#116: What you know about that?
It's Monday! It's Monday.
CULTURE THING:
It dropped a few weeks ago, but I really enjoyed Hannibal Buress’ new special. The jokes are premium quality and worth moving to the top of your “what to watch tonight” queue.
A bonus: it’s a great look at where the stand-up comedy could go, visually. I think when a specific format (tv shows, reality competition, stand-up comedy special) is successful, it becomes a template. The frustrating part is when the same templates get used to death, stifling creatives who feel like their square peg has to fit in a round hole.
An example of a format becoming a template:
Did you notice that every great stand-up special you’ve ever seen have the exact same camera shots?
There’s the Tight shot:
The SUPER tight shot:
Nice and Wide:
The View From The Crowd:
and my personal favorite, Crowd Havin’ Fun!
Looks familiar, right? Now, go watch Hannibal’s special. It’s always cool to see someone coloring outside the lines!
MARKETING THING:
There used to be only two types of tours: physical tours and media tours.
Physical tours, where you travel from city to city, only* make sense for performance acts that can sell expensive tickets. Music and theater are the big two. Book tours are also a thing, but those have been gradually declining for quite some time, because they almost never recoup their costs.
*One weird edge case where physical tours also make sense is if, for some reason, you intensely care about reaching people who live in a specific place, and you’re willing to lose a lot of money to connect with them. (Like politicians do with Iowans.)
Media tours were when a person would go on Letterman, appear in Time magazine, or talk to Terry Gross on Fresh Air. It made sense for entertainment products that couldn’t or didn’t need to do physical tours, like movies and TV shows.
You may have noticed “physical tours” make sense in the present tense, and “media tours” made sense in the past tense. This might be confusing given that “physical tours” are on indefinite hiatus thanks to coronavirus. But in fact, once the pandemic is over, the strength of their underlying economic logic will bring them roaring (or at least limping) back.
Media tours, on the other hand, have been a hollow shell of their former self for a long time. They died along with the traditional media’s monopoly on our attention.
How creators can go “on tour” on the internet (Divinations)
This article is an essential read for anyone who works in music/entertainment/PR/media/any business where you need to hit the road to spread the word about your product.
MUSIC THING:
I’m embarrassed at how hyped this beat makes me.
Atlanta’s own DJ Toomp produced this, and lowkey deserves a Kennedy Center Honors for what he’s given American culture. He’s a trendsetter for Atlanta’s rap scene, working with Raheem the Dream and MC Shy-D. Most outside of I-285 might not recognize these names, but they paved the way for everything that happened in Atlanta’s rap scene after them.
During the late 2000’s, he quickly became the go-to producer for rappers who wanted ANTHEMS.
A sampling of some of his productions that you’ve definitely heard before:
“Somethin’ wrong, I hold my head, Kanye gone…”
SIX EASY STEPS TO HELP BLACK LIVES:
Carve out 30 minutes in your calendar this week. Do it now!
Click a link and make a call or donate or sign a petition.
This weekend, share the link with your three closest friends and say, “Hey, I’m (calling/donating/signing a petition). If you’re interested, here’s the link!” If you have a group chat, drop it into your group chat!
Bookmark this link.
Repeat the following week.
Do it while you online shop, do it while you’re on a boring call, hell, you can do it while you take a shit, I truly don’t care! Whatever it takes! It is truly the absolute least that you can do!
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Office Hours is written and created by Ernest Wilkins.
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