In addition to being interested in programming and video games, Victor and Gloriana were also interested in filming and movies. They knew that this, too, could be a path towards their goal of becoming a 21st century Genghis Khan, given the power of celebrity, given the power of culture. And, luckily, they came of age at a time when YouTube was in its zenith, allowing them to learn the basics of moviemaking.
They started incorporating what they learned into the YouTube videos they were making for their Minecraft game development channel. They’d start off with little skits and things for comedy’s sake. They’d make a name for themselves on YouTube not just for being game developers, but for being just normal everyday entertaining as well.
They started to branch out and begin a new YouTube channel. It was there where they made their first music video, being heavily inspired by all the music videos they’d seen on YouTube during their childhood.
And here’s where we’re going to steal some more ideas. I use the real world as food to feed my fantasies. Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ video. Have you seen it? The one where the singers are painted over the course of the video? It was an enormously successful song and video from the early days of YouTube. I’ll use it for Victor and Gloriana’s come up.
I go back and forth on the music, though. Should they also, in addition to the games and the videos, have had an interest in making music themselves? That’s an awful lot for the suspension of disbelief. For now, let’s just say they hire people to make music for them. The infrastructure for making popstars is all there, the institutions. You just need to have the right connections or be talented enough to attract the eye of one of those movers and shakers. Victor and Gloriana decided they were just going to pay for the privilege of becoming minor online popstars. Sometimes I like this route, other times it’s too much. Again, maybe it’d be a bit more realistic with a millennial Graves.
Let’s just keep it simple for now, narratively speaking, and say that they paid for the music but personally made the music video themselves. This isn’t a perfect situation for the Gravesverse, given that the subject of the song is about a breakup, whereas they’re completely in love.
They release it as an internet hit primarily. They’re not out playing live in cities or anything, they got video games to make, although to celebrate its success they do go on a radio tour to play it live in some of the studios. That and they’re invited back to some of the talk shows to play it live on tv. “Ohh, aren’t they cute and talented? These kids that made the video game are making music now!”
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Sometimes I have them focus on the video game first and foremost before selling it and only then getting into the music industry, and other times they’re mixed together. But the point is that, while they may not be talented music makers, they most certainly are talented video makers, with an eye for things that become viral. They came up with the music video for Gotye on their own, after all. Did they know it was going to be as big of a success as it had become? They probably thought it was going to do well, given their narcissism, but not that well. They were pleasantly surprised by it, I think. That and the nude nature of the music video added just a hint of scandal to it, them being rather young. Nothing too much, though, of course. They were family friendly.
“Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over.”
The music video in question is a perfect thing for them to have created, too, considering how low budget it was. They spent money on the music but they were apt businesspeople, too. They knew how to stretch a dollar. And this is the form of the music videos they made in the early early days. Later, they’d use their budding popularity to reach out to legitimately talented musical artists to get permission to make music videos for their favorite songs. It’s at this time that they’re rather enamored with Kanye West, as it was during this time that he was popular as well. That and he is rather talented, in my opinion.
You have to understand why they made music videos. It was because I was making music videos in my maladaptive daydreams. This was during the lead up to my first psychosis, so they were incredibly vivid ones. I’d listen to music over and over again and create music videos in my head. It’d be like dreaming while I was awake. And Kanye West was one of the musicians I was listening to quite a bit back then, in the time when I was building my fantasy worlds.
The music video for Power by Kanye West was one I was particularly enchanted by. The one where it starts out with a closeup image of Kanye West’s face and slowly zooms out to reveal a Sistine Chapel like scene around him of women. Watch that video if you’re at all interested in the topic of this blog. It’s a sequence of images that we’ll keep coming back to. It didn’t have enough context for me, though, in its original, real-world form. Victor and Gloriana Graves’ version of things was loaded with allusions to their work. Maybe instead of or in addition to the women, there’d be zombies and skeletons. Horror elements. Their Minecraft had a more horrific feel to it than Notch’s. It was Halloween themed.
I did make custom, unique music videos as well for them, too, that grew in complexity over time during the lead up to my first mental break. I might go into those more at some point, but for now we’re at our 1k words.
