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[Jared C]

Hey all!

Let me start by explaining that I'm not really an indie game dev, nor do I any longer aspire to be one. I've been devoting most of my creative energy into my comic, which is something I'm finding to be a much more doable and realistic medium, as I'm no longer having to rely on a coder or any other sort of functionary to help me with said project. Now, that doesn't mean I'm not running into any sort of roadblocks; I certainly am. I do also think that a lot of these obstacles pertain also to indie game developers, and any other sort of independent creator on the internet.

Now, it is my understanding that most of the successful creators on the internet, regardless of the quality of whatever it is that they are working on, are mighty fine at networking. One of the thing that I've been repeatedly reforming is my persona on the internet; given my comic is pretty family friendly and there is not a whole lot that should offend any sort of demographic, I'm not sure how to approach any sort of other outlet where a similar level of output is necessary to keep a reader engaged. Should I stick with a similar sort of non-offensive, albeit dry humor, or should I attract more readers with a persona that is more true to myself? Even in that means not censoring myself or trying to fit a fictional demeanor.

Everything you do is permanently etched into the brick slab that is the internet. When you make a hurtful remark or controversial statement it can be seen by the entire world.

So what do you think; is it important to maintain an online persona when networking, or is it better strictly to be non-offensive as congruous with one's creative product? I'm sure I'm thinking too hard about all of this, but these are things that, again, I imagine pertains to anyone creating things on the internet.

[PompiPompi]

I think censoring yourself is part of being an adult. Nobody wants to know about your fetish for furry dragons and what you imagine them doing. XD
We are not to the point we can act like Paul Eres and tell everything on our mind. Seriously, if I date a girl I find attractive I don't just tell her everything on my mind... (although some girls might like it, I dunno)
However, it's your choice, you CAN be brutal honest and pour everything on your mind, everything that might be offending, embarrassing or otherwise most people would censor.
If all you think about is success and not Art, I think being brutal honest will mostly attract a niche, not the main stream. So you would be less succesful under certain metrics of success.
So if you just want to be successful, you don't need to act as someone you are not, but you can do heavy censoring to not reveal the "Too much information" part of yourself.
While censoring sound like a bad thing, most people do censor themself most of the time, even on the internet and even if they don't realize it.

[noah!]

So, you remember that one really stupid kid in high school? The one whose personality changed depending on whoever he was trying to impress? Gosh, wasn't that kid annoying?

It sucks to be him. It really sucks to use him as a business model.

This is what I'm trying to get to: Be yourself, man. Be real. Let's face it, everyday people get swarmed with fake stuff. Shows constructed from spreadsheets, movies scripted to appeal to demographics. If you remain fake, you're just gonna blend right in with all the noise. People are just gonna walk right past ya, unwilling to give their time to yet another person who's clearly playin' it safe. And your target demographic will be too busy watching Disney Channel to notice.

Get real. Show the world your true colors and don't hold back. I mean, you're freakin' Jared C! The Masna!! From what I hear, you're a pretty cool dude, and should have no trouble at all winning people over to your side. To make it big, you need to leverage every resource you have. Why not harness your winning personality as well?

[PompiPompi]

Noah!, maybe you don't realize it, but you DO need to accomdate your behaviour to the people you are around. Not changing your personality, but you do need to change the throttle of your self censorship.
I think that is what Jared is talking about. Making a PG18 comics as opposed to kids friendly.
You won't tell dirty jokes to kids, wouldn't you? That doesn't mean you can't ever tell dirty jokes, you just need to adapt your behaviour to the people you are with.
Like you won't behave with your boss like he is part of your family.
We do change our behaviour according to the people who are around us.
You would use different langauge on different occassions.
Even if we don't talk about censoring adult content, there is this thing of censoring your private life. It's called tact, you sometimes want to say the right thing, you don't want to tell someone everything about yourself.
Both in person and in a web comic.
I don't think ANYONE is 100% brutal honest, not even Paul Eres, if you don't realize that then you are not too aware of yourself.
You don't just tell women on your workplace "you look hot, I want to have sex with you", that would be sexual harrasement. Even if you did think that.

[noah!]

Pompi^2, yes, I am aware of that. Believe it or not, underneath my avatar with big blocky teeth, I'm a real person who sometimes even has friends. I know about these subtleties that you are talking about. However, I'm talking about censoring your unique character, not just your language. For example, one of my best friends, whom I admire very much, is a guy who has a very unique personality and is not afraid to let it show. Still, even he has the good sense not to just let every single thought fly straight out his cheek-speaker.

Besides, this is the internet. There are a ton of people who have made a success out of being highly abrasive. Just look at Maddox, for instance. Offensive? Oh yeah. Effective? OH YEAH.

I guess my whole point was to be who you want to be, not what an arbitrary demographic wants you to be. It might not be the fastest path to fame, but it's a lot less stressful on your psyche.

[PompiPompi]

I think you can't seperate who you want to be or how you want to behave from your goals.
A good example is that strangers will be usually nice to you only when they need something from you. It's rare, but there are some people who are honestly nice to you even if they don't need anything from you(strangers).
If his goal is to entertain, then he needs to choose one thing. If his goal is to have his comic as some sort of therapy for his own personal issues, then he should do something else.
From what I understand he wants to entertain mostly, he also probably want to enjoy what he is doing. Doing crude humour isn't necesseraly more enjoyable than dry humour.
I think maybe he does enjoy making humour for everyone, he was just concerned that most successful comics use provacative\taking a dumb in the middle of the street kind of humour to become succesful. And he asks if he should be like them.
It's just what I understand from him.
Bottom line, I think he should think what are his goals, and then decide what kind of humour to use. Knowing that PG18 is not superior or more mature than humour for everyone. Heck, even disney and pixar movies which are supposed to be for kids have harmless jokes only adults can understand.
Like, in Ice age 3, when the baby mamooth was born, then steve(?) the sloth says, it's a boy. So diego says "That's her tail..."
And this is a movie for kids.

[Jared C]

Pompi, I agree completely with the idea of altering yourself to accommodate your social environment. That's something I've been dealing with alot lately, having been picked up and tossed haphazardly to the other side of a giant country. I've experienced the culture shock, the social implications, and some emotional turmoil because of it. At some point I stopped understanding what it was I was doing wrong not making any friends in my new environment... I still don't, but I am visiting the east coast currently and basking in my cacophony of honest-to-god social interaction! This is partly the reason why I'm probably asking myself all of these questions, but Noah is right, I really need to learn not to waver in personality. Right now a lot of people refuse to accept the person that I am right now, probably because of the huge cultural gap, and also possibly they don't know what to make of me! Introspection is not something that comes easily to spacey Los Angelites.

Thanks for the very kind words though, Noah. :^) Pompi is right in that I have noticed a trend in honest and vulgar humor being more popular than the latter. I think a more child-friendly approach is very accessible once you've been successful at attracting a larger audience, but otherwise it would a poor model to attract more readers. Ultimately I think you're both right; I shouldn't blatantly speak my mind but I should maintain a level of decorum, while still providing a sense rawness? Maybe I should instead split this directly in half; I keep my twitter as something I'm not embarrassed to show, and maybe make a tumblr I keep on the down-low just to maintain my own sanity?

[eclectocrat]

WARNING: Ramble-ramble, rumble-bumble.

Presentation <-> Content

The content of your character is something you should feel proud of, there's no faking it. Inside everyone there's a little voice that tells you when you're ashamed, embarrassed, proud. Many people drown that voice out with other noise, some people want to kill it, others feel overwhelmed by it. I say calm yourself down, stop, what is that feeling? Do you feel genuine? Are you being honest? In the heat of day to day living we invent rationale to explain away our choices, but if we really take the time to throw out the reasons, and listen to the core of our feelings, then we'll find out a whole lot about ourselves.

'Should' is a word that authority uses over the guided/enslaved, and carries an implicit but often unclear goal. You 'should' do such and such (implicit: because the result of doing that are pleasing to me, the giver of advice). There are actions and consequences, nothing more. I hope you find a series of actions that results in consequences which further your life goals.

Short answer: listen to your deep inner feelings, find a way to make things work. Don't compromise your values.

[Jared C]

Aww, thanks for the not-at-all-rambly explenation, eclectocrat. :^)

I can totally get behind that sentiment; introspection is something that comes hard for a lot of people, and stopping and taking stock of your life, your emotions, what have you, is an important thing to do. I'll start listening to my gut from now on; I don't trust my own judgment enough.

[corvidology]

I did a podcast on this very subject of artist persona's online. (For comics. I also dabble in web comics and have self-published a few titles.)
If your interested in wasting about an hour while we rattle off comic news, a review before discussing artist personas, it's a good episode: http://thedish.libsyn.com/webpage/the-dish-145

On the subject though:

There was some smart guy who said that "How can I claim to know this inconsistent thing I call "me"."
A Person is always changing and growing. It's not a consistent thing the self.
So remember when you DO make a social faux pas or controversial statement, HOW you handle the heat will also be etched into the minds of your audience. If you ban anyone who left a negative comment then that might be seen as immature. And for some reason, an audience expects some level of maturity from a creator. Although, do feel free to be fun, silly, and odd.

[Majestic]

So, you remember that one really stupid kid in high school? The one whose personality changed depending on whoever he was trying to impress? Gosh, wasn't that kid annoying?

It sucks to be him. It really sucks to use him as a business model.

This is what I'm trying to get to: Be yourself, man. Be real. Let's face it, everyday people get swarmed with fake stuff. Shows constructed from spreadsheets, movies scripted to appeal to demographics. If you remain fake, you're just gonna blend right in with all the noise. People are just gonna walk right past ya, unwilling to give their time to yet another person who's clearly playin' it safe. And your target demographic will be too busy watching Disney Channel to notice.

Get real. Show the world your true colors and don't hold back. I mean, you're freakin' Jared C! The Masna!! From what I hear, you're a pretty cool dude, and should have no trouble at all winning people over to your side. To make it big, you need to leverage every resource you have. Why not harness your winning personality as well?

You hit the nail right on the head bro. There's no need to be all formal and super-professional anymore.

We are the masses, connected and linked to each other. I've recently just opened my eyes to the power of social networking.

[Triplefox]

Two thoughts on this.

The first is that when you start you kind of have to expect to be blundering around for a while and not attracting attention, or the wrong kind of attention. And you have to keep an open mind about it - because you don't actually know where your success is yet(despite any attempts to predict it) so it has an equal chance of coming from your "dark self" as it does your "light self." As noted earlier in the thread it's unreasonable to bluntly separate public/private life today. They may be different personas, but like best friends, they have to stick up for each other. Reshaping your image is mostly an internal challenge - simply stating that you've changed your views will calm down all but the most hardcore detractors(people who would find reason to hate you anyway).

The other is that most online blowups are basically human, emotional failings - strident ideology, addictions, or psychological issues take hold of you and make you say something unrestrained; lots of people "cause a scene" without having any real notoriety at all. Getting caught in a lie - either about your past, or about your ignorance - is the easiest way you can lose credibility now. Rational debate, on the other hand, is more likely to be tolerated and find a following, even if your tone is a bit too harsh or others disagree. Simply becoming a "better self" as others suggest may be enough to bring you over the line from "angry idiot" to "hero".

If you're the kind of person who actually posts about how to keep up a good online persona, you're actually far ahead of most of the people who get into public drama.

[Jared C]

corvidology@ Fun podcast! I subscribed and joined the Comic Dish forums.

Triple@ Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I am just kind of fed up with having been in the stumbling around period for a while now I suppose. I know fame and attention isn't INSTANT, but it would be nice if it were more gradual; or even if there were a promise of an increase in audience.

There most certainly is a type of personality that will deliberately start arguments or cause a general hubbub. That's not at all the kind of person I would be worried about becoming. The same can be said about the way people respond to criticism. I tend to be able to take critique very well; I think having a realistic level about the caliber of your own work is a very important element of this aswell.