Mike Cernovich

Headshots aren’t just for actors and models. If you have a marketing page, online dating profile, or even a social media account, chances are you’ve posted your face online.

Are you putting your best face forward?

Judging by head shots I’ve seen, you’re probably not. And that’s totally cool.

The great thing about the Internet is you can learn anything. There is an expert out there scaling his knowledge to improve your life.

Peter Hurley shows you how to take a proper headshot.

I do not know Peter Hurley, a New York photographer, and he certainly didn’t ask me or pay me to plug him!

When someone does an amazing video adding value to my life, I promote the person’s work. It’s the Law of Attraction.

You really should watch Peter Hurley’s video on headshots and practice in front of a mirror.

There are two key takeaways: The Jaw and the Squinch.

1. As the video says, “It’s all about the jaw!” That will make more sense once you’ve watched the video.
2. Learn how to squinch your eyes. You actually have eye muscles located underneath your eyeballs. Learn to flex them.

Now watch the video explaining how to take a headshot.

I flopped around the Internet for years, learning the ropes and learning how to write. If you count posting on internet list-serves, I’ve been writing online since 1999, and I started my first blog in 2003. Oh how time flies!

In 2014 I had a great year, with my websites getting millions of page views and almost two-million unique visits.

This traffic may seem small compared to, say Vox Media or the Washington Post. Or it may seem like a lot of traffic if you are just starting off.

There’s a difference between your sites’ traffic and a mega-site’s traffic.

Let’s say you’re in fitness and you write an article for a fitness site that does more views in a couple of days than I do in an entire year.

That site is the place to be. Well, it’s a great place to write if you’re the corporate overlord. It’s not a great place to write if you have your own brand and don’t want to insert links to products you might not believe in.

Or maybe you write for Men’s Health. You pretend that the cover models are 100% all-natty-brah so that testosterone boosters can be sold to teenagers. No thanks!

Why not be your own brand?

I am my own brand. People who come to my sites go there for one reason – to read what I write.

I also earn money when I endorse a product. If I sell an eBook or affiliate market a product, the money goes into my pocket.

There’s nothing magical about what I do. In fact, if you are in the fitness industry, you could blow away my traffic as people love reading fitness articles.

Hint: The three most-common New Year’s resolutions concern health/fitness, making money, and relationships/getting laid.

Write about those topics and watch your audience grow.

Political articles are especially popular. If I wrote about socio-political matters, my traffic would increase by tenfold.

My traffic isn’t to make me look cool. It’s to prove that, yes, you can do whatever you want on the Internet.

When “writer x” loses his job at a magazine or mega-blog, he loses his audience.

One “writer” for a Gawker site lost her job. She had to start a Tumblr site, as she had no idea how to create a webpage. After begging for freelance work for several weeks, she was able to land another job as a corporate slave making barely above minimum wage.

I will never lose my audience.

These stats emphasize why you should write under your own name rather than pitch articles.

Choose yourself.

If you do pitch an article to a mainstream organization to obtain social proof, make sure you have your own web presence.

• Step 1: Sell out to get your name out there.
• Step 2. Have a website so when people read your articles at Mega Corp Dot Com, they’ll follow you to your home.
• Step 3. You never have to sell out again!

The end game is for you to become your own brand.

You want people coming to a website for one reason only – because YOU are the main event.

You can be a one-man operation and still have millions of visitors to your websites.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?

This is what we call stealth marketing, meta-marketing, or humble bragging. I’m going to write about how corrupt the media is by pointing out what the media has written about me!

Not really.

As you know, I have zero respect for modern journalism. But since the media tried ruining my life, I may as well share how I handled their attacks.

I’m going to make a marketing point you can apply to your life.

The media is dominated by far-left radicals who hate men, and especially men who won’t bow down to the establishment. (The media also hates women who fail to conform, but that’s a topic for another day.)

Several “journalists” made a coordinated attack to discredit me and shame me into silence. Articles appeared within minutes of one another, proving collusion.

Instead of shaming me into silence, they made my voice grow stronger. One “journalist” who attacked me had to take a 30 day leave of absence from his job, as he developed drug problems when he was exposed as an animal abuser.

When the media attacks you, there’s a choice to make in the present moment. You can cry like a punk, get on your belly, and beg for forgiveness.

I laughed at them. In fact, right now there’s a media blackout on me. No media outlet will write about me, as journalists are afraid I’ll hire a private investigator to look into them.

I could cry about unfair media coverage. Or I can say, in all honesty, that I have been discussed in Newsweek and featured on MSNBC.

Negative attacks are social proof.

What is social proof? Simple. People believe you’re a big deal if other people believe you’re a big deal.

Whether you’re a big deal because you’re hated by cretins and scoundrels in the mainstream doesn’t matter all that much.

If you can say, “I’ve been quoted in the Washington Post,” and “My writing has been featured on MSNBC,” people assume you matter.

You could debate all day whether it’s healthy to live in a decadent, celebrity-obsessed culture where people get their signals from the media. But such is the world we live in.

That the media seems far more obsessed with my 140 character Tweets rather than my considerable body of legal scholarship and mindset articles is also neither here nor there.

In fact, the media is moronic.

Why are journalists obsessed with my Tweets?

Journalistic standards have fallen so far that twenty-something “journalists” troll through someone’s Twitter account (this is known as “Tweet mining”), looking for shocking and offensive comments.

Generally these “journalists” take something out of context and display it for the public to see. Everyone gets angry and page views happen.

Dollars flow from large advertising corporations to large media corporations.

If you read outrage or clickbait journalism, of course you’re part of the problem.

In marketing, you play the hand you’re dealt.

I can’t control what others say about me. I can, however, choose how to frame what they’ve said about me.

Here are some unfair media attacks on me:

Newsweek, “One Woman’s New Tool to Stop Gamergate Harassment on Twitter.” (I was called a bad person, or something. I didn’t read the article.)

Gawker, “The D-List Right-Wingers Who’ve Turned Gamergate Into Their Loser Army.” (This is the post that ultimately drove a young man to seek help for his drug problems.)

Boing Boing, “Vultures circle GamerGate.” (I was called a vulture for defending the free speech rights of gamers.)

Daily Beast, “Rage Against GamerGate’s Hate Machine: What I Got For Speaking Up.” (Some cry baby cried about me. I didn’t read the article.)

The Frisky [Seems like a blog, but it shows up in Google news], “Adobe Sides With GamerGate Bullies As Part Of Their Involvement With The Bully Project.” (I haven’t read this one, either.)

MSNBC also had a special feature on my Tweets. I’m not joking! This one was funny. In this report, a breathless dork exclaims, “[Cernovich] believes it’s not rape if the participants are willing!”

That’s not a misquote. If you want to understand how kooky these far-left “social justice warriors” are, ponder how rape could occur between willing participants.

Click play and fast forward to 1:59.

I’ve had some neutral to favorable coverage, too:

Above the Law, “Pick-Up Artist Gets Hilariously Scathing Legal Rebuke.” (Acting as 8Chan’s lawyer, I sent a response with co-counsel to Real Social Dynamics after they threatened our client with legal action for exposing corruption within Real Social Dynamics.)

Breitbart News, “International Game Developers’ Association’s Reputations in Tatters #GamerGate.” (I spoke with the media about corruption within the IGDA.)

Breitbart News, “Game Developers Association Calls 10,000 Tweeters Harassers, Including Kentucky Fried Chicken.” (I was quoted in an article about a corrupt non-profit organization.)

Washington Post, “Army expresses surprise about racism allegations over deleted tweet.” (I was quoted for mocking the offense people took when the Army used the phrase “chinks in armor.”)

Breitbart News, “Breitbart Editor Blacklisted from Shorty Awards After Clandestine Feminist Whispering Campaign.” (Covering the story of how the Shorty Awards defrauded me and my readers.)

Marketing is about getting your message out into the world.

Every stupid attack against me makes me stronger. The media has no power, as I’m able to leverage every attack to my advantage.

Imagine I write this bio, “Mike Cernovich is a lawyer and writer who has been mentioned in Newsweek and several other publications. His writing has been featured on MSNBC, and he has been quoted in the Washington Post.”

I’m rolling my eyes at that, but whatever. The game is the game. Play or be played.

Maybe the mainstream media isn’t attacking you, but a business competitor is.

Go build your own website where you can get your message out there.

You don’t need to have an article published in any magazine or on any website.

You don’t have to sell out.

You have the power to start your own media empire.

It takes time, but aren’t you worth it?