Pollo👍 (Patreon)

I'd seen this image around in random comments a few times on all that porn I look at, and I really felt like it absolutely needed to have an entry in my new series of lowres animal posts. I know, I promised I would do less of them, but perhaps I can't help myself. Perhaps I have a problem. A fever. And the only cure is more Pollo👍.

I felt like maybe using the "Quieres?" whip sound was too on the nose or too expected or something, but to be honest, the sound effect itself just fit really well, and it felt like one of those times with the pacing and nature of the meme where people would actually complain if it wasn't there and I'd get a lot of comments like "should have used that sound". Maybe I'm paranoid. Not that I really try to let "should have done ____" predictions make creative decisions for me - I don't necessarily feel like the obvious choice is always the one I want to make, even though I know generally people will like it more if it goes the way they expect it to and it'll do more "numbers" or whatever.

But normally I try to do stuff that I personally like and make the creative decisions I want myself to, and I think sometimes that subversion of expectation brings something special to the table which pleasantly surprises people, which helps put any value whatsoever into what I do with these videos... If there is any value in what I do with these at all, which frankly, is fairly debatable. I see myself as a glorified reposter and I just try to bring enough to the table to at least earn the "glorified" part sometimes, and make a fun alternate version of the thing which at least some people will get a kick out of. But THIS time, I felt like the sound effect did fit pretty well and I liked it, so the "Quieres?" whip sound is exactly what went in.

I thought about getting an actual Spanish speaking guest for this one, I definitely know some great VAs who would crush it, but as I've talked about on here before, I just feel like if the channel's main gimmick is that I voice all the videos, it feels like I've "outsourced too much" or am in some way abandoning what people expect from the uploads or something if I upload a video that I don't voice in at all. So I always make sure that I provide at least SOME voice work in all the stuff I upload, even if it's just a very very small amount with a guest possibly voicing nearly all of the post. I think that's what I did in the Shadowman video for example, I just voiced a dumb little bit at the end as Jaunty and let Seigi take the stage for the actual video (which he did a great job at and I love him).

So I looked up the pronunciation of the word, even though I used to say it a lot back when I lived in Florida when referring to a restaurant chain called "Pollo Tropical" we had in the plaza I worked at. Well turns out I was saying it pretty wrong, I always said it as "poyo" like, EXACTLY like how Kirby says it. But the "o" is more of an actual Ō rather than like in "oy", and interestingly enough, it seems that there's almost a very soft "J" sound in there, and it doesn't completely abandon pronouncing the "L"s either. At least, based on my research.

It's surprisingly difficult to capture accurately but, well, I know I tried, I said the word so many damn times it lost all meaning. Way, WAY more than what's in the audio file, those are just the only takes I didn't immediately destroy. Then destroying the audio quality takes away all the nuances of the pronunciation anyway, lmao. I'm sure an actual Spanish speaker can do it much better, but hopefully it's at least good enough to get the meme across. I thought about just saying fuck it and doing it in Italian which is much easier, but I think when most people see the word "pollo", they think of the Spanish word, so I didn't wanna wuss out on it. Ironically, I grew up in Florida and was taught Spanish as early as elementary school because down there, Spanish is the second language (although some rednecks will get really huffy and insist there's only one language and it's English). But, heh, well, I wasn't taught very well, and like most shit I learned in school, I definitely forgot it by the time I graduated.

I always wanted to actually learn the language since I reckoned it'd be useful down there. My mom wanted me to learn Italian and even started me on lessons for that when I was very young (Italian and Spanish are pretty similar in a lot of ways, I once watched an Italian speaking guy have a full conversation with a Spanish speaking guy at an art fair. Cool dudes). Though now, living in Canada, if I were smart, the language I'd learn would be French, as that would be the most useful up here. Personally, when I was younger I got way into power metal, which means I got way into Finland, which means what I wanted to learn was Finnish. However, the thing about Finnish is you can't really "just learn it" and you sorta need to actually be immersed in the culture or at least learning constantly from someone who speaks it, because it's a mad fucked up language. So cool though, and very beautiful in its own way. I can recite exactly one song verse from Kiuas. Poorly. I'll always have a thing for Finland.

Uh. Oh right. Sorry. The meme. Yes. Penis. Cock, if you will. Hehe.