August 2024
What I've been up to
This month has been my most successful yet on YouTube, but also an acute reminder that most of my videos get no traffic at all without being marketed or shared on other platforms. This is a saddening reminder of how unknown I am, although being unknown has its perks, judging by the flak that has been aimed at Blake Lively, Neil Gaiman, Jermaine Jenas, and other celebrities for transgressions large and small.
Preparation is going well for the gig on November 16th
Tickets can be purchased here.
Output
On my guitar YouTube channel, this recording of Ennio Morricone’s ‘Once upon a Time in the West’ stood out in a highly competitive field:
As did this 2021 recording of ‘Butterfly Lovers’.
The Kev songs, ‘Believe’ (which skews positive psychology), ‘When I See a Starry Sky’ (about space travel), and ‘My Favourite Bunch of Millionaires’ (a mock football song), all did well on YouTube.
Activities
On Substack, I finished part one of an essay about near-death experiences. I will finish part two in the next month.
On the Monday Mandarin channel, the most popular video was a reading lesson on a poem by Xidu Heshang titled ‘Fictionalising Her’ as well as three other videos:
And in other education work, I recorded, edited and uploaded this guitar lesson.
Wider World
The killing of three schoolgirls in northwest England by the son of Rwandan immigrants – initially wrongly reported to be Muslim – has led to the biggest riots in the UK since 2011. These riots were sometimes lazily labelled as ‘far right’, but it was fair to cite their origins as being anti-immigration, and numerous people have been jailed for offences ranging from throwing bricks at police to looting.
As with the 2011 riots, harsher sentences have been given out than under normal circumstances to help deter future would-be rioters. Some have suggested this is unfair, especially considering that disgraced former BBC newsreader Huw Edwards is likely to avoid jail. Then again, most of these violent protesters have received lighter sentences than non-violent Just Stop Oil protesters.
In 1919, there were race riots in Cardiff and Liverpool when some people thought that ethnic minorities were taking jobs in an intensely competitive post-war economy. Susequently, the British government very much sided against immigrants of colour, repatriating thousands of them to overseas colonies. Over a century on, the situation has improved on a macro level, but the streets are still not safe for minorities being targeted by bigoted louts.
Being unknown has its perks indeed. It's taken a long time for me to realise that the holy grail isn't fame. Sure, it would be nice to receive recognition for my art and my work, in whatever form that looks like (whether it's awards, renumeration, or something that *looks* like fame). However, I don't want to lose the ability to walk down the streets or stroll through the city centre without people staring and pointint their phones at me (plus whatever else people do when they spot famous people). I consider this "invisibility" a kind of superpower that people lose when they become famous. If only there wasn't such a celebrity culture in society...