We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Yolo Swag Studios. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Yolo below.
Yolo, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
Part of me wishes I started my art career earlier, for the reason that I enjoy it and it beats a day job. Though the other part of me is grateful for waiting till my mid 20’s because I’m sure I would have been cringing at the type of work I would have created in my teens.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I always thought political comics were bullshit. 99 percent of the time, they just aren’t funny. And if they ARE funny (see The Onion’s ‘Kelly’ comics), they’re only funny to people who agree with the point the comic is trying to make. The audiences for those comics are essentially a bunch of clapping seals with severe brain damage. I wanted to turn the ‘what the hell is this garbage’ knob up to 11 on the political comics world. Using artists like Kelly and Ben Garrison as a jumping off point, I wanted to make the ‘message’ of my political comics so stupid and convoluted that they wouldn’t really make sense.
This hasn’t stopped people from pulling messages from my work, and trying to work out my personal politics, which is honestly funnier than the comics I make.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Hearing other artists I love and respect tell me I inspired them somehow. I won’t name names…. cough cough Beetle Moses cough cough Haus of Decline cough…. but hearing people way more talented than me say I inspired them makes me feel like a proud parent in a deranged way. Plus, I can hold it over their heads when they’re super famous and I am washed up. We might even get into a Kato and OJ situation where they let me live in one of their pool houses. Think of all the shenanigans that will ensue.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Building an audience is easy. You just have to find a niche and stick to it. Early on I use to post my bare ass on twitter. It made me unique. You also can’t be scared to branch out and try new things. I use to write much more music in my early twitter days and it definitely helped solidify an audience. Now as far as keeping your audience, that’s a different story. If you have a big enough basement, you can chain at least 30 people down there. That’s not much, but that’s 30 people who won’t be able to leave your basement. That’s a built in audience, baby!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @yolo_swag_studios
- Twitter: @yoloswagstudios
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/coldcutspod
Image Credits
all me bay beeeeeeee