at 6:39 in the morn

so listen

I've officially become nocturnal. off fish alley knock turn all. i seem to sleep from 7 am to 4 pm or so. this likely is not quite healthy.

i've been watching a lot of CHTV videos, and reading these people's blogs. i was thinking, trying to understand why i like watching them so much, and i figured it out. believe it or not, it has a lot to do with Weezer and Barack Obama.

You might be confused. Allow me to explain.

What I like about these CollegeHumor folks, besides the simple fact that their stuff is funny, is that they're all regular Joes. It almost seems like it's a bunch of my friends making videos. I see them out of character, I can read their blogs, and I can connect with them outside of just their work. It makes the audience member feel like one of them, like part of their community.

Weezer fandom is very similar. The reason why I got so into it, and why a lot of people are into it, is because the band is so open to fans. They used to actually post on the message boards regularly, and would interact with fans all the time. They would secretly release all these demos from the past -- literally hundreds of songs that were never heard on studio recordings. When you were a Weezer fan, you actually had a whole community that you were intimately connected to, with its own culture, customs, and even vocabulary.

Barack Obama got the overwhelming level of support that he did because he tried to run a "grassroots" campaign. Really what that means is making the individuals take ownership over a political campaign/cause... which is only possible by making them feel like they have both agency and A CONNECTION to the cause. After the election, a lot of people exclaimed that "WE DID IT"... "WE", not "HE"...

Okay I might be rambling a little bit because I am getting fairly tired at this point... But the point is that my little revelation is that the secret to creating work that really touches people is to be as transparent and collaborative as possible. When fans feel like they're a member of a community (and not just a consumer of a product, or a polling statistic), that's when they'll really throw their support behind whatever it is you're trying to do. This can apply to bands, comedians, politicians... and pretty much anything else in LIFE.

I'm sure this is actually a fairly basic idea taught in a lot of, you know, bullshit business courses or whatever, but I've just never thought of it framed in quite that way and IT WAS INTERESTING TO ME OKAY? SHUT UP I HATE YOU!

goodnight