A couple years ago I watched a Ted Talk from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the actor. It all seemed to begin for him with child acting roles (things like Family Ties and 3rd Rock from the Sun) and led to pretty well-known movies like Inception and Dark Knight Rises. In his Ted Talk, he talks about "How craving attention makes you less creative." It's worth a watch!
To sum it up, Social Media is designed to make you crave attention, and there is no amount of attention you can get from Social Media that makes you feel like you've arrived. However, getting attention is different from paying attention, which is a core experience he has as he undertakes his collaborative part in the creative endeavor of creating movies. But, his feeling is that experience of paying attention isn't just for actors, it's something all creative people can experience.
To him, the Internet shouldn't be so much about getting attention, as it should be about paying attention because some of his favorite creative activities are from collaborating with people he hasn't even met. When you're part of a collaboration with all these people, you find flow and you find a safe space to just be creative. All that said, getting attention feels pretty good when it happens . . .
And that's why he started the site HITRECORD.org with his brother Dan. Basically, it's social media for creatives. Here's the sales pitch.
I guess I'm super late to the party and even after watching Joseph's sales pitch, it took me a few years to try it, but this year . . . I finally did, and I have to say I'm pretty interested in continuing the journey. So far I've only dabbled a bit with writing poetry and short stories, shared a picture based off of a prompt, and uploaded a song birthed out of a therapy session conversation I had. It all feels clean, and I like that. I like that I've contributed to things creatively that I normally wouldn't have done.
The best example of this for me personally is when a project came up to write a tiny story that was inspired by a picture of a little felt ghosty dude, which was a filting creation made by a collaborator at HITRECORD named Yellowsicktoad.
This was created by Yellowsicktoad and shared under a visual art project for making random crafts. JoeFed62 on HITRECORD then used this picture as a writing prompt for others to contribute to: "Week 45: write a tiny story inspired by the picture 'The Little Ghost And Her Red Rubberboots' by Yellowsicktoad."
As I was surfing HITRECORD one night, I came across that prompt and wrote a little poem to go along with it because why not?! That little dude is pretty cute, so I penned this:
Small, fuzzy ghosts
-- flit along the filtin’
Smaller red boots
-- soft, playful kickin’
You say it’s only August
-- but candy bags need fillin’
put me in your pocket
-- till October we be chillin’
In essence, it's a little poem that I would have never written if I didn't stumble along the Tiny Story challenge.
Then this week I began to get pings from HITRECORD that other people were remixing my poem into pictures. (Side note: Remixing on HITRECORD is when you use someone's creation to create something new yourself.) The reason why was because JoeFed62 had posted this prompt: "Week 48: Combine the image 'The Little Ghost And Her Red Rubberboots' by Yellowsicktoad with the text 'small, fuzzy ghosts' by Stingite."
So that's my small example. Now just imagine finding a group of collaborators to make a full album of music with, which is something that's been done on the site back in 2012. Everything was collaborative from the sounds to the words to the music to the cover art. It's kind of genius.
Now, my honest critique of the site: As much as I love the idea behind this site and agree so much with what it stands for in creativity, it feels like it needs an update, is a touch confusing to use, and could use more people interested in inspiring others (paid community management?).
I do know that the site has been around since 2005. It refreshed its website in 2010, and throughout the years it's had minor updates to its look, but the site we have today is pretty much the same layout from three or four years ago based on what I'm finding on images from the Wayback Machine.
Something about HITRECORD's search and organization feels a bit dated. I've searched for new music projects, but it feels like all I'm finding are old projects that have completed but are still open for contributing, which is confusing and discouraging.
On the other hand, writing prompts, graphic prompts, and voice acting prompts all seem readily available, but there might be a need for more JoeFed62 type of people for music. That's the kicker. The crux of what makes this site really work are people that are interested in inspiring participation. Without them, the site kind of falls apart. If HITRECORD isn't paying someone to prompt others with community projects, it should.
Outside of those critiques though, I think this is a type of social media I could really get into. The idea of being a part of a social media platform based around creative collaboration is a huge selling point for me.
So there you have it . . . when you're feeling creative and in need of paying attention collaboratively to gain attention from others, this feels like the corner of the Internet that could shine the brightest. It just needs some attention itself and perhaps a touch of new polish.
Happy Dueling!
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