This is an excerpt from my book SEO & 80s Movies: An Old School Approach to SEO and Content Marketing.
You can learn a lot about SEO and self-publishing by watching Kevin Bacon movies.
Now, I haven’t watched any of these movies in years, but I have seen each of them a few times. Actually, I think I’ve seen them more than I care to admit. Anyone growing up with HBO probably saw many of these during their daytime slot.
So what are these cinematic gems? Here are the 5 movies we’ll use to highlight SEO and self-publishing:
Alright, so I’m including one that’s in 1990, but it came out in January, so I think we can safely say that Kevin Bacon still had that 80s mindset in place.
So why SEO and self-publishing? Why not just one or the other? I don’t know, maybe you can figure that out by reading this.
Incidentally, you can read another post about SEO and 80s Movies if you’d like, a topic I’m seriously considering turning into a short eBook of 20,000 words or so. But that’s for the first quarter of 2014.
Now, I haven’t watched any of these movies in years, but I have seen each of them a few times. Actually, I think I’ve seen them more than I care to admit. Anyone growing up with HBO probably saw many of these during their daytime slot.
So what are these cinematic gems? Here are the 5 movies we’ll use to highlight SEO and self-publishing:
- Quicksilver (1986)
- White Water Summer (1987)
- She’s Having a Baby (1988)
- The Big Picture (1989)
- Tremors (1990)
Alright, so I’m including one that’s in 1990, but it came out in January, so I think we can safely say that Kevin Bacon still had that 80s mindset in place.
So why SEO and self-publishing? Why not just one or the other? I don’t know, maybe you can figure that out by reading this.
Incidentally, you can read another post about SEO and 80s Movies if you’d like, a topic I’m seriously considering turning into a short eBook of 20,000 words or so. But that’s for the first quarter of 2014.
Quicksilver – Working Fast and Getting Back Up
I always liked this movie, even though it’s pretty cheesy. In this 1986 film Kevin Bacon plays Jack Casey, a former stock trader on the floor of the exchange who becomes a bike messenger to get over the trading loss that cost him everything.
Casey uses his business acumen and skills to help out his colorful cast of co-workers, and even manages to find his confidence, hitting the trading floor once again.
The thing is, Kevin Bacon gets into a lot of wrecks in this film. He’s always getting knocked around by the bigger cars around him and even those that should be supporting him, those other bike messengers, often give him even more grief.
Casey uses his business acumen and skills to help out his colorful cast of co-workers, and even manages to find his confidence, hitting the trading floor once again.
The thing is, Kevin Bacon gets into a lot of wrecks in this film. He’s always getting knocked around by the bigger cars around him and even those that should be supporting him, those other bike messengers, often give him even more grief.
Get Up! And let’s not forget he’s battling with his own inner-demons of self-doubt and inaction. This is really a Hamlet story here, about a former-stock trader turned bike messenger that’s too afraid to get back in the ring after a tough knockdown fight, or in this case a helluva bad trade.
Sometimes when you put something out there it gets clobbered. This can be the form of bad reviews, social media gang-ups, or blogs turning against you. When that happens it can seem really devastating and like the only thing we can do is stay down and not try again.
Don’t do that – be like Jack Casey and use your skills to help those less well-off, making yourself feel better and allowing you to get some of that confidence back.
Sometimes when you put something out there it gets clobbered. This can be the form of bad reviews, social media gang-ups, or blogs turning against you. When that happens it can seem really devastating and like the only thing we can do is stay down and not try again.
Don’t do that – be like Jack Casey and use your skills to help those less well-off, making yourself feel better and allowing you to get some of that confidence back.
White Water Summer – The Defeat of Arrogance
Kevin Bacon played Vic, the overbearing, tyrannical, and just plain ignorant camp counselor in this film. It was Bacon’s second go at such a role in the 80s, his first being that of counselor Jack Burrell in 1980’s Friday the 13th, one which saw him take an arrow through the throat while waiting for his sweetheart in bed.
In 1987’s White Water Summer he just fractures his leg, so it’s quite the improvement. You know when your character’s making it to the credits that you’re moving up in Hollywood. The film was actually filmed in 1985 under the name Rites of Passage but wasn’t released until two years later, which pretty much amounts to a death sentence for a film.
In 1987’s White Water Summer he just fractures his leg, so it’s quite the improvement. You know when your character’s making it to the credits that you’re moving up in Hollywood. The film was actually filmed in 1985 under the name Rites of Passage but wasn’t released until two years later, which pretty much amounts to a death sentence for a film.
Assholes Fall the Hardest I always thought the film was good when I was growing up, and we can learn some things about writing copy and eBooks. First, Vic knows everything and really pushes Sean Astin’s character, Alan, around. Alan had challenged Vic’s authority, and for the rest of the hiking, camping, and outdoor outing Vic does everything he can to make Alan’s life a living hell, including leaving him hanging from a cliff and making him spend the night alone and in the cold on an island.
This all comes back to haunt Vic when he breaks his leg. It’s then up to Alan to shepherd Vic out of the wilderness, mainly through white water rapids, hence the name. This shows what can happen when authority becomes too authoritative. Many of the young campers didn’t challenge Vic, and he treated them nicely, but that was just a façade.
Think about this when it comes to your own readers, visitors, and users. How will you react when you’re challenged? With content moderation and angry responses to reviews? Or will you act like Alan, and steer clear of all the rapid deterioration in communication and chart your own course out of the wilderness?
This all comes back to haunt Vic when he breaks his leg. It’s then up to Alan to shepherd Vic out of the wilderness, mainly through white water rapids, hence the name. This shows what can happen when authority becomes too authoritative. Many of the young campers didn’t challenge Vic, and he treated them nicely, but that was just a façade.
Think about this when it comes to your own readers, visitors, and users. How will you react when you’re challenged? With content moderation and angry responses to reviews? Or will you act like Alan, and steer clear of all the rapid deterioration in communication and chart your own course out of the wilderness?
She’s Having a Baby – Falling Into a Rut
Here’s another pretty cheesy 1980s Kevin Bacon movie. I’ve seen this one at least 10 times and the cheesy-factor is the only thing that allows you to get through it.
I mean, how are you not going to watch a group of men do synchronized lawn-mowing?
I mean, how are you not going to watch a group of men do synchronized lawn-mowing?
Who's Jealous of Who? Yeah, suburbia – where dreams go to die. Well that’s what our friend Kevin Bacon found himself in while playing Jake Briggs, husband of Kristy Briggs. He had high hopes of being a great novelist, but then gets a crappy job writing copy for some agency that's really so inconsequential it’s not even worth mentioning. And then his wife gets pregnant. Shit, nothing’s getting done now.
Somehow through Hollywood humor and the inevitable happy ending after 98 minutes we’re able to return to our lives knowing that what happened to Jake will never happen to us. After all, we have the funny celebrity cameo role in the credits to take our minds off of it.
That’s the main problem that Kevin Bacon’s character falls into in this film – he gets into a rut. There’s no getting out of it for him, and this is kind of like what you see each January at health clubs, just with blogs. Everyone’s got that resolution to start one and stick with it, but come February most have thrown in the towel.
But falling into a rut at least signifies you’ve tried, doesn’t it? In the movie Jake’s friend Davis, played by Alec Baldwin, is one that never bought into any of that kids and marriage crap, and he’s got the blond bimbos to prove it. But it’s clear how envious he is of Jake.
There’s a good lesson there – those that you’re trying to be like are jealous of you! I think this is the problem of making it. It’s not that good and you yearn for what you had before. Billie Joel said it good in the song Keeping the Faith when he said “the good ole days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”
Somehow through Hollywood humor and the inevitable happy ending after 98 minutes we’re able to return to our lives knowing that what happened to Jake will never happen to us. After all, we have the funny celebrity cameo role in the credits to take our minds off of it.
That’s the main problem that Kevin Bacon’s character falls into in this film – he gets into a rut. There’s no getting out of it for him, and this is kind of like what you see each January at health clubs, just with blogs. Everyone’s got that resolution to start one and stick with it, but come February most have thrown in the towel.
But falling into a rut at least signifies you’ve tried, doesn’t it? In the movie Jake’s friend Davis, played by Alec Baldwin, is one that never bought into any of that kids and marriage crap, and he’s got the blond bimbos to prove it. But it’s clear how envious he is of Jake.
There’s a good lesson there – those that you’re trying to be like are jealous of you! I think this is the problem of making it. It’s not that good and you yearn for what you had before. Billie Joel said it good in the song Keeping the Faith when he said “the good ole days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”
The Big Picture – The Power of Unavailability
All Kevin Bacon had to do in this movie was not be there. His character Nick Chapman was down and out in Hollywood. He had nothing better to do than help some friends with their Pez People Music Video, something he thought would amount to nothing.
After that he went out for a drive, didn’t answer his phone, and suddenly everyone wanted to be his friend. This sounds a little off-kilter in our social-media-driven world. After all, you need to be available 24/7, or even better 25/8. I mean, if you want to get to the top you better kiss those dinners at home with the kids and those weekends goodbye. Those are for slackers!
After that he went out for a drive, didn’t answer his phone, and suddenly everyone wanted to be his friend. This sounds a little off-kilter in our social-media-driven world. After all, you need to be available 24/7, or even better 25/8. I mean, if you want to get to the top you better kiss those dinners at home with the kids and those weekends goodbye. Those are for slackers!
What's Your "Pez People Video?" But we all know how the media can turn on itself when it doesn’t have its target out there front and center. We’ve all seen the networks circle their wagons outside of some breaking story that fails to break. When that main character’s not around nothing can get done.
So you wan to use that power of unavailability to your advantage. When you’ve got something hot the best thing to do might be to freeze the cell phone, ditch the iPad, and head out into the hills for a day or two – perhaps even longer. I think this especially applies to Twitter where you’ve got lots of senseless comments being made, regurgitated, and sent all about without much thought for intelligence or consequences.
But probably the greatest gift that the power of unavailability gives us is to allow us to think for ourselves. You see, in this 1989 comedy, when Nick’s first getting successful everyone’s kind of pushing and pulling him around, making him do things he might not necessarily want to do. He alienates old friends and loses touch with who he is and what drove him to begin with.
Sometimes heading off into the hills in some hermetic quest might just be what you need to cleanse yourself of the sameness that so permeates much of what’s out there today. When was the last time you went a week without reading online rubbish or your favorite blogs (if there’s a difference)?
So you wan to use that power of unavailability to your advantage. When you’ve got something hot the best thing to do might be to freeze the cell phone, ditch the iPad, and head out into the hills for a day or two – perhaps even longer. I think this especially applies to Twitter where you’ve got lots of senseless comments being made, regurgitated, and sent all about without much thought for intelligence or consequences.
But probably the greatest gift that the power of unavailability gives us is to allow us to think for ourselves. You see, in this 1989 comedy, when Nick’s first getting successful everyone’s kind of pushing and pulling him around, making him do things he might not necessarily want to do. He alienates old friends and loses touch with who he is and what drove him to begin with.
Sometimes heading off into the hills in some hermetic quest might just be what you need to cleanse yourself of the sameness that so permeates much of what’s out there today. When was the last time you went a week without reading online rubbish or your favorite blogs (if there’s a difference)?
Tremors – Having Confidence in the Face of Overwhelming Odds
Kevin Bacon really didn’t want to make this movie. At least, that’s what it seems like when you listen to what he told his wife. “I can’t believe I’m doing a movie about underground worms!” he told interviewers in 2013 of his reaction upon getting into filming.
Oftentimes when we make something we think it’s rubbish. We think no one will like us, and worse, that it’ll turn away those who do like us. When you put out an edgy piece of content, a daring new book, or really anything else that could rub people the wrong way you’ve got to expect some kind of backlash.
Oftentimes when we make something we think it’s rubbish. We think no one will like us, and worse, that it’ll turn away those who do like us. When you put out an edgy piece of content, a daring new book, or really anything else that could rub people the wrong way you’ve got to expect some kind of backlash.
It's Often Not as Bad as it Looks Tremors turned into a surprise hit, gaining cult-like status, even though it didn’t do too well at first. Some things take months or years to take off. The most popular article I’ve written on this site is about the Blackfeet Indians, something I wrote rather offhandedly back in March.
You never really know what’s going to work and what’s not. Those things you think will piss off everyone often aren’t noticed by anyone. And those things you thought would be a hit can turn out to be a big miss. Sometimes you just have to have confidence that you can continue on the way you are, no matter what the odds.
You never really know what’s going to work and what’s not. Those things you think will piss off everyone often aren’t noticed by anyone. And those things you thought would be a hit can turn out to be a big miss. Sometimes you just have to have confidence that you can continue on the way you are, no matter what the odds.
Bloody Hell! Where’s My Footloose, Pal?
Sorry.
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