trust me!

Let’s follow each other for the right reasons! Let’s follow each other because we love reading each other’s posts, writing to each other, and moving each other. Let’s follow each other because we want to create real connections between us.

Let’s ditch the fakes and embrace the real thing!

Tom

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