I have 2,232 followers on Twitter. Firstly I dislike the term “follower” but we’re all playing a Matrix game here so I’ll let this pass, as I will the fact that Twitter will always be Twitter and not “X”. Another silly Matrix game best not played as this madhouse is off its collective fucking rocker as it is.
So I have 2,232 followers (at the time of going to print) on Twitter. 14 years in, my vinegar sour humour and demands for medieval justice bestowed upon the dark wraiths in dark ill fitting suits that lied to the human family during the “pandemic” hasn’t garnered me many friends over the years, to the point where I can count upon a handful of people who will occasionally appreciate a tweet of mine and a handful more who will instantly retweet my pinned tweet as a thanks for my re-tweeting of one of their pearls of Twitter wisdom. I see it as a “fuck, you follow me? I best thank you for the re-tweet by quickly and without care re-tweeting your pinned tweet” kind of a deal. In short, I’m as anonymous on Twitter as I am within every spectrum of social media including here and Substack.
I have 310 followers on Instagram. Hilarious isn’t it? 2,341 posts have garnered me the continual attention of a lady from Austria who loves every post I release to the wild and kindly Liverpool fan who insists on taking me to Old Trafford in Manchester to see some cricket. In the vernacular of his home city of Liverpool he seems a “sound lad” or a “boss fella”. I’m sure we’d get on like the proverbial house on fire should I ever take him up on his incredibly kind offer. A handful of my family and dearest friends follow me here too but rarely if ever comment on my ridiculous amount of posts.
See Facebook below for the reasons why.
I have 43 followers on Facebook and aside from one or two people (see my Liverpudlian friend above for one), all are very old friends or the last branches of the familial tree. I reluctantly joined this horrible madhouse in 2021 (see Instagram above) but here as a way of just saying hello and keeping in touch with the family and a way of keeping my Mum alive in everyone’s thoughts if I’m truly honest. Despise the place. Scared nearly everyone away. I could post that I’ve written a new book (author’s copy on the bird big from the USA as we speak, arriving Friday) or that I find life so intolerable that I find next to zero joy in anything and I’m half an inch away from “doing a Van Gogh”, and my (name redacted for legal reasons) replied to my post today with who I should vote for at the General Election! You couldn’t make it up and I haven’t. I guess he can’t bear to read that his (redacted) for 40 years sees his fragile human life as utterly fucking pointless.
LinkedIn? Blimey. Pointless. Didn’t understand the rules. Gave up. Followed by my nephew though, so that was nice.
Youtube? Ah, the famous “Blackford Book Club”. What a hoot! Yet another of my hare brained schemes that sunk quicker than the “Olympic” on her maiden voyage. There’s no “I’m the King of the World” speech from Leonardo DiCaprio here, fuck no. 43 followers. Used to be 44. Splitter! From scratch in late August until the beginning of November 2023 I recorded 330 (count em!) 330 videos for Youtube (also on my Rumble channel under the same name) and the most I’ve mustered as an audience on the number 1 video streaming platform in the world, is 44, sorry, 43.
Hilarious isn’t it?
I have one video sitting on 500+ views, a handful in 3 figures and an iceberg sized hole of tens upon tens of videos in single figures. OK, they aren’t particularly good or indeed exciting but as a “get up off your arse” solo effort (again) I’m rather proud of a few of them and proudest of all is that I’m human and the real me in every single video. There are tens of videos recorded on the river side in a beautiful piece of heaven called Ironbridge and a World Heritage accredited site famous for having the oldest iron bridge in the known world. I call her the “Grand Old Lady” and as you may have noticed, I visited her today. I talk to her you know! I can’t help it. I’m barking fucking mad, I miss another grand old lady more than words can convey and trust me, Ironbridge enchants you. Listen to the bells from St Luke’s Church. Sit on “Stephen’s Bench” (by appointment only!). Treat yourself to an ice cream or walk across the bridge as the witching hour approaches and listen to the owls singing in the trees.
You’ll never feel more alive.
Anyway, Youtube. Yes. Hundreds of videos. Zero views etc etc. But the river side videos! My goodness! The pitter patter of rain teeming down upon the river Severn. Saying hello mid-read to passing canoeists and paddle boarders, or a quickening fleet of ducks scooting on by. The bells from St Luke’s Church. “The Grand Old Lady” gleaming in the summer sun makes for quite the backdrop! Scores on the Doors? 43 followers.
Hilarious isn’t it?
Now for the good stuff! Are you ready? Drum roll please…….
(It’s 11.43pm and my client is making himself a very sweet cup of tea. I hear him mumbling something about “keep it light, Stephen, keep it light” or words to that effect. He’s bouncing a tennis ball in the house again and trying his best Jack Torrance impression from “The Shining”. Oh Christ! He’s started doing his impression of the twin sisters now too. I’m off to watch “Eyes Wide Shut”. You’re on your own . Good luck! — Editor)
So where were we? Oh yes, Medium. The madhouse of Medium! Started blogging again in earnest in late September of 2021 and as a written escape from those tedious, unlawful and humanity destroying lock downs. Barely any followers or responses and all rather pointless until along came a kindly Canadian by the name of David who seemingly read everything and took an interest in any and everything I wrote. We filled in a little of the knowledge gaps for each other (David far, far more than me) and I had an active, genuine reader. Hooray! See Substack below for more on this kindly Canadian.
But before we get to Substack, after David on Medium? Back to zero responses (I reckon I easily have 70% out of my 1,300 articles on Medium with zero interest at all) and although I have 1,390 followers on Medium, the vast, vast, vast majority of those are of the “followers for followers” brigade, newbies, old or dead accounts or, ever more likely, just bot accounts. I’m “shadow banned” (can’t think of another way of putting this) by a Facebook algorithm on the Medium Groups so my exposure (exposure!) is even more limited and even when I wasn’t, you should see the shit show of vacuous nonsense when I’m not! I call it “claps for crap” as everyone on Medium pretends to read your article, claps it, and expects the same in return. So there’s reciprocal arrangements, the effluent rises to the top of a shitty river and articles are artificially boosted by machines or worse, machine like humans.
Bar-coded humans. In a QR Coded World.
Then you have the accounts that DEMAND you read their article, the one they’ve spammed onto my article and the reason why we’re playing this silly game in the first place. DEMAND! “I’ll read yours in return” they triumphantly state. The fucking cheek of it! I’m going to use your article to demand you read my article and then, well, I’ll read yours I s’pose.
Bunch of bastards (stop it, Editor)
But it gets worse. The articles they DEMAND (they actually do demand — what a hoot!) are all the same empty nonsense, numbered list articles such as “50 reasons for visiting Mexico” or “10 ways of making money with Bitcoin” and whenever I’ve peeked into any of this drivel of doom you know what I see? I see a rigidly numbered article written in blunt crayon by a 7 year old and boring as fuck. Or worse, a chatgpt creation (other humanity destroying AI systems are available) or perhaps worse still, just cut and pasted text from somewhere or someone else.
The effluent rises to the top of a river of piss in a QR Coded world full of bar-coded humans.
It’s lucky we live in a Matrix I guess.
Which brings me to Substack. A year, maybe a little more, and 132 followers and a handful of brilliantly witty writers that surpass my 14 year slog on Twitter. Which says a lot if you think about it, so I suggest you don’t. Perhaps I can steer your attention back to David from Medium, that kindly young gentleman from Canada? He supported me royally on Medium and he now does so here. This isn’t designed as a thank you as I’ve thanked him many times in my own eccentric way and he knows the support means the world to me. But 1,300 supposed “followers” on Medium. One genuine supporter. Who now supports me on Substack. So the other 1,299 “followers” on Medium really must think my writing is absolute shit then?
It’s a numbers game. It’s facts and figures on a Friday night and on a Wednesday that’s now passed the witching hour into a Thursday and I’ve also drunk enough tea today (and yesterday) to know it’s all about getting an audience and another facet of the numbers game we all play in our electrical Matrix of utter doom. I’ve tried this numbers game and there’s a distinct theme that suggests whatever I do, be it within the hallowed halls of Elon Musk’s house or Mark Zuckerberg’s censorship palace, I’m never growing my audience. Fuck! You should see some of my Youtube videos in my “Riverside Sessions”. You have the oldest iron bridge in the entire world as a backdrop, a sun beating down providing THE most incredible reflections of the toy town surrounding it and, zero views.
Hilarious isn’t it?
It’s a numbers game and during the past 48 hours I’ve released 8 articles across Medium and Substack and suffice to say I’ve promoted them all to the best of my strange ability across all forms of social media. Care to take a guess at the response? I’ll save you the trouble. Less readers than the combined number of articles. What larks! Copy and pasted, machine generated dog shit rules. 5 of my 8 articles were in support of a self-published book and all were accompanied by images of sunshine and history I captured with my own human hands in “Shakespeare’s Stratford” or a beautifully surreal art piece from Salvador Dali at the gates to Shrewsbury’s famed castle or of course my spiritual home of Ironbridge pictured here. Suffice to say my articles are 100% my own work, my own writing and pictures (no need for boring and generic “stock” photos) and all as tangentially difficult to appreciate as this one. But written by a human being. Trying to live an actual, tangible life, scattering images of my life, a human life, old and new, borrowed and occasionally blue, along the way. Swans in Stratford. William Shakespeare and his familial home. A ferris wheel! More swans! The reflections from the canal “basin”! The merger with the River Avon, more swans, more reflections, more swans reflecting elephants, and Salvador Dali in Shrewsbury. At the entrance to the castle! Oh the sunshine! You should see the water displays in “The Dingle”! Majestic. A beautiful memory of a beautiful day, as it always is in Ironbridge and the “Grand Old Lady” shining in the mid-day sun. More reflections from the river in the Youtube videos, of paddle boarders passing by or the rain falling upon the river. Have you ever watched the gentle falling of rain upon a river? You’ll never feel more alive! Oh the laughter on camera as I bloop my way through another reading but that’s ok, I’m in beautiful Ironbridge and I hope the videos transport you there too, even for a brief moment in time.
All passion projects, I take my writing far, far, far too fucking seriously and I put my heart and soul into everything I write. Perhaps you do too?
Then you’ll understand why this endeavour on my part is clearly a waste of fucking time.
But then there’s David (your support means the world to me mate) and then there’s a secret agent living on the rugged coast of Canada who I reckon works for the Government and not the Christopher Nolan loving mother of two she professes to be. I’m onto her game! I reckon she’s a double agent working for Justin Castro (Trudeau, surely? editor) but you should see the overwhelming compliments I receive! Would melt even the blackest of hearts and believe me, I should know. Incredibly, this secret agent has bought one of my books! How do you like them apples? She even confessed to writing her own notations in my book!
Can you believe how fucking amazing that sounds to me? You can try, but I doubt you’ll get close. Someone has been kind enough to take a chance on one of my books and takes extensive time out from the busy chore of being a triple agent for the Russian Mafia to write her own thoughts and rambling musings in a book I wrote and published. All rather surreal and, for the first time here in all sincerity, it makes my heart sing. Someone is holding my words in a paperback I’ve published and they find it intriguing, entertaining, infuriating, puzzling, amusing or any number of human reasons to jot down THEIR feelings, admiration, fury, annoyance or hopefully a little something that made them laugh, cry, titter or guffaw.
Thanks for the support secret agent, but I’m onto your game!
Give Justin my regards.
It’s a numbers game and I lost yesterday and I lost it today. Sorry, it’s now today (1.22am) and so I lost it yesterday, down by the riverside, in the shadow of a grand old lady, when I sat on fishing peg number 13 and mused that I’d released 8 articles in 48 hours and I may as well have sat in the house and bounced a tennis ball against the wall.
Selah.
Thanks for reading. Here are some books that aren’t just for secret agents working for the Canadian Government and you’ll be unsurprised to learn, all available via Amazon.