Hyperbole and a Half

You need to know your audience. You need to think of ways it could go wrong. This means researching if it sounds or looks like something offensive. Sexual, political, racist, swear words, unpleasant associations, etc.

But there is plenty of marketing that hinges on there being an acceptable sexy interpretation of a name or catch phrase -- hot and ready pizza, Easy Stripper paint removal product -- so it isn't even as simple as "Just make sure it can't possibly be interpreted as sexual."

Different people approach this space differently. I like casually collecting stories or examples of successes that break the mold. Questionable Content has a .net name and as far as I know is the best monetized webcomic on the planet, or was at one time. Hyperbole And A Half uses blogspot and has no TLD. She just uses the blogspot url.

https://questionablecontent.net/

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

Aflac is not the actual name of the Fortune 500 insurance company best known by that name. Their legal name is still American Family Life Assurance Company. They originally incorporated as American Family Life Insurance Company. Internal tales from when I worked there indicated that they lost the original name in "a gentleman's coin toss" between two CEOs because there was another company in another state with the same name and it had to be settled somehow.

They had low name recognition for an industry that already lacks sizzle and tends towards poor name recognition and thought about…

I'm torn between wanting to close this tab immediately before I get irrationally furious at people who probably mean well, and wanting to battle this out with every comment like yours in the small hope that it changes at least one person's attitude towards depression.

> The parent comment is suggesting that people with depression need to take control of their own life by recognizing what makes them unhappy in order to overcome it.

Your comment is suggesting that depression -- clinical depression, not, "boo hoo things are tough right now and I'm unhappy" -- is the depressed person's own fault and all they need to do is change everything in their life until they're happy.

It's really wrong.

When you learn to levitate by taking control of your own life and recognizing what makes you happy, then you will have something to teach people who suffer from depression. Until then, I beg that you do more reading on the subject, and I'm happy to offer some of the material that I've found most useful.

It's somewhat unfortunate that Allie Brosh's most famous work ended up being about her depression, but: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html -- when she published this, people struggling with depression suddenly appeared out of nowhere and said, "YES, yes, this is it exactly!" It's a great and easy primer into the depressed mindset.

She wrote a part two: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

Then watch this video:…

I suffered from a major depression some years ago, and with "major" I mean a condition where I used to have panic attacks everytime I left my house. It was painful and took me a very long time (2 years in the middle of my twenties), but in the end I made it.

Some random advices based on my own experience that helped me feel better and bow out of depression (please consider that I am not a doctor):

0) You are not alone, so you don't have to feel alone; talk to people that you won't feel judged by (the internet is great for this, and so are the therapists) and spit out everything

1) As you pointed out, medications can alter somehow your ability to focus, particularly on the first days. I lived my depression as a condition where I hadn't really too much control over myself, so I decided not to take any med because I didn't want them to take control over myself: you probably want to do the same

2) Day by day, write down simple todo lists, and try to complete all items. These lists will help you distinguishing days by their completed items and reacquire the awareness of time. Additionally, there is always a little bit of satisfaction in completing things you were supposed to complete, and we all need that!

3) Your job pays your bills, work hard but don't forget that you're only in it for the money, your life is something else, somewhere else

4) When you feel you're at the lowest mood, don't question if you deserve to be alive or not, rather smile and think that one day you…

"Writing is inherently about its author, and is a product of their personality and opinions – that’s not something to be shy about, and we shouldn’t try to change it either. So, write for yourself – and hold yourself to an appropriate standard, because you’d better believe that others are judging the person as well as the piece – but as soon as you publish your views, you’re inviting readers to take a look."

Matt comes very close to one of my beliefs about writing... Creative writing is a way to give yourself an opportunity to think through an topic or story and give the rest of us an insight into how your mind works. That's the kind of writing I love -- the kind where I can see the gears moving to a certain degree and I know the author is honestly putting an effort into analyzing a subject or putting something difficult into words.

As an example, I think this is why the recent "Hyperbole and a Half" (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html) about Allie's experiences with depression is so valuable and compelling.

And it's why I find listicles and articles that purport to be delivering glorious nuggets of truth from the top of Mount Bullshit to be boring, frustrating, and obnoxious. (If you look at my comment history, you'll probably find a fair amount of bitching about articles that are nothing but (often wrong or over-simplified) conclusions with no evident thought process behind them.)

I think it's actually something that's hard to fake.…

I wanted to add a comment here because I'm seeing a lot of well intentioned but terribly uninformed comments, especially along the lines of "get a new hobby, set some new goals for yourself, do something you love!". If you haven't been through it, it's something that's very difficult to understand. People with depression often suffer from anhedonia. A lot of human drive is set on reward and goals, which is why things like MMOs are appealing and addicting. In addition, in healthy human beings, you get a rush of dopamine upon this kind of reward, so it's perhaps realistic for someone who is just "feeling down in the dumps".

It's not realistic with someone with serious depression and especially with anhedonia. You don't want anything. You don't feel pleasure, you don't feel relief, nothing changes when something "good" happens. Nothing is fun, and you can't even tell if you like something, if you hate it, or if you're neutral. It is the worst sensation imaginable, and hard to explain to someone who has not been through it.

It's easy to see how living life breaks down at this point, and a more immediate and serious solution is needed. You can't just pull yourself up and motivate yourself because nothing means anything anymore.

If you don't have any first hand experience with depression, please check out this comic from Hyperbole and a Half: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

It may seem goofy but it actually helped some family members of…

I've dealt with depression for quite a while now, for a number of reasons ranging from feeling cynical about a few things, girl problems, rejection, all the way to not feeling like I belong in the place I work from not feeling satisfaction in what I'm making, and feeling really limited in the solutions I can bring to my team. Depression has proven to be huge soup of confusion and feelings that are really difficult to sift through and understand.

Hyperbole and a Half couldn't have explained it better:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html

How have I addressed all this junk? I've been seeing an EMDR therapist for about 7-8 months now and simply talking through these issues, asking hard questions, and confronting my feelings with an honest-as-possible lens. Much of it has been tackling shame head-on, walking past it, and acknowledging how much I've grown into a person I'm starting to love more. Part of it is also finding nuggets of a person I once loved being and reclaiming them, challenging myself to love others without restraint, have empathy, and place others before me.

EMDR therapy in particular has been really interesting. While I don't think it's an end-all solution, it has been well researched, and takes talk therapy to a new level. It forces you to process memories as you would while sleeping (specifically, REM sleep), with a hope to reprogram your feelings towards those memories, or scenarios you've created that lead you to…