Engaging

In general, I am suspicious/wary/bored of social media and video sharing, in the same way and for the same reasons I was with mobile phones, The FA Premier League, Amy Winehouse and food served on chopping boards.  I am wary of new things that look like they’ll be shit, and use them later because everyone else does and they become useful (or just unavoidable) for that fact. 

So I knew if I waited long enough, until ubiquity/saturation was achieved, I could sneak some interesting stuff online without exposing myself too much.

Also, I used to really dislike my appearance, and these days I am a bit more comfortable with myself.
(It comes with age (and was probably also helped, in my case, by losing three or four stone of entirely unnecessary weight along the way)).

How to engage, in a world full of noise?

How to make money from creativity? 

Engage: give it away.

So, in an experiment with engaging with the world, on my own terms, here’s a wee video I made a while back, which you may have missed (judging by the relatively disappointing number of views):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNkTA0NyxvE&feature=youtu.be

There seems to be an infinite number of videos of people sat in their houses playing songs.

But I’ve waited long enough through the ubiquicycle.  For the uninitiated, this applies to everything from Christianity to beards to hoodies to cooking to social media to irony, and it goes like this:  Someone trying something new (no one noticing)àA few people trying the thing (a few people noticing, most quite cool)àLots of people doing the thing (journalists noticing the cool people who like it)àthe thing getting a bit boring and predictableàeveryone noticingàeveryone joining inàcool people getting bored and moving on to the next thingàeveryone else doing the thing, thinking it’s greatàeveryone starting to get bored of itàbacklash, backlashing, backslashingàpeople stop doing it, leaving behind the real enthusiastsàeveryone realising the thing itself is quite good/neutral and what we do with it is the most important thingàsome people still into it, most not botheringàrepeating.

So, now that everyone is bored of it and moving on to the next thing (I have no knowledge of or interest in what the new thing is, I’m not 15), I’m making some of these videos.  Because now that everyone is bored of attention-seeking, fame-hungry bores who want a career in the music industry (because they don’t know it’s not an industry any more) I can finally have a go. 

And I like attention too – a very specific kind of attention, and as long as it’s always entirely on my own terms.  Which I will never tell you.  (Amn’t I just the worst?)

So, anyway, there will be more from me, I’ll be punting these videogrammes on the u-tubes, or whatever (that’s how the kids talk these days, isn’t it?)

Enjoy.

Or whatever.