The Underworld LIVE Essay, But You Can Hear Me This Time

I wrote an essay that I shared last Sunday, about needing to experience things live, with fans in the room, to fully understand them. It felt incomplete just putting it on a page. And, while I can’t exactly get up on a stage and perform it, I figured - it needed a little more life, so I opted to record a version of me reading it live, and put it up on YouTube, as one of my “reviews.”

It’s slightly ridiculous but massively the whole point.

I wanted to test a format. I wanted to explore, like I did in the piece, the difference between consuming something alone versus experiencing it in community (and the YouTube community is bigger than my distribution list, potentially at least). I wanted to see if putting my voice behind the words from my head added something.

I was curious to find out if anybody likes it. Time will tell. I’m not emotionally invested in it, but as a regular consumer of audio books, it felt worth a shot.

From a purely practical standpoint, to my writer friends, the exercise of reading stuff out loud always reveals where you overwrite. I felt pretty decent about this one before and after attempting this. That’s a good sign too.

And there’s the reality of how jokes or expressions land, especially with pauses or pacing, when you’re writing versus speaking. Hopefully this helps show how my voice works, as much for me as others. It does make me think, though, audience feedback would help.

Hmm.

It’s a raw reflection today. Partly packaged like this so you’ll hopefully click the link below and watch/listen to me read an essay.

But also - if you have any ideas, or if you want more of this, let me know. Maybe I’ll do them live. Or have a read to group. There’s ways I could play with this, I think. Why not brainstorm out loud a little?

Here's the link to the review/essay on YouTube. If you're on social media, comment there too - I'm curious what lands.