Fame is a Fickle Friend, even of Words

The Bridge initiated both The Raga Series and the People of PSG series towards the fag end of last year. Having been at it for a few months now, the response has been nothing short of great. While we observe the said reality, little does the average reader know about the kind of scrutiny each of these pieces were put through with respect to choice of content, quality, readability and more. What is to be noted is that it takes genuine interest on the author’s part to put such articles together (fortunately for The Bridge in this case) and it just so happened that an audience was also identified. What if there wasn’t one?

As writers, we are responsible for structuring our ideas, accumulating our thoughts together whilst taking into consideration various perspectives, opinions and so many other constraints before we begin to write anything at all, which as a whole will eventually comprise of the eloquent stream of words that are presented to the audience. And more often than not, our ideas do not necessarily resonate with what, you, the reader, might be expecting. It is fair to say that we’re human after all and we’re looking forward to seeing our words reach a substantial volume of readers.

With nearly 600 million tweets, 1.5 billion Facebook users, a few hundred million of them on Instagram and nearly 5 million videos being watched on YouTube everyday and with a lot of you tech-ians amongst the content consumers, our articles lose their way into being just another drop in that ocean of content available at your disposal. There may be several contributing factors to this – the kind of promotion our content receives by virtue of the amount of following The Bridge has, our networking as individuals or a much larger engagement from someone with a significant following, or much more directly, the quality of content itself.

What really goes unnoticed for the most part in this reader-centric approach is the author’s effort. As writers, we feel obliged to put several of our ideas together into words and document them. Sometimes, the abstract nature of these ideas can fail to resonate with anyone at every step of the way, but in the end, we, by the virtue of who we are, need it, not for the sake of those who we hope are moved by our words, but for the sake of ourselves. Even those articles that are eventually put together with all of the aforementioned constraints in mind and by extension, effectively bypassing every one of those contributing factors, the piece need not be a hit with the audience.

So, as you may be wondering by now, would it be possible that the reach and overall popularity of an article has the same probability of winning a lottery?

In essence, yes.

A funny thing about this potential stardom is that it happens quickly and dies out at almost the same pace. This certainly does not, however, rule out the possibility that one may work hard enough to gather a large following and by generating a consistent amount of readership over a period of time, become successful amongst an audience. It is simply a question of our patience and perseverance.

It’s certainly not impossible and if you have been following us in recent times, The Bridge is on the brink of a turnaround, one that we hope will help us get back into that vastness of content accessible by you, not just as one among many, but as one that identifies itself as something beyond the ordinary. The harsh reality that we do face is that this is potentially a cycle that we’re a part of, and that eventually, we’d have to keep reinventing ourselves to be meaningful. Such efforts take extraordinary levels of dedication. I am a student, a tech-ian, just like the rest of you and I am in the same boat as you are, but as a representative of Team Bridge, I know that we’re getting there slowly, but surely.

This wasn’t just an accumulation of thoughts in my mind, but a reassurance to you, the reader, that we stand committed to what we hope to do our best in and that is to ensure that our words reach all of you.