The Imposter, Instagram and Me

The infinite possibility of the creator economy

Photo by Stefano Pollio on Unsplash

Last week, I spent a glorious two days thinking about myself. I mean really thinking about myself; what I’ve become, how I got to now, and what I want to be when I grow up.

I was at a retreat led by accredited life and business coach, Helen Jane Campbell, also a writer and former PR to protect the space of the creative - the freelancer, the founder, the rebel whose silent scream is shattering their dreams.

I shared it with, among others, a musician and a foreign correspondent, both now copywriters - because that’s where the buck is. There’s nothing wrong with copywriting if that’s what you want to do. But they don’t. They want to be the musician, the journalist, to stretch their creative wings again and make their money from who they really are. With Helen’s gentle coaching and the group’s ‘master mind’, they did, but not before we all saw the pain they’re in.

It’s heartbreaking to watch the music and the media industries collapse, and with them the utter waste of creative talent as those who have something to say fall silent. But it’s even more upsetting to see The Imposter sneak into their home offices, covering those creatives who once fed on a diet of published validation and team solidarity, with a cloak of self doubt that’s so heavy they can barely get out of the house. They feel past-it, irritated at the creator economy, at the Instagram writers who seem to get all the gigs. They can’t do the tech, they hate courting the followers. They despair of the emptiness of social media.

And I was thinking about how social media changed my life. I began my career working in TV, radio, magazines and publishing, the glory days when the only word I ever heard was ‘YES!’ I asked and I got. I read my diary back now and I wonder who on earth I was. Actually, now I know. It was ME. But for years in between, after becoming a mum, moving from London to Brighton, after being whoever I wanted to be, my ‘blacks’, those dark clouds that clouded my vision and told me I was useless at everything, would descend for days at a time. The Imposter would move in, wrapping me in its cloak so tightly I couldn’t breathe. Not that anyone outside my family knew; to the world it looked like I was busy ‘smashing’ it. What a strange term that is. I was actually smashing it, destroying absolutely everything that had made me a successful freelancer.

Funnily enough, it was Instagram that stopped my Imposter in its tracks. My pre-kids career was way before social media. No-one knows about the books I’ve written, the programmes I’ve made, the articles, the press trips. Why should they? If it’s not on the Gram, it didn’t happen.

But it did in real life, and it’s only recently that I’m telling myself the story of me rather than seeing my work as a series of random events. It’s my invisible history that made me who I am, that gives me the heft I need to do what I do. The British food revolution? I had an expense account in the ‘80s which gave me a seat at the most exciting tables in London. Politics of food? I was making TV programmes about it in the ‘90s. TV Chefs? I’ve literally written the book about how TV taught Britain to eat.

Food podcasts? The delicious podcast was the very first British food podcast to be nominated for a Fortnum and Mason Award in 2017. It was the only pod in the race against Radio 4 shows The Food Programme and the Kitchen Cabinet with all their resources and budget. I’d taken it on just six months before.

I tell that to my Imposter and it recoils. I’ve burst its bubble.

But Instagram isn’t interested. Shiny, happy Instagram is like a toddler; tickle its chin and it giggles. Show it a pretty picture and it’ll follow us to the moon and back.

Tell it something we think is important though, and we could become an influencer. If we know what we want to say, to whom and why, that’s a hell of a creative space.

Substack and Patreon with their long reads, podcast and video options are where we can build communities, where followers can give us love, engage in what we do. Goddamn it, they can even PAY us for what we do.

I shoo all my retreaters on to Substack. Yes, they’re all weighed down by their Imposter cloaks, but some make it. They might not tell anyone about their posts, or if they do, they might throw it at their Facebook and Instagram followers like a stone at a window, hoping they’ll notice. They probably don’t; social media has its etiquette like everything else, and spamming is not cool. They’ll learn. It’s what happens in the playground. Meanwhile, they’re building their creative muscle again, sharpening their blunted skills after years of neglect.

The musician and the journalist from last week’s retreat have promised to try Substack. They’ll unload their vast sacks of content into regular Substack posts, honing the book idea, building the community, gently stoking the embers of their creativity to get the fires in their bellies burning again.

I think it’s about framing social media, telling ourselves a different story about how it can set us free. Joining the creator economy is about deciding what to create, for whom and why. Call it a side hustle, and the day job suddenly becomes a facilitator for your dreams. Take a day out of your week/month/year for a creative coaching/writing retreat or maybe even just a yoga day to think about who you want to be when you grow up, and you might find that the possibilities are infinite.

And take your Imposter with you. You might just make a new friend.

The next How to Cook a Book retreats are Feb 12-14 and March 11-13. I’m thinking of using the same format for a non-fiction writing retreat. Let me know if you’re up for it at gilly@gillysmith.com