#also from 2017-2021 were really hard years for so many reasons so i never invested in myself | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hlupdate · 4 years

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Variety’s Grammy-nominated Hitmaker of the Year goes deep on the music industry, the great pause and finding his own muses.

“We’ll dance again,” Harry Styles coos, the Los Angeles sunshine peeking through his pandemic-shaggy hair just so. The singer, songwriter and actor — beloved and critically acclaimed thanks to his life-affirming year-old album, “Fine Line” — is lamenting that his Variety Hitmaker of the Year cover conversation has to be conducted over Zoom rather than in person. Even via videoconference, the Brit is effortlessly charming, as anyone who’s come within earshot of him would attest, but it quickly becomes clear that beneath that genial smile is a well-honed media strategy.

To wit: In an interview that appears a few days later announcing his investment in a new arena in his native Manchester (more on that in a bit), he repeats the refrain — “There will be a time we dance again”— referencing a much-needed return to live music and the promise of some 4,000 jobs for residents.

None of which is to suggest that Styles, 26, phones it in for interviews. Quite the opposite: He does very few, conceivably to give more of himself and not cheapen what is out there and also to use the publicity opportunity to indulge his other interests, like fashion. (Last month Styles became the first male to grace the cover of Vogue solo.) Still, it stings a little that a waltz with the former One Direction member may not come to pass on this album cycle — curse you, coronavirus.

Styles’ isolation has coincided with his maturation as an artist, a thespian and a person. With “Fine Line,” he’s proved himself a skilled lyricist with a tremendous ear for harmony and melody. In preparing for his role in Olivia Wilde’s period thriller “Don’t Worry Darling,” which is shooting outside Palm Springs, he found an outlet for expression in interpreting words on a page. And for the first time, he’s using his megaphone to speak out about social justice — inspired by the outpouring of support for Black people around the world following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May.

Styles has spent much of the past nine months at home in London, where life has slowed considerably. The time has allowed him to ponder such heady issues as his purpose on the earth. “It’s been a pause that I don’t know if I would have otherwise taken,” says Styles. “I think it’s been pretty good for me to have a kind of stop, to look and think about what it actually means to be an artist, what it means to do what we do and why we do it. I lean into moments like this — moments of uncertainty.”

In truth, while Styles has largely been keeping a low profile — his Love On Tour, due to kick off on April 15, was postponed in late March and is now scheduled to launch in February 2021 (whether it actually will remains to be seen) — his music has not. This is especially true in the U.S., where he’s notched two hit singles, “Adore You,” the second-most-played song at radio in 2020, and “Watermelon Sugar” (No. 22 on Variety’s year-end Hitmakers chart), with a third, “Golden,” already cresting the top 20 on the pop format. The massive cross-platform success of these songs means Styles has finally and decisively broken into the American market, maneuvering its web of gatekeepers to accumulate 6.2 million consumption units and rising.

Why do these particular songs resonate in 2020? Styles doesn’t have the faintest idea. While he acknowledges a “nursery rhyme” feel to “Watermelon Sugar” with its earwormy loop of a chorus, that’s about as much insight as he can offer. His longtime collaborator and friend Tom Hull, also known as the producer Kid Harpoon, offers this take: “There’s a lot of amazing things about that song, but what really stands out is the lyric. It’s not trying to hide or be clever. The simplicity of watermelon … there’s such a joy in it, [which] is a massive part of that song’s success.” Also, his kids love it. “I’ve never had a song connect with children in this way,” says Hull, whose credits include tunes by Shawn Mendes, Florence and the Machine and Calvin Harris. “I get sent videos all the time from friends of their kids singing. I have a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old, and they listen to it.”

Styles is quick to note that he doesn’t chase pop appeal when crafting songs. In fact, the times when he pondered or approved a purposeful tweak, like on his self-titled 2017 debut, still gnaw at him. “I love that album so much because it represents such a time in my life, but when I listen to it — sonically and lyrically, especially — I can hear places where I was playing it safe,” he says. “I was scared to get it wrong.”

Contemporary effects and on-trend beats hardly factor into Styles’ decision-making. He likes to focus on feelings — his own and his followers’ — and see himself on the other side of the velvet rope, an important distinction in his view. “People within [the industry] feel like they operate on a higher level of listening, and I like to make music from the point of being a fan of music,” Styles says. “Fans are the best A&R.”

This from someone who’s had free rein to pursue every musical whim, and hand in the album of his dreams in the form of “Fine Line.” Chart success makes it all the sweeter, but Styles insists that writing “for the right reasons” supersedes any commercial considerations. “There’s no part that feels, eh, icky — like it was made in the lab,” he says.

Styles has experience in this realm. As a graduate of the U.K. competition series “The X Factor,” where he and four other auditionees — Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson — were singled out by show creator and star judge Simon Cowell to conjoin as One Direction, he’s seen how the prefab pop machine works up close. The One Direction oeuvre, which counts some 42 million albums sold worldwide, includes songs written with such established hitmakers as Ryan Tedder, Savan Kotecha and Teddy Geiger. Being a studious, insatiable observer, Styles took it all in.

“I learned so much,” he says of the experience. “When we were in the band, I used to try and write with as many different people as I could. I wanted to practice — and I wrote a lot of bad shit.”

His bandmates also benefited from the pop star boot camp. The proof is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members — Payne, Malik and Horan in addition to Styles — each of whom has landed hit singles on charts in the U.K., the U.S. and beyond.

This departs from the typical trajectories of boy bands including New Kids on the Block and ’N Sync, which have all pro ered a star frontman. The thinking for decades was that a record company would be lucky to have one breakout solo career among the bunch.

Styles has plainly thought about this.

“When you look at the history of people coming out of bands and starting solo careers, they feel this need to apologize for being in the band. ‘Don’t worry, everyone, that wasn’t me! Now I get to do what I really want to do.’ But we loved being in the band,” he says. “I think there’s a wont to pit people against each other. And I think it’s never been about that for us. It’s about a next step in evolution. The fact that we’ve all achieved different things outside of the band says a lot about how hard we worked in it.”

Indeed, during the five-ish years that One Direction existed, Styles’ schedule involved the sort of nonstop international jet-setting that few get to see in a lifetime, never mind their teenage years. Between 2011 and 2015, One Direction’s tours pulled in north of $631 million in gross ticket sales, according to concert trade Pollstar, and the band was selling out stadiums worldwide by the time it entered its extended hiatus. Styles, too, had built up to playing arenas as a solo artist, engaging audiences with his colorful stage wear and banter and left-of-center choices for opening acts (a pre-Grammy-haul Kacey Musgraves in 2018; indie darlings King Princess and Jenny Lewis for his rescheduled 2021 run).

Stages of all sizes feel like home to Styles. He grew up in a suburb of Manchester, ground zero for some of the biggest British acts of the 1980s and ’90s, including Joy Division, New Order, the Smiths and Oasis, the latter of which broke the same year Styles was born. His parents were also music lovers. Styles’ father fed him a balanced diet of the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen, while Mum was a fan of Shania Twain, Norah Jones and Savage Garden. “They’re all great melody writers,” says Styles of the acts’ musical throughline.

Stevie Nicks, who in the past has described “Fine Line” as Styles’ “Rumours,” referencing the Fleetwood Mac 1977 classic, sees him as a kindred spirit. “Harry writes and sings his songs about real experiences that seemingly happened yesterday,” she tells Variety. “He taps into real life. He doesn’t make up stories. He tells the truth, and that is what I do. ‘Fine Line’ has been my favorite record since it came out. It is his ‘Rumours.’ I told him that in a note on December 13, 2019 before he went on stage to play the ‘Fine Line’ album at the Forum. We cried. He sang those songs like he had sung them a thousand times. That’s a great songwriter and a great performer.”

“Harry’s playing and writing is instinctual,” adds Jonathan Wilson, a friend and peer who’s advised Styles on backing and session musicians. “He understands history and where to take the torch. You can see the thread of great British performers — from Bolan to Bowie — in his music.”

Also shaping his musical DNA was Manchester itself, the site of a 23,500-seat arena, dubbed Co-op Live, for which Styles is an investor and adviser. Oak View Group, a company specializing in live entertainment and global sports that was founded by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff in 2015 (Jeffrey Azoff, Irving’s son, represents Styles at Full Stop Management), is leading the effort to construct the venue. The project gained planning approval in September and is set to open in 2023, with its arrival representing a £350 million ($455 million) investment in the city. (Worth noting: Manchester is already home to an arena — the site of a 2017 bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert — and a football stadium, where One Love Manchester, an all-star benefit show to raise money for victims of the terrorist attack, took place.)

“I went to my first shows in Manchester,” Styles says of concerts paid for with money earned delivering newspapers for a supermarket called the Co-op. “My friends and I would go in on weekends. There’s so many amazing small venues, and music is such a massive part of the city. I think Manchester deserves it. It feels like a full-circle, coming-home thing to be doing this and to be able to give any kind of input. I’m incredibly proud. Hopefully they’ll let me play there at some point.”

Though Styles has owned properties in Los Angeles, his base for the foreseeable future is London. “I feel like my relationship with L.A. has changed a lot,” he explains. “I’ve kind of accepted that I don’t have to live here anymore; for a while I felt like I was supposed to. Like it meant things were going well. This happened, then you move to L.A.! But I don’t really want to.”

Is it any wonder? Between COVID and the turmoil in the U.S. spurred by the presidential election, Styles, like some 79 million American voters, is recovering from sticker shock over the bill of goods sold to them by the concept of democracy. “In general, as people, there’s a lack of empathy,” he observes. “We found this place that’s so divisive. We just don’t listen to each other anymore. And that’s quite scary.”

That belief prompted Styles to speak out publicly in the wake of George Floyd’s death. As protests in support of Black Lives Matter took to streets all over the world, for Styles, it triggered a period of introspection, as marked by an Instagram message (liked by 2.7 million users and counting) in which he declared: “I do things every day without fear, because I am privileged, and I am privileged every day because I am white. … Being not racist is not enough, we must be anti racist. Social change is enacted when a society mobilizes. I stand in solidarity with all of those protesting. I’m donating to help post bail for arrested organizers. Look inwards, educate yourself and others. LISTEN, READ, SHARE, DONATE and VOTE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

“Talking about race can be really uncomfortable for everyone,” Styles elaborates. “I had a realization that my own comfort in the conversation has nothing to do with the problem — like that’s not enough of a reason to not have a conversation. Looking back, I don’t think I’ve been outspoken enough in the past. Using that feeling has pushed me forward to being open and ready to learn. … How can I ensure from my side that in 20 years, the right things are still being done and the right people are getting the right opportunities? That it’s not a passing thing?”

His own record company — and corporate parent Sony Music Group, whose chairman, Rob Stringer, signed Styles in 2016 — has been grappling with these same questions as the industry has faced its own reckoning with race. At issue: inequality among the upper ranks (an oft-cited statistic: popular music is 80% Black, but the music business is 80% white); contracts rooted in a decades-old system that many say is set up to take advantage of artists, Black artists more unfairly than white; and the call for a return of master rights, an ownership model that is at the core of the business.

Styles acknowledges the fundamental imbalance in how a major label deal is structured — the record company takes on the financial risk while the artist is made to recoup money spent on the project before the act is considered profitable and earning royalties (typically at a 15% to 18% rate for the artist, while the label keeps and disburses the rest). “Historically, I can’t think of any industry that’s benefited more off of Black culture than music,” he says. “There are discussions that need to happen about this long history of not being paid fairly. It’s a time for listening, and hopefully, people will come out humbled, educated and willing to learn and change.”

By all accounts, Styles is a voracious reader, a movie lover and an aesthete. He stays in shape by adhering to a strict daily exercise routine. “I tried to keep up but didn’t last more than two weeks,” says Hull, Styles’ producer, with a laugh. “The discipline is terrifying.”

Of course, with the fashion world beckoning — Styles recently appeared in a film series for Gucci’s new collection that was co-directed by the fashion house’s creative director, Alessandro Michele, and Oscar winner Gus Van Sant — and a movie that’s set in the 1950s, maintaining that physique is part of the job. And he’s no stranger to visual continuity after appearing in Christopher Nolan’s epic “Dunkirk” and having to return to set for reshoots; his hair, which needed to be cut back to its circa 1940 form, is a constant topic of conversation among fans. This time, it’s the ink that poses a challenge. By Styles’ tally, he’s up to 60 tattoos, which require an hour in the makeup chair to cover up. “It’s the only time I really regret getting tattooed,” he says.

He shows no regret, however, when it comes to stylistic choices overall, and takes pride in his gender-agnostic portfolio, which includes wearing a Gucci dress on that Vogue cover— an image that incited conservative pundit Candace Owens to plead publicly to “bring back manly men.” In Styles’ view: “To not wear [something] because it’s females’ clothing, you shut out a whole world of great clothes. And I think what’s exciting about right now is you can wear what you like. It doesn’t have to be X or Y. Those lines are becoming more and more blurred.”

But acclaim, if you can believe it, is not top of mind for Styles. As far as the Grammys are concerned, Styles shrugs, “It’s never why I do anything.” His team and longtime label, however, had their hearts set on a showing at the Jan. 31 ceremony. Their investment in Styles has been substantial — not just monetarily but in carefully crafting his career in the wake of such icons as David Bowie, who released his final albums with the label. Hope at the company and in many fans’ hearts that Styles would receive an album of the year nomination did not come to pass. However, he was recognized in three categories, including best pop vocal album.

“It’s always nice to know that people like what you’re doing, but ultimately — and especially working in a subjective field — I don’t put too much weight on that stuff,” Styles says. “I think it’s important when making any kind of art to remove the ego from it.” Citing the painter Matisse, he adds: “It’s about the work that you do when you’re not expecting any applause.”

#harry styles #variety #021220

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hldailyupdate · 4 years

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This Charming Man: Why We’re Wild About Harry Styles

Variety’s Grammy-nominated Hitmaker of the Year goes deep on the music industry, the great pause and finding his own muses.

Styles has plainly thought about this.

Harry for Variety. (2 December 2020)

#harry styles #harry update #article #variety #hldaily #December 2020

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southwindscoffee · 4 years

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Um so I had an amazing year

You cannot get poor enough to help poor people thrive or sick enough to help sick people get well. You only ever uplift from your position of strength and clarity and alignment. – Abraham/Esther Hicks

So.

I had an amazing year.

And I’m embarrassed to say it because I’m not dumb. (At least I hope I’m not.) I look around and can see suffering. Upheaval. Sickness. Poverty. I’m not denying those things exist or minimizing anyone else’s experience.

But I wanted to share why I had an amazing year with the intent of uplifting someone else.

Maybe you.

I’m ending the year feeling happier, healthier, richer, more creatively fulfilled, and closer to my family than I have in a very, very long time. I credit this to a few small but key things—and overall, to one book.

Last year about this time I listened to Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’ve lost track of how many copies I’ve bought of this book. Maybe four? At least two hardback copies, because I gave one away. Simply stated, the audio changed my life.

Just—if you’re sick of listening to yourself complain about your bank account or weight or whatever, and you’re serious about changing things, go read/listen to this book.

AND THEN ACTUALLY DO WHAT HE SAYS. The little, dumb, tiny changes. Because they add up.

Last year I got sick of complaining about the same things year after year. And since I mostly complain in my journal or in my own head, it was a very boring place to be. I got sick of wondering why the balance in my bank account didn’t change, why I wasn’t losing weight, and why I wanted to write so much and wasn’t getting anywhere, even though I tried.

But these things (richer, slimmer, more creative) were also what I really desired, deep down inside. I wanted to feel more financially stable, healthier (defined by weight loss), and to write more. (Well, I already wrote plenty. I wanted to write stuff and put it in public where people could actually read it.) These dreams felt very special and secret, but I think they’re somewhat universal—at least for authors.

(Please note: I know that mental health can get in the way of taking any action at all. I’ve written about my depression and anxiety before. If this blog entry makes you feel overwhelmed, please know I’ve been where you are. Focus on taking care of yourself in whatever way you can and don’t worry about all this aspirational ambitious stuff I’m writing. Because the aspirational and ambitious can simply be getting out of bed and taking a shower. I’m proud of you for hanging in there.)

After listening to Atomic Habits, I decided to do the following macro habits all throughout 2020—and I checked these off on a little grid in the James Clear journal:

1. Take my vitamins.

2. Save $5 every day.

3. Write 10,000 words per week.

4. Post a blog entry every Wednesday and Saturday.

5. Go to the gym 3-5 times a week.

I thought that these were things that could get me to my goals—richer, slimmer, more creatively fulfilled. And overall—happy.

I also had some habits I already did. These were:

1. Meditate for 10 minutes every day. (I usually use a guided YouTube video).

2. Write three pages longhand as Morning Pages (per Julia Cameron). (Incidentally, I’ve done this for decades and credit it to the reason I don’t get writer’s block.)

3. Take a Swedish lesson on Duolingo.

I just wanted to keep these up.

I have lots more habits … like brushing my teeth or whatever (and I actually floss because I bought the stuff and leave it out where I can see it), but the ones above are my more unusual habits.

Well, what happened?

1. I took my vitamins. Boring, but I’m also quite healthy, so maybe it helps my overall wellbeing. I haven’t been sick all year. I keep them by my bed where I see them and remember to take them.

(Yes, I wash my hands all the time and don’t touch my face. And yes, I stayed home in quarantine. Yes, I wore a mask when I went out. But I think taking vitamins helped.)

2. I ended up saving $5 every workday not every day. I either transferred the money to a Capital 360 account because it’s hard to transfer it back or put $5 into a Stash account. I sometimes would skip Starbucks or something similar and feel virtuous about transferring the $5. Other times I just transferred it.

At the beginning of the year, the Capital 360 account had $5. It now has $806.

At the beginning of the year the Stash account had $50. It now has almost $2500. (Buying $5 here and there in March when the stock market was down ended up making about $500 over the year, a 23% increase.)

Um, so that’s like $3200 I just kinda now have. Incidentally, $5 per day is $1825 over the course of the year, and I’ve almost doubled that because I invested it, not just saved it—and also sometimes I’d transfer like $10 or $25 if I was feeling wild. Over the months, I saw how the account balance would get close to an even number (like $500), so I’d transfer enough to make it that amount. And it just kept going.

(Also, I’m not intending on this to be money advice. Go talk to someone who actually knows. My thought process was to hedge my bets with doing both safe and speculative—a savings account that earned interest and then various stocks. I also wasn’t spending money I needed for food, shelter, etc. I barely felt the expense, but I very much feel the accumulation of savings.)

There really is magic in just starting to do something small, because it really does compound and snowball into good things.

Maybe in the grand scheme of things $3200 isn’t that much. To me it feels like I have this cute little cushion I literally created out of loose change in a year.

Honestly, it feels like a lot, not “cute” or “little.” If I don’t compare myself to millionaires, it’s kind of amazing.

What would happen if you transferred $1 or $2 a day? By the end of 2021, see how much you have…

Another money habit: I wanted to stop buying so much online and one-clicking so many ebooks—even free ones—because it was just too much. I had like 800 unread books. So I kept track of the days I didn’t buy anything or download any books. My ecommerce moratorium ended up being streaks of time I didn’t buy anything and then a day where I would buy everything off of Amazon or whatever all at once. Not sure it did much except make me feel marginally better. With ebooks, while my TBR count is less than what it was at the beginning of the year, it isn’t the zero I’d hoped it to be. But I seriously read about 300-400 books—about 1-2 a day. (I read fast and don’t sleep.) My “read” pile jumped from 800 to 1100. Not sure what to make of it except I read so much and it was really fun. So, I still have about 680 books on my TBR pile for next year. That can be another habit to work on.

3. I’ve written more than 530,000 words this year. The habit I tied it to incidentally, was opening my laptop. If I open my laptop—and that’s a habit I record with a tick mark on a grid—it’s a lot easier to get into the document and start writing. So the way I trick myself to write is I tell myself all I have to do is open my laptop. Simple. I check off the box that I did it and I feel virtuous. To reward myself for actually getting the word count, I have a little jar with binder clips in it and every 1,000 words I put a binder clip in a small old milk bottle. Then I can see the words add up.

I also did a spreadsheet to know what I’ve written this year. I’ve never done one before because it felt too quantitative rather than qualitative. Writing is supposed to be this outlet for me, not something to beat to death with statistics. But I’m glad I did it because writing can be so amorphous. Putting parameters on it made it feel real.

Oh, and I’ve finished one book, set to be published in February. I have a contract for another, and it’s (today) at 77,000 words. Three more books are 50% or more done. And I did NaNoWriMo. So, yeah. It was a productive year.

I also learned that I like juggling projects. Focusing on one can make me stagnant. If I get stuck on one, moving to another really seemed to keep my momentum going.

But I’m now focusing on getting them done and shipped. One at a time. Because they’re all just so close I can feel it.

4. Before this year, I’d published eleven blog entries from 2017 to 2019. This year, I’ve posted 97, not counting this one. I missed a time or two at the beginning, but um, yeah… That’s a big difference.

The reasons I wanted to focus on posting blog entries were multifold. I’d felt “out of it” as far as publishing, having worked on one book for so long that wasn’t gelling. I’d felt frustrated and jealous of those who got their work done. I needed the instant gratification—so to speak—of putting something out there while I worked on projects that took longer. I also wanted to inure myself to the fear of putting myself out there. With each entry—still—I feel fear, but I wanted to do it anyway. So that when the time comes to publish more fiction, I can go, “yeah, I’ve hit publish (literally) 100 times, what’s the big deal?”

My guiding point for writing a blog post has been my gut feeling—tempered by wanting to reach out and help someone else. But to keep up a streak, there is a document on my computer called “Default blog post.” This is what it says in its entirety:

Default blog post

I told myself I just needed to post a blog every Wednesday and Saturday.

Here is me keeping that promise.

If you see that, well, you’ll know how the week is going.

Is there an endgame here? What am I going to do with these blog posts? I can see me taking some ideas and expanding on them and creating some sort of nonfiction/self-help kind of book. I’ve always wanted to do that. I do see them as steppingstones to something bigger.

It also lets me be okay with imperfection. Typos. “Think-Os.” Whatever. This is me with no editor.

5. So, the gym. Well, until it closed, I was going. My trigger was that I just had to check in. That was how I checked the box. Like opening the laptop, actually getting to the gym is the hard part. Once I was there, it was easy.

But the gym closed and is still closed. Like all of us, I needed a Plan B. (C? D?)

I’ve done short walks and long. Currently, I’m just working on doing pushups. I can do a lot of pushups with my knees on the ground. But I can only do a few “real” ones, so that’s what I’m keeping track of. I’m focusing on doing them slowly and properly, not faking my way through them. Faking them is easy, but I’d rather be able to do them right and have the actual arm strength. My trigger for when I do them is when I close my journal, I have to get down and do pushups. (Currently it’s seven.) To someone else that goal might be ridiculously easy. To me, it’s rather difficult and a little embarrassing to post, but whatever. I’m being honest.

I’m ending the year a few pounds lighter than last year—and lighter than I’ve been in years—so I’m calling it a win.

With the other habits, meditating keeps me happy as does dumping my brain in the morning pages. Oh, and I’m on day 622 in a row of Swedish on Duolingo. It feels like I’ve taken about a semester of college Swedish. Not enough to actually converse with someone but getting the hang of it. I’m motivated by a desire to go to Sweden and see some ancestral places—and actually understand some of the language, even though I know most Swedes speak better English than me.

With COVID-19, like most of us, I’ve spent more time at home, but I’m temperamentally suited to that. I know it’s hurt extroverts hard, but as far as I’m concerned, I got to see my family more—even when I went to the office for work.

What am I looking forward to next year? I like the habits I started for 2020. I just want to keep these systems up, because they seem to be working for me. I hope that by using these systems I end up with four to five books happily published in 2021 and I look forward to seeing how the exercise and money habits work out as well.

This entry is about two or three times my usual blog entry, so if you made it this far, thank you. I hope it inspires you to take a small action and then keep taking that small action over and over again. They really do add up.

I wish you the most amazing year ever in 2021. Know that it’s possible.

#mental health #encouragement #2020

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mysticdragon3md3 · 3 years

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Stayed up all night and practically wrote several essays, trying to convince myself to not/buy KH3 Nendo Kairi. Sorry, Kairi. Maybe if you weren't $62. Maybe if you were KH2 version. But as it is, spending that much, after also preordering other things, including a more expensive Nendo Aqua,...I just can't spend that much on a KH3 Nendo Kairi without feeling guilty. Sorry, completionism. But $62 is too high.

12:23 AM 6/22/2021

Yknow what?

If I had the choice between only having money for a 2nd Nendo Joker or a 2nd Nendo England, I'd choose Joker in a heartbeat. So what am I trying so hard to decide here? Do not preorder Hetalia World Stars version Nendo UK! Even though he's blond, you haven't had need of that. And if you really needed him blond in a photo, you could Photoshop him! but let's be serious, people want to see authentic Nendos in photoshoots, and his non-blond hair will mark him as authentic. So you don't get called a bootleg buyer! But what do you care what others think? You care that Nendo England looks like the England from your nostalgia...and for that, you need blond. And I can do that through Photoshop. Because seriously, you've barely used or looked at your current Nendo UK, you haven't been compelled/obsessed with more USUK photoshoots, you haven't even been playing with Nendos US UK much. YOU WOULD NOT EVEN _NOTICE_ IF YOU HAD 2 NENDO UK. You only need one. Your Nendo US doesn't even have sandy blond hair like your anime nostalgia! So what does it matter if UK is off-color!?! ...It matters because you have a chance to get proper-color UK hair. But I don't want to spend all this money. When I first saw this figure announcement for Hetalia World Stars version Nendo UK, my immediate thought was that I don't feel the need to have 2 Nendo UK. I already barely play with the one I have. It wasn't until I realized this 2nd edition Nendo UK has blond hair, that I started thinking I had to have it. But if that's the only reason, then I don't really need to. I don't actually have such an intense need to have it. I've barely had an intense need (anymore) to have my current Nendo UK. So I definitely don't need a 2nd one. And if saving my money on this, will allow me to get possibly a better Nendoroid later, well then, this is an opportunity to revisit that "lost battle" where I wasted money on Bayonetta, 2B, etc---*This* time, I could win that "battle". And then maybe in the future, there'll be a 2nd Joker Nendo or Nendos for Claude and Dimitri! *o* In any case, so many figures end up in the Available Now section, that blond Nendo UK will probably end up there. Or, if you're worried to not have a blond UK ready if GSC later releases a properly sandy-blond Nendo US, then I'm sure if they ever announced a 2nd Nendo Amerrica, then they'd re-release the Nendo UKs. This is not even your last chance, you might have extra money to afford a 2nd Nendo UK in the future, but for sure you know, you don't have the money to waste on a 2nd Nendo UK _right now_. So don't. Save your money for that hypothetical 2nd Nendo Joker in his school uniform, or Nendo Dimitri and Claude, or whatever gets announced from the Nendoroid Select '21 survey results. Remember, that still needs to get announced. So, no on preordering Hetalia World Stars version Nendoroid UK.

As for Kairi...Let's be honest (again). I haven't been obsessed with Kingdom Hearts in years. And even when I was, Kairi was barely in them. I don't have that much of an attachment to Kairi. Even though Oathkeeper is my favorite Keyblade because it came from Kairi, sometimes I fear that emotional impact was more the effectiveness of that plot point in that moment of the first game, more than a reflection of my attachment to Kairi. I have attachments to Riku and Sora. When their Nendoroids were announced, I preordered ALL of them right away. Even though I didn't really like KH2 Sora's outfit. Even though it pained my wallet to buy 3 pairs of the same characters, back to back. Even after all these years, those 2 were the characters I was sure of feeling attachment towards. I can't keep judging whether to buy Kairi's KH3 Nendo, based on possible attachments I might feel towards Kairi in KH3. Because I've had that game for months and I still haven't even opened the case yet! O~o! That should be my strongest indicator of my attachments towards Kairi and willingness to buy Nendos for her, especially KH3 Nendos of her. Admit it: Your KH nostalgia is all wrapped up with KH2, Birth by Sleep, and earlier. I shouldn't be making $62 purchase decisions for Kairi, based on KH3---a game that I'm apparently no longer interested in enough to play immediately. Not getting KH3 Kairi's Nendo feels bad as a completionist and as someone who has real life personal attachments to sibling-like groups of 3 friends. But I knew when she was announced that I still preferred her KH2 look, because I've just always liked long(er) hair. And I love her dress in KH2. Yes, I have to gamble on GSC eventually announcing a KH2 Nendo Kairi, and then when I get her, all my "groups of 3 friends" figure photoshoots will be limited to Sora, Riku, and Kairi's KH2 depictions...even though I don't really like KH2 Sora's look...But am I even that compelled to take photos of Sora/Riku/Kairi in the first place? I barely take pics of my current, KH1 Sora/Riku Nendos right now. But if KH3 is my last Kingdom Hearts game (even if my status is still to "eventually" play it), wouldn't I want Sora/Riku/Kairi's last depiction in my memories to be what I own as Nendoroids? I mean, it would be the perfect end-cap image to the series for me. And Square said that KH3 is the end of the Xehanort Saga or something. It's the end cap. ---There I go, basing a Nendoroid purchase on a game I haven't even played yet, while I ALSO already know I prefer Kairi's KH2 look. Y'know what? What if they do eventually release a KH2 Kairi, a KH1 Kairi, even Terra and Ven as Nendoroids? They'll definitely choose some previous Nendos to re-release alongside them! And if they release another version of Kairi, then guess what? The re-release will be KH3 Kairi. And maybe by then, I'll have the money for this. Or at least, the results for the Nendoroids Select '21 survey would have been released by then, and then I can know whether my money can go towards a character I want more, or towards a KH3 Kairi re-release. I mean, it'd be different if Kairi played a bigger role in KH3, and though I've been staying away from most spoilers, I did hear that she got sidelined AGAIN. And sure, it seems she might be the protagonist of the upcoming rhythm game, but I may not get that. I'm stopping at KH3, remember? So if she's getting sidelined in KH3 again and in the rhythm game, she's like asleep or something, reminiscing, just being used as the overall story's framing device,...then that doesn't sound like a lot of screentime for me to get attached to her. I mean, when I was younger, I thought Kairi did a lot in KH2, but I didn't cry when she reunited with Sora, I cried when Sora and Riku reunited. (I don't even ship those babies! LOL) ---I feel really bad writing all this to convince myself that I don't like Kairi enough to spend $62 on her. It's not like I hate her. I don't even *dislike* her! I LIKE her!!!! It's just...I've been retroactively organizing my Nendoroid

inventory lately, and I've been seeing all the money I've wasted on figures that I only bought out of completionism, that made me cringe inside at the pain this would cause my wallet, because I didn't love the character enough to jump and thrash in my chair with excitement, when I saw their figure announcements and "DAMN THE COST!"... If KH3 Kairi Nendo can't make me feel that way, then I shouldn't be buying her.

There's a perfect counter example in this month's preorder interests!!! I wasn't expecting Pop Up Parade Kikyo! I don't even like static scale figures! I like articulated figures! And chibi too! Pop Up Parade isn't either of those things! And I haven't been a fan of Inuyasha in years! I haven't been obsessing over anything Rumiko Takahashi in years! But when I saw Kikyo's Pop Up Parade announced, I knew I had to buy her. I jumped up and thrashed in my chair. I gasped. I uttered "ohmygawd" over and over like I was losing my mind. Even now, I occasionally browse her announcement pics, just to admire my waifu some more. That's how ALL my figure preorders should make me feel.

And I don't feel that way about KH3 Nendo Kairi.

And I don't feel that way about Hetalia World Stars version Nendo UK/England.

I kind of want to be suspicious if Nendo Aqua makes me feel that way, but what's there to be suspicious about? I'm too attached to her. The majority of my favorite cosplay memories are attached through her. On top of that, her character design is so pretty! She qualifies as what I call in my figure collecting, a "beauty piece", a figure whose design or sculpt is so pretty, that whether I even know the character/series is negligible for me to enjoy owning that figure. Aqua's got that AND she's endeared herself to me. Plus, she's a nice character. I got invested in her BBS story, her 0.2 story, and curiosity about her in KH3 is a big part of why I never concede that I'll someday play that game. I like Aqua. And her character design is pretty. I shouldn't feel guilty about preordering her Nendoroid this month. Even if a future hypothetical Ky Kiske Nendoroid gets announced in the possible future, I would gladly spend money on both Aqua and Ky. I'd make my budget work.

So, sounds like I'm preordering:

Pop Up Parade Kikyo

Nendoroid Aqua

and that's it.

1:37 AM 6/22/2021

Y'know the funny thing is that I feel like if GSC did announce a KH2 Kairi, I'd want KH3 Kairi too. ...She is pretty cute... Damn it. This wouldn't be such a problem if she wasn't $62!!!!!

Looking back through my Nendoroid Inventory, most of my 2017 Nendoroids were under $40! That's because the currency exchange rate was to our advantage. Because the US$ was stronger vs the yen back then, we got everything pretty much at least $5 off! But now we buy from GSC Shop US, and their prices don't account for currency exchange rate changes. (But can I justify switching back to preordering from GSC's international shop, when they have $20 shipping vs GSC US's $3/figure shipping, and we're still in a pandemic so I should limit my purchases to as local as possible? I feel like especially in the pandemic, I have to stick to the GSC US shop.) A 4000yen Nendo isn't $35.30 like it was for me in 2017. Now a 4000yen Nendo is probably like $40 at GSC Shop US. Hold on...Browsing through the GSC international online shop...Even the simple Nendos, like this Nendoroid Steven A Starphase, just a guy in a suit, is already 6930yen! These Bofuri Nendo preorders right now? BOTH ARE 6600YEN EACH!!! In 2017, I got the freaking special edition harvest moon Kagamine Len and Rin Nendoroids for $35.30 each!. I thought that maybe Square was charging GSC extra licensing fees since they would prefer to make money off their own figure lines (Play Arts Kai, Bring Arts, Play Arts Mini, etc.). But it seems like Nendoroids are just more expensive in 2021. O______________O!!!!!!!!!!!! In 2017/2018, even the freaking Madoka Magica maiko version Nendoroids were only $42.36, $43.99, $39.71! And those had so many tiny printed floral details! And accessories! O~o! Same for my detailed Touken Ranbu and KanColle Nendoroids back then! O_O!?!?!???????!!!??????????? Nendoroids are just going to be more expense now. Wow.

I guess the important thing is that if I buy Nendo Kairi, that when it comes time to unbox her, I don't get that sickly unboxing feeling in my stomach, where I can't believe I spent money on this. Like, Kiso is cool, but I don't know her and I'm certainly not obsessed with her. I shouldn't have bought her, especially for over $50. Same with the Akizuki sisters. Probably same with Shoukaku, though she seemed nice in the anime. And certainly the lack of attachment applies to my Nendoroid Iowa. More than half my Touken Ranbu Nendoroids, I bought without really knowing their characters. Half of them, I bought just to prove to Good Smile Company, the demand for male figures. Soon after those first few TouRabu toudans, GSC announced their Orange Rouge line: "Good Smile Company and Max Factory's brand dedicated to male character figures and goods." And yeah, I'm super sentimental enough that even though I didn't really know these characters, now that they're in my collection, they're MINE, they're my precious little tsukumogami babies, whom I wouldn't trade away, no matter how much my finances complain. Plus, I have so much anxiety, that selling/trading is too much stress for me. If my reluctant and failed attempts to sell the lesser parts of my manga collection at swap meets have proven, is that even if I wasn't obsessed with the thing I collected, and even if I have an easy opportunity to get rid of them, WHILE making money in doing so,...I still just can't do it. That's why I threw away all my Nendoroids' packaging plastics when I ran out of storage room for them. I knew I was too chicken and too sentimental to ever sell any of my Nendoroids. Even the ones that gave me that sickly unboxing feeling in my stomach, thinking about the $50+ money I wasted.

---Even when I could have instead been spending it on Nendoroids of characters I actually love! What if a school uniform Nendo Joker gets announced? Or a Nendoroid Claude and Dimitri? What about Nendoroids for Ky, Sol, Lady, Lelouch, Rukia, etc.??? Sure, I can squeeze things into my budget right now. But if that time comes later, when I'll want a Nendo schoolboy Joker or a Nendo Rukia, and I don't have the money for them, will a Nendoroid KH3 Kairi have been worth it? I mean, I already prefer her KH2 look over her KH3 look. Why do I have to care if I don't have a matching Kairi to my Sora/Riku Nendos in my figure photos? Why do I have to be so completionist about this? People will understand that not everyone can afford matching Nendoroids. Hell, my Nendo America and Nendo England don't match! One is from Hetalia World Stars! The other is from Hetlaia The World Twinkle! No one cares! What's important is that I have the 2 characters from my ship in the same pic or the same shelf! No one cares if they match! If I prefer KH2 Kairi, then I should hold-out for her and then take goddamn pictures of her with KH3 Sora/Riku if I want! Hell, I prefer KH2 Riku's look too! I'll just swap out Sora and take pics of KH2 Riku with KH2 Kairi, and KH3 Sora! ...That is, if GSC eventually makes a KH2 Nendo Kairi.

omg I'm going in circles again. I need a snack break.

8:15 AM 6/22/2021

I'm too tired now to remember all the thoughts I wrote about and thought through. x~x;

8:43 AM 6/22/2021

If I skipped KH3 Nendoroid Kairi, would I even miss her? I mean, before, I was so hung up on my Nendo UK not being blond, but now I realize that I barely even think about that, nor even often think of that Nendoroid itself, very often. Hardly ever, actually. Will it be similar with Kairi? I mean,I don't look at my KH1 Sora/Riku Nendo and lament about how I don't have a KH1 Kairi Nendo to go with them. I actually don't really like Kairi's KH1 look. I guess I only really like her KH2 look. So why not hold out for KH2 Kairi Nendoroid possibly being announced in the future? But what if they never make a Nendo Kairi besides this KH3 Kairi, and I miss out on this one and only Kairi, while holding out for a Nendo of KH2Kairi? I hate gambling. But if I skipped KH3 Nendo Kairi now, would I even miss her?.......... She's $62 and I should save my money.

10:12 AM 6/22/2021

I think you should buy figures that you feel good about spending $62 on. Figures that you don't feel guilty about buying. If Nendoroid KH3 Kairi makes you feel guilty, like $62 is not worth it or too much, then don't buy her. Wait for a KH2 Nendo Kairi that will make you feel good to spend on.

But I feel so bad to pass her up! Ugh! This is so hard! ;o;

10:30 AM 6/22/2021

Funny the clarity you can have while brushing and flossing your teeth. If I feel bad spending $62 on Nendo KH3 Kairi, then she must not mean that much to me. She's not worth $62 to me.

I remember when I first saw her announced at WonHobby and I felt safe from needing to buy her. I even commented on GSC's Twitter, that my suddenly finding her cute, threatened my original security and certainty in knowing I didn't feel compelled to buy her.

Remember:

1) Don't buy based on predicted attachments to a character in a game you haven't played yet. I haven't played KH3 yet.

2) If Kairi changes my mind after I play KH3, then she'll probably get a re-release later anyway.

3) When you first saw KH3 Nendo Kairi, your first thought wasn't that I needed her. It was that I felt secure that I didn't need her.

4) You don't have money to spare for a Nendo you're unsure about liking to the worth of $62. Because you didn't expect a Pop Up Parade Kikyo nor her unexpected costs, even if it is relatively cheap. And you still need enough money for a $65 Nendo Aqua. You don't have enough money for any half-certain, hesitating likes towards KH3 Kairi Nendoroid.

5) Other people are skipping KH3 Nendo Kairi even though they also want to buy her.

(https://twitter.com/guttural/status/1406709434592735237) "I want her, but I'm so broke and already ordered the Axel and Roxas Nendos ;_;"

10:38 AM 6/22/2021

I'm going to tell Kuya, I don't need Nendo KH3 Kairi. And then I'm going to forget I was even considering buying her. KH2 and KH3 Sora/Riku Nendoroids are going to come in, and I won't even miss her. Just like I do now, with my KH1 Sora/Riku Nendoroids. And I will wait for a KH2 Nendo Kairi. And when she does get announced, I'll preorder her without regret, because I prefer that character design.

2:33 AM 6/28/2021

I really wanted to get Swacchao Nendoroid Hinata. I was originally just going to get the Swacchao parts since I already have the full Nendoroid Hinata Shoyo. I didn't need a seated Hinata, but as a completionist and Hinata fan, I thought I SHOULD get Swacchao Hinata, or at least the seated Swacchao parts.

But then I had this idea that when I return to an office job, it'd be so nice to have Nendoroid Swacchao Hinata at my desk with me. I had had ideas before about bringing a Nendoroid or 2 to my next office job. I even bought Nendoroid Aoba Suzukaze for that reason. (She's an "office lady" and her accessories include dialogue bubbles of her shouting about doing her best. I thought it'd be really encouraging to have at work.) But I was worried about leaving an actual Nendoroid at my desk, overnight. Would I pack up my desk's Nendoroid(s) each night before I clocked out? Impractical. Should I only use Nendoroids of characters I don't care too much about, to decorate my office desk? But if it's not a character I love, then how is their presence encouraging? And being encouragaing is the entire point of desk decor at a soul-killing job. But then here are these Nendoroid Swacchao Hinata Shoyo announcements! Less than $30! I could have a character I love, from an explicitly encouraging series, and being essentially a dupliate of a Nendoroid I already have, I shouldn't worry too much about him getting stolen from any desk of mine.

But I just can't justify buying a duplicate of a character I already have. I was already cutting out Kageyama and Yuuji from my preorder candidates. I'm in the middle of cataloging my Nendoroid inventory and fully realizing how much money I've wasted on Nendoroids of characters I didn't know, barely knew, liked but didn't love, duplicates of characters I already had, etc. It had to stop. So no Swacchao Kageyama for me. And if we're being honest about my terrible spending, then I really shouldn't be getting either type of Swacchao Hinata either. No more duplicates of characters. ;_; No matter how much I want them. ;_____;

#wallet dying #figure collecting #processing thoughts #please ignore my idiocy #venting

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cradleaine · 4 years

Text

Happy New Year.

I’ve had a lot of reflections this year, especially towards the end. I often forget to write about them after planning to write about them, often because I have moved on from the temporary emptiness and loneliness and I want to repress them as much as possible. As a result, they get stuck in my head, and I don’t get to fulfil my desire to write again.

I don’t deal well with emotions. I haven’t been good at it since the thing in 2018. It was too much, I guess. I still think about it every single day since. So, with that, I just force myself to ignore my feelings. It’s easier that way.

I don’t get to escape them, of course. By avoiding to address them, they just lay stagnant in my head. No progress. So here I am. January 1, 2021, at 1:44 AM. I’m going to attempt to write about the reflections that I remember. Raw from my head, without the Writing major quirks.

The first in my head is security. As most people know, I am an orphan. Never knew who my father was, had my mom die when I was 17 (in early 2017). It’s not like it’s a personality trait; it’s just a huge part of who I am and why I think and behave the way I do.

The thing from 2018 is hugely justified (by me) with that. I just don’t think no one understands, yanno--she has both parents and a financially stable household. I don’t have both of those. She knows that. With everything that happened between us and the org, alongside the issues I had in my family and academics, it was a really tough time for me. I don’t mean that to be an excuse for my bad behavior. It’s not. I’ve said it time and time again that I knew what I did were bad before I even did them (which, quite frankly, makes the situation worse). But I didn’t know what else to do. All spaces that house me required me to conceal everything. To stay composed. To handle everything with “class,” because if I didn’t, things will fall apart. I always hear, “pakatatag ka,” “kumalma ka.” It was always my feelings that were forbidden, as if they were ugly from the start. As if I would kill everyone who gets to hear me talk. So, eventually, I lashed out. I didn’t know what to do. No one was there to save me. No one was there to help me. I was all alone. I used to like staying in one place (either Elbi or home) when the other feels threatening. That time, both were unsafe. I had nowhere to be.

It feels like shit because I expected her to understand. I did not expect her to tolerate me, but I expected that she’d know why I was acting that way. I was wrong. And until today, I’m convinced no one has ever understood why that happened.

She has everything she needs to survive. I was in a tough corner, having no choice but to fuck up one thing or another. Catch 22. By the end, that was the entire picture.

Family is next. Since it’s January 1, I don’t feel pretty good. Worldwide holidays haven’t been the best in the past recent years. I remember some scenes from so-so celebrations in the past, but I don’t know which ones brought actual happiness. I don’t even have recollection of the past year’s celebrations. Ever since my mom died and the house grew bigger than it seems, memory has been both a dangerous thing and a rare visitor. Scientifically guessing, maybe it’s the brain’s way of coping with pain.

Tonight, I sat in the balcony in my hoodie and house shorts like a fucking loser. No shower, tangled hair, oily face. The rawest and most pitiful version to be shown to the public, who was just right there: outside the gates of my property, a few meters away from me, having the times of their lives with good food, probably expensive fireworks, and a happy family.

It was the ugliest picture I could have ever shown off. I sat there with obvious loneliness, new phone in hand, trying to capture the very few colors that painted the sky for a few seconds. I wanted to stay in peace, above my sadness and worries, while ignoring the pitiful scene I was showcasing.

The fireworks startled me. Honestly, it wasn’t the pulbura that scared me; it was more of a fear of having the brightness near me, therefore showing more of the despair that I am. Having the spectacle right above my roof, as if spotlighting the sadness and hopelessness in my home.

I went inside. I figured it was better to leave the sorrow as a thought instead of proving them to my neighbors in person.

I felt so weak. It felt suffocating trying to hide my sadness. Every step was heavy. I wanted to hide my face, because how pathetic of a person am I to be so miserable during a worldwide holiday? One that is loud and colorful. I was ashamed.

Family just isn’t the same anymore. And with every day that passes, I feel more and more alone, afraid that the day that happens is soon.

There just isn’t a right coping mechanism to escape this. I bought a lot of stationeries towards the end of this year. I (kinda) got back into art. I bought a new phone. All of these to “cure” the depression that slowly eats me alive. Do I love these new stuff? Yes. Do I hate myself for buying them? Absolutely.

I know there isn’t much to be mad about. It’s my money. I worked for it and earned it. Aside from that, I still have savings. So I’m not being completely rash deciding to buy all of these. However, the sadness is still there. I sit on my desk (which, by the way, I also spent a heck ton on) and face my pens, washi tapes, notebooks, iPad, and new phone, and think about the reasons why my life is so hard.

That sounds incredibly privileged because it is. I am privileged. I have a hard life, but the fact that I have all of these things and more shows just that. But this isn’t about that (yet). I know I’m probably addressing the wrong concerns, such as my phone is low on storage, or I need to organize my pens better, and I should probably invest on mental healthcare or weight loss or whatever. But I just feel like that’s such a tedious process. As aforementioned, I don’t do well with emotions. Those long-term solutions require entertaining and addressing my emotions, and that’s something that I’m still not ready to talk about.

Circling back to privilege, this year has been a testament of the gap between social circles. I’m not in the most fortunate bracket myself, but I am certainly a few levels higher from the ground. I’ve seen, heard, and read about people less fortunate than me get ignored, abused, and killed. I am mad about it. I am furious. And I hate it more that that’s all I can do.

At night, when I think about these things, these people, I get so sad and angry at the world. How the system just watches so many people suffer in the hands of reigning abuse. I want to do something, but I am too scared to get out of the security bubble (albeit how small and thin it is). I hate that I feel unsafe outside it, and I hate that I can’t move past that fear.

It’s plainly that: being stuck in a circle of rage and fear. Because that’s all I can be at the moment: angry and scared, simultaneously. There isn’t a personal resolution for this yet, but I have a little hope for myself.

A lot of people seem to think that the new year will bring a new kind of hope to humanity. I want that too, but I don’t want to have farfetched expectations that will make me and my community upset. Given that, here is what I hope for, to put simply: I wish for a more compassionate community. One that understands the type of security that guards us, the kind of family we are taking care of, how we hold up with challenges, and the privileges we associate with.

Also, this year, I just want things to be fine.

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

Text

New story in Business from Time: Why We Buy In to the Big Business of Sleep

In a small room without windows, I am instructed to breathe in sync with a colorful bar on a screen in front of me. Six counts in. Six counts out. Electrodes tie me to a machine whirring on the table. My hands and feet are bare, wiped clean and placed atop silver boards. My finger is pinched by an oximeter, my left arm squeezed by a blood-pressure cuff. Across from me, a woman with a high ponytail, scrublike attire and soft eyes smiles encouragingly. She is not a doctor, and this is not a lab. The air smells like lavender and another fruity scent I later learn is cassis. My chair is made of woven reeds, topped with a thick cushion and a pillow for lumbar support. The windowless room feels more cozy than claustrophobic; this is not torture but a luxury. I am, in fact, in a five-star resort with a 2,000-sq-m spa and an indoor heated pool. This process, I have been promised, will help me sleep better.

For years, I had been waking up exhausted. My primary care doctor ran my blood work three separate times to try to suss out an underlying problem, and each time it came back fine. I had no problem falling asleep, or even really staying asleep. The problem was that no matter how many hours of sleep I got, I had to haul myself out of bed in the morning, grumpy and lethargic.

So, in December, before COVID-19 ravaged the world and made travel unsafe, I journeyed to a beautiful valley in Portugal’s Port wine region to take part in the €220-per-night Six Senses Sleep Retreat to try to learn to sleep better. Six Senses has long made wellness and sustainability two of its main pillars of business. They have yoga retreats and infrared spas. They’re aiming to be plastic-free by 2022—all plastic, not just single-use. But for the past two years, the luxury resort brand has bet big on sleep. In 2017, they launched a sleep program with a sleep coach, sleep monitoring, a wellness screening, bedtime tea service and a goody bag of sleep-health supplies. The idea was that, with three nights of analysis and behavioral adjustments, I might finally train my body to get a good night’s sleep. It’s a vacation with a purpose, and it’s one with big appeal: Six Senses offers the program at 10 of its resorts and is requiring all new resorts (including New York City in 2021) to include the program.

Luxury hotels have been pushing health as a selling point for travel since well before events made the two oxymoronic. The global wellness-tourism market was valued at $683.3 billion in 2018 by Grand View Research, and according to the Global Wellness Institute’s 2018 report, 830 million wellness trips were taken by travelers in 2017. That was up nearly 17% from 2015. In 2018, American Airlines partnered with the meditation app Calm to help their passengers sleep. Headspace has partnerships with seven different airlines to do the same thing, all over the past few years. A survey from the National Institutes of Health shows that the number of U.S. adults who reported meditating while traveling tripled from 2012 through 2017. And all this travel wellness has one common goal: to get people to sleep better, because we know that—generally—people aren’t sleeping well.

In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published findings claiming that one-third of adults are not getting enough sleep and that sleep deprivation is costing the country some $400 billion each year in productivity. It is also important to note that many studies have found a large disparity in sleep quality based on race, ethnicity and socio-economic status. In comparisons of white and Black populations, studies have found that white women have the best sleep duration and Black men the worst. Those disparities do not go away when studies adjust for socio-economic level. The Sleep Foundation writes that a factor may be higher levels of stress because of discrimination in daily life.

Although consumers have opened their wallets in pursuit of better sleep since the debut of memory foam in 1966, the past five years have been a boom for the sleep-wellness industry. The global sleeping-products market brought in $69.5 billion in revenue in 2017, and, according to the most recent report published in May 2018 by P&S Market Research, the industry is on track to hit $101.9 billion in 2023. The consulting group McKinsey put out a seven-page guide to investing in sleep health in 2017. And anyone who has tried to buy a mattress online recently has noticed just how many new mattress brands there are: Casper, Tuft & Needle, Purple, Leesa, Allswell, SleepChoices, Bear. The U.S. mattress industry has doubled in value since 2015, from $8 billion to $16 billion.

In my desperate quest for good sleep, I’ve bought into all of this. When I sat down to calculate it all, I was stunned to find that over the past three years, I have spent more than $1,000 on sleep. I bought a Fitbit, a Sonos speaker with a built-in alarm, a new pillow, a new mattress, a fluffier comforter, a weighted blanket, cold eye masks, a humidifier, pajamas made of bamboo, pajamas made of 100% cotton, pajamas made of satin and an alarm clock that mimics a sunrise. The sleep retreat, I hoped, would do something all the other purchases had not.

I don’t sleep well on the plane. After four hours of fitful slumber interrupted by turbulence, dinner service and my seat neighbor bumping into me on the red-eye from New York City to Lisbon, I groggily deplane and replane for the short flight to Porto, down another espresso and drive the one and a half hours to the Douro Valley. By the time I arrive at the hotel, the sun is beginning to set and my bed looks very inviting. It is only 5 p.m.

I’m led to my room by a woman named Vera who introduces my supplies: an eye mask, bamboo pajamas, earplugs, lavender spray for my bed and a worry journal where I can write down anything bothering me before I sleep. I flop down on the €2,500 mattress and hope that whatever I learn here will be easily transferable to the $200 mattress I bought off Amazon and my sad cotton-blend sheets. By the bed is a small box made by ResMed, which will track my movements while I sleep and present me with colorful graphs of data each morning.

I follow the given instructions: eat dinner leisurely, have only one glass of wine, take a bath in the deep tub, drink chamomile tea, put on the new pajamas, write in the journal and go to bed around 10 p.m. When I wake up, the ResMed app shows a series of colorful bars—my “sleep architecture” progression through deep, REM and light sleep—and a score of 97. “I had nothing to say about that sleep,” shrugs Javier Suarez, the director of the spa and wellness programs at Douro Valley, at my first consultation. He studied physiotherapy at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and he knows this is abnormally good. “What we [often] see here is the first night, [guests] sleep bad because they come jet-lagged or they’re anxious,” he says. I’d slept a hard, uninterrupted eight hours. I feel proud of the prep I did before I came, adjusting my bedtime to try to prevent jet lag.

There are many scientific reasons to desire good sleep. Poor sleep quality is associated with a whole host of unhealthy side effects. Getting bad sleep puts people at a higher risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, impaired memory, problem-solving issues, fatigue, anxiety, mood disturbances and poor performance at work. There’s a market, then, to help people sleep better, not just because it makes money, but also because it is generally good for people. “There’s no wellness without good sleep. Forget about it,” Suarez tells me. “If you don’t make sleep your priority, then you will not be healthy.”

The Global Wellness Institute attributes the growing wellness industry to four things: an aging population, increased global rates of chronic disease and stress, the negative health impacts of environmental degradation and the frequent failures of modern Western medicine. In the case of insomniacs, the ever popular sleep drugs Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata and others received black-box warnings from the FDA—the agency’s most serious caution—in May 2019. Those turned off by the foreboding -packaging may turn to more holistic sleep-wellness methods. Sleep scientists have also been working to better publicize their research on the benefits of sleep hygiene. In 2013, the CDC and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine launched the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project, which aimed to raise public knowledge of sleep disorders and the ways sleep affects health.

Obsession is the inevitable peak of any trend. While I’m at the resort, Suarez recommends several other ways I can optimize my health, including Wellness FX, a company that will run a full blood panel, and Viome, a company you can mail your poop to in order to learn about your gut -micro-biome. We have the ability now to analyze absolutely -everything about ourselves sans doctor oversight: our blood pressure, our pH, our urine, our poop, our genes. Sleep is just part of the cultural movement toward health obsession. A 2017 study done by Rebecca Robbins at New York University found that a full 28.2% of people in the U.S. track their sleep—with an app, a wearable sleep tracker, or both—and Robbins, now a postdoctoral fellow at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, says she thinks that number has likely increased since the study.

All this data is what runs the sleep-wellness industry. Every major sleep-wellness company tracking sleep is collecting data—cumulative data. Eight Sleep, for example, says it has 40 million hours of sleep traffic logged. Alexandra Zatarain, a co-founder and vice president of brand and marketing for the company, says the medical establishment has “never had access to people’s actual sleep [outside of] clinical settings.” Six Senses, on the other hand, has complete data about how people sleep when they’re on vacation, thanks to their sleep programs. Companies theoretically use all this data to make their products better for the consumer, but they also use it for targeted marketing (perhaps to sell you a new pillow or blanket) or sell it outright. Some sleep-wellness companies more benevolently share their data with academic institutions to learn more about what it could mean. Eight Sleep is working on studies with Mount Sinai, UCSF and Stanford. Matt Mundt, who founded a company called Hatch Sleep, which makes a blanket cocoon sleep pod for adults, says he plans to announce a partnership with a major medical system to bring the product into clinical trials.

The sleep-wellness industry is made up of three categories of products: treatments (prescription sleep aids, homeopathic remedies, and doctor interventions like surgeries or sleep-apnea-treatment devices), routine disrupters (sleep trackers, meditation apps, dietary changes and sleep programs) and nesting (mattresses, pillows, curtains, humidifiers). Treatments are mainly performed and monetized by the medical industry and the hospitality industry (like this sleep retreat). Most of the buzzy sleep-wellness companies like Eight Sleep, Oura, Casper and OMI are creating products that fit into the routine disrupter and nesting categories. Eight Sleep, for example, sells a mattress that regulates its own temperature (nesting) and tracks your sleep to provide personalized coaching (treatment). The brand has raised $70 million over the past three years, with $40 million of that raised in November. Zatarain says the company plays to the public desire to self-analyze and self-optimize. “We want people to be asking themselves, ‘Am I sleep-fit, or not?’” she says.

Courtesy Six Senses Douro ValleyAn outdoor resting spot at the Six Senses Douro Valley in Portugal

After my first night of delicious, wonderful 97-score sleep, I’m feeling a little cocky. I—I’ve convinced myself already—am sleep-fit. Suarez is not so sure. “I bet you tonight you’re going to do worse,” he says on day two. “You’ll get an 87 or something.” The data, he says, does not care about my confidence.

I spend much of my second day at the retreat thinking about my sleep score. The keys to good sleep, I’m told, are simple: exercise; eating well; not drinking too much; a dark, quiet space; creating a wind-down routine; no screens two hours before bed; and a comfortable bed. The greatest enemy of sleep is stress. The main value of the sleep score—and sleep tracking in general—is not to affect your sleep, but to tell you when you need to change your waking habits.

“The biggest win [of sleep tracking] is in the behavior change,” says Els van der Helm, the co-founder and CEO of Shleep, which designs customized sleep programs. Through her company, van der Helm works to convince companies that employees’ sleep should be prioritized not only because it is good for them, but also because it will make the company more profitable. (Shleep itself raised $1.4 million in venture capital in August 2019.) At her presentations, van der Helm sees the same behavior again and again. As she describes easy things employees can do to improve their sleep, she suggests a wake-up light alarm. Immediately, everyone grabs their phones and orders one online. “That’s great, but can they be as passionate about exercise, or creating a wind-down routine?” she says. “The issue is that people love throwing money at the problem and just buy something and think they’re good. ”

The problems with our sleep—for those who are otherwise healthy—are often problems we can fix ourselves. “You don’t need any of that stuff,” Suarez tells me when I run through the list of products I’ve tried. “People say, ‘How can I sleep better?’ And my answer is, ‘How can you have a better life?’”

Making sleep improvement all about what we can purchase to help us also creates an untrue narrative around what that data means. In her study on sleep-tracking habits, Robbins also found a disparity in who tracks their sleep: the higher a person’s income, the more likely they were to track their sleep. “A very concerning aspect of the conversation around sleep is the message that sleep is a luxury,” Robbins says. “We need to remove the notion that sleep is a luxury and replace it with the truth, which is that sleep is something we all deserve and that unifies us.”

So on my second day at the sleep retreat—yes, a massive luxury—I do everything right. I think about my sleep score and forgo a second glass of wine, even though I’m on vacation. I think about my sleep score and go to yoga. My body and I deserve it.

That night, I feel terrible getting into bed. I’m stressed about the amount of work I have to do, and I keep thinking about how that stress will disrupt my sleep. Suarez is either a sleep witch who intentionally cursed me, or someone who knows what he’s talking about. My money is on the latter. I close my eyes and open them again only a few hours later, thinking about my sleep score. Eventually, I get back to sleep and wake in the morning to a markedly worse 85.

Suarez had warned me that some Type A people slept worse on their second night simply because they knew they were being tracked, but when Vera reviews my Night 2 results, she says she can tell what the problem was. The ResMed shows two scores for each night’s sleep, both calculated based on your movement in bed: one for your mental sleep and one for your physical. On the second night, my mental sleep was fine. It was my body sleep that was a disaster. I needed, Suarez says, to wear myself out.

On the third day, I sign up for a cardio class in the gym after a nice long walk. By the time I begin my wind-down routine in the evening, I’m already sore. In the morning, I wake up feeling refreshed. I can’t remember the last time I felt this way first thing in the morning. I roll over and check my score: 94. Success. The charts show that I had not only slept well, but I also got plenty of deep sleep. “I’m not giving you a perfect solution for sleep,” Suarez says before I leave the resort, “I’m just showing you what happens when you do things right.”

When I return from the sleep program, I feel better physically than I have in a long time. I find myself making decisions based not on my health, but on how they will affect my sleep quality. I don’t have coffee late even though it’s a struggle to stay awake back on the East Coast. I do my wind-down routine and spray my lavender spray and sleep hard through the night. The biggest change, though, is how often I think about my sleep, which is constantly. I join a gym, something I had been meaning to do for a year, simply because I know it will help me sleep. And it does work—for a while.

My perfect sleep routine begins to devolve even before the pandemic hits. At home, I fall asleep with the TV on watching Monday Night Football. I don’t have time to exercise every day. Unsurprisingly, I’m much, much more stressed than I had been at the luxury hotel with every amenity in the world and no job to do. I need motivation—inspiration—so I turn to Instagram, and I find @followthenap.

Alex Shannon is a “sleep influencer” who spends most of his time running the account, crafting cozy-looking images of heavenly sleepscapes. He started the account a year and a half ago and says he has noticed a substantial growth in the focus on sleep health in the time since. The boom in products has been good for him too. Every new supplement or sunrise alarm clock or mattress is another potential sponsorship. He’s one of only a few influencers focused solely on sleep, but plenty of general wellness influencers also dabble in sleep, and the content is there. More than 26.8 million posts on Instagram have been tagged #sleep and almost 4 million have been tagged #nap. Even now, when he’s not traveling because of COVID-19 concerns—he was often sent to expensive sleep retreats gratis, in exchange for posts—Shannon has pivoted his sleep content to his own home. And he says he’s had a lot of interest from foreign travel boards making plans for when the travel restrictions are lifted. “I feel like as recently as a few years ago, making rest and relaxation a priority was seen as selfish somehow,” Shannon says, “but with the rise of ‘self-care,’ it’s become much more acceptable to slow down and take care of ourselves.”

Part of that impulse to slow down has been engineered by sleep companies themselves. If wellness can look good on Instagram, it can make money. Just take the boom in Casper sales. Casper was hardly the first mattress startup to market, and it wasn’t even the first to roll its mattresses. But in 2014, the company encouraged customers to post videos unboxing their Casper mattresses and watching them unfurl. The influx of mesmerizing videos, all featuring Casper’s logo, helped the company become the leading brand in mattress startups. James Newell, a vice president at an investment firm that backed Casper, said in an interview with Freakonomics that Casper “would tell you they’re not a mattress company, they’re a digital-first brand around sleep.” It helps that Casper is estimated to have an $80 million marketing budget.

“Our brand ambassadors”—a common synonym for influencers paid to promote a product—“are providing their honest feedback and review of our products, providing potential customers with another perspective outside of our own,” says Julianne Kiider, the affiliate and influencer manager for Tuft & Needle. “The way we sleep is such a personal thing, so these diverse perspectives help guide followers to the right product for their own sleeping habits.” Several major mattress brands declined to share data about how much of their advertiser budgets are spent on influencers, if mattresses are given to influencers for free, and how well influencer marketing really works. But a scroll through major wellness-influencer accounts shows plenty of cozy bed photos with discount codes in the captions. Shannon says in this scenario, the influencer’s payment is often a kickback of the percentage of mattresses sold with their discount code. For him, it’s paying off.

“We all dream of being a little more relaxed, a little less stressed and not feeling guilty about indulging ourselves,” he says. That dream—of sleeping through the night and being more relaxed and waking up refreshed and ready for the day—is exactly what has made sleep wellness such a lucrative industry.

In March, four months after my visit to the sleep retreat, COVID-19 began to spread in the U.S., and the dream felt further away than ever. Several of my friends got sick, and I stopped sleeping. Then the Black Lives Matter protests began, and I continued to sleep fitfully, worried for my friends and fellow citizens. This time, though, I knew what mistakes I was making. I knew that stress was keeping me awake, bolstered by scrolling through my phone for news updates until 11 p.m. and not exercising and having another glass of wine. I knew all that, but I was too stressed to stop. One night, in a sleepless haze, I swiped away from the news and found myself browsing my old online shopping haunts. I added a new lavender spray and a set of pajamas to my cart, and clicked Buy Now.

McKinney is a features writer and co-owner at Defector Media

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daryllarson42451ftr · 6 years

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Is Influencer Marketing Dead? A Hard Look at The Newest Data (and What You Can Do Instead)

Is anyone having deja vu?

Every time a new marketing tactic becomes more mainstream, marketers and researchers inevitably wonder if it has peaked and started to lose its effectiveness.

We’ve seen this before with SEO, email marketing, Facebook marketing, and many others.

It’s a fair question to ask, though.

After all, each year brings new trends in marketing, and some tactics can go out of style. It’s worth examining different approaches to see if they’re still effective.

The tactic we’ll evaluate today is influencer marketing.

Though influencer marketing has been around for a very long time, it has only become a popular marketing tactic in recent years.

With the influx of social media in 2004, influencer marketing exploded and became a lot more prevalent.

Now, fast forward 14 years later.

Influencer marketing has seen some incredible successes and even a few massive failures.

That’s why we need to take a closer look at influencer marketing in 2018.

Should you continue to invest in influencer marketing, or is it dead?

The answer isn’t exactly a simple “yes” or “no.”

But recent data can help you decide if influencer marketing has staying power and if it is the right tactic for your brand to implement in 2018.

The complex current state of influencer marketing in 2018

Let’s dive right in.

I’m going to address the million-dollar question that everyone is asking:

“Is influencer marketing dead?”

Here’s the answer: not really.

But, I have to admit, its future is uncertain.

At the moment, marketers are continuing to focus on influencer marketing as a viable and essential marketing tactic in 2018.

In fact, in the survey below, marketers picked it as the “fastest-growing online customer-acquisition method” over organic search, email, paid search, and more.

There’s no questioning the popularity of influencer marketing, especially in recent years.

Marketers seem to be searching for new ways to involve influencers on a variety of campaigns.

And they’re investing in their influencer marketing campaigns, too. The influencer marketing industry is booming.

Projections show that marketers will spend $2.38 billion on influencer marketing on Instagram in 2019. That’s more than a $700 million increase from 2018!

But it doesn’t matter if marketers are fans of influencer marketing. We need to look at the data to see if it works.

Is it truly effective? Are you getting a bang for your buck?

The answer to both questions is still “yes.”

Data shows that influencer marketing is still providing marketers with a strong return on investment. Let’s take a look.

The data shows that influencer marketing generates $6.50 for every dollar a company invests. Approximately 70% of companies earn $2 or more for every dollar, and 13% of companies earn $20 or more.

That’s valuable.

But you might not always be so lucky.

If you look closely, you’ll see that 18% of businesses didn’t receive any return on investment at all. When you factor this into how much a campaign can cost, things can get a little pricey.

This is one reason that many marketers (including myself) wonder how long influencer marketing will remain a viable tactic.

Many factors make the future of influencer marketing uncertain, too.

First, the FTC introduced regulations to “improve disclosures” in 2017. This helps consumers understand which posts are promotional, even if they are coming from an influencer.

While the regulations are needed, additional ones may cause some brands to stray away from influencer marketing due to the risk of malpractice.

Plus, influencer marketing campaigns are starting to get more expensive.

Mid-range influencers with 50,000 – 500,000 followers can charge anywhere from $400 to $2,500 for a post.

Influencers with a following in the millions can charge between $30,000 and $187,500 per post.

With such a large investment in a single post, marketers are expecting a huge ROI.

But there’s only one problem:

Many don’t know how to accurately measure the ROI from their influencer marketing campaigns.

An overwhelming majority (76%) of marketers agree that the biggest challenge of influencer marketing is determining the ROI of campaigns.

How can you improve something if you don’t measure it? Worse yet, how can you even know if it’s working?

But the problem isn’t just with marketers.

Consumers are evolving, too.

The scale has tipped, and millennials are now trusting influencers less than they were in previous years.

Can you blame them, though? After all, think back to the Fyre Festival influencer marketing gaffe.

Influencers including Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Whitney Fransway, and many others promoted the event. But it didn’t live up to expectations.

As a result of this failure, 94% of marketers stated they were “not likely” or “very unlikely” to seek out big-name influencers for future projects.

All of these factors play into the unstable future of influencer marketing.

As you continue with influencer marketing campaigns for now, you should also begin to test, expand, and optimize other areas of your marketing strategy.

Here are the alternatives to influencer marketing that you should be focusing on in 2018 to help accelerate the growth of your business.

1. Focus on experiential marketing for live events

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget there’s a whole world “out there.”

Your customers aren’t always online.

Live events can provide a unique touchpoint for your customers that influencer marketing can’t.

And they’re effective, too.

According to a recent study, “79% of brand respondents said they would execute more experiential programs this year compared to last.”

Take Clif Bar as an example.

They focused on creating an experiential marketing activation at Pitchfork Music Festival last year. Their activation included a tattoo parlor, photo booth, and more.

At the event, they distributed 26,000 CLIF bars, and one in 20 social posts with the tag #Pitchforkfest also featured the CLIF bar activation.

Live events provide a unique experience in real life, and their impact often expands onto social media.

HBO tapped into its live event playbook when they debuted their interactive Westworld event at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

Participants boarded buses and went right outside the city limits for an immersive experience that brought to life the fictional Westworld town from the hit TV series.

The experience was highly detailed and highly personalized. Participants could get their picture printed on a western “Wanted” poster, which aligned well with the brand.

People constantly shared experience on social media during SXSW. It stole the show and earned 62% of the entertainment brand mentions at SXSW.

Live events are an important marketing tactic to help you connect with your customers in a meaningful and authentic way. Influencers simply can’t do that for you.

2. Invest in video content to share your company’s narrative

Video marketing isn’t just flashy, and it isn’t a fad.

It is here to stay, and it can drive serious growth for your business.

Most importantly, though, is that it is becoming mainstream and responsible for a bulk of Internet traffic.

According to estimates, video will make up more than 80% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021.

Hopefully, you already use video as a part of your content strategy. If not, you’re going to fall behind soon.

In a recent survey, 49.5% of marketers said that video will be a focal point for their marketing.

That’s nearly half of all marketers.

Now, I know what you might be thinking: “My influencer campaigns already use video, so I’m all set.”

Unfortunately, you’re wrong.

You’re missing the chance to focus on everyday people and create meaningful, evergreen content that showcases your brand’s values and embodies your mission.

You can’t rely on influencers to create content that resonates with your audience. You have to do it yourself.

After all, brands often miss opportunities to connect with their customers. A study found that 78% of people feel that brands never connect with them emotionally.

But LinkedIn recently did this well in a documentary-style integrated video campaign. They used the hashtag #InItTogether for it.

Eszylfie Taylor turned his past sales experience into a lesson in life. The more he gives people, the more he gets back. He’s in it to share the wealth. https://t.co/UNiC2JJiF1 #InItTogether pic.twitter.com/5WyqE4ij1l

— LinkedIn (@LinkedIn) January 18, 2018

Campaign Director Stacy Peralta talked about the impact of the campaign. She said, “I knew from the first reading of the boards that this was one of those rare opportunities.”

She added, “They asked us to tell real stories about real people, they wanted it shot in black and white, and they wanted energy, enthusiasm and candor from the people involved.”

That campaign generated great content for LinkedIn to share with their audience.

But where should you share your video content after you finish creating it? Well, consumers watch and engage with branded content in different ways on different platforms.

It’s important to know which works best for your business, but here are some generalizations across all social platforms for consumer viewing and engagement habits:

As you can see, Facebook has the highest viewership as well as engagement numbers (60% and 49%, respectively), while Twitter has the least (41% and 22%).

The interesting part, though, is that there is only a 2% difference in viewership among the top three platforms: Facebook, Instagram (Video), and Snapchat. YouTube and Twitter fall close behind.

On the engagement side of things, it is much different. Facebook is the clear winner (49%) with YouTube (32%) coming in second. That’s a 17% difference.

So that gives you an idea of where you should be sharing your content. But now, you might be wondering how long your videos should be.

Thankfully, there is data to support the ideal length, and the conclusions are clear as day. Here’s the basic principle:

Make them short.

Approximately 56% of all videos that users shared in 2017 were less than two minutes long.

Viewers will lose interest and likely leave if a video is longer than two minutes.

If you aren’t yet certain that video content can be effective in marketing, look at this experiment from HubSpot. They examined the difference between acquiring customers with video content and non-video content.

They tried switching to video content as opposed to blogs and whitepapers.

As they optimized and emphasized their videos, their views and engagement rates skyrocketed. Here were their engagement rates with their old strategy:

Now, here were their engagement rates after they started emphasizing their video content:

Before this experiment, their videos averaged 50,000 views per month. But in their first month of optimizing and promoting their video content, they achieved 1 million views. Those are clear results!

Another great example is BakedNYC’s video campaign.

BakedNYC used video to capture emails, and their results were fantastic.

Through this campaign, they achieved a 40% increase in pie sales, a 68% increase in leads, and a 30% decrease in cost per lead.

Video content presents a huge opportunity for your brand. But creating quality videos might feel like a daunting task.

Don’t fret if don’t think that you can do this alone. You don’t have to be Steven Spielberg.

There are plenty of tools that can help you create engaging video content on a low budget in a tight timeframe.

One of them is Promo.

I love Promo because they have over 12.5 million clips that you can customize. You can add music, text, and even your logo to personalize the clips and make them your own.

Magisto is another great tool to use.

The cool thing about Magisto is that it has a smart video editor, which makes it incredibly easy to cut and edit your videos online.

These tools can help create great video content..

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filipeteimuraz · 6 years