chiyo-chan is very enterprising, so she became a youtuber

because I’ve rejected embedding analytics on all of my sites, almost to a stubborn fault, I do often egosearch as a way to put out feelers on what I publish. last week, I found out I’m now a part of the azumanga meme canon thanks to a throwaway translation I made about the chiyo bus for the dive about hideki satomi. what started as a tweet seems to have now been scattered in quick gusts to the digital winds. instagram, when it’s not broadcasting digital horror, proves it can recover from the hangover long enough to rememeber it is actually a tweet repost factory. one imgur page, using it as the headline, says it is an image of note. if it’s been carried to ifunny, then it is probably also in far more places than simple quote searches are turning up to me now.

with how loathe I am to self-promote, eavesdropping on murmurs has always been a fun way to collect surprises. part of this is admittedly that more of my ego has been wrapped up on this site in a way that previous anonymous and pseudonymous contributions have never had a cachet for me to boast about, but also generally that it is curious for me to observe how what I work on can sometimes be visible through the silt of the deep web’s oceans. most japanese producers do not attribute my producer name to my character fan site, despite never really concealing my ownership, and have preferably rechristened it as a mysterious site (謎のロコサイト) with a shadowy overseas administrator after exposure from text boards and matome sites. one youtuber, having foremost laid his life down for kiyohiko azuma, also appreciated my hidamari color grading snark, absent the usual ben day dots. returning back to the archives, it is almost certain they found it caught in their periphery by an /a/ thread the day prior.

while the initial chiyo bus tweet was kind enough to link back to the originating post, you will probably not be surprised to know that it registered effectively no traffic bump at all. had I not gone out of my way to ride the egosearch, I probably would have been none the wiser that there were so many eyes on my attempt to replicate a run-on sentence. the yotsuba prosperity chronicle was never my original creation, nor the high sense of the catchcopy or various photos of the chiyo bus found on independent sites, and so I have no hurt feelings that the context for its inclusion in a post about hideki satomi has already collapsed so quickly. context collapse, instead, I consider hobby security as someone that treats digital archaeology as an exploring discipline. absent having to worry about monetizing websites, knowing at least one person read far enough to find the humor in my synthesis of the chiyo bus, to me, is reason enough to shake off depressive episodes and continue creating at all. the wheels roadtripping it across the web, I hope, may find it included in someone’s video art celebrating azumanga as a two decade old show in the not too distant future.

some of the same anxieties applicable to subculture’s explosion show in my feelings about performing original research when blowing the dust off of old magazines or websites. people do, and probably should in some respectable fashion be able to, make money ruminating on and putting spotlight on subculture. monetization is unlikely to ever chew as a concern for me, but capturing the right audience always will, and seeing screencaps from something I have written go viral does make me consider if there is more to tap out there, or in fact if I should be orienting this thought at all. maybe there is nothing to be done in this case, as the stripped context was what seeded the interest here at all. my creative work has always been done with appreciation for the web nomads following links through idle explorations off the beaten path, and it is this cool interaction, prided on hotlink flurries and digital backrooms, that seems to run as my throughline. the undercurrent is easy, and cozy. it’s a character I would like to hold on to for as long as I am satisfied by it, and seeing as this is a text blog, it feels I have already cast my lot in a world that is realigning more and more to video. subculture, rather than the roaring ocean of content churn, perhaps just feels most comfortable to me when allowed to continue flowing undisturbed as groundwater.

there is no hardline thought keeping me from syndicating myself to digital video, and certain examinations that I keep desiring to present (see motion graphics) I think deserve its elevation. the same writing done for this site could conceivably shine in longform video, though drafted through more steps and with less definition. digital video, however, seems enitrely synonymous with the expectations established by youtube at this current point in our media landscape. youtuber fame, warts and perks, has brushed up on me once before, when the scale for such qualification was far milder and skits ruled the medium, and I can say I’m not especially keen to dive back in knowing the traps and hoops that have been laid since. still, the ambition driving me to monologue publicly nips at me to want another crack at it, knowing the audience is seemingly ripe for hidamari doner and chiyo buses. will someone also eventually take one of my posts and adapt it as a youtube video wholesale, without so much as an attribution as thanks for the adsense revenue, whether I grant the clearance for them to or not? almost certainly, if I keep at this long enough. all I can ask for is that if they do want to beat me to the punch, they will hopefully remember to at least thank their bus driver. for the 11 year olds, the video essay summary consumers of today and tomorrow, it’s a ways back from the prestige of the youtuber.