sethstanley

I draw rhyming couplets of cinematic death! I'm @SethStanley17 on Twitter. Come and talk to me!

So after a Twitter exchange with my friend Nick a couple of nights ago, I was inspired to claim him for our #WakeUpAndBlog initiative where we write a blog response to someone else's post.

Maybe someone can respond to my response and we can get lost in some kind of meta, mind-blowing blogging version of Inception...

Nick put forward five songs that I hadn't heard before and I thought it might be fun to give my verdict on those songs and then offer up a handful of my own.

I'm sure I won't be as eloquent or as in-depth when writing about music as Nick manages to be, but what the hell, here we go.

Martha – Tom Waits

I have to say, I don't think I've ever heard a Tom Waits song before. I know of him, and rightly or wrongly, knowing only the most rudimentary information about him, I would put him on a shelf with Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Tindersticks.

He's someone I'd imagine providing the soundtrack to a noir film, set in smokey, whisky-soaked darkness. A state of mind I don't imagine I would ever escape from.

Verdict: I kind of appreciated this without actually enjoying it. I'd give this 4/10.

Outlaw – Joe Purdy

I liked the storytelling element in this song. The vocal reminded me of Counting Crows' Adam Duritz.

The texture of the vocals really off-set the stripped back piano and it wore well as the song went on. It's a really good example of music and narrative going hand in hand to create a wonderfully evocative mood.

Verdict: Take me on the run with you, Joe Purdy 7/10

Damien Jurado – Johnny Go Riding

On first listen, it felt a little country, and the chord progression a bit derivative to really hook me in. It left me feeling a little flat to be honest.

Verdict: Nice enough, but a little bland. Mashed potato with no salt or pepper 5/10

Another Sunny Day – Belle and Sebastian

I agree with everything Nick said here. I love Belle and Sebastian and this song is gorgeous, it feels really uplifting. But yeah, pay attention to the lyrics and it feels really bitter-sweet at the end.

Verdict: Beautiful use of steel guitar – 7/10

Gravity Rides Everything – Modest Mouse

I love songs that use dischordant tuning and de-tuning, and this song uses those techniques to great effect. Beautiful swirling rhythms and a guitar line that really reminded me of The Cure (which is no bad thing).

Verdict: My new favourite song, thanks Nick! – 9/10

Coil subscribers, stick around for 5 of my own song selections that you may not have heard. What's that, you don't have a subscription? Well you can go and sign up now, or root out your old Cliff Richard 45's and hope your parents' record player still works...

Read more...

Come one, come all,

Come gather round

And hear a tale so tall

As to astound

Of a man so mean and full of hate

There was no time to fix his fate.

One drunken day, he marched along

Full of ale and anger, no cheerful song

And destroyed a woman's flower cart.

“You have no soul, you have no heart”

She cried, her flowers strewn anon.

“A curse from me, spoke carefully,

And you will soon be gone!”

“You will not last long,” she said.

“I've placed a death clock in your head.

Every second that it ticks

Is time less left for you to fix.

“Every hateful look you give,

A second less for you to live.”

The man scoffed. “A lie!

“There is no curse! Just bitter words!

In all my life, I've heard much worse.

A curse, a curse! How absurd!”

“Change your ways,” the flower-seller said.

“Or tick-tock, tick-tock, you will soon be dead.”

The man sauntered off, blazing mad.

And turned her words, all she had said.

A tick-tocking in his mind, he now had.

A deathly sound within his head.

Day after day, he carried on.

Pretending it had disappeared.

Happy souls encountering him, there were none.

A louder noise inside his skull, he did hear.

He lived all his days,a bitter, angry person.

His rotten acts loudened the sound, it worsened.

Until one day, hands up, he could take it no longer!

The tick tock tick tock was so much stronger.

He knew that it was getting worse.

And sought the woman who uttered the curse.

“Every second that it ticks,

A second less for you to fix.”

He ran from door to door,

Beating loud upon the wood.

“I can take this noise no more,

I will now change myself for good.”

“Take this noise from out my head.

Leave me please in peace!

Help me now!” The desperate man said.

“Make this endless ticking cease.”

“I know, I'll take a gift.

To show her that I swear

To change my ways.

No more ticking down the hours,

Or the minutes or the days.”

He spied the woman atop a hill,

Watching the setting of the sun.

He ran to her at pace, so still

To catch her while alone.

“Apologise to her,” he thought, “and stand

Before her, with pretty flowers in your hand.”

“It will not fix all, but it's a start.

To show I've had a change of heart.

I started mean, and then I worsened.

I have to be a better person.”

Just then, the tick tock in his head came slow.

The death clock pausing, time to go...

He almost reached the top that day,

When earth unsteady did give way.

Down the hill he stumbled on his own,

And struck his head upon the biggest stone.

This bitter man, he was no more.

The man this woman could not stand.

The workings of the death clock poured out across the floor,

Pretty flowers in his hand.

Sir Paul McCartney is dead.

RIP Macca, God rest your beautiful soul.

Except he's clearly not dead, is he? He's alive, kicking and still presumably humming Lady Madonna to himself when he wakes up in the morning. Because, quite frankly, if I were him, that is what I would do. Cos I would be Sir Paul Eleanor Rigby McCartney.

Except I'm clearly not, am I? I'm just a huge Beatles fan, lucky enough to be born and bred in Liverpool, where the legacy of The Four Boys Who Shook The World burns brightest.

I take enormous pleasure in consuming all the articles I can about this delicious mischief-making. A rumour that was perpetuated by sheer fan-power and that the Beatles themselves may or may not have consciously contributed to.

In 1969, Detroit DJ Russ Gibb discussed the rumour with a caller and some of the clues that they thought gave weight to it, and Gibb ran with it, finding new clues by poring over album covers for a full hour on-air.

Before long, articles were appearing about the rumour in newspapers across the world and the story spread like wildfire to mainstream radio in the United States. Everyone was discussing it.

I read the news today, oh boy

The premise of the rumour was that in 1966, after arguing with the band during a recording, McCartney had driven away from the Beatles, crashed and was decapitated in his car.

In collusion with MI5 – British intelligence no less, the Beatles agreed that in order to avoid dangerous levels of public grief, the only possible solution was to substitute in a look-alike to take McCartney's place.

It would be an easy point at which to do this – the Beatles had retired from performing live, and were about to re-invent themselves as Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Step forward, William Shears Campbell (a.k.a Billy Shears) who had coincidently won a McCartney look-alike contest not long before the fatal accident. With a little help from the Beatles, he was walking, talking and writing timeless pop classics like McCartney in a matter of weeks.

Over time, the surviving Beatles were wringing their hands with guilt at their seamless cover-up, so they endeavoured to plant the seeds of truth for fans to find. In their album artwork, their song lyrics and even in ethereal sounding, other-worldly messages, layered backwards in their sound recording.

No matter how ridiculous the rumour was (and it is UTTERLY ridiculous), fans dissected every album cover and every song lyric to compile a seemingly never-ending list of proof that McCartney was dead.

Here's the cover of Sgt Pepper, where the original Beatles look forlornly at the freshly dug grave of Paul McCartney. It is littered with flowers, including yellow ones in the shape of Paul's violin bass guitar. The flowers almost seem to spell out PAUL?

The arms of Shiva, goddess of death, extend towards Paul from the foreground, as if to present him after his re-birth.

You can't see it here, but Billy Shears had a patch on his arm showing the initials OPD, which he claimed was a gift from the Ontario Police Department. But anyone with half a brain of course, will realise that this means Officially Pronounced Dead!

I'm looking through you

What's really interesting for me is that the rumour went truly viral, long before going viral was even a thing. Proponents fired their findings all over the globe, while some debated whether the Beatles were even part of the conspiracy!

Publicly, John, George and Ringo were reluctant to take journalists on, and begrudgingly handled the topic by declaring Paul alive and well! Even McCartney had to face scrutiny, wondering how to prove he was still alive and himself!

It was a bit weird meeting people shortly after that, because they'd be looking at the back of my ears, looking a bit through me. And it was weird doing the “I really am him” stuff.

– Paul McCartney

The appeal of this particular rock myth for me is that the fans concocted the tallest of stories around some pretty tenuous conspiracies, and entwined themselves deep within the Beatles' legacy.

With a little hype, a little mania, and the ability to attach concrete meaning to so much of the Beatles' abstraction, they went about convincing each other that it simply must be true!

It's such a rich subject, I'm amazed that it has never been committed to film. It's the type of curious, indie topic that would make a gloriously surreal meditation on the power of a fan-base to influence their chosen narrative and become part of history.

You can read more about this weird and wonderful side-mission to completing everything you know about the Beatles here:

https://www.beatlesbible.com/features/paul-is-dead/

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180807-paul-is-dead-a-beatles-secret-message-in-an-album-cover

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/paul-mccartney-is-dead-conspiracy-897189/

If you're a Coil subscriber, let me take you down to the subscriber-only section where I'm going to outline my favourite piece of concrete evidence that Paul IS actually dead!

If you're not a Coil subscriber, you can sign up for a monthly subscription for just $5! Otherwise, you won't see me, nowhere man/woman!

Read more...

Hey everyone.

So it looks like I'm next in line to pick up the baton (thanks @NickelnDime!) for #TheCoilChallenge; RileyQ's marvellous idea to help the Coil community get to know each other a little better.

This is the chain of Coil creators that it's passed through so far:

If it was the Ice Bucket Challenge, you wouldn't have seen me for dust! As it is, this doesn't involve me dousing myself in cold water, so I'm good.

Thanks for the great questions, Nick. Here are my answers.

You have 30 minutes to kill so you decide to watch some Telly. There are only 3 shows available, they are: Monty Python, Benny Hill, and Ricky Gervais', “The Office.” Which one do you pick, and why?

This is an easy one for me! The Office everytime! I love Ricky Gervais and in The Office, I think he captured the essence of life in a British office with a set of characters I'm sure most of us can identify with.

https://media.giphy.com/media/u3dsD4786aaVW/giphy.gif

His sense of humour relies on a sense of acute embarrassment. It can be a difficult watch, often curled up in a ball, cringing at David Brent's ham-fisted attempts at political correctness. Nevertheless, it's still hilarious and relevant twenty years later.

Which movie was the best adaptation of a Steven King novel?

Great question. And a much trickier one to answer! There have been plenty of terrific adaptations over the years, and quite varied too.

I'm a huge fan of the original IT with Tim Curry, The Green Mile with Tom Hanks, and as a bit of a curve ball, Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Running Man (but he wrote that as Richard Bachman, so that would be cheating). Also, the film is absolutely unrecognisable from the book.

I have a real soft spot for the early horror movies too. Christine, Carrie, Salem's Lot and Children Of The Corn.

Erm..... today I'm going to say The Dead Zone with Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen. Ask me again tomorrow, it could have been anything from The Shawshank Redemption to Stand By Me or The Mist.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0MYKs9FVoFXngE2k/giphy.gif

Have you ever had a paranormal experience?

I think so. I have memories of running through the old alleyway behind my grandmother's house as a child, one night. Mist rose from the cobbles and out of nowhere, I saw a really tall man dressed in a top-hat and cape, like a really smart Victorian gentleman.

He didn't acknowledge me. I ran after him, but after he turned a corner, he was nowhere to be seen, and no exits apparent that he could have passed through.

I'm sure there's a good explanation. Maybe it was a fast-walking man on his way to a fancy dress party? It's much more fun to think that it was the ghost of a Victorian man who walked through a solid wall.

https://media.giphy.com/media/YARUMKaGd8cRG/giphy.gif

If you could get a drink with anyone on Coil, who would it be?

I'm in a very fortunate position here, I've connected with a number of fellow creators for lots of different reasons. And there's a few people I can think of that I could probably chew the fat with away from the magical land of the internet. For the sake of the question, I'll play along and whittle them down to one.

I'm going to choose someone who I'm always pleased to chat to when he shows up online in the Telegram Content Builders Club.

I think we share a similar sense of humour, and in pixel art, photography and movies, there's a lot of mutual interests.

I'd certainly be happy to have a few beers with my good internet friend Adam, @AussieNinja!

https://media.giphy.com/media/l1J9ueZSIhQSDt1Ic/giphy.gif

So, for the next leg of this blogging relay, I'd like to nominate

XRP_Productions!

Here are my questions to you, my friend! I hope you'll accept the challenge!

  1. I first came across you when you were making terrific short films about XRP, but which existing movie do you wish you'd had a hand in creating?
  2. What's your side hustle away from blogging? ie. your day job!
  3. What's your jam when you're in creative mode and why?
  4. If you were cursed with the Midas Touch, into what substance would you choose to change everything you touched?

Looking forward to seeing your answers and who you pass the baton on to next!

Who do you consider to be a hero in your life?

Heroes show themselves to us in all manner of forms. Sports and movie stars. Characters from books. Philanthropists and people in the public eye who live good lives, helping others.

Maybe a parent or sibling, or a teacher. Someone you look up to, or admire because they've performed an amazing feat. Or performed mundane and ordinarily repetitive feats amazingly. Someone who inspires you to be a better version of yourself.

Their grown-up acts of strength, athleticism, bravery, love and compassion appear larger than life to us as children, and even more miraculously, sometimes as adults too.

Today I'm going to tell you about one of my heroes. His name is Michael Cullen. Known locally to people in Liverpool, Everton FC fans everywhere and his (at time of writing) +43,000 Twitter followers as Speedo Mick.

I've never met him in person, but I first saw Mick around five years ago. I was sitting in my beloved Upper Bullens Stand in Goodison Park, watching the mighty Blues of Everton.

Looking across to Goodison Road, someone in the crowd seemed to be causing a bit of fuss. He was wearing only goggles resting on a blue swimming cap and a pair of blue speedos.

I instantly dismissed him as some attention-seeking wannabe super fan, and then he whipped out a sign that made it clear he was collecting for charity.

After the game, he really stuck in my head. He's a sight to behold!

I mentioned him to a few other match-going Blues, and they just said, “Oh yeah, that's Speedo Mick. He's raised loads of money for charity. He's dead sound, him.”

And sound he is.

Mick Cullen's a remarkable man.

He swam the English Channel in 2014, which gave birth to his superhero outfit of choice. He walked 700 miles from Everton FC to Lyon FC in 2017. He's outside Goodison Park most matchdays, collecting money, taking photos with fans and engaging in banter with a smile on his face.

He's raised funds for cancer charities, Alder Hey Children's hospital, Woodlands Hospice and the various foodbanks around Liverpool.

As I type this, he's in the middle of a 1000-mile walk from John O' Groats in Scotland to Lands End, the Southern-most tip of England.

He's braving the cold, windy and wet weather, in his trunks (and a bobble hat and scarf, you know, for when it gets really cold).

As marvellous as this all sounds, this is only a small part of why Mick Cullen is my hero. A man can only be truly called a hero when he's overcome some kind of adversity in his life.

Mick has shook off a triple threat of homelessness, alcohol addiction and depression, enough to wipe out most mere mortals, and risen above it all.

He is now addicted to the incredible feeling of changing other people's lives through his super-human fundraising activity. His actions have the power to inspire people around him to want to change others' lives too.

He makes me proud to be from Liverpool, and proud to be an Evertonian. Most of all, he makes me proud to be a human being.

There's a saying – “Never meet your heroes, they'll only disappoint you.”

I don't believe that. I believe in Speedo Mick.

Read more...

Welcome, friends. Welcome to the show.

Today, I'm going to use the power of my mind to predict some things about YOU and your future. Now, this is kind of experimental, so no guarantees! This is all in good faith.

I'm interested to know why you've come here to read this, but rather than have you tell me, I'm going to guess, ok?

After that, whether I'm right or wrong, I want to attempt to perform a singular feat, akin to a magic trick (while wearing a straitjacket and submerged in a shark-infested tank of water, no less).

I want to move a single person, just one, to action, with nothing but my words of appeal.

Will you stick with me while I try this? It's not going to work for everyone, but I have a good feeling about you. ;–)

Why are you here?

I believe you've come here today as:

  • One of my friends from the Telegram Content Builders Club
  • A Coil follower already familiar with my work
  • Someone from Twitter who saw me promoting this blog post as part of a writers lift – a thread where esteemed authors/bloggers share posts and works in progress to engage new followers.

How am I doing so far? Fabulous! Ok, you don't have to start hailing me as the new John Edward just yet. Those were pretty safe assumptions to make. Let's try another.

  • An author or blogger. A writer of some description
  • A photographer
  • An artist
  • An illustrator/designer
  • A codie or other digitally technical being
  • A musician
  • Someone who isn't any of those things, but is curious about starting up...

Still with me? Great! Let's go again.

How are you doing?

You are:

  • Fine, thanks!
  • Up and down
  • Not great actually
  • Creatively spent and looking for inspiration
  • A person with something to say but not sure how

Creatively, how successful do you feel?

  • My self-published novel is doing great!
  • After two years I have a title for my work in progress, I just have to write it now...
  • Stephen King just followed me on Twitter
  • I'm procrastinating by reading this article so I don't have to face the void of a blank screen
  • I love creating, but I won't be quitting my day job anytime soon

How did I do? Hopefully you've seen a little something of yourself in those answers and if not, it doesn't matter. There's still plenty of room for you here. I've got you.

The point is – whoever you are, whatever your background, mood, experience level or perspective, I want you to be here. I want you to be part of this. I want you to share your story with me, because it makes the world better.

It makes my world better.

Whatever you're making, however you're expressing your ideas, you are a creative hero. And I'm gearing up now to see if I can call on you so that we can achieve something amazing together.

There's nothing up my sleeve

First off – cards on the table. I am not a paid employee of Coil. I have never received any payments from Coil for the purpose of promoting the platform.

Since October 2019, I've been a member of the Coil Boost Program and I've received payment from that in exchange for providing content to populate the platform. I've chosen to be paid in the digital asset XRP, but I could have alternatively been paid in US dollars.

I also receive micropayments of XRP from Coil every time a Coil subscriber reads any of my posts, at no cost to individuals beyond their $5 monthly subscription fee.

I promote Coil of my own free will, because:

a) I personally want to see it succeed. It's a simple, easy to use platform that non-techies can publish from with ease without annoying users with adverts

b) I'm engaging with a supportive network of like-minded people in the Content Builders Club on Telegram and I know we'll all feel an overwhelming sense of achievement if we contribute to Coil's growth

c) There's no denying, I'm seeing the financial rewards from the Coil boost program in line with the effort I spend creating content. It's ticking every box for me right now.

Now for the magic trick

Ok, so what I'd like to do now, is attempt to predict your future.

I predict that over the coming days or weeks, as a result of reading this post, you will subscribe to Coil to support your fellow content creators or join the Content Builders Club on Telegram. Hopefully, you'll do both.

And why would you do that?

Because you know what it's like to stand on the starting line, wondering whether you can do this or not.

Staring at a screen, wondering whether you're wasting your time. Whether anyone cares about anything you have to say.

You're wondering whether it's worth your time and effort. Whether you can do this on your own. Whether you'll stick with it and make a go of things. Whether you're good enough.

I'm no mind reader, but I can hear these doubts, fears and scepticism coming through loud and clear. I can tell you, categorically, that YOU can do this. You SHOULD do this.

You owe it to yourself, for yourself. Also, you are in a unique position to inspire your fellow creators!

Give them advice and help, or just offer a friendly ear on a tough day. Engage, share experiences, make firm friends. As Coil subscribers, know that you're supporting creators financially, just by reading each other's content.

The greatest trick of all is looking back over time, and seeing the work you've put in to become better at what you do, was all worth it. The content you create, the skills you build, the friendships you make.

I'm no magician, but I hope I've made your concerns disappear.

Whether they have or not, come and say hi on Twitter or come and join the Content Builders Club.

Til next time...

Hopefully you're here after reading

Expanding the Stanley-verse:Part 1

Edward Gorey was a prolific author during the 1960's when he wrote After The Outing a.k.a The Gashlycrumb Tinies. It's an abecedarian book telling the tale of 26 children.

Each one represents a letter of the alphabet and describes their untimely deaths in rhyming couplets. The book is full of macabre humour, as the children die in largely mundane ways, that are designed to play on parental fears more than kids' nightmares.

What an incredible concept! I loved this book! If only I could take the underlying concept and update it with a modern, pop-culture twist... And at that moment, buds of ideas in my mind were blossoming into branches with flowers...

So, I had a theme, a framework to hang off, but still so many questions to answer.

What films would I choose? What style should I work with? A different style for the tone of each image? How would I approach the character design? One thing was for sure – I was intent on staying far away from Gorey's approach. I felt like I would be borrowing enough from him. Now I needed to build on top of his inventive work.

My little orange guy

When you have an idea that you really love and cling to, it's often difficult to trace it back to its origins.

That's why ideas 'spring' into mind, in a 'flash of inspiration'. Like lightbulbs, they turn on and flood your skull with light.

Mine, almost always, start with a doodle. Either on paper, or in Photoshop.

I remember starting with the eyes. I imagined them like googly eyes that you can buy in a pack and apply to anything to give it life.

His head was vaguely in the shape of a flame. It amused me that his head might be on fire. He was blue for a while, but blue looked generic. Kinda corporate. I ended up flipping the head to be more balloon-shaped. It looked more comedic somehow.

I thought about Matt Groening's often quoted reason for turning the Simpsons yellow. You got to act fast these days to capture people's attention. If kids are changing channel all the time, you need to make them stop on your thing.

If his head's on fire, maybe orange would work? Hmmm. Works for me. But he looked kinda flat.

I started playing around with drop-shadows and all of a sudden, things got interesting. Now, it was a work in relief, with depth. Something I could make with real life materials, not just on a computer. Like a fuzzy felt collage?

Ok – now we're cooking on gas.

Illustrating is just like creative writing. You take the time to draw a character's outline, all the while questioning who they are. Where are they from? What do they do in the moments you're not with them? Where do they go? Imagining that life beyond a single picture opens up so many doorways.

Where does my little orange guy go when he finishes work for the day? Does he have a family? What's going on at home? Who are his friends?

So many directions to go in...

In my head, he was also called Seth Stanley ( I only have so much creative capacity per day. I can't think of ALL the names).

Why was he in these scenes? Why was he made up to look like Apollo Creed? Why is he covered in blood?

Because he's a stuntman. A world-weary stuntman, replacing the on-set talent right before the difficult bits.

And he used to be a voodoo-doll. That's how he got the job. He's accustomed to experiencing pain and suffering.

So, maybe one eye is missing? That explains why it's kind of stitched-up. He's been through the mill, this guy. But he keeps on coming back for more. He has spirit.

I like that.

Ok – so I have an idea, a framework for the project and a character, with a small but not insignificant back-story.

In part 3 of Expanding the Stanley-verse, I'll talk about how:

  • I choose the movies and put the death scenes together
  • how I plan to use a style guide to bring some rules and consistency to the Stanley-verse
  • YOU can help me decide what direction I go in next...

In the meantime, you can check out my Movie Deaths A-Z (still in progress) and my 2019 Movie Deaths Advent Calendar!

Thanks for reading!

Here are the 24 images that made up my December 2019 Advent Calendar. Enjoy. Come talk to me on Twitter and tell me what you thought – @SethStanley17

Tony from Die Hard

Father Damien Carras from The Exorcist

Frank Cotton from Hellraiser

William Foster (D-Fens) from Falling Down

James Shade from Resident Evil

Mufasa from The Lion King

Glenn from A Nightmare on Elm Street

Toht from Raiders Of The Last Ark

The Narrator/Tyler Durden from Fight Club

Bishop from Aliens

Mr Stay-Puft from Ghostbusters

The Kraken from Clash Of The Titans

Marion Crane from Psycho

King Kong

Mouth of Sauron from Lord Of The Rings:Return Of The King

Kuato from Total Recall

Freddy Lounds from Red Dragon

Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard Of Oz

The Maitlands from Beetlejuice

Lady Deathstrike from X2

Boromir from Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring

Rorschach from Watchmen

Talos from Jason And The Argonauts

T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Who needs an intro? Let's get to brass tacks. I've been offered a new job! I know! Awesome, right?

I'm super-pleased about it (did I just say super-pleased out loud?) for a few reasons:

  • I hate my current job, so bad – every day I feel like Beetlejuice at the end of the movie, waiting in line except I'm waiting for work to do. Won't someone please shrink my head?
  • I'm basking in the glory of impressing an interview panel enough to offer me a job. It's such an ego trip! I could feel a job offer hanging in the air the longer the conversation went on. They threw me the questions, and I knocked them out of the park, with my baseball bat of knowledge, skill, clever answers and passion.
  • But the main reason I'm s- I'm pleased, just pleased, is that the job is to be a Content Designer for government.

What's a Content Designer?

Essentially, I'll be someone who rescues unfathomable government website content that reads like stereo instructions, and re-shapes it for regular folks to read and understand.

Or put even more simply, it's a full-time, paid, writing gig! A line of work I wouldn't have considered but for starting to put one word after another here on Coil last August.

The enjoyment I've found through writing and also mingling with my support lifeline over at the Content Builders Club on Telegram has given me the confidence to say “you know what? I could do this full-time.” So I'm going to.

Roll on March when I'm knee-deep in digital copy written by subject matter experts with very little thought for the people who have to read it and then do something with that information.

The point

We've all been there, reading important web content and not being able to make head nor tail of it. It's no fun. It can make you feel stupid if you don't understand it. If you don't understand it, then it need never have been written.

And that's what got me thinking... Am I writing the right words in the right way on here?

People go to government websites to take advantage of services, or complete transactions. There is no fun to be had, loitering and reading articles around data protection and glossaries of legal language.

The challenge for government is to make web content accessible and transparent for all who need it. They should be designing that content for their users' needs and with user research have a very clear picture about who those people are.

People come here to Coil for a different purpose. I hope, to be entertained, to have their thoughts provoked and perspectives challenged by my ramblings which always make so much more sense before I commit them to screen.

Should I be doing the same things as government? Should I be aiming to lower the reading age of my posts through tools like Hemingway? by using simpler language?

Research shows that if we use the common 5,000 word vocabulary that we acquire first as children, we can scan content and gain understanding much faster than using the next level complex word set that we don't use as frequently.

But I like the variety of the English language. I like it that we have a billion different words of everything. Should I just carry on and not worry about this?

This blog isn't held to account with the same rigour as a government website, but I'd be annoyed with myself if I found out that the words I chose were a barrier to people understanding my content.

In my day job, I'll be putting website users first. On here, I'm working in the dark to a degree. I don't know who my users are! And if I did, would I change the way I write?

  • How do YOU show consideration for your audience?
  • Have you adjusted the language you use to make your content more accessible?
  • Has anyone ever told you that you're actively creating barriers for them to enjoy your content?

Interested to know your thoughts. Thanks for reading.

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Coil subscribers – Do I have a treat for you! I don't even know how to describe it. I guess it's experimental prose that I just wanted to put out there. You can continue reading below.

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When it comes to crime documentaries, I usually find them about as interesting as being stuck with THAT person at a party. You know, the one who initially seems really cool and interesting, but actually only has several variants of the same anecdote, that they repeat over and over again. And one topic: themselves.

Minutes later, you find you've all but backed out of the conversation, with only an occasional nod, a half-smile, a hmm hmm, a uh-huh.

You've lost all eye contact because you're feverishly scouting behind them, planning your exit strategy. Where's the nearest door? Where's the nearest person I can drag into this lifeless conversation from hell?

Don't F**k With Cats, the (fairly) new Netflix documentary, has firmly bucked the trend. If it was someone I was chatting to at a party, I'd have offered to top-up their drink several times in order to get them to stay and chat longer.

The premise

DFWC tells the story of internet sleuths banding together to find the sick creator of videos where cats are suffocated, drowned and fed to a python.

Outraged by these sick acts, they stop at nothing, bonding over their search to bring the vicious film-maker to justice.

Miraculously, their combined efforts help them to track down a potential suspect: Luka Magnotta, a Canadian actor/model/escort.

It turns out they're right to suspect Magnotta, who graduates over the three-parter from uploading videos of torturing and killing cats, to one of him stabbing and dismembering Lin Jun, a man he met for a one-night stand.

What unfolds is extraordinary, as the authorities are constantly two steps behind Magnotta, a sociopathic narcissist, with a penchant for the Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can.

The online detectives who detested Magnotta's cat videos pursued him via the internet for more than two years, forwarding evidence of his every move to the FBI.

German police finally catch up with him in an internet cafe in Berlin, checking out his own mugshot on the Interpol website.

My verdict

DFWC has come under fire for its use of the real life footage of murder and animal cruelty. It always stops short of showing the final act, but for some people, what it does show over-stepped the mark.

Personally, I think the documentary is all the more effective for these snippets, as difficult as they are to watch, showing the sadistic games that Magnotta plays.

It's incredible to see the lengths that the cat-loving Sherlocks go to, such as painstakingly walking through miles of Google Maps Street View to match up a background that they suspect is part of a photo that Magnotta has posted, in order to identify where he was on a particular date.

** Spoiler alert **

It feels odd to talk about my “favourite” element of a docu-series about an horrific murder and animal torture, but I was compelled to watch as it became apparent that Magnotta was obsessed with the 1992 film Basic Instinct.

The slow-burn reveal that Magnotta was, piece by piece, living out his own real-life version of the film, was terrific. One of the set-up scenes before that reveal, shows a lawyer that Magnotta pursued because he bore a resemblance to Michael Douglas, a key star of the movie.

The cynical side of me says – if you're going to live out a real-life

re-enactment of a movie, pick a good one! Certainly pick a better one than Basic Instinct! But it obviously resonated with Luka Magnotta, in the most terrible of ways.

The documentary's heart speaks to the power of online communities. Told from the perspective of the cat-lovers turned vigilantes, they wielded their cyber-pitchforks mightily and did not put them down until Magnotta was firmly behind bars.

Thankfully they followed up on their own basic instincts.