I was reading an interview with the (one) female writer on the Conan O'Brien show and was delighted to learn that she owes all of her success to dicking around on facebook. All of it.... Okay, this is false. She probably owes her success to a nauseating combination of hard work and natural intelligence. However, here's what is true: when she was applying for the job, her portfolio consisted of about 200 hundred news jokes that she had written... they were the result of about a year of daily facebook statuses that she had written to keep herself from getting bored. So there you go. Facebook haunting into legitimate portfolio into a fantastic job that makes roundbreaking strides for female comedians. So if you have a repertoire of witticism lyin latent in your facebook history, don't just sit there, do something with them. In the meantime, here are some other ways that you can turn letting off some steam into cold hard cash, mostly of the underhanded variety:
1. Submit. Like the Conan Chick (whose name I am too lazy to look up, and with therefore be henceforth referred to as CC), you might well have some stray brilliance lying around. Be it an old blog, a series of tweets or a diary entry (only if you have a deeply, deeply accurate awareness of what other people should and should not be privy to in terms of your sex life, existential crises or bowel movements) you can submit it to a magazine, newspaper or alternative media for publication. In all honesty, its unlikely that you will actually get published, but its free and on the off chance you do get it, you get to feel like an absolute movie star. So go hit up those Op Eds.
2. Letters of Complaint. If you are NOT pleased with a service or a product (or if you are, but are also a total skeaze), you can write a letter of complaint to the company that produces/ provides it. When I was maybe seven, I got a gallon of cookies and cream ice cream, except that, actually, it was just vanilla. There were no cookies in it. I was appalled. So when my parents (in what I now see as a transparent- and successful- bid to deter me from my original reaction of inconsolable whining) suggested that I write to the Dreyers Company, I took them up on it. And do you know what I got back? I personal note of thanks for my concern and a gift certificate for a free gallon of ice cream. I didn't need a reciept or anything. The lesson here is that most big enough companies have neither the time nor the energy to deal with the innuerable disgruntled seven-year-olds of the world, so they'll usually just give you something free in order to shut you up. So nurture that consumerist outrage; that dyson bladeless fan will be YOURS, goddamn it!
3. Transcribe. Is your family eccentric? Would you like to capitalize on that eccentricity? Do you have absolutely no decency or respect for the privacy of your loved ones? Then do I have an opportunity for YOU! Like Justin Halpern, whose TV show via book via twitter account "S%#@ My Dad Says" has gleaned all sorts of crazy revenue, you can make money simply by copying down the words of people around you. It's the lazy man's way to getting published. Technically, every single word is plagiarized, but you STILL get all the credit and all the earnings. "Amy's Answering Machine"- one woman's publication of all the voicemails her crazy Yiddish mother left on her answering machine- has been similarly successful. You are not the source of the brilliance. You are merely the medium by which it is expressed. But its still your name on the check, so go for the gold (and make alternative plans for your next Thanksgiving dinner.)
4. Product reviews. Every company wants publicity. Very, very badly. And they are willing to pay for this publicity. Very, very nicely. People tend to trust more in the authenticity of a review from another everyday consumer than in one from some random official sponsor. That's why all those diet pills have approximately 7 billion testimonials. (Yes... more testimonials than human inhabitants of the planet. Those things are THAT good). So sites like Rotten Tomatoes are a Mecca for companies looking to bolster up their reputations. Enter paid reviewers. All you do is agree to review some company's product and then they pay you to do so (note that you do not need to compromise your values here... if the thing seriously sucks, then for God's sakes DECLINE). Alternatively, you can get a job reviewing for a general review site- like book reviews for a site about books, etc. You know you love airing out your opinions, so get some moolah for it and spare your poor local hairdresser the lecture all in one fell swoop.
5. Be a Criminal. Okay. This is an article about making money off your writing in the laziest possible way. And this IS an option. There are sites that will buy your old school essays either for direct resale to today's current slackers or to use for "educational purposes"/ as a writing sample. You can do this. You can make an easy 25 bucks letting Johnny C reiterate your theory that Ulysses is a direct result of a weird dream James Joyce had that day. You can. But you will go to hell. Know that. 25 dollars here= hell. Your call.
1. Submit. Like the Conan Chick (whose name I am too lazy to look up, and with therefore be henceforth referred to as CC), you might well have some stray brilliance lying around. Be it an old blog, a series of tweets or a diary entry (only if you have a deeply, deeply accurate awareness of what other people should and should not be privy to in terms of your sex life, existential crises or bowel movements) you can submit it to a magazine, newspaper or alternative media for publication. In all honesty, its unlikely that you will actually get published, but its free and on the off chance you do get it, you get to feel like an absolute movie star. So go hit up those Op Eds.
2. Letters of Complaint. If you are NOT pleased with a service or a product (or if you are, but are also a total skeaze), you can write a letter of complaint to the company that produces/ provides it. When I was maybe seven, I got a gallon of cookies and cream ice cream, except that, actually, it was just vanilla. There were no cookies in it. I was appalled. So when my parents (in what I now see as a transparent- and successful- bid to deter me from my original reaction of inconsolable whining) suggested that I write to the Dreyers Company, I took them up on it. And do you know what I got back? I personal note of thanks for my concern and a gift certificate for a free gallon of ice cream. I didn't need a reciept or anything. The lesson here is that most big enough companies have neither the time nor the energy to deal with the innuerable disgruntled seven-year-olds of the world, so they'll usually just give you something free in order to shut you up. So nurture that consumerist outrage; that dyson bladeless fan will be YOURS, goddamn it!
3. Transcribe. Is your family eccentric? Would you like to capitalize on that eccentricity? Do you have absolutely no decency or respect for the privacy of your loved ones? Then do I have an opportunity for YOU! Like Justin Halpern, whose TV show via book via twitter account "S%#@ My Dad Says" has gleaned all sorts of crazy revenue, you can make money simply by copying down the words of people around you. It's the lazy man's way to getting published. Technically, every single word is plagiarized, but you STILL get all the credit and all the earnings. "Amy's Answering Machine"- one woman's publication of all the voicemails her crazy Yiddish mother left on her answering machine- has been similarly successful. You are not the source of the brilliance. You are merely the medium by which it is expressed. But its still your name on the check, so go for the gold (and make alternative plans for your next Thanksgiving dinner.)
4. Product reviews. Every company wants publicity. Very, very badly. And they are willing to pay for this publicity. Very, very nicely. People tend to trust more in the authenticity of a review from another everyday consumer than in one from some random official sponsor. That's why all those diet pills have approximately 7 billion testimonials. (Yes... more testimonials than human inhabitants of the planet. Those things are THAT good). So sites like Rotten Tomatoes are a Mecca for companies looking to bolster up their reputations. Enter paid reviewers. All you do is agree to review some company's product and then they pay you to do so (note that you do not need to compromise your values here... if the thing seriously sucks, then for God's sakes DECLINE). Alternatively, you can get a job reviewing for a general review site- like book reviews for a site about books, etc. You know you love airing out your opinions, so get some moolah for it and spare your poor local hairdresser the lecture all in one fell swoop.
5. Be a Criminal. Okay. This is an article about making money off your writing in the laziest possible way. And this IS an option. There are sites that will buy your old school essays either for direct resale to today's current slackers or to use for "educational purposes"/ as a writing sample. You can do this. You can make an easy 25 bucks letting Johnny C reiterate your theory that Ulysses is a direct result of a weird dream James Joyce had that day. You can. But you will go to hell. Know that. 25 dollars here= hell. Your call.
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