Journal 5

“Do you think about the potential for spreadability in your everyday composing, and if so, how?”

Personally, spreadability is never something I have actively thought about. Maybe, somewhere deep in the subconscious levels of my mind, the thought has occurred to me. Everyone wants to make sure their work, thoughts, or whatever it was that they felt was worth sharing to begin with, gets seen by the largest amount of people possible. I am no different.

In this sense, I suppose the idea of spreadability is actually a lot more common during every day composition than I initially gave it credit for. The idea that immediately comes to mind—as seems to be the pattern in this course—is Twitter. For some, it may not be important, but as a user who frequently posts his own content I strive to reach the greatest number of people with my tweets. The same can be said for content I create that isn’t shared via social media and doesn’t have the potential for random, viral exposure. The short stories, poems, and songs I write all for example, which rarely if ever are taken off my laptop hard drive. I don’t actively take into account the elements that do this, however. The process is simply more organic than that.

And to be completely honest, I’m not sure if it would be for the best if I did take into consideration those elements at more than a purely instinctual level. The age old struggle of anyone who writes is that of “creativity”—think the decision as a writer makes to their text based purely on natural feeling and instinct—versus “analysis.” Analytical decisions in the creative process just function as road blocks and result in either a very slow and frustrating writing process or just total stagnation of the writing.

Spreadability is a useful concept to be aware of but, in my mind, is more of an analytical choice than a creative one. Ultimately, I believe that makes it a secondary concern to a text’s author and likely won’t be something I consider very much during the course of my compositions. It doesn’t mean that it’s something that should be completely ignored, but it means for me worrying about “how many people will read/watch/listen” to my content is a waste of time if the content itself suffers. Ultimately, I believe the way I approach it is the best for creative writers or content creators, which is to allow all the elements to just occur naturally.