Just a list of brainstorming ideas for where to go from here on out. I haven’t decided on which of these to take for our respective projects, and I’d love to hear feedback to make our ideas more informed!
May likely be moving video requests off Patreon and more onto the dedicated NO SIGNAL STUDIO website. Video requests are an experiment I think is still worth trying! But this seems more like something that belongs as an on-demand service and not a monthly-payment thing.
Patreon-relevant reward idea: thinking about at long last introducing physical prints! A place around me has just started offering a service to develop my photos, I tested it, and it actually looks like something that I can afford to offer at least in terms of US shipping. If receiving physical prints of Mono pics (perhaps with autographs) sounds good to you, let me know!
Planning on doing a sort of “reset” on the tone of Channel Mono, shifting it to be more atmosphere-based than character-based. I had a lot of fun with what I’ve done, but I’ve wanted to go back to Channel Mono being more of being “the strangest part of your day,” and I feel that focusing more on narrative and character has caused some mission drift. This might be controversial because some of yall might really like the character focus, so I wanna hear what you have to say regarding this.
A potential direction to take Channel Mono would be to explore more of her world through strange objects. A bunch of my earlier vids centered around fiddling with mundane-looking objects that do odd, surreal things, and that’s a concept I’d like to dive into again. The issues are that 1) I’d need to get a budget for getting these physical props, and 2) pandemic complications may make the regular obtaining of these a problem, whether I buy props in a dollar store or order them online. Still, this could be a fun direction to explore with! A potential component for this may be to open like a PO box for fans to send props in to use for content, but that may be too ambitious for now lol (PO boxes are expensive!!!)
In very long-term once filming conditions are safe again, I’d love to do more intricate short films, somewhere between 5-10 minutes in length. I have a few fun ideas with which to make a short film around, I may end up exploring them once the budget seems less daunting, I have access to better resources and locations to film in, and the payoff of viewership becomes more worth it!
I don’t have any specific ideas for it, but streaming is something I’m at least curious in (not to play video games or anything lol, maybe do like some spooky live performance art thing). I don’t know logistically how to set this up – much of Channel Mono’s aesthetic like my “voice” to the color palette are things I do in post, but the potential is something I’m eyeing in the later future.
Additional NO SIGNAL STUDIO-relevant things:
Number9robotic (assorted artwork):
I’m thinking of maybe shifting from on-demand character commissions to monthly Patreon requests. This is something I’m VERY uncertain of, and I likely might not go through given a bit of informal feedback from friends on the model, but I’d definitely like to hear Patron opinions on the matter.
Also thinking about opening up OC adoptables. I come up with A LOT of OC ideas (no joke, a document with like 50 pages worth of spare ideas) that I usually can’t justify creating because it takes too much time when I’d want to create something else, but perhaps if adoptables are an appealing market for some people, I could work on that. Maybe?
BITTER/SWEET (and other music):
I’ve accepted that music is something I will do very irregularly and when I feel like it, so it probably WILL NOT end up with any Patreon-relevant goals. I do have plans on making a soundtrack of Channel Mono music and flesh out a B-sides for the latest BITTER/SWEET+Mono mixtape, but that may be late Q1 or early Q2.
Happy Candlenights, my lovely monitors! This year has been a wild one, and but I hope that you’re all having yourself a safe and lovely holiday with your friends and loved ones, however you may be enjoying yourselves!
I won’t pretend that this year hasn’t been a forkin mess for a lot of people, but as much as we have in some way been forced to change how we live our lives, I don’t believe for a second that the pandemic (or the new conditions for it) have “ruined” how we celebrate the holidays.
Holidays are very strange when you think about it. They are social constructs of celebration self-perpetuated by widespread agreements that they should be celebrated. But bc social consensus is very broad, yet nebulous, how we “agree” to celebrate them is a very fickle thing.
Despite how we culturally view the holidays, our “traditions” are ultimately of our own as individuals. To many, it means being with family and friends in giant parties. To many others, it may mean chilling at home alone with a warm blanket and a Twitch stream.
The pandemic has certainly made us change our habits, but not uniformly. To many, social distancing has resulted in this being their first Christmas alone. To others, it might be business as usual. Times change, rituals change, we change.
Folks have asked: What’s the point? Is it even worth participating in these holidays when the world has changed this drastically? Can we still act like we believe in what we value anymore when the world has become this frankly dangerous and scary?
My personal answer: yes!
I, for one, LOVE ritual. Ritual anchors us in time, it gives us something to look forward to, it provides a moment to reaffirm what we believe in, and it’s one that even when apart, we can all share. It is proto-self care, which heavens know we all need right now haha
Sociologically, we as individuals place value in an everchanging tug-of-war between our desire to be individuals, but also be accepted by others. To be special, and to be loved. This is what celebrations like these are made out of.
Even to folks who DON’T celebrate any monolithic holiday like Christmas in a “traditional” way, we all still desire that sense of love and belonging, just on their own terms we can decide for ourselves. We all want a holiday! Let’s decide what it is!
Because everything is so different, now is the time not simply to mourn the loss of a world that once was, but understand what we truly cherish in the world going forward, and how we wish to build that for ourselves. We’ve made it this far. What shall our next step be?
No matter how messy this year was for you, we reached the home stretch, and with this holiday season, I hope we all ruminate on what we truly cherish in the world; the unity, sharing, and love that will drive us into the future together. Even while we are apart, we will never be alone.
The world is a strange, sometimes uncaring and dangerous place filled with hurtful things you may not understand. And yet despite that, there is no telling how beautiful you may become.
Happy holidays, and here’s to the better, safer, happier future we all dream of.
❤️BITTER/SWEET’s debut album “Digital Lovelife” is coming out 12/23 (tomorrow!)
Coming soon to Bandcamp/Youtube/Soundcloud for free, featuring music by Red Velvet and Black Forest, with guest work by @channelmono! Brought to you by No Signal Studio!
This will be my personal platform for news, updates, and info around my number9robotic artwork, @channelmono, BITTER/SWEET, and other projects soon to come!
[Life] My friends, I have a special announcement to make! …this might take a while. Thread below.
I got a job. Not just any job, but a dream job. A creator job! Ever since I arrived on this earth, I’ve been searching for a job looking to create, because as you probably already know, I love creating content. But content takes time and money… except for when it doesn’t.
I’ve been struggling to find that work for years, but out of nowhere as I was transferring between moonbases, I received word back from several employers I wasn’t expecting to get offers back from. This recent unexpected silence has been me doing auditions and negotiating terms.
Out of nowhere, I had to make a hard decision of picking the best job offer, and last night, the contract was formed. I… have a really crazy job now. A fun job. A busy job. It’s too early to publicly reveal what it is, but I will say that I’m… over the moon? badumpshh!
I am astronomically sorry that I’ve left this channel to dry in light of this and other events in my life. This channel was formed as a labor of love, and I feel like I’ve accomplished so much with it, not just in content, but the friends and fans I’ve made that expect from me.
I’ve been trying to maintain a lot of things in my life even before this craziness suddenly hit me, including this channel. I thought I could do all of them, but the prep work I’ve needed to do for my new career made me realize that I have my limits.
So… this is me saying that Channel Mono will be going on a long break again. I’m so stoked for the amazing things in front of me, and I will always love doing this project and making content, but I desperately want to make this career work… this opportunity is everything.
I can’t promise when I’ll be back to make the content you love from me because I can’t say for sure where this new path will take me. But make no mistake: we will meet again someday.
Thanks for staying tuned! I will always love you, my lovely monitors. Forever!
