CHOOSE YOUR STARTING POINT

CHAPTERS

CHOOSE YOUR STARTING POINT

CHAPTERS
 

 

Latest Posts

Trough Slop: Boogie2988

Posted on 2024-07-18 by Sansing

Instead of dedicating time to find a cure for cancer, I’ve spent a lot of time lately watching the latest videos on Boogie2988’s latest drama.

For those who aren’t perpetually online, Boogie is a YouTuber that became famous by portraying a fat nerd who loves Mountain Dew and World of Warcraft back in the early days of the platform. YouTube OG.

Over time he sabotaged his own reputation through a complete lack of filter on social media, laziness, a perpetual victim complex, and kind of just being a dick.

The most recent update is he advertised a scam coin called Faddy Coin, claimed he needed to scam his audience to pay for cancer treatments, was called out for faking his cancer diagnosis, and is now wallowing in self-pity with a freshly destroyed reputation as the haters swarm him.

Now the question is: Why did I waste my life watching this pointless YouTube drama? Here’s why:

I am utterly fascinated by how easy it would be for Boogie to make genuinely funny content. His promo for Faddy Coin is an ironic Andrew Tate parody where he’s sitting in a hot tub, smoking a cigar, shilling a coin that will make people broke like him. It’s actually pretty funny. The problem is he also launched a real coin that his audience proceeded to buy and lose money on. The video without the coin is genuinely entertaining content that could get hits and ad revenue. But he only made it because he was offered money by the coin’s creator. He could do a whole video series parodying Andrew Tate faux-alpha-masculinity and it would probably do pretty well.

He also claimed he shilled the coin because it gave access to a Discord server where he can chat with his fans. Instead of a crypto currency, he could have easily set up a subscription service with a premium Discord server that fulfills that same purpose, but it’s a product instead of a scam.

Boogie already has what every aspiring content creator desires: an audience. All it would take is a little effort to make a video a week and he could live comfortably.

So that’s his life. His reputation. Most of the world doesn’t care. But there’s always an after-school special learning moment for everything, and here’s what I took away from it:

1- Don’t trust creators to not scam you. I am waiting for the moment when even the most wholesome creators have that moment when the bag of cash on the table makes their moral compass go south. I want to be a professional creator, but here’s the thing, present and future audience: I don’t (currently) intend to scam you, I’m grateful to you, but I want your money. So enjoy my work, I’m happy to engage with you, but buy a damn shirt, freeloader.

2- Lying online is dumb. Everything is tracked, compiled, and monitored by Redditors. You will slip up eventually and have every post you’ve ever made thrown back in your face. Boogie’s lie about cancer was picked apart by people with free time on the internet. So tell the truth or say nothing. So many people live in fear of their government prying into their deepest, darkest secrets. Who cares about the government? It’s the Redditors you have to live in fear of.

3- There is always an ethical way to “get that bag.” With genuine thought and effort, you can make a living. Make what people want and sell it to them. If they don’t want something, either sell something else or figure out how to make them want it. It takes work. It takes risk. It takes research. But if you put it all together, you can get a sustainable income. You can make a ton of cash through short-term, unethical behavior or you can make the same amount over a longer period of time while keeping your reputation, pride, and soul intact.

In conclusion, I am trying to justify watching slop on YouTube. So long as you learn something and make it a productive experience, any time spent is time spent wisely.

Revised Schedule

Posted on 2024-04-29 by Sansing

Adjusting my schedule a bit. Now, instead of daily posts, it will just be Monday-Friday. (Or Sunday through Thursday most likely on the website, since I post updates immediately here and have them go up on the various social medias the following day.)

Want to enjoy life a little more, so I’m trying to relax on weekends. That sigma male daily grindset can only get a man so far.

Although I did find it funny that I post daily on Instagram and haven’t received any new followers for a while, but the moment I stop posting for a few days I get some random follows.

So I don’t understand the algorithm at all. Apparently the secret to getting more followers is post… less?

Social Media is a Skill

Posted on 2024-04-22 by Sansing

I would like to think I’m a somewhat decent cartoonist. I’m humble enough to realize that there are some truly talented, hardworking people that make my work look like mere scribbles by comparison. I’ve spent years working out my style, learning how to draw digitally, and trying to pin down that elusive concept which is humor.

I also know that I’m some random dude on the internet that hasn’t been posting for very long and has posted very infrequently until lately. I’m not expecting a million customers at this early stage of my cartooning career. Still, I am absolutely dumbfounded how some social media accounts for cartoonists have thousands of followers and strong readership when their product is… subpar.

I know humor and art are subjective. I am not above criticism myself. I am grateful for the supporters I currently have. But if I am going to make cartooning a career, I need a much wider audience and customer base. If anything, it is humbling for me to accept that the comics I view as subpar reach further and connect with more people. They clearly have something I don’t.

And while envy is a poison to happiness, I would be a fool to enter into a business field and not observe trends and best practices. And here’s the thing: I am a decent cartoonist, but an absolute amateur when it comes to social media. Being an independent cartoonist goes so far beyond just drawing funny pictures. It’s about building communities. Getting exposure. Understanding algorithms.

Fortunately, I subscribe to a school of thought that I can do anything if I am willing to dedicate time to it. Social media is a skill. It can be observed, learned, and mastered. So that’s what I plan to do.

100 Comics

Posted on 2024-04-07 by Sansing

Well, let’s see if I got any better over 100 comics.

Kind of. I should go back to four panel comics on occasion. I’m also really glad I learned about Clip Studio Paint (CSP). Just looks so much better than what I could do in PhotoShop. (I don’t know if you’ve ever read The Immortal Think Tank, but it was actually Che Crawford who recommended I try out CSP. I’m so grateful they took the time to respond to my questions. Go check out their work.)

Also, I fully acknowledge that this is a weird comic to have at number 100. I didn’t want to interrupt a storyline to do a special issue. It is what it is.

I don’t know how many of my readers use this website and thus see these posts, but if you’re reading this, I am so incredibly grateful for your support. I hope I make you laugh on occasion.

100 down. Thousands to go.

PRS: Furious Japanese Cyclist

Posted on 2024-02-15 by Sansing

Gonna start a new thing called Possibly Real Stories (PRS). I’m going to share some life stories on occasion. Some of them might even be real.

Anywho, I used to live in Japan. Great place. Delicious food. Very clean. Public transportation was always on time.

One additional thing of note is that the Japanese people are some of the kindest, most patient, incredibly weird, but still remarkably nice people you could ever have the privilege of meeting. My house in Japan had an old wood door that would occasionally warp a bit and be unable to lock in the Summer. I felt no qualms about leaving my home unlocked during the day while I was at work because the country is probably the safest place in the world.

Altogether, I have very few experiences where a Japanese person has terrified me and made me fear for my life. One was a 6′ 4″ man with leathery skin, an unhealthy affection for small children, dark eyes devoid of a soul, and suffered occasional demonic possession. Another was an interaction with a man with ties to a criminal organization. Oh, and some run-ins with the Cult That Must Not Be Named because they love lawsuits. I’ll probably talk about those some other time.

Today, I’m going to talk about Angry Bike Guy.

I love biking. Chalk up one more point to Japan since it welcomes and supports bikers and gives them clearly marked transit areas instead of the U.S. where bikers are treated like a nuisance and at constant threat of being hit by some prick in a truck. During my six years of living in Japan, I only owned a car for about nine months before disposing of it since it was just a waste of money. I biked. It was great.

I also have a habit of greeting most people I pass in the street. Usually pretty simple. A little gesture with my chin and a, “‘Sup,” to acknowledge them. People in New York City think I’m crazy since I don’t treat other pedestrians like they’re invisible. Don’t know why I do it. Just seems impolite to ignore people.

So I’m biking along on a beautiful, sunny day in Japan and pass by another cyclist going in the opposite direction. I bid him a hearty, “Ohayou,” in passing. Not sure why, but it seemed to catch him off guard. He twitched and swerved a bit, stopped, and released a furious howl to the heavens. Something primal. Deep, unrelenting fury. He transformed from Regular Bike Guy to Angry Bike Guy. I kept on riding, not sure exactly what his deal was.

Most of my focus is on the road ahead. I had glanced back in passing when the guy first skidded to a stop and started screaming because I thought he was injured. He wasn’t. Angry Bike Guy was fine. Just inexplicably furious. But now my eyes were fixed firmly forward, making sure I was riding safely. The screaming continued. At first I gave kudos to the guy for having such powerful lungs that I could still hear him even from clear up the road.

Then I realized that he wasn’t getting any quieter as I kept riding. The screams were following me. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t look back. Looking back would have likely been the end. Angry Bike Guy was on a mamachari. Thankfully slow bikes. For several blocks, the inexplicably angry man furiously pedaled after me. I kept on riding, always looking forward, pedaling a little harder until the howls of fury slowly drifted away as he fell further and further behind until only silence remained.

To this day I wonder what Angry Bike Guy’s deal was. How a simple passing greeting had evoked berserker rage from a random Japanese cyclist. I may never know. Unless he somehow hears this story and remembers a strange event from years ago and proceeds to track me down, I will never know.

Should he ever track me down, I doubt I’ll live to tell another Possibly Real Story.