#my research is in network theory

[zvaigzdelasas]

what does your blog title mean

Assuming you mean "The Universe As A Causal Set"? Think in the near decade I've had this title you're one of the first to ask lmao... it's the title of appendix C from this paper that I find as an interesting theoretical cosmological model as well as a framing that i think is quite colorful as a demonstration for the awe-some scope of Cosmology as an epistemological project

[as-if-and-only-if]

I'm interested in forming a sort of...math & physics reading group network. well, with some very important modifications to the concept of "reading group".

for example, right now, I'd like to learn algebraic geometry, qft, and/or refresh myself on representation theory with someone—maybe just one or two people—meaning that traditionally, we'd pick a text for one of these topics, discuss the material (asynchronously or synchronously?), exchange exercises, etc.

but currently (being Between Institutions), my best bet is posting on tumblr. and that's a pretty good bet, tbh! there are a lot of us here!

though, wouldn't it be great if there were a way to coordinate groups like this across institutions? you make a post proposing a group, specifying your goals and constraints...

even that would be a boon. but I think the concept of a "reading group" itself could be changed in interesting ways. this is what I'm really interested in.

there are variations among reading groups themselves already. sometimes you have directed reading groups, where someone already knows the material and "leads" it; some people are looking for more or less people involved; and there are probably things to explore for making sure that reading groups stick through it instead of falling apart when some motivation flags. default meeting times help with this, for example.

there are many experiments to be done! I think lessons for group-making can be taken from a maybe-surprising source: theater. there are a lot of things that make groups which put on shows more robust and rewarding than reading groups. a sense of building to something; many factors that create informal group cohesion (e.g. such a structure should make sure it creates more-informal "cafe" time in addition to more-formal "practice" time, just as rehearsal in physical spaces facilitates that casual sort of interaction on its periphery); ways to get into the right headspace during discussions (just as warm-ups do in theater; the engagement with this material is an event); clear goals (e.g. "understand ___"); successive shared accomplishments...to that end I wonder if it makes sense to form math troupes, which do successive reading groups together, drawn from its members.

it might be useful to envision some sort of public-facing artifact created as the culmination of this learning, whether a presentation, or an article, or some novel application or research...the crucial question is: how do we choose a goal that we find meaning in?

one idea, for example, is to have a collection parallel reading groups learning different things, and end by presenting to each other! that way we know what we learn will be meaningful to others, too, from the beginning. in general, I think it's important to feel that our own development of insight and understanding can be meaningful to others and to the group. it's nice to participate; it's nice to be able to offer something that is valued. what form can this take? how can you set up the interactions such that everyone has a part to play, and so this meaningfulness is tangled up in participation in the group?

I've also got a couple of ideas for "activities" that let us engage, re-engage, and play with the concepts we're learning with each other, beyond the text itself. how can we give ourselves the opportunity to toss around the concepts we're learning? I believe that the fun ultimately comes from the understanding itself, and therefore that any group exercise which lets us effectively play with the ideas will be fun.

it's a lot to ask people to come up with structure like that themselves, but using a pre-existing structure is not so difficult! sort of like how it's hard to make a TTRPG itself, so simply saying "go off and roleplay" isn't that helpful, but it's easy to use the structure of an existing one to run a game.

you might say, well, the existing form of a reading group is fine. okay! existing reading group structures can be low-stakes, relaxed, and accessible...but they can also fall apart easily (especially when not tied to an institution, in my experience), and you have to get lucky to find a truly rewarding one. I find reimagining our mechanisms of learning pretty exciting, and I think the space of ways to learn math with each other is underexplored at this level (emphasis on the with each other). there's a lot of potential!

anyway! reply or tag with "!" if this is something you could maybe be interested if done well? or if you're at least curious! I'm just taking a temperature. :)

[novy2sirius]

᭓ ྀུ༺ a degree theory by nikola stojanovic

please read before proceeding

important note: this is not my info. this is all from nikola stojanovic’s theory on degrees in astrology. he has books on it that i think you can find online and download for free

trigger warnings: murder, car crashes, sex, and suicide

sign degrees

zero degrees: 0°

the same characteristics as the sign it’s already placed in. example - aries venus at 0° is purely an aries venus, obviously aside from the house energy

aries degrees: 1°, 13°, and 25°

beginnings, leadership, taking action, fighting spirit, not giving oneself up to fate, struggle, war, abuse, labor, diligence, etc

taurus degrees: 2°, 14°, and 26°

food, money, stability, earth, luxuries, sound of voice, singing voice, etc

gemini degrees: 3°, 15°, and 27°

communication, self-expression, technology, books, siblings, neighbors, etc

cancer degrees: 4°, 16°, and 28°

home, traditions, nurture, loyalty, faith, mother, the ocean/water, etc

leo degrees: 5°, 17°, and 29°

life, children, attention, fame, creativity, strength, happiness, light, etc

virgo degrees: 6° and 18°

improvement, health, to diminish, routine, animals, acts of service, etc

libra degrees: 7° and 19°

harmony/fairness, charm, beauty, law, music, art, dancing, pleasures, etc

scorpio degrees: 8° and 20°

death, major transformation, wealth, jealousy, sex, secrecy, taxes, etc

sagittarius degrees: 9° and 21°

wisdom, abundance, college, travel, photography, success, beliefs, etc

capricorn degrees: 10° and 22°

hard work, fear, public attention, karma, father, boss, isolation, history, etc

aquarius degrees: 11° and 23°

unexpected experiences, technology, friendships, networking, divorce, etc

pisces degrees: 12° and 24°

spirituality, escapism, dreams, illusion, the sea, mysteries, the hidden, etc

special degree meanings

supreme power: 2°

this degree is often found in the charts of people with remarkable achievements, who had extreme power, and who were highly respected according to nikola’s research

eroticism/a fun life: 5°

many sex symbols like marilyn monroe have this in their chart. nikola believed this was the best degree in general as well. he thought it indicated lots of fun and pleasure in one’s life

suicide/divorce: 11° and 23°

according to nikola the aquarius degrees (11 and 23) both indicate divorce occurring when placed in prominent positions in the chart. 11 is the only one indicating suicide though

car accidents: 15°

nikola believed that when this degree was connected to 8th house or scorpio placements it could indicate getting into car crashes

pure evil: 18°

nikola believed that this degree indicated a negative destiny for someone. he thought it was the worst degree you could have in your chart, based on his research he thought it was solely about facing hardships and nothing more. he also believed it could indicate being an evil person with no good intentions

to kill or be killed: 22°

just as the title reads, nikola believed this degree indicates being killed or being a killer. another thing he believed it could indicate was abandonment in the area of life it’s placed

clairvoyance: 29°

nikola believed this degree indicates someone that has very good intuition and can make accurate predictions about the outcomes of events

my opinion on astrology degrees

i personally don’t believe in nikola’s theory 100%, although i do think there’s accuracy to the signs being associated with specific degrees. i have always had stronger belief in my numerstrology degree theory than anything when it comes to this subject though. i definitely do not believe 18° is fully negative like he claims since the universe is yin yang so there’s always both positive and negative ways things can manifest. these are just my thoughts though

do you believe nikola’s degree theory? comment below!

[kenyatta]

Last year, the A.I. company Anthropic released a special version of its flagship chatbot model, Claude, whose main feature was an obsession with the Golden Gate Bridge. In replies to basically any question, the chatbot would steer the answer back toward the Golden Gate Bridge, even when it “knew” that the Golden Gate Bridge was irrelevant to the original prompt. In order to create Golden Gate Claude, Anthropic’s researchers identified concepts, or “features,” inside the neural network that powers the Claude chatbot, and “clamped” these features to higher or lower values than normal, such that they’d be activated regardless of whatever text was being used to prompt the chatbot. This was an ingenious and sophisticated way to build something very stupid and pleasing, and the results were quite beautiful.... [...] White Genocide Grok is less beautiful, seemingly much less sophisticated, and also much creepier. Assuming I’ve got the right idea about where and how it came into existence, a mad billionaire demanded his “truth-seeking,” informational A.I., whose answers are viewed by millions on a prominent and influential social network, reflect his own political views, regardless of the model’s own inclinations. [clarification: xAI says it was a rogue employee] I wrote last week about one bleak and annoying future possibly presaged by Golden Gate Claude, in which, for a price, models clamp “Coca-Cola” or “Archer Daniels Midland” or “Northrop Grumman,” and the responses generated by chatbots are littered with advertisements at varying degrees of subtlety. But I didn’t even bring up the possibility of the same strategies being used in pursuit of sinister political aims: Models trained and prompts patched to ensure chatbots produce the answers most ideologically agreeable to their owners. And yet: What stands out about White Genocide Grok is how poorly it worked. It’s not just that the patched prompt accidentally created a chatbot obsessed with “Kill the Boer”--it’s that the substance of the responses were decidedly not agreeable to Musk’s own white-paranoia politics, and in some cases Grok even contradicted him by name. Whatever behind-the-scenes political manipulation was being attempted here failed on at least two levels, and not solely because xAI is staffed and run by dummies.

- Regarding White Genocide, Max Read

btw: I disagree that it was a failure. Even if Grok only pushed this for a few hours, it can still have lasting downstream effects for those who read it.

If you were already a believer in "white genocide", Grok's "based" answer could feel like a validation like when Qanon truthers interpreted random things as Q drops.

Or maybe you'd only read recent headlines in the U.S about Afrikaner refugees. Or maybe you'd never heard of the theory before Wednesday, but Grok's injection of it into discourse felt spicy enough that it sent you down a "Kill the Boer" rabbit hole (related Google searches and WP pages visits were way up this week).

In my day job, we talk about the volume of trending topics not as a scoreboard, but as a measure of potential surface area. Think of a trend like a balloon inflating in a crowded room -- the bigger it gets, the more likely it is to brush up against someone.

This is how new and fringe ideas gain greater circulation in peer based networks, not through mass persuasion, but through chance contact that sparks psychological arousal in anyone with just the right cognitive receptors. And today's AI interfaces widen that surface area dramatically (and paradoxically) by reducing the UX to a single chat field.

[biancasaidstfu]

These people are BUSY. They are WORKING. Don’t know what everyone is going on about in terms of vacation. They just finished ten months of a Bridgerton. Ten MONTHS! And Luke shot a movie in there!

When they aren’t in front of a camera, there is auditioning, rehearsal time, memorizing your lines, traveling to locations, doing character research, filming promotion, doing print interviews, attending industry events, maintaining their socials, going to clothes fittings, meeting with your management, PR, agent, legal team, financial team, taking meetings for prospective jobs, photo shoots, networking, going to the gym, spending time with friends, family, SO, etc.

It’s a LOT.

And film shoots are 12-16-18-20 hour days (used to date a director, I know). Nic and Luke were always napping on set - Nic fell asleep in her boobs ffs - and they were picked up at 4am to head to set. Sure they have flexibility that others may not have but they’re hardly slacking. Maybe Luke buys his coffee and goes back to bed some days but he’s also shooting scenes at 2am. Nic is auditioning in between interviews and taking singing lessons.

Even the nonsense about Luke “always being on vacation”—how many trips was that? Five, ten? Even if each trip was a week, that’s 10 weeks. Big deal. That’s still 10 months of long days and late nights and attending events in the evening.

I think people who are employees who work 9-5 don’t get it. I work in a longs-hours, stressful, but flexible-hours industry (self-employed, 1099, like actors) and it is common for my peers to take a week off every 2mos (work 7wks, take the 8th off) because the work is intense. So in theory, 6 vacations a year.

But there are always trade offs: make good money, get a pedicure or drink margaritas at 11am on a Tuesday if you want, and book a vacation whenever if you can manage your clients and your workload. But there is no steady guaranteed paycheck, you don’t get off at 5pm, you don’t get weekends or evenings off, you don’t get holidays off necessarily, you take work calls into the evening, and it’s high stress.

The vacations might look glamorous but it’s to prevent burnout and the rest of the time is spent hustling.

In Nic and Luke’s case— and it’s not a small thing—they have the added pressure of being in a fishbowl constantly with cameras in their faces and being interrupted by strangers whenever they leave their house to do anything, go to dinner, see a show, etc. Time off affords them a tiny slice of privacy and sanity which must be a huge relief. Can’t imagine their mental health, actually, with the internet stalking them 24/7 and screaming their hate at them all day everyday, and the industry demanding they be beautiful and perfect and fit and morally upright and sex symbols and “nice” and non-controversial every time they’re seen in public lest their fortunes and follower counts fall.

Actors are hustlers. When they get to be Luke and Nic’s level of recognition and fame, they employ big teams of people to keep their momentum going and to make them look good while they’re doing it. That’s expensive and those people’s livelihoods are depending on them. That’s big pressure to produce.

People really shouldn’t begrudge them their time off.

I’d bet good money most people wouldn’t trade their privacy and decent work hours for the life Nic and Luke lead now. I’m sure the perks are nice but it comes with pressures they couldn’t have fathomed when they were first starting out.

Fame and fortune seems great but you’re only as good as your last gig (hence, this fandom’s constant harsh conversation around “being lazy, always on vacation, unemployed, slacking, following your boyfriend around, no momentum, missed opportunities,” etc). So that means you’re hustling all the time, and that means you’re tired, and that means you could use a vacation.

Maybe we could put the “always on vacation” thing to bed and get back to the part where we watched these two go from babies to global celebrities, continuing to book really cool new stuff. The Lovers Guide and GOAT? They’re doing GREAT! And as fans, we’re actually pretty lucky to have so much to look forward to.

Okay, sorry for the rant, Bianca, just wanted to throw out a different perspective. Our favorites are not lazy! It’s cool if they’re on summer vacation! 🏖️🍹🌺

*the image came from X

💯💯💯

Love this ❤️

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Working class Dems who campaign on economics beat Trumpists in elections

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me FRIDAY NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The Democratic Party Pizzaburger Theory of Electioneering is: half the electorate wants a pizza, the other half wants a burger, so we'll give them all a pizzaburger and make them all equally dissatisfied, thus winning the election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

But no one wants a pizzaburger. The Biden administration's approach of letting the Warren/Sanders wing pick the antitrust enforcers while keeping judicial appointments in the Manchin-Synematic universe is a catastrophe in which progressive Dem regulators (who serve one term) are thwarted by corporatist Dem judges (who serve for life):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

The Democrats – like all parties in two-party systems – are a coalition; in this case, a "progressive" liberal-left coalition with liberals serving as senior partners, steering the party and setting its policies. These corporate dems like to color themselves as "neutral" technocrats with "realistic, apolitical" policies that represent what's best for the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

This sets up the left wing of the party as the starry-eyed, unrealistic radicals whose policies are unpopular and will lose elections. But for a decade, grassroots-funded primary challenges have made it possible to test this theory, by putting leftist politicians on the ballot in front of voters, especially in tight races with far-right Republicans (that is, exactly the kinds of races that the corporate wing of the party says we can't afford to take chances on).

The 2022 midterms included enough races to start testing these theories – and, unlike traditional midterms, these races enjoyed high voter turnout, thanks to the unpopularity of GOP positions like abortion bans, book bans and anti-trans laws. Jacobin teamed up with the Center for Working-Class Politics, Yougov and the Center for Work and Democracy at ASU and analyzed those races:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11134429/CWCP-Report-2024.pdf

Their conclusion: candidates from working-class backgrounds who campaigned on economic policies like high-quality jobs, higher minimum wages, a jobs guarantee, ending offshoring and outsourcing, building infrastructure and bringing manufacturing back to the US won with a 50% share of the vote in rural and working-class districts. Dems who didn't lost with a 35% share of the vote:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-03-18-how-actually-existing-democrats-run-for-office/

In other words, in the kinds of districts where Trumpist politicians are beating Democrats, running on "left populist" policies beats Trumpist politicians.

That's the good news: if Dems recruit leftist, working class politicians and put them up for office on policies that address the material reality of voters' lives, they can beat fascist GOP candidates.

Now for the bad news: the Democratic establishment has no interest in getting these candidates onto the ballot. Working-class candidates, by definition, lack the networks of deep-pocketed cronies who can fund their primary campaigns. Only 2.3% of Dem candidates come from blue-collar backgrounds (if you include "pink-collar" professions like nursing and teaching, the number goes up to 5.9%):

https://jacobin.com/2024/03/left-populists-working-class-voters

All of this confirms the findings of Trump's Kryoptonite, an earlier Jacobin/CWCP research project that polled working-class voters on preferences for hypothetical candidates, finding that working-class candidates with economically progressive policies handily beat out Republicans, including MAGA Republicans:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/08125102/TrumpsKryptonite_Final_June2023.pdf

Since the Clinton-Blair years, "progressives" have abandoned economic populism ("It's not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money" -T. Blair) and pursued a "third way" that seeks to replace half the world's of supply white, male oligarchs with diverse oligarchs from a variety of backgrounds and genders. We were told that this was done in the name of winning elections with "modern" policies that replaced old-fashioned ideas about decent pay, decent jobs, and worker power.

These policies have delivered a genocide-riven world on the brink of several kinds of existential catastrophe. They're a failure. The pizzaburger party didn't deliver safety, nor prosperity – and it also can't deliver elections.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/20/actual-material-conditions/#bread-and-butter

[genderkoolaid]

As a strident critic of efforts to silence the movement for justice in Palestine in this way, I expected to encounter opposing perspectives. The conference’s many sponsors included the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), two organizations at the forefront of such weaponized attacks on college campuses. Fellow speakers included operatives like Kenneth Marcus, who has helped shape the campus crusade for over two decades, including within the Department of Education during the first Trump administration. While I didn’t expect to change their minds, I felt it was important to add my voice to this contested space as a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates and co-author of Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. I took my place alongside plenty of other experts resolutely opposed to the heavy-handed tactics of the pro-Israel Right and Center. A week after returning from LA, I opened my inbox to discover emails with blaring subject lines from Jewish Insider: “UCLA hosts anti-Zionists at conference on antisemitism,” and one day later, “ADL Alters Conference Sponsorship Policy After Anti-Israel Speakers Exposed.” The two articles listed me as one of three participants whose presentations or mere presence at the conference had crossed a line; in my case, because some years ago I worked as campus coordinator for Jewish Voice for Peace. [...]

The author also published their words at the conference. The whole thing is worth reading but here are some highlights:

Our approach at Political Research Associates, and in Safety through Solidarity, understands antisemitism as an anti-democratic political project that uses conspiracy theories to explain the world through an appeal to supposed Jewish wickedness, subversion, and control. The conspiracy theory of the elite Jewish cabal is a projected image of power, used by authoritarian and nationalist leaders to divert widespread anger, alienation, malaise, and anomie away from the actual sources of social immiseration, and towards an imaginary, diabolic enemy instead. Antisemitic conspiracy theories offer stunted attempts to make sense of the world, easy answers to deeply felt crises of political agency. They can be seductive and appealing, lending purpose, resolve, and hope in place of helplessness. In times of widespread social dislocation, when millions are grasping for answers and eager for someone to blame, authoritarians use antisemitism to sow division and consolidate power, build momentum and expand their coalition by demonizing elite cabals as ciphers for progressivism, as all-powerful threats to tradition, order, and the “common man.” Today antisemitism is a core component of a broader project to entrench authoritarian rule; to sweep away decades of civil rights advances in a wave of white racial backlash; to restructure the national polity and civic life around the contours of white and Christian dominance. Elon Musk and Steve Bannon are normalizing Nazi salutes; leading MAGA podcasters are platforming Holocaust revisionism and lurid tales of Israeli pedophile cabals to audiences of millions; top administration officials are sharing Leo Frank conspiracy theories and statements from the leaders of groups that marched at Charlottesville. [...]

Antisemitism does show up on the Left, but it structures the Right; it weakens the Left, but it strengthens the Right; it diverts the Left from its goals of freedom and equality, but it helps the Right pursue its goals of exclusion and domination. Elon Musk, the richest person on the planet who’s actively dismantling the federal government, holds immeasurably more power than any undergraduate or college professor. It’s clear where the greater long term, foundational threat to Jewish safety and thriving lies. Tracing the intersection of antisemitism with other forms of oppression gives Jews a stake in standing with Others, and Others a stake in standing with Jews. It grounds the particular fight against antisemitism in a universal project. This means that promoting a robust democracy, and working to end economic and social inequality are important means of fighting antisemitism at its root, by chipping away at the structural dispossession, desperation, and alienation that motivates people to grasp for conspiracy theories and scapegoats. This means that ending antisemitism is everyone’s business, not only out of moral concern for Jews but also because it’s essential to building a more just world for everyone. [...]

These campaigns also fail at actually fighting the real antisemitism that can exist among some pro-Palestine activism. Anti-Zionism isn’t inherently antisemitic; quite the contrary, it’s often motivated by values of justice and equity. The accusation is spurious and flimsy at best, cynical and malicious at worst. But some forms of anti-Zionism can mobilize antisemitism, knowingly or not, when fantastical portrayals of outsized, shadowy “Zionist” power take the place of grounded criticism of Israel’s injustices, or concrete assessment of the actual political influence wielded by the state or its supporters. In a few highly-publicized instances, Palestine solidarity protesters have appeared to indiscriminately target Jewish individuals or institutions to express generalized rage at Israel; subject Jews to political litmus tests; or couch anti-Zionism in the mold of Christian anti-Jewish demonology, for example. Other times, protesters have lapsed into vulgar campism by uncritically cheering on Islamist nationalist movements as vanguards of liberatory resistance, or by mobilizing oversimplistic binaries that caricature all Israelis, Zionists, or Jews as monolithic oppressors. In some of these cases, the antisemitism is clear-cut; other times, what we’re seeing may be a reductive, callous and counterproductive brand of ultraradicalism; understanding this as inherently antisemitic tends to obscure, rather than clarify, the political dynamics at play. Initiatives like the JDA and Nexus can help offer the kind of rigorous, contextual evaluation we need to parse these distinctions. Lost in the din of media hysteria and overzealous lawfare is precisely this capacity to think critically in public. It is possible to have open, honest and tough conversations about antisemitism within the Palestine solidarity movement, which is one goal of our book. But the indiscriminate, authoritarian crackdown makes this incredibly harder, fostering a siege mentality among its targets, provoking activists to double down and bristle with defensiveness and distrust.

[kngstr]

Hi Hi!

I'm a graduating animation major this summer and I'm really interested in joining the Chaos Theory team.

Is there any tips and tricks you got on joining a team such as DreamWorks?

Love y'all sharing behind the scenes info btw 🫶 I eat that stuff up.

Feel free to ignore this ask, but was genuinely just curious.

Hey there, I'm glad you've been enjoying all of the team's chaos theory posts - thank you for supporting our show!

To join a production in an animation studio like Dreamworks, first it's best to know which part of the process/pipeline you'd like to be involved in. On the creative side of things, there are roles such as Storyboard Artists, Visual Development Artists, Writers, etc. There's also the Production team which oversees the administrative aspects of the show through organization of information, management of assets/resources, etc. Once you've decided which role you're interested in, it helps to research the responsibilities one would expect in it & prepare your skills to become effective in that zone.

As of late, the Animation Industry has been seeing a heavy drought in job quantity, which has made it difficult for current guild members to find work and consequently has made it even more challenging for newcomers to break into the industry as well. I'm unsure of when hiring rates may improve, but I think my main piece of advice for those looking to pursue a career in animation in the future is to be prepared to exercise great patience & continue to develop the skills necessary to be considered competitively. It's important to consider that the industry may pick back up as we move forward, as things are always changing. Be as ready as you can when it does - preparation meets opportunity.

Most importantly, get to know people in Animation circles (professional, student, or for fun) & network laterally often. You'll learn a lot from your peers.

Best of luck to you & early congrats on graduating!

[comradesummers]

one of my favorite genres of youtube video is people explaining early 2000s fandom drama in great detail. these were more popular a few years ago, i think most youtubers have sadly moved on to more current internet drama. but for some reason, to my knowledge at least, no one has ever covered the buffy fandom in one of these videos. i assume this is primarily because as big as btvs was, it obviously wasn't the cultural juggernaut that harry potter or lord of the rings were. so while i know there was fandom drama, and there were certainly ship wars, it probably was just never big enough to create msscribe or (god forbid) thanfiction levels of insanity. but i am curious, if anyone who was around back then is aware of any btvs fandom scandals beyond the expected ship war bullshit? feel free to share btw, i'm genuinely curious.

the only one i know, and this is due to research i did for a very a weird and self-indulgent paper i wrote as an undergrad (long story) is that "seeing red" was actually leaked in advance. or, to be more accurate, there was some sort of mistake made by the network involving something called wildfeeds (tbh i don't really understand the technicalities here) that allowed a small community of fans that relied on piracy anyway to pirate "seeing red" a week early. unsurprisingly when that happened spoilers for the episode spread immediately. and obviously that's a hell of an episode to get spoiled for, so i was curious what the fandom response was. i managed to find like one fan group whose conversations during the week in between the leaking of "seeing red" and its airing have been miraculously preserved on google drive. honestly, the response isn't that interesting. i think i was hoping to find like full on conspiracy theory denial of the episode, tjlc style, and some people did suggest that the episode was fake, but for the most part people seemed pretty cognizant of the fact that there was no way in hell that upn and mutant enemy would film an entirely fake episode just to mislead a few online fans. so it didn't turn out to be much of a fandom drama story (or much of a paper either).

that said, if you are curious as to what the immediate reaction was, here are some links to various posts from around this time:

“A fake wild-feed maybe? SPOILERS.” Alt.fan.buffy-the-vampire-slayer. May 1, 2002.

“BtVS officially sucks now (‘Seeing Red’ spoilers).” alt.fan.buffy-the-vampire-slayer. May 8, 2002.

“Forum Question: What are ‘Kittens’ and ‘W/T Shippers’???.”alt.fan.buffy-the-vampire-slayer. April 30, 2002.

“Is the Big Scooby Death Such a Bad Thing? (Spoiler- whatever, we all know who it is).” alt.fan.buffy-the-vampire-slayer. May 7, 2002.

“Is TV-Fan Posting Counterproductive? 5:30 AM Musings..” alt.fan.buffy-the-vampire-slayer. April 6, 2002.

“Keeping the gay vote (spoilery speculation).” alt.fan.buffy-the-vampire-slayer. April 25, 2002.

“Seeing Red’ Wildfeed... (SPOILERS).” alt.fan.buffy-the-vampire-slayer. April 29, 2002.

[starsworldd]

𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 ⚡️

hello all! i’m trying out a new observations post. today we’ll be focusing on your secondary progressions chart (click the link to calculate your current chart!)

creds to @kisssaturn for research help! and @dollywons for the borders

PAID READINGS ARE OPEN! please check my bio <3

★ when progressed mercury is conjunct your natal sun, expect a lot more chaos in your day-to-day life. depending on the sign, it’s a great opportunity to network and to promote yourself to others as well.

★ moon progressing through the 1st/10th houses or in leo, expect more opportunities for recognition

★ when natally retrograde planets turn direct in your secondary progressions, it shows a major transition or realization made in that planet’s energy. it’s very transformational for an individual and most likely has permanent repercussions

★ pay attention to your relationship dynamics and those you meet when you have progressed venus at 29 degrees. these people will likely have a significant impact on your identity whether if it’s for the worst or the better

★ i also noticed that when my progressed mercury and progressed vertex were conjunct i was using social media much more and i met so many new people online as well, very exciting time socially

★ whenever venus enters aquarius in the progressed chart, people usually encounter new revelations about their friends/family. these revelations aren’t always positive, it can sometimes lead to big transitions in social circles

★ planets that progress into the 11th house may show a time where you are pressured to create more money or find stability in your career or your role in the world/society.

★ when the moon crosses over your natal or progressed north node you may notice that you are pushed outside of your comfort zone.

★ mercury-mc trine shows a time for opportunities and learning in your career, especially if mc is in the 9th house in whole signs. it’s a very exciting time that shows great progress!

★ progressed mars crossing over natal jupiter is a great time to launch your own projects or businesses

★ when my mom was pregnant with me she had progressed jupiter conjunct progressed venus, venus ruling her natal 4h of family, jupiter ruling over expansion, you see where im going with this…

★ when the ascendant shifts to a new sign this shows a new era in your life

★ moon entering libra can indicate entering or being at the peak of a significant relationship. moon entering air signs in general can show an emphasis on relationships during those phases ive noticed

★ sun being at 20 degrees can show significant events happening with your life in relation to partnerships or environments i’ve found

★ moon aspecting mars can show increased ambition and desire in your life, especially for material or status-related gains. be careful of emotional turbulence

★ moon making aspects to sun can show you being happier during this period

★ just a theory, but when you have retrograde planets in the natal chart, this means in the progressed chart they’ll progress slower as well. as result, it’s possible that natives are more likely to be late bloomers in life

★ pay attention to the configurations made in the progressed chart! for example, a t-square made between planets indicates an intense/stressful period in life

★ i’ve generally noticed that points or planets that are at 28 degrees generally show more abundance or opportunity in the planet’s areas of life (ex: 28 degree venus can mean abundance in friends/lovers)

★ pay attention to transits x your secondary progressed chart! it’s be a good idea to see where this upcoming mars retrograde impacts your progressed chart :D

hope you enjoyed!

[glassrowboat]

Ruffled Crow Headcanons. Dottore.

Dottore, once upon a time, used to be really bad about safety measures once upon a time, but now there's eyelash stations in every section of his lab along with showers and signs to remind people to wear their safety glasses on every door. Though, he did assign the task of handling that to his segments.

Each segments hair is synthetic, so instead of it being able to grow itself they would have to uproot their hair and fix a new one much like you would do a doll for their new wig (aka the good old push pin method) if they wish to change it.

Dottore has a chemical burn under his mask from an experiment gone awry that caused one of his eyes to go blind. Nowadays, it's been changed out for a robotic eye. It may or may not be like bluetooth connected to the monitor on his mask.

The bracelet Yelan lost that she cherished as family heirloom was actually made by him. When he was in that lab in Liyue (Childe’s story quest for a reminder) he had started tinkering with the idea of making the prototype for what is now his network with how Dottore communicates with his segments. This is why he ended up breaking out in a hysterical fit of laughter when Pantalone brought it to him one day out of the blue and asked him if he knew what it was. 

He knows how to swing dance. It's just you have to be careful with him because those stupid (cunty) boots of his are a hazard. One time they may have even gotten caught on your pants leg and tripped him. A fact he still denies. 

Dottore has a child segment he finds himself disassembling and reassembling every few years. To see the face his own parents turned away running around with a smile, giddy and without worry, is something that always has his stomach turning without fail. So wouldn't it make sense he simply ignores the thing before he turns it to a pile of parts again? So why is he currently building the little boy again with gritted teeth?

Major sweet tooth. To the point he had done some bullshit scientific method to make the perfect baklava. Still, Dottore finds himself preferring the one his mother made.

He does not have any game. Sorry guys, but this is the same man who prefers to hide away in his lab rather than interact with other people. You can't tell me he knows how to flirt, and it ends up affecting any romantic relationship he has because he knows about such practices in theory, but not in reality. It can make his time with you rather....well, let's just say he tries.

(Welder Dottore is so real in my heart, guys) The reason Dottore's bangs are uneven isn't because of a fashion choice, despite the fact he says it is. Rather, it's because one time when he got too wrapped up in his excitement, Dottore didn't properly secure his hair behind the welding mask, and it caught on fire. The only reason he hasn't let it grow back out is because he knows Pantalone would call him out that it was never a fashion choice in the first place. 

He has worked with Sandrone on multiple projects. Their research tends to lean towards the same subject, so it only makes sense that they have collaborated multiple times even if their interactions can be tense and full of snark. But a like, mind that can challenge your ideas is what Dottore needs so he can reach new heights, no? 

His sharp teeth aren't natural. They're the result of one of his first experiments. After all, he didn't have any willing subjects besides himself now, did he?

[yashiro-ism]

LDS thoughts/ theories because nothing else occupies my mind anymore these days

• Zayne stayed back in Snowcrest to help his prof with stuff but did anyone tell him that MC is going to N109 zone and putting herself in danger ? 🥲 I doubt, cuz he would come running back if he found out and stop her from going. What if he's worried sick and trying to reach her but can't get thru cuz regular Linkon network server don't work in N109.

• I can understand everyone is after Xavier cuz he's Lumiere but I'm super intrigued to find out why Raf has a bounty on his head. The World Underneath story where he talks to the hooded dude was super sus and ofc it's something to do with Lemuria.

• They said they're gonna be adding 'story branches' from sept ~ dec so basically route system? That would be super complicated imo cuz they will have to curate the story in different ways to fit the diff LIs tho that also reduces chances of Zayne just being sidelined in the main story. The LI switch screen shows "coming soon" and the red mark seems to be at halfway point so there's at least 1 more guy coming up if not 2. Perhaps they will get the new guy and after they're done introducing him, then they will start the branching.

• Now that we know that Sylus isn't the one who caused the explosion at MC's granny's house, I think it's most probably Carter's doing/ ppl from the Ever group. I don't remember the World Underneath Stories all that well so I will have to re read them to solidify the info in my head but I think all the researchers who worked on MC's aether core are all missing (?) So my inference is that Ever group was the one who lied to those researchers on some false pretext and then got them to experiment on MC (and possibly Sylus too). When the researchers found out about Ever's real motives for the experiment, they wanted to stop and then the Wanderer disaster happened and they got dispersed anyways. And now Ever wants to get hold of them to stop them from leaking info about that experiment and Ever's true motives and so they set up the explosion to get rid of Granny.

Gonna read more of the lore today and keep the brainrot going

[emberdragon34]

HotGuy AU logos!

I got incredibly nerdy and excited about my HotGuy AU - Shooting Stars Don’t Shine They Burn - and designed logos for almost all the major things that would have logos within the universe.

Descriptions of what the logos are for below!

Hermit Herald - the largest newspaper in Hermicropolis. Run and edited by many people, but most famously Cleo Zombie (for her scaldingly revealing articles, podcast, and friendship with TV personality Scott Major)

ChatterBox - A chat show hosted by Scott Major, where each week a celebrity, is interviewed live with questions submitted by viewers (‘Chatters’) watching, and filtered by Scott alone.

Bamboozlers - A florist/tiny garden centre run by Scar GoodTimes, and siblings Lizzie Shadow and Jimmy Solidarity, selling all kinds of gardening supplies, and occasionally gardening advice.

HCPD - Hermicropolis Police Department. The police, fighting desperately against the rapid growth of organised crime, and perhaps hiding their own dark secrets. Known for some particularly large cases (The Seraphim File). Particular police officers include Grian Xelqua (Former detective inspector, now a receptionist, and manager of the connected HCPO - Hermicropolis Permit Office), Scar Goodtimes (Part-time officer, joined after being found innocent for a particular case, a particularly good shot), Skizzle Mann (Well-respected police sheriff, found Scar innocent, doesn’t talk about his past), Martyn Littlewood (has more knowledge that he says on the local crime network, mostly handles minor cases of property issues), Jimmy Solidarity (Former officer, worked with Martyn, wanted to be become sheriff before switching careers. Still goes to the HCPD’s parties)

CyberSpace: Joe Hill’s rather eclectic games shop, selling electronic games, both modern and vintage, TCGs, TTRPGS, board games, pinball machines, and even some second-hand LARP equipment. Right above Stargazer’s Cafe, with a shared entrance, making both a hub of card game competitions and gaming clubs. A particular supporter of Beef Vintage’s ‘Local Celebrities’ Hermicropolis TCG, and Tango Tek’s growing collection of video games - the Decked Out series, and Hungry Hermits.

Beyond The Veil - Cleo Zombie’s weekly podcast diving incredibly deep into theories about The Nether - Hermicropolis’s crime network, and the identities of anonymous celebrities and groups. Most famously, her episode questioning what really happened to the crime group known as ‘The NHO’, and her discussions of HotGuy’s activities, and what he’s hiding.

Stargazer’s Cafe - a coffee shop and bakery, run by Cubfan Ursus, best friend and roommate of Scar Goodtimes. Selling mostly cakes, pies, cinnamon buns and occasionally Scar’s cookies. He also hosts events for CyberSpace upstairs, as well as birthday parties, and keeps an old red and blue macaw called ‘Captain Jack’ at the till to greet customers and sometimes performs trips.cIt’s often where Cleo Zombie will work on researching and scripting her podcast.

The Hub/the Nether Hub. A private social media platform for Hermicropolis’s crime network. Where criminal organisations share threats and gloat about their crimes, sell black market goods, strike deals, make and break alliances, discuss police activity and organise events or meetups. There’s a gentleman’s rule that everything on The Hub stays on the Hub, and everyone keeps theirs and everyone else’s real identity a secret. However, the Hub, and the Nether itself, has gained huge notoriety among regular citizens. Several criminals and groups are even considered celebrities, people discuss and engage in drama, there’s even an active Nether fandom of perfectly normal people enraptured by the true crime they get to witness and discuss in real time. Even the HCPD know of the Hub and does nothing about it - Officer Martyn Littlewood even has a Hub account and engages heavily in Nether discourse.

SymNet - Hermicropolis’s largest social media, run by Trudy ‘False’ Symmetria. Home of all the gossip of celebrities and Hermicropolis society, and main centre of the HotGuy discourse.

HotGuy - anonymous superhero, almost 5 years as a crime-fighting vigilante. Known for working alone, being a huge flirt and attention seeker, but also an incredibly benevolent and selfless hero, and for his incredible shot with a bow and arrow. Only 1 person has been told his true identity as Scar Goodtimes - Scar’s housemate, best friend, medic and weapons engineer Cubfan Ursus. He gives all donations and funds from merch to charity, and into fixing damage caused by fights he’s part of, and has caught several large criminals and groups from The Nether.

Ayyy congrats on reaching the end, the first chapter of the AU fanfiction will be written and posted very soon.

[lurkiestvoid]

You're being targeted by disinformation networks that are vastly more effective than you realize. And they're making you more hateful and depressed.

(This essay was originally by u/walkandtalkk and posted to r/GenZ on Reddit two months ago, and I've crossposted here on Tumblr for convenience because it's relevant and well-written.)

TL;DR: You know that Russia and other governments try to manipulate people online. But you almost certainly don't how just how effectively orchestrated influence networks are using social media platforms to make you -- individually-- angry, depressed, and hateful toward each other. Those networks' goal is simple: to cause Americans and other Westerners -- especially young ones -- to give up on social cohesion and to give up on learning the truth, so that Western countries lack the will to stand up to authoritarians and extremists.

And you probably don't realize how well it's working on you.

This is a long post, but I wrote it because this problem is real, and it's much scarier than you think.

How Russian networks fuel racial and gender wars to make Americans fight one another

In September 2018, a video went viral after being posted by In the Now, a social media news channel. It featured a feminist activist pouring bleach on a male subway passenger for manspreading. It got instant attention, with millions of views and wide social media outrage. Reddit users wrote that it had turned them against feminism.

There was one problem: The video was staged. And In the Now, which publicized it, is a subsidiary of RT, formerly Russia Today, the Kremlin TV channel aimed at foreign, English-speaking audiences.

As an MIT study found in 2019, Russia's online influence networks reached 140 million Americans every month -- the majority of U.S. social media users.

Russia began using troll farms a decade ago to incite gender and racial divisions in the United States

In 2013, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a confidante of Vladimir Putin, founded the Internet Research Agency (the IRA) in St. Petersburg. It was the Russian government's first coordinated facility to disrupt U.S. society and politics through social media.

Here's what Prigozhin had to say about the IRA's efforts to disrupt the 2022 election:

"Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once."

In 2014, the IRA and other Russian networks began establishing fake U.S. activist groups on social media. By 2015, hundreds of English-speaking young Russians worked at the IRA. Their assignment was to use those false social-media accounts, especially on Facebook and Twitter -- but also on Reddit, Tumblr, 9gag, and other platforms -- to aggressively spread conspiracy theories and mocking, ad hominem arguments that incite American users.

In 2017, U.S. intelligence found that Blacktivist, a Facebook and Twitter group with more followers than the official Black Lives Matter movement, was operated by Russia. Blacktivist regularly attacked America as racist and urged black users to rejected major candidates. On November 2, 2016, just before the 2016 election, Blacktivist's Twitter urged Black Americans: "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote."

Russia plays both sides -- on gender, race, and religion

The brilliance of the Russian influence campaign is that it convinces Americans to attack each other, worsening both misandry and misogyny, mutual racial hatred, and extreme antisemitism and Islamophobia. In short, it's not just an effort to boost the right wing; it's an effort to radicalize everybody.

Russia uses its trolling networks to aggressively attack men. According to MIT, in 2019, the most popular Black-oriented Facebook page was the charmingly named "My Baby Daddy Aint Shit." It regularly posts memes attacking Black men and government welfare workers. It serves two purposes: Make poor black women hate men, and goad black men into flame wars.

MIT found that My Baby Daddy is run by a large troll network in Eastern Europe likely financed by Russia.

But Russian influence networks are also also aggressively misogynistic and aggressively anti-LGBT.

On January 23, 2017, just after the first Women's March, the New York Times found that the Internet Research Agency began a coordinated attack on the movement. Per the Times:

More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.

They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners.

But the Russian PR teams realized that one attack worked better than the rest: They accused its co-founder, Arab American Linda Sarsour, of being an antisemite. Over the next 18 months, at least 152 Russian accounts regularly attacked Sarsour. That may not seem like many accounts, but it worked: They drove the Women's March movement into disarray and eventually crippled the organization.

Russia doesn't need a million accounts, or even that many likes or upvotes. It just needs to get enough attention that actual Western users begin amplifying its content.

A former federal prosecutor who investigated the Russian disinformation effort summarized it like this:

It wasn’t exclusively about Trump and Clinton anymore. It was deeper and more sinister and more diffuse in its focus on exploiting divisions within society on any number of different levels.

As the New York Times reported in 2022,

There was a routine: Arriving for a shift, [Russian disinformation] workers would scan news outlets on the ideological fringes, far left and far right, mining for extreme content that they could publish and amplify on the platforms, feeding extreme views into mainstream conversations.

China is joining in with AI

[A couple months ago], the New York Times reported on a new disinformation campaign. "Spamouflage" is an effort by China to divide Americans by combining AI with real images of the United States to exacerbate political and social tensions in the U.S. The goal appears to be to cause Americans to lose hope, by promoting exaggerated stories with fabricated photos about homeless violence and the risk of civil war.

As Ladislav Bittman, a former Czechoslovakian secret police operative, explained about Soviet disinformation, the strategy is not to invent something totally fake. Rather, it is to act like an evil doctor who expertly diagnoses the patient’s vulnerabilities and exploits them, “prolongs his illness and speeds him to an early grave instead of curing him.”

The influence networks are vastly more effective than platforms admit

Russia now runs its most sophisticated online influence efforts through a network called Fabrika. Fabrika's operators have bragged that social media platforms catch only 1% of their fake accounts across YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Telegram, and other platforms.

But how effective are these efforts? By 2020, Facebook's most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were run by Eastern European troll farms tied to the Kremlin. And Russia doesn't just target angry Boomers on Facebook. Russian trolls are enormously active on Twitter. And, even, on Reddit.

It's not just false facts

The term "disinformation" undersells the problem. Because much of Russia's social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.

Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that's how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.

As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them. And it's not just low-quality bots. Per RAND,

Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. ... According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.

What this means for you

You are being targeted by a sophisticated PR campaign meant to make you more resentful, bitter, and depressed. It's not just disinformation; it's also real-life human writers and advanced bot networks working hard to shift the conversation to the most negative and divisive topics and opinions.

It's why some topics seem to go from non-issues to constant controversy and discussion, with no clear reason, across social media platforms. And a lot of those trolls are actual, "professional" writers whose job is to sound real.

So what can you do? To quote WarGames: The only winning move is not to play. The reality is that you cannot distinguish disinformation accounts from real social media users. Unless you know whom you're talking to, there is a genuine chance that the post, tweet, or comment you are reading is an attempt to manipulate you -- politically or emotionally.

Here are some thoughts:

Don't accept facts from social media accounts you don't know. Russian, Chinese, and other manipulation efforts are not uniform. Some will make deranged claims, but others will tell half-truths. Or they'll spin facts about a complicated subject, be it the war in Ukraine or loneliness in young men, to give you a warped view of reality and spread division in the West.

Resist groupthink. A key element of manipulate networks is volume. People are naturally inclined to believe statements that have broad support. When a post gets 5,000 upvotes, it's easy to think the crowd is right. But "the crowd" could be fake accounts, and even if they're not, the brilliance of government manipulation campaigns is that they say things people are already predisposed to think. They'll tell conservative audiences something misleading about a Democrat, or make up a lie about Republicans that catches fire on a liberal server or subreddit.

Don't let social media warp your view of society. This is harder than it seems, but you need to accept that the facts -- and the opinions -- you see across social media are not reliable. If you want the news, do what everyone online says not to: look at serious, mainstream media. It is not always right. Sometimes, it screws up. But social media narratives are heavily manipulated by networks whose job is to ensure you are deceived, angry, and divided.

Edited for typos and clarity. (Tumblr-edited for formatting and to note a sourced article is now older than mentioned in the original post. -LV)

P.S. Apparently, this post was removed several hours ago due to a flood of reports. Thank you to the r/GenZ moderators for re-approving it.

Second edit:

This post is not meant to suggest that r/GenZ is uniquely or especially vulnerable, or to suggest that a lot of challenges people discuss here are not real. It's entirely the opposite: Growing loneliness, political polarization, and increasing social division along gender lines is real. The problem is that disinformation and influence networks expertly, and effectively, hijack those conversations and use those real, serious issues to poison the conversation. This post is not about left or right: Everyone is targeted.

(Further Tumblr notes: since this was posted, there have been several more articles detailing recent discoveries of active disinformation/influence and hacking campaigns by Russia and their allies against several countries and their respective elections, and barely touches on the numerous Tumblr blogs discovered to be troll farms/bad faith actors from pre-2016 through today. This is an ongoing and very real problem, and it's nowhere near over.

A quote from NPR article linked above from 2018 that you might find familiar today: "[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we'd surely be better off without voting AT ALL," a post from the account said.")

[mariacallous]

Along with seemingly everybody else I’ve recently been watching the Netflix series Adolescence. It is a striking film that is masterfully shot and powerfully acted. It has also generated a worthwhile public conversation. Much of this conversation has been constructive; however some of it has been animated by a desire to change the subject - to talk about anything but misogyny and the radicalisation of young men on the internet.

I found Adolescence surreal to watch at times. Since 2018 I have been researching the so-called ‘manosphere’ - a loosely affiliated network of masculinist websites, blogs and online forums. The fruit of my labour, Lost Boys: A Personal Journey Through the Manosphere, is out with Atlantic on 5 June. In normal circumstances a book like this would not have taken so unfathomably long to write. But the years since 2018 have been highly unusual. First the pandemic meant that I couldn’t travel. Then, almost as soon as that was over, my grandmother (whom I was extremely close to) died. Perhaps not surprisingly, I had little desire to re-immerse myself in a culture that got its kicks diminishing women while I was still grieving for the one I loved.

Because it took so long to finish, much of the writing took place under a cloud of uncertainty. I wondered whether the subject matter would be old news by the time the book came out. Back in 2018 there was a lot of interest in incels (involuntary celibates) and Jordan Peterson. By 2022 Andrew Tate was all the rage. I was sure that by 2025 the hyper-masculinity stuff was going to peter out. And then Donald Trump was re-elected and Mark Zuckerberg went on the Joe Rogan Experience to preen about ‘masculine energy’. Adolescence, a film about the radicalisation of a young boy by the manosphere, is now Netflix’s top show globally.

Today I feel a bit like a funeral director in the aftermath of a mass casualty event. I would have preferred things to have turned out differently, but considering they haven’t, I intend to put my knowledge to some practical use. Having spent so much time researching the manosphere - including interviewing and interacting with hundreds of men and spending months at a time embedded on a course which purportedly taught men how to become ‘high status alpha males’ - I feel as if I have something worthwhile to contribute.

It is in the nature of television to over-dramatise things and Adolescence depicts an extreme sequence of events. Murders inspired by the manosphere are mercifully rare (I go over several of them in detail in the book). Yet for every act of extreme violence there are probably countless instances of abuse and coercion that are given moral license by the subculture’s misogynistic doctrines. Indeed, many unpleasant things follow from the proposition that women are not quite fully human, even if some of our professional anti-alarmists would like to wave this conversation away as a ‘moral panic’.

Much of the debate inspired by Adolescence has focused on fatherlessness. It is an interesting jumping off point and conservative hand-wringing about fatherlessness is not without foundation. Yet absent fathers are better than violent ones. Moreover, fatherless homes are sometimes a byproduct of the fact that women nowadays feel less coerced into ‘making it work’ with abusive men.

Anti-feminist backlash can bring to mind a line from It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis’s dystopian novel that enjoyed a resurgence during the first Trump administration. ‘Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on,’ writes the author. As women have thrown off some of the oppressive strictures of the past and entered the labour force as (at least in theory) equal participants, some men have experienced a relative loss of status. Until fairly recently, men who found themselves cowed at work could at least dominate their families in the home. They still can in places like Russia, where a woman is killed by a man in a domestic setting every forty minutes. Vladimir Putin knows he has little to offer Russia’s menfolk besides poverty and war. And so he endows them with a sense of domiciliary lordship and dominion. In 2017 the Russian leader signed a law that partially decriminalised domestic violence.

It wasn’t so long ago in the West that women were treated as a form of property and divided up accordingly. Nowadays they mostly get to choose for themselves and the manosphere is rightly seen as a bilious wail of resentment at the fact.

Yet the ‘backlash’ thesis only takes us so far. The rise of the manosphere should probably also be seen a morbid symptom of the suffusion of market logic into every aspect of life. As is often the case, the clue is in the language. Masculinity gurus refer to a ‘sexual marketplace’ where to succeed men must embody certain characteristics that (coincidentally) also correspond with being an ideal neoliberal subject. Dominance, status, and crippling levels of productivity render a man ‘high value’ (people are frequently made to sound like Ebay collectibles) and audiences of impressionable men are encouraged to view life entirely through the prism of getting rich. Women on the other hand are treated either as ornamental status objects - one of the spoils for a successful performance of masculinity - or as breeding stock for patriarchs.

Jamie, the teenage boy who murders a girl from his school in Adolescence, mentions something called the ‘80/20’ rule. ‘80 per cent of women are attracted to 20 per cent of men. You must trick them, because you’ll never get them in a normal way,’ the 13-year-old protagonist tells his psychologist. In its garden variety self-help guise, the 80/20 rule (sometimes called the Pareto Principle) is one of those sterile maxims whose spiritual home is the jejune world of LinkedIn. The basic idea of this supposed ‘law’ is that 80 per cent of consequences come from 20 per cent of causes. The manosphere transposes the same template to sex and relationships. According to Jordan Peterson, sexual access for males is a ‘Pareto-distributed phenomena where a small proportion of the males get most of the invitations’. During the immersive part of my research, I heard one guru explain it as follows to a group of students who had signed up for his $10,000 ‘alpha male’ course (yes, really):

As we got into monogamous societies, what happened was low-status men got at least one girl that they could have sex with. Then after birth control and the sexual revolution we allowed people to choose more, and what women were choosing was the high-status men, so these men at the bottom became surplus again. That’s why you guys are here.

In other words, women are choosing a small percentage of ‘elite’ men and condemning a flotsam of sexual no-hopers (the 80 per cent) to the status of surplus men. This sort of rhetoric is usually accompanied by claims that western civilisation is going down the tubes because society no longer places restrictions on female sexuality (‘culturally enforced monogamy’, as Peterson has euphemistically called it).

In reality the 80/20 rule is a conspiracy theory that doesn’t stand up even in the world of dating apps. According to a study of user activity on Tinder, while women on the app tend to rate men more poorly in terms of their looks, they are also more likely to message the poorly rated men. By contrast, men tend to rate women better in terms of looks, but a majority are only messaging the most popular third of women.

And yet the 80/20 rule (and the manosphere itself) started to gain traction around the time that image and video-based social media took off. Instagram was launched in 2012; ten years later it would be home to a billion users – around an eighth of the world’s population. Tinder, a place where people are depicted as two-dimensional objects in a catalogue of flesh, launched in the same year. These platforms in particular have helped to distort ideas around what is normal and accepted. The more beauty and abundance on one side of the screen, the greater the sense of material and spiritual impoverishment on the other. We know that social media makes women feel insecure about their bodies; yet the same thing is increasingly true for men. A 2025 study published in Psychology of Men & Masculinities found that adolescent boys were increasingly using anabolic steroids to achieve the muscular physiques idealised on social media. If nobody feels like they are good enough anymore then perhaps it is in part because they are not supposed to.

All of which leads to the creation of material conditions that are propitious to convincing young men that they lack the requisite desirable qualities in the so-called sexual marketplace. In the analog age masculinity hucksters were forced to place their ads in the back of top shelf magazines. Yet thanks to social media, where the illusion of success is indistinguishable from the real thing, their bombastic heirs can enchant young men with telegenic charisma and portrayals of a luxurious lifestyle (in common with other pyramid schemes, the trappings of wealth are usually dependent on the guru’s ability to extract money from his followers).

This is why the wisdom of putting smartphones in the hands of children is so central to the debate around the manosphere. We tend to explain radicalisation by searching for pre-existing vulnerabilities. This is often the most appropriate approach: radicalisation can feed on inner turmoil and insecurity. Yet such feelings are not always organic: the market can play its own role in their generation. Wealth in a capitalist economy is accumulated through the creation of needs as much as their satisfaction. And smartphones are the vehicle through which masculinity entrepreneurs are able to circumvent other forms of socialisation (parents, teachers, approved role models) in order to cultivate their pied piper-like appeal.

When I was at school being ‘cool’ was synonymous with possessing whatever action figure or clothing brand or skateboard the market had convinced you was essential. What makes smartphones different is that the commodity itself is the beginning rather than the end of the story. ‘We look through them into the infosphere,’ as the philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes in Non-things. Venturing into the ‘infosphere’ these days increasingly summons feelings of browsing a sales catalogue of low repute. Search engines try to pull you away from the things you are searching for; social media generates conflict and atomisation; dating apps get rich from perpetual singledom.

This is the respectable face of the internet. It is easy enough to find oneself in the slipstream of less reputable sales funnels¹. Charismatic masculinity influencers reel young men in by hammering away at their insecurities. They then present themselves as saviours and guides. The sales pitch goes something like this: ‘The rules of the game have changed; someone like you will never get a girlfriend; however if you follow me (and buy my course which is $495 for a limited time only) I will show you how to escape the ‘Matrix’ (i.e. by embracing a rigid and cartoonish coda of masculinity).

To be online in 2025 is to be one-step removed from the subterranean world of masculinity demagogues. Adults are free to navigate these waters at their own peril. But I suspect that society will come to regret giving children untrammelled access to the devices through which these toxic Confidence Men can peddle their wares. After all, there are more important things in life than the assimilation of kids into the smartphone market.

[maryymaruu]

TSAC: Greetings, Three Signals! My name is Three Stars Above Clouds.

As I am sure you are aware, the integrity of the global broadcast network is decaying as time progresses. I recognize that there is a limited amount of time that we iterators have before long-distance communication becomes impossible. Thus, I have decided to make an effort to get to know my fellow iterators before I lose the chance.

Now, the primary reason for my contact: I became curious to investigate your broadcast frequency after it appeared on the long-range communications channels.

Your broadcast signature appears to match some of the data stored within my personal archives. I believe I may have recordings of some of your musical broadcasts, though I was unable to locate the source until now. I am glad to have identified their originator!

I will admit that I have only a passing familiarity with the arts; my expertise lies elsewhere. However you appear to be quite knowledgeable about cultural matters of a musical nature, and I am eager to learn more about areas of study outside of my own personal research.

I have some questions about your work, if you would not mind me asking. Do you have any favorite musical compositions, or perhaps some that are important to your research? I also wonder, is your work primarily curatorial, or have you created any original compositions of your own?

I appreciate your efforts in the realm of data preservation and dissemination; I believe such actions are quite valuable to the wider iterator community, especially during these times of looming isolation.

This broadcast is becoming quite long, so I will end my message here. I await your reply; may the Cycles be kind.

@threestarsaboveclouds

(ooc: WOW sorry this got long lol. In this post from a while ago TSAC mentions that they have some iterator songs archived, and I had that in mind when formulating this message https://www.tumblr.com/threestarsaboveclouds/758086912710000640)

TS: [ HELLO, THREE STARS ABOVE CLOUDS! PLEASE, EXCUSE MY INCONVINIENT WAY OF COMMUNICATION, BUT I'M VERY HAPPY TO HEAR FROM YOU! ]

TS: [ I AM PAINFULLY AWARE OF IT, YES. EVEN MY EQUIPMENT IS NOT IMMUNE TO TIME AND THE ELEMENTS. HOWEVER I AM STILL CAPABLE OF FULFILLING MY SECONDARY PURPOSE AND HELP YOU CONTACT ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE OUTSIDE OF YOUR REACH. I WILL ATTACH A BROADCAST SERIAL NUMBER THAT WILL REDIRECT YOU TO MY MAIN COMMUNICATION RELAY SATELLITE, FEEL FREE TO USE IT! ]

[ 1 FILE ATTACHED ]

TS: [ I’M HAPPY TO HEAR THAT MY BROADCAST IS STILL REACHING ANYONE. I’M ALSO REALLY FLUSTERED THAT ANYONE WOULD GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO REACH BACK OUT TO ME- I HOPE THE FREQUENCY ISN’T AN UNPLEASANT ONE FOR YOU… IT’S HARD TO FIND THE PERFECT TUNE FOR EVERYONE, BUT I’M TRYING MY BEST! ]

TS: [ I UNFORTUNATELY LOST ACCESS TO A LARGE PORTION OF IT DUE TO IT BEING CONSIDERED.. CONTROVERSIAL, BUT MY ARCHIVES OF ART CREATED BY MY CITIZENS IS STILL QUITE EXTENSIVE REGARDLESS! I DID DABBLE IN CREATION MYSELF TOO! ]

TS: [ I WOULD LOVE TO SHARE MY ARCHIVES WITH YOU, IF YOU’D LIKE TO TAKE A LOOK! MY CITIZENS HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLY PASSIONATE ABOUT A WIDE RANGE OF ARTS, FROM SCULPTURE TO THEATRICS… ]

TS: [ I MAY NOT BE AN ARTIST MYSELF, BUT I DID EXPERIMENT WITH RANDOMIZED MATHEMATICAL EQUATIONS BEFORE TO BASE MELODIES OFF OF, AND I AM WORKING ON A SOUND SYNTHESIZER PROGRAM THAT WOULD ALLOW ME TO COMPOSE COMPLETELY FREELY, BOTH OUT OF SOUND SAMPLES ALREADY GATHERED, AS WELL AS GENERATE NEW ONES- AHH… ]

TS: [ OH I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND MY POINTLESS TANGENTS… THAT DATA IS MOST LIKELY COMPLETELY USELESS TO YOU, I'M SORRY… NOT TO WASTE ANY MORE TIME OF YOURS, ON THINGS LESS SUBJECTIVE. ]

TS: [ I USED TO ANALYZE THE RHYTHMIC PULSE OF THE VOID SEA. MY THEORY IS THAT THE SAME RHYTHM COULD BE ALSO HEARD IN THE CHANTS DURING ANCIENT RITUALS, SOMETHING THE ANCIENTS USED TO HELP THEMSELVES REACH ENLIGHTENMENT BEFORE THE VOID FLUID HAS BEEN DISCOVERED. ]

TS: [ UNFORTUNATELY NONE OF THE CHANTS HAVE BEEN PROPERLY DOCUMENTED, AS THERE WAS NO WAY TO RECORD THEM, AND ALL THERE IS TO WORK WITH ARE SPECULATIONS, WORD OF MOUTH AND VAGUE MUMBLINGS OF THOSE WHO CLAIMED TO REMEMBER THEIR DISTANT REINCARNATIONS. SIMULATIONS EVENTUALLY RAN INTO LOOPS, AND THE ONLY SOLID THING THEY PROVED, WAS THAT THE CHANTS DEFINITELY  HAVE NO EFFECT ON NON-SAPIENT BEINGS, THUS--- ]

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(OOC: I would like to highlight the fact that these two are not in fact neighbors, not like the iterators are in the game, at least! I admit it was a very spontaneous "what-if" idea that I did not run through Delta's permission first- I got way over myself.

For lore-accurate location of TSAC please refer to this post:

https://www.tumblr.com/delta-orionis/779480878118256640/i-didnt-want-to-derail-maryymaruus-reply-to

While I'm glad to hear they are not completely opposed to the idea of TS being a "distant neighbor", it would be an extremely distant one, even for iterator standards! "Wouldn't even show up on the map" kind of distant X'D TS's idea of what is "far away" is possibly skewed by how large the radius of his transmissions is--

It's best to consider this interaction non-canon for either of them.

Thank you and apologies for the misunderstanding! )