
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

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.

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

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.

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

I mean, how are you not going to watch a group of men do synchronized lawn-mowing?

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

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!

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

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.

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.