My Social Media Ethos

One of my children works in the social media world, developing and refining online presence for big content creators. Recently they challenged me to rethink my social media methodologies, so that more people would see what I’m posting, and engage more with it.

I get their intent, but I have an opposite drive which actually compels me to avoid doing what they suggested for me. I’d like to spend a moment talking about it here.

After about four years blogging pretty frequently, and a couple years doing video podcasts about twice a month, most of my content is still only seen by a few dozen people, as far as I can tell. My average video view count is maybe 50 views, with occasional spikes when I talk about something more controversial. I currently have about four thousand followers on my Threads account, and under a thousand on my Bluesky account. But most of my posts only get a few hundred views on Threads; the algorithm does a pretty good job of hiding what I choose to talk about. I suppose that’s not surprising, given the content.

Back before the 2024 election, I had well over 10,000 Twitter followers. I had one post that gained over 14 million views and tens of thousands of reposts. But I chose to walk away from that account after the election, when Elon Musk demolished the integrity of the Twitter platform. I deleted every single tweet and like, and unfollowed everyone I’d previously followed. In essence, it’s an empty account I just use today to see other people’s tweets when something interesting happens. And I must say, I don’t regret that choice at all.

After some very brief attempts at short-form videos, I’ve deliberately chosen to not engage on Instagram or TikTok, or on YouTube Shorts or Facebook Reels. So I don’t post any short-form content. And that’s exactly what my child told me I was doing wrong. “Dad,” they said, “people are only engaging on short-form videos. If you want people to comment and discuss your work, you’ve got to get it out on shorts.”

With that context, I should back up a bit and explain why I choose to produce content the way I do.

Back in 2018, I made a personal mistake that cost me a lot of my roles within my church for about a year, and I was asked to submit to some spiritual counseling. I’ve been pretty open about that issue, and if you want to know more about it, DM me and we’ll talk. During that counseling, one thing that I discovered about myself was that I’d been an approval-seeker, to a very unhealthy level. A lot of how I interacted with people, especially those in authority over me, was focused on getting their positive feedback, their thumbs-up.

Furthermore, much of how I structured my involvement with the church I attended involved maneuvering myself into the top tier of whatever I was doing, usually one step below the pastor. While I didn’t want to be the top guy overall, I still did want to be seen as indispensable, although I didn’t realize that was my motivation. I wanted to be the guy that kept everything running smoothly, and to be involved in the leadership decisions – just not the guy with the final authority.

Parallel to this counseling, I also was entering into a deeper relationship with a very wise spiritual elder, and submitting myself to his guidance. He observed much the same about me, and helped me to see how it was affecting my relationships. His challenge to me, about the same time I started to do a lot of podcasting, was to deliberately avoid building followers. Instead, I should focus on relationship, and being absolutely true to what God was showing me.

So as I’ve continued to blog and write and podcast, one thing at the forefront of my decisions about how to proceed, how to create, and how to engage has been a sense of strong personal integrity in that content creation. My ultimate goal is not, and cannot be, to create an audience. It’s got to be limited to telling my story, sharing my thoughts, and simply letting the audience do what it will. What this effectively does is force me to avoid taking any steps that are solely focused on building my following. I can post things that I know will get attention, but I cannot do it FOR the attention.

This may seem like a difference without distinction, but I think it’s a critical issue of motivation.

Of course, like anyone involved in speaking publicly, I really think that I do have some important things to say, and I think that people need to hear them, and so naturally I wish MORE people could hear them. But at the same time, I don’t feel morally free to focus on expanding my follower account just so that more people can hear them.

I suppose the algorithm helps me with this conundrum, in a perverse way. When I talk about what I think is most interesting, the algorithm typically decides that nobody really would want to see it, and my posts don’t get many views because the algorithm isn’t amplifying them. And because I’m morally unwilling to choose clickbait thumbnails and titles, and I’m unwilling to shape my content just to get more engagement, I probably won’t ever see any kind of mass following.

At some level, I think this protects me from what I’ve seen in a lot of larger accounts: when you try to “get big,” to build followers – which usually is a drive to make a living or a business of content creation – the inherent integrity begins to suffer. Advertisements start to creep into more and more of the content. Headlines and topic choices start following the money, instead of the heart.

I’ve seen this thing bite people many times in the last few years. Countless pastors and podcasters and influencers alike have fallen, have had their morals shown to be compromised… and it all seems to have one common cause: instead of their message, their position and their popularity was their focus. They bought into the lie that being heard was the most important thing.

And so that’s a direction I find myself ethically unable to go.

Turning for a moment to the scriptures, I think the Bible has some things to say about this matter.

Jesus never told his disciples to make followers.

Instead, He told them to BE followers. What he told them to DO was to make disciples. And that’s an entirely different thing.

Jesus, in fact, had huge crowds following Him for a while. The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 in John 6 tells us that the scale of His ministry was massive, at least for a while. In a countryside where most villages might have held a few hundred people, that crowd size was nearly unthinkable, and all that attention could have been intoxicating.

But when we begin to see that change when Jesus began to tell them the hard things, to challenge His followers in ways that made them uncomfortable. And in the very same chapter (John 6:1-12) where we read of the feeding of 5,000, John 6:66 records that “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” They weren’t really disciples, were they? They were just uncommitted followers.

So what is a disciple, biblically?

From the historical Jewish perspective, a disciple was someone who lived with the rabbi, and just like the rabbi, walked about the countryside, survived on the charity of strangers in the towns that they visited and taught in the small synagogues. The disciple’s entire goal was to become like the rabbi, not to gain followers. A rabbi typically had only a few disciples at a time, and the expectation was that there was a very deep, intense, personal relationship at play.

But a mere follower – like those who loved Jesus’ bread and fish, but couldn’t bear His hard teachings – was uncommitted. When the teachings no longer tickled their ears, they left. And we see the same today: when a social media celebrity says something unpopular, or makes a personal mistake, they’re instantly abandoned by many followers.

The consequence of follower-seeking, thus, is a growing urge to shape one’s message to avoid losing followers. It’s a fundamental loss of integrity.

And I personally think that’s incredibly obvious that today, a lack of integrity is the single biggest pox on our society. The very thing that society needs from people of faith – any faith – is to see those who are unwilling to reshape their message to suit the tickled ears.

I think Jesus overturning the tables in the Temple ought to be discussed here, too. Jesus was pretty pointed, during His public commentary, about the pursuit of wealth, and the mixing of commerce and religion. I have no problem with secular pursuit of wealth, but I really do think that anyone discussing religious matters bears an extra burden to stay free of the taint of the love of money. In the last few years, I’ve watched a few people I really respected sell out for money – because that’s what the pursuit of followers really is in the online marketplace. More followers means more views, which means more advertising money.

So when we read about Jesus overturning tables in the Temple, we who speak publicly about matters of faith ought to take a cue from Jesus’ comments about those who engaged in commerce in the Temple, and be hyper-vigilant that we’re not following into that same trap, making God’s house a den of thieves in a modern context.

And finally, there’s the matter of getting too wrapped up in the kosmos, the Greek word for “the world.” Without any doubt, we live in the world, and we have to find a way to eat and have shelter. Jobs are a necessary part of that. And so at some level, we cannot help but engage in the systems of this world for our survival. But I think the warning we’re given in multiple parts of scripture is to avoid becoming entangled in the kosmos, worshiping it, trusting it for our welfare.

Jesus consistently reminded His disciples to seek FIRST the Kingdom of God (Matt 6:33), not focus on storing up earthly treasures (Matt 6:19-24), and not be focused on our life and security (Matt 6:25-34). Those who make a career out of influencing others have made their bed in the kosmos, even if their subject matter is religious.

So I hope this provides some context for this channel, for this blog. And this very post is, in many ways, true to my social media ethos: I’m simply explaining something new about my journey, and inviting those who choose to follow in my footsteps to learn from my growth AND my mistakes. It’s hardly going to be the kind of post that gains a lot of attention, and honestly that’s just fine with me.

Because someday I’ll look back on all this content I’ve produced, and I’ll see the changes over time, and I truly do believe that I’ll be able to say, I was honest. I was true to myself. I was true to the morals I was taught. I believe I followed Jesus where He was leading me, even when it didn’t make sense, even when I didn’t see any real value in it. And even if I end up in a rather different place than I am now, even if I change my mind about these matters, I think I’ll be able to be proud of what I did, that I honored God and myself in this process, and ended up more like Jesus than when I started.

Anyway, that’s a bit of my story, and I appreciate you spending some time with me here today. We’ll talk again soon. Be blessed.