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Is Anyone on Vocal anymore?

Hello? Is anyone there?

By Chloe GilholyPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
2
Is Anyone on Vocal anymore?
Photo by Valentin Lacoste on Unsplash

Hello Vocal?

Is there anybody there?

Hello?

There seems to be a big emptiness in the world lately, and not just Vocal. On social media, it seems that a lot of people are leaving Vocal and posting their stories on other websites. The vocal groups on social media don’t seem as active anymore and even with the changes and features we’ve asked for, we are still losing engagement.

I’ve been a member of the site for five years and my readership is at its lowest it’s ever been. Have people given up on Vocal? Are your writers and readers burned out? Is the platform no longer sustainable? Are many writers disheartened that they spend hours and years on their work only to earn a few cents a month.

Throughout my years of being on Vocal, almost all the people who read my stuff on Vocal were people who were also writers on Vocal. The same applies to Medium and other websites I have written for. The biggest bookworms are the most devoted writers and are capable of crafting up anything. That might be just a saying, but I think it also refers to other creative arts like drawing, sewing and even cooking is considered an art-form in certain countries and establishments.

We are here on Vocal because we want to be heard. Yet, many of us feel more frowned out than other. There are big things happening in the world. We know there’s a war in Ukraine. We know the Queen is dead. There’s also a lot of things happening that we don’t know, and some conspiracies that we can’t prove. With all that in the way, sometimes all we want to write about is our favourite TV shows and video games.

A few months ago I heard about the term doom scrolling. Influencers make their lives look perfect with thousands of followers and likes. All that online popularity dosen’t always translate to sales of their products or fame in real life.

There are times when I feel expected to write like a robot, until I read some works established by AI. Sometimes it is legible, but other times it is funny. I don’t think writing or reading is a dying art. As long as there’s people who want to create books there will always be people wanting to devour them. There’s always somebody out there who wants to learn stuff and it dosen’t matter how much you spend on marketing, advertising, the investment dosen’t always pay off. Even if you had millions of followers, only a fraction will buy your products. I feel like the world of social media has driven us all to hard-sell a perfect life through click-bait.

It’s made me realise how much time is wasted on social media. People ask have you seen what so-and-so said on Facebook, and I’m like whatever because that stuff isn’t important to me. Okay, sometimes Facebook arguments can be entertaining, but nobody wins in the end, they all end up becoming a keyboard war with occasional memes.

Nobody can run without fuel, and with Vocal, it’s biggest fuel is us, the writers and the people who purchase Vocal plus. I won’t be able to renew my Vocal plus next year because I know I will not be able to afford it. It’s the same with my Medium account. It sucks, but I am making more money with receipt hoarding and shopping research apps more than I am with the writing platforms. That’s not to say I will quit writing, but I won’t pay for premium when I can still use it for free.

humanity
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About the Creator

Chloe Gilholy

Former healthcare worker and lab worker from Oxfordshire. Author of ten books including Drinking Poetry and Game of Mass Destruction. Travelled to over 20 countries.

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Nice work

Very well written. Keep up the good work!

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  • author mmk2 years ago

    hi chloe, i'm new blogger to vocal. do you think what the platform need to become attractive to writers and readers??

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