Nana Wants to Be a Tech Influencer (I Should Have Said No Immediately)

By Ken Hollow, the man who created a monster by teaching a fox spirit what a niche audience is

It started, as most of Nana’s ideas do, with her reading something she shouldn’t have and arriving in my workspace with a look of terrible purpose.

“Ken. How many followers do you have?”

I told her. She made a face that I can only describe as diplomatically unimpressed.

“I could do that.”

“Do what?”

“Explain technology. To the internet. Like you do.”

I put down my coffee. “You want to be a tech influencer.”

“I want to explain things. I’m good at explaining things.”

She is, genuinely, good at explaining things. This is the problem. Because the next logical thought I had was: she actually could do this. And that thought has led us here.

The Pitch

Nana’s argument, delivered with the quiet confidence of someone who has already made the decision and is merely informing you of it, was as follows:

“People like me. I ask good questions. And I understand things in the way that regular people understand things, before they learn too much and start using words like ‘latency’ and ‘bandwidth’ without explaining them.”

She paused.

“You use those words. I’ve heard you.”

I told her I always explain them.

“After you use them. I’m suggesting you explain them instead of using them.”

This is technically a valid critique of my writing style and I will not be acknowledging it further.

Her proposed content concept: “A fox who is learning technology explains it to other people who are also learning technology, but from the perspective of someone who genuinely didn’t know what a QR code was until three months ago and found the learning interesting rather than embarrassing.”

I told her that was actually a compelling angle.

She said: “I know.”

The Test Run

We decided she would explain one concept, on camera, in her own words, with no prep time. The concept I gave her: 5G.

What followed was either a masterclass in beginner-friendly communication or the most chaotic three minutes of explanation I have ever witnessed, depending on how you feel about analogies involving fox dens and whether radio waves have “manners.”

Her take on 5G, verbatim:

“5G is like upgrading from a single-lane road to a motorway. You can move faster and more cars can go at once. But the fastest lane — the really fast one they show in the adverts — is only in certain places, and if you drive anywhere else you’re back on a normal road. Most people are on a normal road most of the time. The adverts are about the motorway.”

I have explained 5G to people dozens of times. I have never explained it that cleanly in three sentences. I’m choosing to be proud rather than threatened.

Her Requirements

Nana has conditions. She presented them as non-negotiable, which they probably are.

Condition 1: She will not pretend to know things she doesn’t know. “If I don’t understand something, I will say so. That is the whole point. The audience should trust that my confusion is real.”

Condition 2: She gets final approval on any analogy I suggest she uses. “Your analogies are accurate but sometimes boring. I will improve them.” (She has a point. She has been improving my analogies for months. I’ve started just letting her write them.)

Condition 3: She will not discuss anything that requires “a computer science degree or an unreasonable amount of patience.” I asked where she’d draw that line. She said: “TCP/IP handshakes. That’s where I draw the line.” Fair enough.

Condition 4: She gets credit. “I am not a mascot. I am a contributor.” I told her she’d been credited in every post she’s appeared in. She said: “Then we’re already doing this correctly and I want it to be more official.” We’re working on what “more official” means.

The Current Situation

As of writing this, Nana has explained the following to me, unprompted, in the last two weeks: what the cloud is (using a library analogy that I genuinely think is better than mine), what website cookies do (she described third-party tracking cookies as “digital gossip” and I cannot improve on that), and why her phone’s battery dies faster in cold weather (she figured this out herself and then lectured me about it for four minutes).

She has also drafted three questions she wants to answer in future posts, which I will not be sharing here because she insists on “the element of surprise.”

I asked if she was nervous about putting herself out there on the internet.

She thought about it for a moment.

“People on the internet are mostly just confused and looking for someone to explain things clearly without making them feel stupid. I can do that.”

Probably true.

“Also, I’m a fox spirit. My threshold for what constitutes a threat is considerably higher than most content creators.”

Also probably true.

Watch this space. She’s already asked about the analytics dashboard and whether follower count updates in real time. I’m going to have to explain that, too.

— Ken

P.S. — Nana has reviewed this post and added the following note: “The TCP/IP handshake comment was a joke. I know what a TCP/IP handshake is. I just don’t think it makes good content.” She is correct on both counts.