AN INTERVIEW

Asked to me by a YouTuber called Ovowon:

Please tell me about when you were growing up. What influenced you the most?
My mum has always been short on cash, and she often talks about ideas she wants to pursue - running a smoothie business, or a jewellery business - but these things have never got off the ground and that frustrated me. But more than anything it was just that I turned 18 and my mum said, "right, now you have to work and earn money" and I was suddenly just like "but ... no! That's ridiculous! So I just give my time working for a company I don't care about, losing the chance to personally express myself, until retirement or eventually death?" So I set about finding ways to make my own money while preserving my free time.

I'm very aware of the futility of life, and I think it's really important to remember that you only live once and we'll all be dead soon. This isn't a negative outlook, and I find anyone who finds it pessimistic just hasn't found a way they can deal with death comfortably. It strips away your inhibitions - it doesn't matter if you embarrass yourself in front of people, or get rejected by a girl, cos we'll all end up in the ground anyway and who's gonna care about it then? Similarly, I figure the only way to be remembered for anything is through creativity; inventors, writers, artists etc. When I look back on my life, I don't want to be remembering how hard I worked in that shit job, or whatever - I wanna use my time to enjoy myself, cos I won't be here very long. To me that seems logical. I don't know why everyone's not doing what I'm doing; I think it's because they don't feel they have a choice.

What experiences do you think lead to who you are today and what your doing?
There are a few specific points when I started to develop the mindset of not working for others but for myself. First, my dad leant me a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, a guide to financial freedom and not succumbing to 'the rat race' (which as you've gathered, I thought would be a wasteful existence for me).

In college I took a Philosophy course and I really related to Jean-Paul Sartre (we read his book Existentialism And Humanism as a set text at the end of the first year) - he says that we have radical freedom, meaning are free to do anything and follow our own ambitions. It's very empowering. He also said that with this freedom we have to take responsibility for ourselves and everything we do, which I completely agree with. That's how I learned that I had the choice; it isn't just work for others, you can take alternate paths. The trouble though is that people respect you for applying for a great job even if you don't get it, but if you say you're gonna start a business or earn your own money, they always focus on the negatives until you succeed. That's a horrible flaw in society and it should be the other way round; how many beautiful things would we have in the world if we were all a little more encouraging?

It was at this same time that I was becoming disillusioned by education, the way we are taught not to learn but to pass exams - I resent that there is an area of the syllabus called 'exam technique'. Surely the only 'technique' is that we know enough to pass? I didn't want to be in education for three more years in university, I was ready to jump out into the world and get things moving. I spent the first half of my second year of college moaning about this, until my Philosophy teacher said "well just drop the classes then!" And I bemoaned how I couldn't, and she said "of course you can!" and she told me a quote which I now live my life by - Karl Marx, "don't mourn; organise". Before that I'd always be moaning about my lot in life just like everyone else does, but now I knew it was pointless unless I motivated myself, and armed with Sartre's radical freedom, I knew I could do it.

How do you think you influence the world?
I think I inspire a lot of people. I don't mean that to sound arrogant; I get messages every day from people telling me I inspired them, so I can't look at it as anything other than a fact, but I'm not bragging or anything! On my music channel nericoustic, I gave a free download of an acoustic album, and a lot of people say it cheers them up or they just love listening to it, which makes me really happy =) Ideally I'd love to make videos like this, trying to motivate people to use the best of their freedom while they still can, but I was founded in comedy; it'd like tuning in to watch the next episode of a sitcom and finding a gun-toting action thriller in its place, it's not what they came to see. Also I have very little faith in people as a species, and most of my motivating will just be forgotten in a couple of weeks when the video has waned, because people always find it easier to take the easy path. (Which sounds obvious, I know, because the easy path is easier, but I also find it makes me deeply unhappy to be on the easy path.)

What do you think you've help people with? I saw on your videos that you have been making a card game, started Trock, and pushed the five awesome trend along. I also know that you received a mystery package, which shows that the older generation has notice your abilities. What do you think about all of that?
I mentioned 'don't mourn; organise' in a video once and a guy called Sam said it saved his life, which was lovely ^_^ But I think most of my help is on a smaller scale than that; just providing a little distraction from people's lives to be entertained, which is a good thing.

With regards to my projects - Sopio, Trock, fiveawesome etc - I'm trying to become financially independent through creative measures, and these are all ways of doing that, but it's also born of that same 'don't mourn orgainse' principle. I had an idea for a comic book, because there are so many superpowered people out there and I thought, "is there one where the powers are constantly changing?" And there wasn't, so I started writing it myself :) There's a little bit of sadness I get now and then because I'm having to write what I myself would want to read, because nobody else will do it for me; I look at what I need and want, and I do it myself, but then I can never get objectivity on enjoying that thing because it was me that did it. If everyone else was as creative, I'd be able to just chill :D

Was trock just for fun or did you start it with the intention of making money?
Trock was born of a few things; I thought it'd be easier to write Doctor Who songs than Harry Potter ones, cos I'm more invested in Doctor Who, and it was also exciting to be the person at the head of the movement, motivating others. I'm really proud of how Trock has grown, and I'm still trying to tap into the Doctor Who fanbase at large, cos when it takes off it'll be huge. Rather than doing it for money I'd say I did it for opportunity, which is the same as anything else really; seeing where things lead. If I just did things for money, the money would be gone and I'd have to do something else, but doing things for opportunity is fantastic because it's always giving me new options, new ways to make more opportunities which in turn keep me financially afloat and also keep my mind engaged.

How far has your card game come along? How many people are involved in it?
Sopio is just me and my cousin Danny; he took a degree in business management so he knows all the stuff about companies that I don't have the know-how on. It started because I don't find games like Uno interesting enough, my favourite card game was Yu-Gi-Oh because it was so in-depth, but Yu-Gi-Oh is ridiculously complicated, so we wanted to find a happy medium. Sopio's designed with simplicity in mind and there are only two types of cards, but the game can go anywhere, and that's really exciting for us. Also unlike most TCGs you only need one deck, so you play it with other people without worrying about getting a deck for them as well. It's kind of on the back-burner at the moment because I'm working on Renshii (my fantasy book) and Calamity (the comic book mentioned above), as well as my album Shoebox and Chameleon Circuit's self-titled Trock album.

What about your comic? Were you able to find a graphic artist for that project?
Ooh, I didn't look to see you had a question about Calamity ^_^ Yeah this amazing artist responded to my video and I'm actually concerned she might be -too- good; her art is almost photographic in quality, but I want a comic book, so stylistically it might not work. If it doesn't then I have some back-up artists which have more of an anime style, and I'll use the amazing artist lady to maybe just design each of the covers for each issue for me, that'd be cool. But I have high hopes :D

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