Success! After 11 gruelling years, I’ve finally devised a legitimate way to monetize ULTRAsomething. OK, maybe “legitimate” is a bit of stretch, but at least it plays to my strengths, rather than requiring I stoop to the far more distasteful act of self-marketing.
The concept leverages society’s current emotion of choice: negativity. Over the past couple of decades, cultural dismissiveness has progressed from its humble roots as an amusing sideshow of 1990’s tabloid television — through the birth of forum trolling at the dawn of the millennium, and into the very fabric of today’s formidably massive social media industry.
Mainstream companies, mainstream media, and mainstream politicians are all throwing billions of dollars into social media — riding the popularity of any influencer willing to pimp a product or a message in exchange for cash, merchandise, and the ever-enticing opportunity to gain even more followers.
It’s the Golden Rule of marketing, which states that people will “do unto those things that others do unto too.”
In less biblical terms, it means that if someone is thought to use, enjoy or believe in something, then their social media followers will want to use, enjoy or believe the same things. The more followers someone has, the greater their influence on the belief system of others, and the greater their value as corporate or political shills.
I’ve always cast a jealous eye toward influencers. How great would it be to use all the products I want to use, go where I want to go, do what I want to do, and actually get paid for it?
Unfortunately, my proclivities tend to be at odds with those of the general population, which means I have zero value as a traditional influencer — and therein lied the epiphany! In a world awash in negativity, someone so naturally contrary to the ways of the general populace could actually become an anti-influencer!
Rather than employing me to extol the virtues of their own wares, companies could hire me to use their competitor’s products. I would document these experiences on ULTRAsomething, and since this site’s very nature tends to incur the wrath, scorn, ridicule and disdain of the general public, any products I use; places I go; or things I do would be equally scorned.
Is Sweden sick of losing tourists to Iceland? Sweden needs only to send me on an all-expense paid tour of Iceland, and voila — Iceland disappears off a million bucket lists, and Sweden swoops in.
Perhaps Sony wants to increase their share of the camera market even further. What should they do? Send another batch of cameras to the same old bunch of ‘fanboys?’ Nay! I would suggest they ship me a box of Leicas, or a case of Olympus and Panasonic micro four-thirds gear, then tell the fanboys to link to my reviews. One look at what I’ve shot with their competition, and a rash of new camera prospectors will flock to the Sony fold.
Hey, Moog. Want to re-establish “East Coast” synthesis as the coolest and hippest? Send me a Buchla, and the blips, bloops and bongo sounds I make with that “West Coast” style of circuitry will drive the world back east to your fat, ballsy ladder filters, and your rafter rattling roar.
What’s truly great about my plan is that it requires neither pretence nor pretending. I get to be me. No matter what I do, where I go or what I use, I will genuinely find something I like, and I will write about it. Then, because very few people like what I like, the world will instantly hate the very things that are actually good about a product. Which means, if you’ve got something to sell or a message to deliver, I’m your most effective means at neutralizing the competitive advantages of your opposition!
So how about it, people? You folks in Shanghai want to increase your share of the Asian tourism market? Send me to Kyoto, and I’ll kill that town. Does Android want to bury Apple? No problem… just load me up with the latest iPhones and iPad Pros and marvel at your newly buoyant sales figures.
I am poised, ready, and uniquely skilled to be your company’s new secret weapon — I will be your Alienator. Once you turn me loose, you need only sit back and count the money.
The only stumbling block is that I’m simply too good at being an Alienator. Anyone who would benefit from my skill is unlikely to realize it since, by nature and definition, the mere act of suggesting such a concept to a company would result in immediate rejection. Which means I’m not just an Alienator but a living and breathing paradox.
It’s fun to be me — albeit not all that lucrative.
©2019 grEGORy simpson
ABOUT THE PHOTOS:
So here’s another thing that makes me ideally suited to be your company’s Alienator: FILM!
“Incongruity 1,” “Marxism, In a Nutshell,” “Stolen Moment” and “Bird’s Eye” were all shot on various antediluvian devices, called “film cameras.” Specifically, “Incongruity 1” and “Bird’s Eye” were shot with a Rollei 35T on expired Kentmere 100 and developed in Rodinal 1:50. “Stolen Moment” and “Marxism, In a Nutshell” were shot with a Minolta TC-1, loaded with Tri-X and developed in Rodinal 1:50.
Even the digital shots are of dubious acceptability, what with “Dystopia” being a B&W rendering of a flare-laden Ricoh GR III image, and “Incongruity 2” having come into being inside a camera that doesn’t even bother to record color information — the Leica Monochrom (Type 246).
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Maybe you could blackmail companies by threatening to review their products. Hush money. 🙂
Now THAT’S an inspired idea!
That’s depressing Greg.
I decided something similar once. I thought that since politics was such a negative force in our civic affairs, that it might be a good idea to push the concept of something that IO called the “Apathy Party”. If you didn’t like the types that wanted you to vote for them, vote for this party.
Over here, we don’t have the option on the ballot paper to register “none of the above”, so if you don’t agree with any of it, but don’t want to waste your vote….
Go Apathy!
You never know, we might win, and leave people alone.
Oh no, that would never do.