Phoenix to Los Angeles
Well, we made it back home, bringing our month on the road to its finish line, which is coincidentally the same as the starting line, which I like to believe is a metaphor of sorts. We always just begin again. It’s a timely thought, because yesterday I cut a clip of a sky turning from blue to grey and it was immediately clear to me that I was self-sabotaging.
At the beginning of the year I set out with the goal of establishing a presence online to grow our Beautiful Idiots community, so there would be more people there to hear our music when we released new songs. Trying to keep it simple, our plan was just to post one reel a day on Instagram and TikTok. At the beginning of the year, when the release schedule was light that meant Understanding and I would shoot an original idea - usually something we thought was funny - and cut it together and put it online. Then in the week leading up to a release day we would tease the new music, hoping to build anticipation. We did a couple bits I’m pretty proud of and some of our music promo was clever in my opinion, but as the release schedule has filled up, it’s become more of a burden than it’s worth. It’s stressful to think of a new idea every day and the inevitable quality dips make me kinda depressed to be honest. On top of that, the posts are not successful from a business standpoint. We get roughly the same amount of streams on our reels as we did in January, or even less sometimes. Plus, no one comments, no one shares - usually not even the people involved in them. We’re breaking our backs trying to think of new ideas and keep it on a tight schedule as the amount of music we have to work on increases simultaneously, and we’re not growing or engaging people online at all.
So, that’s been a pretty big bummer. For a long time I was dead set on pushing through the whole year with the same plan no matter what anyone told me. I said one year so it was gonna be one year. People grow every day though, and now I feel differently, and the best part about having a company of two people is that we only have to agree with each other to change course. So that’s what we’re going to do. The music will continue to be released regularly (three songs a month until October when we push it up to four for the rest of the year), but we’re going to take a step back to reconsider our social strategy. Hopefully we’ll come out of this with a much more fun, effective approach. If not? We’ll try again. That’s life.
I had a lot planned for this road trip. In the month leading up to it I had an idea to work a lot all the way through it in hopes of using it for an upcoming project. As the start date crept closer, it became pretty obvious that that wasn’t going to happen. On the way out, I did more than I thought I would, but nothing that was particularly groundbreaking. When I got to my parents, I knew for a fact I wasn’t going to achieve my original goal. On the way back, I scrapped the rest of the plan.
What I got out of this last month was a lot of good quality time with people I love, a much needed rest, and some helpful conversations that helped to push our plan forward. So now I’m home - back in Los Angeles, and it’s time to begin again.
-J.P.