Tired of Writing? Create a New YOU for YouTube

At first I couldn’t figure out – is this guy for real, or is he just absolutely amazing at fooling me? I watched the entire video and I couldn’t figure it out.

I’ve seen crack-infested minds at work during the short time I worked at a treatment center in Tampa. I’ve tried to help those addicted to it. It is nothing short of mind-boggling – the stranglehold crack has on people. It is JUST like this guy shows it to be, at the later stages of addiction. So, initially – and maybe STILL – I don’t know whether this is a gag, or WTF. It’s so real that it’s scary. Apparently one of his other videos was removed by Youtube for being TOO real. Reminds me, I need to download it now before it disappears.

On the other hand, he just might have created this character out of thin air – and it’s fucking brilliant. He’s already got 500,000 views. If he can come up with more situations this crackhead finds himself in – he can be making insane money before too long.

I’ve done some videos at Youtube – about 300 on my Thailand channel:

Thailand Fun Videos ->

and another dozen or two on my Thailand Snakes Channel ->

and another few on my Mike Fook Channel ->

If you are going to be a successful writer, one that attracts attention – writing is just one way to do it. Something that helps is to be a character. Who was Hunter S. Thomson? He was a writer, but, he was also (I’d say MORE) a character. Paul Carr? Besides being a great writer, he was a drunken putz for most of his adult life. He’s cleaned up his act, but a LOT of people know him from TechCrunch before he quit. His “character” is serving him well.

Most of you, definitely don’t know Rands, of Rands in Repose. He’s an insidiously good writer, but he has no real character. He stays out of the headlines and not many people call him things that aren’t complimentary. If he was a character, you might already know him. More people would – I am sure of that.

If you want to escape writing and do something else, or even to supplement your writing career – create a video character that is either based on you – if you are odd enough, or based purely on a fictional character that is either funny as hell, disgusting as hell, outrageous, or dumb as hell.

Choose one.

I didn’t bother writing the “sexy as hell’ option, because those days have long since passed Fook by.

This girl is killing it in that space with her routine, I don’t know if you’ve seen it:

She is mindnumbingly sexy – and I hate blondes! My sister had the most beautiful blonde hair… it just turned me off all blondes. This HotForWords girl has completely reversed that process.

I digress.

If you have any acting ability at all – and even if you don’t – sit today for an hour and write down possible characters that you might play on Youtube. Think of the most outrageous people you’ve ever met or heard about… and make them come to life in front of the video camera, as you act the fool.

The crack addict above is a tad too serious for what I’d ever be able to pull off, but if he started injecting some humor somewhere, it could be gutbustingly funny video and I’d never miss one episode.

Some of the big Youtubers are pulling in $2.50 for every 1,000 views of their videos. For 1MM views, that’s $2,500 USD. Some of these hapless nerds are pulling in 6-figure checks for acting stupid. Case in point <-link. Ray William Johnson appears to be having a BLAST acting the ass. If you had 1 Billion 382 Million views like he has, and you were getting paid for clicks on your ads that run on your videos - YOU WOULD TOO!

Is it in YOU to do something extraordinary with video?

I keep asking myself if it’s in me… I’ll sit here for another hour and write down whacky characters and see if I get inspired to videotape myself being wacky.

I encourage you to do the same.

Related posts:

1. Mike Fook Talks! Youtube Video Channel

Tagged as: author as character, good writers, video characters