ON TALENT

I saw a commercial for a new TV show yesterday, and truthfully, it looks awful. Allegedly a comedy, nothing in the trailer made anyone in the room laugh; I would say we had a broad range of senses-of-humor in the room, as well.

It's really becoming more clear to me that it isn't the most talented people who succeed. People who are thoroughly mediocre but are either a) extremely hard-working or b) extremely well-connected seem to rise to the top of their fields. There's a lesson in this somewhere. The lesson being, of course, that people who make decisions as to what airs or gets recorded are stupid.

It's a frustrating thing, to go on a website and see an eight-minute video with a ton of jokes get about 400 total views, but then a two-minute video with a moderately famous person on it gets tens of thousands of views - but has no jokes. People are conditioned to think highly of this performer, so they do. It sounds petulant and reeking of jealousy, but I would think that a website featuring funny videos would benefit be focusing on content rather than name recognition.

It's a tough thing. I need to work harder on connecting with some influential people.