Week One
I've got to do something to raise the profile of the Les Pages aux Folles. Fortunately, I'm full of great ideas! For instance, I could draw something and put it on a t-shirt. Then, I could sell the t-shirt by getting a really cute girl to model it on the Web site. Brilliance! Except, I can't draw. And, I don't know any cute girls. I should really check out how well it worked for Todd and Penguin...
Week Two
Okay, I’ve got a better idea. I’ll take one of my characters – Reverend Righteous, say, or, no, better yet, Mister Frump – and make a large, pixelated neon sign out of him. Genius! A large, pixelated neon sign of a man in rags with a long scraggly beard and nothing else. No text for context. Not even a URL. People will be intrigued. Who is this large, pixelated man in rags with a scraggly beard on the side of a building – no, wait: on a highway overpass! Sure. People driving are a captive audience. They will be…intrigued.
How could it possibly fail?
Week Three/p>
Okay, I need a better idea. People weren't intrigued – they were scared shitless. So, now Boston wants me to pay for cleaning up the highways under the signs. I mean, really! What were people thinking? That Osama bin Laden had so many grenade launchers and rifles that he could afford an American advertising campaign? I know advertising is powerful and all, but were neon images of bin Laden supposed to make ordinary Americans sympathetic to his jihad? Or, even Bostonians?
So, uhh, yeah, okay, maybe I could have thought that through a little better. Lesson learned.
Can anybody help me out with bail?
Week Four
I don’t know – maybe I’m just not cut out for self-promotion. I tried viral marketing – two of my three regular readers got sick. I was advised that I should brand my Web site. I understand the logic behind it, but every time I tried the hot irons melted the screen. And, you’d best believe the warranty didn’t cover that! Obviously, there’s a problem, here.
People just aren’t explaining self-promotion to me properly.
Week Five
Vote for me! Vote for me! Vote for me!
Did you know that there are awards for Web sites? That’s right – they’re called WebbyWobblies. (Go to www.WebbyWobblies.tv if you don’t believe me. Go on. Go there now. I can wait.) If only half of my readers voted for me, I would have…one and a half votes. Okay, but, if each of you voted for me one million times, I would have one and a half million votes!
Online awards are an excellent method of self-promotion! If I won an award, I could put a graphic on the front page of my Web site saying that I won the award. Then all of my readers would know that I had won an award…that they helped me win by voting for me. Okay, but, as well, as that, I would get prominent placement on the home page for the awards themselves. That way, people coming to vote for other satirical Web pages (not to mention the best Web pages on defoliant agents and soup) would see that I had won an award. Uhh, I’m not sure how helpful that would be, but…
Vote now! Vote often! Vote for me!
Week Six
I asked my readers to vote for me for the WebbyWobblies Awards, and you really came through. All one and a half of you. Didn’t I make it clear that you were supposed to cheat for me? What have I been teaching you these past four and a half years?
Oh. Right.
Well, screw the WebbyWobblies. They’re just a popularity contest – like high school without the cheerleaders to look at. What good is that? Besides, there are so many different Awards (the WorldWebbies, the WorldWideWebbies, the WobblyPops) that everyone with a page on the Web will win an award within the next six weeks. And, we all know that if we’re all special, we all might as well kill ourselves right no –
Wait! Wait just a minute! Why don’t I…create my own awards? They’ll have integrity and stuff because…well, because they’re my awards. Yeah. We’ll call them the…WebFollies. I’ll design a little logo that winners (mostly, me) can display on their Web pages to show that they’ve won an award with integrity and stuff. Yeah, baby! The WebFolly Awards are on!
Vote now! Vote often! Vote for me!
Week Seven
Well, this is embarrassing.
Les Pages aux Folles came in a distant second to The Onion in the satirical category of the WebFolly Awards – and they’re my awards! The Smoking Gun won for best information site – Les Pages aux Folles didn’t even place. And, the design category? That was a slaughter. It was just a slaughter.
Why do I bother? I’d kill myself, except I don’t think even that would get me any attention!