#did hashtag still working on algorithm here

[seroscopes]

Oh hey, guess who's back ₍ᐢ. ̫ .ᐢ₎

Been a while since my last post, I believe it was around 2020ish? And I decided to archive all the posts since I wanted to start over with a fresh one on this page.

Anyway, have Modeus fanart I drew several days ago, I posted it on my pixiv too, please take a look c: thank you!

[xinganhao]

is this something i should've included in my 2024 wrapped? probably. but i'm still doing it to close off the year! (´◡`)

incredibly grateful to have gotten so much love in the past three months. i'm not able to respond to everything, but trust that i see every comment— whether in the replies, reblogs, or in my inbox.

if anything, let this be a reminder to support your favorite writers/creators. in an algorithm that thrives on likes, reblogs with comments in the tags/replies/asks make a world of difference. if you liked someone's work, let them know.

here are some of your words that have stuck with me. 🫶

"#i heart tumblr user xinganhao #no one is doing it like them #the amount of depth in their work #THE EFFORT IS ALMOST TANGIBLE #not to participate in idol worship but …. #a role model for the fic writing community #hashtag proud to be born in the same timeline as tumblr user xinganhao" — g4minelvr re: fake dating!seungkwan

"i always look forward to vernon's slides because I CAN HEAR HIM!!!! its wild like all the replies???? his voice is in my head. but i also realized i can imagine/hear hoshi's so easily too!!! and a lot of his are so funny and witty. anyway ive been so entertained the past few days cos of kae's writing" — maplegyu re: svt reacts to 'i used to have a little bit of a crush on you'

"#so cute !! #“to love is to be burdened; but to not think of it that way.” #HELLOOO #thats such a fire line to drop ???? #sigh these alignments are all accurate but i really need hao to take caee of me :((" — planetkiimchi-rbs re: svt reacts to your drunk texts

"I bet your uni entry essay kicked ass. Youre so creative its mind blowing😭" — bambispostsblog re: sociology major!junhui x reader

"#welcome back dramateen😭😭😭" — dcrlingyou re: svt when idol!reader releases a breakup song

"#i think someone's already said this but #the writing under the texts is like a little treat that i somehow always forget about #its so fun #i read the texts and im like “aww thats so cute i love this blog so muchhhh” #and then i scroll #AND THERES MORE #its like the best thing ever" — forever-atiny re: svt reacts to your drunk texts

"This is DEVASTATING 😭😭😭😭😭 your writing is beautiful but DAMN did it rip my heart and throw it into the ocean" — sasalalista re: svt (taylor's version), heartbreak edition

"#okay maybe I'll allow myself to be this delusional only for this smau bc it's adorable 🥹" — stay-in-district9 re: chan x fansite!reader

"#kae did u know i have a whole maladaptive dream world abt this pairing #it’s like u looked directly into my brain #but like it’s just so perfect for wonwoo #and i just love how pathetic u made him" — pochaccoups re: wonwoo x streamer!reader

"#did i ever mention i am literally your biggest fan #ALL your works i am eating them up 🙏 #and this one was just oh my god #the way you narrate is always too good #with your little details abt the screenplay and all #i aspire to write like you- it's like mixed media but in writing #i loved loved loved this exes to lovers suits gyu so muchhhh" — simpxxstan re: film major!mingyu x reader

"#user xinganhao the way you EAT EVERY SINGLE TIME #COOKED WITH GAS AND FIRE AND DEVOURED #permanently sat for ur posts i fear #can’t get up won’t get up" — ahuiahoe re: seungcheol x fanbase!reader

"the fact that you do complete research into each and every one of the topics and write them well is just pure dedication and hats off to you!!" — choco-scoups re: biology major!vernon x reader

"i'm so in love with the way you design your extra content/headcanons under the photos!! the soccer team and notes app got me down bad, but i really adore the text visually fitting the concept in all of your works!! always excited to get a notification from you. thank you for sharing your creativity with the world!!" — purple-eustoma

"I hope you know your works always hit the spot just right. not even kidding I was in class for two hours and then I see this in my notifications the way i INSTANTLY SMILED?! how do you manage to make my day better😔🫶" — cxffecoupx re: operation dispatch (chan x idol!reader)

"Honestly I know most of your svt burner account fics are meant to be open end, and I really love that. It is just that your writing makes me keep wanting to know more of the story, it is soo well written. I want to dive into the world a little more every time🌸" — anon

"#THIS IS SO CREATIVE WTF #the genius interview and the whole song… kae ur BRAINNNNNN #this is so good omfg im rooting for them so hard #living vicariously thru simp cheol tweets pretending i am the fanbase 😔 he wants me guys trust #i love love love all the little bonus stuff you do for these literally most creative and fun smau writer ur changing the game" — junhui-recs re: seungcheol x fanbase!reader

"these keep coming up on my dash and i will never skip an smau made by the greatest smau creator on this silly little tumby app" — hachireads re: dead poets society!hhu x reader

"im so srs rn. pls never stop writing" — wonuloves re: vernon dates rockstar!reader (4)

"woozi loves silently, consistently, and sincerely. these are not the adjectives anyone would typically match with the concept of love. and yet, it fits. i first felt the depth of his love with vocal unit songs. and i never looked back. thank you for writing this. thank you for understanding seventeen so well. you deserve everything good in life." — chugging-antiseptic-dye re: jihoon x poetry account!reader

how lucky am i to get to say that this is a mere fraction of all the kindness i've been afforded. again: i see all the nice words directed my way, and it motivates me to stay on this godforsaken site (lol) for at least one more day. thank you, thank you, thank you.

if i can love well, it's because i've been loved well. please let me repay all your kindness in 2025 and for however much longer that i can (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ if you got this far: happy new year! i wish you clarity, courage, and compassion at every turn. xo

— kae

[cowboylikeyouu]

heyyyy, amy, nice to meet you, I'm di, reaching out because tumblr said I may like your profile and it didn't lieeee.

I've seen you asked to ask (ohhh jezz, english is my third language, beg you pardon me for some mess I'm creating, while trying to chase my thoughts) questions, so I'm here to do that-

did you find any really tasty sickfics/whumpfics with poolverine?? I'm in emergency need of whump!logan or sick!logan, oh, why ficriters are not using those trops of some "failed to heal", "sleep deprivation"? having healing factor doesn't mean you can't feel the pain you know...

well! SO! do you have anything to recommend? thank you! 💜

ps. I'm quite a newbie here, so don't be scared of my quite empty profile, working on it. 🙏🥹

hiiii ^^

glad the tumblr algorithm did its job and brought you here!!

dw about your english, it’s "only" my 2nd language and i still mess up everything half the time, i’ve simply given up on correct grammar on social media, i don’t care anymore xD

and yesss i always love getting questions or even just random thoughts people have, idk i wish people would use the ask box more, it’s so fun!! especially for people who wanna stay anonymous :)

in terms of fic recommendations, i have to disappoint you sadly, i‘m an awful person to ask for fic recs unless it’s winterhawk (and maybe drarry & dinluke). i’ve read a whole bunch of poolverine fics, but i can only remember like… 5 of them??😭 they’re all so short still & many of them have a similar premise, so no matter how amazing the fics are, it’s hard to keep them apart in my head.

the only one i can think of rn that kinda matches one of ur requests is stay, stick around, clean the blood off my teeth by jayyxx, pretty sure logan is severely sleep deprived in this bc he just chooses to.. not sleep anymore bc of night terrors.

there are a LOT of people on here tho who can probably give you a whole bunch of fic recs, just search through some hashtags :)

enjoy your time on tumblr, it’s really the best internet place to be 💜💜💜

[kaybeearts]

Older comic from 2020, but I still relate to some of the sentiments expressed in it. I would say that those kinds of feelings are now applied to all social platforms, not just Instagram at this point.

Of course you should make art for yourself, but sadly, you can't have a career in art without an actual interested audience. (Whether that be potential customers or employers)

However, I don't really care to get "famous" or noticed on Instagram. At this point in my artistic career, I've accepted that the Insta algorithm is so unpredictable and turbulent that I shouldn't count on it to showcase my work to people, no matter what I draw or what hashtags are included.

I honestly just use Instagram to keep in contact with acquaintances and occasionally post art that I've already posted to other areas. I've been relying more on Tiktok and Reddit as artistic platforms.

Unexpectedly, this comic grew slightly viral on Reddit, and became my most upvoted and commented post to date.

I always leave a little description about the comic in the comments shortly after I post them. This next part was an edit I made to my description.

EDIT: Okay- I was not expecting this post to blow up the way it did. I fully admit this isn't my best work; in fact, it's an old comic I made 5 years ago. I suppose it is "new" in the sense that I only posted it on Instagram 5 years ago, and I doubt that many on Reddit have seen it before.

Most of my previous comics have been able to garner a good amount of traffic, but I didn't anticipate this. It's absolutely crazy! At the time of writing, my insights said the post had more than 800k views, and it may have more by the time I finish this. I honestly assumed that due to the weaker art style and composition, I would get some traction, but not as much as my modern comics. I was hoping that a comic I put in more effort and passion to would achieve those kinds of stats, but life be like that, sometimes! I'm not complaining.

Many commenters seem to be under the impression that the social media thing is something that is just completely bogging me down. I understand where the impression came from, but it's not an accurate reflection of who I am now. Of course, I still have moments where I feel insecure or inferior as an artist, but I'm also in a different headspace than 20-year old me.

Instagram still sucks, and perhaps social media as a whole sucks, but these days, I'm just trying to have more fun with my art. It is fun when I get viewer interaction on my posts, but my primary goal is to put my stories out there. I know that some of my comics have helped people not feel alone in their issues, and that makes me feel fulfilled and happy.

I didn't expect this comment to get buried, or that people would not read this for one reason or another. That's fine, but I'm leaving this edit here to provide an explanation. Normally, I enjoy responding to as many comments as I can, but this is too much for me!

[warningsine]

If the language used on the internet is a reliable indicator, we’re more psychologically enlightened than ever. We discuss attachment styles like the weather. We joke about our coping mechanisms. We project, or are projected on to. We shun “toxic” people. We catastrophise and ruminate. We diagnose, or are diagnosed: OCD, depression, anxiety, ADHD, narcissism. We make, break or struggle to “hold” boundaries. We practise self-care. We know how to spot gaslighting. We’re tuned into our emotional labour. We’re triggered. We’re processing our trauma. We’re doing the work.

The language of the therapy room has long permeated popular culture. Common terms like “repression”, “denial”, “slip of the tongue”, “hysteria” and “inner child” all lead back to Freud. But over the last decade or so, with the vast expansion of social media networks, a new, seemingly sophisticated language sits on modern society’s tongue. Some call it therapy-speak. Or psychobabble. But despite its prevalence, the language is divisive.

Last month, online discourse throbbed with disdain when Sarah Brady, the ex-partner of Jonah Hill, shared text messages he’d sent her about his “boundaries” (no “surfing with men”, no friendships with “women who are in unstable places” and no swimsuit selfies). Many argued that his self-satisfied language was a weaponising of therapy-speak; using “expert” terms to try to control her behaviour.

If we’re often online and are plugged into wellness, self-help or relationship worlds on social media, therapy-speak is our first language. Here, algorithms feed us from a bottomless well of content by coaches and other self-proclaimed experts who teach us how to cope with being triggered; how to identify a narcissist; how to “show up” in relationships; how to hold a boundary and so much more. With every scroll, a new tutorial in human psychology. But what are we actually learning?

“By virtue of being human beings, we’re masters at distancing ourselves from difficult aspects of emotional life,” says Dr Jonathan Shedler, a psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “One way we distance ourselves is through words. What we’ve got now is this kind of pop-psychology language of clichés, abstract concepts and turns of phrase that are so different from speaking from the heart.”

For Shedler, modern therapy-speak is “not actually a product of reflection and examination”. In psychotherapy, he says, “we always move from the general to the specific. People will say something general or abstract and a good therapist is always asking for examples. If a person says that they felt stressed, we might say, ‘OK, tell me more about that. How did you experience the stress?’ If a patient is using therapy-speak, the goal of the work has to be to move away from this to something more immediate and emotionally alive.”

Platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok pull in colossal viewing numbers on these abstract concepts. Search “gaslighting” on YouTube and the top result (“10 Examples of What Gaslighting Sounds Like”) has 3.3m views. On TikTok, the #narcissism hashtag has 3.8bn views. Search “triggered” on Instagram and a tidal wave of multimedia content appears. You can scroll for 10 minutes and still be fed lists, memes and vlogs. Even if only a small portion of viewers take the language they’re absorbing online into their offline conversations, we can still imagine how easily it seeps into public consciousness. Particularly among young people, the main demographic for platforms like TikTok.

We might argue that an increased awareness of psychological dynamics, and a growing ease for identifying and discussing mental health issues, are particularly good things for teenagers and young adults. The historical backdrop is that mental health was shrouded in stigma and taboo for so long. If young people can have a freer, more matter-of-fact understanding of mental health, it may lead to less suffering in silo. Maybe even a positive effect on generations to come. But the expansion of certain language worries some professionals who work with young people.

Kate teaches biology in a secondary school in Manchester, where she has worked for 15 years. She has been a form tutor for 10. In her experience, conversations she hears among teenagers – and the way issues brought to her are described – have changed dramatically in the last five years. “I hear words like ‘triggered’, ‘gaslighting’ and ‘narcissist’ so often now,” she says. “Young people are using these words to describe their fellow pupils and other teachers, when they feel hurt or singled out. I had to look up what gaslighting meant.”

She reflects empathically on how difficulties in friendships when you’re at school can “feel like the end of the world”. “You want to validate how they feel,” she says. “Because being a teenager is really hard. But sometimes it seems as if they’re wedded to words they’ve picked up on social media. They’re dismissing each other and, sometimes, struggling to take responsibility for their own behaviour because they have compelling words like ‘triggered’ that make their own feelings the most important thing, above all else.”

Kate wanted to be quoted under a pseudonym. She was worried that her reflections might be seen to be taking a coping strategy away from young people when “the world is stacked against them.” It makes sense.

Climate change weighs heavy on their minds. Media influence and gender norms continue to create a disparity between their lived reality and future aspirations. (Men are still portrayed as independent, emotionally stoic and in roles that signify strength; women as childcarers, home-keepers and care-workers. A young person’s real-life sense of themselves may not fit with the images they absorb, and may cause mental distress or limit a young person’s sense of potential.) The pandemic, social inequality, austerity and online harm have driven a huge rise in NHS mental health referrals – and the system is buckling. Thresholds for getting specialist help are so high that many young people are refused care, sometimes with fatal consequences. It is a curious phenomenon that, while statistics suggest young people’s mental health is declining, social media has provided a compelling language with which to navigate their lives.

But some therapists (including myself, and many I know) believe that the expressive nature of therapy-speak is, actually, not all that expressive. The language barely aligns with what therapy is; a singular relationship between the therapist and their client, with its own intimate context and idiosyncrasies.

Shedler focuses on the word “triggered”. “For some people, it’s very difficult to say, ‘I was angry’ or, ‘I was terrified’. So there’s already a layer of obfuscation about what their internal experience is. Something we try very hard not to do in therapy is locate the upsetting thing externally. If you leave the ‘I was triggered’ there, your internal experience is almost secondary. In meaningful therapy we try to reverse that. All our experiences take on personal meaning. The work of therapy is to explore those layers.”

The psychotherapists I have trained with, and been supervised by, use very little of the therapy-speak I see on social media. Theory and literature inform the work, but conversations are in much more plain English than you might think. This is what we try to invite in our clients: the freedom to speak plainly.

In my experience, some younger clients have brought in words like “triggering”, “gaslighting”, “narcissism” and some confident diagnoses of others’ “personality disorders”. Sometimes, it has seemed hard for them to name emotions like fear or anger. The influence over their language doesn’t just come from social media, but from reality shows like Love Island, Love is Blind and Married at First Sight. (I was struck at how often the term “gaslighting” was used in the last season of MAFS, a show that consumed me more than I’d care to admit.)

It can take a long time to get beneath the use of these terms – which may be described as a defence mechanism – and explore someone’s deeper, more vulnerable emotional experiences. This relies on building a safe, trusting relationship. But often we don’t have time.

For so many people, long-term therapy is unaffordable. In the UK, if you can’t afford private therapy, mental health support on the NHS is often dictated by a postcode lottery and limited to six-to-eight sessions of CBT. Short-term work can be effective and meaningful for some people. But in-depth therapy is often a luxury. This might explain why the confessional nature of therapy-speak annoys some of us. It might seem imperious; a white, middle-class gate-keeping of suffering from people who, in relative terms, suffer the least.

I’m reminded of a Twitter thread from 2019 on which someone offered a template for responding to a friend in distress when you don’t feel able to help. It said: “Hey! I’m so glad you reached out. I’m actually at capacity/helping someone else who’s in crisis/dealing with some personal stuff right now, and I don’t think I can hold appropriate space for you. Could we connect [later date or time] instead/Do you have someone else you could reach out to?” The vocabulary was widely made fun of, with many people identifying how hard the person was working to avoid a friend in distress.

For Shedler, the kind of therapy-speak we’re saturated with online is particularly destructive: “It alienates us from our internal experience while pretending to do the opposite,” he says. We might say it’s helping people to become so much more psychologically minded. But he feels “the reality is it’s actually doing the reverse.” It’s probably true that there’s little room for self-awareness, or taking responsibility, if we’re quick to tell people they’re gaslighting us by expressing something we don’t agree with. (Incidentally, the term comes from a film in the 1940s, not psychology literature.) Or if we confuse conflict with “abuse”.

I have shifted positions on the casual use of therapy-speak many times. I still don’t know exactly what I think, other than that I think about it a lot. I have worked in a charity providing therapy to survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. Many of my clients have struggled with the effects of austerity and navigating the benefits system, while living with chronic health issues that compound their emotional distress. As a result, I have bristled at the term “trauma” being bandied around. I have balked at pithy Instagram memes about drinking, after witnessing the devastation of addiction. I’ve also observed that people are still more likely to minimise their distress than embellish it.

I have struggled seeing “triggers” (a concept derived from the treatment of PTSD) so widely appropriated, and the increased cultural understanding that we should avoid being triggered at all costs. This is in conflict with the most robustly evidenced approach for trauma therapy: to slowly and carefully help someone tolerate their discomfort by increasing their exposure to their feelings, both in the room with a therapist, and in the outside world.

However, writing all this down also makes me think, what right do I have to assume passport control for certain words? The language of healing, or surviving, will look different for everyone. It’s complex.

Social media undoubtedly plays a role in flattening human emotions into neat, shareable terms. We’re encouraged to pathologise friends, family or lovers with vocabulary that strips away nuance and context. This probably does get in the way of the “speaking from the heart” that Shedler speaks of. It might help us feel more powerful when we’re hurt or afraid. But what happens to the pain and fear once we’ve labelled someone? Where does it go?

I’m not sure where I sit with some of the other language. If someone says they were traumatised by the pandemic – by isolation, caring for dying people, loss of loved ones, financial ruin, long Covid – is that not valid? If a young person is struggling because their parents can barely afford to feed them, or with their identity in a world that doesn’t seem hospitable to who they might want to be, might appropriating therapy-speak help them feel like they have more agency?

A good experience of therapy can help someone flourish. It’s also an experience many of us might struggle to have. But notions of the therapy world continue to be positioned as the “right” way of being; in ourselves, and with each other. Therapy-speak might be annoying, tiring and get in the way of authentic emotional expression. Perhaps even with damaging consequences. But something so pervasive requires a little more than suspicion.

Could the expansion of this language speak to a collective hunger for a framework that helps us talk about our existence in modern society? That is, trying to feel peaceful, purposeful and connected while many structural forces collide and make that existence feel harder and harder. There’s no clear solution, other than: make the world easier to live in. But a therapist might tell you that’s magical thinking.

[witchersmistress]

Simmering Rage

Hello my darlings!! you are in luck today!! ive got a couple of chapters for you, typing this out on a cellphone wasnt the best but i made do with what i had.

Trigger Warnings: Anger, Rage, Blood and violence, and self hatred

Word count:4.3 K

August pov

 My phone chimes with a notification on the seat beside me. I check the screen. Lo again. I haven’t seen her since my car . After I found out what Harper did, I was in a bad place for a while. I don’t remember much of the rest of the mission. The monster operated in my place, holding space for me until I was ready to come back. When the mission l ended, and I had time to think things through, I stopped thinking about what Harper had done and finally looked at the facts behind it. Of course, my mind went straight to the one person who could have told her about Hockington—Gloria Walton.

They’d gotten close, thanks to me, and I fucking paid for it. For letting a Darling into my life, letting her get in with my friends. That’s what I get for letting anyone close to me. Still, it’s a dick move on my part not to at least give Lo a chance to defend herself. If she wasn’t the one who told Harper, I cut her off for nothing. Harper could have bribed someone who worked there, seen me leaving with someone and tracked her down, rooted through my stuff or Dad’s when she was at our house and somehow put it together. It’s better this way, though. Better not to have anyone around me who knows shit about my life. When Lo found out about room 504, it felt safer to keep her close, to give her a reason not to tell anyone. Even if we never talked about it, never talked about our families the way I did with Harper or any real shit, our friendship was real. 

But letting people into my life is a mistake. People blackmail and betray. And if it was her, if she told Harper… Well, Preston can fucking have Gloria. When my phone rings a minute later, I sigh and pick it up. We can talk once. Just to clear some things up. I’m not going to give her a ride anywhere, like I used to when she didn’t have gas money. My car smells like a swamp from all the times I’ve dropped my muddy boots and rubber coveralls in here this summer. Gloria would ask questions, and I’m not about to answer. “Hey,” she says. “I figured you’d ghost me again.” “What’s up, Lo?” I ask, my voice sounding weary. “Do you use the OnlyPics app?” “No,” I say flatly, bristling at the insinuation. “Why would I?” “That’s not—I didn’t mean you’d put stuff up.” “Why?” I ask. “You don’t think people would pay to see my dick?” “No!” she says quickly. “I mean, they would, if you wanted to put it up. That’s not why I was asking, though.” “So, you don’t want to see my dick? That’s not how I remember it.” I’m being an asshole, but she’s basically calling me a whore. She knows better than to ask if I use an app that’s basically a sex worker platform. I don’t get paid for sex, and I don’t need to sell pictures of my body for money. The OnlyPics app was supposed to be a companion to OnlyWords, which is a texting app with, as its name implies, only words in the messages. Everyone likes OnlyWords, but it has no photo sharing capabilities. So the same company made OnlyPics but it was basically a knock-off Instagram where you can’t use captions and the hashtags are hidden, only used by the algorithms to know who to show them to. It probably would have died a quick death if it weren’t for the sex worker industry, who cashed in on three key features—the ability to add a link to profiles, where they added their payment link; the fifteen-second video limit, which let them put up teases to get people hooked; and the private chat feature, which let them send someone the rest of the video for whatever fee they wanted to negotiate or even video chat for a live show.

 I don’t use the app because I’m not an amateur porn star, and if I want to watch porn, I can do it for free like everyone else. If I need a live feed, I have a phone full of numbers of chicks who would be happy to put on a show for me, and I can do more than watch and jerk off. I’m not interested in that any more than I am this app. “Okay, let’s try this again,” Gloria says. “You remember how Harper  disappeared off the face of the earth when you dumped her?” I stiffen in my seat, yanking the wheel to pull off at the nearest exit at the last second. The car behind me lays on the horn, but I ignore it. The noise is almost drowned by the pounding of blood in my ears. “Yeah, what about it?” I ask Gloria. “Well, I think I found her.” “On a porn site?” I ask, hoping like hell someone just uploaded the video of her sucking someone’s dick from last year. It fucks with my head to think that one year ago today, I didn’t even know the name Harper Avery. It was another month before I would see her giving head in the parking lot behind the tampon factory. “Hey, don’t judge me,” Gloria says. “Your brothers have been out of town all summer, and you’ve been ignoring me. I’m having a dry spell.” I could tell her the twins are back, but if she ran her mouth to Harper, I don’t want her around my house, running her mouth to my brothers. So I point out the obvious. “There are more than three dicks in this town.” “Once you go Walker, you never go back,” she says lightly. “And anyway, I only saw it because she sent it to Dawson.” I’m glad I pulled over at the exit, because I’d probably run someone off the road right now if I were still driving. I grip the steering wheel with one hand and close my eyes. My voice comes out so normal you’d think I was just a guy who dumped a girl and didn’t give a fuck about what happened to her since. “I’m afraid to ask, but… Does your brother always share porn with you?” “No, you weirdo,” she says. “Someone DM’d him, and I’ve been obsessing about her all summer, so he showed it to me. He thinks it’s funny as shit.” “Why are you obsessing about Harper?” I demand. 

What the fuck. Maybe I should have kept in touch with Lo. She could find out shit, maybe even the truth. “I don’t know,” she says. “Don’t you think it’s weird that she just… Vanished? I mean, I’m not saying you’re not worth going off the deep end over, or that you couldn’t eviscerate her heart so completely she could never love again. She liked to play it cool, but she really loved you, August. Like, the kind of love that eats you alive, and you’re never the same again.” “Put that shit on a ninety-nine cent Valentines card. You could make real money.”

“Keep playing, you didn’t feel it, too,” she says. “But y’all broke a lot of hearts when you broke up, not just your own. Everyone figured you’d get back together.” “What’s your point?” I snap. I don’t need a fucking lecture about how much I disappointed everyone. She can add it to my fucking tab for all the times I fucked up and pissed off everyone who matters. “My point is, even if Harper was devastated beyond repair, she’s not the kind of chick who would let a breakup destroy her. She’s stronger than that. You may be irreplaceable even to her, but you’re still a boy. And it would take more than one boy to break Harper.” Maybe not one boy. But one boy who shared her with two more against her will? A broken hand and a rope she couldn’t get free of, a swamp full of snakes more poisonous than her? Yeah. That could do it. “Then it obviously had nothing to do with me,” I say. “Maybe she got hooked on Lady Alice or Pearl Lady or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now, and she’s selling herself to pay for it like a regular junkie. Hell, her mom basically said as much.” “It did blow up the scene right around that time…” Gloria muses. “Maybe she’ll tell you for the right price,” I say flatly. “That’s all she’s ever cared about.” “August…”

 “What?”

 “Look, I don’t know everything that went down between you, but I know what it’s like to walk away from love. Just because you broke up doesn’t mean your heart wasn’t decimated, too.” My laugh is brittle, like stepping on glass. “You’re funny, Lo.” I could ask her, just come right out and be blunt, like King. But I can’t acknowledge that much aloud. The hotel is its own world. When we leave, we don’t mention what goes on there. I don’t tell the school that Gloria is a scholarship kid. I elevated her. And she never tells anyone that I get a room there every few months. Would she risk telling someone, knowing she could lose it all? Even if she hates me, she loves her status too much to risk it. What would make her turn on me like that? Harper didn’t tell that creep where she found out the information. But it has to be Lo. No one else knows. So, I hung up the phone, letting her think this is about a breakup.

 That it’s not about a murder, not about a girl coming back from the dead, a ghost dragging her broken body from the swamp and crawling back into my brain to fuck with it even more. I open my email, the one connected to the OnlyWords and OnlyPics apps by default because it’s all made by the same company. I barely remember thumbing away the automatic notifications I got when someone sent me a message this summer. I ignored them all, knowing they were porn spam. My chest is hollow as I open one from my spam folder. It tells me I have twenty-four new messages on OnlyPics. I follow the link and open my direct messages. The first one is a thumbnail of a video, sent this evening. If it’s from Harper, she changed her handle from BadApple. For a few seconds, all I see is a closeup of part of her tattoo. I take it in, examining it until I realize it’s her hip crease, and pressed along the back of her thigh, an expanse of pale skin. It takes me a minute to make sense of what I’m seeing. Whoever she’s fucking, he’s got her folded in half like her legs are over his shoulders while he nails her into the bed. There’s no caption, and there are no words even on the messenger, so I have to click on the profile to find an explanation. Apple Cream Pie, $1k/min. Time seems to skip. Some caveman part of me must take over, because the next thing I know it’s five minutes later, and I’m five thousand dollars lighter, and I’m slamming my phone against the top of the steering wheel over and over. I feel it crunch and snap, but I keep pounding it until there’s nothing left in my hand, and the pieces of it are scattered across my lap and the floor. Time skips again. I’m in my driveway at home. Blood is dripping down the steering wheel and into my lap. 

I open my hand and find pieces of glass jutting from my palm in a dozen places. And all I think about is that day my car was bombed, and Harper tried to pick the glass from my face with her tiny, careful fingers. I climb out of the car. There’s a black Jaguar parked on the gravel, a tall figure leaning against it. I walked up to him. Something in me seems to have been knocked loose, and I think I might fucking kill him, even though it’s just Oliver Finnegan, who never goes inside. He doesn’t approve of the family business. “Hullo, August,” he says, his Irish accent distorting the words. Or maybe it’s the ringing in my ears. “Am I in your spot? I can move the car.” “Don’t worry about it.” He cocks his head, his weird, pale eyes taking in the blood on my pants, my hand. “You alright, mate?” I shrug and head for the house. Just as I’m about to step inside, his brother steps out, a black duffle in one hand, probably full of cash or those fucking pearls everyone’s on about. Colin Fucking Finnegan. My eyes narrow, my fists clenching until I can feel the glass biting deeper, piercing through my skin and into the muscle and sinew. “Was it you?” I grind out. Part of me knows it’s impossible, but maybe he sent the photo on his way here, or maybe he took it earlier. I need Baron to find the date signature on a video, if it’s even possible. For all I know, Harper’s dead, and she took those videos herself while we were together. If she’d sell my dignity for a scholarship, why wouldn’t she sell videos of herself fucking 2other guys when she was with me? “Whatever it was, I bet it was me,” Colin says, flashing me a knowing grin that shows off his chipped front tooth. “Are you still sore about that beating you took last spring?” “You know what it’s about.” “If it’s not that, you’re pissed you didn’t get a cut of this,” he says, jiggling the bag. “Don’t fucking push me right now,” I warn. His creepy eyes go smug. “Or… You still on about that whore? I figured that’s what set you off last spring. Everyone in town knows I fucked her first. Are you just finding out?” “Where is she?” I demand, grabbing him around the neck and slamming him up against the wall. “Where the fuck do you have her, you cum guzzling, festering wad of infected dick cheese?” A cocky, defiant grin stretches his lips. “Aww, did you catch something off her?” he asks. “Wasn’t me, mate. I popped that cherry when there were barely three hairs on her pussy. Haven’t touched her since.”

I don’t know exactly what happens next. I don’t see Colin Finnegan in front of me anymore. All I see is red. The next thing I know, my brothers and Dad are holding me down on the steps, and Oliver and their uncle are holding Colin back while he curses and struggles and spits. The white gravel is painted red like the day the Darlings vandalized our house, but this time, it’s blood. “Let me up,” I growl, shoving off the step and wrenching free of my family. I stalk toward Colin, who writhes like a cat getting a bath. I can feel blood trickling down my face, the jagged edges of a few broken teeth, and the throb of one eye that’s already swelling shut. But I don’t feel pain. The other thing that lives inside me has swallowed it, and I can’t feel a thing. “Come on,” Colin yells, dancing in the grip of his brother. “Let’s do it again. I can go all night. Whoo! I feel alive!” I stop in front of him, ignoring my brothers, who have rushed up behind me to grab me if I lose my shit again. But I’m calm now. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” I say to Colin. My lip is broken and swollen so thick my words come out slurred. “If I find out you’re the one who sent those videos, you won’t be alive much longer.” I turn and walk inside. I don’t know why I care. I watched two guys fuck her. I gave them permission. I made sure to watch, so I knew I could never want her again, never think she was mine. I broke her on purpose, but piece by piece, I’m the one falling to pieces.

Harpers POV

“Are you Mr. D?” I demand, standing in the Phantom’s bedroom, my whole body quaking. I hold the tag in between my finger and thumb, waving it at him. He just walked out of the shower, his body all steamy, a towel around his hips, mask over his face. He shrugs. “What about it?” Anger seethes through me. “That’s how you knew where I was that night. Isn’t it?” He opens his dresser and pulls out his underwear. I know where he keeps them. I know where everything in his apartment is. But I didn’t know his name, have never seen his face. I come when he calls, practically live here two days a week, like a goddamn whore. He promised he’d fuck me one day, and now he has. I don’t know why it matters suddenly. I never cared before. He nods vaguely toward the windows. “I keep an eye on things.” “On me,” I say, sinking onto the edge of the bed. “You keep an eye on me.” “I told you, I can be anyone you want me to be,” he says with a haughty little smirk. “As long as you’re you, Miss A.” “As long as I’m August’s fuck toy,” I correct him. “That’s why you take those pictures, isn’t it? To send to him and show him what you’ve done to me.” “What I’ve done to you?” he asks, turning to face me after pulling on a pair of sweats. They hang low on his narrow hips. Above them, the ridges of his abs are carved deep and sharp. His body is a finely chiseled sculpture. I’ve never noticed, but he’s beautiful, even without a face. “What about what he did?” He paces forward, stalking, his voice laced with fury that makes me shrink back on the bed, as if he could hurt me more than I’ve been hurt. As if he could take something from me that he hasn’t been taking all along. “You changed me,” I whisper. “I saved you.” I stare up at him, feeling guilty for feeling anything but gratitude. He works out, takes care of himself, wears exquisite clothes to work at his standing desk with three monitors, an ergonomic keyboard, and a fancy Mac computer. I’m the one who should be ashamed. I don’t take care of myself until he tells me to. He tells me to shower, puts me in fancy clothes, makes me look like a girl who could be, in some fairytale in his mind, deserving of him. And he treats me like I am.

 He cooks me fancy dinners and buys me everything I need or could want without me having to ask. He even took care of my mother. I don’t treat him half as well. I don’t cook or offer to help clean up. I don’t even talk to him when I come over. While he cooks, I sit curled on his fine leather sofa, sipping his fine wine. The only thing I do for him in return for everything he’s done is spread my legs. If he’s made me a whore, I’ve let him do it. The first day he bought me something, the phone, I could have said no. But I didn’t. I let him dress me up like a doll, treat me like property, and fuck me like a whore. If anything, he’s shown me he values me more than I value myself. He bought me fucking diamonds. A girl like me, I have no right to even hope for this kind of man, this kind of treatment. I’m lucky to be his whore. But for the first time in months, I want to speak, to voice my desires. “You’re right,” I say. “You’ve treated me well. But I’m done being your whore.” “You’re not—” He breaks off, pressing his lips together and shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. That’s not how I see you, Harper.” “How do you see me?” He stares at me a long moment. “I just wanted to take care of you,” he says at last. “I saw what they did to you. You’re not the only person…” He shakes his head again. “And yeah, I wanted to fuck you to piss off August. I’ll admit that. But I never saw you as a whore. I only gave you what you needed.” “Like these?” I ask, upturning the jeweler’s bag. The box falls out, the lid askew, one of the diamonds dangling out the side like something obscene. “Fair enough,” he says, moving across the room and sitting heavily on the bottom of the bed. “Maybe I had selfish reasons. But I never thought you owed me.

 I know you won’t believe me. I know what I look like. You think I can’t get laid unless I buy a girl diamonds. And you’re right.” “What about your girlfriend?” I ask, my voice thick. He scoffs. “I don’t have a girlfriend. Look at me.” “So you dressed me up and pretended you did,” I say, feeling like some weird blow-up doll. I’ve acted like one. I haven’t been a whole person since before the swamp. I’ve been a doll, broken into a million pieces, and he’s pieced some of them back together—at least on the outside. But he can’t fix me inside. He can reach in, but he won’t find anything to piece back together. I’m hollow. “I never pretended to be a good guy,” he says. “Don’t act shocked that I’m exactly who I was all along.” “But you never told me who you were,” I point out. “You never asked.” “I did.” We sat side by side for a while, neither of us speaking. “You don’t want to know who I am,” he says. “Look at me. Look at what I’ve become.” I could say the same thing. 

 When I tell Mr. D I’m not coming back, he doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t get ready to take me home as usual. I ask if he’s taking me home, and he says no, but he doesn’t stop me when I take his keys. I keep waiting for him to come after me, but he just studies me, his face behind that infuriating blank mask, his one good eye watching me leave. In the garage, I climb into his truck. I’m sure he’s going to come down and stop me. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely get the key in. I open the garage on the bottom level of his building, and I drive out. I keep checking the rearview, sure I’ll see him coming after me. But he lets me go. Some sick part of me deflates when I turn into my driveway and he’s not there. Not even Mr. D thinks I’m worth hunting down. I climb out of the truck and go inside. Nothing has changed. But everything has. Without the Tuesday and Thursday excursions, I stop leaving the house. I ignore the staff that comes in and cleans my house on a weekly basis. I don't care where they came from or who hired them.

 There’s no point. I Don't even return his truck. It sits like an oversized monster in our driveway, drawing attention from anyone and everyone. I hide the keys inside a tear in my box spring, I sleep with a switchblade in one hand for the nightmares that plague my every waking moment, as if my fall from grace has given them permission to terrorize me, maybe they can smell my brokenness, my weakness, the way I can smell alcohol on Duke’s breath. And even though I was sure I felt nothing all those months, now that I don’t see the Phantom, there’s an ache left inside me that he once soothed. 

When I wake myself up croaking feebly, from a dream where I’m gagged, silenced as I try to force sound from my strangled throat, there are only blankets to wrap around me instead of his strong, salient arms. I stop leaving the house, stop doing anything. I can’t remember why it mattered to be clean, to eat, to live. One evening, as I’m lying corpse like in my bed, a tap sounds at my grimy window. I’m so startled I sit up before my brain can kick in and say what it says about everything—it’s not worth it. It doesn’t matter. Turning my head I see a crow pecking at the shiny part of my window. Standing up and making my way into the bathroom, I turn on the lights avoiding the mirror. I don't want to look at the girl in the mirror. I just can't.Turning on the hot water in the sink letting it fog up my mirror, I scoop the water with my hands and splash it on my face.

  I know I should care but I can't summon the energy. My sponsor is gone. There’s no way out. I’ve given up, accepted the fact that I’ll be just like my dead beat mother. Turning off the water and raising my head, reluctantly I look back at my reflection, I meet my soulless eyes and stare. I should want to rage against this weak girl that I've become, to become the monster those boys wanted me to be.. Turning off the lights and walking back to my room. Dropping back down into bed, I looked out the grimy window and let out a deep sigh, I can't stay like this broken doll. But I just don't care anymore..

A while  later, lying in my bed, I think maybe it’s time I did.

[blueberry-lemon]

the never-ending hustle bums me out

I've posted before about how I worry about how hard it is to be a creative freelancer online these days, especially for artists and musicians.

I wrote about social media starting to splinter last year. And then later I wrote down some truly pessimistic fears over here.

But I had one more thing on my mind about posting work online, so here it goes:

It makes me sad when I see people having to do the online content creator dance to get more Likes, Shares, and Followers.

And to be absolutely crystal-clear, I'm not judging everyone who is doing these things. I completely sympathize and I understand being in a situation (especially financially) where it feels that there is no other choice. It just bums me out. Especially the feeling that platforms make us dance and beg for attention. I'm mad at the tech companies and all the ways that they leave breadcrumbs out, telling people that it's easy to build an audience on their websites when it isn't at all and the engagement doesn't always translate into anything.

Elaboration below.

Everyone's gotta hustle, and I get that.

You have to put effort in to get eyeballs on your stuff, whether you're doing it for your income or just as a hobby. But it bums me out when someone was originally doing something they were passionate about, and now all of a sudden they're uploading like 5 Youtube videos a week with clickbait thumbnails and the whole nine yards, or tweeting with all sorts of hashtags, trying desperately to get "picked up" by the algorithm so that they can get some forward momentum and followers.

I think it's the "picked up by the algorithm" or "hoping to go viral" thing that bothers me especially. Because it's so nebulous, with ever-shifting goalposts that the companies who make these platforms don't care about at all. Even creators who DO have over 100k or 1m followers still struggle to maintain their livelihood because of all the ever-shifting preferences of the (supposed) algo.

This all came back to mind recently because of a mini trend on Twitter where creators are pretending to repost their own art to get more retweets. Basically, the theory is that people who steal art and repost it get more retweets than creators, so it's worth trying to pretend to be a reposter to get more people to share your art. "Woahhh, who drew this??" as a caption on your own drawing.

If I'm being totally honest, I don't really care about this little trend-of-the-day either way. I thought the original (now deleted) tweet was interesting and funny, and I'm sure most artists who have tried this afterward are doing it as a joke. I also think the lesson isn't really to say "yo who did this??" but rather just that people tend to retweet things with shorter, snappier, more relatable captions rather than a long self-promo post. I'm sure, psychologically, that self-promo posts with hashtags tend to turn a lot of people off, so they don't retweet them.

But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think any of these small tricks are going to make the difference in people having success or fun with their creative work. @erica had some nice thoughts about it over here and I'm inclined to agree. When the never-ending hustle to make social media work for your art feels hopeless, I think it's because the particular treadmills that you're running on might actually be hopeless. It's exhausting to constantly push more for more Likes, Shares, and Follows. I know that it's pretentious for me to say this (full-disclosure: i make a living off working for an indie game studio and don't currently hustle for freelance commissions) but I think scraping every last Like, Share, and Follow you can grab is unfortunately not going to change your life.

This is purely anecdotal, but no one who I support on Patreon or Twitch or whatever is someone who I just randomly saw on my timeline with like "cool art" or "a funny joke." It tends to be people whose work really speaks to me, or more likely, someone who speaks to me as a person because of their own thoughts, life, and experiences.

At the end of the day, it's probably more worth it (emotionally yes, financially maybe) to forge connections and bonds with people in smaller crowds. Places outside of Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Youtube, and TikTok. Places in real life, like conventions and meet-ups. Places on the "smaller" web, like forums, Discord servers, personal blogs, etc.

But, again....................what are we all to do? It sucks. And if there's a chance, even a small 1% chance, that you can get more followers, peers, friends, clients, and customers by hustling on these huge platforms.....I totally understand why everyone does it.

It just bums me out to see it. Particularly because I know that it takes time. And it takes effort. And mental and emotional energy. And all of that time, effort, and energy is probably better spent somewhere else, making the actual work that you like making and doing cool shit and exploring your own ideas and talking to people who really do follow you because your work speaks to them.

It also sucks because it pushes everyone into being the same type of "content creator" rather than specifically being a painter, or animator, or composer. Everyone feels compelled to make short-form video content, or microblog, or whatever it is that people say will make you go viral that week.

It all just sucks big-time and maybe it's obnoxious that I'm even writing this. My heart goes out to everyone freelancing. I have my fingers crossed that more stuff emerges that makes a clearer path forward. Patreon has thankfully helped make this life slightly easier for some people, but hopefully other tools will come out to supplement that and give people a safety net in case Patreon shits the bed.

[foxpunk]

like, on one hand i get it. i logically understand the motives behind why tumblr is making the decisions they are making. i just do not think that their motives MUST line up with these specific decisions.

in the end, tumblr needs more revenue. full stop. that is not up for debate. if they do not get it somehow, then tumblr is going to shut down because they simply cannot keep things running, and it will happen much MUCH sooner than most of y'all are at all prepared for. hell, it's already something they've been delaying well past when other sites would have been scrapped (well...aside from twitter but that is a recent and extreme example).

so i get why they need more activity, i get why they need more users, i get why they need to have a shop and micro-transactions. i truly do.

but tumblr is not going to be gaining any new users if it becomes a copy-cat for something that already exists. the amount of new and active and dedicated users they will get is minimal when those users can simply be active on another app/site that does the same thing (and likely already does it better). why seek out tumblr when every other app already has an algorithmic main feed? why seek out tumblr when every other app has live video? why seek out tumblr when every other site has a minimally customizable default profile?

what makes tumblr what it is? the surface answer is it's the communities and the fandoms and the memes, but what is it about tumblr that allowed these to develop the way they did? it certainly wasn't an algorithm, or live stream, or online shop.

if you want people to get hooked on tumblr, show them what they can do HERE that they CAN'T simply do on another app. yeah sure all the new features (live, for you, etc.) are fun for new users who are used to twitter and instagram and the like, and the option to use them can make those new users feel less out of their depth. but if that's all you're promoting they aren't gonna stick around, cause they can get that literally anywhere else. if you're gonna try n sell tumblr as a product then you need to realize the key to selling a product amongst competition is making it so that people need that product and what it offers Specifically.

one thing i never see talked about for this is hashtags not just as a promotional tool but as an organizational one. you can search through specific blog and see everything in a specific tag On That Blog. thats HUGE. it's SO useful. regardless of how it can mess up at times, literally NO other modern social media site lets you do that! livejournal and wordpress are the only things that come close, and livejournal is old as shit and largely inactive, while wordpress has a VERY different target audience.

pair that together with how reblogs work and you have an AMAZING thing going here and you're just letting it Sit There with no spotlight on it.

another thing: ASKS. GOD. WHY ARE Y'ALL NOT PROMOTING ASKS. HELLO. they're such a fun and unique way to interact on this site. the messenger is great but every social media has DMs these days. asks are something truly different and, again, they're just sitting there with NO spotlight on them.

another recent feature that i actually really really love is reblog controls. they are separate from having to turn your entire account private to get people to not look at/spread a post. they're perfect for people who don't want to bother password protecting their entire damn blog but still don't want a certain post spreading. talk about that! i'm sure it'd draw some people away from twitter, since you have to adjust privacy settings for your entire profile if you wanna manage who can and can't interact with a tweet.

and if you're worried about people being confused by reblogs and replies and the like. it is literally as simple as having a little slide show with cute graphics explaining what those are when people are signing up. hell, make multiple cute little slideshows. explain reblogs vs replies, explain tags and the specific way they work on tumblr, explain the different sections on the dash. don't make it little pop text bubbles on the dashboard, people hate pop ups. 9/10 they are not gonna look at them or accidentally click out of them and then they're gone and your user is lost. just have it be a page people are directed to before they hit the dashboard. it is THAT simple. let people be able to revisit that page easily. boom. one and done. you had that annoying ass wind up denture icon popping up for all of us, why not put a little icon in the corner for new accounts to revisit the "tutorial" if they forgot something? it literally is that easy it is SO easy. holy shit.

if you're so worried about users being confused by anything different from other social media, it's your job to EXPLAIN THOSE DIFFERENCES. NOT squash them out, are you fucking kidding me hellooo!! sure okay make things a lil more streamlined and definitely improve WCAG, but don't just fucking toss out features that aren't ACTUALLY complicated or inaccessible!! GODDD

it is not actually that complicated to explain a few new concepts to new users. learn how to frame things in a fun way upon sign-up instead of obfuscating any and all information behind 10 different staff/support/wip/changes/etc blogs and the least helpful help desk in existence.

also, i know they already clarified they aren't gonna be doing this, but if they push non-optional algorithm onto the Main Feed i'm gonna blow this whole place up (for legal reasons i must clarify this is a Joke). like. just find me on mastodon at that point.

edit: to clarify what i've already said. i think having algorithmic options (OPTIONAL options) for new users is Fine in the end. like, it's a fair compromise (mentioned that in some tags earlier but realized i didn't say that on this post specifically). i have issues with how it's opt-OUT rather than opt-IN, but in the end it's not really going to affect much (so long as chrono feeds are an option, and are not taken from users who already have them set as chrono). and honestly neither will all the smaller (general UI) changes they are going to be experimenting with. the site and it's core features will largely function the same way.

i'm mostly frustrated with tumblr making all these changes to conform rather than to stand out from the pack.

the one thing i AM worried about is that they hinted at messing with reblogs and replies more though. don't touch them lol. like i said, just actually explain shit to your new users and you'll be FINE lord almighty

[courseforjobnet]

Valeriya Lisitsyna – Instagram Academy

Valeriya Lisitsyna – Instagram Academy Step by step course to making money on Instagram as a creator and growing your account to thousands of loyal followers Get my battle-tested framework to create consistent content, grow a raving following and monetize your work with dreamy paid deals. All with the support of a team of experts dedicated to your success. A step by step program to help you become a PAID influencer and REACH thousands of loyal followers What You’ll Learn In Instagram Academy Module 1: Finding Niche & Standing Out As Creator In the first module we will dive into the foundation of your account. Using your super power = YOU. We will define what makes you unique, your values and goals to help you stand out from other creators. After this lesson you will have clarity on your niche and confidence. Lesson 1 – Intro Lesson 2 – Finding your niche Lesson 3 – Personal brand Module 2: Content Development All you need to become a successful creator is your phone. I share my full process of creating content, using hashtags, my schedule and time saving secrets. You will start creating content that will attract brands and followers. Lesson 4 – hashtags still work Lesson 5 – Set up Lesson 6 – Photo Content Lesson 7 – content planning Lesson 8 – Foundation to posting Module 3: Skyrocket Engagement It’s not a secret that the IG algorithm is slow these days. But this doesn’t mean you need to spend 5 hours a day on IG to get results. I’m going to share some quick practical tips to increase engagement. After this lesson you will conquer fear of camera, create posts that will get more saves and likes and get rid of the imposter syndrome. Lesson 9 – Converting stories Lesson 10 – Instagram Live Lesson 11 – Engagement Tactics Lesson 12 – Engagement Tactics Part two Module 4: Growth Methods These aren’t “get rich quick” tactics I’m sharing here! These are proven and tested strategy’s for todays algorithm. All it takes is committing 30 minutes a day to one of these growth methods. So you can stop wasting your time and money on IG and start seeing results. (bonus) Reels mini course Lesson 13- Growing for free Lesson 14- Growing for free part 2 Lesson 15- Growing for free part 3 Lesson 16- Paid methods of growth Lesson 17- Paid methods of growth 2 Module 5: Monetizing If you are here, I know you want to start seeing $$ from this IG hobby of yours. I’ll share all about using “Professional Material” to reach out as a professional creator, how to negotiate the rates you want, and build long lasting relationships with brands. Lesson 18- Monetizing Lesson 19 – Ultimate Guide to pitching to brands Lesson 20 – Brand contacts Lesson 21 – How to Get Signed With Agency Module 6: Expanding Your Biz So you are seeing your IG hobby turn into a profitable side hustle.. It is time to treat it as a business! In our last module you will know exactly how to file taxes, expand your income to quit your 9-5 job and expand your income past 6 figures like I did! Lesson 23- Expanding Your Biz​ Lesson 24- Taxes Lesson 25- Hiring Personal Assistant Lesson 26 – Scaling More courses from the same author: Valeriya Lisitsyna

[oragetechnologiess1]

Are You Shadow Banned? What Should You Do Next?

In the age of social media, visibility matters. Whether you’re a business owner, content creator, or just someone trying to connect with others, getting your posts seen is important. But what happens when your content suddenly disappears from people’s feeds? No alerts. No warnings. Just silence.

You may have been shadow banned.

Let’s dive into what it means, how to find out if it's happened to you, and—most importantly—what you should do next.

What Does “Shadow Banned” Mean?

Being shadow banned means your content becomes invisible or hidden on a platform—without you knowing. You can still post, comment, and interact normally. However, other users may not see your activity, especially if they’re not following you.

For example:

Your hashtags stop working.

Your engagement drops significantly.

Your posts don’t appear in explore pages or feeds.

Social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), or Reddit might apply this to accounts they believe violate guidelines—even unintentionally.

How Do You Know If You’ve Been Shadow Banned?

Great question. Since platforms rarely admit to shadow banning, it can be tricky to confirm. However, here are some signs to look for:

1. Drop in Engagement

Are your likes, comments, or shares lower than usual? A sudden drop in activity is one of the most common signs.

2. Check Hashtag Reach

Post something with a unique or less popular hashtag. Ask someone who doesn’t follow you to search the tag. If they can’t find your post, you may be shadow banned.

3. Search Visibility

Ask a friend to search your username on the platform. If your account doesn’t show up, that’s another clue.

4. Platform Warnings

Check your account settings or notifications. Some platforms may provide a hint or alert that you’ve violated community guidelines.

Why Did You Get Shadow Banned?

Now that you suspect you're shadow banned, let’s look at why it might have happened.

1. Violation of Community Guidelines

This is the most common reason. If you’ve posted offensive, spammy, or misleading content, you may be flagged—even by accident.

2. Using Banned Hashtags

Some hashtags are banned without public notice. Using these can harm your reach and trigger moderation tools.

3. Spam-Like Behavior

Engaging in too many likes, follows, or comments in a short time may look suspicious to the platform’s algorithm.

4. Reports from Users

If people report your content, even if unfairly, it might lead to a shadow ban.

5. Automated Bots or Scheduling Tools

Using unauthorized third-party apps or bots to post or follow others could raise red flags.

What Should You Do If You’re Shadow Banned?

Getting shadow banned is frustrating. But don’t worry—there are steps you can take to bounce back.

1. Pause Your Activity

Stop posting for 2–3 days. This gives the algorithm time to "cool down" and reassess your activity.

2. Delete Problematic Posts

If you’ve used questionable hashtags or shared borderline content, remove it.

3. Review Community Guidelines

Each platform has a set of rules. Re-read them to make sure you're not accidentally breaking them.

4. Switch to a Business Account

On platforms like Instagram, business accounts offer more insights. You’ll be able to track reach, engagement, and other analytics.

5. Reach Out to Support

If you believe the ban is a mistake, contact platform support. Stay polite and provide clear details.

6. Avoid Bots and Spammy Tools

Use only verified apps and avoid bulk follow/unfollow behavior.

How Long Does a Shadow Ban Last?

It depends on the platform and the severity of the reason behind it. Typically, a shadow ban lasts a few days to two weeks. In some cases, it can last longer if the issue isn’t resolved.

Consistency and clean content are key. Once you follow the rules again, your visibility usually improves.

Can You Prevent Future Shadow Bans?

Yes! Here’s how:

Post original content regularly and avoid copying others.

Don’t use too many hashtags—stick to relevant and safe ones.

Engage naturally—avoid rapid liking, following, or commenting.

Monitor your account insights for unusual drops or behavior.

Being careful today can help you stay visible tomorrow.

Does Being Shadow Banned Affect Your Account Permanently?

Not necessarily. While it can hurt your short-term reach, most shadow bans are temporary. However, repeated violations might lead to long-term visibility issues or even permanent bans.

That’s why it’s important to treat shadow bans seriously and take steps to avoid them.

What Platforms Use Shadow Banning?

Many major social platforms use some form of shadow banning or content demotion:

Instagram: Reduces visibility of “borderline” content.

TikTok: Filters out content that violates guidelines.

X (Twitter): May limit tweet visibility or searchability.

Reddit: Can silently ban users from certain communities.

YouTube: Demotes content considered misleading or inappropriate.

Each platform handles it differently, but the end result is similar—limited visibility without direct notification.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Is there a tool to check if I’m shadow banned?

Some third-party tools claim to detect shadow bans, but results aren’t always accurate. Manual testing with hashtags and non-followers is more reliable.

2. Will deleting my account fix the issue?

Not really. If your behavior was problematic, a new account might get flagged too. It's better to fix your current account.

3. Can verified accounts get shadow banned?

Yes. Even verified users can be shadow banned if they violate rules.

4. Does changing my username help?

No. Shadow bans are tied to account behavior, not usernames.

5. Should I keep posting if I’m shadow banned?

It’s better to pause posting for a short time and review your activity. Posting while shadow banned might worsen the issue.

Conclusion

Being shadow banned can be annoying, but it's not the end of the world. It's a reminder to pause, reflect, and adjust how you use the platform. By staying within guidelines, using hashtags carefully, and avoiding spam-like behavior, you can recover and prevent future bans.

The digital world may not always play fair, but you have more control than you think. Stay authentic, create real content, and engage with your audience meaningfully. That’s the best way to keep your voice heard—without getting shadowed.

[humanintheuniverse]

I miss old YouTube, and the internet in general, I'm probably a bit young to be saying this, but I just saw my channel age, and it was July 2016, that feels like so long ago, I cannot even fathom what I was doing at that time. However I do know that I miss the way people made content before, how the videos of various YouTubers were personal and like talking-to-a-friend situation, I mean if we're going to be honest it was easier to build a parasocial relationship with them, which is wrong, but you gotta admit it's real, I was watching some of my favourite YouTubers content from that era (mind you, I didn't watch them in their time), it was amazing, yeah sometimes boring, the bar for quality is now through the roof since we have an abundance of content now, but I miss the feeling of genuineness, and authenticity their videos had. A few funny videos here and there.

I miss Q&A's, now you can ask creators on stream, but then it was much more common to ask them mundane questions through hashtags, it felt real, how they have life updates sometimes, and you just wanna know more, but also respect their privacy. I feel like in 2016 YouTube was just starting to have structure and monetisation was just starting so people were being paid for making passionate content, not the one that works, not trying to "get ahead of the algorithm", but just being. I know the bar was low, but it felt so much more accessible than it is now, it felt much harder (at least for me) to put them on a pedestal, because I saw them as human, now I feel like content is becoming overproduced, Mr. beast style, I never really liked him because his videos overwhelm me, but now it seems that everything has to have a hook, everything has to be interesting, which is good, but the more curated something is the more the humanity of said content is left out, the more produced it is, the less opportunities you'll have to talk to your audience, the more it feels like a TV show, and that's not what I came to the internet for.

YouTube has taken a wild shift from how they managed their content, and on one hand I'm happy that some hateful content was removed, but on the other hand their algorithm has made YouTubers greedy trying to figure it out. Gone are the days when they only did it out of passion. I think this relates to even a wider shift occurring on the internet "The dead internet theory" which I only believe to a certain extent, I still think there are humans out here, but the rising of AI and how it's taking up creative fields rather than manual work is unsettling which even more intensifies how the authenticity has been lost in a lot of creators, don't get me wrong some are still trying, but their videos have to be more curated than they were before, they adapted. However I'm tired of that level of quality, I've also seen in the fashion and makeup niches how the fans of that content do want more authentic content, not so many brand deals, which I totally get, but I get the common theme here, we want authenticity, we want rawness.

This is a bit silly but I felt the need to get this out of my mind, I've been thinking about this all day, and to think that it started with watching old YouTube videos.

[genericpuff]

Hi! I love your comic Lore Rekindled, it's pretty entertaining! (definetely planning on reading Time Gate when I finally have some time lol). I'm currently very early in the process of making a comic myself, and while I have the main idea down, and the planning sorta done (I'm busy with uni, so I've been working on it bit by bit), I can't seem to figure out how to grow an audience. I was wondering how you did it and how long it took?

oh god oh no y'all are asking me how to grow an audience UH-

so like, here's the thing, I can try and give you pointers, but I also like... don't consider myself as someone with an audience ?? Like obviously there's an audience for Lore Rekindled but up until that point, Time Gate's been running for like 10+ years and I think it only has 5-10 regular readers nowadays, it peaked in its audience numbers years ago when it was still on Tapas before their platform went downhill and I bailed and since then the industry has only become more and more saturated making it even harder to get seen. Rekindled, on the other hand, has been super refreshing to work on because of how much people have flocked to it (which was surprising af but I couldn't be happier about it ngl it's been great ;o; <3) but that's really because Rekindled had the advantage of a pre-existing audience to tap into (specifically the communities of ULO/antiLO/etc. who were looking for something to rejuvenate their love for what once was in LO). So that made it a bit easier to build an audience, but that's something that goes for a lot of fandoms.

Original stuff is definitely a bit of a harder sell because you have to go out and find the people who might like your stuff and then convince them to give it a try. Building an audience in an original market is just not something I've ever been good at, I can't stand social media, I don't like "playing the algorithm", I just want to tell a story with my own characters and because of that, it often feels like I'm posting to the void with only a couple cheerleaders rooting me on. Which like, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the readers I DO have, but it can make creating comics feel like an uphill slog when you're not seeing any growth at all every time you update and try your best to advertise. Original projects are my own personal boulder if y'know what I'm saying (￣y▽,￣)╭

At the very least, working on Rekindled has definitely helped open up the doors for Time Gate a couple more inches, because a lot of stuff in Rekindled is also in Time Gate so when people enjoy Rekindled, I can point them towards Time Gate and go "Oh, you like Persephone's hot and cold characterization? You like Charon's aloofness? You like the banter between Hades and Persephone? Go read Time Gate." (｡･∀･)ﾉﾞ

That said, I think the best experience I've had with marketing Time Gate so far actually happened this year - when I went to the Island Entertainment Expo, a gaming and media convention (similar to Comic Con but on a waaaaay smaller scale lmao). There I was actually able to talk to people face to face and draw them in with physical proof of my work, it was less posting and hoping and more connecting with others and showing them my work and giving them an elevator pitch. And considering it was a convention full of like-minded people cosplaying as video game and anime characters, Time Gate fit right in because that's the niche it was written for. I'm due to go to another convention in June and possibly one in October (if I get in) and I'm hoping they're just as successful as IEX was because it was so refreshing to actually get to market my comic on a playing ground catered to my work; rather than one that would bury it after 30 seconds just for not posting at the right time of day or using the exact right combination of hashtags or not using reels.

Of course, doing tables and stuff is something that you're likely not going to jump right into especially when you're starting out. So considering you're just starting, focus less on growing an audience and more on just making your comic. It's a lot better of a sell to an audience when you have proof of your work existing and your biggest struggle in the beginning isn't going to be building an audience, but building good habits. A lot of webcomics don't even make it past a year of regular publication because of how difficult it is in practice to maintain a regular schedule. Often times the people who don't make it past that year either get bored, overwhelmed, or burnt out from the work it requires, especially when they're drawing the same characters over and over and over again - and even more so when they're doing it by themselves, with next to no audience, and no return investment. No exaggeration, drawing comics is hard, but like going to the gym, it gets easier as you get into your groove and learn what works and doesn't work for you as a creator.

Most of all, while I do hope that anyone going into webcomics can build themselves an audience they can be proud of having, please please please don't go into making webcomics purely for building an audience, because it's hard and not guaranteed. As I had said above, I still don't even consider myself as someone with an audience in the traditional sense because when it comes to Time Gate, it's still a VERY small thing, and with Rekindled, I consider the people who read it less of "my audience" and more just the community that I came into who engages with my work because it's made specifically for the community. So please, for the love of god, do it for yourself first and foremost, don't get trapped in the grind of chasing an audience when you're still just getting your work off the ground <3

I hope that helps a little, sorry I don't have a more direct "do xyz and that'll do the trick!" answer (and it turned into another essay post) but to be perfectly honest, that straightforward answer just sorta doesn't exist in this industry. Sometimes you get an audience from catering to a niche, sometimes you get one from going viral on IG, sometimes you get one from climbing the ladder within the industry, it all depends. But the good news is, there's no surefire 100% way that you have to be obligated to stick to. It's okay if you try some things and they don't work, just as it's okay if you don't feel like doing things the way everyone else is telling you to. Just have fun, learn lots, and be open to putting yourself out there and trying new things! \(￣︶￣*\))

[synstoria]

My tikok experimentation

TW: marketing, bad jokes 😅

So, I am doing a lot of marketing research even if I don’t really like it; I think it’s important to do. I read many articles talking about how tiktok algorithm was favorable to game dev because it shows more easily content they are not following to people.

I tried my hand at it once:

And it took me waaaaaay too much time to do, because I am not used to video editing, not used to tiktok app AND perfectionist. Like, I wanted to make a video that matches the beats of the music, but it’s not a thing at all in tiktok videos. Unless the music is meant to have a shift at a particular point, people usually just slap a music on a video and that’s all. I also wanted to make clean screenshot, but the trend is to just film your computer screen with your phone. My perfectionnist side CAN’T do that.

Finally, Tiktok is all about trends, so you actually have to consume a lot of tiktok vids to know which music and which kind of « memes » are trendy, which seems really time consuming, and I am already sooo busy…

At this point, I decided it was not for me and gave up.

Later, I found yet another video about how tiktok was an incredible marketing tool, naming an account « DarkDeityGame » with a SRPG kind of game with practically no animation but a lot of sprites, so I gave it some more thinking. (Fun fact, I couldn’t find back the account, until I understand they renamed it and now the dev practically only do face cam videos.)

So a month ago, I gave it another shot; I wanted to conduct a brief experiment, so I decided to NOT publish the video on my other social media account so I would really gauge the magical algorithm. I found someone very nice specialising on videos creation (especially tiktok ones) and she was very professional. She took the time to listen to all my thought about the game and community private joke to get ideas of funny vids.

Anyway, confident in this person I commissioned her to create 8 videos for me and do some hashtag research. She created silly vids with trendy music. A friend of mine spending a lot of time on tiktok told me the vibe was here even if it was a little too static because it’s just sprite.

For example:

Or more contemplative ones:

I posted the video, with the hashtags and stuff, and I got… 3 view. Basically, only the people who were following me from the first video liked it, and same goes for every video I posted afterward except one.

The only vid who got more than a couple of views, reach around 100 view, it was a "art process" one; I did following one Arimia’s article.

Being not an artist myself, and having an incredible artist but who doesn’t share many WIP it’s not something I can do often.

Overall this experiment was a complete failure and waste of money. 😅

I hope at least it can help some people not doing the same mistakes, so here I some insight about the whole thing.

Why this experiment might have performed so poorly:

As I said, I didn’t share the videos anywhere else for the purpose of the experiment, so they didn’t get any initial view boost.

It’s possible my account performed worse than excepted because I posted a video and then went afk for a few months before posting again. Some people suggest I might have been shadowban while other says tiktok gives another chance when an account rise from the dead. Some other people also said if you delete an account and recreate one just after you might get shadowban aswell.

Like any social media, there is time it’s better to post your content, problem is you can’t schedule the moment they will be posted* and I don’t want to become a slave of tiktok by putting alarms on my phone to post a video (+I am not in the USA time zone, so sometimes it’s at crazy hour for me.)

*You actually can schedule videos on tiktok :

- By having a « business account » but then you have to use the computer app who is very poor AND you can’t use most of the musics on tiktok. Since the videos were already created with trendy music when I noticed, I couldn’t use it.

- By using other apps to do it for you, but a lot of users say you might get shadowban because your videos are posted by a bot.

To avoid being « shadowban » or considered like a bot, it’s apparently better you take the time to interact with others content before and after you post the video, but I had no time to do that, and there was actually not much videos on things that do interest me.

My two cent about the whole thing, and what you can do if you still want to try it out.

I was still impressed that out of nowhere, I could get 100 views on one of the vid without sharing the videos in anyway. If the algorithm is not as magical I thought, there is definitely something to exploit.

Visual novel just lack of movement to be used for tiktok, I think the best and easiest way is to go toward art creation process.

Humor seems to work a lot in tiktok but for reason A, if you want to make jokes, you probably have to use your voice and show your face like the amazing community manager of Among us for example.

Trend are really powerful. I was a bit salty to see on the visual novel tag a lot of vid performing extremely well... while just being someone filming their screen scrolling to show the VN they did in google slide. 😓

Forget everything I say, tiktok is impredictable, just film your screen doing stuff, and you might go viral after all :p

[saturatedcoffee]

How Archive Sunday turned 5,000 TikTok followers into $1 million in revenue… in one year

Nothing has made me feel the big 3–0 looming on my horizon more than being a millennial on TikTok. Like more than the 100 million people who downloaded the app at the start of quarantine, it was something I used to pass the time. It was what all the kids were doing, and I was in strong denial about the fact that I was no longer one of them with my skinny jeans and side part―which TikTok has shown me are signs that I am now, certifiably, Old.

What I expected was videos of lip-syncing and dancing―like the app’s precursor, Musical.ly. But what I found was a collection of content creators making videos about my very specific and very niche interests and using that as a marketing tool for their small businesses.

I found a lot of small businesses on TikTok to satiate my quarantine-induced shopaholic tendencies. Like custom joycons for my Nintendo Switch, Japanese anime stickers for my laptop, and cute gear for my battlestation (otherwise known as my home office). What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t alone-the pandemic had kickstarted an explosion of growth for small businesses on apps and websites like TikTok.

And one of those businesses is right here in Salt Lake City-in fact, right across the street from my very own apartment.

Just because there’s a pandemic doesn’t mean you can’t do business

When I was downloading TikTok at the start of the pandemic, Sasha Sloan was starting her business. “I was just kind of stuck at home in quarantine,” she says. “I was still in school, but I couldn’t go to campus. I couldn’t get a job. And like everybody else, I was just on TikTok all the time.”

What started as a way to make some money and kill some time in quarantine quickly became an overnight sensation.

Her business was simple: buying old Star Wars T-shirts from the thrift store, bleach dying them, and reselling them on Etsy. Coming from a family who had made their living off of recycled fashion, like her siblings’ company Uptown Cheapskate or her mother’s company Kid to Kid, it was an easy model to follow, but one she did all on her own.

With only 5,000 TikTok followers and 50 bleach-dyed Star Wars T-shirts, Sloan put up a video showcasing her product and went to bed. When she woke up the next day, her entire Etsy collection had sold out. “That was the first moment that I was like, hold on, do we have something special here? And then I did it again.”

For the first two months, that’s how it went. Waking up at 6:00 AM, buying shirts, bleaching them, photographing them, and then listing them. “I couldn’t do it fast enough,” she says.

Sloan launched her business, Archive Sunday, with bleach-dyed T-shirts on TikTok on July 7th, 2020. By August, she’d launched her second product: collage walls. One hundred days in, the business hit $100,000 in sales. By the five-month mark, Sloan’s account reached one million followers. Now the business is projected to make a million dollars in sales in 2021.

Pictured: Sasha Sloan with the Archive Sunday collage kit, Athena. Photo provided by Archive Sunday.

A new social media for a new way of marketing

What makes Sloan’s business unique is that it goes beyond traditional methods because the products she sells draw on existing fanbases, like Star Wars and Harry Potter. In fact, I discovered her months ago because she posted a video from my own favorite fandom, Sailor Moon.

“The [TikTok] algorithm sorted me very quickly into fandom. Star Wars, Harry Potter, all that kind of stuff. And I was just watching and seeing how easy it is to go viral,” says Sloan. She’s right. It is easy to go viral on TikTok, especially if you know what you’re doing.

The algorithm sorts users into social circles that share interests — or liked hashtags. When a video is uploaded, the algorithm shows it to a small subset of people. And when they like that video, it shares it with users who may have similar interests. And if they like it, it creates a positive feedback loop that, if it happens enough times, causes the video to go viral. Unlike platforms like Twitter or Facebook, you don’t have to be following the video creator to find their content.

And though it sounds lucky, Sloan says her success was about more than luck, “Everything that’s happened on TikTok is not by accident. I am very strategic, very calculating in what I post,” she explains. “That’s something that I think is the most common and frustrating misconception to me is that I am a blonde girl. I’m a pageant girl. I know how to do my makeup. And I will get the critique that everything I have only came to me because of the way I look. And I just hate it, because I don’t think people realize I’ve been working in the social media world and studying algorithms since I was about 18.”

Pictured: Sasha Sloan in her signature collection, The Burrow, inspired by Harry Potter. Photo provided by Archive Sunday.

Sloan has worked in social media since she ran the verified social accounts for her family’s businesses as a teenager. Recently, she even ran social media for John Huntsman’s campaign for governor as part of her capstone internship, managing million-dollar ad spends. And in her experience, she can confirm that marketing on TikTok is very different from Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest.

“[TikTok] has created this liberation in social media where, number one, you can make whatever you want because you’re speaking to an audience that really gets you and has your same interests. And number two, it is a meritocracy. On Instagram, celebrities are often the most-followed and your followers decide how much [your content] gets liked. Whereas on TikTok, the algorithm does not care if you have a million followers or if you have ten. The only question is, is this a good piece of content?”

Creative advertising for a creative generation

TikTok is changing the game―and it’s changing the way we sell products. It’s not about paid advertising, because you can scroll right past the ads. You can’t target an ad to Gen Z the same way you can target a Boomer on Facebook. And according to Wallaroo Media, 60 percent of TikTok users belong to Gen Z, who’ve spent their whole lives on social media and are able to tell what’s an ad and what’s actual content. So if you want a TikTok user to watch your ad, you have to make it content they want to watch.

So Sloan has skipped the commercial. “I’ve never spent a dollar on marketing,” she says. “We just make these creative projects and people want to support them. They want to support the outfits. They want to look like our characters. And so we’re almost using fictional characters as influencers in a way.”

The creative projects and fictional characters she’s talking about tie back into her Noble House of Black series, which is a fan-created, live-action series of TikTok videos about three sisters from Harry Potter: Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa Black (played by Sloan herself). The series tells the story of these sisters in a visual form of fan fiction, wearing Archive Sunday’s clothes and using their accessories which, if fans like enough, they can follow through Sloan’s TikTok profile to the Archive Sunday store.

Pictured: Sasha Sloan as Narcissa Black in the Tiktok Harry Potter fan series The Noble House of Black. Photo provided by Archive Sunday.

What makes the series so engaging is that they’re featuring characters the very large and very vocal Harry Potter fandom is already familiar with. But while these characters exist in the Harry Potter franchise, much of their story is left untold. Which leaves it to the interpretation of fanon — a collection of concepts and ideas that are used in most fan fiction, but don’t really exist in the real story’s canon. And that’s where the Noble House of Black steps in to fill in the story.

“We are representing the aesthetic of fandom, which is not exactly the same thing as representing the original piece of art or work,” explains Sloan, who is very careful to circumnavigate her business around copyright issues. “We’re not copying and pasting the original piece of art. We’re using that art as a launching pad and an expansionary work to create something [new].”

A new kind of business for a new kind of nerd

The business of fandom, and namely fan fiction, is growing. Comic conventions like Salt Lake’s FanX grow bigger every year. The most well-recognized fan fiction website, Archive of our Own (AO3), even celebrated their 7 millionth fan fiction upload in 2020. Fan culture is a booming and underserved market, which has exploded even further with the stay-at-home orders of the 2020 pandemic. And Archive Sunday is capitalizing on it.

The untapped market of grown fans, particularly young women, is what Sloan attributes to her success. “I wanted to create a brand for that girl who is a millennial or a Gen Z or who loves their fandom stuff, is confident, put together, and is still a cool, popular, fun person that you’d want to hang out with.” For the girl that shops at Target, who wants the $200 merch from Disneyland but can only afford the sale at Hot Topic. For the fan who wants to rep their Hogwarts house while also being office-appropriate.

Pictured: The Black sisters from the Tiktok Harry Potter fan series, The Noble House of Black, with the actresses wearing signature Archive Sunday clothing pieces. Photo provided by Archive Sunday.

And Sloan is using her platform not only for marketing but as a tool for empowerment. “Generally in society, women are made fun of for their interests,” she says. “And I think that a lot of young women, in particular, need and desire the ability to look up to other women that have the same interest and are completely confident and passionate about it.”

And as a grown fan myself, I wholeheartedly agree with her. According to a census survey of 10,005 AO3 users, 80 percent of fan fiction readers and creators identified as female, with less than five percent identifying as male. But how many of these women hide behind online aliases and compartmentalize their fandoms from their real lives?

The answer to that question remains unseen, but Sloan is taking the steps to embrace her nerdiness as the girl who reads too much―and turning that into not only a business, but a positive role model for young women.

“When people message me to tell me why they follow me, it’s usually young women who [say], ‘I’m getting bullied in school and everyone thinks that I’m weird. I like all this stuff. I’m so passionate about my books and things. And I don’t really see any representation for that.”

So she’s filling the gap. Embracing her inner geek and using that to connect with other fans, she’s been able to build a business practically overnight. There’s a market here that’s ripe for the picking and desperate for content. Like Sloan, you don’t need to spend a dime on marketing. You just need to be a little creative and jump in the game while it’s still hot.

...

Originally published at https://www.utahbusiness.com on April 27, 2021. Follow me on Medium!

[alvie-pines]

okay, so to tag, you gotta know how searching works.

if i search "red son lmk" using the search bar, it will bring up things tagged:

#red #my son #lmk

#son #lmk #red

#red son lmk

#lmk red son

#lmk #red son

#this is my son lmk if he looks kinda red

tumblr search also integrates the post body.

so if you make a post like this:

i love red son! #lmk

it will come up when you search "red son lmk"

so basically, tumblr will search the ENTIRE post content, both body and tags, and compile every post that contains all 3 (or 4 or 5 or w/e) words you searched for, in any order, even if theyre separated by #s or part of it is in the post body.

if you click on a specific tag, or search with a hashtag before it (ex: "#red son lmk" instead of "red son lmk") you'll see all posts tagged with that exact tag. but from my understanding, most people use the default search instead of the precise tag search.

also, searching blogs works the same way.

(side note: if you follow a tag, tumblr will add posts from that tag to your dash, but only the exact tag text. so if you follow #red son lmk, this feature will only bring you posts tagged exactly that.)

so to put this to use, lets say you post an edit of red son. these are the tags i would use:

#red son #lmk #lego monkie kid #screenshot edit #my edit

this will come up when people search any of the following:

red son

lmk red son

red son lmk

red son lego monkie kid

red son edit

lego monkie kid screenshot edit

... + more

adding "red son lmk" and "lmk red son" would be redundant since they'd both appear under all the same searches. you could even tag "son red" if you want to, it would still come up when people search "red son", or any other phrase with "red" and "son" in it.

(also, the "my edit" one is so that people can click the tag and find all posts on your blog tagged "my edit." its a fast and easy way to see all the edits you've made.)

another example; here's a post i made with art featuring MK, Wukong, and Macaque.

here's what i tagged it:

this will come up when you search "lmk mk" or "lmk sun wukong" or "lmk wukong" or "wukong macaque shadowpeach" or "mk wukong macaque" or "six eared macaque" or "six eared macaque lmk" or--

you get the idea. any combo of any of the words i used in these tags.

#mk is their son is just a commentary tag, not really meant to influence the post's reach or be searched for.

ONE MORE THING!

#lmkredson will NOT come up when you search "lmk", "red son", or "lmk red son." tumblr reads it all as one word.

the other thing is that tumblr has no algorithm! anything you did on tiktok or twitter to influence an algorithm does pretty much nothing here. tags are for users to search for posts themselves. nobody will be searching "viral" so it doesnt do anything for your reach. always tag posts thinking about what people are likely to actually search for, since it wont just appear on their dash according to their tastes.

personally, i tag all my original posts across multiple blogs with #alv posts so that they're easy to find, both on each individual blog and across the whole site. having your own art or post tags can be useful, though its not necessary.

TLDR;

tumblr searches all tags + the post body and brings up anything with any combination of the words you searched, no matter the order or separation

you dont need to tag both "red son lmk" and "lmk red son" because tumblr search treats them as the same

tumblr reads #lmkredson as one whole word, so it wont come up when people search "lmk red son" with spaces (which is how tumblr people tend to tag and search)

having a personal tag like #alv posts or #alv draws or #my edits makes your stuff easy to find

hope this is helpful? i know its a lot to take in at once, lmk if you have any questions :)

do you want some tagging tips?

Yes plz 🥲

[kitemist]

I wrote a post on twitter called: “Unpopular Opinion: You’re a fake ally.”

I had to write it after my ex-best friend never ceased to amaze me with how horrible of an ally she is, with the added insult of false promises that always break.

It got zero traction on twitter because I don’t have that many followers on there, or people who really interact with me, but I want to post it here too.

From here onwards, it’s copy and pasted from the exact twitter post, and I would appreciate feedback in a civil manner if you want.

“What’s something that you’ll get a lot of hate for if you said it out loud?” I’m going to be subtweeting a very specific person when I say this but I’m going to forward it to you all too. If you feel uncomfortable from what I’m saying, I am definitely talking about you. I’ve seen this several times with this specific person with the added insult of a record of broken promises to be better, as well as the same thing over the past few years from other people, so I am pissed enough to speak out. Obviously, this is just my opinion, disagreements are going to happen, I’m not forcing anyone to do anything, just asking you to read if you want. If a person, or more relevantly, group of people needs help, and you retweet, repost, share, post to your story, spread in any way that you can their cries for help like infographics, GoFundMe’s, links to online wallets, emergency commissions, news updates and all that; if you donate to such things and spread them around; push people to do the same; if you do donation commissions and give the money attained from that to them; bring it up in conversations with them and others every now and then; but you don’t emotionally help your everyday member of that group or that person, especially if they are your FRIEND, YOU ARE A FAKE ALLY. I do not care if you do everything else. If you don’t do that one thing, you’re a fake ally. And doing everything else doesn’t make you a good person either, if that is how you judge yourself and others. And if you're uncomfortable, then leave now. Doing everything else and not that is literally no different than 1 like for water for Africa, those old pics that would ask for likes during early facebook days, with the added insult of a trending event/group of people with it and resurging every now and then whenever something horrible happens, and they’re always seen first. You just click on those things to reassure people that you’re not THAT kind of an insensitive asshole, but then you just feel great about yourself that you added to that number even though you have only done the bare minimum, because you ultimately don’t want to get TOO involved in something that makes you uncomfortable, and give yourself a great pat on the back for all the hard work you’ve done just pressing that button. You obviously don’t care about this issue enough to throw your comfort zone aside, even for just a second. We don’t have that choice to not see it like you do, and we feel a lot more than just “uncomfortable”. For WAY longer. Doing those things without emotionally supporting the actual people just separates yourself from the problem in a convenient way. Passing thoughts and prayers and especially clicks on posts aren’t going to help anyone but a completely detached algorithm. You do not get credit for doing the bare minimum and expect the same rewards as passionate, achieving activists. I’m not just talking about #StopAAPIHate just because it’s trending right now, this applies to literally every hashtag that is the only way of a group of people’s cries for help that generates some kind of attention to everyone else that people care about. I’ve seen it be a pattern for enough time now. I’ve seen stories of people who would use #BlackLivesMatter, or the name of any black person who died, as a way to spread it by their banner or profile picture or even turn it into a meme that pushes people to sign their latest petitions, but then completely disrespect actual black people or don’t do anything else for their causes. The only reason you would ever do this is because you care about other people’s approval of you, not actual POC, and you only ever see them as a trend or a platform to be trendy. As a POC myself, we are more than just a fucking hashtag on twitter. We’re more than just a label to reassure people that you’re not a bully. We’re people. But I guess that’s too hard to understand for those fake allies, all they ever see is something to click on, and they’ll get the same credit as those genuine allies without having to work. Or be UNCOMFORTABLE, God forbid you have to step outside of the comfortable world you think you live in. Now for donating money. I get that monetary support isn’t something that everyone can afford to do. I’m not forcing or expecting everyone to do that or not do that. If you can’t, then I recommend spreading donation posts, for the hope for it to come by someone who can and will. You can then still be a vehicle for help if you cannot provide it yourself. But I know that everyone is capable of being completely fake when it comes to donations when they have that kind of money to spare. You can totally just dump $100 or so into a GoFundMe, and never interact with anything related to that group of people ever again and live a completely separate life, with that same convenient separation, but with a receipt this time so that if it’s brought up again, that’s all you have to show to say to them to not worry, you did something, you’re not THAT kind of fake asshole because your wallet is involved this time. It’s what youtubers do when they have to make a YouTube apology just so everyone can stop hating on them for a little while. Anyone can do that. I’m not assuming the worst in everyone, I’m saying you don’t need a platform to be an asshole. Money doesn’t make you better or worse than anyone else, it just shows that you’re more financially well off to be able to donate and that’s something that we can appreciate, but it’s not pure sentiment. Money isn’t feelings. It’s just money. It doesn’t tell us anything about your morals. It doesn’t care how you obtained it and it doesn’t care where you spend it. Donating from your heart and donating from your wallet are two very different things, but it’s not like we can tell from here, so we can’t give you credit for that, especially if those donations are also in the complete public eye. That kind of difference is only discernable to us long after, and even then, that requires some detective work and pattern searching with other donations you have made in the past, if any. Sometimes we don’t even have that time to see if that genuine empathy would come about or not. Whether or not you have a heart in that donation or not, it’s not like we can read your mind as you press confirm. The money doesn’t tell us your feelings, morals, or your heart. Only you can. And you have to WORK to tell us that. You can be appreciated for giving a monetary donation, but that appreciation is toward the money and not at you as a person, and if it is, it’s not towards the real you, it’s only towards you at that time and who knows if that’s gonna change within a minute, or was superficial the entire time, or if it’s the real ally we all knew we needed. We wouldn’t know, all we see is a name and a money amount. Those real allies take time to come out and solidify themselves within themselves and within others, but it’s not as soon as their money disappears. You don’t get credit as a person and your morals when it was the money and temporary self at that time that ultimately helped them. Just because you were behind that money doesn’t mean that the morals associated with you are in that money, and who knows if you were the same person as you made that donation a week ago. Do you know exactly where the dollar bills you have right now have gone through? How many inhumane multi million dollar corporations, or funding something harmful? If you can separate yourself from that, then the money you’re giving can easily be separated from you in both morals and in bank accounts. That’s what you’re choosing to give away as well when you make a donation. If you’re completely fine with that, then donate if you still want to. Just know that by doing that, it doesn’t make you special. In the end, the only thing received is money, not thoughts. That money is completely useless if it’s not being spent towards that needed relief, after all. You can also totally give out of obligation or social pressure instead of believing in the cause or caring about the person affected. That’s not being a real ally either. That’s hopping on a bandwagon because that attracts you more than what the cause is, because the value of human life doesn’t line up with your own. You would only care about this BECAUSE it’s trending, not because it has ever gotten to your emotions, morals, or anything you care about. Giving a donation or not doesn’t tell anyone anything about you, other than how relatively well off you are in terms of money and time, and that’s not relevant to what’s being asked. Donations can have so many motives behind it, and you are not free of those motives just because we can’t see it immediately, and those motives are completely lost once that money is received and eventually used. Money can be helpful in terms of alleviating the situation, but ultimately, it’s not help in placing you on a moral scale whether it’s others judging your character or just judging yourself. And there’s also the risk of donating to a complete scam, and again, money doesn’t care where it’s going to or where it’s coming from, because it’s just money. Not everything that is asking for donations is a scam, but because of this possibility, what you claim to be your one act of good will from your heart in the form of monetary support can easily be debunked and ultimately be used against you whether you were aware of this being a scam before then or not, because the internet is very reactive more than anything else. And if you are donating from your heart and you end up donating to a scam, that’s just even more emotional damage to you as well as the cause, an even worse situation. So again, monetary support isn’t any better than what I determine to be the one defining factor of being a good ally. It’s just a different kind of support that can be useful but it’s not with any heart in it. And because most of those people asking for donations would say that even a little bit helps, the amount of money you’re donating doesn’t give you more credit than others, it just puts you higher on the highest donations list that is made by another detached algorithm, which is ultimately meaningless except for telling whoever clicks on that list how much money you were willing to spare to them, and not what you were thinking when you did it. To be a real ally, that’s a constant effort more than just money or spreading posts. It’s something that can’t ever be measured or manipulated by any algorithm. And I know that the majority of “allies” die out as soon as it’s not trending anymore. It’s happened enough times and how much it happens just has it be a part of a trend’s life cycle on the internet, and that temporary life in the public life can vary greatly. That constant effort also does not (solely) consist of making more donations to more places. That’s just another kind of monetary help that’s ultimately just money. That doesn’t tell anyone anything about you other than that you can afford to do so and being able to afford to do this can sway you on either end of the moral scale, whether you care about that or not. To give an example, the overwhelming response to the Notre Dame fire in 2018 showed what could have been possible if everyone donated what they could, and of course the response to that has never happened to any disaster before, and to my knowledge, ever since. All those millionaires and some netizens credited themselves with their affluent donations but everyone else only saw them as those who ultimately did nothing when any other disaster also needed help in the past and since then, so those donations didn’t make them any kind of ally even though they gave more than the majority of the world can ever afford to give in their lifetimes. Why didn’t every other disaster that lasted longer, had more casualties and damage, had more emotionally traumatic damage that lasted from then onwards, have as much support as this one fire that didn’t completely destroy this building? With almost a billion dollars (954 million USD) donated towards restoration in such a short amount of time, there was still anger, especially towards those who have donated that. And people who have donated copious amounts were also not technically millionaires, but still made and had enough to be part of that same 1%. And anyone can be in that nonspecific well-off group, not just people who were born rich or inherited it. There have been debates that this was a matter of how personally interested these rich people suddenly became because they saw the Notre Dame as a beautiful tourist spot full of history, even though there was a museum in Brazil that was nearly completely destroyed, with majority of its contents and even more history gone forever on the same day and didn’t get a fraction as much attention as this did, and got even less donations. Therefore, monetary support doesn’t give you, or anyone, any more moral high ground, no matter how much it is, because again, it’s just money. It can be help, but not like human support. All that being said, I still think it’s great if you can afford to keep donating to people in need, but if you want to make your support stronger and genuine or have a solid foundation that can be paired and amplified with monetary support, it won’t cost you anything but your time and changing behavior. And right now, I bet everyone reading right now has a lot of those two if their wallet is empty. To do so: • Learn about our struggles. We’re not asking you to be total experts on this, but to know enough to answer, “What can I do to help?” and “What do they need right now?” and it’s best to have them answered by us. Listen to us. And keep making more questions the more that are answered. The best way to learn is to ask. • Speak out against hate speech of any kind from anyone, no matter how much you like them, when you see it in the moment, and hold them accountable. Just saying racism is bad isn’t going to help anyone, but to call out a specific person as a racist will challenge them, because there’s more at stake than just a fact that racism is bad. Whether you want to be polite about it or not is your choice, whichever is more effective. Their feelings are definitely not more important than what they are contributing to the problem. • Emotionally check up on us, we aren’t fine if we have to see more of our family’s beat up faces on the news and screens, or see our family and friends being even more scared to go outside with every passing day. Whether it’s talking about the main situation in depth or providing a respite in the form of having fun when asked; emotional check ups are what makes you the real ally first. • Reassure us that whether or not this is just another trend you see everywhere on social media for the day, you’ll always be there for us, and then hold up that promise, follow through with it whenever we are in trouble. If you consistently do this, it won’t turn into a super conscious decision anymore to be an ally, you’ll reprogram yourself to learn and think that you are now involved and can fight with us, whether or not this becomes something in the twitter sidebar to look at. • Acknowledge your privilege as someone who isn’t targeted and, depending on who you are, would never be targeted, in whatever way that would be, and use it as a weapon for us if applicable. Ex. if you’re white and straight and the current group that needs help is not white and not straight, let them speak about their struggles, amplify their voices because you have the privilege of having more people taking you seriously and paying attention to you, and learn about what you can do to help them and make their life easier with them knowing you are an ally. Redirect that attention and authenticity to us because we sure can’t make it by ourselves. • Learn and involve yourself in our culture if that helps you learn more about us, that is not appropriation. We totally welcome people who want to learn more about us in a respectful and open-minded way. You are a constant learner in doing this, as well as doing any or all of the above-mentioned tasks. There’s no real end to being an ally, just as there is no real end to the fight. It’s always better to ask questions than to keep it to yourself and mess up. There was always a better time to learn all of this, but the second-best time is right now. Just because you never learned this earlier doesn’t mean you can’t start to change that. We won’t shame you if today has to be your first day as long as you stay just as eager and able to receive criticism from then onwards. Even if you become well educated, don’t act like you know exactly what it’s like. Because no matter how educated you become, you are ultimately not us. Keep that in mind as you embark on your journey. Constant effort is what every single one of those groups need, I guarantee that. It’s such a great skill that can be used in anything. Consistency is rare and powerful and key in achieving nearly anything you want. But that’s not something we can automatically detect and always takes time to make happen, there’s no shortcut to that. Are you just going to retweet these for a day or week or month or two, or are you going to speak out whether you are going to put a tag on it or not? Are you just going to donate a small fraction of your paycheck once or are you going to keep going whenever you can and donate to even more people that need help that isn’t just part of that group? All we see is that one instance, and people are pouring either their first or their first and last instances of helping us, and there’s no way to differentiate who’s what until that first wave dies down. And that is a journey of watching it be less and less important on the timelines, growing disappointment and sorrow that we have always felt from the beginning, something that no one outside of the current targetted trending group, or anyone who has ever trended, can ever understand or experience. It’s like wearing halloween costumes that are clearly a costume from another culture. You can wear that costume, or in that case, that hashtag for a day. We wear that stigma for life. I hope this post makes you reconsider what you’ve been doing in terms of fighting for social justice, or at the very least, make you uncomfortable enough to think about what you have been doing for such groups of people who need help. Obviously if you are a real ally as I’ve described by not only doing monetary donations if applicable, but fighting back, constantly learning, and emotionally supporting and checking up on your friends constantly, this post isn’t talking about you. And if you don’t want to learn about all this stuff that can be towards the better, then there’s nothing that can ever help you. That’s just willful ignorance at that point and I as well as others are completely free to judge you for that. On the note of being a good person or bad person, I know that’s not how everyone wants to judge themselves. Looking deep enough, it can be subjective, or just a matter of good actions and bad actions instead of good people and bad people. Either way, you have that “good” and “bad” judgement on something, even though that concept itself is also a spectrum, and at times, they can be applied to both people and actions, such as a good person making a bad decision or a bad person making their first good deed. So, whether it’s actions or people, being a “good person” doesn’t excuse you from your mistakes or shitty decisions. A good record can just be completely shattered at any time. A lot of people who we have thought were “good” have been exposed, and those who we thought were “bad” have been redeemed. It’s celebrated in fiction, but apparently not welcomed in real life. And improving your allyship as I described above doesn’t automatically make you a “good person”, if that judgement is what you have for yourself or want to have for yourself, but it IS a very “good action” to get started in expanding your world beyond what you initially knew before this post, because it’s always a “good action” to constantly question what you know before making judgements or actions. That constant questioning is learning and not being compliant with how things are, because things can always be better. Being a bad person entails not caring about doing better and is magnified by being two-faced like being a fake ally. And you can also stop caring at any time about yourself and what your morals are. Not all fake allies are “bad people,” maybe they just needed an awareness check that emotional support makes all of their previous work or work afterwards more authentic and appreciated. I don’t blame anyone who really didn’t think that emotional support wasn’t part of helping those who need it and now take that fact in stride, or just didn’t know how to do that in the first place. But all “bad people” are fake allies because they don’t care enough outside of themselves to change what their environment presents themselves with, or just complain about it without bothering to question or research why things are that way. And obviously, “bad people” would contribute to the problem by either never being an ally in the first place or do the bare minimum in allyship and expect rewards without being caught in the stress that comes with actually fighting for a cause. So, if you read this entire post and are one of those people who do the bare minimum but want the rewards, or think I and others are just too sensitive, and have no intention or desire to change any of your actions around pleas for help from groups of people or even start to think about changing that, I would think you’re a bad person. But that’s only how I judge you. I know plenty of bad people who go on and life happily knowing how many people hate them whether they know them personally or not. If you’re taking that so personally, you could have left much earlier in this longass post. I don’t know what you expected with me talking about this topic and somehow not being super cordial about it. I don’t owe you a polite tone or managing your feelings, and neither does anyone else. If you really think my tone is the problem here more than anything I have ever explained in this post I guarantee you’re a bad person who is just looking for an excuse to completely dismiss this even though you had the opportunity to do so much earlier, around 4,000 words ago. And if you really need someone else to help you with your fragile and insecure feelings, I guarantee that they’re not on the internet. Again, to reiterate, this is just my opinion, feel free to tell me any of your own. I’m not forcing anyone to do or stop doing anything, I just appreciate that you read this far. I hope you reconsider how to fight for your loved ones that aren’t as well off as you are, or how to fight alongside others who have been though the struggles of being either underprivileged or just not as well off. Thank you.