So much wisdom in that line by Slim.
Blogging was all the hype. Blogspot was all the rage. Bloggers could, it was widely suggested, destroy traditional media empires and newsrooms.
Movies had entire plots centered around a lone blogger with mad keyboard skills, investigative reporting chops and a SONY handycam, who’d take down adversaries with deep pockets and worldwide clout just by hitting a publish button.
In a variation of this plot ; protagonist blogger also had Special Ops Training.
In the strip, the Phantom was 21st in a line of crime-fighters which began in 1536, when the father of British sailor Christopher Walker was killed during a pirate attack. Swearing an oath on the skull of his father’s murderer to fight evil, Christopher began a legacy of the Phantom which would pass from father to son. Nicknames for the Phantom include “The Ghost Who Walks”, “Guardian of the Eastern Dark” and “The Man Who Cannot Die”.
Unlike most other superheroes, the Phantom has no superpowers and relies on his strength, intelligence and reputed immortality to defeat his foes. The 21st Phantom is married to Diana Palmer; they met while he studied in the United States and have two children, Kit and Heloise. He has a trained wolf, Devil, and a horse named Hero. Like the previous Phantoms, he lives in the ancient Skull Cave.
I just assumed people would read anything published in blog form.
So I did the logical thing and stole a gmail invite (because in 2005’s dial-up internet India, gmail was invite only; I’m surprised goggle wasn’t invite only.) Ditched my trusty yahoo ‘cool’ e-mail address. Thought up the ‘coolest’ gmail id evaarr [an inside joke to those who know] and proceeded to register for a blog on blogspot. I was in business.
All I had to do now was : Write -> Hit publish -> Render TOI irrelevant -> Become famous -> Get a book deal -> Achieve Chetan Bhagat like status.
And boy did I write. The most trivial, navel gazing, puerile – musings.
But what good is a blog if no one reads it.
So I had a four forked advertising strategy. Blog links would be posted in lieu of status messages for Yahoo Messenger and gtalk, Blog links sent as Orkut scraps, off-line messages in Yahoo Messenger and gtalk to friends, blog links in my email signature and in rare (desperate) cases : blog posts typed out in multiple sms’s to the rare ‘fan’.
I seriously thought I was churning out top shelf stuff with vignettes like this (trigger warning : rambling with a chance of heavy cringe) and deserved high praise haha.
I too had dad buy me a PC so that I could learn programming in C .
I used it to watch Tarzan and Jane instead. Also, Holly does Hollywood.
If you made it till here, dhanyavad.