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Socoder -> Off Topic -> Being Yourself vs Being Popular
Thu, 27 Jul 2023, 06:03
Jayenkai

Being Yourself vs Being Popular


I'm currently having a chat with Pakz on Twitter about what makes a popular song popular, and how making it mainstream means making it within a pre-defined set of parameters.
And recently, Kuron's been asking for "What looks best", and things like that.

Does it really matter if you fit inside the box?
I'm not sure I've ever been inside a box. I'm sure plenty of people would love to cram me in a box and tape the lid shut, but I've always preferred to do what my head thinks is "good", and just enjoy myself doing it.
Perhaps, as someone who's never really made a penny from all of this*, I don't have any pressure to "perform" in the normal way. But I've always felt that if I followed the pack, I'd be left behind. Instead, I make my own path. And if I never meet anyone else along that path, then so be it. At least I'm having fun walking** the path.

What are your thoughts on this?
Do you try to stay in a mainstream style? Do you thrive to get things "just right"?
Or do you just do what comes naturally, and to hell with the cool kids?

* except that one really odd instance where a very shitty looking game with 8x8 pixel sprites somehow became a popular iOS game
** not walking

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Thu, 27 Jul 2023, 06:44
cyangames
 		I think I'm fairly far away from the mainstream in a lot of ways, wouldn't want it any other way to be honest, the cool kids can do their own thing also though

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Thu, 27 Jul 2023, 19:43
Kuron
 		When I lived in FL, there was a time I was on a local TV show that had 14 million viewers per week. I was also on a popular radio show in the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater area and I was in a band that was popular, largely because of the shows. I was also a cook at one of the most popular steakhouses and was well known by my customers.

When I went out, I usually got recognized and had people coming up to me, which I was always fine with (girlfriends not so much). Even at theme parks. Not saying it in any arrogant way, as any success I had was because of the people watching (TV), listening (radio) or paying to see my band. They supported me and I supported them and was always happy to talk to anybody who wanted to trade howdies.

Kuron has always just been Kuron. Working on radio in Maryland, too, and being in bands and running sound in Maryland, being on movie sets, between Florida and Maryland, I have been around a LOT of celebrities. Always treated them as normal folks and always got along fine with them and the majority of time, the subject of conversation was rarely what they did for a living.

Being that we moved almost every year in the middle of the school year, and always being the new kid and bullied, I am used to not fitting in. Some march to the beat of a different drum, I march in my own parade. Just really do not seek validation through the eyes of others when it comes to how I see myself.


Kuron asks what looks best because Kuron is currently wearing a pink tye dyed shirt and traditional woodland camo cargo pants and clogs with a hole so big his big toe sticks out. Kuron's sense of what looks good is apparently missing.

Also with graphics and such, Kuron has 20/200 vision or worse and does not see well.

Asking about web design issues, well, last time I did that and made some nice looking sites, I was using some software that produced results like the code here. My old friend Brad, still used the same software I used to use. View the source on that site. Auto loads a Netscape Navigator 4 compatible page if you are using Netscape 4. Most of what I did web design wise would simply not be acceptable today, and possibly get me downranked by Google which was simply not an issue back in the day. Back in the day with Coolpage and some time, I could emulate almost any look/design and produce gorgeous sites that made my customers happy. This was before Wordpress took off.

I am in the old dog new tricks category now and struggling to keep my head above water when it comes to web design. The ONLY editor I can remotely wrap my head around is Web Painter or Rocket Cake and the latter is the only one that makes responsive designs.

My site needs to look acceptable to my viewers and meet the current norms and be acceptable to the evil known as Google. Like them or not, modern web design standards are just that -- standards. I know I personally do not visit problematic sites or sites that do not display correctly in modern browsers. I ask here, because I know there are those here who do such things for a living and have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Can't learn unless you ask questions and are willing to learn. Always interested in learning something new.
Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 01:44
Jayenkai
 		Honestly, if I visited the site of a local celeb, and their page was flawless and looked amazing, a little alert goes off in my head and I'm semi-convinced that it's being done by a PR firm instead of the real person.
Personality should come across in a web design. If it's your personal page about you, then "you" should be the thing that comes out of it.
Or is that just my warped mentality that thinks that way?

Maybe it is. Because any time I see a TV interview and the person's doing a webcam interview but their webcam is some janky old thing from the 90s, that kinda makes me reconsider my choice of favourite celebs

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Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 02:56
cyangames
 		Had to look through the wayback machine at my old sitefrom back when

web.archive.org/web/20160814215819/http://ryan-carson.co.uk/

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 04:09
Jayenkai
 		See, that's all you really need

There once was a time that my site used to look like this.

> Reveal 🔎

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Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 08:54
Kuron
 		@rychan That is almost as bad as some of my software I wrote when VB3 first came out. The beta versions made much use of neon green and neon purple.

And that is a perfect example as why I ask Rychan web design questions, as I learned from reading that page. I had no idea Google didn't use the meta keywords for search ranking.
Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 09:08
Kuron
 		@Jay if the Wiki site I used to use still existed, I would be using it or if I could find the old WikiWriter program that Jerry made, I would be using it.
Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 09:46
cyangames
 		Mmmm, VB 3 was the first version of Visual Basic I used also, made a little paint program in it for secondary school of my own back, it was fun!

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 09:55
Jayenkai
 		I've had an absolute hatred of Microsoft's developer stuff ever since I half-wrote Centipong for Xbox.
.. And after about 2 weeks of coding, the XNA devkit got an update, and my game completely broke to the point where I couldn't even work out how to get the damn thing to run in the slightest.

QBasic in DOS is as up to date as I'm getting with those gits.

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Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 11:12
Kuron
 		Had VB1 for DOS, it sucked. VB3 was okay for its time, I mainly used Delphi 1 (16bit) and Delphi 2 (32 bit) for many, many years. So much better than VB back then. VB 6 was good and I used it for a lot of work.

C++ Builder over Visual C++ which sucked until around version 5 and didn't get really good until version 6. Even then, Visual C++'s IDE sucked, I always used Octopod for C++ (great IDE) which worked fine with C++ Builder or VC++.
Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 12:15
Jayenkai
 		Programmer's notepad and command-line skills are all we ever need.

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Fri, 28 Jul 2023, 12:58
Kuron
 		Programmer's notepad (Like VC++ back then) was missing a GUI designer which was what Octopod provided. Never used C++ by choice, preferred Delphi or later VB6.