Thursday - January 18, 2001
[Largo] - 06:01:00 - [link here]
As most of you are aware, I think too goddamn much. I don't remember who's dumbass idea it was to require a rant three times a week in *addition* to the three-a-week comic... funny how you just start doing things and after a while it's like it's always been part of your life.
I just can't bring myself to believe that it's been almost six months since Megatokyo accidentally started. It was an accident. It wasn't really a very serious project. I had plans to continue blowing largo off for a year or two. I look back to august and wonder... what the hell happened?
I won't bore you with the story. Most of you probably remember how it all started anyways. I should post a few sketches from 'the beginning' - I'll try to scan them over the weekend.
Sometimes these rants are easy to write. Sometimes, i just don't want to say anything profound. Life isn't always profound. As a matter of fact, it's usually pretty silly. I'm tired, and honestly, I'm going to go to bed early tonight for the first time in over a week. I need the rest. The first half of this month was bumpy, grumpy, petulant and annoying. I don't really know why, but what amazes me is how many people had the SAME feelings. Perhaps it's the weather.
I was really unhappy with the state of Megatokyo a few weeks ago. After the 'Piro meets Kimiko' arc, I seemed to loose step. I'm feeling a hell of a lot better about MT now. I was able to straighten a lot of things out in my mind, and it's nice to have the girls finally in the story (well, Kimiko at least). The story feels good now. Even the art is getting better. Yes, even I admit it. I'm feeling more confidant in my work. It's not stellar, but it is communicating ideas and feelings pretty clearly.
I got a few e-mail's requesting that I add a translation to the titles of my rants for those who don't know a stitch of Japanese - and I think that's a pretty good idea. So, for those times that I have a Japanese title, I'll give the translation.
Today's Japanese lesson: K [shiawase] = happiness. Kł [shiawase desu] = "this is happiness" or "I am happy" ^_^
Sorry it's so short tonight. I'm gonna chill a bit and get some sleep. And think about that True Love Story 3 doujinshi I need to do this summer ^_^
[props to largo for fixing the typos and glaring errors. I really WAS tired last night ^_^. Also, i want to add a few quick notes - piro]
I was fiddling with my winamp at work and decided it was time to change the Steven Moss "Steel This Amp" skin I've been using for the past six months (for some reason, i feel no desire to customize my work machine that much - perhaps it's because i can't stream music from here) when I could not for the life of me find that cool Kimiko Amp winamp skin that Beaner did a while back. I decided to check and see if Winamp had indeed added it to their collection - and sure enough, here it is . Kinda neat to see some MT stuff up there. I have a few other skins that people have made at home that I really should link to... and all the gift art, and... ack. ^^;;
Technical note - last weekend the Sempai box went down for several hours for some maintenance - MT has been beating the hell out of it, but it's withstood the abuse like a trooper. Kevin was also able to fix a few other things that should really improve the performance of the server. So, if MT is working better than before, mad props to Kevin for the fine bit of maintenance. ^_^
Tuesday - January 16, 2001
[Largo] - 08:20:00 - [link here]
I feel sorry for celebrities, don't you?
The whole celebrity concept is a weird one for me to grasp. The more I think about celebrities and their problems, the more I wonder if we should admire them, or pity them. The moment a person attains any level of celebrity, they are drawn into a relationship with their fans, whether they want it, or not.
When you can't even carry on a conversation with someone because the other individual doesn't see you as just another guy, but rather some great subjective 'thing' - you really can't do much but nod, and hope they go away. It's no wonder so many celebrities can't relate to their fans and end up only being able to socialize, date, and marry within their own circles. Some people think it is because of elitism on their part, but I would offer that it is because of a lack of options.
This relationship has its good sides, and its bad. It's all a matter of scale really, the bigger the celebrity, the more fans they have, the more good fans, the more bad fans. So it reasons that the larger a celebrity is, the more stark raving mad fans there are that go around causing trouble.
Why bring up such an obvious observation? ... Glad you asked.
Recently I began to apply his odd bit of logic to everything else, besides the obvious actor/fan model. Take politics for example, on each side you have people supporting their celebrity, their politician. Yet, on each side you have a good number of these bad fans as well. Since millions of people get involved in politics each year, it reasons that if you look hard enough at the political fans, you'll find a plethora of fruit cakes who ought to be living in a padded room with no doors rather then spending time in a voting booth.
I've always admired the work of Tatsuya Ishida of the infamous Sinfest. His strips can be so straight forward and honest that it sometimes reminds me of days long ago, when Bill Watterson still inked his magic for us.
Well, the days of Watterson may be gone, but not forgotten. I think Sinfest captures some of the light that Watterson tried to shine on us. One of Ishida's characters that I always love to see is named Seymour. See, Seymour's deal is he is a fan, a fan of god. Perhaps 'fanboy' would be the better term for him, a character so rap'd up in his zealot idealogy that he lacks even a sense of humor about it.
I think it's safe to suggest that there is no greater a celebrity then god, so I'm pretty sure he has the most fans. If you look at it this way, we ought to pity god, because he has to deal with more lunatic fanboys then anyone else in the known universe.
It's no wonder he stopped answering his mail and just flooded the place.
Speaking of email...
I been getting mail being forwarded back and forth from myself and other website owners regarding the problems surrounding a certain adbanner provider, and the entire web adbanner network fall out of the last year.
I think Lowtax of somethingawful said it best in a article he wrote found here. The entire system seems to be falling apart when there is no reason for it to be dying. The model is sound, advertising works, it works for radio, for television, and for the internet. So where is the problem? Who is to blame?
As an American, I'm always looking for someone to blame for my problems, It's just part of culture of passing the buck. So in this instance, I blame the adbanner networks for not accurately figuring out who a website's audience really is via demographics. It doesn't do the advertisee' much good if their product, lets say for example's sake; adult toys and sexual aid devices, are advertised on a religious website. Unless that website's religion involves some pretty kinky stuff...
I also blame the advertisee's for placing blind faith in adbanner networks to properly help market their product and for not checking into where they are being advertised.
I think the model of making money on the net is sound, but right now there are too many crooks and frauds who have been milking the system and bamboozling their clients that a panic has errupted which is hurting even legitamate adbanner networks.
Eventually the snake oil salesmen will find a new marketplace to push their poisons, and then the advertisors will return, and this time maybe they will be a little wiser.
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