Yes I am an only child, and it’s cool. I’m not a great sharer but I know a lot of people with siblings who aren’t great sharers either. I’ve always been very close with my parents and in my case I think it’s a special bond that wouldn’t have been possible if they’d had another kid who was older/younger/different than me. But who knows… this is the only experience I’ve had.
Holy crap, this is actually the final SF show. Wow… that kinda made me sad and wistful just now. Memories, man. But you know what’s cool? TWiT just hired Roger Ambrose, the man responsible for the TSS set, to build out our new TWiT studio!
Acupuncture can treat all sorts of issues - I was mainly going for insomnia. If you’re interested, definitely look into it, see if it might be right for you.
I was actually really happy! I quit a sought-after, lucrative job as a TV host in LA to travel the world for a year and do something that felt really meaningful to me at the time. Anyone watching that day probably heard my voice breaking throughout the show, but couldn’t see all my friends at G4 that had gathered in the studio behind the cameras to watch my last show. They had a cake for me and flowers and everything! I I felt incredibly loved and appreciated and I knew I’d be missed, and yet I still knew I wanted to move on. I ended up losing my shit on-air when I gave my official goodbye because I was pretty overwhelmed. I’ve never regretted leaving but I still really love those guys, and I cheer for their continued success.
So you can write your essays out nicely in blue or black ink in junior high. Who else remembers that? They used to make us write everything out longhand because some people didn’t have typewriters or computers and they wanted it to be fair, and for us to practice our penmanship. And the girls were banned from using stupid pen colors like pink and purple and turquoise for schoolwork. Handwriting was much more important in those days. I knew girls who methodically dotted their i’s with hearts. Every single time. It was part of their identity….their really annoying identity.
I hated those days because I’m a southpaw and always walked around with a big blue or black smudge down my left hand.
Wow, I’m just now realizing I don’t know what anyone’s handwriting looks like anymore. I’m a 33-year old dinosaur.
I get so many questions about TWiF every single day, so here’s my all-encompassing answer so I don’t keep repeating myself.
(If you’re confused, “This Week in Fun”, AKA “TWiF”, was a weekly podcast I used to do for the network “This Week in Tech”, AKA “TWiT”, that has been on an extended hiatus since mid-January. If you don’t care, just skip this post and enjoy your evening.)
Yes, Martin’s one of my closest friends and we still hang. I said we were going on hiatus back in January with the assumption that we’d bring TWiF back when Martin’s new job calmed down and my health issues stabilized. But it hasn’t really worked out that way. He was pulling 80-hour weeks and then I was between jobs and traveling and our schedules weren’t colliding. Now I’ve got my full-time job at TWiT (the network TWiF used to be on, though I’m now working on other projects) and everyone seems to agree that TWiF doesn’t really work on a tech network. Even though a lot of people thought the show was funny, I always worried that others just thought it was out of place. Martin’s also getting married in a few months and his free time has gotten scarce, and I know better than to create more stress for him right now.
The thing is, TWiF’s numbers weren’t off the charts great, so frankly I’m a little surprised that there now seems to be such a fan base out there. I love the fact that you guys are out there, btw! It just surprises me. Shows don’t need a million fans anymore, but without sponsorships to recoup production costs, it doesn’t make sense for TWiT to keep putting resources toward a show that isn’t a huge success, at least in financial terms.
Martin knows I’d be thrilled to do TWiF again in some form. I hope we can make it work. Until then, hiatus. Consider us in the same camp as a lot of shows with a passionate fan base that didn’t quite fit the mold, or haven’t found the right one yet.
Web video is still trying to find the right business model(s). In the meantime, numbers are all we have to go on and that whole thing is kind of a mess because with all the different ways to watch content, numbers are scattered across the Internet. 850 views on YouTube might not accurately reflect 3700 iTunes subscribers and neither of those numbers even get close to what may have been 22,500 live streams, but they all count toward the total audience number. It’s cumulative and can be tough to monetize all that data. Believe me, I know.
So I implore you- if you love a show and want it to continue, watch it. Stream it, subscribe to it, like it on FB, share it with your friends. Do whatever feels right and unspammy, but spread the word if you believe in the show. Internal promotions/marketing departments are not gonna cut it anymore. It’s a crazy oversaturated video space out there, and show creators need you. Otherwise, people with money will lose confidence that they’re putting that money toward something great, and creators will need to move on. Anyone who’s trying to make a living out of this will, anyway.
LONGEST FORMSPRING ANSWER EVAR. OK BEER TIME!
