Shameful Announcement
I might start posting like an influencer
Dear actual, real-life friends and peers,
I have come to the realization that I might need to do this soon for my sanity and for your tender feelings. At some point in the near future, I am going to try to go viral and you will have to forgive me.
Maybe viral isn’t exactly right — I don’t want to start a trend or, like, get a write up on Huffington Post. But I do want to try and grow an audience, reach more people with both my creative writing and stand-up.
I think I will really regret not trying to build some sort of career for myself based around either, and I am not afraid of failing. 1 So pretty soon, you, my respected and really pretty brilliant friends and acquaintances, will see me using hashtags, posting clips, trying to promote myself and my work. As it has always been mildly soul crushing in my experience to see someone I know as a flesh and blood person try to be an influencer, I do not begrudge you any making fun of me or aversion of eyes that occurs. Try to take it in good humor, and feel free to tease me about this during and after.
I want a life that’s big, really big. There is no better feeling in the world than being there, at the very precipice of a joke or a line with a crowd — a crowd of friends, strangers — and looking out, the silent moment before a punchline and knowing that you are all there together. That you helped make that happen. If I can find a way to pay rent with beauty and a crowd, I will literally never be unhappy again.2
So, and this part is for me, too, I am going to try. I wish I could just bum around open mics and variety shows like Lenny Bruce, but our digital lives mean (I think) I have to become another person putting stuff on your feed. So wish me luck! Or at the very least, look away!
Who knows? Maybe it will work.
I am trying not to be afraid of failing.
That’s a fact and you know it.