#(i deleted facebook & messenger so we only text on instagram)

[felizusnavidad]

if there's one thing that is absolutely pissing me off it's my irl friend who wanted to see my instagram account

[bearpillowmonster]

I  was actually going to post something about this last night but events kept unfolding and changing the narrative so I’m going to break it down. Long story short, I fell for it. That’s right lads, I joined a dating site. 

So, I created an account without much interest involved, mainly curiosity and speculation. Came across a few good ones that I did reverse searches on only to find that they’re instagram profiles someone stole. I expected as much, oh well. But then I get a message to me, from a cute girl at that, and we start talking. Everything seemed to line up as far as her being real, I mean she had the name and face that matched her online presence. She even sent pictures that I wasn’t able to find. I weighed my options and decided I was willing to take the risk, I send her my number and-

Sign 1: Two numbers text me at the same time, the same thing. Oh, boy. I bring this up immediately and it’s kind of just shrugged off. The other one didn’t answer and I know the other was her, the number even looked legit, right area code, everything. We talk more and I see another number text me. 

Sign 2: I don’t give out my number and for it to be so close to this happening is either on the website’s messages being compromised or she isn’t who she says she is. I left this one alone with bringing it up, but internally, I start freaking out. This number said they were someone entirely different and just “had me in their contacts” ok, sure, they even sent a picture rerouted to- A popular tiktoker, ladies and gentlemen. They probably have people do this to them all the time. Gave them the chance to make a case- Block. 

I do some more research, check the dating profile again and wouldn’t you know it that her messages are gone. So, I start asking the girl questions pertaining to her Facebook. “You ever been here before?” not trying to set alarms for them just yet but I just wanted to trip them up and really, she passed. I ask about the messages thing and she wasn’t convinced, then she checked. At this point, I had already deleted my dating profile to just avoid further damage. She then tells me that the account got suspended. Huh, oh mee, oh my. I actually get on FB and message the real girl and am like “here’s the scoop, someone’s using your identity, blah, blah blah.” It says seen but there’s no way to really know if you’re not friends with them, I sent photo proof but whatever, I was getting over it, trying to dominate the situation. 

Okie-dokie, face-time me, that will settle this once and for all, you can’t very well agree when you know- She said ok...ok. She calls but nothing happened, like no voice, no video. “It didn’t work. Bad reception.” Same old song and dance. So, it’s time for the nail in the coffin, the final stroke, Facebook. If the Facebook is real and the two coincide then we have a match, I was disconnected at this point, I thought I’d be devastated in a way but I surprisingly sort of let my insane side take over, whatever game you play, I’m gonna play it back and I’m about to uproot your whole operation while I’m at it. You can’t claim not to have a Facebook when it’s right there, same face, same name and if you do, then friend me. Easy. “Ok, add me.” Huh? What is this, confidence? Ok?  Also, Messenger has a facetime that works better, at least imo.

Well, I already messaged her on my account except, I don’t use my real name on my account. So, I wasn’t sure how deep this was going to go, I thought about using one of my alts but for some reason FB doesn’t like that and just kept logging me back into my main, whatever, haven’t used those in forever anyway, I guess they’re lost now. So, I make a new profile with the information I have already given, no friends but hey, whatta you gonna do. I tell her I sent the request. It’s this morning and no add but I have some texts, yeah, from 4 in the morning, like wtf, so I ask what’s up with the Facebook. Nothing yet, will update with a new post if need be.

I slept maybe 4 hours total last night between this in my head, and I couldn’t breathe. Not having my pills has that gas that I was talking about mixed with the heat, I had the humidifier on, didn’t work. I turned it up. Nothing. I turned the fan on. Nothing. I turned the fan up. Nothing. Like come on! I can’t get comfortable. So I decided not to use too much effort with this like I was going to, I’ll leave it up to be balanced on its own accords. One of the weird things when we were talking is that she’d say “Good” a lot, even if it didn’t apply. A yes or no question, “Good”. Major red flag, as I’ve harassed these types of accounts before. Some so long that they changed people in between so one had no recollection of any conversation like it was a freaking program where they used the same dialogue. That time, I knew they weren’t real though. I was worried this would affect me and my shell because it took a long time for me to get to this point but then I shook hands with myself after feeling a job well done saying that i wont let this champion me, I have to champion it. I feel like I did everything right, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to predict or prevent that under those circumstances. I’m normally very cautious with that stuff but I knew I also had to be more open in order to get it back. Whatever their goal was, I don’t really care, I shouldn’t care at least, there’s nothing to justify it, I didn't nose into it before I got permission, that Facebook was only after I started really suspecting something was wrong.

[beingstalked]

The lack of social interaction from 2 people who have obsessively stalked us.

EGX 23rd September 2018 -

First time I ever met Liam in person. I said hello but I hardly ever communicated with him.

Christening 22nd October 2018 -

First time meeting Stacey, I chatted to her quite abit because Phil and Liam occasionally went off to do their own thing. It was not long after this event her and Liam added me on Facebook, I never communicated with them privately.

Round Jess & Steve's early November 2018 - I hardly spoke during this gathering, mainly because I was very shy in a big group, but Liam & Stacey was there and during the evening Stacey proceeded to slap Liam round the head really hard, for no reason and then laughed hysterically because of how hard it was.

Comic Con & German Market 24th November 2018 - Liam & Stacey came with us to comic con & the German Market,I only interacted with them a couple times during the day because me and Phil explored different stalls as much as we could. When we was waiting for the train to Birmingham New Street from Birmingham International Stacey was swearing and complaining about being told to stand behind the white line whilst waiting for the train. What I started to notice with both their attitudes is they would complain about anything. I joked they was the female and male version of a Karen. They wasn't at the German Market long, I never even realised they had gone home until I asked Phil and he said they had gone.

Round Liams house 27th April 2019 - Liam had invited us round his house during the afternoon and as soon as we set foot in the front door there was a very weird atmosphere. Stacey never spoke to us, she was clearly in a mood and when I took snapchat photos with Phil she acted in a forceful way with Liam to take pictures with her. This was the first time I ever met Lucy who was there with her partner Will. During the gathering Liam took Phils phone and went into the kitchen with it, where I followed and he proceeded to go through Phils phone such as texts and messenger messages and then took photos of himself on Phils phone before giving it Phil back.

Masala Lounge 15th September 2019 - The last ever meeting was at the Masala Lounge with Phils other friends and their partners. Because there was so many of us I sat one end of the table where they sat the other end. When we got to Masala Lounge, Stacey blanked us and proceeded to strut in to the restaurant, flick her hair and sat in the corner. The whole time we was having a meal we did not interact with her at all.

Liam occasionally joined my friends playing Overwatch a couple nights. This probably happened 2-3 times.

I have not, or have I tried to see them in person again after these interactions. Usually when I block people, I never have any issues with them after. I've never blocked 2 people who have thrown their toys out of the pram and obsessively stalked. I am posting all this proof now because I want to prove what these two have done, their behaviour, which is psychotic and how I have repeatedly asked them to leave us alone and they carry on and will claim they are the victims. My last ever communication with them was with Stacey on the 22nd February 2023 after Liam made two fake accounts on Reddit to stalk me (ASimpleManInADress & MrsNervous) and I had ago at her for their behaviour over the years and also told them more than once in the message to leave me and Phil alone and move on with their lives. This was done through an old Facebook profile which I have since deleted. I have only been vocal in the r/Stalking about my experience, I've never named them and if they was to complain of anything I've posted it is simply because they have been actively stalking me on Littleredguardian since the account was made 26th June 2023. I have not sent any messages since, I do not have Twitter, I do not have Tiktok, they are blocked on Instagram and Facebook. I honestly wish with everything they've done that I had never met them.

[milf-harrington]

this is going to be pure word vomit but i also have to get it out yknow but anyway i have this friend who my relationship is very weird with, as in they piss me off more than anyone else i know and theyre exhausting and i will go days without responding to them on purpose bc some evil thing in my brain likes to drag forward every bad feeling ever experienced in our 7 years of having known one another and clump it together until i block their number because just seeing their name makes me want to cry or break things but also half of the bad stuff thats happened between us has been my fault and my inability to handle things/handle things correctly in the past which i try not to blame myself for bc i doubt any 13 year old knows how to react when their friends try to cut themselves open at a sleepover with your parents steak knives but theres still times i could have been better when we were older but i guess the damage was done and it reached a point that by the time we were both in our last years of high school the status of our relationship was almost fondly referred to as "completely toxic" and we KNEW with the certainty of years worth of evidence that we're not good for eachother in large doses but god we know almost everything about eachother, there is no one else who knows those jokes or who was there at those sleepovers, who was on the other side of the screen or making faces in class or sleeping in my lap or awkwardly kissing my cheek that one week we dated, who got drunk on lemon cruisers and made pasta with me, who drove out to my house so we could eat bagels with chocate cream cheese in the front seat of their car so theres still this almost reluctant care for them despite the amount of times ive told them as plainly as possible that i wanted them to get the fuck out of my life but suddenly i went to message them about something only they would understand and messenger told me that they didnt have an account anymore, no facebook account or instagram account either, and their tumblr is gone too, and the part of me that always presses the block button is telling me to brush it off, that "at least there was no messy needlessly cruel goodbye this time" but the part of me that remembers having to put aristocats on after a scary movie and the loud laughter down an empty farm road while we yelled about "bushmen" cant help but worry that something has happened, that theyve gotten themselves trapped in something again, that theyre alone on the other side of the country with a boy ive never particularly liked or stuck back here with their parents that i know too much about and then the part of me that still feels a bittersweet protectiveness, that hung up on my sister in a restaurant because of stupid accusations, that always answered the phone years ago, that told them to put the knife away is so desparately hopeful that this is them healing, that maybe this is them trying to clear the slate completely and reinvent themselves the way we talked about sometimes but the other parts, the heavy sharp damp gross realistic parts are only worried and defeated, knowing that their phone number has been deleted for so long i dont even remember all of the numbers, only that at one point it was almost the exact same as mine except for the last digit, which was a 4 where theirs was a 3, so i cant even call them, cant even text to see if theyre okay if theyre safe and half of me is apathetic but the rest of me just wants to know with a kind of ache that stems from something a little deeper than nostalgia

[deepdonutkid]

Social media and the Shelby Family

Let’s go from youngest to oldest…

Finn, as said in the first part, is an influencer, who likes to live his life online. He tweets a lot, he has a ton of insta stories and likes to keep his followers updated. Also he follows some trends like trying bubble tee or these weird tik tok dances. Finn even bribed his brothers to try some with him. They refused of course. Tommy said a no and walk right out of the room. John laughed and brushed it off. Arthur tried, but failed hilariously. Good for him, that Finn was teaching him the steps and not filmed the miserable attempt.   Michael did and was actually good… and Ada did quite okay. Well, Polly wasn’t even asked, because Finn already knew her answer was no.

A lot of his pictures online are with his friends, especially Jesaja.  They skate sometimes and film their tricks. (I added this, because I saw a video of Finn’s Actor- Harry Kirton- skating and I thought it also fit Finn) Whenever he is eating something instagramable, he definitely take a picture. Finn also take good selfies, but he only uses funny filters. So no Dog ears or sparkly flowers here!

He answers messages mostly direct, no waiting time, ‘cus this guy doesn’t play games, but as a Gen Z he would definitely be scared of phone calls. Especially if it’s Polly and there are already two missed calls. Then he just freaks out right away.

And to add a little funny extra: Finn tried among us on his phone and he is kinda sus!

His Whatsapp status would be: “my milkshake brings all the bees to my car. Shit… there are bees in my car!”

-.-.-.-.-

Michael is king of selfie. He knows he looks like god’s gift to the women and he plays that card. His phone is filled with all kinds of selfies. Little narcissist, here! Well, he needs to take a picture from every ankle to capture his beauty.

He also posts some stories on insta, but not so often like Finn. Michael keeps it casual. Just a few party pictures with friends or something super cool like new car.  

But as we all know Michael Gray, he likes to play games with da ladies. So sometimes you wouldn’t even get a goodnight from him. If you tease him, he’ll tease back. Probably posts a picture with another woman. She is just a friend, but you’ll not know that. Yes, he can be mean, but if you’ll call him drunk and late at night, that you miss him, he’ll be glad to hear that.

His status would be: “P1 cleaner than your church shoes.” And yes, this is a weeknd lyric from the song starboy

-.-.-.-.-.-

Ada. Yes. I almost forgot her. How could I? She is gorgeous!

Already mentioned in part one… She knows her stuff pretty well. Technology… no problem for this gal right here. Ada can hack into stuff and write codes and programs, but this also made her very aware of data getting misused or stolen from bots. This is why she chose to keep distance from social media. She doesn’t use the gram or snapchat or whatsoever, but she uses secure text messenger and is likely to be found on a super dank meme page and to understand the memes you need the knowledge of years and years internet culture. And Ada talks to Finn and Michael about unprotected data and how they shouldn’t spill so much information about them online.  

But she takes a lot of pictures from her kids, her husband, her cute outfits, her house and garden, their vacations. She doesn’t use a normal cloud and prefers to show you the pictures together. One after one and she’s making a comment to every single one of them. About that she could talk for hours.

Her status would be… well, she wouldn’t have any!

-.-.-.-.-.-

So… John-boy! Here isn’t much to say. He uses Instagram, but it’s a rare thing. John might follow some artist, so he is up to date for new concerts to go to and also some friends, but that’s it. On a good day which happens to be every half year he might post a picture, when he went somewhere. To get a new tattoo or if he went to see a game, probably soccer and rugby. If he gets the chance to travel, he’ll make pictures, but he totally forgets to post them or even show them to his family. He prefers to talk with his brothers about the experience of traveling and not starting a slide show.

What he is talking pictures of? Selfies are rare, but do happen, if they are a special request from a gal… and it’s probably shirtless, ‘cus he has got the body.  Then again, he took pictures, if he was abroad, not on the usual roads, but only a few. While texting he might send a funny meme, if he sees any and thinks of you. And the occasional picture of “Look what I just got”… and it’s a Vinyl or a band shirt. Even though, he answers his family rarely, when he is in Birmingham, he’d be texting with his lady a lot, having this grin on his face, while Ada asks who he is writing to.

His status would be something like: “punk in drublic.” Which is a festival for said genre, but he just finds it funny. Likely to add “Y/N with an emoji of choice”, when he is in a relationship.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Tommy hates social media and refuses to try it for a long time, but Finn uses it so much, that Tommy had a little interest, what’s going on there. His youngest brother had a lot of explaining to do, which probably went like:

T: “How do I tell the person I like the picture?”

F: “There is the comment button.”

T: “No, I mean the… like thing.”

F: “Double tap on the picture, Tom.”

T: “Good, so… what’s next?”

F: “Nothing. What should happen?”

T: *shrug* “So, this is completely useless!” *deletes the app immediately*

And Tommy is also not the guy to answer private messages directly or often. Sometimes you said on read for days with this fellow, because he is super busy and doesn’t have the time to type. If you’re lucky, you get a quick okay. But if it’s important, he’ll call you right away and asks what happened, and if you need any help. With business he always answers straight and don’t like to waste time.

He doesn’t take pictures really. There may be some incidences where he hit the button by mistake. And there some photos of documents, which he need proof of… so he doesn’t have to rip out a page from a book like its 1920s. And all the pictures of his family has been send to him, he just don’t delete them.

His status would be: “Available” or “At work. Only important calls.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Arthur… well… he has Facebook and uses it like anyone going on forty… really weird boomer mems, that might have been funny ten years ago. He sends them to everyone and they’re so annoyed by it, but he spares Tommy as his time is too important to waste on ‘funny pictures’.

Some gave him an Echo thing, the one with Alexa, you know, and he was so frustrated by it, that he threw the thing against the wall. Arthur couldn’t get past the set-up and got to angry. His family laughed about it, but it’s better this way.

Thanks to Finn and his little videos, Arthur became a meme himself, because his little brother filmed him while Arthur did something ridiculously stupid. That vid went viral. (Unsure what he did exactly)

His status would be: “Hey, there I am using whatsapp!”

-.-.-.-.-.-

I don’t know what to say about Polly and Freddie… so I leave them out now, but if you have something to add or whatever, feel free to do so!

[purplesurveys]

1157

survey by hxcsingingsk8r

Phone Scavenger Hunt

First off, what phone do you have? I have an iPhone 8.

And what provider do you use? It’s a local one you wouldn’t know about, called Globe.

How long have you had your current phone? I can’t remember if it would be 3 or 4 years this 2021. Either way, it’s definitely been a while and I’ve been itching to upgrade. It’s too early to make such a big purchase, though.

Do you have any cases for it? Describe them. I have a clear case that I bought last year. Before that, I had a pink Otterbox case that I managed to destroy even though Otterbox is normally known for its durability. I just have a very unique ability to wreck everything I’ve ever owned lol.

How old were you when you got your first cellphone? I was technically 6, but it was meant to be a present for my 7th birthday. We threw a birthday party a month in advance because my dad had to fly back abroad for work before my actual birthday, but we wanted him to be present at the celebration so we decided throwing a party early was the best route.

What about your first smartphone? [If the answer is different] It was an iPhone 5S.

How old are you now? Dunno what this has to do with the theme of the survey but I am now 22.

Okay, move onto the scavenger hunt part

What is your lock screen picture of? It’s of Kim Seon Ho at a restaurant, lmao.

Home screen? It’s one of the shots from a recent promotional photoshoot Hayley did for Good Dye Young.

How many pictures are thre currently on your phone? This question just made me so anxious hahaha. I have way too many photos; and upon checking, it turns out I currently have 6,266. My god do I need to clean up my camera roll this weekend.

How many videos? I have 227. I have no idea it’s gotten to be this many; I barely use my phone to take videos. I’ll go ahead and delete some of them right now, just to give my phone (and its storage) space to breathe.

What is your most recent picture of? It’s a work thing...I guess I’ll explain it so it can make more sense. So one of our clients has got this Lent campaign going on, and to spread word about it we’ve tapped a handful of food bloggers to try out the offers themselves and post about their experience on social media. Now that we’re in the middle of Holy Week they’ve gone ahead and uploaded their own posts, and I’m in charge of taking screenshots so I can show to the client that the execution had been successful.

And the most recent video? It’s a private vlog. Every Sunday, or at least every other Sunday I take a few minutes to sit down and do a weekly video thing where I talk about my ~mental~ and ~emotional~ status, and it’s basically a way to be in touch with myself and keep track of my progress. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually get to uploading them one day.

Do you have any albums? If so, of what? Yeah. I have one for Cooper, one for Kimi, and a bunch of tiny albums I’ve made where I compiled 4–5 photos of friends to post on their birthdays.

What pictures have you favorited? I have a lot of favorited photos. There’s no required category for me to label them as such.

Do you have any shared albums with friends or family or work? No. I’m not sure if I can do that, or how to do it if it is allowed.

Do you have any alarms set? For what time and for what occasions? I have a bunch of alarms but only because they’re archived into the Clock app and I just haven’t gotten around to deleting them. When I was still new at my work, I used to have alarms set for certain work tasks I have to take note of every week – but now that I’ve gotten into the groove of things, I don’t need the alarms to be reminded about them anymore.

Check your weather app, what is the weather and temperature where you live? It says ‘Mostly Clear’ and shows a temperature of 26ºC.

Do you have the YouTube app? Do you have your own channel? I do have the app and my own account, but I never use it to post videos. It’s nice to have my own channel so that my homepage can be tailored to my interests.

Do you have an email app? Which one do you use? I just have the default Email app that comes with iOS, but I never use it because it’s so wonky. It doesn’t refresh new emails and it takes forever when it does, and it doesn’t always show the full thread of email conversations. If I absolutely need to check my email for something I usually have to pull out my laptop.

Does it say that there is an update available on your phone or any apps? Yes, it reminds me everyday hahaha. I don’t update unless Apple has been planning a big revamp with new features, though; and if the updates are just to address bugs, I disregard the reminders.

Go into your contacts, how many contacts do you have total? It says I have 178.

Name all of your contacts under the letter M: Feels a tad bit invasive, so I’ll just name five people I have under M: Lui, Kim, Patrice, Danika, and Andi.

Name all of your contacts under the letter U: I don’t have anyone under U.

Do you have any contacts that are businesses rather than people? Which ones? No, I don’t really use text to contact businesses. If I wanted to inquire or order from one, I usually head to their social media page.

Go into your notes, how many notes do you have saved? This is another one I have a hoarding problem with lol. My phone says I currently have 561 notes, though I’m fairly certain the biggest chunk of it comes from minutes I’ve taken down from work meetings. It was a whole lot less when I was still in school.

What kinds of things do you save in your notes? Like I said, I use Notes for taking down minutes from meetings. There are also a few surveys on there, from times I didn’t have internet and couldn’t post them on here.

Do you have any voice memos saved? What of? Yep. Some of them were recordings I had to do for journalism classes I was assigned to do voiceovers; some are interviews, also from my journ class; and the rest are of me rambling.

Do you ever use the calculator app? Pretty frequently for work.

Do you ever use the Maps app? Not really. If I needed directions, I would check out Waze for that.

Do you have any health/fitness apps? Which ones? I still have the Nike Training app from the very brief time I wanted to start working out earlier this year.

Do you have the Instacart app? The what now? I’ve never even heard of that.

What about a delivery service like Postmates, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Doordash? I have the McDelivery app for McDonald’s, but I also have other general delivery apps like Grab, Lalamove, and Transportify.

Do you have something like Venmo, Cashapp, or Paypal? I have the Paypal app but I never use it. I also have a couple of e-wallet apps just in case I’d have to use them as a payment method, since some businesses  I purchase from prefer certain ones. Ultimately, though, I use Grab’s mobile wallet the most often.

Do you use Bitmoji? I think I did before? I never used it all that regularly though. Didn’t see the point.

What other keyboards do you use besides English? Any? Filipino, Korean, and Emoji.

Which social media network apps do you have? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, TikTok, and Snapchat. So I guess I have all the main ones?

If you have Instagram, what is your handle and how many followers? I have a very private one I only use for work. I didn’t want it to have any followers but at present there’s Angela (because she asked to follow it this week) and Bea (idk why).

What do you typically post on the various social media platforms? The only ones I regularly post on are Twitter and Facebook, and on either I share life updates (if there are any) and memes; though on Facebook I have to watch out what kind of memes I share and make sure they aren’t too offensive because I’m friends with relatives, workmates, and media on there lmao. But on Twitter, I basically have no filter.

Do you make TikTok videos? I don’t make any myself, but I do enjoy going through the app.

Do you only add people you know on Facebook? Yes, for the most part. I’ve taken to adding people as long as they’re from UP or my high school even though I’ve never met them as well, but if I sense that they only added me to try and sell me insurance OR try to get me into MLM, then it’s an instant unfriend for me.

Do you have an app that tracks Instagram followers? No, because I don’t need to track my Instagram followers. I’m off the radar as off the radar gets.

Do you have a Snapchat? Yeah, it’s still on my phone just because but I literally never touch it anymore.

Do you ever take selfies with filters? What app's filters do you use? Eh, just before. I don’t really take selfies anymore, period.

Do you use any apps like Depop or Poshmark or Etsy? No. Out of these three I’ve only ever heard of Etsy, too.

What messengers do you use to talk to people? Any besides just texting? I have Messenger to stay in touch with family and friends; Whatsapp and Viber for work; and Telegram just in case my friends want to play games.

Do you have any photo editing apps? Which ones? I have this app called Foodie that has some pretty filters. Otherwise, since I’m not on Instagram anyway I’m never on the lookout for photo editing apps; no one ever filters their photos on Facebook and Twitter lol.

Do you have any games? Which ones? I do have a ton of games on my phone. I never play any of them, but I keep them just in case I get bored enough to start revisiting them. I have word games, drinking games, games similar to Heads Up! where one person will have to guess the word on the screen while the phone is on their forehead, and gimmicky games like 1010! and Candy Crush haha.

Do you have any rideshare apps like Lyft or Uber? I have Grab, which is a rideshare, parcel delivery, food delivery, and online grocery app all in one.

Now go to the actual phone app, whose phone numbers are saved as favorites? I don’t tag any of my contacts as favorites.

Who was your most recent outgoing call to? I can’t recognize the number, so it was probably a Transportify driver that I called to give him directions to my house.

Who was your most recent incoming call from? I also can’t recognize the number, but this time he was most likely a Grab driver.

Who was your most recent missed call from? Again, can’t recognize the number HAHAA

Why did you miss that call? On purpose? Were you sleeping? Busy? My phone is on silent 24/7, so I must have missed it while I was working.

Who is your most recent voicemail from and what's it regarding? We don’t have voicemail in the Philippines.

What was the last thing you Googled or searched on your phone? Candle tunneling and how to fix it.

What music app do you use? Apple Music? Spotify? Something else? I use Spotify, but I also availed of a 3-month trial on Apple Music earlier this year just because. I think it’s supposed to end soon but I have no plans to shift.

What playlists have you made on there? I have playlists called, “robyn discovers kpop,” “winding down,” “angst,” “not my loss,” and my personal favorite, “paramore but fuck you.”

Lastly, what is the most recent song/album you've added to your collection? What Type of X - Jessi.

[ms-demeanor]

Is there a way to make smartphones *not* horrible? Or is this just another thing in the “everything I like and that helps me live is evil, permanently” category?

Uhhhhhhhhhh. Okay. FIRST I wanna say please look at this android pocket computer with a full qwerty keyboard that you can use as a cellphone and install Linux on because it is giving me an erection:

That’s so fucking sexy. I love that. That makes me want to spend a large amount of money on a piece of technology. I haven’t felt like this since I got my first Sidekick. (Things were kind of briefly amazing when we had phones that fit the niche between “flip phone” and “smart phone” with weird little carrier cloud networks and packet radio data service)

But. Okay.

So first I want you to really think about how much you use your phone as a phone. Like with the talk function and all.

Think about how much you use texting.

THOSE TWO THINGS, those things that require the use of a phone number, are the only things that make a phone different than a tablet.

So I’ll ask you: what do you actually use your phone for?

Me, I am a weirdo. My phone is primarily used for the browser.

What I like about using Firefox as my primary phone app is that I’ve got a lot more control over what the app is collecting/observing/tracking than I do with, say, the tumblr app. Also I have an adblocker on my FF for Android so I can browse in peace and not get too perplexed by weird tumblr noodle ads or whatever.

Also log in to different sites as different users, run a VPN, use an anonymizer, or just straight-up decide to use Tor instead.

(and I can log into my email without an app, which sometimes I want to do because “reasons” where “reasons” is “I’m already a massive fucking data mine for you, google, I shouldn’t have to see ads in my fucking inbox”)

If you find that you mostly use your phone for things that could be done in a browser then you’d probably be in super good shape to attempt to use some variety of linux tablet (Good luck because they kind of aren’t really a thing but dear LORD do I have a techboner for that gemini phone/tablet thing) or just using a tablet that isn’t tied to GPS and cell service towers. A wifi tablet with no SIM is better than a smartphone if you’re concerned about security shit, from there using the browser on your tablet and using services that don’t track your data is another good step.

Do all of that and then get a flip phone for calls and texts; try not to take your flip phone everywhere because basically it’s a location tracker with a unique ten digit serial number that we’ve all volunteered to carry 24/7 and every time I sit down and really start thinking about that I want to go lie down in a faraday cage for a while and cry.

*IDEALLY* you’d just use a tablet and use Signal instead of your phone’s voice or message function. And you’d just use available internet; how often do you *really* get messages or calls when you’re someplace that doesn’t have internet?

*REALISTICALLY* yeah okay phones are how people have access to 4G and can communicate if there isn’t wifi available.

If most of the things you do on your phone are apps, well. Run android, install antivirus, get a vpn, do things through Firefox for Android as much as possible, disable apps you don’t use, and seriously reconsider which apps you want to use (for instance don’t install facebook or facebook messenger on your phone)

I don’t know - this is kind of complicated advice because there are lots of types of tech users and lots of levels of paranoia and I don’t know where you’re at.

Here is some blanket advice that I feel comfortable giving to everyone:

Don’t install Facebook products on your devices. Yes, that includes Instagram and yes, I should delete my Instagram.

Avoid using Google as much as you can - if you’re on android I know you’re kind of screwed, but let’s be real, you don’t need to use the youtube app on your phone. Disable what you can’t uninstall.

Don’t deal with Amazon except where you have to. Don’t buy from Amazon if you can get the product elsewhere, don’t shop on Amazon through anything other than the website (No. Amazon. App. Take if off your phone.) Don’t get Amazon smart devices, don’t get Echo Earbuds (what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck why is that even a thing)

Practice leaving your phone someplace that you aren’t. Try to get into the habit of being out of communication. I know there are people for whom this is impossible - whether because of illness or work or whatever, I get that there are some people who need to be in arm’s reach of a phone. But if you *can* be away from your phone you really, really should, at least a couple days a week.

Look, your phone isn’t evil!bad!, you’re not evil!bad! for needing to use your phone. But it is extremely shitty that privacy rights and civil liberties haven’t kept up with technology and I think we need to be loud and angry about it.

With that in mind, please consider supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

And if you can’t do that then PLEASE consider using open source software (like GIMP, LibreOffice, or Mozilla) instead of relying on closed-source software (like Adobe, Microsoft, or Google).

[arlocdiz272]

Titaniumtv For  Organisation: The  Guidelines Are Made To Be  Busted

iTunes Top 20 Many Downloaded Songs of All Time

However, LastPass really feels a little more secure and also pleasant (normally), particularly with its extra authenticator app. This is a top 10 listing of one of the most used smartphone apps in the UNITED STATE as of August 2017. All of these apps originate from publicly traded business based in The golden state. Like mobile phone, conference scheduler applications are moving from a nice-to-have deluxe to essential requirement in the lives of effective people.

With its wise style and also a comprehensive collection of foods, it makes swiftly logging the calories you take in as well as what you shed while exercising a breeze. A barcode scanner makes it also easier to log that post-workout treat. This physical fitness application additionally plays wonderful with various other such apps, so your information will not be tied up in just one place. MyFitnessPal won't offer you a whole workout program, however it can make you more aware of your habits.

Google Assistant/ Google Feed/ Google Browse

Those apps will likely automatically reopen anyhow if it shuts power-hungry apps. Therefore, the result is reversed and power intake could in fact boost.

What are the best free Android apps?

Subway Surfers Was the Most Downloaded Game of the Decade Success came from many different places as each of the most downloaded games came from a different company. Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga stand out as the only 2 apps to appear on both the top apps by downloads and consumer spend lists.

There's no totally free rate, so you'll need to pony up $10 a month. Originally, we weren't mosting likely to place any kind of launchers on this checklist. Nova Launcher seems to be prolong beyond what regular launchers are. It's been around for years, it's been consistently upgraded, and also thus it's never not been a fantastic option for a launcher replacement. If you desire to, you can also make it look like the Pixel Launcher.

What you make on your phone will certainly look specifically the same on the desktop. Dropbox originated the personal cloud solution, where all your stuff would certainly be readily available no matter what device you were using. On Android, it holds its own-- also versus the very incorporated Google Drive. Dropbox can likewise function as a smooth backup for your photos, immediately publishing every picture to the cloud.

Worldwide Top Apps by Google Play Downloads.

The Android app lets you take your jobs on the move and also offline, syncing your development when you're back on the network. It's an effective device with an outstanding user interface, and new features are added routinely. Hulu has actually long been a significant gamer in the on-demand streaming space and also its huge library of current and also formerly broadcast programs provide appealing choices for several. Hulu's live TELEVISION part is impressive too, with an excellent series of networks and also properly designed applications. Hulu's combination of on-demand and also online TELEVISION services makes it an excellent value.

There is additionally a second Google Assistant app for those that desire a quick launch symbol on the residence screen. The equipment things costs money, but Google Assistant is free. Amazon.com Alexa is an additional superb application in this space, but it doesn't support Google Android quite as long as we would such as, yet. 1Weather is probably the very best weather app around. It features a basic, paginated layout that reveals you the existing climate, projection for approximately 12 weeks, a radar, and various other fun stats.

Ideal Online Buying Apps in India, UNITED STATES 2020.

Although you need a paid Kaspersky Internet Safety subscription to use all its attributes, some standard performance is offered totally free. It seems like simply yesterday that Facebook-owned Instagram was adding video.

What apps should everyone have?

Some free apps generate revenue via in-app purchases or advertising, while others are purchased for a modest price. Even though some apps have made millionaires out of their creators, most app developers will not strike it rich, and the chances of making it big are depressingly small.

This is the checklist of the Google Play apps with over 500 million and much less than one billion downloads on distinct gadgets. Only ten applications have gone across the 5 billion downloads mark. Seven of these apps are had by Google and also come preinstalled. Facebook passed TikTok to join WhatsApp and Messenger amongst the top 3 applications. TikTok was well ahead of the No. 5 application, Instagram, with almost 65 percent a lot more sets up in the quarter.

The best dating apps for 2020.

Nonetheless, there are lots of incredible choices that do not cost you anything. These services are generally sustained by advertising and marketing, sponsorship of some find this kind, or something else. Nevertheless, there are still some genuinely excellent applications out there that you can utilize free of cost without paying a dollar. This is a finest all-time checklist, type of like hall of popularity, so the majority of these applications aren't necessarily brand-new.

What apps should I delete?

WhatsApp has 300 million daily active users worldwide. There are 300 million WhatsApp users who text using the app every day. To compare with WhatsApp's parent company, 1.5 billion people log into their Facebook accounts every day. WhatsApp's competition, on the other hand, receives fewer visits per day.

Apple Songs vs. Spotify.

You'll find it on every type of computer in every kind of setup, as well as now it's available free of charge on Android. Word plugs into Microsoft's cloud facilities to maintain your documents in order, however its major marketing factor is that this truly is Word.

[simplebutscary]

So I successfully made some of my best friends hate me. Story time:

One of my friends was acting off; distant, rude, and irritable among other things. All until I get a text message from him saying “is it an asshole move if I ask you and (other friend) to leave me alone? It’s nothing you did.”

Obviously this was concerning considering I hadn’t really spoken to him for a couple of days. I simply responded “it is what it is,” before deciding to add on saying, “if you want space, cool, I’ll give you space, but I’m a little bit upset about some of the things that’ve been going on.” (This is important for what’s about to happen).

I text him again a couple days later asking about what’s going on because he never really gave an explanation for disappearing. We actually had a decent conversation where he explained what was going on, and I simply told him that the way he went about not talking to me or my other friend wasn’t very good or reasonable. That was the end of that story, for that day.

Side note, I became friends with him and this other friend when we started playing a game together.

Now, after this conversation, my other friend and I decided to do something around his house on the game. Nothing bad, just changing some things up so that we could make something new. He apparently wasn’t happy with this, as I went onto my Snapchat and saw that he removed me as a friend.

This obviously was upsetting considering that I hadn’t done anything and we had actually had a conversation about what was going on. So my friend and I decided to text him on the Facebook messenger group chat because that was our only way to reach him at that point. We asked what happened and he got pissed at us, and accused us of destroying his house, which we didn’t, and that’s why he deleted us on Snapchat. We explained what happened and said that if he wanted us to undo what we did that we would fix it. He then kept saying that he didn’t care. We all started bickering. And I was trying to calmly explain things that were bothering me about this whole situation, all up until I got a message saying “if you were that upset by me wanting space, you could’ve just said something.”

I lost my shit at that point. I had said something. I had said something, AND was left on read. I sent a screenshot of that exact message and said “IM A LITTLE BIT UPSET ABOUT WHATS BEEN GOING ON.” He then tried to lie his way out of the situation. This all happened after he told my other friend that he sacrificed his mental health for me. Which is such bullshit, especially since I’m always the one dealing with his problems. He didn’t even know that I was moving, that’s how little he cares about what’s going on with me.

Anyway, I kinda lost my shit after that, gave him an idea of how upset I was. He kept saying to walk away if we were that done with him. I responded by saying “you can’t even acknowledge that what we’re saying is right. You’re trying to lie your way out of a mistake instead of taking responsibility. That’s why I’m pissed. So you know what? I am fucking done. Maybe when you stop acting like a child, you can text me. Until then, have a nice fucking life.”

And that’s where that was left. Until I check my social media again tonight, and notice that my best friend’s Snapchat isn’t on my Snapchat anymore. I search it up, try to add him, it says “user not found.” Weird, I thought. Check my other social media; Instagram, nope, Facebook, nope. Wtf? Go through to see if I still have other people on my Snapchat that were friends with him. Nope. All blocked me.

Not a single one of them said anything to me, just ghosted. Now, this wouldn’t bug me as much if one of them hadn’t been friends with me for FIVE YEARS.

And that’s on petty bullshit. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[veinturn3-blog]

Facebook Video Downloader / Facebook To MP4 HD Converter

Facebook does not make it easy to save lots of videos to your telephone or computer — the social media service would quite you simply return to Facebook to observe it again. Twitter icon A stylized chook with an open mouth, tweeting. YouTube icon A play button within the form of a tv display screen. Previously uploaded videos should still be vulnerable to unauthorized viewing through shared links, nevertheless. You is not going to want to put in any codecs or add-ons to the primary browser to have the ability to use it. The downloader additionally contains a video converter that you should use to convert the downloaded Facebook movies into any format of your alternative. Launch Safari, then go to Facebook and discover the video you wish to obtain. When you play the video, a "Download" icon may seem on the top left nook of the video (takes YouTube for instance). In this article, we'll bring you the ten most popular FB video downloaders in 2020. All you need to do is copy and paste the video hyperlink. Online Facebook video downloader lets you obtain your chosen Facebook videos on your laptop or cell phone with out installing additional software. online video downloader for windows 10 is a new step in the direction of innovation and modernisation. If it's a as soon as-in-a-blue-moon thing, select the web site route. If you plan to obtain Facebook videos frequently, a browser add-on or an exterior app may serve you higher. Here's how one can download Facebook movies on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Savevideo is the most effective resource to avoid wasting from Facebook, give us a try. We are prepared to save video from Facebook web site. Also we have mp3 converter that may save Facebook video as mp3 file. If ever you want such tools sooner or later, please, remember about SaveVideo and our promise to assist with downloads from Facebook. A plus is that keepvid.ch offers different resolutions, including 4K and 1080p. As a Music Downloader, KeepVid.ch is expert in downloading YouTube music videos to MP3 songs, covering the quality of 128kbps, 192kbps, and even 320kbps. A simple facebook video downloader which instantly grabs the MP4 or flv video hyperlinks for the fb video. It is free web based mostly software for fb video obtain and easy to make use of. You don’t want to put in any software program/plugins, all you need is the Facebook Video Link. Copy the video hyperlink, select Vimeo and click Convert Video to Download the video and Save directly to your computer or cellular for Free. Copy the video link, choose OK.RU and click Convert Video to Download the video and Save directly to your pc or cellular for Free. Copy the video link, choose VK and click on Convert Video to Download the video and Save directly to your pc or cellular for Free. Clicking on the three dots will give you the option to Save Video (in your Saved file on Facebook only) or Embed Video (in your website or weblog). Yes, if you wish, you'll be able to spend 24 hours a day on w3toys by downloading photographs and movies from numerous Instagram customers. The online servicew3toysis one of the most simple, reliable and safe instruments on the internet to download Instagram pictures. Go to Insta and find the picture you wish to download. Support to download multiple videos at a time and schedule the batch obtain. We all go through the section the place once we obtain the video both neither of top quality or is damaged and let’s not neglect the wait we now have to do. On Messenger for PC, all you want is to play the video in giant display, on the left corner there's a Download button, click it to grab your Messenger video immediately. Scroll by way of the conversation until you discover the personal video that you simply wish to save. Earlier it was not possible to Download Private Facebook Videos via it. No doubt, it's a very simple and easy method which you should use to do the identical.

If you are an iPhone proprietor and don’t know concerning the Siri shortcut yet, then you might be missing to so much.

Downloader.Tech auto detects videos, you possibly can download them with just one click on.

Open Facebook video in you browser which you need to Download, simply copy video link with (CTRL+C) or (Right Click Copy) from handle Bar.

I was looking for this trick, I confronted a lot of difficulties to download movies from FB, however after reading you’re I publish, I really feel consolation.

DoVideo Online Video Downloader lets you get the most effective video downloading experience.

Yes, it's okay for downloading Instagram photographs or movies unless you are using it for industrial function you need to have to proper permission of the unique owner.

Thinking aboutcreating an internet course?

Click Video beneath the Download button after your taking part in video has been analyzed by DVDFab Video Downloader. Then, on the left aspect, the Downloads button is working. All you must do is just copy URL of video or picture (Image) from instagram then paste it in the above input text field. Once the download is completed, you'll have an indicator saying it is complete. Click the download indicator to open the video you downloaded. After downloading, you possibly can even watch these videos with out an internet connection. So, if you like a video on Facebook, why not obtain it and keep it with you forever, even when it is deleted by the admin of the video. Using the steps mentioned above, you possibly can obtain any video to mp4 format on your device. The format is well readable by nearly every video taking part in utility. Image Source – SaveAs.COSaveAs.COis probably the greatest online video downloader tools which might save all of your Facebook movies with out the necessity to set up any software program. No registration is required, and your device is safe from all kinds of adverts or spams. Let us get to see the way to download video from fb to laptop/ laptop at which we are able to see via offline also. After you select the format you want to save, this tool will start downloading it for you. Freemake is an online video download app that permits you to obtain YouTube videos just by pasting a URL. You can use this tool to save movies, channels, or playlists in HD, MP3, MP4, and so forth. file codecs. Freemake helps you to save multiple videos directly. It lets you get clips, TV exhibits, films, etc. It is feasible to obtain them with our free on-line video obtain tool with no registration. However, your use of our service is solely at your discretio.

How to download my very own FB Videos from Facebook?

Once the selection is finished, you can faucet on the obtain button to begin downloading the Facebook video. If you simply want to download the audio, then you should use this tool to only obtain the audio (mp3) also. And some formats like WMV don't work on all video enjoying software program. You can obtain Facebook videos online just through the use of the URL hyperlink present within the address bar of the webpage that is internet hosting the video. Here, we're providing you greatest web sites that guide you on the way to download Facebook videos online with excessive digital quality.

[frauleinsmaria]

The Facebook Flub (1/3)

Summary: When Emma accidentally sends a friend request to the wrong person, she doesn't expect much to come of it. But maybe this accident is the best decision she's ever made.

Rated: T for now, potentially high T/low M in the future

Also on AO3

A/N: Inspired by a comment I came across on Instagram asking people to share how their long distance relationships began: "I added the wrong guy on Facebook that I met at the bar...the guy I added lived in Germany and I was in Canada. That accident...is now my husband."

A few changes to make it fit Captain Swan, plus a whole lot of support and cheerleading from @wellhellotragic , @profdanglaisstuff , and @thejollyroger-writer later, here we are! Thanks a million, ladies, you’re the best.

Going out was the last thing Emma wanted to do tonight. She had a long week dealing with a tough case at work, the weather reports were calling for snow, and she had a headache- not to mention the fact that she didn’t feel like being hit on by some drunk low life.

“Those are all reasons for you to go out then,” Ruby insisted when Emma relayed all of this to her over the phone. “It’s Friday night. You need to come let loose with your friends and forget about whatever else is on your mind. And you know I’ll gladly fight off anyone who bothers you.” It took similar texts from Elsa, Graham, David, and Mary Margaret for her to finally give in and join them. Which is how she found herself sitting at the bar at one of their favorite burger and beer places downtown.

She was drinking one of her favorite beers, with Graham on her left side flirting with the guy behind the bar, and a stranger on her right who had been talking her ear off about some upcoming movie since he sat down an hour ago. Emma wasn’t all that interested- in both him or whatever this movie is- but she listened anyway. She didn’t have the energy to join the rest of her friends at the dart boards, and at least this guy wasn’t trying to flirt. So when he suggested she add him on Facebook before he left, she’d had enough to drink that she saw little reason to object.

It wasn’t until he was gone when she opened the Facebook app on her phone and realized she wasn’t one hundred percent sure of his name. He’d introduced himself when he first took the seat beside her, but that had been several beers ago, not to mention the loud music in the bar making some of his words hard to hear.

It had been something different that she’d never heard before. Killiam James, maybe? she thought as she typed it into the search bar.

“I should’ve known.” Ruby appeared behind her, holding a glass of whatever she’d picked for her poison tonight. “Don’t tell me you came out just to sit on your phone by yourself.”

“I’m not by myself. Graham’s he-” She turned and saw that the man in question had apparently slipped off with the bartender without her noticing.”Huh. Or maybe not.”

Ruby sighed. “Come on, Emma. You know you wanna watch Mary Margaret kick David’s ass at darts.”

That was a statement she couldn’t argue with. “Hang on. Let me do this first.” But Ruby instead grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the dart boards, causing Emma to hit “add friend” for the first option in her search results without paying much attention to the name or profile picture.

The guy from the bar and the friend request had been forgotten about by the next morning when she woke up with a pounding headache and wondered exactly when she’d started getting old.

The events of that Friday night didn’t cross her mind again until the next weekend. She’d gone to see Captain Marvel with David and Mary Margaret, who were always willing to join her to watch any superhero movie despite both of them losing track of the plot at least half an hour in. It wasn’t the same as getting to experience it with someone as invested as she was, but years of going to the movies by herself when she was younger made Emma grateful for their company regardless.

They arrived at the theater early, battling the lines at the ticket booth and again at the concessions stand for overpriced popcorn and candy. The theater was already filling up after they’d gotten snacks. Emma stepped on quite a few feet to get to the only empty three seats together. Once they were settled, she pulled out her phone and opened the front camera. “Smile, guys!” Mary Margaret got the memo, but David looked like a deer in headlights in their selfie. This was definitely getting posted.

She made a few adjustments to the lighting before posting the photo on Facebook and Instagram. It’s Captain Marvel time!

The lights in the theater dimmed as the first movie trailer began to play on the screen. Emma silenced her phone and dropped it into her purse before grabbing a fistful of popcorn and settling into her seat.

It was over two hours later when the movie had ended and the three of them had arrived back at David and Mary Margaret’s house before she thought to check her phone again. There was a new text from Elsa about the shirt she’d borrowed last week and a handful of social media notifications. She opened Facebook first to see the response to her pre-movie selfie. It was when she started scrolling through the list of various reactions that an unfamiliar name caught her eye. Of course since she’d tagged David and Mary Margaret in the photo, several people who’d liked it weren’t Facebook friends of hers or people she knew. But this one stood out- it belonged to a person she’d never heard of before, and one who was apparently on her friends list.

Killian Jones. She frowned and clicked the link to open his profile page. They had no mutual friends, but sure enough, they were friends with each other. The brief amount of information listed under his personal details told her he lived in London and worked for a company named Ship Shape.

Emma quickly began to question just how she knew this Killian Jones. They hadn’t gone to college together; his profile listed him as an alum of a university in London she’d never heard of. He wasn’t in her line of work, so that wasn’t a possibility.

What if he had been a previous one night stand? No, that definitely wasn’t the case. She rarely got men’s names when those happened, let alone befriended them on social media.

And there was no way she would have forgotten a face like his. His current profile picture was taken from a distance on a beach somewhere, which made his features a bit harder to notice. The handful of previous ones were closer shots though. There were a few that looked like they were taken at some kind of professional event and a selfie with a dog she presumed was his. He was gorgeous, she realized as she quickly flipped through them. Piercing blue eyes, a head of dark hair that successfully toed the line between messy and polished with a five o’clock shadow to match. Yeah, she definitely would have remembered him.

Emma scrolled through a few more photos before she started to feel like she was crossing some sort of line. She had zero ideas on who this Killian Jones even was, and yet there she sat combing through the details of his Facebook profile as if they were close friends.

Contacting him seemed like the most logical thing to do. She opened Messenger, still annoyed that the feature wasn’t included with the regular Facebook app anymore, and typed out a brief message. Hey. Sorry if this seems weird, but I was wondering how you and I knew each other?

Her phone chimed with a response only a few minutes later. Not weird, love. Although I was wondering the same thing considering you’re the one who added me.

She stared at her phone screen and read the message again. There had to be some kind of mix up. Her friends list was on the small side, mostly former classmates and coworkers, and the people she regularly interacted with now. What reason would she have for sending a friend request to Killian Jones all the way in London-

And then it hit her. “Killiam James,” she groaned, remembering the guy from the bar the weekend before. If that was even his name. Emma blamed the combination of beer and loud music for the mix up, which explained why she’d added this guy with such a similar name.

What was she even supposed to say to Killian Jones now? The truth was ridiculous, and she couldn’t think of a lie that sounded even moderately believable.

Honesty won out in the end. “What does it matter? He’s never gonna meet me anyway,” she muttered as she started to reply. So, funny story. I thought I was sending a friend request to a guy with a name that’s really similar to yours and I just now realized my mistake. I’m sorry again because I know how weird this all probably sounds to you.

She hadn’t expected another reply. He’d probably delete her from his friends list after learning the reason behind the mishap and forget all about their brief interaction. What she got instead was a huge surprise. That’s quite alright. I suppose it could have happened to anyone. But, while we’re here, can I ask how the movie was?

Movie? Oh, right. She’d gone to see Captain Marvel tonight. His liking her photo was what started all of this. I liked it a lot. Keep in mind I haven’t read the comics, so I don’t know how accurate anything was. But it’s a great addition to the MCU if you ask me. And the cat was awesome.

I’m glad to hear that. I don’t know much about the comics myself, I just like the films as well. I’ll have to keep my eye out for the cat you speak of when I see it for myself.

This conversation was already a positive changed compared to the ones she usually had about Marvel movies. Most people, men especially, would make fun of her or call her a “fake fan” when she admitted she wasn’t familiar with the comics and didn’t really have plans to change that. Not only was Killian Jones not making fun of her preferences, he actually seemed to share them.

Emma soon found herself discussing everything from Endgame theories to the newest Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer with him. It wasn’t until her eyes grew heavy and she started yawning that she realized it was after midnight. Had this guy really stayed up until five in the morning to talk superheroes with her? Crap. I just realized what time it is. I’m really sorry if I kept you up. You’re probably exhausted.

No worries, Swan- can I call you that? As coincidence would have it, I’m a bit of an insomniac. I likely would still be awake now regardless. Plus, I work for my brother, so he can’t fire me for sleeping on the job unless he wants to lose his kids’ favorite babysitter.

Swan is fine- after all, it is my name. Although I still feel like you may need to apologize to your brother on my behalf.

Truthfully, she didn’t expect to hear from Killian again. Sure, they’d had a long conversation about a shared interest of theirs, but that didn’t mean he had any desire to continue talking to a stranger in the middle of the night. Or at any other time, for that matter.

Which is why Emma was caught off guard when she received another Facebook message from him a few days later. Hello, Swan. I know it’s the middle of the day where you are so you’re probably working, but I just saw Captain Marvel with a friend of mine and I needed someone to discuss the end credits scene with since he’s not nearly invested in this.

Their conversation soon left movies entirely and shifted to their everyday lives. Within the next hour, she learned that he was thirty-one, worked as a marketing executive for the shipping company owned by his brother, was the proud uncle of a nephew and two nieces, and spent most of his free time hiking or reading whatever fantasy novel was next on his to read list. Emma was more hesitant when it came to sharing specifics about herself for several reasons: talking about herself wasn’t exactly something she enjoyed, she barely knew this guy, plus, what if he really wasn’t the person he claimed to be?

If there’s one of us that ought to be suspicious, it’s him, she thought. You added him first; you could be the one Catfishing for all he knows.

Their once sporadic conversations soon became a nightly occurrence, switching from Facebook Messenger to texts once they felt comfortable with sharing numbers. (The short amount of time this took didn’t go unnoticed to Emma. She refused to let herself think too much about it.) Over time, it soon became easier to open up to him about a number of different things. Some days it was her favorite color or flavor of ice cream, others it was conspiracy theories she believed that dealt with people like Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain. Emma rarely brought up her upbringing or personal life, and he never asked.

On nights when Killian’s insomnia was particularly brutal, they watched Netflix together, one of the few pastimes they could share considering the distance between them. They usually chose comedies, preferring shows like The Good Place and Parks and Rec so they wouldn’t miss much of the story if they got caught up in whatever conversation they were having at the same time.

The first phone call happened by accident when they’d been talking about three months. Emma had just got in from work and was debating between Chinese and pizza for dinner when her phone began to vibrate. She froze at seeing Killian’s name on the screen. Why was he calling her? They had never talked outside of Facebook and texts. Phone calls had never even come up once in their conversations.

“H-hello?” she answered after a moment. “Killian?”

“Oi, Jones, is this your girlfriend?” Not Killian then, although another man with an accent who sounded far from sober. She heard some sort of commotion in the background, followed by, “Give me back my bloody phone!”

“Um, hello, Swan.” His voice sounded exactly as she’d imagined. (Not that she’d spent that much time thinking on the subject. Not at all.) The accent was there, of course, but his voice was softer and he sounded considerably more under control than whoever had greeted her. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m fine. Killian, don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you calling me? Where are you?”

“Well, you see, a few of us brought Liam to the pub tonight for his birthday, but I realized I’d forgotten to tell you about it earlier. I know you wanted to start Brooklyn 99 tonight since we finished New Girl. Anyway, I was in the middle of typing out a message to you explaining all of this when Will took my phone and called before I could stop him.” He sighed. Emma had a feeling Will would get an earful as soon as this conversation was over; she heard a lot about him from Killian, mostly complaints. “I’m terribly sorry, love. I’m sure this must be awkward for you.”

“It’s fine, Killian. I appreciate you for telling me, but I know you probably have better things to do on a Friday night than watch Netflix with a stranger in Boston.” Although that was the gist of their relationship from an outside perspective, Emma’s heart sank at her own words. She thought more for this virtual stranger than she did most of the people she saw in person on a regular basis.

“Don’t talk like that, Swan. Besides, it would’ve been bad form to leave you hanging without an explanation.”

She should have known he would be a stickler for manners, even for something as trivial as a regular Netflix binge. “Thanks, Killian. Seriously though, go enjoy your night out. Sing ‘happy birthday’ obnoxiously loud to your brother and maybe don’t let anyone else take your phone. We’ll catch up on Netflix later, alright?”

“Alright, love. Goodnight.”

The next time Killian called, it was intentional. Neither of them thought much of it.

The calls (via WhatsApp to keep from spending a fortune) soon became a semi-regular part of their “routine.” They didn’t happen as often as the texts, however, since it was harder to both talk and vaguely pay attention to whatever show they were watching at any given moment. Talking on the phone often made it easy to forget the difference in time zone and the ocean between them, even when Killian said something particularly British, like “tosser” or “knackered.”

She and Killian had their first shared experience with FaceTime the night before the surprise party she and Mary Margaret have planned for David. Emma had been asked to make cupcakes, something she now regretted agreeing to as she stood in her kitchen dumbfounded by the assortment of ingredients strewn out across the counter.

As if on cue, her phone vibrated.

Killian: How are the cupcakes coming along?

Emma: They’re not.

Do I really have to mix the wet and dry ingredients separately? They all go in the same bowl in the end. And how much batter do I put in the cupcake liners without them blowing up like mushroom tops? I don’t get why I had to pick a recipe that calls for baking soda AND powder too.

Basically, I need to be able to snap my fingers and have a professional chef in my kitchen to take care of this.

Killian: I’m no professional, but if you want to FaceTime, I could possibly help walk you through it.

Of course he could. She’d quickly learned that Killian Jones was one of those people who was unfairly good at most if not all things.

Emma opened the camera app on her phone to get a look at her current appearance. An old Rolling Stones t-shirt that probably should have been thrown out years ago, her-square rimmed glasses, hair thrown up on the top of her head in a messy knot, and no makeup, not to mention the zit on her chin that she hadn’t gotten the chance to get rid of yet. It would have to do. They were friends, and he already knew what she looked like thanks to social media. And she didn’t have time or energy to freshen up before she got the stupid cupcakes taken care of.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered.

Her phone screen was taken up by Killian’s smiling face seconds later. “Hello, Swan.”

“Uh, hi.” Somehow he was even better looking in real time. It wasn’t fair. “You sure you’re up for this?”

“Come now, love. How hard can it be?”

“Consider who you’re dealing with, Killian. I almost cooked an oven mitt last week.” She didn’t add that it had happened due to their intense conversation on nineties one hit wonders and she’d been so distracted she hadn’t paid attention to where she’d placed the mitt after taking pizza out of her oven.

He barked out a laugh. “Something tells me chocolate cupcakes will smell much better. Do you have the recipe up?”

“Yeah. I’m sending it to you.”

Killian, being the good sport that he was, spent the better part of the next two hours going through the recipe step by step with her. Which was much easier said than done.

“You mean to tell me that not only do I have to mix the wet and dry ingredients separately, but I can only mix half of each together at a time?”

“Aye, that’s what the woman recommends.”

Emma had long since forgotten the name of the woman who’d posted the recipe online, but she had quickly become her worst enemy. “I should’ve just told Mary Margaret to make the damn cupcakes herself.”

“I highly doubt she could’ve gotten away with making cupcakes for her husband’s surprise party in their own house,” Killian noted.

How was it that he seemed to know her own family better than she did. “Yeah, well, then I should have bought cupcakes from the store and brought them to the party on one of my plates.” It would have at least saved the trouble of having a kitchen covered in flour, butter, and the other dozen or so ingredients she’d added to the mix.

She had just began pouring batter into one of the slots in her cupcake tin when Killian spoke up. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Swan.”

“Killian, I may have the cooking skills of a dustpan, but I do know that cupcakes have to be baked.”

“Right you are, but what about liners?”

“Come again?”

“You know, the paper things? You’re going to have an awfully difficult time without them.”

Of course. “Shit!” Hurling the mixing bowl at the wall now seemed like a great idea. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about that.”

“Hmm.” She heard the sound of computer keys typing as Killian looked something up. “Do you have parchment paper? Several sites list it as a possible substitute.”

“Wouldn’t that look kind of tacky though?”

“You don’t exactly have a lot of options, love, unless you’re willing to make a trip to the store.”

Emma glanced at the clock above her oven. It was past ten. A handful of stores would be open, but she didn’t have the energy or motivation to change into decent clothes to leave the apartment. “Parchment paper’s fine, I guess. What does it say I’m supposed to do?”

He quickly walked her through the process, which was much simpler than she presumed. After cutting the parchment paper into squares and folding them around a glass that was the same size as the slots in the cupcake pan, the problem was solved. They rewatched one of their favorite episodes of The Good Place while the cupcakes baked. She was so caught up in the show that she wouldn’t have remembered to turn off the oven if Killian hadn’t reminded her.

“So far, so good,” she told him once the pans had been taken out of the oven and placed on her counter. “They smell incredible.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Killian groaned. “The only form of chocolate I have in my flat is unsweetened cocoa powder.”

“Well, that’s just depressing.”

The icing process, while tedious, went over much more smoothly than the baking had.

“Swan, you’ve got chocolate icing all over your cheek now.”

“Maybe so, but I’ve got two dozen nice looking cupcakes. Isn’t that all that matters?”

“I suppose,” he agreed. “Although you’re just giving me something else to make fun of you for.”

He laughed when she stuck her tongue out at him.

She’d gone this far without sampling anything, too concentrated on not botching the cupcakes. But the sound of her stomach growling reminded Emma she’d never eaten dinner. “You think I can justify having a cupcake now if I don’t eat one at the party tomorrow?”

“After all the work you’ve put in, I believe you could justify two.”

“You, Jones, are a bad influence,” she said, taking the nearest cupcake and pulling off the parchment sheet liner.

“A bad influence who reminded you of the importance of cupcake liners.”

“Ugh. I hate it when you’re right.” Emma took a hearty bite of the cupcake and couldn’t hold back the moan that escaped her lips. “Ohmgod.”

Killian was quiet for a moment. Then, “I presume it’s good?”

“It’s not good, it’s fantastic. I never thought I’d say that about something I made.” Another bite elicited the same reaction, her eyes closing as she savored the rich chocolate taste. This caused her to miss Killian blush as his eyes shifted away from the screen.

“Erm, well, I’m very glad to hear that.”

The cupcakes, thankfully, are a hit. Several people at David’s party ask Emma for the recipe, a few eve complimenting the unique choice of liners. Her own brother was skeptical that she’d made them herself.

“I did!” she insisted. “I mean, Killian provided moral support via FaceTime, but all the manual labor was my accomplishment.” Her family and friends have known about her unconventional friendship with Killian for awhile now. Most of them went along with the idea, although a few were skeptical that her virtual friend was really the person he claimed to be.

“You and this guy have gotten pretty close, haven’t you?” David was one of those skeptical people.

She shrugged. “Kind of. I guess we’re as close as friends can get when they’re on opposite sides of the pond and have never met in person.”

“And you’re sure he’s not, what’s the word, fishing with you?”

“The term is catfishing, David. And the answer is no, considering we FaceTimed during the cupcake ordeal and his face matches the one in all of his pictures.”

“If you say so. I just don’t want you to risk getting hurt.” He almost always went into Protective Big Brother mode whenever Emma referenced a guy in any capacity, and this was no exception.

“I appreciate that you care about me, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about considering the circumstances. The chances of the two of us meeting are basically nonexistent.”

A few days later, they were on their third episode of Schitt’s Creek of the night and discussing each other’s uneventful work days when he brought it up. “So, uh, Liam has been talking about sending me away for work sometime soon.”

“That’s cool. Does he want you to go back to the Dublin office again?” Emma remembered that he’d taken a short trip to Ireland for business not long after they’d became friends.

“Actually, no.” He paused. “He’s made a few comments about Boston this time.”

Any interest she had in the episode they’d been watching was long gone. “Oh really?”

“Yeah. Sometime next month, if nothing changes.”

Her next words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I know a semi decent tour guide who lives in that neck of the woods if you have some free time while you’re here. And, y’know, if you’d be up for that.”

“I think that could be arranged.” She couldn’t see Killian, but somehow she knew he was smiling.

Emma didn’t start freaking out until the day before his flight. She was at Elsa’s apartment with Mary Margaret and Ruby, drinking wine and eating Elsa and Anna’s homemade cookies at the kitchen table. She was on her third- okay, maybe it was her fourth- snickerdoodle, only half participating in the conversation when she glanced up and saw the three of them staring at her.

“Do I have something on my face?”

Mary Margaret gave her a knowing look. “Have you been listening to anything we’ve said?”

“Yeah, of course I have.”

“Emma, I just said that Granny was having surgery next month, and your response was, ‘that’s cool,’” Ruby deadpanned.

Her face flushed red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. Just have a lot on my mind I guess.”

“Is something goin- oh!” Elsa exclaimed. “Aren’t you finally meeting that friend of yours from London tomorrow?”

“Yeah. His plane is supposed to come in at two, then I’m meeting him for dinner and a little sightseeing before his meetings start the next day.”

“That’s really all you’ve got planned for him?” Ruby waggled her eyebrows over the rim of her wine glass.

Emma rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Ruby. He’s just my friend.”

“Your very attractive male friend, who you talk either to or about nonstop,” Mary Margaret added.

She shot her an annoyed glance. “I thought family was supposed to be on my side.”

“I am on your side! I want you to be happy, and I’m just saying maybe you should be open to the possibility that Killian could have something to do with that.”

Leave it to her sister-in-law to bring Emma’s love life (or lack thereof) into the conversation. ““Don’t get any ideas, Mary Margaret. I love that you’re an eternal optimist, but everything else aside, he lives over three thousand miles away. I never thought we would actually meet.”

“People do long distance all the time,” Elsa chimed in. “Anna and Kristoff did for several months when he was away doing research about climate change in the North Pole. It wasn’t easy, but they got through it and are happier than ever now.”

She wanted to remind Elsa that her sister and her fiance had been together for over two years before this, but disregarded the thought. “I know you all mean well- even though it seems like Ruby just wants me to get laid- but can we change the subject? Killian is my friend. That’s all there is to it.”

Even as she said the words, Emma wondered for the first time whether that was actually true.

Her intention had been to sleep in the next morning since she’d gone ahead and taken the day off. But, much to her dismay, she was wide awake at seven. By ten she’d gone for a run, showered, eaten breakfast, and cleaned most of her apartment. It was tempting to blame the random burst of energy on wanting to be productive while she had the time to spend at home, but that wasn’t it.

She was excited to see Killian. And the closer that came to happening, it terrified her too.

For starters, what if they didn’t mesh as well in person as they did online or over the phone? It sounded silly just to think about, but maybe actually being in each other’s space for the first time would somehow change how their friendship worked.

The conversation she’d had with her friends the day before wasn’t helping matters either. What they’d said shouldn’t have been getting to her like it was. Every argument she’d made against their insinuations about her and Killian had been true.

Then why have you barely paid attention to other guys since the two of you started getting close? The thought came to her once she’d started walking laps around the apartment just to keep her busy. Dating for her had been a rare occurrence since Neal almost ten years earlier. Walsh was the one exception, and things with him hadn’t gone much better. One nighters happened now and then when she wanted to scratch an itch without having strings attached. But even one of those hadn’t happened in months.

She didn’t even know whether or not Killian had been seeing anyone. Her first assumption was no. He’d never once mentioned dating, and, regardless, he’d spent the majority of his nights over the past handful of months talking to her. His unconventional friendship with her on top of his job and his family didn’t give her the impression he had a lot of time for dating.

Emma glanced at the clock on her phone. It was just after twelve. “Dammit.” Even with traffic, it would be at least another hour and forty-five minutes before she needed to leave unless she just wanted to drive in circles around the airport.

“Screw it,” she said at one-thirty after she’d won her fourth game of solitaire. TSA might give her hell about parking if she had to wait a bit for Killian, but she couldn’t sit around her apartment much longer without losing her mind.

There was a knock on her door just as she was pulling on her jacket and boots. She went to the door and found her brother standing with his arms crossed over his chest. “Hey, David.”

“Oh, good. I was hoping I’d catch you in time.”

“In time for what?” she asked. “I’m about to leave for the airport.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m coming with you.”

He’d known she was going to meet Killian today for over a week and had yet to mention this to her. “What? Why?”

“I don’t want you going alone, Emma. It’s not safe; you’ve never met this guy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? I could understand if I’d met a guy on a dating site or something, but I’ve known Killian for months now, David. I’m pretty confident that I’m not picking up a serial killer.”

The frown on his face hadn’t budged. “Either way, I’d still like to meet him before I leave you alone with him. Gotta let him know what he’s dealing with if he hurts you.”

Emma checked the time on her phone again. “Ugh. Let’s go,” she groaned. “You’re not gonna let this go, and I don’t have time to argue with you about it.”

Any nerves she’d felt before had briefly been alleviated by the desire to strangle David. The drive to the airport was spent with her hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel so she wouldn’t wrap them around his neck instead.

“Are you gonna insist on spending the day with us too?” she asked as she pulled into the airport’s parking lot and looked for the garage for short term parking.

He shrugged. “Not sure yet. Ask me again once I’ve met him and had a chance to evaluate.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?”

“I’m your older brother. That’s my job,” he insisted.

Emma parked in the short term garage connected to the airport. There was no point in trying to wait at the curb since she knew they’d be asked to move. She and Killian had decided to meet at the landside area, so she sat and waited for a text that he’d arrived and tried to ignore David tapping his fingers against the passenger door.

Her phone vibrated a few minutes later. Hello, Swan. Just wanted to let you know I’m waiting for my luggage and then I should be good to go.

Emma swallowed hard as she got out of the car on shaking legs. This was it.

She was too anxious to object when David followed her out of the garage and into the airport; she’d known better than to expect him to wait in the car for them.

When they’d entered the waiting area, Emma quickly scanned the room for a familiar face, coming up short. This was the place where they’d agreed to meet, wasn’t it? He’d sent her the text just minutes ago confirming their plans. What were the chances the nerves had gone to her head and made her mix something up?

She was so lost in thought she failed to hear the footsteps coming up behind her. “Someone in particular you’re looking for, love?”

They’d FaceTimed on several occasions and shared more ridiculous Snapchats than necessary. Emma knew what to expect. And yet, somehow, she’d been all wrong. His eyes were so much brighter and vibrant in person, there was no way to accurately capture that on camera. There was a tinge of red to his hair and scruff she’d never noticed. She liked it. A lot.

“Hello, Swan.” Shit. His already perfect smile was somehow better in person too. It wasn’t fair.

“Killian. Hi.” How could she have talked to him for hours on end over the past few months and be at a loss for words now?

They stood in silence for a moment, each trying to take the other in. Emma wasn’t sure how she was supposed to greet him. Was their friendship advanced enough to permit a casual hug? Or should she stick to a handshake?

David solved that problem for her, stepping between the two of them and extending his hand to Killian. Emma had all but forgotten that he’d come with her.

“So,” he said, using what could only be called his Protective Big Brother voice, “you’re the British guy.”

“Seriously?!” Emma hissed loud enough for only him to hear as Killian accepted the handshake.

“Aye. And you must be David.”

Her brother looked taken aback. He must have been under the impression Killian had no idea he existed. “Uh, yeah. Emma’s mentioned me then?”

“Oh, yes, several times. She tells me you’re quite the Orioles fan.”

Uh oh. This had the potential to be a recipe for disaster. David did not take comments about his notoriously terrible favorite team lightly. If Killian made any patronizing remarks about the Orioles, any chance at getting on her brother’s good side was doomed.

“I’ve caught highlights from a few games online before,” Killian continued. “Always admired Ripken.”

Emma let out an audible sigh of relief. Killian may very well have been lying through his teeth to appease David, but at least he’d avoided making a bad first impression. “Yes, well,” she butted in, “David’s just here for the ride. We’re dropping him off back at his apartment on our way.” She shot her brother a look that told him not to argue.

The first few minutes in the car were filled with awkward silence as Killian fidgeted in his seat, clearly used to a steering wheel in front of him on the right side, while she tried to ignore David’s presence in the back.

“How was your flight?” she asked after a moment as they headed in the direction of David and Mary Margaret’s building.

“All right. Bit of turbulence, but nothing terrible. The airplane food, on the other hand.” Emma saw him cringe out of the corner of her eye and tried not to laugh. “I’ll be more than happy to see what restaurants you have to recommend in the city.”

“Anything particular you’re up for? Most places aren’t gonna be busy at this time of day. And no, he’s not coming,” she added, glaring at David in the rearview mirror before he had a chance to chime in.

Killian pursed his lips. “Eh, would you judge me if I said I just wanted a good, American cheeseburger?”

She laughed. “That was the last thing I expected. But no judgment here, Tony Stark.”

“I’m perfectly fine with that comparison.” He grinned. “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist…”

“I’m sorry, playboy?” David questioned. Someone didn’t know his movie references.

They arrived in front of David’s building minutes later. “Okay, here we are, you’re welcome for the ride home, talk to you later, bye.” Emma must have gotten her point across since he got out of the car with no objection other than a shake of his head.

“I’m really sorry about that.” She glanced at Killian apologetically as she pulled back out into traffic. “I didn’t know he was going to show up and insist on coming with me, or I would have warned you.”

“It’s quite alright, Swan. He was just looking out for you. If I’m being truthful, not wanting you to be alone when you met someone you’d come across online isn’t an unreasonable request.”

“I totally get that to a certain extent, but I know you well enough to trust that you’re not, like, a serial killer. Unless you have something you wanna tell me.”

He barked out a laugh. “Rest assured, love, I have no blood on my hands. At least, none but my brother’s when we were lads.”

“Let me guess, it was always Liam who started it?”

“Sure. We’ll go with that.”

Traffic was light at that point in the afternoon, the two of them arriving at Emma’s chosen destination sooner than she was expecting. “This place might not look like much,” she told him as she pulled into a parking spot in front of Granny’s, “but she’s got the best burgers and fries, excuse me, chips, in town as far as I’m concerned.”

“And grilled cheese and onion rings as well, I presume?”

“You’re a smart man, Killian.”

The diner was fairly empty as well, just an older couple drinking milkshakes at the bar and a group of college students crowded around a table with a stack of textbooks.

“Is there anywhere in particular you’d like to sit?” she asked Killian.

“No. It’s your pick.”

They took a booth near the back of the diner. Emma handed him one of the plastic menus and flipped through one herself, even though her order had been virtually the same over the years. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt her to branch out a little more with her choices, even if it was just getting a burger or chicken club instead of a grilled cheese for once.

A waitress came to take their orders after a few minutes. Killian requested the cheeseburger he’d wanted with fries, the American term sounding foreign on his lips. She ordered the same.

“No grilled cheese and onion rings? Are we sure this is the real Emma Swan?” Killian asked, feigning concern.

She shrugged. “I’m trying to live a little. And for someone like me, that’s apparently as simple as ordering a burger. Or maybe you’re just a bad influence,” she teased.

“Oi! I wasn’t a bad influence when I helped you make cupcakes in your time of need.”

“Yeah, yeah, technicalities.”

There was a long pause as Emma tried to figure out what to say next. She wondered if Killian was having similar thoughts. This was an easier problem to remedy when they were texting or talking on the phone and she could turn the conversation to whatever show they were on at the time. Even still, there wasn’t the added component of having him across from her to sense any awkward tension between them.

Killian broke the ice. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Swan, have you ever seen One Day At a Time? Been seeing a lot about it online lately.”

“I haven’t actually.” She should have remembered most of their best conversations began with shows. “You know how I feel about good sitcoms though.”

“Aye. Perhaps we’ll add it to our unofficial to watch list?”

“I like the way you think, Jones.”

They talked for awhile about the season of Schitt’s Creek they were working on until the waitress brought their food a few minutes later. The conversation had somehow turned to which of Moira’s wigs would look best on him. It was hard not to laugh as Killian nearly swallowed his beloved cheeseburger whole.

“Don’t judge me,” he said through a mouthful of fries when he noticed Emma snickering. “I was bloody starving.”

“Clearly.” She dipped one of her own fries in the generous pile of ranch dressing on the side of her plate. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have so easily done away with all that English charm us Americans aren’t civilized enough to have.”

“What do you mean ‘done away with’? I’ll have you know I’m always charming, love.”

“Says the man who has ketchup on his chin.”

Killian’s face reddened as he grabbed a napkin and wiped off said ketchup. It was barely enough to be noticeable, but she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to tease him a bit.

As they ate, the conversation shifted from shows to Killian’s work and what he’d be doing in Boston over the next few days. She didn’t know much about his job, other than that he worked for Liam and their company provided parts and equipment for ships. While the company’s primary clientele was located in the London area near their home office, they were looking to expand to other areas as well, hence the meetings Killian had flown over to attend.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why were you the one to make the trip instead of Liam?” she asked. “I don’t really know how a lot of business procedures work, but it seems like he would be the one to handle stuff like that considering he’s over everyone else.”

“Aye, you would think so. But the truth of the matter is, Liam’s tied up with so much within our office. Not to mention he doesn’t like making trips now since he’s got Belle and the kids. From both of those angles, it makes more sense for me to handle as much of the international business as I’m qualified for since I truly have nothing tying me down in London nowadays.”

Emma hated the way her heart skipped a beat at his words. If he had nothing tying him down at home, did that also mean there was no girlfriend there too?

(Could she ask him something like that without him seeing right through her?)

“That’s, uh, great,” she told him, trying to get back to the point of the conversation. “That you’re able to travel for him. I’m sure you get a lot of cool opportunities and stuff.”

“Opportunities like getting to eat an American cheeseburger while I have a face to face conversation about sitcoms?”

“Exactly.”

Killian asked a handful of questions about her job, how she liked her boss and coworkers, if she’d dealt with any major cases lately.

“Not really. It’s mostly the usuals, cheating husbands and deadbeat parents.”

He frowned. “Pity situations like those occur enough to be ‘usuals.’”

“It’s enough to make me want to throw in the towel sometimes if I’m being honest. These people are lucky enough to have a family in the first place, and they just throw it to the side like it means nothing to them.”

Emma didn’t realized what she’d said until it was too late. While she’d become comfortable enough with Killian to share certain details about her personal life over the past few months, her upbringing in foster care was the one subject she’d avoided. She’d heard stories of his and Liam’s upbringing by their single mother, who died when Killian was in college. The only family she’d ever mentioned to him was David, and he didn’t even know they weren’t actually siblings.

But that wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have at Granny’s in the middle of the afternoon. She wasn’t sure how much time he had free to spend with her, or when she would see him again. If you even will, she thought.

Sensing her discomfort, Killian reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. “Is everything alright, love?”

The feeling of his hand in her own stopped Emma’s train of thought. She almost hated how comforting it was. “Yeah, it’s nothing.” She gave what she hoped looked like a genuine smile. There was no need to waste her time with him focusing on bad memories. “What do you say we pay the bill and go do some sight seeing? Boston isn’t New York or LA, but it can be fun. I think so anyway.”

“Sounds like a plan, love.”

They bickered at the cash register over who was going to pay. Killian wanted to be a gentleman, Emma wanted him to feel like her guest in some way. She somehow won. “You can buy me a bear claw at my favorite bakery later if you really want to,” she told him as she swiped her debit card through the reader and he stood to the side pouting.

She and Killian were heading for the door when a familiar face entered the diner. The sight of Ruby made Emma consider grabbing Killian and hiding him.

“Emma!” Her friends’ eyes lit up when she spotted them, red lips breaking out into a grin.

“Hey, Rubes. I didn’t think you were working today.” She would have taken Killian to eat somewhere else otherwise. Emma loved her friend, but something told her Ruby would have less of a filter than usual around him.

“I wasn’t, but Ashley had a doctors’ appointment and asked me to cover her shift.” She glanced around Emma to get a look at Killian. “Oh, is this the English guy? You didn’t tell me he was hot.”

The urge to crawl under the nearest table was tempting. “Uh, yeah,” she said, her face reddening, even more so when she realized it sounded like she was agreeing with Ruby’s comment. She turned to Killian. “This is my friend, Ruby. Granny’s is, well, her grandmother’s.”

Ruby held her hand out to him. “It’s so nice to  put a face with the name. Emma talks about you all the time.”

Emma shot her a death stare as Killian accepted the handshake and brought her hand to his lips. “It’s a pleasure, love. I’ve heard quite a bit about you as well.”

“Such a charmer.” Ruby’s grin widened. “I love it.”

“Yeah, well, we were just leaving, and I know you have to get to work.” She grabbed Killian’s hand and pulled him out the door before Ruby had another chance to embarrass her. “Bye!”

Emma groaned as soon as the door to Granny’s had shut behind her. “I’m sorry about that. She means well, but she tends to come off a bit strong.”

“No worries, Swan. I can’t say I have many objections with a woman who so freely acknowledges my good looks.” He smirked, and she couldn’t help but think how much she wanted to kiss the smile off of his face.

Which she wasn’t going to do. Because that would be ridiculous. “Yeah, I’m never gonna let her live that down.”

She moved her car to a free public lot and spent the next hour with Killian, walking around downtown Boston to show him some of her favorite spots in the area. She pointed out the precinct where she often dropped off bail jumpers, the library, her favorite coffee shop, and the bakery that made the best bear claws in town.

“You can definitely return the favor from lunch now,” Emma told him when they entered the shop and she caught a whiff of something that smelled like butter and cinnamon.

“Whatever the lady wishes.”

“The lady definitely wishes for a bear claw. Or five.”

In the end she requested one, although Killian told the attendant to add another to her bag. “In case you’d like one for the weekend and don’t feel like making the trip.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll let it go uneaten for that long.”

They sat at a bench outside the bakery since the weather was nice. Mid September in Boston was often ideal since it was still warm without being unbearably hot. Emma took one of her bear claws out of the paper bag and bit into it, letting the warm dough melt in her mouth. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she told Killian, who had started eating his blueberry scone.

“I’ll take your word for it, Swan. You know I’m not fond of raisins.”

“Whatever.” She feigned disappointment. “More for me.”

It occurred to Emma that she had yet to ask another important question. She had no idea how long he would be in Boston, and if she would get to see him again after today. Killian had mentioned in previous conversations that he had a handful of meetings over the following two days, but nothing about what his schedule looked like or when he would be flying back.

Killian picked up on her unspoken apprehension. “What’s going on in that head of yours, love?”

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Hadn’t she decided she wasn’t going to waste time worrying while he was there? “It’s nothing,” she insisted again. Killian’s expression suggested he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t press the issue.

“Did I tell you my nephew is into Peppa Pig now?” she asked, knowing he might like this change of subject. “He’s, like, fascinated with the British accents and tries to talk like the characters all the time now. It’s hilarious.”

His eyes lit up. “Is that so? I like this lad already. Although I do prefer Percy Pigs myself. It’s a type of candy,” he explained when her eyebrows shot up. A quick Google search provided a photo of what he was referring to, which was, as suggested, a gummy in the shape of a pig’s head.

It was weird, if she was being frankly honest, but Leo would love them. “Kid’s definitely getting an order of these for his next birthday.”

Emma finished her bear claw and wiped her mouth with a napkin from the bakery. But she must have not done an adequate job. Killian leaned over. “You missed a spot, love,” he said, brushing his thumb at the corner of her mouth. Any reply she had was forgotten with the gesture as she became hyper focused on the brief but startling feeling of his touch.

“Uh, thanks.” The words came out raspy and uneven.

Her reaction seemed to make Killian realize what he’d done. “Apologies, Swan. I wasn’t thinking.”

She couldn’t stop herself from blurting out the question that followed. “What are we doing here, Killian?”

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, early February 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent ecommerce news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & Etsy! This covers articles I came across since the late January report, although some may be older than that. Report is a bit short because I was sick this last week; don’t worry, I used hand sanitizer before typing this up, so you are all safe 🤒

I am currently looking into setting up a new ecommerce business forum where we can discuss this sort of news, as well as any day-to-day issues we face. I need some good suggestions for a cheap or free forum space that has some editing tools, is fairly intuitive for inexperienced members, and is accessible. If you have any suggestions, please reply to this post, email me on my website, or send me a tweet. (I will put out a survey once we narrow this down to some good candidates, but if you have any other comments on what you want from such a forum, please include those too!)

As always, if you see any stories I might be interested in, please let me know!

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Searchmetrics says Etsy did quite well [podcast & text] in the Google January Core Update, while both Amazon and Walmart lost a little bit. “Who won January? I’m going to say Etsy. Etsy has really done a tremendous job [with Google visibility] over the last two years. Sure, they’ve been on the winning side of the algorithm update, but consistently, being in that a position, from my experience, isn’t by chance.” Here’s more analysis listing the US winners and losers, including by subject category (sadly, not shopping sites). Marie Haynes says that the update likely targeted sites that aren’t properly disclosing affiliate links, as well as some pet health sites. 

Since a quarter of Americans have a disability, your website, your products & your marketing should be more accessible. Lots of good ideas in here! 

ETSY NEWS 

TOU alert: Etsy has banned the sale of spent bullet casings (often used as craft supplies). It’s not clear why. There is a thread from a seller whose listings were pulled here.

The 2020 wedding trends blog post is one of those pieces that is useful to sellers & buyers alike, and is also good for Etsy because it attracts outside articles and links. Some trend & keyword info of interest: ”there has been a 171% increase in searches on Etsy for bridesman items and a 72% increase in searches for best woman items”... “searches for ‘70s invitations increase 18% and searches for disco ball items increase 18%” ...”24% increase in searches for bridal jackets and a 4% increase in searches for women’s pantsuits” …”searches for reused, recycled, or reclaimed wedding items increasing 7%” in the last six months (compared to the same time the previous year).

Etsy released its annual diversity & inclusion report on January 29, getting some media coverage along the way, for example here, here and here.

Reverb hired David Mandelbrot as their new CEO; he most recently ran Indiegogo. (Etsy bought Reverb last year.)

The 4th quarter 2019 results will be out Feb. 26. I am currently planning on doing my usual summary thread in the forum. 

Decent overview of product photography for beginners, with some pointers on what Etsy wants you to do with photos. For example, “The recommended size for listing images is 2000px for the shortest side of the image, and a resolution of 72PPI.”

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

So you know what Etsy tags are, but you get confused when people talk about tags for search engines? Read this beginners guide to SEO meta tags. (not needed for Etsy shops, but it is terminology used by some website builder sites, as well as coders of course.)

Data provider Jumpshot will be closing due to the controversies over the revelation that their parent company Avast (the anti-virus software) provided user activity to Jumpshot while perhaps not always fully disclosing this to the users. This will affect some SEO tools that relied on these click stats to generate estimates for traffic & search term use, Hitwise & Moz among them.  “In all likelihood, Avast took the action to protect its core business, as multiple articles, including from Consumer Reports, called out the company for its data collection practices, while some called for the uninstallation of the Avast software. This is probably as much PR damage control as it is driven by any principled position.”

Forbes appears to have been hit by some Google search issue, but it happened later than the Core Update, so no one is sure what is going on.They were previously penalized for selling links, but that was years ago.   

John Mueller listed all of the big Google search news from January in this almost 9 minute video. Click to see the detailed info under the video, because they helpfully summarized the important topics by timestamp, and linked to text resources as well. (Some of it is technical/coding relating; you have been warned!)

There may be another big Google ranking update happening right now (Feb. 9), as tracked by Search Engine Roundtable. Check that site over the next few days for any updates. 

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

The time you send your marketing emails matters, although it’s going to vary more than this article lets on. Keep track of your own stats. 

Debunking some myths about Instagram, including the importance of your follower count. “...your follower count isn’t the most important metric on Instagram. Your engagement rate is. Your engagement rate (which is found by calculating the number of engagements you receive divided by EITHER the number of people who saw it OR your total followers, depending on who you ask) is crucial.”

If you use the app Social Captain for Instagram, be aware that your Instagram password was publicly available in the source code. 

Facebook’s algorithm has a lot of different factors controlling who sees your posts, including actually having conversations with others, and including “quality, original videos.”

Facebook’s revenue was up 25% in the 4th quarter of 2019, to $21.1 billion, but they expect the privacy controversies to cut into growth this year.

Pinterest is testing an augmented reality tool called “Try On” that allows users to see what they will look like with specific lipstick colours. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

Google Shopping Ads will soon be shown in Gmail accounts, YouTube and the Discover feed, starting March 4th. Note that “Retailers have been steadily shifty more of their search budgets from text to Shopping ads.”

A comparison of Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads, with plenty of tips. According to them, if you are seriously considering one, you should probably do both. “When we talk about Facebook, we’re also talking about Instagram, What’sApp, and Facebook Messenger. Google also includes YouTube, the second-most trafficked site in the world (behind Google itself).”

Google’s revenue was up 17% in the 4th quarter in 2019, almost all of it from advertising. YouTube makes more on ads than Amazon does. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

eBay released its 4th quarter results for 2019 on January 28, with revenue down 2% and gross merchandise value down 5%. Amazon’s sales were up 21% for the 4th quarter. 

BigCommerce now allows customers to check out in over 100 currencies, integrated with several different payment processors. 

Wondering what a good conversion rate would be for different ecommerce pages? Here’s a brief overview of the known stats, with some tips on improving.. (Note that any action can be counted as a conversion, including signing up for an email list, so this isn’t just about purchases.)

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Are you marketing to Generation Z, or think you should be? Here are 52 facts (with the citations); some highlights: Gen Z has more members than millennials do, and “As of 2020, Gen Z makes up more than 40% of U.S. consumers.” and finally “When shopping online or in stores, 65% of Gen Z prefers to see as few items as possible out of stock” (that last one explains a feedback I received, I think LOL Kind of hard on Etsy when you might have a listing with multiple choices & you only have the one left.)

A study of Cyber Week email open & click rates shows that it might be better not to mention the holidays or discounts. 

This article warns consumers of the tricks ecommerce sites use to nudge people to buy more, including some clear examples of deception. “A study by Princeton University and the University of Chicago singled out online clothing seller Fashion Nova, which tells customers that items in their cart “are in high demand.” The problem? The message appears for any item that’s added to the cart. Fashion Nova’s cart also tells shoppers that their items are being “reserved” for 10 minutes. But nothing happens to the items after the 10 minutes are up.”

MISCELLANEOUS 

YouTube wants Clearview AI’s face recognition program to stop scraping its videos for content, and to delete anything it has already collected. (Twitter did the same last month.)

[girlaboutcampus]

How I optimised my social media for my mental health

cw: this blog post contains references to food, fitness and dieting culture. 

A few years ago I was working for a chain bookstore over the festive period, mostly on the tills serving customers and occasionally dealing with enquiries and shelving. There was blissfully minimal phone answering too. Bookshops tend to stay pretty busy after Christmas with sales, folks coming in to buy something to read in their remaining time off and to buy dieting books. When I clocked in to take my shift on Boxing Day, there had already been a table of dieting and fitness bibles set up, all on two-for-one deals. Whilst I’m sure this table was set up on corporate instruction, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Bookshops are by no means safe spaces- they’re a place you should go to look for material that challenges and stretches your beliefs, as well as things to help you relax.  However, I don’t think they’re a place you go to be judged for your lifestyle, especially if you’re just on the way up to grab a muffin and latte with friends in the cafe. In many ways, this is the experience of being on social media in microcosm.

This summer, I had a bit of a meltdown, which I’ve talked about a little before. Without university to occupy me, I became obsessed with going to the gym. When I didn’t see results as quickly as I had in the past, I started to hyperfocus on my appearance and weight. It quickly became clear that I’d got myself into a dark place, so I started going to see one of the counsellors at my university (which is an enormous privilege you should make the most of if you also have access to it). It became clear to me, in talking to my counsellor, that a lot of my problem was down to the space I had curated for myself on social media. The fitness board I maintained on Pinterest meant that the algorithm was constantly generating unattainable bodies, diet foods and problematic motivational statements. From following some of my younger brother’s school friends on Instagram, I began to feel bad about not having the body shape of a teenager anymore. I decided to clear a whole day to go through all my social media and make it as much of a hospitable space for my mental health as possible. I should be clear at this point that this might not necessarily work for you, though I found it to be incredibly helpful. I’m sharing in the hope that it might make a little difference for someone else. I’ll start with the easier social networks and work my way up to the big guns. 

Facebook

This one might be more difficult for you depending on how much use you get out of Facebook. Personally, I use it mostly for keeping up with events, messaging friends and updating family members. One thing you can do if you only use it for the latter two is delete the Facebook app and just keep Messenger, that way you have to be on an actual computer to check facebook. If you don’t want to delete the app, then start to take advantage of the mute button. You can go through the hassle of sitting going through your whole friend list, removing people you no longer talk to, see, or are interested in keeping up with (you can let go of some people from school at this point, face it). However, I find that the experience of unfriending people can actually make me feel more anxious. 

The best thing I do- and this one isn’t something you can necessarily do in one day- is mute or unfriend as I scroll down my feed. If someone I once met in a job I had four years ago starts posting offensive and ill-informed political memes to my feed, that’s their time to go. If a friend’s mum posts a lot of things about her New Year’s diet, she’s going to get muted for the time being. If a friend posts a photo of her super cute baby, that’s getting a big heart react- give me more of that good shit. A big part of all of this stuff is trying to train your algorithm to show you the stuff you want, even if it fights back. 

Twitter

First huge bit of advice- block all the bigoted reactionaries. That’s your Piers Morgans, Katie Hopkinses, Julia Hartley-Brewerses and that girl who worships guns. This isn’t me openly advocating shutting yourself out of political discourse, or creating some kind of political echo chamber for yourself.  It’s just starving people who thrive on outrage of the attention they crave. I don’t care if you have a witty rebuttal. They don’t deserve your attention, views or clicks. Try to find professional journalists, politicians, and pundits whose expertise you can trust and who conduct themselves ethically and responsibly, rather than trying to just get clicks for their work. Also, read whole articles and think pieces rather than just the headlines. Headlines are often written to stir up outrage over something that just isn’t outrageous.

 Find tweeters who make you laugh, make good art and whose voices you’d like to amplify. 

Instagram (and Tumblr) 

Now we’re getting into the heavy lifters. It seems to me that the more image-dense the platform, the worse it can be for your mental health, especially if your mental health is tied up in your body image. Instagram and Tumblr might be the platforms to be most cutthroat with. What you decide to do with this one is really deeply personal, but I would suggest going with your gut and unfollowing and muting anything that makes you feel less than, no matter how nice the person running it seems. My first call was to unfollow more or less everyone who’s ever breathed in the general vicinity of a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. A lot of these models seem to be lovely women, but their lifestyles and bodies are the definitions of unattainable. The one exception I make to this rule is Chrissy Teigen because her content is all about earnestly enjoying food, family and travel. Plus, she doesn’t take herself too seriously. Instagram also has a useful feature that allows you to mute stories, posts or both at your own discretion. That way if there’s someone you follow who posts great travel photos but is always talking about weight loss in their stories, you can filter out that content and keep what you like. I found that, personally, having fewer bodies in my line of sight is for the best. I like to maximise the presence of delicious food, cute animals and uplifting messages I follow. Here are some favourites:

Nigella Lawson

Shila and Eddie the Pomeranians

withlovelinh

Hannah Witton

Demi Adejuyigbe

Pinterest

This is the daddy of all the image-based platforms. Whilst probably the least popular of all the platforms listed here, it probably has the most potential to do harm. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinterest. It is one of the most easily spaces online and the fact that it is image focused means that there is very little text involved, so it’s an ocean of calm compared to a platform like Twitter. However, it also has what might possibly be the most reactive algorithm of any platform. This is broadly a helpful tool, allowing you to locate the exact material you’re looking for, but it can really double down on any harmful material you put into it. It’s the internet’s worst enabler. In this sense, spring cleaning it is work. I got rid of my fitspo board and replaced it with one more focused on self-care. This didn’t mean getting rid of all my fitness-focused stuff- I still pin specific exercise routines- but I don’t pin #bodygoals stuff now.  A very important part of changing this is being conscientious of what I am choosing to repin. Specifically, I have to ask myself 

“Do I really like this hair/ makeup/ clothing, or do I just want to look like the model?”

If the answer is no, I will ask Pinterest to remove it from my feed. Pinterest also has a zero-tolerance policy for content that encourages eating disorders and self-harm so you can report anything like that. Whilst Pinterest will continue to show you things after you have deleted the boards you can, over time, train it to show you more of the things you want to see. I’ve finally got it to a point where I’m seeing things that make me feel bad far less frequently. 

All of this is work and requires a conscious effort from yourself to remove things that are harmful before they get to you. This system isn’t perfect and you will continue to see garbage some of the time. It is still possible to optimise what you’re seeing in order to feel less anxious and down on yourself. Do keep in mind, that it’s just a small part of your life and that if you are genuinely concerned about your mental health to talk to a professional if that is something you are able to access. Also, this isn’t an alternative to minimising your screentime, which we should probably all try to do a little more. 

Happy new year! 

More like this 

You are doing enough. 

Did I Keep my 2018 Resolutions?

[group-triple-a]

Media and Information Literacy (19)

My favorite form of media is watching Youtube videos or scrolling through Instagram. Both of these are may current events, news, and leisure media. I would spend around five to eight hours approximately on Youtube and around three hours on Instagram approximately every day.

 Cable TV, radio, social media, newspaper and internet articles are the kind of media that I still personally use although I use social media the most. I think social media is the most powerful kind of media in this day of age. This is because every generation will use social media more than cable TV or newspapers. This benefit lets social media platform grow more and more and eventually cable TV and newspaper will be a dying media. Social media platforms also have the benefits of being ‘free’ compare to cable and newspapers. Social media being ‘free’ is the reason why so many people have access and added that phones and networking are becoming more and more accessible. Media has an impact on our lives because it dictates what our opinions on public matters and current events.

 The advantages of social media are it is very accessible and quick. We can just search in Google Chrome if we wanted to look up something rather than going to library and instead of waiting for the next day newspaper and even relying on them on what they will publish on it, social media would most likely already have posted it. We can also express ourselves in social media unlike in newspapers or tv where the producers could cut or manipulate our words.

 Of course, there are disadvantages too. The first disadvantage I would like to discuss are fake news. Fakes news is very prevalent in social media platforms and we need to be wise on what we consume and be more questioning the news we consume in social media. This is not really a problem in newspapers as we most likely trust the authors writing articles for newspaper companies. The second disadvantage is cyber bullying. Because social media is so accessible to everyone, cyber bullying is also very prevalent as making a social media account for bullying does not really have any consequence as you can be anonymous in the web. The third disadvantage of media I would like to discuss is privacy breaching. I said social media is ‘free’ with quotation marks is because they are not really free. Nothing in this world is free and everything comes with a price. The price for social media is your information and privacy. Not a lot of people who uses social media understand this because they are not very cautious of it. An example of this privacy breaching is when people use Facebook Messenger. Facebook keeps a record of all of your chat text and contents and even when you have requested a full deletion of your account, they are required to save everything of the contents of your accounts for at least five years according to law and even then, they can still keep it without us knowing. They also sometimes have data breaches that they would not inform the users of the platform even after months. They will only acknowledge this if they have been exposed.

 The media in the Philippines is quite old and there are still people who uses cable TV and radios as compare to the U.S. This is because the U.S. population’s income is higher compare to ours therefore, they can afford the gadgets for social media. Speaking of social media, here in the Philippines we use Facebook more relative to the U.S. whose citizens use Instagram and Twitter more. This is because the population of the Philippines is more leaned through Facebook as everyone here has a Facebook account. Facebook also started to offer streaming services that just strengthens their grip in the country. Compare to the U.S., Twitter is more popular as the younger generation uses Twitter more than Facebook. Twitch is also very popular in the states thus, they don’t really have a reason to use Facebook.

  Based on what I learned in class, in my opinion media and information literacy is necessary as we need to learn how to conduct ourselves in the web. We need to also learn what is fake and what is real. We should treat using the web as how we would conduct ourselves in real life as if we are talking to that person face to face. For my expectation in class, I would like to learn how to distinguish what is fake compare to real news and how to handle ourselves when in an argument in the internet. I would like to learn these things as I see it as having ‘manners’ when using the web.

[astelspirals]

Cheaper Alternative to ActiveCampaign

In today’s fast paced age of constantly changing technology, running a business or getting yourself out there for potential customers, followers or subscribers takes a lot more than just talking to friends and family. We connect online now more than ever, from Facebook and Instagram to Twitter and YouTube, but just how much do we really connect beyond the surface? At first, we may have a much closer relationship with our first subscribers or followers or the first regular customers to help support our goals and business, but after a while when the numbers build up it can become exponentially more difficult to keep track of things. It’s not hard to send a small greeting, notification, or maybe an update every once in a while to the people that have helped grow your business on Facebook when there’s only a few people that you have on your mailing list, but eventually that gets to be work in and of itself when the numbers reach a certain point. Having to send messages to everyone to keep them updated or to even just make them feel like valued customers can become too much when it’s something you’re not getting paid directly to do, but that’s where having an ESP (Email Service Provider) comes in. This type of communication autoresponder is the solution that will keep you connected to your audience and more.

As the market matures, so too does the necessity for multi-channel marketing—such as Facebook Messenger, SMS text notifications, and  Web Push Notifications; in addition to the more traditional email engagement. This could be more accurately dubbed an Engagement Service Provider or simply a Cross-Channel or Omnichannel Autoresponder.

What exactly is an ESP or Autoresponder?

These services vary in what they can do and how they work, but for the most part, they help with streamline processes while also helping companies keep connected with their customers. A good example of a popular ESP is ActiveCampaign, an email autoresponder that focuses on sending emails to leads and gauging their interest based on how responsive they are or how far along they get in a form Along with that, they have reports, support, an automation builder and even an email builder. With various plans that offer more features, it’s a powerful tool that I personally loved when trying it for myself, but its price can become a bit much. Starting off with only 500 contacts for $129 a month, it didn’t feel all that worth it as the numbers grew and the price of ActiveCampaign grew with it. This is especially true for those with cheap products where the business relies more on a higher number of customers, as compared to businesses with more expensive products that are more targeted to specific customers in a lower number. In the end what I needed was something more geared towards that which could do the things ActiveCampaign did at a lower price. After learning more about what ESPs were and finding the time to do further research on them, I discovered a few alternatives that could help others who have also been in the same boat as me.

How much does ActiveCampaign Cost?

There is no free version with ActiveCampaign so you’ll have to jump right in on one of their paid plans.

The general consensus across the internet is that the cost for ActiveCampaign is extremely high and only becomes more expensive as you scale your business and your list.

They do offer some lower plans which honestly shouldn’t even exist in my opinion because they are so bare bones that they are pretty much useless. For anyone really needing an autoresponder you’ll have to shell out at least $159/month to have all the features you’d expect to have from an ESP.

And so continued my search for the best Email Autoresponder…. In my journey to find an alternative to ActiveCampaign, I found many ESPs such as… Mailchimp which is quite popular but falls short on the best features. ConstantContact which has great integration with tons of platforms and was built for small businesses. SendLane which promises multiple channel communication but has poor email deliverability GetResponse which used to be pretty good but has gotten worse and worse at hitting the inbox lately. Still though, I felt they were all just a bit lacking in comparison to ActiveCampaign or were just not right for me… that is, until I came across SmartEngage. Now, I can’t say what’s perfect for everyone since we all have different needs for our own businesses and goals, but I can’t imagine who SmartEngage wouldn’t be for.

Just take a look at this screenshot I grabbed from one of their customers posting honest feedback to their Facebook group:

When it comes to the things that I felt mattered most for my business, SmartEngage is a clear winner and that’s what I want to talk about. Not only is it a lower price for more features, SmartEngage allows you to try it risk free just to let you get an idea of what it can do. From its hybrid lead magnets to its amazing email deliverability, SmartEngage has all the main features that make ActiveCampaign great and much more, but for a much better deal. Even when it comes to SMS text messaging, SmartEngage actually includes more free SMS sends per month than ActiveCampaign. To give a list though, here are just some of the main features of SmartEngage: – Website Visitor Tracking – Web Notifications – WYSIWYG Email Editor – Visual Notifications – Subscribe/Unsubscribe – Facebook Messenger – Social Marketing – Segmentation – Sales Intelligence – Reporting/Analytics – Notification Scheduling – Mobile Optimized Emails – Mobile Notifications – Mass Email Delivery – Marketing Automation – Landing Pages/Web Forms – Geo Targeting – File Sharing – Expiry Notifications – Dynamic Content – Drip Campaigns – Device Targeting – Customizable Fields – Customizable CTAs – Customer Surveys – Contextual Targeting – Email Templates – Analytics/ROI Tracking – Analytics As you can see, SmartEngage offers a pretty wide variety of features that will be more than useful for just about anyone trying to grow anything that needs more people and can benefit from their engagement. If you’re still not convinced, here is an example of just one of the many great things other users of SmartEngage have had to say about it after finding success with it:

Who is SmartEngage for?

Video Marketers and local business owners, digital agencies and influencers, e-commerce store owners or website owners in general, it doesn’t matter what you do. SmartEngage is powerful enough to help you grow in any of those things and more like never before. Website owners will love using Hybrid Lead Magnets to easily collect subscribers while having the Facebook Chat Assistant to send unlimited messages to their list. For e-commerce stores, you can make follow ups for abandoned carts by Email, Facebook Messenger or even web push notifications. Influencers can link the SmartEngage Chatbot in their profile and collect Emails to interact with their followers and fans in ways that would have been impossible before. Digital Agencies can charge clients monthly payments and make use of SmartEngage’s Facebook Chatbot Marketing with Email Marketing, Facebook Messenger ads, website chat assistant and much more. Local businesses can use marketing automation to acquire more leads with autopilot engagement and grow their business exponentially. With Facebook Messenger Conversations and cutting edge Lead Magnets, video marketers can send all their video traffic straight into their opt-ins with ease. With so many uses, SmartEngage is the only auto responder and ESP you’ll ever need to use. Not only does it have tons of features, it can support integration with WooCommerce, WordPress, Magento, OptimizePress, Stripe, Click Funnels, Shopify, PayPal, Convertri, Unbounce, WarriorPlus, Zapier, JVZoo.com and Salesforce to name a few. Facebook Chatbots With that all said, one of the major features of SmartEngage I feel isn’t talked enough about is its unlimited Facebook Chatbots. Although chatbots have been around and in development for along time, only somewhat recently have people begun to notice their immense potential and usefulness for business and marketing strategies. Going more into Facebook chatbots, these ones in particular live within Facebook Messenger and are able to chat with the 1.3billion users of Facebook who log in every month. You yourself also likely have a messenger strategy if you’re already on Facebook, but the power of chatbots allows you to expand upon it significantly! Customers hate having to wait just to be put on hold, but chatbots put you at the 24/7 availability they expect without having to work non-stop or hire other people to be there for that. If that’s not convincing enough yet and all this talk about what bots can do sounds too good to be true then let me reassure you, as someone who thought it sounded a bit too sci-fi myself at first, the times have changed. The things bots can do can range from identifying leads to handling e-commerce transactions; everything from asking what your budget is, to asking if you’d like fries with that order. Data shows that not only is Facebook considered the second best way to talk to companies based on a recent survey, there are only 300,000 chatbots despite Facebook having at least 6 million advertisers. That means using SmartEngage’s unlimited Facebook chatbots puts you at an advantage where you won’t even have all that much competition! Think about this – every month, over 2 billion messages are exchanged over Facebook Messenger which is used by over 68 percent of people who use apps. Meanwhile, the rest of the market for mobile apps sees at least 71 percent of those same people delete an app within 3 months. This is why I can’t stress enough just how useful the unlimited Facebook chatbots can be if you have any desire to grow your business online. Web Push Notifications Along with its unlimited Emails and Facebook Chatbots, SmartEngage also allows for unlimited web push notifications. Those more new or less in touch with more modern advances in computer software might be confused on what that is, so it’s probably worth explaining what that means exactly for your business. We’ve already covered Facebook and Emails which most people already know about and probably use on a nearly daily basis, but what about Web push notifications? Web push notifications are a relatively new development in the world of online marketing that allow notifications to make their way to your customers from website, even when they aren’t on the website the notification is coming from. They keep your visitors engaged without having to know their contact details such as their Email or Facebook by showing messages directly on their screen wherever they are. Not only will you reach the most tech-savvy of your customers with the most tech-savvy and modern updates, studies have shown that you’ll likely have up to 30 times more success with them! Along with that, opt-ins from web push notifications have been shown to easily be higher than Emails since users don’t have to give contact details such as their Email or Facebook. Unlike Emails, web push notifications are also significantly more likely to be seen since they don’t have the problem of possibly going straight to a spam folder or failing to deliver. They’re delivered straight to your audience or customers as soon as you decide to send them out. Having unlimited web push with SmartEngage means unlimited potential for re-engaging with users even without their contact info. Customer Tracking Finally, the last big feature I want to go over that SmartEngage has is its customer tracking. For the many who don’t know what customer tracking exactly is or what it does, just as I didn’t know at first either, customer tracking is essentially following every step your subscriber takes; this includes what emails they open, what links they click, even what pages they visit on your website. With customer tracking, if I were to go to your site or place of business online, you would be able to see that along with other details. You could see what pages a potential customer visited, how long they stay and where they stay, what their biggest interests on your site are, etc. You could also gauge out what things might have caused them to leave, what brought them there in the first place, where people are most likely to go and a variety of other things along those lines which can be followed up with in messages or notifications. More than just that, you can use customer tracking to help keep track of information that would be difficult to just memorize. Customer tracking is essential in the modern online world for keeping organization. Normally, customer tracking software is something separate from other things such as ESPs, but SmartEngage has customer tracking built in that allows you to be even more organized with everything all in one place. In conclusion… Overall, I would have to say SmartEngage having all of these features makes it a clear winner over its competition. Not only does it take the lead with what it can do with those features, but in its price and reliability as well. While other auto-responders and similar software to SmartEngage only focus on Emails most of the time, SmartEngage takes into account all the other missed opportunities when it comes to ways you could be profiting. Nothing else exists that will get you more engagement, more leads and more profit, and with its risk free trial you have nothing to lose. That’s how confident they are that you too will love SmartEngage. If you ever get lost or confused on how to use SmartEngage, their Knowledge Base has tons of help articles and training videos to help you get the hang of things from start to finish. If you still need further help, they even have a support desk for when their Knowledge Base isn’t enough. With even more features than ActiveCampaign and great reviews, SmartEngage will keep your audience and/or customers fully engaged with you and what you have to offer them. In the past, I hadn’t realized just how much money I was just throwing away to a variety of different services. Thanks to SmartEngage though, I can now put my business on autopilot in just three steps with one tool and I can’t recommend it enough to everyone else facing the same issues I had.

The post Cheaper Alternative to ActiveCampaign appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What's Available.

source https://alternativehq.com/cheaper-alternative-to-activecampaign/

[joshuajmadrid]

How to Spy on Cell Phone and Social Media

What is the best spy app for cell phones and social media? Today’s post will be answering the top 8 questions we have received from people all over the world for the past 8 weeks. We will arrange the questions according to the number of times people asked the questions and made such searches.

Cell Phone Spy and Social Media Spy FAQs:

Question 1: How can I spy on someone’s Instagram activity?

Instagram is one of the most popular social media websites, and it has over a billion users. It is not surprising that Instagram happens to be the account/app that most people are targeting to spy. People may be interested in spying on an Instagram account for various reasons, ranging from personal reasons to reasons related to fulfilling a ‘fantasy’. When it comes to Instagram hack or spying on an Instagram account, you are better off using a reliable and trusted Instagram spy solution. And you can always count on DataBurglar for this.

Question 2: How can I spy on messenger?

How can I spy on messenger is the second most asked queestion and searched query when it comes searches related to spying on cell phones and social media. And the interesting thing about this question is how broad it is. Whether you are interested in spying on facebook messenger, or any of the other popular instant messenger apps, you can never go wrong with DataBurglar. Whatever the reason; whether you are just curious and want to know who someone is taliking to on facebook messenger or on IM or DM, or a girlfriend wanting to check her boyfriend’s facebook messages, you will definitely be able to get all you need.

Question 3: How can I spy on an iPhone?

Our cell phones have becomes a very important part of our lives. A lot of people all over the world depend on their cell phones to carry out different tasks. So having access to someone’s cell phone means you can literally tell what is going on in their lives. It is not surprising that a lot of people are interested in spying on iphones, due to its popularity. And also considering the fact that it is widely known and reputed as one of the most secure cell phones. The people mostly interested in spying on iphones include; people who want to catch a cheating spouse, parents who want to monitor their children, and employers who want to monitor their employees. Whatever the reason for wanting to spy on an iphone, you can never go wrong with DataBurglar

Question 4: How can I Spy on Facebook?

Are you surprised that a lot of people are interested in spying on facebook? You don’t have to be. Facebook is about the oldest and one of the biggest social media accounts. And ofcourse, the reasons for wanting to gain access on spy on a facebook account vary. So the best way to spy on a Facebook account than by using an effective and reliable facebook, social media and cell phone spy solution — DataBurglar! You will be able to spy on facebook messages, facebook messenger, whatsapp spy, and also retrieve old and deleted chat and messages.

Question 5: How Can I Spy on an Android Phone?

The fifth most search terms when it comes to cell phone and social media spy is; how can I spy on an android phone? Even though more people seem to be interested in spy on iphones than those that are interested in spy on android phones but the margin is not so much. And the same category of people interested in iphone spy seem to also be the same set of people that want to spy on android phones, and these include; married couples/lovers, parents, employers etc. DataBurglar offers one of the best and most reliable android phone spy solution.

Question 6: How Can I Spy on a Cell Phone?

People searching for ways to spy on iphone and android phones were specific with their requests. But both the iphone spy and android spy can be generally classified under the broad search request of — how to spy on a cell phone. This search request is so popular that TechTime made an article quoting this: “How can I spy on a cell phone?’ is a question that comes in the mind of every person at least once in their lifetime. However, most people don’t bother finding the way to do this since they feel it might be too complicated for them.” So if you are one of the people in search of how to spy on a cell phone, you can totally rely on DataBurglar to deliver to your satisfaction.

Question 7: How Can I Spy on Someone’s Phone

Can I spy on someone’s cell phone? To put the answer in one word- YES. Spying on a cell phone is a very easy thing to do. In fact, within a few hours, you can get the data of any cell phone no matter if it is Android or iOS. The only thing you will need is the right tool for the job. And this is where DataBurglar comes to the rescue again. And this is another reason you should follow this guide very closely and learn the perfect way to spy on someone’s phone with/without installing software.

Question 8: How Can I Spy on My Partner’s Phone

The popularity of mobile spy software is increasing every passing day as worried wives and husbands want to confirm that their spouse — husbands/wives are absolutely honest with them at all times. It is very easy to know about the activities on the partner’s phone as the software can be installed in almost any phone and it will then forward every single call or text messages log to the specific website. Gaining access to your partner/spouse’s phone will enable you to know what your spouse is up to.

Conclusion: As you can see, DataBurglar is the answer and solution to all these questions and queries, you can count on DataBurglar to successfully deliver satisfactory cell phone spy, and social media spy service. To request this service, send a request to — databurglar@yahoo.com