The (Former) Marketer: B.J. Mendelson

B.J. Mendelson is a former marketer turned humorist. He has contributed to The Huffington Post, CNN, MTV’s O Music Awards, Mashable, Forbes, the Eisner-nominated ComicsAlliance, and other national outlets.

He started his first business at eighteen, operating it out of his dorm room at Alfred State College. The business was called, “Earth’s Temporary Solution” and was a live entertainment business that booked concerts across New York.

In February of 2003, B.J.’s “Universal Break-up Card” was featured on BoingBoing, Fark, GorillaMask, College Humor, and many other websites. This would be the first of a long string of humor columns for B.J. to go viral.

In 2006, after years of getting emails asking how to make stuff “go viral”, B.J. took on clients and made every mistake you can think of when it comes to marketing.

B.J. was also previously a new media director for a television show that aired in forty million homes through ABC affiliates across America, a syndicated college survival columnist with CBS College Sports, and has been quoted and featured in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Psychology Today, Smart Money Magazine, and other national outlets.

His first book, Social Media Is Bullshit will be published by St. Martin’s Press on September 4th, 2012.

 

Turned Humorist: Brandon Mendelson

I grew up in Monroe, New York. My family moved there to get away from the assholes that inhabit Long Island.

The only thing I kept from the Island was my love for the New York Islanders, a team that embodies mediocrity.*

I barely graduated from Monroe-Woodbury Senior High School. I had no commitment to academic success, didn’t want to be there, and hated everyone I went to school with. I did; however, hold the stupid belief that being involved in a ton of extracurriculars would get me into NYU, despite a piss-poor GPA of 77.0

Alfred State was the only college that accepted me, and I didn’t even apply there. My Dad sent them an application after I told him I wasn’t applying elsewhere and that other colleges were “bullshit”.

That was a rare moment between my Dad and I because my parents were not always around. My older sister, Melissa, raised us.

For every good thing Melissa did, my older brother Brad undid. Born dead and later revived through magic, Brad has issues, many of them, including severe OCD.

Brad’s daily routine consists of throwing everything out, putting what’s left away to be thrown out later, going through your stuff, checking the mailbox twenty-seven times, and carrying conversations with himself. If you did anything to disrupt his routine, Brad would get angry, Hulk-angry, so none of us did anything.

Between the MIA parents and Brad, I was functionally retarded until college.

4 Things I Want To Accomplish Before Pulling A Hunter S. Thompson

1. Sleep with Halle Berry. Or Amber Stevens. Or Both … at the same time.

2. Have a book I write reach The New York Times Best Sellers List.

3. Make enough “Fuck You Money” where I can donate the excess to supporting public education. Why? Because I’m tired of talking to people who sound like they’re from “The Jersey Shore”.

4. With my stand-up career, I’m shooting to land between a Hicks or a Carlin in terms of success, but I’ll be happy landing above a Mencia or a Dunham.

After that? Someone’s wiping my brains off a cabinet!

Post-College Dickery

I graduated from SUNY Potsdam in December of 2006 with a useless degree in Political Science. In my transition from undergraduate to graduate student, I worked for a syndicated ABC television show and CBS College Sports’s U-Wire division.

Not a great combination.

In addition to doing a weekly “college survival” column that was syndicated to the over 800 college newspapers, U-Wire consisted of sitting for six hours each day tagging hundreds of stories from college papers across America. It sucked, but it was also the perfect job because I barely had co-workers and you could watch all the porn you wanted.

Telecommuting is awesome!

The TV show? It’s something to forget, but hey, it got me in IMDB!

Between the insane workload of these two jobs, and running my own business, I left SUNY Potsdam’s graduate program in Organizational Leadership with a semester to go.

I also flunked my LSAT. Wait. Flunk is too weak of a word. I bombed my LSAT so hard the walls shook in the scoring center and three law school admissions officers committed suicide in protest.

I avoided the GRE after vowing never to kill again.

Since my job skills consist entirely of “writing” and “talking”, I decided to continue with graduate school elsewhere.

Faced with limited alternatives, admissions offices like their useless test scores, I went to UAlbany to work toward a Ph.D. in American History.

I probably won’t finish that degree**. Why? Let’s just say I’m more likely to become a stripper at Score’s than a tenured professor somewhere.

After leaving UAlbany, my wife and I traveled across America to promote the early detection and prevention of breast cancer for a small not-for-profit.

Halfway through the tour, our car died in Las Vegas. You can insert your own “I guess they weren’t lucky in Vegas” joke here.

After a year off, I organized and operated a similar tour for another not-for-profit. This time, nothing died.

Because of my experience with these and other not-for-profit organizations, I have sworn off all future charitable activities.

That is, unless you ask me to come to your house and play “Homeless Santa”. As a former mall Santa, I’ll be happy to defecate on your lawn and send your children a chilling message about their future as a college graduate.

In February 2011, I sold my first book to St. Martin’s Press. I’d like to think it was because I’m a good writer and have something interesting to say, but it could have very well been because I have over a half million people following me on Twitter.

How’d I get that many followers?

I killed a guy.

What Am I Doing Now?

Dying a slow, boring, death in Glens Falls, New York while waiting for my book to be published.

I’ve also taken up praying, but not to God.

He doesn’t exist.

I pray to George Carlin whenever I feel like it. That seems like a schedule he’d endorse.

What am I praying for? For my first book to sell a million copies. How do you think I’m going to make my “Fuck You Money”? I ain’t writing another one.

 

 

*I fucking hate the Islanders.

**I’m going to finish my Ph.D. in American History. Its the first thing I plan to do with my “Fuck You Money”. The second? Buy The Islanders and rename them “The Skating Dicks”.