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annethepancake · 3 years

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Sherlock rant

I recently rewatched BBC Sherlock for Rupert Graves, and aside from the lack of Lestrade appreciation I have a lot of problems with this series. Here are my thoughts:

1. It was all a blur

My second first impression of the show: I don't remember anything but the characters. And some characters I just blatantly forgot, like Mary. And I loved Mary on my second watch! I really forgot that at one point John actually got married and I don't even remember when I watched the show for the first time. I can still recall most of HIMYM's events and I hated that series.

2. It’s overall not a detective/crime show

Watching Sherlock for the second time, I mostly turned off my brain and just let it play in the background because (1) there's hardly anything for me to solve with the characters, most clues are taken by Sherlock off-screen anyway (especially after season 2), (2) they focus way too much on the quirks of the characters that make it almost like a sitcom that got dragged on for way too long. A crime/detective show shouldn't allow me to turn off my brain.

3. The characters just kinda fall flat

Exploring the depth of human emotions is not a bad approach to a modernized version of anything, I’m not trying to pretend I’m better than someone who gets sentimental over fictional character (if you know my blog at all, you know I am not), but at least write good characters. Sherlock is hardly a multi-faceted person; in fact, he’s kinda like the Wattpad teen fic main character sometimes. He physically fights off some terrorists with a machete to save the damsel in distress? He gets high off his tits but still got everything right all the time? John is just kinda there for most of the cases. Jim is a poorly written antagonist. Irene is a lesbian but gets the hot for our main character, surprise surprise. The only interesting characters to me are the ones who act like normal people: Molly, Greg and Mary. They are the multi-faceted characters, ones who I can actually relate to without feeling inferior to them in any way. Write characters like them, stop trying to be smart about it and stop writing Wattpad fanfictions for Sir Conan Doyle’s original works.

I get that they try to make Sherlock more like a human with emotions, making him quirky and arrogant, then make him quirky and more likable. It’s hardly a convincing character development though. He’s given over-powered deduction skills, so edgy, so high and mighty all the time. When he is finally written as vulnerable, turns out he has plans for that too. I would love to see him get it wrong once and maybe get humbled by that mistake, but getting Mary shot and killed is hardly even his fault, he is only doing his job. And killing off Mary is overall a bad idea anyway.

4. They treated the fandom like shit

I was absolutely disgusted at the start of season 3 when the showrunners just straight up shat on their fans. I wasn't there with the fandom during the wait between season 2 and 3, but I believe it was a pretty long wait (2 years, I could barely wait 2 years for my comfort series, and they have like 10 episodes per season), and they were presented with the first actual mystery of the series: How did Sherlock survive the fall? After years of waiting and having fun theorizing, they were met with a mockumentary about them, starring the most hated character of the protagonist and the fans. Those are the people who actually cared about the show for god's sake. The fact that the showrunners treated fans like crap and there's still an active fandom for the show appalled me.

Now not only The Empty Hearse bugs me, but the entire show does as well.

Allow me to digress.

Doki Doki Literature Club is a great example of audience engagement done right (Sorry for using this example I’m not actually that invested in the other franchises). After the success of the first game, the story provoked so many fans into solving the mysteries of the characters, some of them went really, really far. And that’s because of the actual mysteries that the development team took effort to plant into the plot. There is actual pay-off for painstakingly following the clues; as far as I know, only two (2!) people in the world have come close to solving the mystery of the first game (or they actually did). The game developers value their fans and their intelligence enough to have planted those clues where they did, and it’s a genuine exchange between the fans and the creators. Now even though you haven’t actually played the game, when you hear of the name and you’re only kinda familiar with gaming (like me), you’ll probably know what it is. What started as a mere open-source game by an indie developer became a sensation which left millions of fans begging for more.

Looking back at Sherlock, there are tons of logical flaws for a self-proclaimed crime series, virtually no clues for the audience to solve crimes along with their favorite detective, and when there was actually a mystery (Sherlock jumped off the building), they plainly showed him alive and well minutes later. Do we really need to see things spelled on screen to know what’s going on? Are we supposed to accept that Sherlock Holmes is an all-knowing future-predicting genius now too? Not a great sign of respecting the audience there.

So far, the only thing left that’s interesting about this series is the characters’ dynamic. Which brings me to the next criticism I have for the show.

5. The plague that infested mainstream media

Why is there still an active fandom? Queerbaiting and targeted marketing.

Community marketing is proven to be one of the best marketing methods there is, if not the best, to lengthen the lifespan of a product or service. The way they do that for shows and films and video games is usually by planting seeds of possible lores and history inside the content. Look at Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, they are franchises that ran for multiple years with a ton of history and world building that provokes fans’ imagination.

Sherlock - well, Sherlock has sexually ambiguous men.

Sherlock has a formula for success. It was an adaptation of the most iconic detective novel in the world, funded by one of the biggest TV networks in the UK and possibly the world (don’t quote me on this). Making this series means you can appeal to such a wide group of audience even before airing. Adding in the quirky smart men who live together, you’ve basically guaranteed a prime-time show with millions of loyal fans all over the world.

Fans are not stupid, and queer people don't just find queerness everywhere they go. They know a gay subtext when they see one. Sherlock came back from the literal death for John, pretty gay if you ask me.

This show is very much not just about some guys being dudes solving crimes, they have relationship that’s deeper than friendship, and definitely not platonic. They deliberately wrote a sexually ambiguous Sherlock Holmes from the get-go - literally from the very first episode, then capitalized off of the targeted demographic, never a pay-off for their anticipation. Martin Freeman said in interviews that he could recognize Sherlock fans, them being generally women from 16 - 25. No shit Sherlock, this show targets them and capitalizes off of them, being quirky and gay as hell, of course the fanbase is generally 16 - 25 and female.

Sherlock queerbaited the fandom for years for the sake of marketing and there’s never a pay-off, nor was there any recognition to the community, and to add to all that bigotry, queercoding pretty much all of the villains? Why was a show aired in the 2010′s allowed to do this? Why did Mark Gatiss, an openly gay man, a writer of the show, allow this to happen? Why are millions of fans all over the world allowing all this to go on?!

6. Conclusion

Now I haven’t read the books yet, so I’m not at all qualified to criticize the adaptation quality of the TV series; I’m just talking about the TV series on its own. Despite my criticism, I think the first two seasons did quite okay. There are quite a few nice cases there, I like The Blind Banker and The Hound of Baskerville. They did those well because the focus was on the cases themselves, and the connection between John and Sherlock was only in the background. I, like many other fans, like to figure things out on my own, to read between the lines, and to not have things spelled out for me. With the next seasons bombarded with Sherlock and John bonding it seriously felt like mere fan service for me and even though I wasn’t there when the show was on, I still felt like I was robbed and my interest in the show was abused.

Sherlock is undoubtedly super influential in pop culture even now. It has to have done something right to be in that spot (capitalizing off loyal fans?). I’m not writing this rant to change someone’s mind about the series, by all means, I’m still gonna love the hell out of Gavin Lestrade, and absolutely lose my mind over Mary Watson. So do take my words with a grain of salt, I’m just disappointed that one of the most influential shows there is is just short of my expectations.

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #rant #criticism

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autumnblogs · 3 years

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Day 3: Vendetta against Bro

Welcome back to more Homestuck Liveblogging. Picking up with Nannasprite as she prepares to give John the Dirt.

https://homestuck.com/story/421

Sburb’s opening move is to take John’s Dad away from him. If @mmmmalo‘s theory about psychological storytelling is to be believed, Sburb provokes fear and then manifests it in the form of a character’s antagonists. If you wonder why I bring them up so much, it’s probably because I’ve been reading their blog lately. I am almost always game for more Homestuck theorization, and would love to be able to reference more people and engage with their thoughts in my theoryposts and liveblogging, so if you know somebody with good takes, please pass them along my way.

The Incipisphere, like John’s name, was invoked into existence by player/character action, but paradoxically, has always been that way. By engaging with Sburb, John authenticates its retroactive existence, like a mailman taking a signature of receipt for a package.

When we engage with the fixtures of our cultures and material realities, we too, authenticate them. This can be good or bad - when we communicate with each other, recognize each other, we authenticate each other too. Observing and being observed is a mutual act of validation for everyone involved. I see you seeing me seeing you.

I’m full of horseshit again. Read some more horseshit after the break.

Content Warning for this one: Pedophilia Mentions.

https://homestuck.com/story/422

There’s a lot to unpack in this sequence of pages, and I’m almost certainly going to miss a lot of it, but I’ll come back to stuff that I miss as it comes back up in later pages.

As a Crucible of Unlimited Potential, Skaia can become absolutely anything, and the shape that it will take on will be influenced by the actions of the players. But it isn’t anything yet.

This is the second time in two pages that Nanna has brought up the light-darkness dichotomy of the forces at play in the Medium, and after just talking about the act of mutual authentication through mutual observation, my brain is screaming the words Hegelian Lens at me. Might go somewhere with that too.

I also wanna call attention to the name of the Medium. As a story about stories, it only makes sense that the name of Homestuck’s main otherworld should evoke the field used to propagate mass communication.

https://homestuck.com/story/423

I’ve always thought that it’s interesting that of the two forces in the Medium, the players have natural allies in the form of Prospit. The choice here is not to act on behalf of one or the other, the choice is between Action and Inaction. Not doing something is itself, doing something.

https://homestuck.com/story/427

You Can (Not) Redo.

Sburb relentlessly drives its players forward. If you attempt to go back, or stay where you are, you will be punished. No getting your parents back, no getting your planet back.

What’ll it be John? Advance or Advance?

https://homestuck.com/story/431

John is extremely resistant to being made to do things that he doesn’t want to do anyway, even by Narrators.

More thoughts about Cake and Baked Goods in Homestuck and in relation to John. The other main characters baking is associated with in Homestuck are all women - The Condesce, Meenah, Jane, Nanna - and baking in general is pretty strongly associated with women, moms, etc. I’ve always thought it was a little out of place amongst Dad’s other character traits, which are definitively masculine. Maybe it’s for exactly that reason - baking is culturally feminine.

Maybe John’s resistance to baked goods is because he’s uncomfortable receiving feminine affection (especially, but not only from his Dad). It’s like getting kisses from your Mom in public or other public displays of affection between men and the women in their lives, or even men and other men in their lives. John is certainly pretty clueless about affection from women when he receives it later in the story. On the other hand, he responds very well to masculine displays of affection, like the aloof but ebullient cards he gets from his Dad, or the one-upsmanship between him and Dave.

(I’ll have to think some more about the capitalism thing from my other post.)

https://homestuck.com/story/433

More of Rose seeing enemies in every shadow. Then again, could it be Jasper’s fault that they’re in this mess?

https://homestuck.com/story/442

I think the fact that we jump to this point in the past suggests that Rose is probably reminiscing about this spot, going along with my theory that when the Narration is focusing on a character, it’s also giving us that character’s stream of consciousness - we’re experience what Rose is experiencing.

That probably goes a long way to excusing the kind of puzzling, irritating experience we have of our first minutes with John. Due to his tendency to get distracted by things and forget how things work, we have to suffer through his own inability to navigate his disorderly environment exactly the same way he does.

Oh, so that’s why this story gets compared to Ulysses.

It is Jaspers’ fault that they’re in this mess. My hypothesis gathers more data.

https://homestuck.com/story/444

The third of the prose poems. Drat. Got to Dave’s Poem before I even had the chance to write about Rose’s Poem. Guess we’ll come back to this one later later.

https://homestuck.com/story/445

I’ve almost certainly missed a few of these gags by now but “Left him hanging long enough” is one of the jokes that Homestuck reproduces over and over again. Homestuck reproduces itself frequently, like variations on a theme. Its self-referential nature could be called incestuous, as it turns one-off gags into recurring gags.

https://homestuck.com/story/448

While Bro and Dirk are both definitely irony ninjas where Dave is just performing irony to get his Bro’s approval, I think all the irony is an effort to distance themselves from the fact that they really do sincerely enjoy the things they’re “ironically” into. That too, is probably ironic.

Unfortunately, the actual subject matter of Bro’s interests, while innocuous in a vacuum, are still extremely inappropriate to leave out where a thirteen year old can have access to them. Bro probably isn’t a pedophile, but between the martial education, and the uncomfortable degree to which he involves Dave in his sex life, his relationship with Dave recalls pederasty which is one of many, many links between Dirk, Bro, and the Classical Hellenes, and Monastic Shudo, a similar practice historically attested from their beloved Japan. (The term Platonic Relationship is called that because Plato is one of the first Greek Philosophers to argue that maybe it would be better for students’ education if they weren’t also sexually involved with their mentors? Or so the story goes.)

I may have a bit of a vendetta against Bro Strider, which probably has at least a little to do with the fact that, when I first read Homestuck, I got fooled into thinking he was kind of awesome, and it wasn’t until I was able to deal with my own childhood abuse and the fact that I had been indoctrinated with a lot of the very same toxic ideas bro inculcated in Dave that I was able to realize that Bro Strider is kind of a horrible guardian, so I have a sort of special ire directed at this character. Maybe I’m afraid in another life, I could have grown up to be that kind of creep. I’m glad I didn’t.

https://homestuck.com/story/449

All throughout this section, the narration suggests that Dave is both subconsciously aware that his Bro’s pasttimes make him uncomfortable, but trying to soothe himself by affirming them. So, in spite of my sharing some youthful confusion with Dave, the Narrative at least communicates to us from the very beginning that something is off about Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/452

To interrupt my dark and brooding reverie, please enjoy some Skate 3 Glitches.

I guess here’s a good place to note that I am going to be using the #personal stuff hashtag to denote when a post contains me alluding to my own dark and troubled past.

https://homestuck.com/story/457

The password is six letters long, and based on the fact that it’s the most awesome thing that it could be, I have no doubt that it’s Strider.

https://homestuck.com/story/465

Yup.

https://homestuck.com/story/466

It warms the cockles of me heart that Dave’s first inclination when he starts to flip the fuck out is to reach out to John Egbert.

https://homestuck.com/story/484

8^y

https://homestuck.com/story/485

Remember that one-upsmanship I was talking about? Any chance Dave and John get around each other, they talk each other down. I’m not sure if Andrew was saying anything about Toxic Masculinity at the time. I expect, like a lot of us, he didn’t have those words on his mind in 2009, but that’s textbook toxic masculinity, and I think when viewed as a complete work, Dave and John’s growth out of it is a sign of healthy maturation. Build each other up, boys, don’t tear each other down. In this life, we’re all we’ve got, and you owe it to each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/503

Leveling up is one of those weird things about Roleplaying Games that I didn’t realize until some point in the last two years is kind of an integral fixture of them. Overcoming hardships permanently makes you stronger in games that have an experience-level feature in them, and once you’re strong enough to beat a challenge once, you’re almost always strong enough to overcome that challenge in the future.

It’s a kind of storytelling that on closer examination is weirdly propagandistic, but it’s actually all over media. It’s pretty rare for a story to say “When you overcome a challenge, good job. You will have to overcome that same challenge again and again - maybe every day of your life.” The interesting thing, and I might come back to this, is that I think Homestuck actually takes this latter approach. Exactly the same emotional struggles they begin the story with are the ones they spend all 8000 pages of Homestuck agonizing over, and these characters will probably spend their entire lives wrestling with the baggage of their youth.

Suffering and toil is the fate of humankind, I suppose.

https://homestuck.com/story/518

Surrounded by Idiots.

https://homestuck.com/story/538

Saw is a story about a serial killer who subjects his victims to gruelling trials catered to make them face their own fatal flaws and emerge changed into better people, which is a lot like authorial scorn, which Andrew describes thusly in the commentary for Vriska’s introduction: “It's not as ill-willed as it might sound, but more of a universal principle of storytelling that for things to be interesting, harsh outcomes must befall those you create, in response to which they may thrive or fail. Which to the casual observer may read as hate.“. Lord English and Caliborn bear visual similarity to Jigsaw’s creepy puppet avatars, and serve as instruments of Andrew’s Authorial Scorn. Bro reproduces the same kind of creator’s hatred that Lord English bears toward all of Paradox Space, and reproduces it for the dubious benefit of his ward - Dave is to overcome the challenges thrust upon him in order to become strong.

https://homestuck.com/story/571

Dave does not care for being watched.

https://homestuck.com/story/588

If Dave’s first instinct for when he’s uncomfortable is to go talk to his friends, his second instinct is to attack.

https://homestuck.com/story/625

I don’t remember where I read it originally, it’s too far away in the past, but each of the items in the Rocket Pack is representative of one of John’s friends. The Cinderblock Dave, the Flower Pot Jade, the Violin Rose. John’s friends, his connections and bonds (Blood) tie him down and prevent him from indulging his most impulsive behaviors (Breath).

https://homestuck.com/story/631

In addition to Mad Science (or perhaps as an aspect thereof) John demonstrates remarkable lateral thinking.

https://homestuck.com/story/635

Alchemy has helped me get my thoughts in gear on a subject I glossed over the other day - the way the characters’ personality traits and objects fill the background radiation of the comic. In a way, the same thing is going on when the characters produce all kinds of neat shit from the odds and ends around their house as is going on when Sburb populates itself with symbols from the characters domestic lives.

Clowns become a threatening symbol throughout all of Homestuck, basically because there are a bunch in John’s house from a Doylist perspective. From a Watsonian perspective, Sburb seems, through the vehicle of destiny, to deliberately latch onto things from the players’ lives that will help them to contend with their anxiety and trauma. John has bad dreams about clowns, and seems to conceptualize himself as a clown in his self-critical estimation of himself. Maybe even as a Dark Mirror of his aspirations to be an entertainer? Is a Circus Clown a funhouse mirror version of a stage magician? I don’t have a follow up to that question, but it makes me think. If you checked out the essay from Malo I linked earlier, you might recognize some other things that John is afraid of which characterize his session, like his alleged fear of heights, and his anxiety about confronting his Dad.

I think that’s all for this evening. Another 200 pages down.

Cam signing off, alive and not alone.

#homestuck #liveblogging #commentary #authentication #validation #irony #personal stuff #authorial scorn

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tisthenightofthewitch · 6 years

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Tobias Forge On Taking Ghost's Live Show Into U.S. Arenas, Achieving Mystery In The Social Media Age.

Since forming in 2006, Swedish metal act Ghost has toured opening for metal and rock stalwarts like Iron Maiden, Slayer, Mastodon, Alice in Chains and more, gradually bringing their music to more and more people in America.

The group has never had a lack of famous cheerleaders, like Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl who produced the 2013 covers EP If You Have Ghost (and is rumored to have performed in costume, unbeknownst to fans, in the group's backing band as a "Nameless Ghoul").

Their third album Meliora marked a major leap forward in the United States, giving Ghost its first #1 album, topping the top rock albums chart and leading to slots in front of larger crowds at places like Lollapalooza in 2016.

But it's their most recent studio effort Prequelle (June, Loma Vista) which signaled a breakthrough for Ghost in the United States.

While Meliora hit #1 on a rock chart, Prequelle managed to debut at #3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, just underneath Kanye West and Post Malone, in front of Luke Combs and Cardi B, no easy feat in America today for a group holding guitars.

As expected, the group's current "A Pale Tour Named Death" road trip sees them playing larger venues in America than ever before, making the jump to arenas on some dates (The Forum in Los Angeles this Friday, November 16 and Barclays Center in New York on December 15) for their first time as a headliner.

It belies the necessity of a strong live show for any rock act in a changing music industry landscape.

"I think that it’s crucial. I think that playing live, if you want to be an artist - that’s what artists do," said Ghost frontman Tobias Forge. "I mean, if you’re a carpenter, you need to build sh-t. For us, if you’re a rock band, there’s no way around it. You have to tour. You have to tour a whole lot."

On a recent November stop at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom (capacity 5,000), Ghost performed from a massive three-tiered stage, amidst the religious imagery fans have come to expect, under an arena-ready light show, that comfortably housed Forge and his seven piece backing band (Ghost's Nameless Ghouls).

The key logistically during a tour that jumps from larger mid-size venues to arenas and back, is how to present that show in the larger setting without losing what makes it a virtually unparalleled staging somewhere like Chicago's Aragon.

"I think that one of our biggest hurdles right now - not in terms of imagination and planning but just economically and practically - is how to make those arena shows not look like we just put our theatre show into The Forum or Barclays. It needs to look like we look like this every night on the tour," observed Forge astutely. "There’s usually a makeshift stage - a very generic square stage. A PA company has come in and put up a big PA, usually with a lot of speakers and stuff in front of the stage. So you end up in a situation that in a way sort of increases the distance between you and the crowd," observed Forge of what bands can often expect if they choose to rely upon the staging provided to them in the typical arena. "Whereas if you go see Bon Jovi, he will have built a stage that is meant to be in some sort of proximity to the crowd," he said, noting the need for hands-on customization prior to Ghost's L.A. and New York shows.

Forge pointed out the need to hire a video team to properly utilize arena video screens or jumbotrons for these larger shows, singling out the need for additional lighting and followspots. It's the type of attention to detail that has defined the group's costumes, staging, messaging and music for over ten years and primes Ghost for success in larger U.S. venues.

"I like that," said Forge of the challenge involved in properly pulling off Ghost's first American arena concerts. "This is my job. This is my dream. This is what I have been wanting ever since I was a kid. I sat in front of my TV in our living room. I had a VCR looking at tapes I’d freeze frame and draw the stage. I loved that stuff. It takes a lot of planning and you definitely have to grind your teeth a lot knowing [maybe] it won’t really turn out the way I wanted… but f--k it," said Forge of the risk.

With each album, Forge has built for Ghost fascinating, character-driven narrative that plays out both on album and on stage, as one of the most interesting, thought-provoking acts in rock and roll.

Each album sees Forge take on a new persona, moving from the fourth and final incarnation of his Papa Emeritus character to Cardinal Copia on Prequelle.

Anonymity was at the root of that and thoughtful fans, for the most part, played along with a wink and a nod, agreeing to Forge's no photo policy as band members, for most of the band's existence, went to great lengths to try and hide their identities, regardless of the level of difficulty that involves following the rise of social media.

In the past, Forge was wont to give interviews in character and/or in costume in an effort to drive the story forward and keep up that air of anonymity. But a 2017 lawsuit by former band members over royalties changed the identity of Papa Emeritus from occasional online whisper to brisk confirmation virtually overnight.

"That was of course... uncomfortable. The last couple of years have, in between spawning a new record that has been successful and tours that have been very pleasant, also been quite grueling," noted Forge of dealing with the lawsuit and the forced change it brought (one of the only elements of Ghost over which he was able to exercise no control). "I had to take into consideration that as much as I wanted the images that people have been fed to be strong enough to sort of survive whatever images would appear of me and however I would be presented, you never know if it changes the perception of the general crowd," he said of the potential consequences in being forced to pull back the curtain a bit so to speak.

Some of the best rock music has been driven by narrative storytelling. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and more used the idea to great effect on the concept albums of the 70s. Prince and David Bowie certainly built the idea of mystery into the characters they portrayed publicly. And general unpredictability has always made for the best rock and roll moments.

In the internet age, where the answer to any question about any celebrity is only a click away, it's become kind of a lost art. But Ghost continues to make that mystery a crucial part of everything they do regardless of the challenge involved.

"I don’t find it too difficult. With Ghost, I never really foresaw that it was going to take off the way it did. I knew that the songs were good. I knew that it had the ability to turn people’s heads. I knew that we were going to have a crowd. [But] I never thought it would propel into the Grammy world or arenas and all that," said Forge. "So it was easy to make that decision from an aesthetic point of view. Because I want it to be highly theatrical."

Forge notes that while his idea of fame has changed over the years, he believes that it’s possible to maintain some sense of anonymity despite the times.

"I like the fact that my work in Ghost is famous and people know it and we have our crowd. But I am not as antsy about getting recognized on the street as I might have once been," said Forge of his rock ambitions. "As long as I don’t get an Instagram account and start tweeting all over the place about what I think about this, that or the other, I think I should be able to maintain that level of mystery. There’s definitely a middle way to have both: you can be a celebrity but you can still be kind of mysterious. Look at Nick Cave... I know a lot about him. But he’s still as mysterious to me as ever."

Ghost's ability to hone its act and develop an audience organically over the course of twelve years, four studio albums and a series of EPs is also the product of a bygone era.

As it's become more difficult to monetize recorded music, acts tend to be discarded fast as major labels go for the quickest, easiest, most profitable hit. Rock acts in particular have suffered, with little time to develop a sound, let alone a unique persona. That fact isn't lost on Forge as Ghost continues to experience some of its greatest North American success.

"I am very fortunate that I was signed to a label where I was given an old school treatment where I was signed for several records and given the opportunity to evolve and develop - which, unfortunately, is something that most labels would not allow now. Maybe that changes in the future. I think you also have to have a lot of faith in the future," he said. "I think the dark ages of the entertainment industry were definitely between 2000 and 2010 basically - ten years. As soon as streaming sort of caught up, there’s been sort of an incentive for the big powers to keep investing. There’s definitely a need for entertainment," said Forge of changing online consumption methods.

With a #1 record under their belt, and a top 5 debut on the pop chart, the key to Ghost's success has been in the way Forge has consistently managed not just to challenge his audience but engage them by making them an integral part of one of music's most unique success stories.

"One thing that I hadn’t predicted at all upon Ghost’s inception, was the unbelievable surge of creativity that it spawned amongst our fans. I’d say as much as I am the initiator of this and the creator of most of the narrative, I think that the cult, the lifestyle that seems to be Ghost, is definitely something that has been carried forth and developed by our thousands of fans who are building it. They sort of take it and run with it," noted Forge. "For a brand like ours, if I did not have that fan engagement, I would not be sitting here in Tulsa doing an interview with Forbes."

All owned by Forbes.com

#Tobias Forge #Tobias Interview #The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Cardinal Copia #Nameless Ghouls

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gavillain · 5 years

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So with the year about to close, I’m once again doing my annual Top Ten Villains of This Year list. My personal rule for doing this: these characters are judged solely on the merits of their 2018 appearances, and I’m not going to include any villain who has appeared on last year’s list (which you can read here), even if they would still make the cut. Also bear in mind that this is only from media that I actually saw/read/played this year, so forgive me if your favorite isn’t here because I might not have seen them. New December movies in particular slipped through my fingers.

List under the cut

10. Lotor (Voltron: Legendary Defender)

Ever since Lotor first debuted, he's never been villainous enough for me. He's been positioned in villainous roles, but he never really did anything all that bad or evil. Season six, however, sees the true depth of his evil finally get revealed. His obsession with his Altean heritage and loathing of his Galra side is interesting from a psychological perspective, and his actions as the seemingly benevolent but truly vicious leader of the Altean refugees really highlight how truly sinister this guy was. He has quite a lot of blood on his hands all done to fuel his thirst for power. The final battle with him in the quintessence field was pretty cool too. I love seeing normally refined and restrained villains just totally lose it and go balls to the wall psycho and that's exactly what we got. We really finally got to see Lotor for who he was beneath all of the false masks he showed to Team Voltron and the audience, and, for that, I definitely consider him one of the year's best.

9. Barbara Kean (Gotham)

Gotham every year always has a great villain to highlight, and while I assume most Gotham fans are coming out of this year talking about the Valeska brother, I think Barbara Kean really showed her stuff this year. Barbara's had an interesting journey on the show, going from a bland love interest to a psycho ex-girlfriend to a Fish Mooney esque crime boss to this season becoming the heir of Ra's al Ghul himself. This year we saw Barbara Kean inherit Ra's al Ghul's mantel as the Demon's Head and assuming control over the League of Assassins. She proceeded to immediately put the sexist men in their place and established a lethal team of female assassins to serve her. It's fun to see Barbara taking on a new mantel and even being instrumental in taking down the original Ra's al Ghul when his schemes go too far. Her ultimately taking charge as the leader of the Gotham Sirens and declaring her turf a violently men-free-zone is a fun touch that I look forward to seeing get followed up in season five.

8. Magica DeSpell (DuckTales)

When I first heard that the DuckTales reboot was building up Magica DeSpell as some serious business Big Bad, I was definitely among those scratching my head. Magica had always just been a reoccurring funny villain with wacky hijinks rather than anyone who acted as a true Knight of Cerebus. However, 2017 DuckTales pulled it off and did so WONDERFULLY. Magica is not only a big serious villain and threat; she also maintains her same charismatic and funny personality. You see her manipulating Lena to giving up her body and unleashing ultimate darkness whilst still cracking jokes and going after Scrooge's number one dime. It's hard to balance genuine serious villainy with comedy, and it's a balancing act that the Disney villains of the 90s had down pat. And that's exactly what Magica feels like: a harkening back to that golden breed of Disney villains, and I hope to see her continue on in season two.

7. The Sanderson Sisters (Hocus Pocus: The All New Sequel)

This was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Hocus Pocus, and, to celebrate, Disney released a sequel novel that included both a novelization of the original film and an all new story set years later. The Sanderson Sisters are iconic and hilarious villains who have long been among my all time faves, so seeing them return in book form was a rare treat. This time, the Sandersons are scheming to bring all of the witches back from Hell to take over the world, and it's pretty scary reading Winnie's evil literally sending innocent people to Hell to exchange for evil witches. Mary also gets a solo musical number about her relationship with Winnie that's a lot of fun and sheds a new light on her character. It's operating at about the same level as A Twisted Tale in terms of quality so it's not hitting anything out of the ballpark, but seeing the Sandersons get treated to new content coinciding with their twenty-fifth anniversary is really fun and is worth their inclusion for sure.

6. Killmonger and Klaue (Black Panther)

The biggest movie of the year also gave us two of the very BEST villains of the year in the form of Killmonger and Klaue. Klaue, as portrayed by Andy Serkis, is naturally fun as a sinister and charismatic thief and arms dealer, filling sort of the "funny villain" quotient for the film. He's enjoyable and a treat to watch every time he's on screen. He's an evil white man who is raping African of its natural resources out of his sense of greed and entitlement. Killmonger compliments that nicely by being one of the deepest and most thought provoking character in the entire MCU. Killmonger is fun because not only is he sadistic and someone who enjoys bloodshed, he's also driven by righteous anger over the way that Wakanda has turned its back on black people globally. He has a desire to turn all of that around and remake the world. He may be cold and ruthless, but you can also see where he's coming from and that makes him all the more effective.

5. Salem (RWBY)

Salem, since her debut, has been a generic evily evil who eviled for some evil evil and never really had any texture at all besides being a vague evil. All of that changed this season of RWBY. We now know Salem and Ozpin's backstory. I was enthralled and mystified the entire time during their backstory. The animation, the story telling, everything was top notch. Salem is a woman who was cursed by immortality that hardened her into someone bitter and angry. She lost the man she loved once through death and then after his reincarnation, she lost him through his own fear of what she had become. She really feels like the type of character who is a tragic figure of myth at this point, and I loved how her motivation seems to stem from a bitterness at the gods and a desire to end the world that they created. Very fun for an arch-villain.

4. Red Goblin (The Amazing Spider-Man)

Dan Slott's decade long run as head writer of the Amazing Spider-Man came to an end earlier this year with a grand finale to end all grand finales: Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, rediscovers Spider-Man's secret identity and bonds with the Carnage symbiote to form the Red Goblin. Now, on some level, I find that whole concept to be very fanwanky, but, on the other, it's REALLY fucking cool. Yeah, Spider-Man writers have a tendency to continuously try to tell the next great Norman Osborn story, and, while this doesn't really rank in my top five, it's a worthy effort. I appreciate how it shows off how vicious and relentless Norman is. Him just fire bombing random people on the street to get under Peter's skin in particular is one of those great twisted moments. I also liked seeing Norman corrupt his grandson Normie Osborn with the symbiote and getting a grandpa's little monster serving him. It's got that fun "he's an assassin and a hostage rolled into one effect. And, of course, the Red Goblin left a permanent mark on Spider-Man history by being the villain who murdered Flash Thompson, long time friend and ally of Peter.

3. Obake (Big Hero 6)

The Big Hero 6 TV show has been a slam dunk for Disney television. Bringing in the same creative minds behind Kim Possible, the show has a great "loving parody of he superhero genre" feel to it whilst still being an epic hero show in its own right, and six heroes are only as good as their villain. Voiced by Andrew Scott of Jim Moriarty fame, Obake is an evil genius mastermind who's always in control of a situation and always crafting diabolical and brilliant schemes. Obake is in many respects a dark image of what Hiro could become: a man who refuses to limit his brilliance by morals or familial ties. His brain has outright been damaged to where his conscience doesn't check him and this brain damage IS slowly killing him, but he accepts it as a reasonable price for his perspective free of morality. But in the end, his schemes were all that he had, and when he's defeated, he has no reason to live and effectively commits suicide after letting Baymax go. There's a really great tragedy to the way he ends up. And, on top of that, he's just a really interesting and charismatic villain with fun quirks, fun minions, and engaging schemes. Easily one of the very best villains to come out of Disney television. 2. Doctor Octopus (Spider-Man PS4)

One of the really smart features of Insomniac's Spider-Man game is that Octavius is actually not Doctor Octopus at all for the first half of the game. Octavius is Peter's friend and boss, and the two of them are working together on cybernetic appendages for prosthetic limbs that respond to the brain waves just like regular limbs. Octavius has a degenerative brain diseases that is causing him to slowly lose control of his motor functions. As such, when he thinks he has the solution, he's overly hasty to use it even though the cerebral interface has a dangerous impact on his personality and moods. It causes him to act upon his worth impulses, particularly his resentment and anger towards Norman Osborn. This turns him into the Doctor Octopus who we all know, much to Peter's sadness. Peter ends up struggling a lot in this game over whether Octavius is worth saving, and it tears him apart when they reach their climax. No spoilers, but it's POWERFUL writing and acting. I particularly like how this version of the characters takes a little from every single iteration of the character without ever feeling unfresh. He has that personal connection and tragic element of the Raimi Ock, he has the intelligent master criminal side of the comics version, he has a design that echoes the sort of "I may be an overweight nerd but I can still kick your ass" appeal of the Spectacular Spider-Man version, and yet they still find his own unique sweet spot of characterizations that perfectly blends with the Insomniac Spider-Man world. I particularly enjoy his use of the Sinister Six and how he gets them all under his control by using his intelligence to give them each what they want so that they're all in debt, but they all genuinely seem to enjoy and admire him. That's an excellent retelling of the Sinister Six that's far more interesting than just "We all hate Spider-Man so let's team up to fight him."

1. Venom (Venom)

This was honestly the biggest and weirdest surprise of the year for me. See, the whole idea of a Venom solo movie is a uniformly bad idea from basically the word "Go." Oh yes, let's do a movie about a villain whose entire character revolves around being a dark version of Spider-Man in a movie that completely omits Spider-Man so that the villain can be the protagonist. That won't backfire at all. Well, of course, it totally backfired into a complete mess, but it happened to create a mess that was entertaining and enjoyable and had an absolutely wonderful and fun take on the Venom character. This film leans hard into the romantic side of Eddie and the Venom symbiote's bond and sort of formats itself as a gay alien romcom. Eddie is a journalist who wants to be a hero through his reporting, but he pursues it at the expense of every meaningful relationship he has. Venom is the runt of his alien litter who on Earth suddenly finds himself as the big fish in a small pond, and he likes it that way. In Venom, Brock finds a relationship that allows him to indulge his savior complex that won't be destroyed by it, and in Brock, Venom finds someone who allows him to indulge his power trip and sense of narcissism. They complete one another. Yes, it's stupid. Yes, it's cheesy. No, it's NOT the Venom we know at all. But, yes, it's a fun and effective route to take the character in the absence of Spider-Man. The thing is that the reason why it's so fun is pretty much all Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy has a weird awful accent, but he also gives this weirdly camp performance that's just captivating and fun. It actually reminds me a bit of Jack Sparrow in a way in that it's so out there, you can't help but he enamored. The Venom symbiote has fun banter and chemistry with Hardy, and the humor is on point. You've got Venom eating gangsters as people around him under-react, and he just shrugs it off with a one-liner. It's that type of thing, and, honestly, I love it. Like when the movie is Tom Hardy and Venom being goofy murder bros together, it's fun and engaging. Eddie himself is definitely more hero than villain, but Venom absolutely counts as far as I’m concerned, even if he is restrained by Eddie’s moral code by the end of it. It's exactly the type of ridiculous villain protagonist fantasy that it needed to be, and even though Venom isn't the main antagonist of his story, he's still easily my favorite villain of 2018... I have no idea what that says about me XD

Also I have all three of Spider-Man's big archenemies on this list in the reverse order that I usually like them XD That's fun lol

#Top Ten Villains of 2018 #Venom #Otto Octavius #Obake #Red Goblin #Salem #Erik Killmonger #Ulysses Klaue #Sanderson Sisters #Magica DeSpell #Barbara Kean #Lotor

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 5 years

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How SparkNotes' social media accounts mastered the art of meme-ing literature

Most millennials know SparkNotes as the ultimate no-nonsense study buddy, but today’s students not only receive help with schoolwork from the website, they get high-quality entertainment, too.

SparkNotes remains a crucial tool for text comprehension — full of study guides and supplemental resources on english literature, philosophy, poetry, and more. But over the past two years it’s also become a source of some of the internet’s most quick-witted, thought-provoking, and ambitious memes.

SparkNotes' Twitter and Instagram accounts have carved a unique niche for themselves online by posting literary memes that find perfect parallels between classic works like Macbeth, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, and Frankenstein, and present-day pop culture favorites like The Office, Parks and Rec, and more.

It may come as a surprise to those who once frequented the site for the sole purpose of better understanding Shakespeare plays before a final exam or catching up on assigned chapters of The Catcher in the Rye before the bell rang, but SparkNotes is cool now, and absolutely killing the social media game.

SEE ALSO: The magic of Book Fairies

As someone who spends the majority of her workday on the internet and splits her leisure time almost exclusively between reading books and re-watching episodes of The Office, I fell in love with the account's near-perfect meme execution after mere minutes of scrolling through posts.

In a world with so many bad brand tweets and tone-deaf memes, I felt compelled to seek out the well-read meme masters behind SparkNotes' social media to learn how it is they manage to make each and every post so good.

How SparkNotes' social media became LIT ✨📚

Chelsea Aaron, a 31-year-old senior editor for SparkNotes, is a huge part of the success. She started managing the site's Instagram in September 2017, and her meme approach has helped the account grow from 5,000 to 134,000 followers.

"When I first started managing the account, I tried a bunch of different things," Aaron explained in an email. "I ran illustrations and original content from our blog, and I also borrowed memes from our Twitter ... The memes seemed to get the most likes, so I started making and posting those on a regular basis, and now I try to do four to five per week."

Image: screengrab / Instagram

Aaron discovered the account's recipe for success by not only making memes about some of SparkNotes' most popular, highly searched guides — which include Shakespeare's plays, The Great Gatsby, and Pride and Prejudice — but by mashing them together with a few modern television shows that she's personally passionate about, such as The Office, Parks and Rec, Arrested Development, and John Mulaney's comedy specials. She's also known for hilariously retelling entire works (SparkNotes style, so, abridged versions) using the account's Highlight feature.

Image: screengrab / instagram

The brilliantly sharp, comical posts seem effortless, but Aaron explained the process takes some serious concentration. Essentially, she stares at a large collection of collected screenshots "in a state of panic" until an idea strikes. "It's wildly inefficient and incredibly stressful, but I haven't figured out another way to do it," she admitted.

Luckily, Aaron always has the SparkNotes Twitter account to turn to for inspiration, which is managed by Courtney Gorter, a 26-year-old consulting writer for SparkNotes who Aaron calls "a comedic genius."

Gorter has been managing the Twitter account for about a year and a half now, and joined the SparkNotes team because she utilized its resources growing up and wanted to help "make classic literature feel accessible" to others.

"I wanted this stuff to seem slightly more fun (or, at the very least, less intimidating) to the average stressed-out student who's just trying to read fifty pages by tomorrow and also has a quiz on Friday," she said. The memes definitely help her achieve that goal.

Scrolling through the SparkNotes Instagram account, you notice it generally uses a recurring but reliably satisfying meme format. Most of the posts consist of a white block filled with introductory text and a screenshot from a television show, like so.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SparkNotes Official (@sparknotes_) on Apr 16, 2019 at 10:25am PDT

Gorter, on the other hand, ensures the Twitter account showcases a far more widespread representation of the internet. She posts everything from out-of-context screenshots, GIFs, and videos, to altered headlines from The Onion and trending meme formats of the moment, like "in this house" memes, "nobody vs me" memes, and more. The account is full of variety and gloriously unpredictable.

Hades: Orpheus I’ll let you bring your wife back from the Underworld, but if you turn and look behind you she’ll be lost to you forever. Orpheus: pic.twitter.com/FWD9P2nO0m

— SparkNotes (@SparkNotes) April 16, 2019

Normal heart rate: /\⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ /\ _ / \ __/\__ / \ _ \/⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ \/ The old man you just killed, whose heart lies hidden beneath the floorboards yet continues to beat: ⠀/\⠀ /\⠀ /\ _/ \ /\_/ \ /\_/ \ /\_ ⠀ \/⠀⠀ \/⠀⠀ \/

— SparkNotes (@SparkNotes) April 12, 2019

Gorter, who describes herself as "constantly on the internet" feels a lot of her ideas are the result of "cultural osmosis ... our collective tendency to consume references and jokes without realizing it just by being on the internet a lot."

"Sometimes I’ll be reading a book, and I’ll remember a joke I saw earlier that fits. Sometimes a new meme format will crop up over the weekend, and I’ll think, 'That could work for Macbeth,'" she said.

Though the two accounts are clearly distinct from one another, they both give off the same hip English teacher energy and running them has become a truly collaborative effort. "I constantly send her [Gorter] emails asking stuff like, 'Can I still say 'big mood' or is that over?' and 'What's the deal with this whole 'wired vs tired' thing?'" Aaron said.

Together, the two women spend their days discussing iconic works of literature, making pop culture references, and keeping up with the latest memes. (A dream job.) Their separate styles fuse together to make each other's posts the best they can be.

The meme approach works wonders

One might not initially think that Boo Radley and John Mulaney have much in common, or that Michael Scott could effortlessly embody Romeo, Julius Caesar, and Holden Caulfield if you simply alter your perspective. I certainly did not.

But Aaron and Gorter's work will convince you. Once you start merging the worlds of classic literature and modern television series, you won't want to stop.

The SparkNotes instagram is my favorite thing pic.twitter.com/FCc6sXjJly

— Jessie Martin (@jessie_martin97) March 29, 2019

Fun fact, the official Sparknotes Instagram account is probably the best one: pic.twitter.com/sIR6tsw7ZP

— Tommy (@tommy_jacobs92) February 28, 2019

When describing why the posts work so well, Aaron explained that Hamlet, Mr. Darcy, and Gatsby — three of her favorite characters to meme — have super relatable personalities, which makes the process so simple.

"They're dramatic, and awkward, and obsessive, which makes them identical to about 97% of the people on The Office," she said. "I've learned that you can use Michael Scott as a stand-in for pretty much any classic lit character, and it isn't even hard. (That's what she said)."

What wow the @SparkNotes Twitter is extremely good???? It all appears to be this good!!! https://t.co/PyEqTdQ3Ly

— Rachel Kelly 🥛 (@wholemilk) May 2, 2019

Why is @SparkNotes's Twitter so good it has no right to be this good https://t.co/eFBQpLMpe3

— Kelsey [Version 2019.05] (@flusteredkels) May 2, 2019

Gorter thinks the accounts are so appealing because they create a deep sense of community — an online space that isn't so isolating, rather a place where where bibliophiles, television enthusiasts, and meme lovers can all come together and geek the hell out. There's really something for everyone.

"When Steve Rogers said, 'I understood that reference,' I felt that deeply. I think people enjoy being in on a joke, especially when the source material (classic literature, for instance) isn’t particularly hilarious," Gorter said. "There’s a delicious juxtaposition there. I know that I personally get a secret little thrill when I understand something as contextually layered as a really niche meme, and a slight sense of frustration when I don’t."

Engaging followers and changing with the times

SparkNotes as a whole has come a long way since it was launched as TheSpark.com by a group of Harvard students in 1999.

What started out as a budding web-based dating service quickly transformed into a trusted library of online study materials, and over the years, as the publishing industry, technology, and the internet evolved, so did SparkNotes.

Like the social media accounts, SparkNotes' SparkLife blog — full of quizzes, artwork, rankings, advice, and trendy posts like "How To Break Up With Someone, According To Shakespeare" and "Snapchats From Every Literary Movement" — perfectly encapsulates the site's commitment to catering to its audience.

Whoever runs the Sparknotes twitter and Instagram pages deserves a raise

— louise🌻 (@_Fallxn_) February 21, 2019

SparkNotes does a remarkable job of shifting with the times to stay relevant and interesting in the eyes of its readers — and the quest to balance fun and education really seems to be paying off. Recently, the Instagram account tested out a post that called upon students and teachers to request custom-made memes by reaching out via email with the title of a book or subject they want meme'd, along with a message for the intended recipient.

"The response was amazing!" Aaron said. "We got almost 250 emails, and it's so great to see the genuine affection and admiration that teachers have for their students, and vice versa."

Thanks to the social media accounts, SparkNotes is not only helping students learn, but helping entire classrooms bond with their teachers. (And hopefully teaching educators who follow a thing or two about good memes.)

Print isn't dead, it's just getting some help from the internet

Aaron and Gorter are having a blast running the accounts, but ultimately, they hope their lighthearted posts will inspire people to pick up a book and read.

"I hope what our followers take away from this is that classic literature doesn’t have to be totally dry," Gorter said. "If our memes encourage our followers to engage with classic literature and be excited about reading, that's so rewarding," Aaron added.

The present-day approach to selling classic literature is undeniably unconventional, and the crossovers are absurdly ambitious, but they work so damn well. What's great about the memes is they're created in a way that doesn't diminish the literature plots, because in reality, one would have to have such a comprehensive understanding of the text to make such good jokes.

The memes are actually pretty high-brow when you think about it, sure to delight intellectuals with great taste in pop culture. I have no idea how the legendary writers would feel about their greatest works getting the meme treatment, but people online are definitely loving it.

It's refreshing to see a brand account succeed at such a genuinely funny level, but perhaps even nicer to see it thriving off of wholesome content that doesn't drag other accounts or get its laughs at the expense of tearing others down, as we've seen accounts do in the past.

SparkNotes social media accounts are genuinely just nice corners of the internet dedicated to making people laugh and hopefully igniting a love of literature.

WATCH: Steve Carell to reunite with 'The Office' creator for Netflix's 'Space Force'

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quarantineroulette · 5 years

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Seditions of You: An Interview with Filmmaker Joe Wakeman

vimeo

Joe Wakeman’s second feature, The Shoplifters (not to be confused with the Palme d’Or-winning film of the same title, but hopefully SEOs are none the wiser) is “a series of tableaux depicting the follies of a group of naïve Marxist would-be radicals” striving to be revolutionaries, only to discover that “what they really want is to be seen wearing berets.”

Although he began work on it a decade ago, The Shoplifters carries some very timely themes about online activism, consumerism, and the shallowness of modern culture as a whole. With fairly little effort, its thought-provoking vignettes resist passive cultural consumption and its stylistic fluidity keeps it visually stimulating as well. Its 70 minutes also offer a lot of seamless humor, from a slightly slapstick dressing room shoplift to a smart, satirical "revolutionary bake sale” in Washington Square Park.

Ahead of The Shoplifters’ appearance at the NewFilmmakers New York Film Festival on February 6, I spoke with Joe via email about collaborations, Maoist propaganda and Communism as fashion statement, among other fun topics.

1) What ignited your interest in Marxism & Maoism?

I've been interested in Marxism since I was a teenager, probably about when I was 13 and first encountered the politically inclined punk of The Sex Pistols and The Clash, and Dead Kennedys -- I think it's somewhat common for young suburbans to go through a "Communist" phase. What I didn't realize at the time was that my interest in Marxism was really less about politics, which admittedly I knew precious little about (though I do lean rather strongly to the left) and more about the iconography of Communism: I would go around with sickle and hammer belt buckles and spell "Revolution" with a backwards “R.” That sort of corny thing.

Later on, when I was 18 or so, I saw Jean Luc Godard's La Chinoise and his Groupe Dziga Vertov films with Jean-Pierre Gorin, all beautifully boring films depicting sexy French Maoists who do very little real revolutionary activity, despite their ability to quote at length from Marxist texts. These films made it apparent to me that what we think of in the US as "Marxist," where Communism has never been a reality, is as much a set of fashion and cultural signifiers as is the uniform of a typical "Goth" or "Emo Kid" -- berets, fists in the air, shabby clothes, shiny boots and cigarettes.

2) I believe you've mentioned that you started working on -- or had least conceived of -- The Shoplifters about 10 years ago? In what ways has it changed in that time?

Yes, at that time my friend Taylor Bruck (who plays Che Smith in the film) and I were also sometimes engaged in the "cool crime of shoplifting." There was a certain politically oriented moral code about it, where it was okay to shoplift from big corporations like Barnes & Noble but not right to steal from local businesses. But after seeing the Godard films we talked about how goofy it would be to take those politics further and call ourselves "revolutionaries,” which became the kernel of the absurd story for The Shoplifters that we wrote together.

The original script had a lot more characters and more action, arsons and assassinations and a lengthy courtroom finale at the end, where the Shoplifters are put on trial for sedition and theft. All that sounds exciting, but keep in mind, this was the script of a teenager. It's really rather cringe-worthy to read today. I threw the whole thing out when I reworked the film, though a couple scenes survive: the opening speech and the fitting-room sequence, where we pile on layers of stolen clothes, are both from the original version of the movie. We tried to shoot scenes from that script at that time, when I was 18 years old, with some borrowed equipment from the TV studio I was working for at the time, but we shot on damaged tapes and botched the sound recording. The material was practically unusable so, dejected, I hung up The Shoplifters for awhile and dedicated myself to working on other things and developing more before taking another crack at it.

3) Do you see The Shoplifters as sharing any similarities with your first feature, They Read By Night? Although stylistically different, they both seem to lovingly mock certain countercultures. I also like that they both have "nested" films within films (the short in They Read by Night and the music video and "Post-Capitalist Potential for Mass Education in the Internet Age" sequence in The Shoplifters).

Definitely. Actually They Read By Night was an attempt, after the first failure of The Shoplifters, to write a similar film on a smaller scale. I swapped out the berets for leather jackets and the characters became greaser-rock ‘n’ roller juvenile delinquents instead of revolutionaries, but the point is essentially the same -- that their so-called rebellion is still a symptom of capitalism, buying into another kind of "outsider" fashion.

As for the films-within-the-film element, I've always been attached to the idea that a movie does not have to tell one story, or focus on the story, or even just be one type of film. This is the other big element learned from the likes of Godard and other counterculture filmmakers, Dusan Makavejev, Warhol et al. -- that the "plot" of a film is not so important as the ideas which animate it, and to express those ideas more in the form of a lively discussion that, in a movie, can be shown with images rather than just spoken with words. Let's make our characters watch a film together and see how they react, or in The Shoplifters they educate themselves about Mao Zedong by reading about the Cultural Revolution on Wikipedia and from there its a free-flowing association of images culminating in some psuedo-Greek philosophy. It's the kind of methodology that people experimented with in the ‘60s and you see less often today, though occasionally you do see it, in Sion Sono's excellent recent Antiporno. Or, actually, the web-browser screen cap stuff in The Shoplifters is inspired by the 2014 teen horror film Unfriended. It's kind of a limitation of the cinema's potential when a movie just tells you a story one way, unless the story is really good, like Titanic or something.

vimeo

4) Both films also have musical sequences (the fight scene in They Read By Night and "Style Revolutionaries" in The Shoplifters). Given your involvement in the music scene here in Brooklyn (Joe is in the band Toyzanne, who you should definitely check out, and directs music videos as well), would you ever consider doing a musical?

I love musicals! They're a popular illustration of that same idea -- the story stops, and somebody sings a song that comments on it, or sometimes the song continues the story, or presents a separate situation which is analogous to the story. I was raised on musicals and I think they can still be cutting-edge as a genre, even though many might regard them as old-fashioned. I composed a lot of the music for The Shoplifters, together with DP Torey Cates and help from musician friends from the Brooklyn scene: Brendan Winick (also in Toyzanne), Frank Rathbone and Jenna Nelson (of Sic Tic), Kate Mohanty. Holly Overton and Sannety (who also stars in the film) contributed their unique stylings for different sections of the film as well. When I showed my friend John Sansone an early cut of the film, he remarked that he didn't realize that it was a "musical" which surprised me because there's no singing, (except for the Smiths cover and "Style Revolutionary"). But when I considered the role music plays in the film, it's really not too different from a musical in structure and tone, which was something that made me feel very happy about it. I'd like to eventually do a proper musical with lots of songs that plays with the genre in a more direct way, but I also don't think I'm mature enough yet as a filmmaker to attempt that.

5) How did the various collaborations in the film (the score, and the sequences from Oliver David and Preston Spurlock) come about?

Oliver David had made two music videos, one for my old band Bodega Bay and one for ONWE that had this style of a slow-motion fashion advertisement for the bands. I really enjoyed these videos and wanted Oliver to do something of a "remake" of the same style, this time advertising the revolutionary cadre in the film instead of a rock ‘n’ roll band, making the not-so-subtle commentary even less so. Likewise, when I was preparing to make the film I became close friends with Preston Spurlock, who makes these mind-blowing video collages of old commercials and such that are like wading through cultural toxic waste dumps to tap into some unconscious reflections that can't be put into words. I connected these in my head to stuff like Godard's Histoire(s) du cinema or the work of Adam Curtis (HyperNormalisation, The Century of the Self) and thought they would add a lot to the dialogue of images I was trying to present in the film.

I think that it's unimportant for an artist to be the "sole author" of a film. It is more interesting when I think, “Oh, Sannety can do things with electronic music that I don't even understand,” or “Oliver and Preston work in video in a completely different style from me which can form a relationship with my style, so why not ask them to contribute and make it a real dialogue rather than a constructed one.” I think collaboration is key in filmmaking -- it keeps the spirit of montage living through and through the work, which if you consider Eisenstein and Vertov, is really "Revolutionary" filmmaking. 6) I liked the criticisms of Internet activism the film presented. In the ego-driven realm of social media, do you feel there is any way for a pure act of protest or activism to thrive or even exist?

Yes I do think real activism can exist and can even be given a lot of strength through the Internet and social media -- those things have leveled the playing field and given voice to marginalized communities who hadn’t had that kind of visibility before the advent of these networks. Community organizer Candice Fortin, introduced to me through Gwynn Galitzer and Suffragette City Magazine, is another voice present in the movie, in keeping with the collaborations that exist throughout the film. She explains activism in the modern era and what people can do to start enacting change very eloquently midway through the movie, and i don't think I can say it better than the way she did in the film. She is constantly posting about progressive candidates, organizations and other concerns through social media to bring about political change on a grassroots scale. You can follow her @candicefortin for a start, but mainly pay attention! These opportunities to help are all around. 7) Do you have a favorite piece of Maoist propaganda?

Yes! This Maoist ballet from the cultural revolution, encouraging women to form feminist revolutionary cadres: The Red Detachment of Women. You can watch it on Youtube. Footage from it appears in Preston Spurlock's section of the film, I think it's beautiful and absurd, but I think weirdly Old Hollywood despite its anti-Western screed, like An American in Paris or something but cheaper looking. I really get a kick out of it. Perhaps when this one-day musical comes to fruition I’ll dole out some political ballet as a quiet (or more likely, loud) nod.

The Shoplifters is screening as a part of the NewFilmmakers New York Film Festival at Anthology Film Archives on Feb. 6, 2019. RSVP here.

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maddie-grove · 6 years

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Bi-Monthly Reading Round-Up: July/August

Playlist

“Mama Tried” by Merle Haggard (The Mars Room)

“Summer of Sam” by Lana del Rey (Sharp Objects)

“Keep Searchin’” by Del Shannon (Those Girls)

“No One Knows” by Dion and the Belmonts (Fortune’s Lady)

“Unpretty” by TLC (90s Bitch)

“Everybody’s Got the Right to Love” by the Supremes (Fool Me Twice)

“Loving Arms” by the Dixie Chicks (East)

“Spare Parts” by Bruce Springsteen (Joe College)

“You Said You Loved Me” from Bloody Blackbeard (Tomorrow and Forever)

“Hot in Herre” by Nelly (Miss Wonderful)

“Growin’ Up” by David Bowie (The Charm School)

“Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye (The Beggar Maid)

“Henry Lee” by Georgia Fireflies (Fairest)

Best of the Bi-Month

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006): Troubled journalist Camille Preaker returns to her claustrophobic Missouri hometown to report on the brutal murders of two teenage girls. The gruesome nature of her assignment is only matched by the cruelty and senselessness that fills her childhood home. Flynn marries a beautifully constructed plot with a wealth of distressingly vivid details, and the result is unforgettable. It’s like if V.C. Andrews had cared about being a more conventionally “good” writer. (No disrespect meant to V.C. Andrews, who didn’t really need to be any better, but she very much did her own thing re: plot and style.) Also, I love Camille a lot.

Worst of the Bi-Month

Fairest by Marissa Meyer (2015): In this prequel to The Lunar Chronicles, Princess Levana leads a luxurious existence on the moon colony ruled by her family, but lives in fear of her sadistic sister and believes she can never be loved because of the terrible scars hidden beneath her glamor. Her desperation for affection and validation eventually turns her into the Evil Moon Queen of the series proper, or something like that. Levana is probably meant to be a lonely, misguided girl who slowly descends into evil due to a barrage of disappointments, or else a conscienceless rapist (yes, rapist) whose suffering renders her somewhat pitiable. I honestly can’t tell, but the result is incoherent, to say the least.

Rest of the Bi-Month

The Charm School by Susan Wiggs (1999): In 1850s Boston, painfully awkward spinster Isadora Peabody decides to leave her stifling, shallow family and work as a navigator/translator on a clipper ship, much to the frustration (at first!) of its raucous captain. This is a rollicking romance with a nice Old Hollywood feel, partly because it owes a lot to Now, Voyager. Isadora’s character development is engaging, and there’s some interesting social commentary about the damaging effects of being forced to perform femininity.

The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro (1977): In this collection of short stories, Rose grows up poor and unshielded from the sordid realities of her mid-century Canadian town. Education and marriage change her life almost beyond recognition, and then she changes it again of her own volition. Munro’s descriptions are so perfect that I barely ever had to make an effort to imagine what anything looked like, and her observations about people are uncomfortably accurate. The stories become a little too sedate in the last quarter of the collection, though.

Joe College by Tom Perrotta (2000): Working-class Yale student Danny, equally at sea with his carelessly rich classmates and hostile townie coworkers, runs into even more trouble during a spring break spent driving his father’s lunch truck. Although the story takes a while to get started, it features several terrific setpieces (notably a dinner hosted by a classmate’s personally charming, politically heartless father) and has a thought-provoking ending.

Fortune’s Lady by Patricia Gaffney (1989): In 1790s England, Cass Merlin’s father is hanged as a Jacobin traitor, leaving her disgraced and practically alone in the world. Recruited/blackmailed into acting as a honeypot for a suspected Jacobin ringleader, she doesn’t expect to fall for Philip Riordan, her fellow spy, but you know how these things go. This is probably my favorite of all the Old School romances I’ve read. It has a fun if overly lurid plot inspired by Notorious, a compelling if occasionally idiot-ball-carrying heroine, and a hero who is only occasionally terrible. On the other hand, the villain is a bisexual who hates Edmund Burke, which (a) is kind of offensive and (b) makes it really hard for me, a bisexual who hates Edmund Burke, to hate him.

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner (2018): Romy, a single mother and stripper from San Francisco, ends up serving two consecutive life sentences in maximum security prison after killing her stalker. This novel pissed me the fuck off, not because it’s bad, but because it showcases the blatant unfairness of the justice system for indigent defendants and the proudly heartless attitude that many people have towards prisoners. Kushner has a terrific style and makes lots of references to 1960s country music, which I appreciate, but she loses steam about two-thirds into the book.

90s Bitch by Allison Yarrow (2018): Pushing back against the wave of nineties nostalgia, Yarrow details the sexism rampant in the decade’s politics and media, covering topics like the Clarence Thomas sexual harassment controversy, the downfall of Tonya Harding, Dan Quayle’s war on Murphy Brown, and the watered-down feminism of the Spice Girls. Yarrow’s account is entertaining as the subject matter is infuriating, but I wish she’d spent more time establishing how the eighties were any less sexist, because that doesn’t sound quite right.

East by Edith Pattou (2003): Ebba-Rose grows up happy with her large family on their early modern Norwegian farm, until poverty, illness, and the exposure of a big lie threaten to end it all. Then a polar bear shows up at the door and offers to fix everything in return for Rose coming to live with him--an offer that Rose feels compelled to take not just out of desperation, but out of wanderlust. I’m not that familiar with “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” but this seems to be a fairly straightforward retelling. It’s charming, though, and it really picks up after the candle incident.

Miss Wonderful by Loretta Chase (2004): Threatened with financial consequences if he doesn’t marry an heiress within a year, Napoleonic war veteran Alistair Carsington says “fuck that” and goes into the canal-building business with a friend in order to come up with the necessary cash. However, going into the canal business brings him into contact with the bewitching Mirabel Oldridge, who fucking hates the idea of a canal running through her village. This Regency romance turned out to be a lot sadder than I thought it would be--the hero and heroine spend just as much time dealing with PTSD and grief for a parent, respectively, as they do bantering--and it was a richer story for all of that. The start was pretty slow, though, and I could’ve done without the disdain for the lower class.

Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran (2014): Desperate for safety, Olivia Holladay cons her way into a housekeeping position at the Duke of Marwick’s house, hoping to find letters that will keep her murderous stalker off her back forever. Then she becomes way too invested in the welfare of the duke, who has become agoraphobic and borderline feral after his wife’s sudden death. This Victorian romance had an even slower start than Miss Wonderful, and I never got a coherent sense of the heroine’s personality; she’s a combination of prim goody-goody and wily con artist, and those two sides never really gel. I did like the conclusion, and Duran’s style is excellent as ever.

Tomorrow and Forever by Maud B. Johnson (1980): Tricked into boarding a bride ship and brutalized by Blackbeard’s pirates, New England girl Marley Lancaster finally finds love with Captain Bates Hagen after they’re set adrift in a dinghy together. They start a new life in Bath, North Carolina, but can it survive the fact that Bates is kind of a dirtbag? I rather enjoyed this Old School romance, partly because of the unusual setting and partly because I just liked the heroine. She’s kind of weak-willed and not very good at solving problems, but she struggles through life anyway and I really rooted for her. Bates, for his part, is...not a rapist. He’s actually the least rapey man in the story, which is how it should be, right? Still, he’s a dirtbag who ditches his common-law wife in a hostile colonial town and seems affronted when she doesn’t stay put. Plus I feel like only half the rapes in the story were narratively necessary.

Those Girls by Chevy Stevens (2015): Three sisters flee their rural Canadian home after the youngest kills their abusive father, only to face more horrible violence from men. Years later, after they’ve started a new life in Vancouver, the past reemerges and, you guessed it, there is more horrible violence. I finished this book and asked myself, “Is a woman made to suffer?” Like, I obviously read a lot about women suffering (see: most of this list), but this whole story is just women suffering, briefly trying to get revenge, and suffering more because of the revenge.

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adieka · 3 years

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How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO?

(1) How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO? (2) Does Social Media affect SEO? Search Engine Optimization? (3) Do Social Signals Work for SEO? (4) How Important Are Social Signals to Rank? (5) Some Value of Displaying Social Share Numbers in SEO (6) Social Shares Help You Rank Higher in Google Is a Myth! (7) Can You Rank a Blog Post Purely on Social Signals With No Backlinks? (8) Do You Do Buying Social Links From Any Influencer Else? (9) A Social Media Content Strategy for a Niche of Maternity (10) Is Instagram Good for Backlinking? (1) How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO? Christine I’m looking for information on link building using social media and how I can effectively use social media to grow our Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is for a legit online business and I’m focused primarily on a North American and European audience. Anyone willing to point me to some useful reading? Anything from beginning to expert. 2 👍🏽 2 [filtered from 12 💬🗨]📰👈

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Peter Try “The Art of Social Media” by Guy Kawasaki. It’s not written from an SEO perspective, of course. It’s really about optimizing your social media channels and getting the most out of them, but it’s got useful tips on engagement on social. If you can be engaging on social, you can influence your rankings indirectly through all the traffic you send to your site from social posts.

Christine ✍️ Great! Thank you!

Jay You can't link build with social media, but you can have strategies for awareness and brand mentions which does help Search Engine Optimization (SEO) somewhat but only for your brand. If you don't have a brand and just have a generic web site… social media is not going to get you long lasting results.

Christine ✍️ Thanks for the reply and info. We are hoping to use social media to better establish and grow our brand. We have a number of things that we’d like to roll out over the next couple of months, so I’m trying to learn as much as possible so I don’t waste any opportunities. Do mentions have any direct effect or does that solely help awareness and traffic? Jay It's not direct, but I believe Google keeps an awareness of brand mention across the major social platforms. There's no way to know absolutely how their algorithm takes it into account, but from what I understand it does help. The problem with social media is that there's no link permanence and individual account values can't be corroborated easily by Google. However, it is a good way to both jump-start awareness as well as garnering opportunities for attracting web links that do matter in the long term. If you focus on social, your primary efforts will be: Page creation & maintenance on Facebook. Don't focus on post volume at first, focus on post quality and engagement. Make sure your posts are both attractive and interesting and trigger engagement from anyone seeing the post. This will fuel Facebook to show your page posts to more people more often. Facebook's algorithms are based primarily on engagement. If your brand/business has a visual angle to it take advantage of Instagram. Again, quality over quantity. Make people stop scrolling to want to look at your photos & like them. Pinterest is OK but doesn't usually drive social value. Twitter is good if you have truly interesting and unique things to say. All of these social platforms require regular attention, especially early on as you build up a following. Create a blog and add 2-3 posts to it weekly. Interesting topics, nothing bland. If you Google the topic you want to talk about and 8,000 other sites already have the same article with basically the same information you plan to post - write about something else. Or, if you have a truly distinct spin on a topic then go ahead, but you really need links to it to out-rank those who already have a foothold on the search terms related to the topic. As you build your main web site, also make sure to always focus on best practices. You don't need an SEO company to tell you what those best practices are, just Google for advice and you will find a million articles. SEO companies are good for helping you determine why you may not be ranking for specific terms, or how to lift your Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) a little higher, or to review your site to see if you are doing something wrong, or to look at technical stuff that you may not have familiarity with - like sitemap files, micro tagging, link building (the legit kind, don't fall for the mass backlink scams), HTML mark-up, etc. Christine ✍️ Thank you for such a thorough response. This is helpful info!

Chris Social media signals (e.g shares, comments likes on posts that mention your brand/on your page) directly help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but it's not a HUGE ranking factor. There's nothing amazing or special that you can genuinely read about. Getting specific ideas to help would be optimal, your business has a lot of viral potential, think voice over (VO) competitions, posting VO work/parodies , I remember the EA sports guy going viral a while back, stuff like that will help you get a lot of mentions and grow your brand. It's all about the content you produce and how normal people will interact with it. There's a lot of reading you can do out there, but ultimately doing actual SEO would probably help you a lot more, especially if you are targeting business owners.

Christine ✍️ Thanks for the response and info. We’ve been tossing around some viral video ideas, but you sparked a few new thoughts from my partner.

Doug Social media, at the moment, helps with traffic and branding if you have a large enough audience and/or wallet. Besides improving dwell rate, it does nothing to “help” with rankings on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Christine ✍️ So it sounds like rolling out a well planned social strategy going for brand awareness and traffic is what we should focus on. Thank you!

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(2) Does Social Media affect SEO? Search Engine Optimization? Horia created a poll. Cheers, everyone! Here's an interesting thought experiment: Does social media affect Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? More specifically, do your social media efforts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et. al.) have any impact on organic rankings? Would love to get everyone's verdict in the poll and your opinions in the comments. Thank you! 66 votes 15 votes 10 votes

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Marty Marion🎓 » Horia From my viewpoint, if one objective is to generate more searches for keywords or phrases that are important to you, then social media can have a massive impact on stimulating searches… and searches result in clicks… which definitely impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO)… so I would think social media CAN affect SEO, not that it DOES all the time… I always like to look at social media strategies as PART of a comprehensive SEO plan. 💟👍🏽4

Horia That's a great argument, Marty! So I take it you see the benefits of social media from a "social engineering" point of view, where you create momentum for phrases, which in turn stimulate queries. 💟👍🏽2 Marty Marion🎓 » Horia Yes, stimulate intrigue, questions, etc that make people search for the specific subjects (phrases) that are most important to you and make sure your pages are super optimized… 👍🏽2 Lees » Marty Marion Can you give us an example from the past in which you used this technique? Or is this just a theory? 👍🏽1 Marty Marion🎓 » Lees Sure. Have used it often. For a big ecommerce lingerie company we did social posts asking men to post their favorite "sexy celebrities" from the 1950s through 1980s. Searches for "sexy + lingerie type" etc went up and so did sales through organic. For a jeans company we asked "how skinny are skinny jeans for men?". Same results. Questions seem to provoke searches. 👍🏽3

Petter I do believe that some signals are included, but not to the extent that SEO users in general should have a great understanding on how to engage the public etc. there. I believe that SEO users should work with SoMe consultants, but Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a large enough field in itself, so for my part I'm happy to let SoMe consultants take the lead there, and just see how SEO can benefit from it in the ways Marty described above (open to any venue where my clients make more money). As I see it, there are two main issues with some of the "myths" going around on how social signals has an effect on Search Engine Optimization (SEO): 1: Engagement metrics is not a direct ranking impact. If it was, then the webpages that exists to spin shareable content would win in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), but they don't. 2: Monitoring social media is possible, but it requires a lot of resources - and Google is already tasked with monitoring everything that can be monitored - so dedicating the amount of resources needed to be on top of this makes very little sense when there are so many other signals that aren't as "fleeting" and temporary. BUT: Google does tie in Facebook business profiles to businesses, so this might in some way somewhere feed into the algorithm, but from the little research I have done - I have yet to see any correlation between rankings and active, inactive or no business profiles on ie. FB - so if there is a signal there, then as of now it cannot be a strong one. The link from your business profile on FB is nofollow - so after march 1 2020, social media profile link might start to add value. However - visible links (written URL's that goes via redirects with nofollow) may count towards a mention when/if Google picks it up. Hashtag trends is fairly available, which could make sense for Google to tie into on queries that are fresh (I believe that at least their machine learning algorithm focusing on obtaining meaning to queries ties into this in some form or way - ie. "planking" made no sense before, but then suddenly became a trend - and I believe Google wants to be relevant on such queries and the only way to be that is to stay on top of what queries might mean). And again, like Marty stated above, Social Media has the ability to provide impact on amount of brand queries as well as other queries. So it is a valuable channel for the client to pursue. But again, I believe that our clients are better off if they have someone who solely focuses on these channels helping there, leaving us SEO users to cooperate with them but at the same time keep our focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 📰👈

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(3) Do Social Signals Work for SEO? John Do Social Signals Work For SEO, Whats Your Opinion? 📰👈

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Kumar Yes...do work...do it on proper way.. After publishing new page or post...share it on social media..and do social signals on it.. Also after doing any guest post...do the same...👍3

John ✍️ Great Advice. Kobi » Kumar what do you mean by social signals? Kumar » Kobi most powerful social media's... Twitter - Retweets. Facebook - Shares. Pinterest.. - Repins. Share on all these platforms and do social signals...

Blair Yes they do work but for me best be Twitter signals overall if they come from popular accounts. John ✍️ Really? Do you think Twitter is better, why?

Kumar » John most powerful social media's... Twitter - Retweets. Facebook - Shares. Pinterest.. - Repins. Share on all and do social signals... You will see the positive response..👍2

Mike They only work in making your link building look less fake. No direct impact on rankings and I say this after buying 10’s of thousands of signals for numerous web pages.👍3

John ✍️ I Agree and Disagree......I seen someresults but nothing major.👍1 Tiwari » Mike It is all about quality and not the quantity. These 5 dollars bot-generated Fiverr social signal gigs are just worthless. Mike I’ve compared urls that I built links to with, and without social signals, never saw 1 case where a kw rank improved due to signals. Even on less competitive branded terms. If you know a vendor who can provide a better experience I’m all ears! Mike Nah, Ive used providers “recommended” by notable people in this group and others, never Fiverr...but I might as well have used Fiverr for the results.👍1 John ✍️ » Tiwari 👍.

Hays I've seen it work in for time-sensitive queries like events. I had a site ranking in the top 3 positions for a few top keywords after an event/raffle we had got shared a few hundred times and we had over 10,000 post engagements, that brought 7,000 visitors to the page in 3 days from Facebook. So within 24 hours from the post we were ranking for these keywords. 3 years later, after the event we still rank number 1 for our focus keyword which was the item we raffled. This last year's event ranks number 2 for same keyword and similar item.👍1📰👈

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(4) How Important Are Social Signals to Rank? ArtRos How important are social signals to rank? 3 👍🏽 3 [filtered from 25 💬🗨]📰👈

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Roland They can help in some areas but not a requirement for success. One very useful return from posting on social media is quicker indexing of the site promoted. Keith Webpages with a significant amounts of social engagement are likely quality pieces of content that have generated a number of other Google related signals that convinces Google to rank them higher. Doubting the causation to social signals impacting ranking that much as they are so easy to manipulate. Maggie it's part of trust and authority within your niche - but Google can tell fake social signals from true engagement. It won't affect your rank negatively if you don't have them, but they help to some extent. Peter You can indirectly influence your rankings through traffic to your site from social, so I’d say put out great content on social (or post links to good website content from social) that gets people wanting to visit your site. Steve Hi, it depends on what you mean by social signals, but as long as you mean getting likes/shares/etc for your content then I think it's definitely a positive factor. Here's a screenshot of a page of mine in the fitness niche: As you can see it has gathered over 2000 Fb shares and engagements over the years (I think 10k or more but Buzzsome has a 1 year limit to show, anyway… ) and this page ranks rather well in Google for its target keyword. Granted, I also managed to build a lot of white hat backlinks to it with outreach strategies and the Skyscraper Technique, but 1, even before I started link building to it I saw a nice little upward movement for it in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) after I started getting so many FB shares for it, so I think all those shares definitely sent a positive message to Google. 2, the social shares helped in one more way with Search Engine Optimization (SEO): I displayed a big Social Share Counter box on this page so that when I asked other people to link to it (you know with the outreach Skyscraper link building technique I mentioned earlier) it helped me get a "yes" from more people because they saw how popular the page was already. So I'd say bottom line: yes, social signals do help a lot with SEO both directly and indirectly. Steve P.s.: Unfortunately I got all those thousands of shares back when my site was http and not https, and since I switched to https the social signal counter doesn't really work, that's why I had to rely on Buzzsumo data as proof that you can see for yourself.📰👈

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(5) Some Value of Displaying Social Share Numbers in SEO Neil Is there 'value' in displaying social share numbers - yes or no? (and why) 3 👍🏽 3 [filtered from 30 💬🗨]📰👈

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Fleming No not for SEO purposes. It's more to show users that your website gets engagement and has value its more to create user engagement.. Imagine walking past 2 shops one has customers queuing even outside, while the other has no customers whatsoever, which one are you likely to want to go in? Now some people will go to the empty one to avoid the queue however most will want to know what that shop has the other doesn't. Hope that makes sense Neil it did in my head as I wrote it lol Its also worth noting that a lot of those plugins you can change the number of likes retweets so it doesn't even reflect the real shares etc half the time. 💟👍🏽5 Neil ✍️ On my own website I do display the shares which may look great on some urls that get shared a lot 1000+ shares etc BUT - some urls don't get shared and then potentially have the oppositive effect - 'this url has little value' (maybe it has). Also, I do wonder whether displaying what is your website's popular pages - is this giving valuable data to competitors… all this, without the effect of slowing down the load time (albeit hopefully minimally). Fleming I just see it as a vanity metric who cares if it was shared 1200 times if only 5 read the whole thing and got anything from it? Its kind of like when people go yeah my video was view 10k times but only 4 got past the 30 seconds. Daine » Christopher is right, it is a vanity metric to a degree. But, here’s the thing. It has value because: 1. Social Proof: It encourages other people to share it, thus expanding your reach, audience, and traffic. 2. It builds authority and credibility. It shows that the piece is popular. 3. It has a hidden SEO benefit, because when conducting link outreach, posts that have been shared a lot convey popularity, and value, in turn helping to increase the chances of gaining a link. People are more inclined to link to popular content. 4. It encourages people to read it more, due to social proof. Social proof is very powerful, psychologically. 5. Social signals MAY play a small part in ranking. 💟👍🏽12

Neil ✍️ THAT is my gut feeling - and why I have stuck with it… Hazi Social proof. Fleming Does it hold much value though? when social proof can be easily manipulated as most plugins you can add the share counts etc? Daine It’s more ‘perceived’ value, rather than real value. Fleming » Daine yeah more a trust signal kind of thing. Daine » Christopher , yeah, exactly. Lancaster Perception is reality and the only reality is the one your visitor chooses to believe when they are on your website.

Micha » Daine I’d go with on this one, with these additions: 6: each share is a potential batch of new readers, therefore, possible links 7: BuzzSumo recently did a study of over a million datapoints and discovered sharing on social media is half of what it used to be. Whether that’s an ongoing trend or not, FOMO, likeability, credibility and the “follow the herd” effects are all indisputable market persuaders.📰👈

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(6) Social Shares Help You Rank Higher in Google Is a Myth! Martin This guy disappointed me. Are social shares really unimportant in ranking? Myth #5 Social shares help you rank higher in Google [38 💬🗨]

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Janka You're disappointed by the truth? 👍🏽9

Shubham » Janka ✔️ Ronald » Janka lol, thats society in general though 👍🏽1

Fouad Why being disappointed? I think he explained it very well. 👍🏽1 Doug At the moment, there is no evidence to suggest that social shares directly help improve the ranking of a website. To my understanding, it might help with User engagement if it’s compelling content... which would likely help with rankings. (Arguably if it’s compelling content it would likely rank well anyway outside of social shares). Also, it might help get a page indexed that is currently not. Social Likes and Shares are too easy to spam and manipulate. The only thing I could see Google doing in the future is assigning authority or credibility to individuals who share content based on their voice within a certain community/industry... that might be an interesting (albeit somewhat concerning) progression on this topic. 👍🏽6 Bhati I have site which get traffic from Google and only links it has are from facebook shares. 👍🏽3

Owais » Bhati What type content the website shares? Bhati » Owais viral articles, political, national news. I have multiple sites. 👍🏽1

Farhat yup, social share is very important, it helps your URL to indexed and make engagement with the audience, which helps Google bot to understand your content is useful to users. 💟1

Carl » Farhat agreed i have a 50k sku ecommerce store we get lots of social shares

Kevin To explain it simply : Bot shares won't help SEO, because it won't drive traffic. But real human share will benefit to SEO BECAUSE it will drive traffric in the end. But this is not the number of shares / likes that matters but rather the fact that it drives traffic or no. In others words, you would better have a 1K shared post that drive 50% traffic than a 20k shared post driving 2% traffic. 👍🏽4 Smith There's no evidence that there's SEO traffic because of the social shares. He is right. It's the other way. You get more social shares because of your SEO traffic. And that makes sense. 👍🏽4 Suraj Only believe on your experience, there are share only there review. Toth They're an indirect factor. Way too easily gamed to be a direct factor, for Google anyhow. 👍🏽4 Hazra It certainly doesn't have any impact for info post. Social shares helps to gain more visibility which indirectly increases the chance of getting natural back links. That's it.. 👍🏽2 Homer He's wrong. Social shares are social signals, and will affect both indexing and ranking. It won't get you to page one alone, but it will make a difference. 👍🏽1

Hamid but you can't say that they are impacting directly to your rankings. 👍🏽1 Homer » Hamid Yes, because I have had sites move up from page 10 to page 5. They are. 👍🏽1 Hamid » Homer Great, so how do you monitor that really due to socials this happened? Homer » Hamid On the sites that this happened on, I only had social signals going to them. The content was also old and had quite jumping around in the SERPS. The site also had no real traffic going to it. I always start link building with social signals only, meaning that there was no other factor.

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(7) Can You Rank a Blog Post Purely on Social Signals With No Backlinks? Lyon Can you rank a blog post purely on social signals with no backlinks? [filtered from 22 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Nabil It depends on how hard to rank for the keyword yet how powerful and specific your website, last but not the least how's your website's technical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) status. Arif If you're not an instant-lover, or you're not in rush, well... yes you can. but if you are, well this method doesn't suit you. Roger You can rank an article with just dummy text and no backlist but, for that to happen, there are certain variables that need to occur and, one of the most important is keyword difficulty/competition. Oliver There is absolutely NO evidence that social signals are being used by Google as a direct ranking factor. 👍🏽1 Tanvir I think yes .. it depends on the content you have ... like if you have good content and people visit your site from the social site ... and then they create backlink ... then yes you can rank 😃 Joe Ive been doing this for 20 years and love the variety of opinions here. In various ways there is a tiny bit of truth to many of them, but Oliver states the truth. That being said other items on the page will affect the ranking. Social signals alone will do nothing for you. Social signals combined with other things like a great description in the social post or key technical aspects of the page will get additional people to click and visit so while you may think you did it with social signals, it is misleading. No one strategy is good all by itself. That is something Google frowns upon. you need multiple strategies and techniques. Above all you need kickass content which drives traffic and engagement. you might have zero backlinks and crappy technical but if your content rocks, you have people visiting, staying and engaging, Google will still rank you. their priority is the searcher and giving them the best results for their query 👍🏽1 Jim Ranked for this, no backlinks bro

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Oliver The website has 130 do-follow referring domains (according to Ahrefs), only ONE internal link (with a keyword-rich anchor text) from the homepage would be more than enough to rank #1 for that keyword, Google still uses PageRank internally. Your website looks awesome and from what I'm seeing you have a lot of useful content, reviews, case studies, and etc.. 👍🏽1 Jim » Oliver yeah but in terms of referring domains pointing directly to this page, there's none, so yeah.

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(8) Do You Do Buying Social Links From Any Influencer Else? Olga Hello! How often do you buy social links or blog posts for your projects? [filtered from 28 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Mike I never buy social links... at least not from an SEO perspective. I might approach someone with a significant following about advertising with them, but that is for the traffic, not any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefit. Not sure what you mean by buying blog posts. If you mean posts for your own site, I regularly pay writers to create content. If you mean guest posts on other sites, I pay for those frequently, but never through anyone selling them as a service. 👍🏽8

Wren » Mike wow so interesting. How do you go about advertising with someone with a significant following, do you get them to share your product and do they have to declare that it's a paid promotion? Mike » Wren Depends on the situation and what we are promoting. Sometimes, I might have a client willing to sponsor a YouTube video in exchange for the content creator doing one of those typical 15-30 second pitches you see on a lot of videos. In those cases, a sample of the product or a few products will be sent to them to use in the video. Stuff like that. It's never a video 100% devoted just to the product or service. Instead we sponsor one of their videos they are already doing. Wren » Mike ok, so does that mean they don't to say they have been paid for it. Mike » Wren They will say something like, "this video is sponsored by...." Wren » Mike ok cool. Cheers for sharing this with me. 👍🏽1

Singh It is not a good idea to buy a social link....in a long run it can affect your website very badly 👍🏽3

Olga ✍️ » Singh how's that? Singh The purchased social links are likely bots or inactive accounts, so they won't engage with your posts. This means your posts won't show up on Explore Pages, or on your real audience's newsfeeds. It will also make it hard to measure metrics. 👍🏽1 Olga ✍️ mm I see. That's true. Thank you! 👍🏽1 Singh Thanks for sharing

Laura Never. I share my links to my website's own social accounts. If pay-per-lead (ppl) wanna link to my pages or projects they can go ahead, I don't do any "link building" and don't find it necessary. 📰👈

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(9) A Social Media Content Strategy for a Niche of Maternity Ammar Hey SEO Pro's.. I've got a brand with a niche of maternity products.. I'm. regularly posting content on its social media platforms but I don't know why I'm unable to achieve any engagements or likes.. Could any of you experts please let me know what I'm doing wrong if possible please? Facebook link: https:/facebook.com/mamanmeofficial Instagram: instagram.com/mamanmeofficial Any type of help is appreciated, thanks a lot! 1 👍🏽 1 [filtered from 17 💬🗨]📰👈

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Shetty You do have a decent number of followers. What about your insights? How many people are you reaching and how many are taking action? Website clicks?

Ammar ✍️ Its not very good atm even after paid marketing as well..

Dielan Could be due to the fact you are only targeting consumers in Qatar? It’s not a very large country

Ammar ✍️ Tried removing Qatar, same results no effects :S

Lowry Try to engage your followers. Ask questions, post to articles & ask peoples opinion about them. Post a small fb survey about what baby merch products they want to see on the market. Eva You’re posting too much about your brand and products. Try posting 20% brand/product posts and 80% other. Who is your target audience? What are their challenges and interests? Share posts that solve a problem for them, that they can relate to, that they find useful. Particularly on Facebook, it’s about being social, not selling.

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Ammar ✍️ Tried posting tips - quotes- and stuffs like that but still no effect :s Eva » Ammar yes, you’ve posted tips and quotes but in the caption you’re selling. It’s the first thing Mums read as they scroll through their feed and they won’t even read the quote or tip in the image. You don’t have to sell in every post. Also, because you have small numbers, try sharing viral posts from similar parenting pages Ammar ✍️ Noted, What are your thoughts on post styling? are they good or do i need to change anything? Eva » Ammar I think the styling of the image is good. Just a couple of things. 1. This post, for example, [product image] I recommend that instead of writing about the business, you explain what this product actually is and how it can help a mum. 2. On Facebook don't use hashtags. 3. Try to limit the posts you have with links to an external website. Facebook likes to keep people on Facebook, not clicking out somewhere else. This one, for example, [quote image] Instead of writing about the business, write something that resonates with a mother, 'Do you feel like you need to keep your eyes open with matchsticks at the moment? Don't worry, babies start to figure out night and day by 3 weeks so (hopefully) you can get a little more sleep. Remember too, you'll have a different audience on Facebook and Instagram so try to share different content on each. Try and find a parenting group and ask mums with newborns what their challenges are and craft content around that. For each product you promote, relate it to the mother. What problem can it fix? How can it help them get more sleep? How can it help their baby sleep more? How can it fix their sore back? How can it help with breastfeeding and helping them get more milk? But also, share humor, Facebook users love humor that relates to their situation. With Instagram hashtags, look at what your competitors or similar businesses are using. Click into the hashtags, have a look at the content that is being shared and what's getting the best engagement. Ammar ✍️ These info's are gem, thanks a lot!

🔗🏹 Gergo My opinion: There are different tactics to use for different platform. Niche website built for organic traffic-turns into product selling, or other monetization methods. IG is not a platform for niche site-building, it is for entertainment! My point is, try to look for user intent perspective. People generally not using IG for finding any product to buy… imo. Another key issue is IG is full of bots, my friend tested and built 6000 followers in 3 months on a personal account with a simple code… yes it got banned, but we just wanted to see how far it goes… I assume your follower base probably full of those bots, commenting, like-ing anything, but its not a real audience with intent to buy. Haven't looked for deeper atm, but there is a huge different building a site and getting 2k traffic and converting into sales, as having as IG account and 2k followers… Sebastian Very interested. One very quickly look at the account. What comes first is mind. Is have your content made up by mother's. Join some library mother and baby groups and survey them for what are interested. Than post those on Instagram.📰👈

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(10) Is Instagram Good for Backlinking? Mikkel Is Instagram a good or necessary Backlink? [filtered from 24 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Andrei No, social media links are nofollow and do not pass link juice. Useless for SEO. 👍1

Ethan » Andrei that's not entirely true.The main argument being that social media doesn't directly affect your SEO. However, it does have an impact on the factors that do affect rankings such as traffic, meaning it indirectly affects your rankings. So, it may not directly increase your seo or provide backlinks but it definitely please a role in your seo ranking and should be utilized for best practices. 👍5 Andrei » Ethan sure, but that kind of argument can be made for any type of marketing, including paid ads. You gotta draw the line somewhere and say this is an SEO job and that is something else. Back to the question at hand, having a genuine, well maintained social media profile is a must for most businesses and will marginally contribute to your search performance. Having a backlinked social media account sitting idle is not going to contribute to your seo. 👍1 Ethan » Andrei true and I see your point there. However, social media plays a massive role indirectly with your SEO. I mean social platforms have there own search engines after all so this plays as another way to provide your company with more traffic to increase SEO. We all know how important local seo is and you might as well forget about it unless you have a social media presence. Social profiles will also ranking on Google so if you want to draw a line, then technically your now creating seo for your social profile and ranking on Google with it. Don't forget about how much content is shared through social media as well 👍2 Andrei » Ethan all good points! Although I think social media is not exactly critical for local seo. Is it? There is GMB and schema and some local directories. Never seen social media on this list. 👍1 Andrei » Ethan I feel like we are arguing, so I wanted to stress that I'm not, this is how I express curiosity. It might come off arguing-ish since my first language is russian 🙂 👍1 Ethan » Andrei I am not arguing either but I am glad that your clarified. I hate how facebook is used so much for that 🙄. I am curious as well and want to always better my skill and knowledge with SEO. I enjoy general conversations about it. True, but most if not all of those that rank without social media have been around since the dawn of google. If you take a new company and try to start ranking, it would be much much harder without social media platforms. If you were to take the same company and start with social media from day one, they are much more likely to start ranking on google faster and higher. 👍1 Swanson » Andrei I treat social media as another directory to update for locations. Will I manage your profile and post for you? No. But I want to make sure that your locations are listed correctly, that the descriptions and contact info is consistent with the rest of your web presence. I tell clients it’s just another channel you can use to present content they are adding for their site. 👍1

Ryan Let's say you are a taxidermist in a city of 1,000 people. You have one competitor.. All else being the same, your competitor has a website of the same quality as yours. If you have optimized Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and let's say you posted 50 posts, my guess is you would be ranking ahead of your competitor. It's not like an Instagram account will rank you, but in most cases it's common sense to have one, probably worth the 5 mins it takes to set it up. You're establishing your brand online. Could you go without it, of course. 👍2 Russ I just don't get why Instagram is so popular lol… You cannot put links in posts, which just seems daft and pointless… So if someone posts something that looks interesting, no way to find out more, you have to Google it for more info. So no backlink SEO benefit either. you cannot even share/re-post other people's posts from the app, you have to get another 3rd party app to do that. 📰👈

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This may satisfy you: Do You Reveal Yourself on Social Media that You are a Site Owner/Founder? Any Risk About it from Competitors, Haters?

#social media #social signals

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emailmarketin · 3 years

Text

How To Write Engaging Instagram Captions (6 Copywriting Tips)

How do you write scroll-stopping Instagram captions?

Instagram captions need to follow the ABCs of copywriting.

So first they need to get attention with a great graphic and a compelling headline.

Second, they need to provide a benefit or some sort of value in the form of education, entertainment, or inspiration.

And lastly, they need a strong close.

They need to give people one clear and concise call-to-action.

six tips for writing killer Instagram captions

Tip # 1 "to get more likes, share a relatable story"

It is a known fact that actual photos of people

do typically get more likes,especially for a personality based brand

So rather than trying to pull content out of thin air,as much as you can, share real stories

and be as specific as possible.

Remember, the more specific the story,

the more relatable your copy.

Lastly, don't be afraid to create polarity,

take a strong stand for something you believe in,or own up to your own imperfections.

Nothing engages people more than a story that validates their own concerns, doubts, and fears,or speaks to a shared cause, mission, or belief.

Tip # 2 "Get more saves,share your favorite tips and tools"

provide insider tips and invaluable shortcuts

on a topic that is highly relevant to your followers.

And there's just something about lists

that we as humans just absolutely love, right?

It's actually scientifically proven that we love lists because they're simple and they provide easy frameworks for us to process information quickly in an otherwise overoversaturated dateline and a detailed list that supplements the graphic,

we also have a clear CTA that says,

"Comment yes below for us to DM you the links."

And sometimes we even include a save for later call to action in the graphic directly above the save button.That makes it really, really clear and easy for a follower to just click once,save that to their archive,

and then they can refer back to it later whenever they want

Tip #3 "To get more shares,post a thought-provoking meme or quote"

The biggest crowd pleasers of them all,

memes and quotes, both are punchy, straight to the point,

and offer a quick burst of fun, just like a tequila shot.Memes have the ability of uniting us using the universal emotion of humor.

There is no better way to do this than through satire of real life.

And while quotes may have gotten a bad rap lately,thanks to those spreading oversimplified, stolen,

and sometimes painfully cliche wisdom,

the numbers do not lie, people love quotes.

The bottom line is this, both quotes and memes are indisputably powerful and share worthy,especially when they are relevant to your audience and speak to their sense of identity,or a common belief system.

Tip # 4 "To get more comments, ask a simple question."

one of the best ways to get your followers to comment on your posts is to ask them a question, of course,

but here's the thing, you want to keep it quick

and ask a question that requires very minimal effort.include the question in the graphic itself

as well, because don't forget,

we are in the scrolling generation so you can ask a multiple choice question

if you do want to keep your question open-ended,

that's cool too.

Make the question painfully easy to answer,

like in my most commented post of all time,

It requires very little effort to answer,

and it evokes a strong sense of pride and identity.

So these types of posts are great gagement rate.

So the higher your engagement rate,

the more likely your posts are to be seen by more people and the faster you grow.

But again, you do not want your entire account

to just be these types of posts,

because then you're not adding a lot of value

for your audience.

They are a great way though, to get conversation going and have a little fun between your heavier content posts

Tip #5 "To get more leads, provide valuable resources."

Because Instagram prohibits hyperlinks

in the captions themselves,it can be really challenging for brands to send their followers to their website.It requires a lot of interest

and serious manual effort from the reader.

Those three little words, "link in bio"

require a surprising amount of work,

which means you better be giving people a damn good reason to stop their scrolling, go to your profile,click the link in the bio,

then to leave the Instagram app altogether

to access your website,and then take the desired call-to-action,

which is to sign up or buy something.With that being said,social media can still be a great source for leads,

but see this as an opportunity to put on your marketing hat and ask yourself this question,

what can I give my followers that is so good

that they'll want to stop what they're doing right now,

leave Instagram and go get it?

So the answer to that is to share a highly valuable and relevant resource that helps them solve one of their most pressing problems.

Tip # 6 "To get more followers, make it playful and have fun."

The best posts of them all are the ones that get a lot of likes, comments, shares, and saves because those are the posts

that keep peoplese those are the posts

that keep people coming back for more

and boost your following like crazy.

So my most engaging posts of all time across all metrics was this power words post.

Power words are a copywriter's secret weapon when it comes to giving your copy some needed pizazz.

So in this good old fashioned word game,

we listed down some common adjectives

and offered alternatives that can evoke more emotion and action in your copywriting.

We then asked our followers to fill in the blank

and find a better word for "increase".

So these kinds of posts are really fun and easy to answer,

but they also evoke our human competitive nature,

add a ton of value, and provide a unique opportunity for your audience to interact with you in a fun way.

By mixing up the style, format, and design of your posts,

while of course always following the ABC copywriting rules in your captions,

you'll boost your engagement and following in no time,plus you'll have a fun, creative, and exciting feed that keeps people coming back again and again and again.

0 notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 13 Review: Have a Merry Christmas

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This MY HERO ACADEMIA review contains spoilers.

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 13

“It was the prologue to a tragedy…”

It’s Christmas in July for My Hero Academia!

My Hero Academia knows how to have fun and there are several one-off installments that are odes to silliness and the lighter side of these heroes-in-training’s lives. It’s been a difficult year for U.A. High’s students, not because their lives have been endangered by villains, but because of the grueling tests that they’ve applied to each other and the major revelations that characters like Midoriya, Shinso, and Todoroki have made about themselves. “Have a Merry Christmas” is a major change of pace and it honestly feels more akin to the structure and tone of one of the series’ OVA installments. It’s an episode that doesn’t try to hide its dangerously cute nature, but the question becomes if this distraction is worth it–especially at this stage in the season–and ultimately it falls short.

“Have a Merry Christmas” is another low key My Hero Academia episode, which works hard to establish a clear demarcation line between what will presumably be the two major story arcs of this season. At the same time, “Have a Merry Christmas” represents a strange stretch of lethargy for the series and these past three episodes could honestly be pared down to one and a half installments.

I can understand the temptation to not have the series’ 100th episode also double as a Christmas installment, but this run of episodes has killed any of the momentum that was built up by the triumphant conclusion of the Joint Training competition. Clearly big things are ahead, both with the return to work studies and what’s been quietly brewing behind the scenes with the League of Villains, but none of that excitement is capitalized on “Have a Merry Christmas,” which feels just as much like disposable filler material as season five’s expositional premiere.

The highlight of these Christmas festivities is to bask in all of these characters’ joy as they let down their guards and treat themselves to a much-deserved day of celebration. This turns into an excuse to dress up everyone as members of Santa’s workshop and engage in a cute gift exchange. It actually wouldn’t come across as ridiculous if this episode were to introduce that Santa exists in My Hero Academia and that he’s able to spread gifts around the world because of a Quirk, but “Have a Merry Christmas” is a much more modest and simple episode. That being said, it absolutely carries the cloying energy of an episode where Santa shows up to teach a lesson.

Gift time at U.A. High may not seem incredibly exciting, but it turns into one of the sweeter sequences from the season. Every combination between hero and gift is satisfying in its own way, whether it’s something obvious or a strange mystery. Mineta’s present seems to be an autographed photo of Yuga Aoyama, which is perfect, and Eri seems to acquire a massive sword that’s meant for Tokoyami through the Secret Santa exchange. Eri’s presence cannot be underestimated here and her arrival in a Santa costume is almost too sweet to bear (as is the adorable nature of her “Trick or Treat” greeting and her attempts to hand out painted Easter eggs out of confusion). My Hero Academia’s efforts to make Eri more of a natural supporting character continue to work and hopefully won’t be absent during the second half of season five.

Outside of the pleasant Christmas levity, the rest of the episode is concerned with media interviews and a focus on the heroes’ public images, which evidently is a lot harder to manage than their Quirks. Bakugo and Todoroki have just proven themselves as newly-minted provisional heroes, yet they take completely opposite approaches to the media blitz that follows. Bakugo hurls insults at the interviewer and freaks out at Todoroki whenever he exhibits affection or gets so bold as to refer to him and Bakugo as “friends.”

It’s incredibly entertaining for Bakugo to be so concerned over whether his aggressive side makes it through to the public while his Pro Hero image gets established. The audience has seen an increasingly softer side to Bakugo, especially over the past few episodes, so this regression into explosive behavior when he’s put under pressure is one of many enjoyable digressions in “Have a Merry Christmas.” Of course, Todoroki is a consummate professional throughout the interview and views it as an important experience, even if he still gets tripped up over the awkward experience. The glimpse of everyone else’s abject horror over how candid Bakugo gets during the interview is another strong opportunity for My Hero Academia’s more humorous instincts to be fully on display in this episode.

This could have been a quick gag, but “Have a Merry Christmas” really lays into Todoroki and Bakugo’s embarrassment, which helps establish the episode’s playful energy and that the episode’s aim is to just laugh and have fun with these characters instead of stressing over the next big threat. Todoroki is a character who is typically all business and someone that the rest of Class A holds in reverence, so his incredibly literal interpretation of Mt. Lady’s comments are absolutely brilliant. My Hero Academia has struck unexpected gold by pushing Todoroki out of his social comfort zone and hopefully the second half of this season will have more fun with this awkward side to the powerful character.

This focus on interviews also provokes an honest discussion over the pros and cons of whether hero students should show off their signature moves on television, which some think will leave them at a disadvantage and expose their strongest maneuvers to the enemy. This is certainly true on some level, but Mt. Lady emphasizes how a hero’s signature move is just as much a representation of what they stand for as a hero as anything else. It should be an exciting opportunity to reveal themselves to the world. The episode settles on the perspective that it should be exciting to show off for the camera, but “Have a Merry Christmas” slowly introduces doubt over how these accomplishments might actually turn into liabilities.

The episode’s interview portion is meant to be fun and allow these characters to come out of their shell. However, it does trigger some deeper discussions over the public’s current perception of the district’s Pro Heroes. These interviews are helpful sales tools for these heroes’ futures, but they’re also meant to act as a response to what the public expects of their heroes and if the villains have managed to affect the larger narrative. It’s these many contrasting opinions that partly pushes U.A. High to reinstate the work study programs and get the heroes back in the public eye.

Some of the most fulfilling developments to come out of “Have a Merry Christmas” are crammed into the episode’s final minutes. Midoriya and Bakugo express concern over where they’ll be able to do their work study programs since Best Jeanist is out of commission and the Nighteye Agency is still tied up in a difficult period of transition with Centipeder now in charge. Todoroki innocently suggests that the three of them all train under Endeavor, which turns into a fascinating prospect that combines some of the series’ most fascinating characters together.

This accumulation of talent might be more important than this trio of friends even realizes. “Have a Merry Christmas” teases the return of Shigaraki in the form of a devastating attack on Deika City, which only emphasizes how ill-prepared the heroes are for what’s about to cut through all of these lackadaisical distractions. The needlessly sweet nature of this episode, and its ending, almost seems to acknowledge the severe darkness that’s on the way and that Deku may never get another Christmas where he can just relax with his friends and enjoy being a kid for a day. Shigaraki and the League of Villains are ready to prove that the only gift that these heroes deserve is endless pain.

The criticism directed towards “Have a Merry Christmas” may seem a little harsh, which is warranted, but that’s not to say that this episode is without its charms. Those that enjoy whenever My Hero Academia indulges in these lighter slice-of-life tangents will undoubtedly adore this episode. However, this installment still feels needlessly sparse, even for the character-driven entries that shy away from battle. There’s no reason why this holiday celebration couldn’t have also strengthened some of the other themes from this season rather than exclusively focus on “the feels” and fuel for copious Christmas-based My Hero Academia fanart. A heavy, dark future lies ahead in the season’s second half and “Have a Merry Christmas” isn’t the bold finish that’s necessary before this season heads into its endgame.

Also, Hero Critic, Aorio Kuraishisu, is pure nightmare fuel. Who’d have thought the Devil would make an appearance during a Christmas special?

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southeastasianists · 7 years

Link

From the environment and LGBT rights to reproductive health and women’s empowerment, Cambodia’s female-forward young activists are blazing a new path

The forcible removal of Cambodians from their homes has created a subclass of the dispossessed, with hundreds of thousands affected by conflicts over land. But the suffering endured by the mostly poor evictees, usually moved on to make way for corporate interests, has had an unintended side-effect: galvanising a growing wave of female Cambodian activists.

The women of Boeung Kak lake, whose noisy and vibrant protests on the streets of Phnom Penh have seen them arrested multiple times, are perhaps the best known, with news of the deal to fill in the lake and seize residents’ land resonating in media outlets around the globe. Yet they are far from alone: Cambodian women regularly spearhead land rights demonstrations, and in recent years some have even parlayed their newfound activism into entering the political sphere.

“Persisting cultural beliefs about the traditional role of Khmer women as caregivers and homemakers mean that land conflict, and the lack of income it often brings, has a disproportionate impact on women,” Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) executive director Chak Sopheap said earlier this year, “with the result that they are often the ones motivated to engage in activism on behalf of their community.”

And this desire for an end to such injustices has caused ripples in other spheres of activism. In 2009, Lim Kimsor, who also goes by Gigi, watched on in horror as her community was evicted from the Group 78 site in central Phnom Penh. “Our family was offered decent compensation, but my father said he could not leave the community behind. So we stayed and protested with them, for the sake of the whole group,” she said.

Inspired by this show of solidarity, the 28-year-old went on to become an outspoken activist for Mother Nature, the gritty environmental network that has exposed illegal sand dredging on multiple occasions (the non-governmental organisation was recently disbanded following sustained pressure from authorities, but its members plan to continue their work as a loose, informal coalition). Kimsor regularly travels to meet with villagers in remote areas, where she alleges she has been threatened, physically assaulted and, on one occasion, detained for 17 hours. “Whenever we have meetings or conduct any training [sessions] with villagers, plain-clothes police or security guards come [as an act of intimidation],” she said.

As an activist in a country where many women still cannot access education and are pushed into traditional homemaker roles, Kimsor feels a sense of responsibility to help guide other women to begin pursuing lives free of the confines of gendered expectations. “This is a powerful way to lift each other up,” she said.

The strict moral code set down in the Chbab Srey, or ‘Rules for Girls’, and their male equivalent, has long acted as a behavioural guide for men and women. It describes the ideal woman as being gentle, shy and subservient to her husband. Included as a course in the national school curriculum until 2007, a pared-down version continues to be taught at public schools in grades seven to nine.

But as Cambodia, a fast-developing nation, continues to undergo rapid economic change and smartphone technology proliferates, a social transformation is also beginning to take hold. Catherine V Harry, a 23-year-old vlogger known for her frank videos that mostly centre on sexual and reproductive rights, said that young women – particularly those in the increasingly cosmopolitan capital of Phnom Penh – were “rising up to claim their rights”.

“It has become this tug-of-war because there’s a generation gap,” she said. “The new generation, the majority of them are under 30 and social media is coming into play, people are being exposed to different cultures, different people in different countries, and they get more information – not just from their parents or their peers or their schools but they get information from other countries.”

Harry’s most popular video to date – an exploration of the taboos around virginity – has garnered two million views. But while her opinions have won her plenty of fans, they have also provoked a hostile response. “I also get a lot of hate, a lot of backlash. Many of them are men – they feel threatened because they think I’m trying to destroy the culture. But also there are some women saying I’m ruining the image of what a Khmer woman should be,” she said.

For Noy Chhorvin, the national coordinator of the Cambodian Young Women’s Empowerment Network (CYWEN), challenging stereotypical notions of Khmer womanhood is central to her mission. A vocal feminist, she is leading the members of her voluntary organisation as they focus on a trio of key areas over a three-year period to 2019 – gender-based violence, labour rights and education, all of which she sees as key areas for the progress of Cambodian women.

“The main point is to build up leadership through [imparting] feminism to our members,” she said. “We want to provide awareness-raising to people, especially young people, on gender equality.” Advocating for changes that have their roots in the West’s 1960s women’s liberation movement, Chhorvin and her contemporaries are seeking to transplant feminism into Khmer culture: a mission that’s not always straightforward. Like many women, she had to overcome the judgement of her relatives in provincial Kampong Cham before forging her own path, which to date has included becoming the first member of her family to earn a bachelor’s degree.

“When I was starting to pursue my education it was very challenging. Many people disagreed with my idea, they thought that women don’t need higher education, [that] just to graduate from Year 12 or Year 9 is fine,” she said. There was also opposition to the idea that she should attend university in Phnom Penh, far from home and deemed “unsafe for women”.

And while Chhorvin described herself as fully ensconced in the “sisterhood” of CYWEN, she has seen her own attitudes evolve since learning about, and embracing, feminism. “Before I felt discriminatory [toward] sex workers and LGBT people. Now I have made myself free of that,” she said. Now, she recognises that “everyone has their right to [fulfil] their potential by themselves”.

In that vein, gender equality still has a long way to go. Rachana Chhoeurng, also known as Tana, is well aware of the prejudice that Cambodia’s LGBT community faces: she came out as a lesbian five years ago at the age of 25 and has been subjected to discrimination. Now an activist with Phnom Penh-based human rights group CamASEAN, she works to tackle issues faced by the LGBT community, such as forced marriage, mental and physical abuse, and a lack of access to services. “I wanted to fight for my lifestyle, just to have a normal life,” she said. “We need to start the movement, starting from women and the LGBT movement. I won’t give up.”

Similarly to the other activists, Chhoeurng said that she would like to see all Cambodians embrace notions of equality. “It is not only LGBT people who should take control of this,” she said. “I would like the whole society to help raise each other up, not only the LGBT community, but everybody.”

As more men and women come to a similar conclusion, the movement for equality is mushrooming. Thida Khus, the executive director of Silaka, has been a mainstay of the fight for gender equality in Cambodia since establishing her NGO, which is dedicated to increasing women’s participation in politics, in the early 1990s. She believes that efforts to promote women’s rights are now passing into the hands of young female activists.

“Where we are today, it was not [a result of events] over the past 10 or 20 years. It was over the past 100 years that we have been neglecting [gender equality] and allowing this to take place. It is a continuous battle,” she said. “The next generation will make the change”.

#Southeast Asia #Cambodia #Gender Issues #Lim Kimsor #Noy Chhorvin #Rachana Chhoeurng #Environmental Issues #Sexuality #LGBTQIA Issues

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michaelandy101-blog · 4 years

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eight Revolutionary & Inspiring Examples of Augmented Actuality in Advertising and marketing

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/8-innovative-inspiring-examples-of-augmented-reality-in-marketing/

eight Revolutionary & Inspiring Examples of Augmented Actuality in Advertising and marketing

For now, augmented actuality (AR) remains to be largely a novelty — AR’s newness alone contributes to its potential to surpass print, online, and tv ads by way of shock-factor. As The Drum reports, AR can seize folks’s consideration for over 85 seconds, enhance interplay charges by 20 %, and enhance click-through charges to buy by 33 %.

Proper now, folks will cease and take a look at AR-inspired experiences, whatever the marketing campaign’s general high quality. However as extra corporations incorporate AR into their marketing methods, and as AR expertise turns into extra ubiquitous, you’ll want to provide extra considerate campaigns to impress your viewers. Finally, AR will grow to be mainstream, and its prevalence within the trade will make it more durable to compete.

Tim Prepare dinner, Apple’s CEO, has said that AR will one day be as important in our on a regular basis lives as “eating three meals a day.” So, the query is — how can your marketing technique successfully seize an viewers’s consideration, as soon as AR has grow to be commonplace?

Right here, we’ll take a look at eight corporations that use AR in revolutionary and provoking methods. These examples must be all of the inspiration that you must brainstorm and execute a superb long-term AR marketing technique.

Augmented Actuality Examples

Augmented Actuality for Product Advertising and marketing

1. Residence Depot

Adorning a house isn’t simple — how have you learnt should you’ll really just like the yellow paint that appears stunning online, however may be too brilliant in your rest room? What if that espresso desk doesn’t slot in your front room such as you’d hoped?

In 2015, Residence Depot launched their Project Color app, which makes use of patent expertise to point out customers what a paint coloration will seem like of their dwelling. The AR expertise takes into consideration lighting, objects, and shadows within the room, so you may see how that yellow shade will look in actual life. In the event you don’t belief your personal judgment, you may also share pictures from the app on social media, to get a good friend’s opinion.

In 2017, Residence Depot took it a step additional — now, you may also use their app to take a look at how objects like patio furnishings, taps, and different merchandise look in your house.

Residence Depot isn’t the one dwelling furnishings retailer to make use of AR to create worth for his or her customers — Lowe’s and Ikea have comparable AR expertise constructed into their apps.

2. Timberland

In the event you’re something like me, the thought of attempting on gadgets within the dressing room can typically deter you from procuring in any respect. Greater than as soon as, I’ve mentioned, “I’ll buy it, try it on at home, and return it if I don’t like it,” simply to keep away from the effort of carrying a pile of garments right into a dressing room line.

Within the curiosity of comfort and comfortability, Timberland created a virtual fitting room in Moktow Gallery in 2014. Utilizing Kinect movement sensing expertise, Timberland’s digital becoming room allowed customers to see a picture of their face, and a similarly-sized mannequin physique, in numerous outfits.

In the event you’re going to make use of AR, you’ll wish to brainstorm distinctive methods to assist your clients keep away from an in any other case burdensome course of. Whereas becoming rooms may not be the tip of the world (first-world issues?), Timberland stands out as a useful model by providing clients a enjoyable and helpful different.

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three. Sephora

There’s a motive many ladies don’t purchase make-up merchandise online — it’s not possible to know should you’ll just like the lip coloration or basis protection should you don’t attempt it on, in-store.

Sephora understands this wrestle, and created an augmented actuality expertise, Virtual Artist App, with ModiFace to make sure Sephora app customers can see how make-up merchandise will look on their face through their telephone’s digicam. Customers can even discover out which instruments or merchandise they’ll want to use sure merchandise.

Moreover, Modiface’s augmented reality technology can present customers the results of months of skincare on their pores and skin — a visible they gained’t discover in-store.

Bridget Dolan, Sephora’s head of innovation, appreciates the need of a long-term AR technique. “When it comes to augmented and virtual reality, it can only be successful if it’s truly useful,” Bridget told Glossy. “We weren’t interested in just buzzy. A lot of things like technical accuracy and timing had to come together, and there was a time last year when, during testing, we hit a tipping point.”

Sephora’s use of augmented actuality isn’t simply useful for customers — it additionally drives gross sales by interesting to Sephora’s extra tech-savvy customers, and inspiring these customers to grow to be model ambassadors by recording and sharing their augmented actuality experiences online.

four. AMC Theaters

Delivering a message when and the place your viewers needs to obtain it’s a essential part of a profitable marketing technique. That is very true in relation to AR.

AMC Theaters, understanding their viewers is most concerned with upcoming film trailers after they’re on the films, included AR technology into their AMC app. When a consumer sees a film poster in a theatre, they’ll open the AMC app on their telephone, scan the poster, and obtain related info, together with a forged listing and a trailer.

In the event that they’re within the film after scanning, they’ll additionally buy a ticket instantly, inside the app.

In the end, AMC Theatres is offering optimum comfort with their use of AR — whereas a consumer can YouTube a trailer or Google a overview, there’s an added incentive to test the film out and buy a ticket when the consumer can do it multi function place.

5. Taco Bell

There are two large causes you’d go to a Taco Bell in 2012 — to attempt their new Doritos taco shell, or to play with their augmented-reality packaging.

Taco Bell positioned an AR feature on each Locos Tacos box and soda cup for his or her Doritos shell marketing campaign. When a consumer scanned the field with the Taco Bell app, they may see product-related Twitter and Fb content material on their telephones.

By connecting their customers with dwell social media content material, Taco Bell efficiently used AR to domesticate a stronger sense of group. In addition they showcased their model as a serious participant in innovation, notably within the fast-food trade.

6. StubHub

Augmented actuality lets you each visualize and work together with an area — two essential features when selecting how a lot you’re keen to pay for a stadium seat.

For Super Bowl LII, StubHub introduced an AR feature on their cellular app that allowed ticket patrons to see a digital 3D mannequin of the U.S. Financial institution Stadium, in addition to close by parking garages and concession stands. This enabled potential patrons to visualise their full expertise earlier than buying, and minimized the chance of paying for a subpar seat.

StubHub’s reliance on AR solved for a standard buyer drawback — as StubHub CTO Matt Swann points out, “We’re solving for real pain points, not just tech for the sake of tech. For a lot of people, it’s not an event you just show up for, it’s kind of a bucket list item.”

Significantly for out-of-towners, the power to nearly examine totally different seat places provides a degree of consolation for hesitant patrons.

Again in 2016, the corporate additionally launched a “virtual view” choice on their app, letting ticket patrons preview their view from their seats earlier than buying. The outcomes have been large — StubHub noticed app engagement greater than double inside one yr.

AR and Experiential Advertising and marketing

7. Netflix

To market season two of the Netflix unique sequence Stranger Issues, the streaming firm launched a sequence of AR/VR lenses on Snapchat. With the lens proven within the video under, customers may report movies of themselves strolling via one of many homes seen within the present, as monsters referred to as Demigorgons come out of the wall.

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Other than this lens, which is extremely immersive for a cellular app, Netflix has additionally leveraged AR filters to advertise its content material. The video under highlights only a few that have been featured on apps like Fb and Snapchat.

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eight. Pepsi

In 2014, Pepsi installed AR technology in a London bus shelter, making it seem as if a lion, UFOs, alien craft, and different objects have been headed straight for Londoners.

The manufacturing showcased Pepsi’s playful persona and supplied the viewers with an distinctive expertise. Afterwards, a video of the bus shelter’s AR expertise attracted over six million views on YouTube — making it one in every of YouTube’s most viewed advertising campaigns.

Pepsi’s marketing campaign highlights the effectiveness of AR when an organization really is aware of their viewers. Pepsi didn’t want to make use of AR to promote their merchandise — as a substitute, they trusted their customers to understand the surreal expertise and naturally share the story with associates, creating buzz round their model consequently.

The State of AR in Advertising and marketing

Whereas various manufacturers nonetheless cannot entry AR fairly but, entrepreneurs can nonetheless take a notice from how these manufacturers creatively carried out a brand new expertise into their content material marketing methods.

In the end, because the media panorama adjustments and expertise will get extra superior, entrepreneurs at enterprise of various sizes might need extra alternatives to implement expertise. And, after they do, they will must suppose creatively and innovatively about how they spend money on it.

To be taught extra about AR in marketing, take a look at this final information. If you wish to dive deeper into digital actuality, you may take pleasure in this listing of examples.

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eunice-leee-blog · 6 years

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Be aware of the dangerous of Selling online. Read more here!

In the present modernized exhibiting age, progressively retail stores are building web business locales. A web business website page engages any size retailer in wherever of the world to have an overall market reach. Right when best in class effectively, an electronic business site can in like manner offer immense cost-capability for customer obtainment and thing bargains.

Parallel to the enormous advancement in web business, most ventures and thing parts are being instructed by two or three noteworthy online business mammoths. These extreme players every now and again have an unmistakable brand picture joined by centered web look apparatus advancements and well-off online promoting spending designs. This has influenced going to up against such online business goals a troublesome endeavor, especially for little e-retailers with confine advancement spend.

In divisions where it might have all the earmarks of being hard to take bit of the pie from web business goliaths, there is by and large reliably a way to deal with get a good piece of customers. Attempt to get the expressive energies pumping and find which channels are the most essential, smallest forceful, and cost-beneficial. Underneath we highlight three clues that can enable autonomous dare to online business goals match tremendous spending brands.

Cut a Fine Niche

A champion among the most imperative approaches to manage building a successful online business store is to set up a specific market claim to fame. This is particularly imperative for boutiques and autonomous wander retailers with an extraordinarily perceived stock. Not in any manner like some considerable online business stores that offer a wide extent of stock, choosing an extraordinarily focal forte will set up a retailer as a distinguishing strength provider for a particular class of things. This can propel more important trust and legitimacy in potential customers.

Settled electronic business regions usually offer an extensive variety of things inside a particular class, for instance, 'cruiser clothing.' Take a chance to do some examination on the stock that your web business rivals offer with respect to your own item offerings. You will likely pinpoint the zones that could be the most gainful for your online business tries. This may incorporate narrowing your focus to extraordinarily pick thing classes as the general subject for your online store, for instance, 'calfskin cruiser coats.'

Starting off direct in a strength that you're certain will drive bargains is a shocking technique for private wander online business. As you control one thing class, you can start examining new orders to broaden your business potential.

Mix Up Your Marketing Efforts

Advancing your web business site page can seem like a mind-boggling task. However there are two or three basic channels that are key for online business. These fuse Pay Per Click (PPC) publicizing, common site streamlining (SEO), and electronic person to person communication advancing. Pretty much, web business displaying relies upon being found in the web look device comes to fruition and being seen through online systems administration media stages. Nevertheless, before picking which channels are needs, consider pushing toward a displaying plan with an all the more widely inclusive technique.

Between SEO, PPC, and web based systems administration, none are more exceptional than the other. But each channel is out and out various, that all offer a comparative level of potential in attracting more customers. A greater number of times every now and again than, barring a blend of web searcher publicizing systems that use both SEO and PPC is the best approach. Since SEO is a whole deal effort, using PPC to test which catchphrases are most profitable is extraordinary among different frameworks. This can save a significant measure of work not far-removed by redesigning for catchphrases that solitary give satisfactory general incomes.

Web based systems administration stages, as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, help to build greater affirmation in your picture. These stages can help keep up steadfastness and furthermore channel movement to your site. Web based systems administration offers a mind blowing strategy to share content, make interest, and develop a following. This can help bolster web business achievement by propelling repeat purchases and the viral sharing of fantastic substance that is related with your picture.

Progress with Richness

Online clients particularly support off vigilant information that is shown in a rich media organize. The use of pictures, sound, and video can be pivotal for online business exhibiting. The conduct by which you can use such media offer boundless musings.

Studies are real trial in the electronic business field. Customers see a lot of huge worth in quality overviews that accurately delineate the features, focal points, and traps of particular things. Along these lines, recording your own specific reviews or thing highlights as a video can be an online business unmistakable preferred standpoint, especially if those chronicles are upgraded and found in the web crawler comes to fruition.

Visual induction is giant on the Internet. Despite chronicles, including a wealth of pictures on your thing pages can basically help bargains. To be sure, thing page littler than anticipated shows are getting the opportunity to be evidently pervasive for a few, web business stores, so grasping this system is getting the opportunity to be clearly fundamental. The use of all the more edifying pictures, or infographics, is moreover a creative strategy to attract customers. Web based systems administration can be used to share this substance, which can help provoke more acquaintance and the likelihood with flow around the web.

Productive online business is joined to empathy. That is, the way well you as the promoter can put yourself in the perspective of your proposed intrigue gathering. Perceiving how to display your picture, and your correspondences is basic. Awesome online business publicists have a sharp sentiment care. They perceive what it is their target customers are hunting down, and how to best enlighten them on how their online business store can address their issues.

Here's a vital cautioning for all outsider dealers on the Amazon commercial center.

Changing your ledger data when the retail monster has quite recently revealed another safety effort may bring about the suspension of your vender account.

To ensure you and other outsider merchants from industrious programmers, Amazon has thought of a Two-Step Verification (2-SV) which includes an additional layer of security to your record.

So right now, the organization doesn't welcome any progressions which you may make to your financial balance points of interest; resistance will prompt your record's suspension.

Merchants whose records have been suspended needed to sit tight for a considerable length of time or even a long time to be reestablished.

There are distinctive reasons why you would need to change the data on your ledger, however holding it off until further notice will work well for you.

Shutting your current record and opening another one could be more awful, so abstain from doing this no matter what.

Albeit different venders are boasting that they have effectively refreshed their financial balances and not confronted any repercussions whatsoever, a greater level of whom are presently crying over spilt drain.

In the event that your bank has played out a framework update and consequently changed your ledger number, it is savvy to inquire as to whether they could initiate your new number when the tidy has settled.

Try not to give Amazon a chance to detect an inconsistency in the financial balance which you've connected to your merchant account, or else you'll be suspended without earlier notice.

Amazon's additional layer of assurance

By empowering Amazon's 2-SV in your Seller Central record, you will make the activity of programmers to a great degree troublesome, if not incapable.

The extra security layer will expect you to enter a security code beside your login points of interest when you sign in to your record.

You can get the security code through email, instant message or an authenticator application from Google which is downloadable to your telephone.

Amazon supports all dealers on their commercial center to empower 2-SV the soonest time that they would so be able to that they can keep any potential assaults that may come their direction.

The following is a portion from the message of Amazon Seller Support:

"We know there are terrible performing artists out there, and keeping in mind that I can't estimate on their intentions, we trust the utilization of 2-SV is a basic safety effort that dealers should empower and keep in their tool compartment without holding up until June 30th when it turns into a necessity."

On the off chance that you haven't empowered 2-SV in your Seller Central record yet, make a beeline for the Help and Customer Service page on the Amazon site and take after the means there.

A few merchants say the join procedure was brisk and basic, yet to others it was nightmarish.

Your experience may be unique and worth sharing. Click here for more.

#7 figure cycle review #7 figure cycle #7 figure cycle bonus

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aaronmaurer · 4 years

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Movies I Liked in 2019

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

Despite everything else going on in the world, 2019 was a pretty good year for movies! I saw a lot of things I really enjoyed (thanks AMC A-List!) and managed to avoid all of the live action Disney remakes. While it was hard to whittle down my list to a self-imposed/arbitrary 10, these stood out as efforts I can see myself returning to again and again.

10. The Public

This low-key release from writer/director/star Emilio Estevez is a deeply humanist look at systemic failures to address homelessness in American cities. During a bitterly cold winter in Cincinnati, a group of people decide to occupy a public library overnight rather than be forced onto the life-threatening streets, and media, law enforcement and politicians all attempt to shape the narrative. With a supporting cast including Michael K Williams, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright and Alec Baldwin, this one is worth seeking out (and has some great shots of Cincy as well).

9. Toy Story 4

Did Toy Story need a fourth entry? I wouldn’t have thought so, but leave it to the magicians at Pixar to find new ways to animate (eh? eh?) these beloved characters – and introduce some great new ones. With the additions of Tony Hale’s Forky, Keanu Reeves’ Duke Caboom and Key & Peele’s Bunny & Ducky, this is easily the funniest Toy Story to date. However, it still packs an emotional wallop as well: if you can get through Gabby Gabby’s final scene with dry eyes you may not have a heart.

8. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

While not nearly as successful at the box office as its predecessor, the LEGO Movie sequel is just as funny, engaging and surprisingly moving. While the real-world metanarrative is no longer a surprise, the shift from parent-child relationship to that of siblings provides ample storytelling fodder that I related to even more than the original. And for the record, this was the first major movie released this year to feature a 5-year time jump – and time travel shenanigans (looking at you, Endgame).

7. The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

Chiwetel Ejiofor adapted this true story of a boy in Malawi who devises a way to save his village from severe famine (his writing and directorial debut). The film doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of life in under-resourced areas but also embodies hope and ingenuity that know no socioeconomic or geographic bounds.

6. A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

I’ll admit I was skeptical upon hearing Tom Hanks would be playing Mr. Rogers – he’s a great actor but doesn’t bear much of a resemblance in appearance or demeanor. However, his success in the part comes from not trying to technically imitate Rogers as much as embody his spirit of decency, sincerity and kindness. The fact that this is not a Rogers biopic, but rather a story of his impact on the life of a journalist who is wrestling with cynicism, anger and unforgiveness, also helps matters (what a year for movies based on longform journalism! See also: Richard Jewell, Dark Waters). The writers and director Marielle Heller take some interesting chances including a cheeky framing device and transitions using Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood-inspired miniatures that help make this film something {ahem} special.

5. The Current War: Director’s Cut

(Note: This film was originally set for release in 2017 and an unfinished version screened at film festivals that year to critical disdain. The Weinstein scandal mired it in development hell, but it got a second life in a new, finished version this fall as the “Director’s Cut.”)

This story of the “war of the currents,” as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse raced to electrify America at the turn of the 20th century, snuck into theaters under-the-radar at the end of the summer but I am so glad I had the chance to see it on the big screen. Far from a conventional biopic or historical epic, there is a beautiful lyricism on display here with sweeping camera movements, innovative shot compositions, gorgeous use of light and color and a enveloping musical score. For a film that tracks multiple characters and locations for over a decade, there are moments of touching poignancy and intimacy that prevent it from becoming impersonal. I found it utterly compelling and transporting, though your mileage may vary.

4. Avengers: Endgame

It’s a rare Hollywood blockbuster that allows its characters time to grieve and process trauma, and even acknowledges the futility and emptiness of revenge. Endgame manages all that before launching into a time travel adventure and an ultimate showdown that pays off the 21 Marvel films that came before over the past 11 years. I’m sure it doesn’t make sense at all as a standalone, but for fans of these movies it was a satisfying conclusion to this era of the MCU, filled with humor and heart.

3. Little Women

I have no connection to the source material at all, having never read Louisa May Alcott’s book or seen any other screen adaptation, so I cannot compare it to anything that’s come before. I can say Greta Gerwig’s follow-up to Lady Bird is simply fantastic, with an engaging cast and beautiful cinematography that radiates warmth. I’ve read that the novel’s chronology is linear and this movie rearranges it with flashbacks, creating juxtapositions that reveal a great deal about characters, choices and the passage of time. It all leads to a somewhat meta finale that serves as a salute to the creative voice.

2. Ad Astra

As with the likes of Gravity and First Man in recent years, James Gray’s Ad Astra recognizes that traveling to our inner spaces is as transformative as venturing to the stars. Set in a near future where the moon is a rundown spaceport and Mars has been colonized, Brad Pitt plays an astronaut tasked with finding out what happened to his father’s missing mission to Neptune decades earlier. Atop a fascinating backdrop of space futurism, the film is a meditation on the loneliness and isolation of space and the meaningfulness of community and connection.

1. Knives Out

This relentlessly entertaining murder mystery from Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom, The Last Jedi) not only satisfies from a plot and character perspective, but delivers a level of social commentary and critique of white privilege akin to Get Out without feeling didactic about it. The cast is terrific all-around, but Daniel Craig’s starring turn as thickly drawling Detective Benoit Blanc is note-perfect, especially as he chews his way through Johnson’s hilariously meaty dialogue.

Bonus! Honorable Mentions:

Apollo 11 – Comprised of newly discovered and restored NASA footage of the first moon landing, this fresh and immediate documentary brings history to vivid life without leaning on talking heads or narration. (View alongside last year’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man for an even richer experience.)

Spider-Man: Far From Home and Captain Marvel – two more solid additions to the MCU that are honestly probably in my Top 10, but it seemed excessive to give 3 slots to Marvel and Endgame was the clear standout. That said, Gyllenhall’s performance as Mysterio was all types of fun (see also: his gleefully unhinged turn as “Mr. Music” in Netflix’s John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch special) in the former and directors Bowden and Fleck bring warmth and humanity to a great buddy comedy in the latter.

A Hidden Life – Terrance Mallick’s best work since Tree Of Life tells the true story of a rural Austrian farmer who refuses to swear a loyalty oath to Hitler and is arrested for treason. The three-hour run time could have probably been trimmed but its thought-provoking meditations on resistance and conscience get under your skin.

Klaus – A Netflix original that presents an origin story for the legend of Santa Claus sounded a bit rote to me, but its story contains surprising emotional weight (that honestly brought me to tears a few times) and it’s gorgeously animated in a style that finds a groundbreaking medium between 2D and 3D.

#film

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