Tuesday Debate: Should We Write More Articles About Aerosmith?

By Glenn and Jake

One Year in Texas was created with a singular goal: be the best Aerosmith fan site on the internet. Over the last months we have certainly lost sights on our goal. You probably see it not just in the distinct lack of Aerosmith-related articles on the site, but the general abandonment of our previous "Livin' on the Edge" mentality. In this week's debate, Jake and Glenn discuss whether a return to roots is necessary for OYIT to flourish or if we're just "Crazy" for dreaming about reliving past glories.


Glenn (Pro): OYIT set the world on fire when we debuted last January, featuring at least three articles explicitly about the band Aerosmith and several more dealing with Aerosmith-related issues. I don't want to compare us to the Strokes, but this was our "Is This It." Jake's diatribe against "Dude Looks Like a Lady" was our "Someday." My article about Alicia Silverstone in an Aerosmith video was "Hard to Explain." Finally, the interview with "Aerosmith's #1 Fan" was our "Last Night," as it stormed the modern rock charts and took the direction of modern blogs in a completely different direction. But I really don't want to compare us to the Strokes. My point is that we need MORE Aerosmith articles if we're ever going to make any serious money off of this website and attract the legions of fans who left en masse when we published an article full of fish puns.

Jake (Con): Fish puns or not, Aerosmith is not the solution to our problems. That may not be 100% true, as Aerosmith has helped me with several problems in the past due to their ability to deal with life's problems delicately in their lyrics, such as drug addiction, murder, abuse, looking like a lady, yet being a dude and where the best place is to live. What I'm trying to say is that this particular problem, the problem of nobody reading our site because of the lack of Aerosmith articles, is completely founded in fantasy. Since our last article on Aerosmith (1/08/09) our site has gone through more ups and downs than a paddleball being held by a seizing epileptic. While Aerosmith, at one time, was our backbone, we have since grown into an "anything goes" buffet of comedic stylings, advice columns and reviews of German cartoons. If anything, we should look to the future, where dudes look like dudes, and ladies look like ladies. Plus, in the future, we don't have articles about Aerosmith. There is no changing the future!

Glenn (Pro): There is no changing the future, but there's also no changing the past. OYIT's past is Aerosmith and where better to take the direction of this website than backwards? Writing Aerosmith articles alone will not be enough to find success, but it's a necessarily first step. Did you know that the Aerosmith online fan community is one of the most active on the internet? Aerosmith is more popular than even some of the hottest searches on Google right now: "pornography," "naked Lindsay Lohan," "AIG" and "blog-based daily weather reports." If we can bring more Aerosmith content back to our website, we can tap into this thriving online community and bring back a huge number of teenage traffic to our website. Advertisers are looking to reach the tween/young teen demographic. Though we currently do have some older teens visiting our site, we need to reach a younger audience if we want to make serious dollars from advertising. Aerosmith is our key to this goal.

Jake (Con): Today's teens are more interested in giving each other oral sex in the back of a school bus than they are in listening to Aerosmith. They'd rather talk about "waxing" their "surfboards" whatever that's supposed to mean. Teens aren't the same as when we were in high school. Our high school was bristling with young adults with "Aerosmith" written in pen on their shoes. Today's teen doesn't even write anything on their shoes, because their parents don't have money to buy them a new pair when that band "sells out." What we need for this website is not more content about bands that went out of style when they recorded a song about the color pink, but rather an edgy look at modern day America. To get this edgy look we'll need to find some edgy writers. The scribe of Ziggy is edgier than any of us. Teens/tweens would rather read about Saddlecreek bands or bracelets that indicate that you performed scat.

Glenn (Pro): Your portrayal of modern teendom is as titillating as it is honest. I withdraw my claim that simply writing about Aerosmith will attract legions of 12-16 year old readers. It won't. What it will do however is attract those reader's parents. If you're 12-16, your parents are probably in the 54-60 age range, and thus were 18-24 when Aerosmith released "Dream On" in 1973. To discover a song and band like that during your formative years means you will cherish them even into middle age AND that you will let your tween/teen children only visit websites that feature Aerosmith content - even if the other content is vile and sophomoric. Jake I want you to remember that although you don't listen to Aerosmith, millions of people do. If even one million of those people were to visit our website, we'd instantly become the most popular comedy blog on the internet besides TownHall.net.

Jake (Con): You're right that I don't listen to Aerosmith, and you're also right that millions of people do. Yet, we should really not consider targeting just Aerosmith fans. There are bands that are much more popular than Aerosmith, yet I don't want to write 10 articles a week about Coldplay or Lady Gaga. I just want to continue writing tv pilots and whatever else I feel like writing during the week. Forgive me for not tying a scarf around a broomstick and dancing around my room lip syncing "Sweet Emotion" like you, Glenn. Even if I wanted to do that, and I don't, I couldn't because Kaleena would make fun of me. Also, I feel that a parent who would let their child read a website just because it has Aerosmith content is a rare breed. I don't think little Joey Kramer would even let his children read a website just because it had an interview with the number one Aerosmith fan if the rest of the content was about watersports and Arby's. Maybe Joey Kramer is a bit overprotective, but some of his kids are lawyers. You can't argue with those results.

Glenn (Pro): I'm glad you've been reading that biography of Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer I gave you for National Aerosmith Day last month. Your perception of Aerosmith's popularity might not be taking into account the new reality of our economic depression. If you're out of work and worried you might not be able to send your teen to college, wouldn't you direct them to a website featuring Aerosmith content instead? Or more realistically: if you have to choose between $150 for a ticket to see Aerosmith at a large arena or $19.95 a month for a paid subscription to OYIT (featuring countless articles on Aerosmith songs, videos and lyrics), wouldn't you choose the cheaper route? We're never going to be as entertaining as an Aerosmith concert - even if I start singing their songs in our long awaited musical podcast. What I'm suggesting is that we be the cost effective alternative.

Jake (Con): What you're describing is some paradise where people try to save money and do what's right for their kids. If that was the case we wouldn't have this awful state of economy or the musical Mama Mia! based on the music of Abba. We're not living in that paradise, and OYIT doesn't have a subscription service because nobody will pay for it because it's on the internet. Unless it's pictures of vaginas nobody will pay for anything on the internet, except 45 year olds, of course. These 45 year olds are the same people who listen to Aerosmith and have teens, but they are also 45 and won't know what their kids are looking at on the internet because they configured the Net Nanny wrong. I say, let's just keep writing whatever we want, which could include Aerosmith articles, positive or negative. Let's not limit our content based on a band that has a song in Armageddon.