#why does the algorithm suck so bad on this site??

[cloudystrwbrry]

Does tumblr know what an algorithm is? I’ve been seeing a LOT of a fandom that I don’t even know what it is. I haven’t interacted or shown any interest in it at all. In fact I’ve said “not interested in this post” to every single one because there’s been SO many. I had hoped that it would catch on to why I’m not interested and stop showing it to me. Tumblr also decides that when it shows you something it shows you ALL of it and nothing else. You like landscapes? That’s all you’ll see until you refresh. You like dangonronpa? Yeah here you go I’ve got tons of that. Refresh. You like this super obscure fandom that you’ve shown 0 interest in whatsoever and in fact have told us you don’t want to see it on multiple occasions? HERE IT IS! WE HAVE SO MUCH OF IT TO SHOW YOU THAT EVEN IF YOU REFRESH YOU’LL ONLY SEE THIS UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE!!!

[ms-demeanor]

since twitter has become actively hostile to its users, so they came to tumblr, and reddit has become actively hostile to its users, so they came to tumblr, what do we do now that tumblr is becoming (more) actively hostile to its users? i’ve been here for over a decade so i know tumblr users are the type to cling on despite everything and revel in undoing every change, but i’m so tired of the way this website breaks the way it fundamentally works in order to appeal to new users. the twitterfication of the site seems so much worse than when people jumped ship after the porn ban, and even then, only small communities (and twitter) cropped up as solutions. you might not be the person to ask for a definitive answer, but i figured a tech blog might be interested in considering - what do we do when there’s nowhere left to go?

Okay so, I mean this very seriously: how has tumblr meaningfully become like twitter?

I don't personally find the sidebar view obnoxious and it seems to me like just another layout change that's pretty typical to tumblr. New users are getting signed up with a bit more emphasis on algorithmic feeds, but that is still very easy to change (MUCH easier than on any other social platform) and the algorithm has been there for everyone for quite a while, we just typically don't notice it because a lot of long-term tumblr users don't go into the "for you" feed.

I don't think that tumblr *has* fundamentally broken the way that it works to appeal to new users. My dash now is still very much like my dash in 2019, and still very much like my dash in 2018 (though much less pornographic). Reblogs are still reblogs, likes are still likes. Replies, for all that they seem like they've been around forever, are new and good and I think they work well. I'm irritated that the notes menu doesn't have a "view all" option but I think that's a worthwhile tradeoff for an easy way to see tags.

I *do not* understand why tumblr has broken linking back to previous reblogs but I don't think that's out of an effort to act like twitter; it is a bizarre choice that I dislike and don't understand but I also don't think that it has fundamentally changed the way the site works and i mean you've been around long enough that I'm sure you've had the same experience I have of going into the notes of a post and randomly clicking until you found a version that you wanted to reblog without a bunch of bullshit at the bottom. Tumblr has always kind of sucked, this change DOES suck but it doesn't suck in a way that is particularly novel or insurmountable. (For instance, I think this change sucks MUCH LESS than when they made posts with links invisible to the search, that is something that is genuinely bad that has been long lasting but doesn't get brought up much in lists of the ways that tumblr has gone wrong)

Tumblr *is* changing, but I think it is changing more incrementally and less terribly than other parts of the internet. I also hate the floating clown, the login walls, the dash-only view for blogs (you can't archive it and I HATE that), and - to an extent - the new lightbox on mobile. And I dislike that less than I thought I would but I don't think it's a fundamental change that necessarily impacts my interactions with the site - it *adds* a feature that I don't care for but it doesn't *break* anything that I require to have a good time on tumblr - in that way I think of it very much like Live. People hate Live so much and I find that perplexing because it is so easy to simply ignore it.

But that's not really your question; that's just some stuff I want people to think about because as much as tumblr has changed in the last two years it is nowhere near as fucked up as the recent things that twitter and reddit have pulled.

So, as to your question: where do we go?

Well. Not to be an extremely old person on the internet, but damned if I don't miss email lists. And forums. God I miss forums. Neither of those things has all the bonuses of platforms like twitter or reddit or tumblr or facebook, but they were great ways to hang out with people you liked on the internet.

The internet is changing. I can feel it, you can feel it, I'm pretty sure we're all like cattle in a field lifting our noses and hearing some distant rumbling and becoming slowly aware that it's almost time to run. There's a coming stampede and it isn't here yet but you know it's on its way. You're not imagining that, that's how things feel right now and there are a shitload of things contributing to it.

Things like SESTA/FOSTA and KOSA (which has not passed yet but is a big red flag waving on the horizon) have been eroding away the way that users on various platforms can function. Some platforms have consolidated in ways that harm users; some new platforms have popped up and shaken up the map of the internet; some platforms are being torn apart brick by brick by owners who don't care about the users. It kind of seems like people are actually looking up and realizing that advertising is A) bad and B) doesn't actually work and I think we're running straight toward another advertising-based crash like we saw in 2017. It feels like all the desperate things that tumblr is doing is just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic as the internet as a whole starts to sink into the ocean.

Honestly, I don't think it's that bad. I think it *feels* bad, but I think we're looking at a slow whimpering death of the platforms, not a bang. I think tumblr is going to hang on at least for a few years and I think it's going to end up like livejournal and myspace, which both still exist as websites that are recognizable as updated versions of the sites they were in 2004-2010. The thing that I think would really, honestly hurt tumblr in a fundamental way is if it moved to a more algorithmic and data-sales based model of advertising, and I think that's still pretty distant. I think Automattic is aware that killing the chronological feed would be the one unforgivable sin that would cause a mass exodus and a final crash, and I think when we see that, when we can't just scroll through the feed and see what our friends did that day in order of when they did it, that's when the party is over here.

But that's still not answering your question.

So, where do we go? What do we do? Well, for now, I'd say it's a good time to get contact info for your friends across various platforms. Get email addresses, get phone numbers.

Now is also the time for you to set up a personal website. NeoCities is currently the best place to do this, though it takes a lot more effort than just starting a blog on tumblr. I think that various oldschool blogging sites like Wordpress and Blogger/Blogspot/whatever the hell the google one is are a better place to have your emergency backup than a more platform-y platform if you aren't up to doing something with NeoCities.

If you've got the ability to do so and a group of people who are interested in the same core subject, set up a forum. There's a decent amount of off-the-shelf forum software out there and a text-and-small-images forum isn't prohibitively expensive, but it's never going to be huge and you're never going to have the kind of spread and virality and random connections that you would on a platform with millions or billions of users.

If you can't set up a forum, setting up or joining a discord server for your friends is a decent enough option at the moment, and may be a very good option for people who are looking to keep their interactions more private.

But yeah i think right now is a great time for people to start setting up their own personal websites, to start visiting actual webpages again, to start bookmarking their friends' websites, and to start collecting contact info that isn't tied to platforms.

[valyrfia]

RE: This ask on fanfic, fandom, and lestappen

(preface with, I love fanfic and fandom, and I've written for very big and small)

I have never experienced such bad fandom etiquette as I have with 1633. I wrote one multi chapter fic for the ship and 99% of ao3 comments I got were people asking when I'd publish the next chapter, which has always been a big no no in fandom. I deleted the fic because it felt bad that people didn't want to engage with what I had written, but, just ask about my update schedule. Also, people changing the date of their published fic to be more recent, so, it appears at the top of the 'recently updated page'! I have never seen this in any fandom before now! AO3 isn't Instagram! If you tag correctly, people will find your fic if they want to read it.

People are pushing 1633 constantly in very public spaces like Twitter, Insta and TikToK, where we know these drivers have accounts and look at comments/posts about them or on their own posts. Just today on Twitter I see Dan Howell (which what a fucking weird intersection of my past and current interests) being asked at a public panel about lestappen, just because he's mentioned liking F1 in the past. I know it gets easy clicks and engagement because it is popular. But, it's so far removed from behaviour that was ever considered acceptable in fandom.

I remember, back in 2013/14 there was a huge backlash to people bringing up fictional ships to actors/writers. There was discourse after every Supernatural or Teen Wolf fan forum/con panel when someone would inevitably ask about Destiel or Sterek. People would argue whether fanon and ships were appropriate to ask the real people behind the show about.

RPF is fine, I have written, currently write and will continue to engage in RPF spaces. But, there are boundaries that you must keep if you are going to engage with it. Tumblr and AO3 have always been considered locked fandom spaces. If a person goes onto these sites and searches themselves out, that's on them. But, it's implied in fandom that you keep to just these spaces or private chats

(personally, I'm sad I just missed out on the livejournal days... I got into fandom when everything was being moved over from there and fanfic.net onto ao3)

I understand younger social media users are used to an algorithm finding content for them. And on sites like Tumblr where the algorithm sucks or ao3, which doesn't have one. You have to search out the content you want yourself. Liking and kudos isn't enough, you actually have to engage in meaningly conversations and comments if you want to make friends. That can be scary! But, it's a soft skill that is slowly getting lost and with it fandom etiquette is going down the drain.

This is like...one of the last big serious ask I want to reply to on this topic because not everyone agrees with me (which, fine), but OP you put a lot of time into typing this up so I will honour that.

I think fandom, much like a lot of other things nowadays, have become less about fun and more about hitting a certain number of likes and interactions. That's why people push Lestappen on other social media even though most of us have explicitly said "can you not, thanks". The changing the date of the fic to push to an 'algorithm' infuriates me and is a personal pet peeve of mine. There's one that's doing that now on the Lestappen tag and I've point-blanked refused to read it literally BECAUSE of the date changing. People will read your fic if they want to, constantly pushing it to the top of the 'Date Updated' list does nothing except piss people off.

I will say I think the fictional ship discourse of 2014 was maybe driven in part by the fact that being gay was still seen as something much more 'novel' than even now. If we think about when marriage became legal in the US and all that...I still think though that it shows a level of self-awareness and self-regulation that we've lost in fandom. As my partner and I often to lament to each other, we've become so individualistic that people have lost the concept of shame. It's an idea that YOU are the exception and something should cater to YOU, instead of the other way round. In the case of fandom, this comes out as people acknowledging fandom etiquette in an abstract way, but still logging into their twitter account (WITH THEIR FACES ATTACHED! WHICH! THIS IS A TANGENT BUT IT BAFFLES ME! WHAT HAPPENED TO DIGITAL FOOTPRINT!) and posting about RPF. Fandom is not an abstract entity, fandom IS the people that interact with it–from authors to artists all the way to those who consume the content.

Also, I also JUST missed out on the lj days–the great migration was happening just when I was getting involved in fandom and I can't help but feel like I missed out on something special.

[thephantombelow]

brief bluesky thoughts

actually gave bluesky a proper look because every look I have gave it so far has just been a "man this is just twitter but again what is the point" and closed it so went in with the intention of actually trying to see what is different

Bluesky is, UI wise, fundamentally the same as Twitter, however, it is like, just different enough that it has its merits. The fact it is not Twitter is good enough for most people but that has never been enough for me as like Twitter's UI sucks ass, it has to be that and then more to be worth it.

Bluesky, upon a further examination, has surprised me as clearly they have added quite a bit to it / I just have not looked at it well enough as there are numerous QoL features for the user that are fairly decent. For one, block lists are just... built-in to the site. So are follow lists! This is soooo nice. Very quickly I saw someone built a list of every AI/NFT account out there and I can just say I want to block everyone on this list and every time someone gets added to the list I have them blocked. Nice! This rocks. Seems like the increased the character limit to 300 at some point too? Not too sure why it exists, to be frank, that said, but it is fine, small indie social media or what have you. On the note of the follow lists thing though, a lot of it has to be done by the users, which is an bit of a compromise but probably better than the site itself doing this. It is a unique approach to how you have to deal with this site, but it works. I can't think of anything better, and it works anyway, so not bad.

A lack of trending tab and seemingly fewer amounts of algorithm bullshit than other sites is interesting and promising. My quick scroll through, following accounts that I like, following friends from other sites, etc., has shown like... No posts I dislike yet. Interesting. No overly negative posts, seems like. I can't tell yet whether this is a bit from the user base or if it is something different about the way the site itself is designed. Maybe a bit of both. Seems like there are a lot of users have practically been begging people to be normal, so probably seems like a bit from the users. A lack of trending tab is based, also.

Also on the topic of odd user based things that give some level of QoL, there are labels. Massive fuckass big lists that just you have to scroll through to find the thing that applies to you, but it works. It works well but does have that problem of being controlled by users, so can be a little scuffed at times. Very good and nice their backend allows for just liking posts from account adds a label if an account has been set up correctly though. Seems like Bluesky's backend is quite extensive on that bit. Any issues about this bit are created by the users of the label systems not Bluesky though, ie delays from liking a post to a label being added aren't from Bluesky's backend being slow but from the user who created the lists' system being slow.

I am a bit interested how exactly they are going to monetize it as there apparently is no ads and the most they got is selling domains which is a good short term solution but the site is growing fairly rapidly. I am assuming they are just going to sell user info, because of course, but like outside of that what long term monetization do they have? Is it going to be another Cohost situation or is this going to be a site that truly is *different*, somehow. I have my doubts how long the site is going to last, but then again we have been saying that about this hell site for years now, so who knows. This is the one bit I am scared about.

Are these features worth it though? Eh. Probably. Seems the fact is people are actually using the site now, which is cool. I hope it stays popular as a replacement, and the shitheads of Twitter instead go either to here (lol), to Reddit, or like, idk man, Threads? Do people use that app? Seemed like it got a big boost on the Google Play Store, anyway, so idk man. Probably some shitheads did. Seems like there is not that many weird right-wing weird fuckheads on Bluesky anyway, and the general userbase is like, weirdly normal or least not annoying about it.

I hope it goes places, man. I think the current state of social media is very fucky with there just being like... TikTok, Instagram, sort of Twitter but not really it is on fire, so now sort of Bluesky, and the rest of the sites are also on fire in different ways and that sucks. There are no healthy sites right now that can be counted as social media so probably at least one more that actually has an user base is a good thing. I have been begging people to use Tumblr but no one wants to and hey, the CEO of this site is having an Elon tier meltdown as we speak and getting sued by like 8 different groups and sueing 7 as well. There is like a 60% chance this site actually dies this time for real this time I swear so having a site that might also die in a year or two because it has no funding but at least seems *fine* is nice.

Better than fucking using Reddit, at least.

[hellfire--cult]

I have a ton of posts saved to read later that I dont reblog yet BECAUSE: I've seen people mistag, I've seen people not disclose things on purpose, and there was that whole scandal last year about the underage thing that wasn't appropriately tagged and a ton of people who liked or reblogged to read later also got under fire

I reblog once I read, I cant say everyone else does. But you do have to realize one thing, AO3 you can't necessarily reblog. You can bookmark and pin and like and comment, and if by chance there is a way to reblog then im dumb and completely missed it. I was one of the people who had an AO3 first and then came to Tumblr and didn't know at first to reblog.

There are some people who want interaction who have less then 50 notes just begging for love, and people keep complaining that their first that have THOUSANDS aren't being shared. I get that it sucks! But also, you are having interaction. I still know people who like fics to read later and won't reblog until after they read it.

Also, I have mutuals who will like their friends fics but not reblog if it has one of the things they don't like. For example, my friend doesn't like daddy kink and another mutual always writes it, so they'll like the fic but not share and that has been discussed

It is discouraging to me to see people say they want to put things behind a pay wall, there are sites for that that you can legitimately do that. But fanfiction is art and it should be shared, and I understand it hurts when people don't reblog, but there are many different reasons people don't as some are listed here.

It makes it discouraging to even interact with people and not even read things at all anymore. I started out not knowing, and then got blocked by a blog because I at the time had only liked things because I didn't know reblogging was what people wanted on here. Is it not all interaction? Is it not all love and gratitude being shown? Since when did we weigh the merit of one thing over another?

We joke that Tumblr doesn't have an algorithm but it does! I see stuff recommended my mutuals like but haven't reblogged. And I see stuff that gets a ton of interaction.

Maybe I'm wrong, and I would love an explanation as to why people want things reblogged (again coming from other sites where you couldn't, not just AO3). I genuinely don't understand and this isn't any hate towards you I have reblogged your fics before and love how you write, I just don't get it?

I understand it might sound whiny to some, and I understand AO3, but it can also help when someone bookmarks it and it ends in their profile, for mutuals to see it as well.

Wattpad may not have a reblog button, but saving the story and commenting in it, helps the story go up in the tag, appear before than other works thanks to the engagement, and also, when you save a story in a public reading list, mutuals can also see it.

Tumblr does have the possibility to reblog your work, and the engagement on here with OTHER people is also easier. Not only by comments, but by asks like this, or responding through the comments or the reblogs themselves. It's more personal and real.

It is also a site where it can ENCOURAGE the writers to keep doing it. This is a site where we can actively support someone, unlike other sites.

We write cause we want to, that is true, but even myself when i wasn't on here, and only used wattpad and AO3, it also discouraged me to not have votes or kudos, or subscriptions on the works.

This hurts more because i can see the activity of people. We can see it. And it is discouraging in a way of also wondering if our writing is bad, or if it was too much, or too little.

And like you said, tumblr has an algorithm, but that algorithm can break if people reblog. It just helps the work we put into, to be shared around because we love it, we wrote it, and we spent time with it and it's like an artist with a finished painting, putting their artwork in a gallery, and everyone just passes by.

That's how it basically feels. We always try to look past it, to say 'oh, it doesn't matter' but sadly, it does.

[murderessdominatrix]

bruh I hate when I'm looking up a question like 'why does X suck so bad' on forums and one of the first results on a supposed forum site (quora) is like 'The invention of X was innovative and historical. However, one common complaint about X is that it sucks really badly. This is due to...' like. I know that shit was AI generated! It's not a forum if there aren't people posting in it!

I also hate when someone is asking a question on a forum site and one of the responses is 'I input your question to Chat GPT and this is what it said.' Like. If I wanted to know what Chat GPT would generate I would have input the question to Chat GPT myself! I'm trying to get a real person's input! I'm trying to understand other people's opinions and lived experiences! IDGAFF what pattern a predictive algorithm will determine from this particular string of words!!!

[iam93percentstardust]

so one of the things that i think is happening in the likes vs reblogs debate is that when people who support reblogging over liking say things like "likes don't do anything," they don't mean they literally don't do anything. what they mean is that in the grand scheme of how this site works--as a blogging platform--a like doesn't share the post any further than your own blog. no one else is ever going to see the post; it's going to end right there.

but, for whatever reason, whether it's in bad faith or just misunderstanding, people who support liking over reblogging seem to consistently take this as the other side does mean that liking literally doesn't do anything, which they then meet with the argument that of course it does something. it, as i saw someone put it today, gives my internet friend a boost of serotonin.

the thing is, a lot of these people who are against "likescolding" seem to have this idea that they're fighting against the all-terrible algorithm, and what they're forgetting is that in the process, they're hurting the very real people on the other side of the computer screen. going back to the serotonin argument, yeah, i do get a boost of serotonin from receiving a like, or i did back when i was still bothering to post here. so it would follow, therefore, that i get more serotonin from more likes. but in order to get more, someone is going to have to suck it up and reblog the post so that other people can see it, because my reach on its own only goes so far. if the entire argument rests on giving me serotonin, then shouldn't a reblog give me serotonin as well? why are likes the only form of acceptable serotonin givers?

which leads me into my next point, that by demanding reblogs, i'm supposedly just a greedy numbers counter who can't be satisfied with what i have. and frankly, at this point, after watching this argument go round and round in circles for literal years, i don't think that anything i say is going to change anyone's minds. the people who say i should be satisfied with likes are going to say that i'm greedy and want more attention no matter what argument i present. it doesn't seem to matter to them that i have activity muted on tumblr and statistics muted on ao3 and therefore can't even see the numbers. but i'm hopeful that some of the newer people on this site will see this and understand why i'm arguing for the value of reblogging, so i'm going to say it anyway.

let me paint a picture for you: i joined my current fandom on tumblr almost exactly five years ago. the biggest movie to date had just been released, the fandom was thriving, and i vividly remember seeing artwork after fanfic after gifset on my dash. if i tried to scroll back through my dash in the morning to where i'd left off the previous night, it would take me hours because so many fanworks were being created and posted and shared while i was asleep. the very first fanfic i posted to tumblr for this fandom got more than a thousand notes literally overnight. i'd only been a part of the fandom for a few months at that point and had very few fandom followers, but the field was more than welcoming to a new writer.

but then the landscape changed.

within two years, i'd started to notice a drop in reblogs. i can't tell you for certain what the reason was. maybe it was covid fatigue, maybe it was purity and anti-culture being driven to an all-time fever pitch, maybe it was that people were leaving my fandom, once one of the biggest on the site, for other, more diverse media. i really can't tell you what the reason was, but as the reblogs started to drop, fan creators started begging. and as the creators begged, i suddenly started seeing these posts circulating about how creators should be grateful for the likes and lurkers, and asking for anything more was just being greedy.

slowly, the number of fanworks on my dash started to drop. the fanfics went first. for whatever reason, maybe because reading a fic is more time-consuming, people were particularly hateful towards fanwriters wanting more reblogs. writers tried various tricks, writing shorter fics, putting things under read mores, posting in the form of bulleted headcanons, but nothing really worked. and so they stopped posting. and then they left tumblr altogether. i see a lot of them on discord, and occasionally, twitter now, but i don't see them on tumblr.

the art was next. see, a lot of the artists in my fandom make money off their art, which meant they relied on those reblogs as a way to get their name out there. and if those reblogs aren't happening, and if people are deriding commissions because they think fanworks should be free and available to everyone, then no one is seeing their commission posts. and if the site is already hostile to artists, which it has been since the tumblr purge of 2018, then why are they still on this site when they can be on twitter and instagram?

now i'm watching it happen again with gifmakers. that old resentment is building back up, this time around reposting gifsets and claiming them as their own creation. people claim to be unable to make cool gifsets so they have to steal them, and in the process, other people stop reblogging the original gifmaker. as of writing this, i haven't seen us reach the point where the gifmakers start to leave, but i'm betting it'll happen soon.

you know how many new fics i've seen this last week on my dash? three.

you know how many new artworks? eight.

you know how many shitposts i've seen? political posts? posts lamenting the deaths of whatever current fandom op is in? too many to count.

i'm one of the people who doesn't post my fics on tumblr anymore. i don't see the point. i'll get a much bigger reception talking about them on twitter. and i feel bad for all the newcomers arriving here because their dashes are going to be full of shitposts and politics and misinformation and reposts from tiktok where they once would have been full of stories and art.

but i wonder. if people keep on this reblogging hate train, will we lose the shitposts and politics and reposts from tiktok too? you're not obligated to reblog everything, i'm not even saying that you're obligated to reblog anything, but if we keep going the way we're going, if more and more people drop a like and keep scrolling, will we soon reach a point where there's nothing on our dashboards at all?

fandom is a community, and i think that that's something that people tend to forget. creators create for themselves, but they share for everyone else. i see a lot of posts talking about how creators will stop sharing if all they receive is silence, but most of those are old posts that miss that creators have already received silence. they've already stopped sharing. they've already left.

the thing is, before i gave up on posting to this site, i used to remind myself that if ten people were sitting in my apartment, listening to me read my fics, i would think that's a lot of people and be very honored in the hopes that it would make me feel less sad about the fact that in just a few years, people stopped reading what i wrote. and it isn't that it's wrong, but five years ago, even as a new writer, i was reading my fics to packed auditoriums with standing room only.

and there's a big difference between speaking to an auditorium and speaking to my living room.

no one is obligated to reblog. no one is owed a reblog. and likes do actually do something. but sharing does something too, and it doesn't hurt anyone to reblog it. truth be told, i think we're already past the point of no return; i don't think we'll ever see the creators who've already left come back. but that doesn't mean we can't make this a welcoming space for new creators or that we have to make them feel bad for wishing that more people would share their fanworks. i see a lot of those posts railing against likescolding talking about how it's not okay that likescolding makes them feel bad, so i guess my question to those posters is this:

why is it okay to make the creators feel bad instead?

[rollercoasterwords]

hi rae! do you have any articles/resources on like. why tiktok sucks. because i had a conversation with a friend earlier today about this very subject and i want to show her some information (plus youre like the tumblr smart person so i thought you might have something)

tumblr smart person....love that for me lmao

i don't have a ton of like. articles that are specifically like "here is why tiktok is bad" bc most of my anti-tiktok critique is coming from the synthesis of various ideas about capitalism, art, surveillance, identity, media + control. like -- i don't think tiktok is the root of most of these issues, it's more that i think it's a petri dish for the rapid growth of the already-existing virus of capitalism. so this might feel a little disjointed but here is like. a web of various articles/essays/writing that has ideas which connect back to why i dislike tiktok

capitalist realism, by mark fisher - i think this text provides essential background on the ways in which capitalism has become so ingrained; if you don't wanna read the whole book then at least read ch 2, which talks a lot about the role of media + is particularly relevant when thinking about social media platforms like tiktok

social media is not self-expression, by rob horning - also start here for a perfect explanation of the ways in which social media encourages us to police our own identities as if we ourselves are consumer products

the anxiety of influencers, by barrett swanson - this is my rec that deals most specifically with tiktok and is just. such a great synthesis of the way the app is spreading the poison of a consumer economy such that the boundaries between consumer/product are broken down and we are all becoming consumers-as-products

personal style is dead and the algorithm killed it, by charlie squire - a really excellent essay that also gets into the way that consumerism + algorithms are like....eroding our sense of art + identity

cj the x's youtube channel - really fantastic video essays about art + media consumption in the modern age which make me reflect on the ways tiktok promotes engagement with art as a product rather than art. in particular i recommend 7 deadly art sins and the kronk effect

west elm caleb and the feminist panopticon, by rayne fisher-quann - another excellent essay that gets into the ways apps like tiktok can like....create this online surveillance state where we're all being encouraged to police each other

against character vapor, by brandon taylor - an essay that gets into how modern anxiety over embodiment + the sense that everything is now a performance thanks to social media influences our literature/art

keep it in the group chat: fanfiction and influencer culture, from into the fic of it - podcast episode where they discuss a lot of these issues with art + consumer culture specifically in the context of fanfic

objects of despair: mirrors, by meghan o'gieblyn - another article that touches on social media + identity formation

every "chronically online" conversation is the same, by rebecca jennings - discusses an issue that is not unique to tiktok but is exacerbated by tiktok

and if u wanna read some of my own more organized thoughts about tiktok, i have 2 essays on substack. one is you are what you eat: identity as consumption and what went wrong with jegulus, which ignoring all the jegulus stuff just contains like. a synthesis of how i think tiktok/algorithmic social media promotes a fucked-up method of identity-formation. and then i also have why does tiktok hate masculine lesbians? which is less about tiktok itself and more just an example of one issue that has festered on the site thanks to lack of critical thought + discussion -- both of which are literally impeded by the way tiktok is set up.

here is like. TikTok Thesis from my jegulus essay:

right now, in our current historical moment, almost all social media is being slowly (or not-so-slowly) swallowed by the vast and yawning chasm of the Algorithm. that’s because the Algorithm is good for capitalism. the Algorithm breaks down the boundaries between content and consumer, streamlining the system so that everyone is consuming each other all at once. we, the social media users, are consumers consuming the content of social media. at the same time, social media is consuming the content of our data. that data is then consumed by advertisers, who use it to sell us more content. we are thus increasingly stuck in a never-ending cycle of consumption, held captive by algorithms that soothe our anxieties by offering us tiny, consistent dopamine hits while working to break down our attention spans and our capacities for critical thought so that they can keep us trapped in echo chambers of endless consumptive entertainment.

and then there are of course all the rantings and ravings i post here on my blog lol!

anyway, a lot of what i've collected here is a little more philosophical and focused around identity + consumerism + art, but i'm sure there are also plenty of people out there making additional points about the way tiktok is horrible for privacy, how it's harvesting all our data, and how it's designed to be addictive + keep you scrolling + is in the process deteriorating your attention span. these are all issues that, again, are not unique to tiktok, but are grossly exacerbated by tiktok. especially bc the rapid growth of tiktok as a successful social media during the pandemic has made it like....this epicenter of pop culture such that

a) other social media apps are now trying to copy tiktok's model and become more like it

b) almost all commercial art is now influenced by tiktok to some extent. books, music, etc -- if u want people to invest in something, it needs to go viral on tiktok!

the consumerism of capitalism is the cancer and tiktok is the malignant tumor growing at an unprecedented + life-threatening rate <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Indonesia's gig work tech resistance

Gojek is a $10B Indonesian “super app” that combines “Postmates, Apple Pay, Venmo, and Uber” serviced by an army of ojol — drivers — who are subjected to all the high-handed algorithmic horrors that gig workers everywhere suffer through.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvpng/delivery-drivers-are-using-grey-market-apps-to-make-their-jobs-suck-less

But Indonesian ojol aren’t helpless before their apps; a legion of toolsmiths produce, share, sell and support “tuyul apps” named for “a child-like spirit in Indonesian folklore that helps his human master earn money by stealing,” which modify the Gojek app.

As part of her MIT PhD, Rida Qadri studied Gojek, ojol and tuyul apps, and her account of the grey-market Gojek ecosystem for Motherboard is riveting.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvpng/delivery-drivers-are-using-grey-market-apps-to-make-their-jobs-suck-less

Tuyul apps are wildly innovative and diverse, from tools to magnify text so older ojol drivers who can read the tiny default app’s text, to filters that allow drivers and riders to preview jobs, avoiding the algorithmic penalty for turning down a job after accepting it.

Indeed, many tuyul apps are tools that permit workers to resist their algorithmic employer’s “optimizations,” which inevitably “optimize” the work so as much value as possible is transferred from the workers to their bosses.

Take GPS-spoofing. Gojek’s corporate overlords have decreed that drivers have to be close to a pickup to be eligible to get the job. On its face, this sounds reasonable, but in practice, it creates massive jams around train stations where unsheltered riders wait in the rain.

Gojek created a situation that has clogged the roads around stations, creating traffic hazards and introducing delays into deliveries. Riders are on site and better equipped to decide how to do their job than a distant, unaccountable product manager.

Riders use GPS spoofers to trick the app into thinking they’re onsite when really they’re waiting at a sensible distance.

Tuyul app creators are drivers with tech knowhow, who fell into the work as part of mutual aid networks.

Over time, this has matured into IT Jalanan -”IT of the Road” — a full-service, somewhat ad-hoc tech support network of IT specialists who build, service and use apps that make gig workers’ lives better.

They have extensive documentation for users on how to root their phones and side-load the third party apps. Apps are sold and supported through Whatsapp and other platforms, along with service and support packages.

Crucially, the support for tuyul apps is much better than the support Gojek offers to gig workers when they struggle with the bugs in its app — making downloading a third-party mod a faster and better experience than trying to get Gojek to fix its shit.

Not all tuyul apps are benign. Some are scams that rip off drivers, other are scams that help drivers rip off Gojek. Gojek On Twitter, a driver community organized against being made “a slave of the algorithm,” has a mixed position on tuyul apps.

One of GOT’s founders has proposed that the GPS spoofing be integrated into Gojek’s official app, allowing users to place their pin within 1km of their actual location.

All of this is a powerful lesson in the importance of Adversarial Interoperability (AKA Competitive Compatibility/comcom), the practice of modifying an existing technology against the wishes (or without permission) of its maker.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Comcom allows the users of technology to override its designers’ choices based on their local, up-to-the-minute knowledge of their circumstances, like overriding your car’s mandatory software update when you’re trying to escape a wildfire.

https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/

The point of interop isn’t “competition” or even “efficiency” — it’s technological self-determination, the right to decide how you live your life. This does lead to competitiveness and autonomous workers are more efficient than drones, but that’s not the point.

Companies like Gojek lump all mods into the same basket — mods that let drivers do their job better and mods that enable fraud. From Gojek’s perspective, anything that frustrates their shareholders is bad news —it’s all “felony contempt of business model.”

That’s why laws, not corporate decree, should determine what kind of interoperability we permit and which ones we don’t. Our current laws (in the US, Sec 1201 of DMCA, CFAA, etc) simply say, “If the manufacturer says no, it’s not allowed.”

https://gizmodo.com/in-2030-you-wont-own-any-gadgets-1847176540

We can — and should — draft laws that prevent fraud and require practices that don’t endanger others, while legalizing modifying our technology in ways that are socially beneficial and help workers and other users exercise technological self-determination.

Letting users modify their own technology makes life better for everyone. John Deere — archnemesis of users’ right to mod — “invented” modern tractors through engineers observing farmers’ mods to their Deeres and putting the ideas into production.

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

Meanwhile, Gbwhatsapp and its constellation of primarily African Whatsapp mods are more popular on the continent than Facebook Messenger. There are many Whatsapp mods, used for different kinds of users Africa’s varied regions, nations and cities.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/african-whatsapp-modders-are-masters-worldwide-adversarial-interoperability

Facebook rails against Gbwhatsapp the same way that Gojek rails against tuyul apps, pointing to the scams and harms from the mods that are created by crooks. But just like Gojek, FB lumps the mods that empower users in with the mods that harm them.

There are ways that interoperability can go wrong, but dominant corporations can’t be trusted with the decision about which mods are okay and which ones aren’t — they are terminally compromised by their own self-interest.

The rules for modding — privacy protections, anti-fraud protection and more — should come from democratically accountable legislatures, not the secret machinations of corporate boardrooms.

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

[st4rch1ld404]

i don't use tumblr anymore, but i have always had your notifications on and get so excited when i see you've posted. your art is absolutely beautiful and i just wanna. Chomp. it looks tasty

but fr i'm sorry social media hates you :( i had actually thought multiple times before that it was absolutely bewildering to me that you don't get more interactions than you do. i remember specific pieces you did that didn't even break 100 notes here and just feeling my jaw drop because the piece was incredible and even more detailed than the exact same kind of art that gets thousands and thousands of interactions on the regular elsewhere. it's just baffling to me that you don't have the audience you deserve

well, i hope you're doing well. i've been following you for quite a long time (a few years now) and it's been a pleasure seeing your progress in your art and creativity as you go. i know this situations sucks, but just remember there's at least one person out there on your side and who can sympathize with you! your feelings are valid.

wow! this is honestly really amazing to read. i know ive had this account for like a loooong time but ! reading this honestly brightened my whole day. ive been so off and on with this site- im just.. gosh thank you so much for saying something. i appreciate this message so much- i didnt expect to get any responses from the posts i was making. i am so grateful for this. i started this tumblr with the concept of having somewhere to post my art and to share it with communities of fandoms i was in. i loved seeing others' art online and wanted to join in. thank you for sticking around... i often feel like im not doing enough and thats why my art hasnt even "blown up" but i have to recognize there is no prominently good or bad art- all of our social medias rely on manipulating their algorithms. instagram requires you to practically post everyday- so does twitter. insta also relies on reels now too. i have always been just a hobby artist! so these algorithms are killing me haha! but gosh to read that someone has stuck with my blog for that long- truly... thank you. i appreciate it, dearly, <3 most times the internet really does just feel like a hole. thank you for reminding me its not lol

[kareofbears]

margin of error

Sophia knows a lot, but that does not mean she understands much of anything at all.

Or, Sophia struggles to grasp why Akira and Ryuji don't follow her predictive algorithm.

read on ao3 or below the cut :)

Sophia knows a lot.

She can tell you almost anything in the known world in an instant. Calculate the radius of the sun. Who won Best Picture three years ago. The outfit to wear when you need to 'dress to impress.' Just yesterday, she was able to find them a bath, a takoyaki restaurant, and an overnight camping site within 0.3 milliseconds. That’s not very many seconds.

Sophia knows a lot, but that does not mean she understands much of anything at all.

She’s quiet while she’s propped on the phone stand, watching the rest of them lounge in the RV. There’s a shape to the interior that wasn’t there before—where it had been pristine when they had first gotten it, now it’s littered with crumbs and instant-food packaging despite Makoto’s half-hearted attempts at scolding them for it. Empty surfaces are filled with knick-knacks, stuffies and a plastic ramen bowl rattling gently along with the RV.

There’s a rare lull amongst them, a moment of quiet. Most of them were napping away the road, gently snoring and bodies jostling whenever a pothole hits, oblivious to the scenery that passes by. Only the soft tunes of pop music from the front and the hum of the engine broke the quiet.

Other than Makoto, there were only two people awake: Akira, scribbling in his journal, and Ryuji, watching him do it. They sat across from each other in the booth, with Ryuji’s chin propped against his hand.

Probability and pinpoint accuracy is what she excels at, and being able to apply them to her friends excites her. Not to mention, she hasn’t been wrong yet.

Idly, she runs the numbers—according to the data she’s collected from spending time with them, the silence will be broken by Ryuji within approximately two minutes. Pulling up a time from within Akira’s phone, she waits eagerly.

A minute passes, and then another. And another. Akira is still scribbling in his neat penmanship and Ryuji is still watching him doing it, unspeaking.

Frowning, she double-checks her calculations. No errors that she can see. It seems that he simply does not want to speak. This is surprising, and very unlike him. He is not usually this quiet. In the Metaverse, he is by far the loudest of them; calling on his Persona’s name can often leave her own ears ringing.

The real world does not stray from that data. His voice is clear in crowded areas, helpful in guiding their big group throughout bustling cities. He is often shushed by the girls when they are trying to sleep at night—Futaba even goes as far as to kick the ceiling from her bunk bed.

The data is strong and sure. There should not be a reason that she should be wrong in this assumption unless there’s a confounding variable that she had missed.

Akira looks up and catches his eye. “Am I boring you?” he asks quietly.

Ryuji shakes his head, grinning. “Couldn’t be happier,” he whispers back.

Sophia’s about to ask when Makoto cuts her off.

“Wake up everyone. We’re here.”

—

“Okay,” Akira calls. His voice isn’t raised, despite the crowded street of downtown Sendai, but they all straighten up. “We’re probably not going to spend too much time here, especially once we take over the Jail. Grab what you need now—snacks for the trip. Shopping. Souvenirs. Frozen pineapple. Any questions?” Yusuke raises his hand. “Yes, I’ll pay for you.” The hand falls back down, relieved.

“Cool. How about we meet back here…” he squints at the large clock hanging on the wall, hand blocking out the blaring sun. “In an hour?”

A chorus of agreements rolls through them as they rush out, excited to explore a new city. “Good speech,” Sophia pipes up from his hand. “Do you do them often?”

“I try not to,” he yawns. His thick black hair is even more unruly than usual, glasses barely hiding the light blue that’s beginning to form underneath his eyes. “Most of the time, they can handle themselves fine. All they need is a schedule and some rules to work with.”

When she doesn’t answer, Akira brings his phone up. “What? Did I say something?”

“It’s because she’s worried about you, you moron,” a disgruntled voice says.

Akira’s gaze flickers towards it. “You’re still here?”

“Of course I am,” Ryuji says. “You really think I’d leave without saying goodbye? Glad I didn’t either, cause you look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

“Still pretty, though. No worries about that part.” He shoves his hand deep in his pocket, stray yen clinking against each other as he rummages. After a moment, he throws something at Akira. “Catch.”

He plucks it out from the air with ease. “Car keys?” he asks, surprised.

“Grabbed them from Makoto before she ran off for stationery shopping.” Ryuji reaches forward, gently turning Akira’s head this way and that, frowning. “I told you to quit staying up so late. You’re exhausted.”

“I am not.”

“He is,” Sophia refutes. “Last night, he had approximately four hours of sleep, with only four minutes of that being REM sleep.”

“I told you. She’s even bringing up computer stuff now.”

“I think you are thinking about RAM, Ryuji.”

“Whatever,” he shakes his head. “Look, just head to the RV, get some shut-eye. You can finally sleep in a proper bed that isn’t an overheating tent with three sweaty dudes and a cat. Oh, and trade phones with me.”

He hands it over without hesitation, sliding Ryuji’s phone into his own pocket. “Why?”

“You have the grocery list in here, yeah? Not to mention, I don’t want Sophia getting bored while you nap it up.” He looks down at her. “Hi, by the way.”

“Hi!”

Akira still doesn’t seem convinced. “But I promised Yusuke—”

“Who’s with Ann now, shopping like they’d die if they didn’t get the perfect skirt to fit her next shoot,” he says, uncompromising. “Chill. It’s fine. We’ll survive an hour without Joker keeping an eye on us.”

They stare each other down for a long moment with Sophia watching. She does not need to run the numbers on this one; Akira will not allow himself to go back to the RV.

To her surprise, he relents. “Twenty minutes.”

Ryuji scoffs. “We’ll see about that. You suck at waking up.”

“Shut up.” And then, quieter, “Thank you.”

“You know I got your back.”

He yawns once more, slowly walking back to their car. “Sophia, please make sure that when he gets the Pocky to get the strawberry one. Futaba won’t eat anything else. And also that Haru wanted doilies to make the place look nicer. White, if you can find them.”

“Roger that,” she replies, distracted. How is she wrong again? This is troubling.

“My hoodie’s in my bag if you get cold!” Ryuji calls out. Akira throws him a thumbs up without looking back. “Jeez, that guy. He’s gonna run himself to the ground before he’s thirty, I swear. Like some geezer with a bad back but with really good hairline or something.”

An old man with a thick head of hair shoots him a glare as he passes by them. Ryuji laughs, high-pitched. “Yikes, that was awkward. Let’s get out of here, we need to hit up the grocery store before they run out of carrots.”

Sophia doesn’t answer, too deep in her thoughts and running endless calculations.

—

It’s impossible for her to get a headache, but her code is trying its best to give her one.

Two mistakes now. That isn’t allowed to happen. She’s lucky that they were both relatively small errors, but it can easily become a bigger problem. What can she do?

Luckily, that had a very simple answer.

“Ryuji?”

“Hmm?” He peels his eyes away from scrutinizing the oranges in his hands, the wires from his earphones swaying when he does. After one too many strange looks when he talks to nothing, it was just better to act like he was on a phone call. “Yeah?”

“I have a question.”

“What am I, a teacher?” he snorts. “If you got a question, go ahead. Friends can do that.”

That’s right. They’re friends, and friends have trust in one another. Sophia jotted that down as lesson number forty-eight, thirteen days ago.

“Okay,” she says. Questions float around her, and she picks the one that’s giving her the most stress. “If I was not as useful as you think I am, would we still remain friends?”

The orange tumbles out of his grip, and he rushes to catch it before it hits the ground. “Wha—!” he stutters out. “Duh! Obviously! What the—where the hell did that come from? Did we do something to think that we’d just ditch you like that?” he lifts the phone so that she was eye-level with him. “Be honest,” he says seriously, quickly. “Did I say something to hurt your feelings? I do that sometimes, and I’m working on it, and I know that’s no excuse—”

“You did not say anything to hurt my feelings,” she says before he spirals even further. “In fact, I do not have feelings for you to hurt.”

Relief blooms on his expression, and he sags his body against the fruit display. “Okay, good. Good. Thought I was gonna get a heart attack. I’d be pissed at myself if I did, and I just know Akira would give me so much shit.” He sighs, ridding himself of panic before giving him her full attention. “So what’s up?

“Sir…” an employee shuffles towards them, hands shaking knees knocking against each other. He is afraid, she notes, but of what? “I’m sorry, but it’s against store policy to lean on the product. Please try to understand.”

“Oh, shoot!” Ryuji exclaims, straightening up. “Sorry, man. I didn’t even realize. I think I squished an orange, but I’ll buy it so your boss doesn’t give you hell for that one.”

The employee blinks. “You would?” he says, shocked. “That would be great, actually. Thank you so much!”

“Don’t sweat it,” he waves it off. Tugging the shopping cart, he places Sophia where they’d normally put babies. “Hope he doesn’t get in trouble. I feel kinda bad.”

She thinks for a moment. “Ryuji, why was that man afraid?”

Swiftly, red rushes to his cheeks. “That obvious? Aw, man.”

“I don’t know if it was obvious, but all the signs were there,” she says, watching as he ducks his head, embarrassed. “What is happening? I do not understand.”

“It’s just—” his eyes shift sideways, meeting the eye of a young girl. Immediately, she directs her gaze downwards. “I look really scary to people.”

“You do?” It isn’t in her program to doubt, but she is rather skeptical. During the entire trip, he has been nothing but kind to her. Yes, there are times when he has arguments with others in the group, but more often than not it’s him that’s being teased rather than the other way around. “Why? You aren’t even that tall.”

“Ouch?”

“I’m just saying that you are not scary to me, so I don’t really understand why other people would be.”

He sighs, picking up a box of miso unseeingly. “It’s a combination of a lot of things. My hair’s bleached, and people usually see that as like, punk or whatever. My posture sucks and my voice is loud.” Shrugging, he throws it in the cart. “It doesn’t really bug me though. At least that means strangers usually don’t bother the group, cause they think I’ll kick their ass.”

“And would you?” Sophia crosses off miso. Only bandages are left on the list, but the cart is filled with snacks, sodas, and a small cactus. “‘Kick their ass?’”

“No way. If I did, my mom would kick my ass, and I can’t pull that shit twice in a lifetime.” Pushing the cart, they slowly meander through the aisles, occasionally looking at what’s on sale. Ryuji tosses in rainbow marshmallows, and after a moment, reluctantly puts it back.

“But you know,” he says eventually. “If someone was bothering the group, it’s not as if I’d just let it happen.”

She considers his answer. “You are tough,” she concludes. “But not scary.”

“Uh, yes,” he says, unsure. And then, with more conviction, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Got it. ‘Ryuji is tough, but other people are terrified of him.’ I will make a note of that.” He looks like he wants to say something, but she keeps going. “Synonyms for ‘tough’: robust, stalwart, and strong. Would you say that’s accurate?”

He laughs, disbelieving. “No idea what the first two meant, but the third one isn’t right.”

“Why not? You can fight Shadows. Your muscle ratio is high. One time, when Futaba couldn’t unscrew her water bottle, you did it with no problem.”

“Because, Sophia,” Ryuji picks up gummy worms, and turns to her with pleading eyes. When she shakes her head, he puts it back on the shelf with a grimace. “Strength isn’t always about muscles and who can kill what. It’s more than that.”

It seems as though he doesn’t want to speak about this anymore, but the topic is too interesting to stop here. “Explain, please.”

“It’s...it’s like mental strength,” he says begrudgingly. “Like if someone failed an exam they studied real hard for, mental strength would help them get through a tough situation like that. Like Akira.”

“Akira has high mental strength?”

“Oh, the highest out of all of us without a doubt. The world could explode and he’d be all—” Ryuji lowers his voice by an octave. “‘Here’s what we can do,’ and then fix it somehow. That’s just the kind of guy he is. All plans and no fear.”

All plans and no fear is a good way of describing Joker. “And you aren’t like that?”

“No way. Have you ever seen me have a plan in my life? I’m more of an ‘act before I can talk myself out of it’ person. Usually works out fine in the end. Besides, he does it enough for the both of us.” His eyes light up. “Do you think if I get the panda bandages, it would work better in the Metaverse? Cause of the brain stuff?”

“I think so, as long as it makes people think it works better.”

“Great.” Ryuji tosses it in with the rest. “And I think we got everything! Let’s head out. If we’re lucky, we can grab some ice cream before we meet up with the rest of them.”

“Good job! But you may want to consider removing the orange soda. Makoto is already unhappy with how much junk food you are always eating.”

“Fine. I’m keeping the cactus though.”

It was only when they’re all sleeping back in the RV when she realizes that she never got to ask him her actual question. Actually, she ended up with even more questions than when she began.

Maybe she’ll have better luck asking Akira instead.

—

They, or rather Akira, have their knees buried in a patch of grass in the middle of Sapporo with a small pile of four-leaf clovers by his ankles when she decides it would be appropriate to ask him.

“Akira, can I ask—” she pauses, and tries again. “I have a question.”

His face is so close to the ground that even the dirt would realize that his glasses don’t have prescription, and people are shooting him worried looks that he completely ignores. “Shoot.”

“Actually, I have many questions, and I’m hoping you’ll answer all of them as honestly as you can in order to have the most accurate data possible.”

“Research?”

More often than not, Akira has been giving her information about the world that she does not have access to. Slang terms that Futaba yells out in frustration, Ann’s tendency to jump from one topic to the next with little regard to who she’s talking to. It’s all confusing to Sophia, so she makes sure to memorize all of these instances and bring it to him for clarification.

“Sort of,” she says. “Some of my predictions have been off lately, and I am trying to figure out why.”

“Sure. Oh, another one.” Gently, he plucks it from the soil and gently places it with the others. “For Haru. Apparently, she’s really struggling with economics, so hopefully this helps her out next semester.”

“How many more?”

“Four,” he replies. “Yusuke, Sojiro, Akane, and Ryuji.”

She frowns. “Ryuji already has one.”

“He’s going to need more than one.” Akira turns to her, distressed. “Entrance exams are coming up.”

“Oh.”

“Yup,” he turns back to his task. “Anyway, you had a question?”

“Right,” she says, clearing her throat: a sign of taking a more serious tone. “Why are you scared of Ryuji?”

Akira freezes. Sophia waits patiently. But after a moment, then two, then five, there is still no reaction from him. And then slowly, he faces her with a blank expression.

She has not known Kurusu Akira for very long—only a few weeks in fact. But in that time, she feels that she has come to learn a lot about him. For instance, he does not like pears. He also finds grocery shopping relaxing, and he would die for his friends. Another thing she has learned from him is that he is very quiet; even in the Metaverse, amidst the explosions and gunshots, he does not yell. It is not as if he has nothing to say, but rather he would rather express himself through gestures and the odd comment here and there. He is much happier to let the people around him carry the conversation for him.

Shock racks through her as he bursts out laughing. His shoulders move up and down as laughs pour out of him uncontrollably. “What—?” he tries, pushing his glasses atop his head. It’s almost hidden amongst his thick, black locks. “Did you seriously ask if I was afraid of Ryuji? Sakamoto Ryuji? Blond guy, helps out in the Metaverse? My best friend?”

“Um.” This was not what she was expecting, despite having no expectations to begin with. “Yes.”

He sighs, content. “I really have to thank you, Sophia.” Akira brings his glasses back to his nose, the corners of his mouth quirked up. “That was really good. Haven’t laughed that hard since Yusuke thought Italy was near Mexico.”

She tilts her head sideways. “I was not joking.”

“Yeah, I figured.” He sits up, crossing his legs over each other, giving her his full attention. “Tell me why you thought I was scared of him.” Even as he’s sobered up, he can’t quite finish the sentence without smiling.

“My predictions have been off lately,” she says, a wrinkle between her brows. “This is normal—predictions by their nature cannot always be right. However, I’ve noticed that they’re incorrect more often lately. I ran the data, and these errors are related to two things:” Sophia brings her hand to the screen so that he can see properly. “You and him, as a unit. Individually, there doesn’t seem to be any errors. It is specifically when you are being measured together that creates mistakes. My prognosis on everyone else in the group creates more stable and accurate results.”

Sophia twists her hair in her hands. “The only reason it would be wrong is because of a confounding variable. Maybe there’s something between the two of you that others do not have. So I thought that answer—”

“Was fear,” he finishes. There’s an odd tone in his voice that she doesn’t comprehend. His gray eyes, sharp but never unkind. “I see where you’re coming from. But, and I can swear on this fact—it isn’t fear. I am not, nor will I ever be, afraid of him.”

She deflates. Wrong again. “And he’s not afraid of you?” she asks, out of desperation than anything.

Akira thinks for a moment. “Do you remember when I was cooking, and Ryuji went in to smell the broth, and knocked the whole thing over and onto my suitcase?” She nods. She had taken many pictures of that moment. “He felt really guilty, but he wasn’t scared of my reaction. He was more scared that he had ruined my stuff. You know what I mean?”

“I think I do.”

He bops the top of his phone a few times, an odd resemblance of patting her head. “Cool.”

Sophia stares at the road past their garden of clovers. Cars speed forward, too quick for her to focus on what the driver looks like. It’s hot today, but she doesn’t feel it. She runs her data one more time. “Akira, do you love Ryuji?”

His hands do not pause. “I love all my friends,” he answers simply.

—

At the end of the day, it does not matter if her attempts at predicting the future are fruitless. If she is in fact humanity’s companion, her code makes sure of one thing above all else: to help humanity with any of their endeavors.

That’s a tall order, especially when there are 7,874,965,825 humans within that humanity at this moment. Sophia is only one being, and realism is etched into her. To make things simple, she gave herself a domain of discourse. A sample size. Narrowing what she can do, and who she can help. The entirety of humanity then, at least in Sophia’s mind, falls under the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.

Sapporo is freezing. Frosty. Crisp. Chilly.

“Fucking cold!” Ryuji shivers, jogging around them in an effort to get warm. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.”

“Even with the space heaters on, it seems that the winter isn’t interested in going anywhere,” Makoto says. She’s standing uncomfortably close to Ann, trying to leech off of her inherent heat. Actually, she wasn’t the only one—Haru is also inching her way to her. “It should probably get better once we start moving. Good thing we won’t be here long.”

Yusuke nods, unperturbed. “Yes, this should be a quick run. We’re just here to collect a desire gone astray, yes?” It seems that the ice does little to bother him. “Oracle, can you find its location?” No response. “Oracle?”

He glances to the ground, sighing when he finds her on the ground, eyes closed and breathing deeply. “Wake up,” he says, nudging her with his boot. When she doesn’t move, Yusuke throws an exasperated look at Akira.

Reluctantly, he nods. “Yeah, yeah, I got her,” he says, summoning Queen Mab. Instantly, the temperature seems to rise, just a little bit. Scooping her up, Akira shakes her roughly like a particularly malicious sack of flour. “Wake up, your space heater’s here.”

“This may be a quick run,” Haru says. “But it doesn’t mean we should take this any less seriously. Someone’s desire got lost on its way back, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, that sounds—Mona, get off my leg—about right.” Ann squints her eyes along the horizon. “It’s far, right? If we start moving now, we can probably work off the frost on our skin.”

“Yeah, it’s about…” Futaba yawns as Akira sets her on her feet. “Twenty-minute walk? Ten-minute run, but unless you want me slipping and turning the ice red, we’re gonna want to slow down.”

Akira touches his mask. “Agi.” A wave of heat rushes over them, and she sighs, grateful for the respite. “Hopefully that helped a little. But it won’t last long, and we shouldn’t waste energy warming up. Quick recap—someone lost their desire, we’re here to make sure it gets back. Our top priority is getting that desire back as quick as possible. Questions?”

Sophia raises her hand.

“Yup?”

“Did you say top priority?”

“Yes, I did say top priority.”

“Understood!” she chirps, making a note in her head. It was hard to concentrate when she felt like her insides were freezing up.

Another hand shoots up.

“Noir?”

“I don’t have a question. I just think you’re doing a wonderful job.”

“Thank you, Noir. Always a pleasure.” He looks around, nodding. “Alright. If that’s it, then let’s do this thing.”

They all move ahead, wary of their footing. Sophia frowns as she scuttles forward, scared of being left behind. There is no room for error here. If she feels that she is not useful in the real world, then she can at least utilize her talents here. And the first step to doing that is to make sure she is doing two things:

1) Not slow

2) Won’t trip

After a while, she looks up and feels her eyes bulge. How did they get so far already? Sophia can hardly see them anymore, especially with the slight fog that’s beginning to emerge. She has to get there faster.

Failed step number one already. For once, she’s glad she wasn’t hardcoded with emotions, or else humiliation would be overwhelming. Quickening her pace, she’s determined to do this correctly. One foot, then the next. One foot, then the next. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left—

She slips.

With a gasp, she moves to twist her body so that it wasn’t her head that would take the impact, and closes her eyes shut.

Just before she slams into the ice, arms grab her torso, swinging her forward. “Whoa there, shorty!”

Ryuji uses the momentum to swing her onto his back, and she latches around her neck, bewildered. “You okay? Almost got knocked out before any Shadow got to us.”

“Yes,” she replies, breathless. “Thank you for saving me. That would have been bad.”

“No prob!” he marches onward as if he wasn’t carrying an entire human being on his back while treading through sleet.

“...You can settle me down if you’d like.”

“I would not like.” He grins, boots finding matte ice with ease. “I kinda love carrying you like this. Not like I can do this in the real world, can I? ‘Sides, Futaba would chew my head off if I tried it with her.”

“Have you?”

“Maybe.”

She laughs as they finally reconvene with the rest of them. When Akira turns to them, his expression softens with relief. “All good?”

“All good,” Ryuji says. “Nothing Sophie and I can’t handle.” He raises his fist at her, and she bumps it enthusiastically. Lesson twenty-three: never refuse a fist-bump. It’s one of her favorites.

“Stop, stop, stop, stop!” Futaba calls out from beside Ann, arms were linked as if they were strolling through a park, and not a Shadow-infested land. “I said stop!”

“We heard you the first time!” Morgana yowls. “Are we here?”

“We’re close. Kinda weird though.” She smacks the side of her goggles a few times impatiently. “Nothing’s showing up.”

“Lucky!” Ann whoops. “Let’s get this over with and get some gelato!”

Rounding the corner of an empty street, Yusuke points forward to a glowing heart, beating in time to its pulsing light. “That’s it, I take it?”

“I can get it.” Sophia pats Ryuji’s shoulder, and he lets her down. “That way, we can finish this as soon as possible.”

She runs forward, eager.

“Wait—!” Futaba cries out from behind her. “We’re getting ambushed!”

As she says it, footsteps surround them, the clanging of weapons and the grunts of Shadows appearing out of nowhere. She starts to run faster, terrified of slipping but pushes on anyway. She can do this.

“Shit,” Akira hisses. “Sophie, come back here!”

Sophia ignores him, the Desire almost in her reach when she feels it. A cold breeze, impossibly colder than the temperature before, almost seems to pierce through her skin. She did not need to turn around to know what it was—every cell in her body is screaming it for her.

A curse. A strong one that would have no problem wiping her out like fly on the RV’s windshield wiper.

Would she at least be able to save the Desire? Even if she ceases to exist? Would it be worth it then? It should be, since this is what she was made for.

Something solid shoves her from behind, and she gives out a yell before hitting the ground, hard.

“What…?” she mutters, disoriented. Somehow, she isn’t dead, or even near death. Shaking her head, she grasps for the Desire in front of her before turning around.

Instantly, her heart stops. The Desire in her hand continues to pulse steadily as she stares down at Ryuji, collapsed on the ground.

“Skull?” she whispers. Leaning down, she can still hear his breathing, though it’s faint. Her hand reaches out, before she remembers. Top priority. The Desire needs to get to Joker first.

The ground begins to rumble, and Sophia looks up in time to see an arch of glowing white explode. Every Shadow is eviscerated, their ashes scattering violently at the aftershock of wind that follows from the impact. Concrete cracks, snow blows away. Without a doubt, it’s an attack from a Persona user, but she has no idea who it came from.

As the dust settles, stray bits of ice falling from the sky like hail, Akira shoots out from the fog. He’s moving faster than she’s ever seen him, and there’s a desperation to his movements that throws her off-guard. Maybe he didn’t see yet? Sophia steps forward.

“Joker!” she calls out when he gets closer, thrusting her hand forward. “I got the Desire!”

He rushes past her without a blink.

Akira skids to his knees. “Ryuji!” When there’s no answer, he pulls Ryuji to his knees, resting his head on his lap. Akira presses his fingers against the pulse on his neck, concentrating intensely. Then he grits his teeth. “I can work with this.”

More footsteps. Familiar ones. “Dammit, Joker!” Morgana says. “You can’t just throw around attacks like that, especially with such weak enemies. You know how draining that spell is.”

He ignores him. Akira removes Ryuji’s mask with great care, setting it aside, before touching his own. “Aid me, Sarasvati.”

“Joker?” she tries.

A floating woman donned in green with a delicate instrument in her long fingertips appeared from the fibers of his mask, her expression kind and tender.

“Joker.”

Healing power flows through his hands, so potent that it glows green. Sweat pours from his brow, and his wrist begins to tremble with effort.

“Joker!”

“What, Sophie?” he rounds on her, gray eyes intense.

“I got the Desire!” she announces triumphantly.

A beat passes. And then another. It was as if there was never even a deafening battle not one minute prior.

When Akira finally speaks, his voice is low. “Panther, take Sophie away please.”

Her breathing stops. She could not inhale the air even if it was demanded of her. Akira turns back to Ryuji, but Sophia’s eyes stuck to him—like she was hypnotized, cemented to the back of his head, unable to look away. Every inch of her body is numb, but none of it has anything to do with the cold.

Ann gently takes her hand, hot as iron against hers, and takes the Desire in the other. “Come on, Soph. Let’s go for a walk, huh?”

She lets herself be led away, blank and unseeing, a part of her staying wishing to stay behind to...what? She didn’t know. There’s so much she doesn’t know.

They keep walking, rounding street corners, quietly passing underneath frozen lamp posts. Sophia wasn’t sure where they were going, but she didn’t bother to ask. Eventually, they duck underneath a railing, Ann covering her head to make sure she doesn’t accidentally bang her skull against the metal. When they straight up, she blinks.

“A heater?”

“Yeah,” Ann sighs, flopping down on a toppled column as if it were a sofa. “I figured if we were going to talk, you might as well stop shivering during that time.” At her words, Sophia realizes how hard she was shaking. Ann pats the spot beside her. “Sit. Nothing a little girl talk can’t fix.” She does.

At her silence, Ann hums. “Cold, isn’t it? You guys haven’t stopped complaining since we got here. I’m super lucky that Carmen’s here to help me. Warms me up even better than this heater, if you can imagine that. Completely different from the real world, where we feel like we’re going to burst into flames any second.” She yawns. “But god, there’s no one in all of Japan that can run his mouth about the weather like Ryuji.” Sophia clenches her fist, but she keeps going, speaking almost wistfully. “I mean, he’s just so loud, you know? Like, how many times have we driven by cows on this trip, and he’d literally wake us all up just to show us? Not to mention, he eats up all the food and snores like crazy. God, one time I invited everyone over at my place, and he just slept in my bed when he got tired! Who does that?”

Ann sighs. “But man, I’ve never met someone more devoted to his friends than him. Sometimes, he’d even give ‘Kira a run for his money, the way he’d just drop everything and run to where trouble is. Day or night, that idiot would show up on your doorstep the minute you shoot him a text, wearing the most ridiculous pajamas you’ve ever seen,” she scoffs. “He started the Thieves with Akira, you know? All gung ho about justice and stuff, you should’ve seen it. And he had the spine to back it up, too.” She smiles, just a little. “Don’t tell him, but I think he’s really, really cool.”

A drop of water hits Sophia’s wrist. And another. And another, until her vision blurs and her chest is heaving. “I just—” she sobs without restraint. “I was just trying to help. I just want to be useful and do what I was made to do, and Akira said from before that this—this was the top priority, and I even made sure, so I asked, but when I finally got the Desire and I was so sure that I’d finally done something right...” the image of Akira’s cold gaze makes her flinch, hard. “He’s just so mad at me, Ann. And Ryuji—” she chokes on his name like a curse, her tongue tumbling over it as if it were getting caught in a lie. “He protected me from before, but he said he was tough, so I thought it was okay since the Desire was the top priority but he got hurt because of me.”

“I don’t even know what I’m feeling, or why I’m crying, or why you’re being so nice to me even though I know I did something bad! I just—” Sophia buries her face in her hands, muffling her scream. “I just don’t understand anything!”

Warm hands rub her back. “I know,” Ann says quietly. “You’re trying your best. We all get that, and we all think you’re doing an A-plus job.” She pauses. “Sophia, Ryuji didn’t take the hit for you because he was thinking about the Desire. He did it because he didn’t want to see you hurt.”

That makes Sophia peek up. “But that was the top priority, wasn’t it?”

“Uh-huh, but that wasn’t his heart’s top priority.” Ann pokes her temple. “That whole logic and calculation thing you have going on is good and stuff, but the thing about the human heart is that you can’t always choose why you do things, or how you react in certain situations. I bet you anything that he totally forgot that we were even looking for this thing when he pushed you,” she waves the beating heart in her hand, still glowing. “And that’s also why Akira got a little mad at you from before.”

She deflates. “He hates me,” she mumbles, feeling her insides churn uncomfortably.

“That boy doesn’t have the time in his schedule to hate anyone,” Ann reassures her. “He’s just...really, really terrified.”

“But why?” Sophia’s starting to despise that word. “He already knew that he was okay. Why would he still be worried?”

Ann looks up, thinking. “You really love and care about Ryuji, right?”

Love was still a foreign concept to her, but for once the answer came forth with ease. “Yes.”

“Take that feeling, that dense, little ball of love and adoration in your tiny body, and multiply that by about eighteen million. That’s probably about the range of what Akira feels about him.”

She quickly runs the numbers. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. Kinda scary, huh?”

It is scary. With numbers this high, she can only begin to imagine what it felt like for Akira to think that he might be seriously hurt, or even worse, dead. All because of Sophia.

“Hey now, I know that look!” Ann flicks her forehead. “I don’t want you to get all mopey about this. You said it yourself—he’s a tough guy. The toughest there is, but don’t tell him that. It’ll go straight to his empty head.”

She stands with exuberance, stretching. “Alright, I think we’re about done here. How we feeling? You ready to go back?”

No. Her heart speeds up at the thought of going back, her shoulders tensing in on itself, but somehow it would be worse to stay here. “I’m ready.”

“That’s what we like to hear!” Ann cheers. “No chickening out now, okay? You can do this.”

“I can do this.” Sophia repeats, and then, louder: “I can do this!

“Yay! And Sophie?” she looks up in time to see Ann giving her a warm look. “Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean we love you any less. You are allowed to be confused and make mistakes. Do you understand that?”

Sophia smiles wide. “I understand.”

—

They were a block away from the rest of the group when Akira emerged from the fog. With his black attire and dark hair, he could have looked like a picturesque horror movie figure, but somehow his expression ruined that facade the moment she saw it.

“I’m going on ahead,” Ann says when Sophia stops in front of him. “Someone has to make sure Futaba doesn’t sleep on us again.”

“Thanks,” he answers. Then, to Sophia, “Hi.”

“Hi, Joker.” She’s been practicing her speech the entire way back, her points all lined up in her mind, all leading up to the big apology. “I—”

“Pause,” he cuts in, and she shrinks. Is he still mad? She can’t read his expression. He kneels in front of her, squinting, and it suddenly shifts to horror. “Did...did you cry? Did I make you cry?”

“No,” she says quickly, but he doesn’t believe her for even a minute. “Yes. Sorry.”

“Oh god, no, please don’t apologize. Shit,” he rubs the back of his neck, sighing. It’s guilt, she realizes with a shock. “I’m such an asshole. I can’t believe I let myself lash out like that. A thousand apologies won’t even be enough. I was scared out of my mind, but that doesn’t mean I can just treat you like that. I even sent you away, like you’re some sort of kid,” he winces. “I’m really sorry. Can you forgive me?”

She stares at him. “I was supposed to say that stuff.”

He looks taken aback by her words. “No? How could you have known that we would have been ambushed? Ugh, I’m so dumb. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.” Akira sends her a pointed look. “Though, you really shouldn’t split off from the group next time. Top priority means important, but above all else is your safety. Put that in your code.”

“I will,” she promises.

“Good. And the second priority is—” he reaches forward and engulfs her in a tight hug. “Is that you won’t ever, ever think that I’d hate you.”

She frowns. “How did you know?”

“A hunch.” Beat. “Also, Ann gave me a look.” He pulls back. “Are we still friends?”

Relief washes into her, crashing like a wave. “Of course,” she says, before hesitating. “Is…?”

“Yeah, he is.” Akira rolls his eyes, but there is no hiding the grin that takes over him. “A little too good, actually. He hasn’t stopped running around since I poured some energy back into him. I kind of think I overdid it, actually. Oh, and he’s excited to see you again.”

“He is?” she asks, hopeful.

“Absolutely. Asked about you the minute he came to.” Akira gets to his feet. “Shall we say hi?”

“Please.”

As they walk back, an epiphany takes over her. “Oh!” she exclaims, making Akira jump. “I get it now.”

“What’s up?”

“You love Ryuji.”

“That’s right,” he raises a brow.

She shakes her head. “You love Ryuji,” she insists. Even accounting for a margin of error, there’s simply no mistaking her results.

Akira stares at her for a long moment, before huffing out a laugh.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he says softly.

The moment Ryuji sees her, she sprints, throwing caution to the wind as she leaps into his arms. He catches her without hesitation. “Glad to see you’re safe, shorty.”

Sophia knows a lot of things, but there’s also a lot she doesn’t understand. But that’s fine. She’ll get there, and her friends will be waiting for her when she does.

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

I Learned that From You: Four

“Barton!” Tony barked, irritated, “I hope whoever you’re sexting has a plan for this shit.”

Clint felt his cheeks heat and he put his phone down, “I’m not sexting.”

“You were texting and smiling at your crotch,” Tony countered.

“Yeah but-”

“Guys!” Steve cut in, “Barton, put the phone away, Tony… let Barton live his life.”

“But he’s sexting! He’s saying swears!”

“And he’s not doing it where the press can hear him,” Steve sighed, “And you don’t really even know that he IS sexting.”

“I’m not,” Barton added, his cheeks turning redder. 

Tony rolled his eyes but Turned away and Clintshot Steve a grateful look and dutifully put his phone back on the table.

While it was true, he wasn’t saying anything untoward and there had been no mention of what you were wearing… He really didn’t feel like explaining who he was talking to. Or why. Or that he was using Bucky’s face to do it. Bucky was the least recognizable Avenger. And he knew… Or at least hoped that you hadn’t really paid attention to anything past the major current events. Bucky liked to stay out of the spotlight. And he was an assassin. Press Junkets weren’t really his thing. 

It felt slimy, using someone else’s face and name but. Not slimy enough that his chest didn’t feel warm whenever you messaged him back. You were… different. More cautious. But. The warmth that drew him to you to start with was still there. He could practically see you light up when you talked about your shop. And hear your interest when you talked to him about “himself”.

The rest of the briefing, a weekly event, passed in a blur. He knew that he should pay attention but. Nothing was happening right now and all he wanted to do was talk to you. To know that you were going to keep talking back. 

Still, Natasha caught him off guard when she sidled up to him in the hall, “So,” she asked teasing, “Were you sexting?”

“No,” Clint groaned, hastily shoving his phone into his pocket.  

“So why were you smiling at your crotch?”

“I uh-” he paused for a second, considering how much he should say. Or could say without Natasha catching on to him. “I uh- joined a dating site.”

“A dating site?” The spy blinked at him, clearly struggling to process that piece of information. “Why?”

“I thought it was time to get back out there,” Clint said uncomfortably, “After 10 years, y/N isn’t coming back.”

“Okay but-” Natasha blinked again. “You’re not completely unfortunate… why not just go out?”

“Thanks,” he snorted, “But I really don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet.”

“Fair enough,” Nat said nodding, “The dating scene is trash now, thanks to tinder.”

“You liked tinder,” Clint said going to pour himself a cup of coffee. 

“Well yeah,” she snorts, “It’s fine if you’re a woman. It’s a virtual firing squad of dicks every time you log in… Guys get sorted out of the algorithm because there are so fucking many of them.”

“That’s gross,” Clint said taking a sip from his mug. And suddenly, for the first time, he considered that you might be getting a lot of male attention. Like. A lot of it. And that made him feel a little sick. He was sure that the other men in your inbox weren’t appreciating you properly. The thought of them doing some of the things he’d heard of men doing on dating sites made him cringe.

“Yeah, well,” Natasha said helping herself to her own coffee, “if you have 80 guys and only 20 women… 60 of those guys are going to strike out.”

Clint grunted softly, “It’s still gross. Tinder is gross.”

“Oh totally,” Natasha said, “But. It’s nice to get the attention when you’re having a bad day.”

Clint rolled his eyes and shook his head. Natasha was impossible but. She seemed to be successfully distracted from Clint’s dating profile. And that was a good thing. If Natasha caught him, she’d also kill him. Or at least help Bucky kill him. And worse, she’d probably make him come clean. And… make no mistake, he meant to tell you. At some point. Just. Just not right now. Not until he could get you to talk about your past. About what had made you leave… He wanted to know if you still cared about him first. 

“So,” Natasha said, “Who’s the girl?”

“There are a couple of them,” he said shrugging, “I didn’t really set a distance limit.” Little pieces of the truth. Just enough to make it believable. And rememberable. Natasha was good at catching people in their bullshit. And one of the ways she did it was by catching them in changing stories. Clint knew first hand how much it sucked when she caught you. 

“Anything promising?”

Clint shrugged again, “One of them is really funny.” Again, another truth. You were hilarious. 

“And that explains the smiling at your crotch,” she said smirking. 

He felt his cheeks color and he nodded. He couldn’t deny that he had done it. Everyone had seen him do it. But people pointing it out made him feel like a stupid kid. And he didn’t appreciate the reminder that he was acting like one. 

The door to the meeting room down the hallway shut and Clint and Natasha turned to see Steve walking towards them, “Ooo,” Natasha said softly, “You’re in trouble, now.”

“Great,” Clint groaned. 

“You weren’t… sexting right?” Steve asked, uncomfortable.

“No!” Clint yelped, “For the last time.”

“He joined a dating site,” Natasha added, “And evidently one of his harem is funny.”

“I don’t-” Clint started. 

“He totally does,” Natasha said grinning. 

“You know what,” Steve said turning away, clearly out of his depth, “Just put your phone away next time. Stark’s putting out a memo… again.”

And Clint can’t help but chuckle. It is absurdly satisfying to get Steve flustered. 

----------

Natasha sat cross-legged on the bed and scrolled through profiles. She knew Clint. And she knew there were tons of dating sites he could use but. 

She also knew that he was probably using a free one. And one that you didn’t have to pay to use a ton of features. But. There wasn’t one. Not one profile that was actually Clint. Sure. Lots of desperate people had borrowed his picture but. It wasn’t him.

Actually. There were a lot of impostorous Avengers… Something that tickled Nat. And so she quietly started to put together a file. One for each of them. And put the links to the profiles. Maybe they could use it to play a drinking game one night.

[jaywrites101]

Five-Star Reviews Suck (And they blame you for doing reviews wrong.)

Tonight on Thoughts that Keep Me Awake in Existential Horror, Amazon and Google's rating systems are killing your puppies.

As someone whose job is to review various creative projects and work with creators to improve them, I can say with absolute certainty that no one should ever review things unless it is their job. Now, I could very easily write an entire essay twice the size of this one to back that claim up, but tonight I have an even bigger fish to fry. So if you take affront to that claim, stick around; I'll get to it eventually.

No, tonight I'm breaking down the Five-Star Review. What it is, what it means, why EVERYONE is using it wrong, and how the companies who implement these rating systems blame you for its failings.

Let's start with what the Five-Star review is. And the most important fact to know going in is that Five-Star Restaurants are a globally recognized symbol of excellence, and the companies asking you to leave Five-Star Reviews deliberately want you to mix these two up. They want you, the reader/consumer to think:

Five Stars = Unrivaled excellence.

But that's not what the Five-Star Review is. At its most basic, the Five-Star Review is one of those questions you see all the time in surveys where you pick one of five:

[Strongly Disagree] [Disagree] [Neutral] [Agree] [Strongly Agree]

They do this for two reasons. 1) This system is simple and anyone can understand it. 2) If you take the average of 100 reviews, you get a number that feels predictive. More on that later.

This system is not a review. It is a rating. And it is also officially called a review. But, and I cannot stress this enough, it is not a review!

A Review is a system in which one person breaks down the product or service they have used and provides targeted feedback to the creator or fellow users about the pros and cons of this product or service.

Literal Definition according to Google:

a formal assessment or examination of something with the possibility or intention of instituting change if necessary. a critical appraisal of a book, play, movie, exhibition, etc., published in a newspaper or magazine

A Rating is a generalized statement about a product or service to determine if said product or service is adequate for its promotion.

Literal Definition according to Google:

a classification or ranking of someone or something based on a comparative assessment of their quality, standard, or performance. the value of a property or condition that is claimed to be standard, optimal, or limiting for a substance, material, or item of equipment.

One of these things is to provide a flexible analysis, the other is to determine the value of a thing.

Companies want YOU to treat the Five-Star Review as a review. But internally they treat the Five-Star Review as a rating.

So why does this matter? So the two biggest companies on Earth got the definitions of Review and Rating mixed up, big deal, right? There's certainly no possible way this affects your life. Right??? Keep reading, they didn't get these definitions mixed up. They mixed it up deliberately. And they do this as a measure to screw every body out of every thing.

Once again, this comes back to you, the consumer. You see a Five-Star Review and it leaves you with opinions. Even though the "Review" is not actually telling you anything of value. Experts comment on this all the time. Five categories are just too narrow of a field to get an accurate assessment out of anything. That's why most legitimate review sites leave a rating out of 10, or even 100. Five... five just oversimplifies everything. And the problem with oversimplification is that it sweeps a lot of sins under a big 'ol rug.

People fall through the cracks in a Five-Star system. Lots of people are miscategorized, undervalued, and barred from receiving the benefits they deserve.

Remember when I said that the Five-Star Review feels like it gives a number that's predictive? Turns out, that's not how numbers work. In most things when you average together massive amounts of numbers, you end up with numbers that support the trend. (I'm not a math guy, so these are my generalizations.) But with the Five-Star Review the more numbers you get, the closer to 3 it becomes. To break it down into even less math: if enough people say "Thing Good," the reviews show the thing is indeed good. But with the Five-Star Review, the more people who rate and leave ratings; the more average your product appears.

This is because the companies are selling the Five-Star Review as a review but treating it as a rating.

Now let's talk about you, the consumer who leaves reviews and the consumer who reads the ratings.

Picture this, you bought something on Amazon, and now you're leaving a review of the product. You give it four stars because it was pretty good, but not flawless-

Already you are being too critical.

If you give a product three stars out of five; that means it was an average product. This statement would prolly surprise many of you. Because we've been conditioned to think of the Five-Star Review as a review whose stars are awarded depending on excellence, no review is supposed to be a sign of an average product. So how do you tell people the product is bad? You leave a critical comment telling people the product was bad.

Anyone who's ever sold a book online will tell you otherwise. Comments, no matter how bad, are considered positive by the algorithm. The Five-Star Review system favors large numbers over nothing. One hundred One-Star Reviews will far outweigh any product that has twenty Five-Stars Reviews. Even though anyone who looks at these statistics should clearly see that they are equal.

And when you look at a product that has an average review of fewer than four ratings, you dismiss it out of hand.

But the more ratings a product has, the closer to three its ratings will become.

Don't get me wrong, plenty of bad sellers has used this to their advantage. Some writers who were just terrible make use of this system to look average. It favors them.

But if you're just starting out, you are already going to get crushed by the algorithm. And then, when people don't leave reviews because your product was averagely good; you suffer. And then, after struggling to get reviews, people leave reviews that are less than five stars; you suffer. And the more rating you get; the more you suffer.

This, despite what it may seem, is the system working perfectly. Because it's tricking you into believing that it's an effective system for weeding out low-quality products while stifling anyone trying to use it.

Anyway, this has been my rant. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. Like and Reblog and all that. 'Night.

[aprilwritesabook]

I appolgize in advance for this long ass post haha.

Alright, so here's the deal. This post is gonna be part rant, part confessional, and part inspirational speech. So if your following this blog purely for the updates on my books you can skip it haha.

I know a currently published author. I used to kinda be friends with them in highschool, but it was more like a friend of a friend type deal. But I digress. Point is. They recently released there second book on Amazon. And I really wanna be happy and proud of them, and to see it as an inspirational thing, buuuuut I'm almost 100 sure they are actually a fraud?

And that's not me being bitter. I really really really wish this wasn't the case. But I have the evidence to back this theory up.

1- they claimed that there first book sold out multiple times. And to be fair this one might be at least partially true. Its rated pretty high on amazon, But then again they only have 4 people rate it and three of those people are the editor formattor and artist for the book. Soooo. Yeah I sure hope they rated it well.

2- they are constantly posting stories to there social media that are far fetched at best. They work in a bookstore. And almost every other week its a slightly diffrent story about a customer who "didn't even know" he was the author who would "burst into tears" the second he told them what the book was about because they were just Soooo touched by the message that they wept to a total stranger??? If that had happened even once it would have been an odd occurance. And this is something that apparently happens alllll the time to them. (I hate to drudge up old memes like this, but)

3- this person has recently made a tick tock and a youtube channel. And like, the content isssss questionable? And that's not necessarily a crime or anything. But they give updates about it on social media as if they are speaking to a mass of adoring fans and like...you can see how many subs and views a person has. We know he dosn't have a big fan base. And I know that sounds harsh. But like, some more gullible people have asked him for advise on how to be "successful" and "gain a following", and he answers them with authority. Like he has the answers even though he clearly dosn't? And that feels really... disingenuous at best?

4- along the same vein as 3. They recently made a post on twitter about how they are "overwhelmed by the amount of love and support they have found on the site" and how they get "some many heartfelt messages." Annnd again. I clicked the account. They literally have 5 followers. And not a SINGLE person has EVER liked, retweeted, or commented on a SINGLE tweet of theirs. Not one. Soooo like not only are you pretending to have a huge fan base that dosn't exist your also making up there engagement with you? Which this alone I feel brings validate to my doubts about the other things. Clearly they arn't above blatant lying and extreme over exaggeration. And also they either don't realize we can all seeeee these facts. Or they don't think anyone will actually check and call them on it ?????

Now there's a lot of other examples I could give. But my point isn't to put this ONE person on blast. I'm not trying to start beef or cause damage to their reputation or anything. Which is why I won't say their name or what there books are. The only way you'd know who I'm talking is if you also knew them in real life. In which case you either already know all this, or you should, so you don't fall victim to their lies.

The reason I'm saying any of this at all is because I think I know why they are doing it. And why so many indie authors or would be media mogels feel the need to do this.

The issue with trying to "build an audience" and "self market" yourself, is that you really only have 2 ways of guaranteed sucess.

You either need to have a pre established audience based on success you've already had in the past. (IE youtubers and movie stars writing successful books cause there fans will buy anything of there's reguardless.)

Or you need to buy your way in. Be it by quitting your day job to make social media your full time job, buying ads, hiring a social media person,or hiring a team of people with their own audiences (audio book narrators, cover artists, managers, ect)

And if you don't ALREADY have an audience, and you don't have the funds to BUY your way in, then your just gonna have to get real lucky.

You can be lucky for knowing somebody with an "in". They work in publishing, or advertising, or they're your rich uncle. Just someone who you can go to to get that boost one way or another to get one of the first two methods going for you.

You can get lucky by commenting the right thing on the right post and gaining followers that way. Or by being in the right place at the right time to meet somebody important.

You can be lucky by having lots of supportive friends and family who will promote you and your work FOR you.

Or lastly (and this is in the realm of being a one in a million case here. So it basically never happens without one of the other things I mentioned also being true.)

You can be lucky by working REALLY hard, and being REALLY talented, and having the world actually NOTICE YOU somehow? Just one person with influence who can find you in your dark hole of insignificance and shine a light on you so now the world can actually seee you.

And that sucks.

You could write the greatest book in the whole world. Truly a masterpiece. But if nobody buys it or reads it because they don't know who you are??? Then it dosen't matter does it?

It sucks Soooo hard.

Because untill you get those people with influence to shine a light on you, theres nothing you can do. And the market is soooooo drenched in new indie authors that the odds of the right people finding and liking your book are slim to none.

Its super unfair.

The people who have the influence arn't gonna buy a book with 0 reviews and no social media following.

Why? Because THEIR brand depends on only recommending the good shit. And they need to find that good shit NOW. If they read every book written by nobody's online, they'd have to wade through ALOT of garbage. wasting all their valuable time and money till they found something worthy. And honestly, from a business stand point, you cant really fault them for that

This is where the lies come from.

So basically no matter how you look at it, or what your strategy is, In order to get fans, you need to ALREADY HAVE THEM.

When your just starting out. And I mean truly at square one. It really feels like the only way to "make it" is to "fake it"

If you PRETEND to have a big following. And you PRETEND your books are selling really well already. And you PRETEND that people care deeply about you and your work... Then there is a chance that nobody will do the homework to find out its all a lie.

And if they think your successful already, then it sends a message to the consumers brains of "well they must be good. Everybody loves it/them".

It sucks that so many people who have found real success did so with lies, cash, and being already well connected.

And then they buy it, and they follow you, and the confirmation bias sets in, and eventually you'll dupe enough people into liking you that you don't HAVE to lie anymore.

Those of us with no cash and too high a conscious to lie our way to the top are left with virtually no chance of succeeding no matter how hard we work or how good our content is.

And I'm not claiming to be "better than" or "more worthy" than anyone else. I wanna make it clear that of your in the portion of having it fake it so you can follow your dreams then more power to you. Its a valid strategy. I hate that it works and I hate that its the only option sometimes. But I don't hate the people as creators for "doing what it takes." I get it. Really I do.

And it suckks major ass that so many people feel like this is the only way.

My whole point here. Is that we have slowly built a system where this is our reality. And honestly? End of the day? There's not a damn thing we can do to change it at this point.

In a perfect world made of unicorns and puppies. I could say "hey lets all go ready books by completely unknown authors. Be the change you wanna see in the world." But at the end of the day, especially in the unfiltered world of self publishing, It would be a complete shot in the dark to spend your resources on something completely unknown. We rely on word of mouth, and "best sellers" and high following to do the work of filtering out the bad stuff for us and it would be unrealistic if not impossible to go back on it now. Even if we wanted to there algorithms and shit built into the code. You'll never find the books that Amazon dosnt want you to find unless you search for it directly.

Now comes the confession/inspirational bit

I know all of the above to be true...But I'm choosing not to care

I'm not gonna lie my way to the top. I'm not gonna hide my struggles out of fear of seeming inferior. So here goes

I struggle a lot with depression and anxiety. I've been working on it, and I've gotten so much better in recent years. But there are always gonna be times when I slip up and my mental illnesses take over

When I was writing my first book I felt really empowered and good about myself for finally getting past all my own barriers and following my dreams.

And then once I was done writting and editing and I was ready to show the world and get feedback. I flopped.

I couldn't find anyone willing to beta read. Those who said they would do it (even people who claimed they "couldn't wait") ghosted me after I actually sent it to them

I was hoping to get 20 people. I really wanted it to be the best it could be. Only 11 actully signed up. Of that 11, 5 people actually read it: My spouse, my brother, my best friend, and 2 others. Those two others read the first bit I sent them, took a few weeks to get back to me, said they loved it, but then Neeeeeeeeever got back to me when I sent them the next chunk.

Now you can look at all that and come to the conclusion that it sucks. I know I sure did.

The struggles at each step made me doubt myself more and more to the point that I almost gave up writing all together.

And I didn't want to take about it or how it was making me feel, even though it was having a serious impact on me. I wanted to bottle it all up and let it consume me. Allllll because I didn't want people online to write me off as a failure before even giving me the chance.

I wasn't lying about being successful. I was just trying to hide the fact that I wasn't.

And that's almost as bad. Because then all the new authors just feel worse about themselves and their journey because they think they are the only ones.

Your not alone.

Everyone is struggling.

We just aren't talking about it.

I haven't written a word in over a week because I've been so afraid my second book will be dead on arrival like my first.

And I KNOW somewhere out there is someone just like me whose thinking of giving up.

Don't.

Just keep going.

Do your best. And then come find another struggling writer and share with each other. The world outside might not understand your struggle. But another author might.

We can't change the market. We can't change the way social media works, or how people decide if they will buy things

But what we CAN change, is whether those of us within the community want to be honest about our struggles and frustrations. Or if we want to hide them away and lie about them for the sake of making more sales

I think by being honest with one another we can create a better network.

That way the next time you feel like garbage for not being an "instant celebrity" like everyone else. you can look at the community and realize that you were never the problem

If we just keep making new writing friends our collective reach will eventually take hold in the outside world. Don't wait for a random influencer to notice you. Just make one friend at a time. Be known amongst your peers and maybe the rest will follow

And if your a writer desperate for feedback, or just a friend to share your troubles with. Hit me up. My inbox is always open.

[fahrni]

The Musk Files - The 💩 Show

img border=“0” src=“https://static.crabapples.net/blogfly.gif" align=“right” alt=“Watch out! It’s a blog fly!”/>I usually provide my own commentary under each snippet of news with my big link posts but not today. I collected so many links before posting I figure it’s just better to throw in some commentary here at the top and call it good.

TL;DR: Space Karen is out of touch with how his social network was being used and why it had become the defacto place for breaking news. By trying to monetize it he’s busted it.

Tech Dirt

Elon Musk has demonstrated contempt for free speech in general, and journalism in particular, with his behavior at Twitter.

NPR

Twitter labels NPR’s account as ‘state-affiliated media’, which is untrue

WP Tavern

Twitter suspended WordPress.com’s access to the Twitter API without notice yesterday.

Platformer

His arraignment was carried live on cable news and National Public radio, but I learned of the day’s events where I still see almost everything first: Twitter, which, despite its perilous decline under Elon Musk, remains home base for the U.S. press corps even as the site itself increasingly orients itself to make fools of them.

Reuters

NEW YORK, March 31 (Reuters) - Elon Musk asked a U.S. judge on Friday to throw out a $258 billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

The Editorial Board

Musk sucks at Twitter, succeeds at fascism

The Atlantic

Today, Twitter feels more expired than evil. The company is worth less than half of what Musk paid when he bought it in October, according to the chief twit himself.

ArsTechnica

Twitter has made good on one of CEO Elon Musk’s many promises, posting on a Friday afternoon what it claims is the code for its tweet recommendation algorithm on GitHub.

Vox

When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he said he wanted to protect its place as a “digital town square,” where ideas from all corners of the internet could flourish. But soon, if you want your voice to really be heard in the town square, you’ll need to pay.

Tech Crunch

It’s five months since Elon Musk overpaid for a relatively small microblogging platform called Twitter.

Reason

The layoff would’ve been bad enough on its own, but because of the rules of Vong’s visa, it landed him in a bureaucratic mess that now prevents him from returning to the United States.

Platformer

But Twitter does have a different standard for celebrities – including Musk himself. For months, the platform has maintained a list of around 35 VIP users whose accounts it monitors and offers increased visibility alongside Elon Musk, according to documents obtained by Platformer.

[cryptid-crusader]

My Tumblr History (feat. a LOT of rambling, I apologize)

I’ve been on Tumblr 9 years. I came to Tumblr from Xanga (which IDK if that’s even still a thing or not) after being thoroughly obsessed with latter for about 4 or so years. Xanga was much more of a typical blog blog, and though I interacted with far less people on it, those few I did became honest to god friends that I still think about to this day. Though, as years past, my few friends began to drop off one by one from the site and I found myself enjoying it much less once they were gone. Eventually, I left too.

A few months later, I decided to join Tumblr. It was still a fairly new site in 2010 when I had joined, and I had only heard a few things here and there around the internet before I decided to check it out myself. When I first started, I used this site a lot like I used Xanga and basically had it exclusively as an internet journal to talk about life and nerdy shit and the like (I remember even thinking the reblog option was dumb because why not just make your own content? Why reblog other peoples stuff? loooool) and also did a lot of those writing daily challenges. Do you guys remember those? I loved them. Anyway...

Needless to say as time went on and I got older and followed more people and gained more followers (some of you have been here from very early on and for that I am incredibly thankful) as dweeby as this may sound, I really grew as a person. God, I remember 9 years ago I would sometimes post uncredited art or really insensitive, not funny at all, “jokes” because I honestly didn’t see a problem with them (and the only reason I really remember these awful things is occasionally once in a blue moon random people would find them in the bowels of my blog and like them and I would shudder and delete them). I kinda started Tumblr as this young social media doofus that, again as cheesy as it sounds, learned a lot and grew from my experience here. I would never dream of posting uncredited art now, and those “jokes” make me want to vomit. I learned a lot about social issues through this blog and it also helped me open up and learn about my sexuality. I got to see a broader world view from all different walks of life here (which was incredibly refreshing after growing up in a very close knit predominately white republican community) , and met some fantastic humans I’m blessed to have interacted with and become their friend. I never would have met them without this site!

Not to mention just like... all the cool shit. There are SO many talented people on Tumblr. So much beautiful art, fantastic writing, and just all round hilarious and interesting humans that I loved to get even a small peak into their lives and learn about them and what they like and do for fun. I’ve picked up hobbies through this site, joined fandoms through this site, made friends, laughed endlessly, become inspired, found some of my favorite anime/books/movies, and have had so much fun in these nine years on Tumblr.

... Not to say that it hasn’t been without it’s bad. I’ve been here long enough to remember when Tumblr users proudly boasted about how open and inviting to any and all people they were, how they would never point fingers, be mean, or turn others away. Boy, how that has changed looool. I’ve been through the annoying but innocent enough superwholocks and the scandals of older users who used to be Tumblr royalty that fucked up in some way and fell from grace, to the disgrace of people who are totally fine humans that didn’t completely cater to exactly what certain people wanted or made a few wrong steps that people felt like they had to attack them viciously for the littlest asinine shit. The good the bad and the ugly, all the way through to now.

Now. :(

To be frank, this entire site has been a disaster for a loooooooooong time with a staff that seems to be equal mix of not knowing at all how to run a functioning site and not giving a shit at all about it’s user base and their feelings (which reeeeeeeally sucks for all the fantastic content creators and people who have been here forever who have essentially made this site what it is). Little things like ‘oh we made an update that ‘everyone’ will love but is actually dumb as hell and just pisses people off’ to their have been porn bots, pedos, and nazis on this site for YEARS terrorizing people and being awful but guess that is just how it will be... Until they got banned from the app store and THEN it’s an issue (because they lost money ofc)!

Suddenly, Tumblr staff cares, but only for themselves. Instead of actually resolving the issue THAT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR YEARS AND IS AN EXTREMELY WELL KNOW AND COMPLAINED ABOUT ISSUE they just decide fuck it, punish everyone. No “porn” at all, but I use that term lightly because they say some nudity is allowed (don’t get me started on female presenting nipples it also makes me laugh to hard and then I won’t be able to type) and for some reason apparently written erotica is allowed (which makes absolutely zero sense if you are truly trying to make this a ‘family friendly’ site, why is visual porn not allowed but written OK?) but... Is it really? Posts that are completely innocent are getting tagged left and right as not suitable content. Like, thousands of posts are getting tagged by whatever stupid algorithm they are using that are completely void of anything remotely sexual and you expect me to believe your incompetent asses are going to go through them and deem which are OK and which aren’t based on you shoddy stupid ass new rules? Fuck that. 

And all the sex workers and people and run side blogs and NSFW art blogs and the like are just completely screwed (no pun intended). It upsets me because like... Porn blogs have never been the issue. There are definitely some horrible ones, no denying that, but for the most part they just stayed in their lane and interacted with other porn blogs. They weren’t the issue (And, if Tumblr knew at all how to create a damn site, they wouldn’t have been an issue at all if the damn safe mode toggle actually worked like it was supposed to). The ungodly amount of bots is the fucking issue. I can tell you right now, I have over a thousand followers and I am in no way kidding when I say half of those are porn bots that I just gave up reporting because I get like, 3 of them following me a week on average. It’s ridiculous! Also, ACTUAL FUCKING CHILD PORN? THAT IS EASILY ACCESSIBLE EVEN WHEN NOT LOOKING UP ANYTHING NSFW (which I very unfortunately know through experience)? And to top it all off, fucking NAZIS who for some reason are still allowed to spew their bullshit on this site??? Is this a nightmare?

So with all this happening, I believe it’s pretty safe to say Tumblr’s days are numbered. It makes me laugh and cry, it’s something you could see coming a mile away and yet something that you didn’t think would actually happen. I don’t want to leave Tumblr. I love you guys (the users not the staff). You have all brought joy and enrichment to my life and I am so grateful I got to be here with you. I also just like a lot of nuances of tumblr, like the fact I can read an entry so powerful and moving it brings me to tears and then just one post underneath is an over baked nonsensical cat meme which has me wheezing for reasons I can’t quite explain. I can be anonymous and as weird as I want to here without having to really worry about family, coworkers, or older friends seeing it and being like WTF is wrong with you, what does all this mean??? I like how my blog looks and how I can bitch in the tags and chat with my friends and message people and talk about my oc’s and randoms interests and get pointers and learn new things and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I love Tumblr. I don’t want to leave and don’t necessarily plan to. But then again, I said they same thing about Xanga, and if Tumblr keeps going in the way it is going... I’m not sure I really truly  want to be lumped in with that. :/

Now this has already been entirely too long (and honestly I’m kind of feeling how I did when I started this blog in 2010 lul) but lemme say this: Thanks guys, I had a whole lot of fun. And if I do end up leaving sometime in the maybe not to distant future know that I will always be lurking around somewhere on the internet, and I had the best time while I was here. I wish nothing but the best for all of you, and may we all be able to remain a happy and dysfunctional little group, if not here, somewhere much better.