Banana Factory: The Groaner Dad Remixes!

Friday’s “Banana Factory” joke just got in my head:

I used to have a job inspecting bananas at the banana factory, but I got fired for throwing out all the bent ones.

So on Monday, it turned into a joke just about saying the phrase “Banana Factory”:

I love to say “banana factory!” Banana factory, banana factory, banana factory! It just sounds vaguely dirty. But they wash them, right?

But it felt like I hadn’t exhausted the banana factory goodness just yet. So I sent Monday’s joke audio to three producers (two found on Fiverr, one on Upwork) to remix it as a musical track. Then when I got them back, I started finding stock footage and AI clips about bananas to help make music videos.

Here we are and here are the videos.

Banana Factory Remix #1:

Banana Factory Remix #2:

Banana Factory Remix #3:

As for the future of Groaner Dad… I’ve been having fun with it, but the purpose was to build an audience I could leverage for traffic when I launched some other projects. I’ve been reading How to Grow on YouTube by Stanley Orchard. He’s been making video content for over 7 years and was a brand ambassador with TubeBuddy, working with creators for nearly 6 years. According to him and a few others who back him up, I got two things wrong.

1. I NEED MORE THAN ONE CHANNEL: You can do shorts and longform content in the same channel, but they REALLY need to jibe. Dad joke shorts and vampire novel podcasts do not belong in the same channel. Part of the YT algorithm is how many people interact with your content. Dad joke subscribers aren’t likely to interact with an audiobook of a novel. And because a big chunk of my regular shorts audience might not go for the long form content, the algorithm will end up punishing the long-form content. Therefore my channels are like proton packs: I shouldn’t cross the content streams.

2. IF THE CHANNELS ARE DIFFERENT, THEIR AUDIENCES WILL BE TOO: I was hoping that the Groaner Dad audience would convert into an audience for the Hell on $5 a Day podcast. The Groaner Dad channel was meant as a way for me to start building an audience while getting in the habit of posting daily content again, but also to have a base audience to convert for the podcast. Stanley makes a pretty compelling case for my joke shorts audience not having a ton of overlap with the long-form novel podcast audience.

The problem is that Groaner Dad takes time to record, assemble, post, tag, and promote the videos. It’s fun and I enjoy it, but that time was justified by the idea that it would help me launch the podcast to a larger audience. Now that I understand it needs to be its own thing and not a lead in to the podcast, I’m going to take a hiatus for a couple of weeks and decide if I can justify the time for it when it has to be worthwhile in and of itself. I want to make videos and have fun, but I also have to write a BUNCH of stuff and still have goals to become better at drawing and songwriting/production, and I don’t want to spread myself too thin.

Hell on $5 a Day has gone from a novel I started in college to an 11-book series I hope to have completed before my birthday in 2038 (basically 9.8 more novels in 13.3 more years). The podcast/channel is not only a way to build the fan base, but engage with them, and to really stretch myself creatively as a voice actor, writer, and producer. There will be produced podcasts of the chapters of each book, some livestreaming to talk about the books, the characters, and my processes for making all of it.

That and some webtoons are my goals before I die of old age and stress. Wish me luck!