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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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I accept others’ amateur media, but I expect myself to be a pro

By David McElroy · June 15, 2019

I listen to a lot of podcasts and watch a lot of online video, almost none of which is produced by broadcast professionals.

The production values of what I watch and listen to varies greatly. Some are pretty decent, but most are pretty awful compared to something from a traditional broadcast network. The sound quality on most of these shows is terrible. The video quality is laughable. They tend to be poorly edited.

So why do I listen to so many podcasts on which the people are amateurs who sound like average folks sitting in a coffee shop chatting? And why do I watch videos with random backgrounds — laundry or whatever happened to be sitting around when someone started the camera?

Why do I eagerly listen to such shows — such as the one I was listening to on the way home tonight — while I expect myself to produce network-quality audio and video before I can allow myself to move ahead?

I listen to such shows because I find value in what they have to communicate, even if their hosts are about as professional as old men gossiping as they eat their biscuits at Hardee’s in the morning.

So how does my attitude about them compare to my standards for myself? Well, it’s a double standard — but it’s one to which I’m frequently blind.

When I make something, I expect it to be good enough to compete with what professionals might make. If I record audio, I expect it to sound as though it was recorded at a decent studio or a radio station. If I make a video, I expect it to look as though it was recorded and edited by broadcast professionals. Maybe not network pros, but at least as good as what I might see on local television.

And this is why I’m always disappointed in myself. The things I produce never match my expectations.

My lighting isn’t even enough. My sound isn’t perfect. And most of all, my performance grates on my nerves. I meander. I make goofy expressions when I can’t figure out exactly what I was trying to say. And I get simple words wrong — things that make me feel as though I look like an idiot when I watch the final product and wonder why I randomly used a word incorrectly.

Even to me, this sounds ridiculous. I find great value in shows that are produced by people who don’t seem to care about production values, but I can’t relax and let myself learn from my mistakes — because I’m too scared to look ridiculous to the world. My ego gets in the way, which makes it harder to learn.

I’m annoyed with myself about this, but I haven’t been able to get past it so far.

I know it’s good to care about production values. I know that it’s good to have high standards. But if I expect my work to be perfect from the beginning, I’ll never allow myself to do enough of it to get proficient.

I’m going to tell you a secret. I have a feeling that I can be good at this if I do it enough to get comfortable and relaxed. I need a lot of work. I need a lot of experience. I need to keep producing content that’s not perfect in order to slowly get good enough that I won’t be embarrassed.

When I was a child, I was accustomed to being able to do most things perfectly from my first try. My ego enjoyed starting something in school and doing it right from the beginning while others struggled. I came to believe that’s what I was supposed to do. Eventually, I figured out that I had developed a habit of refusing to try things which I couldn’t do perfectly from the beginning.

Broadcast-quality audio and video are things I can’t do perfectly from the start. They’re too technical, but even more importantly, they require a lot of work to get the performance part correct. I have to allow myself to do sub-standard work — and hope I don’t run off anybody who might watch — so I can learn how to do it right.

I was encouraged by one small development this past week. When I made a video about work and doing what we love, that wasn’t planned. Although I had been thinking about the subject for half a day, I had no intentions of making a video.

But around 9:30 p.m., I suddenly decided I wanted to talk about it. Since there was nobody around to talk with, I just grabbed some books from the shelf and got in front of the camera to talk with you instead.

When I make videos, I tend to make multiple takes, starting over half a dozen times. This time, I just turned the camera on and talked — without any planning — and that was the only take.

Now the truth is that the piece might have been only half as long if I had carefully planned it — and not so meandering — but the point is that I allowed myself — for the first time — to just go with it quickly, without fixing anything.

If I’ll do that once or twice a week for the next year, I suspect I’ll get pretty good at this. But it makes me cringe to think about people seeing me do that much sub-standard work while I figure out what I’m doing.

I just wish I could give myself the sort of grace that I give to the people I listen to on other shows. But that would require me to allow myself to be human — and that’s something I’ve never been very good at.

I either need to get good at this or I need to give it up entirely — and the only way to get good at it is to let myself be sub-standard while I learn. Let’s see whether my ego can allow that.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: audio, broadcast, ego, fear, podcast, practice, video

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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