Phantom followers

Are you one of them?

Want to know a cheat code for seeming smarter than you really are?

Coin a phrase.

You’ve probably never heard of phantom followers before because, well, I just made it up. But you already have a hunch as to what it means.

That’s the beauty of coined phrases.

So are you a phantom follower?

One of those ghostly apparitions lurking in the interweb closet? Creep!

Merely consuming content without ever letting it be known you did? Fool!

Never showing an ounce of appreciation in any of the three interweb currency denominations — likes, comments, or shares? Cheap bastard!

If so, then I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you are a phantom follower.

That’s quite an accusation. But I feel qualified to call you out because I’m a repeat offender. Takes one to know one, right?

My crime seems so obvious now but it never occurred to me until I gave it a name. Kinda like doom scrolling.

I never realized how stingy I was being by withholding this precious currency like money under a mattress.

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That all changed on a warm spring day in May, the year of our lord, 2022.

When I finally got my ass off the sidelines and decided to start writing online.

Don’t laugh, but my first ten blog posts (or whatever you want to call them) received a grand total of, wait for it…

Zero likes. Zero comments. Zero shares. Ouch.

That was a humbling experience. But if I’m being honest, they didn’t deserve any applause for one simple reason — they weren’t good. Far from it.

I came dangerously close to throwing in the towel and hopping right back on the sidelines where I clearly belonged. Deciding once and for all that this whole writing thing was not my thing.

The silent evidence was painfully clear. This was an utter waste of time. Nobody cared.

Yet something I can’t quite put my finger on convinced me to keep going.

Then a spectacular surprise happened with my 11th post. As if by the grace of the interweb gods, I got one like. And a few days later, a comment.

Oh hell yeah! We’ve got a hit! Momma we made it!

Move aside JK Rowling, there’s a new sheriff in town.

I’m only half-kidding.

But seriously, those (rare) early tokens of appreciation left a permanent dent in my memory.

To those few brave souls who not only took the time to read something I wrote, but also felt inclined to give me some fuel with a little like, comment, or share — you are a big reason why I’m writing these lines. You gave me the courage I didn’t know I needed.

So in your honor, I’ve got photos of each of your smiling faces hanging on my wall as my “readers of the year” like those Walmart employees you see in the hallway on your way to the toilet as distinguished “employees of the month”.

You helped me feel seen for the first time in a long time by being an anti-phantom-follower. Still workshopping a better name.

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Now I understand the vital importance of letting someone know, whether they have 5 followers or 5 million, if something they made left an impact — got you thinking differently, made you feel some emotion, or changed your perspective.

You have no idea how outsized of an impact you can have when you take a fraction of a second to be an anti-phantom-follower.

It costs you nothing. But it’s priceless.

It may fuel them to keep going when they sit there after putting their stuff out there, as I did, wondering if they’re just screaming into the void.

To all you phantom followers out there (guilty!), keep this in mind:

Likes are nice.

Comments are touching.

Shares are divine.

PS — The best example I know of an anti-phantom-follower is

Rick Lewis

. I don’t know how you do it. But thank you my friend.