An Interview with Mike Parish

In April, Mike Parish released a digital collection of poetry entitled, ‘People Who Don’t Me Think I’m Somebody.’ It’s available for free on the website peoplewhodontknowme.com. The collection is also available as a physical booklet, 50 copies of which will be given away on Goodreads.

In November of 2011, Amanda Chen interviewed Mike Parish about ‘People Who Don’t Know Me Think I’m Somebody.’

Sometimes people think about me as being somebody and sometimes I think about other people as being somebody. I was never on the receiving end of this until recently and now I see that my life is pretty much the same as it was when I was on the non-receiving end of this.

Haha, I like it when people follow me on tumblr but I’ve found that some people just like to troll around on there. Social networking in general may not be for me. I enjoy certain aspects of it but I don’t need to know what someone from my high school is doing. I’d like to meet more new people online.

There’s something really fun about thinking about going viral. I think most people ultimately want to become famous because most people think being famous is great. I certainly do. Certain things probably go viral because they make a large number of people feel the same way about something; the more similar the feeling, the more the information spreads. I think going viral has something to do with connecting people on an objective level.

I think it’s awesome to be recognized for creating something great. I like going on wikipedia and reading about famous authors and inventors and musicians. I like the history behind being famous.

It seems like people who have a use for new technologies will always be the ones who prefer them. I have no use for an iPhone though I certainly think about getting one on a daily basis. I remember we got my dad a palm pilot one year for Christmas and many years later we found it in his room still wrapped in the original bubble wrap under a pile of clothes. New technology only seems useful to the people who actually have a use for it; unfortunately, I have no use for an iPhone.

I think it is difficult but entirely possible to ‘get out there’. So many people are around today saying, “Look at me, look at me, look at me,” and no one seems to want to look at any of them. I know a lot of people who don’t have a use for art. I see them on facebook or in big box stores or standing on street corners or driving their cars next to mine. Not only is it hard to find people who have a use for art, it’s almost impossible to find people who are interested in the exact same type of art that you are or that you like to make. But it is only almost impossible. I think the only advantage that famous writers have over emerging ones is that they’ve been around for a longer amount of time. I think I’ll have some very serious shit going on in ten years.

I’m not really sure. I’ll have to get back to you, haha.

It seems like you’ve got to have an online presence. It seems like you can go far with a well done online presence, like you don’t even need to put out good artwork if you’ve got the right look. Being ‘good looking’ also seems to be a highly successful promotional tool. You don’t even need to be an artist today to be an artist. I’m not sure how artists would be promoted in an ideal world.

I would say I did enjoy life more before the internet. The world was a lot bigger and stranger pre-internet, like at any moment anything could happen. Or maybe that was just because I was a kid. It doesn’t feel like the world is like that anymore. The world seems smaller. If you want to find out something, you go to the internet. The internet has all the answers but it’s not really a place you can go to. I like the idea better of not quite knowing what is out there. I always feel ‘behind’ somehow. It is hard living in a world where you feel like you have to play catchup but you’re not really sure why or what you’re trying to catchup to.

I think in the initial way I was thinking about People it did backfire. I’m not really proactive with getting people interested in my writing. I’m honestly worried about the goodreads giveaway. Perhaps my writing isn’t all that interesting. Though one person really seemed to enjoy People, they sent me an email the day it was put online and that was nice because most of my friends just kind of laughed at People or I didn’t tell them about it or they said, “That was me in that one part,” or “Is this some sort of internet gimmick? I don’t get it.” I seemed to be thinking about a lot of the things in People for a long time and they all just came out in a rush. Something about the experience of writing People felt right. I guess in that sense People didn’t backfire at all.