This may very well be the first blog post that is being intentionally written based on a private Snapchat story.
But that makes this post even more unique and interesting. As I believe that the purpose of the Crisis evolved to something bigger than what you or I could possibly have envisioned.
The Daily Mental Crisis was originally created in September of 2022 and was designed to be “semi-private”. I.e. the invite would be publicly available for 24 hours, people would join, then it would be “locked” to only those who got in.
Originally, there were 5 viewers. All were from a specific social group and from another region of the United States. The poor souls had to see the experimental phase as I determined what was amusing or not.
Now, only 2 of the original 5 are still in my social sphere to this day.
Of course, more people joined over time from other walks of life; and it essentially became the place to be to hear unhinged thoughts or ideas that didn’t quite make it to ZachsThoughts.
Around this time, I began experimenting with “short-form” media content in a way that I call “memes”. They were created using Bandicam screen recordings, followed by captions placed with ClipChamp or Premiere Pro with a hastily-written “watermark”, then published to the Crisis.
They started out “innocently” enough, but they quickly devolved into sometimes-concerning clips or scenarios.
Here are some Google Drive links to a selected assortment of “memes”. Please be advised of potentially dark/disturbing content.
This was the type of thing that was posted onto the Crisis. Why anyone chose (and chooses) to remain on there is anyone’s guess.
Now, the Crisis is still there. Both for meme distribution, but also for the more quirky things that come about in my life. Like me accidentally starting a conversation with AU’s President. Whoopsie! There are 17 people with access to it, down from our “all-time high” of 28.
I did think about adding a textual component to the Crisis in the form of a Substack column, (I control dailymentalcrisis.substack.com now) but I decided against it still that goes against the original point of the Crisis — to be quick and efficient about my time while also sharing something whimsical.
I suppose looking back, the Daily Mental Crisis is just another avenue of ZachsThoughts. Just one that is more intimate and a testing ground before going all out.
So who’s to say I am not a multi-medium content creator!
-z.a.
P.S. If you want, this neat little poll will help me out! (Completely anonymous, of course.)