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[VIDEO] Seven Years Living in the USA: A Few Thoughts

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In this video, I talk about validation, vindication, and victory over external pressures in the seven years that I’ve lived in the USA. It took a while to gather my thoughts on this one.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Here are the key points I discuss:

Life after school

My time in the USA can be divided into two distinct phases: the two years I spent in grad school, and the 5 years spent working post graduation. The key question I had to contend with after I graduated was- “What are you if not a student?”. For about two decades of my life, the primary objective had been to get educated and get degrees. My entire routine revolved around it.

Even activities outside of studies were viewed through an academic lens- they were called them “extracurricular activities”. In my opinion, pursuing those activities was still tied into the overarching goal of looking good on a resume.

Trying to find the answer to that question leads me to the next point.

Creating an identity

I got into the habit of journaling my thoughts in a diary, and writing blogs about my experiences when I moved. Over the first few years of my time in the US, I started developing a sense of identity around being someone who writes. I wrote on my blog, I wrote for pocketnow.com, I wrote for grad school… it was the one thing I was confident about being good at.

My sense of identity as “the writer” was challenged when I got some very critical feedback from one of my professors. It took a while to cope with and get through the turmoil that caused me, because it challenged one of my core beliefs that I held on to very strongly. I wrote a few things thinking through that whole ordeal (I even made a video about it), and over time, I started looking to improve other aspects of my life, like working on my public speaking.

I look back at this time fondly, because although it was challenging, it led me to develop other facets of my life and personality. I would even go as far as to say that the impulse to start making videos had its origins in that “critique event”.

Validation of my personality

I’ve always been an introverted and reserved person. Growing up, I always heard from my parents, my teachers, and others around me, that I needed to have “smartness” and that reserved people never get ahead in life. They always implied that being reserved and introverted meant you were a moron or a simpleton, whereas being extroverted meant you would be a “go getter” and that extraversion was the key to success. My personality was always invalidated. It’s a societal issue- you don’t need to look further than to see how many “personality development classes” there are in India. The implication that there were no personality types, just “acceptable personality” and “bad personality” pervaded my mind space throughout my life.

The fact that I went to another country, got a master’s degree, and found a job in the field of my liking all while being true to myself the whole time was the biggest validation of my personality. When you’re not burdened by the yoke of putting on a persona for the world at large, you can really focus on achieving what you want.

Being okay with my life choices

This was the point that took a long time to come to terms with. Everyday in media and on social media I see a vision of the ideal life being marketed to me, and it’s almost impossible to escape its hold. One of my biggest lamentations in life used to be how I didn’t go through the life experiences that a lot of others had. All the fun and frivolity that I was supposed to have, or that I should have had. I came to this country in my early 20s, and my peers kept telling me how I had the best opportunity to “enjoy my life”.

In a sense, the words of my peers simply echoed the arbitrary milestones that society lays out. As if life stops when you turn 30, and all of a sudden you are too old for those frivolities, and that you will never be able to experience that in your life past that age. As if I was to be handed a report card on my 30th birthday showing me how badly I had done in my personal life in my 20s. As the years wore on, that internal deadline approached closer, and that made me more and more despondent. I was a loser. I had failed in achieving those fantasies laid in front of me by others, by social media, by movies, and TV shows. I couldn’t make that happen for myself. I couldn’t manifest it into reality. I had neither the internal drive to seek it out nor the intestinal fortitude to see it through.

It is true- I didn’t take any chances. I didn’t take many risks. I can call that making a sacrifice, or I can call it wasted time- either way, that time is gone now. It can be a lifelong regret, or maybe it’s just a matter of getting old enough to be able to view that time with rose-tinted glasses. But the fact is- if I had fully internalized it and made it my life goal to be that kind of person- a player, a risk-taker, a Casanova, a whatever you want to call it- I would have made the effort towards achieving it. It wasn’t my life goal, though. I just wanted simpler things, like fulfilling the dreams of my childhood. I wanted to experience my surroundings and find a group of friends, a tribe, someone who I can confide in and talk to, an inner circle if you will. I wanted other things, like wanting to establish myself in my career, wanting some certainty on the professional front, things of that nature, very boring, mundane things. I wanted to spruce up the apartments I lived in, with posters and books and other small trinkets. I wanted to spend an entire weekend playing video games. I wanted to go to local breweries and try out their seasonal brews. I wanted to go to local cafes and restaurants and have coffee or meals by myself as I people-watched. I wanted to clean my house slowly and methodically while I listened to music or podcasts. I wanted to take long walks in local parks just to breathe freely and think through things. Things to do by myself, alone, to charge my internal battery up.

I did half-heartedly try enjoying those frivolous things here and there in these seven years. It always felt like I was fumbling around like a blindfolded four-year-old with a baseball bat in hand trying to swing at a hanging piñata. For seven years I have been swinging aimlessly, and for seven years, I’ve hit nothing but air. I have yet to make it rain candy from the piñata’s papier-mache belly.

There are only two paths this train of thought can lead to. On one hand, I could blame myself for not being able to play “the game”, for not being the kind of person that fulfills those societal milestones, or for at least pretending to like what most people seem to like. Or, I can accept that all of this is just a matter of time and a matter of luck. That there’s a fundamental absurdity and meaninglessness to everything, and that nothing is owed to me. The latter is the more relieving of the two, to be honest. It takes the burden of performance away from me and allows me to believe in myself, to stay true to who I am as a person.

In the end, I did what made me happy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

CM Punk’s return- A reminder of the magic of Professional Wrestling

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August 13, 2005, I left Professional Wrestling. August 20, 2021… I’m Back

These words reverberated through the United Center in Chicago, as CM Punk made his return to professional wrestling. I’ve been a fan of professional wrestling for about as long as I can remember, but the weeks and days leading up to the reveal of “wrestling’s worst kept secret” had me in anticipation in a way that hardly ever occurs.

It has been a tough year and a half of being mostly locked down and under pressure, and professional wrestling has been an oasis of respite against the unrelenting despair of our times. A silly and magical pantomime with over-the-top characters and choreographed violence. Most people think of it as a childish diversion that you’re supposed to grow out of, but for those who are willing to suspend their disbelief, to believe in the magic – it is home to some of the greatest moments in entertainment. 

Of course, the de-facto standard-bearer in most of the history of televised wrestling has been the WWE, formerly known as the WWF. It’s what almost every layperson thinks of when you say the words “Wrestling” or “Pro Wrestling”. I remember watching WWE growing up- I caught the end of the “Attitude Era”, a defining moment in Wrestling history, in the late 90s and early 2000s. A lot of the subject matter doesn’t translate well into today’s sensitivities, but what people remember the most about that time in wrestling, are the characters, the moments, and how loud and involved the crowds used to be. 

As time went on, wrestling, or at least what the WWE put out, changed, as the world changed as well. In 2021, wrestling occupies a very small slice of the media pie- we have streaming services, movies, videogames…the list goes on. In my personal experience- wrestling has a dual identity- most of the people I interact with don’t watch it at all, but have heard about it, but on the other hand, wrestling parlance and references have permeated every bit of mainstream media. People use “inside” terms like saying “faces and heels” instead of “good guys and bad guys” or “heroes and villains”, for example. As another example, you’ll see a mural of wrestlers from the 80s and 90s in street art. 

Wrestling has seeped into the mainstream culture more than you might think. You might even go as far as to say that it is one of America’s most influential cultural exports of the last few decades. The WWE had a huge part in spreading that influence. Influence, however, waxes and wanes, and the WWE’s brand of wrestling which they prefer to call “Sports entertainment” hasn’t really captured the hearts and minds of diehard wrestling fans in a long, long time. 

This is where we come back to CM Punk. He saw this undercurrent of discontent, and in 2011, used it as a part of a storyline, blending reality and fiction in a way that can only happen in professional wrestling. In his now-prescient “promo” (A speech given by a wrestler to advance a storyline) called the pipebomb, he aired his grievances with the way WWE was run, how he felt mistreated, and so on. He talked about how the company was out of touch with its fans – a sentiment that a lot of disenfranchised fans agreed with at the time. 

In the next few years, CM Punk continued to be in or around top billing on the card. The only thing that eluded him, however, was the top spot. The privilege of being “the top guy” usually comes with more than bragging rights. Creative freedom within the WWE’s structure is one of those privileges. In the “attitude era” I mentioned earlier, the biggest stars were larger-than-life individuals. In the modern era of the WWE, there are no stars bigger than the WWE itself. The company controls its performers to ensure that they don’t become bigger than the WWE brand. Every word and every action of every performer is scripted and controlled to the utmost extent. In a way, they do what’s best for business- they are a publicly-traded company, and their focus is on family-friendly entertainment, and more recently, towards generating content for multiple platforms. The only performers that get a modicum of control over their characters are the ones topmost on the card. 

CM Punk used the undercurrent of discontent among the fans as fuel to propel himself to the top. Despite not fitting the mold of a traditional “WWE superstar” – generally tall and bulky behemoths that could convey a larger-than-life persona. In a way, he helped usher in an era of performers that weren’t as big or as tall as the WWE’s formulae dictated, but captured the imagination of the fans on the basis of their technique and charisma. The WWE had to grudgingly push him to the top of the card, but even then, the incessant pressure and friction between Punk and the WWE seemed to wear on him.

Looking back towards the end of his WWE run, it’s clear that he was neither in the best of health nor was he mentally fulfilled. There was a lot of drama and litigation surrounding his exit from WWE which is well documented- but in the 7 years since he left the company, he tried his best to follow his passions, to find joy in new beginnings. He found himself in the world of MMA- in the UFC, no less. I remember watching his UFC debut, wondering how he got there, and knowing in my heart that he’d end up like Jon Favreau’s character in “FRIENDS”. He ended up with 2 losses in 2 matches before he was let go- something that will live with him for the rest of his life. What I am in awe of though- is that he followed through with that commitment, in his relentless passion to find a new beginning, to go out of his comfort zone. Did he deserve the spot that he got? Maybe, and maybe not. Did he tarnish his reputation forever? Some say so. 

None of that mattered on the night of August 20, 2021. It was not WWE, but a new company called AEW, built on the promise to bring the magic back to professional wrestling. The internet was abuzz with rumors of CM Punk being signed. In the weeks leading up to this day, AEW had leaned very heavily into rumors, putting small references like Easter eggs into their programming. They’d announced a show in Chicago and labeled it “the first dance” – possibly a reference to the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan. The stage was set, but fans all over the world were cautiously optimistic. Wrestling companies, especially the WWE, had a habit of trying to elicit reactions from the fans by subverting their expectations- I remember seeing how people expected this to be some elaborate ruse to get “heat” from the crowd- a dangerous gamble to play with the goodwill and buzz that AEW had generated. 

Luckily, AEW  handled it as simply and directly as they could. At the beginning of the show, the crowd was already chanting “CM Punk” in anticipation of his arrival. When “Cult of Personality” played through the speakers, the crowd erupted in the loudest reaction I remember hearing. The name “CM Punk” showed up on the large screens, and finally, after seven long years, Phil Brooks walked onto the stage, returning to Professional Wrestling as a hero, to the deafening cheers of the partisan Chicago crowd. He seemed staid, overwhelmed with the adulation of the fans who never forgot about him, as he looked around and then kneeled on the entrance ramp, his eyes on the verge of tears. As he soaked in the chants from the crowd, his expression changed to one of gratitude and joy. As he stood back up and exclaimed back at the crowd, his arms outstretched- it was in that moment that he, the crowd, and everyone watching at home realized, that the best in the world, the voice of the voiceless, the professional wrestler CM Punk, had truly returned. 

The atmosphere in the United Center was emotionally charged- so much so, that we saw one of the spectators crying, overwhelmed by the emotions of that moment. A few folks on the internet were quick to make fun of that guy, to which I say, it’s sad that men aren’t allowed to express their vulnerability in situations like these. Men are not emotional monoliths only capable of anger and rage- they can be emotionally invested in things, and have the right to express their vulnerability publicly. The majority of wrestling fans completely understood what he felt, though, and were supportive of him, which I appreciate. 

Moments like these are what make professional wrestling so much more unique than any other form of entertainment. Sure, movies and TV shows can have plot twists. They can have the most amazing cinematics and the most realistic special effects. What they cannot do, however, is blend the crowd’s reactions into the performance seamlessly. They can’t blur the lines between reality and fiction in the way that professional wrestling storylines can.  

It was this mixture of reality and fantasy that drew audiences to the United Center and to TV Screens around the world that night. They flocked to see the return of both the man and the character that enraptured wrestling fans in a way that hadn’t occurred since the heyday of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Yes, he didn’t leave the WWE on good terms. Yes, he burned a lot of bridges along the way. Yes, he tried his hand at MMA and was handily beat twice. All of those things are true, and yet the crowd welcomed him back.

Why didn’t his failures post WWE matter to this crowd? The answer to that is simple- they believed because they wanted to believe. The suspension of disbelief is one of the key requirements to enjoy professional wrestling. This key principle is what allows people to buy into the David vs Goliath-esque storylines, the supernatural occurrences, and the larger-than-life characters. Some wrestling companies push the envelope by having matches between wrestlers and inanimate objects. One company even held an entire match with two “invisible men” as competitors- go watch “invisible man vs invisible Stan” to get an idea of what I am talking about.

Thus ended CM Punk’s seven-year hiatus from the squared circle. Seven years is a long time- especially in today’s fast-paced age of social media, where people get famous and lose their fame within the span of just a few days. Wrestling fans didn’t forget about him during his hiatus, though- to the extent that his name continued to be chanted by fans as a way to express discontent towards the performances or the storylines being played out in front of them. It just goes to show how much he and what he stood for meant to the fans. 

As he picked up the microphone and spoke to the fans in a wrestling ring for the first time in seven years, he said he had nothing prepared- although I feel like he had a lot of thoughts in his mind that he wanted to speak about. He started by talking up new talent, recognizing his past missteps, and acknowledging how his fans had never forgotten about him. 

What stuck with me was when he said “I was never going to get healthy physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally, staying in the same place that got me sick in the first place”. While he said that in reference to his prior experiences working in “sports entertainment”, what I took from it was that creativity doesn’t need to come from a place of pain and negativity. I first began writing as a creative outlet several years ago thinking that I needed to be in some kind of pain or anguish to truly create something worthy of being seen. As I grew older, I realized that creation can come from a place of happiness and positivity as well. Creating something need not be a catharsis, something to go through to feel better. Feeling happy and optimistic can be a starting point for it too, leading you to share your optimism with others that may share your sentiments and come together to multiply that positivity. 

There is so much more I can say about CM Punk’s debut in AEW- one of the most anticipated and invigorating moments I have seen in professional wrestling. I’ll end by saying this- professional wrestling is one of the most unique forms of live performance art that exists. When done poorly, it can be terrible, but when it’s done well, it’s beyond perfect. I know it’s not for everyone, and that’s fine. The wrestling world is a lot more diverse than it used to be 7-10 years ago. There’s something for everyone- a diverse landscape that can be seen if you look beyond the realm of WWE and “sports entertainment”. In a way, that’s what CM Punk wanted to bring to wrestling- a cultural change. He left professional wrestling in 2005, he left “sports entertainment” in 2014, and now as the wrestling landscape has begun to shift, he finds himself at the epicenter of the earthquake of change, the right man, in the right mindset, at the right moment. 

I don’t know about you, but for me: 

“Wrestling is better than the things you like.”

John Oliver

It’s Time We Re-Examined Aesthetic and Minimal Design

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Let me know what you think about this video in the comments!

Here’s what I talk about in this video:

Let’s have a look at one of the most widely accepted and deeply held beliefs in the UX space and turn it on its head. I had this idea while thinking of Nielsen’s heuristics, mainly “Aesthetic and Minimal Design”. Let’s just start with the bundling aesthetic and minimal together. Why does it have to be that way? Clearly, it is possible to have something that’s aesthetically pleasing without it also being minimalist. If you look throughout antiquity you will see so many examples- The Meenakshi Temple, Angkor Wat, the list goes on. 

Of course, the heuristics are written from a usability standpoint. For the design of tools and services that are to be used to accomplish particular tasks. In that sense, it makes perfect sense to let go of excessive ornamentation if it interferes with the goal, which is the successful completion of whatever task is at hand. 

The issue I have with the laser focus on minimalism is when it bleeds into other aspects of life. As UX-ers, we’ve all been there. When we first get into this field, maybe you read the design of everyday things or some of those other staple books and you start looking at everything around you through the lens of design and usability. How many times have you come across something and said “hey, that’s bad design”. We’ve all been there, we’ve all done that. Some of us still do that, because we can’t help ourselves. And in many cases, it’s warranted- like when you have to park your car in a very confusing parking structure, for example. 

However, in many cases, it turns into a more tribalistic shaming of certain things. Let me give you an example from my own life. My mother loves having a house full of different stuff. Just collections of books or small trinkets or whatever it may be. She loves collecting stuff and changing the décor with the seasons and the festivals throughout the year. It’s always a very involved process for her- taking things out of boxes, putting them in particular spots around the house, and making sure every corner of the house has something placed in it. When I was younger and I was learning about minimalism, I used to think this was all very excessive and unnecessary- that it was inefficient and a waste of time, and that all this ornamentation was … just too much. That it was, well, not good design. 

Thinking back to it now, I realize that I was looking at it from a very myopic mindset. When my mother decorates the house every so often, she’s not creating unnecessary ornamentation. The whole process that I mentioned earlier is delightful in and of itself. UX-ers are always chasing the holy grail of “the delightful experience” all the time- we discuss it in every forum, in internal conversations at work, and so on. Anyway, the point is that a lot of things that bring joy to people are considered illogical or suboptimal when looked at through that minimalist lens. 

Let’s think instead from the “maximalist” point of view. Where it’s not “less is more” but rather “more is more”. Of wanting ornamentation, wanting every nook and cranny full of intricate details. A lot of cultural traditions are like that. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that the thought of minimalism as the only way for something to be aesthetically pleasing is a very euro-centric way of looking at it. The first things that come to mind are Scandinavian minimalism and to an extent Japanese minimalism as well. There are so many cultures that are not minimal though- I grew up in India and the dominant aesthetic sensibilities in my country are unapologetically maximalist, in my opinion. There’s also the phenomenon of minimalism as a form of cultural erasure- this is a more controversial stance which states that minimalism was used by authoritarianism to erase cultural heritages, from antiquity to modern times. In fact what people call modern design that was developed in the middle of the 20th century has that backdrop of authoritarianism and wanting to detach from the cultures of the past. 

As the field of UX becomes more international day by day, I think we as a community need to rethink the core tenets of our craft. We need to think about the overall contexts in which those rules were codified. I think that at least on the digital side of things, these heuristics that were formed in the 90s and 2000s were created when the internet and digital UX were in a nascent stage- when most of the creators and the end-users were limited to Europe and North America. 

So instead of shaming maximalism, let’s try to see how we can fully understand these different cultural and historical sensibilities and move our field forward. 

Thanks for watching, and remember:

Design IS political. 

Results and Milestones

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The idea for this video was cooking up in my mind for a while. Let me know what you think!

Results. The outcomes of your actions. The products of a chemical reaction, the solution, the hidden X in a mathematical equation. Results can be so many things, but we tend to talk about results as the positive, tangible, visible product of our efforts. 

Recurring Dreams about Examinations

I have recurring dreams from time to time. One is me in an examination hall, writing a paper, or completing an assignment when the time runs out, and I either don’t finish what I was writing, or I do, and the examiner refuses to accept it. The other and by my estimation more universally experienced one is that I got the results of an examination and I did badly. 

Whenever I talk about these dreams, it seems to resonate with my peers, especially those who grew up in India or South Asia in particular. It tells you a lot about how the education system we were raised in just sticks in our minds and our psyche, never really leaving, but just fading slightly, like an old tattoo. 

As a kid who grew up in India, “Results” generally meant the results of examinations, the most important of which were Standards 10 and 12- secondary and higher secondary education. A lot depends on these results, and a lot doesn’t. Going through all these examinations has an effect on all of us, I guess- it occupies a corner of our mind, and the subconscious uses it to communicate – fear. 

The fear, of not measuring up to some invisible ideal. Of not having enough time to do the things we set out to do, within the time we were given to do it. An invisible plan laid out by some invisible man. The invisible examiner, pointing at an invisible watch, with his invisible hands, glaring at you with his invisible eyes. It’s all invisible, all in our heads, but all of us feel the icy glare all the same. 

This fear then morphs into insecurity and a deep dissatisfaction- in our childhood we’re so conditioned to see letter grades or numbers associated with whatever we do, and with whatever anyone else does, that we feel dissatisfied when we don’t see that tangible, visible product.

Working Out and seeing “Results”

I’ve been working out for over a year now. I started lifting these small weights, then I slowly trained enough to lift these heavier ones, and then I got these, which are even heavier than that. Two to three times a week, I lift these weights, above my head, or off to the side, and I put them back onto the ground. I FEEL better than how I used to a year ago. I eat better, I sleep better, I feel more limber, more lively, all great things. Despite all these things, the first question anyone ever asks is: “What about your results, though? Where are your results?”. Of course, they’re talking about the visible results- where are your biceps, your triceps, why do you still have a double chin, why don’t you have abs, and so on. 

Because, if you can’t see a change, a visible result, It’s all for nothing. I might as well have done nothing at all. Right?

Getting Older

I turned 28 this past November. I think all the time about how I’m going to hit the big three-o in a couple of years. I think about how unremarkable my 20s were. How there were so many things I wanted to do and didn’t. Either because they were withheld from me, or because I withheld myself. Just lists of to-dos left incomplete. One of those I remember I wrote as a joke on my 25th birthday. It was a list of things to learn, starting with “learn to talk to adults”, followed by learning to talk to children, infants, animals, and so on. The only thing checked off was the “talk to adults” part. But that’s just among a whole lot of different insecurities. 

I got to thinking about this and I realized I felt like I was going into my 30s feeling like I had a blank scrapbook. Just blank pages. No glitter, no sequins, no fancy pictures. Just an unremarkable man who had an unremarkable decade. And that filled me with dread. It was as if someone was going to hand me a report card on my 30th birthday, showing me how I’d failed to get a good grade in all these aspects of life. Or it’d be worse- they’d show me a report card that just said, “no remarks”. Because I’m an unremarkable man who lived unremarkably through his 20s. And that’s just it, isn’t it- the idea that if you didn’t live out all those fantasies, all those frivolities that they said you should have lived out in your 20s, then the time to do so has run out. 

And that’s because certain things have to get done by a certain age- right?

Don’t Believe the Hype

Of course not! My answer to those who clamor for visible results, and to those who think everything should be time-bound, is simple. The first thing is that sometimes you should just do things for their own sake. For the fun of it. You don’t need to turn everything into a test, a competition, or a hustle. You don’t need the imaginary examiner looking at everything that you do. The second is that you have more time than you think you do.

When I was a kid in school, people used to make fun of me for “being in my own world”. The more I grow older, the more clear it is to me that it’s the way to be. It’s kind of like the dude from the big Lebowski, and how he goes about his life. This quote by Gwen Ihnat really captures that character and that philosophy, and I’d like to leave you all with this. She says,

“We envy The Dude for knowing himself, for escaping the need to conform, and for rejecting mainstream society for the little one that grows around him.”

~ Gwen Ihnat, avclub.com

[VIDEO] UX Research: Why Studying Other Interviewers Matters

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Join the conversation in the comments!

I’ve been wanting to make videos about UX-related topics for a while. I was inspired to talk about learning via observing other interviewers, because I’ve been studying other interviewers for a while, I’ve been told that it isn’t useful, and I don’t agree. It all came together in my head as I was reading Steve Portigal’s famous book, “Interviewing Users: How to uncover compelling insights”.

Here are the key points I make in this video:

  • Interviewing is a skill: the best way to hone this skill is through practice, learning via experience. However, I have a question: Is there any value in learning by observing other people conduct interviews?
    • I asked this to a highly experienced UX-er, and the answer I got was “No, because there are certain intangible qualities certain people have, that you cannot replicate within yourself. You could copy what they do, but that’s just unnatural and forced.”
    • I don’t agree with this, because I am not trying to copy someone’s style. I am observing to see if there are certain things I can learn from interviewers that I can imbibe within myself, like a “formula” of sorts. The goal of observing other interviewers is to augment the key thing which is practice and improvement via direct, actionable feedback.
  • That being said, I don’t just observe other UX-ers. I observe interviewers in various industries. For example:
    • Therapist “Dr. K” From HealthyGamerGG. He has a knack for establishing a rapport with the interviewee, he knows how to steer and control conversations, and I learned a couple of neat tricks from him, such as pausing to think for a minute, and slowly sipping a glass of water during the silence portions of the conversation, to get the other person to speak.
    • All Gas No Brakes. What I learned from the interviewer here is how you can get people to let their guard down by amping up your “naive-ness”.
    • Great Radio and Podcast Hosts: What you can learn from them is how to keep track of narrative threads and how to pull at the right ones at the right times.
  • Lastly, this is personally important to me, because I moved from India to the US. A completely different cultural environment with different social norms. I don’t have any experience with working in customer or client-facing jobs when in high school or college, like a lot of people my age tend to have when they’re born and raised in the US. Observing interviewers helps me understand the different norms (turns of phrase, idioms, common topics for small talk, etc.) that I may not know right off the bat.

The Long and Short of Settling

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The idea for this video came to me from the myriad of thoughts circling in my head for months.

Video Script:

I haven’t been uploading any new videos of late because I haven’t been in the mental state to create things. My creativity was blocked because there were a lot of things on my mind, a lot of suspended particulate matter that makes everything hazy and unclear. I just needed something to go my way, anything at all. 

That breakthrough came in the form of me finally getting my driver’s license for the state of Tennessee after 5 months of moving to the state. After 5 months of being stuck in red tape and having no choice but to wait, I can finally officially say that I’m a resident of this new state that I reside in. I talked about how car ownership and how the ability to drive is at the core of the American experience in a blog post I wrote a while ago. I can finally say that I’ve settled into my new place of residence, even though I have been living here for over 5 months now. I can finally say that the new chapter of my life has begun in earnest. 

This saga got me thinking about the long and short of settling into a new place, a new chapter of life. It took 2 days to set up my living space. But it took over 5 months to get my Driver’s License- the key proof of residence, the key to mobility in this car-first ecosystem where pedestrians are an afterthought, and foreign passports are somehow unacceptable as proofs of identity nearly everywhere. 

In the interim, my mind was full of thoughts about all the plans, wishes, and fantasies that have gone unfulfilled so far. You see, ever since I moved to the US in my early 20s, I heard the usual off-hand comments that implied I was on borrowed time, and that there was an eventuality waiting for me as I grew older. There were these unwritten deadlines written by society, by ancestors decades or centuries ago. These forces pulling me in some direction because it’s “what’s best for me”. 

Living in the USA as a financially independent 20-something, I have the most agency I have ever had in my life, and yet, I am powerless in many aspects. I mean, think about it- I am living in the US on a work visa right now, and I have a long way to go when it comes to really settling here, owing to a bunch of factors beyond my control. 

The lyrics to Riders on the Storm come to mind: 

“Into this house we’re born, into this world we’re thrown”.

That concept of being thrown into this world, born into conditions beyond our control. These conditions affect how we live and experience the rest of our lives. 

I couldn’t control where I was born, and how I was raised. When I moved to the US, I looked at it as an opportunity to start afresh, to make mistakes and learn from them on my own accord, without judgemental eyes stalking my every move. Moving halfway across the world brought its own challenges with it though- having to deal with red-tape all by myself was one of them.

As I saw myself being trapped in this red tape, I began to see all the other ways in which I hadn’t really escaped the circumstances in which I was born and raised. I began seeing those deadlines again. I began seeing those existential dead ends that society has ordained to be the ideal conditions, the happily ever afters that you aren’t supposed to question. You know what I mean- having a wife and kids, living in a house encircled by a fence and a back yard, having cordial relations with neighbors and some kind of social group that you’re a part of only to satiate your social needs and sense of community, a group that runs purely on quid pro quo but tries to convince itself that it’s formed on some deep connection.

Is that really all there is to life? Wife, Kids, Social Groups? Well, yes, that really is all there is. There comes a time where you come to terms with the inherent absurdity of the universe, and everyone’s silence on the matter. It is at that point where you either take refuge in the belief system of your choice, or you accept a nihilistic approach. Or, you decide to rebel against all of it- against both the absurdity of the universe and the world’s silence on the matter. To decide to live the way you want to live, and to give in to neither ends of this problem, just because you can. 

That’s the sense of agency that I want to exercise through the videos that I make. To exercise the right to talk about whatever I want to talk about, instead of simply talking about things that people want to hear, or the algorithm wants to push, or anything else will make this video go viral- whatever that may be. 

In the end, with my driver’s license finally approved, I want to revel in this sense of closure. Of finally feeling like I’ve embarked on a new chapter in my life. Maybe I’m still hurtling towards some eventuality, or maybe it’s all unknowable and absurd, but I feel like I bought myself some time, and regained a sense of agency and control in my surroundings. 

I had these thoughts circling in my head for a while now and I needed to talk about them before I went about with the regularly scheduled programming. Life is weird in general these days, and my ruins with bureaucracy and subsequent intrusive thoughts only serve as a microcosm of life: the fact that this small thing was resolved but so many questions still remain is in and of itself what life is all about. About how you decide to live it, given the things you can’t change. About the journey, and not the destination. 

Thanks for watching. Like this video if you liked it, share it with someone if you think they’d like it and remember: 

“The difference between marketing and propaganda is ______”

I’ll see you next time. 

Engaging an Audience: A Media Theory Perspective

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Video Script with some additions and sans some ad libbed parts:

Ever since I started making videos there’s one thing that has always bothered me. I’ve talked about this before, and that’s this graph of user retention. It shows that people tend to watch my videos till about 2-3 minutes in and there’s a steep decline in the number of people who watch my videos till the end.

I’ve been listening to the feedback that people have for me and I’ve been making changes in every video that I make, but there’s still that statistic, that low engagement with the video that sticks with me as something I need to improve on.

With that in mind, I began looking at the usual tips and tutorials online on how to be a more effective communicator, but that felt like I was just scratching the surface. So, I decided to read up about media theory. The first thing that came up was the well-known work of Marshall McLuhan who famously said “The medium is the message”.

What he meant was that the medium of communication shapes how the message is perceived, which in turn also shapes behaviors and has an effect on society as a whole. He divided history into four epochs: Oral, where information was communicated solely through the spoken word, then there was the literary epoch, with the invention of writing and the creation of manuscripts. The third was the print epoch which came to be after the invention of the printing press and movable type, and the fourth is the electronic epoch, which is today’s society.

As mankind moved through these epochs, the invention of new communication mediums changed how we thought and remembered things, and also changed how societies were structured.

I want to talk about an aspect of McLuhan’s theory, the concept of Hot versus Cool media. Contrary to what you’d expect, he described hot media as the one you passively accept, and cool media as the one you actively participate in. To explain further, hot media engages one sense in a high definition way and has a low level of audience participation. Radio or printed books are examples of this. Radio engages the auditory sense while books engage the visual. Cool media, on the other hand, involves the use of multiple senses at once and involves “filling in the gaps” with your own thinking and cognition. An example of cool media would be watching TV, where you have to absorb the visual as well as the auditory information at the same time, while also forming thoughts and opinions on what’s being talked about.

I looked at the two things I usually create- blog posts and videos- and tried looking at them through this lens of hot or cool media. I realized soon that this binary classification wasn’t quite enough to fully understand how people engage with these things. You could oversimplify and say that blogs are mainly text-based and more “hot” media and videos are more “cool” because of the audiovisual information. Here’s the thing though- blogs are not plain text like printed books, they are purely digital and you can add pictures and other forms of media into them. You can also allow people to comment and share them. Also, I make videos, but the platform I use for them is youtube, which has its own design features and caveats. When you think of a youtube video or a YouTuber, you think of a particular archetype of person, a particular style of delivery, and a particular set of calls to action (like share and subscribe!). Not to mention all sorts of other “tropes” that have emerged- making things appear organic and less “high production”, building a sense of community, and the often mentioned parasocial relationships… the list goes on. Link in the description for a playlist of the videos I watched, as well as some articles I read.

I remember when I started making youtube videos a lot of people told me I was softspoken- they sounded surprised about it like it was different from what they expected. It was as if there’s some unwritten rule about how you present yourself that says you have to be loud and boisterous and “always turned up to 11”. As if there are unwritten rules of how to engage with the audience on this platform. Again- youtube isn’t just a video viewing platform, it’s a video delivery platform: there’s an algorithm to suggest videos to you, a comments section, a whole bunch of communities and followings- it’s an ecosystem unto itself.

Another way the Hot/Cool dichotomy breaks down is to think about it from the perspective of a viewer. I watched a video where there’s a discussion of how what’s hot for one person may be cool for another person- just because of how they interact with or consume the media. For example, I may listen to a podcast attentively, or I may just have it on as some background ambient sound while I do something else. Also, people may “heat up” or “cool down” based on the media type, the platform they are on, and a whole bunch of other factors.

So when it comes to the original question of engagement, it looks like I’m back to square one. Not quite- I did learn a lot about media theory and this exploration got me thinking a lot about how people engage with media. The most important lesson was the true meaning behind the words “the medium is the message”.

This does raise a few questions though- should I start using these tropes? Should I start having a high energy boisterous presentation with the goal of forming a parasocial relationship with my currently unnamed “fanbase”? Or should I continue doing what I’m doing and hope that youtube’s algorithm decides to bless me one day? For now, it’s the latter. But I am open to suggestions and feedback, and who knows, maybe I’ll stumble upon something that both engages the audience and gives me creative fulfillment.

This is the end of the video, so I’d like to thank you all for watching, I’m very close to 100 subscribers which is a milestone (for me at least) and I’m very grateful for all the support. Be sure to like this video, subscribe and hit the bell icon if you want more of this content, let me know what you think about this video in the comments, and remember:

“Anyone who claims to know all the answers has lied to you once already.”

[VIDEO] Giving and Receiving Feedback

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Paraphrased Video Transcript:

Today I want to talk about giving and receiving feedback. When I first set out to make this video I wanted to talk about a couple of life experiences and what they taught me about giving and receiving feedback, but I soon realized that the subject of feedback has a lot of nuances that I couldn’t do justice from my own experiences alone. So I decided to get some, well, FEEDBACK from a few people, and I got a lot of different perspectives from them.

First off I realized I have to define the scope of what I’m about to say. I want to talk about giving and receiving feedback on someone’s creative expression. I’m not talking about getting feedback in a work environment. I’ll tell a story about it- I wrote a blog post about something I learned in grad school called self-determination theory and sent the first draft of it to the professor who taught it to me. I was expecting some criticism of what I’d written, but in the email, he sent me he started off with the sentence “Your writing needs work”. He then proceeded to completely eviscerate my writing. I mean I hadn’t seen that many red lines since I was in elementary school. He did, however, say that he really appreciated the amount of thought I’d put into the piece.

I’d like to pause the story here to talk about some lessons that I took from that experience. The first lesson, keep in mind the relationship between the feedback giver and the receiver. In this case, It was between my college professor (giver) and his former student (receiver). Second, context is key – he was giving me feedback from an academic perspective, thinking from the mindset of writing a paper or academic piece, while I was writing from a personal perspective. With that in mind, we discussed it over a few emails and hashed it out.

But I remember being very shaken by that experience. For the next several months I felt terrible about it. I’d created a sense of self-worth around being a writer and that was my self-identification, and it was all shattered by four words – your writing needs work. I introspected and realized that maybe I really wasn’t looking for feedback; maybe, I was looking for validation. That’s what really happens these days- you post something online, you wait for the validation from social media- you have the words “feedback welcome” in your post but you really just want people to encourage you, and when someone does the opposite, you entrench yourself further into your own mindset and try to find things that support it (Confirmation Bias). The important thing is to understand this impulse and curtail it.

How I got out of that negativity was by trying to improve myself- I began working on my public speaking skills through Toastmasters, and I found a club that gave me feedback but also gave me a whole lot of encouragement. It also opened my mind up to different avenues of expressing myself. Maybe if it weren’t for that email my professor sent, I wouldn’t have been here making videos!

Speaking of videos, I also realized that it’s important to have a thick skin when you put yourself out there on the internet and to anticipate and prepare for situations where people are being especially mean or hateful.

I’d like to talk about another story that happened recently, where I had a completely different experience with getting feedback. I made a new banner for my social media and posted it online mentioning that it was my first attempt at creating one. Check out my website, my twitter page, and subscribe to my youtube channel while I’m on this topic. I got some feedback from my peers in the User Experience biz, telling me about things like the contrast ratio, font size, and other things about the visual design that I could tweak to make it a more effective banner.

  • Old Banner (version 1)
  • New Banner (after getting feedback)

I felt the impulse of retorting, of defending my design, but I realized I’d been in this place before. I decided to look at their feedback objectively. I thought about the goal of a social media banner; it’s about spreading the word, making sure people get the information on it as quickly as possible. I realized that if peers in the User Experience business are giving me feedback about a design I’ve made, they’re taking time out of their day to look at what I’ve created and suggested ways in which I can achieve the goals of the design in a better way, then that’s a good thing.

So I took their advice, made some tweaks, and thanked them for their feedback. To my surprise, someone told me that it was a pleasant surprise for them, and that people tend to stick to their guns and be very defensive about things, and that it was a breath of fresh air to see someone being receptive.

This whole thing was a complete 180 from the time I felt a shattered sense of self from four words by a professor.

All in all, these were two life experiences and two completely different approaches to receiving feedback. I feel like I grew as a person in the interim of the first experience which was a few years ago, and the second experience which was just a few days back.

[VIDEO] One Year of ShriViews Videos!

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I uploaded my first video on February 9th, 2019. In the year that followed, I’ve learned a lot about the process of video creation, and it has influenced my creative process in more ways than one. In this video, I talk about the main takeaways from a year’s worth of videos.

One takeaway was that only 30% of the people who watch my videos are subscribed to my channel. If you’re reading this and aren’t subscribed, please go ahead and hit that subscribe button!

The top 2 countries where my viewers reside are India and the United States. It is tough to think of topics that both audiences can relate to, but I try to mostly talk about my experiences living in the United States as someone who moved here for higher education and to begin their career. I am open to more suggestions though!

Related to this point is the fact that different audiences want different forms of content. Some prefer longer form (20 minutes and above) content, while a lot of others prefer shorter content (3 – 5 minutes). This is corroborated by my retention statistics. On average, people tend to view about 3.5 – 4.5 minutes of the video before they tune out. The solution to that, of course, is to make the videos engrossing enough that people stick around and to ensure that the videos don’t go on for too long. 

An effect that making videos has had on me is that it has rejuvenated my creative process. Writing for videos requires a directness that the written medium doesn’t always need. 

Those are the 3 major talking points in the video. I hope you watch it, and I also hope you suggest some topics for me to talk about in the future. Here’s to more years of making videos and writing blog posts!