Friday, January 12, 2007
The ‘Kyle’ pilot isn’t an internet sensation, but it seems to be doing reasonably well. Over 4,000 views so far, quite a bit more views per day than anything else currently on DotComedy.
Most of the comments in the comments section seem positive. Many of them single out the laugh track as distracting. So many, in fact, that I believe DotComedy suspects we specifically asked people to say negative things about it. We didn’t. We certainly thought about it, but we didn’t.
I wasn’t sure how my mom would react. Most of the story does revolve around a girl trying to decide whether she should give her comatose boyfriend a handjob. But Mom seemed to enjoy it, even posting a comment of her own on the website.
Me: Wait, which comment was yours?
Mom: Can you guess which one?
Me: I really can’t.
Mom: Candywoman. A college nickname.
Me: What?! Why did they call you Candywoman?
Mom: I love candy.
Of course, there are some negative comments as well. The piece certainly isn’t above criticism and in a weird way, I find it more thrilling to read the few angry rants than some of the bland (but nice) positive stuff. Someone using the name Not Funny At All wrote, “You should be ashamed of yourselves as entertainment ‘professionals’… You’re in a haze of self-denial because you’re so proud that the name NBC is somehow linked to your work.” Later, Not Funny At All posted again, adding, “I don’t want to make this personal, but I did used to work with somebody in this pilot. In comedy. I have not seen this person in a long time and I’m very disappointed that this person is not doing something more inspired… I just don’t want this person’s ego to run wild.”
Steve and Glynn and I talked about it briefly, the tantalizing mystery of it all. Some angry person from our collective pasts.
Steve: It sounds like it’s someone from one of our colleges, but I can’t think of anyone all that mean in my past. The internet sure brings out that weird anonymous hatred. It makes me feel bad that people think our ego might be running high as a result of this webisode. I think that’s my biggest discomfort with this process. I feel weird that people we don’t talk to might think this is our dream vision version of what we would post.
Misgivings aside, I can’t stop checking in with the site, monitoring our numbers as they slowly go up.
