social media | BIG GREEN

You know, there are better things you could be doing with your time. Like, I don’t know …. mowing the lawn. Oh, right – we don’t have a lawn. How about rearranging the bricks in the courtyard? That’s one task that won’t do itself. Or beating the rugs. Mind you, I’m not a big fan of corporal punishment, but they’ve really crossed a line with me over the past few weeks.

Oh, hello, reader(s). You just caught me in the middle of berating Marvin (my personal robot assistant) for not being industrious enough. Yes, I know – he’s an automaton, he only responds to programming, I’m not being fair, etc., etc. The thing is, I don’t know how to program a robot, and his inventor, Mitch Macaphee, is not speaking to anyone this week. All I have left is a dressing down, robot or no.

Multi-platform clusterfuck

Marvin has a few responsibilities as my personal robot assistant. One is taking charge of Big Green’s social media presence. I should say here that Marvin is in no way an expert in this area. (You could pretty much say that about any area.) When it came to deciding who would take that job on, however, we quickly determined that none of us know anything about it. Ultimately, it came down to him being a robot. That’s a lot closer to being the internet than we humans are.

Not every band is successful online. In fact, many are not. But few are as unsuccessful online as Big Green. I hate to be boastful here, but if they gave out a trophy for being obscure, we would have walked away with it a dozen times over. We’ve been on online platforms for almost twenty years, starting with MP3.com, which isn’t even a thing anymore, then The Orchard, CDBaby, and a few others I can’t even remember. Our sales? Less than stellar. Let’s just say, we’ve got some remainders lying about.

Find us on Face-where?

Then there’s the major social media sites/apps, like Facebook, etc. Big Green has been on Facebook for, I don’t know, ten years? More? Not sure. We started a Twitter feed ages ago, but we only got onto Instagram earlier this year. Mostly, these platforms are designed so that your listeners can interact with you easily, share posts, etc. We get some of that, but not much, and don’t sell anything via any of those sites. (I blame Marvin.)

Actually, with the low number of visits we get, our Facebook page is probably the safest place on the internet. You can probably store your passwords, bank account and routing numbers, and social security number on there and they would all be safe as houses. Ditto with Twitter. I give Big Green a few mercy likes on Twitter posts, but not too often, because mostly their content is crap. (What am I saying??) Instagram gets a little more activity, but in the grand scheme of things, we’re a dead letter on social media. Own it, baby – own it!

New horizons

Anyone else would just give it up. But not us. We don’t know the meaning of the word quit. We think it has something to do with work, but none of us is sure. And since we have a general aversion to work, our consideration goes no farther than that.

Anyway, we just signed up for BandCamp and set up a new page at big-green.bandcamp.com. Why did we do it? Well, like Everest, it’s there … and we’re not. Except that now we are. Hey, if you’re on BandCamp, give us a mercy follow. That’s right – encourage us!

Jesus Christmas, is THAT what he’s been doing? Oh, yeah … sorry. I forgot that his pronouns are it, its, and … uh …. it. I mean, ITS pronouns, not his. Sorry, sorry. But …. is that what it’s been doing? Whoa.

Oh, hiya. Glad to see some visitors from the sane side of reality. Here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted squat palace, it’s crazytown USA. Chock full of nuts, you might say. In here, we just page through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or the DSM-5, as they call it) and take turns embodying each entry to its fullest. It’s almost like the authors have been hiding in the walls, watching us through two-way mirrors. (Is that paranoia … ?)

Sure, that’s problematic. But we’ve got other things to occupy our thoughts. Like, for instance, what the hell is that mansized tuber up to now? For years it’s been like … well, like a potted plant, taking up space in the courtyard, hoping for rain. Now, suddenly, tubey (friends call him tubey) has reemerged from seclusion, firing up its social media accounts and firing off posts like a mighty oak dropping acorns. It is a site to behold.

Branching out

Lord knows that tubey has been in one or two scrapes, as any reader of this blog will surely know. But nothing like what it’s likely to run into on social media. For instance, tubey just restarted his Facebook page after a long absence, and already some loser has asked it to admin their page. Imagine the gall! (Some podcast named Strange Sound …. what the hell is that?)

I think he's right, tubey. You have to turn it on first.

Now, typically when you haven’t done a thing in a while, you get less practiced at that thing. That’s just common sense, right? Tubey, however, doesn’t subscribe to the notion of competence, let alone common sense. That’s why he’s strongly considering opening a TikTok account. Or maybe Instagram.

Master of none

There’s such a thing as spreading yourself too thin. And when you are a root vegetable, such a thing can be fatal. Fortunately for tubey, it has us to advise it. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is also happy to pitch in with his suggestions, though they’re a little hard to parse. Marvin has never mastered English … or any other language, come to think of it. Which leaves us to interpreting random squeaks. Don’t try this at home!

Let’s face it – none of us is an expert on social media. Maybe tubey will be the first in Big Green land to make it work. Or maybe he’s just nuts like the rest of us.

Official site of the band Big Green