Today, I talked about what is going on with Russia and its drones over Poland.
Executive summary : it’s no big deal.
I explain why here.
I will need to find a better method for sourcing video clips to go with my little talks than “gank them off YouTube” because YouTube video download sites have gone the way of YouTube mp3 sites and become extremely shady places full of virii et al.
Next time I will try Pixabay, at least for the more generic sort of things I might need, like a stock photo of Putin or a shot of drones in flight or whatnot.
You can get a lot of mileage out of stock footage if you know what you’re doing.
And surprisingly enough, I do.
I have fallen in love with the idea of making my talk pieces look more professional with pics and clips. I know that for TikTok, that’s not really necessary, but I want my stuff to be comparable to the work of the YouTubers I like, and they seem to manage to have something other than their faces on the screen at least some of the time.
Besides, with the right clips, I can feel like I am a serious news anchor delivering an editorial on the nightly news, and that idea pickles me tink.
Heck, I might even try to get some halfway respectable clothes and trim my beard way back so that I don’t seem so much like a vagrant.
I just want to be appealing enough to get people’s attention and get taken seriously. Just having my out-there opinions in video form is not enough.
I suppose I ought to be trying to piss people off with rage bait so that they will be doing my bidding when they share my video with all their friends so they can go, “Holy crap, can you believe what this asshole is saying?”.
And I certainly have opinions that could be very effective at that. Some of which would be way, way too spicy and possibly get me arrested or assassinated.
And I am not willing to die for them. Not yet, anyhow.
Give me a terminal diagnosis and I might change my mind.
But I would have to actually get people’s attention first. And I do seem to be accumulating followers on TikTok at least, although from what I have read and hurt, most of those are bots.
Just between you and me, I don’t really care if they’re bots. Whatever gets me closer to that magical 1K followers mark where I can start making money is fine by me.
Of course, if I was truly to take all this seriously, I would have to read books on how to promote yourself and follow all the best practices for wannabe video stars and do perky things like show up on all social media sites and be all charming and bright and Jesus Christ, I am bored just going through the list.
I may have to do things my own way. I am not averse to ideas on how to get people’s attention but I have learned the hard way that works for others often does not work for me and so I am stuck inventing my own way of doing things no matter what.
It’s hard work being an original but it’s not like I ever had a choice.
Oh, and speaking of self-promotion, I managed to create a gig on Fiverrrrr.
I highly doubt it will go anywhere but at least I did it and therefore I can say I am on the market, more or less.
I promise I can give you quality like you’ve never seen before faster than you think is possible and at a rate you won’t believe.
Is it just me, or does that paragraph sound like Trump?
What the hell, clearly it works!
More after the break.
It came from Generation X!
There is a problem lurking on the horizon between me and my happy little world at the Kinsmen Adult Center.
You see, all the time I have been going there, I have had this nasty snarky voice in my head saying how lame and stupid it all is and how it can’t believe that this is what it’s come to in my life and rankling at the general patronizing tone of everything and basically shitting all over the entire experience on every level.
If it had its way, I would never go again, and I would deny even having heard of it.
I have, of course, been ignoring and suppressing this pissy little voice of mine. These are perfectly lovely people and I enjoy being able to socialize with them (with the help of Prince Xanax) and it’s doing wonders for my ability to relax socially in general.
And I assumed that my inner snotty Gen X teen would eventually get over itself and shut the fuck up and I would adjust.
But that’s not what is happening at all. I’m going in the opposite direction. Last time I was at Kinsmen, that voice was louder than ever and it took a lot of self-control and willpower to keep it from making me let loose with the snarkasm.
And now I am terrified that sooner or later, I won’t be able to hold it back, and I will end up unleashing an exploding firehose torrent of angry and bitter verbal abuse that hurts the feelings of some quite harmless senior care workers and volunteers and old folks and quite possibly alienate them all badly enough that I can’t go back.
Which is why I am writing about it tonight. This blog is my therapy, after all. I am hoping that by writing about the issue, I can release some of the pent up bile and maybe delay my inevitable meltdown for a little while longer.
I feel so god damned conflicted!
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.