“Audio is awesome, but a bit later”: a podcast about content makers, GTD for the editor and media career
This is a podcast with content makers. The guest of this issue is Ivan Makridin, a gonzo journalist, a leading author podcast and digital nomad. We are talking about content and self-development.
Ivan Makridin, gonzo journalist, author of the podcast and digital nomad
alinatestova : First of all, I want to ask a question about your background.Tell, please, for our listeners about yourself, what are you doing now?Can you identify the main directions and the profession that is now your main one? ')
Ivan: Hello everyone. I run an author's podcast ( iTunes ), where I talk about everything that might be interesting to me. About the agenda, communicate with interesting people, discuss self-development. Anything that interests me anyway, I light it there.
Plus, I do SMM and lead instagram , where I just talk about my lifestyle. I sometimes call myself indiscreetly a gonzo journalist . I believe that this is more appropriate for me, because I try to write and reason not on HYIP topics, but on topics that interest me, and to be a direct participant in these events.
If we talk about the background, then I come from LJ. Previously, it was one of the most popular platforms. I came there very early, when the audience was 35+, and I was 15 years old. I started a travel blog and faded out a year and a half ago. The background among these mastodons ... when Varlamov was still a zyalt, these are the times.
A: As far as I know, you are engaged not only in texts, and not only audio, but also photography.Tell me, please, what was the first?Your hobby for photography or journalism?Or did it somehow jointly and simultaneously start?
Q: It was the [hobby] of photography that began when I had a camera. It was probably in 2014.
A: How old were you then?
And: Fifteen, I guess. Yes exactly. I just turned twenty recently, and I’m trying to reconfigure myself somehow.
And if we talk about some kind of love for texts, it has been since childhood. I wrote essays at school, argued with teachers and so on. Probably, at first all the same there was a fascination with texts, then a camera appeared, and I somehow correlated it all and began to make photo reports in LJ.
A: If we talk about photo reports and in general the topic related to photography as a medium and medium of information transfer: do you think it is possible to tell a story in images, did you succeed?Or is the photo more likely an auxiliary tool that only complements the text?
Q: Specifically, I had this supporting material. It was just convenient, because if someone told me that the photo turned out to be ugly, I say: "This is just an auxiliary material, the main thing is not this."
The story in the photo can be told. For example, the master of documentary photography Sebastian Salgadu , about him the film "The Salt of the Earth" was shot. This is right when you can tell everything with a photo of one, especially in black and white. Well, now we have photojournalists who shoot for all editions. Sergey Ponomarev , for example, who got Pulitzer . He is also a man from Russia, he tells the story in the photo.
I still had it as an auxiliary material: photos from rallies or from travels. I tried to write more so that people read.
A: You have already mentioned that you call yourself a gonzo journalist, why is that?
Q: I just read the book of Hunter Thompson a long time ago. This is a man about whom, I think, knows fewer people than about the movie “The Rum Diary” with Johnny Depp in the lead role.
I read and think: “What kind of gonzo journalism is this?” I went to Wikipedia, I looked. They say that this is when journalism is intertwined with real impressions and experiences of the heroes who are in it all. And they experience it and mention it in the texts. You can say it like bloggers now. And then they were gonzo journalists.
I thought I liked it better. This is just a taste, because bloggers are often synonymous with some people who, for example, on YouTube make a bath of chips, bathe in it and shoot it on camera. I do not want to attribute myself to this way, so I decided that I would still be a gonzo journalist. But I call myself with caution.
Like, say, Vanya Survillo. I interviewed him too, just like you [ link to the text version of the podcast with Ivan Survillo on Habré]. He also said that he was so wary of himself, because it was rather immodest. And I try to be quite modest in everything that concerns my some things when they ask me. For example, now I feel a little awkward, because too much attention to my humble person.
A: Tell me, please, you say: "I went to Wikipedia, I looked at the definition, I realized that this is close to me, this is what I am doing in some way."Did this self-identification give you some kind of support?
From the series: “Now I understand where to go, how to do it.I read Hunter Thompson;I understand how he wrote;and I want to do something like that. "Or rather, you just decided to find an explanation and description of what you do?
And: It's just very comfortable, yes. When someone asks you, you say that you are a podcast and consider yourself a gonzo journalist. This is just self-identification.
If we talk about when I began to understand what I want to do, it was very early. To paraphrase Carnegie, who is interested in others and, I want to believe, interests others. It was about me always. I was interested in other people, stories and loved to tell stories myself. And this is what I essentially do now. I tell stories about my life. Just from here my position follows that every person needs to blog.
A: So anyone can be a gonzo journalist?
And: Yes. If you do something, write, take a photo, do anything, then the world should know about it. Unfortunately or fortunately (this is not about that now), it turned out that the Internet is now more of a world than what is really happening. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, the world should know about it, and therefore I think everyone needs to have their own blog. But for some reason people are afraid. I even know why, probably.
A: How do you think, how to get a gonzo journalist out of an ordinary person?
Q: Well, people are afraid, because ... I come across this all the time, because as soon as I started to express my position about the need for everyone to run their blog, it flies to me about twice a week: “What should I write about?” I say: “What am I writing about? About your life. "
And they somehow fear that other people will think about them. They have a lot of thoughts in their head about this, they do not know what they want. Plus, people are afraid to express their point of view. I have never had any problems with this. And people, you know, want to conditionally watch an interview with Dudy, extract a quotation from a hero, some Pharaoh , - “hard work pays off”. And put yourself under a photo where they smoke hookah.
And they say so, reason. They like to express other people's thoughts, not their own. For some reason they are afraid of this. There are many reasons, in fact, but this is the main one: they are simply afraid.
A: If we have already started talking about what people are afraid to talk about, because they do not want to get negative reviews: please tell me, how did you work with negative?
If people said: “No, your photos are not good, your descriptions are incomplete,” or something else.How did you cope with such things?What would you advise others?
I: I had a very severe school of life called LJ, where there was a lot of negativity. As soon as the post went to the top, criticism fell on me. I got used to it very quickly. My mom is worried more about some comments that have been left to me than I am. As a rule, people who write you such nasty things in life will not tell you this.
They are afraid to say it. Not even because I’m some kind of, I’m no, they’re just scared, they’re embarrassed. Well, haters are good. So you are interested in someone. Others interest me, it means that I interest someone.
A: So from the very beginning you were rather calm about negative things.
Q: I am always for constructive criticism, I always write to disagree with me.
I have, say, now Facebook so far. There I am writing on topics that I want to speak on. They can be called quite HYIP. I always receive some kind of negativity there, but I calmly relate to this, because truth is born in a dispute.
A: Tell me, please, what is your attitude to editing?I want to go a little distance.The bottom line is: now, many people are going into journalism and content marketing, because this topic has become popular and more or less monetary, in recent years.
To do this, you do not need any special skills, roughly speaking, such as stretching, like a ballerina, and you don’t need to go anywhere and be engaged in three or three years to write in 20+ or 30+ years.
Do you think any special talent or special preparation is needed in order not only to write texts or do the work of an editor, but also to get paid for it?
Q: I can’t answer exactly about this, because everything was very simple with me too. I began to write, I read others, tried to find something that I like in their texts. Then, when I began to read the classics, I began to notice that, for example, Tolstoy wrote in large sentences. A bunch of commas, isolations - for some reason I liked it. I started to take over this business.
I don't know about the money. It seems to me that now, in principle, such an environment and the Internet, you can start practicing anything and receive money for it. It's easier than ever. It is clear that this does not mean that you can do nothing at all. Need to make some effort.
A: You can get a bath of chips.
And: Yes, yes. Even a bath of chips to collect and make money on advertising. But just now everything is open, and this year I have just one of the goals - online education. I want to hit it a bit, increase my skills.
A: So, it still seems to you that it is worth getting some kind of fundamental base and just reading is not enough to further develop in this direction?
Q: When you start doing something, you start to notice it. As with a photograph: I began to study it and began to notice the composition in other photographs, as a person built it; determine the exposure to the eye, how much he did.
The same with the texts. Just recently I wrote that I learned to appreciate high texts. When I read them, I feel good about it. But earlier I could not distinguish the conditional info-style from the usual kind of scribbling. I can already. Just look, notice, learn.
A: I want to move towards podcasts.Tell me, please, what is your podcast about?If you do not talk about everything that happens around you.How do you select topics for releases?Around what are you building your podcast?
I: I build it around the fact that I have always been interested in the topics of self-development. But, let's say, I couldn’t embed this into LiveJournal, it was not particularly interesting to anyone. There is either politics, or travel, or some fitons. I came to the topic of podcasts and I think: “We need all the things that I try to cover and say that I like them, what I did, and what I don’t.” Plus, it was always interesting for me to communicate with other people.
If I start from afar, I remember that when I was just about to make a podcast, I sat down and scribbled it directly on paper: either I will make a podcast on a particular topic (for example, I had the idea to make a podcast on technotematics, because I was one of the few bloggers who did reviews on the technique), or even talk about everything.
As a result, the final decision was for the podcast, roughly speaking, about everything, because there you can embed an interview. This was even before Dud and a bunch of other interviewers appeared.
Therefore, my podcast is probably about personal effectiveness, self-development and interesting people. Something like this. Sometimes I tell about myself. I'm a gonzo journalist, after all (laughs).
A: Subjective experience.If we talk about the interview: how do you determine who you would like to interview, how do you find these people and call them into your podcast?
Q : I had a moment when I just wanted to interview a few HYIP personalities. But I quickly removed the whole thing from myself, because I thought it necessary to do an interview with those with whom I am really interested. Who can give something to me and my listeners.
For example, I am interested in the topic of urbanism, and I want to record an interview with one urbanist. This is interesting to me, and people too. With Vanya Survillo , let's say I did a podcast, and I just wanted to chat with him. I was 19 years old and he was 19 years old. Now I am 20, and he is 19, but he will soon catch up (laughs). I asked him a lot about our generation, the interaction between generations.
Suppose I had an interview with a traveler, just with my friend, with whom we have been friends for a long time. He is one of the most famous of such informal travelers. I just wrote to him, saying: "Let's record an interview." He says: "Yes, come on." Here too: and it is interesting to me to talk with him once again, and to people.
Of course, there are sometimes issues with famous people. I recorded a recent interview with Ernesto. Shut up - this is a rapper, a member of Versus Battle. Many know him, at least, heard. But I listened to him for a long time, and I wanted to record an interview with him. Although, of course, I understood that when he repost the release, a certain amount of the audience would come to me. Initially, all this is an interest for oneself, then an interest for listeners, and only then some figures.
My position is very simple: what will I lose if he says no to me? Ernesto Shut up - also a dude who could not answer me, he was probably not interested. I just wrote to him in a personal in Instagram. I say: "Hi, I have a podcast, I want to interview you." He says: "And throw off an example." I threw it, he says: “Oh, bright head. Let's write it down. ”
Answer, do not answer - I do not know. Someone wrote - did not answer. Nothing wrong.
A: You dedicated one of the podcast episodes to the subject of audio and even entitled it: “The future is for podcasts and voice”.Why do you think so?
Q: Why do many people think that there is no future for podcasts in Russia? I do not know, they believe that we have some special market. So it is, but, for example, when Instagram started to develop in the States, everyone in Russia treated him like some kind of strange photo application that is unlikely to come to Russia and conquer something here. And now it is one of the most popular soc. networks. Even more popular "VKontakte" in Russia.
Whole teams work on podcasts [in the USA], a lot of money is there. After some time, they will come to Russia, because before us all the trends arrive a little late.
About the voice - my personal opinion. All these things - Yandex.Station, Apple HomePod, Alexa Skills from Amazon - they are needed to make our life easier. It is clear that we are followed by all and sundry. You just need to understand: no matter how easy it is for us to find any information through the phone now, this is still some way, a limiter.
A voice is a way to get around this limiter. We just say: "Remind me of this and that." And the assistant makes a reminder. So podcasts - they are easily embedded in such devices.
Although many say: "Do not send me voice messages, I hate them, write." I am calm about this, absolutely. When any important information - write me her text so that I can re-read. And so the voice constantly communicate.
They used to say: "The Internet will not be popular, there will be a TV." Now there is nothing on TV in Russia, except for “Evening Urgant”. All in YouTube. The same is said about podcasts. In the end, all will cross, maybe not in podcasts, but in audio form, they will also do it.
Here, even you promoted correctly. How many people do podcasts now? The beginnings of Medusa, then Lifehacker, and [now] a lot of people do podcasts, even companies . When I myself listened to the Lifehacker podcast, half of the questions they were asked were: “Why did you start the podcast? Do nothing? Lead the site. And now they are collecting a good audience.
A: I think a great conversation turned out.In the end - our little traditional blitz from one question.Audio, text or photo?
And: I will select the text after all.
A: Aha! So you have been talking for the last ten minutes about what ...
And: Here again, it is necessary to understand, if the mode of consumption, then more audio. If the method of transmitting some information is still text. Audio is cool, but a bit later.
Now, to be on the wave, you need both that and that, in favor of the text. I just love to sit at the laptop and type. I just enjoy it.
A: And then we switched to the subjective experience of a gonzo journalist.