In which our hero celebrates yet more acclaim (with utmost humility)
Hearing of my post yesterday, the reader who recommended the game emailed to share their joy: “It gave me pleasure to recommend the game. It gave you guys pleasure to play. It gave me pleasure you liked it … a circle of joy. So happy!”
As I read this message, I smiled. For it felt like the most virtuous cycle of pleasure since the invention of what the French call “le soixante-neuf”.
Perhaps what’s most interesting: I now understand why people engage with fans.
Plus: Not only do I have dozens of daily readers (and some more non-subscribed daily readers); I’m also an accessible human person.
You – yes, you – can communicate with me, and I will respond + engage. An act of engagement mirroring that of the audience x clown.
Humanizing. Connective. Satisfying.
“Okay,” I then thought, “What would it be like to explore and isolate this wheel of success? Is it the same in all media (including clown; public intellectual; and writer)?”
Looking at it, I saw the following wheel: 1) Make a thing; 2) make it public; 3) engage with those who like it.
I then began thinking: “Wouldn’t it be cool if I brought even more people joy?” and then, a bit of fear: “What if I got big enough to have people who dislike my work?”
Doubtless, in any city of sufficient size you will have bad actors. Similarly, in any media reach of sufficient size, there are bound to be haters and/or trolls.
As such, the question is not if, but when. And being a sometimes-catastrophizing sort (even when I’m imagining a future world where people enjoy my artistic work enough to be popular), what would they say? Here’s what I imagine, and my thoughts on them:
1. “I hate you” / “you suck”. (People like to say things like this; they’re non-substantive; next.)
2. “You dive into particular and uninteresting rabbitholes” (I follow what interests me. It’s not going to interest everyone. I hope to be accessible to those who will find me valuable.)
3. “You have X blindspot” / “How can you not know Y” / “What the fuck is wrong with you for Z”. (This is my favorite – unnecessarily aggressive, but at least there’s substance. I’ve spent my life separating the person from the idea, parsing for the gold nugget of truth while ignoring the surrounding turd, so these are responses that I genuinely look forward to).
Yet, upon reflection, many of these notes I’ve already heard at clown school. From our Head Teacher in response to one of my performances, I once heard – direct quote – “We don’t like you”, alongside feedback that I failed at showing my personhood/humanity. Last I checked, I have always been a person (and I suspect the Head Teacher knew this). Perhaps this intensity of aggressive attacking is part of the inoculation of clown school. Or perhaps, as a family member put it when I described the social structure of the first two weeks, “that sounds like brainwashing.”
So if clowning (art?) is about creating games and playing them with others, what games do I want to create for my writing audience? 1) in this post, look at the first letters of each paragraph to find a cute little easter egg, and 2) over the next few days, let’s both be on the lookout for where interaction goes. Perhaps it will go nowhere. Or perhaps I’ll find some fun to share. Since clowning is about so much present-ness, there’s really no way to tell. Guess you’ll have to keep reading
!🤡
Julian Wise 