Tagged Personal

Howdy, Farmhands!

     The youtube algorithm is a fickle creature. It prioritizes hate clicks and clickbait to populate it's suggestions, choosing the worst of the worst content to promote while other, calmer content gets filtered to the bottom of it's reccomendations list. But sometimes, only sometimes, it chooses to present something magical to you. Three years ago, I was offered a video on a topic I'm actually interested in; the upcoming retirement of a specific color in the palette of LEGO bricks. What I thought I was about to watch was an angry rant detailing the bare minimum details about a corporate decision that would barely effect me and mine. What I found was a measured, talented voice that made me care as much as he did. What I found was R. R. Slugger.

    R. R. Slugger is a man of many talents. While his focus is always on the LEGO bricks he's discussing, it is immediately apparent that he has spent time on other artistic hobbies, as his videos are full of bespoke music tracks, high quality photography, and even extended stop motion animation. His scripts are clear and concise, belying a history with writing (possibly in academic circles?) and anyone who can and will spend time discussing the full legal name and serial number of any given LEGO piece in a set deserves a gold star for doing their research. This is a man who has learned and improved many talents over time, and chooses to use those strengths to improve the quality of his creative output. His videos are at once visually and audibly entertaining, while remaining downright educational for their content. I'm not exaggerating when I say that more hobby content on youtube should take a page from this guy's book. 

    Almost more important than his quality of video production, though, is his genuine joy when speaking about the subject matter he's chosen. Slugger loves LEGO. Slugger loves talking about LEGO. Slugger loves that he loves LEGO. He has no delusions that he's not a silly little man talking about a children's toy on the internet, but he seems to find genuine joy in his enjoyment. That joy is infectious. Listen to this duo of  youtubers, one seeing his channel for the first time, shift from amusement to genuine interest the longer they watch Slugger's video on a singular LEGO Mould from 2002. Neither of them have any skin in the game, but his sincerity and thorough discussion audibly convert them into believers within 10 minutes. Vintage LEGO collectors who keep up with the man can pinpoint moments in time where a video of his discussing a previously less than adored LEGO set leads to an uptick in sales of that set, to the point where his fans joke about collecting other unsung LEGO themes before he gets around to covering them, if only for the sake of their wallet.

    But just as Slugger has combined his background in photography and music into producing the best LEGO videos he can, he's also not afraid to branch out from LEGO. Alongside his main channel, which retains it's focus on bricks, he's also started a pair of sister channels, Slugscape and Sluggin' Around. The first takes his existing video formula and applies it to another of his loves, Heroscape, while the second is a catch all for video blogging about topics that don't apply to either of the previous two channels. For a main channel video, he composed a cover of a niche television show intro that never saw an official instrumental or sheet music release, which he then turned into a 10 minute discussion on music theory for his Sluggin' Around channel. 

    At this point in the blog, I'm sure you're wondering if I'm here simply to gush over this one youtuber who makes LEGO videos. And the answer is yes, but also no. Slugger's work is impressive, and anyone with even a passing fancy for LEGO bricks should give his stuff a shot, but on more broadly, I think Slugger is a shining example of something we're lacking in today's online spaces. This is a man who knows his creative strengths, and has applied them to the act of creation for the sole purpose of sharing something he genuinely loves with the world. Without irony, without exaggeration, and without cynicism, his videos present something he adores, thoroughly explains what he likes about it, and offers his audience a chance to fall in love with it too. His coverage of a product for sale by a corporate entity is never meant to convince you to buy, nor does he choose his topics for their profitability; he simply has an appreciation that he refuses to contain. That, above anything else, is admirable and something we all should aspire to. This blog is simply me putting my money where my mouth is. I love R.R. Slugger's work. I love his music, I love his videos, I love his LEGO builds, and I love his Joy. 

    At the time of posting, the 3rd Annual "Summer of Slug" event has begun; a two-month-long stretch where Slugger takes a break from his dayjob in education to focus solely on video production. To offset costs, he's opened his Patreon, which funds the event and also offers the perk of access to his behind the scenes discord server, which is poppin' all year round. Even if you are uninterested in monetarily supporting him this year, the Summer of Slug is the best time to start watching his videos, as the nichest of content and oddest of topics get covered during this time. Please check his work out, and tell him Farmer Gadda sent you.

     Until Next Time,

            Farmer Gadda 

Howdy, Farmhands.

    I have had to explain to literally everyone who has ever eaten my cakes that no, they don't hate buttercream, they've just only eaten the store brand "frosting" that is 90% hydrogenated oil. Don't make me repeat myself for the nth time.

Please just consider the following;

Ingredients

    2 Sticks Unsalted Butter, Softened at Room Temperature (discerning tongues can add a dash of salt to taste if you're that picky)

    1 tsp Vanilla Extract

    2 Tbsp Milk (Almond works fine)

    4 cups Unsifted Powdered Sugar (Once measured, you can sift if you prefer)

Recipe

1. Place both sticks Butter in a large bowl, beat until creamy
2. Add 1 Tsp Vanilla and 1 Tbsp Milk, beat again
3. Add Powdered Sugar, half a cup at a time. Combine completely before adding another cup. Use all 4 cups of Powdered Sugar. Do not add more than a half cup before you turn on the mixer. Trust me on this.
4. If at any point the mixture becomes too thick to mix, add the remaining Tbsp Milk to moisten the mixture, then continue adding the Powdered Sugar.

For chocolate, replace 1/4th cup Powdered Sugar with 1/4th cup Cocoa Powder, mixing the dry ingredients together fully before adding them as in steps 3 and 4.

Replace the Vanilla Extract for the relevant flavored Extract when making Fruit Flavored frosting.

Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda

Howdy, Farmhands.

    I was supposed to be a Vtuber.

    Once upon a time, I would log onto social media with a single goal in mind. I had a Brand, you see. I had an Image. I had this concept lodged into my brain that the only person who would be able to successfully promote the Idea Of Farmer Gadda in a marketable and appealing way would be Me. This was back in the early days of Vtubing, the year 2020, when all the bells and whistles of Japan's Idol Culture were being lifted and repeated wholesale with no critical analysis of whether that mentality was at all healthy for the entertainers trapped in its systems. I was just a lone Farmer with a dream, and a step-by-step plan to make those dreams come true. 

• No Stories about my personal life. (even though I'd been a 'Fleshtuber' for two years, with a ton of personal information shared during those early baking streams)
• No Content outside my limited range of acceptable tones. (Farming Games were only fun for so long, and I was too much of a sonic autist to not immediately desire the hog)
• And no matter how much I believed in something and held it dear, absolutely No Hot Takes.

    This lasted about as long as you're imagining, by which I mean, not terribly long at all. Unlike ACTUAL Idols, I did not have a team of PR specialists and legal contracts to keep me from acting outside the parameters that would ensure only the best and consistent activity of my mind was blasted into the eyeballs of my prospective audience. No matter how strong I thought I was, I was just a man. A weak, fallible, opinionated little man. I was doomed to failure, really.

    From the minute I read the phrase, 'System Matters', I became embroiled in the Discourse of the day with a religious fervor. I had thoughts! I had distastes! I had OPINIONS. So many opinions! I had to start using third party software to contain my opinions, limit posting them to once daily to make sure my ACTUAL branded posts and messages got the air needed to be seen! My existing audience was confused and frightened, wondering where their sweet and loveable cake baking blorbo had gone, replaced by this passionate acolyte of the church of Math Rocks, evangelizing on the merits of Imaginary Elf Games. To anyone just finding me, primarily through said evangelizing, it was nothing more than a funny oddity that the Good-Take-Haver they'd found on Twitter also moonlit as a cartoon farmer-man who played a bit too much Minecraft in his spare time. And once I became privy to that portion of my followers having that opinion of me, I knew I'd fucked up. Farmer Gadda wasn't a brand associated with having a good time with cowbells and plants anymore. It was still that, but with something louder and utterly unrelated, inextricably tied into it's core identity.

    The problem with first impressions is that you only really get them once. Even if I had then and there cut down on TTRPG Poasting, reverted to the squeaky clean marketable image I'd arrived intending to push, the Poastings had been Poasted. I bemoaned this for a minute before something really weird started happening.

    As it turns out, Human beings are messy and multi-faceted. We're not MEANT to have our personalities put into little boxes to be experienced piecemeal. The Sonic Autist in me railing against the constraints of only making Farmy-Cottage Core experiences for my viewers? The passionate flames of Righteousness that burned in my soul whenever someone was wrong on the internet? Those were just as much a part of me as the positive facets I had tried to isolate and exaggerate as part of the Farmer Gadda Caricature. It wasn't for everyone, sure, but it was Me. And people somehow liked Me, warts and all. Even existing followers who didn't care one lick about Dice Math followed along. Some even took to the new style of Poasts with interest of their own, turning my personal journey into unmarketability into a GROUP journey into TTRPG Brainrot. Along the way my audience went from Just Minecraft Enjoyers and Just Cake Lovers to both of those things but also Sonic Fans, and Game Designers, fellow Vtubers and yes, Math Rock Opinion Havers.

    The Art to Fucking Up Your Branding is an ART, not a Science. There isn't a step by step process to replicate doing so smoothly, because the only step is to Be Messy. Be Human. Be everything of yourself at once, screaming your passions and desires into the void and listening to the people who heard you and decided to scream back. 

    I was supposed to be a Vtuber. But I think I'm much happier being an Experience.

Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda

Howdy, Farmhands.

My name is Gadda. I'm a man who wears a bunch of different hats depending on the hour, but the roles you may or may not be familiar with are as follows: He/They, Vtuber, TTRPG Designer, Cake Decorator, Chicken Tender, Wife Guy. And this here is my blog, in which I intend to POAST about these things.

    I don't consider myself to be any sort of expert on any subject; frankly, I'm too frequently wrong to lie to myself about that. But I do have the unfortunate habit of regurgitating the things I Think I Know with the confidence of a man who's won awards for his opinions, which leads to people assuming I'm an expert. I would like to apologize in advance for that. 

    I'm still getting the hang of this platform, as well as learning the process of turning my shorter form thoughts and too-long ramblings into a more readable form. You can get updates via email somehow. Maybe get an RSS Feed and slap my url into it. (Google it, they're great actually.) And who knows, maybe some nugget of wisdom will be worth something to you.

Until Next Time,

            Farmer Gadda