Bret Devereaux

There seems to be a real disconnect between the things classicists think connect with the public and thus do in 'public facing' forums and what - it seems to me - actually connects with the public? 1/16

There is lots of pleasant sort of (made up example) 'How I learned to love gardening through Vergil' stuff (plus ClassicsDiscourse). But if you look at public-facing enthusiasts who do reach the public (in part because they have to), that's mostly not what they're doing? 2/16

Instead a lot of what they're going is creating public-facing, accessible forms of fairly basic information in catchy ways - here are the basic themes of Vergil, here are the basics of ancient Greek clothing, here is the structure of a Roman legion. 3/16

To be clear, I don't think that is the pinnacle of the possible. A lot of the enthusiast material I see, I find myself wishing they had more formal training so they could add deeper layers of analysis to the foundational material they are laying out. 4/16

But they are reaching people and in doing so, claiming a public value for the work we do which is absolutely necessary for funding the work we do, be it via public funds or tuition dollars (which require butts-in-seats). In the end, we are reliant on the public. 5/16

(Don't misunderstand me, Eidolon was important, and outreach isn't the only kind of communication we need to do. Views aren't everything, but they *do* matter if the goal is to reach the public and we need to reach the public if we want to still have departments in a decade.)7/16

And yes, YouTube is different in views, but I can say with some confidence that even with a text-heavy blog, greater reach is possible. ACOUP does Eidolon's lifetime numbers each year and I know a committed public engagement classics publication could beat that handily. 8/16