Episode 4 is now uploaded, and there are a lot of random posters posted around my school. We ran around the school filming and being strange, and I admit it was really fun. But the best part about this project? There’s only one episode left after this! That means I can finally concentrate on the book part of the project! Awesome.
Script: Episode One
Okay, done with that. Back to the usual nonsense.
Here is the script from Episode One, in case anyone’s interested.
Oh, hello! I didn’t see you there. I was busy putting on my Tanuki ears.
(Title Card) Ep. 1: Appearance and Attitude
Hey there. As I said last week, this is an internet thingy that will teach you some of the tricks of those internet followings out there, in the hopes to get one of your own. Where to go from there? I don’t know … then people will be at your command, and it’s not my business what you tell them to do.
Well, anyhow. The first and most basic step of getting attention is to have some sort of signature look or outfit. I mean, almost everyone out there with a following has that appeal. Lady Gaga likes to wear her lunch, Daniel Tosh has those v-necks and that haircut. Hell, even Mister Rogers has that sweater-and-sneakers getup he wears every episode. And who doesn’t love Mister Rogers? No one. That’s who. Don’t be a hater.
Even if your content is terrible, sometimes you can draw attention with your looks. Maybe you’re not funny, but you’re wearing this weird vintage coonskin cap, and it looks great. Everyone will be so distracted by how great/awesome/bizarre-o you look that they’ll recognize your next video anyhow. It’s kind of like that movie, Wild Wild West. Yeah, the script was awful, but did you SEE those costumes? No? Am I too old or something?
Anyhow. Today, I will try to get my own signature look. Now, probably no one noticed last week because I own such a small camera and live in a tiny tiny room, but I was wearing a plaid dress. If I had a larger camera, I might try for something that would cover my whole body; but more likely, I’m going to go for something from the neck up. Also, since I am but a poor student, I refuse to buy anything new. Shall we?
(montage. Tanuki ears, baseball cap, fedora, mustache finger, giant earrings, ridiculous makeup, goth makeup, bandana, hat I made, stuffed animal on head, glasses, studded collar, scarf.)
Alright. I think I’m gonna go with this hat. Mostly because I made it, which means no one else has it. Also, it’s a bright color, which will stand out against my black-of-night hair. From now on, I will wear this every episode. Let’s see what my roommate thinks!
(Leyat) Hey, Rachel, you look awesome!
It’s already working!
While this works for me because the camera loves me, not everyone wants to be seen. What if you’re just doing a voice-over, or writing something, or … um … hiding in a box? (Shot of someone in a box) Yeah, like that guy.
Well that’s easy. Be funny!
Yes, it is that easy! How? Really? You don’t know how to be funny? What the hell is wrong with you, why would anyone ever follow you?
(sigh.) Fine. I will go over some basics of being funny.
- Make fun of other people, especially your audience. Downplaying other people makes you seem better by comparison. It’s how Stephen Colbert does it. And everyone loves Stephen. You know how many marriage proposals that guy gets a day?!
- Point out things in everyday life that are kind of dumb. Like, what’s up with hot dogs coming in packs of ten while rolls come in packs of eight? Why do the English not use the English Measurement system? It’s taking a leaf from Jerry Seinfeld’s book. Don’t tell me you didn’t watch Seinfeld, you liar. Everyone loved Kramer until he started telling racist jokes. That reminds me
- Don’t be racist, unless you mean to be. Um. I mean … unless that’s your thing. Telling racist jokes. Like, that’s your draw. But …come on, be tasteful. Ooh. That leads me to
- Be tasteful! No dead baby jokes … no matter how funny … okay. Dead baby jokes are fine. Just tasteful ones.
- Put in tons of pop culture references, even ones from other internet followings. That way, you seem hip and stylish and super funny, even if people have seen these things already many, many times. It’s Super Special Awesome!
- A great way to get some laughs is to be over-the-top outrageous, almost crossing the line into insanity. But be careful with this one, because you might be mistaken for an actual crazy person. But if you don’t care then neither do I!
On a last note, if you’re going verbal, you might want to think about a cachphrase. Something like …”Believe in me who believes in you” or “so long and thanks for all the fish.” But it really depends on what your theme is. For instance … my theme is … meta. So maybe I’ll go with … uh … ooh, I know!
(cut off by outro).
Jinkies!
I’m a doctor, dammit, not an internet phenomenon!
May the force be with you.
We’re gonna need a bigger camera.
Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a shit.
I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!
Screw the rules, I have a green hat!
Episode 3 (4th video) is up on Youtube! Check it out, guys, we got a comment, though, on the last video. Someone liked my comment about Jacob from Twilight being a dog and Edward being a dude with a bad wig. Also I’m not the only one watching these things anymore. I wonder if it counts if you watch the embed.
Anyhow, this one is a spin off of the last one, kind of a 2-parter. However, Episode 4 (5) is going to be tricky.
The third episode is uploaded onto YouTube (although it is really Episode 2 because the first one was really just an intro … but I digress. And digest.) hurray! It’s got 4 views (all by me because I couldn’t figure out how to embed it) and it focuses a lot on Starbucks and Twilight. I’m going to have to quicken my pace if I want to get all 6 (7?) episodes up before this project is due. Ugh. No motivation.
The first official episode is up and ready! It is much better than the intro! Tell your friends! Make some comments. I need some fodder for my project, guys. I honestly don’t care what you say, so long as I get some sort of feedback.
Productivity
I feel today was productive. The intro episode, however the quality, is uploaded, and I can’t WAIT for the spam to fly so I can write about it. In the end, it isn’t so much how successful the fandom is, it’s that something happens so I have something to write about in my thesis book.
I seem to be doing okay without the videos, even. Someone is following me who I don’t know! Unless it’s one of the England kids and I just don’t know it … or if it’s like tumblr’s equivilant of Tom.
The videos are on a YouTube account called ProjectRachelNation (wtf RachelNation was taken! WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS). It’s under my gmail (I think) which means I had to delete all my favorites just to avoid another one of those situations like that time on DeviantArt when my friend decided to look through my favorites … um … let’s just call it a Noodle Incident and never mention it again.
Anyhow, I basically have a blank youtube channel. Maybe one day I’ll upload my other two videos, A Transformation of Tompkins Square Park and Painted: A Study in Heavy Metal Poisoning. I wrote and filmed both but acted in neither of those for good reason: I cannot remember lines unless they are first delivered by someone else.
Whatever. I just hope something happens.
Introductory episode uploaded! The actual episodes will be less me talking to the camera and more doing stuff. I know the quality is terrible, but remember that I have to do seven of these before my thesis is due in April, so no re-dos.
Starting
I had the class today. It was a bit of a rush, since we were running rather late (what else is new) and everyone wanted to go home. But I managed to get some feedback and …
No one liked my ideas.
Bummer.
Luckily, they offered a suggestion: to make a YouTube channel/blog that explains how to get your own internet/real life following. And that, in turn, will be the attempt to get a following. Not sure if that last part was my idea or someone else’s, but I think I’ll take the credit since I will be taking little credit for everything else.
I have an idea so now it’s time to start.
But this basically means that I have to write a script a week, as well as keep the blog posts, and film, edit, upload, and hope to God that someone responds or I will have nothing to write about. And then I have to design the book that tells the story, because people still aren’t going to look at it no matter how funny I am or not. Might as well write a book of obituaries for all the good my writing skills are going to do me here.
Hope it will go well. I’d better start …um . . yesterday.
My Critera
I brainstormed with my roommate, mostly because the writing center at school isn’t opened yet (why have it closed when there’s so much writing that needs to be done??), along with my friend Kara and one or two classmates. There’s some criteria to what to do to gather this “following.”
A. It has to be something simple.
Sure, people might want to read hilarious poems about zombie rabbis, or webcomics featuring personified internet trolls, but that would take too long, and is overly complicated. Why spend so much time on this when I could fall on my ass and get 10,000 Youtube views?
B. I have to be willing to do it.
Hell if I’m actually willing to fall on my ass for 10,000 YouTube views. Okay, maybe for 10,000, but in all likelihood I’d peak at 1000, and that’s just not worth it. This also means nothing involving nudity (mine or anyone else’s), no eating bizarre foods concocted by my sadistic friends, and no setting things I like on fire for symbolic meanings.
C.It has to be several episodes or posts
Just one is never enough. There’s no guarantee that one video or weird fanfiction will get lots of attention. Unless I’m Rebecca Black, but I’m not (I’m actually chorally trained.) The more I post, the more likely it will be that someone will see it, or them.
D. It has to be appealing.
This one is fairly obvious. I mean, why would I watch or read something stupid? Okay, I mean, why would I read or watch something boring? It CAN be stupid, I suppose, but I would prefer if there was some sort of intelligence or thought involved. Hence the no-falling-on-my-ass. I cannot emphasize that enough.
E. It can’t be too embarrassing
As if I don’t embarrass myself enough outside the internet!
After analyzing the criteria and bouncing ideas off people (and laughing as they winced) , we only came up with a few solutions:
#awkward moments: a twitter and tumblr account posting everyday awkward situations. We could probably update this several times a day.
not-caution: photoshopping caution labels to say the exact opposite thing. ie “Children and hot beverages should not be kept apart” and “immediately drive or operate heavy machinery after taking.”
book blogging: I had read several book blogs, where someone fairly funny or ridiculously critical reads a well-known book series and blogs on it as he/she goes along. I’m pretty funny myself, not to toot my own horn (toot toot), but I’ve already read most of the made-fun-of serieses (like Twilight). Second reactions are not quite as funny.
That’s it so far. Now I’ve just got to present this to my class. Hopefully 26 mildly intelligent but highly creative people will have better ideas than me.
Introduction
So it’s my last semester of college, and I plan for it to be my last semester of school. I’ve got less classes than usual (which would still be a great amount if I went to a normal school), but that includes the big project: my Thesis.
Now, since I’m not in grad school, I would think I wouldn’t have to write a thesis. But like with everything else, this school likes to be the exception rather than the rule. I’ve been preparing for this for a while, though. I had the written part of the thesis done last semester, and now comes the design area: to make a project jumping off from the paper.
Okay. I’ve got the winter break to think about it, and I’m sure I’ll figure out something. But, of course, the semester started last week, and I’ve got nothing. My paper was on Stephen Colbert and Group Mentality, there isn’t really anything visual about that. Well … I do have one idea, with the way my brain works. A brain that says if you can’t photoshop it, just take the picture yourself.
It’s a diary account to attempt to create my OWN internet following. With social media, youtube, twitter, and billions of bloggers, it shouldn’t be that hard, right? Even if nothing happens, I could write about that. Besides, this is supposed to be a graphic design project, so the text content doesn’t really matter. No one’s gonna stand there and read the whole thing.
Only one problem remains, the big one: what am I going to do to try and gather a following? Sing online? Post stupid pictures? Photoshop mustaches on celebrities?
I guess I have a few days to figure that out. Until then, this is my first diary post. I hope to have something more interesting in the future.
