Graham Hughes took part in our Scottish comedy writer's scheme back in 2016. He explains how his final sketch from the scheme has gained over 1 million views in the last few days...
Ah, the halcyon days of late-2015. Back then we were hearing grim news about beloved celebrities on a near-daily basis, and of ill-advised pop-culture media had threatened the outbreak of World War III. How times have changed.
At that time, I had also just submitted an application to a new 大象传媒 Writersroom and 大象传媒 Scotland scheme, , which was looking for people to create short, comedy content for an online audience. They were specifically looking for people that had already dipped a toe in that field. So I submitted a few sketches, gifs and vines I鈥檇 made over the years, a lot of which involved my dog, and it was enough to get me a place on the scheme. My dog got rejected, though. She鈥檚 still bitter.
, and over six months we were treated to various masterclasses with other writers and media professionals, and were given monthly challenges to make comedy content. These included things like making a vine, or making a Valentine鈥檚 Day-inspired video. After each challenge, the scheme-runners would pick a couple of their favourites and these were shown on 大象传媒 Scotland鈥檚 various social media channels. For the final challenge, we were allotted time with a professional crew, and given access to shoot on the sets in Dumbarton.
(Watch Graham's sketch, originally published on YouTube)
All of the sketches were published on the 大象传媒 website and , and from what I鈥檝e seen, most got between a couple of hundred views and about 10,000. was sitting at around 400 views, about 200 of which were mine. (I think the rest were my Mum). A couple of the sketches were put on Facebook and they performed better there, getting into the tens of thousands, but they hadn鈥檛 exactly set the world on fire. Which is fine, because the world doesn鈥檛 really need any help in that department.
Fast-forward to last week. Now, I鈥檓 an avid user. I like to browse and post OC (original content) to the site. Getting to the front page is the Golden Goose; it鈥檚 notoriously difficult so getting on it gives a pretty good high! I鈥檇 not posted in a while, but after my dog went viral last week for wearing a hat and cardigan (honestly) I got that buzz again, and I wanted to keep it going. Since I had no new ideas (the dog has all the best ones), I started ransacking my back-catalogue, trying to figure out what old piece of content I could recycle as a gif. And that鈥檚 when I remembered the Fast & Funny sketch.
After ripping the sketch off of YouTube and plastering some subtitles on it, . Within about 5 hours it had gotten to the front page. Wanting to plug some of my other work while I had a captive audience, I made a botched front page-edit, and somehow managed to split the post into two. Shortly after that, some gumptious user spied and put it , which simultaneously diluted and exponentially increased the views. 3 days later and it ended up on their front page too.
It鈥檚 interesting that that the original sketch had little success on YouTube, but people have really connected to it as a gif. This is maybe just the right audience鈥� which is ironic because the sketch is about YouTube. Who knows? It鈥檚 also surprising that it's taken off now, as the idea felt current to me back in 2016, and now, two years on, people are engaging with it. I thought it would be stale, but maybe the idea just hadn鈥檛 taken root yet. Again, who knows? Maybe it鈥檚 that age-old cliche that nobody outside these borders can understand what on earth anyone with a Scottish accent is saying, and it took converting the video into a silent, subtitled gif to make it a success. Your guess is as good as mine.
Now I know what you鈥檙e thinking: 鈥溾�� And you鈥檙e probably also wondering how I feel about writing a sketch that became a gif that got 1,000,000 views, and not receiving a penny for it. Well, it鈥檚 all worth it now that the good people at 大象传媒 Writersroom will throw a blank-cheque development commission my way! Really though, it鈥檚 a double-edged sword. It鈥檚 always been that way with starting out as a writer or creative in most fields. You just keep doing work for 鈥渆xposure鈥�, because it will 鈥渓ook good on your portfolio鈥�, or because 鈥渋t鈥檚 your passion鈥�. Until someone actually thinks you鈥檙e somebody worth paying. In fact, I was technically already paid for writing this sketch. I think it was 拢50. So I can鈥檛 complain. Besides, if I wanted to make money I wouldn鈥檛 have put it on Imgur in the first place. I probably shouldn鈥檛 have done that anyway, since I don鈥檛 鈥渉old the intellectual property rights鈥�.
(Graham's video Man Flu vs Woman Flu which also got )
So, is this the future of comedy? Gifs, random videos where our friends tag us and say nothing, and vertical Facebook videos of ? Are these things the pinnacle of comedy success? Well, it depends what you define as success. If you mean views, then yes, almost certainly. But then you are essentially saying that , which took 5 minutes to make, is more successful than my comedy feature film, which took 2 years to make and almost killed me.
Actually now that I see that written down, it does seem more successful.
So is it critical success we should be striving for? What good is getting a ton of views if nobody actually likes what they鈥檙e watching? Well, during the Fast and Funny scheme, the 大象传媒 Writersroom was posting monthly blog updates on our progress, with links to our work. And there was one guy who kept uploading mean comments about us. He wrote things like: 鈥淭his is garbage. I expect more from these new writers who are on an educational scheme. My taxes pay your salary.鈥� And he obviously knew what he was talking about because he spent a lot of time looking up the posts and stating his opinion on them. I tried not to take it to heart, but when the final sketches went out and weren鈥檛 hit with immediate viral success I really started to wonder if I was actually just not funny. After a lot of soul-searching and denial, I鈥檝e come to the conclusion that it doesn鈥檛 matter. I enjoy making comedy, and I鈥檒l keep doing it. That鈥檚 the power of the internet: any idiot with a computer can get an audience.
So that brings us to the close of this rambling, incoherent blog.
There鈥檚 been a lot of ups and downs since finishing . Doors were opened. I鈥檝e continued to make videos for (through and ), directed a few bits and bobs, had a feature film project fall through two weeks before shooting started, got signed to an agent, and I received 55 rejections (yes, I counted) in various forms last year. Right now, I鈥檓 writing my third feature film, due to shoot this Spring/Summer. It鈥檚 a horror about a man that makes unsuccessful videos for the internet.
Well, they say write what you know鈥�