So, I’ve mentioned that I’ve been wondering about different ways to better promote my ambitions webwise. On the Youtube side of things, I thought to search for “how to make youtube videos”. As with many simplistic searches in popular topics, the first returns were many ads, which I ignore, followed by some videos, a few of which I opened and immediately closed as being incompetent or bullshit. In fact, the very first one was just a scruffy looking dude walking into a crappily furnished room (guess that was his signature entrance) and starting to tell his audience how important making good Youtube videos was (with crappy sound), and how by patiently watching through his comprehensive video we would all learn important things so that our important videos blah blah blah. I’m guessing that nowhere in his advice is something to the effect of you have to grab the person’s interest in a few seconds, forget the thirty seconds already allocated by a patient person (me!) to his incompetence.
After three or four crap videos in a row, I did some refining of my searches, and stumbled across one that was obviously a much better produced affair. Equally ambitious in reality as the first, crap, one, and a much better professional-looking instance of the kind of video I might think I would want to produce.
Now comes the revulsion, and it may be all on me, a knee-jerk reaction without the knee perhaps. As the host of the nicely produced video was explaining his motivation, he used the term “purpose driven”. To me, this is a reference to a book by some famous Christianist guy, whose name I forget and don’t want to remember, perhaps of the Big Box Church variety. The “prosperity gospel” where they deliberately ignore or distort almost everything ascribed to Joshua ben Joseph about how to get into heaven. Conservative (USA-style) Christianity, as nazi-adjacent as they can get while still stringing along the hopeful, forgiving, naïve, not-quite-aware-they-are-nazi-adjacent folk in their congregation. Note that my mention here of heaven and mystical beings should not be taken to mean that I have devoted my life to, or even countenance, an illusory world view based on half-remembered ghost stories.
Disturbed that I could have such a visceral disgust reflex based upon a few simple words, I started paying a bit more attention. The host had what I call a neo-nazi haircut, very short on the sides and becoming slightly fuller on top. I’ve heard it, or something like it, called a “high and tight”. I’m not very familiar with words or phrases from the fashion and personal grooming industries. Eventually I realized that the host was pushing expensive and quite desirable high-end gear, the kind of stuff I might think about considering if I was already an active video producer, and closed the video. I did some desultory searching on the guy’s name, and found that there are a lot of self-identified Christianists gloating about what a man-of-god the fellow is.
Possibly, I will return to the video. Just because it originates from a person who appears at a first, admittedly tipsy, glance to be a vile shitstain, vile shitstains often seem to be gifted at the kind of symbolic self-promotion that sweeps up vast tranches of otherwise perfectly ordinary folk who just want to get along. Look at Leni Riefenstahl or Fox News [sic]. And perhaps I’ve gotten him wrong. Not all deluded god-botherers are wrong about everything.
Just memorize the phrase: “Be sure to hit that like button, and subscribe to the channel. It helps us out a lot.”
Should it ever come to that, I shall endeavor to never use the phrase “comments section below”, except perhaps ironically. Some folks get creative with their begging; I was thinking of going somewhat meta- or hyper- with “you know what The Algorithm wants you to do [wink, wink]”. But I suspect that explicitly mentioning The Algorithm, especially ironically, will trigger instabanning.