Followers.
I turned off the "Followers" counter on the side of the blog some time ago.
Fact is, I don't want followers.... I want collaborators.
I want a community of like-minded people.
I want to put up the bat signal and have a legion of people just like me turn up.
How awesome would that be.
Would that typing "TFIA!" keywords like 'Dicks In Your Ear' into a search engine, yielded more than just a horrifying window into a subculture of sexual fetishists looking to plant their flag in an unexplored orphus.(.. but then who doesn't yearn to be a 'penile pion-ear'?)
And, would that it were as simple as finding the artfully profane, comedy and innovation discussion group. (Perhaps I'd quickly recognize my future wife in an ornery forum exchange; "What's my educational background? Well I have a bachelors in ball sucking and snide repartee from Fuck U, and yourself?" I know we've only just exchanged these few missives but, will you marry me, SnideSkank024?)
Would that sourcing and collaborating with these people.... 'my people'.... was as easy as opening yourself up to an attentive A.A. meeting. ("Hi, I'm Tynan, and I'm making a funny, hopeful, collaborative show about the near future of ideas and innovation... those of you at the back with the dilated pupils and the faces goateed in airplane glue, strike me as exactly the kind of go-getters and dedicated craftsmen willing to put your head's down and breathe in the possiblities inherent in this thing.. in this awesome future. So, who's with me?!")
Yeah, of course I want to lead people somewhere.
Tell them what might inspire them, interest them, make them smile or... 'fingers crossed'... laugh out loud.
That's what this "TFIA!" thing's all about..... the blog, the site, the show.
But, really.... mostly.... I want to find a group of people, like me.
I want to find.... my tribe.
The point of this little jag, by the by, is.... go download Seth Godin's book [in audio form];Tribes.
It's free, insightful, and it'll remind you why you want to make things... why you want to put pieces of yourself out there.
Dollars to donuts... it's to get pieces of yourself reflected back.
Like-minded people. A group of them... a community... nay, a tribe.
I'll just bet(.. though you may love them very much) your family isn't necessarily the group you feel the most yourself around.
That group.... your 'tribe'.... is more likely to be made up of strangers.... faceless strangers.
Maybe your 'tribe' is a group of people you've never met but, like you, they're frighteningly hideous and anti-social homunculi, roaming a computer-generated country side... fighting with swords and battle axes, drinking 'virtual ale' in virtual pubs, virtually never having sex and getting into fantastic adventures... possibly, involving a chalice.
And, if that's where you feel most yourself.. kill yourself.... er... I mean, good for you.
I actually want that.
(... not the gay virtual medieval world with the quests, the axes and the chalice.... again, no offense shut-ins. I've seen into your worlds through incredible documentaries like Second Skin... and, enrapt though I may have been, I find that 'life' baffling and scary as shit. But, I implore you all to see for yourselves. )
I want my guild... my clan... my group of ogres and orcs, if you like.
It's only in large numbers that you can draw on greater resources to complete an ambitious project.
Why did I take off the "Followers" counter on the side of the screen...?
'Cause I don't give a shit about the number of people... nearly so much, as the quality of those people.
I want my people.
And those people, like myself, are interested in making something.
Those people are collaborators.
You follow...?
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