TJournal Guest: Duran

An anonymous creative blogger about his history of popularity, VKontakte communities, art and staying incognito

Every week TJournal invites interesting Internet personalities to visit us. This time we talked with Duran, the author of the popular community named after him on VKontakte, about fame and maintaining anonymity, the struggle for format in social networks and art.

How did you come to the point of starting a public page of your name?

Once upon a time I went to the website durov.ru and saw that I was bookmarked by a huge number of people. A number froze on the counter: I thought that this was the maximum indicator, beyond which the system simply does not count. At the same time, I only had 60 people as friends, and there were no subscribers yet - it was probably 2009.

Apparently, people had some kind of need, since they came to my page, but did not add me as a friend.

Did you publish everything on your page then?

Yes. At that time there was still a wall, there was no microblog. I posted, and people copied it to their hard drive and posted it on their own behalf. Thus my pictures diverged.

Everything suited me. True, I have seen my pictures published in large groups without attribution. I asked them to sign with my name, but then few people heard me.

I thought that I should also start a group: let them join it, since they don’t want to be friends. And just as I was thinking about this, public pages appeared. On the first day when this opportunity arose, I made my own public page. At the same time, the situation with my friends and subscribers has not changed dramatically, but the public began to grow.

I suspect that your work began long before VKontakte.

Not really. Initially, what I drew was not very popular and was generally intended for a narrow circle of people: I drew blood, various dismemberments and all that. If I draw something like this now, people might start writing comments (at least when I had comments open) saying, “We need a Captain, someone explain.” And before there were 100% of such pictures, and people didn’t bother at all: they liked the art, the details.

When the reposts appeared, I realized that in order for the pictures to spread far, they should not be downright primitive, but it should be clear what they were about - at first glance. I decided to make them more viral, so, following the changes in VKontakte, I came to the format that exists today.

True, Pavel Durov stopped reporting updates. Previously, there were posts in the spirit of “February 7 updates,” and among the innovations there were often those that indirectly influenced how I do something there.

In short, your format developed in parallel with the microblog format on VKontakte.

Well, yes. Well, including the direction in which Twitter and all these social networks developed.

At the same time, you used different formats before: on Twitter you commented on ongoing live events, and sometimes deleted “unused” tweets.

Previously, I had few followers on Twitter, and it was unclear how to communicate with this audience. I understood that she was different, but how exactly she was different was unclear. Something was posted on VKontakte and had one retweet on Twitter.

While there were few people there, I used Twitter as a testing ground: testing different formats.

And now you use your own page as a testing ground? Do you post some pictures and see if they get likes?

Over time, Twitter gained an impressive audience that had to be reckoned with. It was no longer very fair to test on it. Gradually, everything came to the point that I began to publish the same content on both Twitter and VKontakte.

In fact, the format has not changed, because I have a closed group on VKontakte, in which I test jokes for Twitter, and the best ones go public.

Do you have a closed group?

I created it one night: I wrote on Twitter “Guys, add yourself”, recruited 300 people, and they were all alive. Now there are about twenty people left alive, but by the number of likes and comments I understand which joke will go well and which one is completely incomprehensible. But the audience was taken specifically from Twitter.

That is, she understands the Twitter format well.

Yes. It used to be an open group, but gradually content began to leave it before it got to my public page - someone was stealing it.

How do you feel about those who steal, despite copyright and recognition?

Recognition is quite weak, to be honest. If they show me a picture and tell me that I drew it three years ago, I’ll probably believe it. I can't recognize myself.

Some say I have style. I just draw in what I think is the best way for the given occasion.

As for signatures, most often they spoil the picture. If it is noticeable in the picture, then from the upper left corner you need to look at the lower corner... Lately I have hardly used it. But if the photo is from Photoshop, then it is not so noticeable and does not spoil it.

Doesn't it bother you that you're giving away some of your popularity to parasites?

What can I do?

Well, shame them.

This doesn't work. The so-called “professionals” do not know any other way. Should they post it themselves? Each picture, in an amicable way, has an author, but they won’t rummage through the Internet and look for it. They take pictures from other public pages, and those from still others.

Do you know any administrators of large communities? Is it possible to somehow come to an agreement with them?

They haven’t taken large ones for a long time, just gigantic ones. Or they take it, but mark it, but without an active link.

Why are your comments disabled? Do you want to communicate with readers?

Even when they were open, I didn't interact much. They were open so that a person who had once liked a post would see new comments in his notifications and return to the community again.

Another viral component?

Well, yes.

What about feedback through comments?

The only feedback that could be useful to me was if I made a typo somewhere or some error occurred. I'm trying to be more attentive.

In terms of content, don’t you focus on the opinions of readers?

How can it influence? Will they say, “Let’s get more pictures about this”?

For example, if someone didn’t understand a subtle joke and you see that you need to write more clearly.

If you evaluate on this scale, then this is very evident from the likes and reposts. Some specialized posts, for example, aimed at the audience of the series “Hannibal,” have few likes, but many reposts—almost the same numbers. If the joke does not require additional knowledge, then there will be few reposts and some average number of likes. If the joke is bad, there are few reposts and few likes.

You also have other communities like “Catch”, where you publish completely different content.

There are one-joke publics, where the same type of jokes are played out many times - for example, “parallel lines never intersect,” or “a boa constrictor that ate.” One visit and look is enough to understand what will happen there for the next two years.

In Ulov, I’m not the only admin, so there’s often stuff there that I don’t like, but it adds some variety. I don’t manage it completely, sometimes I even disappear for a couple of weeks.

Are you going with friends?

No, I don't know these people.

Did you just search through the advertisements?

I just saw that they were adequate. If we talk about “Catch”, then there was once a cozy community there, everyone knew each other and met in the comments. Several local memes even appeared there.

One guy wrote, “I saw this somewhere, it’s a boy.” This often happens: you don’t have time for one day, that is, the picture appeared yesterday, and he writes that it’s a boy. I write to him: let me make you an admin, you will publish it. He started posting something, and we wrote to him in the comments, “This is a boy.” This procedure had several iterations, as a result of which the community had several admins who posted quite interesting and rare content.

Is the content from “Catch” distributed to other public pages or do you use it as your own collection?

I see that in communities whose admins are subscribed to Ulov, many things begin to appear much earlier. But I can’t say this with confidence, because the “Catch” only includes what we see in our news feeds.

Do you consume everything from your VKontakte feed?

Yes, I don’t hang out in many places, so I try to select friends on VKontakte so that there is interesting news.

How did you become such a wild VKontakte apologist?

I liked VKontakte from the very beginning. My first impression is that it’s very strange that people here use their real names.

Have you been under a fictitious one from the very beginning?

No, I had a real page and still do. There are real friends and acquaintances there, but I couldn’t post the content that I produced in 2009. In order not to sadden them, I decided to create another page.

Were you tempted to move to other platforms and gain subscribers there? Google+, Facebook, Odnoklassniki?

No. There’s a different audience on Facebook, and there’s not enough time or desire to study how completely random posts become popular there, and how some popular posts on VKontakte get an average of four reposts. I remember that a picture with a boa constrictor on Facebook received more shares than the number of my subscribers.

Apparently there isn't enough of your content on Facebook?

Maybe. Of course, I could buy reposts and negotiate development...

Buy reposts? For what?

Well, on Facebook I now only have 4 thousand subscribers. This is an audience that will not take off on its own.

But the picture with the boa constrictor took off?

Those who shared it did not convert into subscribers. New ones are gradually coming, but very slowly.

On the wave of popularity, the VKontakte administration contacted you: you’re cool, let’s promote you?

I’ve been promoting for quite a long time: I hang out in recommended communities, and people still come from there. For those who are not subscribed to any community, various pages are offered, and randomly I appear there. But that's 3% of my audience, as far as I remember. Two thirds come from reposts.

Are any famous people following you?

I remember a case when Mikhail Galustyan asked his Twitter readers who they could follow, and someone recommended me. He subscribed and I forgot about it: I had a strange week, the posts were tricky, incomprehensible - either I was not in the mood, or something else.

- How do you have 5 thousand friends in contact? Are you a whore or, excuse me, a photographer?

— Duran (@userdie) February 17, 2014

A week later I went to his profile and saw that he had unsubscribed.

How are things going with advertising?

If you want to know about the cost of advertising, it is open - you can look at the VKontakte exchange.

Well, you not only take orders from the exchange, you have had custom publications in collaboration with brands.

I am very flattered that most of those to whom I advertise come back more than once or twice and order something new. This means my advertising is working.

Is there anyone you don't work with on principle?

With sellers of all kinds of cases and iPhones, with online stores - only if they are not those with whom I have been cooperating for a long time. Of course, I’m not beating myself in the chest, saying that my pictures will blow up the Internet, but customers see that my content works.

How many people even know who you really are? How do you maintain anonymity?

I am not threatening them in any way: “If you tell me that I am Duran, I will publish scans of your tests from the hospital.” My anonymity fits naturally into the worldview of many people.

I can’t imagine who might need to tell that Duran is this man. Even if someone tells me this, it will only play into my hands - new traffic will come to me.

If the platform from which the story is told is small, it simply will not be interesting to anyone.

Do you really think that no one is interested in this?

Never thought about it. This doesn't happen. This is how the world works.

When few people knew me, there was no need to somehow filter the content so as not to scare away advertisers. If I now start promoting some unhealthy lifestyle or hatred towards some sections of society, or write about politics, this, of course, will reduce the number of requests for content processing. Therefore, now the public has become very kind, but without losing its sharpness and relevance.

Is there a need to express some radical thoughts?

I can say that I still have content that I haven't published because it can have a very drastic effect on my image. There are a lot of ideas: if I don’t draw one, I’ll draw another.

Have you ever had the feeling that you don't fully own Duran, given what's been going on with VKontakte lately?

There is such a feeling, but it is impossible to transfer the VKontakte audience 100% somewhere. I have a website that contains all the pictures, and if at one moment, as it’s called, Rospotrebnadzor...

Roskomnadzor.

...Roskomnadzor will block everything, I have a saved copy. After all, there is Twitter, Facebook, Leprosy: the pictures have taken root and spread quite far.

But you may lose your influence. Are you trying to diversify your risks?

They are already quite diversified.

What three sites do you start your day with?

I usually read news on Lenta.ru. The second site is probably “Leper Colony” - I go there often.

Are you sitting there under your own name?

Under Durant. One of my VKontakte friends asked why I wasn’t on Lepre and sent me an invite. Since then I left 538 comments, but I only post my pictures there.

Well, the third site is IMDB. I used to watch several films a day and often read the descriptions of them, read the entire card about the film, which actors were in it, interesting details. Now it’s good if I can watch one movie in a week. No time.

The Holy Trinity

Sites where Durant starts every morning

"Lenta.ru", online media

“Leprosarium”, closed collective blogs

IMDB.com, database of films and TV series

#Interview #Pavel_Durov #VKontakte #advertising #Guest_TJournal #SMM #Birzha_VKontakte #anonymity #bloggers #blogger_Duran #Duran_Duran #durov_com