#DESPITE REGULARLY PROMOTING HIS MUSIC IN HIS VIDEOS

[unnamed-atlas]

Okay. Why are we as a collective not talking more about Xisuma's music? I've listened to a total of two songs and I'm absolutely enamored

[ateez-ana]

i have the time of my life fighting dragons with you

relashionship with ateez members

san

silly slly duo dumb and dumber

Ana and San share an energetic and enthusiastic friendship. They are always up for trying new things and pushing each other to have fun. Their energy is contagious, bringing a lively atmosphere to the group.They bond over their shared love of performance. They often practice together, refining their choreography and stage

They bond over their shared love of performance. They often practice together, refining their choreography and stage presence. Ana is impressed by San's powerful dance moves and acrobatic skills, and San admires Ana's captivating stage presence and ability to connect with the audience.

They often engage in impromptu dance-offs, breaking out into silly moves and exaggerated expressions that bring laughter to themselves and those around them. Their playful competitions might involve mimicking each other's dance moves, attempting ridiculous dance challenges, or even incorporating props into their routines.

Their friendship is filled with inside jokes and playful nicknames that only they understand. They might refer to each other by silly monikers related to their personalities or inside references from their shared experiences

Whether it's playing board games with ridiculous rules, attempting wacky challenges, or participating in silly competitions, San and Ana always find ways to have fun and be goofy together. Their games might involve making funny faces, trying to eat a snack without using their hands, or even attempting to build the tallest structure out of marshmallows.

build pillow forts in the dorm's living room, creating a cozy haven where they can share stories, watch movies, or simply relax and enjoy each other's company. San, with his warm and caring personality, can become a comforting "pillow" for Ana

Ana jokes about San's muscles and always scolds him saying that he is going to get sick if he doesn't wear clothes.

mingi

Ana is mingi biggest simp, During an interview, the interviewer might ask Ana about her favorite member of ATEEZ. Without hesitation, Ana's face lights up as she declares Mingi to be her ultimate bias.

Ana playfully teases him about his love for naps, his tendency to get lost in his thoughts, or his occasional clumsiness, If the interviewer tries to tease Mingi or suggest a flaw, Ana steps in like a protective shield. She passionately defends his honor, highlighting his strengths and positive qualities, leaving no doubt about her unwavering support and admiration for her friend.

They attend concerts and music events together, enjoying the shared experience of their favorite artists and genres.

They engage in friendly banter and lighthearted challenges, adding a touch of humor to their interactions, They might tease each other gently, poking fun at each other's quirks and habits in a playful way.

Following the news of Mingi's hiatus, a wave of emotions washed over Ana. While concerned about her friend's well-being, she also understood the importance of prioritizing his health. Despite the physical distance, they remained connected.

Ana regularly sent Mingi encouraging messages, filled with well wishes and jokes to keep his spirits high. Video calls became their lifeline

Ana, known for her nurturing personality, might send Mingi thoughtful care packages His favorite snacks and drinks to bring a taste of home and normalcy to his routine.

Cozy items like blankets or self-care products to promote relaxation and well-being during his recovery. Small, personalized gifts that remind him of their friendship and the bond they share.

A Stronger Bond After Hiatus she was so happy that he was back during their first concert together she start crying in his first line and at the end she was hugging him afraid he was going to disappear.

Their bond would emerge even stronger, having weathered the challenges of distance and prioritizing each other's well-being.

[mariacallous]

While the Hungarian government is very sensitive to its own sovereignty, it has also been running serious advertising campaigns in Slovakia and Poland, among others, during the elections there. Direkt36 analyzed the available data on the Hungarian government’s advertising campaign targeting seven countries.

At one point in his 2024 State of the Nation address, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that “we cannot interfere in other countries’ elections, but we would very much like to see President Donald Trump return to the White House.” The Hungarian government’s stance on election interference has long been characterized by this tension: they talk about Hungary not interfering in other countries’ internal affairs – and state their expectation that others not interfere in Hungary’s – while at the same time regularly advocating for the re-election of foreign allies, from Trump to Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

However, there are signs that the Hungarian government is trying to shape public discourse in foreign countries not only through statements, but also through Hungarian state resources and taxpayers’ money — and, in many cases, even doing so during ongoing election campaigns.

In the autumn of 2023, the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office ran video campaigns on YouTube on the dangers of illegal migration in seven EU countries. These ads appeared on users’ screens a total of 8.35-9.7 million times, Direkt36 and VSquare.org found by analyzing Google’s online advertising transparency database. In two of the seven countries – Slovakia and Poland – the ads started appearing in the run-up to parliamentary elections, while in two others – Germany and Italy – the ads ran when provincial and local elections were taking place. The ministry in charge of these campaigns – and government propaganda in general – is led by Minister Antal Rogán.

In terms of views relative to population, the campaign was most intense in Slovakia, where between 1.6 million and 1.8 million video ads online could theoretically have reached between 29 and 33 percent of the population (the same ad can also appear more than once for the same user, according to Google’s database). These online advertisements could have reached internet users who are on YouTube and have not turned off ads, and who had been targeted by the Hungarian government on the basis of age, geography, interests, etc.

According to one expert with international experience in online political advertising campaigns, savvy advertisers set their ads to appear 5-7 times per user because that’s how many views it takes for advertising to be effective.

Both advertisements are in English, but while one of them offers via voiceover that “Hungary protects the EU from illegal migration,” in the other one, English subtitles accompany shots of the Hungary-Serbia border fence, partly filmed with night vision cameras, and tense music. The footage shows, among other things, the border fence being dismantled and the authorities protecting it being attacked from the other side of the fence. The advertisements thus formally promote the Hungarian government’s anti-migrant measures. At the same time, they also stress the dangers of migration and the violence of migrants.

These advertisements also appeared in countries when allies of the Orbán government, also campaigning with anti-migrant slogans, were competing in parliamentary or local elections.These ads aired in the late summer-early autumn of 2023, when the migration crisis in southern Slovakia was at its peak, with tens of thousands of people from the Middle East managing to make their way to Slovakia and even southern Poland — despite allegedly strict Hungarian border protection. In response, countries in the region from Austria to Poland introduced temporary border controls.

Hungarian advertisements have attracted the attention of Slovak politicians.

“As a government, and personally as the Minister of Defense, I have been informed about the Hungarian government’s interference in Slovakia’s electoral system and processes. This includes deliberately highlighting issues like migration, which was a top priority,”

said Jaroslav Naď, Slovak defense minister between 2020 and May 2023, in a conversation with our Slovak partner, the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK.sk). Regarding these Hungarian online advertisements, Naď expressed his belief that the Orbán government was supporting the anti-immigration Smer party, led by old-new Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. (Naď, as a member of the then-governing OľaNO party and later as the leader of the Democrats party, is a political adversary of Fico.)

Poland’s Tygodnik Powszechny, the Hungarian edition of Radio Free Europe and the Czech news site E15 have separately reported that the Hungarian prime minister’s office’s advertisements have appeared in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but the number of ads has not been known until now, as Google – which owns YouTube – only publishes details three months after an advertising campaign ends. It was also not known until now that the Hungarian government also advertised in Austria, Germany, Italy and Belgium, or that the ads ran simultaneously in seven European countries.

Neither the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office nor Google responded to our requests for comment.

“If you know the rules of the ads platform, this is how you can get around it”

Orbán’s Cabinet Office’s first video advertisement ran between September 28 and October 11 2023. The second ran from October 10 to 24, 2023 in the seven countries (but only the second of the two videos ran in Belgium). Google distinguishes between two types of advertising: political and non-political. The former is subject to stricter transparency rules. For example, the US company also discloses some basic information on what types of users advertisers target with political ads and how much money they have spent on them. However, the Hungarian government ran these videos as non-political ads, as they were not technically advertising a political party in Hungary or during domestic election campaigns. The transparency of non-political advertisements is significantly more limited.

This also means that Google’s advertising transparency database only reveals the start and end time when the ads ran and the approximate number of times that Hungarian state-sponsored advertisements appeared. There is no public information on the target audience or on the amount spent on advertising. When previously contacted by Czech news site E15, Google confirmed that the relevant Hungarian government ads do not violate the terms of use and, as they do not promote political parties or politicians, are not political ads.

“Google is remarkably lenient in its classification of what constitutes political advertising. Based on my experience, approximately 80 percent of advertisements deemed non-political by Google are identified and rejected as political by Facebook’s automated software check,”

one expert in online political advertising campaigns with international experience, who wished to remain anonymous, told us. “Being categorized as a political ad on Google restricts your audience targeting options significantly, but Hungarian government ads running in foreign countries, not qualifying as political, allowed advertisers much broader targeting capabilities,” the expert noted.

The European Union has recently stepped up its regulation of social media platforms and their use of user data for advertising. Current EU regulations prohibit Meta (Facebook), Google and other platforms from the previous practice of essentially freely sharing users’ personal data with advertisers, particularly in the case of possible use for political ads.

“Nevertheless, by understanding the internal rules of these ads platforms, you can get around them to access a broader set of tools by attempting to register your advertisement as non-political,”

the expert on online campaigning added. In the context of the Slovak elections, this strategy enabled the Hungarian government to define its target audience for officially non-political ads with much more precision than Slovak political parties, which were restricted to running ads explicitly labeled as political.

The exact number of times the Hungarian government ads appeared is not publicly available. We only know the range of views, from the minimum and maximum possible times people saw it. At the same time, the number of views of the advertised videos on YouTube also does not reflect the number of times the videos have appeared to users via ads: According to Google/Youtube advertising rules, an advertised display of a video only counts as a full view – i.e. it only increases the number of views below a video on Youtube – if the user watches a short-duration video (that is, a video that is less than 30 seconds long) until the end, or a longer duration video (which is longer than 30 seconds) for at least 30 seconds.

Of the two Hungarian government videos advertised abroad, the first – which was aired before the Slovak elections and has no narration, only subtitles – is 37 seconds long and has 1.1 million views on Youtube, which means that it has been watched for at least 30 seconds this 1.1 million times. The second video, which is 14 seconds long and has narration, has only 7600 views, which is the number of viewers who watched it from start to finish. It is also not disclosed how many viewers from which countries arrived at the two advertised videos.

However, there’s a more critical metric than the sheer volume of advertisements: “The key lies in ad frequency, or how many times an individual is exposed to the same advertisement,” the online political campaign expert told.

“The traditional benchmark within the industry is seven — that is, an advertisement needs to reach an individual seven times to be effective. In other words, it’s more impactful for a quarter of a million people to encounter an advertisement four times than for a million people to see it just once. Professional advertisers, like the Hungarian government, typically aim for an ad frequency between five to seven,”

the source explained. Additionally, the specific frequency at which the Hungarian government’s advertisements were broadcasted is not disclosed. “Such details are not made available in any advertising library [a public database of advertisements],” the expert added.

How much the Hungarian government spent on these foreign advertisements is also unclear. Following initial reports about the Hungarian government’s foreign ads in the Polish election campaign, Hungarian independent MP Ákos Hadházy attempted to obtain information through a public information request. However, the PM’s Cabinet Office avoided giving a direct answer, claiming that they do not keep a record of the advertisements in question. “The cost of advertising depends on more than just the number of impressions, or views; several other factors play a role. Market saturation, for example, or how many advertisers are competing for attention at the same time, can drive up prices, similar to the stock market. This is especially true during campaign periods when many are vying for visibility,” the online political campaign expert said. Additionally, according to the expert, the price of advertisements is significantly influenced by how precisely an advertiser defines its target audience.

According to Google’s advertising database, Slovak political campaign videos that were similar in impressions to the two Hungarian videos cost between €2,000 and €15,000 (currently equivalent to approximately 790,000 to 5.9 million HUF). However, this may not necessarily be indicative, as the target audience for the Hungarian “non-political” advertisements could be specified in much greater detail, potentially significantly increasing the cost of advertising.

“Hungary played an intensive role”

Parliamentary elections were held in Slovakia on September 30, at which point the Orbán government used other means – such as an interview with Robert Fico broadcast on Hungarian public media during right before the election, when all Slovak campaigns were meant to be silent – to support the campaign of the old-new Slovak prime minister, a close ally of Viktor Orbán. Fico’s victory was of particular interest to Orbán’s party, as they counted on the populist-leftist Slovak prime minister’s help both to revive regional cooperation in the Visegrad Group and to block the so-called Article 7 procedure against Hungary in Brussels. Robert Fico and his far left-wing and nationalist allies, who campaigned with pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian slogans, like Orbán’s government, eventually won the election.

Google’s database shows that on September 28, two days before the Slovak election and thus during the campaign blackout period under Slovak law, the Hungarian government started running YouTube ads, the first of which was seen 900,000 to 1 million times. The second, which ran after the election, was seen somewhere between 700,000 and 800,000 times. The combined number of impressions of the two ads is roughly one third of the population of Slovakia. It is not possible to say from the public details of Google’s database to what extent views of the first ad were concentrated in the days before the Slovak parliamentary elections (the ad continued after the election, so some of the views may well have been after the votes were cast).

“I was surprised by this number. It was indeed a very intensive advertisement targeting Slovakia on the issue of migration. I see no other reason for this than the Hungarian government’s interest in helping to raise the issue,” said former Slovak defense minister Jaroslav Naď to ICJK.sk regarding the Hungarian government advertisements.

“And of course, you’ve seen how Smer [the party of current Prime Minister Robert Fico] constantly stoked up fear against migrants, so this [ad] fits perfectly into the debate,”

the former minister added.

“If I wanted to influence public opinion in this way, especially just a day or two before the Slovak elections, I would do the same,” Naď stated, emphasizing that “this kind of behavior is wrong and unacceptable. When we ran campaigns, we always targeted the citizens of Slovakia, communicating with our own citizens, not those of other countries.” According to the former defense minister, “Hungary indeed played a very intensive role in Robert Fico winning the elections.”

By comparison, according to Google’s advertising database, more intensively advertised videos put out by Slovak political campaigns had somewhere between 1 and 2 million impressions, with the most viewed video advertisement belonging to Slovakia’s right-wing liberal Freedom and Solidarity party (that video made more than 10 million impressions). However, these videos were all run throughout the campaign – and before the period of campaign silence – and thus competed with each other, while the Hungarian government’s video ad, labeled as non-political, was launched just as the campaign silence period began.

Poland elected a new government on October 15. Another Orban ally, the populist right-wing Law and Justice party, in power since 2015, was favored to win — but a coalition of center-right, centrist and left-wing parties won the election, which produced record turnout. In Poland, between the end of September and mid-October, Hungarian government advertisements made a total of between one and a half and two million Hungarian government impressions, a number that is the equivalent of 4 or 5 percent of the Polish population.

It is not possible to say, partly because of Google’s limited information disclosure, which regions, cities and voter groups these ads targeted – nor do we know exactly what role, if any, they played in the outcome of the two countries’ elections.

The Orbán government’s involvement in the Slovak and Polish election campaigns was not limited to video advertisements. As the author of this article previously revealed in VSquare’s newsletter, key Orbán campaign strategist Árpád Habony and Hungarian government-linked advisory firm Századvég, including foreign affairs director Csaba Faragó, actively helped the campaigns of Orbán’s local allies in Central Europe. In Slovakia, this initially meant the center-left HLAS party, led by former prime minister Peter Pellegrini’s, and then Robert Fico’s Smer, while in Poland, it was the Law and Justice party. After Hungary’s Polish allies lost the election, Polish weekly Polityka reported that many in Law and Justice blamed the defeat on unnamed Hungarian campaign advisors (these Hungarians were not named at the time).

While there were no elections in Austria, the Czech Republic or Belgium at the time of the ads, there were local elections in Germany and Italy. On October 8, both the right and the far-right gained strength in the German states of Bavaria and Hessen, thanks in part to the fact that migration was a major issue in German campaigns. It is not known, however, in which provinces or cities the Prime Minister Cabinet Office’s advertisements were focused. In Italy, elections were held on October 22 in the autonomous region of northern Italy, centered on Trento, and were won by the candidate of the far-right Lega party, led by Orbán ally Matteo Salvini. Here, too, there is no information on exactly which areas of Italy the Hungarian advertisements targeted.

To date, the most significant known case of Hungarian government involvement in a foreign election was during the 2022 French presidential elections. Back then, the Hungarian MKB Bank financed far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s campaign with €10.6 million. As the Financial Times revealed, the request for MKB to support the French politician came from Viktor Orbán’s inner circle.

[horangslay]

catching up on my February releases & saw EDEN Eternal MV & immediately thought 'OH KQ Eden new music after so long?? gotta listen!', quickly realized it was not KQ Eden, but I like the song so I wanna find out who this dude is.

so I google 'Eden kpop' & get KQ Eden

I google 'Eden Eternal' & only get some game

I google 'Eden Eternal kpop' & am back to KQ Eden

I google 'mystic story (his label) Eden Eternal' & I'm back to the game...there's something in the game called mystic stories...did they not do a google search before releasing this it's IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND

I finally found a combination of terms where this MV is the first result ('Eden Eternal MV kpop mystic story youtube') but still can't find ANY information about this guy!

I hop to spotify & it's equally tedious to find him, after finally finding the right Eden I found out ITS HIS DEBUT!

so he's brand new, impossible to find on google, & I've seen zero promotion for him despite following some of his labelmates & being a bloodhound for new releases

ANYWAYS check out Eternal! the MV has 2.3k views rn & I think he deserves some more attention. his voice is very soft & sweet & his EP has the same soft feeling. his Spotify is a picture of him against a white background & his EP cover is a big orange E

edit 1: yeah they didn't post about him on any social medias I could find, weird move to not promote your new artist at all 😠

edit 2: youtube comments are telling me his name is Kim Kangmin & he's an actor but when I found an imdb that linked to an instagram there were no posts about a music debut, no posts since November of last year actually. I just feel like he would post about his debut right?? unless he has a different insta for his music? or he doesn't use social media like at all? or this actor is just the face of the music video? I'm even more confused to than I was before... also his wikipedia page has nothing about music on it, idk if he's just not popular enough for it to get updated regularly or I've got the wrong guy. 😔

edit 3: KIM KANGMIN IS ON THE MYSTIC STORY WEBSITE! BUUUUUUUUUUT there is NOTHING on his about page or archive about music!? only his acting! I am actually going crazy over this, WHO ARE YOU???

[interstellar-changkyun]

A/N: i tried to be as gender neutral as possible PLEASE let me know if there is anything i can fix :)

changkyun as your boyfriend:

you first met through jooheon, your best friend since childhood, and maybe you had always had a crush on changkyun since debut but that didn’t matter

what mattered was that changkyun couldn’t breathe when he first met you, no literally you made him choke on noodles

despite that incident, changkyun was smooth, almost too smooth, the jealous part of your mind got hot just thinking about the other people he flirted with before you to get this good

when he asked you out he didn’t half ass it

you were running from the rain one night coming back from dinner, neither of you expected the rain and changkyun being the gentleman he is gave you his leather jacket to drape carry over you as you ran

it was getting worse though, the rain seemed to be coming from every direction

changkyun noticed you had shut your eyes on instinct so to be safe he pulled you to the side of a building, an alleyway which would have been daunting if not for the distraction of changkyun’s hand around your wrist

you held the jacket up to cover both of you both you were shorter than him so you were on your tiptoes, he snickered and grabbed it gently from you and held it over both of you to cover from the rain that was now only coming from one direction

under the cover of his jacket with his face inches from you only lit by the streetlights in the distance he whispered, “you’re so beautiful y/n, may I take you on an actual date?” you stopped breathing, your mouth dropping open and when you remembered you would have to breathe and then answer at some point you furiously shook your head yes

your first date was at an arcade, you both loved video games and you weren’t big on the mushy gushy romantics and he loved you for that

changkyun let you win in almost every game and you knew he was letting you

you liked to tease him though, knew how easily you could get a reaction out of him

“changkyun i don’t know how to shoot can you show me?” you pouted for extra effect and it worked because in seconds he was behind you, chest pressed against your back, hand trailing from your shoulder to your elbow (leaving a trail of goosebumps), guiding it to a 90 degree angle and placing a basketball gently in your palm, his hand now pressed against yours and motioning through the throw

after you made your third shot, letting him help you after each failed attempt, you turned around to hug changkyun his ears now red as he laughed into your ear

months later you would tell him how you had been on the basketball team all throughout middle and high school and you just wanted to tease him, he teased you right back in retaliation making you whine for hours

changkyun was not the outwardly affectionate or romantic type, but you were not either + due to the nature of his job you weren’t kissing in public anyways

instead he did little things that showed how much he cared

like if you’re eating together he makes sure to watch how much you’re eating and if you want more or less, he’s the youngest so he’s used to taking care of his elders but with you he’s especially attentive, getting you water without a word if you cough a little bit from the spices

or when you’re studying late into the night and he brings you warm milk and snacks

or when he makes you playlists and sends you songs that remind him of you

and when you’re feeling unwell he tries to cancel as many schedules as he can to take care of you

“changkyun you can’t kiss me you’ll get sick!”

“we suffer together, plus i can’t resist you”

he lets you steal all the clothes you want always telling you how you look better in them anyways but then you tell him you have to share because you can’t confess how you want them to smell like him again

he doesn’t mind because they smell like you when he gets them back

he has a hard time complimenting you or articulating his feelings but you know what he means by the way he looks at you

you’re dressing up for a night out with him and when you walk out to see him in a dress shirt with the first couple buttons undone and suit pants you have a hard time breathing and he can’t tear his eyes away from your body

“fuck i’m so fucking lucky what the fuck” you can’t help but laugh and kiss his dropped jaw until it closes

sometimes when he’s working late at the studio you’ll visit him with food and to support him

you love his music and his rapping so you always want to hear whatever he creates

most of the time it’s about you or inspired by you and you usually cry when you first hear it and he pulls you into his lap and kisses your face until you’re giggling

when he’s away promoting or on tour he facetimes you when he can, sending you selfies and videos regularly, and then he’s always buying you tickets to see him whenever possible

when he’s performing you try to be in the audience and he always winks at you when he sees you or gets closer to your area a little more than the rest of the venue

he knows you’re his biggest fan and he loves it, he finds it cute how you interact with the fans and are part of the monbebe family

“so i was your bias since day one right?” you scoff and push him away lightly when you’re with the members hanging out and jooheon gasps in betrayal, “sorry hyung you don’t pick your bias, your bias picks you” changkyun teased and was immediately hit with a pillow it quickly turned into a tickling match

changkyun doesn’t get jealous, you’re both pretty secure in your relationship and he knows you can handle yourself, but he is protective and cannot stand to see you in any kind of distress

you’re at a high end night club with the members

you’re dancing with minhyuk and jooheon, changkyun watching from afar

you’re having so much fun you don’t notice another pair of eyes on you and then jooheon and minhyuk say they’re going to get more drinks and you’re alone dancing by yourself out of the corner of your eye you see changkyun approaching but so is someone else

it’s a 6 foot tall muscular guy, definitely no match for your 5’3 admittedly non-muscular build you keep your calm, changkyun is wasting no time in pushing through the crowd towards you or what he thinks is where you are since the random man is covering his view

“can i buy you a drink?” he asks while you clearly continue to ignore him

“not interested” you say sternly and it should be enough, it usually is

“in drinking? what you into dehydration or something?” he’s pushy and it’s irritating but you decide to ignore him

a couple moments pass of you trying to to ignore him when he reaches for your arm, just as he grazes your arm changkyun is in front of you glaring at the guy, still behind him you move to see your hands holding changkyun’s left hand

“they said they’re not interested.” changkyun is shorter than him but that doesn’t mean anything when he’s just as muscular and well he’s changkyun from monsta x and this guy looks young probably has an ambitious future ahead of him so he backs off pretty easily apologizing to changkyun in a stutter

changkyun turns to you and kisses your forehead, none of the anger in his voice or the tension in his body there any more

and that’s how he was, he wouldn’t let you get hurt

sometimes you would argue about it

you argued rarely but when you did it ended with you both coming to a conclusion that you were just worried about each other and idiots in love

kissing changkyun made you feel like honey

he would take his time, teasing you, kissing your neck biting it even, he would worship you and then give you what you want

you liked his piercings and didn’t waste any time exploiting his sensitive ears and he loved it

he let you have control and you loved when he did, loved his deep moans his swearing and when he was trying to be obedient how tight his grip was on you

changkyun loved making you smile, moan, and laugh

he loved you when you woke up in the morning and when you fell asleep on his chest and when he caught you staring at him and when you loved him

[zigtheeortega]

platinum mc pictagram edits

dom using social media like celebs shouldn’t. enjoy!

the rest are under the cut with brief explanations – click for higher resolution!

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1/7 – i hc that zadie absolutely clowns the hell out of dom in the comments of her posts and regularly rates her outfits bc they’re besties. and raleigh’s his normal messy self in the comments – you know dom and raleigh’s exchanges are always making it to gossip pages and people pick apart the screenshots despite having no idea what they actually are. 

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2/7 – tbh i think dom’s captions alone are enough to get tons of people to comment and praise her for her humor when she’s like “idk i’m just vibing lol”. at this point dom puts “styled by zadie choi” in her bio as a joke since zadie’s always teasing her in the comments section. and a sneaky raleigh like because THAT’LL get the people talking.

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3/7 – shane!!!!! i feel like he’s not huge into social media – he posts snippets of what he’s working on and keeps up with his friends but he doesn’t use it professionally like most people do. he’s def got dom’s post notifs on and when she makes a self deprecating joke, he sweeps in to shower her in best friend love since he’s a literal ray of sunshine.

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4/7 – so i made this one on a whim and i’m so sure that this photo was already posted but angry!dom or drunk!dom went back and changed the caption to be shady after the breakup LMAO. 

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5/7 – raleigh absolutely would be a “Wyd” type imo. and you know he’d lean into it. anytime they’re out in public raleigh tries to do something to get the press to talk or something that’d confuse people on social media. i hc that he just comments dumb thirsty shit on her instagram to keep people on their toes LMAO.

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6/7 – i had a fic idea a while back that after the breakup dom floors it to the studio and just belts out the lyrics to a song and comes up with it as she goes and it turns out to be a huge hit – and tbh i think sex money feelings die is dom’s way of expressing to him that she knows what they had was real and she didn’t want it to end – she’s a little harsh in the lyrics because the world has no idea it was staged so she overdramatizes it, but there’s a lot of underlying truth to it. i think this is a bit of a turning point for her tbh. she has a bit more of a shift on social media where she’s letting ads/promotion run her public persona and she dials back on the funny posts. and ofc shane shoots the music video and zadie her bestie is there to style her !!!

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7/7 – dom announces her debut album by posting the cover !!!! of course all her besties run to show their support in the comments – fiona even pops a like on her post as encouragement LMAO. i think this is about when she starts regaining control and figuring out her creative vision for herself!

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if you read this far, thank you!!!! also, i’m honestly not going by canon, just by general vibes and how i think the storyline for my mc would kind of go !!!

[blucmoon]

━  ☾ ⊹  ( bang chan, cis male , he/him ) say hello to HWA YOHAN / CHANCE HWA, the TWENTY FOUR YEAR OLD that seems to have a lot in his hands with HIS job as a STREAMER AND CONTENT CREATOR! beyond that, they seemed RELIABLE AND PASSIONATE upon first glance. i heard someone say they’re sort of SELF-CONSCIOUS AND CAUTIOUS though. HE seems to live in a 2 BEDROOM APARTMENT in SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA. anything else to add? oh, yeah! he also USED TO BE A PROFESSIONAL GAMER PART OF SEOUL DYNASTY (OWL) UNTIL HE GOT KICKED OUT.

basic information

― full name: hwa yohan / chance hwa ― nicknames: yohwa ― age: twenty four ― date of birth: october 3rd, 1996 ― birthplace: cheonan, south korea. ―hometown: sydney, australia ― current location: seoul, south korea ― living arrangements: 2 bedroom apartment ― ethnicity: korean ― nationality: dual, korean (natural born) and australian (naturalized) ― gender: cis male ― pronouns: he / him ― orientation: demiromantic, heterosexual. ― religion: atheist ― occupation: streamer ― language(s) spoken: korean (fluent), english (fluent) ―accent: heavy australian accent

physical appearance

― faceclaim: bang chan / christopher bang of stray kids. ― hair: naturally brown, though he often dyes to a variety of colors, mostly black and blue. right now, it’s a purple color that’s already fading. ― eye colour: coffee brown ― height: 171cm ― weight: 56kg ― tattoos: none at the moment. ― piercings: lobe and upper lobe on both ears. anti-tragus, orbital and rook on the left one. double helix on the right one. ― clothing style: regularly techwear when he goes out and athleisure at home.

personality

― label: the cynical ― positive traits: attentive, dependable, reliable, passionate, brave, energetic, honest, humorous, clever, versatile, truthful, affectionate, sociable ― negative traits: self-conscious, cautious, opinionated, arrogant, detached, critical, tactless, stubborn, loud, quick-tempered, harsh, unfiltered, cynical, restless, ambitious, ― hobbies: baking, collecting enamel pins and funkos, jigsaw puzzles, skateboarding, reading, listening to music, curating playlists when he has time, learning origami. ― habits: obsessively organising, borrowing books and rarely ever returning them (he forgets who they belong to ok), really bad road rage, awful at keeping track of time, people watching, always wears a black ring on his left index finger, always hugs something when sleeping, gets easily impressed by things, quotes movies and shows in regular conversations, knuckle cracking, snacking between meals, eye rolling without noticing, squinting when concentrated, crossing his arms over his chest, running hands through his hair, slouching, rolling his shoulders. ― zodiac sign: sun libra, moon gemini, ascendant libra. ― mbti: infp-t “the mediator” ― enneagram: 8w7 “the nonconformist”. ― temperament: melancholic ― hogwarts house: ravenclaw ― moral alignment: chaotic neutral ― primary vice: greed ― primary virtue: diligence ― element: air

trivia:

― he’s played all kind of games and his twitch channel was created 9 years ago (whew) and it currently has over 5 million subscribers. currently, he streams mostly genshin impact, valorant, league of legends, overwatch, spider-man: miles morales, cyberpunk 2077 and the witcher iii. every now and then he makes charity streams. he also makes special lives with other gamers and figures where they play games like among us, minecraft, fortnite (though he absolutely hates it), party animals, fall guys and other party games.

― despite the rumours around him and his parents, he’s never talked about them to the media. it’s not like chance hides the information, after all it’s online, but he swerves questions about them and pretty much decides to not say anything about them just to avoid controversy. his parents didn’t mind until last year the company they worked at offered him a sponsorship and yohan turned it down. it’s safe to say they were pretty hurt over this and they haven’t talked much recently.

― yohan is, in his words, the biggest fan of spiderman (not really) but he’s his favorite heroe of all times and he collects everything and anything that has him in it. his biggest collection is funko pops with over 30+ figurines. he collects funkos of various other interests of him as well as enamel pins.

― lowkey a weeb. he likes watching anime in his spare time and if he likes it too much, he’d buy the manga and read it as well. his latest obsessions are kimetsu no yaiba, boku no hero academia, haikyu and jujutsu kaisen.

― won’t ever admit this out loud, but almost every ghibli movie makes him cry his eyes out, even when he’s watched the same one over and over again. he prefers to watch these on his own. his favorite one is grave of the fireflies.

― it took him a while to get used to korean culture, a part of him is still trying to. luckily, his family would speak in korean in their household most of the time and this helped him not struggle as much when it came to the language. his streams are most of the time in english to cater to a bigger audience, but recently he’s got himself a small team of an editor and a translator that’s helped him add subtitles to the videos he uploads in youtube.

― his current setup is completely sponsored except for a few extra things he’s bought himself and he has minimal experience when it comes to builds, though he’s really interested in learning and has recently researched more about the whole topic, hoping to get his first custom build by the end of the year.

― has terrible road rage and this is the reason why he doesn’t own a car or a driving license, even being in the backseat makes him anxious and would much rather prefer to use the bus, a bike or his skateboard to commute between places. taxis and other rides are his last option, if he’s quite honest.

― as a neighbour, he’s polite and tries to be mindful just to avoid needless problems. the first thing he did was soundproof his office in order to not disrupt others, but sometimes this doesn’t work as well due to how loud he can be. chance will try to greet every neighbour he encounters either with a wave or a simple nod.

― loves dogs but doesn’t feel he’s responsible enough to take care of one yet, though he will certainly volunteer to pet-sit his friends’ dogs.

background:

born in cheonan, south korea to two very affectionate parents and an older sister, yohan was the name given to the first boy of the hwa’s; a small loving family who moved to australia two years after his birth.

the reason for this is that his mom was promoted to become the director of a renowned gaming company that was opening its new headquarters in sydney. his father is a software engineer specialised in videogames development who works under the same company.

his sister is a graphic designer and she, too, is currently working with them in the multimedia and design area. she’s almost 7 years older than him and ever since they were kids, she took a protective role over yohan.

it was easy for yohan to get really invested in videogames from a young age, after all, his parents would often bring home their newest releases as well as games from other various companies (his father liked to play a lot as well and he himself was a fan of many games, mostly the nintendo classics).

fast forward to his teenage years; he was actually good at school, not the best, but definitely did good enough to not worry his parents with his grades. sports always piqued his interest. he was part of the basketball team and would use his skateboard often to get to school (which would earn him earfuls from the teachers saying how dangerous it was.) other than that, he was an active member in the gaming club (shocking, i know).

at 14 he got his first close up at what esports were like after participating in a tournament of counter strike, junior division. his team (which was made up by members from the gaming club) won and he got to watch matches from other divisions, only growing more and more fascinated about the whole thing. the idea of becoming a professional gamer didn’t seem so far fetched then.

around late 2011, the same year twitch started as what it is, yohan found the platform and immediately grew curious about it. it was fascinating to watch other people play, thus it didn’t take him long to start his own channel under the username “chance” right after he turned 15. it took him a while to find his own pace there, not quite sure of what to say or how to act. eventually, he saw that the less reserved and cautious he was, the more people watched and liked his stream, so from then on, he stopped worrying about what ifs and what people would think about him.

this is a double edged sword: as his popularity grows, he becomes more and more brutally honest and less mindful of the consequences his words and actions could have. whereas he quickly became one of the public’s favorites, he was also viewed as someone potentially problematic that could bring a bad reputation to the community, though this only seemed to be a prejudice from other gamers and public figures.

he doesn’t care, however, and chance was pretty dead set on keep doing his thing. he was also really active in tournaments, either small or big, and other teams would often reach out for him to fill in. he rarely ever turned down an opportunity and even though they didn’t always win, participating was more than enough for him to gain the favor of the audience.

when he was 18, a formal contract to be part of the chiefs esports club (a recently founded professional club with teams competing in counter-strike: global offensive and league of legends based in australia) was presented to him and of course he signed.

between his streams, which had become a tri-weekly kind of deal, and the “training” with his teammates the rest of the days, it was clear that yohan wasn’t in the slightest interested to pursue a higher education, and honestly his parents didn’t complain about it as he was already doing well on his own. nonetheless, his sister was concerned and pushed him to at least take a couple of online classes (which he did, but mostly to learn how to edit videos and understand audio aspects to improve the quality of his streams.)

around this time, nasty rumours about his parents buying his way into the club were spread which earned him the dislike of some of his teammates. it was the first time yohan ever encountered a situation like that but thanks to the management, he was able to move past that. the oceanic pro league was founded in 2015, a professional league of legends competition, and the chiefs esports club participated and won. this helped the rumours around him disperse for he proved his skills were what put him into the team. sadly, he left the club a year later.

for the next couple of years, he focused on his stream and growing his community. yohan was invited to different events, tournaments and other collaborations during this time and he was always excited for them. he even decided to create a youtube channel to upload highlights and vlogs.

then, the overwatch league was announced (chance quickly became addicted to this game and even reached top 500 in competitive) and he was contacted by the seoul team (seoul dynasty) to become part of their team for the inaugural season. like that, at 21, yohan packed his bags and moved to south korea.

between 2017 and 2019, he was part of the team as dps. he had to change his schedule yet again to stream only on the weekends and with some restrictions his contract established (like not talking about the team or the league live). some of his fans voiced their dislike for this new attitude of his, which yohan brushed with a roll of the eyes and a joke.

however, before the 2020 season started and the team was on break, chance was one day streaming and offhandedly said a comment about another player in the league which he had a match with. this caused a really big commotion online and several pro-gamers were rubbed the wrong way about his words (to this day, he still doesn’t know what was so wrong about calling out someone t-bagging him in a pro game) and his reputation was admittedly tarnished. the seoul dynasty’s management team decided that it was better to let him go.

that’s how last year, chance moved into his current apartment after looking online for a new place to live.

in the present, he streams 5 days a week a variety of games and his schedule varies, some days he goes live in the mornings and other days really late at night. he has a steady income from various sponsorships as well as the monetization of his youtube channel, which he updates twice a week.

[youdidwelljonghyun]

I haven’t been using this app much since I joined stan twit but I need to speak on this bc it’s important:

NCT, Exo, Taemin and SM Entertainment on a whole are a fucking disappointment. BLM has been the number one topic on social media across the world for about a week now. I’ve seen countless Korean artistes speak up in support. I’ve seen artistes post their donations. I’ve seen BM go on insta live and discuss his experiences with cops and how black people have to live in fear despite being innocent. I’ve seen Crush talk about how Korean pop music is built on black culture & there would be no Kpop, kr&b or khiphop without black culture. Ive seen Got7’s mark donate $7000 to the cause. I’ve seen a 2 month old rookie group’s member get all her socials deleted because she had the balls and the decency to support BLM on her platform. I’ve seen KBS in America covering the riots. I’ve seen Korean civilans speak up about BLM, supporting and explaining the situation in both Korean and English, I’ve seen Yeri post in support on her Instagram.

AND YET. NCTzens had to BEG, and when I say B E G. We were flooding 127’s twitter mentions, lysn and Instagram BEGGiNG them to post in support of BLM, just so they could use their platform to influence followers to support. For DAYS. We had to beg these men who: 3 of them lived in the US for extended periods, one is FROM CHICAGO where much of the rioting is taking place. They are ALWAYS talking about how they’re a global group. 127 has toured across the US multiple times. They regularly interact with international fans. Their intl fanbase has likely made them more revenue than their Korean fanbase. In fact, I’d argue that 127’s current level of popularity is mostly due to their American fans, & I’m not even American. Just last week we rallied together for DAYS to defend Jaehyun from those disgusting Kfans. Yet they only responded after over 24 hours of begging them, and when they did, ONE member posted something without even including a donation link or saying anything truly substantial... the member that is literally American. His post was basically a “fine, here it is since you won’t stop bugging me about this!”. I saw many fans begging them to “open their purses” and show how much they donated, which I don’t think is necessary— but at LEAST POST A GODDAMN DONATION LINK. Do you know how many fans would mirror your actions? Even with the lame post Johnny made, countless fans were asking where they can donate. Do you SEE HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO USE YOUR PLATFORM?? Then Ten posted that random black square. No caption, no nothing. Anyone who doesn’t know about BLM won’t know what the fuck it’s for. I saw comments asking what it was about and making jokes. I am so fucking disappointed in these men for doing the bare minimum when they have a massive platform, they have received support from thousands of black fans and they make a huge chunk of their money off of American tours, NOT TO MENTION black music is the blueprint for Kpop. They always talk about what black artiste’s music they love, but they are damn near fucking silent about the innocent black people being murdered worldwide.

Exo is a fucking joke. Kai, Chanyeol Baekhyun and Sehun regularly post on their socials— kai did a live a few days ago, Chanyeol has posted several NNG videos, Baek has been doing lives/menpas and yet neither of them can be assed to say oh, btw black lives matter and here’s a donation link so u can help support too. Lay has also been promoting constantly, he’s had a comeback and dropped an MV a few days ago, and yet???

They may have very well donated in private— I acknowledge that. But they could do SO MUCH for the black community by simply making a post in support with a donation link, that would cost them literally nothing. So why haven’t they done so?? They must not care enough to— because trust me, fans have been asking. Exo and NCT’s lysn board have been spammed with fans begging for support, giving them donation links to share and explaining the situation. I feel a little entitled, demanding anything from someone I don’t personally know, but then I realize that it would take almost no effort on their part, and that they would be giving back to the very community that allowed kpop’s very existence, not to mention supporting their millions of black fans around the world. I see many people saying that this is an “American issue” and “no one asks celebrities to donate when other people are suffering”. If you think that is an excuse then you are a part of the problem. 1. Black people exist all over the world, they are discriminated against and brutalized worldwide. 2. I have seen Americans lobbying and pushing for global causes countless times on social media. Just the other day American Kpop fans helped trend the Nth room case, translating articles and spreading awareness. I was one of those fans.

As for SM Entertainment, the company that likely employs more black producers than any other in Korea, they have 100% ignored the BLM movement on ALL platforms; they have done NOTHING. Monsta X, Ateez and BTS have all officially posted on their group accounts that they stand with BLM and they support the cause, yet SM cannot be assed to do a goddamn thing except exploit black culture and use Americans as ATM machines. I heard they were sending TEXTS to American fans about a COMEBACK (or something??) in the midst of all the rioting. The funny thing is, it’s a pattern— SM never gives a flying fuck about American fans. All they do is coddle kfans and indulge in their delusional fantasies, making Jaehyun write a fucking apology letter for eating some food because kfans threw a tantrum and placating kfans when they got salty about Superhuman promotions. WHERE EVEN IS SUPER M??? THE GROUP THAT LITERALLT DEBUTED IN THE US LMFAOOOOO. LITERAL SILENCE.

I just made this post to say that I, as a black fan, can’t continue to go out on a limb for, to stan, to defend and trend hashtags for, to leave encouraging lysn messages for, artistes who don’t give enough of a fuck that my people are dying to make a genuinely supportive post with a donation link. That is THE BARE MINIMUM. We aren’t asking them to go out on the streets and protest. I cannot do it anymore. As a black fan, there have always been things we have to speak out about more than any other fan group, there have always been things we’ve had to overlook. But I’m fucking done with this shit. I’m done streaming and voting and watching their videos. They don’t deserve my support one bit. I see their pictures on my timeline and I just feel empty— I mean, they really don’t give a fuck about us at all. Lots of times we’ve reconciled with the fact that Korea as a whole is pretty racist towards black people, but we think the best of our favs and assume that because they have so many black fans they must feel differently and have more of an open mind— HA. And I was never the fan who expected that idols love us as much as we love them, but for you to sit there and profit from our culture and our support, but be unable to open your mouths or make a single Instagram post when we’re being killed...

[djsinquarantine]

David Guetta / United at Home, By Francisco

Basic Details: This stream was live on May 30, 2020 with the official title being ‘David Guetta / United at Home - Fundraising Live from New York #UnitedatHome #StayHome #WithMe’. It was broadcast on Instagram, Twitch, Facebook and YouTube. The link to the Twitch channel where it was broadcast is: https://www.twitch.tv/davidguetta/. I focused primarily on analyzing the Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube streams. The platform with the most views during my studying it was YouTube with 103, 254 viewers at one point. The stream was created with the intent of raising money for the following: NYC Mayor’s Fund, Feeding America, WHO, and a French organization by the name of Fondation Hôpitaux. I’m not sure what the last organization is for. David Guetta was the only DJ that played. 

Visuals: Each of the three platforms featured different layouts. However, all of them gave the most space to the stream. They also all had a live chat as well as a link to a donation page. The stream itself began with a short promotional video first. It then transitioned to showing David playing on a rooftop in NYC with the skyline behind him. In front of him, multiple screens showed a live feed of a zoom room for the event. David would regularly point to people in the zoom room and say things like “I see you” and “It’s okay to bring out your flags.” The stream would occasionally also shift to another layout featuring a sort of split screen that showed David performing on one side and a highlighted zoom room participant or a recording of a famous person dancing and enjoying the music on the other side. The production behind this stream was evidently very very well funded. The stream featured another donation link at the bottom as well as a revolving highlight of various partners/sponsors of the stream in the top left corner.

Music: David played a lot of his most famous hits including Titanium and Say My Name. The music is, from my understanding, quintessential French House music. Additionally, near the beginning of the stream, David introduced a new track that he explained he had composed the night before the stream in honor of George Floyd. 

Technology: As mentioned earlier, the production behind this stream was very very well funded. This resulted in a very professional setting. It almost felt like I was watching a recording on TV rather than a livestream. David was playing on a stage in front of very complex looking boards. He also employed a mic and headphones like other djs. He was surrounded by a very professional looking camera crew with multiple shots being shown over the course of the show including one shot of a billboard like sign that showed the current sum of donations that David’s event had managed to gather. There were also a lot of party lights. The description of the Twitch stream also included a live twitter feed of David’s page.

Social: According to people’s comments, viewers were watching from all over the world. This included locations like France, Germany, Montevideo, Australia, Mexico, Canada and Argentina. The chat on the YouTube and Facebook streams was fairly one-dimensional. By this I mean that the audience comments were almost exclusively regarding the music or celebrating the events cause. I think this is largely due to the fact that the sheer size of the audience meant that someone’s message would only remain visible in the chat for about 3 seconds. Meanwhile, the Twitch chat, which was substantially smaller, was a lot more pluralistic. For some reason, it also had the strictest mods with many messages being deleted for including symbols that were not approved or for criticizing aspects of the stream--such as one message that simply said, “boring start”, which was quickly deleted.

Liveness: Something of worth that this stream spoke to regarding liveness is that, in terms of audience participation, while a larger audience may amplify how integrated the audience is to the stream, it can eventually hit a point where it is actually counter effective. What I mean by this is that, while an audience of 150 will be much more active and involved than an audience of 10 (both in the chat and through other means), once that audience becomes even larger, like 100k, the people actually lose the ability to be more involved. This is because, as mentioned earlier, a more active chat means that your message will appear for a much more brief moment. This may limit messages to being less lengthy and less original for those who manage to work up the courage to speak up. I came to this conclusion after comparing the Twitch chat with the YouTube and Facebook chats. The latter were much larger and had fewer deleted messages as well as fewer messages that did anything other than praise the music, comment where they were listening from, and praise the stream’s aim of raising funds for the charity organizations. The former was much smaller. It had more deleted messages (despite its lesser activity) as well as more messages doing other things like discussing how to get into the zoom call, criticizing the stream and even getting into minor political discussions that I couldn’t understand regarding French President Emmanuel Macron. 

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[beihonglin]

do you know why cai xukun left swin? I'm confused about what happened to that group and why they all separated, but I'm clueless as to where / how to find more information about them! If you could explain a bit, that would truly be so helpful, thank you!!!

hi! kunkun was in the music/dance subunit of swin, swin-s, and left after their debut ep, new world. he was in their 《New World》 mv here and their 《只因你太美》dance practice video here. he was also in their 161112 dorm livestream here, where he was roommates with liu ye (uwu!!). 

but alas pelias is a Shit Company that Doesn’t Know how to Manage Talent or the Promotion and Marketing of Idols… and kunkun realised it early (end 2016, after new world was released) and got himself out of there before his career went down the drain. no official post was ever released by pelias, understandably, and i doubt kunkun would ever want to talk about it publicly, but it’s been more or less accepted as such based on how the other swin members have described their years in pelias (no promotions, few comebacks opportunities, being pushed into acting etc). 

but after he left pelias, kunkun made it to beijing where he stayed alone, learnt how to play the guitar alone, learnt producing alone, picked up music alone, without any source of financial income for an entire year until he got picked up for idol producer. 

swin-s used to be six: cai xukun, wu muti, he yifan, yu gengyin, zhao pinlin and liu ye. there was also another sub-unit of swin called swin-e, which basically were all the ‘entertainers’ (actors lmao): zuo qibo, zhu yunlong, gouchen haoyu and tian shuchen. typing all their names out make my heart hurt?? five of them left (muti, fanfan, kunkun, gengyin, huadi) but five of them are still in swin (pinlin, liu ye, zuozuo, yunlong, gouhao)!! 

wu muti: the youngest (990707), 1/3 of didi line, sweetest baby angel, the first one to make friends with everyone on super idol, fluent in korean, spoiled the most by his geges along with kunkun. he went on to participate in under nineteen after he left swin, and he’d probably have gotten into the final group too if they didn’t make him leave the show because of visa issues. 

he yifan: second youngest (980822), 1/3 of didi line, cheeky lil bitch, sunshine meme boy, would bicker with kunkun over anything. he went on to participate in all for one after he left swin and turned into a yeehaw boy but because youku is a shady bitch and kept changing rules left and right, pulled out of the show halfway. he was really good though and all the swin boys said he rly grew up so much!! he’s now in ONEGROUP with zhao fangzhou (also on super idol)! 

yu gengyin: leader of swin-s (960428), responsible half of main vocal line, soft warm boy, knows every single jj lin song by heart, used to livestream regularly, quite possibly the love of my life. he’s swin’s Biggest Fan and if any past or present member goes on a survival show gengyin’s the first to post support and cheer them on ;n; he was also a mentor on another show《青春最强音》. he released the cutest song 《特别的安排》recently, and just wrapped up filming for a movie!! i translate for him sometimes here.

tian shuchen: ¼ of swin-e (941026), pretends to be fierce but is a puppy, has a dog called zongzi (rice dumpling). unlike the rest of them who left swin because pelias crap that doesn’t deserve them, huadi revealed that he left swin because of zhao pinlin. he also went on all for one after he left swin and debuted in one of their two final groups, BlackACE. his group, BlackACE, has released two songs, fission and because of you. check out more subbed content here! 

as ot9, they made two more comebacks - ep1 on 170717 (《告别少年》mv here, 《发光的星体》mv here and the cutest song 《和你去海边》dance practice here) and ep2 on 180109 (《BFGF》christmas version here and 《不解释》mv here). they also had a group variety show but they had to stop it after three episodes.  

as ot5, we got 《25Hours》on 180928 and 《动听醋语》on 181013!

zhao pinlin: still in swin! 1/3 of swin-s’ gege line (940629) but the youngest in ot5 swin, brat half of swin-s’ main vocal line, grouches a lot but would kill for his boys (especially ex-roommate gengyin). he also went on all for one as part of the three members of swin they sent on and all his performances were amazing!!! he ended up debuting in one of the two final groups of all for one as first place (!!!!!!). his group, BlackACE, has released two songs, fission and because of you. check out more subbed content here! 

he was also the one who went to look for kunkun in beijing after kunkun left swin, and was the first one kunkun called when he got the centre position in idol producer ;;;;; he didn’t tell kun that he was participating in all for one because he didn’t want to bother him, but pinlin ended up debuting in first place too ;;;;;;;;;; 

liu ye: still in swin! 1/3 of swin-s’ gege line (931115), dance prodigy, hid his age for three whole years until he got exposed as a 93 liner on produce camp, the softest shyest angel, used to be kunkun’s roommate, easily teased but would die with any of his friends. he’s gone on street dance of china and produce camp! he ended up debuting in r1se, produce camp’s final group, in 8th place (!!!!) despite tencent’s reluctance to give him any screen time at all. although he’s still in swin, he’s no longer under pelias - that piece of shit company sold his contract to 1cm some time in the middle of produce cam. i translate for him sometimes here! 

gouchen haoyu: still in swin! 940427, the sweetest swin boy, constantly showering love and affection, purest cat boy - he has a tattoo of a cat on his left shoulder and his cats are called dough stick (youtiao) and soymilk (doujiang) and he posts videos with them all the time sobs!! he also hangs out with / cat sits for xia zhiguang (x-nine, r1se)!! he also went on all for one as part of the three members of swin they sent on. he ended up debuting in one of the two final groups of all for one, called New Storm!! 

zhu yunlong: still in swin! old man (920413), singaporean, girl group dance lover, looks sweet but would probably kill you in your sleep. he also went on all for one as part of the three members of swin they sent on but got SNAKED by youku!!! he’s currently filming something with gouhao. 

zuo qibo: still in swin! another old man (920119), actor and the member with the most solo songs, including 《世界将我包围》(the world surrounds me),《这是爱》(this is love, an ost for a show he acted in) and 《I Won’t Cry》! he also went on the next top bang but also got snaked by dragon tv. honestly, he’s probably the most consistently employed in swin. 

as for how to keep up with them, i follow the boys, their work studios and their fanclubs on weibo! also the SWIN and 星动一班 chaohuas are great for constant emo swin hours (not that it’s never emo swin hours in this household).

anyway i hope this helps!!!!! ;u; 

[noramoya]

ANOTHER DISRESPECTFUL INFRINGIMENT AGAINST THE ESTATE IF MICHAEL JACKSON ?!

“The Estate of Michael Jackson alleges that the companies used dozens of copyrights without permission, when the TV network aired the special ‘The Last Days of Michael Jackson’,last week. The suit claims the two-hour, unauthorized special –which alleged that Jackson planned his comeback tour to get out of debt and that he regularly took surgery-ready levels of the anesthetic Propofol – used “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and several other songs, without permission.

It also said that the show used “substantial portions” of Jackson’s music videos, footage that the Estate owns,of the singer’s live performances from the Jacksons’ “Triumph” tour and other gigs, a clip from a Spike Lee–directed doc and footage from the film Michael Jackson’s This Is It.

“Disney and ABC committed willful and intentional copyright infringement when they used the Estate’s copyrighted materials, without the Estate’s permission,” Jackson estate attorney Howard Weitzman said in a statement. “Disney’s conduct here was particularly surprising, given that it has no tolerance for anyone using its copyrighted material in even the most trivial of manners.”

“Disney and ABC’s conduct is also contrary to Law and industry practice, and despite several cautionary letters from the Estate to Disney and ABC attorneys,” he continued, “Disney and ABC never sought the Jackson Estate’s permission to use any of the material owned by the Estate in the broadcast. Can you imagine using Disney’s intellectual property – like Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, Star Wars, The Avengers, Toy Story, and so many other works – without asking Disney’s permission or getting a license? The Estate has no choice but to vigorously protect its intellectual property, which is the lifeblood of its business.”

“We have not yet had an opportunity to review the complaint,” a spokesperson for ABC News tells... “The ABC News documentary explored the life, career and legacy of Michael Jackson, who remains of great interest to people worldwide, and did not infringe on his Estate’s rights.”

In the suit, the Estate of MJ claims that it only learned about the special two days before it aired. The estate claims it contacted the Walt Disney Company after seeing a trailer with copyrighted images of Jackson. “As a courtesy, we removed a specific image from the promotional material,” the company wrote. The Estate claims lawyers for the company did not reply to numerous subsequent objections over the film”...“

Variety reports that The Last Days of Michael Jackson was the most-watched program in the Thursday time slot, attracting 5.6 million viewers. The special contained never-before-seen interviews that Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer conducted with Jackson.

Prior to its airing, the Estate issued a statement condemning the doc: “We believe the special to be another crass and unauthorized attempt to exploit the life, music and image of Michael Jackson, without respect for Michael’s legacy, intellectual property rights or his children.”

[radwolf76]

FLASHBack: Week 30 - Peanut Butter Jelly Time

On 13 November 2002, the seventh episode of the third season of the NBC comedy-drama show Ed, "The Wedding", featured Jennifer Bradley using the animation to try to cheer the titular Ed (Link should go to the 35:12 mark in that video).

On 20 November 2005, the sixteenth episode of the fourth season of Family Guy, "The Courtship of Stewie's Father", Brian the Dog tries to cheer Peter up by dressing up like the banana and singing the song. Later, in episode sixteen of season nine from 8 May 2011, "The Big Bang Theory", Stewie would use time travel to steal the moment from Brian.

In Fall of 2005, Ka-chew!, (the commericals division of animation studio Klasky Csupo), produced a public service announcement for Nickelodeon, Breakfast Time, modelled on Peanut Butter Jelly Time, but with a dancing plate and cutlery, and an original song sung by DJ Mighty Mi, Albert S and Balinda. This PSA would regularly air at 6am, marking the transition from the Nick-at-Night programming back to their more kid-oriented fare.

In January of 2006, Britney Spears' ex-husband Kevin Federline (savagely mock-interviewed here by Weird Al, the one artist to be featured on First-Class FLASHBack despite never having made a Flash Animation himself), was trying to promote his "Brazilian Ass-Shaker" of a new song, PopoZão. An enterprising YouTuber (whose name has been lost to time as the original video was taken down), discovered that KFed's head bobs worked even better as Peanut Butter Federline.

On 31 Janurary 2007, Sophat Peou attempted to get on American Idol wearing the banana suit and singing the song. He lasted in front of the judges for ten seconds before being dismissed as forgettable.

On 13 Descember 2009, the band Weezer released a music video for their song Pork and Beans. A celebration of dozens of internet memes, Peanut Butter Jelly time would end up referenced three times in the video. First the Banana appears as a logo on a t-shirt at the 50 second mark, then at 2:43, the Banana is revealed to be one of the masked ninjas attacking Afro Ninja, and finally at the 2:58 mark, the "IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!!" caption from the original animation shows up.

In the World of Warcraft MMORPG, the dance for Male Tauren characters is based off of the Peanut Butter Jelly Time Banana, with some Noodle Dance and Raise the Roof thrown in for good measure. This same animation would be reused for the Draenei subrace, the Broken.

That's all for this week. Next week: Mid-Month Madness.

[monsterhighgroup-blog1]

Jackson Jekyll & Holt Hyde

Jackson Jekyll AS  Matt Bennett

is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Jekyll. He is a human (or normie) who is usually mild mannered and studious. But thanks to his half-monster heritage, he transforms into the rowdy Holt Hyde whenever he hears loud music. He is quite close with Frankie Stein.

Age :16

BirthdayMay 30th

Pet : Crossfade, a chameleon. He can blend into any situation and never call attention to himself.

BFFs : Frankie Stein and Deuce Gorgon

Transformation

Throughout each storyline, Holt and Jackson have no control over their transformations and change from one into the other under specific circumstances. In the cartoon series, it seems to be music that causes Holt/Jackson's transformation. This is first seen in "Hyde and Shriek." In the books it is heat that triggers the transformation.

In Holt Hyde's Basic diary, Holt's transformation into Jackson Jekyll normally occurs at sunrise and lasts until sunset. Holt noted that when he was trying to see what the town was like during the day, he blacked out at the moment of sunrise. However, in Jackson Jekyll's 'Between Classes' diary, it's revealed that the trigger for Jackson's transformation has since changed, so that it is now music as in the cartoon. Specifically, "music with a 4/4 time signature played in excess of 90 decibels" triggers the transformation into Holt. However according to the dairy, because of Jackson's "elemental heritage + Hyde transformation + teenage boy" status, it is likely to change again at least once more before he hits adulthood.

In the Monster High book series, the change is caused by sweat.

There are times when Jackson's and Holt's memories and abilities leak over to the other. For example, in the diaries Jackson is able to keep up with Deuce Gorgon in a basketball game (to the gorgon's surprise),[4] while Holt recognizes Draculaura at a club despite the fact it's the "first" time he meets her.

Family

In the Monster High books, his mother is named Sydney Jekyll. The exact way Jackson's family tree looks is fuzzy at the moment. In Jackson Jekyll's 'Between Classes' diary, it is revealed that it's Jackson's mother from whom the dual nature comes, while his father is revealed to be a fire elemental and implied to be the parent through which Jackson is the cousin to Heath Burns, a fact first mentioned in "Fear Pressure". However, Ghoul Spirit states that Jackson's mother is the sister of Heath's father, making the exact familial relations unclear. In his profile bio on the website, he states his parents are "Dr. and Mrs. Jekyll", meaning that Dr. Jekyll is his father in the bio series. In the Monster High books, Dr. Jekyll is his mother, but she is referred to as Ms. J, and Jackson is the grandson of the original Dr. Henry-Jekyll-Mr.-Edward-Hyde character.

Until he was 16 years of age, Jackson did not know he had a monster half in the form of Holt. He did know both his parents were monsters, but he thought he'd only been given his mother's human side. Neither his parents apparently thought their son's dual nature was something they needed to inform him about.

Especially Jackson's mother is very protective of her little boy, and seeing him get hurt is something that can trigger her transformation into the mode most suited for helping him out. Also according to Holt Hyde's Basicdiary, Jackson's mother doesn't keep the same job for long and the family regularly moves to a place closer to her new job.

In the Monster High books, Jackson regards Holt as his brother, as the latter reveals to Melody Carver: "Because D.J. likes her. I can't do that to him...or me, or whoever....He's kind of like my brother, I guess." Heath Burns is not related to Jackson in the books, and therefore neither is Harmony Burns. Though they are cousins in the webisodes.

Jackson has an uncle who owns a farm. It is not stated what side of the family his uncle is on, although it's slightly more likely he is a Jekyll/Hyde because he has no problem only seeing Jackson out. AbilitiesHe has no monster abilities, being a normie, as humans don't have any abilities that monsters have, but he does have a special ability:Special AbilitiesTransformation: Jackson can transform into Holt Hyde, but not at will (not unlike his grandfather). This only occurs when in the books, he sweats, and in the web series and TV specials, when he hears loud music playing.SkillsetSports: In the books, he is good at basketball, and in the web series, casketball. Though Manny Taur does not recognize he is good at it due to Holt.Video games: He is skilled in playing video games.Other Facts

zac efron dj    as Holt Hyde is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Hyde and the alter ego of Jackson Jekyll. The  Age :16... I think. 

Birthday : May 30th

Pet :Crossfade, a chameleon. He's the best pet ever 'cause change never bothers him and he totally digs my music.

BFFs : I'm down with all the monsters that love my music

Personality

Holt is a DJ, so he's very social and into promoting his music. He admits that he is "hot-headed" and can have a bit of a temper.[1]However, when it comes to his music, Holt has access to a quiet side in favor of the creative process. He enjoys to spend time at a small, secluded spot near Epic Falls during those periods. Holt Secret Hyde-a-Way His choice in clothing style is a black-and-white shirt may be a reference to his split personality alter ego side of Jackson.

Transformation

Throughout each storyline, Holt and Jackson have no control over their transformations and change from one into the other under specific circumstances. In the cartoon series, it seems to be music that causes Holt/Jackson's transformation. This is first seen in "Hyde and Shriek".

In his 'Basic' diary, Holt's transformation into Jackson Jekyll normally occurs at sunrise and lasts until sunset. Holt noted that when he was trying to see what the town was like during the day, he blacked out at the moment of sunrise. However, in Jackson Jekyll's 'Between Classes' diary, it's revealed that the trigger for Jackson's transformation has since changed, so that it is now also music as in the cartoon. Specifically, "music with a 4/4 time signature played in excess of 90 decibels" triggers the transformation into Holt. However, according to the diary, because of Jackson's "elemental heritage + Hyde transformation + teenage boy" status, it is likely to change again at least once more before he hits adulthood.

In Holt's 'Basic' diary, he displayed one example of having some elemental powers from Jackson's parental heritage, as he melted the pen he was using and his entry indicated this had happened before. His bio also uses several fire related puns.

In the Monster High book series, the change is caused by temperature shifts, be it from him getting hot from embarrassment or from outside forces like a hot day.

There are times when Jackson's and Holt's memories and abilities leak over to the other. For example, in the diaries, Jackson is able to keep up with Deuce Gorgon in a basketball game (to Deuce Gorgon's surprise),[2]while Holt recognizes Draculaura at a club despite the fact it's the "first" time he meets her.

Relationships

Family

The exact way Holt's family tree looks is fuzzy at the moment. In Jackson Jekyll's 'Between Classes' diary, it is revealed that it's Holt's mother from whom the dual nature comes, while his father is revealed to be a fire elemental and implied to be the parent through which Holt is the cousin to Heath Burns, a fact first mentioned in "Fear Pressure". However, Ghoul Spirit states that Holt's mother is the sister of Heath's father, making the exact familial relations unclear.

Until he was 16 years of age, Holt did not know he had a human half in the form of Jackson. Neither his parents apparently thought it was something they needed to inform him about.

Especially, Holt's mother is very protective of her little boy, and seeing him get hurt is something that can trigger her transformation into the mode most suited for helping him out. Also according to Holt's 'Basic' diary, Holt's mother doesn't keep the same job for long and the family regularly moves to a place closer to her new job.

In the Monster High books, Jackson regards Holt as his brother, as he reveals to Melody Carver: "Because D.J. likes her. I can't do that to him...or me, or whoever....He's kind of like my brother, I guess." Heath Burns is not related to Holt in the books, and Holt's father is absent, leaving it unclear how much of conventional canon is canon for the Monster High books.

Holt has an uncle who owns a farm. It is not stated what side of the family his uncle is on, although it's slightly more likely he is a Jekyll/Hyde because he has no problem only seeing Jackson out. Facebook

Friends

On his Monster High website profile, he's friends with all the monsters, who in turn love his music. Draculaurawas at a club when he was performing.

In one of Monster High's Facebook posts, it states that Hyde worked with Deuce to make a go-cart for the Monster Derby, so it could be assumed that Deuce is friends with both Jackson and his alter ego[4].

Pet

Holt's pet is a chameleon named Crossfade, who absolutely loves Holt's music.

Romance

In his 'Basic' diary, he goes on a date with Operetta. He also spots Draculaura at a club, and calls her "a hot little vampire" and her nickname "Ula D". His feelings for Draculaura seem to be a result of the memories he shares with Jackson.

In the webisode "Hyde and Shriek" Holt meets Frankie Stein, calling her a "high-powered hottie" and "Frankie 'Fine' Stein". This may also be a result of his shared memories with Jackson Jekyll, as he had never met Frankie before to know her name, let alone develop an interest in her, or he has the same interests as Jackson. He seems to really care for Frankie as much as Jackson does, and loves to make her happy. He is a little disappointed when Frankie says they can't go out yet until he works things out with Jackson, but is willing to wait. They still stay friends and doesn't mind waiting for Frankie. In the webisodes of the cartoon, especially in "Phantom of the Opry", and other webisodes, he calls her "Franken'fine" as a pun on the name "Frankenstein" as seen in Phantom of the Opry, and some occasions, "Frankie Fine" without her name "Stein" as heard in "The Bermuda Love Triangle".

In the movie "Ghouls Rule" Holt expresses interest in Jackson's normie classmate Clair and attempts to kiss her when he quotes that Jackson has "fine taste in ladies" to which however she appears to have exclusive interest in Jackson, putting headphones on Jackson to prevent him from hearing the music to share a kiss. In "Ghouls Rule", because Holt and Jackson sort of share the same brain, and have a combined mind set, he knows and understands Jackson's feelings as vice versa, and even agrees with Jackson about Clair.

In the Monster High book series, he has a crush on Frankie and calls her "Firecracker".

[timesuck2000]

Best of k-pop 2018

I’ve already done my best kpop choreography 2018 on twitter (here’s a link if that’s something you are into). But I’ve been thinking about my best kpop songs of 2018 list a lot. For a while thought I wasn’t going to do it, for a number of reasons, including the fact that I didn’t really listen to anything other than like 3 SHINee songs for the first few months of the year. But I’ve really loved reading everyone else’s lists, so I thought for 2018 I would just put up a baby list. I’ve left off some of the big hitters that I enjoyed but didn’t have much to say about, I assume everyone’s heard them anyway.

Dinner - Suho & Jane Jang Station M- such a good concept, such a mixed bag of releases. This one hit the mark of what I think Station M should be, a little experimental and off-brand for SM in it’s dreamy atmospheric pop goodness, utilising their in-house talent by making collaborations with other innovative artists. A++, listened to it year round.

Baby Don’t Stop - NCT U Should we talk about NCT and it’s numerous variations? There is a whole post that could be made about this move towards massive groups of disposable idols and how I worry about how none of them can possibly be making money nor be getting enough name/face recognition to parlay idol-dom into a long-term career. But purely as a concept, I think NCT U has the potential to be an interesting showcase for the different talents that a group of 18 (no doubt soon to be more) idols can possess. And when it works, it really works, as evidenced by this sexy jam, that made international impact despite not being all that heavily promoted. As the kids say, the song fucks.

BoA - Irreversable Hard to pick a fave BoA release of the year, after (what I consider) the mis-step of Nega Dola, she came back with One Shot, Two Shot in February, which I still listen to regularly. Then in November she released her 9th full album, with the lead single Woman, which was an excellent song with crazy choreo, but it’s the second stage she performed with Woman that’s my pick for BoA release of the year. Irreversible (written and produced by BoA herself) is such a beautiful song, stop ignoring the mother of k-pop.

MANGO - HYOMIN This song is so fucking weird and so is the video. I love it. The lyrics are so good, I’m always going to go hard for a powerful woman. Also it never fails to get me up and dancing.

Pinocchio - Taemin, BewhY Can I include this? (I mean, it’s my list, I’m going to.) Made for a show that I didn’t watch (The Call) that Taemin was involved in as part of his SHINee promo, I think the point of the show is every week you make a song in collaboration with another artist? Who knows. Taemin also released a solo japanese album this year that had some songs that are good enough to make this list (Into The Rhythm, Holy Water). But I just like Pinocchio more. So weird, so funky. (I’m the girl screaming hysterically when the chorus hits… I feel you, girl.)

Egoist - Olivia Hye/LOOΠΔ Stan Loona. Just kidding. I don’t really get Loona as a concept and was pretty disappointed with their debut song as well as most of the individual releases I managed to catch. Egoist though, this song is genuinely good.

Ddaeng - BTS BTS put out so much music this year and A LOT of it was real good (I esp. enjoyed Paradise). But the song that got the most play from me was the free Festa release from the rap line. IT’S JUST SO GOOD! Interesting incorporation of traditional Korean elements. Also… Namjoon… that rap, that sexy, sexy rap....

Runaway - Chimmi I don’t know anything about this artist, I don’t even know if I can classify this as a k-pop release. But I love it so much so it’s going on the list.

Remember - Katie I also don’t know if this can be included in the k-pop umbrella but it’s my list so it’s here. There was a month this year where this was the only song I listened to.

YOUNG - BAEKHYUN, Loco Another good SM station release with an exo member. When SM Station gets it right, they fucking nail it. Killing parts are Loco’s rap verses, but Baekhyun’s vocals are still as lovely as ever.

24/7 - EXO Speaking of exo. I can’t believe they’ve been and gone again in the space of a month. Back to the world of bbh and chanyeol’s midnight instalives and jongin posting nothing but his face on his account, I suppose. Well at least they left us a quality album to listen to while we miss them. Lots of good tracks (Oasis, Bad Dream, Power’s little brother- Gravity). 24/7 being the pick comes down to personal preference, I just like it’s groove.

곡선 (Curve)- Sunmi So tough to decide between this and Black Pearl. Both songs were such great inclusions on the album. Curve won out in the end because it has the lyric ‘It’s not a game, I’m going to swallow you up in one go’. Actually as I listen to it, this whole album holds up. The all-english lead in ADDICT is excellent. The final song, which apparently she wrote for Seulgi (that friendship kills me, it’s so cute), the single, Siren? All good!

빛이 나 (Shinin’) - Jonghyun I’m glad that I am now, for the most part, able to listen to this album with joy. I didn’t know what song to pick for this list (it’s all so good) but while it still makes me cry, Shinin’ is what Jonghyun chose and that’s good enough for me. (But if you are looking for more recs: Only one you need, Grease) I don’t know what else to say, it’s Jonghyun, of course the music is great, you don’t need me to tell you that.

I Will Fight - Key ft VINXEN I thought I should move this to the honorable mentions in the interest of not blowing out my list with SHINee members, but I just honestly loved this whole album, and I refuse to punish Key for the fact that everyone in SHINee is crazy talented.

Undercover - SHINee (It was nearly impossible to pick one song. Alt picks: 안녕 (You & I), Chemistry, Drive) Hey V, don’t you think it’s a little ridiculous to include this many picks from SHINee members and then pick a SHINee song as the best of the year?’

No. Make your own list.

The Story of the Light was the best kpop release of 2018. When I think about how difficult it must have been to make this album and to go out and promote it… I’m just very proud of them. And not for nothing, I truly find this album a joy to listen to, my ‘spotifywrapped’ was basically just ‘you listened to TSOL a lot huh?’

SO that’s it?! I reserve the rights to retroactively add EXO’s upcoming Love Shot to the list if it turns out to be excellent. And next year there won’t be a shinee release and my list will possibly be less biased… but seriously, the music they released this year was objectively great, go listen to it.

[phroyd]

All but one of the major content platforms have banned the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as the companies raced to act in the wake of Apple’s decision to remove five podcasts by Jones and his Infowars website.

Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for “repeated violations of community standards”, the company said on Monday. YouTube terminated Jones’s account over him repeatedly appearing in videos despite being subject to a 90-day ban from the website, and Spotify removed the entirety of one of Jones’s podcasts for “hate content”.

Facebook’s removal of the pages – the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the Infowars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page – comes after the social network imposed a 30-day ban on Jones personally “for his role in posting violating content to these pages”.

Following that suspension, a Facebook spokesperson said: “More content from the same pages has been reported to us – upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanising language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.”

The spokesperson noted that, despite the focus on Jones’s role in spreading conspiracy theories around events such as the 9/11 attacks and Sandy Hook school shooting, “none of the violations that spurred today’s removals were related to this”.

A few hours after Facebook announced its ban, YouTube also terminated Jones’s account on its platform. The company issued a statement that didn’t refer to Jones by name, saying only that: “All users agree to comply with ourterms of service and community guidelines when they sign up to use YouTube. When users violate these policies repeatedly, like our policies against hate speech and harassment, or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts.”

The Guardian understands that the specific rationale for Jones’s ban was his habit of appearing in livestreams hosted on other channels on the site, despite being subject to a 90-day ban.

Facebook’s and YouTube’s enforcement action against Jones came hours after Apple removed Jones from its podcast directory. The timing of Facebook’s announcement was unusual, with the company confirming the ban at 3am local time.

Jones, who is being sued by the parents of children murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting for claiming the attack was a hoax, is the host of the daily Alex Jones Show podcast, and his platform Infowars produces another five podcasts.

All of those shows were removed from Apple Podcasts save for one, Real News with David Knight, which at present is still on the platform.

Apple does not host podcasts, nor does it have any financial relationship with those it catalogues on its directory. Instead, Apple Podcasts is simply a list of links to podcasts hosted on independent servers around the world. But the service is still the most important single platform in the podcasting industry, driving a substantial amount of traffic to the podcasts it features on its homepage or in its charts.

Publishing platforms have faced strong pressure to take action against Jones and Infowars over the past few months, but Apple was the first major company to sanction the broadcaster in its entirety, narrowly beating Facebook to the punch.

“Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,” an Apple spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, which first reported the removal. “Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory, making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”

Spotify also took action against Jones on Monday, removing every episode of his podcast The Alex Jones Show from its platform. The music streaming service had previously removed specific episodes of the show, but left the bulk of the archive up, before tightening its enforcement. Spotify has still left three other Infowars podcasts live on the service, however.

“We take reports of hate content seriously and review any podcast episode or song that is flagged by our community,” a Spotify spokesperson told the Guardian. “Due to repeated violations of Spotify’s prohibited content policies, The Alex Jones Show has lost access to the Spotify platform.”

Facebook suspended Jones’s personal profile from the site for 30 days in late July for what the company said was bullying and hate speech. But he continued to regularly appear on Facebook after the suspension, appearing in livestreams hosted by other accounts and even making first-person posts to his personal page by publishing them using the accounts of other administrators in Infowars.

The lone major social network to still allow Jones unfettered access is Twitter, where the broadcaster has a “verified” account. As the count of companies acting against Jones and Infowars grew, some Twitter users began campaigning for that site to follow suit, tweeting to Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and chief executive. Following the bans, Jones immediatelyturned to Twitter’s live-streaming platform Periscope to hit back at the tech platforms. “Everyone must turn to Infowars as a standard to be saved,” Jones said. “Tell folks, ‘Hey, it’s the most censored thing in the world for a reason. Jones is dialled in, Jones knows what’s going on.’”

Since founding Infowars in 1999, Jones has built a vast audience. Among the theories he has promoted is that the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington were staged by the government.

He has also promoted a theory that the Sandy Hook massacre was faked by left-wing forces to promote gun control. The shooting killed 26 children and adults at the elementary school in Connecticut.

Jones is being sued in Texas by two Sandy Hook parents, who are seeking at least $1m (£770,000), claiming they have been subjected to harassment driven by his shows.

Neither Jones nor a representative for Infowars was available for comment early on Monday.

This Whack-Job Lunatic has noting but Whack-Job Lunatic Followers who believe his nonsensical rants, and then ACT upon their beliefs! There seems to be no limit to the Potential Stupidity of Americans! 

Phroyd

[coochiequeens]

Another story about disgusting men victimizing children. And a WTF at the end with a Pro-Pedophile organization was given tax free status by the IRS.

A man who advocated for the destigmatization of pedophilia has been arrested in Ecuador on suspicion of sexually abusing children in the country. 

Marthijn Uittenbogaard, 50, was arrested after a manhunt was launched to bring him to justice. The Dutch national was arrested around the town of Canoa after the Transnational Crime Investigation Unit of the National Police of Ecuador became aware he had allegedly sexually abused “dozens” of children while staying there.

According to Free a Girl, a Netherlands-based organization dedicated to ending child sexual exploitation, several minors regularly stayed at Uittenbogaard’s residence. They were allegedly lured into the home under the premise of playing video games. In exchange for sweets and money, Uittenbogaard coerced them into sexual acts. He also reportedly organized parties for children at his pool, where the youth were then groped and sexually assaulted. 

Uittenbogaard’s devices were also seized, and found to contain child sexual abuse material featuring children between the ages of 7 and 12. 

The pedophile’s capture is said to have been a direct result of the arrest of one of his colleagues in Mexico earlier this month.

Nelson Maatman, a friend of Uittenbogaard and fellow pro-pedophile advocate, was arrested in Mexico City on June 5, after an anonymous tip was handed to the Mexican prosecutor’s office indicating that he intended to purchase an adolescent and sell child sexual exploitation material.

Upon arrest, police found Maatman in possession of 4 terabytes (4000GB) of child sexual abuse material across a number of external storage devices. Maatman also had photos of children in his clothing pocket, a weapon, and drugs.

Uittenbogaard had been one of multiple pro-pedophile advocates to flee the Netherlands this year. He was arrested along with his husband, Lesley, who previously had been imprisoned in their home country for creating child sexual abuse material. Lesley, 34, is a pro-bestiality activist.

Both Uittenbogaard and his partner likely left the country in March after the former was convicted of continuing to operate a pedophile organization that had been declared illegal in 2014.

Vereniging MARTIJN, a pro-pedophile activist group found by a convicted sex offender in 1982, was banned and dissolved by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands because its members promoted the sexual abuse of children. 

MARTIJN is also allegedly responsible for the creation of a 1,000-page ‘pedophile handbook‘ which provides tips and tricks on how to lure, groom, and sexually abuse children without their parents or authorities becoming aware. In 2010, four years before it was banned, MARTIJN was suedby the family of a little girl who had been sexually abused by one of its members.

Uittenbogaard had been the treasurer and chairman of MARTIJN, and was sentenced to four months in prison earlier this year for continuing to operate the organization along with Norbert de Jonge, who was sentenced to six months for the same crime.

In 2011, Uittenbogaard was interviewed by NPO Funx, a Dutch public radio station that plays popular music and has a target audience of young people between 15 and 34 years of age. In the interview, he stated his ‘age of attraction’ was girls aged 6 to 12. 

“[sic] Children actually like it when they have someone who communicates with them at their level. That also has to do with sexuality, feelings and eroticism. Children can really enjoy cuddling and being physical. a certain place, then the whole mess breaks out, but that’s the western way of looking at sexuality,” Uittenbogaard said, asserting during the interview that, despite his attraction, he had never sexually abused a child.

In 2013, Uittenbogaard appeared as a featured speaker at Schuimt! – a cultural event held in Tilburg, Netherlands featuring prominent artists. Uittenbogaard was invited by Anton Dautzenberg, who at the time was the foreman of the Tilburg Writer’s Guild.

Uittenbogaard maintained a blog he regularly updated until April of this year. Within the English-language publications, he compares the treatment of pedophiles to that of the Jews during the holocaust. He also recently wrote a post in praise Gert Hekma, a widely-cited academic and former professor at the University of Amsterdam who had written extensively in support of pedophilia prior to his passing in April. Hekma had come to the defense of Vereniging MARTIJN in 2014 when its legality was being challenged, and created a petition in an effort to keep pro-pedophilia advocacy legal.

In 2004, Hekma had been interviewed by Uittenbogaardfor a pro-pedophile magazine during which he extensively detailed his own childhood sexual fantasies. 

The academic stated that anyone who didn’t sexually fantasize about children below the age of 16 was “crazy,” going on to assert: “Most people know very well what a beautiful boy or a beautiful girl is, that they are sexy, that they have nice little blow mouths. If you do not see this, then you are blind.” In the same interview, Hekma agreed with the Uittenbogaard that sometimes children needed to be “forced” or “pressured” into sex.

On a blog post from 2020, Uittenbogaard quotes Canadian sexologist James Cantor in asserting that “voluntary pedosexual contacts” are not harmful to children. Cantor, a professor at the University of Toronto,once served on the board of Prostasia. Both Cantor and Prostasia have been influential in promoting the theory that “destigmatizing” pedophilia will reduce child sexual abuse. 

Uittenbogaard was also active on Twitter until June 23, with his last post being a retweet of Chelsea Manning promoting a memoire. His profile photo on the account, which he had started in 2011, is of two young boys lying in a field.

Uittenbogaard is the second “pedophile rights” activist to be nabbed in 2022, the first being his colleague Nelson Maatman. However, in February, a pro-pedophile advocate was sentenced in the United States after being arrested in 2021.

As previously reported by Reduxx, Ian Andrew Zearley was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found in possession of child sexual abuse material. 

The serial pedophile was arrested after law enforcement officials monitoring his internet access discovered Zearley had searched terms consistent with attempting to access child sexual abuse materials in breach of his release conditions.

According to the Department of Justice, Zearley had been searching for terms such as “real hardcore child porn” and “boys severely whipped and bleeding.” Zearley also authored two stories that described, in graphic detail, the rape and abuse of young boys.

Zearley was the President of the Pedophile Associates of America — which had been granted full IRS tax-exempt status in 2018, and was registered as an advocacy and educational entity. The organization’s status with the IRS wasn’t revoked until May of 2021, and it was likely due to Zearley already being in police custody and not having filed the proper forms to maintain the exemption on time.

By Anna Slatz

Anna is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Reduxx, with a journalistic focus on covering crime, child predators, and women's rights. She lives in Canada, enjoys Opera, and kvetches in her spare time.