This is Social Media in 1995

What Gary V / Seth Godin are telling you, kiddo

Source: https://www.instagram.com/isequalto_navneet/

Listen kid,

Twenty five year ago, as an engineering student — the above was all I had to showcase my “ writing talent”. In the whole wide world.

There were newspapers… but the editor sitting in the cabin finalized whether my written word was worth it. This “Guardian of Sanctity of the Written World” measured the worth of my attempt.

Getting a book published was my, my, my…what Salman Rushdie did. I was not by long shot anywhere near him.

Heck, for getting my poem or article pinned on the above “Magazine Board” ; I had to pass through the college editorial committee. Though the head was as clueless as I was about literature but she knew that I was desperate and it was in her power to shortlist my stuff.

And when the poem was pinned to the

“ Magazine Board” ; the readers were bored just out of their teens students running hither and thither to save their semester results. (For most of my engineering classmates, literature was something they met briefly on their road to MBA entrance or useful for cracking GRE).

And frankly , nobody gave a f___ about those romantic laments about lost love or silvery moon or the cotton clouds. Under the weight of “ What chapters are deleted in Thermodynamics? …..is Heat and Mass Transfer exam rescheduled? “…all my writing got quietly buried.

There was simply no feedback available; no one to read, listen, see your stuff; no one to comment or like or forward.

There was a photography Club in the college. But your grand dad would have laughed if I had asked him for a new camera “to showcase my artistic talents”. Plus, those damn reels were half the time duplicate. And you would come to know of this only after you had taken the negatives to the photo shop for “developing”.

Overall, we could shoot limited photos. The learning curve was slow. For an amateur it was expensive.

I couldn’t even dream of shooting videos. Some distant uncle had a camcorder. Starting a TV channel would have been like shooting a rocket to Mars from my backyard.

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So this is the point that I am trying to make, kid. Back in my days:

(i) the Master Gatekeepers of all shapes and sizes had power to select or reject your work.

(ii) getting feedback from an interested like-minded bunch of people was difficult.

(iii) technology was painful/expensive.

You never knew what you were capable of. Except do engineering and then MBA and then get a job and then marry and then have kids.

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So when Seth Godin or Gary V push you to upload your painting / drawing / movie / podcast / song / webinar on Social Media — this is what they are trying to tell you.

Make. Your. Life.

When Seth Godin says “ Go create a ruckus” of when Gary V plods you to “hustle” — they are telling you to start running and not keep sitting on your bum waiting for the customary whistle to start the race.

The Masters of the Universe guarding the gates have left…Hell there are no gates anymore.

Reminds me of an old Bon Jovi MTV video —

Where are you ? You’re missing it, kiddo.

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