#but my searches confuse the shit out of its algorithm

[momo-de-avis]

i appreciate the hot goth girls but that really wasn't what i was looking for

[potentiallyjim]

Okay, let’s sift through this, shall we?

“Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. ... This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.”

“Business business business numbers numbers numbers” Basically, the community is what makes Tumblr awesome, and we should make that better.

“In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.”

This gives me pause, because one of the draws of Tumblr is that it you have to curate your own feed. Yes, you can see the “for you” and “trending” tabs, but they’re optional. You can turn off everything except those you’re following if you so choose.

“Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies ....”

Ugh, my buzzword allergy is flaring up. Where’s my EpiPen?

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

   Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.    Provide high-quality content with every app launch.    Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.    Retain and grow our creator base.    Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.    Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

So... 1) Ease of use 2) Content 3) Ease of use 4) Keep users 5) Keep users with content 6) Ease of use.

Fuggin’ brilliant.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

“Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users....”

If users can get what they’re looking for from Google searches, why do they need to sign up? Also, some worrying verbage about “experiment with logged-out tumblr.com”. They better not require folks to sign in to view Tumblr because that will hurt in the long run.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

“We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session...

Some crap about algorithms and showing “fresh” content first. Now, if that’s something that we can toggle, I’m all for it. Give me an option for The Almighty Algorithm, but don’t force it on me.

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

“Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies....

In short, replies vs reblogs is confusing for new folks. Fair point! They’re talking about engagement with replies as an ‘action item’, so I don’t know if they’re thinking of adding likes to replies, or being able to reblog a reply, or what...

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base....

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

...

Bolded part is a red flag for me. Don’t fuck with my “following” tab. It’s “Following”, as in “The people I follow”, not “people I follow and other shit I might like”. I already have settings for turning my “following” tab into that, and I have them off for a reason!

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement...

This part made me cringe, but they at least talk about how they don’t want notifications to be too spammy (which they definitely are, even for someone like me with single-digit followers)

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined....

“Shit’s buggy, yo, and we need to fix it.”

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

Buzzword, platitude, buzzword, buzzword.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[resurrectedteleport]

okayokay i just made a new tumblr account to see what they've changed (besides the "for you" being default.), and they are totally pushing it more than an old user would realize

im logged into this account in one tab and the new one in the other and tumblr is REALLY confused and im not sure where this will post but thats besides the point.

anyways when you sign up it gives you this

which is very comparable to sites/apps like pinterest and tiktok that have a personalized algorithm. when you scroll down its just random shit like Automobiles and Education. this is not pinterest. it censors stuff like sex but does NOT censor stuff like 'pee kink' . Notably!

anyways i picked some very normal interests (random shit i could think of, i left pee kink because Haha Funny) .

it then forces you to follow people! there is NOT a search, just a few trending users. it makes you pick 3 out of 10 users, one of them is the merch account, at least for me.

once you go into the actual website it looks like this! note 'for you' being default. there is NOT an option that i see to change this. this is what i was trying to look at before i ran into all the other shit haha.

time to go turn off tumblr live again ! ^^ ((tumblr fix your goddamn site

NOTE SINCE THIS HAS GOTTEN ATTENTION - I have made 2 tumblr accounts before this one (in 2019 and 2021 i believe ?) and I don't remember this in the sign up process - however, my memory is also dogshit, so please do not sue me

[olderthannetfic]

You might get a kick out of this article someone linked me to, to try and argue that BL is in fact fetishizing (because Yada Yada women consume it and produce it and all that)

https://www.youthoutright.org/articles/fetishization-of-the-queer-community

Article is a fairly short read. But I have to chuckle at it as "evidence" since it makes a fair amount of claims with 0 sources:

That young teenage women make up a majority of fandom (and that's whose consuming/producing BL)

Straight, white women get paid more to write gay romance novels (and that these novels often feature Adonis like males with 0% body fat and no body hair; play into gender/hetero norms)

Etc.

Honestly the....article, if I can even call it that, isn't cohesive. I do find myself agreeing with its first two paragraphs...and surprisingly only the first two. However, this article spends a lot of its time focusing on fetishization of Trans bodies and chasers who go after transfolks bodies (which I'm not too familiar with this so if anyone wants to speak up on this point...)

I'm very confused by how someone could read this and think "this proves my point!"

--

Sigh.

I don't even agree with the beginning. Trashy "girl-on-girl" isn't what's making men think women exist to serve them. Society is doing that. Porn is a reflection, not a cause.

Not to mention the fact that f/f-for-dudes is astronomically common compared to shitheads pestering lesbians in bars. The latter are too common because the correct amount is 0, but just based on the numbers, a lot of dudes are capable of consuming this porn without being confused about what's fiction and what's reality.

The mass quantities of f/f-for-dudes do make it hard to find f/f-for-ladies, but this article has taken the wrong message from that. The correct takeaway is that we need better labeling and search features that are driven by the nerdy desire to categorize and not by algorithms that want to sell you stuff.

As long as het romance novels or porno movies for straight guys or bestselling thrillers or whatever are popular, they're going to drown out the algorithmic results for more niche things one is interested in.

Libraries and AO3 don't have this problem. Amazon and Youtube do.

the world of “slash fiction” (fanfiction portraying a romantic and often sexual relationship between characters from a given source) began centering gay men

Wow, article writer. So you know nothing then.

it’s been claimed that straight, white women are paid more than gay men by publishers to write gay romances

I'm honestly embarrassed for this article writer. First, most of this burgeoning field is selfpub anyway. Second, many established writers in the romance field are women, and established names will probably have a shot at better pay than new people.

Third, anyone who injects "white" like this is a moron and a wanker. If we're talking about racism in the Romance field (and boy howdy is there a lot), white gay men are no better, and men's race is just as relevant as women's. Either we're talking about race or we're not.

As it stands, this author just comes across as a misogynist piece of shit.

The overwhelming majority of these romances portray relationships between white, cis, abled men with no fat or body hair.

I have bad news for them about cis gay men's media. (Well, okay, some of that has a lot of body hair and interminable descriptions of the smell of ball sweat and stinky armpits, but still...)

Men who fit the first archetype will take the position of “top” in the numerous, inaccurate, graphic-as-possible sex scenes that are central to these stories and also appear to be central to many readers’ enjoyment.

I see we're in the usual "I, a sex-repulsed person, speak for all of humanity" mode.

People like horny art. News at 11.

These are complex issues deeply rooted in society. It’s difficult to envision mitigations and solutions. However, somewhere to begin would certainly be promoting more positive, intersectional, realistic representations of queer people and queer relationships. A vital action that can further this goal is choosing to consume media with queer representation that was created by queer people whenever possible.

Honestly, my response to this ending is:

Fuck off, you entitled git.

This uninformed little whiner is equating all kinds of unequal things. Chasers are all over the place, but they aren't the ones writing fanfic or any other amateur, personal writing. We have no right to other people's hobby time. Sure, we can vote with our feet, and we should, but this article doesn't really sound like it's advocating that: it sounds like it's crying that other people have different taste from the writer. Boo, hoo, hoo, someone I don't like got attention.

It's the usual ignorant trash.

Embarrassing.

[tallysgreatestfan]

Turns out tumblrs search function is indeed so shit that I can't find the posts about this I know I have on my blog (tagged!).

So instead just from my experience:

The three biggest differences are:

People want you to reblog their stuff. Yes, even if its older than two days. Even if you went through an entire tag on someones blog until you reblog stuff from 2014. It is not considered creepy at all (with some extremely rare exceptions, but these people then make posts about how they don't want it). Likes are kind of nice for the person making the post, but they don't help the post spread even the slightest. You can also make your likes private.

Yes, there is an algorithm (the "for you" page), but you can actually turn it off, and most people hate it, and you will get much better because self-currated by you stuff on your dash if you go on the "Following" page which shows you only posts made or rebloged by the people you follow. Sadly tumblr staff desperately wants to destroy the site by trying to be more like twitter and tiktok and made the "for you" page the default setting for new users, but the chronological, self-currated dashboard is IMO still much much better and so refreshing after how hard other pages try to force an algorithm on their users. Might need a bit initiative at the beginning though to find blogs to "fill" the following page though

Never censor. Unless you bitch about a ship or a character you don't like so that you don't accidentally hurt their fans by having your hate end up in the tag. Tumblr doesn't restricts post saying more mature words or topics (though a few sexual tags are indeed empty after the 2016 porn ban, but that is just the tags, not the posts themselves). In fact writing stuff like "unalive" or "sewer slide" instead of what you are actually talking about not just comes of as immature and not taking these topics seriously, but can harm people because when you alter these words, the blacklist/filter (customizeable for triggers or even just stuff you don't want to see for whatever reason) can't filter it out anymore, so they end up seeing it even if they have the word blacklisted.

For specific functions of the site or how to customize things, just ask, there are so many I don't think it would be useful to explain all of them instead of waiting what specific ones are confusing.

Hai y'all!! :3 An awesome mutual of mine on TikTok suggested that I should download Tumblr, so here I am!!

I'll be posting my art (mainly oc related art) , hosting Q&As (will also be hosting then on TikTok) & much more!! Hehee

[beesbeesbees]

On art direction, part 1 of Who Knows

You may have noticed (or probably not noticed) that it’s been a bit since the last post!

I’ve been in a weird spot for a few weeks. I think it’s important to be honest about my struggles - and there was a bit of trouble with my ADHD meds and the pharmacy. My neurochemistry is what some might charitably call “sensitive”, and fucking up my meds didn’t just mean fucking up my concentration! Whoops.

As a result, I didn’t get much of anything done for a while. But my meds are back in order, so I’ve been slowly clawing my way towards some measure of normalcy, and am currently feeling a fair bit better!

So, what HAVE I been doing?

A little bit of everything. I wanted to center programming, but unfortunately, I didn’t really feel up to it for a while. So I’ve tried to focus on other things. Particularly, art direction.

It’s a little early on in the project, but as an artist, I’d like to figure out what my game might look like, what its characters might look like - even a really vague idea would be nice. It makes it easier to come up with more ideas from there.

One of the game dev tutorials I watched mentioned using PureRef for creating collections of references for your game, which I thought was inspired. It’s a free program I’m familiar with as an artist for building reference to create a single picture, but I hadn’t really thought to use it for more broad concepts like that. Things like setting the mood, art styles that you aspire to, scenery, UI, et cetera.

So... here’s my reference board. Zoomed out because, well, I don’t want to responsible for unsourced art floating around the internet, and also it’s a little embarrassing. It’s largely a great big soup of things I’ve found inspiring over the years, well before the idea for this game came into my head. I just finally tidied up my “art I think is cool” folder and picked out whatever felt like it could lead to some inspiration on the project.

Sorting files and looking at cool art is blessedly low-energy, so it was a good task to handle while I felt like shit. I also started searching for and adding pictures more focused on the direction of my game, not just the prime cut of three years of accumulated cool (but miscellaneous) art.

While Pinterest is controversial for how much art gets passed around without credit, it can still be a very good place to gather visual resources, and its algorithms are good enough that if you find something you’re interested in, it’s not hard to find more. I recommend it. Just don’t repost, and don’t share unsourced art!

Anatomy of a reference

One common misconception people have that I’d like to address - from both artists and non-artists! - is that using references is “cheating”.

Any sufficiently skilled artist who is not up his own entire ass will inform you that this is Bull Shit.

(Pictured: an example I made of how many references went into a single dumbass shitpost. A shitpost of a Twitch streamer doing a rap squat next to a banana wrapped in toothpaste and foil, left to rot there for 54 days.)

As you can see, while the reference images give direction, it is not a 1:1 copy. You could not place this image over any of the references used and have it look as if I’d traced it. The bottom left picture is the closest comparison, but even so, a large amount of it is improvised, and all of it is in my style. His hands kinda ended up looking more like the Trade Offer guy.

See, a picture is often an amalgam of references so far removed that it becomes its own beast. Typically a completed picture will resemble NONE of the pictures it was referenced from, or only in small parts. A foot referenced here, a hand referenced there. Like some kind of beautiful ransom note.

Of course, it’s entirely possible to reference a picture so closely that it nearly looks traced. The term I always heard for this was “eyeballing” something. Like, “I drew this while eyeballing a manga cover”. This can be morally and legally dubious. I think this is where part of the confusion comes in, vis a vis references being “stealing”.

(Don’t be this fucking guy.)

But it’s not necessarily bad! Maybe you’re drawing an ultra-realistic portrait from a photo reference, or you have permission to use the reference in whatever way. A lot of free stock photo artists put thousands of pictures out there for that purpose alone, and you can reference them, trace them, etc to your heart’s content.

There’s also 3D models, if you’re especially paranoid of someone recognizing your source material. (But they are a pain in the ass.)

But this is a bit of a long preamble to get to the idea of referencing character designs. This is a contentious subject and I wanted to clarify what I typically do and how I do it, so that nobody sees “I look at Pinterest for ideas” and thinks “get a load of THIS guy”. I also wanted to set a good example for any aspiring developers reading this.

Yes, I will look at the designs of other artists as I work. But I try to only take one or two things I find interesting from a design, do this with a number of designs, and then put my own spin on it - and iterate further if it still looks too close to any one of the references. The goal is that it becomes unrecognizable.

Here’s a very simplified example of the idea. In a fullbody shot, the design would look even further removed from any of these three, because it would incorporate a lot more design traits.

So, despite all of this buildup, I haven’t actually started designing any characters yet. Races, I’ve been playing with the visuals of (I’m liking the idea of raising monster girls). I’m hoping to build out my reference library for the game even further, and have a really broad amount of ideas to pull from. But it’s a good start.

I have a bit more to talk about vis a vis art direction, hence the post title, but this post is long enough already, so I’m cutting it here!

[betterversion--ofme]

Rebecca Black's Search for Identity

Rebecca Black's unabashedly sapphic bop 'Girlfriend' came onto my radar recently. "Holy shit," I thought to myself, thrilled, "She's grown up and got a Carly Rae Jepsen meets Katy Perry sound? I need to hear more of this!"

Well, not exactly... 'Girlfriend' is that, but Rebecca Black isn’t that. Not yet, at least - out of a dozen or more releases, it’s just that one song.

The truth is, Rebecca has been trickling out songs for years, throwing things at the wall, looking for the style that will make her take off.

As I hopped from song to song in the Youtube recommended links, each song was different. They could have each been from a different singer. I was so excited after hearing Girlfriend, but each song I listened to left me more confused.

Skipping past the series of regrettable cash-ins while she was under management of Debra Baum right after 'Friday', then a handful of forgettable EDM pop tracks, are a few more recent interesting songs with -wildly- different vibes. So who IS Rebecca Black?

Welcome Back (she never left)

Every piece of press that Rebecca gets has the same lede: Remember the Friday girl? Well she’s BACK, she’s GROWN UP, and she’s a REAL MUSICIAN now!

But apart from a 3-year hiatus between 'Saturday' and 'The Great Divide', Rebecca has actually been consistently releasing music every year since 'Friday'. There's no comeback to speak of, she's always been around, just not gathering much attention.

It's the kind of PR move that works once and only once: that was then, this is now, and then you stand on the quality of your work and move forward. But every bit of press I could find, at the release of every song coming out almost every year, has taken this stance, not even mentioning the prior songs. She keeps trying to break out, but the viral fame is too comfy to leave behind.

The lead single off her one and only EP ‘RE/BL’, 'Heart Full of Scars', feels like an intentional callback to her viral phase and the cyberbulling she experienced. And I don't doubt that the bullying and harassment she went through left some deep marks. And the biggest thing that’s put her in the headlines lately, of course, is a new version of Friday.

So on the one hand she is trying to move forward with a pop career, but on the other hand she keeps leaning on her prior name recognition and winking back at the past.

She also has a pretty large presence on Youtube. I admit, I have not done a deep dive of her Youtube, Tiktok, and other social media presence. As I understand it, she is friends with a group of LGBTQ Youtubers and makes appearances in their work as well. Most of the recent vlogs on her channel, though, once again are themed around 13-year-old Rebecca.

I mean, those viral-fame-milking videos have double or more the amount of views compared to her other videos, so I guess do what the algorithm commands you to do, girl.

A short history of Rebecca Black the artist

I want to start out by saying I'm not going to consider 'Friday' as part of her career. I want to judge her current work on its own merits: would I be listening to it, if it didn't have any name recognition?

Directly after 'Friday', Rebecca was signed to DB Entertainment and released a string of awkward songs and videos. The less said about them, the better. Then was 'Saturday', dipping from the one-hit-wonder sequel song well with the best of them (see Kung Fu Fighting's Dance the Kung Fu, and The Devil Comes Back to Georgia).

The one cohesive work she has released is the EP ‘RE/BL’ in 2017. Other than that, everything has been released in one-off singles or pairs.

She’s got very safe EDM pop in Foolish and Anyway. She’s got some sweet but dark, Melanie Martinez vibes in Sweetheart and Do You. (She’s even worked with Billie Eilish’s brother Finneas on Satellite). Every time she seems to be heading in a certain direction, she releases something completely different.

As of yet, though, she hasn't settled on any genre or general identity that I would expect from a pop artist. Not that I'm expecting every song she puts out to be the same, or that I don't love some experimentation, but the things she has put out simply don't feel cohesive, and it's like each song is aimed at a different audience.

Who Is Her Base?

So, having listened to all the songs she’s put out to date, I’m at a loss with how to describe Rebecca Black as a pop artist.

Is she a mainstream pop idol? Is she retro-inspired and glittery?

Is she cute but a little dark and edgy? Or a boundary-pushing hyperpop queen?

She's a chameleon, becoming a different artist each time she works with a new collaborator. And I think this is hurting her chances at building a devoted base of fans.

February was big PR moment for our girl Rebecca. Just a week after 'Girlfriend' dropped, so did the hyperpop remix of Friday.

Unfortunately, hearing the phrase 'Friday hyperpop remix' gives you just about everything you need to know, and you barely need to listen to the song. I'm not saying that because of any distaste for hyperpop - Simply, the actual execution of the idea was unsurprising and unexciting (IMO).

It's not completely out of left field, though, as Rebecca is honestly dipping her toe into hyperpop. She had a feature on Dorian Electra's latest album, and her main 2020 release "Closer" has some light Sophie/Charli-esque touches (albeit in a much safer and chiller way than the Dorian track). Her Fantano interview does imply this is something she’s interested in pursuing further.

If Rebecca goes full hyperpop, I am totally behind that. It's a ripe niche, people will appreciate her meme appeal rather than be driven away, and 'hyperpop star' is a rather more achievable goal than 'mainstream pop star'. If she can do that and do it well, it could be the perfect career move for her.

I do hope Rebecca finds her identity as a musician. It’s a tough step for any artist deemed a “one-hit wonder”, and doubly difficult for her unique situation. I think she’s got a lot of potential, and someday we’ll stop saying “Oh, the Friday girl?” and start saying things like “Oh, I loved her latest album!”

[whitehotharlots]

CRT and the sad state of educational politics

If our culture is studied 100 years from now, the predominant theme of the research will be a sense of perplexed revulsion toward how we did nothing to address the climate crisis in spite of having decades of forewarning. If there is a second theme, it will be a profound confusion regarding our immense and unearned sense of self-certainty. A retrospective of the early twenty first century would be titled something like Who the Fuck Did These People Think They Were? 

The latter theme is illustrated in the debacle surrounding a recent slew of municipal and statewide bills that seek to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools. For the record, I am strongly against these bans. But I’m also self-aware enough to know my opinion matters very little, and therefore realize that an analysis of the discussion surrounding the bills will yield much more worthwhile observations than a simple delimitation of their pros and cons. Regardless of your personal opinion, I hope you’ll humor me.

I am, in some regards, a moral absolutist. But I also realize that abstract morality has very little bearing on material and political realities. In my ideal world, classrooms are free from political meddling. Teachers teach to the best of their ability, presenting students with truths that are confidently unvarnished due to the thorough amount of work that was required to reach them. I don’t cotton any of that socratic bullshit. Students are there to learn, not to engage in weird Gotchas with some perverted elder. The teacher’s job is to teach. The material they teach needs to be subjected to some graspable and standardized mechanism of truth adjudication before it is worthy of being taught. Teaching is not therapy. Teaching is not poetry. Teaching is not love, nor is it religion, nor is it a means of social or political indoctrination. There are plenty of other avenues available to accomplish all of those other things. Teaching is teaching. 

That’s the ideal. But ideals are just ideals. They never come true. The art of teaching, regardless of setting--from overpacked classrooms to face-to-face instruction to curricular design to nationwide pedagogical initiatives--boils down to a teacher’s ability to reconcile the need to convey truths with social and political pressures that are heavily invested in the suppression of truth. 

I have formally studied and practiced education for nearly two decades. In that time, the prevailing political thrust toward education has been a desire to casualize the practice of teaching, to render educators as cheap and fungible as iphones. The thrust takes different shapes depending on the political affiliation of whomever happens to be in charge of the state and federal governments that fund education, but the ultimate desire is always the same. The goal is always to attempt to make teaching rote and algorithmic, something akin to running a google search for How to do math? or What is morality?. The framing is always just windowdressing, empty culture war bullshit. 

Maybe it’s the inescapability of this thrust that’s rendered so many educators so blind to it? We only have nominal political choice, after all. The discourse gets more blinkered and vicious as the stakes decrease. At any rate, this is the undeniable reality, and anyone who doesn’t see that isn’t worth listening to. 

Non-administrative per-pupil spending as been on a steady decline since George W. Bush was president. Administrative bloat and meddling are becoming as common in k-12 as they are in higher education. The will of parasitic NGOs are implemented as common sense pedagogy without anyone even bothering to ask for any proof that they work. The so-called Education Reform movement is sputtering out due both to its manifest failures and rare, bipartisan backlash. But it will be replaced with something just as idiotic and pernicious. The thrust of causalization will not abate. 

And so what do we decide to do? What’s the next big thing on the education policy horizon? Critical Race Theory. 

Okay, this makes sense. In 2021, a local paper can’t run a news story about a lost cat without explicitly mentioning the race of every human involved and possibly also nodding toward the implied cisnormativity of pet ownership. So it makes sense that this broad rhetorical mandate would come to dominate the transitional period between Bush-Obama Education Reform and whatever bleak future awaits us. The controversy is so perfectly inefficacious that its adoption was inevitable. Because, seriously, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of the outcome of this kerfuffle, no problems will be solved. The real shortcomings of public education will not be addressed. Larger social problems that are typically blamed on public education in spite of having little to do with public education will especially not be addressed. Maybe white kids will have to do struggle sessions in lieu of the Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe black kids will get full credit for drawing the Slayer logo in the part of the test where their geometric proof is supposed to go. Or maybe it won’t happen. Maybe instead these practices will be banned, and in turn liberals will begin to embrace homeschooling, the charter movement will be given new life as a refuge against the terrors of white supremacist behaviors such as, uhh, teaching kids to show their work. Whatever.

Within the context of public education, the outcome will not matter. It cannot matter. There will be broader social impacts, sure. It will continue to drive Democrats more rightward, providing their party’s newly woke corporate wing with progressive-sounding rationales for austerity. But so far as teachers and students are concerned, it won’t matter.

Why do I give a shit about this, then? To put it bluntly, I’m struck by the utter fucking inartfulness of CRT’s proponents. At no point has any advocate of CRT presented a case for their approach to education that was at all concerned with persuading people who aren’t already 100% in their camp. There’s been no demonstration of positive impacts, or even an explanation of how the impacts could hypothetically be positive. In fact, so much as asking for such a rationale is considered proof of racism. Advocates posit an image of existing educational policies that is absolutely fantastical, suggesting that kids never learn about slavery or racism or civil rights. But then... then they don’t even stick with the kayfabe. They’ll say “kids never learn about racism.” In response, people--mostly well-meaning--say “wait, umm, I’m pretty sure they do learn about racism.” The response is “we never said they don’t learn about racism.” You’ll see this shift from one paragraph to the next. It’s insane. Absolutely insane. 

Or take this talk from a pro-CRT workshop in Oregon. The speaker freely admits that proto-CRT leanings like anti-bias education, multiculturalism, and centering race in historical discussions have been the norm since the late 1980s. The speaker admits that these practices have been commonplace for 30+ years, as anyone my age or younger will attest. Then, seconds later, the speaker discusses the results of this shift: it failed. Unequivocally:

We had this huge, huge, huge focus on culturally relevant teaching and research. [ ... ] So you would think that with 40+ years of research and really focusing and a lot of lip service and a lot of policies and, you know, a lot of rhetoric about cultural relevancy and about equity and about anti-bias that we would see trends that are significantly different, [but] that’s not what we’re finding. What we’re finding that you see [is] that some cases, particularly black and brown [students] the results, the academic achievement has either stayed the same and gotten worse.

Translation: here’s this approach to teaching. It’s new and vital but also we’ve been doing it for 40 years. It doesn’t work. But we need to keep doing it. Anyone who is in any way confused by this is a dangerous racist. 

Even in the darkest days of the Bush-era culture war, I never saw such a complete and open disregard for honesty. This isn’t to say that Bush-era conservatives weren’t shit-eating liars. They were. But they had enough savvy to realize that self-righteousness alone is not an effective way of doing politics. You need to at least pretend to be engaging with issues in good faith. 

This is what happens when a movement has its head so far up its own ass that it cannot comprehend the notion of good-faith criticism. These people do not believe that there can exist anyone who shares their basic goals but has concerns that their methods might not work. Their self-certainty is so absolute and unshakeable that they can proffer data demonstrating the complete ineffectiveness of their methods as proof of the necessity of their methods.

For decades, the most effective inoculation against pernicious meddling in education has been to lean upon the ideal form of teaching I described earlier in this post. We claimed that teaching is apolitical and that no one is trying to indoctrinate anybody. Regardless of the abstract impossibility of this claim, it has immense and lasting appeal, and it was upheld by a system of pedagogical standards that allowed teachers to evoke a sense of neutrality. The prevailing thrust in liberal education is to explicitly reject any such notions, and no one--not a single goddamn person--has proffered a convincing replacement for it. We still say, laughably, that we’re eschewing indoctrination. But people aren’t that stupid. If you find it beneath yourself to make your lies digestible, people will be able to tell when you’re lying to them. 

This, my friends, bodes very poorly for the future of education, regardless of whatever happens in the coming months. A movement that cannot articulate its own worth is not one that is long for this world. Teachers themselves are the only force that can resit the slow press toward the eventual elimination of public education, and they have embraced a worldview and comportment style that renders them absolutely unable to mount any worthwhile resistance. 

[lady-divine-writes]

Coldflash one-shot - “Illusion” (Rated PG13)

Summary: Barry needs to find a way to fix things. To change things between him and Len. To stop the inevitable. But as smart as Barry is, with all of his super powers, are there some things that just can't be changed?

Notes: This is kind of a re-write of a one-shot I wrote for another fandom. Also, it has a twist to it, so you've been warned.

Read on AO3.

Pop …

Sizzle …

Crackle …

Whir …

The intense silence in the kitchen amplifies the sounds of breakfast cooking, but Barry’s mind has wandered so far from this room, the noise barely chips its way in. He’s working on autopilot, meandering from stove to sink to counter, paying no attention to where his feet land, his hands powered by déjà vu, not a thing pulling his notice – not the bacon, smoking in its oil, needing to be flipped; not the toast, popped in its slots, cooling for over thirty minutes; not the eggs he’s been whisking so fast they’re becoming meringue. A groan from upstairs jars him out of his stupor, and he finally looks down at the bowl of frothy pale yellow on its way to becoming white peaks. He glances over at the staircase, a huge lump settling above his Adam’s apple, then back at his eggs, and sighs. He was never that good at cooking anyway. Most of his adult life has been spent existing off of cold cereal and ramen soup when he wasn’t living with Joe and Iris. Of all his talents as a scientist and a superhero, whipping up pancakes or frying an egg wasn’t among them. Funny since cooking is basically science, a factoid that his boyfriend points out every morning Barry overcooks oatmeal.

Just this once, for this breakfast, Barry had wanted to get something right.

Labored footsteps cross the floor overhead and Barry continues whisking. He’s in no danger of making anything out of the eggs at this point, but he can’t think of anything better to do. It’s not actually about the breakfast, it’s about this moment. He’s been waiting all morning for it, and now that it’s arrived, he’s not ready to face it.

Thunk, thunk, thunk – the sound of one-hundred seventy pounds of lean muscle making its way to the kitchen kicks Barry into overdrive. He zips around, collecting up the edible elements of the meal and laying them out on the table. If he’d been searching for self-satisfaction, he’d have to admit that the spread he comes up with – a stack of toast and another of waffles, the original pound of unburnt bacon, and a farmer’s market worth of diced fruit – is impressive, especially considering he doesn’t remember making any of it.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Len grumbles to the streak of red lightning serving up food. “The infamous Flash making breakfast for little ol’ me? Whatcha tryin’a do, Red? Fatten me up before you drag me off to Iron Heights? My last decent meal as a free man?” He runs a hand over his shaved head, suspiciously side-eyeing the wall clock as he makes his way to the table. “12:30? So, either you let me sleep late on purpose or you’re still not talking to me.” He takes a seat, reclining with his arms locked behind his head. Silver-blue eyes watch Barry hop between pans on the stove, preparing what looks like a colossal meal.

Big meals mean people, and Len’s not exactly in the mood.

“Are you expecting guests for breakfast, Red? Iris? Joe? The CCPD, perhaps?”

“No,” Barry says, cursing the hoarseness in his voice. He turns off the bacon, gives up on the eggs, and sets two empty plates down on the table. Barry has yet to look at Len, spread out in his chair, observing him curiously. He’s been on the edge of tears all morning and if he looks at his face, that smug smile and those mischievous blue eyes, he’s not going to make it through breakfast. Crap! He should have done this another day.

“So, you’re not still mad at me for last night’s little escapade?”

“No. No, I’m not.”

“Even after I did something you expressly told me not to do? Something you said would destroy our relationship if I did?”

“Yes.”

Len’s eyelids narrow. “What about everything you said last night …?”

“I don’t care about that!” Barry slams his hand on the table hard, catching the lip of his plate and smashing it to bits. “I don’t care about any of it! Just forget it! Please? I’m sorry! I’m so sorry for what I said, for every fight we ever had! Please, just …!”

"Barry?” Len gets up from his chair and takes Barry’s hand, bleeding from a long cut down the palm. It’s also healing up fast, pushing pieces of ceramic out of his skin as it does. But Len still leads him to the sink to wash it off. “Barry, what’s going on with you? You’re acting like a moody teenager. You’re usually not this weepy over me pulling a job. You’re usually more punchy and jabby.”

“I don’t like this,” Barry admits, looking Len in the eyes for the first time since he came down to breakfast. “I don’t like what’s going on. I haven’t for a while, and I don’t … I’m having a hard time handling it.”

“And what’s that?” Len asks, lips pinched tight in defiance even though his eyes still brim with concern. “You and me? Is that what you’re talking about?”

“No, Len!” A tired breath accompanies Barry’s words because it always comes back to this. No matter what the argument, Len brings it back to them being together as Barry’s ultimate issue, as if running off on the Waverider at a moment’s notice to places unknown where Barry can’t contact him only to come home and pull jobs he swore off, with Barry eventually hunting him down to make sure he doesn’t end up dead – or arrested - would be less stressful than the two of them being together as a regular, every day couple. But that’s not how Len thinks. The everyday and the normal seem to be more of a burden to him than the shit he puts Barry through. “I … I just … I’m scared, Len! Scared you’ll walk out the door one day to a place I can’t go, I can’t find, and never come back! I don’t think I could handle it if you disappeared – blinked out of existence on another Earth or in another dimension!”

Len grins, his tight lips and concerned eyes melting into a cocky grin. “Oh, baby. We’ve been over this. I’m invincible, remember?”

Barry stares at his boyfriend, tears and screams and pleas threatening to split his skull, begging Len to see the truth. But Barry knows it’s no use. Nothing he can do, nothing he can say, will ever change what happens next.

Barry was right. He picked the wrong time for this.

“Yeah,” Barry sniffs sarcastically. “Yeah. You’re invincible.”

Len wraps his arms around Barry’s shoulders, confident he’s won this argument. And, of course, that means to the winner go the spoils.

“Say,” he starts, and Barry sighs, knowing where the conversation goes from here, “I know you spent all morning on this fantastic breakfast, but whaddya say you and I leave it for now, go upstairs, and maybe work up an appetite?”

Barry takes another look at Len’s handsome face, longer than the last, and shakes his head.

“Not today.” He takes a step back, the confusion on Len’s face heartbreaking, but Barry can’t. Not today. “Gideon? Pause simulation.”

“As you wish, Mr. Allen,” the melodic voice of the AI responds. The scene around him shifts, goes fuzzy. Except for Len’s face, which is crystal clear everywhere for Barry – here in STAR Labs and in his memory. Those memories have haunted Barry ever since the day the Waverider came back without Leonard Snart. Barry has been reliving those days within the confines of this program he’s created, mostly out of guilt, drudging up the details of how they left one another – Barry seething over a heist that didn’t matter in the long run, and Len, self-righteous as always, taking off without so much as a goodbye. Because Len wholeheartedly did believe he was invincible. He never would have conceived of the Waverider returning to Earth without him on it.

But what could Barry have done? How could he have changed things? If he could nail it down, then go back in time, maybe he could fix it. He created an algorithm inside Gideon’s programming to help him isolate it. He’s giving himself one shot. Considering how badly he tends to mess up timelines, he’d only take the one chance. Two if it seemed warranted.

But he hasn’t gotten to the point where he can will himself to take that next step.

Barry has an eidetic memory. He doesn’t need Gideon to regurgitate the same scenes from his final days with Len over and over until he tears his eyes out. All this is is an exercise in lying to himself. Because as much as he wants Len back, he wouldn’t have said the things he said to his simulation. He wouldn’t have completely absolved him. He couldn’t go against his principles, put the greater good in danger, for the man he loved.

Because Len and the things he did were dangerous.

But is there an alternative? In months of searching, Barry hasn’t found one. He’s not helping anyone by doing this. He’s torturing himself by giving himself hope that Len will come home one day and he can fix things between them.

But Len is gone. Dead and gone.

And Barry, with all his powers and all his talents, will never see him again.

[darkspellmaster]

Could you explain what's happening? All I know is that Tumblr is getting rid of any explicit content, but shouldn't that be a good thing? Especially with all the annoying bots and such.

Okay so I needed to do some research about this before I wrote this as there’s a lot going on that’s being filtered around and it seems like people are freaking out and that’s not helping. 

1. What’s happening?

So, basically here’s what’s been going down. A few years ago -two or three I think -Yahoo Inc. bought Tumblr from the original creator of it as he couldn’t keep up with the demand. Server space cost had shot through the roof. 

Just to clue everyone up here who are bemoaning about the sale in the first place, just to buy Amazon Web servers (which I think Tumblr ran on and now runs on a different company Srimax or something like that) or AWS, cloud space, it cost (USD) $2010 monthly, that compared to Googles which is roughly $2200 per month. 

So total yearly is roughly $24,000 for AWS, and $26,000 for Google (and that’s on the low end). 

So Yahoo is then bought out by Verizon Telecommunication services, who owns a number of sites right now and is trying to compete with AT&T and it’s services and Comcast, and Google. A

Tumblr, when it was built, was designed as an art place, mostly for artist who were leaving Deviant art at the time due to an influx of (let’s just say) undesirable artists and art work, and for other reasons. Over time Tumblr has become very popular and mixes of people have come here because it’s become mainstream in the media. It’s used in TV shows and the demographics here have become between the ages of 12 to in their 30s. And because it’s become more mainstream this has put a spotlight on it. 

So what the heck happened? Well several things. 

1. There was a case here were a person, or persons, were putting up explicit child porn, and this was rightly reported. However, because of this and the infestation of porn bots and other illicit content, Apple felt that Tumblr was not a good app to have on their store front, so they removed it. 

Apple is determined to “Save the internet”. 

“Steve Jobs famously suggested that “folks who want porn can buy an Android phone,” and Apple has repeatedly leveraged its unprecedented power over millions of smartphones to sanitize the apps that are available on iPhones. Apple does not allow apps “that contain user generated content that is frequently pornographic.” In 2016, Apple famously deleted all third-party Reddit apps that allowed users to toggle NSFW posts on and off; even now, it is impossible to access porn on an iOS Reddit app unless you jump through various hoops.”  - Vice.com

This should come as no surprise to anyone that is over the age of 30 at this point as Apple has been notorious about this for years, even during the early time of the Mac computers. 

I should note that Android did not, nor has Google Play as Tumblr has followed all of it’s guidelines.  But, internationally, Apple is still a big name and is a highly sought after device, especially in China, and most Telecommunication companies want to invest in there because the economy is good and they can make money in sales to people in China. But because of an extremely strict policy about anything related to porn and the like, Verizon couldn’t sell Apple phones with Tumblr linked into it due to the nature of the space, along with Apple’s very strict policies. 

(There is in fact a lawsuit going on right now in regard to Apple’s bans on apps.)

As seen here. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zmd38y/supreme-court-weighs-whether-apples-app-store-is-a-monopoly ) 

So because of this Tumblr felt it needed to do something and that something was to unleash an algorithm that, unfortunately, seems to have taken on a life of it’s own. My guess, and I can only hazard a guess here is that the algorithms are taking meta key words that could be associated with sex or porn or child porn and searching these things out to flag. So like animals that are connected with the fur community will be hit, people with Chronic pain may become hit because the CP in the tag could be related to Child Porn and thus the algorithm is hitting that. Color words, association with women and men, kinks and other things that these bots tend to use are probably also in there, which means that things as simple as chicken thighs, or chicken breasts, are being hit and flagged. That’s not to say that some of this may not be connected to the issue of trolls coming in and reporting things making the Algorithm even more buggy. 

See an algorithm works like this: 

So what is going on here. A question is asked, in this case let’s say it’s a key word, “Does this site have the tag Bookworm in it’s tags or in it’s content?” So the program then goes and analyzes a blog, and looks for that word in the tags. If the answer is yes, then that blog is then “flagged” for having that term and can be reviewed, and the algorithm can go to the next blog to look. 

If the answer is no, then the program goes to the next word in it’s list and looks again, and if the answer is yes, it can then flag and move on, etc. This is how this is working. On top of that, you again may have people flat out using this to attack others and flagging and reporting, adding to the confusion of the program. 

2. Second aspect is a bit more complicated, as it’s not just affecting Tumblr but a number of sites as well. Two bills that were signed into law here in the US and other similar bills are going around the globe.  These two bills, while of the right mind to stop sex trafficking and should be lauded for that idea (because it’s something we as a world need to really address as a whole), both cause a huge problem to platforms. 

So you have the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act" Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act" (FOSTA)Stop Enabling Online Sex Trafficking Act, or SEOSTA, or Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act, or SESTA.  This act is both good and bad. The good part is that it “clarify the country’s sex trafficking law to make it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking,”  which means it makes it clear why sex trafficking is illegal and will allow more laws to be created to stop it from happening and helping out victims to go after those that harmed them. 

The bad though is the follow up, “and amend the Section 230 safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act (which make online services immune from civil liability for the actions of their users) to exclude enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking laws from its immunity.” 

So the Section 230 safe harbors allowed for platforms, like Reddit, Tumblr, AOL messenger, etc, to not be liable for these situations. However this act changes that and makes it where the owners of the platform are going to have to be the ones that are liable. Meaning that site’s like tumblr can be taken to court over what their users put up, even if they don’t know what’s going on. 

3. And this is on the smaller end of things. There apparently is a lot of piracy going on in the porn industry right now. As with the cases of theft here on Tumblr in regard to Pivix and other sites, people are not happy. While the industry is smaller than mass media studios like Sony, Disney, WB, NBC, etc. they are not happy with the grand theft of their copyrighted material, and yes it is copyrighted even if it is nude video and the like. These companies are considering possibly getting into legal matters with Social media sites (like Tumblr and Twitter) over the thefts and reblogging issue of copyrighted material. Unlike Youtube, where you can just take it down, Tumblr is build on the idea of sharing so there’s that to contend with. 

Because of these things Tumblr has decided to create a very strong and yet vague policy that seems to be hurting people that are original content creators rather then the perpetrators that are causing the harm on this site. The thing is that in order for Verizon to push this as a mainstream social media site, they have to create a cleaner image. 

The reason for that is the same reason why you had the advertising issues on Youtube. Straight up, when things become popular and more mainstream (and Tumblr has become main stream my friends make no mistake of that, as it’s shown up in a lot of different media including ones for teens and tweens) then sites tend to have to spend more money on server space and that means ads and more people coming in to see said ads. And the more popular and mainstream a site get’s the more the site tends to want to become more all ages over a limited age group, as that means you can have more users on the platform and thus generate more advertisements. 

See Facebook, instagram, snap chat, etc. All platforms that have some age restrictions, but also are designed so Little Billy and June can be on there along with Grandma and their teen brother Tommy, and mom and dad, etc. 

All I know is that Tumblr is getting rid of any explicit content, but shouldn’t that be a good thing?

Okay to explain this. On the one hand certain explicit content needs to go, including things like cannibalism, extreme gore, etc. Because a lot of that shit is disturbing as hell. But on the other hand you have consenting adults that do have a right to look at art and pictures that are not safe for work. 

The problem really comes down to a few things. First are the people in the video doing this of their own volition, and if not, then we’re looking at something that needs to be taken down as it would be seen as possibly blackmail porn and gather illegally. Secondly Users need to learn to actually check what they reblog and look into where the material is coming from. Just because a gif looks cool doesn’t mean that the people involved in that act are okay with it being put on the net. 

It’s a good thing in a way because this means that people that have been stealing art and video from others that make money off this sort of art work and photograph, can at least now known that it’s gone off of one site, though many more still will put it up. 

The problem is that people that do their own work and sell it on here are being kicked off and that means that they may have to go to more shady sites where people who are not as nice tend to hang out, which could mean some serious risks for them. 

While I’m not for this whole thing. I do see both sides of the issue. Personally I don’t want to have to see video of someone jerking off if I’m not searching for it, and it suddenly showing up in the notes section. On the other hand if this is a way for someone who needs the money to create content that allows them to live and afford to have food, housing and other things that keep them healthy and safe, then that should be their right to do. 

My feeling is that all artwork and the like should be behind a pay wall. And I know I’m gong to be yelled at for that, but hear me out. Artist need money to live, Sites need money to keep servers up and running. In order to keep kids and those that don’t want to see this sort of content from seeing it, honestly one of the most effective ways I can think of, is to create a pay system and create Sub area where you can have groups, and then include some sort of state or country id so that only adults can go into the adult oriented area. 

It’s a good thing to be getting rid of the bots, and possibly cleaning up the issue of illegal porn and other things that could hurt not only the companies image, but also could lead to the victimization of those that are not doing this willingly. But it’s a bad thing for people who tend to make their living with art that isn’t safe to view in public. 

As I said the best thing to do would be to create a pay system for those that want to view it, and have it free to everyone else. If you really want to see stuff, and help support the site and creators, then maybe it’s time to start paying and be willing to show you’re an adult. 

Especially with all the annoying bots and such.

This is the sad thing. The bots will follow wherever people go. Pillowfort will get hit at some point too by these things because they will come and bother people. The reality is that there really is no way to escape them until there are regulations set in place that can be put out all over the world that stop sites like the bots and protect people that are trying to make money via their skills as an artist. 

Thing is that in this day and age because people have grown up with the idea that “Everything on the net must be Free!” there’s this desire to fight against actually paying for services and we’re already seeing the down fall of that. I’m pointing to the recent outrage of people bemoaning that Ao3 asked for money to keep their servers up and running. 

Personally I have mixed feelings about all of this. While I’m against censorship, I also feel that there needs to be a way for people who don’t want to see certain forms of art or the like to have that option as well. You have to strike a balance so that you can have a good community of people, and if it means either paying money or creating a second site for those that want to view this art, well then that’s what it should be. 

Thing is, as Matpat said in his article 13 video, when things like this start up companies tend to pick to go after the smaller user base and use them as the main cause for change, because then it covers everything even the larger base. And I think a part of this may have to do with that upcoming issue. 

We live in a global world now, and we can’t just think about one culture or the other anymore as separate things. Companies are seeing things as whole rather than singling things out, and thus the net users need to start thinking the same way. 

Hope this all makes sense. there’s a lot more going on, but I’m trying to keep it easy to read. 

[spnfanficpond]

November 2018 Pond LiveChat Recap

We had a great time chatting with Rhi, @kittenofdoomage!!! Thank you so much for joining us!

We talked about getting readers, interacting with readers, and how Tumblr has made it more and more difficult with their changes for new writers to get noticed. Details from our discussion with Rhi under the cut, as well as notes on what we’re working on in the Pond!

Q: Do you wait until you are done writing a series before you begin posting, or do you post as you write?

I wait until I'm done writing a series. At some point, the idea will catch me and I have to write the entire thing, which will take about three days. Editing for another 1-2 depending on my betas and then it gets released in its entirety on Patreon (my patrons like reading the entire fic in one go, they're paying for it so I'm not gonna make 'em wait) and comes out in chapters on Tumblr about three-four weeks later. I hate feeling like I'm making people wait too long and then shit happens like it did with three of my permanently hiatused fics.

Q: Well, as for why we're here, Rhi, you get so many asks every day. How do you have such involved readers?

A lot of my readers who respond are regulars. I have those who pop up with the odd "this is awesome" and those who will write long involved reviews which I love!

Q: Do you think there's anything in particular that you do that encourages people to interact with you?

Yeah, I'm open with people and pretty approachable. I like discussing things, plot points, characters, anything really. There are very few things that trigger me, too. I have only three specific things that will turn me away from a fic. I think my lack of triggers helps with people who need someone like that to talk to.

Q: Do you ever ask around and try to figure out what people are looking to read to try and help boost your reader count or do you just draw inspiration from your own ideas?

At the moment, I'm mostly working on commissions, so it's other people's ideas. I'm lucky that most of my Patrons and commissioners are very patient with me and know up front that I have no specific time limits. I will write it but I can't force it. And I won't force it because that leaves everyone with a shit story.I never put an idea away forever though. I write them all down. If inspiration hits for something, I write it there and then because I never know if I'll get that mojo back.

Q: Has there ever been an Idea that has caught you by surprise when you start it as one thing but it ends up as something else?

Only about six thousand times.

Over The Hills And Far Away that I'm writing now, was supposed to only be a Dean x reader but my reader decided to go and have chemistry with Sam too.

Q: Have you noticed a bump in followers after you do anything specific?

I always have a bump in followers after Sinful Sunday. Unfortunately, I always end up with a bump in unsolicited dick pics and porn bots, too, so a purge usually follows. When I post new characters or fandoms, too. I've recently picked up a bunch of Marvel followers.

Q: As a big blog, you must also get some hate. How do you deal with that?

They don't like me because I play with them and their insults are like water off a duck's back with me. Unless they bring my kid into it. I shut an entire set of blogs down when that happened. That's also why I no longer post anything to do with my daughter. I will avoid using her name wherever possible. If I'm in a bad mood, I ignore it. If I'm feeling like an utter bitch, I'll tear them a new asshole.

Q: Rhi, it sounds like you have a lot on your plate with family, work, and writing.  Is there anything in particular that keeps your creativity flowing so you don't burn out?

I try and do something different every day. Painting, gaming, going for a walk - it's important for me not to spend all my time on one thing. Even if it's just cleaning. I also listen to a lot of music - Classic Rock on Absolute Radio is my fav. Actually, my favorite time to think about fics is when I'm about to go to sleep.

Q: I'm not sure how to even ask this, but I came into the spn fic fandom a little late and so I'm finding it difficult to gather new followers. Do you have any advice? I have a master post with the few pieces I've written but I've gotten a lot of flack for writing OCs...

Tumblr is not helping with regards to gaining new followers lately. Tags aren't working if you're an NSFW blog, no one can search anything. The only thing I can suggest is reblogging, asking other authors if they'll read your work.

[Other suggestions from the chat included submitting fics to @dirtysupernaturalimagines and the Pond, joining other people’s writing challenges (The Pond’s S14 Challenge is here, @thing-you-do-with-that-thing is always running challenges, and @mrswhozeewhatsis has a tag #writing challenge on her blog). Also, “Tumblr loves porn” and the fandom loves Dean, in particular, so writing more Dean smut will get you more readers. Just adding “Dean x Reader” to the tags, even if the relationship is barely mentioned, will get you more readers. Sam will get you the same result, but to a lesser extent. Rhi got bigger writing ABO fics, and carved out a niche for herself with them to the point she’s considered the ABO expert in reader insert fics. Another tip was to strip OC’s of names and defining physical features, since OC’s don’t get a lot of love. Many “Y/N”’s are actually just OC’s without a name. Also, if you’re writing a story that will eventually have smut, list “eventual smut” in the tags.]

Q: Random question:  a bunch of us smaller blogs have noticed a drop in reblogs over the last year or so, and I'd be curious to know if, as a bigger blog, you've seen anything like this as well?

Absolutely. A year ago I was getting about 10-20k notes a day. Now, if I hit a thousand, it's a good day and I'm expecting to take a massive hit because of Sinful Sunday, if they don't entirely delete my blog.

Q: Does anyone have any idea why the notes have all dropped so much?  Is it a glitch in notes?  People being more apprehensive to reblog nsfw things because of all the nsfw fear going on?

Community responses: The posts with outside links not showing up in searches is related to bots and porn blogs that only reblog posts to add a link to a sketchy outside web page. Several months ago, though, Tumblr started the “best stuff first” algorithm (which can be turned off in your dashboard settings, but not everyone knows this), and that pushed posts with few notes to the bottom of the dashboard feed. Since you never really get to the bottom, those posts never get seen. Tags and reblogs to build up note counts are the only way to combat this. Now, messing with the search functions means that there will be no new readers without blogs that just reblog fics, like the Pond and @dirtysupernaturalimagines and such.

[Editor’s Note: Rhi told us she’s working on a UPS Driver!Sam fic!! I’m excited. “What can Brown do for me?” YES, PLEASE!]

What’s coming up in the Pond:

Angel Fish Award nominations are due by the end of the month, so you have less than a week to submit yours and gain an entry for every nomination into the raffle! Win fabulous prizes just for spreading love! HOW COOL IS THAT? (Also, don’t forget to submit your own fics to the Pond so that other Pond members can easily find them and nominate them!)

Note: Please use the submission form to submit nominations. Asks do not allow you to include a link to the fic, and sometimes we can’t find what you’re nominating, especially now that Tumblr searches don’t work.

Design contest to find a Pond graphic! Entries are due by the end of the month, so less than a week away! So far, we have ONE (1) entry! (I mean, it’s a pretty fabulous entry, but still!) Winner gets their choice of swag with their design on it!!

SPNFanFicPond Season 14 Weekly Episode Writing Challenge - Since we didn’t have a new episode this past Thursday, the previous week’s challenge is still collecting submissions. (Honestly, there’s no deadline on any of them. Post a fic using a prompt from any week, and you’ll still be added to the masterpost and reblogged on the Pond blog.)

New Member Spotlight Post coming soon! Check out last month’s post here!

Still accepting additions and discussion about the Warning Tag List (tags to be used to assist folks in avoiding triggers and protect their mental health, not be confused with tags to help people find or avoid preferences). Reply or reblog the post itself, or send an ask to the Pond with suggestions!

Plans are in the works to try and make the blog more app-friendly. Please be patient with us in the meantime!

Plans to expand the beta program to make it easier to find the type of beta you need are also on the to-do list.

Housekeeping Note: If you send an ask to the Pond and do not get a response in a couple of days, please notify one of the admins (Michelle - @mrswhozeewhatsis, Mana - @manawhaat, or Kale - @aprofoundbondwithdean) via IM and let us know!

Thanks to everyone who joined us this month and made it an awesome conversation!! Can’t wait for next month!

Next month’s discussion: Giving feedback to other writers and how a beta reader can help your writing! Joining us will be @littlegreenplasticsoldier!

Be there Dec. 15th at the usual time!  (Los Angeles - 2PM, New York - 5PM, London - 10PM, Melbourne - Sunday 9AM)

[tfrohock]

a poem, a title, and how all this works in publishing

A very quick note on book titles. When I pitched the Los Nefilim series, I wrote a proposal that consisted of the first ten thousand words of the first book, a three-page synopsis (roughly … okay, three and a quarter, so what?), and two very brief proposals, meaning a paragraph each, for the how I envisioned the next two books in the series to play out.

As part of the proposal, I gave titles to all three books. That is because this is usually how proposals are submitted, although I’m sure some authors list Book #2 and Book #3, as well, who knows? I’m just speaking from my own experience.

Ask any author, and they will most often tell you that they hate coming up with a title for their books. It’s serious torture. We’re trying to think of something unique enough to stand out while remaining brief enough for readers to remember. It’s a lot like writing poetry, except you only get to write one line and it can’t be too many words, because it has to fit on the cover of a book, and it also has to essentially capture the essence of your story and SURE THAT’S EASY! NOT!

In my case, the original titles that I proposed for the Los Nefilim novels were: Where Oblivion Dwells; Carved from Stone and Dream; and A Song with Teeth. These are the titles that wound up in the contract, for yea, this is how contracts are written—with titles, because publishers and agents and writers and editors and lawyers love details, because legal and binding and all that.

Of the three titles, I’m only going to talk about the first book for the purposes of this post. I got the title from a poem by Luis Cernuda entitled: “Donde Habite el Olvido.” I’ve seen the title translated to both “Where Oblivion Dwells” and “Where Oblivion Lives,” depending on the translator.

For those who are unfamiliar with Cernuda’s work, the poem is:

I

Where oblivion lives, In the vast gardens of darkness; Where I will be no more Than the memory of a stone lost in spiky weeds Where the wind goes to escape its insomnia.

Where my name leaves Its body destined for the arms of the centuries, Where desire has ceased to exist.

In that great realm where I love, terrible angel, Doesn’t slip its wing Into my chest like a knifeblade, Smiling airily as my torment grows.

Out there where this passion demands a master in its own image, Submitting its life to another life, With no more horizon than a face with other eyes.

Where sorrows and joys are nothing more than names, Native land and sky around a memory; Where at last I’ll be free without even knowing it, Mist in the fog, an absence, A light absence like a child’s flesh.

Out there, far away, Where oblivion lives.

The imagery and themes Cernuda expressed in this poem simply ignited my imagination and heavily influenced some of the ideas in my novel. Which made this a rare time when choosing a title wasn’t difficult at all.

When I first read the poem, translated by a different individual, it was entitled “Where Oblivion Dwells.” I loved the sound of “dwells” and decided to go with that as my initial title: Where Oblivion Dwells. I did all the due diligence of running the title through Google, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble and I couldn’t find another similarly title novel in their databases. This proposal was submitted to and purchased by Harper Voyager in April of 2017.

MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE, COMPLETELY UNBEKNOWNST TO ME, SOMETHING COMPLETELY SIMILAR WAS GOING ON:

So one fine day, I was busy checking my links and did a quick name search in Google to make sure a certain link was appearing correctly, when low and behold but what did my wondering eyes see: they’d listed me as the co-author of a completely different novel entitled Where Oblivion Dwells by Lorena Franco.

Of course, I’m all: wut?

It seems that Ms. Franco’s novel was originally published in Spanish and it was entitled … wait for it … Donde Habite el Olvido. The novel had recently been translated into English in May 2017 and given the title: Where Oblivion Dwells, about a month after I’d done all of my searches for books with that title.

Google’s algorithms apparently decided that since two women had written a book with and identical title, we must therefore be co-authors, because algorithms without human intervention are notoriously stupid. Out of curiosity, I looked at Franco's book, which is also Gothic and has supernatural elements. That put us in similar categories. However, other than the titles, our themes and stories are very distinct.

This next part of this saga is very important, because at the point I discovered this SNAFU of minor proportions—which was some time in the late summer of 2017, I think—we had put zero work into the cover art for my novel. Timelines in publishing can be tight, and you don’t want to make a title change that is going to affect the work of the cover artist, who has spent effort in coming up with the right design. Not to mention the fact that the title was already beginning to show up in online searches through Amazon, etc. and is probably what caused the initial algorithm co-author issues in Google books. Someone would have to go back and make any changes to those databases.

If we had gone even a month more into the process for my book, we couldn't have done what we did. As it was, we were drawing a tight line and creating more work for people, who are, like everyone else, maxed out to the max in their jobs, too.

Knowing this, I emailed my editor and agent and outlined my thoughts. I wanted to see if was too late to change the title to eliminate confusion. Fortunately, David was fine with it. We decided to go with Where Oblivion LIVES, as this would cause the least disruption to the title change, and which spellcheck sometimes calls Where Oblivion LIES just for shits and giggles, I guess—I don’t know; I’ve just learned to roll with these things.

So the thing with titles and the sheer number of books being published means there will be some, nay, maybe a lot of crossover in book titles. No matter how diligently you search for your novel’s title or series, someone else may be rolling in with the exact same title within days, months, or years of one another.

And it’s okay. The people who are going to buy Franco’s novel, are going to buy her books. Likewise, the people who are looking for Los Nefilim stories know where to find me. Neither of us are taking anything from the other.

As a matter of fact, if someone buys Franco’s novel, thinking that it’s mine, they might find themselves turned on to a new author they otherwise wouldn’t have noticed. I think that’s a win a for all of us.

[evandore]

rant thingy i guess???

SO when i was prettifying my phone i was deciding which i apps i use the most (so i knew what to keep and what to delete/delete from home screen) and i decided pinterest was one of my mains cause i use to use it a lot and i mean A LOT. it was my first real introduction into ‘social media’ and how i discovered what tumblr was lol

but the problem was they recently updated it so a lot of its different -new things are scary and confusing- so i didn’t use it for quite some time. this was also during the time i quit using my tumblr main for like 5 months and then randomly came back. in that time i somewhat lost my interest in homestuck (somewhat cause it’s still brain rot but internally now and i care more for my aus) and minecraft filled that void! but i made a sideblog for that and decided to use my main for things that i’m really interested in/make me happy

so that’s why i’m now rbing flowers and aesthetic shit! anyway what i’m trying to say is that my interests have shifted quite a bit and im trying to distance myself from fandom stuff (i’ve gone back to a passive enjoyer! and honestly i might make another sideblog for it)

but the problem is i’ve been using pinterest since i was 11. i had saved over 70,000 pins. i made boards for practically every fandom imaginable. i saved stuff for fandoms i wasn’t even in. (not to mention the frankly horrifying amount of political arguments i had gotten into in the comment sections) my page was honestly just a giant mess. nothing on my for you page appealed to me and i was clicking not interested on every other thing i saw.

my first solution was to hide all of my boards (i had over 60 but half were already hidden) and attempt to start again. but it just didn’t feel right. i still had everything left even if others couldn’t see it and it was bothering me. so i decided to make a whole new account from scratch. i changed my bio to say that the account was archived -i had about 150 followers which isn’t a lot but it was enough to constantly get notifications- and changed my name to my tumblr. and i started a new!

let me tell you the start was HORRIBLE although i think most new social media accounts are. i hate those things where they say ‘select five things your interested in!’ like no!!!! i don’t care about any of this stuff. but i did it. saved a few pins to start (i chose some option that it was showing a lot of like models and pretty girls so my first board was literally called ‘pretty’ and just a bunch of girls lol)

and i’ve been using it for a couple hours and i’ve gotten to the point where i’m happy with what i’m seeing :] it’s mostly girls/makeup/plants and it’s very nice. plus i’ve discovered that they added a new feature where next to your for you page there’s a bunch of pages all based off of your boards where you can just click the plus and add it to you board!!! which is super cool esp for what i’m about to say next-

the one main problem (that was honestly pretty easy to solve but it still pisses me off that i had to go out of my way) was that while my for you page was mostly girls/models/makeup stuff all of the people were white which i noticed from first glance. also the algorithm is set up so if your for you page is mostly filled with say jewelry and maybe a few pictures of plants. if you save the pictures of plants and then refresh than your for you page would be filled with mostly plants! so i knew that if i saved a few pins of women who were not white than my page would get changed

also annoying that just searching up models once again only gave me white women but to be honest this also happens with other social media. looking up models of color produced the most diverse! but i also made sure to look up some specific ethnicities that i wasn’t seeing. and this wasn’t just a race thing none of the people i was recommended were plus sized. but searching up and pinning a few seemed to fix it. so now that whole thing is fixed which is good because it was for my pretty board and beauty isn’t specific to a certain race or body size!

anyway i made a whole bunch of boards and i’m feeling good also discovered my love of abandoned trains covered is forestry so uh yea

[seat-safety-switch]

In my original career, long ago, as a computer scientist, we were trained to try and push the limits. It was only there that we would find the really good bugs. You see, a human being only thinks about things in the average case. Yeah, even pessimists. So you reason, okay hey, ninety percent of this time it’s gonna be like this, ten percent maybe a little over. Make it work for those situations, call it a day, go home and turn wrenches on your project Omni.

When your shit actually reaches a real human being, the first thing that human being does is try to jam a school bus through it. Sure, it doesn’t say I can do this, but I want it to, and it’s your fault if it blows up. Then it blows up, and it’s your fault.

After a couple of years, you start to doubt your instincts about the average case. Maybe you snap a rubber band on your wrist after writing something to make sure it can handle, say, someone pasting their entire term paper into the slot marked “your name.” Perhaps you get really good at reading moon phases so you can deal with the smart-ass who types the year 20022 instead of 2022. It’s not paranoia, it’s just being a consummate professional. And that’s how I thought about myself, even after I left the software world to become a full-time auto journalist here at Bad Cars Monthly.

In case you’re not familiar with Bad Cars Monthly, it’s a monthly lifestyle magazine dedicated to the culture of owning bad cars. What does “bad” mean? Ugly? Unreliable? Unfashionable? Pedestrian? That’s but one of the things we explore. Enough about my new gig, though, because I’m trying to tell you about a bad car I encountered only a few months after I had quit.

In front of my Omni, in the lane, was a self-driving car. It was owned by one of the search engine giants, and I can’t really say which one, because they are run by algorithms now, changing their names and countries of origins within nanoseconds as soon as a human-run law enforcement agency gets close to asking them about all those nude portraits of Hitler it keeps deep-dreaming. The thing with the self-driving cars, I knew, was that somewhere deep down inside the machine, a human being had written some code to force the car to do things.

As the searchmobile tootled its confusing back-and-forth weave down the lane, I thought back to my training. What would be something the original authors had ignored, omitted, just basically never considered? I had some theories, but it would be antisocial to act upon them. That simply is not what a good editor does. However, I was a journalist now, not just an editor (Bad Cars Monthly has a very small subscription base). To leave this car alone would be a dereliction of my responsibilities, and that would serve the reader (note the singular) poorly. Reaching into my pocket, I withdrew my handy pocket laser projector, which I usually only used to show high-resolution pornography for my fellow citizens when stuck in a long traffic jam.

One thing led to another, and within only a few hours I had managed to lure every searchmobile to the area. It turns out that when one of them becomes confused by a 50-foot-tall projection of a toddler crossing the road forever, more are summoned to distribute the additional cognitive load. They learn from one another, stuck in the middle of the road with their stupid hard-drive-access lights flickering behind the grille. I learned from them too. For instance, the lug wrench from my Omni fits their lugs no problem, and the wheels of a searchmobile go for at least a fifty each on eBay. Hey, it pays better than a Pulitzer.

[firdaussyazwani]

Search Intent: Important Yet Forgotten

What is search intent?

Search intent, also known as user intent or keyword intent, is the main goal of a user when searching for a query on search engines. In simpler terms, it’s what the user is looking for.

  Why search intent matters?

Search intent matters because Google is looking to provide the best results for their users. By providing search results that you are looking for, you’re most likely to use Google again, right?

Now imagine if Google didn’t display the results that you’re looking for. You would use other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, or even DuckDuckGo.

What happens if you and other users stop using Google?

There will be lesser people clicking on ads, and they will earn lesser ad revenue. And we all know that’s not what Google wants.

Despite what you may know about keyword research, doing keyword research itself isn’t sufficient to rank. It is always important to determine the search intent after.

This helps you determine what users are looking for and increases your chances of getting on the first page of Google.

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What are the types of search intent?

The different types of search intent keywords in SEO are

Informational intent keywords,

Navigational intent keywords,

Commercial intent keywords, and

Transactional intent keywords

  Informational keywords

Informational keywords are keywords that users search for when they are looking purely for information. These keywords generally have the highest levels of search volume due to their informative nature.

Despite the high search volumes, informational keywords usually contain the least intention of purchasing something. This is because users are only trying to find out more about a topic and have no interest in buying yet.

Below are examples of informational keywords: “What is SEO?” “Who is Johnny Bravo?” “HDB price”

  Navigational Keywords

Navigational keywords are keywords that users search for when they are looking for a specific product, service, or brand. These types of keywords generally have lower search volumes than informational keywords.

An example of a navigational keyword is “Facebook”. As you can tell, the user is probably looking for Facebook’s website and felt that it was easier to Google it instead of typing in the URL.

Here are more examples of navigational keywords:

“Moz website” “Paypal login” “Twitter”

In my opinion, navigational keywords usually involve current customers looking for your website. However, it is possible that the user has completed their research and are looking for your website to make a purchase.

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Commercial Keywords

Commercial keywords are keywords that users search for just before they’re about to buy something. This means that they are in their final stages of research and are looking for the best product or service for themselves.

These keywords generally have lower search volumes than navigational and informational keywords. Despite lower search volumes, commercial intent keywords possess a higher intention of buying.

Examples of commercial intent keywords are:

“Ahrefs vs SEMrush”. “MacBook Air review” “Best SEO freelancer in Singapore“

From the above query, it can be seen that users are at their final stages of the sales funnel and are ready to buy from you.

  Transactional keywords

Transactional keywords are keywords that users search for when they are ready to make a purchase. These types of keywords generally have the least amount of search volume but have the highest commercial value.

Here are some examples of transactional intent keywords: “Buy iPhone X” “Zalora coupon” “hire Firdaus Syazwani”

From the above keywords, you can tell that they are READY to buy, making transactional keywords one of the best keywords to go after.

Many sources exclude commercial intent keywords as a type of search intent due to the overlapping similarities between commercial and transactional searches.

However, I prefer to separate them due to the slight difference in the buyer’s mentality. This is so that I can write relevant content to tailor towards each audience in the different stages of the sales journey.

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How can you determine the search intent?

There are 2 ways that I use to identify the users’ intent. Either I make an inference based on the search query itself, or I just check the search engine results page (SERPs).

  Inferring the keyword intent

This is the fastest method to determine the searcher’s intent. However, it’s not entirely foolproof.

Based on my above examples of each type of keyword, you’ll notice that they have their own sets of unique modifiers that make it pretty easy to distinguish them apart.

  Inferring informational keywords

As mentioned, informational intent keywords are keywords that searchers use to find information. This can easily be inferred through the use of its own set of modifiers.

Generally, questions are regarded as informational. Other types of modifiers in this category would be “guide”, “tutorial”, “tips”, “ideas”, “how to” .. you get the point.

  Inferring navigational keywords

I don’t think I have to explain much here do I? As long as the keyword includes

A brand name

A product name

service name

It’s a navigational keyword.

  Inferring commercial keywords

Generally, the way to infer commercial intent is through the use of modifiers that implies comparison, a review, or a list of items.

Some modifiers I use to identify these keywords are:

Best

Top

Vs

Review

List

  Inferring transactional keywords

Modifiers for transactional intent keywords can be identified relatively easily. They usually imply purchase intent. (No shit, Sherlock)

Examples of modifiers for transactional keywords are:

Buy

Coupon

Hire

Order

Price

Cheap

As you can see from the above examples, inferring keyword intent is pretty simple just by the use of their respective modifiers. However, as I said, it’s not foolproof.

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Some keywords have ambiguous intentions to it. Let me illustrate. Without Googling for the below keyword, try to identify the intent

“SEO agencies in Singapore”

Are users searching for a list of SEO agencies available in Singapore? (Commercial keyword)

Could they be looking to hire an SEO agency? (Transactional keyword)

Or could they just be looking for information regarding SEO agencies in Singapore? (Informational keyword)

If you can’t seem to figure it out, that’s where you have to look at the search results.

  Identifying search intent through the search results

The most accurate (and time-consuming) way of identifying search intent is by doing a Google search for that search query. After many searches done by billions of users over the years, Google’s algorithm is smart enough to know what searchers are actually looking for.

That’s why it’s the safest bet to determine search intent.

Do a Google search for the search term “SEO agencies in Singapore” now, you’ll actually see a mixed intent in the search result.

You’ll see a blog post with a list of SEO agencies in Singapore and how to choose the best one for yourself. (Informational query)

You’ll also see a landing page from Clutch.co showing you a list of the top SEO agencies in Singapore. (Transactional query)

The bottom 8 of the SERPs are just different SEO agencies’ landing pages. (Commercial query)

From here, you can tell that the user intent is mostly catered towards a commercial intent, and that users are primarily looking to hire an SEO agency.

However, there will be instances where you’ll find an equal mix of search intent. That’s where things get confusing.

  What happens if it’s a mixed search intent?

If it’s a mixed search intent, chances are you can choose either type of intent to write about.

Informational pieces, list type posts, product pages, or even a video can be used to rank for that target keyword!

But it’ll definitely be a challenge to get on the first page.

My personal favourite is to write a skyscraper article. This article then covers all 4 aspects of intent, increasing my chances of getting on the first page.

The only trade-off? My time.

But hey, if it works, it works.

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So should I target only transactional and commercial keywords?

No. Even though it might seem tempting to target purely transactional and commercial keywords, it might not be the best strategy you should take.

Firstly, some prospects are at different stages of the sales funnel. A typical prospect goes from looking for a solution to their problems, comparing their options, before deciding to purchase your products/services.

Naturally, you might not be able to attract the majority. But there are also a lot more people who haven’t even heard about you. How can a customer buy from you if they don’t know you?

And part of your marketing strategy is to get yourself known out there.

Therefore, a balance must be struck to educate, attract, and funnel these prospects to purchase from you.

  Conclusion

Despite what you may know about keywords in SEO, you must never forget to identify the search intent. User intent gets you on the first page and keeps you there.

Proper identification of the intent also allows you to write copy based on what the searcher is looking for. This way, you not only reduce your bounce rate, but also increase your chances of converting visitors into leads, and leads into customers.

Also, always remember to always double-check the search intent even after inferring. You won’t get it wrong this way!

If this post was helpful, you’d benefit from joining my Telegram Channel where I share exclusive knowledge on how I do SEO.

The post Search Intent: Important Yet Forgotten appeared first on Fur.

source https://firdaussyazwani.com/seo/search-intent

[joel-furniss-blog]

Shitposting and Dada

I discussed briefly in my project statement how I sense a certain lack of ambition and that I enjoy and produce work that is often of low-effort and low-quality, and in the previous semester I intended to sort of trick the examiners into giving me a better mark by overloading them with a quantity of work, trying to sort of test the ‘quality ≠ quantity’ saying. This method of producing work is quite like another of my favourite pastimes, the online behaviour of shitposting.

As vast as its internet domain, shitposting can take up a myriad of different forms on different forums, but a generally agreed definition is ‘posting large amounts of content "aggressively, ironically, and of trollishly poor quality” to an online forum or social network,’. Usually this is in order to derail otherwise orderly online discussions or alternately to bastardize a site to its regular visitors. Its usage dates to the early 00’s under the influence of niche online forums and imageboards, in which comment threads were often derailed from discussion by anonymous users either adding unconstructive posts out of ignorance or malicious intent. The resulting environment of chaotic misuse it results in is commonly referred to as ‘cancer’ (highlighting just how seriously an issue it is thought to be).

From its initial days as a minor annoyance on obscure online sump, shitposting has since changed into a much more mainstream culturally practice, especially in the intersection between internet trolling and politics. With its ability to aggravate, avert information, and overload systems, shitposting has fit well into the maddening expanse of contemporary politics and its sensationalist coverage, its first prominence being in the 2016 United States presidential race among examples of other radicalised internet phenomena—such as the appropriated mascot Pepe the Frog who has his own shitposted legacy—where the internet-savvy right-wing circles used memes as a new age propaganda machine to entertain its recruits and alienate its enemies through a stream of coded slang and images pumped out at a perpetual speed.

A most extreme and unfortunate example of the extent of the radicalization shitposting can cause is the 2019 Christchurch shooting in which an ethno-nationalist terrorist livestreamed his attack on Facebook and released a 74-page manifesto publicly on Twitter and imageboard 8chan as well as being sent directly to more than 30 recipients including multiple media companies and the New Zealand prime ministers office. The manifesto was allegedly littered with multiple memes including references to video game Fortnite, YouTube personality and alt-right running dog PewDiePie, and the classic Navy Seal copypasta, as well as alt-right associated meme and Serbian anti-Muslim turbo-folk song commonly referred to as Remove Kebab, paired with the method of distribution the manifesto could be seen as a most radical version of shitposting, intended to throw out morsels of the shooters philosophy to confuse outsiders and tempt those who might sympathise.

But shitpostings use is not exclusive to the political-right, as left-identifying groups have also used it for their own advancement, such as Facebook group New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens with over 175,000 members who produce and exchange memes and general discourse related to environmentally friendly and socially accommodating urban design schemes and transport reform, whose impact has seen 2020 United States presidential candidate Bernie Sanders become a member and supporter. Shitposting and trolling has even cropped up in the UK political scene, with current Liberal Democrat party leader Jo Swinson having to explicitly state that she does not murder squirrels after a fake screenshot of a news article saying so began circling Twitter.

With its relation to the fake news phenomenon and the post-truth environment, shitposting has found a comfortable place in the current political climate, but for my own sake I have to ask; how does it relate to art. Surprisingly, shitposting—while not in its current form—was very crucial to art history. The conceptual elements of shitposting, its ideas of producing an output of notably low effort, with enough capability to rise reactions from those lacking in acumen, and then continue to overwhelm the viewers by reproducing the same min-effort/max-impact work are comparable to the pursuits of the Dada movement. With its lack of principles, no cohesive aesthetic, and overt anti-normality take on making art, Dada holds many similarities with shitposting. Even contextually they are somewhat parallel, with the birth of Dada spewed from the loins of a WWI-era Europe in which class divisions widened between the uppers who were protected and profiteered from the war and the working class who suffered financially and psychological from its first-hand effects, paired with a spike in nationalism and a deduction in perceived human rights it was the turmoil and the bastardizations of the modern human society that spurred the reflective works of Dada, in essence producing shit art for a shit period. Whilst lacking in the same kind of industrialised killings of a World War, today’s society can be seen as comparable to the same conditions Dada was born under, a sharp rise in nationalism broaching into outright fascism in many places; a correlating increase in alienated peoples changing the other side of the political pendulum; governments which actively undermine their own people for financial gain (as if that’s anything new); consequences from governments decades past haunting marginalised communities and countries; a revolt every other day in every other country; an alphabet or damaging ‘-isms’ and ‘-phobias’; and a general feeling of slow and sinking madness infecting society, it’s easy to see why such absurdist practices as shitposting were born.

It’s easy to see certain similarities, even in famous—or infamous—examples such as Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) which was sent to a gallery exhibition as an absurdist remark on arts dichotomy between the aesthetic and the conceptual, the ceramic shitpost (or rather pisspost) of an overturned urinal embodied the same attitude as a modern shitposts, irritating to any traditionalist constant, and amusing to those who either don’t understand it or do. Shitposting is an effective way to overturn expectations and subvert opinions. Even the way it spread so suddenly, with a rise and fall caught in six years in over ten countries across the globe mimics the viral sensationalism of internet trends, rising to a global impact to suddenly deconstruct itself through saturation.

Both subjects were also entwined with the political game, with Dada practically challenging any traditionalist view it could, condemning the rising nationalist tendencies and capitalist fervour of societal ‘progress’, found especially amongst the Berlin group. Under the depression of the Weimar republic and the following rise in oppression by the Nazi party, German Dadaists continued their absurd political communication and activities through art, with their efforts corralled in with other morally objectionable art labelled as ‘degenerate’—a word that has also found relevance amongst certain shitposters—they rebelled nonetheless, with artist John Heartfield even sending postcards of his work directly to Nazi leaders, a literal shitpost.

However, just as concept and context can be applied, so can criticism to both subjects. Some art historians have noted Dadas perverse relationship with race, with a streak of using racially charged language an imagery with little to know relation or appreciation for other races, especially that of Africans with prominent member George Grosz often performing a minstrel show at the movements epicentre the Cabaret Voltaire and the Incoherents Paul Bilhaud painting an all-black work titled Combat de Nègres dans un Tunnel (Negroes Fighting in a Tunnel by Night, 1882). Paired with a fetishization of racial others as ‘primitive’ Dada had problematic effects, much like shitposting which, as previously discussed, has become lumped in with the narrative of deplorability within right-wing margins, and later majorities. However, from personal experience I have seen just as much shitposting from left-wing sources as right-wing, because it lacks any concrete coding and has evolved from mindless pastime to activist tool, but there are obvious questions on whether politics should be taken in such a Dada direction, whether it’s anti-sense sensibilities will reduce politics to further churlishness that it already is, whether elections will do away with voting systems for a game of ‘how many memes can either side send’.

I’m not here to concern myself with the politics of shitposting, I’m studying this topic from a sincerity past politics and into a wider philosophical scope. I love shitposting, the anonymous nature of the internet lets me crawl into someone else’s life, sew whatever discourse or confusion I can and then promptly leave, like a stray rat running across a kitchen floor only to never be seen again, moved on to another person’s virtual kitchen. However just as a rat searches for food, I search for shitposting grounds that are comfortable to me, things that I care about or have some sort of personal opinion on, things like euthanasia, suicide, societal expectations, abortions, issues on morality, art, and other various philosophical conundrums that I am slowly devolving. In some cases, I think it’s the most earnest thing one can do, to laugh into the void as it were and generate absurdist rebellion to normality that’ll upset its balance. I even think it has practical applications, take into consideration the increase in targeted advertising algorithms, in which websites and apps hijack personal information you send or even speak privately to sell you products. But by streaming false or flagrantly inflated information instead it is possible to confuse and disrupt the targeting algorithms, a small rebellion against corporate injustice. Some may call it sadistic, or sociopathic, or just plain sad to deliberately seek and produce such effortless and meaningless content, but I see it to hone my ideological axe, to build my ideas into more concrete forms. Paired with the previously mentioned anti-normality connotations with the Dada movement, and the current cultural relevance of it, I think the philosophical implications behind shitposting are essential to my current work and I will continue to take inspiration from it.

 “How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, Europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul; dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world’s best lily-milk soap

Why can’t a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first importance.”