For once in my weirdo too-young-for-collegiate-life . . . I felt cool.
And yes, I sold out the venue.
People ask me if I have a marketing or PR background, since that’s what helped catapult The Guild into situational internet fame against all odds. Answer? Nope, I have no qualifications in those areas. But I’ve always had a flair for showmanship. I love adding a bit of “VOILà!” to life, like secretly slipping a turd into the pool and watching people react REALLY strongly. Um, except it’s a turd everyone gets excited about, not grossed out by. One made of gold or diamonds or something . . . I dunno where this analogy is going.
Kim, Jane, and I had a meeting right after we finished filming to figure out what we were going to do with the show. We knew the episodes were going to be great, but any plans after that? Not so much.
I tried to be organized and take charge. I even brought a clipboard to the meeting. “So we have a show to release . . .”
Kim nodded. “And?”
“Uh, that’s all I got. What do we do with it?” I dropped my clipboard next to me in the booth, because I suddenly felt stupid for bringing a clipboard into a coffee shop. Or owning a clipboard at all.
Jane said, “We need a plan to get people to see the show before we upload it next week. Kim, how did your video do so well?”
“It’s quirky. And it was linked by a TV show,” said Kim.
“And it has a character named Lick Poop.”
I frowned. “I don’t think we can count on the viral thing happening like that with this show.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Episode two has great poop jokes.”
“Meh. They’re okay.” I was always the gloomy Darth Vader of the group. I could even see the dark side of poop jokes.
“We could use help in the PR department. Does anyone know anyone?”
“For free? I already called in every favor for dog, cat, house-, or baby-sitting during filming. Every single sitting favor I had. Tapped out.”
Jane sighed. “Well, someone has to be in charge of outreach. Or no one will ever see what we’ve made.”
There was a long pause where we sipped our lattes together, knowing someone needed to step up to the plate, but no one wanting to fall on this particular sword.
At last, I raised my hand. Like I was in English class. What a dork. “Uh, I’ll do it. Because I know the internet best? Kinda?”
With that overconfident hubris, I went home and tried to conquer the fantastic world of online marketing! My only starting point was, “People. Want to make them watch things. How do I corral them?” Since the internet is part egalitarian democracy, part vengeful cat worshipers, it was a daunting task. Because I knew that making something discoverable on the web is like sending someone on a scavenger hunt into the universe’s biggest flea market. There’s anything and everything available you can imagine, with an infinite number of stalls to browse and no emergency exits in sight. (That sentence flashed me back to a trip I took to Ikea recently. Major panic attack in the cutlery section.)
But it was actually the perfect time to dive in, because 2007 was when social startups were popping up online like acne on a teenager’s face. It’s hard to imagine with babies practically born with hashtags tattooed on their foreheads today, but social media back then was not mainstream. Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr, most of those sites were brand spanking new. They were super nerdy, super fringe, and super small. (The trending topics were like Drupal and the latest version of Linux. So yeah. That nerdy.) And I had a secret power in this new world: I was used to trolling the internet desperately for friends. (In 2002, I had a Friendster account, yo.) So all the experience I’d had hanging out online and creating bitchin’ recital fliers was about to pay off!
I sat down and scoured the web for every single social network startup that was able to reach new people for free and jumped on them to claim the usernames felicia and theguild. Ever go into a gas station and browse the souvenir section for a key chain or a coffee cup with your name on it, only to discover your parents were horrible human beings and named you too weird to be part of the rest of civilization? That’s what I experienced every time I had to settle for feliciaday and watchtheguild instead. (To the girl who has /felicia on Twitter: Damn you, ma’am. Damn you to hell.)
I also taught myself how to program a website. In the most rudimentary, janky, kid-with-crayons way. I’ve always taken my art seriously, even when I was terrible at it. From ages eight to twelve, I would spend months making everyone in my family handmade gifts for Christmas:
“Mom, get in the car, let’s go! I need more blue construction paper.”
“You have a ton of paper there.”
“But I’m out of royal blue. Santa is flying through the night sky to deliver presents, it’s 2:42 a.m. GMT in this piece, I need blue!”