I escaped the void

"I'm posting into the void."

Jason Levin
May 19, 2024

When I started writing online, it felt like I was talking to the void.

But now when I tweet or publish a blog, it feels like I’m sharing my thoughts and memes with my friends in a big groupchat. I see the same familiar faces in the replies and mentions and retweets. It’s 1 big party.

I work with startup founders on ghostwriting, and every single one of them says they feel like they’re “posting into the void” at first. It’s a universal feeling and it’s my job to help them get out of the void. So here’s my escape plan.

How to go from void to party:

Let’s imagine it’s the first day of college.

You walk into an event where you know no one.

Who do you go up to first?

You gotta find your people, right?

So you spot some different cliques hanging out: the athletes, the tech nerds, the film freaks. You analyze the room, maybe you get a sip of liquid courage, and you go walk up and meet some people.

And since you’re a tech nerd, you go up to the crew of other tech nerds first, you say hi, you start talking to some people about your interests. Maybe there’s some weirdos like in any group of people, but you meet a couple cool people you vibe with and agree you should grab coffee soon.

This is how you make friends at a party or networking event or whatever—and it’s also the same way you do it on social media.

me and 2 internet friends at an event I hosted in SF

You find people that seem like your kind of people around your follower count. Maybe their bio has the same work industry or their content is just cool. And then you start replying and supporting their posts. And some percentage will follow back and support yours. Then you send some DMs, grab some coffees, and before you know it, you’re at an internet party. Simply by supporting others, you’re not alone anymore and neither are they. And this is how you escape the void. You escape the void by helping others escape the void.

Because what you’ve gotta understand is everyone else also feels like they’re in the void sometimes, and if you can help them escape it, you’ll end up helping yourself too. It’s like if you’ve got 2 people stuck in a well, the only way out is for 1 to stand on top of the other and then for that person to go get some rope to pull you out. Teamwork make the dream work baby.

Don’t be yapping alone.

You can’t escape the void alone.

Social media is not a 1-way distribution mechanism like a movie.

You can’t just share your ideas out into the world and not engage with other people and expect them to care. You’re not a movie star, you’re a creator. In the words of Kendrick, “Sit down, be humble”. If you want organic engagement, you gotta organically engage. You escape the void by engaging. Law of reciprocity baby.

See, this is the part of ghostwriting that I can’t do for my clients—although I did have 1 founder try to make me pretend to be him and send DMs for him because he was too busy (that company went bust). What I explained to him and what I adamantly believe is you can’t outsource making internet friends. I can write the posts, but they need to be the ones replying, sending DMs, grabbing coffee, going to events, making friends, and building out their network. No matter how much AI assistants and outsourced executive assistants in the Philippines you got, you have to be the 1 making friends. You can’t outsource building relationships and it’s called social media for a reason.

The content is just the kindling at the base of the fire, the internet friends and network of supporters are the fuel that light the content up. If you want to escape the void, you need to stop lurking in the corner of the party and go make some internet friends — then you go escape the void together.

Want to make internet friends?

I’ll tell you my trick to do it faster.

Back in 2021, I joined a private community run by a couple writers. This gave me some of my first internet friends and we helped each other grow on Twitter and LinkedIn. 3 years later, I still have friends from this group I work with.

That’s why I wanted to give my readers the same opportunity.

A few months ago, I started a private community called The Strategists for my readers. Our members include everyone from an 8-figure startup founder to viral memelords to artists with galleries in museums to venture capitalists to a YouTube strategist who worked with MrBeast.

When you join The Strategists, you get access to: