No Project Required
No Project Required
A project unlocked my creativity, but it was actually a big mistake
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I have been obsessed with TikTok since the early days of the pandemic lockdown. And not obsessed in a normal way. I was obsessed in the way a media nerd sees a new puzzle to solve with creativity.
I kind of wished I was still twenty years old so I could have fun and play around with making silly videos. Obviously, though, I was much too old to have fun with video and play around on new social apps. (see photo above…)
Then one night during lockdown, I was talking with one of my kids about a video she made that had racked up several thousand views. I made her a bet that if I wanted to, I could make a video with more views than hers. So the bet was on.
I made a secret TikTok account and tentatively started shooting a few really dumb videos. I even wore a wig so no one would know it was me!
The first few videos did okay… but then one of them suddenly took off for no apparent reason. 5k. 10k. 25k. 50k. 100k. 200k. It ended up at roughly 230k views and it honestly wasn’t even very good or very funny. It was a failed attempt to scare a visitor at our door - he saw me through the window and I looked like an idiot, especially in my wig. But I won the bet 🙂
After that, I made a few more videos, but nothing took off, so I gave up and stopped making them.
However - not gonna lie - I still always had a burning little desire to keep playing around with video and to try and figure it out and have some fun. So why didn’t I ever do more of it? Why didn’t I keep experimenting?
It was fear of judgment. The last thing I wanted was for people to think I was trying to become some sort of influencer or the world’s oldest content creator. Seriously. That is not why I was interested in doing it, but I was worried people might think that was my goal. I know it shouldn’t matter, but I think I got in my head about what other people would think if I started doing dumb stuff on TikTok.
I also didn’t have a reason to make videos. It felt like a strange indulgence to just make videos for no reason. I always had other things to do and I just never made it a priority.
But then I wrote a book, and I needed to figure out how to market it. Because the book is about unconventional strategies for earning attention, I had to use unconventional strategies to earn attention for the book.
Much like my worries about making TikTok videos, though, I became fairly self-conscious about self-promotion. I did not want to be seen as someone trying hard to become a thought leader or someone relentlessly, selfishly pitching their book over and over and over again. Yuck!
That’s when it hit me. I should use the book as the reason to start doing social videos. I could make a show, have fun, and be creative with topics kind of about the book but not really about the book and definitely not selling the book.
So I nervously reached out to my friends and former Citytv colleagues, Steve Scarrow and Perry Pannu, to see if they would try playing fake book marketers in a fake documentary about marketing my book.
Suddenly, it was like being back in the best parts of TV production. Sitting around with awesome people, making each other laugh, and producing videos. We shot a ton of stuff and it ended up being really enjoyable editing it all together, too. Because content for TikTok and Instagram Reels is so short, that first afternoon yielded over ten different videos!
After viewing them and starting to publish them, we all checked in with each other and decided to keep making them. So we had a second shoot and fixed some of the dumb production decisions I made on the first shoot. Now we’ve got a ton more videos in the can.
I recently realized that I have inadvertently tricked myself into making a pretty significant social video project that will last several months.
I’m waking up thinking about the videos. I’m having shower-thoughts for more videos and more people to collaborate with. I’m asking TikTok wizards like BC Bob for feedback and advice. I am massively creatively engaged and having a ton of fun!
So all that is a lead-up to say this: I made a huge mistake.
I waited until I had the book. I waited until I had a project to justify doing the videos. I realized now that I never needed the project. I never needed any reason to do the videos other than they are loads of fun and creatively satisfying to make. I could have been doing this and figuring it out four years ago!
So my lesson learned is this: embrace the Nike slogan and Just Do It. Don’t sit around and wait for the perfect time, the perfect justification, or the perfect idea to strike you. If you have a creative itch, just start scratching it. Don’t be like me and worry about what other people will think. As the old expression goes, the people who matter don’t mind and the people who mind don’t matter. Or even more powerful, if you’re stopping yourself from exploring your creativity because of what others will think, remind yourself of this quote from Helen Fielding:
“No one is thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves, just like you.”
A couple of weeks ago the great music producer Steve Albini died. If you are same vintage as Geoff and I, then Steve Albini’s albums probably played a huge part in your life too. From seminal albums by the Pixies, Nirvana and PJ Harvey, Albini’s style captured the rawness and excitement of every song he produced.
We’d like to end today’s post with a letter he wrote to the band Nirvana describing his process of facilitating creativity (via
’s amazing newsletter .)