📘 The Dad Story Part 1

The importance of comedy, being neurotic, and who will play me in the film.

A big part of this substack will be telling The Story of The Dad, the film rights to which will eventually be sold, with Aaron Sorkin writing and David Fincher directing. The Joel character will be played by a young Jesse Eisenberg.

There will be a series of posts that tell the epic tale, from start to finish. This is the first of those.

For me, I guess The Dad started with this email from Vinit Bharara.

I already knew who Vinit was, a super cool New Yorker and a highly successful entrepreneur. And brother of SDNY US Attorney Preet Bharara.

At the time I was a Product Manager for a data science company. I was also teaching web development at the University of Cincinnati, running my own lil brand (The Glad Stork), and writing freelance for Scary Mommy.

As soon as I saw this email, I felt like it was one of those lifechanging moments. It was. We’ll get to that, and why this was so important to me at the time.

But look, if this story is going to be a feature film (or critically acclaimed series on HBO), we need character development. So let’s do a little flashback exposition.

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[”LOST” FLASHBACK WHOOSHING SOUND]

I distinctly remember the moment. I was on the bus on the way to 2nd grade. I had this thought that it might be nice to be liked, to be popular even. A normal thought for any kid. So then I thought, “How can I go about making that happen?” I ran through the scenarios and it hit me. “Ya know what, people like laughing. People really seem to like funny people. I think I’ll do that. I can be funny.”

What type of self-absorbed neurotic 2nd grade kid reverse engineers popularity and hatches a scheme to become funny?

I’ll tell you. The same type of person who eventually grows up to professionally build a social media-based brand known for memes.

I’ve always loved comedy. I love jokes. I love storytelling. I love character-driven comedy, sketch comedy, even physical comedy. My absolute favorite as a kid was Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy. My friends and I would print out pages and pages of these things and pass them around.

To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" You can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."

The anti-joke. I loved the cleverness of it. It wasn’t enough to be funny to me anymore. It needed to be well thought out too.

And overthinking is something that just comes naturally to me. If I’m good at anything, it’s that. (I think.)

All that to say, I’m not that funny in a traditional sense. The Dad is known for its memes, for its relatable yet hilarious takes on parenting. (Much of that is from the talented team of creators, not me. Especially recently.) But the stuff that I’ve created is often overthought and overconsidered, engineered to be funny. That’s how I see it anyways, hopefully it comes across naturally.

But when people meet me in real life who have only ever seen the internet stuff I created, I think they’re surprised that I am not outgoing and cracking jokes all the time. I’m funnier on the internet.

But I’m pretty good at knowing what people will like, and creating that. And overthinking.

(2nd grade flashback Joel was played by Jesse Eisenberg’s son, by the way. The critics will love that.)

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I’m going to tell the rest of the story in this Substack, but in order to appreciate the character progression, I need you to know that the protagonist (me) is not a vibrant, charismatic extrovert. But more a validation-starved, anxious data engineer type who happens to freakin looove comedy, making people laugh, and creating stuff.

This substack is also about helping those folks who reach out asking for advice on building a social following for their business, non-profit, or meme account. So when I tell the story of The Dad, I’ll also Salt Bae some practical social media marketing advice and tips on ya.

If you want to build a social following or community, it’s all about content. Create good content that people like. Everything else is secondary.

The Dad team has a mantra: CONTENT FIRST, CONTENT FIRST, CONTENT FIRST. You can complain about the algorithm all you want. Or debate time of day to post or format or video duration, but ultimately, if you create good content, your audience will like it.

And the thing about social is that you’ll know if they like it because there’s a big button there that they press if they like it. So creating great content on social is also about tracking data and metrics, which as we’ve established, I am obsessed with.

But if you create content ENTIRELY based on the data, soon enough you’ll have a rage filled political brand. Unless that’s your goal, you need to keep your content on brand, on mission, and in line with whatever vision you lay out.

No matter your vision, no matter your goals. People love comedy. Even if you’re a serious non-profit with an important mission, sprinkle in some comedy from time to time. Your followers, your employees, your volunteers, and the internet will appreciate it.

Lots more on this to come.

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Vinit and I chatted the next day. I had been writing for Scary Mommy for a year or so at that point. He asked if I was down to take a bigger role.

He even mentioned an idea they had been kicking around: creating a new dad brand from scratch.