Internet is driven by a strong force of a network effect, we all know that. In order to reach the people who might be interested in whatever you share, you need to put a buzzword in the title, use some viral keywords and reach out to your already existing network who will hopefully generate a snowball effect, passing it on to their friends, who will pass it to their friends… If you want to give a story a little boost, you might promote it to your target audience — those people who check some boxes as your template readers. I believe that if you try those tricks consistently for a longer period of time, you will get there. THERE being a place when people who are interested in the type of content you create, will read it. If it is good, they might give it a thumbs up, heart, clap or whatever the platform uses to get the feedback loop going. If you consistently satisfy your audience, you might get people to follow you and read your content regularly. Which is all great, except that it serves little purpuse except boosting the ego of the writer and maybe giving him a chance to earn some extra cash.
As I don’t want to read what I already know, I also don’t want my readers to be people who already agree with me. When I speak to my friends and co-workers, I see a lot of agreement in how the world should look like. Yes, privacy is an important issue and big companies should not profit from selling intimate details about our lives. Yes, gay people should have right to get married. Yes, we don’t want to see big corporations ruling the world. Yes, we need to be open to other cultures, religions, beliefs. No, we don’t want USA and Russia meddling in other countries affairs.
But if we ALL agree on that, how come it is not reflected in the direction we are heading?
Who are all these people who disagree with us?
Do they not know what we know?
The truth is, they might not. In the reality of personalized news, it is hard to reach out to see the other side of the coin. Reading few articles on Medium about cryptocurrencies and social media giants, makes finding other topics and people who think different than me very difficult.
I need to log out to see what other people are reading, otherwise I am served exactly what I am looking for… or rather what I already looked from.
The way we organized our online lives promotes close-mindedness. Discussion with people who disagree with you is always hard, but if you are never exposed to different opinions, it is almost impossible. And you don’t even know what arguments you need to fight with as you have no idea what your opponent reads. Maybe if you both read or heard the same things, you could almost agree?
Until reently, we all read the same books and same newspapers. We watched the same TV channels. Even we were discussing something as stupid as the last of a soap opera, we still had the same point of reference! We could criticize something that was said on the news, but we all knew what the news was. Nowadays, media is more democratic, there are more voices and perspectives than ever that can potentially be heard. The problem is, they are not reaching the people who need to hear them.
So my question is: how do I reach out to people who think differently? How do I make THEM read what I have to say, and get to read THEIR arguments?
I already know why I am right, but can somebody please tell me why am I wrong?