Being Niche is Awesome. Until you hate it.

The Certified Writer’s Files #5

For Context: A niche is a corner of the internet that has a well- established audience and culture.

I was 7.

Father’s day was just around the corner and i was experiencing what i now call an anxiety attack. Me and my class were supposed to perform this number to all the dads and i was placed right in the middle. Shit. I cried the entire time just panicking about it, until my grandma came up to me the day before and said:

“Amanda, those who are not seen are never remembered.”

I was struck by that, but i bailed that father’s day performance anyway. Sorry, dad.

And that started a dilemma in my head i’ll never forget.

Will i be okay if i’m perceived only by a few amount of people?

And here’s the thing, i love people. I’m totally a ‘people’ person. But i was not so much a ‘me’ person back then.

Fast forward to high school, i knew i wanted to make a lot of friends but not so much that i would stop being a concept inside their head and, well, become a real person. I knew i’d like to write for people but i was afraid of getting judged for it. You know, just your regular teenager dilemmas.

There were things that i always wanted to do, but didn’t, like writing for the school paper (shoutout to Rory Gilmore) or entering that one poetry contest… And i always ended up regretting that.

So, in 2021, i finally got the confidence to start a goodreads account with the idea of writing about literature and books. While making a lot of friends there, i could freely write about my passion! Isn’t that great? I got my first hundred followers and i was so excited and comfortable..

Until a huge account decided to post me , and somehow, i gained a lot of followers overnight.

It was happening. I was getting past someone who posted about writing.

I was getting past being niche.

As much as i was super grateful, i just felt so strange and uncomfortable that more and more people were looking into my stuff.

Plus, the mean comments started happening.

Boom. Deleted.

I had tasted the sweet nectar of clout once, and i was never going to do this to myself again.

So, i closed the “Goodreads” chapter of my life and never opened it again. I wasn’t ready for that.

Until ‘Substack’ showed up. And here we are!

If you read my “about” section, you know that my former high school teacher Akemi, who made me believe that my writing could reach people, sadly passed away last year. So, i’ve finally decided to do this for her and for myself.

And now that my high school days are long gone, i finally felt my passion for writing and connecting with people growing and getting to be bigger than my fear.

Sure, being niche is great. You won’t be the subject of lots of (mostly unnecessary) conversations and controversy, but you won’t be reaching that many readers. Duh.

If that’s your goal, if you’re writing for yourself and a few others, great! Go for it.

But if it’s not, you have to be ready. I don’t know if that many people have idea of how hard it is to expose yourself online ( in any type of way), you’ll be prone to all kinds of reactions and all kinds of people . And not all people have good intentions towards you. As i was maturing myself, i was maturing that idea in my head.

While some people think that writing is the only field that you don’t need to be a bombshell to be successful, you still suffer a lot of stress and pressure as you grow. How do i make people care about what i say? How will i keep a grip on people this week? These things come as you expand.

So, if you’d like to write for whatever platform, the duality of humankind will always amaze you ( and make you super scared), and there isn’t any pressure in the world that you won’t put on yourself! So, if you see any accounts that have “ made this as a joke, haha!” and they have millions of things published, it’s probably a lie. The pressure is high, people.

But don’t let it bend you. Keep writing as if no one will read it, and that will be most definitely your best work, since you can’t please everyone. Sure, you’ll miss the supportive comments of your three friends (one of them is your cousin) and being able to talk about millions of things without worrying about it being interesting enough. But the people you’ll meet as you go ahead on this journey and the opportunities you’ll have definitely keeps you going.

Someone will always judge you for not being niche anymore, as they kept you like a delightful secret, but sometimes you just have to experience other audiences to know which one you identify with more. You can write for all of them even!!! Who are you as a writer if not someone who is  just… inspired by everything. And by that, i just wanted to let you know that when you share your inspired work, you’re always going to help  other people create things. Special things. And to quote the great Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan, we're not in this world to find ourselves. We're in this world to create ourselves, and to create things. Or at least that's what i think he said.

Nothing will be enough, ever. There are always two sides to every coin, and i always try to be grateful and enjoy every friend i make through writing, every person that took their precious time to read me, every moment someone finds me insightful or funny or relatable. And when the stress and anxiety becomes bigger that these feelings, it’s time to stop and take a break. And yes, you’ll miss being niche again. It’s awesome. Until it’s not, because we’re all fucking humans anyway. We want more. Until we don’t anymore.