My Song Bombed Last Night, And I Want To Die Under A Pile Of Glenny's Sweaty Cum Towels
Last night, I made this song and posted it on Instagram:
It took me a while to write, honestly. I have a friend who dates a lot of women who demonstrate patterns of unsafe behavior. Some of them have drugs for breakfast, others perform sexual acts that speak to a fractious relationship with a parent or loved one, many do both. He’s aware of their problems but he’ll rationalize them with statements like, “she’s got a good head on her shoulders” or “it’s not like we’re going to get married.” Oh no? Good, as long as you’re not locking her down for life, it’s perfectly fine if she severs your achilles with a scythe in the short-term.
The song was born from his justifications. I tried to write lyrics that would speak to people who know someone who rationalizes the jarring flaws of their boyfriend/girlfriend–flaws that would drive most people to end the relationship. Maybe you’ve heard “Sure, he’s homeless right now, but he’s between jobs. He’s got a good heart!” Or “It’s not ideal that she tattooed ‘Death to Muslims’ on her neck, but at least she believes in something!” The point is, I thought it would be relatable. And relatable leads to comments, views, likes, new followers, DMs, butts, boobs, sponsored post opportunities from cold brew coffee companies, stardom, etc.
I wrote five verses, but Instagram’s video time limit forced me to choose the best four. I omitted the following verse:
She’s my girl, and I’m her man
We eat dinner with her old-fashioned paaaaarents
They are members of the Ku Klux Klan
Ohhhhh no
I went with the bath salts verse instead. Bath salts seemed like a better image, a stronger punchline. It was a real Sophie’s Choice though. Continuing to date a girl after finding out that her parents are klansmen was a nice way to heighten my theme. In the end, this choice may have cost me anywhere from 5,000-10,000 views.
Which brings us to the response. I posted the video and started refreshing my Instagram like a blackjack junkie returning to the ATM every 15 minutes for a refill. I’ve posted so many of these songs that I typically have a sense of how a video will perform after the first ten minutes. And the first ten minutes is like the first 48 hours in a missing persons case: if we don’t have good news in those first ten minutes, the video is fucking dead. But 5,000 views in the first ten minutes means it’s on track to do pretty well. Comments are another good indicator. You want people tagging their friends, and a good video for me should have 30-40 comments in the first ten minutes. My best video posts should get more than 60,000 views and anything over 150 comments is pretty strong. Needless to say, last night was a bloodbath.
35,400 views, 92 comments. I could have posted a video of my dick dressed as Idi Amin, reenacting torture scenes from The Last King of Scotland, and it would have blown this lifeless, quivering iguana out of the water. I was watching the numbers crawl along, hitting 10,000 views after an hour, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to not ride my elevator to the top floor and crow-hop off the edge. I wouldn’t have even drafted a note to my family. My last message to the world would have been this shit sandwich, and the internet would have written thank-you comments for my understandable suicide. For the punishment should fit the crime.
I’ve bombed plenty of times on stage. You walk off, have a drink, and head to another show. It’s easy to brush it off. But bombing on the internet is different because there’s a record of it. This video is indelibly stamped in the minds of my followers, serving as the most recent measurement of my comedic ability. People will watch this and think, “nope.” I literally lost followers. It’s hard to know how many because I gained a few overnight, but it was somewhere around 30. That may not seem like a lot to you guys, but it destroyed me. I tossed and turned all night, wondering if the bleeding would stop or whether I’d wake up with my Instagram account wiped from the face of the earth, deleted thanks to a petition that was circulated by my once-loyal fans.
You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just delete the video once I saw that it wasn’t performing well. I certainly thought about it. But I feel like posting something and then deleting it looks way worse. That’s a cowardly retreat, a burrowing into a cocoon of shame from whence you may never emerge again. You should stand by your work, through thick and thin, unless it’s a super racist rape joke, the implications of which you missed when you wrote it. Those are really tough to pull off.
I talk to Gaz a lot because we sit right next to each other. He’s in charge of Barstool’s main Instagram account, and thanks to months of pleading, he’s been posting some of my songs lately. Yesterday, I told him I thought I’d have a great new song for him to use. “It’s relatable! Crazy girlfriend stuff! Gonna go viral!” Whelp, this morning, I didn’t even want to come to work. I couldn’t even look at Gaz. As I took my seat next to him, he looked at me sideways. I simply shook my head, disconsolate, feeling like a beaten three-legged basset hound who was caught with his nose in the garbage. “It wasn’t… what I thought it was,” I managed, choking on my own shame. He told me to write about my feelings.
Obviously I’m trying to be funny here, but it’s really not that far off. My mood and sense of self are so completely contingent upon how my work is received. If I’ve got a blog or a video that’s kicking up a humongous wake on the internet, I’ll buy lunch for the entire office (this has never happened) and write profound thank-you notes to my grandparents for Christmas presents I received years ago. Conversely, if I’ve posted something that sinks beneath a flotilla of bubbles, each filled with the empty exhalations of a viewer whose laughs never emerged, I’ll call my grandparents and ask them to die sooner. Because I need that inheritance money. For piano lessons, writing classes, and a new take on life.
Or, at the very least, a handgun.