Carles is an important figure in the feedback loop that is the blog-o-sphere. Beach Sloth has given him more than ample coverage, due to boredom and general interest in his blog. In 2010, his blog failed hard. It was the worst thing I’ve ever encountered online since those women that step on cats with high-heeled shoes. Speaking to his listeners from his last podcast of 2010 before he went out and partied in the New Year, he promised change. Change we could believe in.
For a moment I thought he was just bullshitting us. As the wise man John McCain once said about Hipster Runoff’s site re-designs: “That’s not change, that’s more of the same.” I wondered if Carles would go back to his tricks, covering useless characters possessing various degrees of unchill. We’d laugh at how silly they were from our ivory tower of ironic detachment, and he’d laugh from his ultra-sarcastic impenetrable castle of snarky attitude.
Here I had some positive things in my life yet felt down. Those positive things will take time to get to me but will ultimately be fulfilling. In the interim, I need to kill the next couple of months as I wait for my accomplishment to bear fruit. To do that, I need important blogs to keep me sane as I go through these challenges to arrive at my goal. What I hoped for was that Carles could keep me amused for roughly six months.
Going onto Hipster Runoff in 2011 was a whole new world, via Aladdin from the taste-making production company Walt Disney. I was shocked with some of the new features Carles created in his infinite whatever emotion he experiences. Now you could have your own profile, a corner of his site that you could call your own. At first I thought Hipster Runoff was becoming a dating site for alts. Then, thinking twice, I realized how silly that was. Instead, I figured it would work as a “Casual Encounters” section, the way that Craiglist used to have before the Craiglist killer went around killing people. If someone got killed for that Hipster Runoff casual encounter, I could imagine the amount of traffic Carles’s site would get. Then at the trial the murdered could do a bunch of band name-dropping, impressing the jury.
What I got was something different. Immediately my blog traffic increased exponentially. Now I created a brand piggybacking off of his. I felt glad that Carles didn’t resort to leaking pictures of his penis like Kanye West, in an attempt to generate buzz. But still, I noticed the comments ended up being significantly less than before. Maybe quality was more important than quantity. I don’t know. I did know the registered users enjoyed firsts the most.
Then I saw it, the thing that changed Hipster Runoff forever. Besides having the profiles to create a more unique viewing experience, there was a hotline. Honestly, I don’t know whether or not I’d trust Carles on helping me with the ladies. Since he’s anonymous, I don’t know if he ‘has game’ or ‘is attractive’. All I know is I occasionally laugh at his articles and he entertains me. Could he really offer advice without his trademark douchebag wit? I wanted to find out.
909-276-7542 (BRO-SKI2) ended up being the number to call. Part of me wanted to call, but I didn’t. Since the profiles freaked me out a bit and felt ‘casual encounters’-esque, I thought that the hotline would be some sort of hipster sex hotline where he’d try to seduce young women by going through his MP3 collection in his masculine voice.
A Podcast came out of the questions. I listened, curious as to what was wrong with people and their lives. Nothing in my life presented itself as a reason for me to call him; I had close friends in the blog-o-sphere who helped me through the good times and the bad. Those people know who they are, following me every which way on my path to enlightenment. I’d like to thank them for being there, and I hope someday I can be there for them, to be a light in the darkness.
Carles did an unusual thing with the Podcast: he had a point. Usually they tend to ramble on, like a creative writing assignment gone amuck. Like America’s botched effort to liberate Cuba from Communism in the Bay of Pigs. Hearing my peers, I felt better. Their problems stemmed from robbing liquor stores. My problems are nowhere near that stupid. Some had problems being too alt, or with college. Those I could relate to, and I was glad they asked it. Perhaps some of the people who asked those questions are reading this right now. I want them to know I’ll be there for them as well, but I will not be doing a Podcast at any foreseeable point in time. Instead, if they have questions, they can go to my forumspring, which is the poor man’s help hotline.
I don’t know why I write about Carles’s blog so much. Most of it has to do with the volume of stuff I write on here, and there ought to be some developing stories. By this point, I’m approaching that Rob Horning guy who does the HRO Exegesis blog. The hotline thing sounded like a success with a great amount of participation from the readers. Maybe I write about him because I want him to be my friend. Or I could use some solid blog-hit creating material. Hope someday I can “bro out” with him or Gchat, but I’m painfully shy so neither will happen.
PS: Those reasons are partly true, but the real reason is he owes me buzzbucks. One previous reader stated that I just got paid a bunch of buzzbucks. Well, I didn’t. Carles owes me buzzbucks.