The 1,000 true fans philosophy
The idea of the Internet connecting creators of different types (artists, photographers, musicians, and yes, even journalists) directly with their readers or viewers or listeners stretches back a while but was most succinctly expressed in 2008 by Kevin Kelly, in his essay “1,000 true fans”.
It’s a pretty simple idea to understand: “A thousand customers is a whole lot more feasible to aim for than a million fans. Millions of paying fans is not a realistic goal to shoot for, especially when you are starting out. But a thousand fans is doable”.
“Fans, customers, patrons have been around forever. What’s new here? A couple of things. While direct relationship with customers was the default mode in old times, the benefits of modern retailing meant that most creators in the last century did not have direct contact with consumers.”
In practice, I found it means your subscription joins the subscriptions from other readers and all together you actually do end up paying for real stuff in real life and making the activity sustainable over time, in this case, reporting and analysing how a whole country is changing, via its major news stories.
It all adds up.
It really did take us all the way to the Supreme Court for the Catalan separatist trial or inside real Covid wards in hospitals with a camera and microphone before the vaccines, among many other examples over the years.
And for journalism specifically, I think it’s still the best option for maintaining independence, vs. corporate money for ads or political donations and obscure ideological influences and pressures.
So let’s go again. Let’s get to 1,000. Grab your paid subscription here: