Elegy of a Content Creator

Over 11,000 of my Facebook followers disappeared, and I say, "God bless it!"

The death knell of my Facebook page is tolling. Do you hear it? ;-)

This coming week, I will lay to rest my dear Facebook page of 7 years. As I announced it on my page, I told them of an alternative page that I created to promote my real-life platform as a suicide prevention coordinator and writing on Substack. Out of 11,500 followers, one hundred people have followed me on my new page.

This is my elegy.

“My Dear Followers Gone”

11,000 followers snuck away in the night.

11,000 followers disappeared without a fight.

11,000 followers gone as if dead.

11,000 followers looking to be fed.

I entertained.

They saw my pain.

I lured them with my pen.

Where did they go?

I don’t know.

Will I ever see them again?

11,000 followers no longer will they share.

11,000 followers didn’t really care.

I hope you had a solid chuckle at my expense.

I still have a flare for the dramatic. Next week, I will unpublish a Facebook page I have carefully and lovingly nurtured. If you'd like more backstory, you can read about it here. Over the years, I went through several iterations of the page, each reflecting the inner struggle of the idol my page had become. In the past month, the only reason why I was holding on to the page is because of my ( you guessed it) 11,000+ followers.

Simultaneously, these writer’s words of wisdom were echoing in my head:

Timothy Willard

: “The fight for content creators lies in the very real lure of popularity, power, and money.”¹

Karen Swallow Prior

: “Most experience comes from work. Platforms are built from work you have already done.”²

Sarah K. Butterfield

: “I spoke at two rather large women’s events, and for the first time, did not incentivize anyone to subscribe to my newsletter. I showed up with the sole purpose of serving those who attended with no hopes of growing my following.”³

Jen Pollock Michel

: “Help your favorite author build their platform. Read what they write, share it, tell your friends, shout it from the mountaintops. The more you say, the less they’ll have to.”⁴

Those 11,000 followers were not following my work; they were following the content.

They were not interested in what I was doing but in the sensationalism of what I produced. Now that I’m not producing the content they like, they won’t follow me because they are not following my work but the ghost of sentimentality.⁵

The impending death of my page has brought me new life. I have found a love for writing I did not know existed and a passion for my work in suicidology. This has changed my perspective on how I interact with social media. Additionally, Jen Pollack Michel’s words have been reverberating in my mind. I want to promote the work that some dear people I’ve “met” on social media are producing—important, beautiful, and meaningful work. Work that I know God will use to impact me and many others.

My days of content creation are dead, but the days of work I have grown to love are just beginning, and I’m excited.

1. The Commercialization of Content

2. Part 1: Platform, Publishing, and Perspective

3. What Happened When I Stopped Writing for Lent

4. The Day I Decided to Quit Book Publishing

5. This idea is not my own, but one I derived from Prior’s work in her book “Evangelical Imagination.” Please read it.

Karen Swallow Prior, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2023, 125.