Just a Few Thoughts

To be successful in the field of videoblogging or blogging or even a "Pretend DJ" like those British podcasters are, you need a friend or a crew or and a load of time to keep it fresh. That's the reason why I have failed at this form of entertainment and to be fair and to be truly and able to continue with this I either need to;

a> win the lottery and retire, and produce with a paid crew and maybe actually produce a pay site revolving around amateur porn.
b> get noticed for my talent and get someone sponsoring me (this will never happen as I have waited 3 years and nothing)

This brings me to my thoughts. I have been active within videoblogging for 3 years nearly, check out my archive, you'll see it's true, my first post was 25th September 2005. I have had some luck, I have been to San Francisco Twice, albeit for weekends and all I had to pay for was the Room I stayed in and of course all the alcohol I drunk. I was given £100 by godaddy, $150 from Node 101 for a BBQ get together in which I met Adam and Vicky from Cumbria, also in attendance was a live link up with the group via flash meeting and also privately with Bill Streeters BBQ in St. Louis, Missouri. And then I went to France to Visit firstly Dailymotion and the Loiez Deniel and Gabriel Socheiye and had a great time. I also tried to infiltrate the UK podcasters scene by going to pod this UK and pod that UK, but found them very dull staid affairs revolving around how to get money for podcasting, and although I met some really nice people, there were also an equal number of people that I really didn't get on with, but hey! You can't get on with everyone.

All of this happened in a part of my life where I have been unsettled, moving into the sticks, Annesley is a very dull place to be and although I had a warm welcome, it seems my personality and general outlook isn't that welcome, it feels almost like moving back in time, you know the things that you had growing, and it seems like this old mining village is very much STUCK IN THE 80's. Yes the technology has changed, Kids wear Hoodies to emulate their favourite Hip Hop Stars, even though there isn't a single Black kid in the village, but at the end of the day, people are still hooked on Soaps and Saturday night telly and have this Inward Looking Family Homely outlook, this maybe my own fault, having no children of my own, so I don't really get it and probably never will. My work life has suffered, because being a driver, when you are on long journeys, your mind tends to wander, and wander it does, some of my best ideas have come to fruition due to the fantasies I have had on the road, like Space for instance, which started in a period of unemployment and caring for Rachel, who is an MS Sufferer, so most of the time I have had itchy feet due to my hobby taking over the way I prioritize things. Therefore, you get more out of me, when a) I am out of work, and b) when I am sober.

Sobriety comes into this in a big way, like most artists before me, I find it better when I am editing or adding special effects to do it whilst drinking, then the posting when I have sober up the next day. Now what happens after that is you get used to the whiskey and drink more and more. I joined Seesmic and got caught out, being drunk and thinking that I made sense, obviously I didn't. This lost me a lot of credibility, because I forgot that internet geeks and most people don't drink that much, and if they do they do the decent thing and go out into a pub and do their drinking there. Since the radical left got into power and stopped people from having fun like allowing laws like banning fox hunting and smoking in public places, including Pubs, I have found that I can't go out and enjoy a night out unless it's the longest day of the year and it's nice and I can sit outside and there is waitress service, otherwise I would join the crowd outside the pub huddled together in a vain attempt not to catch a cold or get wet. This being said I find that smoking and drinking at home is far better, but I don't have a drinking partner, you can't have everything, but a return to a time of some kind of civility would be great.

So I am now headed for work again, someone has noticed that I have the correct qualities to actually earn money, and it's not in the movie business, it's in haulage and telecommunications. This time I want to forget about what I have done, in the last three narcissistic years, I know that the last few months have gotten stale for my creativity, mainly because I have found old TV sitcoms more of a lure than sitting down, doing a script and filming it acting, shouting at Rachel, because I can't direct for toffee, editing doing the special effects and finally compressing and uploading it to an audience that is akin to the Scarlet Pimpernel. I have had no comments on my work for ages, in fact a special shout out would be to Tom, theirishhermit, who was a stalwart commenter and I appreciate this. But even those who I am in contact with over Skype or iChat I have to say stuff like, have you seen my latest? And always the answer is no. I even tried Facebook, but that's all about virtual friend accumulation and playing scrabble, nothing to do with promoting your videos. I think it's all my fault for leaving the Yahoo! videoblogging group, but if I have nothing nice to say about the people in the group, I get all arsy and quit. The day that voice clips or even videoclips become the norm for e-mailing or Forum/group communication, then I think people might get on a little better, that said Seesmic is trying to do that now, and I dislike that so much, due to my own behavior than anyone elses.

So wish me luck as you wave me goodbye, many of my followers have already given me the bird or stuck two english fingers up to me, so what can I do. I can forget that I ever had a hobby that actually meant something to me, and was exciting and new, but I still feel that I entered into this hobby with a very very immature attitude and if I do win the lottery, possibly the last thing I will do is give any of my work away for free. That's not very web 2.0 I realize, but in my opinion web 2.0 and personal exposure and all that still only makes up 5% of the whole internet experience, the rest is porn or ebay/amazon.

Cheers

Paul Knight