I Made This

About a year and some change ago, I called my good buddy and podcast co-host, Will Peters, over to my apartment to film me shaving my poor excuse for a mustache. I had a half-baked idea. What if look real sad in the mirror, shave it off, then later, I’ll go in and voice the mustache? It’ll be real mean to me. I’ll have a real toxic relationship with the whiskers. It’ll try to convince me I couldn’t live without it. So Will stood in the tiny shower behind my bathroom mirror and recorded.

The footage looked good. But it didn’t matter. I hated it.

It wasn’t funny to me. It also wasn’t serious. I didn’t know what it was. But $0 in the hole, I didn’t care too much.

Then a year and some change later, I fired up Premiere Pro again, and watched it back. Something had changed. The little short was still the same. Yes. But maybe (take a deep breath) I changed.

It reminded me of me. But not right now me. It reminded me of a year and some change ago me. A version of me that did not dread the most likely outcome of trying. This version of me just started anything. Began without expecting what should be expected. And what might I expect now? Exactly what happened, a few days ago, upon finally releasing it on the cursed Instagram reels. A retention rate of 20% after the first 10 seconds. An all together skip rate of 67.2%. Essentially, a few laughs for the real 1s and absolutely nothing to anyone else with a working internet connection.

But that’s okay. I still finished it. I owed it to a year and some change ago me. A man who didn’t really think about all that. I miss him. Because 2025 will go down as the year the internet turned me kind of rotten. Pessimistic based on probability. It is, still unfortunately the only vehicle to put work on. Bummer. I’m no good at it. But I think this mustache thing is good. And I’m happy to show it to the only audience that really matters. So here’s to finishing more stuff that’s just good. No great. Not viral. Just good. For the only audience that matters. Me. I’m kidding. It’s you. Well, both of us. And if you were part of the few, the proud, the 20% retention rate…thank you for your service. I’ll send you a whisker in the mail .