Target Audience

If I was dishonest, I probably wouldn’t be talking about this.

For a normal theatre, it is not a subject. As Altair‘s ambition is to appeal to young people, this is starting to become a topic. There is a novelty, which should attract a much younger audience – and above all one that is completely removed from the theatres: the different virtual reality experiences. This will allow anyone looking for ultra-strong experiences to have a lot of fun: in the theatre, or at home, with VR equipment. That’s a pretty good point for Altair. I guess. As Altair will be a theatre with two sides, one real and one virtual: Altair Twin, it even becomes complex.

It is of course the Altair Twin side that is thorny.

Currently, Altair’s Business Plan is being finalized. Of course, I can’t do that myself.
We had to work on the Target Audience. We did it. On the Altair Twin side, the faces of my interlocutors …
They asked me if I was sure of myself.
Of course I’m sure.

They asked if there was any way to avoid this. No, there isn’t.

To tell the truth: there may be a way – but I don’t want it.

I could keep my mouth shut on that one.
Or I could only sell the dream, by communicating the numbers of online gamers. That’s dreamy. When I do that, I’m telling the truth.
But I don’t tell the whole truth.

What I wasn’t saying is who this online gaming audience was.
Some of them are very good.
No problem. The vast majority of them are basically very classic, cool & smart & what else ?
And the others. . .

The others are the “bad guys.”

You know, the ones that scare people.
The ones with very, very, very bad reputations.

So, to play it “modern business”, they’re a little spotty.

Yes, but… I have to be serious anyway.

And these creeps, they’re online. They’re even the Internet terror of Unicorns and “Everyone is nice“.

From the moment I pretend to play with internet communities – I need to know where I’m going.
Anyway, I don’t like unicorns.
I don’t like pink either and I’ve never been able to be romantic.

So not only am I not afraid of those creeps – but I like them.

You know, we are more than “me” on Altair’s team.
You may know too that the jobs in the world of entertainment often don’t provide a living… …so, for a few hours a week, I’m also a professor of literature. In the beginning, it was just a way to make money, a little secure. But now I have young people in front of me, and they teach me a lot of things about their world.

THEY are my audience. All those naughty young people.

Jean and Leo have been dragging me to the “nasty forums”. They are young guys who know a lot more on the subject than the ghost captain I’m becoming.
They’re the ones who introduced me to these communities a few years ago.
And all the others, who are or have been my students, were thrilled that I knew a little bit about this universe.

I’m talking about a pretty closed world, actually. They put around them a splendid armour made of insults, sexism, machismo, whatever you want that has a bad reputation.

So yes, I’ve been dragging my old boots around in the badly regarded communities on the net. I have to say that the guys (and girls) of 4Chan have blown my mind several times.
Their flag trick is just amazing.
I have to admit that their humor makes me laugh (my God… forgive me).

And since it made me laugh (but who gave me that awful sense of humor?), and since we’re French, yes we are, I also got into the habit of hanging out on the Forum 18/25. I’m not their age, I don’t participate – but on the other hand, how fresh they are!

Yes, they’re talking nonsense. Yes, they’re making totally lame, sexist jokes and stuff. So do I – I’m sorry. I’m not “well-educated”.
They make things up. They tell stories that are often very funny. They hijack the powerful with stickers that are just huge. It’s not that bad.
Yes, I know, sometimes it’s bad.

Sometimes they do “raids”. Last year, they launched “Free Mr. Cookery” raid. And they succeeded, those …! There was a big promotion for “Mr Cookery” & people wanted to make money from it on online websites. And there was bad luck. The Forum was there. They didn’t even break the prices. They wiped out the prices. So yes, there are people who lost money.

They have Risitas as a hero (the French guys): this guy’s laughter is a hallucination. And his story about work and the frying pan is right?…. but it’s downright surrealist poetry.
And besides it’s funny.

I’m talking about them, because -in France- they scare everyone.

An immense pride of this year’s Forum 18/25 is to have introduced Professor Raoult and his chloroquine. And it’s also true that they’re the ones who “buzzed” his first video on Youtube. I have no idea about this treatment – but what I have seen is that in my country, this story brought the wolves out of the woods. It bled badly and the good guys aren’t so good in the end.

You know what I mean?
It’s all right to make a website.
It’s great to make videos on Youtube.
Or to have a Twitter account, or a Facebook account, or a ? account…

But… it’s no good if it doesn’t buzz. For Altair, we would get the subscribers to the theatre – and we’d be seriously bored.
These young people are playing with the buzz –
In a way, they ‘do’ the internet.
There are commercial companies that spend fortunes because they have discovered the “influencers”. I don’t think they understand who the influencers on the net are.

I want the real influencers. I want…. I’m looking for : that must be a better way to talk.
There are communities like 4Chan in every country. If they don’t like you, you will regret your influence contracts very, very quickly.

Thus, because of them, in my current real theatre (which has had a hard time since the crisis), it was decided to block the internet and comments, even though we’ve launched a whole bunch of openings on the net : You never know.
We could get flooded. You can’t trust these people, haven’t you seen the hatred on the internet? etc.
And as a result, my theatre here … will go from bad to worse.

There’s a proverb in France that says fear doesn’t eliminate danger.

Besides, these “bad geeks” are gamers. So frankly, thinking about Altair Twin without thinking they’ll be welcome there – it’s just offering investors the chance to lose their money by investing in it.

If they’re not welcome, they’ll probably come anyway, and then : top flood in anticipation. At least.
(Isn’t it funny to send a pretentious idiot to do her singing show in a school for the deaf? – She had looked for them, she found them. No, I didn’t think it was funny at all, you think I was outraged. But I laughed anyway. Okay, that’s funny. Well done for the idiot who thinks she’s too cool and too nice – done by 4Chan few years ago).

So, yes, they’ll be welcome. No, I don’t want to restrict access to Altair Twin because there are “bad guys”.

They are a part of the public, who I hope will have fun in Altair Twin. That’s what it’s designed for. We will let the audience speak, and they will put in their bad jokes if they want to – I promise I won’t read them. I won’t laugh either.

I pretend to create a theatre for people.
I’m not here to hand out “good points” of morality, or politics. Forbidding people to exist just makes them stronger. And all that, at best, I’m not interested in. At worst, it pisses me off.
To each his own.
Morals for philosophy and religion.
Politics, for politics.
The living arts in a theatre.

This is my target audience: young people, gamers, internet scammers, geeks, no-life, half-life, bad guys as well as good guys.
I want to seduce them. I – I mean, Altair, not me. I want them to enjoy what we offer.
I know if we put “artists” in their games, they’ll shoot them. Of course they’re going to shoot.

If I manage to make Altair Twin the way I imagine it, then it’s possible that they will all come – and I’ll do everything I can to get them to come.

Then no, I don’t want to avoid them. I want to go after them.

As for the splendid table that summarizes all sorts of audience targets based on Altair’s proposals: it’s on a document called the Business Plan – which I won’t put here.
Everything is listed there – pretty much everything is classic.
But this point deserved some – let’s say – explanations.

That’s it

Was I not supposed to talk about it? I don’t know.
Still: knowing the map you want to play on is necessary to win.

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