In what world are the untrained, unskilled, and unfinished this absurdly self-important?

 

"SF restaurant to temporarily close after influencer says she left crying"

Is this place's management out of its mind?! Is everyone online just on the lookout for a dogpile?

Well, at this point the latter seems like a given. But that's what happens when you give voices to those incapable of deserving them. 'The Internet', everyone.

For someone to have "alleged that the owner treated her disrespectfully, saying her TikTok following of 15,000 was inadequate to represent the restaurant" after presumably being taken seriously enough to be in the running for a potential collaboration tells me that this... make-believe member of online media... sold a flagrantly false bill of goods to the restaurant re: utility and value, then got rightly called out on it.

The absolute absurdity to pay any attention to the voice of an underdeveloped, overvoiced "~iNflUeNCer~" has me genuinely staggered. But what's worse still is the fallout.

The resultant temper tantrum from this has resulted in an avalanche of utterly irrational and false negative reviews, and a massive overreaction from the restaurant's management. The chef's gone. The restaurant's closed, albeit "temporarily". A former restaurant is buried in negative press too!

When someone's life is seen by vast numbers before they're qualified for that privilege, problems are inevitable. People with actual value suffer.

This mess probably just killed two restaurants and dozens of livelihoods because a counterfeit collaborator couldn't stand to be told the truth- that their contributions weren't worth the trouble. 

Way to go, you thin-skinned, petty peasant.

 

I realized that I've basically become Uncle Iroh.

One who tries very hard to be good. 

One who did right by his family, even when they betray the principles they taught. 

One who serves as a mentor, a guide, and a surrogate parent to any number of others.

One who is still, despite the passage of time, an absolute demon in a fight.

One who (perhaps offscreen) absolutely Fucks.

Almost all of that is fine.

What bothers me, though, is the paradigm shift to Mentor/Guide.

I don't want to do that. Certainly shouldn't have to. But circumstance and betrayal have left it my only recourse. 

To do everything exactly right and suffer anyway. So many opportunities I was first promised, then owed, and always denied.

Now... all I have left is to do what I can for others, to help them prepare as much for similar fates as to avoid them.

Considering additional income sources

 

One friend says things like OnlyFans. He's silly. I'm... okay, he does have a point. I'm probably very appealing to no small number of people. But I'm also an experience that doesn't really translate well to picture and video. Much better to appreciate up close- and those who so know me would likely agree.

But then there are things like Patreon. I have a vast amount of knowledge and experience. I'm a world-class expert in no small number of largely disparate fields. Like my blurb on the side says- if you have a question, and I have an answer, you can trust it. People might well pay for that. Even just for reliable access to that.

I'm also a storyteller. My life experience has given my perspective and analytical utility a depth that is vanishingly rare. Those experiences could, if properly revisited, be of enormous entertainment and development value to any number of knowledge seekers.

On the other hand, there are already tons of people out there (substantially inferior in quality, but more visible and more aggressively productive) who are desperately flooding the visible world, on and offline alike, with their own better-off-hidden miscellany.

Do I go for it anyway?

...Do I have anything to lose?