## You don’t have to live in public
Source URL:: <https://austinkleon.com/2018/07/05/you-dont-have-to-live-in-public/>
### Highlights
> [!quote]+ %%Updated on Mon Feb 26 2024 10:46:08 GMT-0500%%
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> It seems ridiculous to say, but 2013, the year I wrote the book, was a simpler time. Social media seemed much more benign to me. Back then, the worst I felt social media did was waste your time. Now, the worst social media does is cripple democracy and ruin your soul.
> [!quote]+ %%Updated on Mon Feb 26 2024 10:46:08 GMT-0500%%
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> Don’t post anonymously unless you really might be in danger.
>If you put effort into Wikipedia articles, put even more effort into using your personal voice and expression outside of the wiki to attract people who don’t yet realize that they are interested in the topics you contributed to.
>Create a website that expresses something about who you are that won’t fit into the template available to you on a social networking site.
>Post a video once in a while that took you one hundred times more time to create than it takes to view.
>Write a blog post that took weeks of reflection before you heard the inner voice that needed to come out.
>If you are twittering, innovate in order to find a way to describe your internal state instead of trivial external events, to avoid the creeping danger of believing that objectively described events define you, as they would define a machine.
> [!quote]+ %%Updated on Mon Feb 26 2024 10:46:08 GMT-0500%%
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> It is, I think, about sharing your work with intention, and using the technology available to you to connect directly with the audience you seek.