In before "not my blog":
CG actually was a good prep for politics, and politics gave some insights in retrospect for CG.
Political Parties have a formal structure and some procedure but a lot of the action is at the grassroots level.
I'm primarily focused on local politics and that involves a lot of in-person activity, and in the streets action - it's a different dynamic than solely online networking.
With that said when I left the White House on the night of Trump's acceptance speech - we stepped out into a Black Lives Matter protest. Slap fights on twitter are nothing.
You are growing your brand and audience or you are losing it - nothing is static.
Find ways to reach associated markets - no one is going to agree with you 100% if you are lucky you get 65% run with it.
Every social movement, every human endeavor has difficult people and challenging personalities - accommodate as much difference as you can that doesn't compromise the core principles, not every person needs a spotlight - not every question deserves an answer.
People will get stuck in minutia or harbor grudges FOREVER, I'm slow to offend anyone (and quick to apologize) to anyone nominally aligned with our purpose or anyone who can be persuaded to align with our purpose.
All media is relatively miserable.
Know your market - In Hawaii we have approximately 200,000 Republican voters we have to grow that by another 50,000 - 75,000 people.
It may actually be easier to register a new Republican than to create a new comic book fan.
Crowdfunded comic books buyers are a small market.
Doing pop culture videos is probably the easiest way to grow that market.
Directly marketing via youtube has limited value - you have to entertain and then associate the comic book with fun.
As a bounded set - Comic Fans and Comic Books are not generally a large enough set to have broad cultural or political impact.
As a subset of that set CG isn't large.
Arguing with CG fans isn't a path to commercial success, if that is your primary goal.
The market that desires ANTI-CG content video is maybe 300-500 people - that is a micro niche inside a micro niche.
Time spent arguing with fans is time NOT spent on selling books, growing audience, entertaining, or producing a new product.
Have a goal, adjust that goal as you get new information, and always make sure your behavior supports that goal.
There are factions in every organization, every movement, any activity with more than 2 people will produce a faction.
Not every venue is ideal for your particular personality or principles.
Lawyers are expensive and courts are fickle, lawsuits are often mind numbingly slow.
We have several lawyers that work with the Party just in Hawaii - we are slow to roll them out because the return is often much less than the cost.
As a representative for the Party I expect that our candidates, our Party, or even I personally will get smeared on a daily basis.
Not all of it is worth countering - our egos can temporarily create a false urgency to respond, it is generally better to act than to react though.
You can't always win but you can make it too costly for people to want to fight with you.
Wrapping back around it looks like people are being cool, skins are thicker than they were before, and folks are focusing on their primary goals.
That is probably temporarily bad for producing "lolcow content", but Comic Book fans have have proven time after time that there is ALWAYS
someone ready to step up and do some cringe.
