#I’ve seen like 6 diff post in the last few days so I get to light hearted post this now :)

[littledead-ridinghood]

And the most important Jason Todd discourse starts anew: is he or is he not a Swiftie?

[wewinbees]

Techno vs Dream Duel

i saw twitter talking about the dream vs techno duel and it revived something in me im talking about it again (on here i won’t use that website but they missed a few stuff and hgnfnfn thoughts must go somewhere)

edit: putting this disclaimer at the top of the post bc its long and i didn’t realise it was technically cc neg until after posting it LMAO. basically tl;dr is duel weird, glad theyre friends now

so the big prerequisite to the duel is based on reputation. despite his channel being quite content based on mid-2019 with his new skyblock series, technoblade soon joined minecraft mondays, where he earned his reputation among the larger YT circle as a PVP god, winning 4 times and coming 1st individual more often than not. there was plenty of toxicity from other players, but the event helped his channel take off during the new minecraft resurgence. techno’s fanbase grew quickly and began to hold High Expectations for him, seeing all the times he’d won in the past

around this time, dream started his channel and actually was in MCM 9, teamed with BBH and it was one of his first big events. he ended up in 11th individual, with techno coming in 1st, though dream and bbh finished one place above him in teams.

dream established himself through his speedrunning, both challenges like the manhunts and ‘minecraft, but’ videos, and was shown to be one of the best 1.9 pvpers. and rose very quickly, hitting 1mil by the end of 2019 and growing quick through the rest of the year. he quickly became known as ‘one of the best minecraft players’, and made lots of videos with mr beast at the time, all of which portrayed him as such - a legendary minecraft player.

funnily enough, techno had an interaction with mr beast already, during MCM week 13 with wilbur, where he placed a 15k bounty on him in the final round of hunger games, announcing it halfway through the tournament, putting stress on both him and wilbur (who had 0 chance of winning Anything, by the way) and probably screwing their chances of winning. and when techno was panicking and brought it up, mr beast went “haha. anyway!” like LITERALLY he said “aren’t you the best minecraft player??” like that’s gonna stop getting hard targeted. they didn’t win, and wilbur was really cool about it, this is still one of my fav MCM POVs bc they’re so fun together despite this being like the first time they talked. but still. mr beast’s attitude with dream is already Pretty tonally different than his w techno back then

now i could only find one video of them together between this and MCC 6, Dream’s enderdragon vid which was pretty chill, but the techno vs dream rivalry was born from MCC. i didn’t join the new mcyt fanbase until around october, so i don’t know the full extent to how they were compared before this (most is just researched through youtube comments and reddit as well as just word of mouth accounts from diff ppl), but i’ve seen a little bit, specifically in a dream and mr beast collab, where dream didn’t want to go along with that, but he doesn’t Quite keep up that attitude later on. if you watch that clip, you might wanna watch a little bit after it as well, they go on for longer than a minute (which oh my god why)

at the time, techno was in the last 2 weeks of the potato war where he farmed nonstop, meaning he hadn’t practiced at All - this was one of his 3 interruptions from farming, and as a result it was his worst ever performance…. at 9th place, still coming 4th in teams, only 195 coins away from dream’s team. 9th individual is still a good score, might i add, he’s one of the only players that have never dropped out of the top 10 despite playing in 10 canon events. dream got 3rd individual, which is amazing for a debut, but this led to uh. ahha

dream made his Only Ever MCC video, the day after the tournament, to hype up the new rivalry. now i made a post about this before that summarises it, and framed it comedically so i could put it in the dream tag, but really this is a Big example of dream pushing the rivalry more than techno. and techno is shown to HATE This fucking video man. like ohhhh boy he doesn’t like it, which, yeah, absolutely fair enough!

if he made a vid out of MCC 9, dream getting 13th and him getting 2nd, and then framed the whole vid around that, it would be EXTREMELY BM!!! especially since as this point they didn’t know eachother very well, dream saying they only really became friends after techno joined the dream smp. So It’s A Yikes there. the antagonistic tweets are more obvious for that, but i know dream deleted a lot of them (which is good on him, actually)

basically, while techno absolutely added to the rivalry bc it was good content, dream pushed it a lot more, and in more of a taunty way that techno. and from what i see it was largely bc of his reputation as a New Minecraft Youtuber. he wanted to hype himself up more, and what better way to do that than taking down the old king.

i haven’t found the clip quite yet, but there’s a bit of techno talking about his reputation before dream came around, where most people said that techno wasn’t that great at PVP, but made up for it in his ‘high IQ plays and good game strategy’ and how after dream came around that was inverted, which him and everyone else in the call agreed Was Worse. he would rather be smart than good at video games. that’s not true though, we’ve all seen the potato war here, he is Scarily smart

now MCC week 7 is an event. here’s another post of mine on it, but to summarise it was SCUFFED and Dream’s team suffered bc of it and he got Kinda Toxic. threatening to log out midgame and saying the tournament was rigged in techno’s favour (which, haha, laughs in MCM). this is BAD and ended up festering some hate towards the noxcrew, which is a great way to make me personally lose all respect for anyone bc i love MCC and noxcrew and oh my god i want their hand in marriage so bad it’s my favourite ever.

but anyways, the next event is MCC 8 where they team, and THIS is where the duel was born. basically, in the team announcements, mr beast brings up the duel (see above) and techno and dream both respond. dream’s response is deleted, but he said something like “hell yes, sign me up, my middle name is down” to which techno says

now my issue with this one? based on these tweets, THE DUEL HADN��T BEEN CONFIRMED. AND IT WAS MENTIONED PUBLICALLY. WHAT. now i’m going by the assumption that it had been at least mentioned in private before this, but a precedent has been set with these tweets: mr beast wants to do it, dream wants to do it, techno does Not Want To Do It.

meaning if it never happened, people would know who backed out. so there is now Public Pressure on techno to accept this duel, for which the stakes are Insanely High, or else people will know he was the one who wouldn’t do it, making him seem cowardly and unofficially confirming ‘Dream’s better than him’. so now he basically HAS to accept

basically immediately he jumps into the training arc, from the potato war and straight into the 1.9 training. from what i’ve seen, he mainly trained with fruitberries, cxlvxn and tapl (dunno if firebreathman was there for this one?) in both 1.8 and 1.9. apparently techno had actually suggested they do all the rounds in 1.9, dream’s main version, but it was split both ways. techno trained this for it looks like most of august, and his according to friends had ended up busy enough he barely talked. this stream at 31:19 is just one example, here’s a great phil clip too, but this duel was a Big Deal!

not even bc of the money, the guys were already loaded, but because of his reputation, Because that’s what the stakes of the duel were for techno. he’s supposed to win. and as a result the pressure was insanely inproportionate. from what dream said, he thought this duel would be interesting because he wanted to know who would win, and he wanted to prove himself. for techno, it was more that he Had to prove himself

this clip from techno says it best. because this is what it hinged on. techno had everything to lose from this duel. dream didn’t have to win, he’s a speedrunner, his audience never had such high expectations for him it became a meme to say “L” when he won. he could afford to lose. techno couldn’t. and as a result, oh BOY was there gonna be stress, and for a guy who already has anxiety issues that could not have been fun

they split the money before the duel, to try to reduce the stakes a little. techno’s tweet on the image a lil bit below shows him openly admitting to being stressed, which is such a tonal difference to dream’s taunting tweets by the way, plus there’s multiple clips of him saying he couldn’t eat for a few days before the duel [at 4:15] then one saying he couldn’t really eat AFTER, all because of stress.

the mind games around the duel are interesting. apparently dream considered his big advantage to be techno’s stress. he wanted the first round in 1.8, hoping to beat techno in his own version to psyche him out for the rest of the game, he told techno that he knew the name of his alt account just before the duel started and overall thought his lack of stress from high pressure situations would be what would win him the duel. he duelled tommy, wanting to underperform apparently just bc he thought techno would see and underestimate him. Huh?

ironically, he found out techno’s alt and panicked bc techno had a 99.3 KDA, and lost the round in 1.8 and said he was nervous for a few rounds that he won in. which brings us on to Sportmanship. if you want to see for yourself watch (or just skim) these two videos. now techno is a great sport most of the time, it’s a big appeal of his content for me, but dream repeatedly makes excuses for his loss and techno’s win

that he “should have won” and got “lucky hits” and that he overall “performed better” because he finished with more health on some rounds? bro. You Lost. now from what I’ve heard the claim that “two equally matched players can 7-3 eachother depending on the day” isn’t completely untrue, which is code for i heard fruit say it once, so i trust dream on that one. but the amount of excuse making here does Not sit right for me. like i get he’s salty bc the loss, which again! Fair! but it’s just. Ehhh. take the L on that one bro

i will say, in a brief defence of dream, even though he WAS kind of a dick around the rivalry, no one knows that better than himself. he’s expressed regret about the kind of way he acted around this time, and him and techno are still friends now, and he’s straight up said losing the duel to techno humbled him, and was probably for the best.

BUT ALSO THIS VID WHERE HE HAS TO 1v1 LIKE 50 PPL AFTERWARDS FOR HIS EGO HAHA WHY DID YOU DO THIS ONE DREAM WHAT

adding later, but heres a thread from dream’s private Twitter talking about how stressful it was for him and what it felt like after losing! there was a lot of stress on both sides on the competition

as for the mr beast bias, the format of the video was meant to be karl: dream support, chris: techno support and then him as a neutral commentator. Didn’t Work Out, techno won and mr beast went “Noooo-oh, my goodness!” and when dream was losing, he went “dreams meant to be one of the best players in the world, where is this coming from?” to which techno says “im not half bad myself”. not the best unbiased host. also techno tried to shout out calvin for help with training rod PVP and the editor put in a picture of Famed Protestant John Calvin. scammed

now the dream vs techno duel is Literally what made me a techno fan. and it’s all bc of this one clip that i saw in a compilation that made me lose it. he trained for like a full month w the best 1.9 PVPer. and NO ONE TOLD HIM?? huh???? AND HE STILL WON?? bro that’s hilarious my brains picking that one

rewatching the duel theres at least 1 obvious point where he tried to axe crit while sprinting (he comments “i miss the axe crit there and lose the fight as a result”) it is just. Wow. and im not even good at PVP or PVP analysis, so chances are there’s more i didn’t notice.

now technotwt found this and were understandably sad about the lack of support techno got. that’s not my main issue here though. this was run BEFORE the duel. it was recorded later that day, on the 27th, and then released on the 29th. that’s why i have the 2 other tweets, to show the timing. bullshit. Poll, techno saying he’s stressed and THEN recording time.

techno had to go into the duel knowing only 20 fucking percent of people had confidence in his win. WHY? there was literally no fucking need to run the poll beforehand, if it was done after the recording but BEFORE the upload, it wouldn’t have changed the content at all, But no. techno went in with a NUMBER. 20% of people. goddamn it. oh well, his dad had his back at least. technodad, you’ll never not be the coolest. i don’t think mr beast had any malicious intent w this but still makes me mad

on the subject of dads though. philza minecraft, the only man? fuck yeah bro. he had techno’s back, dude, oh my God. here’s a clip of him telling techno how hyped he was for the win (plus tommy talking about missing techno while he was gone training). while all of Dream’s friends were taunting techno w pics of bacon and pigs? PHILZA DRANK WHATEVER THIS WAS!! MY STREAMER!!

techno also had the support of like tapl, calvin, sophie, niki and plenty others, with tommy and tubbo showing their vouch when reacting to it on stream, and plenty were neutral (as seen in the poll) but the scales were notably weighted towards dream, especially in terms of content creators. techno probably knew that going in, but still must have sucked. reblogging this post w a redemptive feature of this though

extra things:

this is a must watch for this subject by the way, i linked it before but just in general Watch This One

this is very good further watching too, this guys analysis was amazing

this is funny too, but it’s quite recent and shows dream’s past the bad days of the rivalry

techno being funny in the duel

more recent, but the techno banter episode talks about a lot of the things in the post at around 4:14

i’ll also say, it doesn’t seem like there’s any bad blood between techno and mr beast or anything, like at all. as much as this post may suggest, they’ve done plenty of videos together since the duel (with one coming out relatively soon i think??) and this is all just my interpretation and part of why i personally am not a fan of the guy, but from what the fans can see they Are chill and it’s weird to assume content creators secretly hate eachother.

exactly the same thing goes with techno and dream! we know that they’re good friends now, and no matter how iffy things seemed around the duel, it is all in the past and we shouldn’t use the duel or things from the early rivalry as any kind of overruling event to judge them on who they are now. these are just my words on it all

now i didn’t clip or source Everything, bc some videos wouldn’t let me clip and i didn’t want to put a tonne of timestamps, but if you want me to hoke something specific out please let me know and I’ll put it in the replies (or the main post i don’t mind)

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

so i just heard on twitter P5S had some development problems, thus the issues with the story, the lack of character development, and the switch performance. It would explain quite a bit, but I haven't really heard anything from legit sources. Did you ever see or hear anything about that?

I....I’ve been very sparse on Twitter today tbh. So I’m a bit behind. So I don’t know the tweet you’re referring to. ;w; orz 

(oh boi, under the cut cause weeeeeeeeee 8U buckle up novel time)

If P5S had development problems with story/chars, that would’ve been with the JPN release. Which might explain why it started developing before P5R but released later (doesn’t help that Atlus apparently just signed off on the story rather than write it themselves >.> think that info in particular can be found on another personacentral article). But AtlusUSA isn’t involved with writing the story, just translating/localizing it. 

Switch performance, I doubt AtlusUSA is the one who is in charge with fixing that too. If anyone is gonna patch that mess, that’s gonna be KT (hell not even AtlusJPN, cause KT is who developed it iirc). Now I DO know that AtlusJPN is working on a patch for having SMT3 run better but that’s not P5S sooooo 8U

Now my personal theory/theories about why P5S was taking so long was:

Covid

Covid

Covid

Localization rights (KT America vs AtlusUSA/AtlusWest, I’mma still use USA screw west sorry its one letter too long and I’m lazy >8U)

PS5

Swap PS5 out with Steam and there we go. Should’ve seen the hints before but yeah....we’ll get to that in a bit. 

Covid really screwed a lot of things up, like REALLY REALLY. I don’t think I can stress this enough. It pushed back a lot of stuff because people couldn’t gather. Not just “in public” like literally at work. It took awhile for people to implement ways to still do their job (either by working from home, or having a small bubble). We know anime and dubbing got delayed because of that. Hell some games got delayed because of that too! So I cannot stress enough how much Covid screwed everything up. But how much did it screw everything up? Well......that’s when I decided to look at the past few games AtlusUSA had localized. The result was usually 5-7 months, that includes PQ2 which infamously didn’t have a dub (ah should’ve included SJR..... uhhhh oh same time, 6 months). Anyway I predicted August-November if they skirt the marketing, otherwise we’d get it early 2021. And a-yo wouldya look at that~!

Anyway that post was in July, by that time I think companies figured out how to safely gather for dubs. But keep in mind AtlusWest was also doing other translations beside english now so........yeah......people who say the dub is the reason for the delay, I don’t think that’s right (heck even in this case I don’t think it’s right). Considering that SJR/PQ2 both took about the same time, I have a feeling that AtlusJPN doesn’t want AtlusUSA to release their game until a set time (thankfully it seems that might be changing with SMTV tho!) 

So we’ve addressed Covid, and my mini conspiracy of AtlusJPN forcing a later release date on western releases..... What about Localization rights? So.... ok, there was a post I wanted to make sometime around 2018 but never did. In around 2018 BBTAG was coming out right? So fun fact, at Acen I was there and lo and behold a rep from Arcsys was there showing off an arcade of BBTAG~! And not just any rep, a marketing rep iirc! Well let’s just say I had a few questions, as a fan I’m not a reporter fksjdkflja didn’t come in swinging with a recorder sorry (anyway the questions were something about VAs like getting old Kanji/Chie/Teddie back, changing Aigis’ name back to Aegis....iirc Teddie wasn’t out yet so yeah I’d ask why the wishy washy stance but ey didn’t know that info yet, if they’d be working on Arena 3 rather than AtlusUSA, yadda yadda). Well the thing that stood out was when I asked if Arcsys’ new western branch would be in charge of localizing this hypothetical Arena 3 or any other Persona Fighting game if made. And he said “yeah, if Arcsys JPN works on it, we’ll be localizing it!” Now, that was then this is now. Things change, it’s also a diff company compared to KT so things might be different. (btw Arcsys didn’t have a western branch with Arena/Ultimax so yeah obvie AtlusUSA did the localization). Or it could’ve been bad info. Or it could’ve been that-that was the case but it isn’t now. But here’s the thing, KT does have a western branch (that or google is lying), and IF, IF what Arcsys’ rep says applies here....then there might have been a dispute between two companies on who might localize it going on behind the scenes. Which might explain why AtlusUSA wasn’t talking about P5S cause....yeah....you don’t really talk about that stuff when it’s in dispute. >.> BUT that’s just a theory. 8U A SILLY THEORY! Thanks for-oh wait I have one more. 8U (but low key that could’ve been happening behind the scenes, so like I wouldn’t be surprised, but the next theory also makes sense why it was delayed so eh, could be both, could be one or the other doesn’t matter)

So the last theory I had was originally the PS5. So like, we didn’t know till very late that when the next gen consoles were coming out. :) Thanks Sony. :) And Microsoft. :) *cough* Anyway, so I thought maybe AtlusJPN wanted to do an update or something and might’ve been holding AtlusUSA back so they could do that because YEAH WHY NOT! ANYTHING GOES ATM! But....BUT..... after the leak.....it made sense. I wouldn’t be surprised if they held back because of.....Steam. sajdkfla Esp with those teases of other games coming to Steam....I can’t believe I didn’t see it kdljsaf It also makes a lot of sense timeline wise. So we know that CHN/KR got their own versions of P5S right? Yeah so those dropped around the time of P4G’s WW release on Steam (4-5 days after P4G iirc). Now, CHN/KR tranlsations are probably faster than the western releases for a number of reasons, similar cultures (so localizing isn’t as bad), and the languages are closer than their romance counterpart so it’s probably easier translating too (they also don’t have to dub but as SJR/PQ2 have shown that’s a non issue). But here’s the thing, AtlusJPN wasn’t expecting such a success on Steam....and then it happened. So that leads me to believe that they probs got to work right away on a Steam release (or at least got more serious about it). And now all of it is probably basically done (translating, dubbing, Steamming, yadda yadda), now they just have to market it, and VGA is the best time this late in the year.

*inhales* So yeah, that’s my theory on what happened. Again, it’s a theory, all speculation from info I have available. Not saying any of it is true, it’s just what sounds plausible. 

[nerdymedzebra]

Round up of my mentions of MCAS reactions

“ Escape to the mountains for breathable air! I know grass makes my throat swell up and my chest get tight, but but I've not known what my other triggers are. Til recently. I downloaded the weather Channel app on my phone and now it alerts me during Ozone Action/Warning Days, and woops, they match up with my swelling, too. So this weekend I saw that the grass pollen was high AND it was an ozone action day, and tho I hate using the car on such days, my house apparently doesn't protect me from bad air (and I sure as heck can't afford an air purifier) so I just needed to escape. Picture 2 is just outside of Boulder, where I live, and my throat was already swelling up before we made it out of the area. But by the time we got into the mountains, it was calming down again.thank goodness! And TG for accessible overlooks, like in Pics 1 & 3! No hiking required to see prettiness. :) “

“ Whoa there, face. You look like you've been outside in the cold for an hour.. But I haven't left my couch all day! It's hard to get with this annoying portrait filter I can't turn off, but you can see the diff between my face and neck. I usually look much more pallid and anemic! ) I always say I have very little skin involvement with#MCAS (and I've only had hives once in my life) but I wonder how much of that is true and how much is just me not putting two and two together before. Like, my face has felt hot all day, I used to call this "fevering", but I've recently realized it's only my face that's hot and red, so it's prolly MCAS flushing, not a fever at all. Which is interesting that before I had an app for it, the only way I knew I was about to start my period is that I'd get one of these "fevers" for an hour or two the night before! I must be reactive to one of my own gd hormones. 😅😅😅 Yup, sounds like an MCAS thing! As I'm on my period now, (tho I don't think I usually am flushed at this poiny/for this long) and my stomach still feels full of good from yesterday, and who knows what else, but maybe I'm just reacting to a bunch of stuff. My face is redder irl, and I startled myself a few minutes ago when I went to the bathroom and saw my face. I've NEVER seen it this red while just sitting around the house! “

“ Oops I ate an often-trigger food without tacking my Cromolyn first. :( I feel like I have a fever and my belly is angeryyyy. Sighhh. “

MCAS & Cromolyn

(Jan 2019)

#MCAS: where normal food can make you shiver violently while your face blazes and your stomach thinks it's been poisoned.

Woops forgot to take my Cromolyn Sodium before eating. ☹️😷😱☠️

Also, this is what it looks like. Supposed to take 2 viles 4x a day, but I have yet to remember all 4 even once. :-x

Edit 1 hour later: my stomach and face have calmed down, but now my heart rate Is in the 130s as I'm laying here, and I feel like if I open my mouth I'll be like a megaphone and the sound of my speeding, thumping heart would loudly reverberate through the house.. It honest to God feels like my heart has grown wings and is violently trying to escape my chest.

“ Ok you can't really tell here, but my face is rosy. I'm wondering if these random few-hour "fevers" I've always gotten are really jus t flushing? Does your face feel warm and tight and similar to when your fevering when you're flushing from #MCAS? Or Allergies? We are house sitting a doggo, but I'm allergic, and I'm feeling it way more than I have before when we've watched him! Waaah. "I need vogmask, but for my eyes!" Me, earlier. “

“ Wait, what?! I react to freshly cut grass exactly the same in all months. Could it really be from different things?! Although maybe I do react differently. I feel wayyy itchier lately and maybe less swollen sinus cavity & throat, but I've only recent started noticing how itchy I get when I'm walking outside, particularly if I'm sweating even minutely, which could mean it's started up recently, or not. Adhd makes it so hard to keep track of symptoms :( :/ Fwiw, I think the same allergy test that told me I was allergic to grass said mold as well... 🤔 This post brought to you by my overwhelming need to scratch all my skin off. (Also my skin doesn't seem to really turn red til I scratch it, then it gets v angry btw). #allergy #GrassAllergy “

“ Ugh, motility issues are more than just delayed!! My psych had me request a emptying study from my GI to check for RAPID emptying (bc my meds don't work if I eat with them and she needs the results for dose adjustments) but this report is clearly looking only for delayed. Now, I sometimes do experience delayed for a few days a month, but I don't mind it much, it's the rapid that screws with my meds and makes it risky to eat at a restaurant without hanging around a half hour afterwards in case I have to run to the bathroom (in those cases my dysautonomia (and pain) also flares while my stomach is emptying, then I seem to get hit with reactive hypoglycemia or whatever it's called. Ugh.) Nausea is only a small symptom a few times a month, max, yet it is THE symptom on this test. Annoying. As I said day-of, my stomach was behaving that day, so I'm not surprised it was normal, but from the penciled in average emptying time I found, it does suggest that even when it's not acting up, it is a bit faster than normal. “

“Post treadmill stress test dinner. Vegan Pad Thai. It's been almost two hours and my muscles are still goop and I'm still extra shakey. My body did not approve. I'm surprised I made it a whole 5 minutes tho, tbh. “

“ Reverse progression of my chest today. I just now took the first picture. I removed the electrodes 6 hours ago, and boy, my body still wants it to be known that, I guess the gel that was over the round electrode itself, And to a lesser extent, the sticky stuff, was v annoying. When I first took the Holter monitor off, it was really only red on the circle bits, and where I'd been scratching (see pic 3). But then once they were off, I scratched a bunch because OMG, and that left me super red itself (pic 2) now where the sticky bits were seem red too. Is this normal, or allergies or mast cell (I've never been tested for it, but I think I should be) or what. 6 hours seems a long time to still be so red! “

Gastro follow up: Endoscopy, MCAS talk!

(Apr 2018)

During the appointment I told her that I had less rapid gastric emptying than I had been before, but more constipation and fullness-- but especially BLOATING.

I don't think I fully realized how frequently I have the sensation of bloating or stomach discomfort, because, I have noticed, when I experience it, I instinctively... eat... MORE. Especially crappy foods that frequently cause the rapid gastric emptying symptoms. That makes sense, but it's interesting to realize since I was doing it pretty unconsciously! But it hasn't been super helpful lately AND I've gained 10lbs in the last month alone! (after having gained 30+lbs in the ~8 months prior!)

And finally, I told her that I had been reading up on Mast Cell Activation Syndrome/Disease lately and it's fairly likely that I have it, and it seems to have a huge effect on the GI system. Surprisingly, her eyes widened a bit and she said that, in fact, she had just been to a conference this weekend, and they talked about Mast Cells as a cause of Functional GI Disorders! So, she said she will read up more on MCAS & EDS/HSD and how they influence the GI system.

[topicprinter]

Note: I’m cross-posting this to /r/startups.If you haven’t heard the news, Instagress, an Instagram bot service that engages other people’s social media posts for your account, recently shut down. I’m seeing half the internet freak out over this and couldn’t help but chime in with my story.I initially looked into using Instagress when growing my own Instagram account up, and I am SO happy I didn’t go that route.What didn’t work for usTo build my startup's Instagram to 200k, In the early stages, I paid for shoutouts - I invested a couple thousand into it, and it got followers, but the engagement from the followers ended up being low. If you look at that account now, we’re getting about 0.5-1% engagement rate from 200k followers which doesn’t fly too well with me. A big part of that was WHERE we got that audience from. It MATTERS.What worked incredibly well (and the results)I decided to get a lot more strategic about things and take a different approach more recently. And that’s when we started seeing the truly amazing results in social media domination. It helped grow that existing Instagram account but more importantly, we created 3 new accounts from scratch, one on IG and two on Twitter, that are CRUSHING it.Habit Nest's Twitter (+1.5k followers in 1 month, high engagement)Greatest Gifters Instagram (+1.5k followers in 1 month, very high engagement)Greatest Gifters Twitter (+1k followers in 1 month, very high engagement)Here’s exactly what I did so you can replicate it for yourself (note: it’s insanely simple).There’s a few steps to doing what I do really effectively:Make sure your content is on point and actually adds value to the types of followers you want to attract. Real value, no bullshit, no self-promotional stuff all the time. 90-95% useful content, 5-10% sales pushes / product pushes.Find bigger accounts that have the types of followers that you want to targetFind the most engaged users of that account (i.e. people who comment and like multiple photos) and follow them.Unfollow people who don’t follow you back in 72 hoursThat’s the basics of it. But to be honest, it’s the certain factors that have made the difference between actually being effective and not at all.You should keep the following factors in mind:Follow 800-1000 new people per day. These should be people who both comment and like photos so they're the most engaged.But, ramp up to that number gradually over time. The speed that you should do this at depends on how old and how active your account is. These diff. factors depend on: how many other posts you comment on, how many posts you make, what your existing follower:following ratio is. You need to play around with this and learn what works for you - it’s a lot of analyzing that needs to be done. 
DO NOT break your following limit set by Instagram’s algorithm.Ramp up to unfollowing 750-950 people per day. DO NOT go too fast with this. This also depends on similar account factors as stated earlier but with the added piece of how many people you’ve followed in the last week.You have to be really good at keeping track of data. You should be tracking every new account you follow, when you followed them, and if/when you unfollowed them. Make sure you DO NOT follow an account that previously did not follow you back.You should check any new account before following them to make sure it’s not a duplicate of one that you previously followedAlso, I’ve heard of accounts that get absolutely destroyed by Instagram’s algorithm (and lose lots of visibility in Instagram’s feeds) if they detect you’re using a bot - so just a heads up. Hard, consistent work is the key here.I’ve personally seen it myself too - just because Instagram isn’t deleting your account doesn’t mean they’re not penalizing you on both their home feeds as well as their discover feeds. Using bots can do this for your account so BE CAREFUL about services like Instagress.To summarizeThere’s a lot going down here in that guide above and it’s definitely not an easy job, but I’d recommend spending 6-8 hours per day on this for a month or so to really master it and you’ll be able to get it down.If you’re a small company/brand with no budget on social media growth and lots of time, do this yourself. Social media isn’t going anywhere and you’ll be building up a fantastic long-term asset.If you would rather not spend 30+ hours a week doing work like this, feel free to PM me, I’ll see if I can point you in a direction to get this done.Hope this was helpful, let’s get after it everybody.TLDR: Work. Your. Ass. Off.

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Note: I’m cross-posting this to /r/entrepreneur.If you haven’t heard the news, Instagress, an Instagram bot service that engages other people’s social media posts for your account, recently shut down. I’m seeing half the internet freak out over this and couldn’t help but chime in with my story.I initially looked into using Instagress when growing my own Instagram account up, and I am SO happy I didn’t go that route.What didn’t work for usTo build my startup's Instagram to 200k, In the early stages, I paid for shoutouts - I invested a couple thousand into it, and it got followers, but the engagement from the followers ended up being low. If you look at that account now, we’re getting about 0.5-1% engagement rate from 200k followers which doesn’t fly too well with me. A big part of that was WHERE we got that audience from. It MATTERS.What worked incredibly well (and the results)I decided to get a lot more strategic about things and take a different approach more recently. And that’s when we started seeing the truly amazing results in social media domination. It helped grow that existing Instagram account but more importantly, we created 3 new accounts from scratch, one on IG and two on Twitter, that are CRUSHING it.Habit Nest's Twitter (+1.5k followers in 1 month, high engagement)Greatest Gifters Instagram (+1.5k followers in 1 month, very high engagement)Greatest Gifters Twitter (+1k followers in 1 month, very high engagement)Here’s exactly what I did so you can replicate it for yourself (note: it’s insanely simple).There’s a few steps to doing what I do really effectively:Make sure your content is on point and actually adds value to the types of followers you want to attract. Real value, no bullshit, no self-promotional stuff all the time. 90-95% useful content, 5-10% sales pushes / product pushes.Find bigger accounts that have the types of followers that you want to targetFind the most engaged users of that account (i.e. people who comment and like multiple photos) and follow them.Unfollow people who don’t follow you back in 72 hoursThat’s the basics of it. But to be honest, it’s the certain factors that have made the difference between actually being effective and not at all.You should keep the following factors in mind:Follow 800-1000 new people per day. These should be people who both comment and like photos so they're the most engaged.But, ramp up to that number gradually over time. The speed that you should do this at depends on how old and how active your account is. These diff. factors depend on: how many other posts you comment on, how many posts you make, what your existing follower:following ratio is. You need to play around with this and learn what works for you - it’s a lot of analyzing that needs to be done. 
DO NOT break your following limit set by Instagram’s algorithm.Ramp up to unfollowing 750-950 people per day. DO NOT go too fast with this. This also depends on similar account factors as stated earlier but with the added piece of how many people you’ve followed in the last week.You have to be really good at keeping track of data. You should be tracking every new account you follow, when you followed them, and if/when you unfollowed them. Make sure you DO NOT follow an account that previously did not follow you back.You should check any new account before following them to make sure it’s not a duplicate of one that you previously followedAlso, I’ve heard of accounts that get absolutely destroyed by Instagram’s algorithm (and lose lots of visibility in Instagram’s feeds) if they detect you’re using a bot - so just a heads up. Hard, consistent work is the key here.I’ve personally seen it myself too - just because Instagram isn’t deleting your account doesn’t mean they’re not penalizing you on both their home feeds as well as their discover feeds. Using bots can do this for your account so BE CAREFUL about services like Instagress.To summarizeThere’s a lot going down here in that guide above and it’s definitely not an easy job, but I’d recommend spending 6-8 hours per day on this for a month or so to really master it and you’ll be able to get it down.If you’re a small company/brand with no budget on social media growth and lots of time, do this yourself. Social media isn’t going anywhere and you’ll be building up a fantastic long-term asset.If you would rather not spend 30+ hours a week doing work like this, feel free to PM me, I’ll see if I can point you in a direction to get this done.Hope this was helpful, let’s get after it everybody.TLDR: Work. Your. Ass. Off.