I've been shooting B-Roll footage for non-narrative relaxation content such as ASMR & meditative nature sounds, or ambient background video since at least 2016. But this sort of content just didn't mesh with my main channel. So, something that was on my mind for a long time was creating a new channel & brand specifically JUST for that kind of content since not everyone whom follows my main work & content doesn't care for that but it's still a significant niche and growing.

I'd been working on this concept since at least 2018 (in my head), but never got around to it. Most of my old content was lost due to yet ANOTHER hacking attack. and I was without a computer for almost a year as my old hard drives are still trying to do data recovery.

So, I came up with my branding concepts. The channel brand is called "Oppressed By Purple" which is sort of my marketing version of styles like "Urban Decay" or "Liquid Death". I just wanted a more secular brand that anyone could still enjoy even if they are "spiritual" but nothing pushed onto you. You could come with whatever you like and take whatever you needed from the content. I make no claims of "chakra alignment" or "vibes" at all. You can just play the content in the background and it means whatever you want it to. This sort of niche content is specifically made to be unimportant and to be played in the background if you want to study, relax, meditate, chill out, work, or whatever.

I just wanted my content to have a branding tho, even tho I'm not selling anything. So, I wanted a spoiled, lazy, pampered, tuxedo cat to be the mascot/logo of the brand. We live in a world where relaxation and rest is seen as bad, or only for the wealthy as we live in a world of inequality. I also just really get a kick out of cat memes, and weird Zen (Chan) stories that are very "Opposite Land"-ish. Like up is down, and black is white. (Zen -being a popular search result for relaxation content on YouTube) Zen, itself, is often times quite different than what people "think" or assume it is. I've been to a number of "Zen" meditation meet-ups at UMASS Boston, which includes chanting creepy sounding stuff, because "Zen" has a sense of humor, or does it?

If you've ever purchased products by "Urban Decay" much of the packaging is gorgeous and the products are very nicely created, but the names of the products are often creepy & disturbing sounding. Why would you name your products that? But, that's the angle tho. Because the quality of the products are so nice it gives them this extra sense of "Oh! I shouldn't want this! But I want it so bad!" Or "Liquid Death" using "death metal" as  marketing for Austrian mountain water in a can to "murder your thirst", because its shocking to old fogies. It's a cheeky humor.

Much of marketing uses weird subliminal messaging or framing anyways. So, the tuxedo cat character, Lila, lets the viewer know that its OK to relax, but it also is meant to stand out slightly. The typical motifs associated with relaxation, meditation, or ASMR are the typical yoga or nature vibes, or lotus, or chakras. And there's nothing wrong with that. I still like those, but its a dime a dozen.

Cats are very self indulgent, they do what they want, and are very unapologetic about it. I recall a number of instances when Alan Watts was told he was doing "Za Zen" incorrectly and his response was always some various line about cats doing whatever they want, whenever they want to, which was pretty clever. Alan Watts is always very interesting as a person because he can talk 1 way in 1 lecture, and another in a different lecture, and despite how intelligent & knowledgeable he was, he was also an alcoholic & a dead beat dad. And, yet, I still enjoy listening to him talk.

So, here I have a spoiled, lazy, pampered, luxurious, tuxedo cat named Lila (which means "Purple" in German). Purple, which is my favorite color has often been associated with "spirituality" but also "avarice". The dye & processing for purple known as "Tyrian" was very expensive, labor intensive, (incredibly stinky to produce) and rare since ancient times until the Industrial Age in which we figured out how to create synthetic purple dyes. Before, only the wealthy could afford "purple cloth" or the Clergy. To this day Purple is still a very difficult color pigment and dye to formulate. There's even some discrepancy as to whether its even a real color or flaw in how the human eyes/brain sees colors.

In many memes of lazy, spoiled cats, which I find very humorous & amusing, something I recall in my head is of women in NJ saying was "Oh, I'm so oppressed by my luxurious life! It's hard being such a beautiful cat! You may worship me now..." as a kind of joke about the cat enjoying their leisure, when I was a kid.

Being human, it's normal for people to love cats. They're very easy on the eyes, pleasing to look at, and often very cute with big personalities.

Despite so much thought put into the Cat Concept for the Channel branding, its still meant as an afterthought, or isn't that important. It's only there for a brief instant. Then, you can enjoy the content and move on with your day. It's importance is that its unimportant. Just something in the background.

The coloring & painting for the main graphics was done using: Krita, Clip Studio Paint, and Photoshop. The Motion Graphics animation was done in After Effects.

Here's an example of the 1st video which is the main content style. No narrative style videos. It's only subjective art. It's similar in some ways to Andy Warhol's 1964 film "Empire" which was just a film of the Empire State Building shot as a still shot all day. It was projected onto a wall when it premiered, and people just hung out & chatted as it played all day.

Film & Cinema isn't necessarily meant to be narrative or tell stories. Which is part of the reason I had to make a separate channel for this content. Since the beginning of cinema it wasn't anything like what we think of it today. ASMR, "Nature Sounds", Meditative Videos, and even LoFi content is meant as a background format, often in long form. It means nothing unless you want it to mean something. No objective. Just subjective.

Here's my original pencil sketch cartoon on paper.