What the hell is wrong with your face?

The title of this post is a reference to the single most stupid recurring comment I get on my YouTube videos.  The Mr Angry mask seems to really confound some people.  Some people really can’t work out what it is (I’m consistently surprised by how many people think it’s makeup or the markings are drawn directly onto my face) and others can’t wrap their head around why I would wear a mask.

Before I started this blog I made the decision to keep it anonymous (as much as possible).  The IT job market in Melbourne (where I work) is small, conservative and gossipy.  I planned from start to write some fairly outrageous stuff and I figured some people might have trouble separating the character of Mr Angry from the “real” me.

That, and I thought people wouldn’t want to talk to me if they thought they might end up as blog fodder.  And who could blame them?

So it was simpler all around to blog anonymously.  That worked well for a few months then I decided to complicate things by broadening the world of Mr Angry to encompass YouTube.  When I was thinking about how to preserve some level of anonymity while making videos I went back for my college days.

I actually did a theatre degree back in the day (a few more years ago than I care to admit) which covered training in a range of performance styles including traditional Medieval mask work AKA Commedia dell’arte.  While I was in one traditional play, a piece that always stayed with me was one done by another group where they used cheap plastic store-bought masks.  Cutting the lower jaw out of these masks shows the actors’ real mouths and has the effect of making something completely inanimate look incredibly alive.

And so Mr Angry was born.  A cheap translucent mask (the visage is based on the actor Clark Gable for the trivia minded) has the jaw cut out and some angry lines drawn on.  And the rest is some rather confusing history.

All of which is a slightly drawn out way of saying things are changing.  When I organised a gathering for YouTube users in Melbourne I knew my cover would be blown.  I had no intention of wearing the mask to a public gathering and so I knew there would end up being a lot of videos of me without a mask (although not as many as I expected – it seemed like there were only about 20 cameras at the gathering and I thought there would be closer to 100).

So, seeing as I was effectively unmasked I thought I’d make a “coming out” video.  This was an explanation to any longer term viewers who didn’t know my back story as well as an introduction to the thousand or so new subscribers that came my way courtesy of Mr Safety.

Who knows, even the old hands at this blog might learn something new.

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