Back when blogging was the biggest deal in town for any small artist/writer/maker/commentator, I’m sure my Start The New Year posts were a little more cheerful than they have been so far on this site. Funnily enough, maybe the most cautiously optimistic was the one that started off 2020… and we all remember how that turned out, don’t we?
In general, 2025’s beginnings don’t seem all that auspicious, between the raging wildfires in the US (and their little political screw-up in re-electing a deranged douchecanoe backed by dimwitted malevolent christofascists) the ongoing horrors in Gaza and turmoil in our own government systems. There are also rumours and speculation about whether we are looking at the beginning of the end for social media in general, smothered by bots, disinformation and what appears to be a determination among the incels, eugenicists and billionaire mediocrities to turn it into a tool for reinforcing wealthy white men’s ‘supremacy’.
Some people’s reaction seems to be flight: everything’s awful so let’s run away and hide under the bed. Not my idea of either a good time or a solution to the problem. Sticking around and yelling about the good stuff that really matters is probably better: I am not the only one who has noticed, for instance, that despite the worst tantrums of the Muskrat, TwiX still seems to provide connection and community to people who are not screaming arseholes.
Gloria and I have been chatting recently about selling and marketing the book, and we are both quite strongly inclined to lean a lot on real-time interactions and word-of-mouth. It’s not as if there’s any spare cash to pay influencers, never mind how obviously useless most of them actually are. It’s likely that making a book a success is going to depend on multiple channels both on and offline, and that this can be applied to other things that matter to other people. Get out of the house and TALK. Go to events as they are where more opportunities lurk than down an online rabbit hole.
Swinella is, for instance, currently only available in paperback form and mostly to be found at the various fetish markets. You’re all welcome to stop by my stall when you see me – but you can grab a copy of the book from this very site anyway.