Grendel singing at the piano for YouTube. (click for full size)
Ah, the unfaithfulness of the human race! Their puerile obsession with the latest thing. In a heartbeat they discard the loyal servant of a lifetime and replace it with a flashy, over-priced, unreliable piece of trash, made to break and laden with features they never need that only get in the way. Their new "friend" is a poor substitute for their loyal retainer.
In the early 2,000s desktop computers were the bomb! They were cheap, fast, capable, had quality keyboards, sound systems, mice and large screens. Though imperfect, Windows XP was, perhaps, the best operating system ever built. People surfed the net from one HTML site to another. There were loads of them and most of them looked unique. There were hordes of bulletin boards and people READ the text! That's right! There was no video online so people read.
I watched the human world covertly and by 2020 I was amazed to find that desktop computers were all but obsolete and even laptops weren't ubiquitous. Most people were doing everything on their phones!! Pathetic! How can such a small device compete with a proper desktop unit? They can't! It's ridiculous! People are morons!
Not only were desktop machines almost obsolete but so were HTML websites. People no longer surfed the web, instead they spent all their time stuck to a small number of sites offering a great deal of content such as: YouTube, TikTok, eBay and Facebook. The most popular sites offered video streaming so that people no longer needed to READ. The death knell began to sound for the human race!
It was obvious to an outsider what road they were on: The race to the bottom. Idiocracy! Reproduction left to dumbos. Selection of the stupidest! The video popularity contest said it all: Epic fails, other's pain, flashy music clips, unboxing, pets, tits & ass, celebrities, cookery, confrontation, danger, Annoying Orange, Mr Beast, Baby Shark... Narcotic brain rot for a degenerate species.
My website was all text and pictures. I was being left behind in this descent into the reptilian brain. Something had to be done. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". So I resolved to develop a YouTube presence of my own. Perhaps I could slow the destruction of human culture by adding some entertaining but intelligent content... (As if!)
To this end I began uploading a selection of original music clips. Although unedited, unrefined and done in one take I felt they were nonetheless worthwhile and since they usually had original words to famous tunes they ought to be interesting to the general public. I knew that they weren't perfect but I also knew that one man with a guitar in the outdoors with one mic was a great discipline and a true test of a musician. At the time there weren't many people doing it and of those there were very few doing it well.
I felt that I was as good as anyone in this discipline and therefore I should be able to attract at least as many subscribers as my competition and with a bit of luck I should be monetized within a year or so if I kept the release rate steady...
But NO! down came the dead hand of God and after 2 years I was still nowhere near being monetized. Any crap female singer of any age who could barely play a chord could achieve monetization but not poor Grendel! My clips were clearly superior in every respect to most of these pretenders so I could only shake my fist and curse my luck.
Grendel making pizza for YouTube. (click for full size)
So I tried making cooking vids on another channel. People who don't know me would be surprised that a hairy green monster can cook. I thought it would be entertaining. I thought I could stand out amid a million competitors by offering a refreshing casual style with mistakes, humour and discussion about things that might not be relevant. I also offered an array of excellent original recipes, quite different to anything else, that ought to be of interest to any genuine cook...
I was surprised to find that after 8 months my cooking channel had more subscribers than my music channel which had been up for years. Perhaps this was my road to monetization? Don't be absurd! After a year the difference was only marginal and I was still going nowhere.
You can say that my content wasn't as good as the best channels, which may be true but it was surely better than a host of 3rd rate channels that nonetheless managed to achieve monetization. IT'S THE DAMN ALGORITHM!
Do Google not feel the slightest responsibility to foster a more intelligent and better educated populace? Of course not! Is there any reason they can't bias the algorithm a little to that end? Of course not! Does the algorithm actually give the user what she wants to see? Sometimes... Is the algorithm completely unfair to starters? Der... Do people really want to keep seeing the same old clips and channels all the time? Pffft! Does the algorithm even make sense? Don't be absurd!
It's the fools leading the fools. A daisy chain of stupidity, reaching into the future to their inevitable demise. Why should I care? They don't value me...
"Fornicate them between the eyes!"
As the morning light comes softly to my eyes,
another song is begun.
I wrote it, played it, found the chords in a dream,
it's only me can write it down.
I heed my calling, and I know who I am:
the artist, born to write and play.
I do my part in this glorious mix of dreams,
now its time that you did yours.
I'm over 40 years but still I'm on the dole,
is this the way it's meant to be?
Its so frustrating when I can't get what I need,
I just make do with what I can.
Am I dancing to somebody else's tune,
or is it mine that I play?
But most I wish to know my life is in good hands,
and its unfolding unto plan.
We're all dreamers; we all have some great scheme in mind;
A plan to make our life worthwhile.
We work in silence, til we get our chance to shine;
Until you make things go our way.
I'm sure I speak for most of us, when I say: "It must be my turn".
I've paid my dues and done my time.
Why do you hold me back when the show is set to go?,
Its time to let the play begin.
If all my life I worked but never got the prize,
would I still want to live this way?
If my creations never got the chance to breathe,
would all my labour be in vain?
I feel them stirring, striving, seeking to be born,
can you forever stop their life?
Unless I get some feedback soon the best will never come,
the blood of the unborn lies on your hands.
I feel my fate, and I know that I'm in tune,
and I have faith in what I play.
But as a writer I need to see it as a whole,
the great and small both at one time.
Give to me my dream, that brought me to this world.
Back off and let me have my way.
Time to let me feel the tiller in my hand,
surely I've come of age by now.
You fates have held my life so tightly in your hands,
you think you know what's good for me.
But I will hold you to blame forever,
if all my children are stillborn.
You fates have taken on a very weighty load,
the right to wreck somebody's life.
I haven't lost faith yet but time is running out,
I won't forgive you if you fuck it up.