"I couldn't keep it up when it was free": Why Omocoro's Satoshi Nagata writes a paid diary
Satoshi Nagata, who is active as a writer and video personality for the popular web media "Omocoro," also serializes a paid article series on note called "Satoshi Nagata's 'Fan Fan Honey Land'".
What you can read for 300 yen a month is a so-called diary. Nagata's daily life and thoughts at the time have been updated every day for three years.
We asked Nagata, the vice president of Bar Mitzvah, why he writes a paid diary while working as a writer, and what the benefits of writing on note are.
I'm able to keep writing precisely because it's paid.
--You started note in January 2020. Why did you decide to post on note?
Satoshi Nagata (hereinafter, Nagata):My colleague at Bar Mitzvah, Da Vinci Osoreyama (Yu Shinada), was updating his paid note every day, and I was reading it thinking, "That's really great." I started mine by imitating him.
I had originally wanted to post my own content on a blog or something, but I always quit after writing about two articles.
Even when I signed up for premium plans on blog services or put pressure on myself, I would just get used to the loss of paying money myself, and think, "Well, I don't really have to do it," and I wouldn't keep it up.
So when I tried a paid subscription magazine on note, even someone like me who is bad at it was able to keep it up! Sorry for sounding like a Shinken Zemi manga. But I honestly think so.
--So you started it as a mechanism to continue writing.
Nagata:Yes, if that hadn't been there, I probably wouldn't have been able to keep it up. If I'm receiving money from readers, I have to update it properly, right? They are paying money expecting an article to come out every day.
Also, I think a somewhat deep reader base that has gone out of their way to pay is gathering, so being able to write things that I can't really say in public might be a good thing about paid content.
It's not like I'm exposing anything, but it also functions as a place to put out my feelings, or "I made this kind of content, but I felt this way about it," or even some minor self-reflection. Reflection is a sweet poison, after all...
A unique diary style written in bullet points
--The style of the diary you write every day is quite unique. It's written like bullet points.
Nagata:The way I write the articles, the style of using a bullet point (・) at the beginning of the sentence, is the same as Osoreyama's. I asked him for permission to copy the style itself.
In reality, it's not bullet points, it just ends up being normal sentences, but just having this bullet point at the beginning makes it feel much easier for me as the writer.
Even if the sentences aren't connected that well, I can just keep writing like, "Well, this is a bullet point, so it's fine." Anyway, I think it's a format that makes it easy to write anything.
I feel like it suits me because the pressure to write something clever disappears. Well, the format was all thought up by Osorozan, though. I'm planning to eventually claim that I came up with it myself.
A place to talk about deeper parts of myself
—You've been writing on note every day; has it been a good experience?
Nagata:It's interesting to keep a record of what I was thinking at the time. Sometimes, while writing, I'm able to articulate my thoughts and feelings well, and there are moments where I realize, "Oh, so that's the kind of person I am."
It's surprisingly hard to know when you get excited or when you get down. When you really think about it, things like "Why did I get annoyed at that moment?" or "Why was I happy?" often turn out to be not that big of a deal.
When you scribble those things down, you sometimes get surprisingly close to an answer. I found that part fun when I started writing on note myself.
I don't really reread my diary that much, but just writing it gives me little realizations. Maybe I'm using it in a therapeutic way.
Until recently, I was quite embarrassed to talk about myself on the internet. I'm into mahjong, but if I suddenly started talking about mahjong on Twitter or somewhere, everyone would be like, "I don't care."
But note is a place where I can talk about deeper parts of myself than on other social media, and it's a space where people actually want to read something about the person, so I feel like it's okay to talk about myself and my hobbies there.
Once I write it down, it becomes something I'm "okay with saying" to myself, and I've become able to talk about my hobbies in public too. That has resulted in various work opportunities, so I'm seriously grateful. Thank you soooooooo much, note!
—I think there are many people at Omocoro who write on note; would you recommend writing on note as a writer?
Nagata:I really want everyone to do it. Simply because I want to read it. It's fun to read the diary of someone you know, isn't it?
Sometimes you can find out things like, "Oh, so that's what they were thinking," like a little answer key later on, so I do have a desire to read the diaries of people close to me.
But, there are a lot of people who write just a little bit and then quit. There are many people at Omocoro who are as full of excuses as I am, so I want them to monetize it and compromise by writing with the mindset of, "I promised to update every day, so I have no choice."
It's also practice for lowering the bar. If your own ideals are too high, you get paralyzed. With the mindset of, "It's a diary, so I can write whatever I want!" And the mindset of, "Don't read it!!" Let's write! Everyone!
"Diaries" really are interesting.
—Diaries are great, aren't they? Interesting things happen to everyone every day, so I think anyone can easily write one.
Nagata:That's true. You can write about what happened that day, or what you ate.
I think using it as a log of your life like that is fine, but I think it's more interesting to also leave behind your "thoughts"—like what you are thinking about.
After 10 or 20 years, your way of thinking will be completely different, so you'd want to know what your past self was saying and thinking, right? I'm sure it would be absolutely fascinating to read that back later. Because the current you can't understand the feelings of your self from 20 years ago at all.
But that opportunity will be lost forever unless I save it now. Maybe I'm writing this now for my own enjoyment in old age. I want to think "This guy is crazy!" as soon as possible. I want to think "He's thinking such off-base things!" And I want to think "But he's got potential..." I want to think "If there are young people like him, Japan is safe." No, maybe that's asking too much.
Anyway, I want to tell everyone that "diaries are interesting." I hope a community of people who are enthusiasts about reading others' diaries will form. Let's all write, and let's read each other's work.
Satoshi Nagata
note: https://note.com/nagata0215
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NagataBros