#Internet Marketing Introduction

[digitamizer]

Retail Revolution: E-Commerce Unleashing the Power of the Internet

[artspace11275201418]

The Evolution of Digital Marketing in the Modern World

In the connected and technologically advanced world of today, digital marketing is essential to company success. 

Digital platforms and marketing methods together have completely changed how businesses interact with their customers, influencing their purchasing decisions and changing the face of business. 

A thorough examination of the development, implications, and potential futures of digital marketing is necessary to fully comprehend its subtleties and importance in the contemporary world.

The Development of Online Advertising

Digital marketing originated with the introduction of the Internet and the widespread use of personal computers. 

As the internet became more widely available, companies realized it might be a very effective tool for connecting with their target markets. 

As a result of this insight, numerous digital marketing platforms, including email, were created. marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and more.

Global Accessibility: 

Personalized targeting and global outreach are made possible by digital marketing, which transcends national boundaries.

Empowerment of Data:

 Insights from real-time analytics facilitate well-informed decision-making and the optimization of strategies.

Cost-effective Solutions: 

Scalability and competitiveness are ensured by a range of affordable solutions that cater to enterprises of all sizes.

Dominance of Interactive Content: 

Stronger bonds with consumers are established by captivating forms such as interactive storytelling and videos.

Rapid Evolution:

 In this ever-evolving landscape, those who remain ahead are rewarded for their adaptability and inventiveness as trends constantly change.

These bullet points encapsulate the heart of the rise of digital marketing, including its accessibility from anywhere in the world, data-driven insights, affordability, focus on interactive content, and need for ongoing development.

Modifying the Attitude of Consumers:

Consumer behavior has been significantly impacted by the digital era. Consumers today have unmatched access to information thanks to the widespread use of smartphones and the internet.

 This allows them to research items, compare prices, read reviews, and make well-informed purchasing decisions. Customers now have more power than ever before, therefore to attract their attention, firms must develop individualized, pertinent, and captivating marketing techniques.

Personalized Experiences:

 Creating goods and services according to the tastes of each unique customer fosters their loyalty and goodwill.

Education and Awareness: 

Transparent information about goods and services fosters trust and favorably influences customer attitudes.

Emotional Connection: 

Companies who use narrative to arouse feelings in their audience leave a lasting impression and shape consumer opinions.

Social Proof and Testimonials: 

Positive attitudes are reinforced by presenting real consumer experiences through reviews and testimonials.

Sustainable Practices:

 Adopting ethical and sustainable principles appeals to conscientious customers, positively influencing their opinions of the brand.

These ideas clarify how to favorably influence consumer views using strategies including social proof, education, emotional connections, personalization, and sustainability.

Customization and Focused Advertising:

The capacity of digital marketing to customize content according to user choices, behavior, and demographics is one of its distinguishing features.

 With the use of AI-driven algorithms and sophisticated data analytics, marketers can personalize experiences for each customer, increasing engagement and conversion rates. 

Businesses may deliver tailored communications that personally connect with their audience by using consumer data ethically and responsibly.

Micro-targeting: 

To increase relevance and engagement, adverts can be customized to target particular demographics and behaviors.

Customized Product Suggestions: 

Taking advantage of customer data to provide tailored product recommendations improves user experience and increases revenue.

Behavioral Retargeting: 

This tactic places businesses front and center in consumers' minds by strategically showcasing advertisements based on previous interactions.

Geo-Fencing:

 Location-based targeting maximizes relevance by delivering targeted advertisements to audiences in certain geographic locations.

Contextual advertising: 

Ads are more visible and more likely to be resonant with the intended audience when placed inside pertinent material or circumstances.

These points—micro-targeting, personalization, retargeting, geo-fencing, and contextual relevance—capulate the core of customization and focused advertising.

Social Media's Function:

Social media networks are now essential parts of digital marketing plans. These platforms act as focal points for consumer connection, brand promotion, and community involvement. 

Social media is a tool that brands use to build relationships with their audience, distribute informative material, target their advertising, and learn about the attitudes of their customers through comments and conversations.

Connectivity Hub: 

It acts as an international forum that promotes relationships between people, groups, and companies.

Information Dissemination: 

Social media spreads news, trends, and a variety of information quickly, which shapes conversations and opinions.

Brand Promotion: 

Companies use social media to interact with customers, engage with them, and promote their brands.

Increased Audience Reach: 

It offers a sizable audience reach, facilitating the virality and amplification of information through shares and interactions.

Advocacy and Influence:

Through social media, advocates and influencers are developed who help their followers set trends and mold ideas.

The many functions of social media, including influencer advocacy, information sources, promotional tools, reach amplifier, and hub for connectivity, are summed up in these points.

SEO and content marketing:

The importance of content marketing as a cornerstone of digital marketing has grown. Not only can good content draw in and hold the attention of viewers, but it also strengthens a brand's authority and credibility within its sector.

 Businesses use SEO strategies in conjunction with content optimization to raise their website's organic traffic and visibility by optimizing it for search engines.

Keyword Optimization:

 SEO raises a piece of content's exposure and search engine ranks by aligning it with pertinent keywords.

High-quality content creation:

 Interesting and educational content improves search engine optimization while also satisfying users.

User Experience Enhancement:

 To increase engagement, SEO promotes user-friendly website design and navigation.

Link-building Techniques: 

Increasing the quantity and quality of backlinks boosts authority and credibility, which benefits SEO.

Metrics and Analytics:

 Monitoring performance indicators directs the improvement of content and guarantees that it is in line with SEO objectives for long-term success.

These arguments clarify how SEO tactics and content marketing work together, with a focus on data-driven refinement, user experience, link building, and keyword optimization.

Online shopping and multichannel advertising:

The retail scene has changed as a result of the rise of e-commerce platforms.

 Because internet shopping is so convenient for consumers these days, omnichannel marketing strategies are being used by firms. 

Regardless of the selected touchpoint, seamless integration across various channels—physical stores, internet, mobile apps—ensures a consistent and unified customer experience.

Omnichannel Experience: 

A seamless shopping experience for customers is provided by seamless integration across many platforms.

Targeted Ad Placement: 

By reaching customers at several touchpoints, multichannel advertising strengthens brand awareness and memory.

Personalized Recommendations: 

By leveraging customer data, customized product recommendations are made possible, improving the overall purchasing experience.

Cross-Platform Consistency: 

Retaining a consistent brand message across media platforms promotes credibility and confidence.

Conversion optimization: 

By engaging customers where they are in the buying process, strategically placed multichannel advertising increases sales.

In the context of online purchasing and multichannel advertising, these themes highlight the importance of an omnichannel strategy, 

targeted advertising, tailored recommendations, brand consistency, and improved conversion tactics.

Data Security and Ethical Issues:

As digital marketing has developed, worries about data protection and moral behavior have gained prominence. 

Businesses must give user privacy, openness, and consent a priority when collecting and using customer data for marketing purposes since laws

 like the California Customer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have raised awareness of these issues.

Privacy Regulations:

 Complying with regulations such as the CCPA and GDPR guarantees ethical treatment and protects consumer data.

Transparency: 

Discussing data gathering and use openly and honestly fosters trust and allays ethical worries.

Cybersecurity Precautions:

 By putting strong security procedures in place, data is protected from hacks and unwanted access.

Consent and Control: 

Respecting consumers' autonomy means granting them control over how they use their data through opt-ins and preferences.

Ethical AI Usage: 

Bias and unethical decision-making processes are avoided by guaranteeing justice and accountability in AI systems.

To solve data security and ethical problems, these arguments emphasize the significance of privacy rules, transparency, cybersecurity, consent, and ethical AI usage.

Upcoming Developments and Trends:

Digital marketing is expected to continue evolving and innovating in the future. Marketing strategies will be reshaped by emerging technologies like voice search, augmented reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. 

These technologies will allow for more immersive brand experiences, predictive analytics, and deeper customization. 

Furthermore, it is anticipated that purpose-driven marketing, sustainability, and authenticity will all be crucial in influencing customer attitudes and brand loyalty.

Metaverse Integration: 

Augmented and virtual reality combined will change user experiences in a variety of sectors.

Voice Commerce Expansion: 

A rise in voice-activated transactions and purchasing will result from a greater reliance on voice assistants.

AI-Powered Personalization: 

Using cutting-edge AI algorithms, customized content, and goods will be delivered through hyper-personalization.

Sustainability Focus: 

In response to consumer demand for sustainable products, brands will highlight environmentally responsible operations.

Adoption of NFTs: 

Unique digital asset transactions and collectibles will be made possible by non-fungible tokens, which will transform ownership.

5G Transformation: 

Faster connectivity will be made possible by widespread 5G implementation, improving IoT, and creating more immersive experiences.

Privacy Enhancements: 

In response to mounting concerns, user data will be safeguarded by stricter privacy safeguards and decentralized technology.

These bullet points summarize emerging themes like voice commerce, AI-driven personalization, NFTs, 5G, sustainability, and improved privacy protections, as well as metaverse integration.

In summary:

Beyond its historical limitations, digital marketing has developed into a vital instrument that helps companies navigate the challenges of the contemporary world.

 Its importance is highlighted by its capacity to interact, engage, and sway customers in a dynamic and changing digital environment. Businesses that want to succeed in the rapidly changing field of 

digital marketing must innovate, adapt, and embrace ethical standards as customer preferences and technology change.

This in-depth analysis emphasizes the development, significance, and likely future course of digital marketing in the modern day, covering its many elements and crucial role in influencing modern corporate tactics.

To know more about Digital Marketing check all the information. 

Must visit: https://amzn.to/3sPmewl / https://amzn.to/3T84Qxy

Here are some FAQs to understand digital marketing in brief:

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to the use of digital channels, such as websites, social media, email, search engines, and mobile apps, to promote products or services. It involves various strategies to reach and engage with a target audience, driving brand awareness, traffic, and conversions in the online realm.

Why is Digital Marketing Important for Businesses?

Digital marketing allows businesses to reach a wider audience, target specific demographics, track and analyze performance metrics, and create personalized marketing campaigns. It offers cost-effective means to connect with customers, build brand loyalty, and adapt to changing consumer behaviors in the digital landscape.

What Are the Key Components of a Digital Marketing Strategy?

A comprehensive digital marketing strategy comprises several components, including SEO (Search Engine Optimization), content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertising (PPC), influencer marketing, and analytics. Each component serves a unique purpose in reaching and engaging with the target audience.

How Does SEO Contribute to Digital Marketing?

SEO plays a crucial role in digital marketing by optimizing websites and content to rank higher in search engine results. It involves strategies to improve visibility, increase organic traffic, and enhance a website's relevance and authority, ultimately driving more quality leads and conversions.

What Metrics are Important to Measure Digital Marketing Success?

Various metrics help gauge the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts. Key performance indicators (KPIs) include website traffic, 

conversion rates, click-through rates (CTR), engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments), return on investment (ROI), 

customer acquisition cost (CAC), and customer lifetime value (CLV). 

These metrics assist in evaluating and refining marketing strategies for better outcomes.

These FAQs provide a fundamental understanding of digital marketing, its significance, components, SEO's role, and essential metrics for measuring success.

[determinate-negation]

Hi! sorry to bother you but I would like to understand the links between liberal democracy, capitalism, and fascism and was wondering if you could talk about it more or suggest some readings around it, thank you so much.

blackshirts and reds by michael parenti is probably the best introduction to some of these concepts imo, its not the most historically detailed tho. libgen link here

palmiro togliatti's lectures on fascism are about the role of the liberal parliamentary system in setting the grounds for fascism in italy, it also has some lectures on characteristics of fascist propaganda and tactics

this is a bit of a tome and i havent read the whole thing although im familiar with the argument, but the weimar republic: the crisis of classical modernity by detlev peukurt illustrates some of the contradictions in liberal democracy and modernity that lead towards fascism. herbert marcuse's essays on technology war and fascism are also pretty good

and not to self promote but i posted some essays i wrote on italian fascism and its relation to capitalist markets and commodities, and fascisms relation to imperialist economic policy. the references in my bibliography might be useful

also gonna link @estrellasrojas essay from a while back on fascism

[firadessa]

✨Fairies Finds✨: New Early Artwork and Promotional Video from 2005 Disney Fairies Japan Website with Gail Carson Levine- Author of Fairy Dust Trilogy

Fly with you everyone and happy Friday the 13th! I have been looking into Disney Fairies pre-release stuff ever since some early stuff was posted into Art of Disney Fairies. I have also been interested in media preservation since late 2017 when I found Web Back Then. Truthfully, despite having this interest when trying to find the old Disney Fairies games from my childhood- I never really shared much with the world. I feel like I should remedy that! (this find is relatively recent though I found it yesterday!)

This is a video I found on the Internet Archive from disneyfairies.jp, a promotional page on the Disney Japan website that seems disconnected from the main Disney Fairies page which was a clone of the original website. See here

Through some research the gist of the video is this:

The video starts with an introduction to the original Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, which is interjected with clips from Disney's Peter Pan. Then we see more artwork of Disney Fairies- including unfamilar designs including early Vidia, Rani, Fira etc. According to Part of the Magic, Disney Fairies started development in early 2001- the series was launched fully in 2005. Then Gail (dubbed of course) begins to describe the plot of Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg whilst we see several pictures of this early Disney Fairies art. Interesting pictures as we get to see the very early designs of Disney Fairies characters that I have never seen before.

Interestingly, this video was never embedded on the page, you had to download it and play it through a video player such as Windows Media Player or Real Player, it was 2005 after all.

Here is the screen you'd see when you'd want to watch this promotional video. I recognize the leaves used in early flash games such as Lightball Challenge, Dragonfly Race etc.

A page on the website that I found with my decomplier, i couldn't view it normally!

I tried looking for this video in English to no avail, or any version on the internet. It must have only been accessible through this website.

Interestingly, I found this other page whilst doing my page digging thing again and found this, suggesting this was also a Japan exclusive and not for the American market ... and there is more early promotional stuff to be found in relation to Disney Fairies!

I also looked into one the main book artists on the creative team, Judith Holmes Clarke. She had a website I found on her IMDB page, that was live around 2017-2019. I saw this and wanted to add it as it had one of the stills in this video. It also has a sketch of Rosetta and Tink. This is what I found:

It is probably a scan of this magazine, Disney Newsreel, mentioned on her IMDB.

Overall, I'm super happy with this find and I'm so happy to share it with you all!! I will be happy to share more now that I'm publicly outing myself not just as this fan of children's fairy media- an archivist. gasp...

Also probably making a website/blog which I will share later and will be in the About Me link with my other socials.

And believe me, this is just the beginning

[shimmerloid-ai]

Introduction - What is VOCALOID?

Hello everyone, Shimmer here! This is my first post in this guide blog thingy. I thought it would be a good idea to explain what VOCALOID actually is before I jump into how to use the software. Otherwise, it would be like baking a cake without knowing what cakes are.

So, let’s start by addressing what VOCALOID is not.

VOCALOID is NOT an anime series. Although Hatsune Miku made cameos in "Dropkick on My Devil!", she never originated from an anime series because she is NOT an anime character.

Second, VOCALOIDs are not those crappy AI voice models. You know, those weird “voicebanks” where you can make Spongebob Squarepants sing "7 Rings" or have Cartman from South Park rap "INDUSTRY BABY"? Yeah, those are actually illegal renditions of celebrity voices without the knowledge of the voice actors/influencers/singers whose voices were used to make the models. You just put the models over an audio track, and boom. Lazy, illegal shit.

Finally, this is just common sense, but VOCALOID did not originate from Project Sekai! Colorful Stage! The Cryptonloids (Miku, Rin, Len, Luka, Kaito, and Meiko) have existed long before the game was released; VOCALOID 1 was released in 2004, while the money making machine was launched in Japan in 2020. That is a gap of sixteen years, and if you compare the time between Hatsune Miku V2's release and Project Sekai, we have another thirteen year difference there.

With that being said, what *is* VOCALOID?

The best definition I can give you is that it is a digital singing synthesizer. Basically, it is an instrument, but instead of piano notes, you get vocals.

And no, *this* AKITO is not associated with the Akito Shinonome from Project Sekai.

To advertise this voicebanks and increase their appeal, Crypton, VSINGER, AH-Software Co., Internet Co. Ltd, and many other companies that make voicebanks for this software have cute or hot anime-style avatars designed for their box art. This was a great marketing scheme in my opinion, because wouldn't you be more inclined to purchasing something if it looks aesthetic, kawaii, or epic? Just look at GUMI's design!

Alright, I have a feeling I may have bored most users who are reading this weird info-dump, so I am going to add one final, important point. Remember our wood analogy? Well, we have the workbench (VOCALOID), and the wood (the voicebank(s) of your choice). Making a desk for instance would be like making a cover of a song. But people can make the same kind of desk with an entirely different appearance or texture. Similarly, a lot of producers can make covers of the same song, but they can sound entirely different in regards to their pitch, tone, or melody. This aspect is known as "tuning".

Tuning is basically the process of editing the properties of a voicebank and the notes/lyrics they are singing to create a specific sound. People can tune the same song in different ways. For instance, listen to the original "Rolling Girl" by wowaka, and then these covers. They are all the same song, but tuned in entirely different ways.

Below is the original song:

And these are all covers:

Also yeah, that last cover is mine, it's my blog, I can promote my content if I want to)

I hope that just by listening to these you can see how tuning can vary from individual to individual. Its all a matter of how you control the parameters of the singer.

So yeah, I yapped enough so I'm gonna end this infodump right here. I'm not surprised if you guys are still confused, so I'm going to leave some helpful resources down below as these people are better at explaining shit than I am.

My next post will involve some common terminology used in the VOCALOID community, such as “VSQx”, or “pitchbending”.

Goodbye for now!

[tangledbea]

the way some of rapunzel’s quirks are milked to death kind of makes me dislike them sometimes. like the way she’s always barefoot, or her weapon of choice being a frying pan. these are things that weren’t really conscious decisions of hers at the point of introduction (no shoes needed in the tower, or maybe they weren’t bought for her; likely grabbed the first heavy she saw to defend herself). i know it’s too late to do anything about it now, not that they ever would have, but the media and series pushes these aspects of hers heavily (because of marketing etc, i know but) and it’s a bit grating sometimes.

It's funny that you say the marketing pushes these things when dolls and figures alike put her in shoes all the time, as did her "comfy" look in Ralph Breaks the Internet.

She also made the conscious decision to take the frying pan with her, and kept using it as a weapon until it got lost in the river after the cave. And frankly, someone who's never worn shoes in their life wouldn't find shoes remotely comfortable. Not to mention, Rapunzel is exactly the sort of person who likes to feel the textures and temperature of the ground because she like to experience things.

I'm much more irritated that they insist on marketing her with long hair and a crown because ✨glamor✨.

[anelegaicmind]

I think a lot of cognitive dissonance in the world may actually come from humanity's inability to imagine novel things. It's particularly easy to see in LGBT culture the appropriation of religious ideals and, separately, in moments of significant technological change a refusal to embrace the change it brings. In both of these examples the innovator is unable to break ground into a wholly new concept outright but rather uses historic examples as a crutch to push an idea forward.

The LGBT battle for gay marriage (specifically the religious ceremony in a religious place of worship) rather than simply fighting for equal rights between LGBT couples and heterosexual couples always struck me as strange. On one side you have the very human desire for comfort of the familiar and to be a part of a perceived norm, to fit in and be accepted as part of existing traditions. Then on the other side you have a religious ceremony from a certain religion that has very specifically persecuted the LGBT community for hundreds of years resulting in a horrendously toxic environment they feel the need to break free from. Marriage is specifically designed in that religion as an afront toward any non heteronormative relationship so it strikes me as cognitive dissonance to then fight for the right for a religious tradition that was designed against you. Why could they not imagine a new tradition? A new ceremony to celebrate love rather than seek the validation of a God that wants to punish them?

The lack of imagination toward novel things is even more apparent in art and technology. During the introduction of both the car and the photograph, despite having the ability to entirely reimagine the world and revolutionise the way we think they stuck doggedly, for decades, to their past ideals. Cars were modelled on the horse drawn carriage. It took until after WW2 before significant aesthetic changes started to happen that made the two distinct. Similarly, the internal combustion engine was treated very much with the principles of horse drawn carriages in that noone imagined, let alone desired a faster car until Henry Ford turned the market upside down by declaring the consumer as stupid.

Photography followed a similar vein by remaining rooted firmly in the ideals of oil painting; refusing to see a world beyond this. Surprisingly, it was the painters who revolutionised how we see the world as impressionism sought desperately to find a new place for the oil painting as photography usurped the need for realism. Certainly, it wasn't until the modernists as well as the revolutionaries within the USSR sought to divorce themselves from 'the old' ways of thinking and discovered how photography can exist as an art form entirely in its own right.

While I picked what might be a somewhat triggering topic as my first example the point of this isn't to sway thought on any of these in any way. They're merely examples of the process that I stated at the beginning. Humans are unable to imagine novel things and so we choose to stick doggedly to the past even when it is no longer relevant. There is so much cognitive dissonance in every part of our modern world, no doubt due to massive misinformation campaigns from governments as well as businesses. Propaganda rules our political lives while corporate branding seeks to paint businesses in the light that sells the most products. We have entire government agencies dedicated to employing trolls across the internet whose comments then train 'the almighty' AI. Meanwhile, populations become bipolar as they argue over trivial matters such as gender and immigration: battlegrounds manufactured by our governments to smoke screen the utter devastation that capitalism brings upon us all. Perhaps we need to take a step back from trying to fit in with 'the old' ways. Perhaps we need to start to reject previous ideals when we are faced with new ideas and new problems. Perhaps by approaching the new innovative world that we are being continually driven into with a mindset of open discovery we can side step the cognitive dissonance that blurs our ability to empathise with one another and imagine new things, a new world and a new peace.

[the-conversation-pod]

The VIIB Awards 2024: Special Class

Finishing with Part 5 of 5 of the Very Important Internet BL Awards, we are handing out our awards for our special class dramas!

We will be awarding Honorable Mentions to shows that did something specifically notable, and we will be awarding awards for Best After School Special, Best Family Drama, and Best Slice-of-Life Drama.

Thank you for spending the last week with us! Please tag us with your own awards!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:23 - Introduction 03:03 - Interlude: The Beach - Moonlight (2016) 04:18 - Honorable Mention: The Day I Loved You 10:26 - Honorable Mention: Chen Yi and Ai Di 15:44 - Honorable Mention: Sasake and Miyano: Graduation 21:41 - Sixth Man: Mark Pakin Kuna-anuvit 31:33 - Standout Queer Narrative: Moonlight Chicken 38:02 - Standout Queer Narrative: The Warp Effect 41:30 - Standout Queer Narrative: What Did You Eat Yesterday? 2 46:54 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

[fanfare sound]

01:23 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back. We have reviewed all of the shows under the more traditional frameworks. We've gone over which talents we were really fond of, which pairings we're really fond of, who we thought did a great job assembling a show, and what were the bangers of the year.

It's time to award the shows so good that they would have skewed the results, or in our estimation, are not primarily driven by romance in a way that makes them fit under the traditional BL criteria.

NiNi

Here in our Special Class Awards, we have three award categories, and each award category can have multiple awardees, which is why it's special. [laughs] 

So our three categories are Honorable Mentions, the Sixth Man Award, and our Standout Queer Narratives Award. In Honorable Mentions, we're going to be acknowledging key contributions to the genre from various filming markets and traditions that are perhaps outside of the main and the ones that we discuss. In the Sixth Man Award, we want to acknowledge the most valuable and versatile supporting actor of the year. And under Standout Queer Narratives, we want to acknowledge queer works that are not primarily romances.

03:03 Interlude: The Beach - Moonlight (2016)

Kevin 

“That breeze feel good as hell man.”

Chiron

“Yeah it do.”

Kevin

“Sometimes round the way, where we live, you can catch this same breeze. It come through the hood and it’s like everything stop for a second ‘cause everyone just wanna feel it. Everything just get quiet, you know?”

Chiron

“And it’s like all you can hear is your own heartbeat, right?”

Kevin

“Yeah…feel so good, man. “

Chiron

“So good…. “

Kevin

“Hell, shit make you want to cry, it feel so good.”

Chiron

“You cry?”

Kevin

“Nah. But it makes me want to… What you cry about?” 

Chiron

“Shit, I cry so much sometimes I feel like I'ma just turn to drops.”

04:18 Honorable Mention: The Day I Loved You

NiNi

So let's start with our Honorable Mentions. And this year we have three. I'll let Ben take you through them.

Ben

The first one I want to acknowledge this year is a show from the Philippines called The Day I Loved You. [Applause sound] I don't think I ever actually managed to write about this show because you're reacting to a show that is fundamentally tragic. I remember watching it with Kyra, and we called it, like, the Nicholas Sparks BL of the year. 

In this show, we have a femme boy who's kind of bullied at school but doesn't seem to care about it. He ends up developing a thing with the new hot guy at the school who's here from Singapore, and there's, like, a love triangle with his best friend. And we realize that the reason why he's been holding back romantically in this story is because he has a debilitating condition that is gonna involve him declining and losing control of his limbs and other mobility along the way. So he's leery of beginning something with someone. 

The way this plays out is really beautiful. There's a richness to the way a lot of the Filipino storytelling is done that I really connect to all the time. Even when I'm not watching BL, I really like Filipino cinema when I have the opportunity to really engage with some of their work. And even though BL in the Philippines has been really struggling with the lack of investment right now. 

This show is really well produced—it's available on YouTube—and takes the dynamics here very seriously. The best friend is not going to be the one who's chosen because he doesn't want his best friend, who he knows loves him, to also go through the ugliness of his decline. His suitor in this eventually pushes past some of these barriers, but the show never downplays the seriousness of Eli's condition. His condition worsens. It is not a pretty experience. But there is this beautiful amount of heart in it. 

This show is the one that has stuck with me quietly all year long. I think about the show at least once a month or so, and have been trying to find a way to properly write about it. In a year where we didn't really have a lot to point to from the Philippines that we really thought a lot of folks should rally behind, this is one of the standouts that I think you all should go back and watch if you can handle a tragic romance, not unlike the experience you might have with a Nicholas Sparks movie or book.

NiNi

So, I have not seen The Day I Loved You because I feel like I am not emotionally capable of watching that right now. It's the same reason I haven't caught up on Eternal Yesterday. There are some things that I'm holding in reserve because I don't think that I have the emotional bandwidth or capacity to handle right now. But I was sort of following along while you and Kyra were doing your watch, and I am looking forward to getting around to it when I have the emotional wherewithal to stand up to the tragedy, because I do sometimes enjoy—I guess ‘enjoy’ is a strange word—but enjoy a good tragic romance. 

I tend to enjoy work from the Philippines, especially when the production quality lines up with the ideas they're trying to espouse. And so, given everything that you've said about it to me up until now, it's on my list. I just don't know when I'm going to get to it.

Ben

I think the production quality is about where The Boy Foretold by the Stars is. It's slightly under Gameboys.

NiNi

I think that's a good spot to land.

Ben

The music's good, like the song that they selected for the intro is a banger. It's called Sweet + Wild by YANCO—such an excellent song.

NiNi

I love Filipino music, as you are well aware, so really looking forward to that.

Ben

It's a really excellently put together little production. There's a lot of heart in the story and it takes its characters and its conceits really seriously, in a way that I found really compelling. And I continue to be really impressed with the way the Philippines explores Catholicism and Christianity inside of BL. It's one of the unique things that the Philippines can do, and I like that they do it well consistently.

NiNi

It's one of the things that draws me to them as well, being a lapsed Catholic myself. Lapsed? Former? What's the terminology these days? Having grown up Catholic, it's one of the things that does draw me to the Philippines, and I feel like I understand a lot of what they are getting into in their narratives and in their characters because of that.

Ben

The Day I Loved You from Regal Entertainment, directed by Easy Ferrer, starring Tommy Alejandrino as Nico, Raynald Tan as Eli, and Rabin Josh as Justine.

10:26 Honorable Mention: Chen Yi and Ai Di

NiNi 

Our next Honorable Mention award is not for a show. It is for a couple coming out of Taiwan from the show Kiseki: Dear To Me, Chen Yi and Ai Di. [Applause sound] It has been a long time, for me anyway, since a side couple completely took over the show from the main couple to the point that I'm kind of only slightly sure what happened to the [laughs] main couple on Kiseki? But I know for sure what happened to Chen Yi and Ai Di. [laughs]

Kiseki was a mixed bag. It was a strange year from Taiwan. Nothing really landed. They did quite a bit that I ended up, in the end, not watching. I think Ben, you watched most of it?

Ben

Unfortunately.

NiNi

It was a very strange year. The only thing that drew me in was Kiseki and then, it was a strange show. I didn't expect something like that from Lin Pei Yu. But the light in the tunnel was definitely Chen Yi and Ai Di, played by Nat Chen and Louis Chiang. 

They play orphans who basically grew up inside the mafia. Chen Yi thinks he's in love with the mafia boss, while Ai Di is in love with Chen Yi. Hijinks ensue. Let's just put it that way. Hijinks ensue. And then Ai Di goes to jail for four years, but before he goes to jail, he and Chen Yi have sex while Chen Yi is, shall we say, altered? And then Ai Di goes to jail and Chen Yi is left with his feelings trying to sort of understand how he feels and where he stands with Ai Di. Then when Ai Di gets out of jail, he's pissed, and trying to keep his distance from Chen Yi. But Chen Yi has now realized how in love he is, and he's not gonna let that stand. 

It is one of the crackheads ships I've ever seen. But also kind of delightful in a way? [laughs] But the important thing is that they really took over the show. I don't mean that in a critical way. I mean that of all the things that were happening on Kiseki, they were easily the most interesting. 

Ben 

So it was a weird year for Taiwan and part of why I wanted to talk about these two is because there's just been less activity from Taiwan and the BL front. Some of that has to do with a lot of complicating factors [laughs] we won't get into on this podcast. But in all the things released—quick aside, there is an interesting project happening right now in Taiwan in that the Friday Taiwanese BLs are being produced by a single company doing a dedicated for BL project. I don't think it's been that great personally, but it's rare that we get dedicated BL commitment in a time slot, and while I don't think the projects have been really strong, the things that Taiwan is good at remain. Like, the overall cast chemistry from Taiwan still remains the best. They are very good at getting the whole cast to believably play off of each other, even in characters who only interact once or twice in the whole show. It is always impressive and especially with the romantic and sexual chemistry. I enjoy the paired chemistry of actors from Taiwan, more [than] the other BL producing countries more often than not. 

In this particular show, I think both couples had really strong performances as couples with each other. And we ended up focusing on Ai Di and Chen Yi a lot because they're the mafia boys and Louis Chiang's character wears a choker the whole time, and is always trying to murder someone, and he's shorter than everyone, and everyone loves that! Every time I see this boy getting a little bit mad, I'm like, yes! Kill them! 

But they were really good. And it was funny, like, the show shifts towards the back half where we spend a great deal of time focusing on them, and they get the final shot of the show. It's so weird! This side couple legitimately won. I'm just amazed by that choice. 

NiNi 

A choice it definitely was. With all that said, Honorable Mention award to Chen Yi and Ai Di from Kiseki: Dear to Me from Taiwan, played by Nat Chen and Louis Chiang. 

15:44 Honorable Mention: Sasake and Miyano: Graduation

NiNi 

The third and final Honorable Mention award this year goes to an anime project. Sasaki and Miyano: Graduation. [applause sound] 

Ben, lead the way. 

Ben 

Okay! Let's talk about anime. So, yaoi is old, a lot older than people realize. We have art made by, we suspect to be women, going as far back as the 1400s, of guys sucking each others dicks. This is not a new phenomenon. At all.

And so, when we're talking about, like, what is BL doing, what is BL, where is BL going? A big question is always what is happening on the written front? What novels are popular in various cultures, and in, for Japan in particular, it's going to be manga. A significant amount of content is adapted directly from manga because manga is already successful, it has a built in fan base, and the manga itself serves as a storyboard and it's very easy to win fans over by taking popular panels and recreating them on screen for maximum impact. What's also notable is, when something is doing really well, it's going to get an anime adaptation. Anime is far more expensive to produce than live action content. 

So, Sasaki and Miyano is a story about these guys in high school. One is a little bit older and is going to be graduating soon. His name is Sasaki and he helps Miyano in an instant where these guys are bullying one of Miyano’s friends, and Miyano wants to jump in. Sasaki sees that Miyano wants to help, and he jumps in to help, kind of gets his ass whipped anyway, but the two of them start hanging out. 

Sasaki learns pretty early on that Miyano is a fudanshi—this is the boy version of a fujoshi—he reads BL all the time. He is one of us. But he doesn't think of himself as queer at the beginning of this. Sasaki ends up becoming very fond of Miyano, starts reading BL because it's very important to Miyano, and a relationship blossoms between them. Where this particular show is fascinating for me is because Miyano is a fudanshi, and Sasaki is not. And this is evinced most notably in the movie that released this year: Graduation, where Miyano’s understanding of what m/m romance is supposed to look like is influenced by BL, and we get this really incredible moment in the movie where after sorting through some of their stuff, they're having this moment that is sexually charged. And Miyano, who's shorter than Sasaki, and because he's more petite, a lot of people might expect him to be the uke-slash-bottom in this instance, he stops the moment that they're having and says, “I'm not an uke.” And this is also backed by the fact that Miyano does not have uke hair [laughs] but Sasaki does. 

NiNi 

[laughs] I know what that is now. 

Ben 

It also gets confused because Sasaki has yaoi hands. 

NiNi 

Okay, wait, pause. What are yaoi hands? 

Ben 

So whenever you're watching yaoi—animated yaoi—seme my hands are fucking enormous, because they want you to focus on their fingers and stuff, so their hands are fucking enormous. 

NiNi 

Listen, the things I learn on this show. 

Ben 

It's interesting because Sasaki, who just recognizes his attraction to Miyano, and maybe knew about himself already—it's a little unclear on that front. He doesn't care what position Miyano wants him to take, he just wants to be with Miyano. It's not that explicit, like the show's not going to point the camera at us and go, “Let's break down and talk about the [laughs] social politics of BL and how it impacts the youths’ maturation.” But it's apparent that it's one of the things it's thinking about because we get this really excellent presentation through Miyano, who is struggling to contextualize their relationship because his primary framework for understanding relationships between two men is formed by BL, which is not a great source, obviously [laughs] for this ‘cause BL is fictional, and is trying to just have fun with a lot of readers preconceptions of stuff. So, we get to watch them figure out what their relationship is going to be while deconstructing some BL presumptions. And it's a really enjoyable experience watching this really adorable little show. 

NiNi 

My brain is still stuck on yaoi hands. 

Ben 

All right, legit. Legit. You can pause right now and you can go Google yaoi hands. It's a whole thing. 

NiNi 

I believe you. [laughs] I'm gonna wait until after the show. So… 

Ben 

Ginny is in the fucking transcript right now Googling ‘yaoi hands.’ 

[both laugh]

NiNi 

Ginny, I don't know if I should say I'm sorry or you're welcome. 

Ben 

The third and final award goes to Sasaki and Miyano, developed by Studio Dean. 

21:41 Sixth Man: Mark Pakin Kuna-anuvit

NiNi 

Our next category of awards is the Sixth Man Award. We are going to name the Sixth Man award for its inaugural awardee, and the inaugural Sixth Man awardee is one Khun Mark Pakin Kuna-anuvit. [fanfare sound] Mark Pakin, the most valuable and versatile supporting actor of the year. So this award shall forever be known after this as the Mark Pakin Sixth Man Award. 

Bestie, I want you to go first here. Why is Mark Pakin not just our inaugural winner, but why is this award being named after him? 

Ben 

It's easy to get caught up in the ships, and the leads, and all the actors, and the big romance parts. But a big part of any successful story is going to be how well the lead characters play off of their supporting characters. It's notable when you look at Mark's credits since 2021, when he first appeared in a small role in I Promised You the Moon, since then every single show he's been in has been one of the highlight shows of the year. 

Mark was in Bad Buddy, My School President, The Warp Effect, Moonlight Chicken, Only Friends, and now Last Twilight. Mark picks good projects and he makes them better because he can play whatever is needed of him in each of these shows. And because, as NiNi says, I bring the lore, when you watch the behind the scenes stuff and what people say about Mark, he is a huge presence behind the scenes helping manage morale and the overall mood of the set when he's present. Mark is working even when the camera is not in front of him, and making sure people are taken care of, and making sure people are grounded, and making sure that people stay in the right headspace so that they can do the work. And it clearly pays off. 

Mark is really talented and you can feel how effective he was as one of the oldest actors on My School President in particular, and helping Gemini in a lot of his scenes. Mark plays so well with Fourth in Moonlight Chicken. Mark has a couple of moments with Earth in Moonlight Chicken that I still think about, like particularly the scene where Saleng receives the dowry gift from Jim, or the scene where he's leaving in, like, episode one and he's kind of shuffling out of the place. Or even just his goofy ass showing up at the end now that he's moved into, like, a value position at the water park he's working at. 

Like, it's so incredible to watch Mark work whenever he's on screen. You are just so excited that he's back on screen and he does that completely from a supporting role. He is doing a great job without stealing the show or the scene from the other people that are in it. No disrespect to some of the other actors out there who are really talented, but they can't help but chew the scenery and take over every moment that they're in. Mark is really good at dialing in his performance to exactly where it needs to be in any scene, any moment. He can go really high or really low. He can go big or small as needed, and then turn it on a dime. And it's so impressive to watch. It's notable that every show he's been in has rated highly with audiences. And I just at this point find it hard to not see a pattern with his presence, and people's general love of his characters, and the shows and the storylines around where his character is involved. 

NiNi 

This year I watched Mark's play—technically six, if you consider the Our Skyy: My School President AU?

Ben 

Kind of counts. We'll call it six. We had six different versions of Mark Pakin on our screen this year. 

NiNi 

And all of them were different. Every single one of them was different. And if you expand out to his other roles, every role that he has ever played, he is a different person. I do not know how he does that. I talked in the Moonlight Chicken episode about how loose he plays as Saleng. His body language is loose. The way that he speaks is loosened. It's such a different version of him that comes up as Nick in Only Friends. You can feel some of the anxiety that comes off of Nick. You can feel his vulnerability. Compare that to Tiwson in My School President, who is nothing if not confident. Ultimately, utterly confident. Every single role that he plays is just different. Physically, he acts differently. He sounds different. The way that he interacts with the other characters becomes different. He is building these characters right in front of our eyes, almost in a weird way, in real time. And then when you see him off the clock—well, not off the clock—but when you see him behind the scenes and you see him just sort of being Mark, that's a completely different person, too. 

I am not the lore person, Ben is the lore person. But I did happen to see within the last couple of days a conversation on some one of these variety shows between Mark and Namtan. And Namtan is talking about being on the Last Twilight set and working with Film on the upcoming GL Pluto. And the way that Mark interacts with Namtan, and the way that they discuss acting, and the way that he supports her in those moments in the variety show. Like, he's kind of interviewing her but also praising her. I just think about what it's like to have somebody like Mark in your corner on set. And he did this too, we saw, in some of the behind the scenes on Only Friends. There's a particular one that I'm thinking of where Force played a fairly difficult emotional scene. And after the scene was over, Mark was there to say, “Yeah, guy, that was really good.” And to discuss in detail and specificity what about the way the that Force acted in that take really worked. 

Ben 

He was gassing Force up, and Force was eating it up. He was a little shy about it, but Mark came in and was yelling at this man. He's like, “You did amazing! You fucking crushed that, dude!” 

NiNi 

Mark is what I like to call an actor's actor. I don't know what else to say about this dude. He's only 25. There is so much ahead of him. 

Ben 

He's playing a very serious character on Last Twilight right now, and I remember seeing in one of the early behind the scenes things Aof was talking about Mark and he's like, “We weren't sure what was going on. Like, Mark was playing the scene and we were like, wait, what's going on? Mark Pakin’s on screen but we're not laughing or smiling.” And they asked Mark about it and he's like, “Well, I'm not playing a comedic character. Like, this is pretty—it's a pretty sad character, guys.”

NiNi 

One of the stories of this year, I think that we're going to get into a little bit in the year in review, is people finally putting some goddamn respect on some comedic actors' names. Because, guys comedy is hard. It is so hard. It is harder in certain ways than playing drama. And so when you get a really good, really good comedic actor, you should know off the bat that they're gonna be good at drama, because it's just easier. Mark Pakin is a really fucking good comedic actor. I don't know where this kid came from. 

Ben 

Nadao Bangkok. 

NiNi 

Well, yes, there was that. [both laugh] He's only 25. He's got so much ahead of him. But in terms of what's already behind him, gotta give him props for that. And that is why he is both the inaugural Sixth Man award awardee and is going to be the person after whom this award is named going forward. So congratulations to Mark Pakin Kuna-anuvit. 

Ben 

We're big fans of yours, Mark, if you ever hear this. Please keep working. We love everything you're doing, and I'm really glad you committed to acting. 

NiNi 

I genuinely cannot wait to see what this kid does next. 

31:33 Standout Queer Narrative: Moonlight Chicken

NiNi

We are now in the Standout Queer Narratives category of our Special Class awards. These three shows are chosen because while they might be in genre, they're not really of genre.

Ben

So, BL is a romance genre. The thrust of BL is about the romantic relationship at its core, and seeing it to completion. You go to a BL and you expect the very pretty boys in the intro to flirt with each other a bunch and eventually sort out their dramas and pair up by the end. Sometimes we're dramatic and they don't pair up, but we come to the genre because we want to see the cute boys get together. There's a big difference between a queer drama and a queer romance. And BL is romance. And so if you're wondering where Moonlight Chicken was  [fanfare sound] [laughs] for the last week with us, it's why it's here. We talked about this in our episode, which you can go listen to. We praised it for, like, an hour and a half. 

Moonlight Chicken is a family drama. The only ‘I love you’ said in the whole show is between Jim and Li Ming. The relationship between Wen and Jim is important, but it's primarily about how Jim's queer experience has further weakened the version of his life he thought he was building, and how Wen is an opportunity for him to not perpetually punish himself for the way certain things went wrong. It is important to the story but their romance is part of the drama around the diner, and the people who are connected to Jim. Like, Saleng and Praew are not a side couple, and I wouldn't even classify Heart and Li Ming as a side couple in this. They are just one of the dynamics that's being explored in this show, and it has resonance with Jim because Li MIng is Jim’s son in all but name. And so that's the crux of the whole story here. 

Moonlight Chicken is truly fantastic, and I don't know that if we put Moonlight Chicken under the traditional scope we were doing in the award show that it would have won in every category it was in, but it would have probably superseded a lot of these just because of the scope of the project. That is not fair to the other shows, because the other shows are operating under the presumptions of romance as a genre. 

It may feel like we're splitting hairs to some of you, and I'm sorry I can't make it more clear or explain this better. But we don't like to put bad bitches up against each other [NiNi laughs] on this podcast.

NiNi

Not even in our awards shows.

Ben

Like our award shows are really about, like, these are the top two projects that we really like the most. We give them awards because it's more dramatic for us to fight over who's better than the other one. But it isn't good to put a project like Moonlight Chicken up against the other shows that we talked about earlier this week with you all. 

NiNi, any other things you want to add for Moonlight Chicken, since we've already gushed over the show once this year.

NiNi

I mean, we spent—unedited—close to three hours talking about Moonlight Chicken. I don't know what I can say that I haven't already said about this show. It is not primarily a romance. There are some parts of the audience that kind of bounced off of it or bounced off parts of it. And that's because it's not a romance. And that's okay if you come to this genre expecting romance, and you see Moonlight Chicken and you're just kind of like, “Oh, I don't know.” I'm going to judge you a little bit, but ultimately, yeah, you're right. It's not a romance. What it is is a haunting, absolutely haunting examination of love and loss and family and intergenerational trauma. It's about community. It's about coming to terms with yourself at literally every stage of being. Coming to terms with yourself in your youth, coming to terms with yourself as you start to become a real adult, coming to terms with yourself in your middle age. I have no more words, so I'm not going to try.

Ben

It has Mark Pakin in it!

NiNi

[laughs] If you haven't watched this and you like things like Parenthood or Friday Night Lights.

Ben

Aging ourselves immediately.

NiNi

Go watch it.

Ben

It is our Standout Queer Narrative as the family drama of the year that we were most enamored by.

NiNi

Moonlight Chicken produced and aired by GMMTV, starring Earth Pirapat Watthanasetsiri and Mix Sahaphap Wongratch among others, including the Sixth Man Mark Pakin, and directed by Aof Noppharnach Chaiyahwimhon.

38:02 Standout Queer Narrative: The Warp Effect

Ben

Our next show that we wanted to talk about was The Warp Effect [fanfare sound] as our after-school special [laughs] show of the year. It also has Mark Pakin in it!

NiNi

[laughs] This is not a coincidence. I think Ben is right. I think that putting Mark Pakin in your show automatically raises the level.

Ben

So, despite our [laughs] mixed bag of Jojo shows this year, he and NiNew did a really good job on The Warp Effect, exploring the social politics of sex, and how they impact people even 10 years later for the things you do in high school. I think they did a good job with the sex ed 101 component of it. You could see some of Jojo's Gay OK, Bangkok roots coming back there. And it was a lot of fun seeing Jojo work with a large cast of men and women talking about the way sex worked for them, how it didn't necessarily always work for some of them. And it was so legible! Like, it was amazing to me from week-to-week how much recall I had of that show from week-to-week, ‘cause that show was packed. It had like three to five threads it was juggling in every single episode, and yet I was still able to hold them from week to week—and as you all know, I watch too much. So, the likelihood that I forget stuff is high. 

It was so much fun to watch this for the 12 weeks it was on.

NiNi

One of the things that I think it did really well is balance its themes with its narrative. I think that a lot of shows this year sort of failed at that balance. I think The Warp Effect was probably the strongest at doing that all year. It doesn't fall into the BL categories because it's not a BL.

Ben

The main character is literally straight.

NiNi

But we wanted to acknowledge all the things that it did really well, and also acknowledge that it was a very queer narrative, because the main character, yes, is straight and he has straight problems. But within the show we have a gay couple, a lesbian couple, Mark Pakin in a relationship with a trans woman.

Ben

Who Mark made blush all the time. [both laugh]

NiNi

Again, that behind the scenes stuff he's so good at. We had couples involved in kink, which kink is not technically queer, but they're definitely in the vicinity.

Ben

They're getting their asses beat with us on the streets. They count.

NiNi

We've got an aromantic character. We've got bisexuals, we've got everybody in this show. It is super queer in only the way a Jojo show can really be. And it was just fun to watch. It is an after school special that did not feel preachy. It was lighthearted where it needed to be. It was serious where it needed to be. It's a great show and definitely one of the standout great narratives of the year. 

The Warp Effect produced and aired by GMMTV. Starring everybody you can think of [laughs], directed by Jojo Tichakorn Phukhaotong.

41:30 Standout Queer Narrative: What Did You Eat Yesterday? 2

NiNi

Our final Standout Queer Narrative award, and our final Special Class award goes to the granddaddy of this podcast. It’s What Did You Eat Yesterday? Season 2, guys. [fanfare sound] Do we even need to explain this?

Ben

The only thing that could have possibly made What Did You Eat Yesterday? 2 better was if Mark Pakin was somehow involved with it.

[both laugh]

NiNi

I can’t stand you. So What Did You Eat Yesterday? falls into the slice-of-life genre. We would have talked about What Did You Eat Yesterday? ad nauseam in our Om Nom Nom episode, which you would have heard if the editing is right… last week… sometime?

Ben

Oh my God.

NiNi

[laughs] Don't quote me on that. Listen guys, the editing is…it's gonna be what it is. So we would have waxed poetic about this show for, at the very least, an hour.

Ben

And you've already heard Ginny’s supercut of me mentioning the show unprompted all year long.

NiNi

You would have definitely heard Ben, bringing up What Did You Eat Yesterday? every chance he gets in our holiday clip show. 

This show is amazing. Nishijima and Uchino are amazing. I did not expect to get more What Did You Eat Yesterday? this year. The fact that we got it is a gift.

Ben

This season 2 picks up a little bit after the movie. Shiro and Kenji been together for about eight years now, and we continue with more stories about their lives. The big theme for this season: they are dealing with the fact that they are in their 50s now. They're getting older and they're going through physical and emotional changes, and there are changes going on in their personal, professional, and family lives that they also have to manage as well. 

This show remains kind of unique. BL is romance. It’s focused on people getting together. What What Did You Eat Yesterday? is focused on as a slice-of-life food drama, is about a couple staying together and dealing with the things that come up in their lives. Less than a handful of shows allow us to return to characters and see how they're doing and if they're going to make it and stick together. And What Did You Eat Yesterday? is so important in that regard, not just because it's about a long-term relationship. It's also about older gay men. And it's super important that we conceive of the idea that there are older gay couples. We do get to grow old with each other. That's also–and marriage equality is important. You want your boys to grow old together? There are gays who are old right now. You deserve to see gays getting older together and doing their best for each other. 

What a lovely season we had because everybody got to grow this season. We got to see Shiro take on more professional responsibility than he was maybe willing to. Kenji got to grow professionally as well. Wataru was still a bitch the whole time, but he feels like a friend now?

[both laugh]

NiNi

I'm still creasin’ over the 50 balloon. [laughs] Oh God, that was such bitchy energy. I love it.

Ben

I just love how at this point, Kohinata and Wataru feel like their friends. And that was so important for me that we got to see them having a relationship with another gay couple. Kenji finally got to meet Kayoko this season. What a delight that was.

NiNi

And Kayoko treating him like a celebrity when she runs into him in the grocery store. So fun. Great, phenomenal, fantastic show anchored by some of the best performances by two of the greats.

Ben

Man, that's another thing we should talk about. The-the other reason why we need older gay characters: we deserve to see more veteran actors in the genre. This is not a knock on the young and up-and-coming talent or the OGs who are still doin’ the work. We deserve to see veteran actors bringing veteran-level talent to this genre more often than we do.

NiNi

What Did You Eat Yesterday? produced and aired by TV Tokyo, starring Nishijima Hidetoshi and Uchino Seiyou. You have won the coveted standout Queer Narrative Special Class award from The Conversation.

46:54 Outro

That is going to wrap us up on the 2023 Very Important Internet BL Awards, the VIIB Awards. It's kind of sad to see this go, but we will be back with the VIIB Awards next year when we get to discuss a whole new bunch of stuff. 

Looking forward to it. With that, we out. 

Say “bye” to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

[tagedeszorns]

I can't get on board with Threads. The sure amount of data-mining Threads does, along with the fact if you delete it you also delete your instragram account as well are instant bad vibes. Twitter might suck but a LOT of indie devs, small businesses and tons of artists relay on it. Having to pack up and try to get the same amount of attention on other social media sites isn't easy, livelihoods would be at risk if it does die.

Absolutely! Threads is just datamining.

But if it is drawing attention to the Fediverse, which has exactly zero datamining and zero ads, because it's not commercial and it's decentralised but connected, it's a good bridge for people still clinging to Twitter, to get off of Musks horrorshow.

The internet needs to go back to being publicly owned and non-commercial. If you are not the product (like you are on Twitter or anything Meta owns), you are independent.

The Fediverse has non-commercial alternatives for a lot of things: Lemmy for Reddit, Pixelfed for Instagram, Mastodon for Twitter, Peertube for YouTube, alternatives for Facebook or Wordpress, too. It's a decentralised internet but you can connect with everybody on any platform that uses the ActivityPub.

For example, people following me on Mastodon can also see, share, comment on my stuff on my Pixelfed-account or my bookreviews on Bookwyrm (the goodreads-alternative). As soon as Tumblr activates ActivityPub I will share my Tumblr-Posts as well. Or my Mastodon-posts on Tumblr. Whatever I want to.

So this whole decentralised web is a giant opportunity for small businesses to showcase their stuff to a very wide audience. But of course the big companies have not much interest in losing their advertisment-cattle to self-governed places, so there is a lot of marketing-fearmongering going on. It'll be hard to break this chokehold, but it is necessary, else small businesses and artists will be forever at the mercy of big money.

Also, the Fediverse is based on accessibility. It's made with disabled folks in mind - most people over at Mastodon use image descriptions, for example. Lots of space for queer folks, too. Plus - mostly European, so no "no nudity!!111"-religious-crap either! And the privacy-settings of the EU, that are much stricter than in the US.

Yes, I'm promoting this very hard, because I'm believing in the values of a free, accessible, anti-capitalist, non-religious internet. I want anarchy back. I don't want to be the milking cow of some corporations harvesting my data. The Fediverse has lots of risks, too. But they are minimal compared to putting your art, your thoughts, or - in case of a lot of transfolks - safety in the hand of some greedy billionaires.

Some links:

[conceptofjoy]

early hs being a window into 09’ internet and tbh the introduction of act 6 had critique of capitalism’s encroachment of the internet. now in the 23’s im proposing sbruh, the game that automatically dowloaded itself onto your computer because of some terms and conditions that updated from a program you have no choice in using because the company has a monopoly on the market

[ooops-i-arted]

Hey! I found your blog the other day because I was salty and looking through fandom opinions to make myself even saltier. You said something about Ahsoka that made me stop dead. I had to read it several times just to be sure and even then I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was alone in not liking Ahsoka - this entire fandom is set on making her out to be this ✨Super Awesome Special Best Girl Who Does Everything Right All The Time✨ and those are literally the only opinions you hear about her. But right from her introduction I didn’t like her. That’s a rant for another time, but I’m just going to leave it at how I’m so confused by her personality. She grew up in the Temple, right? So why is she so Rebellious™️? Why does she wear a crop top and mini skirt? Why’s she so sassy and rude to people? That’s not normal Padawan behaviour no matter what anyone says. They were just trying to find a marketable character for a children’s show and gave her the personality of every Nickelodeon American Teen Protagonist!

Welcome to the fold, new sibling. Have some candy, we like to share here in the Ahsoka Haters Club. >o<

I think you hit the mark on focusing on making her ~relatable to the Youths~ in her intro more than making sense for her character/how a real teenager would act. (Sabine and Ezra felt much more natural to me in that aspect.) I also think part of the issue is something soooo many female characters are forced into - male-dominated fandoms like this tend to be hostile to women (see: Ahsoka's debut period, Rey, Rose, Cara Dune before those types realized the actress was One Of Them, the Kotor fans who are intensely against female Revan or sexualize Mission, etc) so the creator(s) go overboard in trying to make them appealing to that particular loud section of fandom. So Ahsoka wears age- and character-inappropriate clothes*, she's snarky and sassy and "one of the guys." And in this rare case, it worked. She was eventually assimilated. Notice how she's replaced Padme in 99% of official and fandom merch? Padme, a character who is reduced to "sadness" or "fashion icon" (neither as easy to box up and tie with a neat Girlboss bow despite her demonstrated political activism and combat prowess) aka has actual character traits and flaws, reacts to things in a not-always-appealing-to-fandom way but in a way that makes sense for her character, is written to be multifaceted and not just designed to appeal to the common majority? Huh.

(Leia's "she's not a princess anymore she's a general" thing also felt that same way to me and rubbed me the wrong way, but Leia largely escaped Girlbossification because she was already a fully realized character in her own right, and also being created before the internet-style fandom probably helped.)

*Apparently we can lay that at the feet of George "there is no underwear in space" Lucas though. Once Filoni took over Ahsoka started wearing MUCH better outfits. Credit where it's due. (Ripping off Gandalf for your shitty oc still sucks though, let's be clear. But contrast her Rebels and TCW S7 looks with her tube top or cocktail dress for example. And as someone who had boobs about Ahsoka's size at her age, a tube top wouldn't cut it for marching band let alone lightsaber combat. Her first look was AWFUL.)

[axisdesigners1234]

Axis Designers: The Best Exhibition Company in India

Introduction In the dynamic world of exhibitions, selecting the right partner can make all the difference. Axis Designers, hailed as the best exhibition company in India, stands out with its impressive 24+ years of experience. Known for providing end-to-end solutions for exhibitions, architecture, and interior design, Axis Designers continually expands its service portfolio to meet the evolving demands of a global market.

The Journey of Excellence Founded in 1997, Axis Designers began its journey in a time when letters were still the primary mode of communication, video calls were merely a dream, and the internet was just starting to gain traction. In this transformative period, a group of visionaries laid the foundation for Axis Designers, with a mission to scale new heights and create innovative solutions for its clients and associates.

Leading the Industry Over the years, Axis Designers has emerged as a leading name in the exhibition industry in India. Its commitment to innovation and client satisfaction has positioned it among the top 10 exhibition companies in India. Axis Designers' comprehensive approach, combining creativity with technical expertise, ensures that every project is executed flawlessly, making it the best exhibition service provider in India.

Why Axis Designers? Innovative Approach: Axis Designers is renowned for its innovative solutions that cater to the unique needs of each client. The company’s ability to adapt and incorporate the latest trends and technologies in exhibition stand design sets it apart from competitors.

End-to-End Solutions: From conceptualization to execution, Axis Designers offers a complete range of services, including design, construction, logistics, and on-site management. This holistic approach ensures a seamless experience for clients.

Experience and Expertise: With over two decades of experience, Axis Designers brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to every project. The company’s team of skilled professionals is dedicated to delivering high-quality results that exceed client expectations.

Client Satisfaction: Axis Designers’ commitment to client satisfaction is evident in its long-standing relationships with clients. The company’s focus on understanding and fulfilling client needs has earned it a reputation as the best exhibition stand design company in India.

Conclusion Axis Designers’ unwavering dedication to excellence and innovation has established it as the best exhibition company in India. With a rich history of providing exceptional service and creating impactful exhibition experiences, Axis Designers continues to set new standards in the industry. For those seeking the best exhibition service provider in India, Axis Designers is the ultimate choice.

By consistently delivering top-notch solutions and maintaining a client-centric approach, Axis Designers remains at the forefront of the exhibition industry, making it the preferred partner for businesses looking to make a lasting impression.

[omegaremix]

Rioux, 1999.

Post-Brentwood was a turning point in my life. The minute I heard Sick Of It All played at Drew’s (♀) graduation party was the very minute my music tastes would change forever. As an Eighties’ kid, I grew up on Duran Duran, Run DMC, Alisha, Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam, Poison, and other chart-toppers. Anything could be ‘pop’ if it becomes popular enough. That’s how it got its name. Pop set me up to be diverse person I am now with stations like New York City’s Z100 where there’s a new market trend manufactured and released every five years to be fed on by the majority.

“Maladjusted” blasted through her backyard boombox for all of fifty of her closest friends and classmates to hear; the same friends and classmates who laughed at me or ignored me for being a poser. They weren’t laughing or shit-talking behind my back now that they saw me at Drew’s get-together. “How did he get in?” they wondered. That didn’t matter. They didn’t say shit to me. I never saw most of them again after that, nor did I keep tabs, either. I asked Drew who they were and she told me. Boy, did it go down angry and aggressive. I didn’t hear anything like it. So I went to the South Shore Mall’s record store and copped Scratched The Surface on cassette to quickly become my go-to record during senior-year summer. That was my introduction to hardcore and the start of something more personal and relatable than what I listened to before.

Shortly thereafter, Wipeout XL came out for Playstation and my trajectory in taste had changed for a second time. It was one of the first games released that had a major soundtrack thanks to disc capacity. A line-up of Underworld, Fluke, Photek, Future Sound Of London, The Prodigy, and Chemical Brothers gave me a three-month head start before - you guessed it - pop and alternative rock stations jumped on that wagon as the next great profit maker. Even stations changed their formats for a night or two to keep up with the hottest trend of the year, such as when Atari Teenage Riot slipped through the airwaves and literally changed my attitude of music. Another hand would be dealt, and one which was the most fascinating: industrial. Mortal Kombat motion picture soundtracks were the gateway to it after establishing Nine Inch Nails, Filter, and Ministry as my Big Three. I snatched up on three Meat Beat Manifesto tapes, four Skinny Puppy discs, The Wax Trax box set and label mail order, and some Cleopatra label compilations. (Yeah, I know. No need to tell me.) It all goes to show how a lot can happen in one year before heading to community college.

Whether or not I had employment, I still managed to purchase tons of music. It became a beast I constantly had to feed. I had record store visits, radio, magazines, and now the internet (‘world wide web’ they once called it) to keep me updated. Every week I found something new to check out. Oh, look. Alec Empire is on the cover of another magazine! The December 1997 issue of Wire, #166. Have to buy it as his stock was riding high with (once again) Atari Teenage Riot and his DHR label. On the way to Empire’s glow-up were two other artists I came across in their pages: Autechre (who they proclaimed as noise gods) and Merzbow.

When you keep hearing the same names over and over, eventually they’ll get you to check them out. That’s what happened with those two and with expectations - what you shouldn’t have when diving into an artist or album. Autechre’s Tri Repetae++ caught me off guard. They said it was an electronic record and I foolishly thought it was techno instead. I hear the album opener “Dael” expecting a build-up leading to an explosion of sound. Wrong. The minimal structure and complex melodic rhythms of a cold, mechanical, emotionless being started as-is and moved its way to the end. This wasn’t anything to a traditional dance record I was accustomed to. No. These were experiments that Sean Booth and Rob Brown created which were so innovative that they’ve gotten endless praise for them since. A few listens later and I had Tri Repetae++ on constant repeat.

Merzbow? That’s another story. Like Tri Repetae++, I bought Pulse Demon at the Port Jefferson Music Den, once a bastion of everything obscure which hasn’t existed in 20 years. That was my introduction to noise. Fucking Lady Godiva riding on a Sybian did I not know what was in store for me that day. It was the shiniest and sharpest-sounding thing I now had in my collection. I load the disc in, pressed play and - what?! It was one giant maelstrom of harsh white noise, produced and output louder than usual, complete with Bridget Riley-esque op-art and its silvery prismatic sheen. Pulse Demon was devoid of any rhythm, melody, beats, measurements, sound structure, tonality, vocals, or even a sense of time whatsoever. It was a giant endurance test that felt like there was no end in sight. Again, expectations are a foolish thing to ask for.

I didn’t know what to think. I immediately dismissed it and never played it again. I couldn’t say I was actively disappointed or put-off but rather dissuaded. It was nothing what I experienced. Back then, I was a feature writer for the student paperduring my disastrous time at community college’s middle campus. The campus majority consisted mostly of shallow club-goers and superficial people who stood in their safe comfort zone of basic dance music, fashion, and friends who judged and dismissed anyone who were weird or different from them. I always went against the grain and reached for something different and challenging; things that loudmouth belligerent chauvinist Opie & Anthony fans were too stupid to learn from. I had no other albums to review on the backburner, so Pulse Demon was it for the following issue. I was honest about my take on it: it was an unlistenable mess of a joke. I handed in my 1,000 words to our features editor, a long-haired burnout held over from the hippie generation, and it finally saw print in one of our Spring issues.

The day after my review came out, I was called in to the office by my editor-in-chief Phil. Somehow we got word from a professor who read my article and took issue with it. “Really?” I said. But it didn’t stop there. Phil also told me that Professor Rioux wanted me to visit his office to discuss the article with him.

I failed an article for a professor I didn’t even know I had?

Phil had him for English. But not to fear. The overall consensus was that he was friendly, calm, and reasonable with his students. And here was an odd moment he shared with me: Pfr. Rioux played some of his favorite weird music during an end-of-the-semester holiday party for his students to hear. Seriously, not to fear. He sounded like someone I would connect with. Phil assured me that all would be fine and ended up arranging a time and day to meet up with him. That would be next week Wednesday after the publisher’s meeting.

I arrive at Prf. Rioux’ office where he welcomed me in and introduced himself, dressed up in the usual teacher’s attire of blazer and dress pants. So far, so good. I sat down in his office and looked around to notice two rows of tapes sitting on a desk next to his bookshelf. There was a Temple Ov Psychick Youth cross hung up on the wall and also noticed the black shirt he was hearing under his blazer which featured Aube’s Quadrotation on it.

We sat down for a good 45 minutes discussing my article. Not once was Prf. Rioux mean, belittling, or off-handed - unlike others who called themselves ‘professors’. Rather, he gave me constructive criticism. Judging by my article, he told me that I missed the mark on Merzbow and didn’t come into the album open-minded. Clearly I didn’t understand noise music enough for me to write what I did and there was way more to it than I thought. The most important takeaway was that I shouldn’t have compared noise to anything else in a traditional sense. Sure, it was an entirely different animal that can still have value, substance, a structure, a methodology, and a meaning to it all like everything else.

So he kindly offered to make me three cassettes of whatever rang familiar and whom I was curious about to widen my horizons and get a better understanding. All early industrial and / or noise. Wonderful. I obliged. One week later, I returned to his office where he had them all ready for me. I thanked him for the tapes and said goodbye to him.

What was on those tapes? First, Merzbow. Not surprisingly. Three unknown tracks from the Lord of Harsh Noise. On the other side was Masonna, another Japanese noise artist whose Inner Mind Mystique finished up tape #1. Tape #2 was more varied. I heard very little of Coil other than “The Snow” off the Wax Trax compilation. Right after that was Jim G. Thirwell / Foetus whom followed up with three tracks. (Coincidentally, both aforementioned artists remixed Nine Inch Nails). Rioux threw on three tracks from Einsturzende Neubauten’s Kollaps with a small sampling of Clock DVA tracks from Black Souls In White Suits. Our final tape had a good ten tracks of Death In June whom I never heard of, and several versions of Throbbing Gristle’s “Discipline” rounded out all that Prf. Rioux gave me. Never had I received anything like it from any professor.

I was forever grateful. I played those tapes to good use, enough to go back into my usual grind of music and artist reviews with a better understanding and reasoning. I didn’t review any of the artists after that Merzbow debacle, but my stance of him changed for the better and went back to Pulse Demon several more times. I happened to purchase several more of his albums where I could, dove back into Inner Mind Mystique and picked up on Nic Endo’s White Heat when that was released. I pushed more heavily into Einsturzende Neubauten’s chaotic phase, Clock DVA’s experimental era, and the world of Throbbing Gristle. I would be only toes deep with the other artists; checking in from time to time.

What were the chances that anyone (who appreciated the genesis of industrial and a knowledgeable noise fan) would notice a specific artist printed in a campus newspaper no less? It was bad enough that I dealt with one disappointment after another interacting with people and trying to find my place on campus; which I eventually did with neutral results. Where reaching out to people with similar tastes in music were few and far between (only one or two people on campus wore Dead Voices On Air, Ant-Zen, and Ras DVA shirts), someone reached out to me instead. Of all the professors I ever had, no one and I mean no one had that kind of knowledge that Prf. Rioux did, with mixtapes to boot, too.

As his tapes played in my Walkman while trekking around campus, everything else around me was happening as usual. Cover bands and boring flavorless local bar acts peppered the Long Island music scene. WBLI continued to pump out more puerile paint-by-number club mixes as usual with Fatboy Slim and Robbie Williams up next. Ska fans hopped out of the woodwork to defend their precious circus music and became overnight know-it-all elitists ready to play the scene-politics card. And free pink PVC cowboy hats came included with Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Spice Girls, and Limp Bizkit worship. Forget it. The late Nineties was clearly a bad era in music and pop culture - and it still had time to get even worse. The only places of solace I had were the few record stores I frequented. Commack’s Cheapo’s, West Babylon’s Looney Tunes, Central Islip’s Mother’s Music, Port Jefferson’s Music Den, and Centereach’s None Of The Above. At least they catered everything to my choosing.

But I never forgot where I came from or lost track of where I headed. By the time I attended Stony Brook, I fell victim to the Mothers Of Noise ‘scandal’ and discovered Prurient from it. I’d be one of the few on campus familiar with Whitehouse, Boyd Rice / NON, and even Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music on top of everything else.Each and every one of these artists were mentioned in my new wave of reviews and I even featured on my radio show. I also never forgot those tapes. I still have them, and they became one of the few shining reminders of an era that was mostly ill to me.

Cassette #1, side A:

Merzbow: “???”, “???”, “???”

Cassette #1, side B:

Masonna: Inner Mind Mystique

Cassette #2, side A:

Coil: ”Panic”, “Tenderness Of Wolves”, “Clay”, The Anal Staircase”

Foetus: “What Have You Been Doing?”, “Today I Started Slogging Again”, “Gums Bleed”

Cassette #2, side B:

Einsturzende Neubauten: “Tanz Debil”, “Steh Auf Berlin”, “Kollaps”

Clock DVA: “Consent”, “Anti-Chance”, “Uncertain”

Cassette #3, side A:

Death In June: “Hello Angel”, “Heaven Street”, “She Said Destroy”, “Fall Apart”, “Leper Lord”, “C’est Un Reve”, “Touch Defiles”, “The Torture Garden”, “Come Before Christ…”

Cassette #3, side B:

Throbbing Gristle: three live “Discipline” performances.

[tau1tvec]

Thinking my biggest concern with this “official” mods business, is how The Sims Team is very intrinsically using the word “safe” in how they describe it, and that's bad... and lemme tell you why...

This is a sentiment they’ve been building for a long time now, and goes as far back as The Sims 2 days, when there were some folks who didn’t download mods or cc from any place that didn’t seem obviously aligned with Maxis or EA ( shit they still do it now, as I recently bumped into a tweet that legit thought the sharing of tray files means it's from a pirated game, and therefore the files are "dangerous" ), hence the rise of sites like The Sims Resource, that I believe at one point even got into trouble for using official logos and marketing material, and generally passing themselves off as an affiliate, while taking people’s money for content, which technically didn’t follow EULA.

However the general distaste some players had for spaces like TSR ( mind you this was in their "members only" era ), and preference for sites like Mod The Sims ( a site made by simmers for simmers that hosted content for free ) inevitably changed the eco system. LJ and forums became havens for a lot of the custom content people put in their games, and also offered a sense of community that TSR couldn’t.

With the release of The Sims 3 came with change however, to how cc was distributed, as much as how players communicated. Many creators migrated from forums to blogspot or tumblr mainly, trading out a community focused platform for one more personal ( similar to LiveJournal ). So many were hosting their own content, their own way on file sharing sites, but with self moderation, unfortunately came the downsides of it.

Though MTS was still quite popular for much of The Sims 3's life span, self moderation had opened the door to self monetization, thus incentivizing creators to move away from sites like MTS, and TSR, and instead adopt ads, and link shorteners like ad-fly. Obviously they didn't garner as much profit as TSR creators, but it was a simple and easy way to generate some kind of money off of their work... problem was... it wasn't safe, and neither was TSR at that point.

When TSR took down their members only model, likely due to pressure from EA and their sudden changes in EULA, they had to find other ways to generate profit, and thus the introduction of ads, so, so many ads... so many that some people complained it would slow down their computers, and some, if clicked on accidently, which tbh wasn't hard with how they were interlaced in seemingly every element on the website, worries of malware and virus began cropping up, by no real surprise, anyone who's grown up during the rise of the internet knows that ads = viruses. This is all just very ingrained in online culture, there's a reason why ad-blockers have been a thing since 4ever.

This didn't seem to stop TSR however, let alone creators who attached their downloads to ad-fly, and therefore once again I bring this conversation around to the word "safe".

I have been around long enough, and in the modding scene long enough to know that mods, no matter where you get them will never be safe. Much of modding was niche and fringe for a lot of gaming history, hence why it was so, and still is predominately overwhelmed by adult/erotic mods... like with pirating games, it's just always had this very, very big stigma around it, and with the recent issue of Patreon creators using manipulation tactics, and data stalking causing such a big kerfuffle in the community, that it got to the likes of EA themselves to finally decide to put their foot down on the whole issue ( and then pull it up idk ??? lol ) it all seems just so very... coincidental to me.

This isn't the first time either, there was the putting viruses in files shared with anti-paywall sites, hall passes written out by "lawyers" to excuse bad behavior, the TSR debacle, the p*do mod debacle, the LoversLab having to scrub their forum of "questionable mods" debacle, the DMCA's, the doxxing, the deleted blogs, the list goes on honestly, it's just been such a mess. Then, while all this was going on, whatever EA offered as a "safe space" for downloading user created content wasn't honestly any better.

The Sims Exchange was a mixed bag, a lotta times you'd download sims or homes with broken or corrupt cc attached, and lord knows what else... people would reupload content by other people without their consent, or even credit, which by no surprise at all ended being the same exact issue that eventually inundated The Sims 4 Gallery, not to mention the comments section being used to harass users.

tldr; modding will never truly be safe, the fact that the word "safe", this rather bold promise coming out of EA's mouth of all companies is even going to be remotely believed, bc some Sims YouTuber says it's also "safe", just really rubs me the wrong way, and says a lot about how true a statement it actually is. They're trying to stigmatize the modding community again... who's trustworthy, and who isn't trustworthy... who's good, and who's evil, and all for their own benefit... bc when the hell has EA ever once done anything, that wasn't mostly for their own benefit?

[stylesavingssavvy]

Save Big on Shoes: A Guide To Shopping Smart Online 

Introduction: 

In the modern age of technology, many people choose to purchase shoes online. It's a tempting alternative because of its ease of use, countless possibilities, and frequently cheaper costs. But if you're not cautious, it's easy to overpay while looking through the vast array of online shoe companies. But do not worry! You may still get the ideal pair of shoes and save a great deal of money by using some clever shopping tactics. We will see below how we can do it. 

Determine What You Need:  

Take a moment to determine your demands before getting on the internet to buy shoes. Are you in the market for sport shoes, casual shoes, formal shoes? Knowing what you need can help you focus and save you from getting tempted to make unneeded expenditures.

Consider elements like foot type, arch support, and fit. To guarantee a good fit, search for shoes with a wide or extra-wide choice if your feet are broad. To avoid pain or harm, those with flat feet or overpronation should look for shoes with sufficient arch support and stability qualities. In a similar vein, give priority to shoes that support and cushion your feet if you have high arches. It will also be easier to know what size and style you want. 

Evaluate user reviews to perform detailed research:  

Now that you know what you want, it's time to start your research. Reviews and ratings from customers are quite helpful when buying shoes online. Seek websites that offer thorough evaluations from actual customers. Take note of remarks on durability, comfort, and size. Even if a shoe seems perfect in pictures, actual customer reviews might give you a more realistic idea of its quality.  

Use comparison sites like Redfynd to compare prices. 

Having the option to compare costs from several businesses without having to leave your home is one of the main benefits of Internet shopping. Use price comparison websites such as Redfynd to locate the best prices on the shoes you want. These websites compare pricing from many merchants, so you can easily get the best deal.  

Redfynd  is the largest shoe and sneaker comparison site with more than 1.5 million shoe and sneaker products and 15+ shoe retailers, including Nykaa, Myntra, Tira, Ajio, Taacliq, etc. 

Utilize cashback sites like Redfynd: 

In addition to comparing prices, take advantage of cashback sites like Redfynd to maximize your savings. These platforms offer you a percentage of your purchase back as cashback when you shop through their links. By simply clicking through Redfynd before making your purchase, you can earn money back on your shoe purchases. It's an effortless way to stretch your shoe budget even further.  

Conclusion: 

Online shoe shopping doesn't have to be expensive. You may locate the ideal pair of shoes at a lower cost by following these easy steps: determining your needs, doing extensive research, using comparison sites like redfynd , using cashback sites, and taking advantage of deals and discounts.

Put these suggestions into practice the next time you're shopping for new boots,sneakers , or any other kind of footwear, and watch your savings increase! Have fun finding shoes!  

[varunshrimediasolutions]

20 SEO Mistakes To Avoid In 2024

 Introduction In the rapidly evolving field of digital marketing, search engine optimization, or SEO, continues to be essential for success online. Nonetheless, the field of SEO is always evolving due to changes in user behaviour and algorithmic changes. It's critical to keep up with the newest trends and steer clear of typical traps if you want to guarantee that your website stays visible and competitive.

In this post, we'll look at 20 SEO blunders to avoid in 2024 to help you move deftly through the always-shifting digital landscape.

20 Mistakes You Should Avoid In SEO For Best Results

Ignoring Mobile Optimization: 

In 2024, mobile optimization will no longer be a luxury; it will be essential. Since mobile devices are used by the majority of internet users to access content, not optimizing your website for mobile devices might result in lower visibility and lower user engagement. 

Ignoring Page Speed:

Slow-loading pages can have a big effect on your site's SEO success in a world where speed is everything. Consumers demand immediate satisfaction, and search engines give preference to websites that load quickly. To improve page speed, make sure to minimize HTTP queries, take advantage of browser caching, and optimize images. 

Ignoring Voice Search Optimization:

It is now mandatory to optimize your content for voice search due to the popularity of voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. Take into account long-tail keywords and natural language searches to match user speech patterns when conducting voice searches.

Ignoring HTTPS Migration:

​In today's digital world, security is crucial, and Google favours secure websites. Making the switch to HTTPS improves your site's trustworthiness and security in the eyes of search engines and users alike. 

Ignoring Local SEO:

Ignoring local SEO can be an expensive error for companies that cater to local customers. To increase exposure in local search results, make sure your business listings are correct and consistent across online directories and make use of local keywords. 

Failing to Optimize for Featured Snippets: 

Search engine results pages (SERPs) now prominently display featured snippets, which give users instant answers to their questions. To increase your chances of getting included in snippets, organize your material to provide succinct answers to frequently asked questions.

Excessive Anchor Text Optimization:

Although anchor text optimization is crucial for search engine optimization, excessive optimization may raise red flags with search engines. To avoid fines, keep the diversity of your anchor text in a natural balance by using synonyms and variations.

Ignoring User Experience (UX):

UX affects metrics like click-through rate, dwell duration, and bounce rate, and it is a major factor in SEO. To increase UX and SEO performance, give priority to responsive design, appealing content, and easy-to-navigate pages. 

Underestimating the Power of Internal Linking:

Internal linking improves search engine optimization by dispersing link equity throughout your pages and assisting users in navigating your website. Include pertinent internal links in your text to improve crawlability and create a logical hierarchy.

Ignore Structured Data Markup:

Rich snippets and improved SERP displays are made possible by structured data markup, which gives search engines context about your material. Use structured data markup to increase search engine visibility and click-through rate.

Ignoring Image Optimization: 

Images are more than simply decorative components; alt text, file names, and image sitemaps all help with SEO. To increase accessibility and SEO, optimize photos for size and relevancy and provide a description to the alt text. 

Neglecting Content Quality:

​In an era of abundant content, quality is paramount. The SEO performance of your website may be harmed by thin, pointless, or duplicate content. Concentrate on producing valuable, high-quality content that speaks to and meets the demands of your target audience.

Ignoring Social Signals:

Social media can affect search visibility indirectly by raising brand awareness, engagement, and traffic, even though its direct impact on SEO is up for discussion. Sustain a consistent presence on pertinent social media channels to increase the visibility of your material.

Ignoring technical SEO:

​Technical SEO, which includes aspects like crawlability, indexing, and site structure, lays the groundwork for your site's overall performance. Perform routine audits to find and fix technical problems that could limit the SEO potential of your website.

Keyword Stuffing:

The overuse of keywords, often known as keyword stuffing, is a holdover from antiquated search engine optimization techniques and can now lead to search engine penalties. To keep your content relevant and readable, instead concentrate on naturally occurring keyword integration.

Ignoring Video Optimization: 

​Videos are taking over search results and provide a captivating way for users to consume material. To increase your videos' exposure in standard and video search results, make sure they have clear names, descriptions, and transcripts. 

Ignoring Backlink Quality:

In today's SEO environment, quality is more important than quantity even if backlinks are still a crucial ranking component. Make getting backlinks from reputable, relevant sources your top priority, and avoid deceptive link-building strategies that can damage the reputation of your website. 

Ignoring Local Citations:

In local search engine optimization, local citations—that is, references to your company's name, address, and phone number (NAP)—are quite important. Make sure that your NAP information is the same on all websites, social media pages, and review sites.

Ignoring SEO Analytics:

An effective SEO strategy requires data-driven decision-making. Track your progress and find optimization possibilities by keeping an eye on key performance indicators (KPIs), including organic traffic, keyword rankings, and conversion rates, on a regular basis.  

Failing to Adjust to Algorithm Changes:

Algorithms used by search engines are always changing, so what works now might not work tomorrow. Keep up with algorithm changes and modify your SEO plan as necessary to keep your website visible and relevant in search results.

Conclusion

Success in the ever-changing world of SEO depends on avoiding frequent errors and keeping up with current trends. You can position your website for increased visibility, traffic, and eventually business growth by avoiding these 20 SEO blunders in 2024. 

To Read more of our blogs, click the link below 👇