#If there are any artists in the audience I will PAY for a pic of J trying to walk through a normal door | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thewritingbeforesunrise · 2 years

Text

Secretive.

18+ ONLY. MINORS DNI.

____________________________________

A/N: For me, when inspiration hits, it's usually through pictures. And when I saw this one (credits to the owner), I felt the absolute need to write something for our beloved Sammy. I had this in my drafts for a while and I decided to let it see the light of the day, finally.

Word count: 3.7K

Pairing: Sam x female!reader

Warnings: NSFW 18+ONLY, graphic sexual content, language, fingering, protected penetrative sex.

Summary: A charismatic bassist catches your eye while you are working as a photographer in a little concert venue.

____________________________________

Concert photography had always been one of your favourite hobbies. It certainly didn't pay the bills but you couldn't help it, you really loved it.

So, whenever you could, you always packed your gear and camera and lived your dream for the night.

You worked as a freelance photographer and, tonight, you were in an intimate lovely little venue in the heart of your city.

Being able to picture the love and dedication of fans and the absolute passion some musicians showed on stage was what really kept you going.

The rush of adrenaline you felt around you right when the artist got on stage didn't wear off for days, just like the lingering post concert depression.

It was something you cherished and couldn't find anywhere else but during live performances.

Witnessing the magic happen from your special spot right in front of the stage was just the cherry on top.

Feeling the deep vibrations of the drums and the shivering caused by particularly well-placed guitar solos and powerful singing was absolutely like breathing for you.

But if there was something you really adored, it was being able to hear the low but heavenly strumming of the bass clearly, something you almost never could do only listening to music with headphones.

No, for that you had to go to concerts and live them in person.

That's why you almost always took the side of the stage where bass players were.

Of course, you usually ran around to get the best shots of every member of the bands and their fans, but you couldn't deny the steady pull that somehow made sure you always went back to your favourite spot, right in front of the bass player.

Tonight was no exception.

You found yourself, photographer pass and camera around your neck, in the few metres of space that separated the crowd from the stage.

You shivered with anticipation as, in the darkness, you heard the first few notes of a guitar echo through the venue.

The fans were screaming in front of you and when the lights finally turned on, illuminating the stage, they were going absolutely wild.

Nobody was on stage yet, but your hands were shivering a little.

The beginning of a show always made you feel a bit anxious, but in a very good way.

You heard a few more notes and, this time, you could pinpoint the source of it.

The guitarist made his entrance surrounded by artificial smoke and positioned himself on the left side of the stage.

In the meantime, the drummer sat down in front of his kit and another slim figure approached your side and sat down behind the keyboards.

You started taking a few shots of them and then the singer made his entrance too, causing the crowd to become even more chaotic.

You were waiting for the bass player, but nobody arrived.

The group you were photographing was young, but you didn't know much about them. From what you could see and hear, they were very talented.

You decided to go up the stage to be closer and take the best shots you could.

You flashed your pass to the security and they let you in. It was nice to be able to go up the stage and see the audience from the same perspective the band saw it.

The keyboardist was too entranced by his music to pay any attention to you when you snapped a few pics of him, his beautiful keyboards and organ and his talented fingers dancing on them. His dark hair, cascading on his shoulders and in front of his face, gave him a mysterious aura.

Right next to him, there were two beautiful basses, one dark and another bright pastel green.

You took a good look at them and you felt relieved that there was going to be someone playing them soon, but you didn't know who.

When you approached the drummer, he made eye contact with you and smiled kindly. His hair was long, curly and wild, making him look like a rockstar from the 70s. Taking a closer look you could see he was wearing eyeliner. He was beautiful. You took a few pics of him too, making sure to capture his strong arms and expressions of pure bliss while he hit his drums.

Then you moved to the guitarist side. When he saw you he smiled at you a little more smugly and winked, making you blush. You smiled back and snapped a picture of him flicking his long hair backwards while moving his fingers expertly on the fretboard of his Gibson. You did a close-up of his fingers sliding on the strings as he finger picked his electric and another one of his gorgeous face as he kept the pick between his lips.

Afterwards, your attention was captured by the singer, dancing and jumping like a madman around the stage with a golden cape and a nice white jumpsuit with embroidered feathers.

When he spotted you, he came closer and put on a show just for your camera, grinning. His eyes glimmered with mirth as he played with your lens. It was a real pleasure photographing him.

You snapped a few pictures of the fans and climbed off the stage and went back to your usual spot, to the one you thought was the bassist's side.

You lifted your gaze on the stage and froze.

The keyboardist was already watching you as he got up from the stool and grabbed a bass, the surf green one.

He slung it across his shoulders and came closer to the edge of the stage as the crowd behind you started screaming and waving at him.

You snapped a few pictures of him before he started playing and you felt a little shiver run down your spine when you saw the little smirk playing on his lips as he towered above you from the stage.

He was stunning in his pastel pink suit and you couldn't take your eyes and lenses off him.

When he started plucking at the bass strings the vibrations reverberated in your entire body.

That's exactly why you loved bass.

He played with such passion that your camera was glued on him. You tried to focus also on his other bandmates but you couldn't help it, you had to watch him, he had cast a spell on you.

And it seemed that his eyes and smirk were always directed towards you, his piercing gaze was making you blush. He was very talented, just like the others, and being able to watch him from this close was a real pleasure.

He was absolutely shredding those strings and the vibrations you heard in your body were heavenly.

You couldn't take your eyes off his fingers, bending and plucking the strings and he noticed, his smirk deepening and turning smug.

You blushed and decided to change place, his gaze was starting to burn and you couldn't take it anymore. You went to the guitarist's side and stayed there, but your mind and eyes always went back to the bassist, even though it was a little more subtle than before.

The concert finished too soon for your liking. You could have listened to these boys all night.

As the fans started exiting the building, you went to pack your gear and started to head out from the side of the stage.

You were alone walking down a corridor when you felt strong hands grabbing your shoulders from behind and pulling you in a dark room nearby.

The door closed behind you with a loud bang making you jump and leaving you in complete darkness except for the faint green light coming from an emergency exit sign above your head.

You saw a figure in front of you, tall, lanky and dressed in pink.

You knew who it was, but you were too shocked to speak.

He didn't utter a single word, he kept staring at you, standing in semi-darkness, with his chest heaving slightly and his hooded eyes.

He motioned with his hand to the door and you knew he wanted to tell you that you could leave, if you wanted.

You turned around quickly, grabbed the door knob and stopped.

You could hear your heart beating deafeningly loud in your throat and ears, your hands were shaking and you felt weak at the knees.

You couldn't deny the whole situation was having an effect on you, but it wasn't at all the one you should have had.

Being trapped in a room with a complete stranger shouldn't make you feel butterflies in your stomach, but there you were.

It didn't help in the slightest that the complete stranger was the very attractive bass player you had been drooling on for the whole concert.

At least he gave you a choice.

Your hand slowly slipped from the doorknob and landed on the key underneath. You could feel his burning gaze on the back of your neck since he couldn't see what you were doing.

You took a deep breath and made up your mind.

You turned the key in the lock and slowly turned around.

You couldn't finish the motion as his strong hands and body pinned you against the wall next to the door.

He smelled of incense and you felt intoxicated by him.

He didn't waste time and captured your lips in a searing kiss.

You were too shocked to act and he took the lead placing his hands on both sides of your face and taking advantage of a sigh from your part to deepen the kiss.

You felt his warm soft tongue licking his way in your mouth and your hands flew to the back of his neck, bringing him impossibly close to you and making him groan lightly at the proximity.

He clouded all of your senses: the sound of his heavy breathing as he kissed you, the intense incense smell that radiated from his body, the warmth of his body pressed against yours, the sweet taste of his lips and the fact that ten minutes before you couldn't take your eyes off him grounded you there.

He could do anything he wanted with you, you wouldn't complain.

He parted your legs with his knee and you slid your hands into his soft luscious hair, gaining a slight nip on your bottom lip from him.

You moaned lightly when his hands lifted your tshirt and came in contact with the bare skin of your back.

He broke the kiss and looked at you intensely in the eyes, panting, silently asking for permission to take off your t-shirt.

You nodded and he eagerly took it off, leaving you in a simple black bralette.

He started kissing your neck, nipping harshly at your collarbone.

You decided that he should match your state of undress and your hands slowly let his jacket slide off his shoulders leaving his chest free.

A thin layer of sweat was shining on him, making him glow eerily in the faint green light.

You were growing wetter by the second.

When his hands reached for your jeans, he stopped once again to silently ask for your consent.

You nodded eagerly, throwing your caution and modesty to the wind.

He yanked them open and pulled them off your legs, kneeling down in front of you and removing your shoes.

You bit your bottom lip at the sight and he smirked as you blushed.

He raised to his feet and your hands brushed over his chest and down his abdomen, reaching the hem of his pants. You slipped the tip of your pointer finger inside them, but he was quicker.

He got rid of them in a second, letting them pool at his already bare feet. You felt his gaze on your lower half, tracing the tip of his finger on the band of your underwear and making goosebumps rise on your body.

He smirked once again and kissed you deeply pushing his entire body against yours again.

You didn't stop the faint moan that escaped your lips when you felt his still clothed erection press right against you, making him groan deeply in his chest.

One of his hands flew at your throat.

His thumb pressed under your chin making you bend your head backwards and holding you still as he kissed you sweetly.

He was taller than you and towered over you, so your head was draped back against the wall.

His other hand traced on the straps of your bralette and dragged them down your shoulders. Then he dragged the item off your body, completely, leaving your upper half exposed.

His hand dipped between the two of you and cupped your heat, making you bite his lip mid-kiss at the contact.

You nodded without waiting for him to ask for your permission and his eyes lidded even more than before.

He bent down slightly to kiss your breasts, grazing his teeth on your nipples and making you whine.

Then, he pushed your panties to the side keeping eye contact, tracing a single finger along your slit.

You groaned and the muscle in your abdomen clenched.

He put a bit more pressure to his fingers and stroked your clit, making you shudder.

He bent down and removed your panties, then stood and grabbed the back of your right knee, placing your leg high on his hip, holding it there with a strong grip spreading you more for him and then touched you again.

Fuck, he is skilled with those hands, you thought.

He was making you loose control pretty quickly as your head fell backwards against the wall.

You felt his fingers move exactly in the same way that he plucked at his bass, strumming your folds like he did with his strings.

Two of his fingers sunk so deep inside of you making tingles and shivers run up your spine.

When he bent them forward you saw him grin slyly at your trembling and groaning.

His thumb kept torturing your clit and your eyes rolled back at the sensation.

Not even your fingers felt that good, you wanted him to stay there forever.

You felt him press himself against your thigh and snaked a hand down to caress him through his tight boxers.

He groaned and bit down harshly on the junction between your neck and shoulder, bending his fingers mercilessly inside of you nudging your g-spot again and again.

You came muffling your cries in the crook of his neck.

Once you came down from your high, he was already staring at you with hunger in his eyes.

Your leg was still on his hip, his grip on you like iron.

You hooked your fingers in the elastic band of his boxers and dragged them down, slowly.

You gasped at his size and averted your gaze from him, embarrassed.

He grabbed your jaw, shifted your gaze back up on his face and watched you closely for any sign of insecurity about the situation.

You smiled at him and he did the same, eyes turning sweet and then playful as he let

your leg fall from his hip and bent down to retrieve something from the back pocket of his pants.

After a second, he stood, towering again over you and kissed you breathless again.

You could feel him hot and hard pressed against you, your hands grabbing his hips and descending on his ass bringing him closer to grind on you.

He gasped, but stopped you, opening the condom with his teeth and sliding it on, groaning.

Then he leant his forehead against yours silently asking for permission again.

The fact that he wasn't talking was driving you insane.

You nodded, biting your lower lip as he chuckled, grabbing your leg again and planting it on his hip.

You felt his tip brush against your overstimulated clit and jolted.

His hand that wasn't on your leg pressed your other hip strongly against the wall and, with a swift, harsh thrust of his hips, he entered you.

Fuck.

The stretch stung deliciously and left you out of breath, completely.

You winced loudly, hiding your face in the crook of his neck and biting him like he did to you before.

Your breathing was laboured and your eyes squeezed shut.

He snickered through clenched teeth at your reaction, but stayed still to allow you to relax and adjust to his size.

You tried to relax and heard him sigh as you did your best to do so, deciding to wrap your other leg on his waist, too, bringing him even deeper.

You raised your head from his shoulder and kissed him, squeezing his hips and allowing him to move.

He didn't need to be told twice.

He slid almost all the way out of you and slammed back in again, making your head tud against the wall and cutting the wind out of your lungs.

He wasn't being sweet, but you absolutely loved it.

You bit his bottom lip mid-kiss and he groaned, repeating his previous motion and pushing you against the wall by your throat, squeezing lightly and making you gasp.

One of your hands gripped the hair at the base of his neck and brought him closer in a kiss that was almost only tongue and teeth.

You couldn't take enough of him.

Your other hand was on his back, sinking your nails in his muscles and making him moan in your mouth.

A moment after, he broke the kiss, grabbed the back of your left knee that was wrapped around his waist too and pushed your leg against the cold wall, spreading you even more and thrusting in, making you bite hard on your lips, trying not to scream.

He kept doing that and you felt yourself spiralling closer to release, again.

It was almost impossible for you to keep quiet because of the way he was moving.

Every thrust felt so deep.

Suddenly, the hand that wasn't gripping your leg came to your mouth, silencing you as a particularly harsh thrust nudged your g-spot and grazed your clit, at the same time.

You didn't know the reason for his reaction, but a few seconds later you understood.

You heard footsteps approaching outside, very close to the door and fear invaded you.

He kept moving, his dark gaze burning into your eyes, but he made sure to be quiet and keep you quiet at the same time.

You heard someone touch the doorknob, but thank God you had turned the key in the lock.

Then you heard the sound of footsteps slowly fading away and you sighed in relief.

He picked up his pace then and kept pounding relentlessly inside of you, making you clench tightly around him.

The hand on the back of your knee was keeping you grounded against the wall and you were sure he was leaving a big dark hand-shaped mark on you.

You were biting your bottom lip so hard you were about to break the skin, but when his hand went to your core and his thumb began stroking your clit again in swift thigh circles, you almost screamed and pleaded with him to continue.

A few seconds later you were coming with a muffled cry in the crook of his neck and he followed you closely, his release filling the condom as he grunted with a harsh bite on your neck and a final strong thrust of his hips.

He collapsed against you on the wall and you did your best to keep the two of you steady with your hands on the wall.

You were both covered in sweat, exhausted and your chests heaved.

His hands were on either side of your face on the wall and you were both trembling because of the exertion.

He grabbed your hips and pulled out of you gently making you wince again, removed the condom and then leant his forehead against yours and you heard his beautiful voice for the first time.

"I didn't want to hurt you, I am sorry" he said, voice raspy and deep.

"Don't worry. As you can tell, I liked it" you answered him blushing because of what you two just did.

He stroked your cheek kindly.

"I have never done something remotely close to this in my entire brief concert photographer career" you told him sheepishly.

He grabbed your chin between thumb and index finger and spoke again.

"Well, love, I liked that very much, we can do this whenever you want. By the way, my name is Sam" he said, eyes never leaving yours.

"Nice to meet you" you told him your name and he smiled.

"It was a real pleasure meeting you" he said and winked at you.

You both got dressed again, and just before exiting, you heard footsteps outside.

You looked at him frightened and he motioned with his index finger on his lips, signalling to you to keep quiet.

You heard a voice shout in a harsh tone "Samuel, for the love of God, where the fuck are you! We are leaving in five, with or without you"

He snickered silently as presumably one of his bandmates was sent back to look for him.

He waited as the sound of footsteps faded away then grabbed you by your waist and pressed you once again against the wall.

His mouth was so close to your ear you could feel his lips moving, causing you to get wet again.

"What about round two tonight love?" He told you in a hot whisper.

You shuddered as one of his hands grabbed a handful of your ass and then slipped something in the back pocket of your jeans.

"I'll be very happy to see you there, but it's your choice, love. Bye" he gave you a peck on your lips and then was out of the door, leaving you there alone and flustered, struggling to process what had just happened.

You tried to catch your breath as you retrieved what he pushed into your pocket.

It was a business card of a nice hotel in the city centre, along with a key card. On the underside of the paper there was something scribbled in elegant handwriting.

I'd love to see the pictures you took tonight. What about a private session? ;)

Room 726.

You absolutely didn't know what to do. When you exited the dark room and made sure nobody saw you, you headed out of the venue, in the warm night, with a tangled mess of thoughts in your mind.

#greta van fleet #greta van fic #greta van smut #gvf fic #sam kiszka x reader #sammy gvf #fanfic #sam kiszka

252 notes · View notes

struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor · 1 year

Note

No, LC was separated three days after release in the middle of the chart week. And fans are not combining them too. They tried at first but it doesn’t make much sense. Korean has 527m counter streams and Eng has 217m. The whole situation was very unfortunate and distracted fans a lot. Also, you’re right about fans being focused on LC more than everything else because back then it was about hot100 position. Whole layover album had less streams on spotify daily chart on 8th day than two LC versions combined to put in perspective. After second week billboard fucked up everything too but that’s another story. You may be right about Seven being more suitable for radio and gp interest but the truth is LC had a lot of potential that was lost because of unfortunate circumstances and company ignorance. No cds restocking, no playlisting, even with radio, rare cases of djs playing LC they had to play a MV version because company never sent an audio (I’m not talking about paying to play it, simply let fans request it through search). Not trying to victimize here but it’s just sad when you’re forever stuck wondering “what could have been” I guess

Huh, bad playlisting seems to be a common complaint. Seven also suffered from poor cd restocking, right? Since it was an English single featuring an American artist, I think it received slightly better treatment than LC but not because Big Hit Labels made an extra effort for Jungkook... Seven wasn't even pushed as hard as it could've been. I'm pretty ignorant about these things though. I'm just saying what I've read...

I'll be honest, imo LC was never going to be much more than it was. Jimin (Face era) is not as marketable as Jungkook in the US. Just compare Jimin's styling for Face with Jungkook's styling for Seven, or their photoshoots and MVs. Even Jungkook's choreo for Seven is simpler and more familiar to American audiences. Everything about Jungkook and Seven is more palatable to fans of American pop. I can't see any universe in which Like Crazy becomes a hit on Seven's scale. The song itself could've reached a bigger audience (though I believe it was too morose to be that mainstream), but Jimin would've had to adapt many aspects of his debut to the Western market. Plus, even before Seven Jungkook had much better name recognition than Jimin because of CK, L&R and Dreamers. That helped Seven too. Jungkook had already established himself somewhat as a pop singer.

I think that, while LC would've sounded different yet not necessarily better in Jungkook's hands, it likely would've been a lot, lot more successful internationally, especially since Jungkook, unlike Jimin, had worldwide success in his mind when he decided upon Seven's promo strategy, MV, concept pics etc. I may be wrong though. It's not like I predicted Seven would be this successful either.

Thanks for the ask! And for the info!

#ask #bts #jungkook #jimin #text #thanks for the ask!

3 notes · View notes

freshthoughts2020 · 1 year

Text

DON'T GET GREEDY AND WAX FOR NO REASON

August 21, 2023

I.EVERYDAY I’M HUSTLING

In these survival days, hustling is all that really matters, and people hustles varies from person to person. No matter what hustle it is, don’t get greedy and start being super tax man, this is mostly in reference when dealing with celebrities.

You may have saw the video where Meek Mill is attempting to purchase the Nike SB x Air Jordan IVs (man those are some beauties) and the guy on the video wants to charge Meek the tax price. Meek urges that he can get the sneakers at retail from the store, so why would he pay him the tax price plus if he would’ve showed love, Meek would’ve been incentivized to shop even more with the young bull.

First, Meek is capping, you can’t get those sneakers at retail, maybe a lower price than what buddy was selling them for but they will be above retail, too much hype around them. These days everything work off hype. If you don’t get them at release you ain’t getting them without paying the resale ticket, unless the shoe sat on the shelf, you might get an under retail price.

Secondly, his point still stands and he’s absolutely correct in theory. Taking off shoe guy and putting it on general hustlers for a minute. When you are selling a product and its fire and consistent, eventually you will catch the eye of a celebrity, maybe multiple.

II.SHOW YOU HOW TO DO THIS SON!

I can attest to this personally multiple times, I’ll just use one example for now. Some years ago I drew a pic of YG and Kamaiyah. YG dm’d me about purchasing it you know of course I was excited. This was in early corner days too, so I first started getting celebrity attention/recognition. Before I could respond you know I told some of my people.

You know what they said instantly after I told them the news. “You need to charge him a band”, “Oh yeah he gotta at least drop 4Hunnid on the pic”, and other nonsense.

No disrespect to the people that told me this but this is why people can’t scale up because they wanna do stupid stuff like that and tax for no reason.

III.CAN’T TEACH NO ONE HOW TO HUSTLE..

Just because someone’s a celebrity do not mean you charge unwarranted high prices, it instantly throws smut on your name and can close doors that you ain’t even noticed that was opened. Let me explain why I didn’t tax YG in the first place.

1) the picture was only 8” x 10”, 2) that is a small picture , and 3) it was a sketch without much detail. It was colored and great in my style but my pricing is always on what I would pay for it. Also, the bigger the size the more it is reasonable to charge high prices.

I wouldn’t pay over a few hundred for a small picture unless it was by an artist whose work was unattainable, if it was to personally support an artist I know, or if it is extremely detailed but the canvas chosen is just small.

This particular picture did not fit my laid in criteria, if any normal person wanted that same picture I wouldn’t have charged them more than $50 at that time. Now he never followed through on the purchase but imagined if I would’ve came at him saying give me a rack for this. If he’s smart with his money, he would’ve instantly been off put and possibly stopped any other doors that could’ve been opened.

When it comes to celebrities you have to think more than the money, they carry an audience. Why do you think they get so many free items in the first place? They are walking billboards plus they can actually employ if you’re actually dope enough.

That YG interaction I had could’ve went a thousand ways, now it didn’t go anywhere but I definitely wouldn’t had helped if I came out the gate thinking “get as much money as I can out of him.” That’s short sighted, fast-money, flip everything thinking. You may get a payday but you lose out on the long term. I couldn’t play myself like that in life I think in long term for everything!! Its how I maintained the patience and faith to become a lawyer and run this website because there are extreme peaks and valleys!

So if you got a hustle going on learn from that vid with Meek and this article. Think about the bigger opportunity, think about what is attached to a person with clout, how doors can be opened if you treat this rare interaction the way its supposed to go. Don’t lose out your blessings beloved, Get money..

visit gettothecorner.com

follow me on Twitter (X) twitter.com/onlyonejaevonn

#meek mill #life lessons #life logs #survivasl #survival #hustlers #jaevonn harris #air jordan iv #nike #nike sb

3 notes · View notes

alittlefrenchtree · 3 years

Note

I have a PR question. How do we know if a non-paparazzi photo is staged/arranged or not? I’m talking about random pictures someone takes of him and his supposed dates. ☺️

I don’t think you can know for sure, Nonny. That’s kind of the beauty of it 😊

If you’re interested in joining today’s class and read a little more about stuff, click below.

Disclaimer 1) I really shouldn’t be any kind of authority in terms of pr and of famous people pr but since many people here are presenting things as true statements without knowing anything about anything, it’s only fair that I tried to explain some stuff while knowing, like 5% of stuff.

Disclamer 2) I’m not really interested about talking specifically about Timmy’s situation. His dating life is either a private thing that shouldn’t be commented as a public topic or a pr thing that I don’t want to encourage it by commenting. Or both and see all of the above.

What I’m interested in, is talking about pr strategy and public images in general ways, why it’s there and how it works and that’s about it.

That being said, let’s start today’s class.

My belief when it comes to pr and related stuff is that knowing the ‘truth’ is less important than having as much knowledge as possible on the subject. It’s kind like math. If you have an equation and someone gives you the answer but you don’t know how to get to there yourself, knowing the answer doesn’t get you much. But if you have all the keys to resolve the equation, you can try to find the answer on your own. And, even if you don’t find the answer, knowledge will help you understand the logic of it. Why it’s there. What it says.

So what’s our equation today? A content of one (or more) public person/people taken from a smartphone camera of someone we don’t know.

Smartphone content isn’t inconsequential. Using ‘low’ quality camera instead of a professional one says something different. It’s supposed to bring more authenticity, closeness to the audience, spontaneity. It feels truer because you could be the one taken it, since there is a large chance you own a smartphone when you probably don’t own a professional camera. It has to be genuine if you could be the one taking it, right? You would have any interest in taking part of something fake, wouldn’t you?

It can feels logical like everybody knows that or it’s not really important but it’s something that is actually thought through by professionals when it comes to create content. There is that brand of cooking videos (you know the one you stumble on when you remember Facebook exist and that show you recipe that always look really easy to make at home and delicious (and also overly greasy and/or overly sugary) that was explaining how they could totally shot their videos in professional kitchen with high quality stuff but choose to do the complete opposite instead? Because their goal is to make their audience feel like they can make the recipe at home so they shot their videos on small kitchen with smartphones.

Creating professional content on un-professional devices is a real thing. Half of the business of influencers people is built on this. To think that the strategy has stayed only in the influencers people business would be very naive. In the famous people world, content created on smartphone is used for these bts vibes. We’re showing you what you’re not supposed to see so you feel like a part of it. This is how the famous people you love are in real life, when the camera is off. Except they’re not off, since you’re seeing it.

You’re not part of it, we’re showing you just enough for you to want it, to envy it but you’re not.

Let’s go back to the casual pic of that public person. Truth is, you could be taking the picture yourself and still don’t know what you’ve taken.

Say I’m well known top model who has signed a new contract with a clothing brand. I have pap walks to put the clothes in online articles and magazines. Of course pap pics also ends up on social media but they aren’t the type of media design for the platform. Pap walks create some distance from the audience because they often looks like real photo shootings. Part of the audience is defiant towards it. Either it’s an invasion of privacy or it’s staged. It’s not that positive.

What’s positive is me going out in my brand new clothes and cross path with people who recognize me. They wouldn’t know anything about my contract but would do all the job themselves without knowing they’re doing it. They would take a picture from afar, maybe a selfie, share it on social media with a cute context. A story. Write about that cute dress I was wearing, what my coffee order was (omg, she likes almond milk like me!), what’s the interaction was like. Was it staged? I like that dress and I really wanted to go for a walk and for that cup of coffee. And the fan was nice, everything was genuine. Yet, I still went out to be seen and the clothing brand is happy.

The problem with that scenario is that I’m not in control of anything. Maybe nobody will recognize me or care enough to take a picture or something went wrong with the fan/person I’ve seen and instead of a cute story I have someone insulting me all over the internet. Lot of time lost, some risk taken, not much result. Wouldn’t be easier to take a friend or a PA who would snap a few pictures and we’ll be home in 5 minutes, job done? Pr team get the pics and share them with the world with one of the twelve stan accounts about me they’ve been running for years. Even write a little story to go with it if they’re inspired enough. If you think it’s too much, you’re naive. Everything that can be faked or staged to save time, money or give you more control of the result, has already been faked and staged by someone. Multiple someones.

My take on this would be, the bigger you are, the more money you have to carry on your shoulders, the less you let things to chance and the more you take control of your narrative. PAs, agents, PR people,… When you have a whole team around you, you don’t (overly) pay them as secretaries. They’re not just here to handle your planning and bring you coffee or you would only need one person, not 7 of them walking around you all the time.

But what if there is no contract? What if I’m just wearing that dress because I like the brand? Or maybe there is a commercial deal with the brand but I have no obligation to wear it on my daily life or been seen with it. Wouldn’t the pics look exactly the same to an outside eye?

Of course I can go low key, move only inside cars with tinted windows, don’t walk around in popular places and only go in isolated, private places. I can. But maybe sometimes I’m tired of it. Maybe I just want to meet my non-famous friends where they like to go and fuck it if I’m seen there. Pics taken by people would look like they’re staged. Except maybe they’re not.

But if I stop caring, I indirectly accept that however I’m seen becomes part of my public image. And if it has become part of my public image, I should accept that it will be monitored to some extend by my team, and eventually by myself.

So how do we find the answer? We can’t. Based on a single photo alone, I don’t think we can. Unless you’ve seen contracts or you know the person personally, you can’t really pretend what’s going on being doors. Even so, would you know everything? Sometimes a contract is just a contract. Something a commercial deal is also a friendship. Sometimes a real friendship became public et become part of your public image. Sometimes you don’t really feel like talking about commercial deals with that cousin you’re seeing 5 times a year and doesn’t really care about what the details of your fucked-up public job are. So even your own family doesn’t know the truth about everything.

What we can do, if we’re interested in doing it, is look at every piece of content and ask ourselves. What are we seeing? How is it made? For what purpose? How that type of content is used in different contexts?

With more context, you can make interpretations for yourself. Will everybody will have the same? Of course not. Mathematicians, physicists, chemists, spent their time disagreeing on interpretations of stuff, how can we expect people to agree on the interpretation on something based of human behavior?

From what I’m seeing, PR conversations seem to be going on in many (many) fandoms. From a PR point of view, I don’t think it’s not a bad thing, whether what we’re talking about is real or fake in the first place. Having people think it’s fake and people think it’s real makes the conversation going. They’re always be people who would want to defend their point of view, their opinions, their favorite celebrities. Names will keep being mentioned, pics shared, word spread. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and algorithms are happy.

My best advices, I guess, is, first, remember that you aren't obligated to have opinions on everything or to care about every aspect of the life of an artist you love, even when media and people would like you to think you are and you should. There is even things, such as dating life of other people than yourself, you shouldn’t really have opinions about at all.

If romance, love and sex keeps getting used to sell, it’s because it works. Think about all the books, all the movies, all the stories where a love story is integrated in an action movie/horror story/sci-fi scenario even when it has nothing to do with anything. Romance/love/sex sells since forever and probably for a long time. Because most people think falling in love is the main purpose of life and the most important thing in the world.

My second advice would be, don’t be naive but don’t be cynical either. Contexts and nuances are always important.

Anyways, like always I don’t have an answer and I’m barely even interested in the answer but I hope I'm able bring some perspectives to things because it’s important. More than ever, content is a tool. Since everyone is part of an audience, if not potentially part of all audiences , we should all learn more about how the tool works.

Of course i'm joking about the concept of class. I'm not a teacher. I'm only sharing some personal knowledge and opinions. I can be wrong or contested. No hard feelings against anyone.

#aflt asks #it's pr talk time again

41 notes · View notes

thirsthourdemon · 4 years

Text

Headcanon on their online platforms but mainly on Twitch, onlyfans stuff, patreon, tumblr

Includes: Demon bros + undateablesss

Genre: Crack, Fluff and slight smut

Warnings: NSFW mentions

||Lucifer

-He didn’t have a big online presence because he was active, no no

-He had an online presence cause everyone always sees him on Diavolo s pictures and such so for a time they shared an audience

-One time Diavolo and Barbatos were doing a thing where they read a book aloud for some sort of game

-Diavolo kind of recorded that for a little bit

-ASMR I TELL YOU

-People liked it so much they suggested for “the one with the deep cold voice”, luci, to do asmr on youtube or something

-He doesn’t know what an Onlyfans is however he does have a patreon.

-Diavolo was interested in the idea and discussed it with him

-HE BLEW UP CAUSE EVERYONE WAS FREAKING OUT OVER HOW AMAZING HIS VOICE WAS OF COURSE! 😡

-His fandom consists of either people who are interested in what he reads or...Horny people who get off at how proper and low his voice is

-His profile picture is a picture of him with his head cropped out where he’s fixing his gloves

-Luci isnt like super famous but he has a loyal fanbase that appreciates him a lot also lots of simps with daddy issues

-He was confused as to why someone would ask him to be their father

-He gets the daddy kink but why???

-Last post: A picture MC took where he’s holding a whip cause mammon fucked something up 🙂

||Mammon

-Bold of us to assume he didn’t already have one

-You already know why he’s on here.

-He has random content but he mainly got his audience since he kind of tried modeling thing for a while. It was for a big brand on their new jock type jackets

-Mammon really wanted cash at that time and he got the thing over and done with making him a couple more grims richer

-The photographers told him they could transfer the pictures though! So he just saved his pictures because “Who wouldn’t want a picture of THE mammon?”

-That gave him the idea

-His audience? Whoreknee

-They even accept the fact that his captions for some pictures are “You should be honored you get pictures of me”

-He posts that with a blushing face half of the time HAHAHAHA

-Levi found it and just laughed at the pictures

-Surprisingly enough the pictures were actually well taken because MC was forced into em

-His most popular picture was the one with him was actually a picture that the brothers took of him tucking in what appeared to be goldie on a seperate MINI BED WITH A SMALL TOY LAMP BESIDE IT

-He did a QnA for his followers to celebrate on his instagram

-PFFTT He got so many questions about Goldie

-Was dubbed “Goldie’s Daddy” after that

-Last post: A picture of him wearing the new Luxury brand jacket he got and his keys in front of his car with the caption “Daddy’s going for a ride”

||Leviathan

-I’ve always head canon that Levi knows how to draw digital emotes. Like he just picked it up cause he wanted to make fanart of him in henry together 😔

-Also has a red bubble or an etsy where he sells some prints and stickers of fanart 👀

-He went on twitch since there were so many TSL streamers there who just played games while they discussed theories as well

-Levi is an emote artist and while he draws he sometimes just discusses the theories with his fellow Yucky Otakus

-He’s the type to really interact with everyone even though he barely does that in real life

-Sometimes though when he gets packages that fans sent or ones that he ordered he’d stream unboxing them.

-He hates showing his face? Oh dont worry He’s wearing a facemask and all that

-His fandom is genuinely into him. Like they actually like him as a person but kinda once got into a scandal on gatekeeping

-He took a break for a bit but he kind of said sorry and everyone just forgave him because he isn’t really the type to do drama and it was just that one instance-

-Overall loved by the community due to how chill he is and how invested he is on fan theories

-He has a twitter btw and lemme tell you it’s just threads and threads of discussions

-Whenever he does stream unboxing videos though and he shows his shelves everyone freaks out how he has EVERY FUCKING VOLUME OF EVERY ANIME AND GAME

-People sometimes ask him personal questions and he tries his best to try to answer them but he shows a face where he looks uncomfy

-Everyone just bullies anyone who makes him uncomfy giving his fanbase a very protective reputation

-Last post: “Unboxing fanmail L8er @ 10pm LOL CYA GUYS XD”

||Satan

-He has a tumblr. You cant tell me he doesn’t have one.

-He had tumblr like back in the old day though like when porn was still available here.

-Get this...He’s known all through out the academia blogs. He INVENTED Academia

-Satan has 1 blog and that’s it. It’s his main blog and he just posts pictures of the book cover and does essays, reviews or sometimes he writes the ending he wanted to happen.

-Dont get me wrong he has a patreon but only because people loved getting more exclusive takes of stuff like his book notes on certain pages or sometimes his notes and thoughts on Artistic Erotica

-Probably has a Ko-Fi because he though he needed it after most of the blogs he followed had it

-He thinks it should be “Table of Content” and not “Masterlist” so he uses just that

-Profile picture is him wearing his signature washed out green grandma sweater while he has a book in hand and a cup of earl grey on his table

-People go to him falling in love with his aesthetic and Book reviews but they stay in love with him because he is big on one on one discussions actually

-He goes for one on one voice calls where he just...He talks to you about any book of your choosing

-Fans send him tea but he knows better than to eat something a stranger gives so he makes beel take a taste first sometimes but ultimately scolds the boy when he takes too much

-He wasn’t supposed to have merch but everyone liked the idea of small packages (More like letters) that really do look old and vintage

-He usually only give those to the people who pay for the top tier stuff

-It usually contains 1 type of tea, a letter he wrote for them himself and a bookmark with his name stamped on it

-He got the stamp custom made ❤️

-Last post: (Insert 5k word essay)

This is what I thought of Edgar Allan Poe’s “A cask of Amatillado”

Playlist: (Insert soft classic Music playlist on Spotify)

Tea: Black Currant

||Asmodeus

-ONLY FANS THROUGH AND THROUGH

-Is a brand influencer as well

-The brand ambassador of this pretty well known semi-luxury skin care brand

-His devilgram? Perfectly made by his PR team which is just him and solomon

-Before I move onto the NSFW stuff I want to emphasize how Beautiful his instagram is and his aesthetic

-His aesthetic is romantic/sexual tension/Unparalleled beauty

-Also a make up brand influencer and has his own make up line

-something along the lines of “The Devil’s box of charms 🖤”

-The type to DG live whenever he’s just showing off the make up look he did or the outfit he got

-The house of lamentation may have PR packages stacking up due to how most of them have an online influence but out of 10 boxes 7 of them would be for Asmo

-OKAY NOW ONTO NSFW STUFF

-Lemme tell you this...He has a specific drawer and space in his closet just for the sexy outfits he has.

-The demon’s onlyfans has pictures of him just teasing his audience where he’s wearing a black skintight get up and his bulge is showing

-Nudes are for mid and top tiers

-His fandom loves seeing in stocking and chokers

-“The choker is from etsy and here’s the link to their shop~”

-He doesnt completely show his body but...Him in suggestive clothing gets everyone pre cumming

-His fandom is just filled with simps 😔

-He loves them and blows a kiss towards the camera everytime he ends a live

-Probably has had a scandal or 4

-Posted an Ahegao once and everyone lost it

-Has been the face for Ahegaos ever since

-Belle delphine who?

-Definitely tik tok famous too 😎

-Has memorized all of Doja Cat’s songs

-Last post: “Hope you guys are ready for tonight’s session~ 😈” With a picture of him in an Fuchsia and black themed lingerie set. A collar with a bell on it.

-Bonus: One time Solomon summoned him while he was taking pictures and he was still in his lingerie set. 😛

||Beelzebub

-Was originally inspired by Mukbangs Channels so he did them on youtube too

-You get his Mukbangs on your recommended, You subscribe because of his cute and funny reactions whenever someone in the backgrounds is astounded to how much he’s eating

-Everyone knew beel as a cute guy who just does Mukbangs and loves to eat

-He once did a fridge raid and ended up eating everything in the fridge

-That was THE MOST CHAOTIC VIDEO on his channel cause you can just see luci and MC trying to make him stop

-He eventually got a patreon because mammon told him people will give him more money for food like that and to be honest he made a patreon but mammon takes care of it from time to time

-Oh you knew him as this sweet beautiful boy who just likes eating? hERe HavE sOmE WorKOUt pICs

-His body got everyone thirsty or may I say Starving

-S I M P S everywhere

-His patreon content is just him making small videos eating or pictures of him being all sweaty from the gym 😛💦

-“DADDY BWDONMXMSKC PLEASE FEED US”

-“Eh? You should feed me instead” *opens his mouth*

-Fans send him lots of boxes of weird food to see his reaction sometimes

-Did the fire noodle challenge a bit late but everyone is surprised to how he isn’t giving the reaction like they expected him

-Spice tolerance? Unmatched

-His fandom is either “UwU Beel please eat try this!” Or “Daddy Please FEED US WITH YOUR DELICIOUS THIGHS! 😩🥵💦💦💦”

-He does the service where he sends you his body building pictures except he isn’t sending them, Mammon is.

-Manager Mammon 😎 Gets a half of the profit

-Can I just...BeelProbablyHasnevergottenintoanyscandalbuthasalotofhaterssayingthefansonlylikehimforhishandsomefaceandgreatbodyandnicevoicebutlikewhatiswrongwithlikinghimbecauseofthosethings?Itisntbadtolikethatstuffatall

-Last post: “🍙 Thank you to @(Your Username) for the Onigiri! I finished the whole batch! Please send more food”

||Belphegor

-Sleep Guru

-Im sorry but I cant see him having any other social media aside from tumblr, twitter and Devilgram

-Belphie barely checks his phone but he has tumblr because apparently there’s a thing called the SandMan’s Box Community

-It’s like LootCrate, a subscription service that gives you stuff like Comfy Pillow sheets and tea for better sleeping

-This even gives you something like sleeping masks or ear muffs.

-The community is well...nocturnal

-His ask box is always full of his 100+ mutuals who just discuss stuff with him

-Whenever he actually does try to type online he makes articles about the best sleep positions or stuff like that

-His fandom is just loving mutuals who sleep and take care of each other

-They have a discord server where it just plays soft music to help everyone sleep

-Last post: “Humans aren’t so bad when they’re asleep”

||Luke and Simeon

-He has a big following on twitch where he just bakes sweets in his cute little hat and-

-Clearly you can tell I follow him on twitch

-The type of twitch streamer that no one hates on because why would you? He is literally just baking and cute comments

-Sometimes he streams with Simeon and everyone loves both of them

-When people give money they dont give “money” no no...they call donating headpats

-Luke is just so adorable that everyone just...

-“Angel Lulu’s Protection Squad⭐️”

-He got famous when he...He doesnt want to call it a collab but He made a lot of sweets and gave them to beel so everyone freaked out and thought

-THE SWEET BOY THAT EATS A LOT AND THE ANGELIC CHILD THAT MAKES SWEETS A LOT ARE FRIENDS?!

-He is now pissed that everyone thinks they’re friends 😠

-Basically his fans started making dishes and candy inspired by him

-Sometimes they send it in and Simeon has to confiscate some because

-“Im sorry, guys. You are all really sweet and I know that you mean well but Luke isn’t allowed much sweets yet”

-No one ever EVER lewds luke

-Fortunately Luke’s fandom has the least amount of pedophiles because everyone drives them away the moment they try something

-Whenever luke does fan mail/unboxing videos people just adore how Simeon places a glass of water at the table below the camera and the scissors or cutter he uses is child proof

-Even though Luke is the main person on his account everyone also notices Simeon.

-How couldn’t they? He looked like he wanted to make everyone in the audience live a better life

-Add that with luke’s wholesome baking and BOOM! You are now ready for a better life🌟

-Last post: It’s a picture of Luke shyly showing of his new batch of sun and moon shaped sugar cookies. “Sun and Moon. Tune in later at 3 pm to see how we made these!”

||Solomon

-He barely posts but he helps asmodeus with his stuff

-Too busy with anything else but helps out when things get interesting

-Proposes Ideas for Asmo sometimes when the demon doesn’t know what to wear for a live or a story

-Laughs at Asmo sometimes when he gets into scandals and drama

-Happy cameraman ❤️

-People follow him because 1.) He’s hot 2.) The fans ship him with Asmodeus

-Last Post: “When will you learn 🙂”

||Diavolo

-He is a vlogger~ Not a very active vlogger but a vlogger nonetheless

-He films anything he can but he’s more known on tik tok and devilgram rather than twitch or youtube

-People have been thirsting for him ever since and no one can convince me that they dont just shamelessly call him daddy whenever he goes on live

-Barbatos makes sure however that whenever it isnt appropriate anymore that he would tell diavolo to turn the camera off

-Wranggled Luci into his mess and now everyone knows the face of that one dude who just reads documents

-Everyone lowkey ships them

-Diavolo is the type to take a picture of a big meeting or a retreat out of instinct to just document his life

-He actually didnt know about vloggers before but he just liked the thought of documenting it

-Everyone picks up “Master” vibes as they say from him hehehe

-He doesnt have an Onlyfans or patreon 😔😔😔

-I honestly would have subscribed to his services

-Last post: “Barbatos made a delicious meal for us at the retreat today” Along with a picture of the Beautiful Demon Delicacy Spread in the table.

Taglist: No one yet (Please be part of the taglist for more content like this ☹️ It’s getting really discouraging)

242 notes · View notes

momentofmemory · 4 years

Text

FICTOBER 2020 - day twenty-five

Prompt #25: “Sometimes you can even see.”

Fandom: The Old Guard

Characters: Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani

Words: 1937

Author’s Note: In the aftermath of a rough mission and all the philosophical questions it entails, Joe takes Nile to the Aarhus Art Museum in Denmark. All pieces mentioned were displayed in the Objects of Wonder: From Pedestal to Interaction exhibit, which ran from Oct. 2019- March 2020. Nile POV.

>> the sweetness remains

Nile scrolls mindlessly through Pinterest, wishing for not the first time that she’d been allowed to recreate her socials.

Copley had barred her from practically all of the actually useful ones, but she’d bullied him down to just having an account on Pinterest, with the argument being that no one cared about the site. Granted, she doesn’t really want to be on Pinterest either, but sometimes the comfort of an app with infinite scroll is all she’s looking for in a distraction.

And right now, she really, really needs to be distracted.

Overly photoshopped cat pics.

Memes ripped straight from tumblr or twitter.

The most white girl aesthetic imaginable.

Three slugs ripping through her abdomen and spitting her liver out the other side—

Nile breathes in sharply. Exhales.

Her thumb resumes scrolling.

Photos of downtown that feel like home.

Recipes for harvest butternut squash soup.

Tips for keeping braids fresh longer.

Nile scrolls, and scrolls, and breathes.

Her abdomen still aches every time her lungs expand, even though she knows it really doesn’t. It’s perfectly healed; not even a scar for her troubles. But it’s hard to forget how her instincts had screamed that a gut shot like that shouldn’t be survivable, even as she pushed herself towards the next target.

(She didn’t survive it.)

(She didn’t survive the next half dozen times it happened, either.)

“Did that phone of yours do something to offend you?”

“Whoa!” Joe’s sudden appearance next to her only makes her clench her phone tighter. She forces out a laugh and eases the tension out of her fingers. “Feel like you should know better than to sneak up on someone that’s part of a bunch of immortal warriors.”

“Most of them would have caught me coming long before you did.”

Nile snorts. She scrolls a few more seconds, then closes the app and opens Temple Run. The game’s ridiculously old, but she’s a millennial. Sue her for being nostalgic.

She can feel Joe watching her as she starts the round.

“Am I correct in thinking you enjoy the arts, Nile?”

It’s not the question she was expecting, and she winds up tilting the screen to the left a half second late, and her character falls off the bridge.

It’s okay though, because she can just use a gem and respawn in the same place, so it’s basically like not dying at all.

Right?

“Uh, yeah,” she says. She winds up restarting the round entirely. “The military was supposed to pay for my degree, but I don’t think I can cash that if I’m technically KIA.”

“That would present a certain set of problems,” Joe agrees. “Andy talk to you about that?”

“Yeah.” Nile’s stomach twists. “Guess it depends on how easy it is to schedule classes between firefights.”

She’s practically laying the opening for a talk out herself, but Joe seems uninterested in taking it.

Instead, he shifts beside her, propping an elbow on his knee. “What kinds of art did you want to specialize in?”

She dies again. This time, she begrudgingly uses the in-game save. "I prefer classic sculpture, but I’m not against modern.”

“You like what was modern art for me, then.”

Nile rolls her eyes. “I dread the day I become as weird as you guys.”

He laughs, patting her on the shoulder as he stands. “I suspect by that time you’ll be too busy tormenting our next recruit. But unfortunately, the exhibit we’re going to will be more in the contemporary style.”

It takes Nile a half second to register his words. “Wait, what?”

“The description said it would be 1960s to the present only. If it suits you, we could hold off on our discussion of it for another thousand years or so. I’m sure we can claim it as classic at that point.”

“What?” Nile locks her phone and zeros her attention on him, registering the mischievous glint in his eyes this time. “Museum?”

“The Aarhus Art Museum has a special exhibit on loan from the Tate Modern at the moment.” He glances down at her phone, the corner of his mouth forming a grin. “I’m told its purpose is to help move its audience’s attention from their devices.”

Nile scowls and looks back down at her phone. “I died a dozen times yesterday. I’m allowed my coping mechanisms of choice.”

And.

Whoops.

“Of course you are,” Joe says, offering his hand to her, and she’s once again surprised he doesn’t force the conversation. “But phones are portable. You can take it with you to the museum.”

Nile worries at the edge of her lip with her teeth. She doesn’t really want to go anywhere right now, but…

But Joe’s brown eyes are warm and welcoming, and his callouses help steady her when she takes his hand.

“You said contemporary sculpture?”

The grin he gives her is blinding. “For now.”

_________________

It’s a twenty-five minute drive from their safe house to the museum, and the route takes them next to the Bay of Aarhus for most of it.

Nile stares out at the water, determined to not give Joe any more ammunition for making fun of her regarding her phone.

It’s hard. She’d never considered herself a technology addict—never had enough time to be one—but she really, really wants to stop thinking about the fact that she knows what the inside of her liver looks like.

Or did look like, she guesses.

Nope, nuh-uh, not going there—

“D'you know about the Ship of Theseus?” She spits it out before she can decide against it. She figures if she’s thinking about it, she might as well talk about it. “And don’t say you were there for it. You’re not Andy and I at least know enough about you to know when you’re lying.”

The grin on his face tells her that he was very much intending to before she called him out on it. “It’s a thought experiment. The character Theseus owns a ship that, over a long span of time, has all of its parts replaced, until nothing of the original still remains.”

“Yeah, and so then the question is, is it even the same ship,” Nile finishes.

Joe weaves in and out of traffic, a pensive look on his face. “I assume you aren’t asking simply to test my knowledge of early western philosophy.”

“No.”

Nile looks down at her hands. She can still remember how horrifically mangled they were from her impromptu dive off a skyscraper, but at least—at least she’s pretty sure they’re the same ones she had before.

Though that might not last long.

“In your opinion,” she says, cautiously, “if—if there’s nothing left of the original—if you have to rebuild something that many times—”

“Nile.” The sound of the car’s turn signal distracts her spiraling thoughts. Joe nods towards the windshield. “We’re here.”

It’s a large, red brick square building, fairly nondescript but for the circular and multi-colored glass walking track at its top.

“Come on, he says, parking the car. “I find physical objects superior to mental ones for solving such issues.”

Nile doesn’t understand why the one time she wants to talk about something like this is the one time Joe decides to go full mysterious.

She climbs out of the car and follows him inside.

Despite her misgivings, she quickly discovers Joe was right. The exhibit is genuinely incredible, and there are pieces from multiple names she recognizes—Anish Kapoor, Donald Judd, Rasheed Araeen—and pieces she finds herself strangely moved by, such as Damian Hirst’s Away from the Flock, Richard Long’s Red Slate Circle, Rachel Whiteread’s Airbed II. Nile stares at that last one in particular for a long time: a concrete casting of an airbed, the artist’s presence made known in the negative space where her body had pressed the material down.

Joe, however, seems to be moving with a specific purpose in mind, and it’s not until they round one of the walls of the orange-pink room that Nile has a guess as to what it is.

In the far corner, bathed in the additional light of a single fill light, is a massive pile of multicolored cellophane wrapped hard candies.

Joe walks her over to it, an almost reverence to his steps.

“Untitled: Portrait of Ross in LA,” he says. “Are you familiar with the piece?”

She shakes her head, bending down to inspect it. It doesn’t look like much more than what she’d seen from a distance—candy, multicolored, on the floor. She looks to Joe for an explanation.

“Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s partner died from AIDS,” Joe says. The grief on his face is hard to look at. “To honor him, he made this as a portrait—one hundred and seventy-five pounds of candy, representing Ross’s weight from when he was still healthy.”

Nile looks at the pile—it’s a lot, but it’s not a hundred and seventy-five pounds worth of a lot.

Joe notices her confusion and smiles. “Take one.”

“What?”

“Take one,” he repeats. “The purpose of the work is to invite you to partake in both enjoying his presence and lamenting the lack of it. A sort of communion—choosing to take part of his body into your own. It was a powerful statement when so many were afraid to even be in our presence at the time.”

Nile looks at the pile again, and just like with Airbed II, her heart aches at what isn’t there, rather than what is. She selects a red piece and brings it out of the pile, cupping it in her hand and considering its weight.

“What happens when it runs out?”

Joe selects his own piece—a green one—and it rolls around in the palm of his hand. “It has. Many times. But that’s the beauty of it—it’s the curator’s responsibility to replenish the pile, metaphorically granting immortality and new life to the loss.”

The cellophane crinkles in Nile’s hand as she unwraps the piece. “How do they decide where to get the candy from?”

“The only firm rule is the original weight. Outside of that, there are no set instructions for the candies themselves.” He chuckles, threading his fingers behind his neck and leaning back against the wall. “Sometimes you can even see these strange combinations of greens, oranges, and purples.”

Nile considers the candy. “Not your favorite?”

“It has an almost Halloween quality to it. I tend to prefer the rainbow.”

The candy in her hand feels heavier than it did before—weighed down with the knowledge of what it represents, what it’s taking away.

She slips the candy into her mouth and her eyebrows raise in surprise. “It’s sweet?”

“It’s candy,” Joe says, unwrapping his own piece. “Did you expect something else?”

“I thought it’d be…” She pauses, trying to parse out her feelings. “Bitter. Or sad, somehow. Considering.”

“It could have been,�� Joe agrees. “But the portrait isn’t meant to represent just grief and loss. Candy is a happy thing—a reward for yourself, or a lover’s gift on Valentine’s. And even when it’s gone, the sweetness remains. Still lingering on the tongue, or dwelling in the mind. It is the love of friends and partners that keeps the memory alive—and what keeps this the same portrait, even though its pieces have been cycled through many times.”

The candy melts away on her tongue, and she closes her eyes in grief for its loss, appreciation for what it was, and hope for the pieces that would come after it.

She swallows the last piece of it down.

Her stomach settles.

#fictober20 #fanfiction #the old guard #nile freeman #yusuf al-kaysani #joe | yusuf al-kaysani #philosophy and art #memsfic

30 notes · View notes

batteryrose · 4 years

Note

I have a question about commission. I understand that you are not doing it currently, but there are some things I don't understand. As a audience/costumer/whatever its called, how do we do it? I had never requested a commission from an artist. How is it done? What should we keep in mind? Are there any advice? Thank you for your time!

ah YES I currently don’t take any except really close friends that don’t mind it taking veeery long. But as for your questions, it really depends on each artist, but generally:

If they announce that they’re opening commission they’ll mention their contact info. Make sure you contact them via the correct way. (some don’t want twitter DMs filled with business stuff!)

The artist will usually have the commission categorized (sketch, full-colour, headshot, half-body, full-body, whatever other fun categories they have) so pick that first thing first. Easier for u and the artist to go forward

Now you describe what you want. This really depends on the artist and commission. If it’s character art you want, you send them a reference pic of said character(s). If it’s an existing character it’s obvious. If it’s an oc, you send them the design. If you don’t have a design yet, this is where you play around:

-Picrew is a good starting point tbh, then you can say what you want to add or change, send pics of clothes for reference, pics of hairstyle, etc

-Describing with words is good, but a visual is better. Rough sketches, stick figures, whatever abstract idea you can better put into a drawing. It’s very helpful.

Then describe the character’s action. This you can do by words, but again, pics are better. See similar poses in a comic? send it. A similar scene from a movie? A photograph? Another person’s art? (but this you have to be very careful..)

And then describe the environment (if you want backgrounds. Even without bg you can describe the ambience, etc.) Same deal. Reference pics are better, if possible.

Just mix and match. “I want Character A like this [insert general vibe reference] but dressed like this [insert clothes reference]” Artists are usually a very visual person. We’ll do our best with words (especially if it’s simple) but with pics you’ll get exactly what you want easier!

After all questions and details are asked you’ll get the final price. Then it’s up to the artist: They send the rough sketch then you pay full price (how I do it), or you pay half first before they work on anything, or you pay after it’s finished (i recommend no artist to do this but some do unfortunately..), etc. They’ll tell you, and how much time it’ll take too. Ask them how they work with revisions also (if they charge more or no, how much,)

With more abstract illustration it’ll take more discussions but just work with the artist until it’s absolutely clear. Some people like to leave things up to the artist more but.. we don’t want to leave you disappointed either.

That’s it for commission advice from me I guess. This can’t apply for everything of course, it’s just my experience. Commercial works are a whole another thing, especially with the money part of the discussion, and copyrights. Hope it helps anyway.

18 notes · View notes

yourkeeperoftherunners · 4 years

Text

6/9: The Con(vention) Run-in

Rating: PG (Fake fight for photo op)

Characters: Convention Attendee!Bang Chan x Reader (any gender), featuring Convention Attendee!Felix and mention of other characters

Notes: The final day of my birthday surprise series. Normally I try to attend Comic Con or its sister convention WonderCon, but both were postponed due to current events. This is a non-idol AU. The Aussie line are imagined as cousins in this story. All content is fictional. Please do not repost anywhere!

————–

llamajinnie

I can’t believe it... Sent 8:10 AM

bc1997

It won’t be that bad! Besides the tickets were free! Sent 8:12 AM

Chan looked up from his phone when he felt a tap on his shoulder. His cousin was holding out his badge he needed to wear to enter the convention and he thanked him. He put his phone away in a pocket and slipped the lanyard on over his head.

Instead of working on music like he usually did in his spare time, Chan was accompanying his cousin Felix to a comic convention. The latter won tickets through a radio contest and his parents couldn’t attend. Because his mom didn’t want him going alone, she asked Chan if he could spare a weekend and accompany Felix to the convention.

Most his friends were shocked he would tag along with the younger boy, especially since Felix was the one who was more into the nerd scene, namely anime and manga. Chan’s friend Hyunjin was convinced that the former’s aunt likely bribed him with money if he drove and chaperoned Felix for a weekend at the convention, but Chan insisted he really wanted to go. Sure he wasn’t a huge comic book or pop culture nerd like his cousin, but it gave him an excuse to wear that Captain America costume he spent too much money on from Halloween.

“Thanks again,” Felix said as he flipped his badge to the front, showing his name. “Mum said lunch and dinner is on her.”

“No, it’s fine,” Chan insisted.

Felix shook his head and replied that it was non-negotiable. The pair made their way to a line to enter the convention center and waited for security to wave them inside. They flashed their badges at the security personnel and stepped inside.

Felix adjusted his beret, which was starting to slide off his head, due to the long rabbit ears he put on top.

“So uh, who are you again?” Chan asked as he studied his cousin’s costume.

“Momiji from Fruits Basket,” Felix explained. “He’s the rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. Thought it made sense, since everyone thinks I’m still a kid with the baby face.”

“Plus the hair,” Chan added. “Okay, never saw the anime, but cool!”

Felix nodded as he fixed his backpack straps and dashed ahead to check out the tables in the art section of the convention. Chan tried to catch up and had to apologize as he weaved around other participants. He ducked as a Harley Quinn from the recent live-action film barely missed him with her toy bat, as she started to put it up for a photo op.

“Hang on Cap, can I get a picture?” a male voice asked.

Chan whirled around and saw it was a father with a young son, dressed as Thor. He smiled at the son and nodded as he removed his shield backpack off his shoulders to hold for the photo. The son hesitated, and shyly looked up at Chan.

“Come on Thor, we need you in the picture too,” Chan said as he motioned for the young boy to stand next to him.

The young boy skipped over to him and Chan knelt down on one knee. He held out his shield backpack, while the boy clutched his toy version of Mjölnir. The father snapped the picture with his digital camera and quickly checked the photo, before flashing a thumbs-up.

“Thank you,” Chan said as he stood up. He waved goodbye to the young boy and secured the backpack on his shoulders. He craned his neck, looking for Felix, who was several feet away, talking to one artist at their booth. He quickly walked toward his cousin and tapped him on the shoulder.

Felix whirled around and pointed to some example works of art that the artist had on display. “Perfect timing! Actually I was thinking about doing a commission with this guy. Who should I have done?”

Chan bit his lip and tried to think of any anime characters that he might know. He maybe watched a few as a kid growing up, but his mum made him go out and play or practice swimming, which was better than sitting in front of a screen in her opinion.

“Um...Goku from Dragonball Z? Naruto?” he offered, trying not to wince. “Sorry, it’s been a really long time since I’ve watched an anime.”

Felix nodded and flipped through the dossier on the table for inspiration for a few seconds. Eventually he settled on some character from an anime he wasn’t familiar with (Tower something?) and the artist scribbled a note in his notebook.

“It’s going to take me probably until 1 PM to do that,” the artist told Felix. “Someone is ahead of you with a two character commission, so that’s gonna be worked on first. I’d say come back around 2:30 and I might have it ready by then.”

Felix thanked him and dug out his wallet to pay for the piece. He passed over some bills and the artist made change for him.

————–

“Is that Binnie you’re messaging?” Felix asked.

Chan shook his head as he looked up from his phone. “Hyunjin. He’s convinced I’m trapped and not having fun. But then again, he’s not big on crowds and comic stuff.”

“Oh...” Felix trailed off. He craned his neck and noticed there were two seats closer to the front of the room. “We should grab those before the next panel starts.” He pushed himself out of his seat and quickly walked over to the empty chairs.

Chan stood up and followed his cousin, eventually taking the aisle seat in their new row. The pair had walked the floor for a few hours and now they were sitting in a room to listen and watch a panel on some anime series that Felix watched regularly. This allowed Chan to sit and relax, as well as respond to Hyunjin about how things were going.

“I promise we can grab lunch after this,” Felix whispered as someone came on stage to introduce the panelists.

Chan flashed him a thumbs-up and pocketed his phone out of respect for the panel. He leaned back in his seat as the moderator introduced all of the voice acting talent and then they rolled a new trailer for the next season. Once the trailer ended, the moderator began asking questions to the members on the panel and the audience listened to their responses. Eventually the panel began accepting fan questions, and Felix decided to rush up to the mic to ask one.

“MOMIJI!” one of the female panelists yelled with a huge smile on her face. “Oh my gosh, you are precious!”

Felix blushed at the compliment and ducked his head, before composing him and asking his question. The deep voice shocked the panelists and Chan bit back a laugh as one of the male panelists joked that he wanted to trade voices with Felix. The comment made the room laugh and Felix laughed along with them, then stepped to the side for the next fan to ask their question.

————–

The boys exited the panel room after Felix’s panel concluded and Chan began researching local restaurants they could get lunch at. Both decided against the convention center food, as it was pricey and Felix mentioned that Minho had tried it once during a cat convention, giving it poor reviews.

“There’s a cat convention? Oh wait, that’s rhetorical,” Chan mused as he pictured their friend walking every row of the cat convention with a content smile on his face. “Do you know if they had cats for adoption? Or was it products for your cat?”

“Both apparently,” Felix replied as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Minho went to look at special food for one cat, cause he needed to go on a diet, and then he wanted a fancy collar for his female cat.”

“That’s not where he got the third cat right?”

His cousin gave him a blank look and scrunched his brows. “Hang on, he has three now? I thought he only had two!”

“No he’s got three now,” Chan confirmed. “His Christmas card showed him with three cats plus him wearing Santa hats.”

Felix tried to recall if he got a Christmas card from Minho, while Chan went back to looking at restaurants. He paused when he found some options and started to show them to his cousin. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned his head to see it was someone dressed as Bucky Barnes in his Winter Soldier attire.

“Hey Cap, could we get a fight picture?” you asked under your black mask.

He nodded as he slowly removed his backpack from his shoulders and held the straps so they wouldn’t show in the picture. He turned to face you and you balled up the fist with your “metal” arm.

“I’m going to punch your shield, okay?” you explained.

He nodded and positioned himself as if he was defending himself with the shield. You placed your fist on the center of the shield and adjusted your feet, so it looked more convincing.

Felix stepped between the two of you and asked if you had a camera or phone you wanted to use. You nodded and used your free hand to pull out and unlock your phone. You switched to the camera app and handed it to him, murmuring a thank you.

He took the phone and put in landscape mode, checking to make sure everything was in focus. He counted to three, before clicking the button your screen a few times, just so you had more than one. He then switched to his phone and took some pictures too. He passed your phone over and you thanked him before checking the photos over.

“Perfect, thanks,” you replied. You dug around in your tactical vest and produced a card with your name and Instagram handle on it. “If you’re on IG, feel free to tag me. I’ll be uploading pics later tonight.”

Chan accepted the card and thanked you with a smile. He put it away in his pocket and added that you did an amazing job with it.

“Thank you,” you replied. “The arm was the hardest part but it came out good. Not the most comfortable thing to wear, but it’s all good. You make a good Cap.”

Chan ducked his head and waved it away as nothing. “I bought my costume – wish I had your talent.”

“Ah who cares? It looks great and you do too,” you confirmed, flashing him a thumbs-up. Your phone buzzed in your hand and you groaned when you saw it was your alarm for your next panel you were hoping to see. “Shoot, gotta run. My panel starts in 7 minutes. Have a great con!”

Chan nodded as he waved goodbye to you, while Felix held up his phone to show off his pictures.

“They came out pretty good,” he noted. “I’m guessing they’re a professional cosplayer.”

Chan patted the pocket with the card. “I’ll have to look them up online when we’re done.”

#Stray Kids Bang Chan #Stray Kids Felix #Stray Kids AU #SKZ AU #Bang Chan #Lee Felix #Bang Chan AU #Lee Felix AU #yourkeeperoftherunners original #number 3007

11 notes · View notes

dyscrasia-eucrasia · 4 years

Photo

Part 3

<<Prev | Next>>

"So how was that show you went to last night?" Javier asked as he preened in front of the mirror.

"Oh my god, it was so, so good," Angel replied as he peeled off his shirt and folded it. "Totally worth taking off a Saturday for. I actually got to talk to the lead singer for one of the bands and he was so gorgeous."

"Yeah? Tell me you got pictures."

"I got a couple when they were playing, here, come look." He motioned Javier over and retrieved his phone from his locker.

Opening up his photo gallery, he'd already pushed the photos from the show down under a wall of selfies, most of the same angle and expression, with only the most minute of differences.

"Girl," Javier said, clicking his tongue as he looked over Angel's shoulder, "you are so conceited."

"Shut up, I am not. This is advertising."

"Sure it is, Miss 'I'm a thousand followers away from ten K.' I saw your post begging for brand deals. Hey, if you get those flat tummy teas to sponsor you, you can do a post about how they flush out your system so you can take a ton of dick."

"Oh my godddd," Angel laughed. "You are such a bitch! Do you want to see these pics or not?"

"Yaaaas, show me!"

"Here," Angel tapped a photo and it expanded to fill the screen. It was probably the best picture he'd gotten at the show, one of Demie as he'd growled into the mic, his long hair cascading on either side of his face, which was half cast in shadow by the stage lights. Angel was especially fond of the way the shadows highlighted Demie's long, gaunt face, and the way the fake horns curled up around his ears.

"...Girl," Javier said. His tone didn't sound like he was impressed. More like he was being judgemental.

"What?"

"That is like, one of the ugliest dudes I've ever seen."

"What? No he isn't, he's hot A.F."

"Giiiirl, you can't be serious. Look at that ratty-ass beard! Oh my god, could you imagine trying to kiss someone with one of those?"

"Oh whatever, you think bald old men are hot."

"Nooo, I think Daddies are hot, not every old guy is a Daddy."

"Ugh, gross."

"You won't think it's so gross when I'm married to a hot rich old guy who dies and leaves me his mansion," Javier said, giving Angel a little shove and heading back over to the mirror.

"That's right, I forgot your idea of romance is murder," Angel shot back. Javier shot him a look, pursing his lips, and gave Angel the finger before heading out of the locker room.

Angel laughed to himself. He took another look at the picture of Demie. He'd taken surprisingly few photos of the show - something about the music had just taken such a strong grip on him that he'd forgotten to document the experience. In a way, it had felt too intimate to post on Instagram with a long-winded caption about how much he loved music or whatever.

Plus, he preferred to tag artists in his posts, and despite doing a lot of digging, he hadn't been able to find any social media presence for Bacchus at all. No Instagram, no Twitter, no Spotify, not even a Bandcamp page. He'd even scrolled back through nearly a hundred of Marius' Instagram posts, looking for a picture of Demie or Elaine, but both were notably absent.

That tracked, he guessed, considering Demie had said he didn't have a phone, but he could've sworn he saw Elaine on one. Surely she posted something about them, at least to let fans know if they had a show coming up. But all he'd been able to find was a post on a heavy metal Subreddit with a low-quality recording of the band, asking if it was true that Marius used to play for them. There were only two replies - one reporting that Marius had said in an interview that he used to play bass for an indie band, and another saying that Marius' music sucked.

Angel sighed, thinking that he should've gotten a selfie with the band, to memorialize the show for himself if no one else. With that thought, he put his phone back in his locker and stripped down, changing into a g-string and heading out onto stage.

He liked his job, for the most part. He enjoyed the freedom of being openly, luridly sexual in front of others. He enjoyed feeling like he had a power over the men who came into the club. It was a power he didn't really get elsewhere. Sure, he was tall and muscular for an Asian man, but in comparison to the average American, he was still short, and in the local gay scene he was expected to be a submissive little bottom.

Not that there was anything wrong with being a bottom. He definitely was one. But he didn't appreciate the way he was expected to be a doormat for tops.

When he was dancing, though, he held the power. And he loved that feeling.

He didn't love when drunk guys tried to get handsy, though. And he didn't love having to pay to work the club, nor did he enjoy how unreliable the pay was. Some nights he could pull upwards of $600, others he struggled to get $100. Taking a Saturday off for the sake of a concert was an especially unwise move, since weekend nights were the best financially.

He didn't really regret it, though. He was glad he'd gone to the show and had the opportunity to meet Demie. The singer occupied his mind the entire day, so much so that, after the club closed for the night and he got home, he pulled out his phone and dialed Demie's number, already saved to his contacts.

The phone rang four times, and he was ready - albeit let down - to accept that Demie had given him a fake number when a female voice finally answered.

"Hello?" She asked groggily.

"Um… is Demie there?" He asked.

"Who the fuck…" He could hear her say, though it sounded like she'd held the phone away from her. Her voice came back louder and asked, "Can I ask who's calling?"

"This is Angel, Demie gave me this number after the show last night?"

"Jesus fucking…" Her voice got muffled, but he could make out that she was shouting Demie's name.

After shouting Demie's name twice, Angel could just barely make out Demie's voice shouting something back.

"Phone! It's that guy from the show," Elaine shouted. There was some weird feedback, like she was rubbing the mouthpiece of the phone on her shirt, and then a clatter as the phone was handed over.

"Hello?" Demie asked.

"Hi, this is Angel. We met the other night."

"Dude, it's like four in the morning."

"Oh! Oh shit, you're right. Sorry, I work nights. I can call back later…"

"Nah, it's cool, I was already up."

Angel could hear Elaine shout something that sounded like 'I fucking wasn't.' Demie grumbled something and a few seconds later there was the sound of a door slamming shut.

"What's up?" Demie asked. He made an 'oof' sound, like he was flopping down on a bed or chair.

"What's your band's Instagram handle?"

"Oh. We don't do that shit."

"Seriously? What about Spotify? Or Bandcamp?"

"What are those?"

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Never heard of them."

"Where do you sell your music, then?"

"Uh… I've got some cassette tapes that we used to sell at shows. They're old stuff though, back when Mar was still in the band. Why, do you wanna buy one?"

"Holy shit," Angel said with a laugh, tossing himself down on his futon. "What fucking decade did you walk out of?"

"What? Tapes are cool. I don't know why anyone would want some e-file digital copy on their iPod or whatever when they could have a physical copy."

"God, you sound like a hipster."

"I don't really know what that means but I'll take it as a compliment."

There was a brief lapse in the conversation. Angel wasn't sure what to say. The more he found out about Demie, the more quaint he seemed. It was oddly endearing, knowing that there was no way Demie would've seen his Instagram. He never would've seen the airbrushed photos or the flirty stories or the pics of beautifully crafted breakfasts that he never actually ate because he had to maintain his abs for the sake of his job.

In a world where everyone had to put their best self on display at all times for a digital audience, Demie had no expectations. He didn't see Angel-the-wannabe-micro-influencer. There was something beautifully vulnerable in that.

"So what are you doing up at 4am?" Angel eventually asked.

"Eh… I was writing some music. Haven't really done much since Mar moved out, but I dunno… I just kinda got this flash of inspiration. Just gotta see where it takes me, y'know?"

"No, I get it. Back when I was in school, I just couldn't write essays during the day, somehow the words only came to me when I'd been up past midnight."

"Hm. Yeah."

"Can I ask what the song's about, or is it like… trade secret stuff?"

"Yeah, no, it's cool. You ever heard of Orpheus?"

"Oh, yeah. A friend of mine is in love with that one musical, what's it called? Hadestown?"

"Oh shit, they made a musical out of that? I thought it was just an album."

"See, I didn't know it was an album first."

"That's cool. So this song's more about the original myth…"

#writers on tumblr #writing #original fiction #original characters #lgbt fiction #gay fiction #wright's writing #w:demie and angel

9 notes · View notes

60b3r · 4 years

Text

Memes Kill Creativity?

Memes vs. Genes

In the 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the term 'meme' to describe something with symbolic meaning that spreads by imitation from person to person within a culture. This idea is an analogue to the nature of selfish gene, described similarly as a piece of genetic material possessing information required to be able to replicate themselves inside a living. The only key difference in both terms is that the gene is natural, while memes are artificial. The rest of memes' operating schemes completely mimic the genes perfectly. In our current timeline, memes as we know today are taking many forms: as image macros, short videos, and rick-rollicking music. Memes in imageboards and forums have been pushing internet porn traffic into a stalemate and putting our power grid into unnecessary burden. Of course, memes are not to be regretted, but otherwise need to be taken seriously, since they are able to put our current understanding of media industry and economic system into shame.

As with every other thing that have existed, memes are not exempt in its dualistic nature. If you ever venture to the depths of dark web, you may know that memes also took part in the infamous mimetic Tumblr-4chan War. Not only that, some memes are reportedly causing harm towards some users, even though it is often disguised or said to be a dank joke or mere sarcasm. Memes have seen its share of use in online bullying, mass shootings, and hate crimes, cowering behind the freedom of expression tag. Regardless, memes are also an extremely effective form of information transmission. Like all living systems with no set moral standards, memes do evolve and are subject to natural selection. Memes, like genes, actually work like a mindless machine. Again, this is eerily like the performance of DNA in living systems. The last thing we want from this thing is virulence.

Every day, something went viral on Twitter. Hashtags are flaring into the top trends, some videos are being watched billions of times, and another cat vs. cucumber pic garnered thousands of likes. Viral properties of a virus (duh) is defined as the capability to multiply quickly in relatively short amount of time. The term saw a huge increase in usage during the dawn of the internet age and the rise of computer malwares spread through unsecured ports of network protocol. This term is being applied to memes, as it is like a virus (which is a pure embodiment of a selfish gene). Now, a lot of people are utilizing memes to create art, because it enables them to cater the short-attention spans of current internet users. They create shorts, illustrations, inside jokes, and small comic strips. Some of you might not agree with me on this one, but stay with me now and I will explain to you why I would like to treat memes and art as a single unit of interest in this argument.

The dawn of meme-technology

Viral memes and their popularity are now often considered important in defining a time period in the internet culture. Now every netizen can somewhat distinguish the approximate age, sex, and political views of other users from the usage of rage comics, meme songs, and meme platforms they use. Intuitively we can make a generalized difference between the userbase of Reddit, 4chan, 9gag, Vine, and now Tiktok. Others, by the share of relatability with sub-genres of different areas of interest (film memes and game memes). Some others, even, in the perspectives of different social and economic class system (first world problems and third world success memes). Meme preferences to us netizens are ironically giving away our anonymous identity. Identity which the media companies are vying to get their hands on. That's where I would like to come into my opening argument: both memes and genes which originally possesses no intrinsic value, suddenly become a subject of value with technology.

How do we draw the logic, I say? The ones and zeros inside electrical systems are value-free, so does DNA in living cells. As we meddle ourselves with biotechnology to manipulate genetic material for profit, we also simmer ourselves in the computer sciences and tweak physical computation to perform better. We give value in the inanimate object by manipulating them. In our world, we often heard these expressions: that communication is key, sometimes silence is golden, and those who control the information wields the power. What’s these three statements have in common? Yes, information and expression. Memes are the simplest form of both. This is the beginning of the logic: memes are no longer in and on itself independent of external values. The infusion of utilitarian properties in memes as artificial constructs are seemingly inevitable, and for the better or worse shapes our current society.

We might have heard that somewhere somehow, the so called ‘global elites’ with their power and wealth are constantly controlling biotech research and information technology—or, in the contrary, they control these knowledge and resources to keep shovelling money and consolidate their power. Memes are one of their tools to ‘steer’ the world according to their 'progressive agenda', seemingly driving the world ‘forward’ towards innovation and openness. Nah, I am just joking. But, stay with me now. It is actually not them (the so-called global elites) who you should be worried about. It is us—you and I, ourselves—and our own way of unwittingly enjoying memes that are both toxic and fuelling the age-old capitalism. Funny, isn't it? We blame society, but we are society. But how are be becoming the culprits yet also be the prey at the same time?

Middle-class artists are hurt

Now, aggressive marketing tactics using memes are soaring. Media companies are no doubt cashing in the internet and viral memes to their own benefit. Streaming and cataloguing are putting up a good fight compared to their retail, classic ways of content delivery. This is quite true with the strategies of Spotify and YouTube, other media companies alike. They can secure rights to provide high-quality content from big time artists and filmmakers and target these works directly to the end consumer, effectively cutting the cost of distribution which usually goes to the several layers of distribution line like vinyl products, radio contracts, and Blu-ray DVDs. I believe this is good, since it is like an affirmative action for amateur artists to start a career in the art industry. Or is it? Does it really encourage small-time artists to begin? Yes. How about the middle-class artists? Not necessarily.

You might sometimes wonder, “how the hell did I get somewhere just by following the trending or hot section in the feed?”. This toxicity of memes often brings some bad things to our tables. Social media algorithms handle contents (like viral memes) by putting those with high views or likes to the front page, effectively ‘promoting’ the already popular post and creating a positive feedback cycle. By doing so, they could capitalize on ad profits on just few ‘quality’ contents over huge amounts of audience in a very short amount of time. The problem is most of the time, these ‘quality’ contents have no quality at all. They just happen to possess the correct formula to be viral, with the correct SEO keywords and click-bait titles with no real leverage in the art movement. This way, I often find both the talented and the lucky—of which the boundaries between them are always blurred—overshadow the aspiring ‘middle-class’ artists who work hard to perfect their craft.

If you are already a famous guitarist with large fanbase, lucky you, you are almost guaranteed to top the billboards. What, you have no skills? Post a video of you playing ‘air guitar’ and… affirmative actions to the rescue. Keep on riding the hype wave and suddenly you get to top trending with minimal effort, thanks to your weird haircut. Those haters will surely make a meme out of your silly haircut, not even your non-existent guitar skills. But still, hype is still a hype, and there’s no such thing as a bad publication. This also answers why simple account who reposts other people’s content could get much more followers than the hard-working creators. Not only being outperformed by the already famous artists taking social media by storm, now the ‘middle-class’ artists are also dealing with widespread content theft and repost accounts because of the unfair, bot grading system. It is unimaginable how many nobodies got the spotlight they don’t deserve just because they look or act stupid and the whole internet cheers around them. Remember, this is not always about the artist, but also the quality of the art itself. I believe a good art should be meaningful to the beholder.

Why capitalism kills creativity

The problem in current art industry is that we are feeling exhausted with the same, generic, and recycled stuff. We indeed already see there’s less discourse about art now. Sure, the problem lies not in the artist or medium, but is in the viewers—the consumer of the art form—and how the capitalist system reacts to it. The hyper efficient capitalist system doesn’t want to waste any more time and money trying to figure out what’s new or what’s next for you. What we love to see, what is familiar to us, the market delivers them. The rise of viral memes phenomenon in the social media pushes the market system to the point where they demand artists to create the same, redundant, easy art form. Listen to some of The Chainsmokers’ work and we'll see what music have become: the identical 4-chord progression, the same drop, the predictable riser, and the absence of meaningful lyrics. We sat down and watch over the same superhero movies trying hard to be the next Marvel blockbuster. The production companies are also happy not to pay writers extra to come up with new ideas and instead settle with borrowed old scripts from decades old TV drama. Disney's The Lion King and its heavy use of the earlier Japanese Kimba The White Lion storyline is one guilty example.

Despite it initially being an economic system and not a political ideology, it is untrue that many Marxist philosophers usher the suppression of art. While it is ironic that Stalinist policy intends to curb ‘counter-revolutionaries’—in this case his enemies—by limiting freedom of press and media; American propaganda added further so that it seems that the ideology is also limiting art and kill creativity. We all know the Red Scare in the U.S. during the Cold War saw a popular narrative of communism and socialism that is devoid of freedom of expression. This state propaganda then further become ‘dehumanization’ and make freedom of expression invalid under the guise of equality. Marx argue that total equality is not possible, and the uniqueness is being celebrated by having them doing what they do best and provide the best for their community. Thus, an individual's interests should be indistinguishable from the society's interest. Freedom is granted when the whole society is likely to benefit from an action. According to Mao in his Little Red Book, freedom of expression in art and literature, after all, is what initially drive the class consciousness. It is capitalism, not communism, that kills creativity.

If left unchecked, the threat of this feedback loop is going to cause a lack of diversity, resulting in stale content, less art critique, and overall decline in our artistic senses. Artists’ creativity that are supposedly protected by the free internet are destroyed within itself through the sheer overuse of viral memes. Capitalism has successfully turned the supposedly open, free-for-all, value-free platform that is the internet against the people into a media in which they are undeniably shaping new values on its own: the art culture that's not geared towards aesthetics and appreciation, but towards more views and personalized clicks. How social media and media industry caters to the demands of the consumer are, in Marx's own words, “digging its own grave”.

Spare nothing, not even the nostalgia

Well, people romanticize the oldies. The good old days, when everything is seen as better and easier. Look at the new art installations that uses the aesthetics of naughty 90s graphic design to become new, the posters released in this decade but with an art deco of the egregious 80s pop artist Andy Warhol, or the special agent-spy movies set frozen in the Nifty Fifties. Nostalgia offers us a way to escape from the hectic choices of our contemporary: different genres of music, dozens of movies to watch, and different fashion to consider. We choose to settle with our old habits, that we know just works. Remember how do we throw our money on sequels and reboots and remakes of old movies we used to watch during our younger days? We don’t even care about new releases at the cinema! Did you remember how Transformers 2 and their subsequent sequels perform at the box office at their opening week?

The huge sales of figurines and toys of Star Wars franchise—if we could scrutinize them enough—came from the old loyal fanbase of the late Lucasfilm series, not primarily from new viewers. Then suddenly, surprise-surprise. Our love for an old franchise deemed dead enough to be remembered and treasure soon must be destroyed to pave way for three new outrageous sequels (the ones with Kylo Ren and Snoke) by the grace of our beloved capitalism. Sadly, nothing is left untouched by the capitalism’s unforgiving corruption. Nostalgia has become a gimmick that makes people like some art more than they should, because it’s familiar. It is another way of squeezing your pocket dry.

Not that it is bad to make derivatives like covers or remixes, but the trade-offs are far too high. Consequentially, the number of original arts is now very little, because artists don’t bother making new stuff if they just aim for a quick buck. Most of the young adult novels are essentially the same lazy story progression with only different time setting and different character names. Most of them even have the same ending! No more a beautiful journey like the thrillers of Dan Brown or the epic adventures of Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings, which defines their respective times. Do we seriously want to consider Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey as a unique work? Isn’t the Hunger Games and the Maze Runner essentially the same?

If you play video games, you must have known that the trend always starts over. Game developers are making gazillions of sequels, and only a few of them that are actually good. Most are outright trash. Oh, wait, old video games like Homeworld are also getting remasters to cater the demand of nostalgic consumers. No new Command and Conquer release from EA Games? Re-release the 25 years old Red Alert because people will re-buy it! Profit!

15 June 2020 8.03 PM

#essay #writing #exposition #meme #art #capitalism

4 notes · View notes

kaheyama · 4 years

Text

encore wait (528)

for todobakumonth2020: day 6 - [rockstar au; concert]

drummer!bakugou; manager!todoroki; concert; banter; flirting

read on AO3 or below

After throwing his drumsticks into the crowd and waving to the audience, Katsuki rushes backstage and sprints into his changing room.

Already there, sitting on one of those white folding chairs on his phone, is Todoroki Shouto.

Katsuki pays no mind to the man as he pulls off his jacket and reaches for another one on the rack.

“I got some nice pics today,” Shouto says from the side, “you should post them.”

“Yeah?” Katsuki turns his head to give him a smirk, “I saw you watching from the curtains. Stalker.”

“Katsuki, I literally work with you. Some might even say we have the same job.”

It’s a terrible joke, yet Shouto looks like he’s trying very hard not to burst into laughter.

Even though there is some merit to Shouto’s words, in Katsuki’s mind the two of them are not the same at all.

Shouto is the manager of a musician, and Katsuki is the musician who plays in the same rock band as a drummer.

The only reason Shouto makes that claim is because Katsuki doesn’t have a manager. In fact, it’s pretty much what got them together.

“I can fucking manage myself,” Katsuki had asserted when Shouto first approached him asking who his manager was.

From there, any time Shouto had to talk to Katsuki about stuff regarding Momo or the band in general, he did it directly, rather than go through someone else.

Speaking of…

“Shouldn’t you be bothering someone else? Maybe the actual artist you manage?”

“I’m not going to watch Yaoyorozu change.”

Katsuki flushes beet red, then argues, “That’s not what I meant and you know it! What,” he continues, pulling his shirt over his head, “so it’s okay to watch me change instead?”

Shouto steps closer to Katsuki then pokes the muscles running down his abdomen like he’s playing a xylophone, “It’s not anything I haven’t already seen before.”

Katsuki blushes harder—the top of his chest is red too now, and he whips his body around to hide from Shouto but that just gives him a view of his broad back instead, the top of which is also red.

It’s cute, and so Shouto decides to go easy on him.

For the remainder of Katsuki’s costume change, Shouto stays silent.

“Ground Zero, standby!” one of the stage managers notifies them not long after, and Katsuki moves towards the door.

Before he can get there, however, Shouto holds out an arm to stop him.

“Hey, hey. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Katsuki rolls his eyes, but leans in for a kiss nonetheless.

When he pulls back, Shouto chases the movement. They share another one, two, three kisses before they finally break apart.

Once he’s given the cue, Katsuki jogs back up the steps and onto the stage to an eruption of roars. He does a sweeping bow which garners more cheers, and then hops onto the drum riser and takes his place behind his drum kit.

Shouto follows him, but obviously not on stage. He stays behind the curtains, with full view of the band as well as some of the audience.

Katsuki hits his drumsticks together twice, and the encore begins.

#todobaku #todobaku fic #todobakumonth2020 #todoroki shouto #bakugou katsuki #boku no hero academia #wowclunawrites #i really like this oneeee

5 notes · View notes

emisonme · 5 years

Text

Marketing, promotion, publicity, and influencing....

Some are still having a hard time understanding how shit works. Let me try, again. The four words, that make up the title of this post, all go hand-in-hand. Marketing is promoting, is publicizing, is influencing. When an artist is just coming on the scene, this is pretty much done in reverse order. Influence is publicizing, is promoting, is marketing. Example: They used X-Factor to influence the audience, to garner publicity, to promote and market Fifth Harmony.

Influence is the most used marketing tool, in today's Music Industry. Today's Industry is not like the Industry of old. They used to market and promote an Artist and their music, through the influence of publicity. That publicity came from radio, television appearances, and written media. They still use those methods today, but today's Industry has shifted to the new digital age, by force. Now, it's all about social media, streaming, and sharing. All of which are platforms used to influence, promote, market and publicize, their Artists.

An Artist's Label and their Managers use different methods of influence. They use marketing schemes, PR stunts, the media, and social media influencers. But, most importantly, they use the biggest influencers of all...other artists.

If you have a following, of any kind, you are a potential influencer. Hell, I run this blog, and I write posts that people read and pay attention to. I have a following, small but still a following. That makes me an influencer. Not the kind of influencer the Industry and Artist managers want, but an influencer none the less. I'm trying to influence the people who read my posts, to educate themselves on how all this shit really works. I'm not getting paid, promoting, publicizing, or marketing anything, but I am getting the readers to expand their minds, and try to learn more about how the Music Industry works.

I have explained in a previous post, how Social media influencers work. But, like I said, the best influencers are other, more established, Artists. Taylor Swift has influenced for a shit load of other artists, including Fifth Harmony and Camila. Demi was used, Ariana,... You get the picture.

Actually, Camila is the perfect example of how the Industry will use artist influencers. THEY got other big named artists, to post videos of themselves listening to Camila's music. This in turn, gets that artists loyal fans to give the music their fave liked so much, they felt the desire to post a video about, a listen. This leads to more traffic to Camila's Social Media and links to her other music, and hopefully a new fan.

That's how influencing works, folks. It's pretty simple and straight forward. Now, knowing how it works, it shouldn't be difficult for you to figure out what's really going on with this Sophia chick. Did any of you know who she was, before she started posting pics and videos with Lauren? No!!! Now, I see her name every damn day.

Do you get it now? Lauren, and her millions of followers, are being used to drive traffic and interest to Sophia and her music. That's it! I really don't think I can explain this crap, much better than this.

208 notes · View notes

poppytheorist · 5 years

Text

Me Laughing

must’ve been one hell of a joke

Preamble

So, I was in the middle of writing a piece on [redacted] when Poppy released a 27-minute video of herself laughing. Naturally, that took priority. Sorry for my absence, this post took some time. And by “some time,” I mean “45 hours.”

This may be the best thing I’ve written, but it’s also the most insane thing I’ve written. In fact, I would label this post as ‘maddening.’ It’s possible you won’t be able to look at Poppy the same way again. I know I don’t. You can’t unread this, readers beware, [other dramatic warnings], etc., etc.

Descend when ready.

…

I thought “Concrete” was pretty #wild, but “Me Laughing” takes the cake. This video is pure lunacy, and I mean that somewhat literally since Poppy does laugh at what appears to be nothing for almost half an hour.

Due to the sheer insanity of “Me Laughing,” I’ve put together a handy little collage to help readers follow along. Behold: my barely passable Paint skills!

the pic for Section 4 basically explains everything

Before we begin, I need to address a few things. There’s at least, like, nine people who read this stuff, and while I can’t say that I envy you, I can say that I appreciate you. Thanks for sticking around.

However, there’s a funny thing that happens when you know you’re writing for an audience. You feel pressured to adapt your style. I feel the need to be a little more careful about some of the things I say, but that’s probably for the best. Hopefully this extra care will result in more coherent posts, but I doubt it.

This post will be long. Partially because “Me Laughing” is long, partially because I’ve padded this out with shaky theory about how the world works. Guess that’s no different than my other posts, but still, feel free to tune that out if you’re just here for the Poppy stuff, though maybe you’ll find some of it interesting.

I tend to write authoritatively, which may be misleading because I’m not always confident about what I’m saying. I simply enjoy taking things to their natural conclusions. Typically, there’s something interesting at the end. Or, at least, a premise insane enough to make writing about it enjoyable. See, for example, my post on “Concrete.” This post won’t be much different, maybe just a little crazier.

Now, I’ve got a funny feeling that some people may think I am “reading too much into this” or that Poppy’s work “isn’t that deep.” Hey, I get it. Those objections are completely understandable. I was once there myself, but now I’ve moved away from thinking that way. I’ll do my best to explain why.

From what I’ve seen, aesthetics (roughly: the study of art) is a total battlefield. Nobody agrees on anything, everybody thinks that only they can ‘properly’ understand art and that everyone else is wrong. There’s people who think beauty is objective, there’s people who think “no, that’s stupid, beauty is obviously subjective,” and there’s even the people who outright deny that aesthetics exists. Recently, we also had the pleasure of witnessing the aesthetics debate become another facet of the everlasting culture war. Think a line from “Play Destroy” sums my thoughts about that up: “oh boy!”

Needless to say, it’s a massive shitshow.

Despite my rather war-torn depiction of modern aesthetics, it might be a good thing that we can never ‘understand’ art. I hear that’s, like, part of the point. If art was ever ‘solved,’ well, we’d be faced with the idea that there is nothing ‘special’ about being human, that we’re just sacks of meat bumbling around with no purpose. Then everybody would, like, die or something. Truth hurts, art heals, let’s stay alive.

Anywho, I mention all this because there’s no rigorous way to determine how ‘deep’ a song (or any piece of art) is. You can’t just take a stick, poke it into some art, and say: “yep, this Poppy song is 75 [metres/fathoms/hands/whatever nonsense unit] deep!” Besides, nobody even agrees what ‘artistic depth’ means, and most attempts to define it flounder. If you listen closely, you can just faintly hear Goodhart laughing.

This is also why people who think they can ‘objectively’ analyze art are dogmatic blowhards. Any amount of rigorous thinking reveals that our standards for what make art ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are entirely baseless. No, seriously, it’s a case of channeling your inner Socrates and repeatedly asking ‘why’ until the other person throws their up their arms, leaves, and stops answering your texts.

We don’t even know what art is, so thinking you can ‘understand’ art and judge its ‘depth’ is pure arrogance. At least, until someone finds a way to math that shit. “Sounds solipsism.” Well, ya gotta start somewhere.

Now, does this mean we should also throw up our arms, say: “screw it” and return to binging Netflix and eating foods that you know aren’t good for you but you eat them anyways because they make you feel good and that’s what you need right now? Well, no, actually.

Even if we aren’t 100% sure what art is, or what we should do with it, there are some theories on art that I would call: “pretty not-terrible.” Some people have spent their entire lives thinking about these things and their insights are fascinating. However, I’m not here to talk theory. If you want to learn more, go pick up a book or something, nerd.

Anyway, one time this German guy said: “without music, life would be a mistake.” He also said that looking at things from multiple perspectives is pretty neat, so that’s what we’re here to do. Turns out art is kinda fun and spending a bit more time thinking about it pays dividends.

See, art just wants to be understood and so does Poppy. I want to give her and Titanic the benefit of the doubt and take them seriously as artists. While I don’t think everything they produce is God’s gift to earth (see: [redacted]), I do enjoy the majority of their work. Plus, the abstract and absurd nature of their content means writing about it is a blast.

Whether I truly believe any of the interpretations I come up with is irrelevant. Hell, I’m not even sure half of what I say even remotely resembles what Poppy and Titanic envisioned. But, that’s not the point. Shallow readings are a dime-a-dozen, see: Genius; I’m here to provide something better. To show that Poppy’s work, or any art, really, can be a whole lot more fun if you spend even just a teensy bit of time analyzing it. Hopefully I can also provide some of the tools to do so.

Enough rambling, let’s get into it.

Intro

At first glance, “Me Laughing” seems like Poppy doing cute ASMR for 27(!!) minutes while simultaneously trolling anyone who expected a video titled “Me Laughing” to be about anything different. Sure, but that reading gets a ‘B’ for ‘Basic.’

Yes, Poppy and Titanic often troll their audience. See: “A live Interview with Poppy.” But the trolling is both part of the delivery of their message and part of the message itself. So while “Me Laughing” looks like a simple ASMR troll video, I’m going to argue that it’s not.

Previously, Poppy released videos like “Delete Your Facebook” and “I’m Poppy.” Fun vids, but they’re made of looped clips. Thirty seconds in and you’ve watched the whole thing. Consider: “Me Laughing” is 27 minutes, but no parts are looped, it’s all original. As always, I’m just here to ask: why?

Since “Me Laughing” is not made up of looped clips, but is instead all original content, there is an inherent progression to the events. Each segment is unique, and when considered sequentially, pieces from each section build on each other to produce an artistic whole.

Yes, that’s a fancy way of saying it has a ‘story.’

Also, if you’ve watched the video, you’ll know that something just feels ‘off.’ If “Me Laughing” was ‘just’ Poppy ASMR, why does she constantly focus on a single point in the distance? What’s with Poppy’s frequent stares into the camera? And why the fuck is she wearing latex?

Clearly, something else is going on.

Detailed Summary

Let’s recall what actually happens in “Me Laughing.” Hopefully this recap will convey a sense of what ‘else’ exactly is going on and make the insane claims later on in the analysis a tad easier to swallow.

“Me Laughing” starts off pretty normally. Sections 1 and 2 are mostly Poppy laughing, as promised. Even in these early sections, however, we can still pick out some peculiar things.

In Section 1, and throughout the video, we see Poppy looking upwards as she laughs, as if she was remembering something funny that happened. Or as if she was thinking about something for a while and suddenly found it hilarious. “Maybe Poppy just looks upward when she laughs.” Doubtful. Try doing it right now. Feels weird, right? Whatever, moving on…

Next oddity: there’s a strange transitioning shot at the start of the video and between Sections 1 and 2 where the camera sweeps over Poppy’s latex-ed body. “Well, maybe Titanic just thought it would be cool to do it like that.” Yes, but why did he think it would be cool? Why that transitioning shot, out of all the possible ones? What purpose does it serve?

Also: Section 1 was a very steady shot, probably filmed using a tripod, or whatever fancy word camera-people use. However, the shot for Section 2 is shaky. Like, weirdly shaky. Maybe even too shaky. And this isn’t the only section filmed this way, half of “Me Laughing” is too. “Well, maybe Titanic can’t hold a camera steady.” No, that doesn’t seem right. We know Titanic can, in fact, hold a camera steady, or, at the very least, he possesses the means to take a steady shot. See: literally all Poppy videos. No, the shaky-cam is intentional. Again, I’m just here to ask: why?

Now, I don’t mean to tip my hand too much here, but to me, the camera’s sway resembles the unsteady gaze of a curious observer. Perhaps one who is timidly stepping around the beheld, drinking in all the angles. Recall my post on “Touch Poppy.” With steady camera shots, it’s easy to forget someone is on the other side, but with unsteady shots, it’s downright impossible to ignore, e.g., “wow, that shaky-cam is really noticeable. What is this, a shitty sequel to the Blair Witch Project?” Perhaps these sections were filmed this way to emphasize the presence of an observer. As for why such a thing would be emphasized—well, we’ll get to that.

Around the 3:30 mark, Poppy shakes her head and clearly utters a, “m-mm,” as in, “nuh-uh, no way.” This gesture is repeated throughout the video. I’ll let you think about that one.

The video continues, and at 3:52 the camera lazily pans down, focusing on Poppy’s body and cutting her head out of the shot for several seconds, similar to the transition shot from Section 1 to 2. Thirty seconds later, the same thing happens. Guess this isn’t just Titanic diversifying the shot composition. It’s also about this point where attempts to pass “Me Laughing” off as anything resembling a ‘normal’ video start to fall apart.

Poppy’s sitting position in Section 3 is both clever and hilarious. It shows her whole get-up, highlighting how absurdly tall her platform shoes are. She also flip-flops her feet back and forth several times as if to further emphasize her mega-shoes. Why would she wear such crazy shoes for a simple video of herself laughing?

That’s not all that’s ‘off’ about Section 3—this is also the first section where Poppy stares at a spot in the distance for a prolonged period of time. In several instances, she quizzically tilts her head to the side, not unlike a faithful dog trying to decipher commands from her master. At 6:23 we also get a clear “huh,” a noise of acknowledgement, of understanding. Further, Section 3 has several stretches of silence where Poppy is no longer laughing. She just sits there while you watch. It’s… unsettling.

Section 4 is shot in a similarly shaky-style to Section 2, but this time with Poppy sitting down. Also, we see instances of Poppy focusing on something off in the distance both when she is laughing and when she is not, as was the case in the previous sections. However, there are some weird things about Section 4 that set it apart from the others and further develop the video.

Around the 8:38 mark, Poppy utters a “mm-mm-mm” sound while shaking her head and staring off into the distance. It’s fairly clear that she is communicating with something off-screen. Perhaps entities that are invisible to us. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say these off-screen entities are the things making her laugh.

We will see more evidence of Poppy supposedly communicating with invisible beings later, however, this is bordering on fetishizing Poppy’s lore as opposed to analyzing her artistic message. If you’re half-learned on Poppy lore (which, you better be, considering the fact that you’re reading this), this would be like focusing on the identity of ‘They’ instead of the significance of ‘They.’ Another example would be focusing on the ‘origin’ of Poppy, e.g., is she an android? Who is her creator? Etc., instead of asking why someone would create the artistic work of Poppy in the first place and/or considering the implications of said work.

If you’ve read anything else I’ve written, perhaps you’ve noticed that I try and stay away from acknowledging that Poppy even has lore. I want to take Poppy seriously, not literally. Or, in “pretentious asshole” terms, to consider her work artistically, not canonically. There are many reasons for this and I didn’t just get here randomly overnight, but that’s for another post.

Edgy ranting aside, there’s another part of Section 4 that I’d like to point out. Before this section, there was only a single instance of Poppy looking into the camera (happened in Section 2), but in Section 4, she frequently looks into the lens, acknowledging that an observer is present. She shoots this observer a flurry of dark and mischievous glances. Then she laughs.

Section 5 features more head shaking, distant staring, etc., but it is also a relatively sad section. Poppy laughs very little, and frequently looks down. Yes, a pun. Poppy has been laughing for most of the video, so why, all of a sudden, does she seem so sad?

Section 6 is shot shakily and close-up. I mean, really close-up. Like, right-in-her-face close-up. To the point where the camera is often out of focus. We’re also given a blatantly voyeuristic sweep over Poppy’s chest as the camera shifts position around her. Further, there are several instances where Poppy looks deep into the camera, with what I refer to as a “model pout,” where she slightly parts her lips and opens her eyes wide. Recall my post on “Computer Boy” where I talked about the fan-idol relationship. That lustful look? It’s for you, except everybody knows it’s not.

Quick note: I will elaborate on this when I talk about “You’re Too Close,” but it’s important to stay mindful and know that despite some uncomfortably voyeuristic shots in “Me Laughing,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that the video, or anyone who worked on it, is, y’know, perverted or something. Depicting the voyeuristic nature of idolism is how we talk about the voyeuristic nature of idolism, the same way that depicting racism is how we talk about racism.

The problem is that nowadays, we are trained to think quickly, not critically. Your initial response (also called your ‘knee-jerk’ response) to Poppy’s work shouldn’t be your final response to it. It’s important to consider context and think carefully. Ask yourself: why would Poppy choose to show you this? What does she want you to think about? What is she trying to tell you?

Section 7 is where things start to get really fucking weird.

Previously, I said that there was something darker lurking in “Me Laughing,” and Section 7 is where this darkness begins to manifest. The segment starts with Poppy having another one of her imaginary conversations with demons or whatever where she nods her head and gives some “mm-hmms” in agreement. Shortly after, she looks right at the camera and laughs in your face. Not only is her laugh absolutely maniacal, but it seems completely sincere too. This section really relates the feeling that you are not in on the ‘joke’—maybe the joke’s about you.

Section 7 also provides a sense of violent foreboding: a creeping feeling that something is going to happen to you, but you don’t know what that ‘something’ is, and you have absolutely no power to stop it. What really drives this sense of helplessness home is the way the scene is shot. At one point, the camera spends a few seconds just looking at Poppy’s hand. This emphasizes your lack of control. You are completely at the mercy of the camera’s whims. You only see what is shown to you. Then, as the scene closes, the camera is put down in front of Poppy, and, after a few tense seconds, she slowly reorients her body and starts crawling towards you. Luckily, the camera is picked up before she reaches it—you were saved, but what if you hadn’t been?

Oh, right, I forgot to mention: Poppy didn’t laugh much in this section.

Section 8 is a more amped-up version of Section 6. We get Poppy staring deep into the camera for almost the entire scene’s duration. Her lustful gaze relates a feeling of vulnerability, like you are spying on a defenseless little girl, but at the same time, it feels like she is giving you one last dose of what you want before she brutally murders you.

Section 9 is fairly straightforward. We have Poppy staring at a fixed point in the distance as if she is receiving orders from her alien overlord. We also get several rapid glances toward the camera, as if her orders somehow involve you, or as if she and someone else are sharing gossip about you right in front of your face.

…

…And then Section 10 happens.

Poppy says: “goodbye.”

In Section 10 we have a bit of a climax. No, not that kind of climax. Well, unless this essay is really doing it for you.

The first interpretation of Section 10 is fairly basic, Poppy is waving goodbye because you’re about to die. Obviously, whatever scheme she and her invisible monster friends cooked up is going to be carried out, and it’s probably going to result in the destruction of everything, yourself included. This is sad, probably, but she seems to find it highly amusing. Again, I’m not a fan of obsessing over canon or lore, so I’ll tackle this one slightly differently in the analysis, but I do think this reading of “Me Laughing” is at least semi-faithful to Poppy and Titanic’s vision. This interpretation also serves as a very nice teaser for P3. I mean, if “Do you disagree?” has told us anything, P3 will have a lot of destroying.

The next reading of Section 10 involves the objectifying nature of idolism. Yes, the $5 words are starting to come out, brace yourself. Anyway, in this section, Poppy giggles as she waggles her hands around, back and forth then forth and back, as though she is using her hands for the first time. Almost like a shiny, new automaton discovering its motor functions. It’s cute, but silly. And by silly, I mean overly silly. You have to remember that Poppy is played by a woman in her mid-20s. Reminds me of some lines from “Hard Feelings”: “my arms and my legs are so stiff / Is that the way you wanted it?” Or, rather, is this how you want her to act?

At the end of the section, the camera moves right up to Poppy’s face and she looks at you and just… stares.

…

And stares…

…

And stares…

…

She knows.

Finally, we get to Section 11, which would be my main argument against the totally boring ‘Poppy communicating with demons’ reading. Poppy is seated, again, with her arms wrapped around her thighs. Note again the sense of her smallness and vulnerability transmitted by her sitting position. Also note the way the shot is filmed, with the camera looking down on Poppy and frequently swooping in for close passes.

And then, in the last two seconds, something really bizarre happens. For a brief moment, some foreign object enters the shot, just in the very corner. Now, I’m about to make a weird argument, be wary of it. Other than the random piece of equipment entering the shot, “Me Laughing” does not end off on a noteworthy moment. Just Poppy sitting there, looking up at the camera. Plenty of instances of that. The video could have easily been trimmed by 2 seconds and nothing would have changed. We can also (probably) assume that somebody carefully reviewed this video before it was uploaded.

We’re left the possibility that those last two seconds were left in the video for a reason. And that reason is—

Hey, wait a minute, was that a mirror?

Analysis

“Me Laughing” is a really interesting video, and you can have a lot of fun if you spend some time looking into it, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ll tackle it from several different angles, watch for the switches.

Quick words of warning here: I’m about to use the words ‘parody,’ ‘satire,’ and ‘sarcasm’ interchangeably, a practice some would refer to as: “really fucking lazy.” Frankly, I don’t give a damn, I’m not a professional, I’m going to type my silly words anyway and you can’t stop me.

As content loses any sense of shame in attempting to draw your attention, nuance withers away and it becomes harder and harder to differentiate parody from parodied. For example, is “Old Town Road” criticizing the state of the music industry or embracing it? Now, I’m positive that Lil Nas X has the self-awareness of my pug when he’s lapping up his own boogers, yet I personally couldn’t write a song that so perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with modern music. So, is “Old Town Road” a parody or not?

This is where someone ripping off Westworld would say: “if you can’t tell, does it matter?” to which I would answer: “yes, yes it does.”

Context may be fleeting, unreliable, and arguably nonexistent, but I still believe it’s possible to differentiate parody from parodied, it just takes a little more effort. See, I think “Me Laughing” is satirical as hell, especially considering its context within Poppy’s body of work and how it compares to mainstream internet content.

First, consider that the frankly-titled video “Me Laughing” was hyped up for three days before it ‘premiered’ on YouTube. Hilarious, but also incisive. Who waits three days to see someone laugh? “Well, I did.” Ah.

The sarcastic nature of the video also shines through in the description, which reads: “A motion picture starring Poppy.” There’s a tired, yet necessary, statement here on the continuing degradation of internet content. What won’t people eat up?

We all know Poppy’s no stranger to sarcasm. See: “Bleach Blonde Baby” or “Poppy loves Politics.” She will often refer to her videos as “high quality internet content,” while uploading videos of herself eating cotton candy or ‘ooo-ing’ at things. With “Me Laughing,” a video where she laughs for 27 minutes, Poppy further questions where the line is regarding what content people will happily consume.

Fun story: I’ve seen people call “Me Laughing” ASMR. In fact, I think I did, at some point. Huh, I should probably change that. This isn’t totally wrong, but know that “Me Laughing” takes so many shots at ASMR you’d think the video shared a set with Sicario. And, if that’s the case, they could have saved some money and just filmed the video in my neighborhood haha… hah… ha… (seriously though I’m in danger)

Considering “Me Laughing” as a genuine ASMR video would obviously be antithetical to Poppy’s entire body of work. Recall lyrics like: “Poppy is an object.” No, “Me Laughing” is much more than simply Poppy recording cute ASMR.

Poppy has been questioning the nature of people’s ASMR obsession since her first YouTube video, “Poppy Eats Cotton Candy,” where she had the mic uncomfortably close to her throat so her little gulps and coos were clearly audible. What leads to people wanting to hear these things?

Zoom out: many of Poppy’s videos are about obsession. Forget that and the point will fly right over your head. Let’s now reframe the question: why would people want to hear such intimate sounds from Poppy? Answer that and “Me Laughing” will make a lot more sense.

What I’m about to say next will be very dense because it will outline the thesis of a large part of Poppy’s work. Sorry, hopefully it’s still readable. I’m still developing my interpretations of her work, and I promise to expand and explain them more in the future.

I’m also sure some fans will want to stab me in the neck with a rusty spoon for this post because it’ll appear like I am directly criticizing them. In reality, I am actually insinuating that Poppy is criticizing them, but nuance is dead, knee-jerk reactions reign supreme. Whatever. If you react that way, it means you’re so eyeballs deep in obsession that you fail to realize why Poppy courts your obsession in the first place. Poppy’s work entices fans to obsess over her, but it also berates those who do so.

Note that this is all as a means of criticizing the status-quo. And guess what: fans are part of the status-quo. It stings when you realize your idol’s criticisms are actually about you, but I’m not convinced Poppy is malicious. She wants you to be a better person.

This is my best estimate of her thesis: the nature of the objectification of celebrities is rooted in a sexual obsession—that is, a desire for their bodies. Pun intended. Objectification stems from fantasizing over what the celebrity shows you, which is almost always physical, or at least results in the fantasy manifesting itself as a physical representation.

In other words: “everybody wants to be Poppy.”

Poppy recognizes the inherently sexual obsession with figures in the ASMR community. She wears latex in “Me Laughing” to draw attention to this. It’s as if she was saying: “this is what you’re here for, right?”

Note that obsession is inherently progressive. It grows and grows, eventually leading to fans voyeuristically observing the objectified person’s intimate bodily functions. This culminates in “Me Laughing.” Poppy knows what you want, but as payment, she’s going to leave a nagging feeling in your brain that somehow you have done something wrong. That you shouldn’t really be watching this video, but she knows you are.

Recall Titanic’s comments about making people slightly uncomfortable. Consuming is harder with a lump in your throat. The key to understanding Poppy’s work is to ask why she wants you to feel uncomfortable. What about your behavior does she want you to realize?

Earlier in the post, I mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of the whole ‘Poppy talking to demons about destroying the world’ reading because it comes dangerously close to obsessing over her lore. Lore is like history without the usefulness, so I’m going to ignore it. Regardless, I said I would use that interpretation for something more interesting, so I’d like to ask:

What makes someone want to destroy the world?

Throughout “Me Laughing,” Poppy shoots dark glares at the camera. There’s something sinister in her eyes, something genuinely evil lurking in her gaze. We know she obviously has an immense disdain for the status-quo. What else would lead to lyrics like: “down, let it all burn down / burn it to the ground”?

Preceding any cries of “viva la revolución!” or “apocalypse, now!” is an implicit judgement that what is left of the world is either not able to be saved, or not worth saving. That tearing everything down and beginning anew is preferable to salvaging what remains. To reach such a mindset, one would need to see modern society with such disgust and be so disenchanted with our current world that it no longer appears worth preserving. One would also need to have given up hope on the ability for people to come together and solve their problems. To have lost hope in humanity’s ability to adapt and overcome. To think that perhaps our problems have become too big for us to solve, that perhaps we have finally dug too deep a hole to climb out of.

Again, people don’t reach a hopeless mindset overnight; it takes many steps to descend into the darkness. But, the numpties on r/GetMotivated tell me, “every journey begins with a single step,” so let’s take one together.

In a tweet, I mentioned that “Me Laughing” was also about absurdism. No, that wasn’t a typo for ‘absurdity.’ I may write ridiculously deep-dives into Poppy lyrics and lore, but I try not to waste words.

Anyway, let’s play a game. I call it the “imagine something real quick because I need to prove a point” game.

Imagine being stuck in a system. Yes, it’s cliché to use the word ‘system,’ and any time you do, it carries the connotation that you are some conspiracy nut, e.g., “you can’t trust the system man!” I understand all this, please just bear with me and let me use the word, it’s useful. Anyway, you don’t like the system because a lot of the system is bad and it’s slowly, but surely, getting worse. The cracks are starting to show and the whole thing is poised to come crumbling down. Okay, that’s not good, you want to tell people about this. To warn them. However, in order to obtain a sizable audience for your message, you need to first succeed within the system, and to do that, you need to play by the system’s rules.

Okay, no sweat, you release some pop songs. There’s a couple of them that people really dig. Unfortunately, the songs people like don’t contain much of your message. They have a watered-down version of it at best. That’s a little sad, but oh well, at least you’re getting some sort of message out there. Hey, maybe if you make the music video really weird, people will realize there’s something more going on! Hm, that didn’t seem to work either.

So you release some YouTube videos too. Some of them are pretty biting, especially that one on politics. Should get people thinking, right? Hah, no, wrong. People like them, yes, but not for the reasons you want. They like them because they’re “weird” and “addictive” e.g., “its 3 AM on a school night and I’m still watching Poppy videos why can’t I stop lolol.” Imagining that the videos contain some sort of Illuminati-esque hidden message to decode is preferable to examining the real-world implications of the work. Plus, like, there’s experts for that, right?

Anyway, a couple albums and hundreds of videos later, you have a sizable following, sweet, now you can transition to doing what you’ve always wanted to. Change the persona to something a little truer to yourself. Make your message a little clearer. Finally, you have the power to change the world like you always promised you would.

Uh-oh, Houston, we’ve got a problem. Your audience listened to you for X, but now you’re giving them Y. It’s not a total loss, though. You have a lot of loyal members in your audience, and they like your new stuff too. Doesn’t matter what you make, they’re loyal, they’ll watch/listen/whatever to it. Their dedication has become investment which has become even more dedication. In fact, they’ve been following you since the start, when you were first trying to get big. “Yes, but I was trying to get big because I wanted to spread a message and to do that I had to make compromises to grow an audience so people would liste—“

They also have their own ideas of what you’re saying, plus, like, they make neat art, here, check this out, please give this a listen, look at this, read this, please, please? “Hey, nice article. Wait, the next one is how many words?!” And you keep every piece of fan art because it really does mean a lot to you. “Wow, I appreciate it, that’s beautiful, thank you. Oh, what? There’s even more?” Hey, if you have spare minute, could you give a shout-out to my friend? It’s her birthday. “Sure, hold on…” It’s also my birthday tomorrow, could you give this post a like? “Um, okay, just give me a minut—“ Also, could you answer my DM on Instagram? It’s important. And after that there’s only 100 more to answer! kk thanks! “Wait… one second… whoa!”

Now you’re releasing Z, hopefully that will get your message across…

…

Wait—what was your message again?

…

Oh no.

…

Somewhere along the way, probably between performing [this] and signing [that], the essence of your message was lost. Whatever remains has been drowned out by the noise of the system. If we’re talking decibels, notifications are loud, problems are whispers, and these days everyone’s got ear plugs.

Thinking about problems is hard, thinking about them for too long is sad, being sad is uncomfortable, hey, look, Taylor Swift just dropped a new album, that “Lover” song is dope, let’s look at memes.

So, you want to change the system. But to change the system you need power. To get power, you need an audience. But the only way to get an audience is to make content that gets rewarded by the system. And the content that gets rewarded by the system is that which is easily digestible for a large audience, i.e., devoid of substance. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think “Turn Down for What” resulted in much positive social change. “Well, maybe the system should reward content that is creative, challenging, and conscientious instead!” Ah, yes, I see what you mean. So, you want to change the system…

Pass the mic, Camus, I’ve got a real knee-slapper for ya. Oh, right, guess I’ll just grab it myself.

These days, we’re faced with a new kind of absurdism, one which involves recognizing that societal systems are getting worse and need changing, while simultaneously recognizing that you are chained by said systems, and thus, powerless to change them.

This new absurdism describes the maddening exercise in doublethink where people wrestle with the knowledge that they should be Making The World A Better Place but also the knowledge that they cannot possibly live in a way that satisfies such capitalized phrases. The end result is a mental tearing fueled by impossible societal expectations and the inevitable guilt of failing to live up to them.

After a while, people stop fighting. They give up. They give in. When enough people throw in the towel, all that’s left is to hold on tight and enjoy the ride, e.g., the trajectory is set, all aboard, no, there aren’t enough seat belts for everyone, must have been one of those damn cost-saving initiatives.

“Yeah, that definitely sounds absurd. So… what do we do about it?”

Well, sometimes all you can do is laugh.

#poppy #me laughing

8 notes · View notes

tae-kun · 6 years

Text

If the Main Reason why you log onto Tumblr is for Porn, then you don’t understand what made Tumblr special in the first place

Tumblr is not a Porn Site

It was never intended to be, so for the people that are saying stuff like “Tumblr never supported our sex work anyway” you’re 100% correct. Being allowed to post Pornography isn’t the same as being a source for it. Over the years Tumblr has been ran rampant with porn to the point that content creators that did other stuff that didn’t relate to porn slowly started to go to other platforms; Since their work was being overshadowed by the sheer volume of porn and they struggled to get any attention on their work.

You people are acting like Tumblr is attacking sex workers as if this was their main and only place to earn money for their work.

There are porn sites that are made to promote AND support sex workers. Hell PornHub will pay people for their sextapes and has multiple systems in place for them to make money off Ad revenue alongside having a tip system, content protection and other stuff

Anyone that was serious about their sex work would have been using sites like this instead of relying on Tumblr as a main source of revenue or promotion.

Tumblr is a trash place to try to promote anything! Constant spamming of bots and tags, No reliable Notification system or way for your followers to see you’re new posts out of the sea of reblogs. So to act like these new changes are going to serious kill anyone that is in the sex work is flat out outrageous.

Hell a majority of the popular porn that was on here wasn’t even from amateurs making videos on here. People were taking porn from porn sites and making blogs centered around it and would constantly flood their blogs with this content which would then, overshadow any amateur worker on here that made their own work; since they had no to even compete with the constant bombardment of daily new stuff that these blogs were taking and using.

People would steal other peoples videos and get popular of it without even crediting the original creator and would even go as far as to SELL these videos and make more money of it than the actual people in the damn video.

So Tumblr was never an ideal place for sex work to begin with, so throw that excuse out. Most people only used Tumblr to promote their private snapchat or onlyfans account which you can still do in a regular selfie or post. There are thousands of people on Instagram making hundreds and thousands of dollars doing the same thing and they don’t have one titty out on their page. Just tight clothing and skimpy outfits.

If you’re really upset that you can’t watch porn on here after Dec 17

At first it was funny seeing people joke about the porn being gone. But some of y’all are really upset and mad that you need to actually go to a porn sites to watch porn???

Some of y’all don’t even post nudes or create anything that could be considered sexual and y’all saying “ima delete my blog since tumblr is trying to silence me”

(Side Note: Just because your post got flagged doesn’t mean it will be deleted. They already said stuff like this would happen as they added in this new system. So mistakes like these are bound to happen and will most likely be fixed in a week or so and have no negative affect on your blog. Y’all really acting like Tumblr is out to silence your love for cats and landscapes 🙄)

Like i said before there are plenty of sites to watch porn on and if your favorite sex worker is serious about their job then you will see them on there. Which only makes things easier for both of you. But lets be honest, most of y’all just like the idea of seeing porn without having to actually look for it, like it’s some nasty secret. On Tumblr you couldn’t escape porn even if you searched things that were unrelated to it. Tumblr gave you guys the perfect cover up for it and you guys went overboard with it and here we are. People are so quick to compare this issue to other Tumblr problems but there was never a issue as big as people with dick profile pics dming you no matter who you were (kids or adults) and sending you nude pics; then Porn Bots popped up under everyone’s post no matter if you had the safety lock on or not.

You guys made hundreds of post saying how much you hate porn blogs getting tens of thousands of notes in agreement about it, You guys would put “no porn blogs allowed” in your description box or something similar in meaning.

And now when Tumblr puts a system in place to directly remove it, you guys try to back pedal and claim that it will kill sex workers, freedom of speech and sexuality based off opinions, assumptions and things that aren’t even in the policy change.

Some of y’all honestly suggested “Just add a age verification system” as a way to fix the porn issue.... That shit ain’t never worked since 2002! I got so use to lying on those things that i sometimes forget that i’m grown and that i don’t need to put “01/11/1975″

The only people that this severely hurts are

1a) People that steal porn from other sites to use on their blog to get followers, to then try sell promo slots

1b) People that are stealing other sex workers content and illegally selling them

2) Child Porn Blogs

THAT’S IT

And Honestly is that really a bad thing? Getting rid of people that were stealing other peoples stuff and making money off it and pedophiles.

The way tumblr was set up allowed blogs like these to thrive without any risk, outside of getting their blog deleted (just to make a new one) and it only continued the flood of porn which became the breeding grounds for Porn Bots

Tumblr is suppose to be a place to freely express all forms of art, ideas, and conversations. But because of the nonstop flood of porn, most people only know it for Porn and Emo kids. Which brings me back to my original statement

This isn’t a Porn Site

Porn became so over flooded on here that you didn’t even need to search to find it. All you had todo is take off the safe lock and search anything, even a city. There would be hundreds of porn pics and videos in every slot. And before you say “well just keep the safety lock on”

Any content that had cursing, fighting or even slight nudity got put behind there. So unless you were just on here for kpop, aesthetics and Steven Universe you weren’t really seeing anything different with that lock on.

( Another Side Note: For you people trying to compare the porn flood to white supremacy blogs need to stop it. All the time i’ve been on here i have never NEEEVVVEEER accidentally came across any pro white supremacy post or blog unless it was someone exposing them and their stupidity which would then cause them to delete their blog. If you are constantly seeing anything Pro Nazi, Pro White Supremacy, Pro homophobia or anything similar that supports bigotry; then you are actively searching for it and follow these people. These blogs don’t even make up 5% of the content seen on here with or without the lock. So trying to say that Tumblr supports these blogs since they’re still around is Mr. Fantastic level of reaching. These blogs have never been a serious issue to the point that Nazi Bots were created saying “Hate jews and blacks clck here for more ;)”. So stop this weak comparison.)

I created a Tumblr and made it one of my main platforms to create content on because of the communities and people i found on here.

I found Great stories and Dope artist on here. I found people being able to fully express themselves and find an audience for them that helped share their work through a simple reblog. But if you’ve been noticing or have been on here long enough, most content creators don’t use Tumblr as their main platform to create or promote their content anymore. And why would they?

People barely activate their notifications for blog updates, It’s hella hard to find an audience through the constant reblogging of already popular stuff From Vine and Twitter, people rarely go outside of tumblr to support peoples stores or websites. Hell most artist on here that become popular on here that get continued support are the ones that have made or continue to make some kind of pornography of real or fictional characters. It’s hella rare to find any artist that hasn’t made any porn, that is equally popular or supported like the ones that have; which just goes back to people thinking Tumblr is for porn.

Tumblr isn’t even against the idea of expressing yourself or art through nudity as their post and policy change explicitly explained. And people’s content that’s getting flagged that doesn’t go against that policy is a problem THAT THEY SAID WOULD HAPPEN as they get everything in order with their new system

All of these long post that people are writing about it that and they themselves forgot to do some basic reading on the topic.

Tumblr Staff- “Certain types of artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity are fine. Don’t upload any content, including images, videos, GIFs, or illustrations, that depicts sex acts.

This isn’t an attack on people’s ability to speak out or embrace themselves. They are directly trying to remove Porn which they won’t be able to fully do, even Instagram and Twitter can’t do that; no public site with millions of people can. But they’re at least trying to get rid of the constant overflow of it.

It’s so sad to see hundreds and thousands of you saying “i only used Tumblr for porn” because that just shows how derailed this site has become and why Tumblr had to make these extreme decisions especially after being removed from app stores because of the child pornography.

If you’re going to leave because you can’t make porn on here: I can see why you would do that but there is no reason to. You can still use your blog to promote your stuff and make teases of your work that can be found or bought else where. Tumblr was never a reliable place for sex work and i highly recommend using Sites that will actually protect your work and put some money in your pockets while doing it

If you’re leaving because you can’t watch porn on here: You probably weren’t supporting anyone really and only made the influx of porn worse, making it harder for other content users to be seen. If you were supporting actual sex workers on here then continue to do so, I’m sure anyone serious would have more than just tumblr as their main platform.

For those that got popular and made money off other people sex work: So long and farewell

For the Child Porn Blogs: Hope you get mental help or burn. Either or is fine with me

For the people that may get upset by this: Correct me, Prove me wrong, Let’s have a whole serious discussion about this and hear each others side with no fighting or disrespect :D

For all of Us: Lets actually support and help the people that really make Tumblr the gem that it is. Lets make this platform be known for creative people and unique ideas; and communities that actually comfort and understand us. Let’s actually make this platform something that’s known for more than just Porn and Emo Kids.

Regardless i hope that everyone can calm down and act like there’s more here than just porn..

244 notes · View notes

ourheroictommo · 5 years

Note

(1)" - Was it that Eleanor wasn’t there when he got off stage? Because I was also wondering where she was at tbh- Imagine dating Louis Tomlinson and showing him zero affection. She has no excuse to be a as cold as she is. Unless she seeks out hate about herself she’d see none of it. She has no excuse to hide in these backstage videos. Jordan clearly follows them around all the time and she goes out of her way to look miserable and distant. The only +

Anonymous said: (2) + stopping her from showing affection in public is her pride and I can’t stand that. She doesn’t love him enough to overcome her own pride. Her instinct isn’t to wait for him and hug him after the performance but her instinct is to hide from the cameras. I have no respect for that" “ - You snapped. That’s exactly what I’m feeling. Louis deserves better partner. Everyone around him (Helene, his band mates, etc) showing more affection towards him then his own girlfriend. (3)+ This is bullshit. Even Niall was there after Louis’ performance.- Yep. Deserves better and I wish he knew that”“ - Her fans say it’s because she hates the camera, yet she ran a blog where her job was to pose for the camera and magazines call her a model although I’ve never seen her do any real modeling. They just can’t admit she’s not a good supporter to Louis. - She absolutely does NOT hate the camera. Look at all the pics she posts of herself when he’s gone. + (4) + For the year she ran the blog she enjoyed posting herself very much.” + (5) “ - I’m so glad he got that hug from Helene. He does deserve a partner to support him. Eleanor couldn’t be bothered to be there before the performance, even though he was just hanging out with Niall someone she has known for years. He admitted how nervous he was before the performance. She wasn’t there with him backstage either. She just walked in front of him or behind him when he was leaving the hotel. She wasn’t even paying attention to his performance in Madrid, she was just hanging + (6) + out with friends. He deserves so much better.- Walking in front of him or behind him looking miserable, drink in her hand and cigarette in her hand. Physically traveling next to him and enjoying his money isn’t what “support” is. Even Danielle waited for Louis to get off the Pride of Britain red carpet and she grabbed his hand to show affection” + (7) + “ - She’s a witch. Solo Louies would literally adore her if she gave us something ANYTHING that says “I love Louis Tomlinson” any fucking gesture ffs- Right? Like imagine if she hyped him up and showed him love. Showed us what boyfriend Louis like. We are so starved that we hyped Rebecca Ferguson up for 5 seconds of thirsty looks. Imagine cute boyfriend Louis content, she could get us on her side if she wanted but she continues to act like she’s above his fans and hates them. But Louis + (8) + loves his fans. How does that work?”“ - As much as I dislike Harry these last few years, I still think of that commercial director’s comment about how Harry and Louis stayed as the other was being filmed to make sure they didn’t need something when they were filming the commercial during 1d. Selfish Harry could be there to support Louis, but Eleanor couldn’t be there for Louis. I hope she enjoyed her free Mexican vacation. - I remember that comment and I always wonder if it was fake. But + (9) + I do remember actual proof that Louis did stay behind watching Harry multiple times. But you know, I think Louis deserves better than Harry as well.”“ - That’s why this relationship just can’t last. She hates his fans but he’ll be touring for months around his fans. She won’t go near Freddie. This is not something that can last. The end will come at some point.- I agree. Their thing isn’t goals in any way shape or form” + (10 finally) Someone quoted those on my TL, maybe from Tumblr. I don’t know what to say, this poor girl will never win with some of ugly people who apparently need help for hating a complete stranger who has done nothing to them. Louis deserves better fans and I hope one day he will have. Plus, why Tumblt is like that? Took me forever to send you the quotes!

What the fuck is even this shit?????

“ - Was it that Eleanor wasn’t there when he got off stage? Because I was also wondering where she was at tbh-

Even Niall was there after Louis’ performance.

She wasn’t there with him backstage either. She just walked in front of him or behind him when he was leaving the hotel. She wasn’t even paying attention to his performance in Madrid, she was just hanging + (6) + out with friends.”

What a huge pile of horseshit. She wasn’t with him backstage because she went to watch the show! To see him perform from the audience! Niall was backstage because he hasn’t performed yet. Helene was backstage probably to give Louis the final instructions or whatever - she’s a part of Louis’ team. Eleanor wasn’t backstage because she was watching Louis’ performance from the audience. Why do they blame her for that? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! She surely congratulated him afterwards anyway.

“Solo Louies would literally adore her if she gave us something ANYTHING that says “I love Louis Tomlinson” any fucking gesture ffs- Right? Like imagine if she hyped him up and showed him love. Showed us what boyfriend Louis like. We are so starved that we hyped Rebecca Ferguson up for 5 seconds of thirsty looks. Imagine cute boyfriend Louis content, she could get us on her side if she wanted but she continues to act like she’s above his fans and hates them.”

Have these idiots forgotten her v-day posts? Or how she hyped him and looked at him like he hung the moon at the twins’ birthday party? Or how much she cheered for him at the xfactor in 2017? Not to mention all her tweets and insta posts from when they were dating the first time around. What more do they want from her???

“Imagine dating Louis Tomlinson and showing him zero affection. She has no excuse to be a as cold as she is. Unless she seeks out hate about herself she’d see none of it. She has no excuse to hide in these backstage videos. Jordan clearly follows them around all the time and she goes out of her way to look miserable and distant. The only ++ stopping her from showing affection in public is her pride and I can’t stand that. She doesn’t love him enough to overcome her own pride. Her instinct isn’t to wait for him and hug him after the performance but her instinct is to hide from the cameras. I have no respect for that"

Have these dumbarses forgotten how since Louis went solo they’ve been commenting on his twitter, his instagram and all his interviews that ‘WE DON’T CARE ABOUT HIS PRIVATE LIFE!!! WE DON’T CARE ABOUT WHO HE’S DATING!!! WE’RE HERE FOR HIS MUSIC!!! FOR HIS MUSIC ONLY!!! NOT FOR HIS PRIVATE LIFE!!!’

And Louis gave them what they asked - all his social media, which used to be a healthy mixture of music/promo and personal stuff, are now strictly music/promo related. He stopped posting about Eleanor, Freddie, his friends, his siblings, his dogs, he stopped posting random pics of his shoes - the only non-music related stuff he still posts are the occasional selfies on his insta stories.

And now they are suddenly begging for ‘cute boyfriend Louis content’???? Really? Really???????

You fucking begged Louis to post only about his music. And you got what you wanted - his mexico igtv is about his music. And also about Niall. Why? Because no one throws a tantrum when Louis and Niall hang out together. Louis’ fans love Niall. Niall’s fans love Louis. In fact they are begging both of them for more content of them together. So of course Louis delivered.

Whereas imagine all the outrage if instead of footage of Louis and Niall chatting in private, there was a footage of Louis and Eleanor chatting in private in his igtv. Or instead of Louis and Helene hugging, it was Louis and Eleanor. I guarantee you, these weirdos would be the first ones to harass Louis team because of that - ‘how dare they include her in his promo stuff!!! how dare they divert attention from Louis as an artist and show him like nothing more than just a boyfriend!!!’ Like if they do this every time he mentions her in his interviews, they would totally do that in that case too - come on!!!

You want ‘cute boyfriend Louis content’??? Go try the same thing you did back in 2017. Go to his twitter, his instagram, his interview comments but this time write about how much do you in fact care about his private life, how much do you in fact care who he’s dating, how much would you in fact enjoy boyfriend Louis, how much would you in fact appreciate (and not hate or harass like you did in the past) Eleanor publically supporting and showing her love to Louis - do all of that and who knows - maybe he’ll listen to you once again!

#ugly shit

2 notes · View notes