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What Really Sucks Ass about Vocal

Part #1— No Sense of Humor! No Commitment to Comedy! No Place for the Silliness to Call Home!

By Lightning BoltPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 13 min read
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⚡ Vaudeville Tonight! ⚡

DISCLAIMER: Vocal.media is pretty awesome. I'm especially impressed by how supportive everyone is. The authors who confab here are incredible. The Vocal staff are amazing.

But this "product review" is not about the good stuff here. 🤷‍♂️ This is constructive criticism from someone who luvs this platform. Specifically, this is...

What Really Sucks Ass about Vocal

Part One— No Real Commitment to Comedy!

"This parrot wouldn't 'VOOM!' if I put 4,000 volts ⚡⚡⚡ through it!"

Imagine you have written one of these two ☝ classic sketches.👇

Where do you post them ☝ 👇 on Vocal!?!?

😒😕😠😤😤😤🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

"Guess what? I gotta fever... and the only prescription... is more cowbell!"

⚡_______________________⚡

Let me tell you a story

(written in second person)

You are a writer.

You've always been a writer. It's your jam. You found Vocal a while ago and, for the most part, you think it's pretty great. You're learning. You're getting better at your craft, finding your true voice, gradually developing your talent. Recently, in fact, you wrote the best story you've ever written— a far-fetched fanciful adventure! And the best thing about it is...

You've written for your audience!

This is the tale of a voracious reader who wants to be an author. He gets hijacked into going on a wild ride through multiple universes, all these different dimensions, each related to a specific genre of popular literature. Your narrative begins in a science fiction universe, very steampunky, with an Indiana-Jones-meets-Star-Trek vibe. But there are also horror universes with insane asylums, creepy castles, and graveyard settings, complete with serial killers, angry werewolves, and ravenous vampires. Half-way through your yarn, there is a long sequence revealing a historical backstory, with drama that puts both Bridgerton and Downton Abbey to shame. There's a young adult universe where everyone is worried about acne; a sugary romance universe where love triumphs over all; several romps in a Filthy reality where every character who gets laid literally creates another Big Bang; an LQBTQ+ universe without any heterosexuals, where babies are painted into existence by two or more loving artists; and, naturally, a criminal investigation universe where everyone is intent on figuring why all this is happening! ☝ At the end of these exploits, you show how this entire astral journey was inspired by a single mundane day in the life of an average fucked-up dude working a Taco Bell drive-thru.

Epic, right?

You entitle your magnum opus,

SEO Click Bait My Masterstroke! XXX hot celebrity ass pics?

⚡😁👍

So now comes the conundrum...

Where do you publish your masterpiece?

The Fiction community seems like the obvious choice— but what subcategory to place it under? Adventure, right? But wait! The Futurism community calls out! That is "the intersection of science and science fiction," after all. Since SEO Click Bait My Masterstroke! involves exploring the multiverse, shouldn't it be published there? Well..... what about all the heavy horror elements? Doesn't that suggest the Horror Community, subcategory Fiction is the right fit? 🤔🤔

You wonder...

What's the difference between posting it under Fiction-horror— as opposed to Horror-fiction?

For a minute, you seriously contemplate publishing it in Confessions because that community embraces "all shades of cringe." Your masterpiece has a bunch of (hilarious) cringe moments throughout! But Confessions is definitely a misfit for this bizarro fiction...

Because, you see, SEO Click Bait My Masterstroke! is actually written to be funny! The humor is subtle in some places, more exaggerated in other places, depending on the genre/universe you are spoofing, but it's all intended to entertain. You wonder aloud...

"Where should parodies be published on Vocal?"

Trying to figure out the answer to that question confuses you to the point of nearly giving you a headache!

This was supposed to be fun! 🤨

Let's Look At Your Options, shall we?

As it stands today, in November 2021, these are the only places that I have found on Vocal that specifically mention drollery...

In the Fiction community, there is both a Humor and a Satire subcategory. Note: it's considered "Humor" under Fiction but "Comedy" virtually everywhere else on Vocal! #NoCommitment2ComedyonVocal! 😒

There is a Comedy subcategory in the Filthy community. Under Futurism, you'll find a Comedy option.

FYI, for your information, has relatively few categories and none of them are comedic— which is how it should be! FYI is a place for disseminating reliable information. But what if you decide to write a funny FYI-kind of spoof? Since there is no Comedy community, wouldn't this be the first place you'd mistakenly come looking to post your FYI parody?

There is a Comedy subcategory in the Geeks community! Isn't that interesting! So, knowing there is a niche for humor under Geeks— wouldn't your epic SEO Click Bait My Masterstroke! series fit better there, under Geek/Comedy, rather than under Fiction/Humor (or Fiction/Series)? Your story is about various genres of literature, which seems to fit under Geeks, right? Maybe. 😕

You think, Damn, this is confusing!

I want to be a writer! I want to find a loyal group of demented readers for my crap! That's the only way to become successful, right: to find the right audience? Why does Vocal make it so damn difficult to show off my humor?!?!

⚡______⚡

I know what you are thinking.

You're thinking my above example is too outrageous. You're thinking anyone who writes something as awesome as SEO Click Bait My Masterstroke! XXX hot celebrity ass pics? is going to shop their narrative to major publishers, inevitably sign a multimillion-dollar deal, and then sell it again for more millions to Netflix for adaptation into a series.

Okay. 🤔🤷‍♂️

That's a valid presumption.

So I'll switch from Second Person Point of View to First Person to continue...

I'll belabor this point by offering True Life Examples to illustrate how badly humor is neglected on Vocal. These following stories are true! The names haven't even been changed to protect the innocent (me)!

Recently, I wrote a story about a worthless and weak low-level demon working in the fast-food industry on the 3rd Layer of Hell. 🔥 It's called A Demonic Love Story. 👈 If this were a movie, it would not be placed under a horror classification! The Scary Movie series isn't in the horror movie section either! Yes, there are horror elements in my hell-based romance— but the overall intent here isn't to terrorize. My hope is to elicit some laughs!

Then there's this little thing that I wrote recently 👇

if e.e. cummings was a sailor.

It's weird and kind of obscure. It's a poetry parody— or parody poetry, if you prefer. (I'm parody-fluid.) This salty spoof belongs under Comedy! Cramming it under 'performance poetry' is a misfit! I'm not even certain what performance poetry is. If there had been a Comedy community, I would have known exactly where to post it! It would have been effortless, since my intent here is to amuse!

Another example...

Song parodies are the bomb! Am I right? What we need more of in the world today are musical spoofs, sweet spoofs! More Gen Z Weird Al Yankovic wannabes! Please!?!

I wrote this crazy shit recently—> What if the Beatles were Americans? —and I placed it in Beat community, under Satire. That works. 🤔 It's not a misfit there. 🤨 But... it would be better placed in a Comedy community, under the subcategory Song Parodies!

One more point based on my own experience. I have a horror story published here on Vocal entitled The Last Laugh. This story is about humor— specifically about how a guy hates the way his coworker is always laughing, and so he decides to do something (horrific) about it. With The Last Laugh, I'm perfectly okay with where it's currently published! Yes, the story has a lot of dark humor, but it's truly intended as a horror story, not a comedy, and so it is properly categorized.

The other three stories of mine mentioned here, however: they're all misfits in their current locations.

We need a stage for sitcoms, slapstick, sarcasm, wisecracking, wittiness, top ten lists, fun & games, hilarity, parodies, jocularity, hoopla, spoofs, schtick, camp, comic drama, jesting, and joking! All those things that make you wanna go 👇...

HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!!!

Currently on Vocal, there is no comedy or humor subcategory under Horror (hence my tale of woe about my misplaced Demonic Love Story.) There is also no comedy or humor subcategory under Photography... which leads me to an incident that recently happened to another Vocal author I know.

The Following Is a True Story...

My friend Allison Rice wrote this hysterical piece not long ago. Check it. 👇

I personally love that article! ☝ It's a perfect blend of humorous and salacious, which is not an easy mix to pull off! Naturally, I complimented Allison on her work. She informed me that, just in the first days after publication, she had already seen a big jump in her subscriptions.

But take note of where she posted this hilarious piece: in the FYI community under Pop Culture!

That's a crazy place to post that humorous group of photos. It's perfectly understandable though given the lack of commitment Vocal has to comedy! 🤨 Placing her work in FYI doesn't show off the main attribute that makes this writing standout! It doesn't call attention to the fact that it's funny!

I asked if she had difficulty figuring out where to submit this material within Vocal's current framework. Allison wrote back...

YES!!! The struggle was real!

She agreed we need a humor community!

She also told me this story...

I wrote a funny little Halloween memoir about running into three of the richest people in the world while dressed as a banshee for Halloween. Even though it was more humor, memoir & a little how-to, I put it in HORROR because it has a HALLOWEEN subcategory.

Her thinking makes sense given Vocal's current constraints. It was a story intended to be amusing, but there is no Comedy community, so it ends up in Horror/Halloween. That's a misfit! It doesn't belong where people legitimately expect scares! Halloween is about things that go bump in the night (and not in a good way!) So, by feeling compelled to place a story like this under Horror/Halloween, that pretty much screws up the emphasis of the piece from the very beginning!

And here's the most important point I hope to make...

Tone is extremely difficult to establish with the printed word.

Think about it. Have you ever written something intended to be a joke in your emails or IMs and the recipient mistakenly thought you were serious? Tone is problematic. People take things the wrong way. That's why emojis are so sweet. They help establish the intention behind the written words. But not every reader likes emojis sprinkled into their read... and not every writer likes using them!

If I write a whiny piece about my partner— or a sarcastic rant about how I don't want to lose the emoji at the end of my pen name to satisfy the SEO gods— or a guilty confession that I like to sniff paint so I can watch my garden gnomes eat screaming squirrels— if the humor is subtle, readers will question subconsciously...

Is the author serious? Is it okay to laugh at this?

If we had a forum for folly, this problem of establishing tone would be instantly solved! Those awkward questions would never even occur to a reader! They'd already know the answers, because they clicked on Comedy!

YES, it is absolutely okay to laugh at this!

NO, the author does not mean for this to be taken seriously!

⚡______________⚡

If you wrote this, 👇 since there is no place that spotlights comedy on Vocal, where would you publish it? Under FYI/Historical?!?! 😲

Here's Why This Matters!

Let me use one final personal example to illustrate why I believe this is no laughing matter.

Let's say a potential reader actually goes to my public profile currently on Vocal. They could easily get the wrong impression about what they can expect from my writing! 😠

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. 👇

Just look at that mess! ☝🤨

It Happened on 10/31/21 is accurately identified as Horror. Good deal. Dead Horse Running, www.$ellYerSoul2Satan.hel, and Virgin Soul of a Poet are all also categorized as Horror. ⚡😁👍 Delusions on the Rocks is classified correctly as poem.

But the other three? 😖

What if the Beatles were American? is under Beat. A Demonic Love Story is under Fiction. And if e.e. cummings was a sailor is under Poets. All three are misfits, crammed into constrictive spaces where they don't belong! 😭 All three have a common denominator that is completely missed: all three are different forms of Comedy! They should be labeled as such! The message a potential reader should get is...

"You looking for a laugh? Walk this way!"

So this is My Entreaty For Farce!

Come on, Vocal! You can do better than this! It shouldn't be this hard to commit! In one community, you call it comedy. In other communities, it's humor! Or is it satire? Whichever of these labels has the best search engine optimization, make that the name of an entire new forum dedicated to never taking anything serious! (...except our commitment to the Community Guidelines, naturally.)

Readers should know what they are getting from the get-go! And an author shouldn't have to worry about his/her/their tone being taken the wrong way when it is such a simple fix! Establish the accent by adding Wit to the list of communities, so a reader knows before ever clicking that the writer's intention is to bring a little levity into their life.

Myself, I just freakin love alliteration! ⚡😁👍 Therefore, I think that the Comedy Club (Community) has a better ring to it than calling it Humor. But hell! I admittedly have mental problems. All this extra electricity has seriously fucked with my brains. 🤷‍♂️⚡ So I also think it would be even sweeter to call it the Asylum... although that might have an inappropriately sinister implication??

Maybe: the Playground?

Whatever you call it, the goal I'm suggesting is to create a general big umbrella that makes it easier for writers to shop their silliest wares!

What we need up this bitch is some COMEDY TONIGHT!

So...

Returning to that 2nd Person story at the top of this page, do you remember being the protagonist?

You were a writer stuck with a still-unanswered-question.

You have authored an extraordinary modern fable entitled...

SEO Click Bait My Masterstroke! XXX hot celebrity ass pics?

Where on Vocal do you post your masterstroke?

In which community do you publish it, under what subcategory??

The answer is... the effort involved in trying to figure this out has caused you to stop caring!

You take your great parody and peddle it elsewhere— someplace where humor is more appreciated!

So there you go! That's my Cry for Comedy, my Supplication for Satire, my Plea for Parody on Vocal.

This rant you just read should not be in Journal/Product Review.

This is a Comedy/Rant!

If you think my Petition for Puns has merit, let me share with you my dream for a more Vaudevillian Vocal! 👇

LIKE and SUBSCRIBE, please, if you liked this and want to subscribe. It's a free country. No one is twisting your arm. Tips and pledges make me cry with gratitude. No shit. I'm deeply appreciative for all $$ help. We have no walls in our house. If you're independently wealthy and wanna tip me $127,000.00 for bringing comedy to a place where comedians fear to tread... who am I to stop you? 🤷‍♂️

Thank you kindly for your support!

________________Bolt

My Top Story! ☝️ Comedy!!!

product review
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About the Creator

Lightning Bolt

From out of the blue, _Bolt writes horror galore, Sci-Fi, Superheroes & strange Poetry + MEME-ing MADNESS X12.

Vocal needs a Comedy Community!

Proud member of the Vocal Social Society on Facebook.

Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

Top insights

  1. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

  2. Expert insights and opinions

    Arguments were carefully researched and presented

  3. Eye opening

    Niche topic & fresh perspectives

  1. On-point and relevant

    Writing reflected the title & theme

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Comments (1)

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  • Babs Iversonabout a year ago

    Thank you, Bill, for the laughs!!!

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