Sheeeeeeeeeit
Oh, hello. If you don’t already know my name then I implore you to do literally anything else right now rather than read on. Knock over a convenience store. Dye your cat gold. Tell a stranger that you like his innermost thoughts. What follows is a personal letter to people who knew me when I used to write on Medium. If you’re short on time skip to the last part.
Fuckin’ hell, y’all. I’ve been out of the Medium game for like a month and writing now feels like trying to get Second Drunk. For those of you who aren’t degenerates, Second Drunk is when you’ve already gotten hammered, sobered up, and then tried to get drunk again in a twelve to eighteen-hour period. Please forgive this sludge coming out of me, but I am so thankful for all of you who still remember who I am after I left (honestly, it has moved me to tears on more than one occasion,) and I want to tell you what’s next for me so hopefully we can keep in touch. Well, as you know I left Medium awhile back because of a confluence of unfortunate events. I’m just gonna say it: I was stricken with debilitating IBS that left me a one-woman horn section. Kidding, I was pretty much internet weary.
First of all, when I start writing on Medium I was doing so because I was kind of jacking off my mind through the computer, trying to find some fun and/or release. Also at my day job they were like, “For the last time, NO, you cannot jack off either literally or figuratively” I was like, “K, calm down, Alicia. Human Resources will for sure be a job the robots take anyway.” Anyhow, I started writing stuff on here that people liked and when publications wanted to republish my work I didn’t really feel one way or another about it because I had no real writing plans. So I said yes, despite not being paid for some of it.
But I had a shitty feeling about “exposure,” because the word alone gives me the wiggins. I originally heard it when the cops were questioning me as a 12-year-old about some pervert who flashed his ding-dong at me. First of all, I’d never seen male genitalia before and I mistook it for a literal sausage. Then my quasi-boyfriend Trenton thought it was funny to bring me a sausage the next day in the cafeteria and it WASN’T funny, Trenton, no matter how much the other kids guffawed. Anyhow, the cops told me, “We want to find the man who exposed himself to you.” That’s how I learned exposed was a dirty word. Should have known nothing fucking changes.
See, when sites republish your work away from these hallowed grounds, it takes your ideas out of the (sort of) safe space of Medium and puts them into the minds of the public. The gross majority of evolution-throwbacks who reside in mainstream comment sections are smart enough to not die, but are not smart enough to understand complex, satirical or nuanced thought. As a populist, it pains me to say that because I routinely and adamantly eschew the snobbery of the intellectual elites. But damn, y’all. You go read some comments and you will be convinced people have cheese pizza where their brains are supposed to be. So what I didn’t take into account is that when you are exposed, it’s not just about the lack of money. I was also opening myself up to the mozzarella-for-brains who got downright cray cray about WORDS! I mean. Our elections are a fraud perpetrated by rich people and corporations but please, let’s get irate that I’m an SJW. (I guess? Apparently?)
Listen, you might hear my words and take me as some badass broad, but in reality I am a person who was abused for most of my life and am very deeply shaken by people’s anger when directed at me — whether they are threatening or just plain mean. Also, after all I went through in the first half of my life, I’ve finally carved out this awesome existence and my friends are like “Hey, it sure was good to see you today!” and my husband is like “Wow, you just get keep getting prettier,” and you want me to sully that arrangement so that I can try to explain moderate thought to rage-mutants? And FOR FREE? No. Just no. And honestly, I’m starting to believe that (outside of cats and porn) it’s anger against women and people of color that fucking drive people to engage on the internet, and we are getting asked to take that on without money? FUCK TO THE SHIT NO. But now I’m getting out-of-hand upset, the type of intensity that causes fear to set into my husband’s eyes as he says, “Babe, I know … I’m with you,” with his hands in front of his body like robbers do to guard dobermans in movies.
Anyhow, I thought that if I wanted to write for a living, I’d have to get shit on by dumbfucks because I was convinced that you needed a big following to find an agent. Then my work wife was like, “Bitch, who got to you?” And listed off about three people she knows in her immediate circle who have book deals and then told me to look at their social pages and fucking none of them have large followings or have EVER published for “exposure.”
About that time she was lovingly slapping the shit out of me, I got a DM from this dude who followed me on Medium. “I think you should write a screenplay and I’m dead serious,” he says. I’m like “Yeah, dude, me too.” But I kept reading and turns out he’s a legit movie producer and not like, a producer with a black casting couch inside an empty strip mall. I watched his movies and they were GOOD. Cool works. A-list actors. Turns out this guy recently teamed up with an accomplished dude in the book world who is seriously smarty-pants, and the two of them were in need of a storyteller for a new project. And fuck me, they needed me to do it full-time for a paycheck with digits on it. And to earn these digits I simply have to write fun, challenging things during MY DAY JOB. And oh, by the way, part of my job is to write original books, pilots and screenplays and I have an idea that is FOR SURE GOING TO GET ME DEATH THREATS IF IT IS PRODUCED. But you know what? I can get death threats if I’m gettin’ paid for it, y’all. Bring it on, you loose assholes mistaken for humans.
So, that thing will launch in June/July-ish, and right now the plan is to write on Medium (with my real name) about moving from nonprofits to the movie business and other fish-out-of-water type stuff. If you want to know when I start publishing again, and I would seriously shit in excitement if even one of you did, please email me at kelcampbellofficial@gmail.com and say “let me know when you publish” and I’ll let you know when I do. I should note I will not be the one checking that email, in case a random arsehole makes his or her way in.
I want to tell you all of this because first of all, I have genuine and creepy affection for many of you on here. Secondly, not everyone is able to earn money from writing. But I have learned that if people are wanting to republish your words, that is hard, tangible, cash-it-in evidence that you have the ability to earn dollars from those words. Don’t get roped into the lie that you have to get shit on before you get paid. I mean, get shit on like Hitler if you want. If this is just for funsies, you do you. But you don’t have to write for free. Also, don’t think that Medium or the internet or a person or circumstance could ever fucking knock me down for good. I’m strong as motherfucking shit. And with that, friends, from Kel Campbell’s artery-clogged heart to some of my favorite souls and brains in the whole internet universe, I bid you however-you-spell-adoo. Ahdue? *googles* Adieu!
