Me vs. Instagram Me
Since publishing my website a few months ago, there are ways I’ve tried to connect to readers that are working, and there are several that aren’t. I’m sharing what I’ve learned so far because I think my experience has implications for Christian writers, and even broader applications for us orphaned believers: folks who love Jesus and struggle with talking about it in a complicated culture. Here are a few things I’ve learned from writing about faith and culture and talking about it on social media:
If I put a photo of myself on Instagram it will get more likes. I don’t think that’s because of me, per se — sure, maybe you like my shirt of something — but it’s probably because you’re a fast scroller and like pics without reading captions, or because my face is proof that I’m real, in flesh, a person writing the ideas you’re reading. If I put a photo of a couch on Instagram, far fewer will like it, even if the writing attached is, in my biased opinion, on par with the rest.
I’ve tried to nudge myself towards building the persona of your new online friend. I hope you feel like we something in common and I could be sharing these ideas with you over coffee. That’s how my writing should feel, right? But honestly, I can be hard to get to know in real life. I’m introverted and floaty, and socially I’m like the battery in an old cell phone: I drain quickly.
If I write a post called, “Hi, I’m Sara and I’m a Christian” it is relatable. If you’re a Christian, swap your name for Sara. But a headline like “The Meaning of the City” (Jacques Ellul reference, anyone?) is esoteric and less engageable.
If you take a short digital sabbatical it can be massively refreshing. Even a week. I just tried, from Monday till Friday at 5pm, and my cluttered week felt much more spacious.
I’d like to write a book. To do so, I need to prove to agents and publishers that I have an engaged social media following and beautifully large email list. I plug my newsletter (see, I’ll link to it!) and I post on socials at least semi-regularly, in hopes that I’ll gain enough momentum to seem marketable.
Is there anything wrong with putting my photo on Instagram, writing catchy headlines, or building an email list? No, not ethically or morally. I’m a writer, I want people to read what I write, and the best way to do that is to tell people about it on social media. But how can that happen most authentically?
In a post from 2017, the Calvin prof Kristin Dumez writes on “...the ‘crisis’ of the female Christian blogosphere in historical perspective”:
It’s not enough for women to share their theological insights. They must also cultivate the illusion of intimacy. Much of that intimacy comes through vulnerability. They must share their weaknesses, their flaws, their heartaches, their trauma. With the world. On a daily basis. Their power as Christian women comes paradoxically through their weakness.
There’s certainly something biblical about power that comes from weakness. But, it’s striking how gendered this equation tends to be in the Christian world. Christian men are expected to be strong and aggressive, betraying no weakness or “effeminacy.” Christian women, on the other hand? Self-deprecation and debasement have become their go-to rhetorical style. They’re “hot messes,” only holding things together thanks to caffeine—a lot of it—and the support of their “friends.
Dumez goes on to compare our virtual friendships with social media influencers to middle-school cliques. To join, we just have to press the “follow” button. Feeling like BFFs with bloggers-turned-influencers is clearly not a new phenomenon, nor one dedicated to only faith-based women bloggers.
I’m not especially interested in presenting myself as a “hot mess” when I have a bad day. I’m also less interested in writing specifically for women. But the illusion of intimacy Dumez writes about — here is where I struggle. As a teenager, I was the creative kid. I never wanted to be the popular kid, or if I did I wasn’t self-aware enough to realize it. Yet over the past few months, in my own way, I’ve tried. In a particular low point, I posted an Instagram video asking for people to share their enneagram type. I showed it to my husband and kids and they said I was acting like someone else. Flush with shame, I knew they were right.
Like a lot of us, I’m wired to react to how much people engage with what I post online. I think that’s why Michelle DeRusha’s much-discussed post on why she’s not writing books anymore really got me. I texted the article to my friend Michelle, and we had the following exchange, which I’m sharing with permission.
Her husband is a musician, and they’ve been thinking about the interplay between creating work and sharing it publicly, how to do that well and what implications there may be if social media is less involved in the process. She writes:
we’re wrestling with this a lot lately as we’re a week and a half away from album release, thinking about drumming up publicity, all the fanfare. all the social media and everything that he’s supposed to get lined up. “is there a way to just release my work quietly?” he asks.
but then today, thinking about obscurity, i was asking myself, and want to ask josh, what life would you choose if you had no fear? no fear that if you didn’t do all the expected self-promotion things, this would all fall apart/our income would rapidly decline, etc? and what would you do, what would you choose, sara, if there was no guilt, no fear? if the audience pressure were gone, would you write more, or less?
I thought two things when I read Michelle’s text. First, total thanks for a friend that asks such good questions, that raises up the best in me. Second, I thought, that’s easy. I love to write, I’ve always loved it, even during the times when I dislike the discipline writing requires. I replied:
Your question, would I write more or less, was such a helpful framework. Instantly I could answer “more! I’d write more, I love it!” but the exchange of offering this thing I’ve made to people is so complex. Esp. for my personality. As [an Enneagram] 4 I both feel perpetually outsider-ish, and have a longing to be received.
I go on to text with her about how there has to be another way. But unless you’re established in a career, have blogged for a decade, or can tap into some other well of social capital, I’ve not found it.
What I do need, instead of more Instagram affirmations — and what I think we all need — is community. Thriving, diverse, loyal community. And more uncomfortable, important conversations. If we met in person and talked, I’d want you to trust me, not because you relate to my quirky, self-deprecating photo describing a lazy Sunday turned stressful or because of my avocado toast pic.
I want to build your trust not because of my aspirational coolness, but because we have a common belief in Jesus and are navigating culture as Christians together.
We need more people paving the way for Christians to take a seat at the table in culture. We need folks to not assume that because I’m a Seattleite with a shag haircut that I by proxy think Christianity is oppressive and obsolete. We need more people of faith to stake a claim in the murky middle and bring in a stream of steady, fresh water.
We need to put out the call to other Christians that value community, justice, and the raising up of the marginalized: we’re here, we love, we serve.
Because let me tell you, I find the person of Jesus — and the modern absurdity of my belief in that story — to be vividly real in a way I walk with daily. And I don’t want anything more than to write and talk about all of this with you. Until I can find a better way, in order to connect with more orphaned believers in conservative and progressive spaces, I’ll be here in the middle, writing and speaking about what I see is wrong and right with American Christianity, and posting about those ideas in the truest way I can.