Cody Weber is Things

“The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly coloured and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question, is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, ‘Hey − don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride…‘

And we…kill those people.

“We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.”

Just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that; you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn’t matter because it’s just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.

Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded. And we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. Thank you very much, you’ve been great.”

-Bill Hicks

ideal girl?

Someone that didn’t bore the shit out of me.
See also: having sex with me.

Cody Weber, why are you so fucking awesome?

I WAS BORN THAT WAAAYYYYYYY.

I only just discovered you, but I already adore you. I keep trying to write this note with some grandiose finish that would delve into deep meaningful topics as if i’ve known you all my life, but all I can come up with is this: You’re not alone. Even the lone wanderer has company in other wanderers. Also, I love your photography. Also also: You’re cute. Cue the girlish giggling, blushing, and hiding behind long hair. But seriously, your photography (and tumblr) are great. Keep on keepin’ on.

Ahh sorry if you get asked this a lot, but I was wondering what a good camera to start off with would be? I’d like to get into photography, but a lot of camera reviews are confusing… Thanks very much in advance!

This.

In your recent video you said that youtube isn’t a very big priority to you. It may not generate too much money, but you inspired me to take up an art i took up drawing, you made me feel better about me being really socially awkward, and seeing what the life is like for an adult other then our parents is pretty interesting to me. If your able to do that to people I don’t see why that’s not a very big priority to you.

I have to pay rent.  Unfortunately, money takes priority even when you don’t want it to.  The worst part is that Blurb is especially bad at mailing my checks out late.  More than not lately, I’ve been reconsidering my life choices.  It’s not a question that’s easily answered.  I can’t do both.  I can’t possibly function and have a normal job and still do the work I do now.  It’s way more time consuming than most of you probably realize.  It probably took over ninety hours to complete the first issue of FANGS, and that is just a side-project of mine.

I am going to try my god damn hardest to find some place for me out west.  I’m giving myself a little more time because I’ve worked so fucking hard that it kills me to even consider giving it up.  The road that art has led me down thus far sucks, though.  That’s all there is to it.  Sometimes I don’t even experience that euphoria of completing something.  I just start to focus on something else instead, never giving myself a pat on the back or recognition of my work.  I don’t think I deserve it yet because I haven’t really done anything.

I appreciate my audience.  I really do.  Many of you have stuck beside me through the worst and driest parts of my existence.  Our relationship isn’t tangible, though, so how the fuck can I prioritize that?  I make stuff for you to consume and you consume it as you will.  That’s where it ends.  We don’t hang out and you don’t know my insecurities or my flaws like my friends do.  Cody Weber is a character you’ve painted up in your head.  You’d be surprised at all the different people I come off as to different types of humans.  To the younger kids, I have somehow become an adult that doesn’t really act like one.  That’s appealing to kids who don’t feel like they have a place in the world because it’s so obvious that I don’t either.  A lot of kids take comfort in that.  To some of my peers, I come off as an irresponsible pseudo-intellectual, insecure my own stupidity and projecting an ideal image of myself.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read that shit and I wonder how many people have psycho-analyzed this blog to the fucking ground.  Some of them are accurate but all of them stretch the boundaries of who I am and who they think I am.  

Maybe I think about it too much, but screaming into a camera doesn’t feel empowering.  It did when I was seventeen years old, but I’m not a teenager anymore.  As my channel progresses, it has turned into a weird spectacle of random shit.  That splits my audience by proxy, some of you want poetry and others want music or stop-motion pictures.  Most of you want rants (which is truly the most boring thing I do),  but the majority of you want something.  And most of you want it for free.  That’s the fucked up thing about our culture.   Everybody seems to look down on handouts, but they all expect them when it comes to the arts.  People in America all assume that shit on the internet should always be free and artists shouldn’t make money from it.  If they didn’t feel that way, then they would buy shit when it was put out.  They wouldn’t torrent movies from artists that barely make enough money to feed themselves.  It’s one thing to download a film that made twenty million dollars in the box office.  It’s another beast entirely when you do it to an independent artist.

So for the most part it’s been a pretty futile effort to combine my art with my life and use them both to benefit one another.  I have to make money to survive and that’s all there is to it.  I barely make enough to pay my bills and I am fucking tired of eating Ramen Noodles and not having a car in the middle of winter.  I hate how useless I feel 99% of the time.

So you want me to prioritize my YouTube videos?  Then start hoping my audience begins to expand and I can live off of ad revenue alone.  As it is I cannot do that.  I can’t live off of my YouTube videos, not even after five years of semi-regular content.  At some point, right now actually, you have you ask yourself, “Why do I care so much about this?”   When I can’t even afford to have my inhaler refilled, I am doing something fundamentally wrong in life.  I’m tired of feeling this way.

I am going to keep busting my ass for the time being, probably harder than I’ve ever worked before.  I am going to do this because I can’t see myself doing this in five years if something doesn’t begin to change.  

It’s not that my fans aren’t important to me.  It’s that I can’t survive off of love and viewers alone.