#and i want to pop back to 1997 message boards and just be like 'THE FUCK SHOW ARE YOU WATCHING WHERE THIS CAME OUT OF NOWHERE'

[keyofjetwolf]

OH HO HO I CACKLE IN DELIGHT. I’d completely forgotten this exchange, this additional example in a vast ocean of them, highlighting yet again how fucked Xena and Gabrielle already are. Gabby continues to make this about her, despite it FOR ONCE legit not being about her. Meanwhile, Xena’s so convinced of her own infallibility at knowing precisely what Gabrielle’s thinking and feeling and willing to do or not do that she brushes everything aside rather than hear the claxons going off all around her.

Remember that as far as Xena knows, GABRIELLE ALREADY WENT THERE, and it was as early as yesterday, not just killing *a* child, but HER child. For (allegedly) far more altruistic reasons than Past Xena needed, but not too far out of line with what’s facing Current Xena now, AND it’s worth pointing out that Ming Tien is far past childhood. Gabrielle still needing more information, no problem. Xena barely begun to scratch the surface of her motivations; she herself pointed out that Gabrielle would need the whole story, don’t forget. But Gabby’s already hit her stopping point in the story, completely unwilling to accept ANY rationalization for murder, because once again she’s turned this about HER.

Meanwhile Xena, busy right now being a) distracted and b) so far up her own ass about always being right, completely fails to see Gabrielle’s reaction in the light currently bathing them. Gabrielle reacting like this fits Xena’s version of Gabby as this pure, innocent ball of cookie dough, conveniently ignoring all her recent trauma. I think maybe if the Chin situation weren’t so pressing, or Gabrielle not putting quite so much work into hiding things, Xena might’ve questioned this more. But that said, I also think there’s a part of Xena so desperate for Gabrielle to be okay that it might well have convinced her to believe, regardless of all evidence and reason.

Also though, we can’t set aside that on some level, Xena not only prepares for but CRAVES Gabrielle’s condemnation. Xena isn’t proud of who she used to be, and all of *flails at room* THIS is a glaring neon sign of Xena at her shittiest. She failed Lao Ma all those years ago, she failed Gabrielle repeatedly over the past week, so isn’t she overdue for some scorn and derision?

That’s what I love so much about this conversation. Neither Xena nor Gabrielle are actually talking about the same thing, but they keep talking anyway, not listening and never hearing, and then we all have the nerve to be surprised when it degenerates into flinging each other off a cliff.

[bangtan-et-al]

somnium finis 02.

—word count: 4,557

—prologue:  A plane sinks into the Pacific Ocean, leaving the world mourning the loss of the 118 passengers on board. Seven of those passengers being the members of the famous K-pop band BTS. At least, that’s how it seems.

—genres: Idol AU, Mystery, Psychological

—contains: Themes of fluff, angst, smut, depression, and anxiety. Mentions of divorce and the use of strong language such as name calling and cussing.

—chapter: 01. 02.

—note: Guys, I got so many notes on the last chapter in so little time! For someone starting off, every like, reblog, comment, and follow means so much to me. I rushed to get this next chapter out to keep the momentum going! Enjoy!

…

A long silence hung over everyone. Jeongguk was the first to speak.

“So… we’re dead? Is this like the afterlife?” He stared at his hyungs.

Jimin nervously ran his fingers through his hair. “No, this isn’t right. There’s no way we’re dead. We can still feel pain, these bodies are physical!”

You were scrolling through your phone, looking at all the articles you could find on the crash. You tried commenting or messaging, but nothing would go through. You thought it was odd, seeing as you could use Google just fine.

“Guys, this isn’t the afterlife. Don’t be stupid,” Yoongi piped up. “I think it’s all a cover up story.”

“A cover up for what, kidnapping us? What’s the point? Wouldn’t the main reason for it be to get a ransom? You can’t ransom someone who’s dead.” Hoseok reasoned.

Namjoon had his eyebrows furrowed together, deep in thought. The other boys kept going back and forth, some speaking with panic, others trying to speak reason.

You had visited your mother’s Facebook page and found she had made a post about the plans for your funeral. Friends and family were commenting underneath. There was post after post about you, and the life you lived. Pictures from your childhood and group photos with friends taken only weeks ago. Your heart was breaking. What tipped you over was Appa’s long post he made talking about all the memories from over the years. He translated it to English too, so everyone could read it.

‘Dear daughter, your time was cut too short… My greatest love… In all the years…’ It went on and on. It was all the things he said or didn’t say to you, and all the love he had for you. You mother wouldn’t even bother writing such a post.

You didn’t realize, but tears were falling down your cheeks silently.

Taehyung was the first to notice. “____-ssi?”

This was all too much to process right now. The emotions were overwhelming, and being with BTS was not helping. You stood up and ran back to the bedroom you had woken up in.

“____-ssi!” Namjoon called for you, but none of them chased after you. Why would they? You weren’t their first priority. They didn’t trust you. They had to protect each other and stick together because that’s who they were. BTS had each other and they were inseparable.

That just made you feel even lonelier.

The people who loved you thought you were dead. The seven people you’ve looked up to saw you as a potential threat. You were trapped in an unknown place, for a reason you didn’t know, or how you even got there.

You slammed the door and slowly fell against it, sinking to the floor. Your breathing quickened and your chest felt tight. You started shaking uncontrollably. You’d never had a panic attack before, so you weren’t really sure how to handle it. You just stayed right there, curled into yourself, waiting for your lungs to work again.

‘I’m completely alone.’

…

“I don’t trust her, she could’ve been put in here to observe us, or turn us against each other or something.” The usual optimistic Hoseok was the one being the most pessimistic towards you. Had this been any other situation, he would’ve been the first to stand up for you.

But now his brothers’ lives were on the line, and they came first.

Taehyung shook his head. “She’s just as scared, if not more scared than us. She’s alone, we aren’t. Who knows, what if we’re the reason she’s here? What if she got caught up in something because she was on the same plane?”

“I see where you are both coming from, but it’s unwise to push her away or trust her just yet. We need a game plan.” Namjoon was trying his best to keep everyone at peace, a task proving to be very difficult.

Seokjin was in the kitchen rummaging around to see what all was available. “It’s fully stocked. None of the packaging has been opened on the food either, it’s all sealed. I’d eat this sooner than I’d eat the hamburger.”

Jeongguk paced a small line in the floor. Yoongi and Namjoon were trying to figure out an escape plan. Hoseok sat on the couch chewing a hole in his thumb. Jimin was exploring the space, looking for possible exits or clues.

Taehyung stared back at the hallway you had ran down. The others were probably right, he shouldn’t get too close, he shouldn’t be putting himself in your shoes, he shouldn’t be replaying your crying face in his head, but he couldn’t help it.

He stood and left the others to find you.

“Tae, don’t! We need to stick together!” Jimin called out for him. When he didn’t listen, he followed behind him. He wasn’t going to let his friend make a stupid decision.

At least not without him.

Taehyung tried the door you came out of first. He knocked on it. “…____-ssi? Are you in there?” From just behind door he could hear quiet, short breaths. “I’m coming in.” He tried opening the door, but it only opened a crack before it stopped on something solid.

He realized you were sitting on the floor crying to yourself. Jimin caught up to him and grabbed his arm. “Don’t just storm off like that-”

“Shh, not now.” After Taehyung hushed him, the sounds of your sobs reached him. It pulled at his heart strings, and he felt himself soften up a little.

“We’re here for you. Do you want to talk about it?” Jimin asked. He was beginning to see things from Taehyung’s side.

You moved over a bit so they would be able to open the door. Taehyung slowly opened it and then sat down next to you. Jimin stepped into the room, and sat on the other side of you. You had regained control of your breathing before they came, but you were a crying mess, surely looking horrible in front of two of the most beautiful men you’d seen in your life. Today couldn’t get any worse.

“…how old are you?” Taehyung questioned, trying to get conversation going and maybe get your mind off of what was happening.

You sniffed. “I-in Korean years I’m 23… 1997.”

“So the same age as JK, we’re both 25. I’m not sure how much you know about us, but we’re good people. Everyone is just scared right now, I promise they aren’t as mean as they seem.” Taehyung reassured you.

Jimin was hesitant to talk, but seeing your shivering form opened him up a little. “We’ll figure this out. Whatever is happening, we’ll get through it. Joon-hyung and Yoongi-hyung are really smart. Jin-hyung is resourceful. Hobi-hyung is clever. The rest of us are younger, but we’ll still do our best.” He was comforting you as much as he was himself. He wasn’t sure of much, but if there was one thing he knew he could be sure in, it was the other members.

“Yeah! So don’t worry, we’ll get out of here.” Taehyung hesitantly put his hand on your shoulder. “You’re American right? I don’t know if you take comfort in these things, but you can call me Oppa if you want.”

Your eyes widened but then you offered him a small smile. “Are you comfortable with that? We only just met.”

“Of course it’s okay. You can call Jimin Oppa too.” He nudged Jimin to agree with him.

Jimin was a little reluctant, but gave in easily. “S-sure. Why not? Could we call you ____-ah?”

You nodded. They were going out of their way to comfort and befriend you, even in these circumstances. They really were the people you knew they were. “I’m sorry for running away, I’m just overwhelmed right now. I was looking at my family’s posts about my death, it was just too much. ” You opened up. You were still teary eyed, but not the blubbering mess from earlier.

“You don’t need to apologize. If anyone gets what you’re going through right now, it’s us. We’re in this together.” Taehyung finished and offered you a smile. His big, boxy smile that you had only seen in pictures until this point. It was even more enchanting in person.

Jimin held out his hand to you. “Come, let’s go join the others, okay? We’ll stand up for you in there.” He looked you in your eyes, and tried to show as much sincerity as he could muster.

You blushed a little when you took his hand and stood up with him. You couldn’t help but notice his hands were so tiny that they were about the same size as your’s. Taehyung stood up with the two of you as well, and they walked you back to the main room. Namjoon looked at your tear-stained face apologetically. Yoongi and Hoseok still looked at you apprehensively. Jeongguk was nervous around you, so he couldn’t even bring himself to look you in the eyes.

Seokjin called over to you from the kitchen. “____-ssi, want to help me cook something? I’m sure you’re getting hungry too.” He smiled and waved you over. You were hesitant to go over and squeezed the hand you were holding. Hand you were holding…

You were still holding Jimin’s hand.

You let go quickly. “Sorry!”

He shook his head and smiled. “It’s okay.”

You went over to Seokjin quickly to avoid anymore awkwardness with Jimin. “How can I help, Seokjin-ssi?”

“Are you handy with a kitchen knife? I need some vegetables cut.” He asked simply.

Hoseok’s head snapped over to the two of you. “We are not giving her a knife!”

“Namjoon is more dangerous with a knife than she is.” Seokjin snapped back.

“Hey! That’s true, but you don’t have to bring it up!” Namjoon crossed his arms in defense.

Hoseok scoffed. “I can’t believe you guys.”

Hoseok’s attitude was quite off putting. He was usually such a ray of sunshine. You rarely ever saw him get angry, no matter the reason. Sure, they had every reason not to trust you, but you least expected him to be the most aggressive.

You and Seokjin worked quickly. He had you prepping the vegetables for the stir fry while he cooked rice and prepared the beef. “You know what you are doing. Did your mom teach you?”

“My mom doesn’t like to cook much, but my dad taught me how to make all kinds of Korean dishes. When he would come visit, cooking was one of our favorite things to do.” You smiled at the memory.

“See guys? The kitchen is the best place to bond! But will anyone come help me cook? Nope!” Seokjin addresses the others in his whiny voice.

“We don’t want to bond with you Jin-hyung.” Jeongguk smirked a little as he teased him. As their banter went back and forth you realized Seokjin was trying to lighten the mood. Everyone was so stressed, but now even the nervously pacing Jeongguk was smiling and teasing his Hyung. You also realized that he wanted to break the ice with you, and make you feel more comfortable in a natural way. You never saw him as the oldest, but in the most subtle way, it showed.

You finished up and everyone moved to the table to eat. An awkward silence fell over everyone. It had been hours and hours, and none of you were any closer to figuring out how to get out of there. Taehyung, who was sitting next to you, nudged your arm and whispered. “Doesn’t Gukkie look like a rabbit when he eats?”

“You know I can hear you.” Jeongguk glared up.

Taehyung smirked a shit eating grin. “Good.”

Yoongi straightened in his chair. “Rather than play, we should be working on a plan.”

“Yoongi-yah, they’re just trying to lighten the mood. Maybe you should lighten up too.” Seokjin soothed.

“Fine, let’s all just skip around the prison and play house while the entire world mourns our deaths!” Yoongi threw his napkin on the table. “You can’t expect me to act like everything is fine and normal when it’s not.”

Taehyung’s face darkened. “…you’re right Yoongi-hyung. It’s not normal. Here we are sitting helplessly with no way of contacting to outside world, and no hope of getting out of here anytime soon. We don’t know what they are going to do to us, we could be waiting to die.” Everyone stared at him, shocked by his sudden mood shift. No one spoke as everyone started thinking about the worst outcome in all of this.

“But, I don’t want to waste my last moments in despair about our situation, and I want to hope for a tomorrow.” The sudden maturity he was speaking with was so unlike the happy go lucky Taehyung who was trying to befriend you. Then it made sense. From the beginning he chose to be positive about this. To be positive about you.

Namjoon nodded in agreement. “I couldn’t have said it better. Everyone else with Taehyung?”

“I am.” You agreed.

Jimin smiled and patted Taehyung’s back. “Always.”

Jeongguk and Seokjin nodded with smiles. Then everyone looked to Hoseok and Yoongi. Yoongi sighed and paused. Then he nodded lightly. “You’re right.”

“I can’t disagree with that.” Hoseok smiled for the first time since waking up in there. It was relieving to say the least.

“Good. Okay, so here’s the plan. Let’s find out just how much that request screen can do. How far are its limits? Then, everyone get a regular night’s sleep, and we’ll attack tomorrow when it comes.” Namjoon laid out the plan now that everyone was rallied.

Taehyung had finished eating, so he got up and went over to the screen first. “I know what I’m asking it for!” He typed in 'xbox one x’. After a moment, the voice chimed.

“Request granted.” And then a brand-new Xbox One X came out of the slot, still in it’s packaging. Jeongguk jumped to his feet and ran over.

“No way! Try requesting something really expensive, I wonder if there is a limit.”

Everyone was finishing their food as fast as possible to join them, all in awe of the mysterious screen.

You walked over, an obscure idea in your head. You reached up and typed out 'dance studio’.

Taehyung looked at you confused. “____-ah, I don’t think it works like that-” he was cut off by the sound of machines whirling. The sound was coming from the other side of the wall near the kitchen.

After a few moments, the wall opened up, revealing a new hallway. Everyone ran to see what had changed. The hallway abruptly ended, but had a door on the left side. You opened the door, and were taken aback. There before you was a real dance studio. Mirrors, and even a sound system to play music on.

“How is this possible?” Hoseok marvelled.

You had a thought. “It might have already been here. We just needed to request for it to be opened up.”

Yoongi was already back at the screen. He typed in 'exit’.

“Request denied.”

“Maybe try requesting a weapon or something for self-defense.” Hoseok offered.

“That could be more dangerous than it’s worth. And we wouldn’t have the element of surprise either.” Yoongi pointedly looked at the leader, the oldest, and the maknae line.

“We could just have Yoongi-ssi hold onto it. He’s the best candidate.” You stated. Yoongi stared at you with a look you couldn’t quite decipher.

He nodded. “Everyone agree?” There were no objections, so Yoongi punched in 'gun’.

“Request denied.”

'Taser.’

“Request denied”

'Bat.’

“Request accepted.” A baseball bat rolled out of the slot. Yoongi picked it up and noted it was solid wood.

“Okay, no pissing off Yoongi-hyung.” Jimin half joked as Yoongi swung it a few times to test its weight. He rested it on his shoulder and stepped aside gesturing someone else to request something.

Seokjin walked over and typed in, “Emergency kit.”

“Request accepted.”

A first aid kit with special trauma gear pushing out of the slot. “Just in case. We need to be ready if something happens.”

Everyone continued requesting items. Some useful like food and emergency supplied, but mostly things to fill their rooms like clothes, desks, PCs, and toiletries. Everyone explored the place more and found each of the eight bedroom were exactly the same. They each had a bed, closet, and their own bathroom with a sink, toilet, bathtub, and shower.

Soon, night had fallen, not that you could see it, but it was reflected by the time on everyone’s phone screens. It was still in the last time zone you had been in for LA. You all noted it might be helpful for deciphering your location later, but for now, everyone went to bed.

Instead of everyone going to their own room, most of them opted for sleep with each other. Jimin and Hoseok, Taehyung and Jeongguk, Yoongi and Seokjin, the only one who chose to be alone was Namjoon. He said he had a lot to think about, and needed space. You would’ve preferred not being alone, but sleeping with hot men was a big no. You didn’t need to add sexual tension to your list of things to worry about.

The hours rolled by, but you weren’t able to get any sleep. Your mind was racing and spiraling on useless worries. When 1 am came around, you got sick of just lying in bed, so you put on your leggings, a t-shirt, and left the bedroom. You walked around the fancy living space and found yourself wandering into the practice room. It was so dark, but you didn’t want to turn on the main lights, you might ruin your chances of sleeping completely. Instead, you found the room had mood lighting, and turned it on instead. It kept the room dim, but light enough to see. You figured it was for setting the mood of a dance.

Dancing. That might tire you out enough to sleep. You thought about dancing one of the many BTS choreos you had learned, but seeing as you were trying to hide that fact you were a fan, that might not be wise. Instead you put on Dancing in the Dark by Joji. You needed to vent everything.

When you were younger, your mother had put you in so many different classes. Hoping to keep you time occupied enough as to have another excuse why you couldn’t see your dad. Piano lessons, cello lessons, singing lessons, etiquette lessons, ballroom dancing, contemporary dancing, math tutors, english tutors, the list went on and on. As weighed down as you were back then, one of the things that helped you vent your frustrations was music. Singing it, playing it, writing it, dancing to it. It filled a hallow place in your soul.

The song started to move you. You flowed with it, a mixture of controlled movements and fluid ones. As the words alined with your thoughts and feelings, your face contorted with emotion. You were wrapped up in it, you didn’t even open your eyes, knowing the likely hood of you knocking into something was low in the gigantic practice room.

You didn’t notice there was a pair of eyes on you.

Jimin watched from the door, stayed back as to hide in the shadows. He couldn’t sleep. He needed to get up and clear his head a little.

He saw he wasn’t the only one.

Jimin was entranced by you. You were obviously a trained dancer. You jumped, rolled, and spun around with practiced ease. It reminded him of his highschool days when he practiced contemporary dance. He caught a glimpse of your face. Eyebrows laced together and lips slightly parted as you breathed in sync with your dancing. How could that be faked? You were under the assumption of being alone.

He knew right then and there you were genuine. Admittedly, his kindness had been faked until this moment. To him, the safety of the others came first. His members were his brothers, his chosen family. They meant the world to him. He wouldn’t put anything before then, not even himself. Not even you.

And yet, he found himself thinking he wanted you to be a part of that too.

The song changed. Idontwannabeyouanymore by Billie Eilish started playing.

You embraced the notes with every turn and shape.

'Beautiful.’ He thought. He was torn between leaving you and joining you, but settled on the latter.

“I didn’t know you could dance.” Jimin stated as he walked over.

You stopped immediately and paused the music. How long had he been watching? The Park Jimin, professional dancer just saw you dance. You might die of embarrassment.

“Ah, Jimin-ssi! I didn’t know you were watching.” You blurted out.

He shook his head. “Not 'Jimin-ssi’. Call me Oppa. You can relax around me, you know? I don’t bite.”

With the look he was giving you, you begged to differ. He was wearing skin tight jeans, and a baggy sweater. He didn’t have any shoes on, and his almost jaw length hair was pulled into a ponytail in the back similarly to how you had seen it in the Black Swan dance practice. A playful smirk pulled at his lips, and one hand was resting on his hips. Jimin was looking like sin itself, but in the softest way possible. You expected no less of the idol.

You dodged his correction with your own statement. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I might try to tire myself out. Please don’t mistake my flailing around for dancing.”

He laughed at that. “Flailing? That was anything but. You’re obviously a trained dancer, give yourself more credit. You’re really good. I was actually wondering if I could join you.”

“I-I don’t know about that… I was just about to go to bed…”

“You look wide awake though. I can’t sleep either. Wouldn’t you keep me company?” He tilted his head and placed a pout on his lips. Surely there was some rule that stated that was cheating.

You gave in. “Alright, but I’m sure I’m no where near your level.”

“Hey, that don’t matter. I’m not the greatest dancer-”

“Lies.” You cut him off before he could finish.

He giggled, or was that angels singing? “It’s true! There’s tons better than me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still enough it. You obviously enjoy it, don’t let me stop you. I’d rather dance with someone who can feel the music like you over a trained robotic dancer any day.”

You blushed at his words and some of your self-consciousness melted away at his kind words.

“I wanna teach you one of my dances. Have you heard Promise? It’s my single.” He pulled out his phone and typed it in.

“No, I haven’t.” You lied.

“I choreographed it for fun, but I won’t ever perform it. It’s not hard, you’ll pick it up really easy.” He played the song, and you held in the urge to sing along. “It starts off with you standing sideways. One leg relaxed behind you, and all you weight on the other. Your arms are outstretched in front of you and crossed at the wrists with palms facing up. Lean back without shifting your weight and look up.” He instructed you with such precision, it was easy to follow along.

As you reached the chorus, there was a quick, fluid motion with your legs you could quite copy. “Almost but you need to lean back. Your body shouldn’t be aligned.”

You shifted. “Like this?”

He walked over and put his hands on your upper arms and pulled you back gently. “Think about leading the motion with your arms, rather than your body.” The shift had you looking up at him while he stood behind you. Everyone always teased his height, but your 5'3 standing next to his 5'8 had him nearly towering over you in this position. You moved through the rest of the motion just to break the stare.

“Perfect! Just like that.” He was impressed with how quick of a learner you were. You had a high attention to detail, just like he did, so within the hour the two of you were already doing run throughs.

By 2:30 am, you were both sitting on the floor panting a little as you took a break.

“I should be tired, but I haven’t danced like this for a little while, it just makes me want to do more.” You admitted.

He nodded. “I get that. It’s not often I dance what I want to dance. Most of the time it’s over practiced choreography that is very taxing to do. Concert after concert, it gets to where it’s not challenging, and you’re ready to move onto the next thing, you know?”

“That’s what dance class was like. Always doing the same thing. Dancing for the next competition. After 10 years of it, I just quit. Not because I didn’t love it, but because I wanted to dance what I loved, what I wanted to do. I was also 14, and starting high school, so I was ready for something new.” You found it was so easy talking to him. Your thoughts came out so easily.

He looked you in the eyes as you spoke and listened attentively to your every word. “You’re half Korean, did you ever think of becoming a trainee?”

You shook your head. “I was very Americanized. My possessive mother wouldn’t let me go visit my dad, and refused to let him teach me Korean. I only started learning it by the end of my senior year of high school. Though, if things were different, I think I would have. I had everything I needed for it. Singing lessons, dance lessons, and I had a passion for it. Still do.”

“Well, you have the training, it’s not too late. If… When we get of of here, you should pursue it. It’s too late to get into a group probably, but you could make a really good solo artist. You’re a halfie too, that’s really attractive in Korea, you’d do well.”

“You really think so?” You perked up. You didn’t really have a career in mind, since college was about reclaiming a part of yourself rather than the degree. You love music, doing it for a living sounded like a dream.

He smiled at your reaction. “Of course! You even have a foot in the door now. You’re friends with Jimin of BTS.”

A warmth spread in your chest. All the loneliness from earlier that day was gone. Jimin made you feel like you finally had a true ally. “Thank you… That really means so much to me.” You giggled. He laughed lightly at the sound. You both just sat there, stupidly laughing an giggling for no reason. You both needed it.

“Haha! What- what are we doing?” You managed to get out

“I- haha! I don’t know! You started it.” He hit you playfully. “I’ll stop if you stop!”

“I can’t!”

By the end of it you both were lying on your backs, looking up at the ceiling while shoulder to shoulder. The giggles dissolved into the dim practice room as the two of you drifted off to sleep.

[the-viking-teddy-bear]

Seriida mini-fic #1

Summary: Iida notices he has a crush, but he is not the only one. Iida-centric.

Iida Tenya had many many things in his hands, figuratively speaking. Many duties were placed on him by the teachers for being the class representative, and many other duties he had placed on himself for the same reason.

Most of the time, his "rules" were simply consideration for his peers, like no loud music in the boys side after Bakugo's bedtime. Or keeping the air conditioning at a reasonable setting so it was comfortable for Tsuyu, keeping a constant eye on Mineta when he was around the girls and so on.

If he was being completely honest, he was very flexible because sleepovers were ultimately forbidden yet he didn't enforce that rule.

Iida wasn't an idiot, he wasn't even going to hope that his friends and classmates didn't have sleepovers, constantly.

Plus he enjoyed when lazy study sessions turned into just...talking, a nice conversation about whatever they wanted. Iida enjoyed waking up and seeing Midoriya, Uraraka and Todoroki sleeping in his room before school, he really enjoyed waking them up softly and with time. Sometimes he would put a song softly and start his day while they woke up, just because he could.

He seemed to be one of the only early risers around except for maybe...Sero, who, if you asked Iida, was pretty damn gorgeous.

Truthfully, they had been adjusting well, the minor details about the food were already settled and, turns out, that Bakugo was a lot less screamy if he had a proper night of sleep.

The only rule Iida actually was very picky about was the board by the door.

It was more for himself and his own tranquility than for its utility that he placed a tiny white board by the door, which Mina and Hakagure had helped decorate with many markers of different colors.

It was to write a tiny message if someone was going out of the dorms. Iida was proud to say that the class had adapted easily to it, and it was the most helpful thing ever since everyone had different schedules. For example, Kirishima liked to go running in the morning, and Yaoyarozu enjoyed walking around the campus with Jirou on nice evenings, Koda liked to move around once he finished homework and Shouji occasionally went outside at night to watch the stars.

The board allowed Iida to have everyone in check, and make it easier to find everyone in case of an emergency. 

So, to say the least, between trying to become a hero, studying, keeping track of his friends, taking care of himself, training and making sure all of his classmates were okay, Iida really had his hands full.

Statistically speaking, he really shouldn't have time fot this....crush. He didn't have time for it at all, yet his heart kept doing backflips whenever he catched Sero smiling in his direction.

Objectively, Sero Hanta was known for being always smiling, Iida had told himself many times. Sero wasn't smiling at him, nor with him, and definitely not because of him either.

Iida simply had to accept that and he would be fine, except that right when he decided to swallow this unuseful crush, Sero started to appear everywhere he looked. Everywhere.

Iida hadn't noticed until now how Sero always took his morning tea while he was making breakfast, or how he always went to gym at the same hours or how Sero's calves were super defined. And then, Sero's same started to pop up in the goddamn board everyday.

"At gym~ Hanta :)" or "Went to the store, call if you need anything ~ Hanta :)"

You see, Iida hated how he always wrote his first name. First, no one did that! And second, it always made him roll the name in his head. It made him think of calling him, he could imagine himself finally dialing his number and going, "Hi, Hanta, could you bring me...?" or something like that. Something sappy and stupid like calling his crush by his first name.

"Just tell me, how did I not notice before how incredible Sero is?" Iida certainly not whined to Midoriya, who was sitting on the floor of Iida's room.

"You have always been foccused on your studies, Iida," Todoroki stated, kind of blankly, and if anyone were to squint at his expression, they would find a tiny amused smile.

"Surely, but how unfair was it of me to not realize how nice and calm he is? He is dedicated and creative!" Iida answered, with his normal tone of excitement, like he was talking about class bonding excercises.

"You should ask him on a date, then," Uraraka intervened while munching a few chips from the bag on her lap.

"It would be out of nowhere, I cannot do that," he said more calmly while taking off his glasses.

"Then start talking to him, I'm sure he will like you back," Midoriya finally answered with one of his bright smiles that made people try stupid shit.

"How do I even do that?!"

Turns out it wasn't that hard. Okay, maybe it took a few days of practicing the words in his head and even more days to come up with the courage for simply saying, "Do you ever eat breakfast?"

How could it be easy to say anything to someone you have a crush on? Who is, by the way, looking relaxed and sleepy. Iida would even define it as beautiful, just how the curves of Sero's slender frame looked against the morning's light and how his eyes weren't completely awake yet.

Iida knew he was a total goner when Sero's shirt lifted a little bit and he stretched to get himself a cup. Sero was way more graceful and strong than anyone had given him credit for.

"Not really, you know?" Sero smiled with his eyes shut, "I'm not that good at cooking, so I prefer to eat snacks until lunch. Oh, and the tea obviously," he added as he lifted the cup a little bit.

Iida's brain almost exploded when his own mouth said, "Would you like to share...?" he trailed off, insecure for a moment. Immediately, Sero got closer to look at the pan, almost touching him, "What are you making?"

"Well, today I'm making an omelette" he answered, way more nonchalant than he felt inside.

"I knew you were making something different today!" Sero exclaimed softly, "you usualy have fried eggs with toast and a glass of orange juice."

Iida didn't have enough time to process it enough, so he just smiled and kept cutting the vegetables. His smile only grew wider when he saw Sero taking out two plates and stretch to get another cup from the cabinet, placing it by Iida's side.

"So, how can I help you, chef?" he said jokingly with a light blush on his face.

Iida tried to not overthink it, really. He really really tried, but yet again: how could he ignore the fact that his crush knew what he had for breakfast almost everyday? That definitely had to count as being noticed!

Sero had also given him a cup of his tea, and they had talked all morning until the had to go get ready for class. Iida let himself have some hope, because that's the last thing one loses, right?

Hope was good, he decided. Plus Sero had paired up with him in many of the class activities, which had put a gleeful look on Uraraka's knowing face. That morning hadn't repeated itself yet, but seeing him around the gym, pairing with him in class and hanging out in the common room was...almost enough.

"He is so funny," Iida whispered to the ceiling of his room. His friends had gotten used to it, they knew by heart who he was talking about.

"Hey, what's the answer to the B of the third excercise?" Uraraka asked to no one and everyone at the same time.

"And so genuinely nice to me," Iida said almost like an afterthought as he continued with his homework.

"It's 1997."

Now, the problem radicated in knowing if Sero wanted to make breakfast with him again or if it had been a one time thing. Surely, Iida could ask but wouldn't it give too much away? Was it too intense?

He constantly worried about that, he recognized that sometimes he really was a little intense when it came to things he liked.

"So how do i ask him?" Iida wondered lightly as a whisper one morning, also wondering if there were still any eggs left. The moment he entered the kitchen he bumped quite hard into no other than Sero.

Iida quickly grabbed Sero's waist out of instinct, at the same time Sero had no option but to grab onto Iida's chest, not that Iida would ever complain.

Blame it on having seen "Hanta" written in the board so much, but Iida couldn't help but blurt out, "Oh, are you okay, Hant-?" before he could correct himself. Iida shaked his head trying to repress the embarrassment, "Sero, sorry."

Naturally, Sero smiled way to brightly, "You can call me Hanta, if you want," he added while noticing a blush appear on Iida's face. It was delightful to see how much emotion Iida could convey. There was embarrasment, hope, excitement, fear and happiness, and there was something else only Iida had, a kind of vibration. An emotion Sero couldn't quite place, but that he wanted desperatly to experience.

When Iida squeezed his waist and said, "Then, you call me Tenya." Sero felt an intense kind of childish glee and laughter.

Iida wanted to kiss him more than anything else, but Sero's laugh of embarrasment was more beautiful than music.

"I was making you tea, Tenya," Sero said slowly on a low tone while looking at him in the eyes very intently. It was far too sexy for a sentence about tea, but that didn't stop Iida from pushing Sero carefully to the kitchen counter and kissing him. Softly at first, and harder after he realized that Sero wasn't going anywhere.

After that first kiss, going to the gym at the same time stopped being accidental. If Iida analyzed it, that had been maybe a bad idea because Sero was shameless, and he had to learn it the hard way.

"Hey, love," Sero called from behind him. Immediatly, Iida stopped his excercise and took the water bottle his boyfriend was offering him.

"You know, it's a shame that your hero suit it's so covered up," he said and Iida could only begin to imagine what he was going to say. "Because you have a pornstar body, honey."

"Oh, my god." He yelled inaudibly, looking around to see if anyone had heard. "How can you say those things and not die of a stroke?" he answered between embarrasment and pleased joy as Sero snickered by his side.

"But you know what? There's a reason." he countered and Sero only raised a brow. At that moment, Iida lifted the weight he had been using and said, "Because if I wore something like Kirishima's costume while we team up, you'd smash yourself against the first building you latched onto."

Sero placed a hand on Iida's flexed bicep and confesed after a second with a smile, "Fair enough."

[prkerfm]

alex fitzalan. cis male. he/him.  ／ riley parker just pulled up blasting fat lip by sum 41  — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty - three year old lead singer and guitarist of rabid porcupine, i’ve heard they’re really choleric, but that they make up for it by being so individualistic. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say band tees stained with motor oil, sipping whiskey straight from the bottle, and spitting blood into the bathroom sink at an underground punk club . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( sam, 23, est, she/her ) 

rabid porcupine career claim: blackbear

it is i, sam, back with THE GOBLIN himself. as always, character info is under the cut and please message me if you would like to plot!

i. stats

𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡 𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙚: riley ignatius parker-worthington

𝙝𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙤𝙬𝙣: alderley edge, cheshire, uk

𝙖𝙜𝙚: twenty - three

𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙗𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙝: january 31st, 1997

𝙯𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙘: aquarius

𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣: heterosexual

𝙤𝙘𝙘𝙪𝙥𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣: lead singer and guitarist of rabid porcupine

𝙥𝙤𝙨. 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨: individualistic, loyal, perceptive, forthright.

𝙣𝙚𝙜. 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨: choleric, temerarious, refractory, unceremonious.

ii. history

riley ignatius parker - worthington was born and raised in alderley edge, a small and affluent village in england’s northwestern county of cheshire. he’s the youngest of four boys, so he has three older brothers.

his family, the parker - worthingtons, are one of the richest in not only the uk or england, but the entire northern hemisphere. throughout a history that spans over 150 years, the family business which began as a small architectural firm expanded its reach to areas such as real estate, banking, oil, and mechanical engineering and is worth approximately 60 billion usd.

he was under constant guard at worthington manor, but not by his parents. raised by nannies and educated by private tutors, he went through most of his childhood prohibited from leaving the property and training to one day occupy a prestigious spot in the family company.

it was a very sheltered life and he rebelled against it from the start. being the unplanned child ( along with his identical twin brother ), his parents went through the motions of hiring private tutors and grooming him to be a successful businessman, but he was still quite young when he figured it out : they didn’t really care. their eldest sons were already the heirs, primed and eager to carry on their legacy of wealth and power. their youngest sons were simply the spares, and they were treated as such all their lives.

he began acting out the moment he realized it, refusing to participate in a game that would always be rigged against him. his parents viewed him as a problem? fine. he could be a problem.

he was kicked out boarding school ( several times ), he got a sketchy back alley tattoo, he was failing every single one of his classes, and the only thing he showed any real interest in was music. he had been taking piano lessons since before he could even reach the pedals and had a natural talent for it. his instructor ( the only adult he ever really liked ) actually believed that he could become an accomplished classical concert pianist, but upon discovering punk music at the age of sixteen, parker felt as though he had found his calling. 

he was seventeen and attending boarding school in switzerland when he snuck off campus one night and never came back. he moved to seattle, bought a motorcycle, took some courses in auto mechanics, and then moved to los angeles where he started rabid porcupine. the three - piece band was popular among the local underground scene for a while, but recently gained mainstream recognition for their hit song, hot girl bummer.

iii. extras  

parker is parker, not riley. NEVER riley. he’ll throw hands before he allows someone to call him by his first name, although it’s not much of a problem as most people don’t even realize that parker isn’t his first name to begin with.

has the thickest, most posh british accent.

he almost never speaks to his family but when he does they always threaten to cut him off unless he comes home, but he never comes home and they never cut him off.

he can basically get anything he wants with nothing more than a flash of the black card in his wallet, but he doesn’t like to use his family name to get stuff because it makes him feel like he’s still dependent on them and he absolutely DOES NOT want to be.

pretends like his favorite beverage is jack daniels whiskey when it’s actually the quintessential british cup of tea ( he doesn’t even drink coffee because he doesn’t like it ).

fluent in english and german.

he literally never watched movies or television growing up so 100% of throwback pop culture references will fly right over his head.

has a pet rottweiler puppy named heroin bob ( nicknamed harry ) who...literally has the exact same personality as him.

his motorcycle is a norton that he basically built from scratch all by himself so it’s his child and he is very protective.

iv. wanted connections

his on / off girlfriend !!!! *wc on the main

cousins ( would most likely be from the uk or europe but otherwise anything goes for this )

friends

party friends who can only stand each other when drunk

friends from boarding school

ex friends / enemies

fwb / ewb / one night stands

exes

( these are just ideas and i’m trash at coming up with stuff, so please don’t feel limited by what’s listed here. )

[aquad]

°☆｡⇝  :    (  jennie  kim    +  demi  girl  +  she/they    )  ───  welcome  to  new  york  city,  GRIFFIN  CHAE  !    you  are  the  TWENTY  THREE  year  old  ART  MUSEUM  TOUR  GUIDE  &  UBER  DRIVER  ,  right  ?  i  thought  so  !  you’re  also  an  AQUARIUS  ,  is  that  so  ?  well,  that  explains  why  you’re  quite  ECCENTRIC  and  INDEPENDENT  ,  but  can  also  be  a  bit  GUARDED  and  TEMPERMENTAL  .  either  way  ,  i’m  sure  the  squad  adores  you  !  mugs  of  hot  chocolate,  a  television  droning  on  as  you  sleep,  forgotten  glass  shards  on  the  floor  .  ☆  ⇜  (  bennie  ,  19  ,  they/she/he  ,  mst  )

aight so i’ve already made an absolute clown of myself in the discord chat but (: hi i’m bennie, 19, any pronouns ... you know the deal. uhhhh besides that idk some fun facts i’m way too invested in rupaul’s drag race and shameless and i love dumplings. i’m also an aquarius (: playing an aquarius (: so this all feels very meta and scary and it’s lowkey a callout but ???? we’re chilling it’s fine. 

anyways here’s ... the lowdown (hoedown throwdown) on griffin chae!

age: 23 gender: demi girl pronouns: she / they birthplace: nyc, new york birthdate: january 22, 1997 occupation: art museum tour guide & part time uber driver (in the past she worked at chuck e. cheese and was ... in fact the person in the rat suit) height: 5′7 sexuality: bisexual / biromantic  piercings: two on each lobe, helix (left), and a nose ring tattoos: angel wings on her fingers (x)

griffin had a ... pretty normal childhood. seriously like, it’s bland. nothing special so i’ll keep this brief. they were born and raised in the same manhattan apartment to two loving parents who adorned carhartt overalls and although they weren’t incredibly well off, they always made sure there fresh flowers on the kitchen table. griffin’s ninth birthday gift was the news that she’d be getting a little brother (gideon <3) which she didn’t mind too much. two kids turned out to be a bit too much for the chae parents who both worked full time though, so griffin sort of bucked up and took care of gideon especially as she entered her teen years. she was the one to drop him off and pick him up from pre-school and all that which ... started her 

in high school, griffin was a weird mix of tropes. they were the weird mysterious kid in the back of your english class who went on rants about how annoying romeo & juliet was and the one who was on too many pages of the yearbook for being the president of clubs you never heard of and the underclassman who was friends with all the scary seniors (and later became the scary senior). high school was their escape though, a break from parenting gideon and finding a taste from the world outside of scrabble game nights and god did griffin love art class. she never bothered to dream of being a famous artist, but kept with it enough and ended up majoring in art history in college.

but listen, enough about high school and college and all that shit. we’re in the present, babey! her current apartment is decorated like some pinterest dream land which griffin likes to think distracts from the fact it’s like 2x4 and has a wall covered with memes and pictures of her friends so. and post-gideon, griffin prides herself as being a mom friend, even if she’s really running off the idea of “if i take care of others, then i’m basically taking care of myself ... right?” she’ll lowkey sneak stories out of you when you’re vulnerable because she loves the mf tea. because she’s ... “empathetic” but just is pretending to be a lot of the time. but honestly ... it’s rare for you to ever know anything about griffin. like sure, she makes good guacamole and orders straight whiskey every time you see her at the bar but besides that ... what else? like. they’d PAY to be a conspiracy theory. kendall rae please come visit </3. when you try to get close to griffin, you’ll probably get sent a 400 word text message about needing space but then the next day they’re asking you to come over and do face masks. if we’re reading her even more, she’s also the Jealous™️ type and the type of mom friend to snap at you if you don’t do the self care she recommends or if she feels like you’re not taking care of yourself ... well enough. 

on ... the good side though LMAO, griffin is a great friend. she’ll aways be the one to check up on you and take you in if you need it. her heart is BIG. sometimes she chooses to recognize it and sometimes she doesn’t. even though she has her bad moments, she’s more kind than not and lowkey fucking funny even though her humor sometimes is really weird. also courage through the roof. they could not give a flying f word of what people think of them. 

and some tik toks that explain griffin if i didn’t do it good enough above:

https://vm.tiktok.com/Gm67JB/

https://vm.tiktok.com/GmSThB/

https://vm.tiktok.com/GmQRDG/

https://vm.tiktok.com/Gm6vSY/

https://vm.tiktok.com/GmyTj3/

https://vm.tiktok.com/GmuQwW/

and a pinterest board of musings here.

some connections, wanted:

a college roommate !!?!??!

a squad

griffin was lowkey a b word to your muse like popped off for no good reason and since then it’s sort of been :/

people she can be an absolute snake with

somebody rich that comes to the art museum and wants to buy a piece or smth idk that’s cute??

ya’ll need a mom friend ... hmu.

neighbors?

childhood friends?

she’s drinking an iced americano every single day she’s bound to know a barista or two pretty well.

romance (even tho she’s gonna be so bad for it. maybe unrequited love?)

whatever ya’ll want

[pxrxllel]

A Kiwi girl of colour after the Christchurch terror attacks

I was born in Taipei, Taiwan in the spring of 1997. Fuelled by the desire for a safer, less fast-paced, higher quality upbringing for me, my parents made the decision to sacrifice everything familiar to them to move to a country they had seen only in books and magazines. That’s why just over a year later, I boarded an 11-hour flight across the Pacific and settled into what would become my new home for the next 21 years and counting. 

My sister was born in Waikato Hospital in 1999. The following year, I uttered my first word (late bloomer, I know). I enrolled in a rural primary school shortly before my fifth birthday. My shyness prevented me from making friends until one day a girl who had black hair, tan skin, and hooded eyelids like me approached me on the classroom stairs where I was sitting by myself. She whispered something to me in Mandarin. That’s how I made my first friend. 

It took about another year to get comfortable with making white friends, who made up 99% of the student population. Relating to kids who didn’t eat the same food as me or speak the same language at home or who had pet cows and sheep that I didn’t have was difficult. 

Eventually I learned to round out the edges of my culture that scraped against the identity I wanted to embrace for myself. Eating my dried seaweed in two quick gulps at lunch so that no one would see me and ask questions. Being secretly glad to be in the second best maths group rather than the top (although my mother tried her hardest at home to bring up my test scores – extra tutoring is nothing new to Asian students). Dreading my father’s Mandopop on road trips and asking him to buy records sung in English. Although Mandarin was technically my mother tongue, by the age of seven my competency had fallen far behind. Dulling my own sense of otherness was a protective measure to ‘assimilate properly’ into the culture I was now supposed to call home. Perhaps it worked; I was never bullied or picked on for my race or lack of religion despite being in a rural and largely white Christian community.

My first-generation immigrant mother did everything she could to preserve remnants of home and to fight against the greater forces of peer pressure and her children’s difficulty navigating their own fit into society during their formative years. This involved Chinese school every Sunday morning while my white friends were at church service, chopsticks at every meal, and banning English-speaking at home. She even sent me to school once in Year 3 with a pack of notecards, one for each of my classmates with their names transliterated into Chinese characters. They thought it was ‘cool and exotic’, I thought it was embarrassing. My internalised oppression couldn’t shake the feeling that they were laughing at me behind my back, that my efforts to blend in and not be seen as an ‘other’ had been completely voided by one reminder of my ‘Asian-ness’. 

I moved onto high school in an urbanised area. Knowing no one in Year 9 meant I could start over brand new. The diversity was refreshing. Seeing girls around me who spoke different languages and had different experiences helped me to let out the breath I’d been holding in for 8 years at school. 

I quickly found my tribe. My friends were overwhelmingly people of colour  – we counted African, Indian, Filipino, Chinese in our company. I could never relate fully to the Chinese international students; even if we spoke the same language, I was out of the loop when they swooned over TV series and musicians on the charts. I could never relate fully to my fair-skinned Kiwi friends either, with their race days and baches and Christmas pudding. Suddenly I understood why my mother had formed such close friendships that were almost exclusively Chinese – they just got it. They could bond over where to get the freshest and cheapest bok choy, or which companies and services were most accommodating towards people who looked like us or whose accents speaking English were punctuated with uhs and filler laughter and not the quite the right word at times. My friends and I bonded over how our immigrant parents treated us, while appreciating and celebrating each other’s different foods, customs, and religions. We were the in-between kids, never fully fitting in to one culture or another, learning to carve out a category of our own we could belong to. 

I credit my high school friends with easing my internal identity crisis. For the first time I could just be, and we focused not on how we could fit into prescribed cultural identities but how we could strengthen our own sense of self beyond our phenotypes. We threw ourselves into a variety of extracurriculars. I watched K-Pop music videos in Club Asia, performed a traditional dance at assembly with Club Africa, raced to name all 50 states in Club America. We fundraised for Daffodil Day every year. I passed auditions for choir and glee club, discussed global issues in equality club, became certified in peer mediation, played sport, and buddied up with international students new to the country. I wanted my achievements, my hobbies, my values, and my actions to be the characteristics to define me, to get to the point where, like my Caucasian friends, it was not my race but my character that weighed on me or factored into how I perceived myself or how I thought other people perceived me. I wanted to experience the freedom that Eurocentrism afforded my peers, and for a while, being insulated in my diverse bubble  – that was my reality. I thought to myself, This must be what it’s like to be a true New Zealander.

Unfortunately, this ideal state existed in a microcosm. No matter how hard I tried, I would never be immune to ‘othering’ from the wider Caucasian community. My reputation as an involved and active contributor in multiple arenas did not precede me beyond school gates, where I would always remain an Asian, perhaps someone who is good at maths and bad behind the wheel, in the eyes of others and those I had never met.

The terrorist attacks in Christchurch just days ago have thrust issues not previously discussed at length in New Zealand into the spotlight. White supremacy, from normalisation of stereotypes, racist jokes, and blanket Eurocentric approaches to racial profiling and refugee discrimination to outright overt racism, has suddenly broken through to the public conversation. Pākehā everywhere are shocked that such acts could occur in what they have always believed to be a peaceful society. 

But they have not been listening. 

That shock stems from their bubbles of Eurocentric privilege, where they have never experienced or seen the ways in which our people of colour communities have been shown that they are not accepted. Although the majority of New Zealand does not tolerate overt racism, subliminal or passing messages still proliferate on message boards and Facebook comments in the name of ‘jest’ or ‘patriotism’. It’s what enabled a classmate at school to openly present her Year 11 English speech on the ‘Asian invasion’. It has caused strife for the Māori people who had their land stolen from them, the vestiges of this horror echoing through the public discourse centuries later and becoming normalised. It’s swastika graffiti and it’s the glass bottles hurled from a car window at Indian girls walking outside the shops, it’s how a woman told me to my face that a ‘nice little Chinese girl’ like me should be outside tending to the gardens (no shade to gardeners, they are severely underappreciated) and how even after the attacks, there are still people telling grieving Muslims they should go back to where they came from or that the death toll should have been higher. It’s these microaggressions and the bigger displays of hate that make people of colour kill little parts of themselves inside piece by piece, become overly apologetic for the parts of themselves they do not choose, become embarrassed by the very differences we ought to be celebrating, uplifting, and rejoicing in. 

As a young woman of colour, I cry alongside my African, Asian, Pasifika, and Māori brothers and sisters, who understand the pain that oppression by white nationalism has brought. It has been our lived experience for years. In battling this, I encourage my peers who may look or sound or pray differently to wear their identity proudly and to be brave enough to pursue their passions and dismantle the prejudices lodged against them.

As a young woman growing up with a Western mentality, I implore my fellow host communities everywhere to be more actively supportive and appreciative of newcomers and immigrants, to take the time to learn and celebrate the new and fresh contributions they make. Equally importantly, our society must be proactive in the fight against white nationalism and supremacy, which begins with admitting fault and damage caused by harmful populist rhetoric, avoiding defensiveness, and listening to and acknowledging and amplifying the experiences of those whose lives have been shaped from oppression at their hands.

As a young woman citizen of New Zealand, I beg for less division, more unity, for equality, for us to let go of old traditions and norms that do not serve to better our society and to uphold the values that we wish to see. I wish for condemnation of hatred, intolerance, and violence, and for proliferation of understanding, respect, and love. As we move towards an increasingly diverse and globalised world, my dream is that one day my school experience of celebrating differences and living in the freedom that my Caucasian friends feel in a Eurocentric society will not just be within a microcosm, but a shared reality for all.

In the meantime, time will stretch on. The flowers in front of mosques will wilt. Public attention will shift to another major issue. The pain from the attack will fade to a permanent scar on our historical landscape. But what won’t die out are the people of colour continuing to attend Jummah, sell laksa, vend dumplings, speak their languages, sing, dance, observe Diwali, Eid, Matariki, Lunar New Year. My mother will continue to foster self-confidence in immigrant Chinese children by volunteering her time weekly to teach Mandarin. We will work hard to dispel myths about us and contribute to create a colourful New Zealand we all love. And we will never, ever let terror divide us. 

The terrorist may have drawn his gun expecting to provoke division, tear us apart, and breed fear.

Little did he know that pulling the trigger would instead cause New Zealand to bleed nothing but sympathy, solidarity, compassion, and aroha.

Kia kaha, Christchurch.

[johnboothus]

Tequiza Sunset: A History of Anheuser-Buschs Agave-Infused Corona Killer That Wasnt

It’s the turn of the century, and you’re at SeaWorld San Diego, a sprawling complex of saltwater semi-captivity that Anheuser-Busch, the country’s largest beer company, has owned for the past decade. But you don’t care about who owns the place. You’re just there because some guy who works for a beer brand you’ve barely heard of invited you and 300 other 21- to 25-year-olds to the compound to see some dolphins and drink some free suds. Is it weird that he hired a limo to drive you and a bunch of strangers to SeaWorld? Kind of, but hey — it’s Y2K, baby! Anything goes!

“At the time, there’s no such thing as Uber, so from a liability standpoint, we had to pick them up and drop them off. … We got like every taxi in town — buses, limos, whatever was available — to take these people back and forth,” says Edmundo Macias, Tequiza’s former brand manager. “We said let’s throw a big party, and there’s gonna be free Tequiza.”

Introduced in 1997 to ride the first wave of American tequila curiosity and protect St. Louis’s flank from growing threats from imports and spirits, Tequiza was A-B’s hottest new product launch of the ‘90s, rolling out con gusto across the American South and West to solid early sales. A Brandweek article from February 2000 that Macias shared with VinePair proclaimed that “Tequiza was launched cheap by A-B standards and already has eclipsed No.1 craft beer brand Sam Adams in volume, putting it well on the way to 1 million barrels.”

But that was then. The brand never hit a million barrels, and never gained any sustained traction with American drinkers. Tequiza limped along for another decade or so until A-B — which by then had been reconstituted as Anheuser-Busch InBev — retired the beer from its rotation for good. What happened to Tequiza? It’s a classic tale of cross-segment ambition, dubious distributors, and flagship fealty. But even though the beer itself has long since hit the trail, Tequiza’s liquid legacy helped spawn the flavored malt beverage boom currently remaking the American drinking landscape.

“It was ahead of its time,” says Gerry Khermousch, the former Brandweek editor, who has covered the beer and non-alcoholic beverage industries for decades. But what a time it was. Here’s how it all went down.

Blending trends: tequila & cerveza

Some beers are borne of centuries of tradition, of closely held recipes, of many generations of brewers learning from those who came before. Tequiza’s origin story, on the other hand, is entirely contained in its awkwardly bilingual portmanteau of a name. The beer was a drinkable embodiment of a couple contemporary trends A-B hoped to tap into:

The premiumization of full-proof tequila amidst full-proof spirits’ growing popularity with American drinkers

The remarkable deluge of imported Mexican lagers, led by what was in hindsight one of beers’ first lifestyle brands — Corona

Both strategies represented A-B playing defense — or more charitably, insurance — with its market might. Categories in the late ‘90s were much more segregated than they are today, and losing a lifelong beer drinker to full-proof spirits was anathema to a company like A-B. But peeling them away from booze was tougher, too, recalls Tim Schoen, a three-decade Anheuser-Busch marketing veteran who worked on Tequiza, among other brands. “Back then the specific target was spirits drinkers. The spirits category was encroaching on the beer category and so [Tequiza] was certainly trying to attract some of those potential lost [beer] customers, the ones that [were] looking elsewhere.”

“Interest in hard liquor was starting to be resurgent,” echoes Colleen Beckemeyer. As A-B’s director of new products through the ‘90s, she oversaw the launch of Tequiza. “Maybe tequila wasn’t the most upscale option for the hardcore liquor drinkers, but it did have its footprint in the Southwest. For that reason, I think it was kind of interesting to us,” she says.

To American drinkers, tequila was also interesting, period. The spirit was strong, far-flung yet available, and retained remarkable pop-cultural prominence before, during, and after Tequiza’s release. Consider:

1972: The Rolling Stones embarked on what Keith Richards would later recall in his memoir as “the cocaine and tequila sunrise” tour

1983: Shelly West’s “Jose Cuervo” topped country charts

The 1990s: Van Halen’s “Cabo Wabo” (released 1988) begot Sammy Hagar’s eponymous cantina concept (1990) and tequila (1996)

2002: “Jose Cuervo” was atop Billboard’s country charts again, courtesy of Tracy Byrd’s “Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo.”

But while the agave distillate was some cause for concern, Tequiza’s bigger bogey was Mexican beer, and one brand in particular. “This was developed to try to compete with Corona,” says Macias, who worked for Beckemeyer on Tequiza’s rollout. “That was the genesis of the brand.”

Chasing Corona

The competition would be fierce. In 1998, Corona overtook Heineken as the U.S.’s best-selling import beer. “In less than a decade, Corona’s manufacturer, Grupo Modelo S.A. de C.V., has transformed a once-obscure Mexican beer into a global brand whose name recognition — if not its sales — approaches that of Coca-Cola and Marlboro cigarettes,” The New York Times noted the following year. Corona, with its endless-summer attitude, primo painted label, and iconic clear glass bottle, was a big deal in the U.S. beer business, and marked a tectonic shift in drinkers’ attention toward the southern border.

“Corona was a sensation, there’s no question about it,” says Benj Steinman, publisher of the long-running trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insights (BMI), “and it was strongest in the biggest market, California. A-B in the ‘90s was 50 share of the [beer] market in California. … They saw it as a problem.” William Knoedelseder, in his best-seller about the Busch family, “Bitter Brew,” reported that by 1991, A-B’s own internal research showed that Budweiser was slipping among “contemporary adult drinkers … who were turning to upstart American microbrew brands such as Samuel Adams and imports like Corona Extra.” Despite the runaway success of Bud Light — which had been introduced in 1982 and was, by the mid-90s, neck-and-neck with nemesis Miller Lite for America’s overall best-selling beer — drinkers’ excitement for the Mexican “vacation in a bottle” was enough to spur a response from A-B.

The response was Tequiza. By the time Macias moved from A-B’s Hispanic marketing team to new products in 1998, the Tequiza experiment was already rolling. Both he and Beckemeyer say the liquid itself was developed by A-B brewer Jill Vaughn, who incorporated agave nectar and actual tequila into the brew at A-B’s St. Louis pilot brewery. “She really was able to help bridge the brewing and the marketing” considerations for Tequiza, says Beckemeyer. (Vaughn no longer works for the company and did not respond to messages sent via social media.)

Maybe even more calculated than the liquid itself was the vessel that it would be sold in: 12-ounce clear-glass longnecks, Corona-style. “Corona owned clear glass, and they still do, to a certain extent,” says Schoen. Selling Tequiza in similar packaging, with a similar, bold yellow color scheme, was a way to get customers keen on A-B’s would-be Corona counterpoint. “The clear bottle was really the standard, and we didn’t necessarily want to deviate from that,” says Beckemeyer of the decision.

Selling sweetness

But was it ever any good? Opinions differ on this front. “The product was great,” says Schoen. Macias remembers early iterations being too sweet, something he believes hamstrung the offering among male consumers, and the brew was reformulated at least once after complaints of sweetness from rank-and-file drinkers.

“I remember the first test market was someplace in Texas,” said Beckemeyer. “I was out and we were having a first batch, and it was terrible. It was so sweet. So we went back to the drawing board and made it less sweet.”

A canvass of review forums suggests Tequiza was, at best, a polarizing option among American drinkers. The beer boasts an impressive all-time rating of 0 on RateBeer.com, and a score of 50 (“Awful”) on BeerAdvocate. It’s hard to say how many of those reviews came from people who’d actually tasted the beer, though, and the brand clearly had some fans. When news of its discontinuation hit the internet, real Tequiza heads made their distress known. “The only beer my dad has ever liked was Tequiza, which is now out of business. Any recommendations of something similar?” queried one redditor in 2012.

Regardless, Tequiza’s national debut in 1999 predated the heyday of user-generated review forums like RateBeer and BeerAdvocate. Traditional advertising, marketing, and distribution still held serious sway over the average supermarket shopper looking for a 6-pack. “We had initial success right out the gate, and what we kept hearing was, ‘I don’t normally drink beer but I would drink this,’” says Macias, adding that that feedback mostly came from women. The team rolled the beer out with the print and billboard ads with the slogan “Give it a shot” to suggest full-proof braggadocio, plus a radio spot featuring a riff on The Champs’ horn-heavy 1958 classic, “Tequila.”

The ads may have helped, though Macias believes that A-B never gave Tequiza enough money to really give the brand a fighting chance with more sustained marketing or a costly TV commercial. Marketing for A-B’s new products all came from a shared budget, so “if you’re spending that money on Tequiza, that means you’re not going to [be able to] spend money on other innovations,” he says. And with no obvious ties to the firm’s flagships, A-B had no obligation to throw money at Tequiza’s post-launch performance. If it did well on a shoestring, great. If not, the company could cut bait without damaging the aura of its portfolio champions. “If it was part of the Bud Light family, or Budweiser, or even Michelob at that point, it would have had a separate, sizable budget,” speculates Macias.

(A spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch InBev, Lacey Clifford, says the company today doesn’t employ any “relevant spokespeople who could discuss [Tequiza] in any kind of detail.”)

But more than anything, Tequiza — or any beer in any macrobrewers’ U.S. portfolio, really — needed buy-in from drinkers to succeed. And to get in front of drinkers at retail, it needed support from distributors. A-B’s much-ballyhooed, nominally independent wholesaler network was the envy of the industry in 1999, and it went to work in service of St. Louis’s latest creation.

“They blasted [Tequiza] out, like they often are able to do with that distribution system,” says Steinman. “That just really [got] the product out immediately and everywhere.” Wholesalers aligned with A-B were thirsty for a beer to offer retailers fielding increased demand for Corona. They didn’t have rights to distribute actual Corona in the U.S. at the time (particularly vexing given that A-B then owned 50 percent of the brand’s parent company, Grupo Modelo) but how about this product that looks like it, and has real imported agave and tequila in it to boot?

According to BMI’s internal figures, Tequiza sold 570,000 barrels in 1999 — a respectable national debut. “That’s pretty good,” allows Steinman. But Macias knew it wasn’t enough to secure Tequiza a permanent spot in A-B’s portfolio. “A lot of smaller companies would love to have 600,000 barrels … but we [Anheuser-Busch] spill more than that,” he says. Tequiza’s agave-based sweetness was holding it back from popularity with male drinkers, a vital cohort. “As I’d sit in these focus groups, especially with males, they would say, ‘It’s too sweet, not enough tequila taste, and we [want] something with higher alcohol.’” (Hence the SeaWorld San Diego mission: a mass taste-test to gauge the popularity of three different Tequiza formulas, each with a varying amount of agave sweetener.)

In a bid to convince hard-drinking American dudes to, as the slogan said, “give it a shot,” Macias pitched the idea for Tequiza Extra — higher alcohol, less sweetness, and a black label that didn’t even mention agave. “It looked almost like a Cuervo bottle, the fonts were similar,” says the one-time brand manager, who these days works for a San Antonio spice company, Twang, that back in the day had provided flavored salt packets for Tequiza’s launch. “I thought it had all the potential in the world, but when we introduced it at one of the big distributor conventions, we kept hearing the distributors [say] ‘that’s not something I would drink.’”

“That basically killed the brand,” he concludes.

But Steinman is skeptical. “If the distributors weren’t signing up for repeats, that’s because the consumer wasn’t really signing up for repeats,” he says, adding that the fact that A-B never sprung for Tequiza TV ads was “not dispositive” of its eventual failure, either. In other words: If people wanted to drink Tequiza, wholesalers would have kept ordering more, regardless of whether it was on TV or what they personally thought of it.

Schoen offers another important bit of context. “There was one reason [Tequiza] didn’t work at the time, and that reason is very simple: Bud Light growth,” he says. Between 1990 and 2000, A-B went from producing over 11 million barrels of its flagship light adjunct lager to over 31 million barrels, per “Brewing Industry” by Victor J. and Carol Horton Tremblay. (The economic reference text opted not to even bother with Tequiza’s category, known then as “phantom specialty,” because it was too small to merit mention, and “malt-alternatives are not close substitutes for beer.”) “It was on just an incredible run, so [Tequiza] got what we’ll call ‘mixed’ distributor support and execution. There were so many other things [wholesalers] were doing” at that time that Tequiza simply wasn’t as much of a priority, remembers Schoen.

“I don’t know if wholesalers lost interest or consumers lost interest, but for whatever reason, there just wasn’t as much interest,” says Beckemeyer. Why dwell on Tequiza? A-B had the Bud Light juggernaut; the first craft beer boom was busting; and products like “Doc” Otis’ Hard Lemon malt beverage were testing well with consumers. “We [weren’t] going to fight a tidal wave,” she explains. And so Tequiza was swept away. The brand was still available in select markets until 2009, but it was effectively “gone by 2005,” says Steinman.

The Tequiza legacy

Tequiza’s short life wasn’t particularly glamorous — unless you count radio ads and SeaWorld glamorous — but it wasn’t totally pointless, either. Tequiza’s legacy, to the extent that it left one, can be traced in the products A-B and ABI pursued once it was gone. After unceremoniously laying the brand to rest, A-B leaned more heavily into flavored beers. In 2006, A-B released Shock Top, brewed with orange and lemon peel; in 2009, Bud Light Lime (a “significant new entry” for its time, says Steinman); and in 2012, Bud Light Lime-A-Ritas, full-blown fruited FMBs. Vaughn herself was involved in the development of nearly all of them. Tequiza made A-B “more comfortable with the [idea of] introducing flavors to a beer,” says Beckemeyer. “That was a foreign idea at the time.”

With the benefit of hindsight, Tequiza, like Coors’ Zima, another contemporary FMB punchline/product, could be seen as a premonition of American drinkers’ recent thirst for FMBs, canned cocktails, and perceived “better for you” ingredients. Schoen (whose current firm, BrewHub, works with several clients that use agave in their products, with more on the way) points to the red-hot popularity of the loosely defined Ranch Water category as an indication that A-B’s agave-infused failure was the right idea at the wrong time. In its day, Tequiza “just wasn’t big enough to make it sustainable,” he says. “But I would argue that if someone had it out there today, it would have been a hell of an entry.”

The article Tequiza Sunset: A History of Anheuser-Busch’s Agave-Infused Corona Killer That Wasn’t appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/tequiza-agave-infused-ber/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/tequiza-sunset-a-history-of-anheuser-buschs-agave-infused-corona-killer-that-wasnt

[nothingman]

South Park turns 20 years old this summer, meaning that if those foulmouthed, crudely fashioned 8-year-olds that were first introduced on August 13, 1997 followed the rules of linear time, they’d all be adults farting down the barrel of 30. Similarly, there’s now an entire generation of people—spanning high-schoolers to middle-aged people who remember watching its early seasons in college, and who can’t believe they’re reading/writing 20-year retrospectives on it now—who were actually raised on South Park.

The show celebrated this existential crisis-inducing fact last year with a tongue-in-cheek ad, depicting South Park as a sort of benevolent guarantor keeping reliable watch over a girl from infancy until her first trip to college. It was a typically self-effacing joke, but it’s true: Our world is now filled with people for whom South Park has always been there, a cultural influence that, in some cases, is completely foundational to their point of view. The ad doesn’t end with the girl logging onto Twitter to complain that social justice warriors are ruining the world, but otherwise, spot on.

After all, for most of its 20 years, South Park’s own point of view has more or less been this: “Everything and everyone are full of shit—hey, relax, guy.” It’s a scorched-earth, deconstructionist approach steeped in equal-opportunity offensiveness that’s made South Park one of the funniest satires ever produced, and particularly potent in the time in which it debuted. “When we started, [it was] Beavis And Butt-Head, and us, and in some ways The Simpsons, and Married With Children—shit like that,” Matt Stone told Vanity Fair last year, putting the Comedy Central cartoon in the company of other ’90s series that diverged from the “bland… shitty sitcoms that were just so lifeless” Stone and co-creator Trey Parker were reacting against. But South Park has now lived long enough to see the experimental become the conventional. And it’s outlasted all but one of those series not just by subverting formulaic TV, but by feeding directly off current events. As a result, for many of those raised by South Park, the show has functioned as sort of a scatological op-ed—in some cases, maybe the only op-ed they’ve ever been interested in.

To these acolytes, Parker and Stone have spent two decades preaching a philosophy of pragmatic self-reliance, a distrust of elitism, in all its compartmentalized forms, and a virulent dislike of anything that smacks of dogma, be it organized religion, the way society polices itself, or whatever George Clooney is on his high horse about. Theirs can be a tricky ideology to pin down: “I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals,” Stone said once, a quote that has reverberated across the scores of articles, books, and message-board forums spent trying to parse the duo’s politics, arguing over which side can rightfully claim South Park as its own. Nominally, Parker and Stone are libertarians, professing a straight-down-the-middle empathy for the little guy who just wants to be left alone by meddling political and cultural forces. But their only true allegiance is to whatever is funniest; their only tenet is that everything and everyone has the potential to suck equally. More than anything, they’ve taught their most devoted followers that taking anything too seriously is hella lame.

So while they’ve advocated, in their own fucked-up way, for stuff like the right to abortion, drug legalization, and general tolerance for others, they’ve also found their biggest, easiest targets in liberalism’s pet causes, those formerly rebellious ideals that had become safely sitcom-bland over the Bill Clinton years—all of which were steeped in actually, lamely caring about stuff. Taking the piss out of the era’s priggish, speech-policing, Earth Day-brainwashed hippies was the most transgressive—and therefore funniest—thing you could possibly do. And so, South Park joked, global warming is just a dumb myth perpetrated by “super cereal” losers. Prius drivers are smug douches who love the smell of their own farts. Vegetarians end up growing vaginas on their face. “Transgender people” are just mixed-up, surgical abominations. The word “fag” is fine. Casual anti-Semitism is all in good fun. “Hate crimes” are silly. Maybe all you pussies just need a safe space.

“Did South Park accidentally invent the alt-right?” Janan Ganesh asked recently in the Financial Times, articulating a theory that began gaining traction as an entire political movement seemed to crystallize around the show’s “anti-PC chic” and general fuck-your-feelings attitude. Way back in 2001, political blogger Andrew Sullivan had already coined the term “South Park Republican” to describe the supposedly emerging group of young people who, like the show, were moderate on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, but also rejected the stuffy doctrines of diversity and environmentalism. They also believed, as Parker and Stone would soon illustrate in Team America: World Police, that the world needed American dicks to fuck assholes, over the objections of liberal pussies and F.A.G. celebrities. That voting bloc never actually materialized—though to be fair, the show was only four years old at the time. It would take at least another decade of people with Cartman avatars just joshin’ about hating Jews before the South Park generation would truly come of age.

Let’s be real, though. South Park didn’t “invent” the “alt-right,” even accidentally. The “alt-right” is the product of lots of things—disenfranchisement; internet echo chambers; aggrieved Gamergaters; boredom; the same ugly, latent racism that’s coursed beneath civilization’s veneer for millennia; etc. The growing, bipartisan distaste for Wall Street-backed career politicians and the epically bungled machinations of the Democratic Party certainly didn’t help, nor did the frustrating inability of the social justice movement to pick its battles—or its enemies. Furthermore, it’s always dangerous to assign too much influence to pop culture, even something that’s been part of our lives for this long. And as South Park itself derided in “The Tale Of Scrotie McBoogerballs,” you shouldn’t go looking for deep sociopolitical messages in your cartoon dick jokes. (Then again, only three years earlier, it also argued that imaginary characters really can change people’s lives and even “change the way [you] act on Earth,” making them “more realer” than any of us—so you decide.)

Still, it’s not that much of a stretch to see how one might have fed the other, if only through the sort of intangible osmosis that happens whenever an influential artwork spawns imitators, both on screen and off. South Park may not have “invented” the “alt-right,” but at their roots are the same bored, irritated distaste for politically correct wokeness, the same impish thrill at saying the things you’re not supposed to say, the same button-pushing racism and sexism, now scrubbed of all irony.

There’s also the same co-opting of anti-liberal stances as the highest possible form of rebellion: Parker and Stone used to brag that they were “punk rock” for telling their Hollywood friends how much they loved George W. Bush; Parker even told Rolling Stone in 2007, “The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they’re the most hardcore that they’re pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, ‘Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you’re a pierced faggot and whatever’”—a quote that may as well have been taken from 4chan’s /pol/ board this morning. “Conservatism is the new punk rock,” echoed a bunch of human cringes a decade later. Whatever, you faggot, a dozen Pepes tweeted a few seconds ago.

But well beyond the “alt-right,” South Park’s influence echoes through every modern manifestation of the kind of hostile apathy—nurtured along by Xbox Live shit-talk and comment-board flame wars and Twitter—that’s mutated in our cultural petri dish to create a rhetorical world where whoever cares, loses. Today, everyone with any kind of grievance probably just has sand in their vagina; expressing it with anything beyond a reaction GIF means you’re “whining”; cry more, your tears are delicious. We live in Generation U Mad Bro, and from its very infancy, South Park has armed it with enough prefab eye-rolling retorts (“ManBearPig!” “I’m a dolphin!” “Gay Fish!” “…’Member?”) to sneeringly shut down discussions on everything from climate change and identity politics to Kanye West and movie reboots. Why not? Everything sucks equally, anyway. Voting is just choosing between some Douche and a Turd Sandwich. Bullying is just a part of life. Suck it up and take it, until it’s your turn to do the bullying. Relax, guy.

Again, it’s a world that South Park didn’t create intentionally, just by setting out to make us laugh, or by Parker and Stone trying to get rich off a bunch of farting construction paper cutouts. But even Parker and Stone seem slightly, if only occasionally uneasy about the overarching life lessons they’ve imparted—often expressing that anxiety in the show itself. In “You’re Getting Old,” South Park’s most moving half-hour, Parker and Stone grappled directly with the cumulative effects of perpetually shitting on things—of allowing a healthy, amused skepticism to ossify into cynicism and self-satisfied superiority, then into nihilism, then into blanket, misanthropic hatred. That dark night of the soul later formed the through-lines of seasons 19 and 20, where South Park wryly, semi-sincerely confronted the series’ place as a “relic from another time” by putting the town under the heavy thumb of PC Principal.

Then—after hooking its red-pilled fans with an extended critique of the emptiness of neoliberalism, epitomized by a sneering, “safe space”-mocking character that was literally named Reality—it tried confronting the audience who had most embraced their ramped-up anti-PC crusades. Last season kicked off with Cartman admitting to Kyle, “We’re two privileged, straight white boys who have their laughs about things we never had to deal with,” a confession rendered only slightly tongue-in-cheek by the fact of who was saying it. And it culminated in Gerald, who’d spent the year gleefully harassing people online, squaring off with the Danish prime minister, a stand-in for every troll the show’s ever nurtured:

I want to stand here and tell you that you and I are different, but it’s not true. All we’ve been doing is making excuses for being horrible people. I don’t know if you tried to teach me a lesson, but you have. I have to stand here and look at you. And all I see is a big fat reflection of myself.

Ultimately, of course, Gerald comes to a familiar conclusion: “Fuck you, what I do is fucking funny, bitch!” he cries, before kicking the prime minister in the balls. Fair enough. South Park is, and always will be, funnier than any of the maladjusted creeps who have spent decades internalizing the show’s many false equivalencies and ironic racism, then lazily regurgitating them in an attempt to mimic its edginess—or worse, by treating them as some sort of scripture for living. And to be certain, there are millions of Poe’s law-defying viewers for whom South Park really is just a comedy, one that satisfies the most basic requirement of saying the things you shouldn’t say, in a far more clever way than you could say them. But regardless of their satirical intent, or the humanity that grounds even their nastiest attacks, it’s clear that even Parker and Stone sometimes question the influence they’ve had on the world, and who is and isn’t in on the joke.

Which brings us (as all 2017 articles must) to Donald Trump, the ultimate troll, and one that Parker sees as a natural outgrowth of South Park’s appeal to a nation bored with politeness. As he recently told the Los Angeles Times:

He’s not intentionally funny but he is intentionally using comedic art to propel himself. The things that we do—being outrageous and taking things to the extreme to get a reaction out of people—he’s using those tools. At his rallies he gets people laughing and whooping. I don’t think he’s good at it. But it obviously sells—it made him president.

Trump’s blithe offensiveness, rampant narcissism, and faith that everyone but him is stupid makes him a natural analog to Eric Cartman. But instead, South Park made him into Mr. Garrison—a decision that makes some logical sense (Mr. Garrison is of constitutional age, hates Mexicans and women, and doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself), though it also felt a bit like dissembling. Nevertheless, as the election wore on, South Park again seemed to acknowledge its role in helping to create a world where someone like Trump could seem like an exciting, entertaining alternative to conventional blandness. And it made a real, concerted effort to stymie any suggestion of support by having Garrison declare repeatedly that he was “a sick, angry little man” who “will fuck this country up beyond repair,” all while openly mocking those who still loved him anyway as nostalgia-drunk idiots.

“Is it just me or has South Park gone full cuck?” wondered fans on Reddit’s The_Donald immediately after that episode aired, and probably not for the first (or last) time. But in the aftermath of Trump/Garrison’s election, those same, vigilant cuck-watchers were back to crowing over how South Park had really stuck it to politically correct types in a scene where Trump/Garrison tells PC Principal, “You helped create me.” That South Park positioned this as less of a triumphant comeuppance than a suicidal backfire didn’t seem to matter. And the show more or less left it there—portraying Trump/Garrison as a dangerously incompetent buffoon, but also as the ultimate “u mad?” to all those liberals they fucking hate.

All of which makes Parker and Stone’s recent declaration to lay off Trump in the coming 21st season a real disappointment at best, cowardice at worst. The duo is, of course, under no obligation to tackle politics—or anything else they don’t want to, for that matter. They’re also right that mocking Trump is both redundant and “boring,” and also that everyone does it. For two dyed-in-the-wool contrarians, Trump comedy feels every bit as bland, lifeless, and sitcom-safe as an episode of, say, Veronica’s Closet. Furthermore, Parker’s complaints of the show just “becoming CNN now” and not wanting to spend every week endlessly restacking the sloppy Jenga pile of Trump-related outrage is completely understandable. Believe me, I get it.

That said: Man, what a cop out. South Park has already spent the past 20 years being CNN for its CNN-hating audience. Meanwhile, Parker and Stone have proudly, loudly thumped for a “fearless” brand of satire that’s willing to mock everyone from George W. Bush to Scientology to Mormonism to Muhammad, even under death threats. To shrug now and say, as Parker did, “I don’t give a shit anymore”—right when, by their own admission, the influence of the show’s worldview has reached all the way to the White House—feels especially disingenuous, and suspiciously like caving to the young, Trump-loving fans with whom they have forged such an uneasy relationship. (“South Park bends the knee on their fake-news-fueled portrayal of President Trump,” one The_Donald post gloated, followed by many, many more.) If they truly believe that those trolls in the mirror are “horrible people” who are helping to “fuck the country up beyond repair,” it would be truly fearless to tell them why, with no hint of ambiguous, everything-sucks irony that can be willfully misinterpreted.

Instead, Parker now says he’s eager to get back to “the bread and butter of South Park: kids being kids and being ridiculous and outrageous.” Which is great! South Park is absolutely at its best when it focuses on that stuff, and I look forward to watching it all on my hurting butt. Still, after 20 years, even they seem to realize that many of those ridiculous, outrageous kids for whom it’s “always been there” have long since grown up—and some of them have gone on to do some real, destructive adult shit. Like their inspirations, South Park’s generation of trolls are tiny but loud, and they’ve had the strange effect of changing the world. It sure would be nice if South Park would grow up as well and take responsibility for them.

Or, you know, maybe I just have sand in my vagina.

via A.V. Club

[topicprinter]

Coffee for conservatives with Evan Hafer.Many companies steer well clear of divisive political stances. However, Black Rifle Coffee have used controversy to their advantage by creating coffee for a passionate niche. Proponents of the brand include the likes of Fox News presenter Sean Hannity.“I woke up one morning and Sean had tweeted about the company, it was organic. It took me a few days to get in contact via Twitter and thank him. Sean’s been a great proponent of the company, and we’re obviously fans of his. So it’s been a great relationship for us. We have a paid partnership now. He transitioned from an authentic user of the brand.”Between deployments in the Middle East, Hafer refined and combined his passions for coffee, veterans, and pro second amendment communities.Hafer's coffee beans have names fitting for the brand, there is "Sniper's Hide Blend," "Freedom Blend" "AK-47 Blend," and "Silencer Smooth Blend" .I recently got the chance to talk to Evan about coffee, companies and what success looks like.“I would rather create 100 millionaires than have $100 million. Wealth is great and people have to have aspirational goals. Sometimes aspirational goals are hinged to materialistic possessions, and I'm not naive to that nor am I immune to it. I would rather have money to do abstract and interesting things with our friends that creates value in our relationship than buy a private jet. If I’m just flying around a private jet by myself, it’s really just f\****g stupid.”*What got you started in the coffee industry?I wanted to start a coffee company probably as far back as 1997; I’ve always really enjoyed coffee. I was living in Seattle at the time, and it was just before the big coffee boom. I always felt that after the military, I would have a coffee company of some type — and when I say that, I was thinking about a small roaster shop in the northwest of the United States.Fast forward a few years when I joined the military — I was a Green Beret, then eventually went on to the CIA because I enjoyed serving the United States in conflict areas. I started roasting coffee somewhere between 2006 and 2008.For me, Iraq blends all together, so it’s essentially one long memory, not a bunch of different memories. I was there from 2003 to 2009, for the majority of each year. The only way I can differentiate between timeframes is based on city.So, I was working in a city called Kirkuk, and I started roasting coffee between deployments. I got a small roaster and began making coffee that I could take overseas — this is when I started learning how to curate roast profiles. I did all this with the intent of developing a skill that I could enjoy, as well as discovering new and interesting things about coffee. At the same time, I was preparing myself for a future endeavor.A lot of coffee shops started to pop up in Seattle in the ’90s, including Starbucks, did this inspire you?Starbucks really wasn’t the best coffee shop in Seattle. The micro-lot roasters were starting to pop up. There were fantastic espresso and pour-over stations outside of Starbucks.So there's Caffe Vita and Vivace. Vivace’s up on Capitol Hill — I still think they do espresso better than anyone in Seattle. The founder of Vivace wrote a book about espresso, and I bought it 20 years ago because it was interesting to me.Starbucks isn’t putting out information on how to make better coffee or how to roast. Most of these other guys, I could go in and talk to and look at what they were doing.From Seattle, I went to the East Coast, and there really wasn’t any coffee to speak of. Nobody that was doing it on an artisan level — I’m sure there was, but I just couldn’t find it. And then going back between Iraq and Afghanistan, I ran into a guy from Denver who had a shop called Kaladi Brothers, and he was a coffee roaster. He was using an air roaster when I was talking to him.My history with coffee goes back 20 years — that’s how long I’ve been roasting and talking to roasters. Between deployments, I would take a lot of time to go to coffee festivals — I would even plan my time back home around coffee festivals. So it wasn’t just in 2014 that I decided I was going to be a coffee guy — I’d been doing it 20 years.How did you initially fund the company?I started with $1,800 and bought the roaster in 2007, built my own website, took my own pictures, roasted my own coffee, and we didn’t really need funding. By the time I had that stuff up, I started making some videos. We ultimately started selling coffee based on a self-taught mechanism between marketing and the coffee-roasting function. I self-funded for two years, just rolling all the profits back into the company.What early marketing did you do for Black Rifle?Based on the authenticity of the brand — I was a firearms instructor for a while and have a background that’s very patriotic — I think people resonated with the message. When we started making videos and making a social media presence, there were more people aware of the company. Based on our marketing position, people were attracted to the messaging. We were really just trying to create entertaining videos for our customers. It just happened that a lot of people saw the posts.How did the Sean Hannity partnership come about?I woke up one morning and Sean had tweeted about the company, it was organic. It took me a few days to get in contact via Twitter and thank him. Then we had a few conversations, and we flew out to New York to meet with him six months later. It was great. Sean’s been a great proponent of the company, and we’re obviously fans of his. So it’s been a great relationship for us.We have a paid partnership now. He transitioned from an authentic user of the brand. I felt it was right to strike a marketing deal as he was continuing to push the product. You know, people love the company. For me, that’s one thing, and I love that they push it. But, ultimately, you have to pay for people’s time and work — it’s the only ethical thing to do. So you create a relationship based on authenticity, and you develop a friendship and respect for each other that essentially turns into a business relationship.You could bypass the system with marketing; however, that relationship is always more of an employer-employee relationship. This way, we have a mutual respect for one another’s brands, it develops more naturally, and it’s a better advertising relationship because they don’t feel like they’re being forced to do anything based on a paycheck.Starbucks announced they would hire 10,000 refugees. Shortly after, you announced Black Rifle would hire 10,000 veterans. How did this come about?It was in response to an executive order requiring a 90-day furlough for refugees coming into the U.S. from the Middle East. Starbucks, in my mind, was making a political statement against the president — and they’re a company, they can do that.My focus is that you would have to create a relationship with the U.S. State Department in order to sift through the approved refugees, and that it's not possible to hire that many refugees — it’s not logistically even plausible. I say that based on the number of applicants who are accepted into the United States, based on how many employers are trying to hire refugees. One employer being able to hire that many people with official refugee status is an impossible task.Starbucks hadn’t created that relationship with the state department — he (Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz) was just throwing it out there without actually knowing how to do it. So, I thought, if you’re going to do that, let’s bring the attention back to the veteran community. Let’s not talk about things we can’t do, let’s talk about something we can do. And I shifted the national conversation — it wasn’t even for Black Rifle — back to veteran hiring.Compared to the national hiring averages, veterans are underemployed across the board. Essentially, I'm saying we should start getting our house in order before we start going to our neighbours. And we owe a heavy debt to our service members for the wars we’ve been in for over a decade. I felt like it was a misrepresentation of where the national priorities should be.Are you opening any physical shops?Yeah, we’re in the process. I think in 2020, we’ll have 20 shops.Do they help with branding or also a significant revenue driver?Your first year after opening a shop, you’re tacking on gross revenue but you’re not tacking on profit based on the cost of the shop. They will drive revenue though. In 2020, they’ll contribute around 20% of our revenue.Are you looking to expand internationally?I’m really focused on the U.S. I think you have to eat a steak one bite at a time — if you try to eat the whole thing, you’re gonna choke. So for us, we’re focusing in our own backyard. We’ve got a roasting facility just outside of Nashville, one in Salt Lake, another in San Antonio. So we’re focusing on the United States with limited distribution and expansion overseas. You can only tackle so many things so often.How do you ensure you remain profitable while spending on marketing?I steer clear of print, I steer clear of billboards. Everything needs to be measured — when you’re in startup mode, you have to measure your results and track them back to a positive ROI (return on investment). And if you can’t, then you should probably not do it.Are you using Shopify for you backend?We are. We have a custom dataset that we built last year. So I can pull data from across the board, from our social channels to our ecom channels, our audio impressions, our digital impressions. I can see where and how products are performing at the touch of a button, and it updates every two seconds.How does Amazon perform for you?It’s great for us. When looking at Amazon, you have to sacrifice a few things. You don’t get your attribution data, you don’t get your customer data — and I like to talk to my customers. If I want to pick up the phone and ask my customer how they enjoyed the product, I want to be able to do that. You lose that ability when you start selling your product over there. So for us, I always want to stay connected with the customer to make sure they’re having an incredible experience. And if they’re not, I also want to be able to communicate with them about that.So for me, it’s far more important to be able to communicate with customers than sell on Amazon. Amazon does drive sales for us, but it’s an insignificant percentage of the gross revenue.What does success look like for you?Success is creating a community. It’s creating an ecosystem, and we’ve created a balanced ecosystem that’s working toward the same objective. The community is your customers and your employees — it’s one inclusive community. You’re always working for your customer to create exponential value in your product, with a tertiary mission to employ and empower veterans. If everybody is in line on that, you’re going to win. If everybody’s not on board, that’s where you start getting pulled in different directions. Maintaining mission focus is excruciatingly important.Do you get a lot of repeat customers? How is growth looking?We’ve been able to grow relatively fast. Our new customer growth constitutes roughly 30% year over year. Then there are the previous customers, who we have an incredible retention rate with. Our churn rate is lower that the national average by a long shot. Our customer growth is higher than the national average by a long shot. All the arrows in our data sets are pointed in the right direction. We have great customer service, we have great quality products. When you start getting red arrows, that’s when you really start to think you’re messing things up.What advice do you have for people starting out?I wrote a mission statement when I transitioned away from the military and into business.My mission statement was to transition out of government service to a profession where we live a happy and fulfilling life. Everything we do is directed toward that mission. And there’s nothing about wealth in there, there’s nothing about power, nothing about abstract eco-based objectives. It keeps me focused to this day. If I’m pulling left or right from the mission statement, I know something is wrong. These internal struggles are incredibly difficult for any individual.You have to conduct what I call “time triage” every day, and that allows you to continue to focus on your mission. The company is directly pointed toward my individual mission, and I keep it focused. Then our mission statement at Black Rifle Coffee is to provide coffee and content to people who love America. When you combine goals between your company and yourself, and your goals align, they feed your overarching mission.If you’re indecisive and don’t know who you are — and males are notorious for having fragile egos. They can’t share, it's interesting psychologically. But I chop all of that stuff away — stuff that doesn’t feed into the mission statement of the company or my own mission statement.Stay focused, and you have to sacrifice your ego on the altar of business. I’ve told that to people for five years. If you’re in it for your ego or to create wealth or individual power, you’re going to set yourself up to have a vapid materialistic life and you’re never going to achieve your goals. The goal has to be something bigger than money, and if it is, you’ll probably win.If it’s not, you may be 80 years old on your deathbed and have a lot of money — but you literally have nobody that cares about you.I would rather create 100 millionaires than have $100 million. Wealth is great and people have to have aspirational goals. Sometimes aspirational goals are hinged to materialistic possessions, and I'm not naive to that nor am I immune to it. I would rather have money to do abstract and interesting things with our friends that creates value in our relationship than buy a private jet. If I’m just flying around a private jet by myself, it’s really just f*****g stupid.If you enjoyed this post the original interview is here.

[theconservativebrief]

Chip Wilson, the founder and former CEO of the yoga apparel brand Lululemon, has written a tell-all book about his life and the business he built — and it is one wild read.

Little Black Stretchy Pants, which comes out on November 27, is being marketed as “the unauthorized story of Lululemon” — fitting given that the infamously controversial Wilson stepped down as CEO in 2013, and hasn’t been on the company’s board since 2015. (Lululemon has also distanced itself from its rogue founder; Wilson’s name isn’t even on its “our story” page. Vox reached out to Lululemon for comment on the book and will update if we get a response.)

Wilson’s Lululemon kick-started the athleisure market boom. Its $100 “Wunder Under” spandex leggings became ubiquitous in the fitness world, and the company convinced wealthy women they needed its luxury gear for working out. In the 20 years since its inception, Lululemon has developed a cult following; women and men alike swear by its products, to the point where there are underground markets dedicated to buying used Lululemon goods.

Under Wilson’s stewardship, the company has also been dogged by controversy and media blunders, and developed a reputation for being insular, pretentious, and eerie at times, due to the company’s obsession with developing employees under the self-help movement Landmark Forum.

Chip Wilson’s “unauthorized” book, Little Black Stretchy Pants.

I have covered Lululemon for almost five years, writing about the company’s products, fan groups, marketing efforts, and workplace culture. I read Wilson’s book in part to learn if the media’s depiction of him as being “socially inept,” unfiltered, and arrogant was unfair.

I found little to convince me he has been mischaracterized. This is, after all, a man who said in a videotaped interview that Lululemon pants weren’t made to be worn by all women; scolded a reporter for being late and invoked the phrase “Jewish Standard Time”; and checked out a woman’s butt while being interviewed by another reporter. (His book’s front cover, it’s worth noting, is an illustration of a woman’s butt, in Lululemon leggings.)

In the book, he’s similarly tactless, and it’s often cringeworthy to read; there are whole sections devoted to taking down specific Lululemon executives he disagreed with, and he claims to have singlehandedly invented the concepts of stretchy pants, minimalist marketing, and reusable shopping bags. He also refuses to take any responsibility for calamities he caused along the way, and instead paints himself as a victim of clueless CEOs, salacious media reporters, and disloyal board members.

Here are a few major takeaways about the world of Lululemon from Wilson’s account.

Wilson sold his former snowboarding apparel business Westbeach Snowboard in 1997 and was living in Vancouver when he took his first yoga class. He’d been having back issues due to participating in triathlons, and he took a class at a local gym. Wilson noticed the instructor was wearing clothes from a dance apparel company, which was thin and sheer.

He says that made him think about starting a yoga apparel company and “believed that if I could solve the transparency problem, address camel-toe, and thicken the fabric to mask any imperfections, I could create a perfect athletic garment for women.” At the time, brands like Adidas and Nike were using the “shrink it and pink it” philosophy to turn men’s athletic clothing into gear that could be sold to women. His idea was to create clothing designed specifically to emphasize women’s figures.

Wilson goes on:

Accentuating what made people feel confident — wider shoulders, smaller waists, slimmer hips — meant Guests would feel and look good in our clothing. I realized that the shape of our logo provided a perfect contour to enhance the natural shape of a woman’s body… There was a huge debate about where to set the seam lines on pants. Women told me they preferred side seams because when they looked in the mirror, side seams slimmed their hips. I wanted to move the side seams to the back to frame the bum and make the bum appear smaller. I persisted because I believed that eventually, men would tell women the pants looked great without really understanding why.

In executing the design of Lululemon stores, Wilson also writes that “the lighting would be perfect, and each room had to have a three-way mirror so a woman could be self-critical of her back side.”

Throughout the book, Wilson oscillates on whom Lululemon was created for. Initially, he talks about the opportunity to dress people who practice yoga regularly but also mocks that world, calling Yoga Journal a “mediocre publication wallowing in the depths of the granola world.” He also says Lululemon was propelled by “wealthy women” who could “‘buy’ time in their lives and were consequently often in great shape and very healthy.”

What he does make clear, though is that the brand was meant for a very specific type of customer: a demographic he calls “Super Girls.” This shopping segment were the daughters of “Power Women,” a group Wilson defines as a “female market segment in the 1970s and 1980s” who were divorced — which he claims was a result of the rise of birth control.

Men “had no idea how to relate to this newly independent woman” who “suddenly had significant control over conception,” and “thus came the era of divorce.” These daughters, he claimed, had single dads who got them involved in sports, and wanted to be like the male characters they saw in Saturday morning cartoons, “wearing capes and stretch fabric outfits.”

This demographic, Wilson writes, was “the best of the best.” For a 22-year-old college graduate, he believes “utopia was to be a fit, 32-year-old with an amazing career and spectacular health. She was traveling for business and pleasure, owned her own condo, and had a cat. She was fashionable and could afford quality.”

There’s long been a rumor that Wilson invented the name Lululemon because he thought it would be funny to listen to Japanese people pronounce it, and this comes up in the book.

Wilson writes how he came up with 20 names and logo possibilities, with one of them being Athletically Hip (the stylized A of the Lululemon logo comes from this original business name). He then recalls how he sold the name of a skateboard brand, Homeless Skateboards, to Japanese buyers for a large amount of money because, he believed, “Homeless” was a desirable brand name: “it seemed the Japanese liked the name Homeless because it had the letter L in it, and the Japanese language doesn’t have that sound. Brand names with Ls in them sounded even more authentically North American/Western to Japanese consumers, especially the 22-year-olds.”

He goes on to write how he “played with alliterative names with Ls in them, la la la, jotting down variations in my notebook” until he came up with Lululemon. Wilson doesn’t explicitly say he created this name as a way to exploit Japanese shoppers or make them stumble, but elsewhere in the book, he makes fun of Japanese tourists for traveling to Canada and buying Roots clothes. Lululemon’s first ad was a photo of three girls wearing glasses and a Roots sweatshirt, with the tagline, “Trendy Clothing for Rich Japanese Tourists,” which Wilson said was message for his “Super Girls,” that they’d “understand the nuances and subconsciously want to be a part of the Lululemon ‘tribe.’”

One thing Wilson makes clear in his book is that Lululemon is not meant for soda drinkers. In the original set of brand values that were printed in stores and on Lululemon’s ubiquitous red shopping bags — the company “manifesto,” which he admits comprised “random statements about how I lived my life” — he initially stated that “Coke, Pepsi, and other pops will be known as the cigarettes of the future. Colas are NOT a substitute for water. Colas are just another cheap drug made to look great by advertising.”

Wilson writes that “Coke and Pepsi threatened to drown Lululemon in lawsuits,” but agreed to cut the line from the manifesto only after a Lululemon employee pointed out that the line made the company look dated, since soda wasn’t aligned with health anyway (though he writes that he “wanted our Super Girl market to know the Lululemon brand was not for soda drinkers”).

He goes on to say that in 2012, he was upset to find soda cans popping up in the office, because being anti-soda “was fundamental to our health culture.”

Wilson also refuses to refer to Lululemon as an “athleisure” brand because he is personally not a fan of the term, as he believes it connotes “a non-athletic, smoking, Diet Coke-drinking woman in a New Jersey shopping mall wearing an unflattering pink velour jumpsuit.”

As a workplace, Wilson writes, Lululemon “screened for people who wanted families.” He writes how the company wanted to thrive off of family values, but he also doesn’t see a problem with forcing his narrow idea of relationships and family.

He writes how “we wanted our people to meet the perfect mate, we wanted people to have children, and we wanted the family nucleus to be an energy generator.”

In his original manifesto, Wilson also included this line: “Just like you did not know what an orgasm was before you had one, nature does not let you know how great children are until you have them. Children are the orgasm of life.”

Wilson goes on to write about how Lululemon initially hired a type of employee he calls “Balance Girls,” who were “type-A Wall Street personalities,” but the company had to get rid of them because “they had been working 14-hour days in finance, were not dating, and could see no prospects for marriage or children.”

Throughout the book, Wilson’s account of how he developed the business illustrates some autocratic tendencies, with specific rules for how employees should approach goal-setting and lifestyle. The most striking example is his 6/13 rule, which was an exact formula of how and when store associates, or “Educators,” as they are called, could talk to customers.

The rule was that “if a Guest was looking at a product for six seconds, an Educator had a thirteen-second window to educate them about the item. Barring any follow up questions, the Educator would then leave them alone until they looked at another item for around six seconds.” Wilson writes that this method would work because “our Educators [would] impress customers with their sheer knowledge of and enthusiasm for the item.” While it might sound like a shopping nightmare for some, it also might explain how Lululemon’s sales per square foot were in line with Apple and Tiffany & Co.

Inside a Lululemon class at a store in London on March 28, 2014. Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images

In his account of the Bloomberg interview in which he said Lululemon pants weren’t right for women whose thighs rub together, Wilson says the publication edited his words and presented them out of context. (For the record, Bloomberg did not isolate that portion of the interview, and Wilson did say that “it’s really about the rubbing of the thighs.”)

He also insists that Luon, the proprietary fabric used for Lululemon leggings, which many people complain pills after many wears, didn’t pill because of poor quality but because women were squeezing into sizes that were too small for them.

Wilson takes no responsibility for offending women; instead, he insists the media is rooted in sensational reporting. He points to another time in 2007 when the New York Times challenged him on a clothing line called VitaSea, which he claimed was made with “seaweed-based technology … that would make the shirts anti-stink, as well as moisturizing for the skin of the person wearing it.”

The Times published test results that showed the clothing had no seaweed in its particles. Wilson calls this “mean-spirited” in the book but does not offer an explanation for the results; instead, he pivots to claim the story was probably planted by an investor who wanted to short the Lululemon stock, and that the reporter probably received “a backroom payoff.”

In one especially bizarre chapter, Wilson basically defends Nike, which in 2001 was accused of using child labor. He says he “felt bad for Nike,” and sides with the company over the reports.

“In North America, I noticed there were some kids not made for school, who dropped out with nowhere to go,” Wilson writes. In Asia, if a kid was not “school material, he or she learned a trade and contributed to their family. It was work or starve. I liked the alternative.”

Wilson boasts that to respond to the Nike story, he decided to make the whole thing into a joke. He appeared in an ad in Yoga Journal with a few Lululemon employees, “dressed in diapers and baby outfits at sewing machines in one of our factories.”

In the book, Wilson writes that “if we were ever accused of child labour, I would just agree.” He then goes on to joke that “my own children have worked in the business from the age of five with no pay; working young is excellent training for life” — a tone-deaf take on child labor, especially coming from a white, Western billionaire.

Elsewhere in the book, Wilson mentions that “stores created tongue-in-cheek windows with a controversial political or social point of view.” When the brand opened its first store in Vancouver, he took out an ad in the paper promising free clothes to anyone who showed up to the store naked — and plenty did. Wilson describes this type of publicity as “worth millions and so much more fun than a standard press release.”

In Wilson’s account of how Lululemon went on to sell yoga apparel outside of women’s leggings, he tries to paint a picture of resourcefulness. When searching for the best type of material that would later become Lululemon’s $68 yoga mats, he admits he scrounged in the trash of a supplier to find the address for a source of materials in Asia.

In another anecdote, Wilson writes how he saw bits of fabric being discarded inside factories and he was trying to think of ways to use them: “One of the seamstresses used to take the ends of the pants she cut off and wear it as a headband because her hair got in her eyes while sewing. We thought, ‘what a great idea! Let’s take these pant ends and sell them!’”

Headbands, Wilson goes on, ended up becoming one of the brand’s best-selling items, thanks to “young girls who used them to differentiate themselves amidst a sea of school uniform.”

Original Source -> Lululemon’s ex-CEO wrote an “unauthorized” history of the brand. Here’s what we learned.

via The Conservative Brief

[limeadestandworks]

Forget social media marketing! Like, now!

In 2017, social media marketing has become almost a cliche. People are talking today as if every business somehow has to have a Facebook page at the time when many people are leaving Facebook.

It is a bit reminiscent of 20 years ago, in 1997, every mom-and-pop business in town was on the website and domain name bandwagon. Never mind their websites mostly sucked, many of them little more than a picture, cheesy animated GIFs, street address, and phone number. At the time, saying “visit our homepage” and “dot com” made every business owner feel like they were cutting edge.

While the Internet indeed made it possible for thousands of micro-entrepreneurs to launch and grow their businesses with a low capital requirement (eBay and PayPal were instrumental!), to others, it has become a waste of time and money. Cheap websites soon gave way to the SEO fad of the mid to late 2000s, and now we have social media marketing, seen by many as the magic formula in which anyone can make it big for free. After all, it’s free to use Facebook and everyone has a Facebook, not? (Yes, I have said before that Facebook became the de facto “White Pages” of our time — people do indeed look up business contact information through Facebook search; however, as with the White Pages phone books, they have to know the exact name of your business for this to work.)

If you are even moderately interested in entrepreneurship, you must have seen various Facebook ads or direct emails touting the latest success blueprint in social media marketing. They say you can reach millions and you can make a six-figure income in a year or less.

Forget it.

In fact, if that’s what you think, forget social media marketing altogether. Get off the Internet, hit the pavement, and do your marketing the old-fashioned way like in the 1980s.*

Social media aren’t a supernatural dragnet to attract prospects and customers with little efforts and no money. What these “experts” conveniently forget to tell you is this: (1) it is pretty expensive to reach literally millions — indeed, they spend hundreds of dollars every week so you see their ads; (2) social media marketing is an engagement tool, and it works remarkably well if and only if you have a substantial following and/or brand awareness — as a new entrepreneur, you have neither (ultimately, you will have to buy a traffic to create any level of brand awareness).

A typical Facebook page post generally results in 1 to 2 percent of organic reach (meaning free exposures) — to those who are already following your page. If you have a small business Facebook page with less than 100 “likes,” it is common that many of your page posts do not even reach one person (you can check this by looking at your page statistics). For those who already know your business or brand, to reach them better, I recommend you to start a Facebook group.

Instagram and Twitter have different dynamics altogether. While you may get more “likes” it is a short-attention-span platform and each post has a very short lifespan (approximately 18 minutes for a Tweet). Getting people engaged requires you to make them click a link to your blog, website, or landing page (on Instagram, you can only do this on your biography, or must purchase advertising through Facebook to insert a “call to action” link below your photo and above your caption).

The gist of all this is this: social media marketing is not necessarily a great tool to reach complete strangers who have never heard of your business. For a locally-based micro business to reach new customers and prospects, traditional advertising media work more effectively. If you live in a small town, be sure to send press releases to your small-town newspaper regularly, attend any local chamber of commerce events, and make real-life person-to-person connections. Advertising in a neighborhood newspaper or niche-specific magazine can also be effective.

More importantly, do not ever forget this: all marketing is relationship building. Insofar as you utilize social media as an extension of relationship-building and fostering positive connections, it’s useful and can even be very powerful. But too many people mistake social media and any digital marketing efforts as something anonymous, something you can do hiding behind your computer and broadcast your sales pitch.

Social media isn’t broadcasting. If you want to broadcast, buy a radio ad.

By design, social media (and the Internet in general) are “narrow-casting” appealing to a small set of the population who shares specific affinity and interests. This is true with Facebook ads, Google AdWords, and even your own website and blogs. Reaching millions — or even 100,000 — should never be your objective. Instead, you think of your hypothetical customer prototype, and craft your message to appeal to that person.

When people respond to your social media ads or posts by commenting, reposting, or liking, be sure to engage. Answer their questions and concerns promptly. Start conversations. Let them know that there is a real living, breathing person behind your digital marketing presence, and you actually care about what they have to say.

In the early days of the popularized Internet, we spoke of “cyber-malls,” “information superhighway,” and “global villages.” We thought of the Internet as a digital incarnation (or, discarnation?) of the real world. And even with the Internet, much of real transactions took place offline. It was common back then for people to sign up online for paper newsletters, which one would mail them every month.

I reiterate: there is no such thing as “social media marketing” if not for creating and cultivating relationships.

Just because you post your sales pitch on Facebook or Twitter every day doesn’t mean you’re marketing. It’s not working for you, so just forget it, stop fooling yourself into thinking that you’re working hard by spending lots of hours on social media. Instead, use social media with genuine intentions to engage in conversations and help people.

A case study of how old-fashioned guerrilla advertising creates brand awareness for new microenterprises

Since I told readers to forget social media and hit the pavement, I’d like to present one example of how going offline could be more effective in generating brand awareness for a small, no-budget micro business.

A year ago, I lived in Southeast Portland and there was a coffee house that was my favorite hangout. This place still looks and feels like a throwback to the Portland of the 1990s. One day I saw a postcard that looked like handmade (actually it was a full-color reproduction of a handmade artwork) that featured an adorable drawing of cats and a girl-with-a-happy-face with a caption that read “PDX Cat Stalker.”

Over the following weeks, I saw the same artwork reproduced on letter-size paper (black and white) and stapled to electrical poles all over the neighborhood.

The ad was simple in its message: a veterinary technician offering cat claw clipping and cat-sitting services. The former is a big challenge for many cat lovers, while those who travel a lot always are in need for someone to feed and care for their felines.

While the business had a Gmail address and a domain name registered, brand awareness was built primarily on the ground as the owner literally hit the pavement, dropped off stacks of postcards at various high-traffic and high-visibility neighborhood haunts and stapled fliers onto poles and bulletin boards. Social media only followed after this as engagement tools (mostly featuring cat pictures, of course).

But what is the cleverest of all is the brand. You know of crazy cat ladies. But imagine a cat stalker! Just the mental imagery the phrase evokes is incredibly potent. And it happens that the owner of this feline care business is named Sophia Stalker (the “professional cat lady”).

(Originally published on May 9, 2017.)

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Saying Goodbye to Pioneering Diabetes Advocate David Mendosa

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Saying Goodbye to Pioneering Diabetes Advocate David Mendosa

We referred to him as a "father of the Diabetes Online Community," and anyone who’d ever known or connected with him felt the passion to help that burned beneath his kind and gentle spirit.

It’s no exaggeration to say that David Mendosa was one of the top diabetes writers in the world, a journey he began after his type 2 diagnosis in 1994.

Sadly, our D-Community is now mourning this lost friend from Boulder, CO, who passed away on May 8 as a result of an incurable form of cancer diagnosed in April. He was 81, and in his last email update sent out only a week before his passing he quipped, "I am glad to be able to write that this type of cancer is not one of the many complications of diabetes.”

A third-generation Californian who moved to Colorado in 2004, he was born in August 1935 under the name Richard Alexander Mendosa; he went by "Dick" until the mid-70s and later "Rick," until he legally changed his name to David in 2005.

Those who knew David on any level describe him as not only kind, gentle and compassionate, but informed and educated with a quick wit and a love for nature and the outdoors. His email newsletters over the years mixed diabetes info with reports on bird watching and reports on other animals and plants.

“David's knowledge and generosity are widely known and serve even after his passing as a model for all who would venture into the digital world to share their experiences with others,” said D-Dad Jeff Hitchcock in Ohio, founder of the Children With Diabetes organization and one of the original DOC’ers alongside David back in the mid-90s. “He was diligent in research, precise in language, and gentle in all his work. A tall man, he towered over most of us, but not because of his height -- rather, because of his kindness. David Mendosa's voice and spirit will live on forever in the digital world he helped to create.”

An Original Forefather of the DOC

As noted, David was a pioneer and a sort of godfather of the Diabetes Online Community (DOC), having started his patient-led informational site back when the Internet was still in its infancy.

Jeff Hitchcock describes the summer of 1995 as a time “when the World Wide Web was just emerging from the confines of university laboratories” and there were only four sites devoted to helping people with diabetes: the now-defunct Diabetes Knowledgebase at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; Jeff’s Children With Diabetes forum; the Diabetes Monitor by Dr. Bill Quick; and David Mendosa’s hailed On-line Diabetes Resources. (Yes, kids: there was a time when online was hyphenated!)

“In those early days... David, Bill, and I developed a unique kind of friendship -- a virtual friendship born of the Internet,” Jeff tells us. “We got to know each other first through email and only later in person when we would meet at diabetes conferences. Before all-knowing search engines like Google, we shared new finds like treasure, sending each other emails to help spread the word to the readers of our three web sites. Unknowingly, we laid the foundational bricks to what would become the Diabetes Online Community.”

David's Diabetes Directory remains online as one of the largest collections of its kind, comprised of all kinds of online diabetes sites and blogs and 1,000+ articles he's put his name to over the years.

You name it, David wrote about it on his own site, through his 12 years at HealthCentral and many more spots online and offline – writing on everything from diabetestechnology and new medications, to diet and complication stories and the mental health aspects of living with this condition, not to mention his own personal anecdotes. He always embodied the “Your Diabetes May Vary” mindset, embracing our D-Community’s differences, while happily sharing his own approaches and insights. And he was not afraid to change his mind and his approach if he felt it warranted.

Impressively, he actually lost an incredible amount of weight -- going from 312 pounds to 168 pounds, or nearly half his body mass! -- in the course of a couple years, and he was so impressed with the new drug Byetta that he wrote a book on it. That led to him also focusing on his diet, and becoming one of the early adopters of low-carb eating a decade ago after initial skepticism about the eating trend, and it was through his writings that many found the courage to at least try it out (myself included).

From his personal musings, it’s always funny to read David’s recollection that “the World Wide Web tricked me," as he didn’t think it would ever take off. It’s also fun to look back on how nearly 20 years ago, when he was writing for the few existing D-publications both online and offline, the American Diabetes Association once dubbed him “a noted Internet observer.”

Certainly, David was larger than life in our D-World and close to our hearts.

Connecting with People… and Finding Love!

Interestingly, it was through the early DOC (as it existed in forums and message boards back then) that David met his wife, Catherine. He shared that story a decade ago in a blog post, writing that he’d turned to the Internet just a month after his T2 diagnosis and eight months later through a message board, he connected with the woman who would eventually become his second wife. He also shared the heartbreaking story of Catherine’s death in 2007.

That blog post at HealthCentral was how longtime type 1 and diabetes journalist Ann Bartlett in the Washington D.C. region first met David, who would become a dear friend and mentor through the years.

As it turned out, her very first blog post set to publish was delayed – because David’s wife had passed away, and he wrote the tribute to her for that day. She remembers seeing the D-Community's response over someone they’d never met, and from that day she fell in love with not only the DOC but his writing style.

“I found myself laughing, feeling frustrated and completely in sync with many of his struggles and it became crystal clear that his view of living with type 2 diabetes had many similarities to my own dilemmas of living with type1 and I quickly got in his blog boat and grabbed an ore,” she said. “David greeted anyone willing to stand up and be a voice in the diabetes community with love and respect.”

Through it all, David’s love for writing abounded. He pondered retirement last year, Ann recalls, but said there was still so much he wanted to write about and wasn’t willing to give that up.

David greeted anyone willing to stand up and be a voice in the diabetes community with love and respect. Ann Bartlett, friend and fellow diabetes writer

Beyond Diabetes – Early Life, Outdoors

Beyond diabetes, David's life was just as amazing -- and like any proud journalist, he chronicled his own story in various articles and photo essays.

In his younger years during his late teens, he started out working for the Riverside, CA, Press-Enterprise newspaper as an assistant sports editor. He soon enlisted in the U.S. Army in his early 20s where he worked for their Public and Troop Information Office and as a correspondent for the Overseas Weekly briefly during his service. He then returned to California where he studied political science and served on the college paper at UC Riverside. After getting his master’s degree in government from Claremont Graduate University, he went to work for the U.S. government for as a foreign service officer in D.C. for 11 years and then four years in Africa.

After that, in what he dubs his "radical years," he dabbled in real estate sales and computer and small business consulting before turning back to journalism in the 1980s with the Hispanic Business Times – all before diabetes entered his life and he turned to that in the mid-90s.

Tied into his own diabetes management but also embracing his love for the outdoors and nature, David was an avid hiker and outdoorsman who snapped beautiful photos during his many travels -- and yes, he also wrote about that on a Fitness and Photography for Fun blog! Being a practicing Buddhist also gave David a unique mindfulness, and it was one that he often brought into his own diabetes writing when exploring meditation’s effects on BG management, or just embracing a calmness in approaching one’s health and life overall.

Thank You, David!

“His loss to our community is immeasurable, but he gave us a tremendous gift of leaving behind years of research, education and inspiration. He will always be a gift of inspiration for me,” Ann says.

Tributes to David have been popping up all over the DOC – from forums like dLife and TuDiabetes, tributes at HealthCentral and Diabetes UK, to a blog post by T2 peep Bob Fenton, and numerous comments being shared on his CaringBridge page, where David began writing about his cancer journey in April.

We echo the sentiments about his compassion and caring attitude and his institutional knowledge of anything related to diabetes.

Personally, I recall first stumbling across David’s writings back in the very late 90s during my college years. Once I began reading blogs and connecting with others, his name was always top of my daily reading list. And then, I recall reading about that very first Roche Social Media Summit in 2009 and eventually attending the second summit that following year, and being able to meet this rockstar IRL. I’m humbled and blessed to have kept in touch through the past several years, and share stories both personal and professional beyond just diabetes.

Another long-termer in the DOC, David Kliff in Chicago who began publishing Diabetic Investor in 1997, has known David through the years and recollects:

“What I remember about him most was that he was a true gentlemen and old-school journalist who didn’t mind helping a newbie,” Kliff says. “It was ironic that over the years our roles reversed and it was my turn to help him, which was a pleasure to do. David was a great guy and tireless advocate for patients with diabetes. He sought the truth and investigated everything fully before writing. David understood diabetes wasn’t about the toys we use or the drugs we take, but the people we are.”

In keeping with his wishes, David’s family updated his CaringBridge page to reflect that there will not be a service of any kind. However, anyone who has “journeyed with him” at any point is encouraged to donate to CaringBridge in his memory or to the Colorado-based TRU Hospice Care Center that took care of him in the later days.

David, we will miss you so incredibly much and are honored to have known you through the years. Thank you for all you did for this world and our D-Community! Rest in Peace, Brother.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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