i talk about this in the vlog for feb 13th. but, it's very disappointing - depressing, really - to truly be cognizant of what has actually happened...
my metrics were consistently increasing up to this point. i peaked at over 3000 hits in october - substantial, and enough to think i'm growing and am breaking through something. yet, by the middle of 2015, my hits were cut down to almost nothing. what happened?
well, it seems as though people were not actually interested in what i was typing. rather, people were interested in my profile picture.
i consciously picked that profile picture because it was a "bad shot" - i was very badly hungover. i liked the irony of this, in juxtaposition to the world of fake media images. it was a kind of fuck you to selfie culture.
but, it became it's own fake media image. i had dozens of comments directed at it. the reaction that was most instructive was to point out that the nature of the commentary fit the picture well - and this is why the hit count increased so much, and i ended up with so many upvotes on my comments. it wasn't that what i said affected anybody, or caused anybody to think about anything. people weren't indicating any kind of actual solidarity. it was merely that people found my picture amusing, and wanted to see it near the top of the comments. it didn't really matter what i was saying, so long as it vaguely fit their preconception of what they imagined i ought to be saying.
other comments, in hindsight, were more illuminating than i realized: suggestions that i look "emo", or "black metal", for example. this was both completely wrong and entirely void of any substance - it was merely extrapolated from the fact that i was hungover. it seems that a false perception of who i am was projected from the image, and it was that false projection that was getting upvoted and generating views.
it also generated negative comments. much of this was at a low level of discourse - crude insults that can be broadly summarized as claims that i was "ugly", and often in ways that forced me to research terms i hadn't seen before. this was annoying, but it wasn't what forced me to change the profile picture.
what forced me to change was the misgendering. you can imagine how that might be irritating. i didn't upload the picture thinking that it made me look "emo" or "metal" or anything of the sort. rather, i thought it just made me look like a hungover female with a overactive gothic dye job. i really didn't need or want this kind of abuse.
so, i changed the profile picture to a more recent shot of me as a blonde with a bit of lipstick. my intent was to prevent me from being misgendered. and, this seems to have worked.
in the process, the false projection of me as "emo" or "metal" or whatever it is that people made out of the black dye job and hungover eyes [in truth, i mostly listen to instrumental music, although i once listened to a lot of socal punk, which is how i dress - tshirts, jeans and minimal makeup] evaporated. as people were more interested in how i looked than what i thought, the attention that i was generating dried up. i also think that my newly unambiguous self-gendering alienated young girls that thought i was cute as much as it alienated dudes that found out that i was actually seriously queer, not just faggy in a metal kind of way.
again: i've never liked metal. i don't even really like rock music, in the broadest sense. the only rock music i've ever liked is some early psych and the anti-rock strains of punk/post-punk and grunge. rock culture has always sickened me. i'm a very bookish nerd. i'd rather hang out in the library.
i have a degree in mathematics. i've studied deep into degrees in physics, computer science and law.
nerd. total. and, not afraid of stating it.
but, that's not what my hungover picture suggested. and, so, everything came crashing down when i changed it....
i don't regret this change, and i would do it again. rather, i think i learned an important lesson. i thought people were actually interested in what i had to say about things - that admittedly surprised me, and i should be less naive about things as i move forward.
in the broader scope of things, it doesn't do me any good to get thousands of purely social-media level hits from young girls that are misgendering me (and would be freaked out to actually see me) or guys that i'd never talk to. the truth is that i'd rather have friend-level conversations with those girls and get hit on by those guys (if they're old enough). the reality of everything being backwards was not useful to me in getting an image out. it was, and may unfortunately remain for some time, much more of a hindrance to me.
and, did i even want to get an image out? was i gunning for subscribers and views? the truth is that i didn't ever care. i wanted people to listen to my music. and, neither teenage girls nor metalhead/emo guys are (on average) going to be interested in listening to my blender rock.
moving forwards, i should perhaps target my audience a little bit more carefully. it was maybe pointless to bother posting insults on the emo band's site, as nobody interested in who i am or what i do is going to post there. i should perhaps be focusing more on music that i actually like and less on trends that i do not. my discography channel will deal with this, while my vlog channel will focus more on my ideas and opinions of things.
the reality is that this is all still experimental. there's no understood model. and, in a real sense, i'm trying to accomplish the impossible. i get all of this. but, i've learned a few things along the way and hope that i can apply them.
but, it was the profile pic change that killed me. and, that's a really sad reflection of society - style meant everything, substance meant nothing.
https://plus.google.com/b/115697117379871673298/+jessicatemporarydeletion/posts/YdtY8RVDqAH
http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/2014/10/blog-post_15.html