But what about my followers?

Consumption and the last days of Twitter.

“The Blue Boy” by Thomas Gainsborough, 1770

I began my Twitter in the summer of 2011. It was a warm summer night, and I was with a cute girl hanging out in the clubhouse of my childhood swing set. She told me I would love Twitter, that I would be so good on Twitter, that I just had to get on Twitter. She blinked her long eyelashes at me and—mesmerized—I emphatically nodded along. Of course I have to get this thing. This quirky blue little bird.

She was right. It was as if Twitter was created for the Dopamine rush I felt on it.

Eventually Twitter became my primary way to get followers; I was decent with words and decent at being witty and decent at being just controversial enough to get attention. It all felt so good. My Twitter following became the anchor in my book proposal—“I have this many followers; therefore, you should want to publish my book”—and each time I had a semi-viral tweet I felt a sense of accomplishment. I am a part of the zeitgeist. My voice matters.

But the funny thing is that the more I was on Twitter, the worse my mental health was. It was all the exposure, all the performance, all the abstraction of a virtual world that got to me. And the more I focused on Twitter, the less I focused on the tangible world around me. I retreated into my mind, and the world became blurry, fading into the background of my virtual kingdom.

“It is so easy to get excited and enthusiastic about the gospel outside our gardens. But it is in our gardens that we have been placed…. We can live our lives only in actual place, not in an imagined or fantasized or artificially fashioned place.”

-Eugene Peterson (Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 73)

I thought Twitter was a part of my duty, a part of my vocation. If I wanted to write a book, I needed to get followers, and the best way to get followers (for me) was doing it on Twitter. However, Twitter removed me from the “actual place” of my existence. It sent me into my mind, away from the garden I lived in, away from the named people around me. I couldn’t show up for them because I was too busy swinging on a pendulum between elation and anxiety at virtual attention.

But if God wants me to write, don’t I have to build my utopia online? Don’t I need to get followers?

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A consumer economy

“Widespread consumerism results in extensive depersonalization. And every time depersonalization moves in, life leaks out.”

-Eugene Peterson (Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 39)

Another name for “follower” is “consumer.” On the internet, we use words like “follower,” “traffic,” “unique visitor,” “network,” “subscriber.” All words that obscure your innate humanity, your physical-ness. I meant well while I was building my Twitter following, but my goal was to have you keep coming back to me, to get hooked on my words, to look to me for your weekly, daily, hourly inspiration. As I was becoming more impersonal in my own world, I was encouraging you to do the same in yours.

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Building barns of consumption

Then [Jesus] told them this story: “The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: ‘What can I do? My barn isn’t big enough for this harvest.’ Then he said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll gather in all my grain and goods, and I’ll say to myself, Self, you’ve done well! You’ve got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!’

“Just then God showed up and said, ‘Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?’

“That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”

-Luke 12:16-21 (The Message)

So much of today’s publishing and creating economy is based on hoarding; it is based on building bigger barns to hold more grain, more followers, more consumers. You—the reader—are manipulated to enter various barns of influence, whether those barns are owned by pastors or influencers or celebrities. Attention is a limited resource, and the hoarding of one’s attention is required for success.

So we seek that attention on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat and Substack; ideally, there is not a social media you can go to without our presence. We—the creators, the influencers—try to build barns on every site, ushering you to spend more time with us and less time in your garden.

Fools, all of us.

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Corrosive creation v. generative creation

“But to the man and woman wanting more reality, not less, this insistence that all genuine life, life that is embraced in God’s work of salvation is grounded, placed, is good news indeed.”

-Eugene Peterson (Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 75)

I am growing convinced that there are two types of writing: corrosive writing and generative writing.

Corrosive writing draws you in with flashy headlines and controversial hot takes. It is fast and easy to consume. It exists on every social media site and is constantly dripping more and more content your way. It wants all your attention, all of the time. It can come from pure or impure motivations, but either way it reduces your identity to a unit, another bushel of grain filling a virtual barn. Celebrity pastors offering you personal relationships or selling you their clothing lines. Influencers who claim to stand for the marginalized but instead build platforms on their backs. Christians who treat you like a customer, constantly pumping out soundbites from their books and podcasts and Masterclass sessions.

They corrode the Gospel, the good news, the freedom of Christ by filling their barns with self, not with God.

Generative writing expands the world of the reader. It is not always on. It does not demand your full attention or your money. After reading it, you are more aware of your own garden rather than the walls of someone else’s barn. The writer might not know you personally, but he or she considers you a human, with a world and a ministry directly in front of you. They are grounded and placed just as you are grounded and placed, learning to live within their own limits and not pretending to be all-expansive or all-knowing. They submit to God and encourage you—through their writing or podcasts or books—to do the same. You are invited to read, but you are not required to linger. You are not being stored; instead, you are being sent out to love God and love the tangible world around you.

They generate discipleship, joy, and freedom. They look to serve God, not build barns for themselves.

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If I’m honest

The ugly truth is that I’ve written corrosively. I have used God to build a bigger barn, and I have treated you like a consumer, doing a dance to get your attention and then doing everything possible to keep it.

But, eventually, the best built barns collapse. Just look at my Twitter. I do not post on there anymore; I no longer garner the attention I craved for so long. It will not get me that long-coveted book deal.

The same will probably be true of this newsletter someday. It will collapse as well; it will be taken over by a billionaire or it will become outdated or you will find someone more thoughtful to subscribe to. All of that is okay if I write from a generative place, if I write out of freedom and not out of consumption.

I could write a hundred books and capture a hundred million followers, and—like the farmer—they could all be burned up in a night.

So may I—may we—not seek that. May we seek a generative way of living, of writing, of consuming. May we find ways to live within the gardens we have been placed.

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A Practical Conclusion

So much of generative writing and living, I am discovering, is living within our limits. For some writers, that looks like being on Twitter, on Substack, on Instagram, you name it. They are able to respond to emails and be very present to their online communities without it distracting them from the life around them. That is beautiful.

For me, I’m learning I am not able to be fully present online and fully present in real life. I am not able to personally respond to email responses, and I am so sorry for that. I am not active on Twitter, on Facebook, or on Instagram. My tank is just a little smaller than others’. But I hope that doesn’t communicate my lack of care for you. In my own way, I hope to honor you as a human and not collect you as a follower. I hope to be a generative influence in your life. I am so grateful you are here.