Thoughts of a Dork Stormy Knight

As you may guess from the header there, I'm likely to come off seeming hypocritical here as I feel like ranting about internet fame and the lengths people go for it. Having a blog kinda leaves me open to apparently going for internet fame, but well you can either go and call me a hypocrite which is perfectly correct - I am a hypocrite when it comes to many things - but I don't pander to an audience or do anything to get attention. I just happen to write in a style that implies I think people actually read this..and to be honest thats just my natural writing style - to write like I'm talking.

Anyway I believe youtube illustrates this more than anything, after successes of numa numa guy, star wars kid who've been featured on the real news and in other tv shows. Another one that is hard to escape is Chris Crocker I believe the name is? The annoying leave britney alone guy who has been one of the actually successful stars having been parodied in that *oh so funny* (note the sarcasm please) film meet the spartans and being used as an 'internet correspondent' on a show or 2. So following in the footsteps of these 'stars' we get a new generation of people willing to go to any lengths for the same level or at least a taste of the same level of fame.

This was an example I came across when I was finding out who the hell chris crocker was after hearing the name so many god damn times. Anyway I found an example that illustrates this point perfectly. This girl was claiming to be the female Chris Crocker, and she posts this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBxYhovsUjE in short having seen another - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH0i-xPuQ7E video either on an advertised place on youtube or due to having a couple of thousand hits she just copies her. They're both videos of girls pieing themselves in the face, just to get attention. It worked for one on a small scale so the other follows suit hoping to get the same glamour or whatever that apparently comes with website/youtube hits.

Now many people will think whats the big deal? Its attention seeking and its kinda stupid/funny whatever. But what does this fame bring? Well unless you're incredibly successful money definately doesn't enter the equation, even with the google advertising monster powering it. These videos by now, 6 months to a year on after posting are hovering around the 20-25k mark this actually might qualify for some kind of monetary reward if you agree to the advertising deal I've heard about on youtube - this could be rubbish as I only watch videos so feel free to correct me - but it took so long , much longer than our internet generation demand. If anything is to be gained it needs to be almost immediate for them ,and in a way still me, to be deemed any form of success. Slow burners, to coin a sales term, aren't of interest.

But eitherway just a scroll down the comments on these videos reveals a worrying erm, thing. I mean it starts off with a weird face, and replied to by the author with a hopeful 'subscribe to me'. But scroll further and further down and you start seeing weirder comments like "Ha,, this is the way to get subscribers... if you pie yourself with an entire can of shaving cream and cover your entire face...I guarantee I will get you at least 70 subscribers today!! " - "Lol. Thanks I think? You should subscribe if you havent.
Next week I think im gonna melt chocolate and pour it on my head. ". I mean if you like to do that kinda thing, sure go ahead, but otherwise for 70 subscribers? big deal. They don't actually do anything, but more on that tangent in a minute. But why do something to placate an audience you get nothing from if its something you don't wanna do? The majority of the comments continue in such a way, and theres a follow up where she just goes straight into something messy, in my opinion just to placate the fans. She called this one pie in face or whatever she actually did to hook people, but placed it at the end video with the idea she'd do what she'd normally do with this as a hook to increase viewers at the end - a typical tv trick, but already the next day she was giving in and just going straight to the apparently viewer high segment.

Now you may be wondering why the hell I give a damn about stuff like this. Well that is a very good question and I often say that people will be dumb regardless of what you or I do. However this is actually an area in which I have a bit of experience. Rewind the clock 5 or so and I used to run a yahoo group which is still about, but unfortunately I'm locked out of any admin controls for. Anyway it was something I used to give back to a community I took a lot from and felt I should give something back. At its height it had 5000+ members which you might think is pretty cool, and at the time it was rather an ego boost for me and the other person involved. However 5000 members really means diddly squat if no one contributes and to be honest there were less than 10 people who contributed, whether it be photos, videos, stories or even comments on material. When you take that into account, and to an extent blame lays with me for not getting the community more involved, you begin to realise how meaningless that number is, sure its people looking at whatever you're doing, accessing your material but you get fuck all for it. Excuse me, I don't like swearing even when I'm typing but to an extent it does annoy me that much. Its just a community that'll take all it can and give nothing in return.

Obviously a group site and a yahoo vlog or whatever you wanna call it is different but in my opinion viewers/site members/hits are equally meaningless as at the end of the day you get nothing from them. I believe in this post I've proved an old saying, you are what you drink, and I'm a bitter and stout man in both senses of the word. But fyi no alcohol was consumed in the makings of this rant, even if it should've been to distract me from making it, Dork out

halfway through another blog, so this'll be quick. But I hope someday when I leave a job that I'll be missed like this guy - http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/21448 . Great tribute video and I will be missing him as well, I'm a big fan of the 1up podcasts

So I was sitting in the exam hall again today, my mind drifting off to unimportant things as per usual as the questions made less sense than if they'd been in esperanto. This led me to thinking, as I'm sure you can understand 'what the hell am I doing here?'. Its a question that has been asked with increased frequency over the past few years "what are you doing at university?". I'm still not entirely sure over the answer. I've always been able to give I suppose...adequate answers but they've never seemed right for me. On the one hand I guess I was following in the footsteps of my brother. I've often idolised him, I was 5 when he left home, he went to Oxford met his wife there, eventually used his degree to get a good career and now has the 4 bedroom london house wife+2 kids. I've always been compared with him, I look a lot like him, act like him etc etc, so theres some truth in this answer but not enough by itself.

Another answer is of course I was interested in Physics. This was definately true for a little while, for the first term and doing the first topic at 6th form was definately true, but it did seem to go downhill from there. After a while it wasn't about getting A's or 100%s or as close as I could, it was about doing enough. There's always been the excuse that I was diagnosed with diabetes during my AS level run-in and missed a bunch of coursework but to be fair I'm not entirely sure how much impact, if any, that really had on my studies. So again I suppose there was a little truth in this bit too.

Finally we come to what I've always felt has been as close to the real answer as I'll get. I was 18 when I left 6th form, having only spent 2 days in a job before quitting, youngest child of 3, only had one girlfriend in a long distance relationship which had recently ended and I was faced with 2 options - university or the real world and the rest of my life. I deferred entry to university not wanting to go straight across the country away from my parents, and not wanting to go straight from 13 years of schooling to what was going to be 4-5 years of a degree due to my need to complete a foundation year to gain access to the degree itself. So I did dip my toes in to the real world but in the comfort of my parents house.
Then of course I went to Uni here in Sussex, the first year went well and I flew through the foundation year, but towards the end I noticed some of the -just doing enough- attitude creeping back into my life, which annoyed me but has remained with me to this day. The second year, the first proper one of the degree started well, I was in a relationship that ate up a lot of my time and was partially responsible for sending me into a bit of a depression that in part remains with me, slumps I've found are hard to get out of. But I can't blame it on that, there were a lot of issues, and I finally got a job at the start of that year - my cinema one I still have, just about - which again ate up some time, but was frankly a relief to have especially when university got tough. At the end of the year though I squeezed through but knew I didn't know as much as I needed to and was still a bit...well, very out of sorts.
Then we come to the year I'm finally coming to the end of now due to resits, with tomorrow potentially my final day as a university student. I struggled with 2 of my courses in the first term, which obviously had a bit of a snowball effect and being the time of person who prefers to ignore problems rather than deal with them, it wasn't really till almost easter, 2/3rds of the way through the year that I realised just how much trouble I was in, and how much help I'd need. Help is always something I've had trouble asking for, after some therapy the prevailing theory is that I feel I shouldn't need it, that even if others do I should be able to plow through solo because I should be better than that. So to be honest I stopped trying, at least for the most part. I attended my lectures, attempted to hand at least something in for my assignments, knowing I was going to fail and hopefully get a chance to resit the entire year. Unfortunately this is the first year my university doesn't automatically allow you to resit, its done on a case by case basis and they may not deem me worthy of a second shot. Which is the position I find myself in now, I didn't get to do any of the studying I needed to over the summer as I needed to build up my plan B and well C to be fair, career etc.

So thats the position I'm in and to an extent what happens next is out of my hands. The fact is though I'm not even sure what I want, as I've said in a very lengthy way above, the reason I went to uni was because I was scared of the real world. University was a way for me to escape having to live a real life for a few years, and I've done that now. I sorta know what I might wanna do in the future, and I've taken steps towards that so in many ways university may have served its purpose. Don't get me wrong however, there are many things about the real world that scare the shit outta me, but I'm not so timid anymore that I can't face them.
On the other hand, I've already sunk £15k into university life, not to mention family loans, 'gifts' and naturally lost earnings through studying rather than working a full time job so its almost as if I'm committed at this point and 5500 characters in I'm still no clearer about which option I'd rather take. I suppose that means in many respects its a good thing the decision is to a large extent out of my hands, I just need to wait and see. 1 more exam tomorrow then I could be gone. £15k the price of fear eh?

That may go some way to explaining the 'potential drop out' comment in my intro...anyway thats all I have to say for now, I'm out.