Guest Post from Rachel Soo Thow of @thelitlist_ : How to Think About Your Audience Creatively
Editor’s Note: This is our first guest post and I couldn’t be happier that it’s written by Rachel Soo Thow. I first “met” Rachel, whose Instagram handle is “@thelitlist_”, through DMs on the Parea Books account. If you’re anywhere near the book industry, surely you’ve heard the word “Bookstagram”—it’s the part of Instagram dedicated to book reviews, with popular “Bookstagrammers” populating feeds with well-designed books in picturesque settings and giving reviews of recently-released books or those that are about to come out. This community genuinely warms my heart—it’s a collection of people who are as obsessed with reading as I am, who want more people to read more great books. Fast forward to March, and I was in Auckland, where Rachel happens to live. I DMed her and asked if she wanted to meet up and to my surprise she said yes! We had a wonderful evening talking about the benefits of reading alone at a bar or restaurant, the massive tomes on our TBR lists, the cultural differences between the US and NZ, and many things in between.
Beyond her warmth and excellent taste in books, one thing I really admire about Rachel is her design aesthetic and the thoughtfulness of her reviews. Trust me, it’s not easy to think of new and interesting ways to take pictures of books, but she has a unique and artful way of posting about her favorite novels and crafting very considerate reviews. When we spoke, she mentioned that she’s always naturally incorporated an element of movement into her photos since she loves to dance. I thought this was brilliant, so I reached out and asked if she’d be willing to write a post about creating compelling content that resonates with an audience. Thankfully she said yes and wrote this beautiful essay.
Enjoy!
Written by Rachel Soo Thow
Every time I put words down to address an audience, I feel this strange sense of awkwardness arise – it’s like that giddy sense of nervousness when you meet someone new for the first time and you’re scared that your words will come out all jumbled, and all sense of remote sanity will disappear with them. Yet, the openness which comes from writing my thoughts and sentimental views on life in general have seemingly eased over the years.
Throughout those infamous school years and university days spent writing essays, we’ve all been conditioned to consider our audience; we’ve been taught how to consider the tone, style and subject matter of the audience and writing with the sole purpose of leaving people with our afterthoughts. It’s funny, I never saw myself as a writer, more of a daydreamer who religiously wrote in a ‘locked’ diary everyday as a kid and would always title my days with ‘Dear Diary’. In many of my entries, the people and the characters are a product of the ideology of comfort - a result of a type of societal isolation or the very reason for personifying and cementing memories of a pseudo-culture scene seeking to replace it.
When I think about how influencers today reach their audiences with such creative vigor, the word ‘subjectivity’ comes to mind; through commentary and the melding of facts and opinions together with the latest trending reel tune, some influencers may be propelled into the world of social media with a less than three-second reel that has, by chance, gone viral.
We’ve been inundated with reels that show us the next biggest and brightest thing and all of a sudden, it’s calling to the scene trends gone haywire – take for example the Wes Anderson tune and the reel videos that have accompanied it. You’ve probably seen it take off and spilling over onto your socials for the past couple of weeks and whilst Wes Anderson’s stylized form of filmmaking has graced our screens for years, you can’t seem to swipe past the highly stylized video montages of people going about their everyday lives idiosyncratically. Here, we have a clear example of where trend meets audience – the shots are positioned statically with objects placed centrally creating that heightened sense of symmetry and incredibly satisfying precision; a colour palette exaggerated and a look and feel that was quite unlike anything that was already gracing our screens. A style worth imitating. Tonal complexities of a short-form audio-visual medium brought to the most basic of visual styles with a trend worth imitating. Whilst reels have taken the world by storm, the traditionalists remain patient with prose.
Since having a book account on Instagram, I have to admit, more of my engaging posts have come from pure inner ‘unease’ – the musings of a broken heart and what I like to call, Rantville. It’s no surprise that over the years, Bookstagram has increasingly jumped on all the trends, from reels to Booktok to YouTube to memes, yet there seems to be a very small section in the sphere that relishes in the delight of pure prose. Photos are now more considered, creatively constructed to appeal to an audience yearning for comfort, sensibility and purpose. Poetry and chunky eight-hundred-page books have now come to the forefront of all the book girlies TBR’s (to be read) and the personification of the very emotion felt, whilst reading has established an openness and willingness to constructive discussion.
Feelings of unease, loneliness and mentions of therapy once hidden in the past are now on the table in its most viable form and appealing to all the ‘brokenhearted’ girls. Book outfits are now gracing reels to the Gen Z’s wishing to tick ‘dark academia’ or ‘y2k’ off the list and lengthy book reviews are well, are they even relevant anymore? The algorithms have tried and tested all of us and what was once a thriving book scene of in-depth reviews and critical discussion, has now become a mere audio-visual smorgasbord of book covers and a disconnect between in the flotsam of a new generational voice. Has reading become disinherited from its original culture? Is the divide and the introduction of technology a commercialized and vaguely exotic exploitation of audience versus an objectified world?
The geek in me loves the stats, the engagement of certain posts over others, those insights that have me wondering, was it just the timing of the post or the content or both? It’s a rinse and repeat method in some ways. A trial and error of raw material marching in lockstep towards a recreation of considerable pleasure. Bodies floating in unison, entranced. A reader mesmerized.
In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion too establishes her disconnect and unease between memory and the society that has seemingly replaced it. Feelings of inevitable disaster are seen through her eyes as a “trail of an intention gone haywire…” – a untangling of details she deems appropriate and an unravelling of a culture that one fears will slowly be replaced by this mass-produced culture. The simplest of Instagram posts that seem to tug on heartstrings are the ones that are in my opinion, the most subjective; like Didion rifling through pages of an old notebook and delving into the meaning of her notes, as a book reviewer, I feel like I too, am rifling through the pages of my childhood diary. Trying to decipher the ambiguity of observation versus reality, significant moments where I felt most creative and able to convey my thoughts, especially to an audience ever-changing and growing.
It’s hard to sum up in a way, the many ways that one can garner and hone in on those things that will make an audience tick, but in the creative sense, it’s comforting to also realise that social media can be incredibly personal and intimate and that’s not a bad thing. Posts that are ramblings or thoughts, to collage-like photo dumps – there isn’t some sort of underlying equation that can provide solutions or even answers but rather the key lies in the search of the self within the community and how this is consequently unveiled to one’s audience through social media.
If we think of social media as this sort of ‘crowd’, sometimes it can be a relief to be a part of the whole, a sort of community that we return to due to its well-fed embrace and illuminating inspiration. Scrolling through posts on Instagram is like watching beachgoers; there are expressions of exuberance, aggression, happiness, bliss. All of life, is here, floating in amongst this heaving and gargantuan society of mass technology- togetherness at the heart of the multitude has the ability to invoke creativity.
There, I’ve said it. It’s the exciting pulsating and electric feeling that one gets when your words and creativity is appreciated that leads to one’s bathing in the multitude and that social media ‘glow’. Direct messages, reactions, emoji comments, voice messages – all of this and more leads to this somewhat reassurance that ‘you’re doing it right’ – a living backdrop of resounding ‘yes’s very quickly dehumanized by the sublime idea that ‘agreeance’ and joining the crowd will result in success, yet could this very well be leading towards the risk of us becoming less human? We are all but cogs in this machine, sifting and molding our opinions ever so slightly to those around us, yet our creativity is what holds us true to our own individuality – the audience we play to may be primitive and irrational and in some respects composed and articulate. Watching the trends in amongst the everyday perils of life may seem daunting but full-time influencers would probably beg to differ.
In this crowd, we have to remember that we are radiantly individual. Our bodies serving as a prism for change. Within this fragile shell is a matrix of enthralling complexities, a creativity bursting with liberation and our inescapable need for connection and inspiration from those around us. Feed it. Contribute to it. Because that’s the kind of liberating magic that’s here to stay. And the very kind of magic that will speak to an audience that finds you profound.