by Travis Mateer
I’m writing this post at 4am this morning because the tech-platform I use to bring Zoom Chron to you (WordPress) wouldn’t let me start a new post last night, which is kinda ironic considering the topic today is a critical look at a technology platform that emerged as one of many alternatives to the censorship of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.
Before I get going on this, I’d like to note my criticism of Rokfin is not meant to be criticism of the content creators (unless they deserve it) who are using and benefiting from this online media product. While I was a paying subscriber at $9.99 a month, I benefitted from the information I got from the creators I respected, and I hope they can continue to benefit from the illusion of a censorship-free platform just like I hope my little girl will one day benefit from seeing a real unicorn.
When I left a consistent paycheck in the spring of 2020 it’s because cancel culture had already come for me in 2018 when I wrote a poem about sidewalks. Actually, that’s not accurate. I was cancelled from the first blog I contributed to–the progressive 4&20 Blackbirds–so I guess you could say I was cancelled before cancelling became an official thing.
For a more objective idea about what we’re talking about, Wikipedia actually has a page on Cancel Culture that describes the phenomenon like this:
Cancel culture or call-out culture is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been “cancelled”. The expression “cancel culture” has mostly negative connotations and is used in debates on free speech and censorship.
Instead of continuing to take shit from our local cabal in order to keep a paycheck, I decided to tell the occupied territory known as the “non-profit sector” to go fuck itself (figuratively speaking) in order to start something of my own. What started happening in March of 2020 only further convinced me of the critical importance of information and how it’s disseminated.
I applied to be a content creator on Rokfin near the end of 2020, after taking the terrifying leap of leaving what I’ve known for a decade, but my application wasn’t accepted. Fair enough, I thought at the time. This new platform is just being careful to cultivate its stable of creators, and I was an unknown newbie in an already over-saturated podcast market.
No one needs a digital platform to create things. They need platforms if they want OTHER PEOPLE to see and experience what they’ve created beyond conventional methods, like publishing physical books, or playing live music. Before Trump’s election psychologically broke the minds of half the county, cancel culture hadn’t metastasized to what it is today. When the unthinkable happened, the ends of stopping orange man justified all the means, as the Twitter Files so clearly demonstrates (for those who needed the proof).
I forged ahead creating things, as my archive clearly shows. Not only did I facilitate the creation of a lengthy and VERY informative documentary about Tax Increment Financing, called Engen’s Missoula, I also doubled my views by consistently publishing daily content at 7am Monday through Friday, with usually one post for the weekend.
On the podcast front I thought I was making some good connections, having made appearances on popular podcasts like Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli, but then I ran afoul of his booking dude, Mark Steeves, because my theory that we never leave high school needed to be reaffirmed.
Why did I want to get on a Sam Tripoli show? Well, I wanted to provide context to a picture I was getting prepared to disclose, a picture I had thought of disseminating with a clue about its significance, the clue being a caption which would read SELMA PICTURED WITH GOD.
I’m going to share that picture now. Here it is:
I won’t say anything else about this image yet. Instead I’ll remind our placeholder Mayor about my brief chat with him before he got selected in a dark alley, a chat about the organization he’s a board member of and the things that haven’t been done to start making things right for the family of the man pictured above.
Did you hear me, Mayor, or do I need to provide my own amplification?
The stories getting amplified these days, even when ostensibly amplified to right the wrong of historic oppression, are only creating the ILLUSION of inclusivity, just like Rokfin is banking on you believing their brand is free of censorship.
One great example of this illusion is an exclusive Spotify podcast called STOLEN, created by Connie Walker. I follow Walker on Twitter and saw how the most recent iteration of this series is doing, and it seems to be doing pretty damn well!
Before Walker used her own family history for podcast material to benefit her platform enablers at Spotify, she used the Jermain Charlo family, and it was quite the popular podcast as well. So popular it was being used as EDUCATIONAL material in my kids school, and I had a problem with that. Thankfully the argument I made against the use of this podcast was heard, and I found out last week that it will NO LONGER BE USED in the classroom (I’ll have more on this in a later post).
I’d like to share victories like these with larger audiences because I think Missoula is a fascinating microcosm of the larger forces we are all struggling with, but the barriers to breaking narrative control are significant, so I’ll need all the help I can get if I’m going to make my journalistic presence felt in Helena during the legislative session next year.
I was a guest on a local podcast earlier this week and it was great to record a long conversation about the work I’m doing in Zoom Town. There are definitely people who understand what’s at stake, and what needs to happen, but we need more people stepping up and finding what they can contribute to make an impact in their own backyards, where it counts.
If a monetary donation is something you think YOU can contribute, my about page is the place to do it. I just got a wonderful donation in a very specific dollar amount that made me smile (thanks RR!).
So stay tuned, because the solution to censorship isn’t going to be handed to you through a screen, it’s something you have to actively make happen, and then MAINTAIN, by caring MORE about the truth than views, status and monetary compensation.
Thanks for reading!