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Quantifying "Voice" in Creative Careers
Oct. 30th, 2019 11:00 amYesterday a very talented student told me that she'd been rejected from an internship at a midsize game development studio because she doesn't have a substantial "voice." When I followed up on this, I learned that, essentially, she doesn't have enough followers on social media.
This is disturbing but not surprising, as this person is the seventh student to tell me a similar story during the past calendar year.
That's not what "finding one's voice" by means of social media is supposed to mean, first of all; and second, how many Twitter followers is a 20-year-old college student supposed to have? The average active Twitter user has about 500 followers,* but the average active Twitter user is also 40 years old and presumably comfortably settled in their career.
My university has one of the larger visual arts programs in the area, and some of my artist students do in fact have thousands of followers on Twitter. Based on my experiences with these students, however, I can say with confidence that a high follower count does not translate into a reliable work ethic or the sort of personality that can accommodate high-pressure professional interactions. I say this not as a bitter professor who resents young people, but rather as someone who has seen talented people fail because they were given too much responsibility too early in their lives and careers, which is not a pleasant or uplifting thing to watch happen to someone you care about.
I'm not sure what conclusions I can draw from this, except that it seems counterproductive to hire someone based on the number of followers they have on social media, especially when you're hiring them for an internship or other entry-level position.
* Although I haven't been able to confirm this, I suspect the median number of Twitter followers is much lower, as less than 1% of active Twitter users (meaning accounts that have posted at least one tweet) has more than a thousand followers.
This is disturbing but not surprising, as this person is the seventh student to tell me a similar story during the past calendar year.
That's not what "finding one's voice" by means of social media is supposed to mean, first of all; and second, how many Twitter followers is a 20-year-old college student supposed to have? The average active Twitter user has about 500 followers,* but the average active Twitter user is also 40 years old and presumably comfortably settled in their career.
My university has one of the larger visual arts programs in the area, and some of my artist students do in fact have thousands of followers on Twitter. Based on my experiences with these students, however, I can say with confidence that a high follower count does not translate into a reliable work ethic or the sort of personality that can accommodate high-pressure professional interactions. I say this not as a bitter professor who resents young people, but rather as someone who has seen talented people fail because they were given too much responsibility too early in their lives and careers, which is not a pleasant or uplifting thing to watch happen to someone you care about.
I'm not sure what conclusions I can draw from this, except that it seems counterproductive to hire someone based on the number of followers they have on social media, especially when you're hiring them for an internship or other entry-level position.
* Although I haven't been able to confirm this, I suspect the median number of Twitter followers is much lower, as less than 1% of active Twitter users (meaning accounts that have posted at least one tweet) has more than a thousand followers.
