The Battle of Joji and Frank
The Battle of Joji and Frank
Who is George Miller?
The musician Joji aka George Miller is an R&B artist who has been active since 2014 but just recently has come into the limelight as a serious musician, but George has been an enigma of other sorts for much longer.
Youtube Career
George Miller was the creative mind behind the YouTube channels DizastaMusic, TVFilthyFrank, and TooDamnFilthy. During his extensive YouTube career, which started way back in 2008 with his first post on DizastaMusic, George became known as the "anti-vlogger" and created the character Filthy Frank as well as a whole cast of supporting characters in his multiverse story that he had created. The world that George had created and explored through became quite expansive with a greater narrative beyond the main focus of individual videos, and fans of Filthy Frank loved it. Unfortunately, the offensive and unapologetic nature of the character Filthy Frank was offensive to many (shocker!) and George abandoned his original channel DizastaMusic for fear of the whole thing being taken down if videos continued to be posted there. His content migrated to TVFilthyFrank and TooDamnFilthy (for the content that was just too damn filthy for the main channel).
A basic taste of Filthy Frank content |
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Music Career
While all this was going on, George had been experimenting with music under the name Pink Guy. Pink Guy appeared alongside Filthy Frank and George's other characters, most of which were played by George himself. The music that Pink Guy made was just as offensive as Filthy Frank, if not more so, often rap-based with an air of sarcastic offensive humor. Pink Guy was George's musical outlet for a while and a perfect brand extension for the Filthy Frank brand, but the fans had come to expect offensive content filled with jokes and cancerous humor. As he got older, George needed a place to be more serious. In 2014 George announced a Joji album but canceled the project until later in 2015 two singles were released titled "Thom" and "you suck charlie" under an alias, but fans quickly linked the music to George. Soon after, George announced on his public Instagram his first full-length album as Joji which was to be titled "Chloe Burbank: Vol. 1" and also linked his SoundCloud. Many fans of Filthy Frank were confused, as Joji and Pink Guy are about as different in content as it can get, but other's like myself were completely on board and the projects were separate so fans of Filthy Frank did not ever have to listen to Joji and vice-versa.
Pink Guy (WARNING: Offensive) | Joji (WARNING: Emotional) |
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The Death of Frank
For several years George was able to support himself monetarily using YouTube and Filthy Frank, while simultaneously networking and growing his passion project Joji. Unfortunately, even an entity as powerful as Francis of the Filth could not keep up with the workload. This was beginning to have an effect on George's quality of work on both YouTube and Joji. George had to make a decision between chasing his musical vision or staying on YouTube as a well-established prince of memes. I would wager that the impact that being Filthy Frank was having on George's health was a big factor in him bidding his channel TVFilthyFrank goodbye with a final post titled "FRANCIS OF THE FILTH (OUT NOW)" in which he announced the release of a book tying up loose ends in the Omniverse story that Filthy Frank had created. So, even though after years of building his audience, his brand, and his story, George Miller knew it was time to say goodbye to that part of his life and let go of the content that supported him until Joji could stand on its own.TVFilthyFrank's final video (as of 10/21/2018) |
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The Takeaway
Why did you show me all this?
Because I miss Dade, and also because I feel like there are a few examples of good marketing in how George grew his channel and killed his channel when he had truly built his new brand.Transparency
When George's fans on YouTube first discovered that George was making serious music on the side most were confused, intrigued, and surprised. They didn't know why they didn't know about this, and George didn't try and cover it up, he let the cat stay out of the bag and claimed: "yes, that is my cat, and I've got more where that came from."
Brand Extensions
Pink Guy
George wanted to express himself musically and still wanted to maintain a successful channel. To do so, he had to integrate his musical content into his channel. Pink Guy was a perfect avenue to do so and the fans loved it.
Joji
Unfortunately, Pink Guy's style was not completely fulfilling for George. So, instead of going off message, George very clearly kept his creative projects, as well as their personas, quite separate by creating Joji.
Cutting Dead Projects
The way that George handled giving up Filthy Frank to focus on Joji upset a lot of his fans but it just wasn't where George's heart was. I think that George realized that if he didn't chase his passion then he wouldn't be able to maintain the brand proposition that the fans of Filthy Frank had come to expect when he was being pulled in a more serious direction. I also think that George could have been more active in the final months of his YouTube channel, but leaving his loyal fans with his sacred manuscripts detailing the Omniverse that George's stories had created was an excellent way to leave on good terms. Joji has thrived in the months since TVFilthyFrank's last post and I would attribute much of that to George now having the time to dedicate his resources to Joji one hundred percent.
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