Howdy! Pull up a chair. Here’s the massage remote. Where’d we leave off?
Continuing my previous post, I’ve now rendered hundreds of original A.I. memes. Like some relationships, first it was about looks, then laughs: inventing new and increasingly bizarre reasons for such characters to share scenes. The creativity invested is on the level of an editorial cartoon, and I’d hoped a Facebook album would encourage engagement (more on that in a bit). I also added these galleries to my Graphic Design page.
Since many memes (not Mini-Me) are about turning flat illustrations into reality, I’ve avoided other’s examples or tips because I don’t want to be influenced … or spoil the endorphin rush of awaiting a render that will surely validate my awesome powers of description. Inside voice, G! For all of Big Tech’s throat-cramming A.I. push, I see very few social-media friends generating images. Most are shares, or a copy/pasted seasonal profile pic. I assume there exist entire communities flooded with images like mine … I just don’t care to investigate. Hopefully this is your first time seeing certain characters this way. Please enjoy them as the disposable, uncopyrightable novelties they were intended.
Someone asked about the distinction between galleries, since some of my memes use film/TV sources. The Film/TV gallery maintains the look or spirit of the originals but with an element swapped out (like recasting myself), whereas Memes combine disparate elements in an environment that changes their context. Gen-Xers will get more of my references, but I tried to be generationally inclusive. Even dusted off some mascots that were rightly retired. I bet you can deduce what most pairings have in common even without recognizing everyone. Anywho, back to reality. (Ope, there goes gravity.)
My iMac died unexpectedly—far too young—so I replaced it with a Mini which seemed the best investment since you can’t even get an M4 Pro chip in an iMac. I do miss the display, but not its headphone-jack hum that came standard. Also gave me an excuse to attach a webcam with manual controls. ’Twas the season, I suppose, because it followed new speakers (third pair!) and overdue replacement of my 88-key digital piano. I cleaned up the studio enough to snap a few new pics you’ll find on the Gear page, along with an expanded selection of plug-ins that help me get these sounds. That’s a good reminder that I’m available for Mixing work! Send me your mediocre-sounding tracks (“stems”) and I’ll have them jumping out of the speakers and mastered to pro specs for digital distribution, CD, and/or vinyl cutting.
Speaking of cleanup, if you’re wondering where all my Gran Turismo videos went—the unedited races in each car—they’re still on YouTube, just unlisted and organized into playlists for easy navigation. I assume potential employers are e-stalking me (right? Don’t tell me I wore this for nothing …), and though I don’t post my pro work there anyway, seeing 800 gaming clips dwarf everything else would send the wrong message. The edited compilations are more interesting, and all timestamped. We’re also just a week away from the other game I’ve been jacked about, Flight Simulator VR! Don’t worry, no plans to make videos about its 37,000 airports (150 of them detailed). Let’s hope my internet is fast enough to render them.
My niece has a new webcomic up on Comic Fury called Ren in the Machine, with three issues so far, each better than the last. Adult themes, language, and all that good stuff.
Heckyeah, the World Cup is coming to town! Am I attending any matches? No. But am I massive fan of the sport itself? Strike two! I just think it’s cool that four teams are home-basing here, and vibing for the city in general. Will probably check out FIFA Fan Fest at some point. Visitors, let me know if you need a tour guide (try the barbecue). Oh, and for a minute they considered building the new Royals stadium walking distance from here, which was as bad an idea as it sounds, even if my proximity wasn’t the determining factor. Is it football season yet?
Each time I hear about more media layoffs, my heart sinks, both for those new to the club and for the massive fire hazard of its overcrowding. Much like our governmental brain-drain and rejection of expertise over ideology, that pendulum will swing back because reverse-centaurs can’t think for themselves. When they need folks again who actually know how to make things—both in harmony with evolving tech and despite it—will they be able to afford us? Noah Wyle calls shows like The Pitt “competence porn” in light of the above, and let’s just say I’m DTF, Kansas City.
Root canal is preferable to my LinkedIn feed right now. Tossing all those corporate word-salads that obscure meaning and inflate importance. Of course I’m fluent, but prefer English, so maybe my profile lacks those magic scannable keywords that bots crave. In so many job postings, it’s obvious they’re replacing a specific person, given the unicorn requirements. Being a polymath myself, I find it silly the weight put on a specific tool I can learn in a day versus the decades of experience that wields it. Better to know why an edit belongs at that frame than which button in Microsoft Razor executes it. What, you’re not proficient in Razor? I guess we can let that slide since I made it up.
Former coworkers have been kind with moral support. I do confess disappointment at the lack of specific opportunities, given my lead/mentor role for most of my career. Y’know, in the karmic sense, hoping it might offset my distaste for so-called networking. But that’s not their job, and it’s tough for everyone right now, even those in recently enviable positions. So this is me asking: Does your company need a media guy? (And why did the last person leave? And will that be dine-in or carry-out?)
Earlier I mentioned Facebook, and the decline in that experience warrants a soapbox, if you’ll indulge me. I think we underestimate the detrimental effects their algorithm has on mental health. Because of its content, sure, but also its absence. The algorithm has rendered many of us virtually invisible. Let me back up.
It takes a certain hubris to deem one’s work worthy of publication to begin with, that bar lowering with the ease of doing so. Video, music, and writing—my professional expertise—all happen to be pursuits that technology simplified over time, both in creation and distribution (which I benefit from, too, albeit differently). They’re also industries with notorious gatekeepers who historically separated the pros from amateurs. Today’s platforms are somewhat democratized, where works on the same shelf can have similar appearances of professionalism that belie actual quality. We used to be divided into creators or consumers: I made what you watched/heard/read. So many others now fancy themselves creators, too—and hey, bless ’em—but we are not the same, despite competing for the same attention.
Most people know Facebook and others started link deprioritizing long ago, meaning if you share a URL, it buries that post out of fear we might spend a few minutes elsewhere. So that novel you toiled over for three years, the day of the big announcement to your audience of 500 Friends that you’ve avoided pestering until now, it’s gonna get five Likes. (I can change my profile pic in the middle of the night and hide the post, and it will get 30 Likes.) In fairness, there is a Feeds button that displays all chronologically to remedy this gripe, but few use it, and it isn’t default. A quick audit of the first twelve posts in Facebook’s algorithm feed shows: one recent friend post, one two-week-old friend post, four ads, five posts from Pages I don’t follow, and a carousel of Reels by people I don’t follow. All noise, no signal. It wants me to discover new pages, but I never use Facebook for that, only caring about what friends post.
It’s gotten worse. Facebook hardly shows my posts to anyone now regardless of content, with maybe one-third of the former engagement. They’re withholding because they want me to pay for this privilege, ransoming my followers. I’m not talking about monetizing pages or running a business, just personal usage. God forbid I hold my breath and post Public in hope of shares. Zuck’s thirst-detection code somehow knows these are the rare posts I actually care about (most pointing here), and dumps their corpses out in the Pine Barrens. It’s not just me; half my friends’ posts get zero engagement whatsoever. None! I find that especially cruel because our natural assumption is disinterest not manipulation. Doesn’t take a shrink to grasp that it’s far more damaging to expect ten Likes and get none, than to expect 50,000 and only get 40,000.
That album of Memes? Its 130 images have 21 Likes … total! Yet if I send someone an image directly they’re on the floor laughing. Makes no sense. Some I attribute to the same A.I. apathy I expressed, but funny is funny. What truly bums me out, though, is I have a gallery called Revisualist History that no one saw, either.* Because it features real events and important people from my life, I couldn’t abide that, so I reached out to several of them privately to explain this, how I think they’d enjoy seeing themselves and other old friends we don’t have photos of, nudge, wink … and I’ve yet to hear a peep from any of them about it. Either I misjudged or they don’t care, and neither sits well with me. By the way, I added that gallery to my Bio page as well. Odd, I admit (and perhaps temporary), but I later noticed many images coincided with events mentioned there, making them easier to follow or visualize.
Don’t base your self-worth on social media, you’re rightly thinking. It’s just one part of a nutritionally balanced breakfast that didn’t concern me until it dropped off a cliff. I’m less depressed than angry about the thumbs on scales manipulating our mental health. This includes the paid content that spreads disinformation and influences elections. Same happened back when Twitter was still a thing, now YouTube, where a video lifespan has shrunk to two days. That’s when my views max out. What used to be a few hundred dropped to a few dozen. Maybe they’re shadowbanning me for so many unlisted videos. Point is, every social network has tightened things, and it’s not your fault, or your Friends’.
Subtract the algorithm and apathy from the atrophy of interpersonal skills in general, and we’re left invisible. For those who spent so long honing our crafts and battling gatekeepers, external validation meant everything, and its artificial deprivation is yet another example of the rich stealing from the poor.
It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault. <hug>
*Well, a couple folks did. One of whom nearly made the whole endeavor worthwhile.
