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Wood the Writer

~ Author of Tales From Undersea

Wood the Writer

Category Archives: internet

What #ChangetheChannel has taught me about online content creation

12 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by Jessica Wood in Blog, Common Criticism, criticism, film, indie, internet, musings

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

#ChangetheChannel, Change the Channel, Channel Awesome, Doug Walker, Nostalgia Critic, online content creator

You might have heard of a controversy that’s circulating the internet right now going by the name #ChangetheChannel. In a nutshell, it involves a website called Channel Awesome which hosts video reviews, recaps, etc about pop culture. It was started by Doug Walker as a place to showcase his Nostalgia Critic character but went on to host dozens of other reviewers. For years it was an incredibly popular website and I’m one of the many who used to visit it religiously. I used to have a lot of fun watching videos with my boyfriend (now my husband) and fondly remember watching Kickassia together and holding each other’s hands as we chanted ‘We believe in Santa Christ!’

But like any big company, it had immoral things going on behind the scenes. Previous contributors to the site have revealed that they were let go for arbitrary reasons and that the management was incredibly poor and misogynistic. In March, a Twitter thread and later a compiled document from over a dozen past and present contributors to the site revealed that things were much worse than anybody suspected. The worst allegation is that the higher ups in the site were involved in sexual abuse which went unreported.

I may create written content rather than videos, but this controversy has told me a few things about making content online, and I hope that other creators can take something away from this too:

It’s not the You show starring You

Ok I’ll admit it, I like being praised for my work. It’s just a natural human instinct. But if you become big enough, it’s easy to become elitist and snobby, which definitely seems to have happened to Doug Walker and the other Channel Awesome higher ups. Many of the website’s problems seem to have come from them treating Doug as a star who could do no wrong and neglecting the other contributors because they weren’t as important in their eyes.

Youtubers usually need to use themselves to brand their work, just as authors need to sell themselves to sell their books. But all creators, no matter how popular they get, need to remember that it is the content that is drawing in their audience, not just themselves.

Respond to controversy correctly

To add further fuel to the fire, Channel Awesome responded to the allegations with a non-apology statement, posted on Twitter, by far the best place for public apologies, which actually included the phrase “we’re sorry you felt that way”. This was basically saying ‘it’s your own fault if you were offended by the horrible things we did’.

Channel Awesome aren’t the first media producers to be involved with a controversy, but some others who have did at least acknowledged their mistakes and apologised for them. Some even voluntarily stepped down from the websites they were associated with.

While sincere apologies don’t automatically excuse you from bad behaviour, they are at least the right way to respond to controversy, rather than trying to weasel your way out of them and avoiding blame.

Being a critic doesn’t make you a creator

It’s almost painfully ironic that Doug Walker famously reviewed The Room, which is regarded as one of the worst movies ever due to the incompetence of its director. The making of the film was so awful that it has had books and films made about it (which I highly recommend, btw). Based on the testimonies made by CA contributors, when Walker made his own movies, he did similar things (not providing food and water, ignoring continuity errors, spending hours filming scenes which never made it into the film, etc) and has a similarly over-inflated ego.

I occasionally get paid book review jobs, but that’s more of a side hustle for extra pocket money. Learning what works and what doesn’t work in books can help with my own writing, but I know that being a critic doesn’t automatically make me a great writer, because criticism and writing are two highly different skills.

Don’t settle for a shitty company

I’ve worked for shitty companies before, both as a writer and in my previous career in retail. Thankfully I’ve never been involved with a company which has committed sexual assault, but I did briefly work for one which was involved with attempted murder.

The signs of a shitty company are almost always the same; poor management, lack of communication, overworking staff, no respect for employees, and those who act like paying others is a favour rather than an obligation. I know that financial necessity often leads us to settle for shitty companies, but the golden rule of ‘never work for exposure’ always stands. Your time and talent are worth so much more and moving on from an awful company is the best feeling in the world.

 

The nature of the internet is ever changing and some of the forecasts are scary for those of us who make a living from creating online content. But this controversy shows all online creators, be they writers, Youtubers, streamers, bloggers, podcasters, artists, or whatever else that if we respect each other and our work, we can still keep on creating the content that we and our audiences love.

This is the quality content I go online for.

Update: Right after I published this post (and I do mean right after), I found out that Channel Awesome has posted a more detailed response to their website. But this too doesn’t contain an apology and once again comes across as their way to try and weasel out of the accusations.

Manga Review: Fruits Basket Another

05 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by Jessica Wood in anime, art, Blog, internet, manga review, musings, romance, series review, shojo, story

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

fruits basket, fruits basket another, haru sohma, kyo sohma, manga, manga review, natsuki takaya, review, shigure sohma, tohru honda, tokyopop, yuki sohma

fb another

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya, the story of a teenage orphan who becomes involved with the reincarnated spirits of the Chinese zodiac, was one of the most influential manga and anime series of my late teen and university years and remains one of my favourite titles ten years later. It was so popular in the west that the end of its print run is probably one of the reasons why Tokyopop closed down. A few months ago it was announced that Takaya was releasing a sequel series online with the same setting but a new cast so of course I was excited. But do we really need another Fruits Basket or is Takaya trying to cash in on her former glory?

The story starts with Sawa Mitoma, a high school girl who purposely avoids interaction with others because she fears she is nothing but a bother. Her mother constantly leaves the house without telling her where she’s going or paying the rent, leaving Sawa to be shouted at by the landlady. After one such occasion makes her late for school and gets her in trouble with a teacher, she is ‘saved’ by a cute boy named Musuki Sohma, a member of the same Sohma clan from the original Fruits Basket. Musuki asks Sawa to go to the student council room after school, where she meets Hajime, another member of the Sohma family…By accidently stepping on his face.

After a few more brief encounters, Musuki announces that Sawa is to be a representative on the student council and all of a sudden the girl who avoided everyone is the talk of the entire school.

There are some instant and noticeable parallels with the story of Fruits Basket. The two Sohma boys are obvious copies of Yuki and Kyo, they might even be their sons, indicating that this is going to be another love triangle story. It already seems that the Kyo clone is going to be the winning love interest. I’m a little disappointed as when I was originally reading Fruits Basket, I shipped Tohru and Yuki for the longest time and thought it would be nice if ‘Yuki’ could be the winner this time. Then again, the Yuki clone is somewhat creepy and forced Sawa into the student council without asking her. Perhaps he is actually Shigure’s son.

I’m also pissed that out of all the five billion characters in Fruits Basket, the only one to make a cameo is Makoto Takei, the obnoxious leader of the student council. The one who Haru showed his… special area to. (It took me years to understand that joke!)

Sawa, like Tohru, is a cute yet plain girl in a criminally short skirt. The big difference I see between her and Tohru is that despite being an orphan and living in the woods, Tohru initially seemed to be endlessly cheerful and optimistic. As the story progressed, it became evident that this was just a mask to deal with her crippling emotional issues. Sawa’s issues are clear from the start, even the cover image spells it out. This made me emphasise with her a lot, especially when the stress gets to her and she starts to cry in public without meaning to, lamenting how she is constantly disappointed in herself. I hate to think what suddenly becoming the centre of attention at school is going to do to her already fragile emotional state.

The artwork and character designs are as adorable as I remember and there is the style of humour that Fruits Basket was known for, especially the face stepping incident. Did the Kyo clone get a good look up her skirt when that happened?

This sequel shows good potential to be just as good as its predecessor and we do know that Takaya is talented enough to pull it off. I do want to find out how Sawa is going to deal with her issues and why she is so important to the Sohmas. It will still take a little longer to see if the series progresses into a worthy successor so I’ll keep reading to see if that happens.

How not to market an e-book

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by Jessica Wood in indie, internet, self publishing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

author, e-book, marketing, self publishing, writing, writing advice

Last week I wrote about six things to avoid if you want to write a good e-book. As difficult as writing a book is, any self published author will tell you that the writing isn’t the hardest part. Now that it’s finished, you have to market your book. I’m not a book marketer, there are many talented people out there who can tell you the right ways to market your book, but I do work enough in the industry to recognise the warning signs of when a book isn’t going to sell.

The good news is that if you followed the advice in my last post and have written a great book, then you’ve already given yourself a huge advantage. Read on and you’ll find out why.

  1. Assume the cover alone will sell it.

A good looking, professionally designed cover is essential for your e-book sales and it goes beyond sticking on a stock image of a sexy lady or a shirtless hunk (or whatever does it for your target audience). If you hope people will just pick up your book thanks to the cover and not bother to take a few moments to read the first page then you’re assuming your readers are idiots. Don’t think that you can sell an inferior product if it comes in nice packaging.

  1. Believe you can sell sand to the desert.

If you’re stuck with a hastily written book with a tacky cover, you might hope you can use your savvy sales skills to move copies. Any marketing professional will tell you that no amount of marketing plans and expensive advertisements will sell something that is terrible. You’ll save yourself a lot of hassle by putting the time in to write a decent book.

  1. Bug people online.

Social media is a great way to gain a following for your written works but you have to do it in the right way otherwise people will know you’re just trying to flog something to them. Sending hundreds of friend requests on Facebook will get you banned and mass following on Twitter won’t get you any genuinely interested readers. Also, don’t send hundreds of annoying messages asking bloggers to review your book, especially if they say on their website that they don’t review self published books.

  1. Order 2000 paperback copies.

Many self publishing services offer printing options but these should be taken frugally. If you had a new product you were trying to sell, wouldn’t you test it first to see if there was a market for it before you set up a factory and made a huge batch? Similarly, would you order 2000 copies of a book when you don’t even know if it’s going to sell a single copy?

It’s disheartening to order lots of books only for them to either take up room in your shed or be pulped. Instead, use a reliable short run printer that can print a few dozen books at a time so you have enough to sell at your book launch and can give one to your granny. Or alternatively wave one in the face of your old maths teacher to prove that all those years of daydreaming in class weren’t a waste.

  1. Ask anyone you know (or don’t know) for a review.

It’s still true to an extent that one of the best ways to move books off the shelves is to have an endorsement from a famous writer somewhere on the cover. That said, I’m not the only reader who’s becoming annoyed with the blurbs on the back of books being replaced with quotes.

Unfortunately, it’s near impossible for a self publisher to get one of these celebrity endorsements. Margaret Atwood wrote an entire poem about why she doesn’t provide blurbs, so under no circumstances should you ask a famous author for one, unless you’ve actually saved their life and they owe you a big favour.

Even worse is asking anyone you know who’s even remotely well known to give you an obviously fake quote. This becomes awkward when you see a former mayoress saying how much she loved a gory zombie horror book.

  1. Write in a genre because it’s popular.

It’s becoming depressing to walk into a bookshop and being surrounded on all sides by rip offs of whatever happens to be popular at the moment that were obviously put out quickly and cheaply to cash in on that book. It’s especially disturbing that currently that book is 50 Shades of Grey…

Once again this comes down to writing just to make money. If you genuinely enjoy reading and writing in that popular genre then go for it. But if you don’t, it would be a waste to try.

The best thing about self publishing is that you don’t have to worry about what’s currently selling down at the supermarket. You can be as niche as you like without having to worry about appeasing your agent or publisher. Your time is free for impressing the most important people in the publishing industry – the readers.

Manga review – I Am Here!

26 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by Jessica Wood in anime, art, internet, manga review, musings, series review, shojo, story

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

blogging, fruits basket, i am here, internet relationships, kodansha, manga review, romance manga, school manga, shojo manga

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk

The amount of slice of life shojo manga out there seems to be severely lacking ever since Fruits Basket ended. There have been re-prints of old titles like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, which we all appreciate, but when it comes to pure slice of life, there’s only been smaller, lesser known titles. Ouran High School Host Club probably doesn’t count because it’s more insane rich people.

I Am Here is one of those lesser known titles that deserves a bit more recognition. And that’s what I’m here for.

It’s the story of a middle school girl named Hikage Sumino who has no friends at school because she is invisible. Not literally of course. She is so quiet and shy that no one ever notices her; her classmates, her teachers, even waiters look right through her.

But really, if Hikage is as ‘plain’ looking as everyone in the manga says she is, then Japan must be full of slim, adorable, bright eyed, long haired teenage girls!

fanpop.com

fanpop.com

Behold, an ‘average’ teenage girl!

Hikage’s only joy comes from looking after a sunflower that she has found growing in a hidden corner of the schoolyard. And her only outlet to the world is through her photo blog, where she talks to her two online friends Black Rabbit and Mega Pig, who console her and try to help her with her problems.

One day, Hikage is surprised to find that Hinata, the most popular boy in school, knows her name. And not only that, he’s been watching her for a long time (don’t worry, not in a creepy stalker way) and wants to be friends with her.

Hikage is thrilled to finally be accepted by someone, but the other girls in her class soon become jealous of all the attention he is giving her. So Hikage must decide whether she should finally come out into the sun or stay in the shade where it’s safe.

fanpop.com

fanpop.com

I think I’m drawn to this series because in a lot of ways, it is a lot like Fruits Basket. The Hikage/Hinata/Teru trio has an almost uncanny resemblance to Tohru, Yuki and Kyo. But be warned, the romantic pairings may be a little different…

It lacks the soul crushing angst of Fruits Basket while keeping the heartwarming moments and occasional comedy that we all read it for. Hikage’s invisibility, as much of a heartache it is for her, is actually treated with humour. And so is the road accident that leaves her in the hospital for months!

The artwork is wonderfully shojo with lots of sparkles and flowers and pleasing character designs. The covers are simple, colourful and fitting and I also like how the members of Hikage’s class each have their own unique character designs rather than just being stick figure mooks. Although this class of 30 only seems to have about 5 boys in it…

This is a series that will really speak to anyone who has ever felt unnoticed. Things like the feeling of dread when the teacher asks the class to get into groups are all too relatable for shy people. It makes Hikage’s story incredibly realistic.

The ‘online friend is someone you know in real life’ story is a little done to death by now and writers still can’t seem to comprehend just how unlikely this story actually is. But thankfully it doesn’t actually take up that much of the plot. The first book is more about Hikage becoming accepted among her classmates and dealing with bullies while the second is about the love triangle.

The big reveal that the story builds up to is maybe a little obvious to any savvy shojo fan. It also takes quite a while for the third wheel in the love triangle, Teru, to get much focus in the story, and that dilutes the romance plot quite a bit.

The boy’s actions are also a little suspect, at least in my eyes. Hinata, love interest number 1, makes Hikage promise to pass her tests so that they can go to the fireworks festival together. But then he ends up messing her around so much that she can’t study and fails her tests, leaving her feeling guilty for breaking her promise! I’m sorry but that is NOT the way you treat a young girl with severe self-confidence issues.

At five volumes combined into two omnibuses in the English release by Kodansha, this series is refreshingly short compared to the never ending drama of Furuba. But in a way, that also hinders it as the love triangle element of the story comes in a bit suddenly half way through the story and is then resolved rather quickly.

Still, this is a great little series for shojo fans that most definitely needs more love. Check it out if you want a good, heartwarming story about love and acceptance.

My verdict – 5/5.

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