“What are you giving up for Lent?” said my husband.
“Dunno, not thought about it. And you?”
“Facebook” he said
“Facebook?!!!!”
Thoughts of feeling stranded without knowing what’s going on in the world of Facebook flashed before me.
“Yup, just to spend more time being holy and see where it might take me,” he said, eyes twinkling.
After spending an entire day musing over the cost of giving up my regular fix of trawling through the newsfeed and list of events, in an effort to feel connected, I then began to weigh up how Facebook had also left me feeling more like a voyeur pouring into the lives of many people I felt I had no part in.
Increasingly, Facebook had left me feeling either relegated to a friend’s fan club by only ever liking their daily postings, never to receive a reciprocal message or like the lonely figure on a street corner staring through the window at a party of people whom she once knew or still sees out and about but without ever exchanging meaningful conversation.
I concluded if Facebook had been undermining my sense of connectedness, then surely coming off it would restore my self esteem? Right? Well, let’s see.
There was one catch; I’m a self-employed artist/reporter/shorthand tutor who depends on finding clients on social media sites such as Facebook. Perhaps now was the time to consolidate my skills, making my pitch clearer to others – and myself.
This all began shortly before Lent when I announced my intention to come off Facebook (on the site itself) just as I introduced myself as a ‘sketch reporter’ at a networking event hosted by Hacks and Hackers Connect, a global organisation for technologists and journalists to give start-ups a launch pad.
Since that time, what has taken place over the month of Lent has taken me by surprise and demonstrated that Facebook and Twitter are entirely different beasts.
As soon as the words fell from my lips, I began to ask myself: ‘What the heck is a sketch reporter’. Surely it’s someone who’s a dab hand at sketching. Can I really do just that? What and who am I up against and can this ever pay the rent? Perhaps I ought to road test the role on anything but Facebook. Those hurried thoughts brought me to opening my first Twitter account in February 2016. At the networking event, I sketched Mark Little, aka a social media visionary and the founder of Storyful, as he told of how he once saw Twitter as Satan incarnate for undermining his former role as a foreign correspondent because of the advent of so-called citizen journalism but now he would like to ‘take over Africa using Twitter.’
‘Interesting statement,’ I thought. ‘Perhaps I ought to whack out more of my quick sketches on Twitter.”
Over the following weeks, I began doodling on my iPad the people and places I had been and then posting them on Twitter adding a smattering of relevant hashtags. Suffice to say, not everyone retweeted my postings but those that did, made me feel as if a whole new world had opened up before me. The biggest thrill came when drawing people on television only to have them retweet their caricature within an hour or that very day. They included contestants on BBC’s The Voice and Channel 4 News. Another thrill was being retweeted by Sherman Cymru (Welsh National Theatre) after sketching the actress Sophie Melville all the while she was performing the critically-acclaimed Iphigenia In Splott at The National Theatre in London.
I took myself to Women of the World (WOW) festival at Southbank where I sketched a series of talks and workshops. Thanks to being retweeted by the likes of Corrie actor @Charliecondou who has an impressive 163k followers and others of a similar standing, my following and outreach continued to widen.
Even sketches of the every day - such as me getting my legs wax - commanded new followers.
But I didn’t care. I felt like a child exploring a brand, brave, albeit entirely random new world of Twitterdom. Yes it’s early days and I’ve amassed less than 100 followers but each of those followers count as real people to me. I’ve also added up that the people who had retweeted my tweets are pretty heavyweight individuals who collectively have more than 300,000 followers. What’s more, I’ve also got to direct message some influential people who I might have not otherwise met before.
The experience had opened my eyes to new possibilities and connections. I’m now thinking where else and how else I can I grow the concept that is @isketchnews birthed on Twitter only a month ago.
Will I go back on Facebook? Sure I will. But with an entirely different (and realistic) agenda.
#Eastergreetings.
