Some of my previous posts may have left the impression I'm some kind of online Luddite. Nothing could be farther from the truth. My only issues, really, are with Facebook. I honestly just don't get it. Sure, there's the initial thrill of reconnecting with old friends from high school and college, but then you quickly realize there's a reason you haven't spoken to them in twenty years. I don't really care what I had for breakfast, so why would I give a fuck what everyone else had? With pictures!
"Mmmmm.... Grand Slam Breakfast at Dennys!"
In Utah. You'll be unsurprised to know they look exactly the same there as here.
Give me a break.
You can spend hours weeding through all the farms and Mafias and videos of giggling babies and piano playing cats and petitions and be left exhausted and none the wiser.
But finally I've found something on Facebook I can whole heartedly recommend. My friend in LA, Lou Beach, noted artist and illustrator and all around raconteur, has started writing short stories.
Really short stories.
420 characters long to be exact.
It seems that 420 characters is the maximum limit you can write in your Facebook status update. Including spaces. So almost every day, Lou starts a new story in his status update. You get the first 420 characters of the story, and then that's it. It's up to you to finish it in your own imagination, because the next day, he'll have a new story. Or the beginning of one. You don't even have to read them yourself - he has audio clips of his high powered friends reading them. People like Jeff Bridges. Do check it out, won't you?
But back to me. Me, me, me. Rather than being web averse, I realized a long time ago I needed to beef up my online presence. It actually could be a tremendous opportunity. If, as they say, "In space, no one can hear you scream", than it's equally true that "Online, no one needs to know I live in Bako". If I can get my work out there and get clients from the online world, than I no longer have to prop up the house of cards charade that I still live in LA, which coincidentally almost came crashing down yesterday when one of my big LA clients called a sudden meeting. To them it was no big deal, because they still think I live a few miles away. I had to do some fancy footwork to get it changed to a conference call. So, making a bigger footprint online has become a priority.
Then the question becomes... where? There are thousands of online professional sites and portfolio portals and it would be impossible to try and join even a fraction of them. So, to get a better idea of where to go, I started stalking. Most of my former colleagues and co-workers are struggling to keep their heads above water just like me. But a few of them are doing OK. Better than OK, actually. So I selected a handful of them and have been stalking their online world, seeing which sites they belong to, what services they use, which appear to be effective, which appear to be a waste of time or simply too much effort. And after a couple of months I had compiled a list and finally set off to make a splash online.
Some, I was already involved with. I beefed up my Facebook business page. Yes, I have one. Not happy about it, but it's all but required these days. Same with my Linked In profile, although I long ago became convinced that the only people "Linked" are all unemployed. And then I went on a joining spree... Coroflot, Creattica, Behance, Tumblr, Flickr, Twitter... on and on and on. I even started another blog, a "nice" one.
It's a full-time job keeping it all up to date, and often, after the boyfriend goes to bed, I'm up until the wee hours trying to keep all the plates in the air.
And then there was Deviantart.
I have to admit I thought it was a bit dodgy. It evidently started as a geek site for people to post their unicorn paintings and Kirk/Spock erotic fiction. But it's evolved over time to be a portfolio site, and all the people I was following had a page. So I figured what the hell.
So late one night, I opened an account and started uploading my work.
And the weirdest thing happened.
I noticed in my account mail box I had several "likes". Actually, as soon as I uploaded a piece, someone "liked it". Not only that, but each piece was being added to someone's "favorites".
Well, how flattering is that? What a nice little ego boost. Somebody out there likes me! And my work! The commissions are going to start rolling in!
Being new to the system, I didn't realize at first I could check out who my fans are. But once I did, I discovered all the "likes" and "favorites" were for the same person. Whoever could it be?
Ladies and gentlemen, meet my Number One Fan...
"Mr. Kitty Cosplay".
He lives in Australia.
It's nice to know I'm big Down Under.
I have to admit, it's given me pause. I had convinced myself that jumping through all these hoops would be our ticket out of here but now I'm starting to believe it's all just one big circus. Or giant Fairy Forest, if you're into that sort of thing.
At any rate, I hope something comes of all the effort. I don't think I can take much more crushing disappointment.
