The Fake Barry Melon

My name is Bo, and I’m the fake Barry Melon.

Barry isn’t real; he’s a fictional character and the star of a transmedia narrative campaign that I’m calling The Real Barry Melon.

The real story of The Real Barry Melon is the meta-story— the personal life of the content creator, Barry Melon. His story is revealed primarily on the pages of TheRealBarryMelon.com, but also on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter— where you can follow Barry’s fake life as it unfolds in real time and even interact with him.

Just trust me on this: if it sounds kind of weird to you now, it’s going to get way more fucked up. In fact you should probably consider this a trigger warning/spoiler alert that The Real Barry Melon gets pretty, pretttttty dark before it’s all said and done.

Barry’s World is a comic about married life, written and illustrated by a man who doesn’t realize that he is a bad husband. He is falling short of his dreams and he is frustrated. He’s down to his last chance and he’s putting everything into his art and making a desperate grab for his dreams— at all costs.

The Real Barry Melon has a beginning, middle, and end. This is not a project that will go on forever. Most of the story has already been written and illustrated, but certain elements will continue to develop in real time. There are a few big, inevitable plot points that dramatically advance the narrative and move the story towards an ultimate finale.

Influences

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries- The infrastructure of The Real Barry Melon is heavily influenced by the seminole transmedia narrative. I saw Bernie Su speak at SF WebFest a few years ago and he made a big impact on me.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis - It’s like the Old Testament for the Proud Boys and George Babbitt is the Moses of average middle-class dudes who feel cucke’ed by the American Dream.

Barstool Sports- Barstool is my favorite transmedia story on the net right now. The real story of Barstool is the meta-story: the personal lives of the bloggers and creators who are pushing the boundaries between content and reality.

Pro Wrestling- It’s still real to me, dammit.

Rhinoceros- I’m sure that Ionesco would be thrilled to hear that his masterwork of absurdist theater landed him a spot on this illustrious list alongside Vince McMahon and Davey Pageviews. Just kidding, he’d probably be a snotty little dickhead about it, because he’s French. Anyways, Rhinoceros is brilliant. I saw it recently at the A.C.T. Conservatory in San Francisco and I felt imbued with grand theatrical art-magic. There is a lot of Bérenger in Barry.

Barry is the biggest and most ambitious illustrated project I’ve ever taken on.

It’s currently clocking in at around 25 unique illustrations spread across 30-35 blogs. There’s also some supplemental content delivered through social media.

We’re calling the run time for this project “a couple of months”.

You can follow Barry Melon on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

You can also e-mail him at therealbarrymelon@gmail.com. Reach out to Barry to say “hello” and he might just answer (unlike Santa Claus).

Subscribe to Barry’s mailing list to receive regular updates from Barry, including content that will be exclusive to the mailing list.

Sign up for my Patreon if you want backstage passes to this transmedia circus. That will be the only place where I’m talking about The Real Barry Melon out of kayfabe, brother.

I hope you love it.

Thanks for reading.

-Bo McGee,

the fake Barry Melon.