An idea came to me while writing a blog post just now. My blog is still fairly secret, and every once in a while, I write an entry that doesn’t contain drug use, and I feel this one could be shared more publicly. I miss the days of pride in my work because I don’t share this blog with anyone and Facebook no longer supports blog-like posts as it once did. People aren’t reading things much on Facebook or really on social media anymore. It’s all about videos and short TikTok clips.
One of the things that comes in my feed quite regularly on social media are stand-up comedians telling a joke or a short routine and almost everyone that is posted that I see is enjoyable and brings a smile to my face.
Recently one comedian in a rant that seemed almost angry was talking about another comedian who was faking their act and performing in front of a fake background with a laugh track instead of an audience. He was pondering whether or not he should call out this comedian publicly.
I read some of the comments and they went both directions. I felt obligated to add my two cents because the thought stayed with me and soured my enjoyment of some of the other routines. Every time I saw a comedian standing in front of a brick wall telling a joke, I wondered whether it was real or fabricated in their living room.
I now watch every one of these comedian shorts with skepticism and that’s not fair to them or me. They’re still funny, and they’re still enjoyable and really it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s fake or real. It’s a piece of entertainment generated to make me smile, and it succeeds, so I stopped worrying whether it was this comedian or that comedian who was faking.
But just now, as I was writing and thinking it was an interesting story, It occured to me there was no reason why I couldn’t do the same. I could post videos of my blog posts nobody sees, standing in front of a brick wall rambling into a microphone. It could be a TikTok video and I might get likes and hearts, which I so desperately seek.
Of course, the negative side of my brain immediately piped up with its opinion and said there’s no way I could do that because I’m too self-conscious, and I just wouldn’t do a good job, so put that idea out of your mind.
That negative side of me is generally what wins and controls my life in such a way that I end up not doing things. But this one intrigued me, and I realized that I didn’t need to expose my real self doing it. I could use AI. It wouldn’t even have to be a representation of me. I could use a cartoon or a cow or my artificial AI friend that appears in many of my cow videos. and a cartoon representation doing stand-up.
It would obviously not be real, but in a sense, it wouldn’t have to look real because that is the point. It’s just a different way to tell a story visually. My blog is 20 years old and has almost 3,000 posts in it. Maybe 12 of them have been read by actual people. From here forward, I could turn the better posts into video presentations on a fake stand-up comedian stage and have them seen by a few more than 12 people I’m sure.
I mean, I’ve got almost 10,000 views of YouTube and TikTok videos I’ve made where all I do is count 14 cows. When you think about it, that’s an impressive number for such an incredibly dull subject. If I made videos with enjoyable content I’m sure that number would be better. It doesn’t have to blow up huge to make me happy.
I don’t want to be famous.
I just want a few fans.
I’ll have to do some serious debating with the negative side of my brain that will try to stop me at every turn but at this moment at 7:30 a.m. while I still lay in bed, I think it’s a great idea. I will try a few tests. One with my voice and perhaps one using a whole new character. It’s a whole new exciting adventure to explore.
The deciding factor is whether I’m still excited about it tomorrow when the joy of the idea becomes the chore of actually doing the work. If I still think it’s a great idea at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow after I’ve finished counting the cows again, then you’ll probably see more of them. Hearts, likes and praise will make a difference.
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