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.

This Email …

Well, I’m hard at work for the next episode. Unlike the previous ones, this one actually requires me to go outside. »shudder« so I’m doing it when I can. Thank God for DST. But more on that in a minute. I want to share something. It doesn’t turn out to be anything important, so you can hang your suspense for something worthwhile. 

The day after I uploaded the fourth(third) episode to YouTube, I woke up to my alarm clock, which is just my phone strategically placed under my pillow. (This way I hear it but my roommate does not.) Also on my phone is my email, and I usually see right away in the morning that I have 4 or 5 new emails. Generally, these are from social networking sites or spam, but sometimes I will wake to good news, like I have a new follower on Pinterest or I just made 15 bucks on Fireshield earrings. This was a bit different.

As I sleepily read my email, I saw that I had a message from someone on youtube. Here it is:

It says:hey there 

you have some very interesting videos uploaded but small views. i think they are not really getting noticed. 
have you ever tried to buy subscribers or views to make your channel bigger. 
subgrow . com 
i used that site before with one of my channal and their subscriber packages made my views rise big over a few weeks. 
they are the best on the net 

Since I am new to uploading YouTube, I had never gotten spam before, and wasn’t entirely sure this WAS spam. Actually, it reminded me of a message I received from fanfiction.net not too long ago, asking if I was considering putting a piece I never finished up for “adoption.”

Now, I was sure this person was promoting their company, but I was excited that they had written to me, personally. I went through the day thinking on how to reply. I did not want to buy subscribers, as that would defeat the purpose of this project, and I hadn’t done much promotion, as I was »spoiler« saving it for the next episode. But I was curious on how this person (I assume it was a “she” for some reason) found me in the first place.

I didn’t get to a computer until the next day, where I sat at work and hastily opened my channel mail to reply. And that was where I saw that the mail had not only gone out to me, but to at least eight other channels. This was disheartening, though not entirely. I wrote back anyway with the same plan, careful to use the weird language that was bouncing around my brain.

Heh, very interesting indeed! I did not know there was such a thing as buying subscribers. How does that work? Is that just to build hype?

Tell me, I am curious, how did you happen to come across my channel? Maybe in that way, I can figure out a way to …hm, lure others.

And I sent it. It has been nearly a week, and I have not heard back. But it makes a good story to put in my book, so there!

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.

Progress or Lack Thereof

It’s been two weeks since I started this (a relatively short time, but long if you consider that I only have seven weeks to do this project.) I know I don’t want to promote this thing so much, at least until the “promotion” episode, but I guess I was hoping for a spam comment or two. It’s like the paradox from Catcher in the Rye: bad attention is better than no attention at all.

Come to think of it, that’s not from Catcher in the Rye at all. Nevermind.

Well, the end result of all of this is a well-designed book filled with graphics ripped off from Shepard Fairey — I mean — inspired by Shepard Fairey. Since the content, meaning what happens with this attempted fandom, doesn’t really matter, I guess I don’t care too much. Sometimes no attention is perfectly adequate, especially if you’re an INTJ like myself. (For those unfamiliar with Meyers-Briggs, it means that I stay away from people and plot their imminent destruction. Quietly.) 

So far I’ve got a total of 11 views and no comments. That’s perfectly fine. I think it’s clear I would have rather gone with one of the earlier ideas rather than making a video of myself being an egotistical idiot, and it’s really the book that counts in the end. Now I’m repeating myself, so I sound unsure … ugh … really, I don’t care, you have to believe me! WHY DON’T YOU BELIEVE ME??

Anyhow, I have to write the script for episode 2(episode 3?) today so that I can film and edit it tomorrow. I am spending way too much time in the production of the episodes and not enough in the book. I don’t even have a solid layout. And it’s due in a month and a half… fuck. 

Let’s Go!

Even with the introduction uploaded, I can’t slow down. I’ve already written the second episode (actually the first episode) and the script is much longer. I don’t think I can film this one in a half an hour like the last. And something tells me my roommates’ patience is waning. I’m either going to have to find a new camera man or set up some sort of rig so I can talk to myself  … myself. 

I’m kinda afraid to check the video, since I don’t really like the first one. The second will be much better! I’ll check everything after that. I know, I know, I said “let the spam come” but the truth is I don’t want to know how it’s doing until after I put up something I actually feel is good. The intro is stupid, to tell the truth. I don’t know if I’ll ever achieve “good” since I don’t have the time to spend so much time on this, as I’ve mentioned earlier (this is close to becoming my catch phrase), but I think I can get to ‘adequate.” Don’t you?

So let’s go.

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.