Popularity
We just had a federal election here in Canada. It was a nail biter. In the end however the Conservative party of Canada will now be reigning over the country for the next four or five years. It’s got the arts community all aflutter. The entire thing’s got me thinking a lot about popularity.
I used to be popular. Once upon a time my inbox was flooded on a daily basis with fan mail, requests, death threats; it was nice. But it’s been a long time since then. My priorities changed. And unfortunately, I have a bit of a tendency to alienate my audience with each new project. It was unlikely that fans of Boneland.com would get into Minushi and even less likely that any of those would find Refrain relatable. But so is the chemistry of my brain and who am I to tamper with it? The fact is, in my pursuit of “legitimacy” in this entertainment business – perhaps my pursuit of a more traditional road, maybe that’s a better way of putting it – I lost my connection with the people. The populace. I’ve become a business-to-business guy for some reason and frankly, it’s never been my thing.
Allow me to alienate myself further from yet another segment of society with the following:
I’m actually looking forward to the next four to five years of domination by our dark conservative overlords. Would cuts to the arts sector really be such a bad thing? Is the current system really working all that well anyway? The more I look the less I see an industry of filmmakers in this country but rather an industry of people who have gotten really good a filling out government application forms. I’ve been guilty of this myself. And I can’t say it felt great. The money was cool for a fleeting moment, I’ll give you that, but it didn’t even come close to the feeling of opening my mailbox years ago and pulling out the first payment I’d ever made after initiating the pay-per-view service at Boneland.com. A payment issued by the fans. Proof positive that my work was worth something to an audience. No jumping through hoops. Now, that meant something. You couldn’t argue with that.
I’ve been trying to sell my work to the wrong people lately. To figureheads and traditionalists. To people that I, myself, have endowed with some delusion of virtue. And why, when the people are still out there, out here, right in front of me. The democratization of entertainment is only scary if you’re greatest talent is filling out applications for government handouts.
It’s time to go back to the people. The populace. But just who shall I alienate this time…
May 12th, 2011 at 10:46 am
Hey Tyler, its been a long time since i have had any kind of association with any of your work, i was a member of boneland back in the day and i must say it really spoke to me. then with the advent of minushi, i was already a fan of anime and scifi so the two really seemed to mesh for me and i loved it.
I know that you must get a lot of advice from various people but i think what your recent blog touches upon is really true, in this age of web based content it takes original thinkers to really make a difference, the top dogs at the various film franchises across the world have to be very narrow minded in their pursuit of success but on the net the audience is both fickle and loyal.
If you are able to take advantage of that i am sure your brand of original content can become a sensation.
Sorry for sounding so vague but i site the recent minecraft craze as my basis. The arts community needs breakthroughs worldwide, dont limit yourself, there are billions of people all over the world looking for the next big thing at the click of their mouse, you could be it.
May 14th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Loomigo!
It’s really about a shift in thinking, I have to admit. As making a living online became less and less possible due to plummeting ad revenue, I (along with many others I’m sure) found myself looking for a way to step up to the next level in terms of production value as well as distribution. Sadly this took me away from having a direct relationship with my audience and shifted my focus to trying to develop relationships with business people.
But as more and more time slips away, even as these new business relationships develop the question of “what have you done lately” is going to get harder and harder to answer. That’s another reason that it may be high time I get back to the drawing board.