It's not you, it's me

Please be advised that the content in this post is NOT SUITABLE FOR SENSITIVE READERS!


Now that we got that out of the way. Let's dissect the happenings of yesterday...

So there I am, just clicking around the internets, and while on Twitter. I see this girl saying something about dark jelly something or other... Being the food junkie that I am. This obvious

Emphasis on: ...dark jelly-like blood clots, ...look like liver.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE AMOUNT OF VOMIT I HAD TO SWALLOW AFTER READING THAT?!

It is at this point that I immediately stop reading and decide that I'm not gonna run the risk of seeing something like this again in the near future, and unfollow this person. But before I do that, because Dineo is a fellow creative. Somewhat. I think it's only fair that I let her know what I'm about to do and that she's aware of the reason why. Hence the retweet.

The plan was, to unfollow her and return to following her after a few days. That's usually how long these things last, right? OK then.

She then decides to reply by saying:
To be perfectly honest, so do I. I really do. I think I might have a more awesome time spoiling a girl rather than a boy. But that's a story for another day.

Anyway, explaining further the reason behind my unfollow. I reply:
After letting my explanation - which was just out of common courtesy - marinade in some of that dark jelly. She decides to take my sheer disgust personal. And says this:
Now THAT was totally uncalled for. How can she insult my follower-count like that?! I blame the jelly!

OK that last part was mean. Obviously the jelly has nothing to do with anything here. Let's not blame it on the jelly.
Let's blame it on the fact that someone mistakes follow-count for .
Internet numbers are just numbers to me. Yes, they represent people who are actually interested in hearing what you have to say and everything else in between. But having 1000 versus having 10 is really no big deal to me. It matters, yes. But I'm not gonna kill myself if I don't reach a thousand followers by my birthday or whatever! (though it would be nice)

I may have 400+ followers and all, but that does absolutely nothing for my ego, personality, or body odour... NOTHING.

This isn't about followers. This is about someone tweeting something that disgusted me and took my unfollowing personal. It's not you, it's me.

I'm the one who doesn't wanna read about your blood clots.
I'm the one who thinks some things, like things involving your reproductive system, should be kept private. Where they belong. Otherwise you might as well walk around with your skirt pulled to your waist every now and to let the world know that there's live-looking jelly in your panties. Go ahead. I dare you to do that. Even for a few seconds. I TRIPLE DARE YOU!

No one in their right mind would ever do such a thing.

So why should your 1000+ followers be subjected to such? Why am I being attacked for choosing to look at the birds in the sky when you figuratively raise your skirt for the world to see?

As much as you see nothing wrong with pulling down your jelly-ridden panties, I see nothing wrong with choosing NOT to read about them.

I know you're reading this and saying, "you could have just ignored it." and you're right. I could have. But then what's the point of following someone and not reading their tweets? Might as well not see them at all. That's my logic, open for discussion.
I read all the tweets of the people I follow. As long as they are on my timeline when I'm on Twitter, then I'm gonna read them. Otherwise what's the point of following 300 people only to read 299 of their tweets?

Again... it's not you, it's me. I'm not sorry for unfollowing you!


:p

Follow me, I promise I wont tell you about blood jelly. @tehPaperCut

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Behind the music

So, the day before yesterday, I had a good dose of TV. Okay, I'll admit, that sounded waaay better in my head.

What I'm trying to say is, I was spoiled for choice on Monday. Literally. There were at least three good TV shows worth watching. All pretty much around the same time - which sucked. Because I couldn't watch all at the same time.

It's no secret that I prefer documentaries over anything else on TV. If it's a music related documentary; even better!

So on Vuzu, there was a "documentary" on R. Kelly's Love Letter album. Basically it was him explaining the ideas behind the song titles, the album conceptualisation, the track selection, the writing process behind every song on the album. Pretty riveting stuff by all accounts. Good stuff.

While on MTVBase, they had a "day-in-the-life" type of thing on Trey Songz. Where they followed him around for some reason.
Needless to say, I chose to watch the R. Kelly special over the Trey Songz one. Simply because I saw that the Trey Songz one had multiple repeats coming up some time during this week. Today at 16:50, to be specific.

And on National Geographic, they had a behind-the-scenes look at the manufacturing of the latest Porsche. That I didn't watch. Though I really wanted to, just out of curiosity. I'm not much of a Porsche fan. Yeah. So... back to the music.

While switching between the two music specials (in-between ad-breaks obviously) I started thinking about something. About how little we know about our own local music artists. No one really knows the struggles they've gone through. What they're working on now. What actually goes into creating an album, or preparing for a performance, or running from pillar-to-post for interviews or anything along those lines.

Why is that? Who's to blame. Do we blame the artist managers and the artists themselves for not giving their fans a sneak peek behind the music?

I don't think such investments are made into our music industry. The only time you see the artist promote an album is months after it's been created and they're all cleaned up and smiling on TV behind dark shades talking about how their album caters for everyone. And how it's featured so-and-so from where and where. Talking about who they worked with and all that!

Imagine if the artists put out a video, even if it's on YouTube or Vimeo, of themselves actually working with so-and-so and making the music. Imagine the anticipation from the fans. Imagine the hype the video will create around the release of the album. Even if it's a staged "leak" of the footage, pictures, audio, or whatever.

I have R. Kelly's Love Letter album, and I can tell you one thing for sure, after watching those 30 minutes of TV, I felt I had a better understanding of the direction he was aiming for in that album. The "back to the old-school" element behind it. Only afterwards did I understand why there was a Michael Jackson-like song on the album - he wrote the song for MJ before his passing. That explains why I always skip that song.

Anyway. Why is it that all we get from local artists is a two minute interview about an up-coming album?

The two examples mentioned above aren't the only ones I've seen. There's a Nicki Minaj documentary that's always playing on MTV, there's a Drake one as well. Not to mention the famous "The Diary of..." series by MTV.


Why is MTV Base, which claims to be interested in promoting Africa to the world, not investing their resources into our own artists?

Why is it that so few of our local artists have websites or even bother interacting beyond the "I'll be performing at...." updates on Facebook and Twitter? Why not embrace the internet and completely abuse it as a communication tool to the fans?

I stumbled on behind the scenes pics of Kanye and Jay-Z's collaboration album pics the other day. Why aren't South Africans doing this?

Wake up! Give us a peek of what you get up to when there's no make-up artists involved. When there's no limited time to plug your album!

Shout-out to http://www.themakingof.co.za/ for being the local version of True Hollywood Story.

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Sticks and stones

Imagine you're just chilling, on a cool Monday afternoon, and you get an email that someone has commented on a website you've been featured on.

So you decide to check it out, then this is what you come a across:

I'm not too sure what exactly it is that this person saw on my Twitter page, but still.

Am I the greatest designer ever? No.
Are my designs the most unique-est thing ever to hit the internet? No.
Is there anywhere on the internet (or anywhere else for that matter) where I claim to be the be-a-and-end-all of all things design? No.
Am I guilty of shameless self-promotion over and over and over all over the internet? YES. YES. And oh hell YES!

Am I gonna apologise for that? No.
Why? Becuase if I don't do it myself, then who's gonna do it for me? No one.

So what if my designs aren't the greatest designs ever to hit the internet since porn?
I never said they were. The sole reason why I put my stuff all over the internet is to get some feedback on what I'm doing right or wrong. Not to be judged on my tweets. Not to be praised either. But to be given criticism. Both positive and negative. If someone is just going to come up out of nowhere and say I need more practice or more humility, then I'm all for that. Lemme know where I need to improve, where my short-comings are. Where my faults are. I'd appreciate that. But the rest of that comment was absolutely unnecessary.

I'm not gonna say "don't mistake my confidence for arrogance".

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