It should, these days, be easier than ever to make a point in public. If you want to tell your story there are places to blog and host videos, there is social media to help you find an audience, and free software and ever cheaper hardware to get you online.
But in practice, not everyone finds it easy to push their ideas into a public space. So where do you begin, particularly if you feel as if you’re on the margins? As part of Levi’s Your Voice. Your Way campaign, The Guardian Labs talked to three young people who, driven by a burning desire to be heard, found their voices through blogging, podcasts and zines.
This is their advice to others who are bubbling with ideas and opinions, who know they have something valuable to say, but may feel unchampioned or underestimated. These are the first steps to getting your voice heard ...
1. Stay true to yourself
You might admire a particular columnist or an influencer, but the world doesn’t need an exact copy of someone else. The world needs you.
“I tried lots of voices on for size, but they weren’t really me,” says Jessica Riches, a social media and content specialist. She found her real voice and honed her social media skills during the student protests of 2010 when she became the clearest online voice of the group who occupied University College London in protest at increases in fees.
“Politics was where I found myself,” she says. “I was able to learn and explore that side of myself and I found a community of people.”
For Raifa Rafiq, a shared interest in books led her to create the Mostly Lit podcast with her friend Alex Reads. “The response we got was phenomenal,” she says of the podcast, which ran for four years, won awards and partnered with Waterstones. “We did something we enjoyed and ended up putting a different face on culture and arts criticism: you don’t have to be an old white man or a middle class white woman to love books or to talk about them.”
2. Consider your platform carefully
Who do you want to reach and what are you trying to say? Both of these questions will have an effect on where and how you publish your work. “In terms of social media, this is key,” says Riches. “If you are telling a story that is text based, about news or opinion, then head to Twitter. If you want to draw people in with visuals, use Instagram. This sounds really obvious, but the mistake people often make at the beginning is over-committing. Pick the most appropriate platform and start there, that way you won’t end up disappointing yourself. You can always expand later.”
Kirsty Fife has published her work on blogs and also created physical fanzines. “I started out blogging, I ran a fat-fashion blog, Fatty Unbound,” she says. “Blogging did create a space that wasn’t there at the time.” Digitally, she honed her writing and found a community, but decided to begin putting out fanzines when her work became more personal.
“I’d define a zine as a handmade leaflet or booklet, a space where you can create any kind of content you want,” says Fife, who has also organised zine festivals and is studying for a PhD centred around archiving DIY subcultures. “I started producing perzines [zines that are closer to personal essays or memoirs],” she says. “There’s something about the physical nature of them, they can be kept. And you have more control over how many copies there are, you can know how far they will go. For work of that nature, when you’re feeling vulnerable, that’s really important. The internet is great, but trolls are omnipresent.”
3. Start creating
“Think about what you engage with, what stops your thumb in its endless scroll,” says Riches. “Then think about what’s missing. Write down – privately – what you want your content principles to be. What topics are you going to cover, what are your boundaries? What will you enjoy creating? It sounds limiting, but it’s very freeing; it stops you trying to talk about everything at once.”
Creating a fanzine, says Fife: “Is still very lo-fi. It’s a Sharpie, sketchbooks, pieces of paper. Although these days I scan everything into my computer and create PDFs to print and distribute. I don’t want any more incidents with things getting stuck in work photocopiers.”
The DIY approach has also worked for Rafiq, whose new podcast This Thing Changed My Life launched this month. “Buy equipment and teach yourself,” she says. “Some editing software is free and it might seem scary, but it’s not. YouTube taught me everything, and I started recording in a day. It’s saved me so much time and money.”
4. Believe in yourself
The biggest barriers, however, often aren’t the practical ones. Why, you might think, would anyone want to hear from you?
“It’s hard to put something out into the world,” says Fife. “I used to think that anything I made had to be perfectly finished and polished. It will never be perfect, so push through those feelings of anxiety. Put whatever you can out there, don’t wait for validation to start.”
“There will always be someone for whom your work is meaningful.”
5. Build your community
Fife, Rafiq and Riches all agree they have found communities through their creative work. “I found both friends and collaborators,” says Fife.
But it’s worth remembering that an audience won’t appear overnight. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” says Riches. “And you need to put the work in. Start where you feel comfortable, ask your close friends to like what you’re doing, then expand to other friends. Build.”
Riches also points out that finding a community and finding an audience are very closely linked. “Don’t forget that social media is supposed to be social,” she says. “Support other people in your field. Collaborate. Share. Showcase others and make connections.”
Before starting to produce her own, Fife bought zines created by others. She recommends looking at zine distros – places that sell and distribute a number of different fanzines. “I go to Pen Fight Distro, Synchronise Witches Press and Vampire Hag. There will be a voice you enjoy out there.”
Rafiq proved there was an audience for her work that had been ignored or discounted by much of the culture industry. “Young people do love the arts,” she says. “Arts criticism isn’t just an endeavour for Oxbridge grads. You can be from the inner city, you can be BAME and want this.”
The effort is worth it, Fife says. “I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me over the years because they listened to my voice. I don’t have a professional background in writing, art or design, but I made things that meant something to others.”
Use Your Voice ...
At the heart of the Your Voice. Your Way campaign is a zine, sponsored by Levi’s, being produced by eight talented young creatives, each with their own story to tell.
The zine will be published alongside the Guardian on Saturday, 27 June
