We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mark Berman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mark below.
Hi Mark, really appreciate you joining us to talk about a really relevant, albeit unfortunate topic – layoffs and getting fired. Can you talk to us about your experience and how you overcame being let go?
I had a solid 18-month run as a dental lab delivery driver. Then at the start of 2023, a conglomerate acquired the lab. They kindly reassured us they wouldn’t let anyone go, and promptly dumped the entire delivery team a month later. To my insane luck that day, however, as I was dissociating in my car in the office parking lot, I got an email for a freelance offer from a publication called uDiscover. I’d spent the last couple years making a very niche name for myself on TikTok both promoting my own music and commenting/memeing on the music I like. The latter was what got on their radar.
Since then, I’ve gotten by on a combination of writing/editing short form content for them – think Pop Up Video but with the Universal catalog, 30-45 seconds at a time and vertical – as well as TikTok monetization whenever something catches a wave. Obviously things are looking shaky on the latter at the moment, but I’m also looking to add more stable job opportunities in the new year.
(And yes, the next album has at least one song inspired by the layoff thing. Possibly an interlude too.)
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’ve been putting out music independently under my project Fully Involved (chosen because my actual name has zero SEO) since 2017. From then, there’s been two albums and two EP’s, with a third album deep in the writing stages now. I promote both through social media and frequenting open mics and showcases throughout Orange County.
Elevator-pitching Fully Involved can be tricky, since the vibe of a song tends to switch depending on what makes sense for it. Chronologically, there’s been a garage-punk EP about living with type 1 diabetes, an acoustic indie rock EP about post-college arrested development, and most recently an album about social anxiety where I more or less wrote about my neurodivergence before I knew I had it. That last one goes everywhere from San Diego surf punk, to OC ska, to just good old-fashioned dad-rock worship.
But no matter what, having an immediate core tune is key to a song of mine, as well a subject matter I can look at and not think of a song that’s 100% about the same thing. Case in point: a running theme on the next record is realizing your musical heroes might not be great people and trying to not become totally jaded about that. All juxtaposed with the unlearning of a conservative upbringing playing in a worship band. If someone else is writing songs about that, I’d sincerely love to meet them!
More professionally speaking, I got my journalism degree in 2019 and just want to put the best use to it I can. (Within music, entertainment and content production anyway, I learned in that process I am very much not cut out for the hard news stuff.)
Through all that though, the flow state of having a take on a music news story or rabbit hole of old records I’m getting into, yapping on it for a couple minutes and firing that off into the algorithmic void to see what the world thinks will never get old for me.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1) Know your lane and how to adapt it.
I’ve been nerding out about music on the internet for over a decade. I started doing album reviews on YouTube, then burned out after three years. Then I started a podcast, and after a year college took priority. Then during lockdowns, I started posting on TikTok, which is where I’ve found my lane for the first half of this decade. In each of these, I’ve functionally been doing the same thing, just tweaking things to fit the language of the platform and generally refining how I present things. Which gives me some level of hope that whatever happens to my current platform at this time, I can maintain or rebuild some version of that on another one.
Am I going to do a trend every now and then? Sure. But only the ones I find fun, and the ones I can be aggressively on-brand about. “Be yourself” can be the most patronizing “easier said than done” advice ever, but if you apply that being of yourself so intently that you know other people on your wavelength will stop what they’re doing and pay attention, you can get places. The fact is, a publication saw me fixating on music history fun facts and went “hey, can we pay you to do that?” That won’t happen to everyone obviously, but some sign along those lines might.
2) Get basic editing fundamentals down.
I’m not talking about pro-level stuff you need to get premium software for. I’m talking about the intuitive stuff. Cropping clips at the right fraction of a second to flow naturally. Putting up the right extra visuals to illustrate your points. Heck, just comedic timing in general. Things you can nail on any in-app editor and cut together in bed on your phone. Things that, even if it doesn’t set the world on fire, will get some core group interested in what you have to say if they click on or happen upon it.
3) Be goofy about the stuff you like.
People on the internet can be so damn intense and defensive about their faves. Granted, sometimes with good reason, it’s a case-by-case thing. Still, if you can diffuse that, find the fun or absurdity in it, humanize the characters, maybe even debunk some commonly held narratives along the way, that’s more often than not a net positive.
As I write this, year-end season is in full swing. Every year, I take my favorite albums of the year and instead of giving some canned “here’s why it’s good” every publication’s going to do, I try to find an angle or one hyper-specific aspect I haven’t seen anywhere else. More rewarding to make that way!
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
As mentioned, I am looking for more stable job opportunities to add to what I do now. I’ve been burned out plenty of times by aimlessly scrolling LinkedIn and seeing good writing/editing jobs slowly overtaken by A.I. training slop. If anyone sees what I do and thinks my lane would be a good match for their publication/page/company/etc, feel free to contact via email or whichever social media you see fit.
On the music front, I’ve found myself more open to co-writes and collaborations than ever. Perfect way to freshen things up when you feel you’re creatively spinning your wheels. I’m intent on doing so with folks in my local scene and artist mutuals on the next record, which I dipped a couple toes in on the last album. The first ever Fully Involved feature came out this past October, on the song “To the Skies” by 2IC. I couldn’t have imagined a year ago doing a melodic rap verse on an album called “Genre: Femboy,” but here we are!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/fullyinvolved
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fullyinvolvedmark/
- Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-berman
- Twitter: https://x.com/fullyinvlvdmark
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FullyInvolved
- Other: Bandcamp: http://fullyinvolvedmusic.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
(Instagram handles)
Photo 1 & 8: soundzvision
Photo 2 designed by odderie_art
Photo 5: elise.kom
Photo 6: panchos.pictures
Photo 7: robinstagraam
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
