Two years ago I decided to revisit the Joe Camel advertisements that were ubiquitous during the 90s. I remembered next to nothing about them except for two things:
An image with over 100 anthro camel characters that the teachers would blast onto the projector screen every year during anti-drug week, which I always looked forward to seeing,
And
The distinct feeling that Joe’s wacky-suave cartoon world was the perfect setting for a very interesting story.
I didn’t know the word “dystopian” back in kindergarten, but I knew the exact feeling the ads gave me. The most fun, cool city imaginable… all 100% branded with the logo for some insidious little death sticks. The balance was uncomfortably perfect. But in a rare moment of childhood wisdom, I realized I didn’t have the footing to write such a story. I forgot all about it… or so I thought.
In July 2024 I abruptly remembered the ads existed. I did some Googling… and fell head over heels with the RECURRING 6-CHARACTER CAST that nobody bothered telling me about. There was even a full musical album produced for Joe’s band, which I’m ashamed to say I’ve listened to over 300 times. (Yes, Joe has an official voice, and it’s as butter-smooth as you’d expect.)
As I began adding little smoking camel trinkets amidst my longtime doll collection (Sorry, Kewpie!) I confirmed that tiny me was absolutely onto something. I decided to revive it with my own camelid musicians, including an ultra-cool, ultra-lucky lead singer with the intentionally referential name Smoky Smooth.
For the first half year of the project, I planned that my fictional band The Vice Men would have a musical style blend that was a cross between Linkin Park and soul funk. I had some ideas on how that might be accomplished and was excited to start creating a unique sound for the boys, even if it took months to perfect. Then, out of nowhere in early January 2025, a pop-punk song slowly trickled into my brain while I was out grocery shopping. I had to drop what I was doing and write the lyrics as they came to me so I didn’t forget them. What should have been a 30 minute trip took two hours. A spiritual message from Smoky himself!? Perhaps. Doesn’t matter. No matter where the song came from, it cemented the band’s sound next to bands like Simple Plan and My Chemical Romance—the same genre that defined my teenage years.
Following this musical change may have been a mistake.
Time passed. The Vice Men grew from “Maybe I’ll write a book about ‘em” to “This is a huge multimedia project.” My descent into maintaining an 00’s feel deepened. It was no longer enough for me to compare vintage tobacco ads with modern ads for cannabis and cigarette vending machines with lottery ticket dispensers. I had to start comparing nicotine to social media.
Inner debates about the ethics of platforms like TikTok and SubStack, as well as my return to exploring Hot Topic aesthetics and songwriting, have caused my inner teenager to wake up with a pencil in hand.
Prior to beginning the Smoking Is Cool! project, I already liked having an old-web feel to my internet presence. My main author web page, for example, is hosted on Neocities and uses a responsive template from 2012 that includes a sidebar. For several years I opted for NewGrounds instead of Instagram for my art posting. And there was a brief period where I used an emo pig persona as a mascot for my Facebook page.
What I was feeling during my pig mascot days was nostalgia. Since a lot of my stories involve taking heavy inspiration from things I liked in my childhood, I wanted to create a brand around my books that evoked imagery of the past. The idea was familiarity and memories for my target audience of millennials.
What I’m feeling now is not nostalgia. It’s intense inner chaos. The adult portion of me desperately wants to keep her book business all lined up and perfect. She wants to set aside money for an ISBN number bundle so she can get her book on IngramSpark. She wants to make sure her TikTok, SubStack, and FaceBook pages are updated frequently in case someone influential stumbles on her, and she’s angry that she can’t get herself to post regular videos to gain traction. She wants those metrics. So much to do, no telling what’s priority! GAAH!
But my inner teen has been freeloading in my psyche for half a year, and she’s got her own ideas on what makes a good project. “Where are the games?” she asks as she adds dollmakers and personality quizzes to the website. “You need a visitor counter,” she insists. “Hey, let’s be rock stars, too,” she beams, handing me several new songs for The Vice Men and $300 worth of recording equipment. (Consider this an official announcement that an EP for The Vice Men is, in fact, in progress. WHY ME!?)
This part of my personality is frustrating. She is a whirlwind of ideas and a lot of them are totally out of date. She is, first and foremost, a fan, and that includes of my own work. Maybe it’s because it’s only recently that my productivity has started to pick back up, but I haven’t seen her in nearly two decades. It’s striking how little she’s changed. That might just be a good thing.
The flipside to this issue is I’m still not really getting much traction on my projects, no matter whether that’s Smoking is Cool!, my published book, or anything else I post as Etta Green. I’m starting to suspect the secret ingredient to viral success is smut. But I also think it may be the unprofessional way I’ve been approaching the project, thanks to the kid grabbing the wheel from me. Is there a way to tell which it is? I’m not sure.
In any case, that 00s magic is bound to stick around at least a little while longer, and I intend to use it to create more art and writing, even if it leads to a dead end.