#can you tell my art style was heavily influenced by persona

[redpapercraness]

she per on my sona 3 till i reload

[keitopotato9]

Two Worlds, Two Personas

JOURNAL ENTRY # 6: My Attachment Style

ILLUSTRATION ART CREDITS: @nalina_day

Art Description

I have two sides that define me as someone with an anxious-ambivalent attachment style. I created an illustration of a woman with two faces, one of which is paranoid, ill, and odd since that aspect of me was influenced by the events of my past. The past which is still and will always be linked with me that I occasionally still have frights about it. There is also another face that expresses tranquility and glow, which is my current state. A more fulfilled and happier me.

Describe how your attachment style affects your personal relationships by citing your experiences.

I fall under the anxious-ambivalent attachment spectrum. As much as this attachment style is seen as unfavorable it turned out to be essential to me in certain instances.

This sort of attachment style in me was shaped by the demise of my dad and the manner in which my immediate relatives treated me. I used to have a warm and empathic family, but now the family is focused on being practical, avoiding any remaining feelings as much as possible. The family's situation had drastically changed. They became detached and avoidant and I feared of relying too heavily on them for love for that. In addition, even though my dad never intended to pass away, his departure nonetheless took a toll on me deeply for he was my go-to person. I was compelled to remain resilient in the face of brutality, nevertheless. I had completely given up hope as I descended into a deep loneliness. I was damaged and apprehensive of any association with attachment after experiencing the rapid exit of familial affection in my life.

For a while, I shunned others and shut myself away in my own space, yet this also let me realize that I could live with this attachment style. I have come to understand what a liability it is, but I also realize that I have the authority to decide who and how I love. I was able to stay in line by my anxious-ambivalent attachment style, which also gave me the independence and knowledge I needed in order to thrive in this world. I discovered as well to be vigilant of those who I chose to love, trust, and keep in my life. I would argue that this attachment style, however odd it may appear to most, has improved my life in that I have come to understand who to hold onto and become significantly committed to and who to allow to go, which has enabled me to experience a more fulfilling existence.I am not automatically made available to just anyone by it, yet I am also not compelled to shun everyone else either.

Describe how you express your love for another person and how you show commitment to this person or persons.

I have not truly voiced my affection for my family in years; instead, I have centered around how greatly I respect them for continuing to support me monetarily. Yet, I ended up finding a new family, one that I consciously chose and that I hope to be able to keep. Through ongoing service and spending quality time with them, I express my love and commitment for them. Being older than the majority of them drives me to occasionally feel overly protective, and I also enjoy hearing about their typical "kwentos" and "chikas". I allow them to confide in me when they need advice since I have the capacity to listen as well as connect with them. One can say that I am very much attached to them, and they make life more bearable. In order to prevent them from suffering experiences like I did, I try to ensure that they never feel alone, whether it is an ordinary day or a time of crisis.

How will you improve your personal and social relationships?

I do not think I could perform any better in terms of maintaining non-intimate social interactions because I can usually tell whether or not a person is deserving of respect. There is no bias and I can act professionally. Time will tell if I actually have room for improvement in that area. Regarding my personal and intimate connections, I believe I still have a lot to learn about how to avoid hovering too much. I have a tendency to become overly attached and clingy that it can be too much for others.

[sanstropfremir]

Hello I've been meaning to ask if you ever saw the 2017 taemin and jimin (b//tee/ss) collab stage and what your thoughts are on it. People like to debate over who was the "better dancer " which I feel technically isn't to fair to the b&*ts member cause taemin had MANY years to perfect his craft plus had lik a few solo stuff under his belt. For me personally I prefer taemin dance style. Some think that jimin's dance style is more off beat or like emotionally raw? While taemin is more technical but doesn't lose his "face". I'm curious on your thoughts! 💖

hello!!! i have seen it, yes! i agree that i don't really think the comparison is fair, because taemin does have that much more experience but also because they have different style bases. taemin's popping base means that he tends towards sharper and more defined movements that have clear finish points and geometric shapes. and he's fast. jimin has a base much closer and more heavily influenced by contemporary, so he's less focused on stopping his lines in the same way. however i will say this is not necessarily good contemporary practice, but i'm gonna come back to that. jimin is also not very fast. this is not a fault of contemporary practice either, although it does usually tend to be a balladic style. i think there's become a bit of a false equivalency that has happened when a general audience engages with an 'emotional' performance, and that is that emotion and technique are somehow mutually exclusive. that to have a more 'emotional' performance the dancer has to 'break' technique in some way, because apparently if you're really feeling the feelings, technique doesn't matter. i think this has happened for two reasons. the first is reality/competition television and its manipulative editing, and the second is that the 'carelessness' or break makes the performer seem more relatable. we've all fucked something up in the heat of the moment. and although i don't think this line of thinking is totally invalid, i do think that it does kinda defeat the point of performance unless used in very specific circumstances. most of the time you aren't supposed to see the performer underneath the performance. kpop is one of the few forms where that is almost...encouraged? in a way?? it's an art form that's born from cult of personality, so audience engagement with any of the work supersedes the preface of storytelling and goes straight to the admiration of the performer themselves. it's not about how well they can tell a story, its about how well the audience perceives them performing. and i am specifically aiming this at fanbases, not at the idols themselves. a truly exceptional artist doesn't need to sacrifice technique to tell a good story.

and i think here is where we see the main crux of the difference between taemin and jimin as performers: taemin has both an artistic and an idol persona. we know and understand him to do solo work that has a separate artistic meaning to just him being an idol. even though this performance was pre-move, i would still say this applies, because he's hot off press your number, where he's acting in a story based mv. jimin on the other hand just has his idol persona. he's not known for creating the same kind of storytelling that taemin is. while i was drafting this response i got two different asks about bts so i'm gonna save the longer discussion about their brand for those, since this is already getting upwards in the wordcount.

now lets bring it back in to dance specifically; there's a couple things i want to elabourate on. first and foremost, jimin isn't fast enough to keep up with taemin in this choreo. it's much more in line with taemin's style and honestly most idol dancers would have trouble keeping up with taemin. secondly, i said previously that jimin's casual line finishes are not good contemporary practice, and that's true. contemporary does have more emphasis on fluidity and fluid shapes rather than strict geometric ones, but good contemporary has very pointed stops when they're there. and luckily, there's some neat examples that i can use to better illustrate what i'm talking about. byeongkwan from a.c.e has actually done a cover of lie, specifically of the section that jimin does here, AND he precedes it by doing a cover of want!! which hello!!! how much more perfect an example can i get!! byeongkwan has base in hiphop, he's a huge taemin fan, plus he has fantastic body isolation, and if a.c.e can do anything its dance really fucking fast. you can see in the way that he dances want he keeps all the transitions very very fluid, there's very little stop points between positions because that's how taemin dances it; its all about being as fluid as possible, but it still requires a rigidity of form that means that you cannot slack. there's no place here for an errant uncontrolled hand: breaking the technique is breaking the performance. and then watch how he changes that approach going into lie. he has very clear and very fast stops; when he's still, he's still: there's no overshoot on his movements, he's purposeful in his placement.

my other example is taemin has very kindly done a full contemporary routine, just me and you, as a vcr from the ngda beyond live. it's fucking incredible and i full on wept watching it for the first time during the concert. it's an excellent example of good contemporary that doesn't sacrifice technique and is still extremely emotional. also like, not to bring this routine up again for the nth time but ten and winwin's lovely is another great example (this link is a live performance this time). the both of them are have very strong shape creation and i've talked about ten briefly before as a contemporary based dancer but here let me quickly draw your attention to winwin's HANDS. look at them!!!! he has training in chinese traditional dance which has extremely specific hand positions and you can see it; his placements and positions are so specific!!! he's so nice to watch!!!

ok this got longer than i expected but i think i've covered most of my main points pertaining to this specific collab; when i finish the other asks about bts i'll edit a link in here: part two, and part three.

[gianarosegoestothemovies]

New Queer Cinema

Starting from the late 1980s through early 1990s, a “new wave” of queer films became critically acclaimed in the film industry, allowing the freedom of sexuality to be featured in films without the burden of approval from the audience. This raw and honest film genre displays the truth, secrets, and vulnerability of the LGBTQ+ community and the representation that is deserved. The New Queer Cinema movement was started by scholar Ruby Rich who wrote “This movement in film and video was intensely political and aesthetically innovative, made possible by the debut of the camcorder, and driven initially by outrage over the unchecked spread of AIDS. The genre has grown to include an entire generation of queer artists, filmmakers, and activists.” (Rich) This movement started from Rich’s writing piece, not the filmmakers themselves. An article by Sam Moore discusses Rich’s start of the movement. He states, “Rich acknowledges that the films and filmmakers she considers under the umbrella of New Queer Cinema (including Todd Haynes, Cheryl Dunye, Isaac Julien, Gus Van Sant and Gregg Araki), don’t share a single aesthetic vocabulary or strategy or concern.” Instead, they’re unified by the ways that they queer existing narratives, subvert expectations and foreground queerness in material where it had been only implicit” (Moore). The journey through the New Queer Movement started with Ruby Rich defining the movement through her writing and inspiring filmmakers to continue producing movies with the correct representation.

           Actress from Gone with the Wind Susan Hayward claimed that Queer cinema existed “decades” before an official title was given to the genre. French filmmaker Jean Cocteau created Le sang d'un poète in 1934 which is documented as one of the earliest Queer films. This avant-garde style of film is associated with Queer cinema filmmakers such as and is displayed in many upcoming films such as Ulrike Ottinger, Chantal Akerman and Pratibha Parmar. The influence of Queer theory that emerged from the late 1980s helped guide the movement with the creators. The theory states "Challenge and push further debates on gender and sexuality.” Another closely related statement by feminist theory states,"Confuse binary essentialisms around gender and sexual identity, expose their limitations.” Queer cinema filmmakers were sometimes known to depict their films in a “mainstream” way that is agreeable to the audience. There was no exposure to the truths and horrors that the LGBTQ+ community experience and had a lack of representation of historical elements or themes. The concept of “straightwashing” was described to filmmaker Derek Jarman’s 1991 historical film Edward II. This film received backlash from the LGBTQ+ community due to the film’s queer representation catering to heterosexuality and heteronormativity.  

           The truth of the movement was for Queer films to stop romanticizing or bringing positive images of gay men and lesbian woman. The push for authenticity and liberation for the community needed to be represented in films. New Queer films were more radical and sought to challenge social norms of “identity, gender, class, family and society.” (Wikiwand.com).

           To quote the amazing drag queen of all time RuPaul “Everyone is born naked, and the rest is drag” the idea of gender identity and representation in the community is unlimited, why do you need to follow the norms of society when anything is possible? The late 90s documentary Paris is Burning introduced the audience to drag culture in New York City and the people of color who were involved in the community. The term “aesthetic” was repetitive in the research of New Queer Cinema which suggests the significance involved with the style of the films. The documentary includes the aesthetic of the drag world involving the makeup, fashion, and politics. AIDS activism was involved heavily in New Queer films and ridiculed the failure of Ronald Reagans acknowledgment of epidemic and the social stigma experienced by the gay community. Conservative politics occurred during this movement resulting in lack of media coverage and government assistance for the LGTBQ+ community. This political struggle did not discourage the community and the fight is still continuing today.

           Beginning in the 2010s LGBT filmmakers Rose Troche and Travis Mathews created a “newer trend” in queer filmmaking that evolved toward more universal audience appeal. In an article from Wikiwand.com states,

           “Rich, the originator of the phrase New Queer Cinema, has identified the emergence in the late 2000s of LGBT-themed mainstream films such as Brokeback Mountain, Milk, and The Kids Are All Right as a key moment in the evolution of the genre.[20] Both Troche and Mathews singled out Stacie Passon’s 2013 Concussion, a film about marital infidelity in which the central characters' lesbianism is a relatively minor aspect of a story and the primary theme is how a long-term relationship can become troubled and unfulfilling regardless of its gender configuration, as a prominent example of the trend” (Wikiwand).

           The film Watermelon Woman was one of the first queer films I watched for a film class, and this film allowed me to dive deeper into the subject I care a lot about which is the representation of queer narratives about woman of color. Queer woman and men deal with the most discrimination. It is unfair and cruel to see the difference of racial treatment in the LGBTQ+ community because the backbone motto is full exclusion and equal rights. The film Watermelon Woman shined light on LGBTQ+ black woman and interrogated the “Mammy” stereotype that most films depict about black actresses. Minority narratives were pushed into the circuit of the movement with developed into the later academy-award winning film Moonlight that displays those representations makes film history!

           Films to recognize in the height of the New Queer film movement are

Mala Noche (1986), Gus Van Sant, was an exploration of desire through the eyes of a young white store clerk named Walt and his obsession with a young undocumented immigrant named Johnny. The film is shot in black and white on 16mm film, contains many of the early Van Sant fixations that viewers would later see get refined in My Own Private Idaho, including male hustlers, illegality, and class.

Chinese Characters (1986), Richard Fung, this early film asks still-pressing questions about the nature of gay desire when it’s mediated via pornographic images of white men. The video defies genre, mixing documentary with performance art and archival footage to explore the tensions of being a gay Asian man looking at porn.

Looking for Langston (1989), Isaac Julien, this short film, a tribute to the life and work of Langston Hughes, is a beautiful and vibrant elegy. Julien creates a lineage of queer black ancestors for himself. The film moves like the poetry it recites, playing with the gaze and how various eyes look upon the black male body.

Tongues Untied (1989), Marlon Riggs, guided by the writer Joseph Beam’s statement, “Black men loving black men is the revolutionary act,” Riggs goes through his own complicated journey of homophobia from other black people, and then racism in the gay community, to find a community of queer black people.

Poison (1991), Todd Haynes, the three parts of the film tell a story about ostracism, violence, and marginality: the bullied child who allegedly flies away after shooting his father in order to save his mother (“Hero”), a brilliant scientist who accidentally ingests his own serum to become the “leper sex killer” (“Horror”), and a sexual relationship between two men in a prison (“Homo”). Exploits radical work that Haynes later uses in his other films.

The Living End (1992), Gregg Araki, the film follows Luke, a sexy homicidal drifter who has a distaste for T-shirts, and Jon, an uptight film critic in Los Angeles. Both are HIV-positive, and as their relationship unfolds, they fight about being respectful or lustrous.  

Swoon (1992), Tom Kalin, a black and white film that romanticizes wealthy Chicago lovers kill a 14-year-old boy named Bobby Franks because they want to see if they are smart enough to do it. The murder is more a play of power between them, with Loeb weaponizing sex as a way to control Leopold.

Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (1992), Mark Rappaport, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies is a documentary made up of glances and innuendos from Rock Hudson’s persona, displaying how this dashing, leading man of the Hollywood Golden Age was a closeted gay man.

MURDER and Murder (1996), Yvonne Rainer, is known for her experimental filmmaking and choreography, this film represents a late-in-life lesbian named Doris who suffers from neuroses and breast cancer. Her partner, Mildred, a queer academic, tells the story of their romance as older women. Rainer also makes appearances throughout the film in a tux, going on rants about smug homophobic parents while showing her bare chest with a mastectomy scar.

           1992 was the year of the highest amount of New Queer films being produced and exceeding box office expectations. Upcoming 2000s films such as “Booksmart”, “Call me by your Name”, “The Prom”, and “Rocketman” all represent the truths and authenticity of the LGBTQ+ community and creates pathways for more films to include these cinematic themes. The movement continues to grow and succeed in the film industry with new creators and actors being more honest about the LGBTQ+ community.

[fytaem]

Taemin: the Singer Stretching the Boundaries of K-Pop

{171107} Another Man From a shy member of SHINee to a confident solo artist in his own right, this 24-year-old Korean is fearlessly blazing his own trail

The duality of Lee Taemin – a member of legendary K-Pop group SHINee, and a successful soloist – is well known to his legions of fans. His performances are intense and highly visceral experiences, heavily influenced by Michael Jackson: he sings hooky electronic pop songs like Drip Drop with a inviting, breathy urgency, while utilising cinematic instrumentals and vocals (Flame of Love) to showcase his skills as a modern dancer. In contrast to his stage persona, however, the 24-year-old is down-to-earth, sweet and sometimes shy – traits which, given that he’s been globally famous for nearly a decade, have become particularly cherished. Yet TAEMIN, as he stylises his stage name, has long seen his public image as far more multifaceted. “I feel that there’s many different sides of me,” he says. “And there’s so much more that I’d like to show, which is why I try different and new things, things that others cannot do, with each release. All of my albums are who I was at that time in my life, and MOVE closely represents who I am today.” As a long-standing artist with a rock solid fandom, Taemin does indeed have the fortune to experiment and thrusts forward with MOVE, his second solo album and a taut, bass and synth driven single of the same name. He released three videos for the latter (a main cut, an ensemble performance with female dancers, and a duo dance), all which visually stretch the clearly gendered boundaries of K-Pop. By combining male and female-centric dance moves, he blurred those long-distinct lines into one sinuous and powerfully sensual performance that disregarded gender entirely, while also challenging himself with a tighter and more primal choreography than he’s danced previously. “THERE’S SO MUCH MORE THAT I’D LIKE TO SHOW, WHICH IS WHY I TRY DIFFERENT AND NEW THINGS, THINGS THAT OTHERS CANNOT DO, WITH EACH RELEASE” – TAEMIN Influential Japanese choreographer, Koharu Sugawara, is behind this groundbreaking step away from K-Pop’s norms. Having previously worked with TAEMIN on his solo material and on the dance TV show, Hit The Stage, their formidable presence can been seen on the duo version of MOVE. “The dance flows from her emotions. When I watch her, I can instantly interpret what she’s feeling at that moment rather than admiring her choreography,” TAEMIN says. “Koharu doesn’t teach me the choreography, she tells me about it. Where I sway my hips in MOVE, she gave a long explanation: ‘I thought about how there would be girls surrounding you, and I was dancing like this because I want you to think that I’m the only guy here and I’m the best. I want you stand out even more’. I was able to understand what she wanted me to express, which cannot be delivered just by learning the choreography. She’s an amazing friend and she truly makes me want to become an artist who can express these deep emotions like she does.” Although TAEMIN, who speaks assuredly and articulately about his work, received support from those around him, what he created with MOVE didn’t come without reservations. “I was definitely worried about trying something new,” he admits. “I could have chosen a safer route and done music that’s more popular in K-Pop, but I wanted to expand its musical spectrum, to stand out from the rest, and create something that could bring out my identity more.” “I COULD HAVE CHOSEN A SAFER ROUTE AND DONE MUSIC THAT’S MORE POPULAR IN K-POP, BUT I WANTED TO EXPAND ITS MUSICAL SPECTRUM” – TAEMIN From the teenager who, by his own admission, struggled as a vocalist to the point of not singing on SHINee’s earliest record, to becoming a confident, respected and well-rounded artist, his personal growth has often felt like public property. But behind the glossy, high-achieving exterior of awards, record sales, world tours and countless interviews, TAEMIN was attempting to map out who he was more deeply, and experiencing issues of ambition and confusion familiar to everyone. “When I was 16 and 17 years old, I dreamed of becoming a perfect, a more complete artist by the time I turned 20,” TAEMIN recalls of his expectations. “However, I realised that you don’t transform into a completely new person just because you become an adult and, before I realised it, I’d already turned 20 yet still wanted to become a better artist.” Even now, as an influential and successful pop star, he spends plenty of private time considering the evolution of that public persona. “Before I fall asleep, I always think about how I could be more acknowledged as an artist, a good one,” he adds. “I think about how I could let people know more about my music and what kind of an artist I am. My head is filled with these thoughts nowadays.” “BEFORE I FALL ASLEEP, I ALWAYS THINK ABOUT HOW I COULD BE MORE ACKNOWLEDGED AS AN ARTIST, A GOOD ONE” – TAEMIN TAEMIN may already be contemplating his next step, but MOVE commands your attention in the now as an impressively complete body of work that augments the ideas, styles and emotions begun on his first solo album, Press It. Drip Drop’s natural successor is Crazy 4 U, the complex rhythms of which TAEMIN says made it “the most difficult song to record”. The acoustic Back To You is a natural stand-out, with an aching vocal that’s the result of TAEMIN recalling “every sad memory or thought possible”. “There are times when I’m emotionally overwhelmed,” he says. “Since I’m now in my mid-20s, the way I sing and express the lyrics have matured. I remember trying to figure out how to make my vocals deliver a deeper emotion as I was recording, but this song really does express that maturity, especially from my tone.” It also contains his first female duet, the light push and pull of Heart Stop with Red Velvet’s Seulgi. “We spent our trainee days together, she has very charming vocals and I thought that we should work on something like this one day,” he explains. Rise and Love on the other hand are the opulent, emotive songs he embodies so well, and Thirsty, with its creeping trap snare, pulsing bass and provocative lyrics is a statement of desire and adulthood. While some artists might feel jaded after nearly ten years in the industry, TAEMIN remains continually fuelled to create. “I receive inspiration from everything, whether that be from art, fashion, or a book. I truly believe that art comes from the five senses,” he enthuses. “It’s important to really feel the sense of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, but to pick one, I’d say that I receive the most inspiration from what I see, like a landscape, backdrop or cultural symbols. Oh, and I get inspiration from my imagination these days. For instance, when I look at the interior of the building, I try to imagine how I’d like to design the overall look and feel of it. Or sometimes the clothes that people wear that day reflect their overall mood, so I imagine why they chose the clothes and what emotion they were feeling at the time.” “I’VE PUSHED MYSELF TO CREATE MY OWN UNIQUE IDENTITY THAT DIFFERS FROM THE STANDARD K-POP” – TAEMIN He records what’s he’s discovered mostly through notes, but “there are times I just absorb and feel it then forget what it was,” TAEMIN continues. “When I say that I ‘forget’, it doesn’t mean that I really forget. What I felt doesn’t disappear, it’s like the emotions gradually build up then, one day when I think of a situation, the emotions that have been building up rush back to me.” For TAEMIN, who, like most K-Pop artists, has embodied dozens of visual concepts when performing with his group, the ones behind his solo work have come to represent something more sustainable but, simultaneously, less constrained. “I believe MOVE goes beyond being a concept, the album cannot be simply defined. There’s actually more to it than it meets the eye, it consists of different elements within the concept itself. I wanted my album to have a consistency where the concept can contain personality and the mood that my music carries,” he says with conviction. “This is why I’ve pushed myself to create my own unique identity that differs from the standard K-Pop, and I will continuously challenge myself to find diverse ways to express my music.”

[jemimaboultonmessagesmultiverse]

14/09

Today we thought about ways to visually represent something and communicate our chosen message. As a class we discussed how we and others communicate and made a spider diagram containing all our ideas. During this lesson we looked at how 2 other artists, Nate Kitch and Ben Giles communicate their messages through visual representation and began to think about what metaphors and imagery we could link to our articles.

Nate Kitch

Nate Kitch is an illustrator who works in a very abstract way to display a message and communicate his meaning to the audience. He is inspired by geometric and abstract artists, particularly Picasso, and enjoys the idea of constructivism. HIs work is also heavily influenced by the art of the suprematism movement, especially Malevich and his take of displaying a 4th dimension to his work despite it just seeming like a simple shape on a canvas at first glance. Many of his works are political, for example “Mr President”,

Which depicts Donald Trump in a very dark, somewhat demonic way, and he is making the shape of a swastika with his arms. He uses the method of collage in all of his work and sends his messages through his choices of shapes and colours. The colours within this piece are red and black possibly to further link to the swastika and Hitler, to enforce the idea that Trump is a fascist. Kitch even included a very small moustache on Trumps face to represent Hitler even more prominently. The colour yellow can have connotations of cowardice, which could mean that the yellow eyes given to Trump in this piece could be Kitch’s way of calling Trump a coward for the way he has dealt with America’s issues. The most obvious link to the stars in the background is that they could be a metaphor for the United States since there are many stars on the flag. On the collar of the shirt there is some print which looks like it could be from a newspaper, possibly as a representation to how Trump is always in the media for his constant controversy.

Kitch doesn’t commonly use type in his art and instead prefers to use “visual metaphors” and make his audience think about what he has created and what it may mean. He makes a conscious choice to make the messages behind his art important and something that people need to be aware of so that he feels like his work has a purpose and isn't pointless. An example of his art that has a deeper meaning could be a series he did based around a book by Oliver Sacks called “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”, which is about his patients who had the most rare mental disorders he had come across and the hardships they faced.

This piece is called “Lost Marina”  and it spreads the message of the effects of the rare psychological condition, Korsakoff syndrome. In this man’s case, the “error of his mind” has caused him to be unable to form new memories, and therefore he wakes up in the morning and still believes he is a 19 year old boy in the Marines, when in fact he is a 49 year old man. He finds himself unable to perceive the man looking back at him in the mirror as himself. Nate Kitch creates an “abstraction” of this man’s mind by communicating his condition in a visual metaphor.

The line through the middle of this illustration works as a mirror line, displaying the differences between the mans perception of himself and how he actually is. The large 19 could be on the line to connote that despite appearing differently and not still being a marine or young, the man feels as though he is 19 on both sides of the reflection. Shape is used to connect all elements of the story together, as the pink circle makes a visual link between both sides of line and joins almost all elements of the composition together. This could be to further emphasise the message that this man is mentally the same in both years, as he cant generate the new memories which would let him mature and progress. The blue in the background could be the sea in which he still thinks he finds himself as he believes he is still working as a marine, and therefore the colour is in the entire background to encompass how he is trapped in a state of false beliefs.

After looking at Nate Kitch’s work I have realised I should think more about what shapes I decide to use and how the colours I pick interact with eachother to create a message and tell the narrative I want them to. I really enjoy the limited colour palette he works with in each of his pieces and how the are all block colours, giving an effect similar to pop-art. I could do this in my own work to make a cohesive final product. His image choice is also all very purposeful and select and in my own work I could be more considerate about what images I choose to let represent my article. He also makes me consider experimenting with using little to no type to create my visual metaphor and make my audience think about what they are looking at.

Ben Giles

Ben Giles is a collage artist who tell the audience his message through vibrant collages commonly featuring flowers and nature. There is absolutely no type in any of his work and instead he relies solely on the carefully picked imagery and colours within his work. His work is entirely done by hand and he creates intricate compositions with simple images. The longer you look at his art the more you notice, for example at first this collage might just look like a man with flowers coming out of his collar, but the more you look you notice that they aren’t just flowers and in fact include eyes and mouths.

The bright flowers are a very positive image, representing celebration, new life and happiness, which is very contradicting to the deep blue of the man’s suit and the positioning of his arms. Blue can be a very sad dull colour and the crossed closed off body language could imply that the message behind this piece could be that this man is keeping all of his blooming thought, the flowers, hidden behind his cold demeanour. Another interpretation of this could be related to male mental health, and how because he is a man he feels as though he has to hide his emotions and be strong. A more simple way to view this image could be that the blue suit represents water and the body is a vase which is allowing the flowers to grow.

The black background makes the colour of the flowers appear much more vibrant. By making the flowers the focal point and not including more imagery in the background we can assume that the flowers and what they mean is the most important part of the message within the piece. The black behind the flowers could also hold the message of a darkness that this man is hiding behind a colourful cheery persona.

This collage depicts some hands either catching or spilling lots of clocks. The message that I think Ben Giles was trying to get across in this collage is how we have no control over time, and the fact that all the clocks are at different times could be a link to the fact that time is a construct made by humans and it could've been constructed completely differently, so it doesn’t matter or even really exist.

I really like the style and techniques Ben Giles uses in his work, as collaging is one of my favourite techniques and I think he does in a really appealing way, since he makes simple everyday objects into fascinating, somewhat whimsical pieces that have so many things in them to notice that they never get boring. In addition to this, the enigmatic feel his work has really appeals to me since there is no clear cut meaning or correct interpretation of them and that means that there is a lot to think about when trying to analyse the messages behind his work and what he his trying to communicate. 

When using what I have learned from his work in my own work I will try and make collages in which the meaning is not clear cut, and try and make many interpretations seem as though they may be what I intended. I will also try to include many different simple images within a collage without type to push myself to really consider how I will space and intertwine all the different pieces I have together. Another thing I like about a lot of his work is how he chooses to allow one solid colour to function as the background, as that is something I have never done in my own collaging but really like the effect of so I could try it for myself.

My own visual representation of my article

When beginning my own visual representation for my article “CIA makes Robot Dragonfly Spies”, I first thought about what things could visually link to the ideas portrayed within that headline. My main ideas came from the imagery of contrasting metal and technology with nature, fitting the link between robots and bugs. I took this idea and began to make a background in which half of it is colourful and a collage of images such as leaves and water, and the other half is grey and images of pipes and metal and other things which fit the colour scheme and theme.

When cutting up these images to place them on the page i kept to very harsh angles and used irregular shapes in a similar way to Nate Kitch. I think it worked very well and overall I believe the background I created for the rest of the collage worked to create the contrast I desired. I kept a white gap between these two halves as I intended to use other imagery to connect them later, and I didn't want the page to be too crowded and dark. The white works as a way of breaking up the darkness.

When I added the bug and the type I positioned them in such a way to connect the background together. By positioning the bug in the centre and leaving a white border around it I believe I make it clear that the bug is a central part to the message I am trying to share. It also works as a visual link between the background. The type also connects the background as it functions as a continuous element across both halves of the composition. I added the type as I felt the overall page would look better if it had more things to look at on it, it wasn't full enough for my liking before the type. The type also makes my message clearer as the audience can read it to understand what is happening. I chose to cut my letters out of magazines so that the only technique on the page would be collage, similar to Ben Giles.

Overall I am very happy with this piece and I think made an interesting piece which displays my message. I would like to work more with the inspiration I took from Nate Kitch and Ben Giles and make more pieces similar to this. I believe my choice of colours and how I made them work against eachother does a convincing job of representing nature and technology. When I do this again I will use some backgrounds which are solid colour and I will avoid type since my intention with this was to use less type but I used it anyway.

[drvinyl]

Interview: Two Weeks in Nashville

Words by Charlotte Christie  

On a white square sat the words: ‘Do not mistake my kindness for weakness’. I liked it. I scrolled on. I didn’t think about it again until I got a chance to interview Two Weeks In Nashville.  

As part of an industry which has its ups and downs, it can be hard to keep positive, let alone actively positive. Similar to the Instagram Post, T.W.I.N’s bright outlook is not the easy route, but nevertheless it’s a simple statement which defies the norm. Last week, I discovered that their glass-half-full attitude is certainly as catchy as their hooks, something that resonates with people in a way 2020 has so far yet to.

For those just discovering Two Weeks In Nashville, how did you all meet and start making music?  

Billy and Jonny first met playing football as young lads. Discovering a shared passion for music, they set out to find a full band line up. After months of auditions, Ian was given the drumming role even though he auditioned for keys and had never played drums before in his life. After seeing videos of the trio, Marc got in touch and the final lineup was cemented.

I hear that you are isolating together - that’s unusual! How do you keep your creativity flowing on a day-to-day basis?  

Yes we feel very lucky to have been isolating together. With the sudden lack of all distractions due to Corona, we’ve never been so productive! Creating music, videos etc for the band has always been our passion, and luckily that has not changed now that there is little else to do.]

I loved your latest single: The Truth Is Just Counterfeit. Can you tell me how is it personal to you?  

Thank you! ‘The Truth Is Just Counterfeit’ was written to point a finger at all the takers out there. In a climate of fake personas, how do you know who to trust?

Before COVID hit, you guys were selling out venues left, right and centre! Are there any pre/post gig rituals that you have and miss?  

Each of us have our own pre gig routine: Marc will only speak in French for two hours before the set time. He believes he channels the fighting spirit of the 'Révolution française’. Billy likes to be called “Young Sting” around the venue for obvious reasons. Jonny likes to smoke a coffee and drink a cigarette, and Ian has to have his forty winks. Post gig it’s every man for himself.

Sounds very Rock and Roll. Speaking of which… If you could go back in time and play music in any other era, when would it be and why?  

The 60s and 70s as our sound and style is heavily influenced by the bands of that generation.

Besides music or other musicians, are there any books/movies/paintings/places/poems or plays, which have inspired you creatively?  

We are fans of Absurdist art and poetry- increasingly it feels like life is turning into an irrational dystopian play, and we have no control in the audience.

Where do you hope music takes you in the future?

After two months of staying at home social distancing, literally anywhere!

Ha! Good answer. Right. One more question. (Sort of).  

Finish these sentences:  

We believe that Humans...  

Should listen to 'The Truth Is Just Counterfeit'.

We wish people would ask us about...  

'The Truth Is Just Counterfeit'.

At the end of the rainbow there is...  

'The Truth Is Just Counterfeit'.

But when no one else will listen...  

We know that lyric, it’s from 'The Truth Is Just Counterfeit' which you can check out on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, SoundCloud, Amazon Prime.

Our biggest hurdle has been...  

Recording 'The Truth Is Just Counterfeit'.

Aliens are…

Listening to 'The Truth Is Just Counterfeit'.

If we were cartoon characters, we’d be...  

The Winnie the Pooh Gang listening to 'The Truth Is Just Counterfeit'.

The thing we want everyone to feel when they listen to our music is…  

Wow, I need to watch the music video to 'The Truth Is Just Counterfeit’, out now.

[namitaylor99]

Critical Thinking

After discussing to my teacher about my project 2 concept and where I will be heading and achieving in the next couple days in order to produce my work. She advise me to complete an activity “Critical Thinking”. This activity involves me looking further into Shermans work and addressing her surrounding of the making of her work and how it impacted her work at the time. While I have done much research on Shermans art practice, and will be incorporating her aesthetic style by doing this activity it will allow me to understand and gain a deeper insight into her work conceptually and help me shape my own work. 

Name of Artist/Project

Cindy Sherman “Untitled #96″ 

1981

MediumChromogenic color print

61 cm × 120 cm (24 in × 48 in)

DESCRIPTION

The artists has captured a young girl lying on a tile floor looking away from the camera, while holding a scrunched up paper. The cropped image and the gaze looking out all creates a mysterious aroma. The use of subtle lighting projects a cinematic effect on the image as a whole, as if it has been taken out of a film, which I believe Shermans was trying to portray. The colour orange is shown consistently throughout the image and is balanced by the warm lighting tones.

VISUAL ANALYSIS / BROADER CONTEXT

Sherman, once again has transformed herself, adopting into the persona of a young teenage girl. The artists has projected a seductive and anxiety-inducing atmosphere that has been formed by the subtle elements and techniques used. This can been in the artificial light that appears almost theatrical or cinematographic, heightening the drama of the composition.

The artists camera work, of the horizontal format comments on the bold centrefold of men’s erotic magazines. In doing so she ultimately forces the viewer to reflect on this photographic cliche.

Shermans photograph, sparked many controversy within the court, becoming a source of intense debate and dividing critics over its implied social commentary.

In Untitled #96 it was argued that the aerial vantage point over the adolescent girl highlighted the victimisation of women in society. Contemporary critic Laura Mulvey understood the photograph as a comment on the 'phallic male gaze’ and the 'fetishization’ of women. As she explained, ’[the centrefolds] announce themselves as photographs and, as in a pinup, the model’s eroticism, and her pose, are directed towards the camera, and ultimately towards the spectator" (L. Mulvey quoted in Cindy Sherman, Museum of Modern Art, New York 2012, p. 31). Certainly there is a suggestion of the nave school girl with her burgeoning sexuality expressed in the apparently nonchalant upturned skirt, the bee-stung red lips, heavily blushed cheekbones and glossy, pillar box red nail varnish.

Much has been said of the motivations behind each of Sherman’s characters, viewers attempting to extrapolate the narratives beyond the artist’s original intentions. In Untitled #96, perhaps the most 'story-telling’ of the pictures, Sherman elaborated the scenario quite simply: “I was thinking of a young girl who may have been cleaning the kitchen for her mother and who ripped something out of the newspaper, something asking 'Are you lonely?’ or 'Do you want to be friends?’ or 'Do you want to go on a vacation?’ She’s cleaning the floor, she rips this out and she’s thinking about it” (C. Sherman quoted in P. Schjeldahl, Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Akron Art Museum, 1987, p. 11). This simple explanation is reinforced by the picture’s composition in which no one element is prioritised over another, the face of the girl treated with the same dispassionate emphasis as the checkered linoleum floor

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION & EVALUATION

Analysing and viewing Shermans untitled #96, it’s interesting and fascinating in the way she has constructed a series challenging the whole notion around the Male Gaze. The horizontal format refers to the centrefold in men’s erotic magazines however while she was inspired by this composition, she also wanted to comment the feminist realm surround personal space.

Her artificial lighting in her images, creates this dramatic illusion of realism, as if the audience themselves are in the image. This creates a tension of feeling uncomfortable, where these highly sexual images makes us feel as if we shouldn’t be viewing them.

I personally believe Shermans Centrefold’s series was commenting on the Male Gaze and in a period of feminists rising she challenges these gaze really exploring what it means to be a women in this male influenced society.

_____________________

Development of Concept (brainstorming/dot points)

Analysing Cindy Sherman and her series ‘Centrefolds’, she explores the theme of the “Male Gaze”. She creates these photographic images inspired by erotic male magazines in order provoke controversy surrounding sexism. For Project 2, I have decided to ‘copy’ not only Sherman’s unique art practice of self portraiture, but extend on her conceptual idea further. I will be constructing three still images that hold many similarities to the image Untitled #96, of a young girl caught in the moment looking out into the world, unaware of her surroundings. However, I will be also raising questions of the development if sexism throughout the years, and how has women in society have evolved into more important roles

empowerment images of women (me lol) standing proud - being educated, not sexualised,

Blazers / ties - heightening masculinity

Stern looks not sexualised however project empowerment

Office ladies

Sherman’s use of high angle shots looking down at the subject - she makes women seem if they are objectified - perhaps using low angle shots to create an illusion of women feeling empowered in the office - knowledge is key

[shuttaapp]

Skate to create: Neal Boyd

Neal Boyd, a.k.a Grimcity, has spent more than 30 years surfing on the concrete. Although he does it mainly for fun, he has accidentally compiled an enormous experience in this field.

In this interview, we talk with Neal Boyd about skateboarding, how we got his start, his Youtube channel, the pro skaters who influenced him most, and his thoughts about the skateboarding scene.

1. Where are you originally from?

I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, raised in Jackson, Louisiana, and have lived in Hamond, Louisiana since 1995. I claim Hammond as my home. We're between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, so it's a perfect spot to be in.

2. What's your favorite quality in a person?

Honesty, ethics, and a really good sense of humor.

3. How and when did you discover skateboarding?

When I was 10 years old, I lived in a really small, rural neighborhood. One of my my neighbors had bought a skateboard for his kid, but it never got used. We lived on top of a hill, and as I played with it I eventually was given permission to use it whenever I wanted to. It was basically given to me. The year was 1985.

4. Where does your online name “grimcity” come from?

When I was in college, I self-published a comic book for a little over a year… It was violent, but also very, very comedic. The name of the city where all the action took place in was “Grim City.” I'd also created a comic strip character that I'd used for comic strips (and the comic book) named “Grim,” so in the relatively early days of the internet I just used “grimcity” as my online persona.

Some of my friends call me Grim in real life, though I'm completely the opposite of a grim person… I'm actually very geeky and goofy and I have a lot of love for everything. My nature is very positive, so the nickname “Grim” and “grimcity” is kind've a joke in and of itself.

5. What was your first board and your first memory of skateboarding?

The first board I can claim was the one my neighbor (Mr. Tom) basically gave to me… It was a Variflex he'd bought for his own kid, but he let me ride it as much as I wanted to. I feel in love with it more than his little one did, so I really owe him a lot... He literally exposed me to skateboarding.

After that I had a Nash from a a department store (due to not having any money), but my first pro board was a Jeff Grosso from Santa Cruz. He's a living legend, and I've been fortunate enough to hang out with him. Really love that guy.

My first memory of skating was really just being a little 10 year old kid going really fast down the hills surrounding where I lived. We were a small town, and this was pre-internet, so I didn't even know how big skating was back then.

6. You created a Youtube channel which already has more than 4.000 subscribers and a 100 videos. Tell us a little bit about it. What is the main purpose of the channel?

The channel has actually been around for a while now… A little over 10 years I think? When I first started it it was simply to store videos because my hard drives were running out of space. After that, I got into doing really in-depth skate product reviews, and though I've slacked on that a bit, my focus lately has been making self-filmed skate videos with a focus on composition, color, and framing. If you look at my later videos with the eyes of a photographer, rather than a videographer or even a skateboarder for that matter, it makes more sense.

7. Who has been your biggest influence on your skateboarding?

When I was a kid, everyone was an influence… I wanted to ollie as high as Natas Kaupas, become an all terrain guy like The Gonz, skate fast like Tommy Guerro, float in the air like Hosoi, be as funny as Grosso, and skate as raw as all of the Sick Boys, who were a group of guys from San Francisco (some already mentioned) that included Jim Thiebaud, Julien Stranger, Ron Allen, Mickey Reyes, Archimedes, and a huge list of other people.

These days I'm a lot older, but I'm still influenced by a lot of people. Jim Thiebaud and I wound up becoming really good friends several years back, as well as my man Mickey Reyes. They run my favorite skateboard company (Deluxe) and even if I'd never met them, I'd be riding everything they make, including Real Skateboards, Thunder trucks, and Spitfire wheels. They have a huge influence on me because the company uses skateboarding to help people in need, from helping hurricane victims to providing money to facilities that help kids beat cancer.

I'm also heavily influence by the younger skaters that I roll with here in my city. I've seen them develop from wobbly-legged beginners to absolute skate machines over the years. I thrive on that. Many of these kids have tricks that I will never, ever be able to land, but that's part of passing the torch. I love my Hammond locals, and they push me as hard as I push them to progress in our own respective ways.

8. What's your favorite trick and who do you think does a perfect version of that trick?

I have two: the first one is the Ollie Impossible, and the perfect ones were done by Dylan Rieder who sadly passed away in 2016. Secondly, I love doing simple little kickflips, and to see them done perfectly, I stare in awe whenever Dennis Busenitz does them (or any variation of them).

9. Are Pro skaters role models?

Pro skaters are just like everybody else. If they are role models, I don't think they mean to be. Having said, they're definitely influential. I think kids try to emulate the tricks and styles they see from pros, but as with everyone, we have our good and bad sides. If I were to direct a kid towards someone who might be a role model both in the act of skateboarding as well as just being a good person, I'd list them as follows:

1. Daewon Song: He's the embodiment of progression, and he's a genuinely good person. He's about as old as I am, and like me, he's still a kid at heart that just wants to skate.

2. John Cardiel: His energy, positivity, and drive are the embodiment of what skateboarding is. He's a legend, and if you were to ask most pro skaters who their favorite pro was, they'd say Cardiel. He suffered a catastrophic injury which was supposed to make him unable to walk again, but he defeated it. When you watch any of his old footage, it compels you to get up, grab your board, and go for it.

3. Rodney Mullen: He invented most of the street tricks we do today, but more importantly to me, he's always continuing his education in other areas, including higher maths and architecture. It's one thing to simply become a better skateboarder, but it's also important to expand your knowledge base with other subjects, from the arts to astrophysics. Knowledge is easy to access today, and if you're not skating, I recommend reading a good non-fiction book or at least listening to an academic lecture on any given topic on You Tube. Lots of universities post lectures online, so there's no reason not to get a better understanding of the world. I watch or listen to at least one lecture a day, and on weekends I try to get at least two.

10. What's your go-to spot?

I live right around the corner from the concrete park I shoot video at in my YouTube and Instagram videos, but one of my favorite places (which I've documented a lot online, including Shutta) is a yellow parking curb next to a fountain. It's simply a curb in a secluded location where I can go and clear my head.

11. Who do you usually skate with?

Our local park is a family… The Dreamland squad. We have a couple of crews inside that family, namely the Therapy crew and the False Teeth crew. I also skate with a ton of friends from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette.

12. Have you ever joined a competition?

I have, but I'm not really a competitive skater. Most of the contests I've entered have been here in Louisiana, so for us it's not so much about winning as it is an opportunity to see everyone you know and have a really good time. Our contests are more like family reunions.

13. As one of the best skaters in the app and winner of one #ShuttaMission, explain to us how has your experience been when taking photos with Shutta.

I'd hate being known as one of the best skaters using the app! I prefer thinking I'm the best at having fun at skating, which is hopefully a sentiment shared by every skater!

I sincerely love the app, and am working on a video about it to get some more skaters involved with it. I started using Shutta before the user interface was redesigned, and still use it when I'm out recording. It's better at getting precise screen captures from videos than taking stills directly from the iPhone, the wheel tool that allows you to scrub through the timeline is brilliant. A lot of skateboard tricks are less than a second long (like jumping over something), and the “peak” part of that trick is probably down into the milliseconds… So being able to easily get to the exact moment you want to capture is just the best. I also like that I get an image saved to my camera's library, and simultaneously get to share it with an international community of people that get hyped when they see something new.

I'm also very appreciative that Shutta picked me as a winner for the “Freeze” contest. I'm a geek by nature, and the Tomtom Bandit camera is really well made. I've been using it a ton! I still can't believe I believe I won something like this by just going out in my town and skating like I always do. There are aspects of it that I prefer over my GoPro and my iPhone, so it's with me everywhere I go, even if I'm not skateboarding.

14. Any views on the skateboarding scene?

On a local level, I'm extremely happy that skaters today have it easier than my generation did. Skateboarding in the states wasn't looked at positively by a large swath of society for a long time, it was all underground, and growing up, I got into a ton of fights with people who would literally walk up to aggressively and instigate violence. We were punk rock/hip hop street kids that skated and ate concrete for fun, so we always had to handle confrontations as best we could. These days, there's been a mainstreaming of skateboarding that has allowed it to progress in ways I never thought it would, but I'm a bit conflicted, if not hypocritical of it. On one hand, I love that there are skateparks popping up everywhere, but on the other I hate seeing the media portray skateboarding as a sport, and I don't like the idea of it being in the Olympics. I'm glad that there's a boost of revenue for the pro skaters and skate companies that benefit from all of this exposure, but the old sentimental side of me still kind've misses the anti-establishment nature that skating had when I got into it.

15. What do you have planned for the near future?

My plans today are the same as they always have been… I want to push myself in whatever direction skateboarding takes me, and I want to do what I can at being a better person in general. I just want to be a good global neighbor, be the best at what I do professionally (computer geekery), and hopefully help the up and coming skaters in my area know more about the roots of skateboarding. The main goal is to ensure that the kids I skate with now become really old skaters like me.

Go follow Neal Boyd on Shutta and subscribe to his Youtube channel to see more!

All pics by Neal Boyd.

[talk-time-live]

TALKTIMELIVE.COM EXCLUSIVE with YEO: by Daxavier Josiah

37 years game developer Vadim Gilyazetdinov from Moscow, Russia, goes by the name “YEO”, which is a nickname he came up with in his school days while achieving a high score in a racing game. The name also pays homage to his appreciation and fandom for the Japanese culture. 

YEO has a passion and ambition to bring his narrative to life in the form of his favorite fandom which is video games. This led YEO (and his team) to create one of the most compelling retro 2D open world games out now for STEAM and recently Nintendo Switch called “The friends of RINGO ISHIKAWA.” which has received much praise by fans and media. I had the opportunity of talking with YEO about the creation of this title and more more. 

DAX: Where did your journey begin as a game developer?

YEO: I wanted to be connected with game development since University (I have a master’s degree in chemistry) but I didn’t know how to code and I couldn’t draw (I believed that I was good at writing dialogues though) so I applied to some Russian game development companies for any minor junior role they had but they just ignored me. It was no wonder since I hadn’t any work experience.

I started to work at some government company and in 2006 I was introduced to Game Maker 6.1 by my colleague and close friend with whom we run first Russian Nekketsu fan-site. And I made some beat-em-up action with Kunio-Kun sprites in a week ) And it was like whole new world opened for me )

But I never thought that I could do commercial games. I was just having fun with Nekketsu of Mighty Final Fight sprites. I made some small games with them for my local web friends and for myself and most importantly for the process of doing it. Since I don’t believe in result too much, you could achieve it or not, but the process is what you got anyway, so if it was fun and interesting that’s more than enough.

DAX: How many people did it take to develop this game as well as how long did it take to develop it?

YEO: The Steam made possible for small developers to be introduced to the large audience. And when my fellow developer passed Greenlight and then successfully released a game in 2015 I started to think of doing the same. I had quite good and stable job as a team leader at the Moscow IT Government Department so I could afford to hire an artist at last. I never thought of it before though, that you can just hire somebody.

So, I started to look for an artist. Prototype of the game was ready. All these years I tried different battle mechanics with Nekketsu sprites, and literally honed my skills little by little. You can see how Ringo looked back then: 

I posted some job description on game dev forums and it started (“your game is shit”, “you’re a moron” “you’re paying too low” “you should better be doing some Russian aesthetics”, “it’s a dumb clone”, “nobody could do 60 backgrounds alone”, “you should hire a team”) It really was hard to get by. I read all these insults and recommendations for 2-3 months and then suddenly one man sent me a really beautiful background and I thought “no kidding? It could be a BG for my game?” That’s how we started to work with Artem “Wedmak2” Belov, a man who made my game even possible. 

Then I had to recruit a characters artist. And it was another 2 months of hell. And I almost lost hope already. I asked every real live person I knew who could draw a straight line besides web searching and all my friends refused. I even asked my 58 years old father and he opened some image redactor, looked at pixels, closed and said no.

I was walking with my mother one day and she asked about the game, how the things going, and I said “mom, I can’t find an artist, please, talk to dad, he doesn’t work, he has nothing to do, maybe he can try again, it’s not that hard” and she said, “I’ll see what I can do”. I must say that my father is no artist. But he’s very talented in different areas so I believed that he could handle it if he wanted to. And couple of days later I installed him the graphics gale and taught him how to choose colors and place dots. And little by little, step by step, he drew around 1000 frames for Ringo in next 2 years. 

 I tried to work with musicians also but we couldn’t get along. First musicians wrote 3 tracks that I love though, and they wrote final theme among then (the best track in the game), the band named “indian&fox”, very talented guys, it’s sad that they couldn’t do whole soundtrack. So, in the end, Royalty Free Tracks saved me. It was really months of listening and choosing tracks and it was really time-consuming (I was doing it at night usually when I was too tired to code) but I’m proud of the result. I also don’t care about them been royalty free. Almost any Tarantino’s soundtrack is Royalty Free. 

And it was guys who did translations but it could be too long to tell about them. I want to mention Dmitry Ostrozhskiy above all who did English translation. And also Guillaume Veer, and Indienova team for Chinese localization and Misa Sekiguchi Webb, Ueda M. and Chie Koizumi for Japanese. If I started to name one I can’t forget others.

And, I had 2 web friends who discussed with me everything and gave their opinions and insights all these years. I consider them as a team. stray_stoat and Mr.Chelnoque. They were there for me anytime I needed them. And while they didn’t actually write dialogues or code or something like that’s a core of my team. It’s really hard to go such distance on your own. Only some hardcore guys like Eric Barone is capable of that.

So I was doing Ringo and when I was watching some movies like “La-La Land” or “Joy” or any other dream related stuff I couldn’t look in their eyes cause they asked me “all right you had a dream and you found out what you really love and you’re good at it but have you done everything you could? Did you give it all? Did you risk any?” And I couldn’t say “yes” to any of them. But it’s the life without regrets that give you real freedom. 

When I said to my wife that I had to quit the job she wasn’t really happy about it. But she said “Do what you gotta do. We’ll manage somehow.” I didn’t have to quit my job to release the game. I could easily release it while still working; I had a lot of free time there. But I was a casino gambler in my youth days so I knew that you need to bet something if you want to win any. And you better risk high if you want a jackpot). So my career was the only thing I could bet actually.

DAX: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa is a very ambitious and free-thinking experience with no rules and direction. Can you talk about what led to this form of gameplay?

I usually reflect on everything I do so when I reflected on my gaming experience I noticed that I don’t play to win a game. I play to live in a game. I played it like this since ZX Spectrum’s Saboteur for example

I never passed 3 first screens in the game since it was awfully controlled and dogs killed you by touching but you could be a ninja in it. In the first scene a ninja sails on the boat, then he enters some building and then dogs and enemies appear). But I was pretending that I was a wounded ninja who’s going to a suicide mission. And I was sailing in the boat like in a movie. So I was walking fearlessly and dying like a warrior. 

And I played almost any game like that. And on NES my favorites was Technos Japan’s Nekketsu series. All of them, but especially Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (River City Ransom) and Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu. You could live there. It was like early GTA game. Free roam/open city, usual daily activities. You couldn’t die also. 

And you had all other Nekketsu games as a part of one big Universe. So you could live in DNM, then switch to Ike Ike and play some hockey, then go fighting in NKD. I wished there was one big Nekketsu game where you could live and participate in different activities without changing cartridges. And I was designing one on the paper when I was at University. Just for fun. Just for “what if I could do a game someday”. And I wrote to notebook “You can smoke by pressing a button”. It was 2002 or 2004.

DAX: This has the definite essence of the classic 8-Bit series RIVER CITY RANSOM. Where there any other games that you were inspired by in the making of this title?  

Beside Technos games I was heavily inspired by Shenmue of course. That was another game of my dream. Martial Arts, Japan, snow flying right in the face.

Another obvious inspiration is Persona games, especially 3rd one. I didn’t like Tartarus part (though JRPG is my favorite genre) but the school part was perfect. 

My personal best (is) Final Fantasy 7. I believe it’s a perfect game and it inspires me every time I even think of it. You won’t see exact influences from it, but it’s there. For example, you could buy a villa later in the game (FF7). And by the time you could buy it you actually don’t need it. But it was something special when you just entered (the) menu and it said “Cloud’s Villa” in location’s name. Or you could hit a heavy bag in the basement. It didn’t do anything. You just could hit it. And that’s all.

DAX: Where there any coming of age/gang related movies, anime, or manga that inspired the creation of this game as well or maybe some past experiences growing up?

YEO: I think that everything you have seen and read and played is inspiring you and forming your sense of style and aesthetics. I was a delinquent myself, and a gambler addict, I used to box and kickbox and I’m still training, actually almost all Ringo movements are redrawn (not rotoscoped) by my father from my photos. So I wanted to share some personal feelings with players and I knew what I was talking about hard way. So I wasn’t look up to any manga or a movie actually. But I read and watched a lot, and I gave homage to some of my favorite works, Ringo can read some of my favorite books in the game.

Between youth gang movies my personal best is Korean “Once upon a time in high school”. That’s a real masterpiece, real masculine movie. I was aiming at this level of quality but I didn’t reach it. This movie is on another level. I hope that Ringo can still be compared to it.

DAX: You are obviously a fan of retro games, what were some of your favorites growing up?

YEO: I’m still playing retro games actually. I don’t really like new games and I hadn’t completed a game in 5 or 6 years. Last game that blew my mind was Way of Samurai 3. It’s a really awesome game. I didn’t like 4th game in the series and didn’t play first ones. But this game is something else. I also played a lot of EA Fight Night series, all of them are good and it’s a pity they abandoned the franchise. That’s my favorite “next-gen” games.

I like many PS one games, mostly JRPG: FF7, FF8, Xenogears, Wild Arms etc. There was some interesting CAPCOM beat'em up on PS2 I can recommend: Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance and Shinobido Imashime of course.

For real retro games, I still play first Streets of Rage from time to time, I beat it 3 or 4 times some weeks ago on Switch. My favorite straight beat'em up is Mighty Final Fight on NES though. I really love this game, it’s a gem. Also, I like Bucky O'Hare, Mitsumi ga Tooru, Double Dragon 2, Duck Tales. That’s my favorite on NES. Beside Nekketsu of course.

DAX: There are multiple ways to play “The friends of Ishikawa.” Is there one true way to play this game or did you have the idea of letting the player go to any direction they want and have different results?

I’m really tired of modern games that take you by the hand. If there’s a mini-map in a game you don’t look at the backgrounds, you play it on the minimap, so any game comes down to some white triangle moves to green circle which activates a cut scene, richly animated and directed, voiced over, cinema-like. Then you gain control over the character again and go to another green circle, sometimes you mash buttons between. I drop games like that in half an hour regardless the quality and graphics and wrinkles on the face when chars do smile.

I also tired of tutorial messages on any action. So I made only the basic ones in my game. So it’s easy to pick up like older games where any tutorials weren’t and there were 2-3 action buttons and you just tried everything. And I think its fun. It’s a kind of exploration. You try different things and see outcome and you investigate and when you discover something you really enjoy it and you feel smart and by doing it you (are) starting to feel connected to a character.

We argued about all this with mr.chelnoque and stray_stoat but I believed in my vision and positive reviews proved my point. I knew that there’d be many players disappointed that the game doesn’t give you any direction and you don’t know what to do etc. But I also knew that some players would love it for the same reason. And that goes for multiple endings as well. I considered different endings of course and at some point, it was even “A friend of Ringo Ishikawa” so you had to generate your character who was Ringo’s best friend from childhood and you could more role-play in the game, it was a date-sim part also. But then I decided to tell this exact story about this exact character with the exact ending. So some things just fell off. It’s not in Ringo’s character to have multiple girlfriends for example, so I gave up on the dating sim. And there were more sacrifices I had to do.

As for the right way to play it, on the contrary, I wanted players to play their own but to stay in a character. That’s why you can’t rob your classmates, for example, and you still have to fight in some scenes cause Ringo is a gang leader, after all, you can’t turn him into a complete nerd.

The whole game came from one final scene and I designed it backwards actually, I wanted players to really feel that very scene. I don’t want to spoil it though for those who didn’t complete the game. So I wanted payers to live in the game and to feel the ending if they care to complete it. 

DAX: What’s next for you? Is there any chance we will see a sequel following The Life of RINGO? 

YEO: I’d rather not do it and I have some reasons for it.

First of all, I’ve said what I wanted with this game. I also wanted to make a game with a generated character where you could really do what you want and have different endings (like Way of Samurai for example) but if I expand Ringo’s Universe his story could fade. And I don’t want to sacrifice it.

Secondly, it’s really common to make a sequel to a well-received game. And while it’s easy it could turn into creative chains, I want to be free. That’s why I quit my job also. To do what I want to and not what is best for business or others. 

That’s why my second game will be quite short also. I understand that some players have great expectations of my games but it also can drain creativity, fear of failure. So again I decided on what to do next just by listening to myself. "What kind of game you want to do now? What inspires you?” And when I captured setting and gameplay it turned out that I can’t do a long game with it. But gameplay is really good and I have one interesting idea also, and some thoughts I want to share. So I decided on what could be good for this idea to be properly told.

I want to try to stay creatively free for as long as I can.

I almost ready with this game, but Artem Belov (who’s in charge of BG again and he’s doing astounding work again, even better than in Ringo), he got married and got an office job so he (has a) lack of time now, and he draws slowly. And while I’m waiting for him I started to work on another project but it’s a secret for now. 

Thanks to YEO for taking the time to chat with me on such a great game. Be sure to check out “The friends of RINGO ISHIKAWA” available now on STEAM and Nintendo Switch (and Nintendo E-Shop).

[studio183-blog]

MEET THE DESIGNER CORRINA GOUTOS

Corrina, please introduce yourself and your label.

I am a jewelry and object artist born and raised in Upstate New York, now based in Hamburg, Germany.  Although a piece of my heart still resides in Berlin, where I first landed ship nearly 4 years ago. I graduated with a BA in Jewelry and Objects from the Savannah College of Art and Design and immediately moved to Berlin-where I founded my practice.

My work is heavily inspired by the fluctuation between things man-made and things natural - a boundary that proves evermore transient and hard to define.  I am interested in the temporary and the long-term relationships we have with the objects around us; from the mundane plastic coffee cup to the most sacred family heirloom. I trill in reading the unfinished stories of these objects abandoned in urban environments or at flea markets.

As a creative what stood out for you in Berlin?

Berlin was a goldmine for me for this reason; a texture bomb of painted, bannered surfaces, colourful personalities, borderline hoarders and unapologetic black sheep. Going on a walk was the best way to get inspired. The ideas piled up but slowly the possibilities got narrower.

Living in middle Weserstraße Neukölln working out of my 11sq meter bedroom - unable to find a decent studio; great project ideas started getting ruled out real fast. Can’t wake the whole apartment building with my brutal dentistry noises anymore, don’t have a car to transport that, can I install ‘Stark Strom’ in the basement and run my machines there!?

I needed to grow and I had a very expansive offer standing idle from my lovely boyfriend. A 300 plus year old straw-roof farmhouse on the outskirts of Hamburg that he and his brother jumped on 10 years ago due to the rarity of these things coming on the market. Already equipped with a full wood and metal working workshop, it wasn’t long till my dream studio was unfolding before my eyes.  One year later and I have 5 chickens, a garden, and a million new restoration skills.

You now live in the countryside, has the change of scenery influenced your work in any way?

There is no doubt my productivity has also improved from the increase in focus. The urban and consumerist themes remain strong in my work, but that has been a constant since the first art pieces I have made.  What’s different now is my perspective - as an observer, no longer knee deep in the buy-o-sphere rather, as a person much closer to living a self-sufficient life.

Although I won’t claim to be free from temptation, I see that my art has taken on a more pure, refined style - ridded with the myriad of influences; stripped down to the essentials - like my life has. The freedom to make messes and noise at any hour has led me to do a lot more experimenting.  

Do you have a favourite material for sculpting your pieces?

At the moment my favourite technique is still “lost wax casting” where pieces are sculpted in wax, set in ceramic, burned out and then metal is cast into the ceramic making a 1:1 cast of the wax model.

Wax is a remarkable material with many diverse properties that make it my favourite to work with. I experiment with just about every type of wax there is on the market. Silver is my second, a beautiful material no doubt - a soft, skin-friendly metal that once you get to know it - it starts working for you!

Do you have any specific inspirations/processes when you start a new collection?

I don’t use moodboards as I make or design because I feel they limit the wider pool from which I draw inspiration. Since I enjoy the end product to be a fusion of the aesthetic, I desire plus a good dose of the accidental; the spontaneity of the material often ends up being more interesting than anything I can sketch out or imagine.

Regardless I start every collection with a sequence that starts with word mapping: in which I translate usually psychological/social themes (my inspiration) into visually descriptive adjectives. This helps me think more abstract and see new associations and build metaphors into the collection’s aesthetic. From there I do many sketches and at the same time experimenting with materials and techniques that help me achieve the feeling of these adjectives.

From the strongest samples I create objects and sculptures, and finally I distill the objects into wearable work - taking the details I found most interesting and translating them into small pieces of adornment that travel the world with their wearers! I also take many photos around the urban environment, which are integral to my overall design thinking process.

I love the combinations of things that end up in the trash or on the streets.The collaboration of people and places and times that we see intercepting in the urban environment every day. It’s Ironic, beautiful and loaded with fun juxtapositions and interesting silhouettes.

Do you create for a certain persona? If so, please describe them.

I do not create for a certain person currently. I generally try to achieve the most unisex products possible. But as I stated, the concept and material play dictate most of the end product’s appearance. If I had a dream client though - it would definitely be Iris Apfel and all of her Advanced Style friends. She is fabulous and I would be honoured to adorn her with my work!

What’s the best compliment/description/comment someone has given your designs?

I definitely am still glowing from my best compliment and that was a month ago in Munich for Munich Jewelry Week, a.k.a. Mecca for Art Jewelers; a huge citywide exhibition with the best of the best from world-wide on display.

Somehow I found myself in a casual conversation one-on-one with a legend - one of the founders of Art Jewelry, Ruddt Peters - and of course an Idol of mine. His eyes went immediately to my brooch (the silver one listed in my favourites on top) and he told me he had never seen anything like it and I must continue with this.

One month later turns out he was the guest judge for an exhibition I entered and he saw that brooch in print and picked out my application first for the “definitely in” pile.  The creator of the event wrote me asking if I knew him, because he couldn’t have believed I made such a strong impression on him in the 2 minutes we spoke in Munich!

Tell us about more about your current collection.

Corrina’s current collection - “Self-Made”is a series of remnants of Generation Z’s search for permanence in an attention-deficit-disorder society. Also known as the ‘Me’ Generation or ‘Selfie’ Generation-Z’s have mastered the catered image of self. They design the face they will present to the world; they build a platform on which to receive praise and filter criticism. They are beautiful but lacking in depth - a fragile façade.  

The pieces reference cheap modern mass production, but are constructed with materials associated with luxury and employ high handcraft technique. Handled with neurotic, obsessive control of the material to fit our desires - yet they remain distinctly human. “Self-Made” is a souvenir to this era of indifferent indulgence; a contemporary artefact to commemorate the modern consumer and his/her many short lived personalities.

Your current collection is gorgeous. Is there anything you could tell us about the next one?

Another fun thing about being an artist and not a designer is only I decide when it is time for the next collection. There are no rules about trending or seasons that dictate my work - I move on when I feel the idea is exhausted or has met its fullest potential. Some concepts are really rich and I can develop them for years: allowing them to transform aesthetically far from the first few samples.

These are the ideas I hope for - they allow a degree of mastership in a technique and allow me to clarify my idea and visual signature. My current collection “Self-Made” continues to excite me, so you will all have to stay tuned to see what new faces it takes on.  I can say that I am playing with many alternative materials at the moment which I hope to incorporate - such as papier-mâché and electroforming on clay.

Can you tell us about any exciting plans for the year ahead?

In the next year there is lots in the works! As I just mentioned I was accepted into an esteemed Art Jewelry Exhibition - that will take place next month - in May, in Bucharest, Romania.  I am also working on collaboration with a very talented digital mapping and 3-D printing artist that I hope we will be seeing some pieces from in summer.  As well as I am planning to open small group- bed and breakfast style weekend jewelry courses out of our country home! Partners could make an engagement ring for one another, or bring a friend learn some basics in jewelry construction with me! Interested people can e-mail me for more information on signing up - corrinagoutos@gmail.com

https://www.instagram.com/corrinagoutos/

https://www.facebook.com/corrinagoutosjewelry/

http://corrinagoutos.com/

[philaprint]

Give Much Respect Due: How Female Rappers Inspire Black Queer Boys

MARCH 02, 2017

By Devyn Springer

It’s 2001. My mother opens the bathroom door and I am in my underwear, breathing heavily like a backup dancer. I have a smile on my face and sweat on my shoulders. My little ribs under my brown skin are sore because I’ve been shaking my hips from left to right for an entire verse and chorus. I’m looking at myself in the mirror and seeing myself as what resembles a Keith Haring painting; vibrant colors, bold lines creating motion. My mother lets out a small laugh, reminding me she is still there watching, and then she joins me in singing the chorus and moving her hips, “Chumpy, I break up with him before he dumps me/ To have me, yes you’re lucky.”

I have an obsession with flipping through my mother’s book of CDs and looking at all of the album art with awe until I find my selection, and I always seem to gravitate towards Missy Elliott, Da Brat or Queen Latifah; not that I am familiar with who those people are at 5 years-old, but because the album art has a curious way of making me feel something that resembles confidence.

It’s 2008.  The Keith Haring painting the mirror had grown familiar with has turned into a small medium brown boy who looks more like a Basquiat painting, or a question walking around waiting for someone to answer it. My body feels awkward like my limbs and shoulders are a bit too big for my middle school being, and I am no longer the best dressed in class. I got headphones for Christmas and haven’t stopped playing Trina’s “Glamorest Life” in my ears since Christmas morning because when her loud and braggadocious voice comes crashing onto the treble-fueled beats, I feel like I fit in a bit more. I feel a strange confidence become me when I hear her rap “who you lovin’ who you wanna be huggin/ I seen her in your six hundred and you claim it's your cousin,” and I am proud of myself for understanding the first half of that line as a Lil Kim reference.

It’s 2011. The Basquiat painting feels like a Marina Abramović piece at this point, as I’ve begun to master the performance art of my own sexuality. I am driving the first car I own at night with the windows down, and Lil Kim tells me, “I used to be scared of the dick/ now I throw lips to the shit, handle it/ like a real bitch/ Heather Hunter, Janet Jacme.” I grip my hand on the passenger’s thigh, we kiss at a red light, and I say “Yo, you’ve gotta Google who Heather Hunter and Janet Jacme are real quick. Kim always comes through with the crazy references!” We laugh and pontificate on that line for a second before kissing again. I used to be scared of the dick lingers in the air, with Kim’s voice heavy and thick and a certain kind of honesty that is uncomfortably interesting, as I sit in the car with the first person to ever have sex with me.

They tell me all I ever do is listen to female rappers. They assure me they don’t think that’s a bad thing. They ask me why that is, and I explain how much I admire not only their lyrical delivery and dramatized personas, but I also love their performances of gender. I adore the way they help me, in some strange and almost inexplicable way, navigate my own relationship to the gender I was socialized into. I enjoy the way their gender within hip-hop, within their songs and lyrics, within their aesthetics, is politicized -- because it is something I am familiar with, and didn’t know how to express until I found them. My relationality to gender has always been one of having identities and labels ascribed to me, with terms and assumptions projected onto my body, and I saw pieces of that in the Black women who inspired me through their music.

Female rappers have narrated more moments of my life than I know how to explain, and have projected feelings on me I either forgot I needed to feel or couldn’t explain that I felt. When Nicki says “you was sleepin’ on me, thinking it was sumber time/ Now I’m a trending topic, lil mama, number signs” there is a breath of relatable energy that exists between us. It is in the way she openly refers to being slept on and openly discusses her struggles being a Black woman in a male-dominated industry that I am able to vibrate in a similar wavelength to her. The way that she is referred to as “difficult” for simply being about her business is a sentiment that resonates deeply with me as well because queer Black boys aren’t allowed to be outspoken without being “sassy” or seen as a queen. And if Nicki Minaj is slept on, her bravado simplified, her demands demeaned, then I can relate to her on a deeper level. And it is in the way she snaps back, reminding her ‘haters’ that she’s now a trending topic, that makes the inner scared and awkward queer boy in me go back to swinging his hips like a Keith Haring painting.

To be Black and queer is to have a strange relationship with space, or the lack thereof, and to have an even stranger relationship with confidence. The space that we are able to carve into this world looks a little different than other people’s. Our space looks nocturnal; night clubs, ballrooms, and dancing in our underwear with our friends to the newest Remy Ma song, grabbing pieces of her confidence and wearing it like an invisible cloak that hides us from the world. Women who rap, much like queer Black boys, manage to be both hypervisible and invisible at the same time; our bodies are sexualized before we have the choice to do it ourselves, and when we do own our own overt sexuality we are called conceited.

We can also look at the queer aesthetic often found in female rappers presentation to fully understand the massive appeal they are able to have to the Black queer community. I heard a friend say one time, “Nicki Minaj is one of the world’s greatest drag queens.” At the time, I was offended. What I assumed to be a transphobic remark likening Ms. Minaj’s appearance to that of a masculine figure was really a sly and subverted critique on the queerness of her aesthetic.

In reality, she is one of the world’s best drag queens, as are Lil Kim, Eve, Missy Elliott, and Left Eye, and several others. Drag and ball culture are such large parts of our Black queer community that you can’t help but notice the aestheticism seeping into the music video of Missy Elliott’s new single “I’m Better,” or the outlandishly early-2000s era fashion that Foxy Brown often adorned. The only one who switches a wig as much as a drag queen is Nicki Minaj, with the extravagance of a couture outfit and high-contoured cheekbones to match.

I am reminded of the artist and philosopher Adrian Piper’s “dear friend, I am black...” calling cards she would give to people who said racist or problematic things to her, and it feels that in this similar sentiment exists female rappers’ performance of gender and sexuality. As if through lyrics and aesthetic they are reminding you, “dear friend, I am a sexual being, I Black woman…” It is as if they understand the need to subvert femininity and sexuality into a performance, one that at times is even exaggerated, for the sake of the artistic statement. And because so much of the vitality surrounding modern interpretations of gender and sexuality is performance, the female rapper has the transcendent ability to do what only an artist can do: blue the line between sociopolitical commentary, art, and expression.

Whether through intentional subversion or simple fashion-forward styling, several female rappers have played with the traditions of gendered clothing and presented themselves as something far more interesting than a gender binary could ever allow them to be. I am reminded of Left Eye in the music video for “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,” wearing baggie jeans and t-shirts, holding her crotch while she raps her sex-positive lyrics alongside the feminine presentation of Chilli and T-Boz. I think of Lady of Rage in the “Afro Puffs” music video, dressed almost like a biker chick, with her broad shoulders, dark and oversized leather draped from her body, and it makes me think of almost every Da Brat, Queen Latifah, and Yo-Yo music video I’ve watched where they wore traditionally masculine suits and clothing.

Plenty of the visual specificities in fashion and art between the early 90s and now have been influenced by this presentation, with women and other queer people drawing inspiration from this aestheticism. So, when we arrive at a Nicki Minaj, or an Angel Haze, or an Azealia Banks, or a Princess Nokia, or a Lola Monroe, or a Young MA, it is no surprise that they continue to transform and uphold the legacy that was established for them through generations of foremothers. They continue to be the fire-spitting drag queens at the front of a battle for inclusivity and acceptance in a cis-hetero patriarchal industry, one that often reflects the values of the Black community.

As a Black queer boy, female rappers embody much of the confidence we often aspire to and achieve. When Trina taught me to be the baddest bitch, I didn’t know that Queen Latifah had already told me I need to be addressed as “your highness.” When Foxy asked why “all the sudden all these rap bitches got accents too?” Nicki Minaj was ready to ask where the fuck is her curry chicken and her rice and peas? You see, it is in the way they demand to be referred to as a queen and the Queen Bitch, to be given what they deserve, to be adorned with the highest fashion and pop bottles right next to the male rappers, that a confidence so bold and unique exists and flourishes. They are able to embody a powerful, magical feminine strength that reads like confidence but feels like life being handed over in a syringe.

When I was the small boy who was still carefree and still had space in his chest for joy, Missy Elliott, and Left Eye were there to help me shake my hips; their music would bring me the movement and vibrations like in the Keith Haring paintings. When I was an awkwardly small child in a world that felt too big, Trina, Remy Ma, and Foxy Brown gave me the confidence I didn’t know I deserved but definitely needed. I heard Foxy tell me she has these rap bitches in a chokehold at least once a week. And when I became intimate for the first time and love tasted like sex, I had many Lil Kim lyrics that lent themselves to me.

Today as a Black queer activist and artist navigating the world through an intersectional lens, I’m able to see just how monumental the role of a woman rapping on the radio can be for a Black queer boy. I now have the language, voice, and ears to realize that it has been female rappers playing in the background of my life for decades. They’ve always been the ones that have given me life time and time again when the world hands little queer boys nothing but death, and they’ve always been the ones to be doin’ things that you won’t regret.

https://www.philadelphiaprintworks.com/blogs/news/give-much-respect-due-how-female-rappers-inspire-black-queer-boys

[hooliganrehab]

Bruno Mars Doesn’t Walk....he glides

It’s as if he’s perpetually ready to perform a Motown-style choreography set in front of tens of millions watching the Super Bowl (which he has done twice in the past four years)—even easing his way into a suburban L.A. pizza parlor, where moments earlier, his sexy, chart-topping 2012 hit, “Locked Out of Heaven,” was on blast, as if anticipating his appearance. Mars just has that aura. His outfit is straight Fania-era salsa/blaxploitation swag—Gucci cap over his curls; sunglasses; an open shirt, floral and teal; tan shorts; dress shoes (no socks, to accentuate those smooth legs); and minimal gold jewelry. He orders a plain slice, which he sprinkles with garlic powder, and a root beer. It’s obviously a joint he frequents, since he knows all the fellas by name, and the workers aren’t taken aback by the superstar in their midst. He walks to an open booth, wolfs down his food, controlling his urge to eat six more slices, he jokes, and proceeds to be the smoothest cat to ever have lunch at an old-school checkered-tablecloth pizzeria.

Mars learned about charm, confidence, and estilo early in life. “My whole sense of rhythm is because my dad was teaching me bongos as a kid,” he says of his father, Pedro Hernandez. “He’s an old-school working musician, so that’s where the pinky rings come from, the patent-leather shoes, the suits, and the pompadour. It all stems from watching my father. I remember at the time, me and my sisters would be a little embarrassed when he would take us to school in his big-ass Cadillac. No one had Cadillacs in Hawaii. But my dad would show up in some boat-looking Caddy wearing some silky shit, and we’d run out into the car as soon as possible. And here I am wearing the swap-meet gold, driving Cadillacs,” he says with a laugh.

Take one quick look at Mars’ recent music (the omnipresent Mark Ronson collaboration “Uptown Funk,” which amassed more than 2 billion YouTube views, the fourth-most ever, or his critically acclaimed 24K Magic) and his style (“pinky rings to the moon”), and it’s easy to see that his persona is not only inspired by his father but delivered as a conscious ode to Latino and African American masculinity. Brown and black men have long dealt with the stereotype of being hot-blooded, suave, savage animals lusting after anything with a pulse. Now Mars, 31, is embracing the Latin Lover archetype (if you’re not treating your girl right, we’re Mr. Steal Ya Girl) and giving anyone who’s offended a big middle finger. Mars’ dominance in pop culture takes on even greater resonance now, when the leader of the free world has called Latino men “rapists,” “drug dealers,” and “bad hombres.”“I hate that we’re even having a conversation about injustice in America,” he says of the current climate of social unrest. “That we are having a conversation about this in 2017; the same conversation that’s been had decades and decades ago.”Yet Bruno Mars doesn’t want to drown you with his wokeness; he just wants to make you shake what your mami gave you. The man is a musical genius—he writes, produces, sings, dances, plays instruments, and puts on arguably the best performances in the universe.

“Remembering when he was just my little brother looking up to me, staying by my side, playing music together, throwing around a football, just doing everything together—those were great times,” says Eric “E-Panda”Hernandez of his hermano and band leader. “Now he signs my paychecks, and he is my boss. I’m beyond proud of the man he has become.”But before he was Bruno Muhfuckin’ Mars, he was E-Panda’s lil’ bro, Peter Hernandez, born and bred in Hawaii to a beautiful Filipina and Spanish mom and Puerto Rock and Jewish papi from Brooklyn. His childhood musical career is well-documented on YouTube— at 4, he was the cutest Elvis Presley impersonator ever, performing with his family for oohing-and-ahhing tourists in Waikiki. As the years passed and his skills developed, Mars found himself dealing with racial-identity issues in the multicultural 50th state. “Growing up in Hawaii, there are not too many Puerto Ricans there,” says Mars, “so because of my hair, they thought I was black and white.”

The idea of not being easily categorized is something Mars has dealt with his entire life. When he moved to Los Angeles at 18 to make a serious go in the music industry, record label executives asked, “What are you? Are you urban? Are you Latin?”“There are a lot of people who have this mixed background that are in this gray zone,” he says, leaning forward to make his point. “A lot of people think, ‘This is awesome. You’re in this gray zone, so you can pass for whatever the hell you want.’ But it’s not like that at all. It’s actually the exact opposite. What we’re trying to do is educate people to know what that feels like so they ’ll never make someone feel like that ever again. Which is a hard thing to do. Because no one can see what we see and no one can grow up with what we grew up with. I hope people of color can look at me, and they know that everything they’re going through, I went through. I promise you.”All that to say that Mars is prouder than Manny Pacquiao to be Filipino, loves Hawaii more than Don Ho’s children, and, well, is as boricua as Marc Anthony eating a plate of arroz con gandules during his Todo a Su Tiempo era. Critics and those confused by his multiracial roots have insinuated that he’s ashamed of his Taino roots, truly a load of chupacabra crap, says Mars.“My last name is Hernandez. My father’s name is Pedrito hernandez, and he’s a Puerto Rican pimp. There’s no denying that.”“I’d love to clear that up in Latina magazine,” he says, raising his voice. “I never once said I changed my last name to hide the fact that I’m Puerto Rican. Why would I fucking say that? Who are you fooling? And why would anyone say that? That’s so insulting to me, to my family. That’s ridiculous. My last name is Hernandez. My father’s name is Pedrito Hernandez, and he’s a Puerto Rican pimp. There’s no denying that. My dad nicknamed me Bruno since I was 2 years old. The real story is: I was going to go by ‘Bruno,’ one name. Mars just kind of came joking around because that sounds bigger than life. That was it, simple as that. I see people that don’t know what I am, and it’s so weird that it gets them upset. It’s an oxymoron—the music business; like the art business. You’re making a business out of these songs that I’m writing. And how are you going to tell me that this song that I’m writing is only going to be catered to Puerto Ricans or to white people or only Asian people. How are you going to tell me that? My music is for anybody who wants to listen to it.”

An incredible number of people want to do just that. Mars’ combined sales for his first three albums are more than 100 million, along with his 2013 Moonshine Jungle Tour and his upcoming 100-date 24K Magic World Tour, which begins in late March and sold more than a million tickets in one day. Concertgoers will be treated to the Mars stage presence—an aura influenced by his family and the greats: Michael Jackson, James Brown, and Prince. Needless to say, Mars’ music is undoubtedly black.  

“When you say ‘black music,’ understand that you are talking about rock, jazz, R&B, reggae, funk, doo-wop, hip-hop, and Motown. Black people created it all. Being Puerto Rican, even salsa music stems back to the Motherland [Africa]. So, in my world, black music means everything. It’s what gives America its swag. I’m a child raised in the ‘90s. Pop music was heavily rooted in R&B from Whitney, Diddy, Dr. Dre, Boyz II Men, Aaliyah, TLC, Babyface, New Edition, Michael, and so much more. As kids this is what was playing on MTV and the radio. This is what we were dancing to at school functions and BBQs. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for these artists who inspired me. They have brought me so much joy and created the soundtrack to my life filled with memories that I'll never forget. Most importantly, they were the superstars that set the bar for me and showed me what it takes to sing a song that can get the whole world dancing, or give a performance that people will talk about forever. Watching them made me feel like I had to be as great as they were in order to even stand a chance in this music business. You gotta sing as if Jodeci is performing after you and dance as if Bobby Brown is coming up next.”It’s refreshing to hear a pop star say it loud and proud: black music is American pop culture. Latinos and African Americans aren’t just connected by the racism and dis- enfranchisement we’ve dealt with historically; we’re also connected by our music and traditions. We hear it in J Balvin’s reggaeton heaters and in Rihanna’s Caribbean patois, as well as in the eloquent, piercing words written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Junot Díaz. We’re one. And Bruno Mars combines the best of all of our aspirations and goals into one super artist.Above all, the world has to thank his parents for nurturing his talent at an age when most kids were still using pull-up diapers. While his pops gave him his style, his mom, Bernadette San Pedro Bayot, gave him his heart. After each performance, Mama Mars would call or text to congratulate him on another gem or to say to get some rest. The memory of her sudden death in 2013 from a brain aneurysm still shakes him.“The woman who taught you to love, showed you what a woman is supposed to be,”

says Mars, his voice trembling slightly for the first time during an interview where he’s been all smiles and laughs. “When that goes away, a little more than half your heart goes away with it.”

THEY SAY IT’S HARDER TO LOSE A PARENT AS AN ADULT BECAUSE AT THAT POINT YOU’RE PEERS, YOU’RE FRIENDS. EVERYTHING CHANGES, NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME.“You just gotta know that she’s with me everywhere I go,” he says. “It’s some- thing that you can’t imagine—the pain and the things that you keep going back to: ‘I wish I would’ve done this or said this.’ You just have to see life differently. It shows you the real importance of life. Nothing else matters in this world but family and your loved ones.”When asked if his music has changed à la Kanye West when he lost his mother, Donda, Mars pauses. “I don’t know how to answer that question,” he says. “My life has changed. She’s more than my music. If I could trade music to have her back, I would. I always hear her say, ‘Keep going and keep doing it.’”  

Mama Mars certainly did an amazing job. Mars’ longtime girlfriend, model Jessica Caban, definitely reaps the rewards of his having such a great mother. Mars isn’t big on sharing about his life with Caban, but social media paints an adorable #relationshipgoals idea of their courtship.I got this fire in my blood. For me, you gotta keep up

It’s all in. It’s ‘I’m going to love the shit out of you, and I’m going to fuck you up later,’” says Mars jokingly, laughing about his attraction to Latinas, obviously with Caban in mind. “It’s all in. And that’s what keeps that fire going.”

As he wraps the interview, which felt more like two bros shooting the ish, Mars dips through the back of the pizzeria, jumps in his black Cadillac and pulls to the front. He asks this reporter, “Where you going? Maybe I can give you a lift.” “Downtown L.A.,” the reporter says. “Oh! You better Uber that shit!” Mars says with a smile. It was expected. Not because Mars is too Hollywood, but because where he’s going, not many have gone.

[gocchisama]

Pairings in Keyakizaka46

Pairings. Or also called, OTP ( One True pairing). The definition goes by: “your favorite relationship in a fandom”, or “the relationship that match the best”. AKB48 already proved the existence of pairing like Atsumina, Wmatsui, or Sayamilky. Keyakizaka46 is no exception.

Why is it so particular? why does pairing influence fandom culture so much? I have already defined Idols in 3 relationship. Idol x herself, idol x fans, and idol x idol. Pairings is one aspect of the third relationship. Fans are keen to watch members interaction because it is different from what they can possibly have with the idol herself. The friendship, bond between members shows aspect of your oshimen that you would never imagine. This is the magic of the OTP. 

Before we get started, i want to point out that those pairings are just my opinion and are by no means a judgement on who is closest to who. Being close is a huge factor, but i also works on the pair chemistry.

“Za cool is the name of the tandem Shida manaka/Watanabe Risa”

I’ve been lurking Japanese fandom for quite some time and the most well known pairing is undoubtly “Za cool” or also called “MonaLisa”. It make sense because Keyakizaka has been built on a cool image and both of them have natural assets like great, lean figure and slim silouhette. It’s not really about the interaction between the two ( correct me if i’m wrong) but for what they represents in Keyakizaka; they are the symbol of classy, good looking girls that japanese teenager aspire to be.

It’s about the looks, but also the manner. In individual PV, both of them traded the usual cute and appealing idol video to make more personal, in depth short movies to assert their cool personalities ( One is doing martial arts, the other is making a fashion show in her living room). When you think of it, there is cool members in the 48group but none of them stand out better than a whole pairing. I would not be surprised to see both of them in fashion magazine, like true cousins of their senpai of Nogizaka46.

Something to notice, Nogizaka and more recently Keyakizaka have a sizeable amount of female fans. Cool members that convey self confidence are very popular among them. And when Za cool cultivate a “strong, reliable” character ( close to danso) you can be sure members and fans match perfectly.

“Yuichanzu has already 2 B-sides up their sleeves, and fans are asking for more.”

Born from management’s wish to operate Kobayashi and Imaizumi Yui musical talents, the duo Yuichanzu has evolved into a distinctive musical aspect of Keyakizaka, the pop-folk tune of the group. No management have put as much faith in a musical sub-unit in the past, and it tells how important the duo has become for Keyaki.

Yuichanzu is even more of a deadly weapon when you take into account the global consensus of musical landslide AKB group releases have become. Not only Keyakizaka stand out with their powerful main track (hello Silent Majority), but they take the luxury to open their musical range by releasing ballad like the musically acknowledged “bob dylan wa kaesanai”. In a world dominated by visual and Auto-tune, Yuichanzu stand as a new refreshing effort to set back music as the main concern of a group. Even for idols.

This tandem success also come from an efficient blend between them. Yuipon is kind/quiet type, almost shy, while Zuumin has this cheerful, almost bewildering personality. Together, they sing in harmony, making way to one of their best performance .

The perspective to bring Keyakizaka this so much awaited musical variety is what makes Yuichanzu so valuable. Not only it defends the idea that idols are also artist ( and not ONLY marketed musical product) but it hugely helps other girls than the center develop their personalities. “Idols you can see grow” has never been more true than the present day.

“The Sun and the moon. What do they have in common? They both shine.” 

TechiNeru relationship has been slightly elaborated here. But it still has to be mentioned. This is my own belief that Neru is Yurina’s rival; from the opposition of their styles, from their close level of skill. From their respective stories and role in the group. What made Batman so popular as a Hero? Because he had lot of powers? In that case green lantern would win hands up. Then No. The real answer is that he had charismatic enemies and rivals, like Joker. In the same logic, This duo will climb to new heights thanks to their rivalry. This is passion.

Something that i have omited to talk about, is the bond between them. Neru has chosen to defy her parents when becoming an idol, defying at the same time the path she chose over the path chosen for her. Yurina became an idol to forget about an alleged painful past. To pour all her energy into a “new her” was a way to not look behind ever again. It comes from her famous quote “Whatever happened in the past, i have no choice but to only look forward.” Despite their clear contrast as orthodox and unorthodox idols, they share the same resolve : To face the future with a challenging heart. 

Then probably, Nagaham Neru is the member that understand Yurina the most. Only a center can understand a center, as you bear the overwhelming pressure of fans and management expectation in your shoulders. Both have solo songs, both lead a generation. One can suffer from the eternal comparison between the two ( Watanabe Miyuki mention her painful experience as being Yamamoto Sayaka eternal number 2) and this is why the link between them is so strong. During Keyakizaka one man’s live performance, Yurina was on the verge of tears, overwhelmed by the emotion of sharing this last performance with fans. You can catch a glimpse where Neru quickly hug Techi to cheer her up during the next verse.

“The OTP without name. What about the two pillars?”

The appearance of this duo has been quite recent, precisely during the sports festival in Keyakitte, Kakenai? episode. There was the blue team led by Sugai Yuuka who represented the “my pace” team, while the red team was led by Moriya Akane, the “gachi” (serious) team. This is probably the most accurate representation of this tandem. You have on one side the kind, caring member that makes you comfortable ( the mother), and on the other side the strong, reliable member that pumps you up ( the father). In any case, the “Yuukanen” duo is the pairing that all keyaki members look up to.

I chose the two pillars because the two have the potential to be captains. To ensure good communication between member, to represent the group in talk session ( especially Yuuka), to call people out when members are slacking off during practice ( Akanen), to set a good role model for members to follow. This is the necessary sternness that helps Keyakizaka keep their high level of performance.

Those two are the self-consciousness of Keyakizaka46, essential to make the group operate backstage. We’re not even talking about their  SUPER high level of aesthetic and own individual appeal ( Sugai sama and her noble persona, Akanen the big sister that hates to lose). Their awareness and sense of responsability framed the group into the right path. Keyakizaka was a rookie group without senpai, and the two of them assumed this role just naturally. The very definition of idols are people you admire and respect; Yuuka and Akanen absolutely fit those requirements.

“Boke&Tsukkomi is an absolute reference of Japanese comedy”

Now we’re entering non-established pairings, but that holds potential in the future. The limitless ponkotsu personality of Watanabe Rika and the variety talent of Oda Nana makes the pairing extremely potent. It’s true that Berika can make any situation laughable on her own, but Oda nana presence frame those funny moments, making them less awkward and more elaborated.

In japanese entertainment industry, the workforce mainly consist of actor/actress and singer, but also people you call “talento”, like Becky or Lola. They don’t have any particular skills, except that they are extremely good at talking. To give good rythms and atmosphere to a variety show, you invite those kind of celebrities. And it works! Only thanks to selling their image and smooth talking, the best of them are very popular and can endorse as much as 10 brand advertisement. This is important to understand japanese culture.

So yes, they don’t have the musical talent of Yuichanzu or the visual of Za cool, but Oda Nana and Watanabe Rika are the living ground of an excellent Boke&Tsukkomi pairing. The “boke” make stupid nag, while the “tsukkomi” correct him/punish him, make the situation hilarious. This concept is so popular that best comic duo like Downtown or 99 originated from this. Well, Watanabe Rika&Oda Nana holds this tremendous potential of talking and comedy. 

“If you marry weirdness and cuteness together, how will it blend?”

This is a personal wish of mine, to see more of those two. To pair those two is like making a step in the unknown. But since Keyakizaka taught me that everything is possible in the line up, i’m willing to hope. Nogizaka’s sister group is filled with great individuals which explain Ozeki and Uemura’s mixed visibility in the group ( they are often in the third row), but i’m convinced it is not because of their lack of personality.

In a group heavily cool oriented, to be extremely cute is an advantage. Uemura rina can benefit from it. But what she needs is to overcome her fear to stand out, and it is not an easy feat. But this weakness can be filled with Ozeki’s natural outgoing personality (someone who is not ashamed to turn herself into ridicule). Ozeki style. An underrated genius in comedy that probably would rise tenfold if given the proper tool to shine. It is understandable that comedy is not Keyakizaka top priority, but i’m eagerly waiting for her to take the group by storm.

Ozeki helps Rina to believe in herself, and Rina helps Ozeki in the visual department. And despite their opposite personalities, i have noticed a great relationship between the two; as they take 2 shot regularly together or holding arms during variety shows. If they helps each other’s out i’m sure they will find their rightful place within the group. Oh, and, i genuinely think BOTH are cute!

Conclusion 

As you might have expected, Keyakizaka draw his strength from the richness of the girls color and personalities, going from visual and music aspect to comedy and presence. The young group also beats the odds by running backward current trends that promote individuality ( Sayanee, Sasshi, Jurina) in successfuly highlighting a group unity. ( thanks to their group choregraphy and huge line up). Indeed, to have 3 times Techi as center is also promoting individuality, but what makes the difference is that compared to 48group, Keyakizaka doesn’t suffer from shuffle and dilemma between old and new gen promotion (because the girls all start from the same point). It ends up with all those strong pairings mentioned above. 

Why is idol popular? Because idols helps sharing this positive energy to fans, or non fans alike. An energy that encourage you to step forward. This is a constructive energy. Also, from their genuine bond between them helps you recall to value your friendship with those that you loves and loves you in return. Those pairings remind you to be grateful for what you own. It helps you feel generous.

It is only depending on you to have your own OTP. Share this heartwarming feeling. Share the love.

[lucyariablog]

How to Find a Writer Who Won’t Kill Your Content

Below the erupting volcano of content – billions of new articles every month – a secret army is hard at work.

Wherever marketers create e-books, run webinars, promote blogs, and craft events, artisans are hammering, hacking, and whittling the words. These writers make content marketing run. Alas, much of what they produce is junk.

Lots of content goes unread, and not for a lack of bullhorn-blowing. Much of it is poorly written. Eighty-one percent of a group of professionals say poorly written content wastes their time and, in the 25.5 hours they spend reading each week, much of the content they see is “too long, poorly organized, unclear, filled with jargon, and imprecise.”

No matter how much you prepare yourself, your in-house or freelance writers are the ultimate arbiters of content quality. If they mangle the piece, it’s typically for one of two reasons – they aren’t the right writer or you’re feeding them garbage.

Writers mangle #content for 2 reasons. They aren’t the right writer or they were fed garbage. @cgillespie31 Click To Tweet

Here’s how to fix both problems.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 27 Reasons Why Your Content Sucks

Finding Mr. or Ms. Write

As the chief content creator for Find A Way Media, I’m both a writer and an employer of freelancers. The responsibility for great content lies with the employer; it’s the organization that must deliver results – it’s up to managers to find the writers to do that.

Finding the right writer can be like apartment hunting in New York City: After the 10th viewing, your brain begins to melt and you’re willing to settle for anything just to make it stop. But you can shorten the search if you understand what type of writer you need.

Most writers fall into three broad categories:

Journalists – Trained to be precise, journalists are supposed to adhere to a code of ethics and be objective. This makes them excellent fact-checkers and concise writers, but they often dislike self-promotion and find the principles of marketing foreign. Writing content for marketing takes some adjustment.

Copywriters – These are writers raised in the marketing world. They’re often bloggers. They understand web writing, headlines, SEO, and marketing, and intuitively grasp what the business wants to accomplish. But, they often lack the fact-checking and literary finesse of journalists.

Novelists – This category encapsulates people who write as an art and merely freelance to fund their passion. They are screenwriters, comedians, essayists, playwrights, and novelists. I’ve never found one who cut it as a content writer. That’s not to say they can’t be found, but they are rare.

In my experience, you’re best off seeking someone with experience as a copywriter or a journalist and helping them develop any skills they lack.

Your best #content bet? Hire a copywriter/journalist & train them on the skills they lack. @cgillespie31 Click To Tweet

To further whittle your list, consider the trade-off between writing proficiency and subject expertise. These factors don’t have to be at odds, but they often are. Most writers either excel at their craft but are unfamiliar with your topic or are well versed in an industry but middling writers.

Which is better? That depends on how you plan to support them.

When in doubt, lean toward writing proficiency. It’s better to be read and shared than to expertly shout into the wind and wonder why nobody likes you. You can always have the writer interview subject-matter experts.

If your content topics are highly technical or emotional in nature, however, it can be better to select a subject expert. Real expertise is tough to fake. Writers for an analytics company, for example, will struggle if they aren’t familiar with concepts like regression analysis.

If your organization crafts content for a tight-knit audience whose members share a common experience, such as startup founders, a writer who isn’t an expert may not work well. A writer who has lived that entrepreneurial life and knows the misery of not closing a round of funding is more likely to be convincing.

Where can you find your ideal writer? Broadly consider these four places:

Writer job boards: These forums connect writers and employers, and include Problogger, Writer’s Den, the Freelancer’s Union, Craigslist, or LinkedIn groups. Because they’re often lightly moderated, the quality of applicants is across the board. (No pun intended.)

Freelancing platforms: Sites like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com add automation to the mix. You can view the writers’ profiles, client reviews, and past work. But, with millions of freelancers, it takes a lot of dredging to find gems.

Content marketing platforms: Content platforms are pricier than other alternatives, but potentially worth the cost. Platforms like Contently, Skyword, and NewsCred curate their pool of writers and sometimes provide an editor who ensures top quality.

Referrals and word of mouth: Of all the options, referrals net the best results. As a rule, the best writers rarely look for work. They’re inundated with clients starving for their unicorn-rare mixture of writing proficiency and industry expertise. The easiest way to find them is to simply ask around.

Now, to evaluate candidates, just looking at their past work won’t do. Always ask them to write a test article. According to Brad Hamilton, editor-in-chief of the investigative journalism nonprofit The Hatch Institute, “You can’t tell how good someone is based on something they’ve published – you never know, they might have had a fantastic editor.”

Finding the correct writer takes time. It is work. But unless you’re happy to spend money on content nobody will read, it’s worth it. Once you’re certain you have that writer, it’s your job to give them something worth writing about.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

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Supply your writer with substance

The first rule of content writing is GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. If you don’t supply your writer with substantive, thought-provoking material, they’re unlikely to invent it. It’s like casting a great actor in a movie with a rotten script. (John Travolta in Battlefield Earth, anyone?)

The first rule of #content writing is GIGO – garbage in, garbage out, says @cgillespie31. Click To Tweet

I’ve been in too many conference rooms with clients who think they should be creating content because, well, everyone else is. They think it’s simply a matter of filling a bucket with words. Sometimes they start the conversation about content marketing services by asking, “Do I need to do anything?” Yes, of course you do. You are the marketer, after all. You’re the one who should have an iron grip on your company’s ideal buyer persona and should feed the writer, not the other way around.

TIP: If your writers don’t understand your buyer persona, they’re writing for themselves. Or you. But certainly not for your customer. It’s how you get bland-as-sawdust content that feels disingenuous or simply doesn’t resonate.

What can you give your writer to improve their writing?

Six-step checklist to help your writers be better

Buyer persona research: The more your writer can get inside your customer’s head, the more precise the writing will be.

Access to your team: Most writers do better work when they feel included. Invite them to the office to meet your team and set up ongoing opportunities for them to communicate with the team.

Access to your customers: For all writers, eventually the well of ideas runs dry. Give them ways to get reinvigorated, such as interviewing customers. It breaks them out of their pattern and gives you a never-ending fountain of fresh, authentic stories. 

Data: Content marketing writers rarely see data on how their writing performs. Sure, they might see the number of shares, but they don’t get to track their engagement from piece to piece or A/B headlines. Subscribe them to access performance reports in your marketing system or Google Analytics.

Feedback: Most writers never get more feedback than “thanks.” If they don’t know how they did, they can’t grow. Always track and share edits in Microsoft Word. Even better, build a style guide together. It’ll save you both a lot of time. 

Structure: If every deadline feels like an emergency, your content quality suffers. “I’ve never regretted waiting until the next day to publish,” says Caroline Vella, freelance content writer and editor. “I can’t say the same about rushing work through. Sleeping on it not only saves you from mistakes, but it also brings a fresh perspective.”

To provide structure to your writers, consider a project management tool like Trello, Asana, or, my favorite, a shared G Suite document with links. Oh, and invest in a written content marketing strategy.

Marketers must remain in writing process

It’s been a journey, so let’s recap. Have research? Have data? Have structure? Great. You’re halfway to effective writing. The next part of the road? Marketers must remain heavily involved in the creation process if they want results.

Writers can't do all the #contentmarketing. Marketers must be involved in the process. @cgillespie31 Click To Tweet

Marketers frequently want to set the strategy then ask the writer to run the content operation. They are abnegating their role as editor. It’s one thing to be creative and ideate, it’s another to call the shots. Rarely can one person do both.

If marketers entrust their writers with the responsibility to do it all, those marketers often develop a case of what the eminent psychologist and author of the book Influence, Robert Cialdini, calls the tapping problem. One test subject, the tapper, is asked to think of a song and tap the beat on the table. The other test subject, the listener, is asked to guess the song.

You can try this with a colleague. You’ll find tappers invariably get frustrated that listeners don’t know the song. “How could you not know,” they may sputter. These tappers fail to realize the song is only obvious to them because they hear the tune in their head.

Marketers who don’t offer clear briefs with suggested outcomes, quotes, links, and statistics to their writers are like tappers. They shouldn’t be surprised when their writers create something different than what they had in mind.

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Behind all great content, there’s a writer

Great content doesn’t happen by accident. Neither does great writing. If marketers want to savor the results of content marketing, they must invest in finding and nurturing the writers who ultimately determine its worth. For their part, writers need to see content creation as a partnership in which they receive substantive information to build from and feedback to improve.

When marketers are paired with the correct writers, magic happens. And that’s when you get truly high-performing content.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 7 Fixes for Common Writing Mistakes [Examples]

Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

Ensuring better content also requires ongoing education, fresh tips, and expert insight. Get that and more at Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Register by May 31 for early-bird savings and use code BLOG100 to save an additional $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post How to Find a Writer Who Won’t Kill Your Content appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/05/find-writer-content/

[hotspreadpage]

How to Find a Writer Who Won’t Kill Your Content

Below the erupting volcano of content – billions of new articles every month – a secret army is hard at work.

Wherever marketers create e-books, run webinars, promote blogs, and craft events, artisans are hammering, hacking, and whittling the words. These writers make content marketing run. Alas, much of what they produce is junk.

Lots of content goes unread, and not for a lack of bullhorn-blowing. Much of it is poorly written. Eighty-one percent of a group of professionals say poorly written content wastes their time and, in the 25.5 hours they spend reading each week, much of the content they see is “too long, poorly organized, unclear, filled with jargon, and imprecise.”

No matter how much you prepare yourself, your in-house or freelance writers are the ultimate arbiters of content quality. If they mangle the piece, it’s typically for one of two reasons – they aren’t the right writer or you’re feeding them garbage.

Writers mangle #content for 2 reasons. They aren’t the right writer or they were fed garbage. @cgillespie31 Click To Tweet

Here’s how to fix both problems.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 27 Reasons Why Your Content Sucks

Finding Mr. or Ms. Write

As the chief content creator for Find A Way Media, I’m both a writer and an employer of freelancers. The responsibility for great content lies with the employer; it’s the organization that must deliver results – it’s up to managers to find the writers to do that.

Finding the right writer can be like apartment hunting in New York City: After the 10th viewing, your brain begins to melt and you’re willing to settle for anything just to make it stop. But you can shorten the search if you understand what type of writer you need.

Most writers fall into three broad categories:

Journalists – Trained to be precise, journalists are supposed to adhere to a code of ethics and be objective. This makes them excellent fact-checkers and concise writers, but they often dislike self-promotion and find the principles of marketing foreign. Writing content for marketing takes some adjustment.

Copywriters – These are writers raised in the marketing world. They’re often bloggers. They understand web writing, headlines, SEO, and marketing, and intuitively grasp what the business wants to accomplish. But, they often lack the fact-checking and literary finesse of journalists.

Novelists – This category encapsulates people who write as an art and merely freelance to fund their passion. They are screenwriters, comedians, essayists, playwrights, and novelists. I’ve never found one who cut it as a content writer. That’s not to say they can’t be found, but they are rare.

In my experience, you’re best off seeking someone with experience as a copywriter or a journalist and helping them develop any skills they lack.

Your best #content bet? Hire a copywriter/journalist & train them on the skills they lack. @cgillespie31 Click To Tweet

To further whittle your list, consider the trade-off between writing proficiency and subject expertise. These factors don’t have to be at odds, but they often are. Most writers either excel at their craft but are unfamiliar with your topic or are well versed in an industry but middling writers.

Which is better? That depends on how you plan to support them.

When in doubt, lean toward writing proficiency. It’s better to be read and shared than to expertly shout into the wind and wonder why nobody likes you. You can always have the writer interview subject-matter experts.

If your content topics are highly technical or emotional in nature, however, it can be better to select a subject expert. Real expertise is tough to fake. Writers for an analytics company, for example, will struggle if they aren’t familiar with concepts like regression analysis.

If your organization crafts content for a tight-knit audience whose members share a common experience, such as startup founders, a writer who isn’t an expert may not work well. A writer who has lived that entrepreneurial life and knows the misery of not closing a round of funding is more likely to be convincing.

Where can you find your ideal writer? Broadly consider these four places:

Writer job boards: These forums connect writers and employers, and include Problogger, Writer’s Den, the Freelancer’s Union, Craigslist, or LinkedIn groups. Because they’re often lightly moderated, the quality of applicants is across the board. (No pun intended.)

Freelancing platforms: Sites like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com add automation to the mix. You can view the writers’ profiles, client reviews, and past work. But, with millions of freelancers, it takes a lot of dredging to find gems.

Content marketing platforms: Content platforms are pricier than other alternatives, but potentially worth the cost. Platforms like Contently, Skyword, and NewsCred curate their pool of writers and sometimes provide an editor who ensures top quality.

Referrals and word of mouth: Of all the options, referrals net the best results. As a rule, the best writers rarely look for work. They’re inundated with clients starving for their unicorn-rare mixture of writing proficiency and industry expertise. The easiest way to find them is to simply ask around.

Now, to evaluate candidates, just looking at their past work won’t do. Always ask them to write a test article. According to Brad Hamilton, editor-in-chief of the investigative journalism nonprofit The Hatch Institute, “You can’t tell how good someone is based on something they’ve published – you never know, they might have had a fantastic editor.”

Finding the correct writer takes time. It is work. But unless you’re happy to spend money on content nobody will read, it’s worth it. Once you’re certain you have that writer, it’s your job to give them something worth writing about.

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Supply your writer with substance

The first rule of content writing is GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. If you don’t supply your writer with substantive, thought-provoking material, they’re unlikely to invent it. It’s like casting a great actor in a movie with a rotten script. (John Travolta in Battlefield Earth, anyone?)

The first rule of #content writing is GIGO – garbage in, garbage out, says @cgillespie31. Click To Tweet

I’ve been in too many conference rooms with clients who think they should be creating content because, well, everyone else is. They think it’s simply a matter of filling a bucket with words. Sometimes they start the conversation about content marketing services by asking, “Do I need to do anything?” Yes, of course you do. You are the marketer, after all. You’re the one who should have an iron grip on your company’s ideal buyer persona and should feed the writer, not the other way around.

TIP: If your writers don’t understand your buyer persona, they’re writing for themselves. Or you. But certainly not for your customer. It’s how you get bland-as-sawdust content that feels disingenuous or simply doesn’t resonate.

What can you give your writer to improve their writing?

Six-step checklist to help your writers be better

Buyer persona research: The more your writer can get inside your customer’s head, the more precise the writing will be.

Access to your team: Most writers do better work when they feel included. Invite them to the office to meet your team and set up ongoing opportunities for them to communicate with the team.

Access to your customers: For all writers, eventually the well of ideas runs dry. Give them ways to get reinvigorated, such as interviewing customers. It breaks them out of their pattern and gives you a never-ending fountain of fresh, authentic stories. 

Data: Content marketing writers rarely see data on how their writing performs. Sure, they might see the number of shares, but they don’t get to track their engagement from piece to piece or A/B headlines. Subscribe them to access performance reports in your marketing system or Google Analytics.

Feedback: Most writers never get more feedback than “thanks.” If they don’t know how they did, they can’t grow. Always track and share edits in Microsoft Word. Even better, build a style guide together. It’ll save you both a lot of time. 

Structure: If every deadline feels like an emergency, your content quality suffers. “I’ve never regretted waiting until the next day to publish,” says Caroline Vella, freelance content writer and editor. “I can’t say the same about rushing work through. Sleeping on it not only saves you from mistakes, but it also brings a fresh perspective.”

To provide structure to your writers, consider a project management tool like Trello, Asana, or, my favorite, a shared G Suite document with links. Oh, and invest in a written content marketing strategy.

Marketers must remain in writing process

It’s been a journey, so let’s recap. Have research? Have data? Have structure? Great. You’re halfway to effective writing. The next part of the road? Marketers must remain heavily involved in the creation process if they want results.

Writers can't do all the #contentmarketing. Marketers must be involved in the process. @cgillespie31 Click To Tweet

Marketers frequently want to set the strategy then ask the writer to run the content operation. They are abnegating their role as editor. It’s one thing to be creative and ideate, it’s another to call the shots. Rarely can one person do both.

If marketers entrust their writers with the responsibility to do it all, those marketers often develop a case of what the eminent psychologist and author of the book Influence, Robert Cialdini, calls the tapping problem. One test subject, the tapper, is asked to think of a song and tap the beat on the table. The other test subject, the listener, is asked to guess the song.

You can try this with a colleague. You’ll find tappers invariably get frustrated that listeners don’t know the song. “How could you not know,” they may sputter. These tappers fail to realize the song is only obvious to them because they hear the tune in their head.

Marketers who don’t offer clear briefs with suggested outcomes, quotes, links, and statistics to their writers are like tappers. They shouldn’t be surprised when their writers create something different than what they had in mind.

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Behind all great content, there’s a writer

Great content doesn’t happen by accident. Neither does great writing. If marketers want to savor the results of content marketing, they must invest in finding and nurturing the writers who ultimately determine its worth. For their part, writers need to see content creation as a partnership in which they receive substantive information to build from and feedback to improve.

When marketers are paired with the correct writers, magic happens. And that’s when you get truly high-performing content.

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Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

Ensuring better content also requires ongoing education, fresh tips, and expert insight. Get that and more at Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Register by May 31 for early-bird savings and use code BLOG100 to save an additional $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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