#also see this is the crux of the problem. this is not a Social Website to me

[magemegane]

if this keeps up im probably moving to my secondary blog and making it private i cant live with my ass out on the same website where people are making powerpoints about how s*bastian is Always Perfectly Civil when he “debates” and*rs

[billconrad]

Alternate Reality

    I was looking for something different to read, so I downloaded a science fiction alternate reality story (also called alt-history). In this book, WWII did not end, and cyborgs took over the fight.

    The story focused on a cyborg hero who wanted peace, which reminded me of the 2009 movie Watchman. I reacted similarly to both stories, “Some amusing ideas, but not worth my time.” A big part of my dislike comes from the requirement to buy into the plot foundation. This means I must ignore history, including the history I participated in.

    Yet, it can be fun to daydream about an alternate history. I am sure every one of us would press the button to eliminate the tragic events of our past: wars, death, environmental disasters, and awful movies. I am, of course, referring to the time I spent watching Highlander 2, Ishtar, Thin Red Line, and Howard the Duck. That’s 7.5 hours I am not getting back.

    Here is the crux of my disapproval. How do we make a cyborg? This requires powerful but small motors, batteries with incredible power-to-weight ratios, immense but tiny computers, true artificial intelligence, immaculate programming, great sensors, advanced materials, an exemplary design, and precise manufacturing.

    Let’s examine one necessary element: the computer. Every day, microprocessors are getting faster, smaller and require less power. Even without trying, we are on the right path to make a cyborg. Well, not so fast.

    How did we get the fast microprocessors we have today? In the ‘40s, companies hired employees who spent years developing the technology. Along the way, many companies made many incremental improvements, leading to today’s powerful devices.

   How did the companies get money to pay for their employees, materials, and equipment? At first, computers were costly, and only big universities, governments, and large companies could afford them. In time, smaller companies could afford them, and by the ‘70s, the price had been reduced enough that ordinary people could purchase them.

    Beginning in the ‘50s, consumers purchased products from big companies who used some of this money to pay for their computers. This money paved the way for smaller and more powerful devices. Now, consumers buy computers, cell phones with microprocessors, and related products like smart refrigerators. The critical concept is that we did this voluntarily, which would not be possible in a wartime economy.

    Take this article, which I freely admit is not a critical piece of information. I wrote it on my computer and posted it on a website. The addition of this article will stress the system, forcing the website company to buy more computers, programmers to fix problems, add features, and streamline the website. Thus, one single article helped make computers a tiny bit better. But… We are supposed to ignore this fact.

    How does alternate reality work? Fast microprocessors? Some eggheads invented them in the ‘50s. True artificial intelligence was invented by itself. Batteries and sensors? Blah! Not worth mentioning. Let’s give the author a pass because they created a fun story. Umm, I cannot make that leap.

    Well, my dear reader. What if this argument does not persuade you? I have another one. We can apply this same logic to our social development. In the ‘40s, we were not enlightened about race and sex. With much effort, society has made great strides toward reducing racism and sexism.

    This was an enormous struggle paid for by millions working to educate, pass laws, and change their behavior. Remember that this energy to make this change was available because we were not at war. Imagine an alternate reality story where racial slurs were still socially acceptable. See, that is where an alternate reality story breaks down.

    I guess alternate reality stories are not my thing. I’m not too fond of horror books/movies either. But how would I fix an alternate reality story to make it enjoyable? That is easy. Add time travel or aliens. WWII did not end because people from the future brought the Axis powers cyborg technology, or aliens landed and provided the same thing. Now, we are getting somewhere.

    I conclude that an alternate reality story is, at best, amusing but has a shaky foundation to develop a decent plot.

    You’re the best -Bill

    September 4, 2024

  Hey, book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

  Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

  Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

  Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

  Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

  These books are available in softcover on Amazon and in eBook format everywhere.

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

You know how some people have their pets use "speech buttons" such as Bunny the dog? I was thinking about Koko and how her sign language was poor.

Like, are primates in sanctuaries able to associate some words their keepers say to specific things? Like would a monkey recognize the word "Grape" for example if it was a favorite snack?

Could a monkey or gorilla learn "language" that way and "speak" to us like Bunny?

The issue when it comes to Koko’s sign language is/was not really a problem with expression, so much as with cognition and unreliable results. Sure, animals can point to symbols on a board, recognize cue cards, make gestures, or press buttons that mean things to us, but does that actually mean they understand what they mean beyond the result they create? Most animals know the words that represent the things they like best. It isn’t surprising that Bunny can use buttons to say “Mom - me - outside - walk”, because she knows that when these words get said they usually result in her getting taken out for a walk. That isn’t to say this isn’t impressive! but it is a different situation. Koko’s handlers were probably really good at inferring what she wanted from her gestures, but part of that was likely because when you have a relationship with any person or animal, you kind of get a feel for that. When my cat is pacing around and meowing at me I know what he wants, because that’s my kitty and friend. It’s similar to how parents of small children can interpret baby babble, but to outsiders it still sounds like nonsense even if the parents know that their kid is asking for applesauce. Because linguistics are so complex and adding animals adds further complications to the mix, it opens up a lot of debate and inquiry to what counts as actual understanding versus what is mimicry for a result/reward.

 The crux of primate cognition and language studies, such as the ones conducted by ACCI, is not so much to see whether animals can recognize words or symbols and recreate them to earn a reward, but to see how much primates can learn and how complex they can make their communication. While animal/human communication may not be a straightforward path, it is still very interesting and worth looking at! Take this:

This is just one of the many lexigram boards used by the bonobos at ACCI. These boards have simple concepts like the names of foods, caregivers, and objects, but they can also be used to communicate more complex ideas if the bonobo is capable and willing. Communicating using a lexigram board, or through other methods such as the buttons you mentioned takes a level of intelligence, and also a level of patience and desire to take part. It can be hit or miss, but can be successful at least insofar as the animal being able to communicate their needs. Kanzi the bonobo is best known for his intelligence and lexigram use at ACCI; knowing, recognizing, and using the most symbols. Still, bonobos in general still use these boards largely to communicate basic desires in straightforward ‘specific symbol = I receive treat I want’ expressions. From the ACCI website, same link as above:

“The bonobos use the lexigram symbols to communicate with their human caregivers and visitors. For example, they are able to request their favorite foods, indicate which social partners they want to be with, and ask their caregivers to play '“water chase” with them. This is one more way the bonobos at Ape Initiative have choice in their daily lives! The bonobos all differ in their knowledge of the lexigrams, with Kanzi knowing the most symbols, so we make sure the bonobos always have access to a keyboard.”

So when it comes to primate/human communication, it isn’t the straightforward path it might appear to be. Is an animal expressing its thoughts and feeling, or basically button mashing to achieve a specific result without really understanding it further than that? Animals do not have the same minds as us, limited by their ability to express themselves, but are inconceivably different from stem to stern. This is a line of inquiry that has been studied for years, but I would also like to offer this for the average person:

How much does it matter? Sure, we shouldn’t anthropomorphize, and we should be aware of the facts behind cognition and communication studies and inquiries, but at the end of the day I think that if a primate (or any living creature really) is being treated well, having its needs met, and enjoys using communication tools, that’s great. We get a kick out of it, and as long as we keep it in proportion and don’t get carried away, we can all enjoy ourselves. I encourage you to research the subject if it interests you!

[fandom-oracle]

Wait wdym? Do you think fic is bad?

i'm getting canceled tonight i guess.

if you actually did a good a faith interpretation of my post you know it's not really ABOUT fanfiction at all, i actually write fanfiction myself. i'm not sharing here because it's overwhelmingly bad fic that i write exclusively as wish-fulfilment or for self-projection, but at least i'm self-aware about it. i am ALSO one of the people who reads ze Books™️, although most of the academic material i consume are nonfiction, so this whole thing is particularly annoying to me. the crux of the matter is that, if you're a little younger you might've missed it, but this website was a hotbed of scalding takes like 'dante's divine comedy is literally fanfiction', 'something something is literally fanfiction' when the thing in question barely counts as a transformative work and, in fact, it weakens the definition of transformative work in itself to try to apply it to literally anything that exhibits an ounce of intertextuality. plenty of takes that are... true, but require some nuance, focused on the idea of transformative fandom as a place defined by its presence of overwhelmingly female and disproportionately queer (occasionally, though disputedly, nonwhite) content creators and the ways in which transformative fan content could be interpreted as a space of defiance to cisheteropatriarchy in the way it permeates traditional media. a third, less common but still relevant take was the focus on how certain fandoms such as trek and doctor who have a long history of involvement in real-world civil rights issues and progressive politics. so this kind of take has been the dominant view on tumblr and transformative fandom for a good decade now, perhaps longer, and the people with this kind of takes can sometimes be a little... obnoxious. and the majority of people on transformative fandom (regardless of wether or not the fandom is disproportionately composed of nonwhite individuals or not, by sheer virtue of american demographics and this site`s heaily skewed userbase, the majority will still be white) are white, and like any other space dominated by white people, fandom has often been a vehicle for white supremacy. "Stitch Media Mix" talks about this in-depth. the discourse on fandom racism and ways in which transformative fandom as a whole contribute to racialized stereotypes, hierarchies, and deeper problems within online culture has led to a lot of people with grievances with fandom, many of whom are women of color, to develop an entire online identity built around the concept of being "critical of fandom", which is a very weird thing to do with fandom is literally billions of people, not a unified demographic, and that being critical of something can mean a WIDE amount of things; which in turn has led to a lot of people insulating themselves completely from any criticism of fandom as being inherently in bad faith, which a weird thing to do when literally ANY sphere of society should be open to criticism. people taking critiques of media they consume and taking critiques of their own critiques as personal attacks are abound here and make everything worse. so a fairly recent (mid2018ish, definitely post the insanity of reylo discourse but before sarah z blew up in popularity) trend has been that people in these communities isolate more and more and the general discourse has effetively resulted in people with differing takes in fanfiction specifically but fandom as a Whole (which is, again very weird to say because fandom is not 'a Whole' because there's no unifying element to different fandoms) only interacting with each other in hostile ways. and increasingly, in my personal sphere, a lot of people are positioning themselves in the "fandom critical" (AGAIN, WEIRD THING TO SAY, WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN, PLEASE USE WORDS WITH PRECISION) sphere, and I tend to take that "side" myself, but i specifically do not think framing this as a team A or team B thing is useful. this culture war was in the buildup.

last week a post by a user i follow recently became popular. the post itself was a critique that i.. do not necessarily agree with. it was ultimately about the idea of easily-consumable popular media being seen as an acceptable form of exclusive media engagement by people in the "pro-fandom" sphere, and how the insidiousness of this line of thinking has to do with how capitalist media production is designed to spread, and how fandom AS A TREND, not specifically any individuals or any fanworks, can empower capitalism. the post specifically did NOT use the kindest possible words, but that was what they were trying to say. howelljenkins also has really good takes on the subject, albeit from a different angle.

anyway because this is a circular culture war, the result was as follows: 1) a bunch of pro-fandom types refuse to actually make a charitable reading of the post and insist the user in question hates fandom and thinks people under capitalism shouldn't have things that are Fun, and should Only Read Theory and keep sending anon hate to several blogs in the opposing sphere, therefore proving the point that fandom sometimes prevent people from being able to engage critically with things; 2) a bunch of anti-fandom types who defined their entire identity on hating fandom being like "haha look at these cringe people" instead of trying to understand why a demographic overwhelmingly composed of marginalized people would feel strongly to posts that use inflammatory language against an interest of theirs, thereby proving the point that most criticism of fandom is divorced from actual fan content and is vaguely defined. the reason this is a culture war that actually deserves attention (unlike most fandom culture wars, which are just really granular ship wars made into social justice issues for clout) is that, for the most part, both of these groups are mostly people with college degrees, many of whom will contirbute to academia in the coming years. fan studies is a relevant field. these discussions have repercussions in wider media criticism trends, and this is why i can't really stand it or just passively ignoring it the way i do with most other inconsequential discourse. like it's genuinely upsetting seeing almost every single tumblr user, most of whom should know better, patting themselves in the back for their inability to read things in a way that doesn't feed into preexisting cultural hostilities in fan spaces.

[framecaught]

Transmedia Storytelling: A Perspective on the Homestuck Epilogues

First of all, thank you for reading my first post! I created this blog to document some of my research for a directed study project. I’ll be looking at Homestuck from an interdisciplinary lens but focusing especially on its formal artistic qualities and place in art history. The blog will contain various points of analysis which I develop over the course of the project. For my first piece of writing, I wanted to tackle (from a new perspective) what I view as a complicating factor in the controversy surrounding the Homestuck Epilogues.

Rather than critiquing the Epilogues’ content or making a judgement about their overall quality, I want to explore a specific criticism which has been echoed time and time again by fans. In an article for the online journal WWAC, Homestuck fan-writer Masha Zhdanova sums up this criticism:

“No matter how much members of the creative team insist that their extension to the Homestuck line of work is no more official than fanwork, if it’s hosted on Homestuck.com, promoted by Homestuck’s official social media accounts, and endorsed by the original creator, I think it’s a little more official than a fanfic with thirty hits on AO3.”

Between attacks on the Epilogues’ themes, treatment of characters, and even prose-quality, fans have frequently referenced the issue of endorsement and canonicity as summarized above. Although the Epilogues and Homestuck’s other successors (including Homestuck^2 and the Friendsims) attempt to tackle themes of canonicity within their narratives, critics of the Epilogues contend that this philosophical provocation falls flat. While the creators argue that the works should form a venue for productively questioning canonicity, fans point to issues of capital and call the works disingenuous. In Episode 52 of the Perfectly Generic Podcast Andrew Hussie explains that, to him, the Epilogues are “heavily implied to be a piece of bridge-media, which is clearly detached from the previous narrative, and conceptually ‘optional’ by its presentation, which allows it to also function as an off-ramp for those inclined to believe the first seven acts of Homestuck were perfectly sufficient.” As Zhdanova paraphrases, a critical view posits that this “optional” reading is impossible. The company ethos and production of capital inherent to the Epilogue’s release—their promotion, their monetization—renders their “fanfic” backdrop completely moot, if not insulting.

Why does appropriating the “aesthetic trappings” [1] of AO3 strike such a chord with critics, though? What’s wrong with the Epilogue creators profiting from their work? Other officially endorsed “post-canon” materials, including the Paradox Space comics, Hiveswap and Friendsim games, have not inspired such virulent opposition. The issue comes down to the association between the AO3 layout and the separation from canon. The Epilogues ask us to read them as “tales of dubious authenticity,” but critics assert that this reading makes no sense in the context of their distribution. It’s not exactly the endorsement or monetization that prevents a “dubious” reading, though. After all, Hiveswap is also endorsed and monetized, yet fans have no problem labeling it as “dubiously canon.” So what is it about the Epilogues’ presentation that seems so incongruous with their premise as “dubious” texts?

I’ve come to understand this issue through the lens of transmedia storytelling. First conceptualized by Henry Jenkins, “transmedia storytelling” involves the production of distinct stories, contained within the same universe, across different media platforms. [2] This allows consumers to pick and choose stories across their favorite media outlets, since each story is self-contained, but superfans can still consume All The Content for a greater experience. The Marvel franchise with its comics, movies, TV shows, and other ephemera, is a great example of the transmedia phenomenon.

How does Homestuck fit into this theory? In an excellent article [3] for the Convergence journal, Kevin Veale lays out a taxonomy for Homestuck’s role in new media frameworks. Rather than dispersing different stories across multiple media platforms, Homestuck combines the “aesthetic trappings” of many media forms into one massive outlet: the Homestuck website [4]. It’s almost like the inverse of transmedia storytelling. Veale describes this type of storytelling as “transmodal.” He further defines Homestuck’s storytelling as “metamedia,” meaning that it manipulates the reader’s expectations of certain media forms to change the reading experience. So, despite its multimedia aspects, Homestuck structures itself around one monolith distribution channel (the website), the importance of which directly feeds into what we know as “upd8 culture.” The Homestuck website itself, as a “frame” which encapsulates Homestuck and the other MS Paint Adventures, takes on a nostalgic quality; the familiar grey background and adblocks become inextricably linked with the production of the main, “canon” narrative.

Homestuck itself—the main narrative—is a transmodal venture. However, as of writing this post, the Homestuck franchise has taken a leap into transmedia waters, starting with the Paradox Space comics and continuing with Hiveswap, the Friendsims, and Homestuck^2. All four of these examples fit the definition of transmedia ventures: they contain distinct stories still set in the Homestuck universe and are distributed through fundamentally separate media channels from the main comic. Which is to say, crucially, none of them are hosted on the Homestuck website.

This is where I think the issue arises for the Epilogues. The Epilogues, from what I can tell, aimed to present themselves as a transmedia venture rather than a transmodal one. Firstly, they try to act as a “bridge-media,” or self-contained story. They can be read as a continuation of Homestuck, but can also be separated or ignored. Secondly, they take on a distinct format (prose). Hussie notes in PGP Ep. 52 that the Epilogues were originally only meant to be published in print, functioning as a “cursed tome.” In short, they were intended as a transmedia venture: a self contained story, distributed through a separate medium (prose) and separate media channel (print), to be embraced or discarded by consumers at their whim.

Instead, when the Epilogues were released through the main Homestuck website, readers couldn’t help but interpret them as part of Homestuck’s long transmodal history. Rather than interacting with a new distribution channel, readers returned to the same nostalgic old grey website. The AO3 formatting gag makes no real difference to readers, as Homestuck patently appropriates the aesthetics of other platforms all throughout its main narrative. This issue of distribution (print versus website), which in turn produces either a transmedia or transmodal reading, is the crux of the criticism I mentioned before. Despite the creators’ protests, readers failed to see any “question” of canonicity because the Epilogues fit perfectly into the comic’s preexisting transmodal framework, supported even further by the nostalgia of the website’s very layout. The Epilogues read as a transmodal contribution to Homestuck’s main channel rather than a post-canon, transmedia narrative (like Paradox Space or the Friendsims) as they were intended. This created a profound dissonance between the fans’ experiences and the creators’ intentions.

How things might have turned out differently if the Epilogues really had been released solely as “cursed tomes,” the world will never know. In PGP, Hussie cites the importance of making content freely accessible on the website as a reason for the online release, which is certainly a valid consideration. Even though the print format offers a much clearer conceptual standpoint as a transmedia “bridge-story” [5], issues of capital and accessibility may still have come to the forefront of discussion. As it stands, though, I think the mix-up between transmedia and transmodal distribution was a key factor in the harsh criticism the Epilogues sparked.

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[1] I love this term, “aesthetic trappings”, which Masha Zhdanova uses, so I’ve overused it to some degree in my post.

[2] Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 2007: pg. 98. You can also find a description of transmedia storytelling on his blog.

[3] Veale, Kevin. “‘Friendship Isn’t an Emotion Fucknuts’: Manipulating Affective Materiality to Shape the Experience of Homestuck’s Story.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 25, no. 5–6 (December 2019): 1027–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517714954.

[4] Although the Homestuck website shifted branding from mspaintadventures.com to homestuck.com before the Epilogues’ release and has shifted its aesthetic somewhat (re: banners and ads), I treat the core “website” as the same location in my post

[5] Hussie points to numerous fascinating experiences which might have arisen from the print distribution. He describes a tome as “something which maddeningly beckons, due to whatever insanity it surely contains, but also something which causes feelings of trepidation” and references the sheer size of the book and “stark presentation of the black and white covers” as elements which produce this trepidation. The ability to physically experience (through touch) the length of the Epilogues and the impact of the book cover were lost in the online format. Although the Epilogues have been released in their intended book format now, the printed novel still won’t be a “first reading experience” for most fans. 

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

For the past few months, Alicia Wertz has barely seen her husband. Since schools closed in their northern Alabama town in March, they’ve been single-mindedly focused on a single goal: making sure that someone was watching their three kids. At first, Wertz tried working from home. But she wasn’t getting anything done, so they tried splitting the hours: Wertz’s husband watches the children in the morning, then a sitter comes to relieve him in the afternoon until Wertz takes over when she returns from work.

“When we’re not working, we’re by ourselves with the children. It almost feels like you’re a single parent. All you do is go to work and care for the kids,” Wertz said.

In her mind, Wertz is counting down the days until schools reopen. But there’s a nagging worry at the back of her head — what if they don’t open at all? “The thought of [my kids] not going back in the fall is devastating,” Wertz said when we spoke in early July. “It raises this question of — if one of us has to stay home with the children, whose job is more important? I think it was something that we did have conversations about before, but COVID-19 has made it much worse.”

Wertz isn’t the only working mother for whom the thought of the fall calendar sparks both relief and dread. And what comes next could have disproportionate — and long-lasting — effects on the careers of countless women across the country. Studies have shown that women already shoulder much of the burden of caring for and educating their children at home; now, they’re also more likely than men to have lost their jobs thanks to the pandemic. And the collapse of the child care and public education infrastructure that so many parents rely on will only magnify these problems, even pushing some women out of the labor force entirely.

“We’re in danger of erasing the limited gains we’ve made for women over the past few decades, and especially women of color,” said Melissa Boteach, Vice President for Income Security and Child Care/Early Learning at the National Women’s Law Center.

The crux of the issue: Child care just isn’t as available as it was before the pandemic. Data provided to FiveThirtyEight by the job-search website Indeed shows that child-care services have been much slower to hire again (a useful proxy for re-opening) than other areas of the economy:

Combine that with the news that many schools will remain closed in the fall, and it’s easy to see the crisis at hand. If polling is any indication, the vast majority of the fallout is being weathered by mothers, who were already doing the majority of household work even before the pandemic began.

In 2015, the Pew Research Center asked parents about how they divide family responsibilities when both work full-time.1 Some tasks were split relatively evenly: Twenty percent of respondents said the mother disciplined children more, 17 percent said the father disciplined more, and 61 percent said that responsibility was shared equally. For every task, however, more respondents reported that the mother carried a greater amount of the load than those who said the father did — including areas involving managing children’s schedules, caring for children when they’re sick and handling household chores.

Moms usually shoulder more of the load at home

Share of parents in households with two full-time working parents who say each parent does more work in a given category, according to a Pew poll

Share of parents who say… Category Mother does more Father does more Work split equally Managing children’s schedules/activities 54% 6% 39% Taking care of sick children 47 6 47 Handling household chores, etc. 31 9 59 Playing/doing activities with children 22 13 64 Disciplining children 20 17 61

Based on 2015 poll by Pew Research, with a sample size of 531 respondents. The sample included male/female married couples only.

Source: Pew Research center

Along similar lines, Pew also found in a poll from 2019 that 80 percent of women living with a partner who had children did the primary grocery shopping and meal-preparation duties for their families. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey — which tracks the average amount of time people spend per day on different categories of activity — married mothers with full-time jobs spent 56 percent more time doing childcare and housework than corresponding fathers. By contrast, fathers spent more time on work-related tasks, travel and leisure activities.2

All that extra time moms spend really adds up

Daily time spent doing various activities by married parents of children under 18 who both worked full-time, according to the American Time Use Survey

Hours spent per day Activity Mothers Fathers Diff. Household activities 1.87 1.23 +0.64 Physical care for children 0.59 0.28 0.31 Child care – other 0.36 0.22 0.14 Child-related travel 0.25 0.13 0.12 Education-related activities 0.10 0.06 0.04 Reading with children 0.05 0.03 0.02 Playing/hobbies with children 0.27 0.29 -0.02 Total 3.49 2.24 1.25

Survey data covers the combined years of 2015 through 2019 and includes both opposite- and same-sex couples.

Source: bls.gov

Even under normal circumstances, it was difficult for mothers of young children to balance work against the heavy burden of child care. The BLS found that in 2019, the labor force participation rate for women with children under age 6 was 66.4 percent, well below the rate for women with children age 6 or older3 (76.8 percent). According to a 2014 survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, 61 percent of women who were out of a job and have young children listed “caretaking” as a reason why they were not employed. Forty-six percent of women who were out of a job and have older children said the same. To put that in perspective, only 10 percent of all respondents who were out of work gave caregiving as a reason.4

A similar strain is apparent in working mothers’ decisions to take unpaid leave, or even part-time jobs instead of full-time ones. According to that same census survey from 2014, 30 percent of women who were part-time workers with young children — and 19 percent of women with older children — said caretaking was a reason they worked part-time. (Among part-time workers, the overall share is just 7 percent.)5

Now, with schools closed and day cares struggling to remain open, even more women may conclude that the best — or perhaps the only — choice for their family and their own sanity is to reduce their hours, or even press “pause” on their career.

“Sometimes I’ll get to a point where I’m like, ‘I’m so tired, I’ll have to go part-time to make it all work,’” said Lee Dunham, a lawyer who lives in Delaware. Since the pandemic started, Dunham has been mostly responsible for her 10-month-old daughter during the day — which means her work day doesn’t start until 8 p.m. and usually wraps around 2 a.m.. “I’m just basically not getting enough sleep because I’m watching the baby 40 hours a week and doing my job 40 hours a week. It’s really rough.”

Dunham feels she’s lucky to have an understanding employer who told her earlier this year that they’d be cutting all of their employees some slack because of the pandemic. But at the time, she added, everyone was assuming day care would be up and running by mid-summer. “It might be that I have to dial back my hours, which of course means I will get paid less.”

This kind of calculus already depresses women’s wages and makes it harder for their careers to progress. According to the National Women’s Law Center, mothers are typically only paid 71 cents for every dollar paid to fathers. In fact, a lot of recent research into the gender pay gap has found that much of it is simply due to the constraints on working mothers. For instance, a 2018 analysis of data from Denmark — which offers a counterpoint to the United States in terms of social safety net, yet still has a very large and persistent gender wage gap — found that women’s earnings drop significantly after having their first child, while men’s earnings aren’t affected at all. And crucially, several studies in the U.S. and other countries have found that the trajectory of wages for women who don’t have children resembles those of men, whether they have kids or not (although some research has actually suggested that becoming a father can contribute to men’s career success).

This disparity is particularly intense for women of color. Black mothers are paid only 54 cents for every dollar paid to a white father, according to NWLC; for Latina mothers, it’s 46 cents. Low-income women of color are also among the likeliest to have lost their jobs in the current recession. And they’re disproportionately likely to be the child-care workers who are being asked to come back to work, sometimes in unsafe working conditions, for low wages. “We’re in a vicious cycle where we need child care as one of the tools to get women to equal pay, and yet unequal pay is one of the primary reasons that women are pushed into staying home,” Boteach said.

Leaving the workforce, even if it’s just for a year or two, has ripple effects that can follow a woman for the rest of her life, even depressing her earnings in retirement. Finding a new job after a few years on hiatus can be very difficult for mothers, who may be stereotyped as less serious about their careers because they took time off to be with their children. One study from 2007 found that mothers were perceived to be less competent than fathers, and their recommended salaries were also lower.

During this pandemic, you can already see the disproportionate impact taking shape. The unemployment rate for women in April was 16.2 percent, higher than it has been in any month since at least 1948, before dropping to 11.7 percent in June — a percentage point higher than the rate for men (10.6 percent). Even more striking, labor force participation for women dipped to 54.7 percent in April before rising to 56.1 percent last month. Both of those numbers are reminiscent of the rates for women from the 1980s — back when the very notion of women in the workforce was still gaining momentum.6

Wertz has no plans to leave her job — at least for now. “I worked incredibly hard to get to where I am now,” she said. “I essentially paid my way through school with no family support. For years I worked entirely too hard for not enough money.” Already, she worries that she’s perceived differently in the workplace because she’s a mother. “Even if it was just a year, I know how that gap would look on my resume,” she said. “If I had to take that step back, I just don’t know if I’d recover from it.”

[no-longer-an-alley-cat]

‘“Asexual” Isn’t Who I Am’: The Politics of Asexuality

by Matt Dawson, Susie Scott, and Liz McDonnell

Comedic commentary that might verge on insightful by me.

Join me as I try and fucking deal with this particular hangup I have

Arright, so basically these folks are reacting to other folks who say that asexuality is the fucking cats pajamas and is going to do everything from redefining relationships to destroying neoliberalism.

Basically, they’re saying that this is telling asexual people how they ought to be, and not actually looking at what it is and how asexual people actually are. In fact, they think asexual people are a very diverse bunch and you can’t make general claims about their politicalness. Which is fair.

Anyway, they’re going to look at the politics of asexual people, and they’re doing this in an interesting way where they are committed to studying the world from the participant’s perspective. This is interesting because, generally speaking, it is impossible for a researcher to entirely remove themselves from an interpretation, because they’re human, and that’s not how humans work. It’s particularly interesting if this means they’re just going to take their participant’s word as gospel, because folks have this nasty habit of lying to researchers.

So, working through past literature now.

They got a good handle on the different parts of the spectrum though, nice, nice.

And critique essentialism, all to the good. 

Then they’re saying that the establishment of asexuality as legitimate relied vision of an asexual person is the ‘gold star’ asexual (yikes yikes yikes) cause that sectioned off some people who you could still intervene with, so the social dominance of sex in society is unchallenged. This negates the ‘radical potential’ of sexuality which is to suggest the FUCKING WILD NOTION that maybe it’s okay for anyone to not want sex. Like, maybe sex could just be a thing, and not a prerequisite of being normal or intimate???

Anyway, the idea that it could suggest this buck wild idea basically spawned a bunch of articles expecting asexuality to pretty much fix everything wrong with society. We’re questioning mainstream culture, we’re rethinking intimacy, we’re desexualising identity, we’re radical (in the political sense of the word) just by existing. Also just “fundamentally anarchist” because we reclaim agency over our body by not wanting to have sex? Dunno about that one, but I might be down for an A tattoo in ace colours.

But our three musketeers say these are a bunch of claims just pulled out of a collective ass, there’s not data whatsoever. Also, all that stuff talks about ‘asexuality’ like it’s some distinct entity (like how folks talk about capitalism but good) and not a thing that people have. So there’s no discussion of how other aspects of people have (race, gender, class, disability etc) interact with asexuality. And of course they do, people are people.

And they want to see some real resistance, alright? Some proper political action and mobalisation, not just thinking radically. Or, I guess, living in a way that resists norms? Or maybe that counts as taking a political position. I guess we’ll have to wait because now it’s time for METHODOLOGY.

So right off the bat we’re talking qualitative. Interviews and a diary. Data from a study originally looking at asexual identity formation and the construction of intimate relationships, but they figure they had enough to do a little article on the politics of it too. And like they said before, they’re looking at what it is that their participants think they’re doing. They call themselves out a bit, saying that maybe their participants might not know if they’re being political, but I’m gonna add in here that this interview was probably advertised as being about the asexual identity. Folks were asked if they had ‘been an activist in the asexual community or in relation to asexual issues’ sure, but it wasn’t advertised as political so they might not be getting the political peeps!

AND ANOTHER THING (cause we’re into recruitment now), you’re not going to get the people like me. The people who care Very Much about their identity, but are also Very Scared to talk about it with pretty much everyone who hasn’t unlocked like sixth tier trust. And they don’t mention this, even while they’re patting themselves on the back for how many diverse identities they got (never mind that the sample is nearly 74% white, 76% younger than 29, and 54% had a university qualification). People who have the most issues are unlikely to be fitting into those categories, either.

But fuck it, let’s get to the analysis.

How central did the participants consider asexuality to be in their lives? You’ll be fucking astounded to know that it varied!!! Amazing, right? But mainly what they’re looking at is whether folks saw asexuality as a key factor marginalising them. (This is about where I started crying last time, but I’m channeling that into anger to try and keep it together so buckle the fuck up).

Our brave trio admits that they did “””””of course””””” find evidence of discrimination against asexual people, and say that they really don’t want to downplay it, but hey, most of the people they talked to didn’t experience it! They just talked about hearing about it! Like, NO SHIT MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU TALKED TO 50 FUCKING PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO TALK TO YOU! YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO FIND A TREND WITH THAT?? And also let’s not downplay what it can do to a person to hear about how others like them are threatened with rape, huh? Let’s maybe think about the effect of that, huh?

Like, yes, the participants who said that it’s not as bad as the history of oppression that homosexuality has are entirely valid. But the researchers who say multiple times that they don’t want to downplay the effect of discrimination and oppression and then ignore the instances they found in favour of talking about ways it could be worse are NOT.

And then they’re saying that it’s not significant to come out, because it’s ‘a lack’ and they cite a couple of participants who say they don’t come out on a regular basis and here is where we get to crux of my problem with their methodology. Because what they’re doing is they’re taking what these participants said and they’re going, ‘oh, yup, that must be why.’ And that’s all well and good, but if some rando I barely knew asked me why I didn’t come out to all an sundry I might also say something along the lines of ‘oh, well, you know, it’s not a huge deal, it’s not something the public needs to know.’ But Reader, it is a huge deal, at least for me. I’m fucking terrified of coming out to people. People LIE. We lie all the time, we tell people what we think they want to hear, and that means that there could very well be a reason I’m reading what these people said and hearing echoes of the tired old aphobic discourse. 

Not saying that is what’s going on, just raising the possibility which they have yet to do.

Yeah, yeah, see here, heteroromantic asexual talking about how they realise their privilege and can pass as straight. Sound familiar? Maybe that is their experience. Maybe it’s what they think the interview wants to be their experience. WHO’S TO SAY?

Yeah, so they conclude that maybe asexuality isn’t very central in their participant’s lives, and we get the title quote of “asexual isn’t who I am. This is just what I am, not who I am as a person.” Which is interesting, because I was just reading another article where gay men said the same thing.

But they say this quotation shows that asexual can be a description of actions one doesn’t take rather than an aspect of a person which creates marginalisation and UM WHAT? You could just as easily say that ‘this is just what I am’ shows a deeper claiming of identity, making it a physical aspect of you which could actually lead to marginalisation. Hey, maybe the context of the quote makes it clear. Don’t know, though, BECAUSE THEY DON’T GIVE ANY.

And now we’re moving on to activism, which I don’t expect to make me as angry, but we’ll see. (Editor’s note: It did.)

Yeah, so there’s more of the drawing the line between how people would like recognition of asexuality and the activism necessary for the wider LGBT community, which, again, valid. But they say that this means that the people who say this feel less need to confront forms of discrimination, when the selfsame participant they are discussing explicitly outlined a need for better education. 

APPARENTLY there was no suggestion that the educatory action people engaged in linked to a wider question of social change which, I mean, sure, had you not already called yourself out on participants maybe not being politically  conscious I might allow. But you did, and what’s more, I bet you didn’t even fucking ask them if they saw it as social change. And since when was education not social change? How are folks supposed to know that it’s okay not to want sex if you don’t TELL THEM THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM???

And then they have the nerve the fucking audacity to say that while it is “of course” admirable, it doesn’t show a desire to challenge a social system. EDUCATION IS A SOCIAL SYSTEM, YOU ABSOLUTE WALNUTS.

Now, online activity

This is mainly about people’s attitudes to AVEN which I don’t really know anything about, but it’s people talking about how it feels to find a label and answers, which is some much needed wholesomeness. And I feel like people’s opinions on a particular organisation or website to use for community are much more valid to take at face value. Much less interpretation going on.

LGBT groups/politics. Oh dear.

“The relations between our participants and LGBT groups were complex and multifaceted” oh, I bet they were.

Again, they found more people talking about hearing others excluded rather than seeing them excluded themselves. Kinda idea that the political standpoints might be different, but they don’t really dwell on that, they just head on through to really ram home the idea that asexual people are all different and might not hold inherently queer political perspectives.

And finally, finally, the conclusion. People are different, political literature is wrong, asexuality is not a fucking cure all. Now, they outline a couple of responses to their argument that folks might take. 

One: the idea that by being asexual, people have the potential to question society. They say this takes people out of their context, and that their way of looking at human action is better.

Two: a radical politics that hopes to transcend sexual society is the best/only way for asexuality to get social acceptance, never mind what the experiences of the participants say. They don’t want to say whether this is true or not, but say that sociologists should distinguish between arguing for the things they like and arguing that those things are what a certain group should do.

And now for my own conclusion. I know I have issues. I am very ‘sensitive’ around this topic. And, just to be clear, I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically radical in being asexual, either. I think it might inspire a person to take a radical bent on life, but that’s up to an individual. 

But these folks, these silly sausages, in their eagerness to disagree with everyone fell over themselves to gleefully stab each other in the foot. They took an extremely shallow look at their data, not interrogating why people might be telling them these things at all. Additionally, they clearly didn’t want to find much evidence of social activism, and one can’t help but wonder if that is why their definition was so crushingly tight that it didn’t. 

They got to an answer I agree with, but boy howdy did they make a mess doing it.

[tfrohock]

Always have an exit plan: Twitter, Musk, and social media in general

In case you’ve been under a rock somewhere, you probably already know that Elon Musk is in the process of purchasing Twitter. Frankly, in the overall scheme of the world’s problems right now, that purchase is a teeny drop in the bucket of the ills facing us. Even so, the news gave me a slimy feeling, like I’d stuck my hand into a hole and came out with a handful of worms. Of course, I feel the same way about Zuckerberg and Facebook. Unfortunately, due to my job and my writing, I have to maintain a profile there, too, so keeping a Twitter profile isn’t much different.

A lot of people I know are leaving Twitter, others are staying. I’m not here to pass judgment on either group. I’m not leaving Twitter, because I want to remain in control of my profile and data while I decide what I want to do. At the same time, I’ve been quietly deleting DMs, and I’m looking at some deletion software to use after downloading my tweets. I’ve also been trimming my feed, frankly because I’ve followed a lot of people who followed me, although we rarely, if ever, interact. I also continue to follow several people who are either no longer monitoring their feeds, or who haven’t posted anything in over a year. So I’m just unfollowing people who aren’t really connecting with me at all. This has more to do with Twitter’s twitchy algorithms than anything else. I’m not seeing my friends’ tweets, and when I’m missing moments with my friends, social media becomes useless to me.

I’m also backing away from people who use their feeds to quote tweet or retweet every single controversial thing that rolls across the Internet so they can argue about it. I have a subscription to a reliable news source, which I read once or twice a day, so I don’t need everyone else’s news streams amping my blood pressure forty times a day. The other thing is that instead of making an actual point, these people aren’t doing anything other than engaging with the very things they claim to hate.

Engagement = promotion in Twitter-speak, and I refuse to be another set of eyes for someone’s umbrage, or engage in promoting vile messages.

That doesn’t mean I ignore social justice. Screaming on Twitter is simply a way to vent. I’ve chosen to think deeply about ways I can be an asset for socially responsible programs in my community, where my actions will [hopefully] have meaning.

So what’s next?

Having watched both Twitter and Facebook over the past year, I can say I’ve been formulating an exit plan long before now. Tik Tok is taking over the digital world and will soon replace both Facebook and Twitter, which are seen as your parents’ social media. Eventually Tik Tok will give way to some other new and improved social media and so it will go from now on. In other words, never become too reliant on “free” sites that are asking you to perform for their audience (MySpace, anyone?). The sites will come and go at the whims of the billionaires who run them.

Some folks have suggested moving to Patreon or Substack, which is really safer, because you’re monetized there, which means the sites are actually making a percentage of whatever you’re making to stay afloat. Those types of sites are usually safer in the long run, because they’re experiencing steady cash streams.

Personally, I prefer to keep my own website/blog/newsletter in one place. Due to the limitations I have on my time, my configuration here is more convenient for me, and I’m extremely fortunate to be able to afford it.

Therein lies crux of my exit plan. I said I’d be moving more to the blog a while back, and the Twitter sale was the impetus for me to finally say meh, I’ve had enough. I’ll still be around Twitter for the time being, but being active on a platform versus being “around” are two different things. My blog feed will run through Twitter and I will also post it on Facebook. The blog is also set up to run through my Tumblr feed, so if you’re more comfortable in a Tumblr community, you can follow T. Frohock there, too. Pictures on the Tumblr site might or might not display properly, but if you need to see them, you can definitely come here.

You can also subscribe to my newsletter. If I write more than one blog post a month, I’ll usually send a link summary in the newsletter. Occasionally, I’ll just make the blog post my newsletter; however, newsletter subscribers get more than links to blog posts. The password and link to subscriber only material such as Los Nefilim shorts is only in the newsletter.

Social media, and Twitter especially, used to be a lot of fun for me in the beginning. I’ve met a lot of marvelous people all over the world and I still find the some incredibly informative threads (looking at Ali A. Olomi here). There are so many people with whom I want to remain in touch and read their blogs and hear their ideas, but I just don’t want to wade through thousands of tweets about terrible things to get to them, so I’ve subscribed to their newsletters and blogs.

And here is another thing I discovered when AT&T caused our Internet to go out for seven days (and just for the record, AT&T, it’s still squicky). I had no way to update the blog or newsletter, and although my phone does have a mobile hotspot I can use in an emergency, it’s not something I want to rely on. So I spent my evenings playing laser light with Emerson, reading, or working on my own book.

My anxiety levels went down. Way way down. And my creativity levels went up.

All this means my exit plan might lead me to an off-ramp of discovery. I’ve been reading a creative writing book suggested to me by Valerie Nieman called What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers and I’ll be sharing some of things that I’ve learned from it with my newsletter subscribers. The work on my novel has jumped dramatically. I’ve had more short story ideas that I want to pursue. There are just so, so, so many things are going on and none of them have to do with performing online to make rich men richer.

Ever since I first went online, I’ve promised myself I would always have an exit plan for various platforms, because nothing lasts forever on the interwebs, nothing but the fun and laughter you’ve all given to me. The Internet is a wide open place, and we have multiple ways to stay connected. We need not depend on any one platform, only on each other.

Watch for me …

[someonetotaketheedgeoff-blog]

15.09.2018 - Journal

(Some of this was written when I travelled with my family in America in the last 2 months)

4.07.2018

I picked a good time to quit comedy… just moments before Nanette. Maybe I’ll actually do something good if I make music instead of making jokes about fucking myself with an ex-girlfriend’s dildo.

I wont stay up late waiting to go on. Or be brutalised by Open Mic magazine on Facebook. Anything not to upset my fragile sense of self-esteem. There’s not much that's funny to me anymore… oh well… who gives a fuck anyway…

… So Liam goes into his little room and quietly dreams up his last open mic set…. hahaha… comedy can get you pretty fucked up! ... who gives a fuck anyway…

9.07.2018

Whenever I’m in a big city all I hear is it whispering (or perhaps screaming) to me - ‘can I just have some fucking money?!’  

I wonder how much I’m a product of my own fear. And also how much of what I make is a response to that fear.

It’s mostly been about death for me for the last 3 - 5 years. All I’ve done is use death to explain everything. I’ve used it to draw a line under certain things within myself and the exterior world. Seems lazy to me now.

Is laziness the fear of pain? Is a lack of motivation due to fear? A fear of failing?

It seems fear’s only a good motivator when you’re aware of what you’re afraid of and why.

23.07.2018

Travelling in America/being in America’s like being in GTA but you’re not any of the main characters.

24.07.2018

Not doing anything or not trying IS FAILING!

25.07.2018

Saw a guy stop in the subway, put his bag on the ground and re-adjust himself to get out a camera so he could take a photo of some graffiti on the wall that said ‘I love porno’.

Being in an all black neighbourhood I feel as if the black people are annoyed at me or my presence.

I keep think about the word ‘nigger’ and I keep thinking about the word ‘cracker’.

The current most popular, agreed upon philosophy on slur usage is do not say any word that has negative history associated with it and do not say ‘nigger’ if you’re not black.

Recently ‘retarded’ has been considered more offensive than it used to be and if you happen to use it you’re now accused of being an immoral person and presumably you think people that suffer mental deficiencies are bags of shit and you want to set them all on fire.

I have no problem with discussing words and I’m not even so much of a Doug Stanhope/iDubbbzTV nerd that I think the best world is a world where you say everything all the time in every context.

What I have a massive problem with is the presumption of hate and the pompousness of people downright attacking people that slip out ‘x’ word when a word is still in the process of being fazed out. It’s bloody political correctness gone quickly without open discussion and kindness!

Words are simply the end point of a vortex of shit and ideas and slang and culture. They are the bookend to a concept and when people get really caught up with words it kinda scares me.

The problem with these kinda bullshit discussions (especially on the internet) is that when you argue or discuss this shit the assumed reason for your questioning is that I want to be able to say ‘nigga’ with my friends for some unknown reason. But I don’t and I don’t understand why anyone would want to other than the fact that they’ve been told they can’t or they’re at a Klan meeting.

What I’m confused about is if words hold so much apparent power and evil due to their history then isn’t simply being white the most offensive and on the nose thing you can do? Probably, kinda, yeah.

Yet black people don’t fucking loose their shit when you walk into a room being all white and whiting the whole place up by being white. They simply get on with their lives. I believe the same shit could be applied to words. At least in a reactionary sense… it doesn’t make sense to berate a stranger with venom for saying that the fact that none of the self serve screens in Macca’s were working was retarded. I don’t know if this metaphor works. I’m just slightly confused as too why I get all my information on how to best treat minorities forced onto me from young well off white people in beer gardens. I just sit there and listen for a bit and then I stare into the reflective glare coming off their nose ring.

1.08.2018

Saw a full American fat guy in a servo. He was so fat I had to focus on not double-taking at him by staring intently at the fridge at the Dr. Pepper selection.

He looked beyond human.

13.08.2018

For some reason I am smoking again. It’s a never ending battle. Oh well. Strangely I don’t mind.

I smoked a cigarette I crafted from all the butts I could find in my parent’s house. Something I’ve done probably over 100 times in my life.

I find that I clench my jaw all the time. I’ve only noticed it recently. Through meditating and not doing drugs. I’ve noticed it. I thought I had neck cancer but the strange feeling of ache comes from my constantly clenching my jaw.

I worry that maybe I’ve done drugs and drank for so long now and started at a young age that the tracks within my brain are a little fucked. Or maybe I just have too high hopes for a sober life to be a more peaceful, and mentally stable one. Maybe the only thing I’ll gain is a healthier body.

I’m just afraid of all the horrible shit that’s inside my head. I’m afraid of being unlovable because of my desires and my personality. I don’t want to face in fear of losing Tash and revealing to her that I’m evil.

This seems to be the crux of all relationships. All of them. In the whole world. You know that you need to face the truth to get to the next stage. But it seems it will be so lonely, so terrifying and so cold… we don’t want to see the monsters that might lurk within us.

The thing is it’s almost impossible to have an honest relationship and never have turbulence. You can have a dishonest relationship with turbulence but the turbulence will be about bullshit like - ‘you said you were going to clean the extractor fan in the kitchen weeks ago…’ or ‘stop leaving your guitar on the couch…’ and such things might blow into massive arguments.

Relationships are designed to be a nightmare. Not by anyone in particular but by our hope for them and isolation and alienation we all experience internally in this society.

A relationship is a small life within your life.

Dependant on the extremity of a relationship (and obviously that is a relative thing but for sake of argument we’ll say a relationship where you truly considered that you would commit yourself to this other person until you or they or both had died) it could possibly be an interesting simulation of life after death (at least in an abstracted way).

When a relationship of said extremity begins to fall apart (for whatever reason) it’s interesting to note that you feel as if you’re dying and that there’s in fact no perceivable life to lead after the break up or if their is one it will be hellish and a subhuman existence not worth living.

When you survived a relationship that you’d committed everything to how did you feel?

I assume it was horrendous. But assuming you’re still alive and reading this… you must’ve started to feel somewhat normal once again.

Like awaking from a vivid dream it fades away rapidly. You played a different character, you lead a different life. You feel a horribleness deep inside. Not about the person but about the situation. Is this how it has to be? That the people you commit so intensely to, that you fuck and spend countless hours with then have to perish abstractly and then repressed as they fade into the background sometimes never to be spoken about or spoken to again…

I have a girlfriend now. And it terrifies my to think that the pattern may repeat.

***

We believe the internet is everlasting. Whether we research it or not, whether we know it consciously or not.

As much as we might make comments about Facebook and say things like- ‘be careful uploading those photos of your arsehole… you know that stuff will be up there forever’ I believe we’re secretly subconsciously screeching with joy at the fact that these photo’s will be up forever. As much as people have a disdain about Facebook and social media we adore it’s implied permanence. We believe that Facebook will be around after we’re dead. I say ‘believe’ because do you know how the fucking internet works? Do you know how a website is created? I fucking don’t. I don’t know if the internet would still exist if all the power plugs in the world were pulled out of there sockets. I’m a fucking idiot! A fucking idiot that has faith in the permanence of the internet… I mean… obviously… I write a blog mostly about death and existential dread and it put on… the internet.

The internet is now our saviour. It is the modern sleek titanium, bomb proof, indestructible, deathless park bench where you can scratch ‘L.D. was here’ and have a more solidified faith that it’ll be around for a while. And the longer it hangs around the more eye balls will see it, eye balls connected to a concious brain that’ll have no choice but to think ‘hey that guy was there’… and even if it’s just for one second your existence has been stretched just a tiny bit longer.

(People that love us are what we all orbit around all of our lives. If they happen to reject you at some point or disappear we then break away from that orbit and hurtle through abstract nothingness).

17.08.2018

Going to the pub was a bad idea. I went there thinking - ‘well… I kinda want to have just one drink’. The legs were aching and my poor sense of personal entitlement to some kind of ‘treat’ was raging within me. A very problematic thing for anyone that isn’t fulfilled in the work that that do (i.e. most people). I felt as I for some reason I deserved a beer. Also it was freezing cold. My feet were soaking wet and frozen due to my old decrepit shoes. I continued walking up the street. I noticed I had all these thoughts swirling in my mind. They all flew past me whispering - ‘it’s OK to have a beer’.

I watched them all swirl around in my head. I crossed my metaphorical arms and tutted. As I tutted I looked at the swirling thoughts and said - ‘fuck off… are you serious? You know this’s absolute bullshit. We don’t ‘deserve’ a drink… we don’t even probably technically want one… why are we actually going to do this?’

‘Yeah but we’ll only have one! Not even a pint mind you and then we’ll write a new to-do list and then maybe we see someone maybe we don’t and then we head off home and get down to work for a couple of solid hours before we go to bed’ said one of the thoughts.

‘Well OK… when you put it like that… that sounds nearly OK… but don’t you think there’s a chance that we might throw all that shit out the window and because we actually weren’t planning or trying to get drunk…. you’re going to use reverse psychology on me and then we actually will get drunk and most likely indulge in more heavily than if I’d actually planned to indulge…’ I replied.

‘Look don’t read into it just get into that pub… get a beer… have a cigarette in the beer garden, get out you’re little notebook and it’ll be just a quick little pop in, no worries, blah blah, etc, tomato tomato’ ’

‘Well alright then you’ve swung me round, but surely just like a small drink, like a ten ounce… you know we’re trying to focus on money and we’re only starting to face the fact of how much money we piss away on alcohol and other similar shit…’

‘Yea, yea, yea don’t worry just a ten ounce… don’t you worry about that’.

I walked up to the bar.

‘Yes what can I get you?’

‘Ah… could get a ten ounce of Little Creatures?’

‘Ah it’s actually $5 a pint right now and $10 dollars for a jug?’ she grinned slightly.

‘Ah…’.

I turned to the floating thoughts. I gave them a warning look. They all looked back at me like a pack of hyenas.

I began drowning internally - ‘Ah fuck! Na, na, na, I knew some bullshit like this was going to happen… action stations… we gotta think of some other shit… what else do they have on tap… maybe a stubby? Fuck!’

‘Hey this is great news! What a bargain! Don’t worry about it we’ll just drink that one pint and leave… no worries’ cackled the hyenas.

I ended up drinking maybe 5 pints. A bunch of my friends turned up and I talked a bunch of shit for a long, long time. It was as if ‘the plan’ had been completely erased from my mind like the bar lady had men in blacked me with the shine of her bar blade and I was back in the drinking business and also the business of not following my dreams and the business of having no self control.

The arguments in the pub got very heated. I have a few friends that can get heated during argument, (I mean who doesn’t) but I have to say it stresses me out a bit but even more so it confuses me. Every time an argument gets to that stage I don’t really trust anything that’s happening anymore. Your/my emotions are taking over and also everyone’s pissed. I think it’s interesting to me to watch people’s attention spans disintegrate at the pub. The more everyone drinks the quicker a group conversation subject topic can change hands. It’s not hard to do, barely anyone notices it and you can do it in a matter of seconds. You could be having a super intense discussion about anything and if you just interrupt everyone enough and interject a barrage of some current novelty bullshit topic that’s circling you can derail shit very quickly.

21.08.2018

Last week at the pub a friend told me that he basically waits for inspiration. He felt he should never force himself to create anything. Recently I’ve been getting back into the Stephen Pressfield way of thinking that he explains in the book The War Of Art. A book that basically shows you how to be a professional whatever, artist, musician, sports player, whatever. It’s a book that gives tools to fight the part of you that doesn't want to sit down and do the work. In other words it fights the notion of ‘waiting for inspiration’.

Very, very few times in my life have I been struck with overwhelming flaming inspiration to do anything. It happened more when I was a child. When I’d wake up early on a weekend I’d have the inspiration akin to fucking Michelangelo to go and make Lego spaceship car things out of all the see- through green pieces of Lego.

But when you get to around 7, 8, 9, 10 and beyond I think (I’m not a psychologist) you begin to second guess all that shit. You begin to be your own worst critic. Because fascinatingly nearly every kid up until that age will be happy to do a bit of drawing or play various characters in a fictional story they create on the spot. And then it all stops and this horrible awareness kicks in.

I define it as the point where you used to play with toys as a kid in your room. Each character having a crazy back story and way of speaking. You’d play, alone and be completely immersed. Your mum or dad would pop there head into the room to ask if you wanted cornflakes or some shit and you’d be like a focused director waving off an intern - ‘yea yea, sure, just have it on my desk, I’m working right now’. But then something changes around that age and when one of your parents pops their head into the room you freeze and quite your voice. You suddenly feel cripplingly self aware, maybe even stupid. You tell them to go away maybe or wait for them to leave before you get back into to the action.

Then one day you go to the studio (aka your bedroom with a mat on the floor resembling a city that we all had) and the juice is gone, the mojo is gone, you pick up the toys and you try to croak out their particular voice and you just feel stupid, looking quickly back at your bedroom door, making sure no one heard.

All of this stuff reminds me of a Picasso quote [R.I.P. 25.10.1881 - 19.06.2018*] - ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up’.

I’ve always found it interesting. I think encapsulates what I’m saying. Most people have some kind of creativity or at least blissful ignorance of expression at an age and then their brains get bigger or something and they become pimply teenagers that struggle to even walk down the street without worrying about everything detail about themselves and then they learn to just manage that shit as they enter adult life.

*I’ve chose Picasso’s death date to be the release date of Nanette. I can’t really be bothered explaining why that is right now so I guess if you really want to know you’ll have to watch Nanette.

30.08.2018

I’m often confused as to why everyone has an opinion and why you seemingly have to have an opinion.

’I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing’ - Socrates

In my college years I used to be a bit of an air headed stoner art wanker and I still am but the difference is now I have opinions on things. Back then I didn’t really have opinions. And I did it on purpose because I knew that I didn’t know anything. However it didn’t really help me socially and it didn’t help in my relationships and it didn’t really help with my self-esteem. Not initially but eventually I started to feel like I was just drifting away into an abstract world of nothingness. People don’t really take you seriously when you don’t have any solid opinions. It’s probably not a ‘masculine’ trait.

Reminds of a Dylan Moran bit:

‘Men; strong opinions with no information’

[dailyaudiobible]

07/18/2018 DAB Transcript

1 Chronicles 26:12-27:34, Romans 4:14-5:2 , Ps 14:1-7, Proverbs 19:17

Today is the 18th day of July. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you today, making our way through the center of the week. I guess we're pretty much close to the center of the month and we are... What? Are we at the center of the summer? I'm not sure. But we'll center ourselves in the Scriptures as we take the next step forward. We're reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. 1 Chronicles 26:12-27:34.

Commentary:

Okay. So in the book of Romans, Paul is indeed laying out through augment that faith preceded everything. Everything else about the Jewish people, everything that came afterward, faith is where it all started. And it was the faith of Abraham in particular that began this covenant that then became a child of promise who then had children and eventually we have the children of Israel. Everything that we've read through the Scriptures up to this point. This is one of Paul's most pivotal distinctions. It goes back to the beginning of the story and realizes faith is where it all started. So faith is where everything begins. Faith is what grants us access to God, not ritual and law. When we have faith, it is credited to us as righteousness through Jesus our Lord. So Paul kind of encapsulates the posture of our everyday lives in this faith in just a her few verses at the beginning of chapter 5 of Romans when he says, Since we've been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that. We also rejoice in our afflictions because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. So there's a lot here in this grid that Paul was laying out. Everything begins with faith. When we have faith in Jesus, we are declared righteous through that faith and we have peace with God through Jesus. But we don't just have peace with God, we have access to God through this faith. Because God is gracious and extends grace and it is this grace in which we stand every single day, every single moment. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And then Paul talks about that hope. He talks about how not only do we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, but we rejoice when we struggle. We rejoice in our afflictions because we know that this isn't purposeless. We know that this is doing something in us that is building and strengthening our faith. And if faith is where this whole thing begins, then we need as strong a faith as we can have. And so we know that affliction produces endurance, Paul says. Endurance produces proven character and proven character produces hope. And this hope will not disappoint us. And hope has been our word for the year. Hope is kind of the engine of faith. Hope lets us reach in anticipation for what we cannot see. But our faith is engaged and it can see. We all need hope on so many levels, but it's not something that just happens. Like you don't hope for something you have. You hope for something that you are hoping for. Which means that there is a distance between here and there, right? If you were hoping for something that you could just make happen instantly, than you just would. You wouldn't really need hope. You wouldn't really need faith. You would just do it. But the things that we hope in are the things that are not completed yet. And this isn't just in terms of faith, this is in general. But it's interesting what Paul is trying to tell us here. And that is there's really no hope if there's no resistance. If you didn't have to stand firm or step out in faith you wouldn't need hope. Hope is the thing that lets us reach out beyond the obstacles toward the goal. So let's remember that. Let's contemplate that today as we take inventory of our lives and the things that we are hoping in. And may our strongest hope be in Christ alone.

Prayer:

So Father, we thank You. We thank You for the book of Romans. We thank You for Paul's ability to unpack this and for us thousands of years later to be contemplating the inner regions of our soul. And we invite Your Holy Spirit into those places. Give us hope, Lord. We put our faith in You and we acknowledge that often it's in resistance that we grow strong. So Holy Spirit, come give us strength to navigate this day and navigate the rest of this week and the weeks ahead. I ask this expectantly, with hope, putting our faith in You and You alone. In Jesus name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, it's where you find out what’s going on around here. Be sure to check it out.

You can find out where to connect on social media. The prayer wall is there. Resources are there. So stop in and say hello.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link. It's on the homepage. Thank you for those of you who have clicked that link and thrown another log on the global campfire so that it continues to burn. If you are using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, Tennessee, 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

I thank You dear Lord at the start of this day for another opportunity to do things Your way to be humble and serve You in ways that are just faithfully filling my position of trust still I do have problems both present and past but with the help of Your spirit they too shall pass Your word is my lamp and a guide for my feet as I share the good news with all those I meet with my mind stayed on You my problems are few and there’s a peace that surrounds me in all that I do for I love You dear God and though sometimes I stray You still are my strength as I go through the day please fill me with power and anoint me with grace let the light from Your love shine bright on my face and all those I meet let them see You in me as my lips speak Your praises to all those I see for the love of the Christ and His death on the cross are the crux of my life all else is just ___ Lord be my strength come whatever may for I need You every moment as I go through this day

blindtony1016@gmail.com. I’d like to give a shout out to Tito, Tito Ramirez, thanks for contacting me brother. Hope all is working itself out well. And I’d also like to give a shout out to Victoria Soldier. Good to hear your voice always. And, once again Brian, thank you for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit to flow. Keep flow n’ y’all. All right. Bye-bye.

Hi DAB family. Cherry Chase, thank you so much for calling me out. Girl, I am still listening but I just haven’t called in because I feel like I have nothing to say. Seriously, nothing to say. But I was upstairs and thinking to myself, you know, that’s what the devil wants me to think. I am in a place just trying to put one foot before the other. Between watching the news and just what is going on in the world it is really depressing. Between people committing suicide, terrorist attacks, just the hate and all of the mean stuff is going on. I too am working in a company with people who all they see is race. It’s the first thing they see. I’m an African-American woman living in Germany. And let me tell you, it is no different. It’s just a different game over here. But nonetheless I find myself just not wanting to watch the news. I’m just trying to strive for finding something positive in the world whether it be through my husband or watching my son grow up but wondering what world is he living in? What is there?. And the only thing that gives me comfort is we walk by faith and not by sight. We walk by faith and not by sight. While I don’t feel it, I have to believe it because when I stop believing it there is nothing else. So, I just want to tell everyone that I am still here. I’m thinking of you all. I’m praying for you all. Brian and Jill and everyone behind the scenes at DAB, thank you for continuing this family. I covet your prayers. I think many of us are in the same state of, ahhh, I don’t know what else to say but we walk by faith and not by sight. I love you all. I’m thinking of you all. Hugging you all. Cheers, Asia in Munich.

He DAB brothers and sisters. This is Byron out in Florida. It is summertime and I wanted to talk to you guys about partnering with the DAB. So, when Brian says partnering every day he’s talking about coming up off your wallet and putting some money into the pot to keep the servers spinning and keep the podcast casting out where it needs to go. And what I’ve heard, not just from religious organizations but any kind of charitable organization is that giving tends to fall off during the summer months. Now, I don’t personally understand why this is the case but apparently it is. And, so, some organizations feel a little bit of a crunch when summertime comes and we’re all relaxing. But let me put this to you. The DAB has made it very easy to be able to give on a regular basis. You can just sign up your card or your bank account or whatever and it can come out easily month in and month out. Now the amount I give is extremely modest but it comes out regularly. It doesn’t care whether it’s the dead of winter or it’s in the middle of the summer. It’s going out and it’s putting in to give to the DAB. And here’s the other thing, how much more do we put money into things without fail that don’t have nearly the life-giving potential of the DAB? If you pay your Netflix bill month in month out with regularity, how much life-giving is that giving you compared to the DAB, your cable bill or whatever else that you get. For what we get out of DAB shouldn’t we at least be giving with regularity if not in an amount competitive with some of those other things that actually take life from us? So, go onto the site today, click on the give button, it’s super easy, set up your monthly gift, your weekly gift, your daily gift, I don’t know. And God will bless you. I’ve been blessed immensely by this service, much more than I could ever put in. And it’s worth it to be able to spread that out to other people.

Good morning family. This is Cherry Chase. Hope all is well. I want to call this morning to let, just in case, besides Brian, someone didn’t tell you that they love you. I want to tell you guys I love you. I love you. I love you. You guys have a great wonderful day. I just wanted to put that across to someone. If someone did not or don’t tell you they love you. I want to tell you I love you. And you guys have a great and wonderful and marvelous day.

[coronationim]

10 of the Best Components for a Strong On-Page SEO

10 of the Best Components for a Strong On-Page SEO was first seen on: http://www.coronationim.com/

Being one of the first results of a Google search can be a game changer for your brand. The impact that being #1 in targeted keyword rankings can have on your bottom-line cannot be expressed. But how do you step-up and become the leader of the pack?

A set of effective on-page SEO techniques could be the missing piece of your puzzle. They are the cornerstone of any good SEO strategy. In fact, 61% of respondents in a study said improving SEO is one of their top priorities for inbound marketing.

The crux of the matter is that by improving your on-page SEO, you can improve your search rankings. If you increase the number of people who discover your business, you can increase the number of prospects you have. More leads being generated equates to more sales. Sounds pretty logical, doesn't it?

What is On-Page SEO?

Search engine optimization involves using techniques to improve a website's visibility and rankings through organic search results. Similarly, on-page SEO refers to optimizing the pages on your website to gain relevant traffic from the search engines. That includes both content and the coding under the hood.

Search engines have complex algorithms to determine search rankings. They take into consideration hundreds of different factors to decide on a rank. Obviously, you can’t control all of them, but there are a few that you can work on to improve your rankings.

Let’s take a look at some of the most important ranking factors, why they matter, and what you can do about them.

Highly Effective On-Page SEO Elements

1. Title Tags

Your page titles play a significant role in determining your rankings. Each page and post should have a unique title that includes the primary keywords for that page or article. The closer the keyword is to the beginning of your title, the better. But more than that, it’s important that the use of the keyword is natural.

The length of the title is equally important. Ideally, you should keep it between 40 and 70 characters. Any longer than that and it will probably get cut off when turning up in the search results.

2. Meta Descriptions

Many people often forget to add a meta description to their pages. They’re a great place to add relevant keywords to your content. While it may not directly impact your rankings, they do improve your click-through rate (CTR). This, in turn, can have a somewhat modest impact on your rankings.

Give some thought to what might compel a reader to click on your result over others, and frame a meta description based on that. Try to keep it under 160 characters preferably.

3. URL Structure

When choosing a URL for your page, be sure to use the keywords you are targeting. In fact, 63% of the best sites, across industries, have keywords in their domain URL. URLs should be search engine friendly as they ensure better crawling. Shorter URLs are also likely to perform better than longer ones.

It’s better to use words and punctuations in the URL over codes. Session IDs have been known to add to content duplicity thereby affecting rankings. You can add cookies to your site to help reduce this problem.

4. Body Tags

It’s advisable that you break up your article into smaller sections and paragraphs to make it easier to read. These sections can each be given a separate heading to make the content more structured and easier to consume. You can make use of H1, H2, H3, and other such tags here.

Providing a hierarchy to the page’s content tells search engines which segments have more importance. Again, keyword-rich headlines will prove to be more helpful than generic ones.

5. Keywords

The importance of including relevant keywords throughout your content cannot be stressed enough. They are the key to letting search engines know what your content is all about. But keep in mind that excessive use of keywords can be just as harmful. Remember to use variations of your keyword as well.

Leverage tools like Google AdWords to see what keywords are trending in your domain. It even does a comparative keyword analysis and makes suggestions on phrases you can use.

  Image via Google AdWords

6. Optimized Images

Images are a great way to make your pages visually appealing. Use your focus keyword in the image file name, title, description, and alt-tags. Ensure that you use proper captions with the images as well.

Image optimization will help you rank higher in Google Image Search, thereby increasing site traffic. It will also help you reduce page load speeds and considerably improve your conversion rates. You can use tools like TinyPNG to create optimized versions of the images you plan to use.

Image via TinyPNG

7. External and Internal Links

It’s imperative that you have both internal crosslinks as well as outbound links to improve your SEO.

You can improve the chances of a search engine finding you by linking your page to other pages on your website. One way to do that is to refer to other articles you may have written in your present one. This helps enhance user experience and keeps them engaged for longer periods by providing more content to consume.

Use outbound links to articles or pages of other websites to establish your site’s credibility and authority. The Reboot marketing firm found a positive correlation between SEO and outbound links. Ensure that you’re linking to relevant content and pages that have a high Domain Authority to get the most out of this tactic.

8. Page Load Speed

A website that loads quickly is essential from both a user and website owner perspective. Users are more likely to stay if a web page is quick to load. A delay of even one second can result in an 11% drop in page views and a drop in conversion rates by 7%.

Make use of resources like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to track the performance of your website and derive actionable insights.

Image via Google PageSpeed Insights

Search engines like Google measure bounce rates and dwell times when determining your search rankings. A few easy ways to improve page load speeds are:

Minimizing HTTP requests

Reducing server response time

Enabling compression and browser caching

Optimizing images

9. Social Sharing Buttons

Social SEO is all the buzz these days. Social media is a staple marketing tool and brands should be making the most of it. By adding social share buttons, you enable visitors to amplify your brand’s message. They are a simple and effective way to boost site traffic and page engagement.

10. Monitoring Results

No matter what changes and optimizations you make, it’s important to gauge your performance and check your results. You can’t boast having an effective on-page SEO if you can’t track the results.

You can use tools like Pro Rank Tracker, for example, to check your search rankings. It even provides you with insights on how to improve your SEO.

Image via Pro Rank Tracker

Conclusion

There’s a lot more to on-page SEO than just publishing relevant content and having links in your articles. As a marketer, you’ll have to account for other factors too, like the ones discussed above. Once you get your on-page SEO game on-point, you’ll see marked differences in your page performance and site traffic.

These techniques will help build the value of your pages and the relevancy of your internal pages for particular keywords. If you have any points to add, then we’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant that specializes in influencer marketing, product launches, sales funnels, targeted traffic and website conversions. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities.

from :http://coronationim.com/?p=12182

[nayleaharvez97]

Prevent Divorce.com Stupendous Unique Ideas

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[acing-leadership-with-santanu]

CRM For start-ups. How Soon is Too Soon?

I ordered some items online through a recently launched mobile app. Unfortunately; the order was not delivered on time. I tried to raise a ticket or want to chat with an executive, but unable to find any way to do that via the app. Then I tried to look for their customer care numbers but found that too is non-functional. Then I went to their website, filled in their contact us form and received a call later that evening from their sales team. When I shared my problem with the caller, he said, it’s not his problem and I have to write to their support team to complain. Imagine the amount of pain I have been through just to lodge a complaint.

This is not a one-off case. With all due respect to our start-up fraternity, customer relations is something where majority of start-up players are lagging big time. As the start-up culture is growing, the need for a good CRM system is also growing at an equal pace.  The key question is “How badly a start-up needs a CRM? Can it survive without CRM?”  

As a CRM enthusiast, I feel that it is very important to understand why a startup should invest some time and money to build their CRM practice. Let’s start with this obvious question that, might come to the mind of a start-up founder.

“But we have a full-fledged Sales/Marketing team. Why we need a team and tool for CRM”

The answer is simple. Old Marketing model, which we also called the Transactional

Marketing model is just not fit for today’s age because to me, transaction marketing is something that typically focuses on sales showcases the product or services offered. Which in a way does not generally produce great customer relationships?  

Now that the economy is evolving and as technology progresses, no wonder our customer base is also changing. Day by day they are getting more up to date and tech-savvy. They want everything on their fingertips. They are aware of what is happening in and around them. And thanks to the internet, they are now checking the online review of the product and services before deciding the final vendor for a particular product. With various social media platforms available, customer reviews are posted everywhere.  This evolving nature of customers is resulting in fierce competition among the business houses. Be it product-based companies or service-based companies, every single salesperson out there in the market is trying to overpower their rivals in some way or the other. As you realize that the crux of the market has shifted from sellers to buyers, it is evident why the marketing model also needs to be changed. And needless to say, this marketing evolution has strengthened the concept of Relationship Marketing (also called CRM). As someone rightly said, “CRM is the most evolved version of Marketing.” Unlike transactional marketing, CRM primarily focuses on customer retention.

To me here are some of the key reasons why a start-up should embrace CRM sooner than later.

·         It helps to put the customer at the heart of your business strategy.

·         It also allows you the time to concentrate on other areas of your business, as you know that the CRM software system is keeping you and your team up-to-date and fully aware of your customers’ needs.

·         It is a centralized place for storing data and provides a full, accurate record of a rep’s entire interaction history with a prospect that’s accessible with one click.

·         Furthermore, it has the ability to do analysis and help you predict future sales, etc and the historical data provides valuable insight into future client behavior.

To wrap it up, my advice to all hard-working entrepreneurs out there, while you are investing time and money for your sales, marketing and development, think of sparing some budget to set up a CRM operation. There are multiple CRM players out in the market. Pick anyone based on your budget and scale of operations and implement it before you launch your products or services and then see the magic of CRM unfurl.  

[blogdanielwilson-blog]

Why Content Marketing is the Key to Successful Hotel Campaigns

If you are a bona fide netizen, perhaps you have come across with this phrase- ‘content is king’ which shows the dominance of content everywhere around the globe and it doesn’t matter which business you’re into – it holds a truth value for all businesses! Though content marketing used to just be a way to set yourself apart from your competitors, it has now become a necessity for any modern brand.

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that revolves around the creation, publication, and distribution of content to a target audience in order to bring new traffic (and therefore new customers) to your business. Content marketing is not just about publishing blogs on a regular basis, it is the the heart of most successful digital marketing campaigns. Nowadays, behind every great hotel or any business is a wealth of valuable and relevant content that really connects with the hotel’s guests (including millennial travellers). But you may still be wondering, why is content marketing important for hotels?

One of the biggest benefits that really shows the importance of content marketing is the reputation building qualities of great content (which cannot be skipped at any cost!). In today’s busy digital marketplace for hotels, it’s vital that the businesses work to build trust with their leads, prospects, and guests. Building trust is really the crux of the matter as it can help your business establish a positive brand reputation which in turn attracts more customers to your hotel and skyrockets your hotel sales, occupancy, and revenue.

Another positive of great content is that when your guests or consumers read your content, they start to develop an opinion of your hotel brand. If the content they find is truly engaging, educational and valuable, they will start to think the same things about your business! With content you can also exceed their expectations by providing them with the relevant details about your hotel and they can browse it online; now, they won’t have to come out of their room to know about your ongoing discounts and offers. So, long-story-short, the more value you provide with your content, the simpler it will be to build trust with your target audience.

In addition, when your hotel leads and patrons start to see that you are consistently publishing content across platforms, they may come to see you as a leader in the industry. If you’re publishing content through any third-party publications or sharing your content with influencers, it can also help you further build trust within your target market (be they business or millennia travellers).

These days your guests turn to search engines like Google for solutions to their problems which can be trivial or important at times. Often your best opportunity to win new guests is to be there when they Google it! In fact, you may have already established a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy so that your hotel can stand apart from all the contemporaries. You might be aware that search engines frequently updates their searching algorithm they utilise to crawl the web and the content, so their AI can continuously improve the quality of results that we see when we do a search online.

To optimise your content for increased conversions, be sure to include a clear call-to-action (CTA) so that a user can perform an action after they are done reading the content online. Your diligently crafted CTAs should motivate a reader, guiding them to the next step in the conversion process! Whether converting means- booking a hotel room, viewing your existing hotel amenities, making a purchase, getting more information or contacting your sales team, it’s important to make it clear to the reader/user within the content what you want them to do next.

Today nearly 40% of companies use blogs for marketing purposes, and over 46% of people read blogs more than once a day (good job, content creators!). Regardless of the industry – whether you are running a bakeshop, law firm, a hotel or technology start-up – creating and managing content properly should be a top goal in order to increase more inbound traffic to your website!

Another important factor is properly utilising social media. If your content solves a common problem in a unique way or distributes a piece of important information, it’s likely that other similar businesses will share that content which helps make you look good than others. Social media is quickly catching up with search engines as the best way for content to reach consumers.

Let’s face a fact, if you post an advertisement for your hotel on Facebook, there aren’t too many people who will voluntarily share it on their own wall. Unless, of course, there’s a worthy incentive involved- such as winning a free night’s stay, discount on dinner buffet or simply a tangible gift! But, let’s take another scenario where you create a fun piece of content on your website about the best bars to visit in your area (an irresistible and mouthwatering offer), then share it out to your Facebook page – the post will strike up a conversation amongst your followers, who will then share it out to their friends, and so on! As the piece of content garners more reach, the more visitors you’re receiving to your website, and the more you’re getting your brand in front of interested parties.

Nowadays, writing more and apt content with higher quality will increase the perceived expertise, authority, relevance, and trust of your site. If the content earns more inbound links from external sources, your website’s domain authority will increase even further and this will again help you to rank higher in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). A higher domain authority correlates in a stronger performance with search rankings, so the more quality content you produce, the more organic search visibility you’ll gain in all areas of your site.

Proper strategy for content marketing also helps you to boost your referral traffic. But this one totally depends on your commitment to the guest publishing portion of your content strategy! Generally, when you contribute to external publications as a guest blogger/publisher/editor, you’ll have an opportunity (that you shouldn’t miss) to link back to your site. Do this on a relevant and authoritative site (with higher traffic than the rest). A single guest post could earn you thousands of new visitors to your site!

Do you want to know more about concierge service app, then please visit us. Concierge apps provide the services to guests and guests order room service at the tap of a touch-screen.

[promarketo12-blog]

All you need to know about Facebook algorithm update 2019

Changes in the algorithm of Facebook are a common occurrence but it brings a big shift in online way of doing business as it requires digital marketing experts to adjust how the posts are promoted and seen by its user base. There are many digital marketing factors like creating quality content, appealing visual graphics and lattest information sharing on facebook to get huge engagement and to plan all these resources you need a digital marketing agency. However, the changes made in 2019 were far more significant than the previous one. It actually made the marketers to doubt their ability to reach the target audience.

The marketers are also worried about the ability of the businesses to work with influencers in the platform. The change in the algorithm shifted the content from business posts to more family and friends. So, have you updated with Facebook’s Algorithm yet? If not, here are some ways you can do it.

1. Understand the key changes

The Facebook algorithm is broken down in four major components- inventory, signals, predictions, and the overall score. Signals are the area that you need to take care of the content of your business. Social Signals in Facebook include the average time spent by the customer on the particular content. So it tracks how many have seen your content, how many likes and comments it got and how often it was shared on the timeline of users. Thus, in order to blench with the latest algorithm change, it is important that you make content that is more family friendly.

2. Top ranking factors

When it comes to how content is perceived do Facebook by the users, we consider four factors.

✓ Comments

if your post does not attract many comments and likes, it is most likely to vanish from the timeline of the users. Hence if the content is intriguing and attracts a lot of comments, it will surely make an appearance over the timelines of many users. That is why you must have seen Big Brands try to create content that instantly catches the eyes and compels the users to comment on it.

✓ Sharing

Just like the comments over the content, sharing of that content is equally important. Whatever post you make, in order to gain popularity you should always convince the viewers to share it further. This is the most organic method of promotion just like the word of mouth promotion.

✓ Reaction

The ability to fetch the right kind of reaction to your content is not only important but also very much in the trend. If you fail to get a positive reaction from the public, it is going to take your company further south. So invest a little time and share the right kind of content on the website.

✓ Engagement

Audience engagement is the key and this is actually a step above the sharing element. If your content is shared further and manages to get many likes and comments, your original post will bump up in the Facebook news feed. Thus, allowing more people to watch your content.

3. How the algorithm does actually affect marketers?

This is one of the important things that you need to understand if you are a marketer. The whole article is written on the crux of this main topic. SEO and digital marketing Services have made almost every company come online.

And one of the most popular mediums after Google is Facebook. Now almost all the brands irrespective of their industry, try their luck over Facebook. Some succeed while some fail. So what are the successful company different? They are using the right kind of content and targeting the right people over the platform. If you wish to gain traction on the post then you have to share the posts targeted to specific people, along with the potential customers. There are different ways to use digital marketing tools for different types of industries.

✓ Education sector

This industry has become one of the most competitive and sophisticated industries. All of this can be credited to just digital marketing and its tools. Many companies that are focussed only on the online dissemination of education are using the tools of digital marketing to target the audience. The main reason if the overwhelming usage is that this provides the industry a very cost-effective promotion. They can extract excellent results with very small investments and can use organic features like SEO, mobile marketing, and email marketing.

Not only the cost, but it also increases brand awareness. Many companies like Udemy and Up Grad which are purely online, have gained popularity due to digital marketing practices. Also, with more brand awareness, the conversion rates due to online promotion are usually higher than the physical means in the case of this industry.  This helps in creating a positive presence and also allows potential customers to engage with satisfied customers.

✓ Real estate

One of the safest investments in the world is in Real Estate, most customers feel real estate is a physical sales transaction. However, just like many industries, this one is also dependant on online platforms. The industry transacts the products that require a lot of research and customers tend to engage in time taking process before making the final purchase. Thus, the companies are moving from the brick and mortar to make an online presence to ease the workflow and customer aqusitions simple and to make this online set up you may require a Digital Marketing Agency which will help you understand how a digital marketing agency can grow your business online. Many companies like magic bricks, 99acres are operating through online platforms only.

The digital marketing tools have made the industry even more lucrative for businessmen who wish to start the business with lesser investment. This is just the right platform where they can reach the right customers at the lowest possible cost. Most useful tools for the real estate industry will be Blogging, Pay per click, Social media marketing, SEO and email marketing. Many businesses have shared their success stories of how they were able to increase the revenues by 30% after using digital marketing tools.

✓ Healthcare industry

Searching for healthcare services online is the third most popular activity. I think this one line says enough of why the healthcare industry is shifting online. Now the reason why digital marketing is gaining momentum in the healthcare industry is due to the fact that the people are not looking for the reason for their problem but also for the solutions. Promarketo helps with digital marketing services for healthcare institutions like hospitals, doctors and consultants to promote their valuable solutions to the patiemts.

Thus the healthcare industry can leverage the full advantage of this by developing a mobile marketing campaign and content marketing. For the healthcare industry, content marketing is the most beneficial tool.

Most of the people searching online want more information, so they will be readily available to engage in blog posts and big articles. There are many companies that are also engaging in social media marketing by using the digital word of mouth feature. This simply means joining the potential customers to satisfied customers to build trust and brand loyalty among the people. Use the statistical data by the entrusted digital marketing campaigns for hospitals and doctors, to know what people want an deliver the same service.

✓ Retail industry- this industry we are already aware of and how huge is its presence over the online platform. The online retail industry has grown manifolds during the last 5 years.

The direct contact with the customers has made the companies work better and also bring necessary changes in their business operations.

4. Solutions to adjust to the Facebook algorithm

There are ways you can adjust to the changes made in the algorithm of Facebook rather making any serious change. Here are some tips you can follow:

✓ Try to create more conversational activity over your post.

When people talk, the post tends to get more popularity. Because of this simple reason you might show up on the top of the page. So you can create the buzz by posting some current affair over which people can share their views or simply post a discount offer or services where the customers get bound to reply. However, make sure that you don’t use negative publicity to gain attraction from people. It will result in the worst repercussions than a good response.

✓ Try to make use of Facebook groups.

There are about a billion Facebook groups from where you actually get the information of the potential customers. Join two or more such group where you can discuss the business and see for yourself the change in the level of engagement. The main reason for improved engagement is the people you are contacting actually care about the content you are sharing.

So this is all about you can channel the digital marketing tools and adjust to the changes made in the algorithm of Facebook. There are various Digital Marketing Companies and tools available online that can help you take your business to the zenith.

Good luck!

https://promarketo.com/new-facebook-algorithm-update-2019/

[jkspn]

Facebook’s Accountability Problem

IN the past few days there has been much talk in the tech sphere of how Facebook and Twitter (and other social media networks) handle posts by public officials (like Trump) that could lead to or incite harm directly or indirectly.

Twitter went out ahead and labeled posts by Trump that could be misinformed/misleading, or could incite violence. On the other hand Facebook has defended its position of not labeling or removing posts like these because they argue it is in the public interest to leave these posts up for public debate and discussion.

I am not here to discuss the content of these hotly-debated posts—but I'll be diving into the difficulty I see with Facebook's decision.

The short of it: Facebook demands accountability on a platform that inherently cannot guarantee the identity of a person to make them accountable.

Before anything else, let me lay down first how Facebook works.

Facebook (through the News Feed) is focused around the number of accounts who interact with a post—whether by posting a reaction on it, commenting on it, or sharing it.

In addition, Facebook's primary goal is to surface content to you that you'll most likely interact with, and spend a longer time on.

The longer the time you spend on Facebook (and its properties, including Instagram), the more opportunities can they show you ads (and also keep them shown on the screen). At its core, Facebook is an ad inventory company that uses your personal data to target you with ads of any kind. Think about that.

This ad-targeting is really, really, specific by the way. For example, if I wanted to show ads to people between 25-30, male, supports LGBTQIA+ intitiatives, are freelancers, into design and technology, has a dog, and posts lengthy posts about political matters, I could do that (and incidentally target myself, lol).

By knowing what you usually like (or post a reaction on), comment on, and share, Facebook can then approximate what your political leanings are, what viewpoints you mostly agree or disagree with, and what kinds of content can make you stay longer on the website.

The way I see it (and I may be completely wrong), is that Facebook doesn't care what content you post or see, as long as it makes you stay longer on the website, and as long as it allows them to know more about you, your preferences, and what you like consuming.

Following this (likely flawed) logic, then you can understand why they're generally reluctant to remove posts from public figures ESPECIALLY if what they wrote can be a huge attention-grabber. Imagine all the times that you've seen a post about politics—pulls you in right? Even if sometimes they're just flatly false, delusional, or can actually lead someone to harm? But they're there because people bicker about it, or posts lengthy posts about it in sort of a meta way.

To be honest, I really understand how putting it up for people to discuss and debate upon can be really beneficial. In an ideal world, where we can discuss issues with courage and prudence so as not to devolve into personal arguments, there is really a path to mutual understanding, acceptance, and communal enlightenment. I've been in many situations where we've been able to achieve that—online and offline. BUT that would require lots of patience, time, and effort to uphold—not to mention that it requires full accountability on part of the different actors involved in the conversation. I know who you are (or at least I can see you), and you know who I am, based on how little or much I know about you I can adjust how I discuss with you so as to not escalate matters. And at the end of the day, if we can't arrive to a mutual understanding, I can, at the very least, respect you, or earn your respect as a fellow human being.

On Facebook however, there's not much accountability we can demand of anyone, really. Facebook has a policy that users must create accounts using their real names and using real pictures to sort of demand this accountability. Rarely though has it held, and if you would through your friend lists you would know that you might have a few friends who have used other names or even other photos to represent their accounts. Inherently there is nothing malicious about this, and I'll further discuss below some reasons why people would intentionally create accounts like these, but at the same time that would really diminish any sort of accountability that you would want from that user.

Another dimension to consider about this is what Facebook incentivizes its users to do—that is to gather more likes, comments, and shares, and teach us that posts that have more likes, comments, and shares must be true or credible. In simpler terms, Facebook is a numbers game. And in any game concerning numbers, the way to win is to rack up the numbers anyway possible—which brings us to fake accounts and trolls.

Absent from most of the discussion about the Facebook-Twitter-Trump incident is how trolls/fake accounts could artificially rack up the numbers and in turn, show it to more people who might feel strongly about it. Depending on which part of the spectrum you fall on, what you read and see could either galvanize to action and create a greater sense of loyalty to what you believe in, or incite you to create or surface content that would antagonize people who you disagree with.

Trolls and fake accounts these days have become so sophisticated that they can impersonate real people, or even invent new ones. Trolls can be actual real people who are just incentivized to game the system towards what their goals are! And fake accounts don't even need to be convincingly real to create some real damage to people's psyche and emotions online.

Save for the users who own up to what they're doing, trolls and fake accounts have no accountability whatsoever when they're online. And there is no way we can demand accountability from them because either they don't exist, or they don't even care what they're writing or posting about just so they can post something about it to help in the numbers game.

Now we arrive at the crux of what I'm trying to say: how does Facebook think we can cultivate a lively discussion or debate about critical issues when we are overwhelmed with content from people we can't actually hold accountable? When we are overwhelmed with statistics that are actually irrelevant to the discussion, and actually falsely show the level of support or 'agreement' which we have come to associate with higher numbers? More importantly, how can we surface legitimate discussion and debate when there are accounts whose primary goals are outside of 'lively discussion and debate' as Facebook puts it?

Interestingly, the rise of these fake and troll accounts are actually leading people to create accounts that don't accurately represent them. For many, the purpose of Facebook is to connect with others—family and friends—and not to participate in politics or 'lively debate and discussion' online. Moreover, fear of persecution or targeting from bad actors or poorly-interpreted and -implemented laws actually makes people more reluctant to be truthful of who they are.

In these contexts it's more attractive to not have your real name and photo up there, especially if you're really fearful that fake accounts or trolls may steal your likeness or if government or external actors would target you for posting something online.

Just as deepfakes can harm the reputation of the real people that the fakes are referenced from, fake accounts (whether or not they're used as troll accounts or just for share/like farms) can also harm the original person that they're copying.

These fake accounts can be used to falsely accuse someone of doing something, whether by posting something, sharing, or even commenting on other posts. In addition, these fake accounts can also bolster the number of shares, likes, and comments of other posts (malicious or not).

In recent years, companies and government agencies actually ask you to put in your usernames on social media accounts. Whether or not you would put you real accounts there, a search on Facebook or Twitter could lead to an account that maybe isn't yours and could harm your reputation with that company or government agency.

Most dangerous however, is that you can be implicated in whatever web of conspiracy is being floated around online, simply for having your name in there or your likeness!

So as you can see, more and more it makes less sense to be honest and accountable for who you are online, especially on social media networks. And if legitimate users are becoming more and more reluctant to be honest of who they are online, how can we hold anyone accountable? Is accountability going to be reserved for the courageous?

On the other side of the coin, what's damning is that it wouldn't even hurt Facebook's bottomline whether or not there is accountability on its website. The more time you spend, the more ads it could show you. Whether you're engaged or enraged, it's irrelevant to the News Feed algorithm, so long as you contribute to the numbers. The more you share, the more it knows about you. And even if you don't share, or don't have an account, you already have a shadow one, collected from the trackers Facebook has all over the web through its partners. In other words, Facebook doesn't care if you're accountable or not, just as long as you're still using the service.

In addition, Facebook isn't really incentivized to verify or demand accountability from its users on the website. Fake accounts and trolls add more users to the website, and if they target these all with ads, what does it matter to them? Actually it could help their numbers, because they can show higher engagement and interaction, regardless if its from legitimate users or troll/fake accounts.

It's not a zero-sum game, but whichever way you look at it, Facebook wins, and it doesn't matter if we, as users, win or not.

So it really baffles the mind how can Facebook talk about keeping discussion and debate lively and open, which rests on a platform of accountability, and not setup their platform to have accountability.

Putting into context, if Facebook wants to keep up certain posts that could actually lead to harm or is misinformed, then they should just start verifying the identity of its users when they create accounts. Let the maximum number of accounts on Facebook be whatever is the current global population minus those who aren't eligible to have a profile on their website.

It's such a cynical view on the matter, and actually could be more harmful especially if Facebook can't protect that data, but I think that's the only way we could have the 'lively debate and discussion' that can actually change things for the better.

And if they can't do that, then consider the alternative: have a baseline level of responsibility about the content that gets shared on your website. I'm not saying that Facebook should moderate all of the content that gets posted, but be more sensitive to the content that gets posted on the website. I even daresay have a more editorial approach to what gets posted—if you think something should be taken down or left up, discuss why. Start the discussion. Because if it's just all platitudes and virtue-signaling about 'respecting' the freedom of speech, it's a hollow promise.

Adjacent to this discussion is how time and time again posts about 'not staying silent' is important, and that 'staying silent is being complicit.' Personally I don't believe in this completely, but really it's just so difficult to participate in a forum where we can't really hold each other accountable. If you're someone I know, or if you are a legitimate account posting these sentiments, I respect your position, and I actually do believe that we should be taking more action. But unless the incentives our social media networks give us actually makes us less accountable or prefer less accountability, I don't think that the proper forum or avenue to act are on these networks.