👀 What does one fly politely say to the other?

#80 | Is this stool taken?

You might have heard the odd poet say that love is what unites all of us all around the world. Well, the odd poet is wrong. Some people don’t speak love. Do you want to know what the actual uniting factor is for all peoples around the world? Shit. Poop. Caca. Or whatever else you call it. Especially for people of a particular vintage… at a lark, I’d say the under-10s.

And it is not the function of excretion itself; this cohort’s love for all scatological terms is universal. A 7-year-old, whether in Cairo, Colombo or Canberra, will all think a joke whose punchline is “scoop rhymes with poop” is the most hilarious joke ever.

And today’s Just One Thing is about the man making bank at the intersection of this juvenile fascination with poop and tech. What, there is no such intersection? Oh yes, there is. And the man guarding that intersection is Matt Farley, who owns Motern Media.

What does Matt Farley really do? Well, he sings. And man, is he prolific. With over 23,000 songs published, he deserves to call himself the world’s greatest songwriter.

And what are his songs about? Everything. He’s possibly the world’s first SEO songwriter. He writes songs using the most searched keywords with keyword-heavy lyrics, ensuring his songs are found even when what people are looking for is not a song!

He started off writing about cities and towns in the US based on Google searches. 

Over time, his repertoire expanded, and his most popular song, for now at least, is the “Poop Poop Poop Poop Song.” His most played songs are all riffs on the scatological theme. As titles go, “I Poop With My Dog” and “I Need a Lot of Toilet Paper to Clean the Poop in My Butt“, don’t really leave much to the imagination on what the song’s about, do they?

It’s perfect because this is the exact degree of imagination his audience needs. And how does he get his poop-obsessed listeners to tune in? Because of Alexa. It seems kids around the world are screaming “poop” at Alexa. And Alexa is obliging.

If you’ve just had lunch, you may want to explore these lyrics, a guaranteed hit with your kids or any under-10s you know or tolerate occasionally.

I will leave you with a very mature playlist of Matt Farley’s greatest hits to guide you through the rest of this week. Poop Oh Yeah! Poop Yes! Uh Huh! Poop!, with most songs performed by his band, aptly named The Toilet Bowl Cleaners. 

Baaa.

Dolly