Marshall McLuhan’s words still ring true, stronger than ever even. “The Medium Is the Message.” I grasp that now. I recently got a full page in a local newspaper for some of my most recent work, a big photo too! This rarely happens anymore, a lot of outlets have no interest in covering what I do, so I was pretty grateful. It was a well-written piece, the writer conveyed what I was doing perfectly (trust me, this doesn’t always happen), the jokes landed.
People on my social media were excited. In fact, they shared the newspaper article far more than the actual work that I am making -which was what the piece was about. I found this disheartening. I made this work about our current time and I made it for an audience, deliberately meaningful, fresh, modern, and entertaining. For that month all money made from this work was going to a very important cause (BC Residential School Association) but the work only made ten dollars that month -even with the coverage. I looked up the web stats and everything for when the article appeared: barely a blip. I guess all that mattered was my picture in the local paper. And yes, that coverage is useful for other things (one example: to help my U.S. visa so that I can leave Canada).
Conversely in that same newspaper there is a regular celebrity section with photos of people I often do not recognise. Except that these people are presented without any context whatsoever, but are often described doing very banal things (albeit often with great wealth and bland looks), especially in the Pandemic. The people in my actual personal life are far more interesting.
I remember the excitement of creating The Canadian Romantic character ten years ago and launching the videos which I put up on YouTube for everyone to freely watch, I sent out press notices, but the press ignored it. I created this character as a positive force for people, trying to do meaningful and entertaining public service work. Right as I launched the videos a commercial I was hired to be in for some office supply company started airing on television. Filming that commercial was a fun day with everyone and it helped pay me good money to survive and continue to create my own meaningful work for an audience. But people genuinely seemed more excited about seeing me on television for a split second in an office supply commercial than the meaningful work I had just launched. I still haven’t seen the commercial (absurdly enough The Canadian Romantic character was ripped off a few years later for a series of condom commercials, they did a terrible job: if they had just approached me and paid me to do the real thing, well, I really could have used the money…).
When the Canada 150 propaganda rolled around a couple years ago, like many people I was quite rightly against it and made a rather covert criticism: a funny video of The Canadian Romantic’s version of “Oh Canada.” I called in favours from friends to help, bless them, it was from the unreleased The Canadian Romantic album that no label wanted to release, even though I tried to create the funniest, most listenable album I could for people: it remains unreleased. I called in press favours trying to get this “Oh Canada” video out there on platforms to the people. No one replied. I have been told that these industry people are scared of me. I get this a lot. “They’re scared of you.” But why? Can someone tell me why they are so scared of me? I am just trying my best to create good, unique, meaningful work -positive work- for people and just want to get it out to people. Is there something I don’t know or understand? This is a serious question.
I have so many more anecdotes, endless.