UNINFLUENCER

The internet is an increasingly strange place

This looks better on my Awesome Wizard Guide. I recently published a modified version of this intro of myself in a private community for content creators where I’m active. Communities like that one are a great place to learn insights into social media trends, or find ways to generate and optimize income through social platforms by learning how to pursue things like product sales or brand deals. I posted this message to a channel specifically related to finding collaborators for creative projects.

The main takeaway from this post is that if you’re creating content and you’re not in communities with other content creators you’re missing out on a whole pile of resources, information, and support. Maybe you don’t need it or want it, but if you don’t know it’s an option: it is.

Hi there! My name is Eric and I create a bunch of esoteric content that I don’t promote very much. This collab offer definitely isn’t for everyone, I’m doing weird things in odd ways for strange purposes.

A short little introduction on me:

My main gig these days is as a tech/business consultant. I’m a suitable contract/freelance employee for anything from startups to ISPs in a variety of technical and business roles. I’ve written code used by various governments. I built a thing that’s handled millions of dollars in transactions. I was the dev team manager at Marcato Festival where we built complex digital and marketing software for our clients, which included Coachella, Burning Man, and the Commonwealth Games. I was the directory of technology and treasurer at a local fan convention. I was the vice chair of my regional library board. I’ve worked a variety of roles at a variety of digital agencies providing all sorts of services to a wide variety of clients in a wide variety of sectors. I have extensive experience in hospitality & tourism management.

All of this is to say that I’m something of a generalist with a strong focus on digital systems, the internet, people, and communities.

I’ve been widely regarded as a tech wizard for some time, because that trope is ubiquitous in my industry, but I’m also a Wizard-wizard. It’s a form of content creator in the occult/pagan/esoteric parts of the internet. I sometimes write about spirituality, religion, and foreign policy. I don’t try to be an influencer in traditional ways. I actively avoid a social media presence as much as possible. I understand how to run social media campaigns though — I have marketing training and media training. In fact I’ve been paid to provide people with marketing and media training but I don’t use those skills for my brand as I’ve imagined it.

My public online presence is limited to my wizard.bio (Beacons.AI), my awesome.wizard.guide (Substack), and Discord. I’m considering adding snap to the mix. I used to be active on way more social media platforms but I deleted them all earlier this year.

Back in the beforetimes when Google+ was a thing (don’t make the mistake of thinking your platform-specific income streams will persist indefinitely) I was one of the more popular Canadians on the site. I understand social media well but I’ve got some issues with toxic manifestations of the incentive structure that sustains it.

Content I’d like to collaborate on:

I write at the intersection of technology and culture. Maybe I’m a futurist but that’s not on my card. I like to run little creative projects with my content to see how they’ll evolve over time, but I often walk away from them or timebox them to end at a set point. I like side projects. I like to make content that explains stuff to folks and is informative in some way. As an example I just started messing around with an idea of making YouTube Shorts-like content on Substack video. It was more important to me that I link to the tutorial I followed to set up Snapchat in OBS than that people actually watch the video.

I’d like to collaborate on content that uses my poetry in interesting and unexpected ways. I have fun with my brand because I think brands are fun, and I like to have fun, but I’m not an influencer because I don’t like to be the focus of things.

I’m open to any sort of collaboration, though I’d prefer small/short timeboxed projects. If you have something interesting you’d like me to write or talk about I’d be happy to check it out. Also I’m looking to get into podcasting. I have the skills and hardware to start, I just don’t think I’ll find the motivation until I find the right collaborators.

This is my Awesome Wizard Guide:

It’s a Substack. Remember like 5 months ago when I was like “I won’t go to Substack”? — lol

Type of creator I’m looking for:

Open-mindedness is pretty important. You can expect the same in return. If you don’t get it call me out on it and I’ll apologize. Sometimes I’m a dummy. Clear communications and expectations are critical. I operate in enough spaces with ambiguity owing to the fabric of reality, so I simply don’t have time or patience for ambiguity in personal relationships. I operate well at a variety of levels in a variety of organizational structures and I respect the importance of different roles. I’d prefer collaborators who have experience that’s taught them similar lessons, or are at least open to learning them the easy way through the experience of others.

I like looking at the spaces between things, or thinking about what’s beyond what we’re thinking about, so if you’re into that stuff we’ll probably work interestingly together. I’m very interested in working with people who have plans to understand or change reality. I’m an esoteric technologist. In this context that means that I concern myself with things like magical swords of unimaginable power hidden in lakes. I also think maybe we’ll need to examine the “Here be dragons” parts of many of the the maps. I’m definitely a wizard it’s just real fucking bonkers. You don’t have to be bonkers like me, but you’ll want a high tolerance for various levels of bonkacity and bonkoriousness.

I think my brand integrates well with any other brand and I look forward to proving my hypothesis. I’m available to be hired by corporations but I’ve chosen a rate they’re unlikely to agree with until I find a more meaningful level of success (at which point I’ll probably change it). I understand that my brand is challenging to consider and that integrating it into yours may not be for you. I’m also happy to just provide technical advice to folks as my time permits. Feel free to reach out and ask any questions about the various technologies we all need to use to do our jobs. If I don’t have the answer I’ll probably be curious and I’ll share whatever interesting resources I find: eric@wizard.guide

Type of brand I’m looking for:

• You actually mean it when you say you’re trying to change the world, and you understand what that actually means. There’s lots of way to change the world, they don’t all have to be huge. My main point here is about substantive efforts over performative nonsense.
• Your employees don’t think your mission bullshit. One time I gave a reference for a management job that was a past employee. The guy who hired me didn’t understand why I did that. It turned out to be a bad place to work.
• The shit you create isn’t sustaining the bits of our civilization that are destroying us — I might be interested in talking if you’re interested in changing.

Closing notes:

• A lot of my content is poetry. I’m very open to folks re-using my poetry in any way. I don’t view any of my content as copyrighted, and I like when people provide visuals/imagery for my poems (or remix them somehow)
• I don’t like making money from my Awesome Wizard Guide, I just have to use the paid functionality for specific wizarding reasons. I’m open to profit sharing my income with regular collaborations and I hope Substack rolls out functionality to enable this more efficiently.
• I guess I’m trying to politely suggest some sort of global uprising may be necessary to offset a bunch of the scary stuff barreling towards us:

Arise!

• I’ve been writing a research paper intending to open up a path from where science is to where science will need to be in order to get us through a bunch of crazy stuff:

Combining Stories To Bring People Together

Thanks for reading. None of this was brief. Feel free to reach out privately instead of publicly. 😅

Here’s an example of what it looks like when I reach out to a brand. I don’t do templated emails though, so I don’t do this often.