I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my future. I've decided that I have to do something that I actually enjoy. After watching about two hours of the Dali Lama talk about how money corrupts and about happiness, I think it's important that I do something that makes me happy. At the same time I also want to do something that makes enough money to survive. I believe that I could live as a starving artist, but why should I if I have the opportunity to not? Looking at the future, it's easy to see where the world is going, on a broad level. The internet is where the money is, so I know that I need to learn how to use this thing to work for me. I have never been anti-internet, but I've never really spent hours browsing through Tumblr or Youtube watching silly videos of cats, or looking at memes. It's not me. But I think that it's actually more helpful to not do that because it's wasting my time on something that doesn't teach me much. I'd rather spend my time on CodeCadmey. I've decided that I am going to write every blog post from now on in HTML, just to get better.
I want to be an artist. So many people think that artists can't survive in the new information world, but the truth is just that certain mediums of art have become less popular. The internet is one of the greatest mediums for art. It can literally be anything you make, and just like every other type of art, there is good internet and bad internet. My goal now is to reinvent myself on the internet. I want to learn as much as I can about it and use it to my advantage so that the art that I'm doing now can be more easily displayed. This blog is a bug accomplishment because I've been posting here for the past three years, but I could never advertise it. The biggest road block is my extended family. They can't know about my personal life. My sexuality is easy to hide in real life, but not on the internet. If I have a blog where I talk about my life, it has to include my sexuality. I'm thinking of starting a second "kosher" blog, where I post the same blog posts as I have on this blog, but only not mention anything about my sexuality.
I want my image on the internet to be divided up into three different types of art. The first is my writing. I never realized it, but the fact that I blog so much, actually makes me a better writer, and I never considered this art, but it could be. The second is my 365 blog. Fine art is extremely easy for the internet world. I get more traffic to my 365 blog than anything else, and the reason why is because it is low commitment. Reading a page long blog post about my life requires time. You can look at my art for thirty seconds and then leave. It's attractive. The last is my vlogs. I am not comfortable in front of the camera, at least not when I have to talk about my life. Vlogs are extremely popular now. There are so many people that get paid for vlogging, and we've never heard of them. Have twenty thousand followers is just a drop in the population of the internet world, but it's enough to get paid. I made my first STAC vlog yesterday and it wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. I finished the entire thing in four hours. Katherine came to my house at three, and I was done editing at seven. This vacation is a huge opportunity to vlog, because I can easily squeeze them out. I plan to make another by the end of the week.
The biggest thing I realized about the people who become internet successful is that they are always producing. There is a vlogger named Charlie McDonnell, and I used to watch his videos religiously, but I haven't in a while. The problem he faced was something that so many artists face. He decided to pick quality over quantity. He sometimes goes for months without posting, when his full time job is to make Youtube videos. He took advantage of his popularity to support himself. I stopped watching him. Now he makes bigger movies and doesn't vlog as often. Now you compare him to another vlogger, WheezyWaiter, who posts about two or three times a week every week. This guy, Craig, knows what he's doing. Charlie has more subscribers, a lot more actually, 2 million, but his viewership has declined. Charlie manages to have a loyal fan base, even though he produces less because he is a cute British boy. Wheezy is a chubby man who looks like he could be your dad when you were a toddler. Wheezy has about 500,000 subscribers, but last month, if you add up all the views of Wheezy's videos, you get about 900,000 view. Last month, Charlie's three new videos got about 1.1 million views. The people you are selling your product to are mostly girls ages 8-16, which is why Charlie is still more "successful", but Wheezy is able to get close to what Charlie gets through hard work and a lot of videos. Wheezy's fan base is constantly growing, while Charlie's is shrinking. If Wheezy posted like Charlie does, he hardly have any views. Each video he makes gets about 50-60,000 views, but because he makes so many, he can compete with Charlie's 300,00 views per video. Charlie's main argument is that he wants to make videos he likes, and doesn't like the pressure of fighting for views, but what he forgets is that if he did have a pretty face and a cute accent, he'd be waiting tables and living with his mother because he has no college education and really no skills other than his self-taught film skills. Charlie get's to do the things he likes because he's attractive, but the things he likes to do aren't what sells on the internet. Ten minute films can only be so popular. They're not bad films, he's made two now, but if it was any other person doing that, they'd be poor. Vloggers or anyone who wants to be successful on youtube should all learn from Wheezy. His videos are of good quality, and he talks about many thought provoking topics, and still manages to be funny enough to keep the attention of the internet. I think that I'm pretty attractive, and gays are hot right now, so I could get internet famous in the way that Charlie did, but there are so many attractive people that eventually beauty can only get you so far on the internet. The VlogBrothers are probably the greatest Youtubers, and they are always posting. John Green (a VlogBrother) is probably the greatest story of an artist who uses the internet to sell himself. John is a writer, and his books are fantastic, but he sells because of this connection he has with his readers. If i didn't watch the VlogBrothers I probably wouldn't have bought The Fault in Our Stars and it probably wouldn't have been made into a movie now. The main message is simple, the internet is growing up. Kids making silly videos don't sell. Charlie is a big kid making professional silly videos. Wheezy, and John and Hank are making the videos of the future, and in the end, they'll be the ones who will rule the internet.
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