It's, um, Not What You Think

My apologies for not writing here for days.  For those interested, I've produced content for the map blog, and for a recent project called shifting sands, and for patreon, but not here ... and of course, here is the only place that really counts.

My daughter, her husband and their son had to vacate their former place of residence at the end of February; they can't take possession of their next residence until the 16th of March, so for the present they're bivouaked with Tamara and me.  We're all friendly and pleasant, though our place is just 750 sq.ft., so naturally there are hurdles.  One benefit is that my daughter and I were able to record a video for her let's play site on Monday, which is always fun; she's been in the middle of a long and difficult move and hasn't been able to post anything, so she's glad to have something to put there.  Please have a look if you're willing, give her a like and let it run a bit, since that helps her stats.  It's me explaining how I play Oxygen Not Included, which might reveal something of my general character with regards to D&D.  It is, after all, a design-based logistical game.

I wasn't able to put a preview up of the Streetvendor's Guide last Friday, and the way it looks I won't this Friday either.  There's lots going on, I'm struggling to find quiet time to do my job (which for whatever reason needs doing) and frankly I haven't even been able to open the document since last Thursday.  Lately, the time I've found for myself has been spent making maps because it's comparatively relaxing compared to producing serious content.  It doesn't help that I've run into a block regarding the layout of the wood section early parts ... as that's what I've started putting together.  Things are sure to settle down after a week or so, when I can return to my weekly pattern of equanimity.

Did have a useful conversation about the production of content, motivated by yet another one of thos many youtube videos in which some person talks about all the people who are quitting youtube and how hard it is to make money on the platform, and what's it all for anyway, and besides the real hard part is finding something meaningful to make content about.  You know the type.  Here's an example from a mature, adult woman whose able to express herself competently without having to posture like either a testosterone-driven jackass or an estrogen-possessed flake.

I trust that's an equally balanced insult of people of both sexes.  I don't want to play favourites.

Creating something new is hard.  Therefore, it's obviously easier to create something that's, um, derivative.  Something derivative may receive a lot of views and likes, but at the same time it's not exactly soul-sustaining.  If we make something derivative, it feels like it's derivative, so any actual praise we get for it feels, um, empty.

If later we then create something actually original, we can't help noticing that it gets precisely the same praise as something derivative.  Often, it gets less praise.  This is discouraging.  In fact, it's discouraging in the same way that praise for derivative stuff feels empty.  This is true even if the channel is making money.

All in all, this result undermines one's motivation to produce ... anything.  In fact, it's rather crippling.  Fortunately for me, I experienced this spiral in roughly the 1980s, when my audience consisted of no more than 60 persons at the best of times, and more usually a circle of about 6 friends.  Eventually I settled into a groove of comfortably creating content regardless of anyone ever seeing it.  I had no idea the internet would eventually happen.

Now that it has, I try occasionally to take some advantage of it ... only to be usually disappointed.  But I've been better trained to handle that then most people who are turning to the internet as, um, an alternative to working a real job.  Only to find, all too often, that creating stuff is a lot like a real job that fails to provide the purpose of a job: income.

Lets see ... I ought to provide some sort of advice here.  If you're going to make a youtube channel, film yourself doing something you're already doing every day.  If you like to sail, and you would be doing that anyway, learn how to post four well-secured cameras in the right places around your vessel and then film yourself until the power on these cameras runs out.  Then teach yourself how to voice over, so you can explain where you are, what you're doing, why you're doing it and so on.  The end product of cutting all four camera feeds may turn out to be utter garbage ... but at least you got to do what you would have done anyway.  And you've gained some knowledge of how cameras, editing and overdubbing works.  Win-win.

I write.  If the world were empty of all people, if I were the last man left alive, I would still write down things today because four years from now, I'd enjoy reading what I wrote four years ago.  This is the sort of madness you'll need if you're going to do something for a living, without a boss that pays you money just for showing up.

DON'T decide to do something you've never done before and film that.  Don't.  You won't like the thing ... and if your channel somehow does well, you'll learn to really, really, really hate the thing.  Eventually, you'll hate your fans for liking that you do something that you hate.  You'll hate them.  And that'll come out.  And you'll regret it.  Not just because your channel isn't popular any more, but because it once was, it stopped being, and you're going to utterly hate yourself for letting it fail.  It's a lose-lose.  Don't do this.

DON'T base your channel or anything else you're doing on someone else's work.  You may have a mission to teach people the wonders of history, but if all you're doing with your history channel is repeating information that exists in books, or hundreds of other history channels, in the end you're going to feel like you're on a hamster wheel.  You may have a wonderful plan for your next presentation, you may put hundreds of hours into making your presentation pretty, or witty, but if you're on a hamster wheel and that's not where you really want to be, in a few years you'll realise that this is all getting you nowhere.  Even if it makes money for you.  In the end, you'll realise you're not making any kind of difference at all, any more than all the other copies of your work do.  You'll realise you're not special, and you're never going to be.  You won't like that.  And worst of all, it's not going to be an alternative to doing a "real job."  It will be a real job.  One you might be able, someday, to get numb to, but not one that's going to fill you with joy.

Truth be told, most of us don't do something every day that's worth pointing a camera at.  Sorry.  Just how it is.  Most of the time, these people who sigh and show regret for the internet not being what they hoped for are just too, um, ordinary to be watched.  Again, sorry.  Just how it is.  Performance is for performers.  It's a type.  Not everyone is a class clown.  And most of the time, being a class clown isn't all that rewarding anyhow.

It's great that youtube and the general internet gives everyone a shot at being a class clown, or some other kind of performer ... but realistically, a "shot" isn't much.  It's not fame.  It's mostly not rewarding.  It's mostly a wasted afternoon getting ready for the audition.