Profanity versus Professionalism
December 22nd, 2008Now that school’s out, I’m actually gonna embark on another little thing for this site.
As it turns out one of my coworkers works as a promoter (or something along those lines) and has all sorts of ties with famous people. He found out I did comics after printing pages of it at work and was interested in checking this site out. After doing so he said he enjoyed it but had one real criticism about it: the profanity. Not so much in the comic itself but more on the site. In his professional opinion he said that you can learn a lot about who someone is by just reading through the read me page, and the profanity on the non-comic portions of site has spoken a lot about who I am. Furthermore he said that if he’s gonna share it with any of his professional buddies, I’d have to cut it out (or at least mask it or whatever).
Now if you know a little bit about the kind of person I am, I’m not really one to do what I really don’t want to do. Profanity is just part of my regular vocabulary and I’m not gonna change it–or anything about myself–for anyone. But then again, if I don’t ditch the profanity, I won’t get a hand up that could actually help me in ways I wouldn’t be able to do on my own. This is where I gotta broker a compromise between myself; what’s more important, standing firm on who I am and being Mr. Independent regardless of what ups and downs I could pass up because of it, or should I go against my stance in a small way in order to get some exposure to some very important people? Going against my stance isn’t an easy thing for me because some part of me is calling me a “sell out” for even considering it. But then again, success is 25% skill and 75% networking; I gotta do what I gotta do to get people to read my comic, ‘cuz skill is meaningless when there’s no out around to appreciate it. And then yet again, maybe this is a test; if I do cut out the profanity on the site, then maybe it will show that I’ll go against my beliefs for a little bit of success and in the end I won’t get anything. Shazbot.
….I think I’m gonna cut out the swearing on the site. I guess it’s just one tiny edit to make this site look ten times more professional. I wanna make it clear that I wanna keep things the way they are… but making the best out of life means making compromises, and this is just another little compromise I guess I just gotta make. Bugger.
OK so in cleaning up the profanity on this site a bit, maybe I can add a profanity filter to the site which people can activate or deactivate on their own? That way I can still be who I am but only if people want to see it. 😉
December 22nd, 2008 at 13:20
What, swearing’s not considered “cool and edgy” anymore? What does your friend promote, Toys R Uses? As long as Claire’s tits stay in the story, it’s all good…
Maybe you could reinstate the swearing in the printed comics you sell at the cons. Or put big black boxes over the naughty words. Just like “All-Star Batman & Robin!” Except less lame.
December 23rd, 2008 at 15:21
I’m not removing any profanity in the comic itself, so Claire’s tits are secure. 😉 I’m just removing it anywhere where there is typed text on the site (like here, for example). My coworker who works as a promoter said doing so would be a good idea, citing people like Quentin Tarentino (sp?) as a good example; Tarentino’s movies have all sorts of profanity and blood and junk, but whenever he’s being interviewed in public, he keeps it clean. I suppose the rational is that my site is public, so I should maintain a professional image in the public.
I will say that until I get a good idea of what the “professional world” is like (read: until I know what I can get away with), I’m gonna play it safe and not being profane. But when the right time comes, I’ll bring back my profane self.
Honestly though, I really don’t mind being seen as a profane (yet not vulgar) person… if I can build a professional image based on that AND if important people can accept it, then that is what I want to have happen! I mean, if people can’t stand the idea of my work being as profane as it is, then how would they tolerate me (and vice versa)??