One day, while MO was sitting on my lap...

[user328]

... wiggling them firm little butt cheeks around and getting me all flabbergasted, I got to thinking about some things people may or may not have said to me.

One correspondent suggested that I start a forum about shortwave radio. While I find shortwave interesting and know a little bit about it, I'm no expert. Radio is really just one of many offshoots of my general dabbling in electronics and whatnot. I'm into telephones, vintage computers, music synthesizers, and analog audio gear too. But I'm also interested in many other things besides electronics.

More to the point, I don't think I would post enough about any single topic to devote a whole forum to it. The forums and chat rooms I've participated in, and administered myself, have always been general purpose sites. Even on the home recording and tape recorder boards, I tended to spend most of my time in the off topic areas. A general chat platform offers more opportunity to let the bullshit flow freely.

The user328 persona, as originally developed on right-wing social media, was geared mainly, but not exclusively, towards sociopolitical satire and commentary, with an emphasis on infuencer culture. For the most part, the commentary was about other users of the same social media platforms. I wouldn't be able to pull off MO's trademark schtick of commenting on YouTube personalities. Most of the videos I watch are about a particular subject rather than the creator's personal life.

It's been awhile since I followed politics, current events, or the various pundits I used to follow as well. The only subject I've posted about that gained much traction in the past year or so was my experience in the homeless shelter. There were a lot of eccentric characters there, which made it ridiculously easy to find funny things to comment on.

I don't have any intention through all of that again just to milk it for comedy material. I'm gonna have to create my own situations, and see what comes of them. Hence, the absurd stunts like dressing like a goth chick to shock and amuse my friends. These are perhaps the sort of things a YouTube channel could be built around, but I'm not a content creator. The endless hours of editing, not to mention dealing with YouTube's corporate fascist bullshit, would just ruin it for me. I'm retired, so there's no reason at all for me to engage with the corporate world any more than necessary to feed, clothe, and house myself.

[user328]

... wiggling them firm little butt cheeks around and getting me all flabbergasted....

And did I mention she was lickin' on a big ol' lollipop?

[fuzzylesbain]

What you mean by lollipop? I mean you don't have a dick right?

[fuzzylezfung]

" The user328 persona, as originally developed on right-wing social media, was geared mainly, but not exclusively, towards sociopolitical satire and commentary, with an emphasis on infuencer culture. For the most part, the commentary was about other users of the same social media platforms. I wouldn't be able to pull off MO's trademark schtick of commenting on YouTube personalities. Most of the videos I watch are about a particular subject rather than the creator's personal life."

Told you why I think you are cool Lady.

[user428]

Bro just start a social media account on whichever platform you like, and link your site to it.

[user328]

I've deleted every social media account I've ever had. Lol

Even if I wanted to be on a corporate social media site, I probably wouldn't be able to register this moniker again.

[Mister Obvious]

So basically it sounds like you just need an umbrella term or character name to house ALL your concepts under.

There would be one domain name under which all of it is housed.

The only question is...

Is "Dev" your forever home?

I've gone through about a million personas over the years, and I've finally settled on all the ones I'm ever gonna deal with again, lol.

It comes down to the fact that to secure your persona online, you gotta register it as a domain name.

That means if you're using any other labels besides your main umbrella persona, you're gonna have to pay to register each of those domain names for like, ever.

So everyone is way better off just choosing one umbrella/persona/domain name to put it all under and just pay for that domain name and not have the hassle of keeping up any other domains.

[Mister Obvious]

I've also noticed that if you plan to do anything LONG TERM and serious with your persona (such as write books, or create some type of art that you intend to make for the rest of your life) then you really are better off using an umbrella name that is as close to your true persona as possible...

If it's a character with its own personality, odds are you'll eventually outgrow it no matter how old you were when you create it. The feeling just passes.

But if your umbrella name is already pretty much your actual name, there's nothing to outgrow.

Take Lisa Frank for example...

https://www.sectual.com/thread-15044.html

She just threw her own damn name on top of the entire operation and went on to make millions upon millions...

Shit, prolly more than a billion.

She could have called it anything, and of course there's the danger of the whole brand dying with her.

But it worked real good for the course of her own life.

It was just her.

[Mister Obvious]

If it's a character with its own personality, odds are you'll eventually outgrow it no matter how old you were when you create it. The feeling just passes.

You may even end up straight up disliking the persona.

I can't stand the idea of Trix, but I do love MO...

Unfortunately, Mister Obvious was hijacked by some freako weirdo YouTuber and I can't stand that gross icky association even being vaguely drawn.

I was MO first, but it doesn't matter...

Someone else took the name and got more followers than I did. It's too bad, it's super nasty, but it's the way of the world.

So now here we are with another persona I created an obscenely long time ago that I always *liked* but clearly never chose to dust off and wear around until now, cuz there just wasn't really anything else in the closet, gnomesayin'?

Be careful what umbrella you go with, because I dislike "Sectual" now and think it was clever and punny, but ultimately totally fucking stupid...

Thus the rebrand into something I genuinely love and really always did.

Base your umbrella brand on a concept that is either close to your real self, or is a non-emotional concept you know you won't disagree with later down the line.

[Mister Obvious]

Be careful what umbrella you go with, because I dislike "Sectual" now and think it was clever and punny, but ultimately totally fucking stupid...

It served its purpose really well, but it reached its limit of usefulness to me.

Rebranding was zero big deal whatsoever, but if your brand ever gained traction, rebranding would be a different matter.

[user328]

Well, I don't forsee using any other trademark. I like what I accomplished on Gab with this moniker, quite aside from the fact that Gab eventually proved to be too racist and fashy for my taste.

I also don't forsee any circumstances under which I would put my real name and identity on the interwebz. Mark Fuckerberg came up with that idea, and we've seen where it leads.

I actually have an idea for a craft product line with this branding.

Perhaps not insignificantly, I'm the de facto trademark owner with no contenders since that OnlyFans chick went straight.

Aside from what we've repeated countless times about owning your own site and not throwing away your content on corporate social media, I have some other observations about using social media to drive traffic to your own site. I'm on my piece of shit phone right now, so that'll have to wait till I get to a real keyboard.

[Mister Obvious]

It's fine to use social media to drive traffic to your own site... it's just not fine to use social media without having your own site to which you drive the traffic.

[Mister Obvious]

You're supposed to use social media to gain a following and them point them toward an offer... so at the least, you have a domain name with a landing page presenting the product. But I always suggest having a full on site that houses all your concepts.

[user328]

I have reasons to believe social media is a waste of time altogether, but I'll get into that in a bit.

[Mister Obvious]

Oh it absolutely is.

[Mister Obvious]

I mean basically, if you don't have something on offer for sale at any given time and all signs are pointing to it, you are wasting your time on the internet.

[Mister Obvious]

That isn't to say you can't use the internet to sell your stuff or whatever, but as far as using it beyond simple business, it's a waste without an offer being presented.

[Mister Obvious]

Like using it as a hobby, totally pointless.

There are ways you could make it NOT all in vain at the end of it all...

But most people ain't gonna do that, too much effort and they don't have any self-worth.

[user328]

I don't feel that fooling around in chat rooms and having a few laughs is necessarily a waste of time. You can't really quantify the value of entertainment and relaxation. Not everything has to be motivated by profit.

The waste of time is in trying to convert a social media following into traffic to your own site. People on social media are, by and large, thoroughly addicted to social media, and seldom stray away from a handful of big corporate sites. They'd rather endure whatever abuse their corporate overlords dish out rather than fuck off to the real Internet.

Why should they? Every idiot and lunatic on earth is guaranteed a potential global audience of millions on one of the major platforms - at least until the pearl-clutching moderators ban them, terminate their account, or delete their content.

I had a somewhat sizeable following of around 2,000 on Gab. That's pretty good for a site aimed at a marginalized segment of the interwebz population. I plugged my site there for over a month before launch, and people seemed interested.

In reality, maybe ten people even bothered to take a look. Most of those were put off by a software bug or some other flimsy excuse, and never returned after their first visit. One guy consistently logged in and chatted everyday. One or two others checked in every so often.

So yeah. Social media may be fine for promoting a salable product. But converting social media users to Internet users? Forget about it.

[Mister Obvious]

My philosophy is just enjoy playing with yourself.

Everyone is scum.

Sorry, but why beat around the bush.

Other people may love you (or something), but they're never gonna get you.