#do you know the significant demographic overlaps there?

[penroseparticle]

Just fyi the sonic subreddit has been having a very... fun past couple days

[wyseink]

Character Building Questions

I’ve noticed there aren’t a lot of questions geared towards the adult fiction crowd, so even if these can overlap for other genres and demographics I wanted to change that. 

What is his/her profession? Was that role part of your character’s goal?

What does he/she drive? Or, what means of transportation does your character utilize if cars or buses don’t exist in your setting?

Is your character’s current life anything like he/she expected it to turn out?

Which parent, guardian, family member, or mentor does your character take after most, and is that significant? How?

What from your character’s past has influenced how he or she currently interacts with the world?

What kind of childhood did your character have?

How were your character’s teenage years? Did they grow up fast or slow?

How old is your character, and can he or she pinpoint a favorite age? (For example, some people loved their college years, others love when their children are still young, etc.).

Describe past relationships your character has had, and what that character has learned from them.

What would your character look for in an ideal partner, and does that match the type of person he or she goes for in reality? Why or why not?

Describe your character’s sense of style.

What does your character’s way of speaking tell you about them? How is it received by other characters?

What’s one secret your character never wants to share (whether or not said secret does get shared)?

What types of insecurities does he or she have? Where do those stem from?

List some of your character’s strengths, and don’t be afraid to dig deep. Does your character see those as strengths, and how are they perceived by other characters?

How is your character socially? What about professionally?

Describe your character’s social circle. Is he or she comfortable branching out of that? Which parts of themselves are reflected in that circle?

What would your character enjoy despite not expecting to?

How does your character define--or even merely think of--success? Has that character achieved success, even in part?

How will your character know when he or she has made it....or will that character ever know?

What would pop into your character’s mind if he or she were to think of the word, “bliss?”

What is your character’s most shallow or superficial desire?

How does your character handle rejection? What about disappointment?

Who gets under your character’s skin? Why?

If your character could describe his/her perfect future to you, what would that look like?

What’s one thing you know about your character that he/she doesn’t yet?

Let me know if you have any questions, and happy writing!

~ wyseink

[u10como]

A Devotee's manifesto

This message is targeted more at people outside our community than any single one of us:

I know you normies consider us sick, perverted and crazy, but i must ask: Why does it bother you? Whom do we hurt? Most of people like me are harmess, living their lives, relegating their interests to world of unreal fantasies which will never come true. Even more of people like me are closeted, still yet to realize their nature. Yet, you associate us all with a minority among us, which is disrespectful of other people's personal space, which goes around bothering actual amputees.

Know this: Most of us also find this behavior deplorable and we have nothing but respect to actual amputees. Best we can do is to try and help these bad apples to realize their errors, but there's not much else we can do - Just as much as any other community out there can't do much about their respective toxic minorities.

Don't be the ones actively alienating us. Most of us are perfectly content with being considered weird and we know there's no way around it: We were born like that, it's our nature and while we absolutely can control it like any other normal person, we can't change it.

And I personally wouldn't even want to even if i could: This is part of myself and even though i live pretty mundane life outside DeviantArt, Tumblr and other places where like-minded people might be found, i'm not sure i would be the same person without it. This applies to both us "devotees" (people attracted to disabled people) and to the community of so-called "wannabes", or people with BIID to use politically correct term (i don't mind being called devotee, it's a short, simple one-word term, but some people might take offense). Our two communities are closely tied together both by significant demographic overlap and by our, let's say, mutually symbiotic nature.

All we want to do is to live our lifes. If the world isn't fit for us to publically exist in it as we are meant to, at least don't take our fantasies away. I am always open to civil discussion based in mutual respect and understanding, but calling me sick fuck and promptly blocking me before i can respond is not that.

End of this PSA. Thank you for reading.

[a-dragons-explanations]

I don't even necessarily agree it's the same as 'disagreeing with trans people ' (I find this perhaps harmfully reductive to both issues beyond the right to identify how one wishes, really? Particularly these days. Otherkin aren't having specifically targeted forced detransition in some places beyond the demographic overlap.) But I do find it absolutely bonkers to feel the need to say "I don't agree with otherkin".... Just, at all? I don't agree with Christians, Jewish faith, or in fact most any established religion; I don't make it a hill to die on. I just act about an adult about it, saying privately to myself "that isn't for me" and move on with my life. Who gives a shit if you agree with them? Do you not quietly disagree with people all the time? I don't like Voltron, should I outspokenly not agree with Voltron fans?

Yeah, hence my note as to the fact that they're not the same, there's just a parallel that I find useful in illustrating to people why it's not a good argument. It helps people wrap their brains around it to say "okay, we agree that this isn't okay to say to [x] group for [a b c] reasons. Why do you then think it's okay to say to [y] group? What difference is significant and relevant enough that it makes this a valid argument against [y], but not [x]?"

(And sometimes there is a strong answer to that question! This is the case for, for example, when people try to use this when arguing that pedophilia should be treated like a sexuality by saying "well, if you said this about gay people, it'd be bigoted!", because there's a key difference (several, depending on what argument exactly they're talking about) that makes the argument valid against one group but not the other. It's not an automatic gotcha - nothing is - it's just a tool to force yourself to re-examine your arguments and see if they actually hold up under scrutiny.)

Regardless of that detail, your main point I definitely agree with. People are allowed to not believe my soul is a dragon's or whatever - but it would be rude to go into my community and start telling me about that, for the same reason it would be rude to walk into a church and start complaining about how you don't think God is real.

Furthermore, I would argue that to say you "don't agree with" something like otherkinity doesn't just mean disagreeing on how the metaphysics of the world works like with a religion, it means "I don't agree with you about your own subjective, internal experience of identity", which is why I used the parallel to gender instead of religion. It's not disagreeing about the metaphysics of the world at large, it's Person A disagreeing with Person B's report of their own internal experiences - effectively saying "I know your identity and experiences better than you do." You can disagree with me that my soul is literally dragon-shaped, because that requires a belief in souls and that those souls can take nonhuman shapes - but you can't disagree with me that I identify as a dragon, or that I experience instincts, shifts, etc., because you are incapable of knowing my own internal experiences better than I do. Whatever your private explanation for why that might be, to simply say "no, that's not possible" is to demand either that I'm lying about my own experiences, or that I'm wrong about them (and thus that you have the authority to dictate that).

Which, I don't know which of those things the OP of the post that brings this up meant, though it seems likely to me it's the latter, since the former is hard to pull off when there's so many different explanations for why one might be nonhuman - it's hard to disagree with all of them. But the point stands regardless that even if it's the former, there's still a difference between having different metaphysical beliefs from someone, or even discussing your different beliefs and why you believe what you do in a mutual discussion, versus walking into their house unprompted to tell them you disagree with them.

[basilhearsanoise]

Thank you so much for adding the addition ab t how bpd is a trauma response and anyone who the terfs apply to significantly can use them. I was feeling the same thing and I wasn't sure how to articulate it

bro when it comes to "appropriation" - that's a term best used for religious and culturally significant items, words, or rituals. appropriation is absolutely a legitimate problem butin the mental illness/disability world (both of which i live in! i have had chronic pain for 6 years now and have been batshit crazy my whole life!)

the term appropriation, in my opinion, does not really apply unless you are talking about hollywood's/pop culture's "appropriation" of mental illness as a literary trope, such as "multiple personality disorder" etc etc etc. besides in the movies, i don't think you can even make the argument that someone using a cane or a wheelchair when they don't "need it" is appropriation because like, the reason this trope is so harmful is because it limits real disabled actors from having jobs. it's not because it's wrong for someone who can walk to use a wheelchair. it's wrong for someone to get a bunch of money pretending to be disabled when we could just hire a fucking disabled person who already has a much more intimate understanding of this experience to contribute to the story. and it's ableist to constantly have the narrative of "disabled person gets """fixed""" and suddenly can walk again" which is one of the reasons why disabled actors don't get hired and also is just a reflection of bad storytelling because that story says that disabled people have to stop being disabled for their character to go through ANY development within a story. that's fucked up.

like. i am VERY very mad at the world for misrepresenting, and "appropriating" my experience as a mentally ill person in order to demonize and vilify me and other people. i am VERY mad at people for armchair diagnosing their abusers or other real life villains. i am VERY mad at the people claiming that their experience as a mentally ill person to justify their abuse. both sides of this coin are bad.

am i mad at someone for saying "i have symptoms in common with bpd. i have a favorite person/i feel like i "split"/etc etc. i might even have bpd maybe? who knows?" fucking nO I AM NOT. because jesus FUCKING CHRIST THAT WAS HOW I FELT. AND THEN I WAS LIKE HUH WHAT IS THIS. OH THAT? I HAVE THAT. THIS OTHER THING? I DO THAT TOO OH SHIT. and that was how i felt comfortable enough to say to myself and other people "i have borderline personality disorder. when i do or feel these things they are symptoms of this. when this happens to me it is a symptom of this. when i see advice directed at this demographic of people i should fucking listen to it and use these recommended coping mechanisms to deal with these problems."

i might even find out one day that i have a slightly different mental disorder but the symptoms of BPD from top to bottom fit me and my experience better than that of bipolar or whatever, even though i do suffer from intense mania/manic depression. what ultimately made me comfortable with the specific diagnosis of bpd is that i can only recognize my feelings enough to process them in someone else, whether that person be real or fictional. i was like OH. THAT'S WHY I CAN LITERALLY ONLY ACHIEVE UNDERSTANDING OF MY OWN MOTIVATIONS BY WATCHING MOVIES. I'M FUCKING REMOVED FROM MYSELF PSYCHOLOGICALLY DUE TO TRAUMA. NICE TO KNOW.

illnesses. have. so. many. overlapping. symptoms. the only reason. your specific diagnosis matters. is to find treatment. that works. for you.

you can't fucking APPROPRIATE A SYMPTOM YOU ALREADY FUCKING HAVE. thank you for coming to my ted talk and i'm so very glad i could help literally anyone feel better about anything all the love in the world to you

[agencypartnerinteractive]

Marketing on TikTok vs Instagram Reels

Assuming you're hoping to increase brand awareness and engagement, TikTok and Instagram Reels are two profoundly powerful options. While the two platforms can assist you with achieving your goals, each has one of a kind qualities and weaknesses. This blog entry will explain all that you really want to be familiar with TikTok and Reels marketing.

TikTok

In the event that you have a brand, there's a decent chance you already have a social media presence on Instagram. Yet, there's as yet an audience left to reach, and TikTok may be the platform where you can do that.

TikTok is based on a video-first foundation. It was launched in 2016 and is claimed by Chinese innovation company ByteDance. The platform has more than 1 billion monthly active clients, the majority of whom are somewhere in the range of 13 and 24 years old; 90% of TikTok's audience comes from outside China, primarily from North America and South America.

Instagram Reels

Reels is a relatively new Instagram feature that allows clients to create a video of as long as 90 seconds, which is longer than Instagram Stories (as long as 60 seconds).

Instagram Reels has been around since April 2019. While it's only available on iOS and Android gadgets (no electronic access), it's as yet an amazing platform for marketing because it offers more adaptability than utilizing TikTok or Instagram Stories alone.

Instagram Reels and TikTok Demographic Audience

On the off chance that you're attempting to reach a more youthful audience, TikTok is a superior option. Instagram Reels may be a superior decision on the off chance that your target audience is more established. This doesn't mean there's no overlap between the two audiences — there certainly is! Be that as it may, on the off chance that your goal is to connect with a similar consumer base and in addition to a broad audience, it's essential to understand what their identity is and where they hang out online.

Contrasts Among TikTok and Instagram Reels

A critical contrast between Instagram Reels and TikTok is that the latter is a video-first platform. TikTok depends on clients making and sharing videos to drive its development. This makes it a phenomenal decision for B2C organizations hoping to increase brand awareness and engagement with their audiences, especially considering how long individuals spend watching these short clasps consistently.

On the other hand, in the event that you're expecting to involve TikTok as part of your B2B marketing or lead gen strategy, things may not be so straightforward. While there are a lot of chances to drive conversions through paid advertising or working straightforwardly with powerhouses, they don't come cheap. You'll require a few significant assets on the off chance that you want them done right (i.e., great powerhouses and affiliate brands).

Advantages of Marketing on TikTok

TikTok is a viable instrument for reaching new audiences and building your brand's presence on social media. TikTok is ideally suited for B2C brands like beauty companies or dress retailers who want to appeal to a more youthful audience like youngsters and millennials. It's an exceptionally visual platform where clients are probably going to read the title of your video prior to squeezing play only.

Advantages of Instagram Reels Marketing

On the other hand, Instagram Reels is intended to sustain existing supporters by giving a vivid encounter that makes them want more and more.

Instagram Reels can assist you fabricate connections with your current clients by creating special content that draws them in, then engaging with them on a more personal level. As many brands know all excessively well, it tends to be easier said than done while attempting to keep more established consumers inspired by fresher advancements like short-structure video-sharing apps — yet it isn't incomprehensible!

Content Creation

While creating content on the two platforms may appear to be easy, it's not. The challenges of posting and promoting videos on TikTok and images on Instagram Reels are altogether different.

TikTok is a video-first platform, while Instagram Reels is a photograph first platform. At the point when you upload content to either app, your audience's expectations contrast contingent upon which social media channel they utilize most frequently. You ought to guarantee your brand resonates with audiences who utilize each app prior to attempting to simultaneously market on the two platforms!

Final Considerations

While this article centers specifically around the distinctions among TikTok and Instagram Reels marketing strategies, there are different factors you ought to consider while concluding whether these social media channels are appropriate for your business. A few questions to consider are:

Does marketing on these platforms align with your brand?

Is this medium the most effective way to share your content?

How long and exertion are you able to put resources into consistently creating, posting, and sharing your content?

Agency Partner as Your Social Media Marketing Agency

Video marketing successfully increases your brand awareness, reaches new audiences, and engages with your current ones. With a convincing social media marketing strategy, you'll have the option to sustain a local area of loyal supporters and post easily shareable content.

Agency Partner Interactive is a full-administration web marketing agency specializing in social media and content strategy. We've assisted more than 500 brands with making data-driven decisions that accelerate development and drive income. While you may have an idea of which platform to utilize, creating content, managing it, and tracking results are the way you'll have the option to take your brand to a higher level. Ready to rejuvenate your vision? Schedule a consultation today!

[lightns881]

DTeam Tumblr Demographics Survey Results (Part 2):

What does DTeamblr look like, what does it have to do with MCYT history, and why does it look like a rainbow?

I’ll make an educated guess here and say y'all enjoyed my last post (totally unrelated to the way I gained almost 50 followers overnight). Anyhow, thank you so much for the overwhelming support! I’m so glad a lot of you felt you could relate to my deep-dive into the leading personality type on DTeam Tumblr. It took me so many hours to write and research, and as a math major and honors student, it’s no easy feat, so I’m so grateful for the attention it got!

Today we’re discussing the general demographics of DTeam Tumblr and why they might look the way they do. Number 8 will blow your mind! So make sure to keep reading and hit that little grey heart and arrow at the bottom if you like it, so more people get to see it! Thanks for your support! Now, let’s jump straight into the post!

Your Daily Dose of Data

From the 449 responses we received, these are some pie charts displaying the gender, age, and sexuality of all respondents.

Image Description: Female (52.8%), Non-Binary (37.4%), Male (9.8%)

Image Description: 16-17 (37%), 13-15 (31.4%), 18 and over (29.4%), 12 and under (2.2%)

Image Description: Bisexual/Pansexual (54.1%), Homosexual (16%), Asexual (14.7%), Other (7.8%), Heterosexual (7.3%)

Mmhm, delicious! Y'all ready to dig into these stats? Because I don’t know about you, but they certainly don’t strike me as what the general population looks like!

Welcome to Tumblr, the Only Community Where Straight Men are the Minority

So these statistics certainly didn’t take me by surprise. Mostly because the DNF Shipper Survey I took some time ago revealed a similar trend. Not to mention, Tumblr is probably the QUEEREST internet community on the planet. 

Funny enough, the survey revealed a shocking number of ZERO heterosexual males respondents. I’ll say it louder for the people in the back. ZERO straight males were recorded out of 449 respondents for this survey!

Now, this isn’t surprising for the Tumblr community by itself, but I can say I’m somewhat surprised in terms of the MCYT Tumblr community. (Obviously, the survey specified DTeam Tumblr, but there is a big overlap between both communities, so I will be using them interchengably when it seems relevant.)

Let’s break this down. The survey reveals the largest age population is 16-17, though it’s not by a great margin in comparison to 13-15 and 18 and older, which doesn’t surprise me either. Some of the major critics of the DTeam Fandom and other MCYT Fandoms love to claim the fanbase’s majority age range lies with children and pre-teens. While it’s an undeniable fact children are drawn to Minecraft, it’s also a misconception to paint it as solely a community for younger viewers.

In the MCYT Tumblr and DTeam Tumblr communities, specifically, we see this is not the case. Only 1/3 of the respondents of this survey are under the age of 16 (you could attribute part of it to the fact younger people might be less inclined to participate in this survey, but it is still a notable difference). I can’t say these age ranges are similar in other parts of the community like DTeam Twitter, Tik Tok, or Reddit, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say Tumblr lies toward the older of the bunch, with Reddit being the oldest and Tik Tok being the youngest (I do hope to perform this survey on some of the other communities, so please stay until the end if you want to help with that).

One of the likely explanations to why the ages for DTeam Tumblr look this way is the fact a big chunk of the community has likely been watching MCYT for a long time (even with breaks in between). I, myself, used to watch channels like PopularMMOs, Aphmau, and PrestonPlayz as a kid, and I presume many of you are familiar with them as well. With the resurgence of MCYT in the past year, it likely drew a lot of the older viewers in addition to the new ones.

But enough about age. What I really want to highlight on this post is the attraction of queer individuals to DTeam Tumblr and MCYT as a whole.

Why is the current MCYT Fandom so queer in comparison to the previous generations?

This is a huge open-ended question and considering I can only capture so much of the DTeam and MCYT community, the rest of this post should be taken solely as a theoretical analysis as opposed to fact.

With that out of the way, let’s start by discussing the shift MCYT has undergone over the years (I promise this will circle back to the question of queerness in the MCYT fandom, but we need some background before we can come up with a decent theory).

When Minecraft was first released, it proved to be a monumental change in the gaming industry. This simple little indie game took the world by storm. It was so vastly different from what the general population generally viewed gaming as (first-person shooters, story-driven games, action games, etc.) Not to mention, it didn’t exactly solely appeal to only a small margin of gamers, those being white cis males.

The gaming industry has notoriously been known in the past for its heteronormative community and general prejudice toward minorities. Though it has gone through a significant change over the decades, we certainly can’t say it’s fully gone.

Yet for whatever reason, the recent MCYT has taken the interest of so many queer people in comparison to other gaming YouTube communities. Why? Why are queer people so drawn to this community? And, more precisely, why does it feel so different than the old MCYT? Lastly, how does this relate to the conclusion about the leading personalities of this fandom we made in the last post?

The Niche Communities of MCYT Over the Years

MCYT has always been a huge, over-saturated genre of YouTube with content appealing to a variety of audiences. It’s dominated gaming content for years, and I think we can all safely say it’s never been bigger than it is today.

So why is it that just now it feels like the queerness of the fandom is popping off? Why now as opposed to say five years ago when MCYT was at another one of it’s strongest stages?

It seems like the community has made a tremendous shift in relation to breaking gender norms and LGBTQ+ subjects, not only in the fans but within the creators themselves. Was flirting and calling a pretty-boy streamer pet names as normal in the past as it is today? Were straight gamer guys putting on dresses and a full-face of make-up as supported back then? Were “marriages” and “pregnancies” within Minecraft boys an everyday occurrence like they are now? How is it that MCYT has dominated a Twitch dating show where flirting with the gay host and among straight contestants themselves is just another bit of entertainment? Where is this all coming from?

Recently, I watched a 2 hour documentary depicting all of the stages of Minecraft YouTube and how it has changed over the years. If you haven’t seen it and you have some time to spare, I HIGHLY recommend it! It’s very informative, and it honestly gave me such a strong sense of nostalgia that makes me choke up every time I think about it. I’ll link it below.

The documentary does a great job at exploring the different niche communities that dominated MCYT since it first took off. Some of such communities include the basic Let’s Players, the team-based Let’s Play channels like How2Minecraft, the roleplay story-centric ones like Aphmau and Samgladiator, the tutorial, building and technical side like Mumbo and Grian, the PVP-centric Bedwars or Hypixel channels, the Machinima community, the comedy side like ExplosiveTNT, the parody music videos, and so many more. All of the mentioned communities have dominated Minecraft at one point or another, many of them still having a rippling effect and/or a loyal community today. All of these communities have certain aspects that define them, some of which parallel the current overtaking content in the present.

How can we compare MyStreet to the Dream SMP?

Taking Aphmau as an example, her MyStreet series had a TREMENDOUS success a few years ago, racking in millions of views and bringing in a lot of money that eventually allowed her to hire voice actors and increase the production of mentioned episodes. The roleplay series was so successful it ran for six seasons!

Now, let’s compare that to the Dream SMP. It seems like a big comparison to be making considering they appear so different at first glance. For once, Aphmau is just one channel whose audience caters toward girls and younger people who enjoy romance. The series is set-up in an episodic-format that resembles more of a TV series than actual Minecraft videos.

Meanwhile, the Dream SMP is a collection of content creators with a mix of improvised storylines and the occasional regular video that resembles more of a Let’s Play series than a RP series.

You could say the only true comparisons to draw out of these two are the popularity they had/have and the profit they brought to their respective creators. 

However, there’s two other key similarities that you’ll find not only within these two specific examples, but many other channels and communities as well. Story and characters.

MyStreet’s story aspect is fairly obvious seeing as it’s a episodic series that focuses on a fictional story. The Dream SMP’s story aspect isn’t as clear, but it’s evident there is a story playing out in the foreground and background, whether intentional or unintentional, or improvised or not.

Character is where some of you might start to question me. It’s obvious MyStreet has characters. I mean, it is a fictional story, after all. But the Dream SMP? Light, they’re obviously people!

Well, my answer to that is yes and no--sort of. The Dream SMP’s story heavily relies on roleplay, bits as you might call them. Events that aren’t necessarily planned out as a fictional plot like the typical MyStreet episode is, but they aren’t exactly real. Schlatt is obviously not a villain in real life, he just likes to impersonate as one for the narrative. Wilbur isn’t crazy, but it’s a way to spice up the heroic story surrounding Tommy and him.

It’s video-game improv. Except the actors behind the content just so happen to be real people playing off the personalities and “brands” they have obtained. 

Brands. It all boils down to this. In the entertainment business, without a clear vision of your project and a clear way to brand what your consumer intakes, your project will likely not find a lot of success.

There’s a reason why Tommy plays off his loudness, using an overexaggerated laugh that although may not be completely fake, it is likely not the laugh he uses everyday. Or why BadBoyHalo is this supposed innocent muffin who doesn’t understand the crafting table meme and other references that are fairly easy to google and find the meaning of. Or why Sapnap is this chaotic being who loves starting pet wars and we love to paint as an arsonist in the Dream SMP. While all of these personality traits may be a part of their true selves, they’re played up for the camera--for the story. They act as the personas that define their characters in the narrative.

They have a clear brand and vision that appeals to the audience and makes them tune in on the daily to see how they all come together. It’s like roleplaying a more extreme version of yourself, one that brings home the money.

Story and characters run across every entertainment outlet. They define their brand. Aphmau has her characters and series. Hermitcraft has a set of memorable personalities and episodic videos that formulate its own story that is less like a narrative and more of a history of the server. ExplodingTNT has his recurring cast and comedic sketches. Most of these niche communities have a form of story and character defining them. It’s how they achieve a clear sense of branding and cater to a specific audience.

Queer Theory in MCYT

Having said all that, why does the MCYT of today draw in so many queer viewers?

Let’s think about this. In my last post, I ended by mentioning DTeam Tumblr is a sort of safe haven for INFP and INxx types who might be placed in the “other” category by society. INFPs, specially, are predisposed for escapism--one common form of it being fiction and entertainment. Not to mention, INFPs are feeling types who, as introverts, seek a personable connection. It’s why it’s so easy for them to obsess over book characters or fall in love with content creators.

Now, let’s imagine a whole community of LGBTQ+ INFP and INxx types. Actually, scratch that, we don’t even have to imagine it.

It’s what our community looks like today.

And why are so many so drawn to the DTeam and Dream SMP of all things? It’s a personable storyline that essentially forms a direct tie to the viewer. Unlike pre-recorded fictional TV series you tune into on your device, the Dream SMP is a whole load of chaos that blurs the lines between reality and fiction where fans can directly connect to creators and get to know them as people through a storyline that features sub-textual queer themes and non-conforming behaviors.

The MCYT content creator community of today is more non-conforming than ever before, and knowing this whole fact, knowing that many of them might place themselves in the “other” category or at the very least aren’t afraid to break the norms and be seen in that light, is a comfort in itself for LGBTQ+ INFP types. Once again, it’s a safe space that helps you escape from the troubles of real life, one you relate to.

Okay. So although this does answer why the fans look like they do, what about the creators themselves? Are we really supposed to believe this all came through naturally? That a bunch of straight guys suddenly decided wearing dresses was something they wanted to do?

I don’t mean to sound cynical here, and I’m in no way trying to insinuate creators have solely some sort of corrupt ulterior motive. Things are never as simple as they look. However, the truth is, a part of it lies on the attention it’s gotten.

I’ve talked a lot about DreamNotFound and the way Dream uses it as a marketing ploy. I stand by my point. However, he’s not the only one who does this in the MCYT community. Why did Finn suddenly go from wearing a dress to cross-dressing as a girl for a whole week? Why are so many creators suddenly deciding wearing dresses is fun? Why does every freaking straight MCYT actively want to flirt with George nowadays?

Let’s just let Techno’s favorite word answer this for us: clout.

It gets attention from one of the largest historically underserved minority community in the entertainment business. We might not be able to see gay flirting in every Netflix TV show or guys not minding dresses and getting fake marriages, but you are certainly going to get at least one of those in every Dream SMP stream and video you tune into. It gets attention. It brings home the money. And do I blame them? Not really.

Interestingly enough, there’s a lot of analytical posts on the MCYT Tumblr community that discuss the dangers of these tactics and why gay jokes and the way queer subtext is treated by MCYT creators is harmful. Despite this, it still attracts such a huge community of queers. So why exactly would queer people actively watch something that’s offensive or harmful to us?

I have a lot more to say about this topic and the morality behind Dream’s tactics, but I’m out of breath for today, so I’ll talk about it in my next post. What better way to start the conversation about the DNF and Karlnap questions of the survey than a good ol’ discussion on the morality of queerbaiting and the likes?

If you got this far, I’d appreciate it if you liked and reblogged this post if you enjoyed it and/or learned something new! Also, important news, I would really like to perform a similar study on the DTeam Twitter Community to measure the differences in demographics across platforms. I would REALLY appreciate it if you guys could go like, retweet and share the link I posted on my Twitter about it (tweet will be linked in the reblog below) so it reaches more of the DTeam Twitter community!

However, if you filled out the survey yourself here or you associate more with DTeam Tumblr than DTeam Twitter please DO NOT fill out the survey again! I’m trying to make sure it reaches the audience that mains on Twitter, but I need a little help with that since I don’t have as big of an influence on Twitter than on here for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, thank you so much for all your support! I really appreciate y’all and make sure to hit the follow if you want to lookout for the next demographics post! <3

(Pssst, I’m releasing a MCYT DNF superpower AU longfic next month... You should totally go check out the post on that if you’re interested in it...)

[tua-hottakes]

I’m sorry but I feel like vanya has the most white favoritism💀 five is a murderer, yeah, but he only kills when he feels like he has to, although I’m not saying it’s justified. Vanya was literally killing because she pissed😭 someone HONKED in front of her and and she killed them😭 and pogo😭(no hate to vanya tho, I like her)

Ok first things first: "only kills when he feels like he has to" ?? I feel like I have to kill about 10 times a day lmaoo, doesnt mean its ok to do it. Five murders intentionally, Vanya kills when she loses control. I think this is a significant difference to make, if entirely irrelevant to the issue of white favoritism.

//im sorry i kinda went off the answer to your ask is bolded under the line//

The way I understand the term white favoritism here (correct me if I’m wrong English is my second language) is the writers/producers or fans treating a white character better than they would a character of colour. We see it in white characters receiving more screentime, more complex and thought out storylines as well as better development both in canon and in fan works. We also see it, as others have pointed out, fan reactions such as Lila getting dragged for being a brown girl version of Five.

However, where fans are concerned, I think it gets a little more complex than “Person A doesnt like this poc character, but likes that white character, this is racism”. See, fandom likes to think they are gods that take canon and play with it as if it’s a piece of clay, but tua is an extremely well-crafted visual media, these characters have a lot to them, their presentation, the way they are written, and their development dictate the audience’s response. Most of the responsibility with avoiding something as subtle as white favoritism, imo, falls on the show’s creators; you cannot expect/rely on people having good enough analytical skills to recognise both the creators bias and /possibly/ their own.

Do you think that Robert Sheehan’s wardrobe choices are accidental? Or the fact that teenagers are in love with Aidan Gallagher? Both characters are designed to be attractive to certain demographics (LGBTQ+ community/ horny kids that dont have a one direction(those two do overlap)). The issue here isnt so much about which character does the worse thing and is forgiven by fandom. The issue comes down to the fact that fans are more willing to empathize with characters that are better written (to be likable) and better presented. Not nicer or more moral.

The whole Point of the show is that there aren’t objectively good or bad people, but if there were, all of the sibling would fall into the bad category. That’s why it’s a good show, it makes you empathize with people who do awful things. That being said, Vanya is a well-written character, but she’s literally the Big Bad of season 1 and a red herring big bad in s2. Shes way too central to the plot to not be given the required attention. But in terms of fan-reception ( and this is a very difficult to say for certain, as it’s impossible to measure) I have noticed that people tend to not care for her as much? When i say she’s a “smoll bean”, ya gotta notice the irony, I am fully aware she murdered people (although how much of that was her fault is up for a Very Long Discussion), she was by no means a likable character until s2 where she got to date Sissy (and i think this was also very intentional of the writers).

So, to get back to the point of your ask: Although there is always some racial bias behind every creative decision, I don't think shes that big of an example of favoritism on the side of the creators here, she needs to be a compelling character to perform her function, but at no point do i think, “man, Vanya is just so perfect, what a wonderful person, truly a model human being i want more of her and only her.” And this might just be my experience, but i haven't noticed her being much of a fan-favourite. In fact, I think she’s the second least liked character after Luther. People argue a lot about if she shoud be forgiven, she’s definitely not viewed in entirely positive light. The people who love her, mostly find the positives in her relationship with Sissy and the wlw representation. Which is a neat trick that Steve pulled, ngl, he got us there, he really knows his demographic(oh boy but thats another long topic right there). I don’t see much fan content about her on her own? Idk I could be wrong or too desensitized.

[levyfiles]

I want to start a shyan blog but I’m so scared because I don’t know how Shane and Ryan actually feel about it which makes me nervoussssssss help

Ohhh boy, brace yourself, nonnyhunny. I’ve got some word vomit for ya

To start off with, I just want anyone and everyone who is currently new to navigating this terrain we call the internet to know one thing and that is this one very important concept. Embrace your own insignificance! The internet is a big place. I once read a post on here that encouraged new users to think of Tumblr itself like you’re walking into a Walmart. You’re not here to make friends and you’re not here to shop for everyone else; you’re filling your own cart with the things you need and like and if someone comes along and takes a long good look at the things in your cart and says, “WOAH there, eating trans fats is unhealthy for you! I never eat trans fats because of a big list of reasons! Stop buying trans fats!!” you’re gonna be both puzzled and annoyed because it’s your cart, your Walmart experience; why the hell do they care what you’re gonna get?

However! I get it, the internet is now comprised of six different websites/apps and if you’re on there, there is no way to avoid or curate a completely ideal sense that you’ve made a space that’s all your own. There are going to be people who disagree with you, people who decide they don’t like what you do, but ultimately, in the midst of all that, you’re going to find people who feel the same in whatever regard you express yourself and that’s why it’s important to just express yourself because otherwise you’re going to develop a lot of disingenuous connections with people who would likely try to ruin your life if you disagree with them on some subject or other.

Now with that whole disclaimer in mind, I also understand where you’re coming from. Putting myself in the shoes of someone just trying to participate in a new fandom where there is a lot of contention among the masses about the rights and wrongs of RPF and whether the concept fits in with a philosophical debate about human nature and the way we interact with each other, witness each other’s journeys. That’s simply it, however; it’s an ongoing debate and where philosophy and debate are concerned, I always hold the belief that an individual’s right to ground themselves and say “These are the principles I wish to abide by” is sacred and ultimately, no amount of anonymous hatred or shrieking messages of outrage is gonna change that until you yourself decide that the principle isn’t working for you personally. My principle is that it’s fiction; an AU to explore as valid and sweet to me as demon!Shane headcanons are, but moreso because I identify with queer love stories and friendships forged by strangely deep similarities and complementing souls. I also love personalities like theirs, love the idea of said friendship and what it would bring to a story about two human beings who meet by happenstance and end up building something world-changing together. Still, because I am just a writer and a consumer of media, that’s the nicest thing I can give myself, a fictional account of these things while witnessing the real version happen in parallel. I get to celebrate in the overlap of similarities the real world and my fictional account take and watch it inspire my friends and mutuals to build their own universes and it’s beautiful. 

With that point being made, I also understand the reason a lot of people are nervous about being open about shipping. The backlash from a bunch of strangers seems to take on a note that would make even the nicest person sound like a puritan about to hold some extravagant witch trials. Nothing more interesting than a person claiming to do good in the world using words like “exterminate” “cleanse” or my personal favourite “purge”. I’ve read rumours being spread about shippers that take on their own life especially because it’s human nature to let other people handle the research; it’s human nature to just take a believable narrative at face value. One rumour being that shippers of this fandom write stories where we kill off Shane and Ryan’s significant others. Myself and my friends who are avid readers of the ao3 tag know that that hasn’t been the case since 2016/17 and by all accounts, I have yet to find the fic where this happens (barring a tinsworth fic I’ve only heard about). Mind you, not many of us check out Wattpad but even there it’s more self-insert friendly with themes I can’t even stomach. 

Which leads me to the last point and the main reason you sent this ask, I’m assuming. Ryan and Shane’s personal thoughts on the issue. Now, it behooves me to supply screenshots and proof when I make a claim but let’s consider if instead from the perspective of two adult men who have operated online far longer than a lot of their audience. Given that I am the same age as Shane, I know what the internet used to look like and how far it’s come and RPF is not a brand new thing neither did it pop up out of nowhere when One Direction debuted. And just like fanfiction in and of itself had its pushback from media because of its demographic and absolutely because of its queer-leanings, RPF appears to get a lot of that same energy, but it’s not an inherently toxic past time. Much like any fandom activity, it can get bad because fandom is not a monolith; it’s a bunch of individuals enjoying a medium in the ways they have learned to. You’re gonna get some individuals who “do it wrong” and some who do it differently, but ultimately, just like the forums and the reddit threads Shane and Ryan trawl in their past time, there are circles you learn not to veer into and terms you learn to blacklist/block/mute. With that being an indication of where they’re coming from as internet creators, I am confident when I say that, as long as it’s not being mailed to them, linked or quoted at them, they don’t care. They would know something that gets popular on the internet summons a brand of transformative art and fiction but much like they tend to ignore thirst tweets in their mentions or the repetitive requests for the same things over and over. They’d see it and gloss right over it. Shane is the type who writes long essays on reddit addressing the things that bother him, Ryan is weird and vocal and an oversharer sometimes when it comes to things Shaniacs say to him (i.e. that Voice he did for the occasional Shaniac who approaches him). It’s just one of the incarnations of fandom that they choose not to engage with, which, good? Because it’s a fan-specific activity. Once in a while you get a creator who wants to interact with fanfiction and it goes sideways because not all stories are written for them, much like not all fanart is made with the mindset to share with them. 

It’s just a regular old fan interaction and community habit that builds bigger followings. 

All in all, I’m not gonna tell you what to do. Unless you mean to be in their @’s all the time or link them on discord, or put any of your content in their hands, they are not going to see it. They don’t care. What they do care about is that you’re watching, that you support them and send them encouragement because they’re creating their own medium of content and a bigger following means more people get to see it and extract something positive from it.  

[easinalif]

5 steps to an powerful Facebook Marketing Strategy

Facebook nevertheless reigns as one of the maximum broadly used on-line structures with the offering adults. And the significant majority is the usage of it daily, which keeps offering manufacturers and agencies with a possibility for max visibility whilst imposing a Facebook advertising approach.

Oftentimes, the hardest component is getting started, however, we’re right here to offer you seven steps to assist get your Facebook advertising efforts off the ground.

Read directly to make sure you’re getting the maximum out of this ever-effective social media platform.

1. Set Goals for Facebook

The first step to any Marketing Strategy is putting the proper dreams. This roadmap could be an important connection with degree towards to make certain your Facebook approach is a success. But to set dreams, you’ll first need to do some studies to make sure your plan is practicable via the platform.

In the 2018 Sprout Social Index, we located that entrepreneurs on Facebook had some pinnacle dreams in mind:

35% wanted to increase brand awareness

22% wanted to increase community engagement

13% wanted to increase sales and lead generation

So, in case you don’t have Facebook dreams of your personal yet, those survey effects are an extraordinary region to start. Additionally, in case your organization has already set preferred dreams, search for how those overlap together along with your plans for advertising on Facebook.

Addressing Your Goals

Here are a few not unusual place every year dreams for agencies and the way a Generate Revenue from Facebook assists you.

Increasing first-class of income: Improving the first-class of income begins off evolved with higher focused on. Through a well-deliberate Facebook advertising approach, you attain your target market greater efficiently. Just due to the fact the pond is larger, doesn’t suggest you’ll get larger fish. Work on what you recognize great and use Facebook as a supply to enhance your attain.

Adding greater price to the organization: Facebook can higher nurture customers, enhance attention and offer greater assets to your target market. Make Facebook your go-to supply of information.

Better pulse at the industry: Are your competition constantly one step ahead? With the assist of social media tracking tools, you could track, pay attention, and file on all social conversations revolving around you, your competition, or the industry. Always try and boom your listening powers earlier than speaking.

More green recruiting: No one stated social recruiting is easy, however, it’s the handiest development in popularity. Social may be an extraordinary supply for growing recruiting efforts and achieving pinnacle expertise faster. Working your personnel’ social networks for a better social attain makes your probabilities of recruiting better first-class personnel higher.

Smarter growth: Reducing churn, proscribing spend and growing acquisition are all elements of a successful business, however, Facebook assists you in each of those areas. Whether it’s via advert spend, elevated focus on, or greater social selling, addressing your Facebook marketing approach assists you to get toward those dreams.

Tracking progress: Of course, ensuring you’re on tempo to perform those dreams is important, and with a device like Sprout, you could effortlessly hold tabs on all of your Facebook reporting which includes displayed withinside the image below.

2. Know your Facebook target market

Understanding who's on Facebook and what your contemporary target market breakdown looks as if could be crucial in figuring out which Facebook advertising techniques you need to hire and the way.

Sprout Social’s 2019 deep dive into social media demographics is an extraordinary start line for purchasing a preferred feel of factors like which Facebook customers live, languages are spoken, education, and masses greater key findings from the Pew Research Center.

Once you’ve studied up on that, spend a while getting acquainted together along with your personal Facebook demographics the usage of both Facebook Page Insights or a device like Sprout.

3. Engage proactively together along with your target market

Like maximum social media channels, they’re constructed as networks to converse, speak, and percentage content material. As an emblem, you may overlook that primary concept of what makes a social media network. That way verbal exchange and engagement need to by no means be placed on the again burner.

Instead, attempt to be a network on your target market. Facebook is a superb vicinity to maintain enterprise chats or discussions, whether or not it’s with a distinctive target market or your very own clients. While Twitter frequently receives all of the limelight of being a social client care mecca, don’t overlook approximately Facebook too.

You can assist force Facebook engagement via way of means of asking humans to interact withinside the first vicinity. However, you may take a seat down again and watch for your fans to interact. You can’t attain everyone, however, there are approaches to boom engagement.

For example, Zippo does a superb activity at interacting with customers on numerous remarks and keeps the dialogue on Facebook. The emblem additionally acts as a supply of information for unswerving clients.

Post on the Best Time on Facebook

Facebook continues to be one of the maximum hard social networks to apply for the natural content material. Again, algorithms make it a venture for organizations looking for premier posting instances. However, our manual at the excellent instances to publish on social media outlines the do’s and don’ts of posting on Facebook:

Wednesday is the very best encouraged day to publish

eleven a.m. and 1 p.m. on Wednesday is the maximum engaged time on Facebook

You’re secure to publish weekdays from nine a.m. to three p.m.

Sunday is the least engaged day of the week

The least encouraged instances encompass early mornings and past due at night

Know more about how to make money from Facebook.

4. Schedule your Facebook content material

Content advent and curation are essential additives to any social media approach. On Facebook, you've got many extra alternatives at the sorts of posts you may use. This levels from Stories to reputation to Group posts.

With the choice of alternatives comes the precise sorts of content material your target market is involved in, which need to additionally be saved in thoughts even as comparing the strategies for advertising on Facebook to paintings excellent for you. Our 2018 Index analyzed what form of posts clients need from brands.

 Thirty percentage stated they would like hyperlinks to extra facts and 18% need extra images. Videos got here in a near 0.33 with 17% of humans surveyed.

The equal file additionally mentioned what social entrepreneurs want to succeed. For Facebook, the pinnacle priorities blanketed video and a price range for commercials, which we’ll move into next.

For scheduling content material, you've got each unfastened and paid alternatives to be had to you. Facebook’s Page controls can help you agenda your posts properly out of your very own page. Sprout’s ViralPost function will choose the excellent instances for you primarily based totally on your maximum anticipated target market engagement.

Scheduling and making plans on your calendar makes it simpler on the way to see which gaps are on your posts. Using a device like this may prevent time withinside the lengthy run.

5. Determine your Facebook commercials approach

Whether you’re simply beginning out on Facebook or you’ve been on it for an even as it’s hard to get away the want to pay for emblem publicity. Our complete manual to growing your Facebook marketing and marketing approach is a superb vicinity to begin mastering extra approximately Facebook commercials.

However, developing your target market and emblem loyalty doesn’t manifest overnight. You need to earn it.

But there's one shortcut to get there a piece faster–social media marketing and marketing. Specifically, on Facebook, there are extra than 4 million advertisers with simply a median click-thru charge of nine%. Advertising on Facebook is simpler, however now no longer simpler. You nonetheless need to successfully construct your emblem and show off it flawlessly with commercials.

Aim for Higher Brand Awareness

You Facebook advert campaigns need to usually be targeted on  things:

Cost-Effective

Relevant

For starters, you need to live inside your allotted weekly or month-to-month spend with Facebook to keep away from over publicity and vain clicks. Ad spend can shoot up in a rush whilst you’re concentrated on what isn’t powerful or set appropriately, which brings us to the subsequent step.

Your Facebook advert needs to be relevant. Targeting a large target market isn’t a horrific thing. At first, you need to see what works excellent to construct awareness. However, relevance is vital towards superb Facebook commercials.

Try to construct custom audiences and deal with clients who might excellent healthy your Facebook content material. If it’s a retargeting measure, make certain the content material presents something recognizable however additionally something new.

Decide on Creative Content

Earlier in this publish, we did a deep dive into the sorts of content material on Facebook. Now it’s time to pick out which portions of content material you watched are well worth marketing and marketing in the front of a miles large target market.

Some of the excellent factors of your advert content material need to encompass:

Identity: Does it relate to your emblem and successfully show off your product/service? Are your emblem and commercial enterprise colorings efficaciously displayed?

Reward: What do visitors get out of it? Is it a deal, promotion, provide code, whitepaper, or enterprise manual?

Tone: Do you Create a spreadsheet and record your middle metrics. Each metric will offer you with precise insights into what you especially need to reap together along with your ad:

Click-via Rate: If visitors are essential, music CTR and spot in which you may improve.

Impressions: Having hassle with visibility? Revisit your photograph or content material and spot what can pressure greater impressions.

Cost to Acquire: If your cause is to restrict spend and price range greater effectively, music price to accumulate and set weekly or month-to-month goals.

Conclusion

With those 5 steps in hand, you could start plotting your Facebook advertising method today. Anything we missed? Comment under with steps you’ve taken to discover achievement on Facebook!

Know more Facebook Marketing Ideas For Boosting Your Business?

[pitiless-achilles-wept]

I Will Never Be Well: Why Good News is No News

I’m sure you’ve been wondering why I haven’t written in a while. Part of it is that I set myself a very high standard at the beginning and now feel that anything I write has to be lengthy, meditative, and circumspect. I’ll try to get away from that, so that I can share news when I feel I have any. That is, however, only part of it. The other, more substantive reason that I have for not sharing is that my last scans (on September 27th) showed good news. Although the initial tumor didn’t get any smaller a couple other ones did and—the real news—nothing spread or got bigger.

That’s great! Why didn’t I share it? Precisely because it’s great. Those results were really only the second time I heard anything like good news and part of me is filled with the fear, or even the certainty, that good news is in short supply and that I’ll run out soon. I don’t want to spread it too widely because I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, including mine.

[Below the cut, reflections on being stage 4 and the time-limited nature of “good news.”]

I have actually found myself annoyed by people’s celebratory, relieved reactions to the news that the clinical trial has been working. “Sure it is,” I think, “but for how long?”. The truth is that nothing will work forever. The median time during which patients on the forerunner of this trial (those with BRCA germline mutations) saw improvement was 8 months. I started this trial in July. Even if I’m average (which, let’s remember, I haven’t been at any point in this entire process), that means timing out in March. (Happy birthday to me.)  

Now, I might be exceptional in the other direction. There are people on PARP inhibitors who have been stable for 3-5 years. That would be amazing. We can hope, and hope is certainly worthwhile. But the fundamental truth is that good news that I get is only good in context. And the context is still pretty terrible. I feel like people either don’t know that (not everyone has such an extensive and intimate understanding of cancer) or allow themselves to forget it (a luxury that they’re allowed).

The result is that I feel that, with very few exceptions, no one understands that I will never be well. I will never be normal. I will never not have cancer. This is what it is to be stage 4.

I had the opportunity a couple weekends ago to attend a pair of events at the Dana-Farber clinic in Boston, both specifically for unusual patient demographics that include me. The first was a summit for women under 40. The second was an entire day devoted to research into and strategies for patients with metastatic breast cancer. Both were well-attended—I’d guess 200ish people at each—with very little audience overlap. And, among those four hundred or so women, I still did not meet anyone who has my triple-word score of bad luck: under 40, stage 4, triple negative.

Because of this, even in the breast cancer community, even in the company of people I know do understand certain aspects of it in intimate, painful detail, I feel isolated and often experience empathy fatigue. Women at the first summit were at all stages and many were survivors. It was great to see so many people at my rough life stage who were coping with a variety of problems entirely different from those who are older, but I still felt like I didn’t quite fit. Because in this demographic, the stage 4 (also known as “metastatic” or “mets”) representation was pretty minimal.  

It makes sense. Typically, younger women’s cancer is caught earlier, informed as they are about early screening based on a family history or genetic predisposition. In addition, most stage 4 patients do not start out that way, instead experiencing the progression of the disease from an earlier stage at a limited point in the body. (And, if you’re still counting, this is a fourth thing that makes me statistically unusual: having a de novo metastatic diagnosis. I met one other woman who was stage 4, de novo, and under 40 and, while not triple negative, she also wasn’t married and didn’t have kids. I need to hang on to her.) Consequently, most stage 4 patients have been dealing with cancer for years already and tend to be older.

And also, of course, metastatic cancer patients tend to die.

I can’t see any of you, but I can still feel you cringe at that. I’m not usually so blunt about it because it’s a harsh reality. But it is reality. We’ve moved beyond the stage—wonderfully, with incredible work and fascinating science—that, at least for breast cancer, “stage 4” doesn’t equate to “terminal.” It does, however, equate to “incurable.” I have an incurable disease. And, the way things look right now, I will eventually die from it.

Now, don’t anybody say anything about getting hit by a bus, please. When’s the last time that actually happened, for one thing, and, for another, while many things are possible some things, like my life being ended by cancer, are more probable than others. We can hope it’s very eventual, or that circumstances change profoundly. The goal for metastatic breast cancer is to transform it into a chronic condition that can be maintained and controlled and, particularly for young women, be part of a long and relatively normal life. As normal as it can be with the constant, gnawing anxiety, punctuated by moments of terror at the idea that the treatment will stop working and that the cancer will grow again and that, maybe this time, they won’t find something to halt the progress.

This brings in the third rare group that I’m part of (one which doesn’t have its own summit): women with triple negative breast cancer. If you’ve been taking notes you’ll remember that this means my particular cancer cells don’t have any of the three receptors on them (estrogen, progesterone, and HER2) that open up other treatment options, like hormone therapy and Herceptin. I learned at this conference that only 15% of breast cancer is triple-negative. Multiply that by the odds of being under-40 and stage 4 and it’s…well, it’s apparently less than one in four hundred people, based on my experience. And I can’t help but feel bitter about that, try as I do to remain optimistic overall.

There is no “good” kind of cancer. (Not even “the kind that happens to other people.”) But, truly, there is a hierarchy of types and, within each type, a hierarchy of curability or treatability and, within that, a hierarchy of the ease of those things. Breast cancer is a better type than some (leukemia; lymphoma; pancreatic), well-funded and thoroughly researched. But within those parameters, I’m in the worst of the worst position. Most of the treatments that allow stage 4 patients to control their cancer involve hormone therapy and Herceptin, neither of which will work for me. Most of the new, promising research (aside from the study that I’m in right now) has to do with immunotherapy involving PDL1 – a protein on the cell surface that I don’t have.

So even though the generalities we speak in give reason for optimism, even at stage 4, for me all the particulars are pretty dismal. Yes, we hope that the treatment that’s currently working keeps working for a really long time. Yes, part of what I hope (intend!) to do is to stick around long enough for the science to get even better, for them to (for example) find other proteins on the cell’s surface that function like PDL1. For antibody-drug conjugates to really take off. For something as yet unknown to be discovered. I believe very deeply in the power of research medicine and it does give me hope. I’m always hoping.

Hope is the thing with feathers, but sometimes they get to looking pretty bedraggled. It’s easy to understand why I feel like, if the PARP inhibitors stop working, I’ve pretty much lost my only shot. Remember how chemo didn’t do anything? How my tumor got bigger and the cancer spread to my liver? Doing that again, looking for another clinical trial, and hoping that the science moves fast enough for me is all I would have if I had to leave the study. Which I’ll find out about in the next 10 days, as I check in for more scans on November 8th and hear results on the 11th or 12th.

So what’s the right balance between celebrating the good news—news good enough that after my September scans my oncologist swept me up in a hug—and remembering that, even in the best case scenario, my life will be filled with treatments that are long and painful and only effective for a limited period of time? And what about you all? How do you support someone through that? Do you choose optimism that can seem to miss the point, even coming off as naïve? Or a tempered realism that may seem not to offer enough enthusiasm to match a full understanding of the significance of good news?

I’m not able to give you an answer. The best I can do is try to give you some idea, through posts like this, what I’m facing and what’s going on for me, even when the news is good. But I will also try (when the news IS good) to share that information more widely. Because even a limited amount of good is, in a situation like this, worth celebrating.

[cogpsyblog-blog]

A Final Output – Intervention Proposal

Introduction

The year 2020 might not be the best year for all of us. Nobody expected a pandemic would welcome us as we move forth. Hence, health protocols were raised as an immediate action in hopes to win over the virus and yet, with all efforts done, it is far from over and the battle to contain the virus progresses. This is where we are mandated to follow certain preventive measures, one of which is donning facemasks.

Wearing a mask has been one of the government’s mandate and high held precautionary measures during this pandemic that can help in preventing the wide-spread of the virus. But for some reason, people forget to wear it every time they go out of their houses or just choose not to wear it at all. Perception, attention and memory are concepts looked into that have an influence on the reason why people do not wear masks.

Furthermore, given that not many people know about its importance and benefits, this is where the proposed intervention takes cover. The target for to those that are from the far edges of town especially people who live in the rural places, more specifically those areas where access of television and any form of media are limited, so as having distant clinics. Moreover, people in rural places are also vulnerable to health problems as much as those in urban places (Asian Country Institute, 2014) and most older people live and are concentrated in rural places (Abalos, 2018) which make them at high-risk of COVID-19, along with people who have been diagnosed with disease/s especially respiratory-related.

Review of Related Literature

As mentioned before; perception, attention and memory take part as to why people tend not to don masks or not properly done.

Perception. The barriers of dissemination of information and perceiving the usefulness of infographics to inform a certain health problem are being pointed out. The easy way of sharing information is an important aspect, such as infographics as it was recognized as a potential method in improving communication with the target audiences due to its appearance and effectiveness, and people favor it. That said, top-down and bottom-up approach come in. In a Top-Down processing, people perceive the context and clues of the information generally; getting the gist on how bad the situation (pandemic) is, why wear a mask in this time of crisis, its risks and benefits in wearing one that can help them from spreading the virus. Some would remember past experiences and expectations and use it to their advantage such as they would get sick if they don’t don a mask, as some would not due to having negative past experiences in wearing it. In Bottom-Up processing, on the other hand, people process sensory information, perceiving the details on how and why wear a mask in public and what proper masks to wear such as covering the mouth, nose and chin, not just the mouth itself.

There is also the Figure Ground principle of Gestalt Psychology in which infographics don’t clearly show the foreground and the background concepts that would able them to get and understand the information instructed by the government or organization. According to Oflert et.al (2019), using infographics on disseminating information can create communication through visual engagement, making complex information easily understood. In line with the social problem of not properly wearing masks, people may tend to ignore information based on how the information was disseminated such as given through a full-text view.

Attention. There are people on social media, televisions, radios, or even mobile patrols roaming around informing everyone to wear face masks when you go out to avoid spreading the spread of the virus. There are individuals who have selective attention in this information, wherein some have heard it in the street or in TV but they are talking to someone, making their attention focused elsewhere. Another is limited attention, which means that at any given time the brain can store an incredibly small amount of information. In other words, the brain has a small amount of processing of the information (Dukas, 2004). They have stored the instruction about wearing the face mask but not the specific instructions on how to use it. Lastly, inattentional blindness can be in it as well, the inability to recognize an object which is clearly apparent but unpredictable when focus has been paid to another task, occurrence, or entity. Example, health workers or barangay workers are giving out infographics about wearing face mask and how the situation of the pandemic is getting much worse by the day. Instead of focusing on the detail about the situation, some people focus on just wearing a face mask for compliance, but not really knowing why and not using it properly. A study from Pickles et al (2020) showed that younger people and men think that COVID-19 was exaggerated, thus making them think that wearing a mask is not essential. Due to misunderstanding with regards to the information about COVID-19, there is an effect on how a person prioritizes attention given to the problem since for them there is no danger and the safety is not compromised (PLOS, 2019).

Memory. People internalize things or events every day but not everything is pulled in. The disruption or failure to process can happen at any stage, though it is possible to happen in the very first process which is encoding where a conversion of stimuli or sensory input to a certain form before storing it into the memory happens. This certain form has to be altered in a way that the system can cope with (McLeod, 2013). Its process is rather personal, depending on information if considered important and useful for future take, and how it relates to a person’s vision of reality. If and when the encoding process is poor, however, the information being stored is difficult to recall them later on, possibly never (Lumen Learning, n.d.).

Forgetting things can also occur. One theory can support under this is interference theory. Interference theory happens when things overlaps in long-term memory, and there are two: proactive interference theory (PI) and retroactive interference (RI). Proactive interference happens when one fails to learn or remember new things or tasks due to previously learned or old ones, whereas retroactive happens when one fails to recall the old information due to the new ones being learnt. In relation to the current issue, such interference may be under the proactive interference. To demonstrate, perhaps people forget to wear a mask, more so doing it properly, because their usual routine in going out does not involve wearing one; that, or they are not used to it.

Intervention

There are two intervention proposed as such that can help people store these guidelines in their long-term memory, especially how to wear a mask properly and effectively.

Infographics

Infographics can help in disseminating information to the readers or people in an easy and understandable way. The infographics must be given to each family and require them to post it in their house, serving as a reminder for the guidelines on how to wear face mask properly since the targets are the people having little access to media, more so those who live at rural areas. This way, it can educate people and make them aware that this pandemic is a serious case that needed individual cooperation.

House to House Intervention to Help Families in Rural Areas be Informed about the Importance of Wearing Face Mask.

Since wearing face masks has been mandated by the government all around the Philippines and the world for precautionary measure, most people have been wearing masks and face shield when they are in public to avoid transmittance and increase the number of cases. Given the target, house to house intervention can be of help by explaining and demonstrating and making them understand the importance of wearing a mask when going out, even more so the significance of telling the Do’s and Don’ts in wearing it. This way, they will be fully informed about the danger of this Covid-19.

References

Abalos, J. (2018). Older persons in the Philippines: A demographic, socioeconomic and health profile. Ageing International. doi: 10.1007/s12126-018-9337-7

Asian Century Institute. (2014) Impact of disease on the Philippines’ development. Retrieved August 31, 2020 from https://asiancenturyinstitute.com/development/390-impact-of-disease-on-the-philippines-development

Dukas, R. (2004). Causes and consequences of limited attention. Retrieved August 20, 2020 from https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/76781

Lumen Learning. (n.d.). The process of forgetting. Retrieved August 13, 2020 from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/the-process-of-forgetting/?fbclid=IwAR3A4ZGqM5kf2cAQqpZDjxhpXpBKoCS6p5B-U2FF5utB6KFsRCWTeaQq584

McLeod, S. A. (2013). Stages of memory - encoding storage and retrieval. Simply Psychology. Retrieved August 13, 2020 from https://www.simplypsychology.org/memory.html

Olfert, M., Hagedorn, R., Barr, M., Colby, S., & Kattleman, K. (2019). Dissemination using infographic reports depicting program impact of a community-based research program: EB4CAST in iCook 4-H. Retrieved September 2020, from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/215608717.pdf

Pickles, K., Cvejic, E., Nickel, B., Copp, T., Bonner, C., Leask, J., Ayre, J., Batcop, C., Cornell, S., Dakin T., Dodd, R., Jennifer M. I., Kirsten J. M. (2020). COVID-19: beliefs in misinformation in the Australian community. MedRxiv. Retrieved on August 18, 2020 from https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.04.20168583v1

PLOS. (2019). People pay more attention to stimuli they associate with danger: Paying attention to a threat then causes a person to perceive it as being more dangerous. Science Daily. Retrieved on August 17, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191010142144.htmIn

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

A few weeks ago, the Democratic National Committee formally acknowledged what has been evident for quite some time: Nonreligious voters are a critical part of the party’s base. In a one-page resolution passed at its annual summer meeting, the DNC called on Democratic politicians to recognize and celebrate the contributions of nonreligious Americans, who make up one-third of Democrats. In response, Robert Jeffress, a Dallas pastor with close ties to Trump, appeared on Fox News, saying the Democrats were finally admitting they are a “godless party.”

This was hardly a new argument. Conservative Christian leaders have been repeating some version of this claim for years, and have often called on religious conservatives and Republican politicians to defend the country against a growing wave of liberal secularism. And it’s true that liberals have been leaving organized religion in high numbers over the past few decades. But blaming the Democrats, as Jeffress and others are wont to do, doesn’t capture the profound role that conservative Christian activists have played in transforming the country’s religious landscape, and the role they appear to have played in liberals’ rejection of organized religion.

Researchers haven’t found a comprehensive explanation for why the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans has increased over the past few years — the shift is too large and too complex. But a recent swell of social science research suggests that even if politics wasn’t the sole culprit, it was an important contributor. “Politics can drive whether you identify with a faith, how strongly you identify with that faith, and how religious you are,” said Michele Margolis, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity.” “And some people on the left are falling away from religion because they see it as so wrapped up with Republican politics.”

Liberal Americans are less religious than they used to be

Over the course of a single generation, the country has gotten a lot less religious. As recently as the early 1990s, less than 10 percent of Americans lacked a formal religious affiliation, and liberals weren’t all that much likelier to be nonreligious than the public overall. Today, however, nearly one in four Americans are religiously unaffiliated. That includes almost 40 percent of liberals — up from 12 percent in 1990, according to the 2018 General Social Survey.1 The share of conservatives and moderates who have no religion, meanwhile, has risen less dramatically.

The result is that today, most people’s political ideology is more tightly tethered to their religious identity. The overlap is far from complete — there are still some secular conservatives and even more religious liberals. In fact, the majority of Democratic voters are religiously affiliated. But the more liberal you are, the less likely you are to belong to a faith; whereas if you’re conservative, you’re more likely to say you’re religious.

To be sure, religious belief and practice can still exist without a label. Many people who are religiously unaffiliated still believe in God, or slip back into the pews a few times a year. But liberals are also cutting ties with religious institutions — since 1990, the share of liberals who never attend religious services has tripled. And they’re less likely to believe in God: The percentage of liberals who say they know God exists fell from 53 percent in 1991 to 36 percent in 2018.

Politics is shaping how some liberals think about religion

At first, it wasn’t clear why so many Americans were losing their faith — and of the available explanations, politics wasn’t high on the list. After all, there are lots of reasons why any individual person would stop attending church that have nothing to do with politics. A church scandal might spark a crisis of faith. You might begin to view a religion’s hierarchies or rules as antiquated, restrictive or irrelevant to your life. You might not have been that religious to begin with.

Social scientists were initially reluctant to entertain the idea that a political backlash was somehow responsible, because it challenged long-standing assumptions about how flexible our religious identities really are. Even now, the idea that partisanship could shape something as personal and profound as our relationship with God might seem radical, or maybe even a little offensive.

But when two sociologists, Michael Hout and Claude Fischer, began to look at possible explanations for why so many Americans were suddenly becoming secular, those conventional reasons couldn’t explain why religious affiliation started to fall in the mid-1990s. Demographic and generational shifts also couldn’t fully account for why liberals and moderates were leaving in larger numbers than conservatives. In a paper published in 2002, they offered a new theory: Distaste for the Christian right’s involvement with politics was prompting some left-leaning Americans to walk away from religion.

It was a simple but compelling explanation. For one thing, the timing made sense. In the 1990s, white evangelical Protestants were becoming more politically powerful and visible within conservative politics. As white evangelical Protestants became an increasingly important constituency for the GOP, the Christian conservative political agenda — focused primarily on issues of sexual morality, including opposition to gay marriage and abortion — became an integral part of the the party’s pitch to voters, but it was still framed as part of an existential struggle to protect the country’s religious foundation from incursions by the secular left. Hout and Fischer argued that the Christian right hadn’t just roused religious voters from their political slumber — left-leaning people with weaker religious ties also started opting out of religion because they disliked Christian conservatives’ social agenda.

At the time, Hout and Fischer’s argument was mostly just a theory. But within the past few years, Margolis and several other prominent political scientists have concluded that politics is a driving factor behind the rise of the religiously unaffiliated. For one thing, several studies that followed respondents over time showed that it wasn’t that people were generally becoming more secular, and then gravitating toward liberal politics because it fit with their new religious identity. People’s political identities remained constant as their religious affiliation shifted.

Other research showed that the blend of religious activism and Republican politics likely played a significant role in increasing the number of religiously unaffiliated people. One study, for instance, found that something as simple as reading a news story about a Republican who spoke in a church could actually prompt some Democrats to say they were nonreligious. “It’s like an allergic reaction to the mixture of Republican politics and religion,” said David Campbell, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame and one of the study’s co-authors.

Granted, the people who were leaving weren’t necessarily at the center of their religious community — they didn’t attend religious services often, perhaps dropping in once or twice a year. But the numbers began to add up, opening a rift between conservatives and liberals. According to Margolis’s research, while young people across the political spectrum tend to drift away from religion, liberals are increasingly unlikely to return.

Liberals seem likely to become increasingly secular

As a result, views about religion and its role in American society have become increasingly polarized. According to surveys by the Pew Research Center, the percentage of liberals who believe that churches and religious organizations positively contribute to society dropped from nearly half (49 percent) in 2010 to only one-third (33 percent) today. And according to 2016 data from the Voter Study Group, only 11 percent of people who are very liberal say that being Christian is at least fairly important to what it means to be American — compared to 69 percent of people who identify as very conservative.

And although the people who have left religion could return, it seems more and more unlikely. For one thing, conservative Christians are still a key part of the Republican coalition, where their agenda on issues like abortion and religious exemptions remains a high political priority within the party. This means liberals’ views of the association between conservative politics and religion could be hard to shake.

These patterns are self-reinforcing in other ways, too. Recent surveys show that secular liberals are more likely than moderates or conservatives to have spouses who aren’t religious. That’s critical because these couples are then often less likely to pray or send their children to Sunday school, and research shows that formative religious experiences as a child play a crucial role in structuring an adult’s religious beliefs and identity. It’s no coincidence then that the youngest liberals — who never lived in a political world before the Christian right — are also the most secular. “It’s very, very unlikely that a kid raised in a nonreligious liberal household would suddenly consider going to church,” Margolis said.

The political implications of this shift are already evident. As more liberals become nonreligious, the Democratic Party’s base is growing more secular, complicating the party’s efforts at reaching more religious voters. But what it means for religion is less clear. Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison College, said that the impact might be blunted by the fact that the people who are becoming nonreligious mostly weren’t that involved in religion to begin with.

But Campbell warned that this shift is already reducing churches’ ability to bring a diverse array of people together and break down partisan barriers. That, in his view, threatens to further undermine trust in religious groups and make our politics more and more divisive. “We have very few institutions left in the country where people who have different political views come together,” he said. “Worship was one of those — and without it, the list is smaller and smaller.”