In 2016 - when, with the help of Lynda - I bought the Obaranda dot com domain and started publishing comics, I was running an experiment with a basic premise: that it was possible to go viral on the internet if you know how to. The experiment had three(also simple) requirements:
Go viral
Do it again
Make it a brand.
Obaranda, along with the now-defunct Paddican Pages were two experiments with the same objective, but Obaranda was obviously the more interesting/successful one. I did no innovation on either: with Obaranda I was mostly emulating the art styles of cartoonists I admired, right down to their posting schedule(‘new comics, every Sunday!’). The truly unique thing about Obaranda was, of course, the gags.
As it got popular, I became fixated on defining it(premature optimization?), and settled for the copout of a vague tag-line:‘the Nigerian condition, illustrated.’ That was a mistake, in hindsight, because it severely limited me. My intentions were noble: I did not want to make yet another comic strip for the internet, so I needed a way to remind myself not to settle for cheap Western gags, but ultimately I just couldn’t sustainably hack a‘Nigerian’ stream of inspiration. Most gags landed, but the ones that didn’t bothered me inordinately because they were the interesting experiments. They were the spy ships I was using to figure out better ways to make comics, and they performed poorly that the only logical thing to do was to stick with what the audience was familiar with/apparently wanted.
Were I a wiser man, I’d have done exactly that. After all, to some degree, I had done all three on the checklist: Obaranda had gone viral, and continued to do so. It got me a modest number of press mentions, and it had become a‘brand’(‘what is Obaranda?’)
But no one has ever accused me of wisdom, so I found myself wrestling with what Obaranda was trying to define itself as under my nose. It also didn’t help that at this time Obaranda was getting me illustration gigs with a few establishments, and that I despised every single one of these contracts. It looked like people saw Obaranda do something vaguely interesting, then commissioned me to do the most brain-dead thing. I blamed Obaranda for it. It had obviously become too mainstream/generic, and as such I was not being engaged satisfactorily.
(Aside, these reflect my thinking at the time I thought them, and most of these thoughts are inaccurate/dated compared to the sort of person I am today. I just thought it would be interesting for you to follow my train of thought from back then to now.)
Soon I got so disillusioned that not even creating a Patreon and being paid to make comics gave me the ginger. Like the Levite’s wife in the book of Judges(bad simile, I am sorry!), Obaranda crawled tediously until it eventually just…died.
Parse. Error. Reset.
When you get down to the basics, this is all one grand conspiracy of foolishness. In 2016, I was not looking to‘make’ Obaranda. I was looking to brag that I could make shit go viral, proof that I’m a‘cool’ digital marketing guy.
I quickly outgrew that mentality, which means that almost after Obaranda started doing its thing, I’d already tired of it. I was seeking a better challenge - which is why Obaranda never ever pleased me. I felt like it could do better.
I have thought a little bit about the problem here, and here are the major ones:
Obaranda was too‘tiny’ and unambitious to truly hold my attention/ambitions for very long.
This lack of ambition made me chafe at the bit whenever I wanted to do something intense but ultimately rewarding(to me).
Obaranda needs to pay for itself so I never have to do commissions ever again. In fact, as the jargon goes, Obaranda paying for itself will be its new Northstar metric. Not virality.
Having scrubbed through everything I’ve done on the platform so far and come up with nothing but mistake after naive mistake, I’m about to reset and reboot Obaranda. This is the plan for Obaranda 2.0, if you will:
Obaranda 2.0
Obaranda is a visual novelty store that lives on the internet and caters to Nigerians. What does it mean? It will appeal to(young) people who want to step into a world that is so niche(and as a result, cultish) and come away feeling slightly different from everyone else.
It is premium mediocre, in that it creates content for everyone, but pretends only some people would get it.
To explain it more tangibly, it is an online novelty/gift store hiding behind content. It will create books, gift cards, clothing items, souvenirs and other paraphernalia that‘brands’ people, but it wouldn’t do it in the way that regular stores do it. Because although Obaranda is a store, the store is the justification for Obaranda.
Taking a leaf from The Nib(interestingly, The Nib is what I wanted Obaranda to become but I didn’t have the range - still don’t but now I am going to hack it), it will meddle in current affairs and create worlds that people can get lost in. It will be a creative depot where the curious can stop by and find themselves greeted(in the back) by a store. It is like Sam Logan’s website, but worse. Much, much worse.
It will live in the following assets:
Web and mobile apps(which I will begin building presently)
Social + newsletter
Print
Merch(books, hoodies, all that diabolical stuff - handled through partners)
Themed parties(cosplay, but worse. Much, much worse.)
If it looks like a lot of work, that’s because it will be. I will recruit people to handle things, partner with others and generally make sure that Obaranda just churns out creative assets.
Intro
Parse. Error. Reset.