So now we actually had a show, time to release it to the world. What did we learn? People on the internet are mean, but when one stranger says a nice thing it outweighs all the assholes. Also, there are a ton of web series out there – a lot of bad ones – and it’s tough to get people to sit down and give away 8 minutes of their life. Welcome to the internet n00b.
Our original plan was to release an episode a week in August of 2009. Of course things took way longer than we’d hoped and as it turns out it was a major push just to get episode 1 out before PAX at the beginning of September. The second and third episodes would follow a week later but this turned into 2 weeks apart. That actually worked out well and helped stretch out our release schedule.
Release days are really exciting. It’s cool to put the word out on Facebook and Twitter and slowly see the view counts grow. And yes, it was very slow. If only we had a surprised kitten in our video.
One of the biggest things that happened to the show was courtesy of Max Console. One of my best friends knows the site owner and asked him to post the video as a favor and I can’t thank him enough for doing it. Our views skyrocketed right after that happened and no other amount of press has come close.
But of course with that much attention comes some haters. It was actually amusing to read some of the negative comments – it just makes me wonder where people are coming from. One guy said he stopped watching “as soon as I saw the guy in the hat”. WFT? This guy must have VERY exclusive friends (Read: none). Another guy bashed it a few times but consistently used “no one” as one word. This was in the same paragraph he told me to stay in school.
Anyway, you just ignore that crap because a couple negative comments out of a few thousand views isn’t representative. Some people really liked it and reading good comments were really great. At first, most of the positive comments or fans on Facebook were our friends, or friends of the cast, but slowly we’ve started to get a few strangers on board with the show. That’s a really exciting feeling to know that someone you’ve never met watched your show and liked it enough to say so. That really means a lot.
And I don’t really have too much else to say. Since we’re still just trying to build a fan base, this whole “release” thing is ongoing. We’ve got a few things planned for the near future – some contests, some extra videos and hopefully a wide press release. It’s been said many times but what we need right now are people watching the show and telling their friends about it. If we can develop a strong following, we can start approaching sponsors and then we can keep making more
So thanks for reading this little journal. I hope to continue adding more as this journey continues. Thanks for your continued support and here’s hoping this is going to be the big year for Thwackers!
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