A Transgender Animal Defender Muses About Authenticity Versus Views
What to do when the topic you really want to write about gets fewer eyeballs
As creatives, we know the feeling: authenticity, or views?
If you believe your art has a generally good impact, then it makes sense that 500 views beats 50. Yet, we run into conundrums as we try to reach more people. Ideas of how to slay a headline start to compete with our pure creativity.
Have you ever seen a headline that felt like the writer was jumping up and down 10 inches in front of you screaming, “Pick me, click me!”?
Sorry, that was probably me.
Kidding! I’m usually not that clickbaitish. For the most part, I try to make every piece I write provide the type of experience that would please me if I were reading it… more gentle than jarring, more informative than provocative. That’s just my style.
Where I personally get stuck is with topic selection.
If I wanted as many views as possible, what would I do? I would probably dedicate most of my work to transgender themes.
The first time I posted about being trans on Facebook, I was floored by the number of likes. On Medium, I haven’t had a single article flop if it had…
