Self Publishing- A Hypothetical Tale of Despair

I realize that when it comes to my writing, I can not be trusted alone with my own opinion.

In my earlier years as a "writer" aka (a little girl writing cards for family and short stories about "kids her age" because thats what people really want to read about....) it was just the classic first-draft puppy love.
By now, Creative Communications has shot me down so many times that it has evolved to the point where I can no longer tell which of my assignments are truly crap, and which only contain elements of crappiness.

If I worked on a book for two years, and it was shot down by even one person, my fist reaction would be to immediately distrust myself, scrap the book and quit writing forever.
However, my don't-ever-waste-even-one-second-of-your-life-no-matter-how-miserable-you-become sense will inevitably be activated and I will be forced to self-publish.

At that point, I wouldn't have the heart to rework the concept because I had already dismissed it as unreadable, so I would begin the painful process of self publishing a book I didn't believe in.

Now this is where the magic happens:
During the wondrous process of self publishing, I will likely delude myself into thinking that my book was often after all, and publishers are just generating chick-lit and other junk for the masses, and my book is somehow the only true form of art in the world and blah blah blah.
Then I emerge back into the world with my newly believed in self-published book and shameless promotion strategy.

 My emergence is met with great scorn by anyone that knows a good book from a bad one, my book is shunned from the world, and I retreat back to the internet.
Second thought, let's skip this whole mess and just stick with the internet. Everything on there seems grossly unofficial, but its the only thing people want to read anyway.

Wish I Could Fugget About It

Yes it's almost been too long, but it's time for me to issue my statement on Fugget About It- The Teletoon pilot projects new...hit (You may not know this yet, but it's about a mob family- so that sarcastic ellipses also counts as a pun indicator) -

Anyway, as an Italian- I'm going to put it on the record and say that we love it when you make fun of us- being the weird uncle of ethnicities is our thing. But this is SO played out and in SUCH poor taste- that I was actually offended by a cartoon. I don't think this has ever happened to me before- but I was offended more by the idea that they thought this was a fresh and hip idea.

Here's the premise: A New York crime boss and his family, the Falcones, refuse to whack their "uncle cheech" who was leaking secrets, thus ending up in the witness protection program. But here's the big Canadian Twist: They're living in Saskatchewan- I'm up to my neck in relevance.- wheee

Better Yet: Originally I thought the family's name was going to be something that justified the title like Fuggitino or maybe they were living in the mysterious Saskatchewanian town of Fugget. I don't know.- But it turns out, it's just meant to be a joke in itself.

And I can't help but have the sickening feeling that every single episode will end with a large exclamation of FUGGET ABOUT IT! by every character on screen.

I will say this though- whoever does the voice-work for the son is a genius. It's kind of raspy yet high, - perfect for an environmental nerd son of an Italian stereotype.- the only remotely creative thing about the show.

P.S- I make a small cameo in this show- try to figure out which one I am jk.

My rating: FUGGET ABOUT IT!!! *ting*

P.S: I tried to get a YouTube clip for this but it didn't work, so I guess you'll actually have to watch this terrible show. (Totally worth it to comprehend my blog post)

Pearls Before Swine- I mean Swan

If anyone other than me has been watching Bridalplasty- the reality/game show where brides compete for plastic surgery and they're dream wedding- we need to all collectively stand up and admit that what we really want to be watching is The Swan- the TV show where they take a bunch of woman, break them into puddles, rebuild them from scratch with intensive surgery and put the "results" in a beauty pageant against other "girls" who have faced the same process.

I watched the weak premised, semi-self reflexive, self esteem-based finale of Bridalplasty last night and honestly I wasn't impressed. They still reinforce the idea of perfection, but somehow tie it to a brides desire to have the perfect wedding- somehow more acceptable? Then they add a more social aspect where a bunch of pathetic celebrity-worshipping idiots try to persuade each other that they have personalities. P.S: the host of the show is some quasi-celebrity that I've never heard of, and the girls were way too impressed to see her.
Double P.S: The show also featured "Alexandra"- some girl who got voted first off The Biggest Loser- and whose boyfriend proposed to her "ON TV!"- clearly she is addicted to reality game shows.

The former picture features Bridalplasty and the latter The Swan.
Does Bridalplasty really look any less gross?

Yes, The Swan was a horribly messaged, fragile self esteem destroying eye-bruiser. But that's why we watched it. Just because we don't televise it, doesn't mean this mess doesn't exist, and the people's motivations to do this aren't real.

Why is it TV and the fashion industry's jobs are now to cater to our self esteem? If we're buying into their unrealistic bodies and damaging plot lines then obviously something about it resonates with us.
Today I even saw a disclaimer on The Shopping Bags's new show Anna and Kristina's Beauty Call- a show where Anna and Kristina attempt to dress a random girl for a challenge and are rated on their success to flatter her color palette and body type- and usually fail miserably.
The disclaimer read something like: These are our opinions (read: Sorry if you're old and we dissed a piece of outdated clothing that's hanging in your closet) and It's the beauty on the inside that counts (read: incase you only watch the fashion network to search for lawsuits-we've just outsmarted you).

If you know me, you probably know that I despise Dove's campaign for real beauty. Firstly, they're a health product company :deodorants, soaps and moisturizers, they have no business showing people with glowing skin and pitting themselves against people that sell beauty products. They're selling health, and while health is beautiful, it's easy for them to display the effects of their product without adhering to the conventions of our society.
Secondly, my self-esteem doesn't depend on what people who are trying to sell me soap tell me.

I feel that given the opportunity, people will respond to what's real. If at any point models start to look malnourished- people won't respond to the advertisements- they won't be able to relate to them. We don't need body fat percentage regulations on the fashion industry because it's really self moderating.
Furthermore, I expect the people modeling my clothes to have unattainable bodies. It's their job whether it's healthy or not. I doubt being a lawyer is very healthy at all, what with the little sleep ridiculous amount of stress and disturbing scenarios but if it's what they want- I expect them to do a stellar job of it. Besides, everybody knows that these people are have had surgery and are heavily photoshopped, hell, we in CreComm study the photoshop methods it takes to make them look that way- why would we ever let it get to us?

Bring back The Swan! - you all know you watched it.
Watching the second link, the girl was by no means unattractive- it was however obvious that she was tired, and she hadn't showered. I'm sure this poor self esteem comes from within and not from her appearance and pressure from outward sources, because it looks like she didn't even value herself enough to keep herself clean when she's appearing on TV.

Season 2 Swan Finale- Listen for the spin that the host puts on it- gross.






This one features the complete transformation of a sad girl.