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davidanderson7162 · 3 years

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Cartoons for Everybody

It is not true that just children take pleasure in cartoons. Cartoons have been showing up in print media as well as television for decades. They are extremely entertaining and also are suitable anxiety busters for the worn grownup. For youngsters, animes can be academic in addition to enjoyable. It holds true that there are some that are violent, those are best prevented. It would certainly make good sense to pick intelligently what you desire your children to see Kids TELEVISION Online.Kids TV Network

Exactly how do they profit your youngsters?

- Some animes carry messages in social understanding. Cartoons almost always have stories that centre round a hero. The hero is always combating evil as well as victories. Happy endings are constantly great to have.

- There are those that develop vocabulary. Kids learn new words as well as enhance in their speech.

- An added advantage is that, those youngsters watching programs like these find out to focus. This helps them focus as well as educates them the ability to follow consecutive episodes.

- They learn life lessons, they discover sharing and exactly how to recognize right from incorrect. They find out that it is not always the large and also the solid who constantly win.

- Animations constantly obtain stored away as terrific memories and those pleased associations are carried appropriate into adulthood.

How do they profit adults?

- Viewing an anime when you're ill in bed is a splendidly recovery exercise. Remember those times when, as a youngster you did precisely that?

- Researches reveal that viewing cartoons lowers the danger of anxiety associated illness in adults. A great laugh launches endorphins in the mind. These endorphins make us really feel far better mentally and physically and are the best de-stressor that money can't purchase.

- Individuals like these find they associate better to kids as well as have a much better understanding of them.

- Obviously, this is a great way to kill time as it keeps individuals out of mischief. The still mind, as they claim, is the devil's workshop!

Throughout the years animes have actually advanced from one dimensional characters on the screen as well as paper to a three dimensional one. Modern technology has made cartoon personalities realistic. Both adults and children connect to the story Children TELEVISION Online.

Anime Vs Cartoons: What's the Difference?

In the "Anime" neighborhood, for most fans as well as fans, "Anime" is "Anime and also "Cartoons" are "Cartoons". For them both of the things are truly different from each various other.

Firstly, many individuals obtain puzzled between an Anime and also an Anime, even if both are animated that doesn't imply that they both are very same. There are a lot of differences in Anime as well as Cartoons. While both are caricatures that might be computer animated, anime generally has visually distinctive functions for characters. So, below I will certainly now clarify the difference in between these 2. Anime are Japanese computer animated production, that are available in various layouts like, television series such as dragon sphere z, Naruto, one piece etc., computer animated brief films, and also full-length films. However animations are two-dimensional illustrated visual art, non-realistic or semi-realistic illustrations.

Anime characters have distinct facial and also physical features that are extremely comparable to truth, their large eyes and tiny mouth are developed due to cuteness. On the various other hand, cartoons physical features are very much from reality than anime. Anime characters additionally reveal various kinds of distinguishable faces whereas animes do not.

Cartoons are normally made to make people laugh, so the style mostly is funny. Yet there are likewise several animes that are academic, showing something good to mainly young children and also youngsters in an enjoyable, interactive way. For example, mickey mouse, Donald duck, pests bunny and so on

. Unlike cartoons, anime does not adhere to just one or more genres. Anime programs and also movies are all based on some sort of story which proceeds through the whole series, for instance, bleach, one item, Naruto, etc. Anime is based upon real-life problems or something that are closer to human feelings and also have a lot more categories than cartoons such as, dramatization, school life, slice of life, love, activity, and so on

. However if you check out both of them as different entities, or as same, you will not be able to locate a clear difference between the two, which is why a lot of the people get puzzled in between both and wind up calling anime as well as animes are very same Children TELEVISION Online.

The initial animation was stated to be generated in 1499. It depicted the pope, holy Roman emperor, and the king of France as well as England playing the game of cards. However, Japanese animation began in the very early 20's, when Japanese filmmakers were trying out various methods. By 1930s, as an alternative to the live activity sector, computer animation was established.

As anime are two-dimensional numbers drawn and utilized in animations, as caricatures in papers, and also publications. If we were to define what Anime is after that the basic suggestion of several of the common as well as agreed upon notions would certainly be "Japanese, animation, vibrant layouts, as well as hand-drawn" would certainly be primary buzzwords.

Today, Anime only appears to refer "animations just from Japan" to make it extra understandable for individuals. After all this is human nature to like the important things which are conveniently understandable and conveniently categorized.

To make the distinction more clear, let's take the example of the tom as well as jerry and dragon sphere z. So, you may believe what's the difference in between both when they both are computer animated and have excellent visuals, histories, sound impacts as well as even the computer animated drawings behave. But, there are lots of distinctions in them which differentiate them from anime to animation. Like, their principles are absolutely different, as you know every episode of tom as well as Jerry is various as well as is not associated with any of the previous episode or continuing some sort of tale from a point but in dragon sphere z every episode is connected to the previous one, and proceed the story from where it stopped in the previous episode. And their categories are various too, as tom and also Jerry is purely based upon a pet cat and also mouse battle and made to make people laugh and their watch time enjoyable. On the various other hand, dragon sphere z is sort of a journey of a saiyan to conserve the Planet and also the universe from several dangers, he defends conserving every person, with the aid of his family members, close friends and fellow saiyans. Dragon ball z is can be categorized in various categories, like activity, experience, comedy, very power, etc

. An additional thing in which some individuals may unique anime as well as cartoon would certainly be that cartoons are for youngsters whereas reach of anime can be extended to many various other age and other locations Kids TV Online.

However what I believe is, cartoons are not simply children product, because as we can see in the newspapers, as well as on television also, there are many cartoons containing as well as targeting lots of political, spiritual sights. Most of these messages are concealed as well as indistinguishable for kids, to ensure that grownups can appreciate viewing them with youngsters. Whereas some of the anime consists of high grown-up material and thus are not secure or good for little kids to see. Those type of anime are made completely concentrating on adult target market. But there are likewise some anime collection which are definitely risk-free to enjoy with children. However nowadays, even normal anime's might have some scenes which are not meant to be enjoyed by kids.

So, I think, where cartoons are secure for kids to see, anime shouldn't be thought about secure sufficient for them. But despite just how old you obtain, you can still appreciate it as it is.

I really feel that, anime has much deeper thought in them, well created characters, broad story-line, a solid style, sensible background animation, the real world scenarios, discussions, expressions, etc. all of these things bound us together to view all the episodes (whether there are 12 or 24 or more than a thousand of episodes) of the anime collection. Whereas on the various other hand, animes, regardless of whether they are telling a story or simply going for funny, have superficial characters and themes.

Cartooning for Kids: 3 Books That Can Help You Get Started

Many children I understand love to attract eventually. Several of them love it a lot, they take place to produce video games, comics, cartoons, and comics. If you are seeking some exceptional books on cartooning for youngsters, below are three that can aid you get going.

Among the outright finest general intros allows Publication of Cartooning by Bruce Blitz. He starred in a public tv program for years, and I was able as a young person to learn from his techniques.

Guide covers whatever from basic cartooning abilities, like integrating various facial forms, features, and hairdos, to make various characters. It likewise demonstrates how to attract bodies and also add motion to them so they are funny and also dynamic, and not just stalling.

He does a terrific work of introducing animation results as well as devices. Those are the kinds of things that make animes enjoyable and bring them to life, like the wavy lines appearing of a piece of pizza, to show that it smells excellent. Or the lines on a pool of water or a mirror, to reveal they are reflective. And also one of the most enjoyable of all, those little grains of sweat or activity lines, like when someone has actually just thrown a sphere Children TELEVISION Online.

There is also a great deal of mention on just how to create cartoons, consisting of how to lay them out, invent jokes, as well as do your lettering. For kids who wish to attempt their hand at superhero-type comics, he covers different means to make your male go from dopey to wonderful, from absolutely no to hero. Likewise included are numerous positions you might utilize, like training, taking off, flying, and also boxing.

This extensive work additionally has an area on animation portraiture or caricature. In this way you can draw funny pictures of on your own, good friends, family members, as well as teachers, and offer those away as presents. You may even wind up offering your job!

An additional outstanding summary is Everything You Ever Wanted to Know concerning Cartooning yet Hesitated to Draw. The writer is a Disney-trained musician, so it's a perfect recommendation if you like that design. Yet it too covers every little thing from expressions and also drawing action presents, to cartoon format.

One specific area I such as is exactly how to attract your animes from various camera angles, like way down reduced. That way, if you are trying to attract something from the viewpoint of a very tiny character, like a computer mouse seeking out at an individual, you can obtain an excellent funny aim to your job.

Art for Children: Cartooning: The Only Cartooning Book You'll Ever Need to Be the Artist You have actually Constantly Intended to Be motivates youngsters to try out various techniques to obtain their own designs. The design hangs and also open, so it's easy for kids to comply with. There is also info on composing jokes as well as developing panels Children TV Online.

So if you have an interest in cartooning for children, these 3 books to help you get going are perfect. You will have 3 completely different designs to examine, and you will have great deals of suggestions on attracting fundamentals, plus information on how to put whatever together into your own anime creations. Delighted cartooning!

8 Memorable Youngsters' Anime Adaptations to Motion Picture

When a well enjoyed children's TV series makes the change from the little to the hollywood it normally spells a break from tradition and also an attempt to interest an entire new target market. Computer animation resorts to live activity, rough-and-ready image resorts to CGI, obscure commentary artists are replaced by prominent Hollywood stars as well as puppets are switched for real-life actors. To commemorate the incredible brand-new film of eponymous cult TELEVISION series Stories of the Riverbank [talesoftheriverbank.co.uk/ trailer], here are some motion picture gems that really improve their kids' TELEVISION starts, and also some stinkers that ought to have adhered to what they're best at:

Garfield (2004 )

On the one hand, Bill Murray seems like he's constantly been the voice of Garfield - his effortlessly sarcastic wit seems completely suited to the lasagne addicted fat feline. On the various other, pretty much whatever else regarding this movie sucks. The performing's not up to much and also the animation's nothing short of tragic. The initial comic strip as well as anime series didn't endeavor to far from Garfield's litter tray, so this attempt to stretch things to more than an hour just ends up a mess.

Little understood fact: Bill Murray recorded a lot of his audio for this in Italy while shooting "The Life Aquatic" on a watercraft.

Authorities Garfield website - garfield.com/.

Tales of the Riverbank (2008 ).

Though not a cartoon, this new motion picture is absolutely worth a mention: when Johnny Morris initially placed his voice to these shore pets in the 1959 TELEVISION collection of the same name, it could have been debatable. However it turned out that making pets appear like they were chatting was a huge success. Today the adorable Hammy Hamster once more joins GP, Owl as well as buddies in a fracturing feature length waterfront prance. With a winning, British voice actors and also an innocently jolly story, this motion picture is set to become a company family members favourite. Little understood fact: In the '60s TV program, the animals were adjusted to look like they were speaking utilizing peanut butter on the roofing of their mouth.

Official Website - talesoftheriverbank.co.uk/ trailer. TOTR on IMDB - imdb.com/title/tt1043748/.

Teen Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990 ).

There were the Samurai Pizza Cats and after that there were the Bicycle Rider Computer Mice from Mars - yet both were bad copies of what was undoubtedly the supreme animal/mutant based cartoon activity collection embeded in a drain ... including a speaking rat. "Teen Mutant Ninja Turtles" was a computer animated TELEVISION show in the 80s, a trilogy of live-action films in the 90s as well as more lately a computer system cartoon animation (TNMT). The films are mainly dreadful - however watch out for an instead snazzy-looking Vanilla Ice in Adolescent Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Glop. Traditional. Little recognized fact: In the UK the TELEVISION series was called Adolescent Mutant Hero Turtles as the word "ninja" was considered as well terrible.

Scooby Doo (2002 ).

Among the much better remakes, this is about as close as you're going to get to the original collection without returning to full animation. All the one linings are there, as are all the trademarks that made the original such a smash hit. There's additionally a healthy and balanced dosage of self mockery to make certain the grown-ups can enjoy it as high as children. Any person that located Scrappy Doo more than a little bothersome in the original will enjoy the spin at the end. The only secret that still remains is this - what worldwide IS a Scooby Snack ?? Little recognize truth: In a very early version of the film, a certain Jim Carrey was connected to play Shaggy.

Official Scooby site - warnerbros.com/sd_brand/index.html.

Thunderbirds (2004 ).

The initial puppets had lots much more magic and also personal appeal than the 'live' actors in this substandard remake. Creator of the initial TELEVISION series, Gerry Anderson, also contradicted a $750,000 deal to write an endorsement of the film for its launch. A substantial flop. Enough stated.

Little bit understood truth: The motion picture is routed by Jonathan Frakes that played Riker in Celebrity Trip.

Flintstones (1994 ).

Translating a computer animated classic right into a live-action film using the real world actors isn't always simple. Perhaps the most essential item of the jigsaw is the spreading. In the case of 1994's Flintstones they soooo really nearly got it right. John Goodman as Fred Flintstone - place on. Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma - made for the duty. Rick Moranis as Barney Rubble - all good. Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Debris? - Um ... intriguing. At the very least the sound-track (courtesy of the BC52s) appears wonderful!

Little bit recognized fact: Halle Berry plays a character called Sharon Stone (obtain it!?).

Transformers (2007 ).

Hardcore Transformers fans who bear in mind the 1980s hit cartoon show may really feel a little peeved that, in a separation from the original collection, Spielberg as well as co. have decided to opt for some more modern-day automobiles. So Bumble-bee's no longer a huge yellow VW Beetle! Boo! Nevertheless, those that can not bear in mind the initial (virtually anybody under the age of 30) will enjoy the continuous robo-action.

Bit understood fact: The 1986 "Transformers the Movie" was one of Orson Welles last ever movies - one of his very first was Person Kane.

Tom and also Jerry the Granddaddy of Kids Cartoon Movies.

Everyone has their very own preferred animation flick or tv show; as a matter of fact animations are now a big component of a youngster's very early years as well as in addition to enjoyable to adults too. If you were young in the 60's, 70's or 80's after that you'll have been lucky sufficient to have actually enjoyed the initial hand attracted animated standards, like the Flintstones, The Jetsons or among the most prominent as well as lengthiest running, Tom and Jerry.

The Tom as well as Jerry reveal begun as a TV series and then took place to become a number of feature movies; it has been running given that the 40's and also has because won 7 different Oscar awards for ideal animated short. Back then you needed to await the program to come on at a specific time, though today were fortunate enough to be able to purchase a Tom and also Jerry DVD set anytime we like and also relive the magic in our very own houses.

The characters are easy Tom a troublesome house cat with a preference for mice and also Jerry a reluctant mouse with a kind heart; both are friends at heart, however constantly wind up attempting to win one over on each various other generally with Jerry winning the day. The simple as well as funny slapstick comedy of this crazy duo is what's made it so popular in nations around the world; you'll find the preferred films playing in practically any kind of resort area on all continents.

So where did it all start? Most individuals do not understand that Tom and also Jerry has had more than one maker in over 50 years of broadcast; the initial 2 were the gifted William Hanna and Joseph Barbara. They came to the MGM workshops in the 40's with their concept and Tom as well as Jerry became a reality in individuals's houses. After a brief time the program was reduced and the team broke up until the 1960's when MGM made a decision to reboot the project, they hired Gene Deitch for 2 years, but his eccentric imagination didn't mix well with the program. In 1963 the workshops employed a new director Chuck Jones who became the next creator of the motion pictures.

An instance of an especially excellent film is the magic ring which came out in 2002, it was composed and also routed by both of the original makers as well as additionally worked together on by Chuck Jones. If you're a fanatic of the lovable pet cat and also mouse duo after that you'll love this movie, it would certainly also be a wonderful introduction to the personalities for your very own youngsters.

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d-criss-news · 4 years

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With the film industry as we know it—A-list stars swanning around studio lots amid the swirling winds of an entire city bellowing buzzwords about makin’ pictures—essentially nonexistent at the moment, here’s an especially provocative idea as we contemplate its eventual return: What if Hollywood was... better?

Not in terms of quality of output, though if we’ve learned anything through the industry’s glacial inching toward progress, that will follow suit. But what if the industry was more inclusive? What if it was less afraid of change? What if it allowed gay people, people of color, women, and minorities to tell their own stories, to be in charge—and what if the people accepted it?

Better yet, what if it was always that way?

Like the loud, harsh clack of a clapboard coming down on 70 years of motion picture history, Ryan Murphy’s revisionist manifesto Hollywood arrives Friday on Netflix with blinding, blaring, technicolor confidence. Hardly subtle, deliciously ostentatious, and admirably mischievous, the lavish seven-episode series is a love letter to Hollywood by way of 2020 think piece.

It is messy and thrilling, upsetting yet profound; as uneven and as enthralling as any of Murphy’s big-swing, genre-contorting efforts: Glee, American Horror Story, or The Politician. But as with his soapy historical study Feud: Bette and Joan, it is a fastidious celebration of a glamorized time in Hollywood that mines nostalgia for modern meaning—a fragile undertaking swaddled in the dazzle of unmatched production design and talent pedigree.

Hollywood flops as often as it soars, but never rests in its grandiosity and ambition. The result is something escapist and frothy at a time when a retreat to a Hollywood happy ending is as alluring a fantasy as they come.

There is brilliant acting and there is bad acting. There are ovation-worthy ideas and there are off-putting ones. But, above all, there is reason to watch: It is gay, it is sexy, it is Patti LuPone.

Hollywood is a revisionist history of cinema’s golden age. It’s the 1940s in all their glamour and art: Casablanca! Citizen Kane! Alfred Hitchcock! Jimmy Stewart! Rita Hayworth! Cary Grant! It’s an era that’s been romanticized for so long that we’ve internalized it, morphing our own lifestyle aspirations to conform to its very heteronormative, very patriarchal, very (very) white ideas about sex and gender roles. These were ideas, however, that the industry was telegraphing, but not living in real life. Not at all.

Murphy and his team’s rewriting of history pulls the curtain back, exposing the sexually fluid proclivities of the stars—leading men sleeping with male escorts; Oscar-winning actresses in bisexual affairs—and the damning, racist barriers to inclusion fortified by studio heads thwarting any opportunity for progress.

Then, and here’s the crux of the whole thing: Hollywood changes that narrative. We glimpse the power dynamics inside Tinseltown’s gilded cage, and watch them being dismantled.

Some of the players’ narratives are real, and some are fiction. That makes for an amusing parlor game for viewers, attempting to separate the true history from the imagined one, and should birth a cottage industry of “The Real Story Behind…” stories in the weeks to come. But these are actual people who never had the opportunity to live authentically or see true, equal opportunity in the industry. Expect there to be a split among those who find happier, reimagined fates for them a sweet gesture, and those who find it in bad taste.

The story trains in on Jack (David Corenswet), a World War II veteran arriving wide-eyed in Hollywood, hoping some gumption and a jawline God shed a tear after creating will be enough to get him into the pictures. But he’s got a pregnant wife (Maude Apatow) to think about. Until he catches the eye of a casting director, he has to find some way to pay the bills. That cash flow comes surreptitiously from a gas station owner (Dylan McDermott), whose dashed Hollywood ambitions leave a soft spot for attractive dreamers like Jack—particularly ones who prove lucrative in his under-the-table prostitution business. A customer comes in for a fill-up, so to speak, and whispers the code, “I want to go to Dreamland,” and, well, you know the rest—and hopefully get the hardly nuanced metaphor about sex, power, sacrifices, and Hollywood.

This gas station business is without a doubt inspired by Scotty Bowers, the notorious L.A. hustler who died last year at 96, following a scandalizing, dishy documentary and memoir revealing the brothel he ran out of a petrol stand, sleeping with (allegedly) Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh, Gary Cooper, J. Edgar Hoover, and Rock Hudson.

McDermott’s character, however, is not actually Scotty Bowers, a distinction that’s necessary because Rock Hudson actually is a character, played by Jake Picking. So is Henry Wilson, the monstrous, closeted Hollywood agent played by Jim Parsons, who trades blowjobs for representation. Elsewhere, real-life trailblazers like Hattie MacDaniel, Vivien Leigh, and George Cukor show up. Their presence, on the one hand, lends credibility and grounds the fantasia of diversity and acceptance that Hollywood builds to. It’s also morally amorphous.

Hudson was closeted until the day he died of HIV/AIDS. He didn’t get the happy ending imagined here, publicly coming out of the closet by attending the Academy Awards with his fictional black, gay screenwriting boyfriend, holding hands on the red carpet, and staying on track on his ascension to Hollywood hunk. There’s also no evidence that Wilson, as caustic and self-loathing as the devil himself when we meet him in the show, had a change of heart and becomes a LGBT crusader seeking amends and atonement.

The wishful thinking is nice. But the bleakness of the reality shouldn’t be forgotten. There’s no clean place to land there, other than to consider both.

But these are just a handful of Hollywood’s players, and not even the true engine of the plot. In typical Murphyland fashion, there is a dizzying constellation of characters and their errant business to keep tabs on.

At the forefront is Patti LuPone’s Avis, the bored wife of a studio head (a scene-stealing Rob Reiner) who is first introduced as a client of Jack’s—hence all the press about the Tony winner’s explicit sex scenes that you’ve likely been reading—and eventually put in charge of the studio itself when her husband is incapacitated by a heart attack.

If it’s novel now to think of a female in charge of greenlighting projects and making commercial creative decisions, imagine it seven decades ago. And Avis shakes things up. With a casting director (Holland Taylor, perfect) and producer (Joe Mantello, heartbreaking) as her conspirators, she greenlights and positions as the studio’s next blockbuster a film called Meg, with its historically diverse creative team intact.

That means half-Filipino director Raymond (Darren Criss), black screenwriter Archie (Jeremy Pope), black leading lady Camille (Laura Harrier), and Jack and Rock in supporting roles. It takes willfulness to bulldoze the fortresses that bar progress. That is invigorating and moving to watch, especially as Hollywood dances between comedy, camp, earnestness, and tragedy with all the glee, if you will, that you’d expect from a Ryan Murphy production.

There’s sex—hot sex, gay sex, interracial sex, intergenerational sex—and there’s farce and there’s a wardrobe and set budget to sweep you away like a riptide.

There are scenes from Parsons and LuPone that will win them Emmys. Mantello and Taylor have a two-hander together that shattered me into so many pieces I am billing Ryan Murphy the cleaning fee. I worry that even with his Netflix money it won’t be enough—that’s how good it is.

Mira Sorvino and Queen Latifah give so much in their scenes as guest stars that you wish they were in more but are grateful for the flawless blips of bliss, while Michelle Krusiec as Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, is the epitome of an actor making a monumental moment out of limited material.

Criss solidifies his leading-man status—he’s captivating in every scene, even without much to do—and Corenswet brings glimmers of gravitas to eye candy. But the rest of the kids nearly torpedo the whole damn thing, they’re so miscast. The scenes with the older generation are so rich and such an utter joy to watch, it only makes the woodenness of performers like Picking and Harrier all the more egregious. Thankfully, there’s a larger message to it all that acts as absolution.

If Hollywood were a treatise on how society interacts with movies and TV both then and now, then the thesis could likely be boiled down to an early conversation between Raymond, Criss’ director character, and Dick, Mantello’s studio exec. It’s Raymond’s dream to direct a movie starring Anna May Wong. Dick kills the pitch, saying no one will pay to see a movie with an Asian lead, or any lead of color.

Raymond doesn’t stand for that. How does he know? No one’s tried. “Sometimes I think folks in this town don’t really understand the power they have. Movies don’t just show us how the world is, they show how the world can be. If we change the way that movies are made, you take a chance and you make a different kind of story, I think you can change the world.”

It’s not a stretch to argue that as the mission statement of Murphy’s entire career. He’s proved it time and again, from Glee to Pose: Bring the marginalized out of the margins and watch how things change. Someone just has to be the one to do it.

In essence, Hollywood sees Murphy dramatizing the progress that he played a part in catalyzing today, but imagining if it had come at a different turning point in cinema history—70 years ago. More tantalizingly, he raises the question of what society today might be like had it actually happened then.

Is it a little self-congratulatory? Sure. But, hey, that’s showbiz, kid.

#darren criss #the daily beast #hollywood #press #hollywood spoilers #just in case #april 2020 #hollywood review

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kbrown78 · 5 years

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Monthly Wrap Up: June

Okay, so I'm actually a bit surprised that the month turned out the way it did. After the past couple of months, I accepted that wasn't likely to read a total of more than 5 books. This month I was able to read a whopping total of 15 books. 15! I haven't read that many books since January. Granted 2 of those books were DNF, one was a short classic, and another was only 7 pages, but still it's an impressive amount for the month. As for ratings it was all over the place. I had everything from a 1 star DNF to even a 5 star book, but the majority of books fell in the middle with 3 stars. This was also a surprise because toward the middle of this month, I was just reading 1 and 2 star books back to back. I lost my enthusiasm for reading, resigned myself to the possibility that this would be a horrible reading month, and even went a few days where I didn't read anything. After soon detox time, I pushed through and even managed to end the month on a relatively good note. Also got back on track with the reading challenges. I read a total of 6 books for the PopSugar Reading Challenge and finished at least 1 of the books I set out for the Reading Frenzy's Pride Month Buzzword Challenge. Biggest achievement was completing my Goodreads Goal of reading 50 books within the year. By the end of this month I completed 60 books, and now I want to see if I can make it to 100. Probably won't but, it will be an amazing accomplishment. So despite a significant low point, June was actually a good month.

Armistice by Lara Elena Donnelly: The previous book Amberlough had been a thorough disappointment, and I was nervous this one would be the last straw for this series. In fact it came close to being the biggest disappointment of the month. If this book wasn't impressing me by the halfway point than I was just going to give up the series. That did not happen, in fact I really ended up enjoying this book. Continuing some time after the previous book (I honestly couldn't tell you how much time, probably no more than 5 years), we follow a few characters from the previous book in their new circumstances, as well as a new character with connections to all the old characters. As I said in my Monthly Wrap Up for May, characters were the driving force for this series, which is part of why the first book struggled, because the character weren't done well. In this book however, the characters are much better because they now have some sense of identity. Aristide and Cordelia were tolerable, if not a little likeable at times. Cordelia's clearly been through some tough times but keeps grinding through to achieve her goal of destroying the Ospies, and her skills are good enough to convince other to help her cause. Aristide seems to want out of the criminal life, enjoying a new life of luxury in film, but the past won't let go of him. The new character, Lillian, was fantastic, like without a doubt the best part of the book. I like how she's connected to the other characters, both with her profession and the fact that she's Cyril's sister. Her work with the press puts in several politically delicate situations, but she demonstrates the smarts and the drive to accomplish her goal of saving her son. Through her you also finally get some behind the scenes political machinations, something this entire series needs yet usually fails to deliver on. Onto one of the stronger aspects of this series, and that suprisingly is the romance. The series stretching relationship is Aristide and Cyril, and with Cyril being absent, you see how much Aristide is effected by Cyril's absence. While having the main relationship be a gay romance, my favorite relationship was between Lillian and Jinadh, a minor royalty from the lush, tropical country where half the books takes place (I think the name is Liso, but I honestly don't know). They have a history, which resulted in their son, but can't be together due to her profession and social taboo's in his country. Yet when they meet again they still feel the chemistry, they want a relationship. They have their differences but are willing to put it aside in order to get their son to safety. I also thought some things that the previous book struggled with where partially remedied in this book. There were actual examples of Ospie atrocities, actual political intrigue (but I still struggle to fully grasp what's going on), and complex motivations that make sense. The setting was lush and tropical, and again had that 1920s feel with the film industry and airplanes, but I still struggle with knowing anything about the world (I don't even know where half the book takes place). So while this book does greatly improve from the first one but it doesn't take things to the extent that it needs to and I'm more than a little worried about how the last book is going to go. Armistice received 4 out 5 stars.

City of Lies by Sam Hawkin: I wanted this to be a 5 star book. All of the reviews I read made it seem like it had the potential to be 5 stars, but it wasn't. Part of issue might have been how long to took to get through this book. First I kept putting off reading it because I was worried that I wouldn't love it and the beginning chapters were very involved and were also fairly long. Than in the middle of reading it I had to put this book on hold so that I could get through other books that I needed to finish in May. This constant delaying of the book contributed to the feeling of the plot dragging, but looking back at the plot itself, there really wasn't much action after the second half of this book except for in the last chapter. The whole story revolves around a murder mystery that begins shortly before the city is under siege. As our protagonists try to find the killer and stop the siege they must figure out who is loyal and delve into the dark secrets of their city. This was a book that had so much potential, it really could have been a 5 star book. Even as I was going over my tag notes for about the first quarter of the book I saw a tone of potential for the world and characters and really saw how nuanced the story and themes could have been. Then the story starts to drag on and on and really starts to show it's true colors as a debut novel. This all culminates in an extremely lackluster, completely out of left field climax with one saving grace scene. Everything in the first quarter of this book was great: the writing was detailed and intriguing but not overwhelming, the POV characters had some depth, with their own sets of assets and flaws, and were immediately put to the test with a change in circumstance, the world was rich and unlike so much grimdark fantasy that I've been reading by portraying that while there were relevant grievances against those in charge it wasn't all bad, and the whole emphasis on poisons was cool. The mystery for the majority of this book was actually done well, which I haven't really seen well done mysteries in SFF books. I was as lost as the protagonists were, it made sense why they couldn't figure out who was behind the conflict of the books, and everyone made for an equally believable. Then things shifted and for some reason the story starts to drag on and on, with the same points being reiterated over and over and no real progress is made, and really starts to show it's true colors as a debut novel. Characters lose their depth (and prominence), the conflict becomes more black and white in morality, new things are just thrown in with little development, and the mystery loses its suspense. This all culminates in an extremely lackluster, completely out of left field climax with one saving grace scene. I really wanted this to be a 5 star novel but it just wasn't. City of Lies received 3.5 out 5 stars and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “debut novel.”

Gone by Michael Grant: Much like City of Lies, Gone was a book that had a 5 star start. You are immediately thrown into a tense and strange situation with all the other kids, who are now trapped within a confined area and everyone over the age of 15 has disappeared. Aside from trying to survive without adults, new threats emerge in the form of bullies, mutants, and a mysterious creature known only as The Darkness. I loved this series as teen, completely wrapped up in the action and the characters, and was really hoping it would live up to those expectations. It did, at first. The beginning really grabs you and doesn't let go. I didn't want to put the book down, I needed to read how everything played out, and I loved that. Things went downhill when they POV started shifting to less interesting characters and the story really started to lose its tension. Also as weeks have passed between me finishing the book, I find myself forgetting most of what happened and just not being attached to the characters. There were a few that were compelling but they were put aside for Sam and Caine's rivalry which was both clique and not well done. Once the series started slowing down, it never really recovered and even during a high stakes climax, which the entire book has been building up to, I wasn't as invested in the story as I was at the beginning. Above all else, this very much felt like a YA book, with the simple writing, archetypal characters, and underdeveloped plot. Gone received 3 out 5 stars and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “about someone with a superpower.”

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman: Here it comes, the inevitable 1 star DNF of the month. Though I will say this book wasn't bad, it just really wasn't for me. While I like warm books, I don't usually prefer light hearted books (another reason why I don't reach for contemporary). I will, however, still read these books if they fit the following conditions: they contain certain things within the narrative that I like, I'm aware that it's a light hearted story, and I'm in the mood for a light hearted story. I was not in the mood for that kind of story nor did I know the book would turn out to be one of those kind of stories. I went in there for the library bits because I am a book lover, and I think that is why many people are initially interested in reading this book. Unfortunately, the Library itself was hardly seen or utilized from what I read, so that things could focus on a book retrieval mission, which I found to be both absurd in its execution and boring. It felt like a bait and switch, intentionally drawing in readers with the promise of this really cool library that the story and characters revolved around only for it to actually be about a wacky retrieval mission and murder mystery in a weird alternate world. Which is a shame because what we see of the Library (lots of training with numerous people, vast sectors of different books from different worlds, the various classifications of different worlds based on magic/ chaos and technology, ancient meets modern) was really cool yet is completely underutilized and underdeveloped. Like, why is it so hard to write a good library setting? Seriously, the only good one I've ever seen was the Clayr Library in Lirael, and even that was underutilized. It's not just the bait and switch nature of the narrative that upset me, but literally everything else in the book was disappointing. The writing was so zaney, almost trying to emulate an episode of Doctor Who, and it was so absurd and over the top that it just grated on my nerves. Like for awhile Cogman seemed to be deliberately putting Liechtenstein in every other paragraph to sound clever and funny, but it became very irritating, very quickly. The world that the characters spend most of their time in could have been interesting, an alternate Steampunk London (still don't fully grasp why Victorian London is such a popular setting) with faries in it, but it was so focused on being as weird and over the top as possible that I couldn't enjoy the world, and we never really get much of a sense of what any of the other worlds are like. The character were at best lack luster and at worst irritating. I wanted to love Irene because she's a book lover, relies on her smarts, and I love those kind of characters, but she failed not just as a book lover but as a character in general. We are told Irene a book lover but never shown it, and other than her reading a few books, nothing is really known about her. I don't know really anything about her personality, her likes, her dislikes, her history, what she's like on missions. I don't even know what books she prefers to read or her opinions on various books. She was a very flat character that felt like a prop in the story. This emptiness is further extended with her relationships. Her parents are always absent but she's not mournful or glad of this fact. She has no attachment to them, in fact she doesn't really show attachment to anyone. Like seriously, this woman seems to have no close friends despite the fact that she works in a large multi dimensional library with other book lovers. This again serves to make her come off as more of a cardboard cut out rather than a fully fleshed out character. The only other “relationship” we see is this petty rivalry she has with literally the only other on screen female. It was so annoying witnessing the only 2 female characters being catty toward each other. This may improve because the rival seems to stick around up to the latest book, but I couldn't stomach it with the rest of the book's contents. Despite how disappointing Irene was, Kai, her new partner, somehow managed to be worse. He was this smoldering guy, wearing a leather jacket and being incredibly gorgeous. He could have been interesting because apparently he's a dragon, or part dragon, but he's so forgettable outside of his looks that you have to be constantly reminded in the story that he is a dragon. The best thing I can say about him is that he wasn't a snarky jerk, but he was just devoid of personality. As far as I got there wasn't any romance going between Kai and Irene but I wouldn't be surprised if that's where it goes. This is a book where characterization, setting, and even plot are sacrificed in favor of writing in a particular style, and this felt a little insulting to me as a reader, but mostly the style just did not mesh well with me. Gave The Invisible Library 1 out 5 stars, since it's a DNF, and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “favorite prompt from past reading challenge,” which asked for a book that features a library. One day I'll read a book with a good library!

Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly: While this wasn't a bad finale, it was disappointing. In fact this whole series was disappointing. I thought based on the covers, and the premise, and other people's review, the series would sweep me away with it's dazzling characters and plot. What should have been a firework, was a sad a little party popper. This book takes another time skip and takes place after the Ospie regime is put out, and follows various characters as the deal with the aftermath of the previous 2 books. All the issues that have plagued the previous books in the series were repeated in this one, and I was honestly over it. Focusing on how tragic mediocre characters are doesn't work if I don't care about them. Even after completing 2 books I didn't really know these characters, I didn't have a grasp of what made them tick, and I felt no attachment to them. While I was disappointed with the characters, the worst thing about this book, and really this entire series, was how the plot and themes were handled. If this book had focused on the election and all the political turmoil, or even the effect these events were actually having on citizens, it would have been a much stronger series. Unfortunately, readers are only given scraps of that narrative, while the author prioritizes the melodrama between characters. This is most telling with the climax, were the results of the current election aren't divulged, it's just left hanging in the void, but several chapters are dedicated to detailing the journey of 2 characters leaving the country. There were some interesting themes that had a lot of potential but aside from giving a few nods to it, there isn't anything done with them. Lillian was once again the only source of anything good in this book. It's through her that we get the election subplot, and I felt for her going managing sticky political situations while having to deal with her brother Cyril who's been labeled a war criminal. Honestly without Lillian, this entire series would have been only 1 or 2 stars. Potential isn't enough to carry a series, and when execution fails the end results are disappointing, which sums up not only this book but this entire series. Amnesty received 2 out 5 stars.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente: This one is going to be short because there isn't a lot to say. I only managed to get about a third of the way into it, which I haven't done in years. Whenever I DNF I make an effort to get 50% of the way through so that the characters or plot has a chance to improve. The reason I quit at 33% was because my issues with the book had nothing to do with the characters or plot. The writing style was awful. It was pure word vomit, overloading the page with every word that sounded like it could fit, and some that didn't. The writing honestly starting resembling a Donald Trump speech with utilizing the quantity of words used (and how cool they sounded) versus the actual quality of word usage. It was about at that point that I had to put the book because I couldn't take it anymore and I knew that this was something that was not going to change as the book progressed. I honestly couldn't tell you anything about the characters or the plot, because everything was so weird. Granted I expected an eclectic writing style based on my experience with Valente's other novel, Deathless, and the general premise of this story, but it was so over the top it was just nauseating and unbearable. I've read a short story of Valente's and really liked that, but I just don't agree with her novels. Space Opera received 1 out 5 stars and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “book about a game or puzzle,” since it's not about a game exactly but more about a competition.

Hunger by Michael Grant: I don't have much to say about this one for a few reasons. I hit another mini reading slump because when I was reading this book I wasn't reading anything I was enjoying. This lead to me just skimming like the last half of this book so that it could be over. Even doing that, though, this book still lacked the level of action that the first book had set up. Not to say that there wasn't some significant things that occurred, but I really think this book suffered from second book syndrome. This book picks up immediately where the first book left off, all the kids still trying to survive in the FAYZE with dwindling resources and Caine recovering from his previous defeat and plotting against Sam. Most of the book is similar to the first one, kids being kids and not really managing things and different power struggles, and once again things being built up just to serve their purpose in the climax, which I think is the biggest fault of this book. Nothing was organically developed, the story seemed to drag on and at slow pace (despite the majority of the book literally taking place within 24 hours), characters were being stupid and generally assholes (heroes and villains), and there was a lot of forgettable material in this book. The saving grace of the previous book was the strong beginning, which this book lacked. The only saving grace of this book was that there were some compelling themes, but even that's a bit of stretch because they were once again poorly developed. After finishing this book I was really tempted to quit the whole series, which is telling of how frustrated I was with this entire book. I will at some point continue with this series, but I need to take a little time off after completing this disappointment. Hunger received 2 out 5 stars.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu: Close to the beginning of the year I was wanting to read a classic novel each month to widen the genre of books I read each month and get back into regularly reading classics like I used to in high school. I read Little Women, but that was really it. Last month Barnes and Noble had a sale on classics, so I picked up a couple that I really wanted to get. This one was the first one I read, and is actually a reread. I first read it for a literature course I had to take in college and I really liked. I liked the soothing tone it set and I found it to be a very thought provoking classic (even if I didn't always agree with what it was advocating). I figured I would probably enjoy rereading it and I think I liked it even more the second time. It's got a very serene tone, the philosophies presented are quite humbling and ones I think should be implemented in daily life (to certain extent), and it makes in interesting contrast to Confucianism with both having their virtues and weaknesses. There was supplemental reading that went along with the edition that I had, which I definitely think helped improve my reading experience because it added context to much of what I was reading. It's the kind of classic that you can see why it has lasted so long, and that you can enjoy reading because of it's simplicity and calm tone. Tao Te Ching received 5 out 5 stars.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: Initially I intended to read this book in September to help get ready for the eerie October reads I have planned. Then I noticed I'm behind on my PopSugar Challenge, so I wanted to do some quick reads to catch up. I looked up this one to see how long it is and it's only 7 pages, so I definitely gave this one a quick read. There's a lot you can break down even in this short story, and I like that. I always like something that gives me food for thought, and this work in just a few pages manages to do that better than some works do in over 400 pages. It manages it tackle and satirize themes of tradition and war, again, in such a small amount of pages. Suspense was also something done really well, which I did expect because it's a Shirley Jackson. At the beginning everything seems fine but then the story starts building up this sinister feeling around the lottery until the horrifying reveal of what the lottery actually is. It's an intelligent, satirical, chilling piece of short fiction that I think everyone should read. This book made a brief appearance on Netflix's Haunting of Hill House, which is another book by Jackson I want to get to later this year, but also thought it was a clever nod to Jackson's stories, and fits perfectly for the PopSugar prompt “book you saw someone else on TV reading.” The Lottery received 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown: Going into this reread I knew it wasn't going to be as good as I remembered. Despite this, and some frustrating aspects, I still managed to find it somewhat enjoyable. It has a rather generic dystopian premise, a boy at the bottom of the hierarchy rebelling against his leaders, there's something about the story that adds enough of a breath of fresh air for it to be engrossing. This book's greatest strength is definitely it's action and pacing. I was never bored while reading it and at least when there was a filler chapter, it was over quickly. It kept adding new twists and turns, creating multiple conflicts for the protagonist, Darrow. As for Darrow himself, he's a character that I both like and dislike. He's arrogant and stupid, but it feels in character and fits quite well for the series as a whole. He's generally a well intentioned person who is fighting for a good cause so you want him to win, but the book does display him as almost being too perfect. Speaking of which, I didn't like most of the side characters, especially the women, because their entire characterization revolved around Darrow. The core trait of every woman was that she's beautiful. Either kind and beautiful or evil and beautiful but always beautiful. It was really annoying, and I wanted more from these characters. The only one I liked was Sevro, who was really an underdog and weirdo, but didn't seems to care. The story in this first book is really an underdog story about overcoming the odds, which is straight forward and something people are both familiar with and inclined to like. The world was kind of cool, a sort of Roman Empire in space, that actually felt like the Ancient Rome and appreciated seeing that. While this book is a bit too shallow for me to love, it's a fun, quick read that can help pull you out of a slump. Red Rising received 3 out 5 stars and was my first book for the Reading Frenzy Pride Month Buzzword challenge, which asked you to read a book with a color in the title.

The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen: Oh boy, this one was a hot mess. Much like the previous book, I knew I wasn't going to like this one, in fact I was almost sure I was going to hate it. Unlike Red Rising, however, which balanced out things I thought were good with things I thought could have been improved, this book only had a sparse few moments of compelling narrative but was jammed full of stuff that just made me angry. So the series is about Kelsea, a 19 year old who has been raised in isolation until the day she ascends to the throne. When she does become queen she discovers that her kingdom is in massive disarray and full of corruption. As she tries to work and internal problems and avoid assassination attempts, she also must address the looming war she will likely have with her powerful and mysterious neighbor, the Queen of Mort. While, there were several issues I had with Kelsea (which I will get into in a second) there were a few good moments with her. As a book lover, I was glad to see a ruler who wanted to put an emphasis on education, deeply valued her collection of books, and even worked with the church (which she makes clear her distrust of) to start something of a library system. That's something that I liked not just because of my own love of books but because it's good to see a ruler with those values and implementing them. The other thing was Kelsea ending the Mort Treaty when she learns what it means for her people. It's a tricky situation, and one she probably could have handled better, but I do admire her for sticking to her morals and doing what she believes is right. Feels a bit like Danerys Targyern (before she got power hungry). And that's about it. That was honestly all I enjoyed about the book. Other than what I just talked about everything else in this book actively frustrated me. Characters are very flat, usually either being written as angsty or evil (and those evils ones always being sluts), the plot has a ton of holes in it (biggest example being Kelsea raised in total isolation for 19 years) and generally dragged on with very little action despite the books length, and the world building was, in a word, bad. I'm not going into a detailed rant here, talking about all the issues I had with this book, but there is something I want to go into a little more depth with and that's Kelsea herself. Kelsea has to be one of the worst protagonists I have ever read. She's supposed to be intelligent, or at least book smart, yet consistently makes stupid decisions. She's a condescending brat who insults everyone around her, which isn't a smart idea since she's a brand new ruler. Insists on doing everything her way, and has mini tantrums when it doesn't go her way. Above all else is her hypocritical ways and her obsession with her appearance, considering her attractive mother beneath her for focusing on vanity, but Kelsea spends most of the time focusing on her own plain appearance (which is emphasized at every opportunity and usually in the worst way) and insults other people's appearance. Also when she's talking to her attractive servants who had previously been abused because of their beauty and they try to warn her of that, she completely disregards them, only wanting to be gorgeous. Kelsea is the kind of character this book tries to say is a savior figure, but all the narrative does is present her as a hypocritical brat that shouldn't be within a mile of the throne. I knew this book was going to be bad after reading some reviews, but I didn't think it would absolutely tank. The Queen of the Tearling received 1 out 5 stars.

Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore: Going into this one I knew little, only that it was a magical realism because that's what McLemore usually writes and there's a curse on this family that causes their lovers to disappear but something changes when a boy shows up. Also you can tell flowers are going to be a central motif based on the colors and title. The flower's provided beautiful imagery and I liked what the meant to the girls and the land of La Pradera. In fact this novel's imagery was probably the best thing about it. It felt distinct, quiet, personal, lush, and colorful. I also liked the family dynamics in this book. All these women tied to the land and each other by the curse that has plagued them for generations. This has the double effect of making them intimately close with each other, but also dislike and distrust each other. I felt their pain just as much as I felt their love. Speaking of love, I also liked Estrella and Fel's dynamic at the start (and only at the start) of the book. Fel mysteriously shows up in their garden, meets Estrella and the 2 quickly develop an odd connection, both being plagued by their pasts in different ways. For a little while I wasn't sure if they were going to become lovers or platonic soul mates, and that's what made me like the 2 of them together because I would be happy with either. I also liked some the themes presented in the first half of the story and how they were handled (within the first half). That being said there was one thing I didn't like and that was Bay. She was kind of annoying and artificial, this figure that all the girls put up on this pedestal, and I honestly found the Nomeolvides girl's obsession with her (yes obsession, not love) more than a little irritating. Also Estrella was really the only one in the group of girls that stood out to me. The rest were just kind of there, and I would have liked more development of them. The ending was what really dropped the rating of the book. Standalone novels are hard to cram a good, complete plot into, and magical realism tends to sacrifice plot for atmosphere. At the start, Wild Beauty had a vague plot that was slowly developing but there was solid direction with good themes and great atmosphere. Then it took a hard right and the plot seemed to be trying to hard to have something happen at the price of sacrificing everything else and the message took a dark and almost destructive meaning, the girls ripping out everything that makes them who they are. At the end Estrella makes it clear that she has no sense of self love, in fact she seems to hate herself even more because of something she wasn't aware or responsible for. That left a very bad taste in my mouth. The romance also seemed to fall apart in the end too. I already went in with certain expectations, but was still okay with romance. At the end, Estrella's self hatred seems to add an unnecessary amount of angst, and even has a toxic feel to it. It also feels very rushed, though I can't say exactly why. This was a pleasant novel with a solid start that unfortunately was bogged down by an unnecessarily depressing and empty ending. Wild Beauty received 3 out of 5 stars and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “plant in title or on cover.”

The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen: Not since last year have I read a series that has made me so enraged. This series is an amalgamation of lazy, generic world building, toxic tropes, and ripping off of other popular works. There's honestly too many issues in this book to properly go over in a Monthly Wrap Up. There did manage to be a few slightly redeemable aspects but even those were tainted by the rest of the writing. Kelsea started to develop interesting parallels to the Red Queen, but Kelsea became on awful character who showed her true colors. She's petty, violent, doesn't listen to anyone, and isn't as bright as she likes to think she is, yet other praise her as being the True Queen. Also having read the final book, I know that things don't get better, which makes me dislike her even more. The only other character that remotely stands out in my mind is Lily, a character from our world shown in flashbacks. Her narrative is basically a Handmaid's Tale rip off, but she at least seems to have a little more drive. The other character I thought I would like was Ewen, a mentally slow prison guard because he's a sweet bean who always does what is right, but he didn't stand out to me as much this time. This book also really pushes the anti religion message. This could be an interesting theme, because religion and those in charge are capable of doing both good and bad, but it's done in such a black and white manner that all good will of the message Johansen is trying to deliver goes flying out the door. This one's arguably my least favorite book in the series, just because I was so mad after reading it. It's just another example of why I'm always cautious about hyped books, because they are rarely worth the hype they get. The Invasion of the Tearling gets 1 out 5 stars.

Golden Son by Pierce Brown: I was a bit surprised I enjoyed this one as much as I did. Not that I thought I would dislike it, but this book still managed to get a reaction from me. Continuing a year after the events of the previous book, Darrow must maintain his persona as a Gold while hiding his true heritage as a Red. With mounting tension between various faction, war seems to be an inevitable outcome. The start was slow and a bit painful, there was some convoluted moments, but the book overall keeps up the momentum that the previous book developed. This was also the book that made me respect Brown as an author. Darrow still has the same flaws, because that's just who he is, but now he's starting to see consequences. The themes become more developed, mostly focusing on the fine line between revolution and terrorism, imbalance of power leading to civil war, and breaking caste systems. Brown also clearly tried to develop the side characters more, especially the females. However this ultimately falls a bit short and I think the main reason for that is because the entire story is told from Darrow's perspective, who is seeing the world and people through his own distorted filter. That specific element is I think biggest fault this series has. On a good note, the ending of this book was without a doubt the best moment of this entire series, it's the darkest moment and was done perfectly. Even knowing what happened, I was still shaking from the anticipation. It's a book with enough solid assets to balance out the flaws, and is possibly my favorite book in the series. Golden Son received 3.5 out 5 stars and was my second book for the Reading Frenzy's Pride Buzzword Challenge.

The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen: I'm worn out by this series. I knew I was going to hate this book because even when I first completed the series and still liked the first 2 books, I thought this one was incredibly disappointing. I skimmed most of this book, and outright skipped sections in a certain characters perspective, because I just wanted to complete this series. Like honestly the story repeats the same issues as the previous books with new issues in pacing (moving very rapidly), character arcs (stagnates and does nothing), the ending (huge cop out), the origins of the “magic” crystals (confusing and just doesn't work) and the villains. The main villain was actually the one interesting thing about this story because he could have been this eerie mysterious force or could have been at the center of a compelling conflict about power and politics, and he just wasn't. He was irritating brat who thought way too highly of himself (spurned on by his nut case of a mother) and is another reflection of the poor writing that plagues this entire series. I didn't actively hate this book like the previous one but that's only because I was tired from this series. This is a series where I honestly don't understand the hype and don't know why I liked it so much the first time I read it other than the hype. Disappointing book and sub par series. The Fate of the Tearling received 1 out 5 stars.

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noramoya · 5 years

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MICHAEL JACKSON’S PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHER,HARRISON FUNK,SPENT 3 ROLLERCOSTER DECADES CAPTURING THE LIFE OF THE POP LEGEND. HE REVEALS THE STORIES BEHIND HIS FAVORITE SHOTS...

“Me and Michael had our own language,” says Harrison Funk. “The buzzword was always the same. He would ask, ‘Harrison, can you make magic?’ Anything less wasn’t acceptable.” Funk was the photographer who got closer to Michael Jackson than any other, working with the singer from the late 1970s right up until his death in June 2009, witnessing and capturing his many changes, as the star rose to be the most famous person on the planet.

Funk was born 12 days before Jackson, on 17 August 1958, just outside Brooklyn. He was inspired to pick up a camera by his uncle, Leo Friedman, a famous Broadway photographer. Starting off with street photography and shooting local basketball matches, Funk worked his way up to such magazines as Time, Life and Newsweek. But a chance meeting with Jackson at New York’s infamous nightclub Studio 54 (where Jackson, a regular, would dance in the DJ booth to avoid autograph-hunters) set Funk’s career on a different trajectory.

Impressed by his versatility, Jackson employed Funk as the official photographer for the Jacksons’ Victory tour in 1984. Funk says he quickly sensed the media circus that was starting to form around the singer: “Rupert Murdoch’s people called and practically begged me to sneak out a photo of Michael from rehearsals. I told Michael and we laughed about it – but the fact I told him built up a trust.”

Subsequently, while on the Victory tour, Funk was given unprecedented access to the singer. One intimate photo taken by Funk captures Jackson applying his own makeup, something he took great pride in. “Him and Jermaine [Jackson] loved putting on their own makeup,” says the photographer, who adds that Michael became more and more interested in his appearance, more determined to look sharp, under the influence of such mentors as Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and James Brown.

Jackson’s make-up routine, adds Funk, was also a sign of the singer’s gender fluidity: “It wasn’t so much femininity on Michael’s part as androgyny – he was fluid around gender. Michael had no interest in assigning a gender to anybody.” At that moment, he recalls, “he didn’t overtly identify as one particular gender”. However, when Jackson became a dad, his image changed to that “of father”, Funk says. “He became a strong man in that sense.”

On the Victory tour, Funk was exposed to occasional outbursts. “Don’t be fooled,” he says. “Michael had very demanding moments. If he didn’t like something, he let you know. Michael was never ridiculing to me ever, but if someone messed up the design of his stage, then he would yell at them. He expected perfection.”

The sold-out Victory tour was a turning point for Jackson. Just two years earlier, he released Thriller to stratospheric acclaim, and the media circus was now starting to spiral out of control. Yet some of Funk’s most iconic images of Jackson aren’t from his undisputed reign in the 1980s, but from the 1990s – when albums Dangerous and HIStory marked the singer’s evolution into a more socially conscious artist, who could be both profound (Black and White) and ridiculous (the messiah complex of The Earth Song was so jarring it provoked Jarvis Cocker to storm the stage during the 1996 Brits).

“PEOPLE SAY MICHAEL HAD A JESUS COMPLEX — THAT PISSES ME OFF !

In one of Funk’s favourite shots from this period, Jackson can be seen holding his arms out in an almost biblical pose. “People say Michael had a Jesus complex,” he says, “but that pisses me off, as it just wasn’t true. There was a practical reason for me taking that photo. Michael had huge hands and I wanted to make the most of them as they were expressive – and a good way for him to embrace the world. At that stage, his whole existence was geared towards healing the world, so having big, expressive hands was a very important way to speak to the people.” The way he communicated with his hands, adds the photographer, “you’d have thought he was Italian!”

Another Funk photo shows Jackson holding a book in front his face. It is an intensely personal shot intended as an advert for the World Book Encyclopedia, which would be distributed to American classrooms. “The art director gave me carte blanche to do what I wanted, so I really wanted to push the limits of what was possible. Michael’s eyes were his most defining feature, way more than his feet. I knew I could capture his soul by focusing on his eyes and that’s exactly what happened with that photo.

But was Jackson actually covering his face due to shyness? “Maybe. But his shyness and introversion never hindered his ability to work with me as a photographer. Michael knew exactly what he wanted artistically, right up until probably the last two years of his life, where he got swayed by the wrong people and got in way over his head.”

This was the time of the This Is It tour, which Funk had been due to photograph. Jackson was all set to play 50 dates in quick succession at the O2 Arena in London. But, 20 days before the opening night, he died from cardiac arrest, triggered by acute anaesthetics intoxication. “As much as I don’t like talking about the end,” says Funk, “I will say he got destroyed by people who only had their own financial interests at heart. I can tell you that a big part of his plans following the This Is It tour was to do charity work and use his influence to better mankind.”

In 2003, Jackson was charged with child molestation, only to later be acquitted. The memory still angers Funk. “All the accusations and crap he went through,” he says. “Let me ask you this: what is a better way to ruin someone who is going to make massive positive changes to the children of the world than to discredit them?” Jackson’s awareness of the power of photography was perhaps best illustrated in the early 1990s, when he asked Funk to shoot him with Elizabeth Taylor and Nelson Mandela, who had recently been released from prison. The image, which Funk describes as the highlight of his career, shows the trio smiling infectiously.

“Mandela was so excited to meet Michael,” says Funk. “He flew in all of his family especially. I was told by the publicists I had no time to shoot, but Michael kicked them all out and let me take my time. I didn’t want a boring photo so I suggested they jump on each other’s backs and hug one another. Liz Taylor said, ‘Harrison, you know I’ve got a bad back!’ And Nelson said he was too old and joked he wanted to put his feet up instead. I tried to capture the joy of this incredible moment.”

Funk then watched as the three went into a meeting room to discuss plans to topple apartheid, improve women’s rights, tackle the Aids crisis, and address crime in Africa. He claims Jackson was acutely aware of how the photo could help Mandela’s bid for the South African presidency.

HE DIDN’T WANT TO LOOK WHITE. HE WAS SUFFERING FROM A CRUEL DISEASE. I HAD TO RISE TO THIS AND ADAPT HIS LIGHTING.

“That image was in something like 400 newspapers. It was real powerful. The next year, Michael went to Africa to shoot the They Don’t Care About Us video. He would have done anything for Nelson – Michael and Liz gave his presidential campaign a very generous donation. I believe he and Nelson got on so well as Michael was like the Mandela of music, in the sense that he too broke down a lot of barriers. Remember, Michael was one of the first global black superstars.”

But Jackson’s image started to change dramatically. Some critics accused the singer of being ashamed of his blackness, and of gaining a dangerous obsession with plastic surgery. In a recent interview, Thriller producer Quincy Jones said: “I used to kill [Michael] about the plastic surgery, man. He’d always justify it and say it was because of some disease he had. Bullshit … He had a problem with his looks because his father told him he was ugly and abused him. What do you expect?”

Funk, however, insists Jackson was actually the victim of a “cruel” media campaign and was suffering from the pigment-destroying skin disease vitiligo (a claim confirmed by Dr Christopher Rogers, who carried out Jackson’s autopsy). “It was all a load of bullshit,” Funk says of these reports. “He didn’t want to look white or find a way out. He was immensely proud to be a black man. Michael was suffering from a cruel skin disease, which changed his appearance, and I had to rise to this as his photographer and adapt his lighting. I think the problem was Michael wanted badly for his skin to look even-toned. I didn’t have Photoshop back then so I lit Michael myself and had specific techniques to make him look at his best.”

Funk, who seems to have an endless supply of Jackson stories, speaks softly in a New York accent, energetically recalling their nine consecutive rides on Space Mountain at Disneyland. Jackson attempted to persuade Funk to ride it for a 10th time but by then the photographer felt sick and his legs had turned to jelly. They would also regularly take the Viking boat ride at Jackson’s Neverland ranch.

“I was sitting across from Michael,” says Funk, “shooting him with my camera, as he told the guy controlling the ride to go higher and higher. I screamed at Michael that he’d make me lose my camera. He screamed back, ‘I don’t want to lose my cookies!” These were in his shirt pocket. Yet, for all the fun they had together, Funk’s most cherished memory of Jackson is a dark one. He remembers sitting with the singer in the home theatre of his Neverland ranch while watching What’s Love Got To Do With It, the 1993 biopic about the abusive relationship between Ike and Tina Turner, when Jackson began to cry. “The scene where Ike beats on Tina was playing and Michael started to tear up. I asked him if he wanted me to stop the film but he signalled to keep it rolling. He squeezed my hand tightly. I really felt his humanity in that moment.

WE PLAYED PRETTY NASTY ON THE THE BUMPER CARS. WE REALLY WENT FOR EACH OTHER...

“After the film ended, we walked out of the theatre and Michael asked me to go do bumper cars with him.” Funk laughs. “We played pretty nasty and really went for one another. He was like a big kid.”

Jackson was not the only star who turned to Funk. The photographer is currently planning a London exhibition of his work, which also includes shots of David Bowie, Tina Turner and Amy Winehouse, though the king of pop will of course dominate. This will be an interesting postscript to On the Wall, the show about to open at the National Portrait Gallery that looks at how Jackson was portrayed in paintings and photography. Funk, who is based in Los Angeles, is quite happy to let his career be defined by his shots of Jackson. While daydreaming, he sometimes hears the singer’s voice, imploring him one more time. “Let’s make magic,” it says.”

AT THIS PIVOTAL TIME !

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tv-kitchen · 5 years

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Why Fleabag Season 2 Keeps Sticking with Me (And It's Not Just the Hot Priest)

This post is for people who have watched both seasons of Fleabag on Amazon Prime Video and contains spoilers.

If you've had a conversation with me in the past two weeks--online or in real life--I have inevitably brought up Fleabag. This elicits one of two responses:

"Uh, Fleabag? What is that? Sounds gross."

"OMG FLEABAG!!!"

For the latter camp, there's an immediate bond in the knowledge that this show is something special. And while much of the attention is on Andrew Scott's Hot Priest (who is, as Claire points out, quite hot) there's something more here. Other shows have had charming actors or sharp writing or an original voice, and Fleabag is undoubtedly a rare combination of all three.

But still, there's something else.

Here are a few of my guesses on what creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge has done that's resonating so strongly with the people who love, and are in love, with this show.

1. It's about forgiveness.

When people talk about the divisiveness of today's politics and general cultural landscape, I think what they're really mourning is the loss of forgiveness. Nobody can make a mistake, and if they do, they're cast out from the conversation, from existence, almost. Everyone is on edge, scared they'll be the next to screw up, sometimes in ways they didn't even know they could.

About a year ago, I made a comment online about the NFL national anthem protests that I phrased badly. I immediately got a condescending rebuke from someone I've known for nearly 20 years. Because of this history, I asked this person to consider my comment in the context of what they know about me. The response? That what this person knew about me is that I'm a writer and I choose my words very carefully. In other words, that it was impossible I could have made a mistake. I was swiftly unfriended.

This confirmed my worst perfectionist fears: One misstep means you've messed it up for good. So the safe route? Stay hidden. Don't try. It's not worth the risk.

Season 1 of Fleabag is primarily about Fleabag's inability to forgive herself for what we discover was her role in Boo's death. To get there, she benefits from the forgiveness of others. She remembers Boo reminding her that pencils have erasers because people make mistakes. This same sentiment is echoed by the Bank Manager as he approves her loan, after earning his own forgiveness from Fleabag at the silent retreat.

In season 2, Fleabag and the Priest connect through a clear history of shared flaws. They've each tried to numb these issues through an approach to sex--she has lots of it, he chooses to have none--and ultimately, they're each looking for someone to tell them they're good people.

As funny as it is when the Priest overhears Fleabag's salacious conversation with the Hot Misogynist at the door of her apartment, and when he later opens her coat to see she's only got underwear on underneath, there's also an undercurrent of forgiveness and acceptance to the scene. A lesser script would have him walk out in judgment ("I think I've made a mistake") but he shushes her attempts to explain. He knows exactly what was happening--and he accepts her anyway, because he takes it in the context of everything else he knows about her.

2. It portrays people who are good at their jobs.

This is a less philosophical observation, but so much of modern comedy finds humor in incompetence. With Fleabag driving the show from her very specific point of view, it would be easy to portray her as smarter than everyone else, rolling her eyes at the dummies who come in and out of her life. (Think Veep.) But instead, Waller-Bridge lets Fleabag learn from people who are older, wiser, and skilled in their work.

The therapist scene starts with one of the series' funniest throwaway lines--"I have dry forearms"--but as the conversation progresses, we see she's a good therapist. Fleabag thinks she can coast her way through with jokes and psychological buzzwords, but the session ultimately helps her.

In that same vein, Fleabag's father was right to give her the voucher for the session. It's played for an awkward moment at the dinner table that he thought it was a suitable birthday present, but it was actually some good parenting, that. She was struggling, and he was brave enough to guide her toward the help she needed.

Even the Priest--our hot, hot Priest--is shown to actually be a good priest. Yes, he has alcoholic tendencies and he's, as he says, really fucking lonely, but he likes his job. In such a tightly scripted series, I've wondered why Waller-Bridge spends so many lines on the Priest going through the notices at the end of Mass. But it's to show that he's good at this, and his parishioners recognize it.

The scene in the confessional--inspirer of sexy gifs that it is--also is about him helping her acknowledge the vulnerability she's been hiding up to that point. (I'm convinced this is when he truly falls in love with her.) She hints at being burned in the past ("I tell you my secrets so you can use them to trap and control me"), but he asserts himself as someone she can trust ("You tell me what's weighing on your heart and I listen without judgment"). He's doing what the good parts of religion are supposed to do.

3. Phoebe Waller-Bridge channels a certain smart, funny American woman.

I'm talking, of course, about Brené Brown.

Yes, people have compared Waller-Bridge to Tina Fey; British GQ even had Fey interview her. But as I watched Fleabag, I got the sense I'd heard these themes before, about shame and imperfection and the courage of vulnerability to make real human connections.

Then I remembered I had just recently watched Brown's The Call to Courage on Netflix. The special summarizes the messages in her many books, particularly Daring Greatly, her 2012 breakout based on a now famous Teddy Roosevelt quote about achievement being in the willingness to fight, and not in criticizing those who try. Brown talks about the concept of "wholehearted" living, which can only happen when you're willing to be vulnerable and fail, but fail by daring greatly.

In The Call to Courage, she also explains the difference between belonging and fitting in. The latter is actually the opposite of the former, Brown says. Fitting in is changing who you are to be accepted, versus being accepted for exactly who you are. In Fleabag, we see characters consistently trying to adapt themselves in an attempt to be more like the person they think has it better.

This is perhaps most noticeable in Claire, who consistently takes on external changes that make her more like Fleabag--funky trainers, short haircut--and laments that she can be funny and interesting, too. It's no coincidence the person she ends up loving shares her name. She's finally learned to love herself.

Fleabag herself is trying to be a grown-up by exercising, eating pine nuts in her salad, and laughing with a group of people we know are not really her friends. But it's not until she opens herself up to being loved (to paraphrase the old Finnish expression) and to loving someone else, even when she stands to gain nothing from it, that she truly matures. By the final scene, she's become wholehearted.

There's been a lot of talk about how the Priest is the only person who "sees" Fleabag in his ability to notice her breaking the fourth wall. And at the wedding, he talks about how loving someone gives you hope. I think what's striking such a nerve for fans of Fleabag is that it's about the doubts and fears and imperfections we all feel inside, but never share. It feels like Waller-Bridge sees us, and that gives us hope that we're not alone.

4. The Priest is hot.

OK, OK, there's also that. What can I say? I'm not made of wood.

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nyxelestia · 7 years

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Racism in the Teen Wolf Fandom

[This post originally tagged several people I was directly addressing, as I was expecting it to mostly be reblogged by them and their followers, with maybe a small handful of people I asked to take a look at this post even bothering to read this behemoth, let alone share it. However, a lot more people than I expected paid attention to and shared this post, including a blog that dedicates itself to highlighting racism in fandom. In the interests of preventing "raiding"/dogpiling behavior against the people I addressed this post to, I have removed their handles.]

tl;dr - I don't actually believe any of you are racists, no more than I am, than we all are by virtue of being raised in a white-centric culture, internalizing the attitudes expressed by our media and community, and carrying those attitudes with us into fandom. But that is all the more reason we need to address bigotry in our communities, no matter how passive or benign or minor, because that is the only way to engender change in this fandom, in fandom in general, and in ourselves. I take issue with your guys' posts and meta not because I think everyone should worship Scott - hey, he's not my #1 fave either - or because I think he is perfect (no one is, perfect characters are boring). I take issue with the fact a lot of your logic, meta, and analyses rely on the same racist arguments that permeate mainstream media. I object to the casual dismissal of canonical events, and the way headcanons and assumptions are treated as canon when analyzing the show (especially when they are overwhelmingly skewed a certain direction). And I object to the fact every attempt by myself and many, many others to point all of this out is often met with little more than dismissing everything with the vague claim that we're "too sensitive" and "see racism everywhere" and "are only using buzzwords". I don't think any of you are racists, but I think all of you have utilized or enabled racist rhetoric when talking about Scott (and several other characters, but primarily Scott, for reasons I explain down below).

I'm temporarily disabling anon - either one of you, or one of your followers, constantly fills my inbox with misogynistic slurs every time I speak up against bigotry in fandom, and I just do not have the time to IP block each one. I just got this lovely one just yesterday:

(I and everyone else who talk about racism in Teen Wolf fandom are accused of "using buzzwords", while I'm getting anons who accuse me of misogyny while calling me a cunt. Yay irony.)

If you want to yell at me, do it under your own name. And yes, out of all the people circle-jerking on the original post, I blocked the one who used name-calling now, and has demonstrated some remarkably immature behavior in the past. If bhadpodcast is going to act and post like I blocked them, I might as well actually block them and save myself the headache. They can still relay messages to me through one of you. The rest of you have demonstrated yourself to be open-minded and willing to listen to logical arguments in the past (or I don't know you well enough to assume that you'll ignore my words and skip straight to the name-calling) which is why I've tagged you.

This is a rodeo I've ridden before, and while I can always hope for change, the reality is that I have already expressed all of this in meta before, and that I've spoken to most of you directly about all of this. I'm familiar with the arguments you make, and I'm tired. So it's going to take pretty much all of my self-control to do this, but no matter what you reblog, I am not going to respond. I'm not going to get caught up in the tactics of deflection and distraction, I'm not going to let you draw me into petty arguments on isolated comments and use that as an excuse to ignore the overwhelming majority of this post, and I'm not interested in rehashing arguments I've already had a dozen times over with almost all of you at one point or another.

If you actually read this entire thing and have an honest rebuttal to something I stated below, and its something that is based in the canonical source material, is not contradicted by other canonical source material, and is not contingent on a headcanon, my Messenger is open. Otherwise, it's been good talking to you, and I'm sure we'll be talking about all of this again, soon enough. But I am stating my piece and peacing out, because I need to save up my energy for the next time this wank comes around - and given the way fandom has shown itself to act in the past (and the fact racism has been around far, far longer than television, letalone fandom), that is not an 'if', but a 'when'.

Below the cut:

1.) Yes, Scott is a character of color, I don't care what country you're in.

2.) The fact that most of the racism in Teen Wolf fandom comes in microaggressions does not make it less racist.

3.) Actors and characters are held to tremendously disparate double standards and this is a huge problem, probably the biggest one.

4.) Racism of Teen Wolf fandom is highly reflective of racism offline/in the "real world".

On Scott actually being a character of color

Now, first and foremost - I don't really care what country you are from, Scott is a character of color. I get that some of you come from backgrounds where someone with his complexion is coded as white, but ignoring the fact that 1.) internalized racism is as much of a problem as external racism and 2.) most of ya'll have your own serious problems with colorism and race (where do you think America got it from?), the reality is that you are watching an American TV show, filmed using Amercian actors and and in a setting whose populace is designed to look American. On top of that, most of you have consumed plenty of American media before Teen Wolf, or media that reflects/contains the same problems with colorism and racism as American media.

Even if you did not perceive Scott as white on your first watch, the majority of the target audience did, a significant portion of your meta still used logic and arguments saturated in racist rhetorical history (American racism and otherwise), and many of your character delineations still fell along racial lines (i.e. which characters you headcanon as being secretly evil or having ulterior motives, and which ones you headcanon as secretly not being as evil as they act). As this article points out, the actual TV show has a pretty sketchy history when it comes to its treatment of non white, non male characters - granted, it's nothing new, most TV shows do this or something like this, as does most media in general. But "everyone else does it" and "it's always been this way" has never been an excuse before, and Teen Wolf doesn't get to start now.

On top of that, even if you personally came from a country with no ties to or influences from Western racism at all, you are still engaging in a fandom that is largely rooted in America, with American racial preconceptions, and dealing with American racial norms. Much of my issues with racism in your posts, meta, and reponses is not that an individual is immediately being racist, but rather are perpetuating racist misconstructions.

i.e. Stiles gets struggles on a test, and it's because he has ADHD, so/and he's still a genius, which is reinforced by all the times outside of school. Allison openly admits to having had to repeat a year before and failing a class now, and it's attributed to familial and superantural stress. But Scott gets a bad grade, he's an idiot, and the idea that he "never" does anything outside of school. You aren't going to call Scott stupid because of his ethnicity. But by taking away situations in which he has demonstrated intelligence and cunning and attributing it to someone else, you reinforce anti-Scott fans' rhetoric that Scott is an idiot who can't do anything, most of which traces back to racial stereotypes about Latino boys in the American education system. This is just one of many, many examples.

I understand why you feel like the fact you didn't code Scott as white on your first watch means you don't and can't possibly have racist attitudes towards him or express it in meta. But the thing is, bigotry is rarely about you individually, it's almost always about how you connect to and relate to a broader tradition of oppression and marginalization. There is not a single English-speaking or European country that does not currently have problems with racism and colorism, and while the nuances of how racism manifests varies from country to country, the traditions, media trends, and social habits do not - which is why the fact that people from different countries perceive characters' a little differently based on their appearances, the underlying rhetoric and logic is still the same.

Teen Wolf Fandom Racism

In the post this came clusterfuck from, the person I was responding to literally says, 'the hero is not a hero, and the villain IS the hero'. The fact that she didn't actually say their races doesn't change the fact all the positive attributes or successes of the character of color were projected onto white characters, while supporting the idea that the character of color is evil. She literally removed the character of color from the story, by claiming that the adult werewolf is actually the "teen wolf". AUs are fine and dandy and dark AUs are a lot of fun. But we call them AUs for a reason. The show itself is one created by people, not some documentary about real life events. The story presented is the story intended, and the post is one which undermines that story in order to demonize a character of color, while also deifying white characters, in a way that is contingent of separating the character of color from his own story and plastering his story onto white characters.

It's a not-so-micro microaggression. Just because you don't intend a certain bias, does not mean you are not acting it out or perpetuating it. Just because you are not intentionally judging someone on the basis of race, does not eliminate the fact you (and I) were raised in a very racist culture, and especially in a racist media environment, and express racialized judgments without intending it. We all do this - up until her library scene with Mason in Season 5, I was doing this with Kira all the time. And I've also fallen prey to the tendency to sideline Boyd. When I recognized that I ponder the stories of white characters who has as much screen time as him or even less so, I strove to change that.

This article explains the way fandom treats characters of color and how erasure manifests in fandom, and very specifically #3 in to one of you whose meta I was responding to before. The article is primarily about shipping, but it also specifically addresses the demonization of Deaton, and other characters of color, in the Teen Wolf fandom, and puts these into the context of fandom racism in general, not just Teen Wolf. In particular:

When characters of color are distanced from their triumphs and relationships in canon via headcanon, photo manipulations/edits, or simply not being written or drawn into fanworks, it’s an attempt to minimize the importance of the character. Whether or not it’s a subconscious or conscious distancing, the fact of the matter is that fandom does this on the regular and it usually only benefits white characters (and largely white fans) because it takes importance away from the few characters of color that the canon gives us.

This is literally erasing a character of color and replacing him with a white character, who the fuck thought this was okay? I get that this was a Stiles-centric event, but if you can smoothly switch out heads and paste in characters, then you can damn well make your own banner pulling together all the characters independently, without erasing the character of color and pasting a white character over him.

On top of that, the post points out how much racism in fandom manifests as separating characters of color from their white friend.

Take a look at the finale of Season 2. We never once see Stiles' reaction to Gerard (he wasn't even there, yet). Only edited for size and brightness, here is Stiles' entrance to the scene - after Gerard has already collapsed from the mountain ash:

Incidentally, the show never explains how Stiles actually knew to go to this warehouse in the first place, and at the the beginning of the scene, it was Scott, Chris, and Isaac who arrived here first, setting the location for the finale. There are a lot of possible explanations for all of these. But fandom only treats one as if it were canon, while rarely or never mentioning the other, equally likely, possibility. Why? Because that creates a separation between Scott and Stiles (despite/especially because of the fact the season literally ends with the two of them goofing off together).

The very ending of the season is about Scott and Stiles playing lacrosse together after Scott respectfully walks away from Allison when she breaks up with him, but how many post-S2 fics start out with Stiles feeling lonely because Scott abandoned him for Allison? We see Stiles discovering the alpha symbol and learning about the alpha pack at the same time as Scott at the beginning of Season 3A - yet why do so many people talk about Stiles helping Derek look for them over the summer as if it were canon? (In the interest of demonstrating full disclosure about our own mistakes, even I used to think this, just because it appeared in fanfic so many times. It wasn't until my second watch of S3 that I realized Stiles hadn't canonically been helping Derek look for Erica and Boyd, or known about the alpha pack beforehand.)

(Sloppy gif is sloppy. Derek and Scott were talking about alphas, so Derek actually said "A pack of them." This conversation was interspersed with cuts from the Braeden and Alpha Pack fight scene, so the awkward jumps are from cutting those out.)

This unconscious racism also manifests in how fandom treats actors of color in the fandom, and in Teen Wolf fandom.

Dylan O'Brien made a joke about violating native law and taking advantage of sacred land for his own personal humor, and fandom largely forgot about it in a week. Tyler Posey makes a joke about being gay, and fandom still rails at him over it. Tyler and Dylan should be held accountable to the same standards. Both of them made a stupid, shitty joke, and both apologized pretty quickly. Only one of them is still being taken to task for it.

One Tyler calls Sterek twisted and bizarre, the other Tyler calls Sterek disrespectful. Only one is taken to task over it, and it's the one who was routinely harassed about this ship, whose character is almost systemically marginalized from his own TV show, and whose character's death was being advocated to make another character into the lead of the show.

For those who want more quantative evidence

The number of fanworks about Scott compared to Stiles and Derek is ridiculous. On its own, in the context of a fandom that wasn't so otherwise racist or engaging in racist rhetoric and behavior, I'd buy that it was because there are many reasons why someone could identify with Stiles and Derek more than Scott. But most of the reasons people profess for identifying with Stiles - complexity, mental illness, etc., - are also attributes that apply to Scott's character, which means if you eliminate the things that are same, the racial difference becomes much, MUCH more prominent.

This is before getting into the fact that if you go into the Scott McCall tag right now, most of the fics (based on other tags, and summaries) aren't even about him, but about Stiles and/or Derek. Out of the 10 results in the first page when I just checked, only 1 had a summary that wasn't about Stiles or Derek. And it's really hard to take "Scott is just not that interesting" too seriously when I see how many people have forgotten really engaging scenes and stories with him, and how often people think a scene between him and either Stiles or Derek was actually between Stiles and Derek - and not him - in the show. People erase Scott from his own story, then claim he has no story.

Other Prominent Examples and Points of Contention

We live in a culture that romanticizes white pain in media, and dismisses the experiences and pain of non-white characters. Western audiences are trained and predisposed to dismissing characters of color, their experiences, their pain, and their development - or to taking these experiences and projecting them onto white characters. People are culturally trained to romanticize white, male suffering (which they do with Derek and Stiles), and dismiss men of color or their needs or pain (which they do with Scott).

To put it more bluntly, people will make a hundred gifsets about Stiles crying in the waiting room, but barely a dozen of Scott crying into his mother's arms. There are a hundred gifsets of Stiles conning Derek into a striptease in the first season, but barely any of Scott admitting he'd made a mistake in accusing Derek of murder, and trying to fix it. Does anyone remember that while Stiles and Derek were paralyzed on the floor of the police station in Matt's rampage, Scott had been shot? I've seen hundreds of gifs and images made of Stiles and Derek's pool scene - but I can't remember ever seeing a gifset about Gerard torturing Scott after that, stabbing him and holding the knife in while threatening his mother. And oh, hey, do you remember what Scott was dealing with during the pool scene?

No one is actively racist against Scott, but the implications that he's never changed, that he's never suffered, that he has no story, etc. etc. that so much of the anti-Scott meta is built upon - those are because people just dismiss his experiences and his story, without ever once actually thinking about it. They dismiss it when they watch it, and then again when they make a million gifs about Stiles and Derek's experiences, yet only a fraction as many about Scott's experiences.

This post illustrates my point quite nicely.

It's a pair of gifs from the first season about the boys after Hunters show up at the school, with feel good tags about Stiles "swooping in to save Derek". But here's the thing, those gifs have been edited to cut out Scott from the scene. Scott was the one driving Derek's car to rescue them. *Scott was was saving Derek too.* They were BOTH saving Derek's ass in here, but the gifs are edited to only show Stiles, and the tags only talk about Stiles. If you didn't actually watch this scene yourself, you probably wouldn't know that Scott was even there, let alone the fact the scene was primarily between him and Derek, not Stiles and Derek. How often do we see characters of color in critical roles get dismissed as "support staff"? Scott is "just" the getaway driver, so he's not important anymore to this scene, he no longer exists, only Stiles does.

(This can be a cute Sterek moment, but it can also be a cute Scerek moment and McHaleinski moment. Stiles and Derek actually have the least interaction in this scene, and Stiles is literally in the backseat and mostly in the background of the scene, which is focused on Derek and Scott.)

So now a lot of people are seeing this gifset, and not just internalizing those feel-good tags - they are internalizing the idea that it was only Stiles saving Derek, conveniently forgetting that Scott was even there. On top of that, the ensuing dialogue involves Scott admitting he made a mistake in accusing Derek of murder when he thought Derek was dead, and trying to fix the problem - but how many meta accuse him of never changing, admitting his mistakes, or addressing problems that he caused?

And this is just one example, from the very first season.

On top of that, that scene was also where Stiles and Derek find out the symbol Derek was investigating was on Allison's pendant. The next scene is Stiles pushing Scott to ignore Allison's need for space, in order to get that necklace - but Scott is the one who is blamed for "emotionally abusing her/manipulating her" for trying to reach out to her. I'd bet money that if Scott had decided to respect Allison's space, fandom would be decrying him for not helping Stiles and Derek hunt down an actual killer just because he didn't want to make a teenaged girl he barely knew a little uncomfortable. :|

Other Double Standards

Scott is called an abuser for levels of interpersonal violence that Stiles and Derek are constantly excused for it. Scott lies, and is called manipulative, Stiles lies, and he's just trying to protect people. People in fandom say that Derek is "violent, but not abusive", despite recurring acts of violence against relatively vulnerable characters who are under his care, yet they call Scott an abuser for all of two instances of lashing out at Isaac over something stupid.

Alan Deaton gets headcanons painting him as evil because he withholds information from the main characters. Stiles withholds information from the other characters, and he's just traumatized and scared.

Marin Morrell said if no other solutions to the nogitsune problem was found, then she'd kill one teenager who they already have confirmed is the source/host of the villain, in order to protect the rest of the town from the definite threat. Derek nearly murdered an innocent teenager, hoped for and attempted to engineer the death of another teenager, and dragged three more teenagers into a violent situation which they had little understanding of because he needed a pack (the alpha pack didn't come until later). But he is not called a villain at nearly half the rate Morrell is, if at all outside of the anti-Derek fandom. (Side note: neither of them are villains. Both of them are stuck dealing with the actual villains who've forced them into shitty situations. My problem is that while neither of them are villains, only one of them is repeatedly called and portrayed as one in fanworks.)

Boyd probably fares best, by virtue of barely ever getting mentioned in fanfic or meta, even in comparison to Cora or Erica (who he had about as much screentime as).

Fandom compares Scott to a rapist for using Derek's body against his will in order to save Allison's life. But where were they when Liam tried to kill Scott for his girlfriend, and Scott takes a few weeks to feel safe around him again instead of welcoming him back with open arms right away?

By the way, wanna know why fandom rarely gifs the scene of Scott forcing Derek to Bite Gerard with the actual dialogue?

Because you can't compare Scott to a rapist for using Derek's body against him when we see that he's only doing it because the villain is holding someone hostage and threatening their life, and you can't claim that Scott never apologizes for anything if you see him literally apologizing for what he's doing to Derek. And I'd bet even more money that if the reverse had happened, fandom would have decried Scott for letting Allison die "just" so Derek wouldn't have had to Bite someone he didn't want to, and called him a murderer for it.

People castigate Scott for successfully setting a broken leg when it was technically illegal, but I don't see any posts castigating Stiles for interfering in police investigations, violating people's privacy and boundaries, or interfering with an active crime scene/body search.

People call Scott a murderer because Theo killed Tracy and Josh on another character's information - not even a suggestion, just information - yet Derek actively sought to violate a girl's bodily autonomy and got her killed as a result. (I don't think he is a murderer for it - I think that if he isn't a murderer for Paige's death, then it's as ridiculous or even more so to claim that Scott is responsible for Theo's victims.)

Scott isn't perfect, no one on this show is, because perfect characters are boring. But only Scott is considered evil and villainous for not being perfect, while white characters' flaws are celebrated. Scott is derided for not being held accountable, but not only are the instances where he is held accountable erased, white characters' actions are constantly excused or justified without anybody screaming about their lack of accountability. Fandom hates on Scott for not verbally apologizing for things, but no one makes hate posts about the fact Stiles and Derek never verbally apologize, either. Fandom holds Scott up to an impossible standard while having little to no standards for the white characters. They use "he's the main character/protagonist/hero!" to justify the double standard, but then try to claim he ISN'T the protagonist or hero to justify giving his story to a white character - in the instance at the beginning of this post, a white villain no less - and casting him as the villain.

Main Points

I like darkfic as much as the next person, but that doesn't erase the fact that the process of making Scott a villain (as in, claiming Scott is actually a villain in the context of canon) is contingent on the racist traditions of separating a character of color from their own story, wiping away that characters' story, and romanticizing the struggles and personal strifes of white characters (often in the process of "giving" the character of colors' stories to them).

This problem isn't unique to Teen Wolf. Just about every fandom is racist, and many (if not most) of their media sources are even more racist than Teen Wolf. If anything, one thing Teen Wolf fandom has going for it is that, while it still has a lot of sexism and misogyny, it seems to have less so than most other, similar fandoms. Though the biggest point of comparison is the Supernatural fandom, so that might not be saying much.

The difference is that in other fandoms, the main characters are white, and most of the surrounding characters are white, too. Characters of color are always secondary ones. A Netflix show was the first time an MCU production had a non-white character as its lead. But in Teen Wolf, the main character is a character of color, and he's still getting treated the same way as secondary characters of other fandoms, if not even worse so.

I don't think any of you, as individuals, are racist. But I do think that all of you, as individuals, never examine racial biases in your media consumption or analysis. This leads to you microaggressively expressing racist attitudes in your meta, passively perpetuating racist stereotypes and tropes, and - however unintentionally - enabling racism in fandom.

I was also asked if I admit to my own biases, so here it is: When it comes to analyzing Teen Wolf (and making judgments about the show and the characters therein), I don't care about people's headcanons, or fanons, just the source material. The show was written by written by over a dozen people alongside Jeff Davis and produced by MTV, it did not magically appear out of thin air, nor is it a skewed documentation of some "real" story or "real" events. I believe in holding the characters' to the same level of accountability, and the same standards, as each other. If this makes me biased, then yes, fine, I'm biased.

I also know that none of these problems are unique to Teen Wolf fandom, and that actual Scott stans have also justified his poor decisions, and hated on Stiles and Derek. Some of you might remember me getting blocked by some Sciles BNFs for saying "Derek's not a rapist", and I've lost track of the number of times I'd try to reblog a Stydia or Stalia gifset, only for it to turn out I can't, and most likely this comes from my past of pointing out misogyny in those fandoms.

Meanwhile, Sciles fandom slathers heteronormativity onto the pairing as much as Sterek fandom does, and the fact that it's being done on an interracial relationship actually makes it a little worse than when it's on the all-white Sterek ship (but that's a can of worms for another day). Female characters like Allison, Lydia, Malia, and Kira are constantly utilized as little more than talking plot-devices or fag-hags in fandom unless it's explicitly about them, and they are reduced to caricatures instead of characters even more than the most underserved male characters of color, like Boyd. For all of them, I went onto their character tags, and I didn't find a fic summary that was about them until I got the second page, which is worse than Scott having only 1 out of 10 in the first page.

But the sheer amount of Scott hate outpaces hate of all the other characters combined, and the sheer amount of fanworks about these secondary characters outpaces the fanworks about the main character. And yes, every ship and character's fandom sent rape and death threats to the cast and crew over their stupid ship or character. But the amount leveled at Tyler Posey from Sterek fans, even before he finally snapped and made an unprofessional comment about it, is tremendously higher than all the other kinds of hate - especially when compared to the fandom's reaction to the Tyler Hoechlin also saying a negative comments about Sterek.

Fandom does not exist in a vacuum.

The attitudes by which white characters' trauma and experiences are used to justify their violence while characters of colors' victimizations are dismissed, is the same logic used to defend cops who "just reacted" or "panicked", while blaming young children of color for "getting shot" by not behaving 100% correctly. The logic by which a white characters' abusive behavior and characters of colors' abuse are dismissed, while the white characters' abuse and the character of colors' abusive behaviors are exaggerated, is the same logic for which white rapists are painted as "merely making a mistake" while a black shoplifter is painted as a bankrobber in the making.

And the logic of calling someone who explains all this an "ableist troll" for pointing this out is the same logic used to pit marginalized peoples against each other in an effort to maintain the status quo - why do you think racism between racial minorities exists? And the logic of claiming someone is just "exploiting real tragedies" to talk about racism in fandom only makes sense if you assume all fans are white, and therefore none have ever been or will be touched by racism or racial violence in their real lives, and only bring up race to prop up fictional characters. (Yes, these are why I blocked bhadpodcast.)

Some of you can choose to walk away from racism, you can talk about it in fandom and that is the only place it will ever affect you directly. Not all of us get that luxury. Some of us have to confront racism in our daily lives, and sometimes, the racism online and the racism offline start to look and sound the same.

And I will apologize for one thing on the post that started this: my tags in my initial response were needlessly aggressive. I had to deal with racism in my real life, and then I came home, and see echoes of that exact same racism in a fandom post, and I over-reacted in the tags.

The logic by which a character of color is erased from his own narrative, derided as a villain, and replaced by a white character, is the same logic that is used in professional environments to judge who has "worked hard" and who hasn't (and thus, who gets promoted and who doesn't). Maybe, if you've never experienced racial bias in the work place, these seem like problems worlds away from each other, but they are not, these are two different manifestations of the same subconscious bias. When I came into fandom and saw someone I consider close to a friend regurgitating the exact same illogic as one of my workplace superiors, I snapped.

When I say that fandom doesn't exist in a vacuum, this is what I mean. The same attitudes and judgments of people that exist in offline life - based on their physical appearance, their skin tone, their heritage, etc. - follow us into fandom, whether we like it or not.

I acknowledge I should've been a lot calmer about expressing my frustrations with that post. I probably shouldn't have answered so soon after work-life problems and just before I was supposed to go to bed. I tell people all the time to hold back on topics which are personal to them and wait until they are calmer to address it, and here I went and ignored that. I took out my anger on athena via those tags, and for that, I am sorry.

But it's also the only thing I'm sorry about. I still stand by my notion that the post I was responding to was very racist, and the fact that the characters' races were never brought up in the post itself does not change that.

#teen wolf fandom meta #teen wolf fandom problems #teen wolf fandom #scott mccall defense squad #pro scott mccall #but also pro derek and stiles and everybody #except the villains #i'm basically anti anti-ism #i can get why people might not realize that though #racism in teen wolf fandom #racism in fandom #references to #misogyny #racism #long post

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Transcript of Using a Framework to Create Inventive Content

Transcript of Using a Framework to Create Inventive Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Zephyr CMS. It’s a modern cloud based CMS system that’s licensed only to agencies. You can find them at zephyrcms.com, more about this later in the show.

John Jantsch: Hello, welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Melanie Deziel. She is the Founder of StoryFuel, and the author of a book we’re going to talk about today called, The Content Fuel Framework: How to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas for Marketers and Creators.

John Jantsch: So Melanie, welcome to the show.

Melanie Deziel: Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: Is this your first book?

Melanie Deziel: It is my first book.

John Jantsch: Awesome.

Melanie Deziel: It’s very exciting stuff.

John Jantsch: It’s very exciting. Have you got finished copies, yet?

Melanie Deziel: I have not, they are in the mail. I’m waiting, the bated breath, checking the mail a little obsessively. Any day, now.

John Jantsch: It’s a pretty awesome feeling, I will tell you.

Melanie Deziel: It will be really nice, to see them live and in person.

John Jantsch: I’m going to ask you lots of really easy, nice softball questions, but I’m going to start with kind of a hard one.

Melanie Deziel: Okay.

John Jantsch: There’s a lot of books about stories right now, so what’s your focus?

Melanie Deziel: Yeah.

John Jantsch: I’m going to use that word again … for this book, that’s going to make it different from the other books out there about story telling?

Melanie Deziel: Yeah, you’re totally right. Storytelling is a bit of a buzzword at this particular moment, everyone’s trying to figure out their story and how to tell it.

Melanie Deziel: My approach is a little bit different in that I’m not coming at you, talking about your brand’s story as a whole, right? This is not who you are, as a company. This is, very specifically, how do you take that message and bring it to the world? The framework that I’m sharing is something that I learned in my background as a journalist, which is also, probably, a different perspective than a lot of the storytelling books out there. Just sharing, how do I sit down and come up with content on a recurring basis? There are so many platforms, and you have to update all of them so frequently, you run out things to say.

Melanie Deziel: So, the goal of this book was really to say you don’t have to be this amazing, magical, prolific content creator to have something unique to say routinely. And that if you have a system behind how you choose what to say, you’ll actually be able to fill those platforms with ease. You’ll have hundreds of ideas, rather than this writer’s block of what should I post today? That’s the question I’m trying to eliminate.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting you said that because, my experience working with a lot of journalists, now that we’re all producing all this content, is that this idea, the training really was a system, because a lot of times you got assigned something you knew nothing about. Your system had to kick into place, to allow you to structure it, format it, get it going quickly, on deadline. I think that makes a ton of sense.

Melanie Deziel: 100%. The other thing I always say is, you never see a newspaper that says, “Sorry, we decided not to do a paper today, because there was nothing new to talk about,” right? That deadline pressure is real, so you become very skilled at always finding a new angle, a new perspective, a new approach, something that you can say. So that even if it’s yet another school board meeting, or whatever else you happen to be covering that day, you’ve got some new way to talk about it that’s going to engage people.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Unfortunately, that also produces the stories of the doctor who talks about more people having a heart attack in Kansas City, during the Super Bowl, because they had to fill space, right?

Melanie Deziel: It’s true, it’s true. Well, you never want to make content just for the sake of content, so hopefully this will help you come up with a lot of ideas, and then choose the best ones to bring to life.

John Jantsch: We can drill into some of the elements, but I guess it might be helpful if you have the one minute version of the global picture, of what the framework is?

Melanie Deziel: Absolutely. The framework proposes two things.

Melanie Deziel: One, that every piece of content you’ve ever created, loved, or consumed is only made up of two things. It has a focus, in that it’s about something. Maybe it’s about people, or history, or data. And it has a format, so it’s brought to life in some way, like writing, audio, like we’re doing here, video, et cetera. As long as you agree with that, that every piece of content has a focus and a format, then what I’m proposing is if I can give you a tool belt of these are some focuses, and these are some formats, you can start to come up with new and novel combinations of those things, that allow you to tell similar stories in new ways.

Melanie Deziel: The idea being you could tell a story about history through a timeline, instead of just through a written piece of content. Or, instead of just through a video, or instead of just through an infographic. So, talking about new and different ways to combine all these different focuses, and formats. That’s really what we’re trying to do, is give you a go-to system, and a language for talking about, and thinking about content creation, so that you’re not just trying to grab things out of thin air.

John Jantsch: When I hear you talk about the focus piece, are you saying every piece of content has to have one focus? Your business has to have an over-arching focus? I mean, drill down on the focus idea?

Melanie Deziel: Yeah, absolutely. I think that you can certainly combine these focuses, but the idea is if you were to think about a particular piece of content that you really enjoyed, like maybe the Serial podcast. We all remember Serial, that was a big one, we went crazy for it. That was a story about people, and it was a story about the history of that particular case, right? It did combine both the people and the history, as the focus. And it was told through audio, so that’s the particular combinations of focuses and format, there.

Melanie Deziel: You can imagine a world where that was a really long, investigative written piece, and something like the New Yorker instead of being just audio. That would be a different focus. It could have been told through an interactive timeline, where you scrolled through, and you got to listen to audio clips, and see photos. It could have been a map. I think they did, actually, include a lot of supportive content online, there was a map at some point, where you could look, here’s the cell tower, and here’s where the body was found, and plotting out all the different story elements on a map, instead.

Melanie Deziel: Every piece of content you’re trying to come up with … If you have a new product launch, or an event coming up, or you’re trying to just promote your business in general, thinking how could I tell this story through the lens of history? The history of our company, the history of this product. Or, how could I do it through data? As we talk about our company, how many people have we helped, how many products have we sold, how much revenue have we made? It just gives you different prompts, so instead of going back to the same tired stories, maybe you’re approaching things in a new way, or bringing them to life in a new way.

John Jantsch: That makes a ton of sense. Is there a finite collection of focuses? Like, here are the top … I know you talk about 10, but is there ultimately only so many of those that you should try to? I’m sure that certain industries, you could go crazy, but for the most part, would you say that there are a handful of tried and true focuses?

Melanie Deziel: Definitely. I think when it comes to focuses, and formats, I’ve picked 10 because it seemed like a nice, round number that would include some that were familiar, and some that would stretch you, to think and create in new ways. I probably can’t create an exhaustive list. At least, probably not in the timeline that it would take to create a book, there’s limits on our life. But, I did try to present some of the tried and trues.

Melanie Deziel: In terms of focuses, I think people is always a really good one to go for, we relate to stories about people very well. Basic and details, those are two complimentary ones. Basics, approaching something with just the very basics of what you need to know, really educational content. Then, details being more of an in-depth dive. You could do the same story, but approach it in both of those ways, as basics and details. I think process content is really having a moment, the last couple years. So, that’s anything that’s instructions, or DIY, recipes, we’ve seen a lot of that type of content. Those are some of the really common, tried and true.

Melanie Deziel: But, I think this also present some that you may not have thought of. I don’t know how many people are doing opinion content, as a brand. I give some examples in the book of how you can do that, without feeling like you’re going out on a limb, or getting in the middle of a debate. That’s not the goal, we’re not trying to create drama or divide your audience, we just want to express that someone has made a choice in creating this content. Maybe, “My favorite podcasts for entrepreneurs,” as opposed to just, “Here’s 10 random podcasts for entrepreneurs.”

Melanie Deziel: Yeah, those are some of the favorites. Again, like I said, a balance of hopefully ones that are familiar, and ones that might challenge you to think in some new ways, too.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I think the structure, one of the beauties of this … I do think the challenge for a lot of people is they’re busy, doing all kinds of stuff, and then they sit down at a blank piece of paper, a blank screen, and they’re like, “I need some ideas.” This is almost like the little candy box, right? Just go grab one out of there, and start?

Melanie Deziel: Exactly. That’s the idea. If you can select from this list of focuses, here’s the eight or 10, or more that feel good to me, here’s the five, or eight, or 14 formats, that are within my resources, you could come up with 100 plus combinations. You’re obviously not going to create 100 pieces of content, maybe about the same thing, that would probably be excessive. But, like you said, it gives your brain somewhere to focus, that you’re not starting with a blank slate. You have some prompts, if you will, to think of ideas, and then you can select from those. Okay, these three are probably the most realistic for my budget, for my timeline, for my skillset.

John Jantsch: I can see a role, even … When I say content, so many people hear blog posts, and that’s where they stop. This could be your social media calendar of things, and obviously we’re going to get into some of the formats. In fact, maybe list your 10 formats, just quickly? Then, we can come back and talk about some of my questions on those.

Melanie Deziel: Yeah, definitely. The formats, this could be an almost unlimited list, because new formats are coming out all the time, new platforms are launching. So, I tried to come up with a decent combination, here, and pick 10 that I thought would be most applicable.

Melanie Deziel: Writing is first. Like I said, that’s the default for all of us. Infographics is another one, a visual way to represent our information. Audio is really having its moment, as we were talking about. Video is another big one, that obviously always creates such deep engagement. Then, I added live video as a separate one, so not bunching them together but actually thinking differently about how you might create live video.

Melanie Deziel: Number six is an image gallery, so that could be a collage, it could be a slideshow, any way you’re assembling images together. Seven is a timeline, so presenting things chronologically. Eight is a quiz, which I think is super underrated, it’s a really fun way to test knowledge, and present new information to your audience. Nine is a tool, so this would be anytime you’re helping your audience achieve something, make a calculation, convert something. You’re letting them input information, and then having a custom output of some kind. Then, 10 is a map, which again, I think maps is one of the things that we don’t use as often as we should because it feels really intimidating to create a map, but it doesn’t have to be. There’s a lot of really easy tools out there, that can help you do that.

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John Jantsch: Maybe expand on that map one, because I’m thinking, oh, I need to get to Des Moines tomorrow, I’ve got to pull out a map. But, that’s not necessarily what you’re talking about, is it?

Melanie Deziel: It doesn’t have to be, no. I think anytime you think of a story, you’re trying to convey … You’re doing an interview with someone and they’re mentioning different locations from their history, you’re talking about a particular story that has multiple geographic points, you can create a map, an optional, additional, or the only way to explore through that content.

Melanie Deziel: One of the things that I always remind people is that location doesn’t have to be, as you said, going to Des Moines, it’s states, and Interstates, and highways and things. You could have a map of a home, a blueprint is essentially a map of a home. If you’re doing some sort of real estate or renovation type content, you might want to have a map of home, to show where things happen. A map of the body is another option, right? If you’re doing any healthcare content, you’re talking about yoga positions, or pressure points, then a map of your body showing where different things happen may also be a really useful way to bring that to life.

Melanie Deziel: Just thinking about, if there’s any sort of placement or geographic element to what your talk about, then a map may be an option.

John Jantsch: Right. Not everybody who listens to my show has a content team. One of the things that I hear all the time, and I’m sure you’re hearing as you go out and talk to people is, “Okay, what’s the best format? If I can only do one, what’s the best format?” I’m going to let you answer that, but I’m going to throw the follow-up, too, is that is there a way to approach content creation, in format, that maybe is more efficient? Then, allows you to maybe do lots of formats?

Melanie Deziel: It sounds like the real challenge that a lot of us have, especially if you’re a content team of one, or if content is just one of many things you’ve been tasked with, is there’s only so much time and money for us to do these things. So, how do we make the most of our time and money?

Melanie Deziel: My recommendation, if you have the means, is to start with video. The reason for that is video can be repurposed more easily than any other format. Video has visual elements, so you can use short video clips, you can use stills from that video. It has the audio, so you could create audio clips from that as well. Then, that audio can be transcribed, to be come blog posts, articles, snippets for social media.

Melanie Deziel: If you’re starting with any of the others, writing, or infographic, or just audio, that’s still wonderful. If you can create one thing very well, consistently, by all means, do that. But if you are trying to create the illusion of more resources than you have, video is a really good starting point, that you could break down into many smaller elements, without too much extra work.

John Jantsch: Well, I think one of the challenges we face today is that there’s a whole lot of behavior in consumption, that we have to be addressing. I mean, some people listen to books. When I write I book, my audio book doesn’t come out the day the other book comes out, I hear from people. It’s like, “All I do is listen to audio!” Then, there are readers, then there are more visual learners.

John Jantsch: To some degree, we kind of have to cater to all of them, or at least to as wide as swath as possible, don’t we?

Melanie Deziel: Yeah. I talk about, everyone has their first content language, the one that your most comfortable creating in. For me, I’m a writer, that’s my background. I would rather sit down and write 100 blog posts, then have to edit two videos, it’s just the way my mind works. I’ll probably do it more quickly. Some people are different, and writing might give them anxiety, and they’d love to just hop on live video, and talk freely.

Melanie Deziel: Figure out what works for you. What are you most comfortable creating? Then, make sure you go that extra step, like you said, and see, what does your audience like consuming? Because there could be a gap, there, and even if you make the most amazing podcasts in the world, if your audience doesn’t listen to podcasts, you’re wasting your time. You want to make sure there’s some alignment, there. If there isn’t alignment, find someone, or a tool, that can help you bridge that gap.

John Jantsch: Yeah, I’m glad you threw in that idea, of something you’re good at, or you enjoy, or it’s your preference, because this stuff’s hard work, and if it’s something you really just hate doing, you’re just not going to stick with it, so great point.

John Jantsch: So, you mentioned in your book, and I loved it, “focus before format,” which I’ve been saying strategy before tactics for years. It’s kind of the same thing. I guess, you can just clear this up, then. You’re saying somebody should say, “Okay, I’m going to write about this. This is my focus, now let’s figure out all the formats it could go in.”

Melanie Deziel: Exactly. Ask, what’s the story you’re trying to tell? Then ask, what’s the best way to bring that specific story to life?

Melanie Deziel: So, a lot of times we do the opposite, just like you said, we go for tactics. We’re like, “I need a viral tweet.” But, about what? Then, you end up with a lackluster “about what.” So, we want to start with, what is this story about? Then okay, does it have visual elements? If so, maybe it would make a good video. If not, we’re probably going to have a very boring video, if there’s no visual elements to this whole story. By starting with your focus, and then asking which format is best to bring this to life, you ensure that you’re going to have some good alignment there, between the two.

John Jantsch: How closely should your focus be aligned with, say, business goals?

Melanie Deziel: I think, at the end of the day, all the content we make has to, in some way, help our business goals. So again, that’s one thing I always try to underscore. I’m not advocating that you make every possible piece of content you could with this system, or that you create every single interaction, or combination of the focuses and formats.

Melanie Deziel: But, if you know that your overarching goal is I want to create deeper relationships with this type of audience member, or I want create awareness around this event that we’re throwing, or I want to help people better understand a particular topic, then that helps you choose from amongst the focuses and the formats.

Melanie Deziel: So, for example, if your goal is, “Look, our customers really misunderstand this particular area of what we do, we need to do some education.” You’d look at that list and say, “Well, telling them about our Founder, doing a people focused story, that’s not really going to clear up that matter, so we’ll skip that for now.” But maybe a history, helping them understand the history of that particular issue, challenge, area, that might be helpful. Process would almost certainly be helpful, help them understand the thing that they maybe misunderstand, how it comes to life, what’s right and wrong there.

Melanie Deziel: Then saying, “Okay, if we’re trying to show a process, is the best way to do that process through writing? Maybe it is, but maybe we need to show that process, so we should try an image gallery, showing each step, or a video, or a live video, so that they can watch it happen.”

Melanie Deziel: As long as you start with your why, and then your big business goals, then asking, what sort of focuses make sense for that? Then, what sort of formats make sense, with that?

John Jantsch: Yeah, to your story of the viral video, so many people created ones, that got millions of views, that actually didn’t cause any business objectives to be met. It’s kind of like, well, is that worth the time?

John Jantsch: You have … and I’m imagining you, in workshops, almost playing Tic-Tac-Toe, with the boxes of this, and filling it in. You have some visuals, of the framework. Can we post those, in the show?

Melanie Deziel: Yeah, we’ll see what we can throw up there. Actually, I have a little cheat sheet, that includes the focuses and the frameworks. Maybe what we can do is we can include the link, and then a code to download that, for your listeners? That should be easy. Yeah, we’ll definitely do that.

Melanie Deziel: Yeah, it’s absolutely a fun little game. A lot of times, what I do in workshops is we’ll actually use a 10-sided die. Have you ever seen 10-sided dice? We’ll roll them, to come up with random combinations, and just see what we can come up with.

John Jantsch: That’s actually really cool, because that’s probably as accurate as somebody just picking.

Melanie Deziel: Yeah. Yeah, it’s just a good thought exercise. Like I said, sometimes, you get a combination that, “Okay, this doesn’t align with our goals.” Or, “We could do this, but it probably wouldn’t be great.” Again, at least you’re not a blank slate, and that will sometimes spur an idea for something related, that is actually a much better strategic fit.

John Jantsch: I have never seen a 10-sided die, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around what that would even look like.

Melanie Deziel: It’s quite an odd shape.

John Jantsch: It must be. It can barely sit on its side.

John Jantsch: So Melanie, where can people find out more about The Content Fuel Framework, and of course, the work that you’re doing?

Melanie Deziel: Yeah, you can learn more about my team and my company at Storyfuel.co. So, Story F-U-E-L.C-O.

Melanie Deziel: The book, if you want to buy it, is at IWantMelaniesBook.com, nice and easy. But, you can learn more at ContentFuelFramework.com, as well. There’s even instructions there, if you want to make that 10-sided die game, if you want to see what the 10-sided die look like, and make that game, there’s instruction cards there. You can try it out yourself.

John Jantsch: Awesome. Well Melanie, thanks for dropping by. Are you in New Jersey, New York?

Melanie Deziel: I am.

John Jantsch: New Jersey?

Melanie Deziel: I’m right in Jersey City, so I pretend to be both.

John Jantsch: Okay. Well, I was picking up just … I have a client that lives in Northern New Jersey, and you sound exactly like her, so I was pretty sure that’s where.

Melanie Deziel: That makes me happy. I’ve not lived in Jersey my whole life, so that means I’m starting to sink in.

John Jantsch: Oh, happy. Yeah, it’s starting to get to some of your phrases.

Melanie Deziel: There we go.

John Jantsch: All right Melanie, thanks for dropping by. Hopefully, we’ll run into you soon, out there on the road.

Melanie Deziel: Definitely. Thanks for letting me share my story.

from http://bit.ly/327TM76

#Marketing Plan

0 notes

mediacalling · 5 years

Text

13 Social Media Experts Share Their Biggest Piece of Marketing Advice

When in doubt about your marketing strategy, turn to the social media experts. Often the best way to learn about a craft is from someone who has been in your shoes before.

Social media marketing is becoming increasingly pivotal for businesses around the world. More emails are being sent and more blog posts are being published on a daily basis than ever before in history.

But where are marketers to go for reliable insights?

Today we gathered 13 of the world’s leading social media experts and asked them to share their best advice for marketers.

Let’s dive in!

13 social media experts share their biggest piece of marketing advice

Host note: What follows is a lightly-edited transcript of the Buffer Podcast episode #125 for your reading pleasure.

Hailley: Social media is now a key piece in the decision-making process for consumers, particularly among upcoming generations such as Millennials and Generation Z.

Brian: One study shows that 70% of millennials base their decision to buy a product based on recommendations made by their peers on social media.

Another study shows that 60% of consumers have been influenced by a social media post or a blog review while shopping at a store.

Social media truly is engrained in all aspects of our lives.

Hailley: Which is exactly where we hope to help.

Instead of asking you to take our word for the most effective social media marketing strategies and tactics, we thought we’d ask the experts.

So we scoured the web and read more than 300 pieces of advice from today’s top social media experts….

Brian: We dwindled down the more than 300 to 13 of our favorites.

Keep in mind that each piece of advice we’re about to share is from someone that has helped to build a successful brand or business using social media in throughout their careers.

Pat Flynn

Hailley: First up, fellow-podcaster Pat Flynn says to treat social media marketing like you’re going to a party, which I think is a great way of thinking about it.

Just like at a party, you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) go around posting about your brand and product all over the place on social media. That’s very much like approaching a group of people at a party and introducing yourself using your sales pitch.

Instead, pay attention and listen to what your audience is talking about first.

Brian: In other words, Pat is advocating for adding value to the conversations already happening within your niche.

Ask your audience genuine questions on they care about and share great stories only after you’ve listened.

Eventually, people will begin to take notice and want to find out more what you have to say.

James Scherer

Hailley: James Scherer, lead editor at Wishpond, shares marketers frustrations with the fall in organic reach for brands on Facebook (especially with the announcement from the platform in January of 2018).

But he also understands that Facebook is a fantastic way for businesses to drive quality traffic and engagement.

Brian: For Facebook marketing in 2019, James recommends continuing to publish high-quality, engaging content (content which creates conversation within your community), while acknowledging the truth of the matter: Facebook Ads are the only way for your business to expose your content to a large, targeted audience on Facebook.

Sunny Lenarduzzi

Hailley: How about someone that we had on the show way back in episode #29 – Sunny Lenarduzzi who has grown a huge community on social media – and she can’t stress the importance of planning on social media enough.

Sunny points out that this is one of the most significant time wasters when it comes to social media marketing.

Brian: We’ve heard from tons of businesses on the importance of planning ahead as well.

If you wait to the last minute or ignore creating a content calendar, at least for the month, your content on social media will suffer because you’re rushing everything. So thanks for that one, Sunny.

Donna Moritz

How about Donna Moritz from Socially Sorted?

Hailley: Donna’s is a great one because it really speaks to long-term thinking on social media.

She says to not get caught up in all the trends and ever-changing social media platforms – they’re just part of the bigger picture and what works for someone else may not work for you.

Instead, focus instead on creating quality, core content on a platform that you own (your blog/website, podcast or video) that helps solve your audience’s biggest challenges.

Brian: Use that content to grow a quality, engaged email list of people who are interested in what you have to share. If you do that, your social media success will fall into place because you’ll have a library of engaging content.

Which I think it so true and such a useful piece of advice.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Moving on to arguably one of the biggest influencers and social media experts of our generation, Gary Vaynerchuk.

Hailley: When asked about all of the content he puts out in a recent interview, Gary Vee said:

“My show and my social accounts are not a platform from which I talk about what’s important to me. It’s a platform from which I talk about what’s important to you.”

Which I think is another great way of phrasing how important an outward focus is on social media.

Brian: By focusing on his audience and not himself, Gary is able to continually grow his audience and credibility because he gives his time, energy, and effort away without asking anything in return.

It’s a huge reason why he’s seen the success he has over the years. Well, that and he’s really good on camera, which is a tough skill.

Judy Herbst

Hailley: Another piece of advice I found really valuable was in a Forbes interview with expert Judy Herbst.

Judy talked about how your brand’s mission statement needs to be one that works across all channels.

The best missions are in the present leading to the future and are meaningful to all audiences.

Brian: Judy goes onto say that they are achievable, so people can see progress now, and emotional, so people can connect with them in meaningful ways.

And she gives the example of a business that’s built to help women achieve success with transparency, trust and fairness.

The key here is to find your mission statement.

Lisa Dougherty

That reminds me of the advice from Lisa Dougherty of content marketing institute.

Hailley: Lisa talks about how you can never really predict what social media algorithms are going to do next, so if we’re constantly chasing trends, you’ll always be one step behind.

List suggests to really get to know your audience, so you can write copy that speaks to their desires, needs, and interests.

And don’t get greedy – remember it’s not about reaching the most people, it’s about reaching (and moving) the right people.

Brian: She also recommends avoiding things like stock photos that dilute your brand. Opt instead for real-life pictures and custom visuals for a more authentic connection.

Finally, include a unique, clear, and compelling value proposition – one simple sentence that explains how your readers will benefit from your offer.”

Rachel Pedersen

Hailley: Speaking of reaching the right people, Rachel Pedersen, CEO of SocialWorks Digital had some great advice on using Facebook ads.

She talked about how not everyone has several thousands dollars per month to spend on ads.

If you can spend $150-200 each month for advertising, you can build a warm audience for marketing your products in 2 easy steps!

Brian: Step 1: Host a Facebook Live or record a video of you or someone from your company talking about the backstory of your product and post it to Facebook – it doesn’t need to be longer than 5 minutes!

And step 2: Boost the video with $5 per day on a video views objective. That’ll start to rack up the views.

Then create a custom audience of the video views (Facebook will dynamically update the audience) and run whatever other ad to the warmed video views audience.”

Hailley: We’ve done that exact technique here at Buffer and it works like a charm.

Molly Pittman

Which leads us to Molly Pittman’s advice on advertising. Another one of our guests here on the show back in episode #42.

Molly talks about how important it is to align your lead magnet (or offer as we know it) with your caption, your URL and your landing page. You don’t want them to feel like they’ve landed on another planet after clicking your ad.

Brian: I remember that episode well, Molly was so knowledgeable on Facebook and Instagram ads. Would highly recommend checking out her work.

She talked about how critical lead magnets are in advertising. You’re essentially giving people something free in exchange for the permission to follow up. These could be templates, a checklist, blog posts, white papers, ebooks or lots of other great things.

So not only should your messaging align from ad to landing page, but your offer has to be compelling enough to make people actually want to click. In other words, are you doing enough to stand out?

Rand Fishkin

Hailley: Let’s take some advice from Rand Fishkin.

You may not know it, but Google indexes every tweet (which makes it a great tool for search engine optimization or SEO).

Most importantly, Rand talks about how you can’t ignore that 60% of a business’s or brand’s followers are likely to purchase or recommend after following them on Twitter.

Brian: Rand suggests limit how often you share links – Research has shown that tweets without links perform better and get more engagement, surprisingly.

And engage with as many people as you can on Twitter. It’s all about building a community on Twitter, not blasting out your message to as many people as you can – it’s really an investment in the long game.

Lee Odden

Hailley: On the topic of investing in your brand on social media, let’s talk about the advice from expert Lee Odden.

Lee says that the most important element for all marketers in 2019 is “truth.” Truth, not in the sense of buzzwords like “authenticity” or “transparency” but as a response to empty marketing tactics that have forced consumers to get wise to being “sold” to.

Consumers are getting smarter about spending and partnering with brands. They are looking for brands that don’t just make quality products, but that are conscious of supporting the wellness of humanity as a whole.

Brian: This is something we’ve noticed as well this year and that’s the rise of what we’re calling purpose-driven marketing.

If you really want to set yourself and your brand apart, you have to stand for something that makes people’s lives better. Think of companies like Patagonia that have seen unbelievable success over the years by taking a stand. I really do think that’s the future of marketing.

James Cohane

And long the same lines is the advice from growth expert, James Cohane. James’ take is all about the importance of finding the right partners.

Hailley: The best part about social media, or anything marketing-related, really, is that you don’t have to go at it alone. Brian, I know you’ve seen this first-hand with partners like Mailchimp and Square and Animoto that we’ve worked with over the last few years.

By hand selecting a group of key partners to launch various co-marketing campaigns with, you’re greatly increasing the chances of success as well as the potential audience for your content.

Even something as small as a social media takeover can expose your brand to a new set of targeted customers.

Brian: It’s amazing what two brands can do together rather than trying to do everything yourself.

And if you align with the right brand in terms of messaging, and content, and values, it can really help to amass an audience quickly, which we’ve experienced first hand here at Buffer.

Adriana Tica

Our last expert piece of advice from Adriana Tica, CEO of marketing agency, Idunn.

Hailley: Adriana believes that switching things up and keeping your audience on their toes is a surefire way to grow your following and engagement on social media.

And to do that, she recommends content curation.

But don’t just share any content you come across or because it’s from an influencer or a big brand. Make sure that it’s on-brand and provides real value to your audience.

Brian: Adriana calls it going for underground’ content.

As you might expect, everybody reads content from top publications and influencers – so that’s nothing new. Spending some time to find unique content will help your brand stand out.

And if you want to automate a part of this process, you can always use tools like BuzzSumo and Curata, which I personally love. But the trouble is that those tools aren’t so great for ‘underground’ content.

My go-to sources for content that hasn’t been overshared are Reddit (there’s literally a subreddit for anything) and Hacker News. In fact, episode 112 is dedicated to finding great content in strange places.

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Hailley on Twitter and Hailley’s Website

Brian on Twitter and Brian’s Website

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode. It’s our hope that you’ll join our 18,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

13 Social Media Experts Share Their Biggest Piece of Marketing Advice posted first on http://getfblikeblog.blogspot.com

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mariemary1 · 5 years

Text

13 Social Media Experts Share Their Biggest Piece of Marketing Advice

When in doubt about your marketing strategy, turn to the social media experts. Often the best way to learn about a craft is from someone who has been in your shoes before.

But where are marketers to go for reliable insights?

Today we gathered 13 of the world’s leading social media experts and asked them to share their best advice for marketers.

Let’s dive in!

13 social media experts share their biggest piece of marketing advice

Host note: What follows is a lightly-edited transcript of the Buffer Podcast episode #125 for your reading pleasure.

Hailley: Social media is now a key piece in the decision-making process for consumers, particularly among upcoming generations such as Millennials and Generation Z.

Brian: One study shows that 70% of millennials base their decision to buy a product based on recommendations made by their peers on social media.

Another study shows that 60% of consumers have been influenced by a social media post or a blog review while shopping at a store.

Social media truly is engrained in all aspects of our lives.

Hailley: Which is exactly where we hope to help.

Instead of asking you to take our word for the most effective social media marketing strategies and tactics, we thought we’d ask the experts.

So we scoured the web and read more than 300 pieces of advice from today’s top social media experts….

Brian: We dwindled down the more than 300 to 13 of our favorites.

Keep in mind that each piece of advice we’re about to share is from someone that has helped to build a successful brand or business using social media in throughout their careers.

Pat Flynn

Hailley: First up, fellow-podcaster Pat Flynn says to treat social media marketing like you’re going to a party, which I think is a great way of thinking about it.

Instead, pay attention and listen to what your audience is talking about first.

Brian: In other words, Pat is advocating for adding value to the conversations already happening within your niche.

Ask your audience genuine questions on they care about and share great stories only after you’ve listened.

Eventually, people will begin to take notice and want to find out more what you have to say.

James Scherer

But he also understands that Facebook is a fantastic way for businesses to drive quality traffic and engagement.

Sunny Lenarduzzi

Sunny points out that this is one of the most significant time wasters when it comes to social media marketing.

Brian: We’ve heard from tons of businesses on the importance of planning ahead as well.

Donna Moritz

How about Donna Moritz from Socially Sorted?

Hailley: Donna’s is a great one because it really speaks to long-term thinking on social media.

She says to not get caught up in all the trends and ever-changing social media platforms – they’re just part of the bigger picture and what works for someone else may not work for you.

Instead, focus instead on creating quality, core content on a platform that you own (your blog/website, podcast or video) that helps solve your audience’s biggest challenges.

Which I think it so true and such a useful piece of advice.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Moving on to arguably one of the biggest influencers and social media experts of our generation, Gary Vaynerchuk.

Hailley: When asked about all of the content he puts out in a recent interview, Gary Vee said:

“My show and my social accounts are not a platform from which I talk about what’s important to me. It’s a platform from which I talk about what’s important to you.”

Which I think is another great way of phrasing how important an outward focus is on social media.

Brian: By focusing on his audience and not himself, Gary is able to continually grow his audience and credibility because he gives his time, energy, and effort away without asking anything in return.

It’s a huge reason why he’s seen the success he has over the years. Well, that and he’s really good on camera, which is a tough skill.

Judy Herbst

Hailley: Another piece of advice I found really valuable was in a Forbes interview with expert Judy Herbst.

Judy talked about how your brand’s mission statement needs to be one that works across all channels.

The best missions are in the present leading to the future and are meaningful to all audiences.

Brian: Judy goes onto say that they are achievable, so people can see progress now, and emotional, so people can connect with them in meaningful ways.

And she gives the example of a business that’s built to help women achieve success with transparency, trust and fairness.

The key here is to find your mission statement.

Lisa Dougherty

That reminds me of the advice from Lisa Dougherty of content marketing institute.

Hailley: Lisa talks about how you can never really predict what social media algorithms are going to do next, so if we’re constantly chasing trends, you’ll always be one step behind.

List suggests to really get to know your audience, so you can write copy that speaks to their desires, needs, and interests.

And don’t get greedy – remember it’s not about reaching the most people, it’s about reaching (and moving) the right people.

Brian: She also recommends avoiding things like stock photos that dilute your brand. Opt instead for real-life pictures and custom visuals for a more authentic connection.

Finally, include a unique, clear, and compelling value proposition – one simple sentence that explains how your readers will benefit from your offer.”

Rachel Pedersen

Hailley: Speaking of reaching the right people, Rachel Pedersen, CEO of SocialWorks Digital had some great advice on using Facebook ads.

She talked about how not everyone has several thousands dollars per month to spend on ads.

If you can spend $150-200 each month for advertising, you can build a warm audience for marketing your products in 2 easy steps!

And step 2: Boost the video with $5 per day on a video views objective. That’ll start to rack up the views.

Then create a custom audience of the video views (Facebook will dynamically update the audience) and run whatever other ad to the warmed video views audience.”

Hailley: We’ve done that exact technique here at Buffer and it works like a charm.

Molly Pittman

Which leads us to Molly Pittman’s advice on advertising. Another one of our guests here on the show back in episode #42.

Brian: I remember that episode well, Molly was so knowledgeable on Facebook and Instagram ads. Would highly recommend checking out her work.

So not only should your messaging align from ad to landing page, but your offer has to be compelling enough to make people actually want to click. In other words, are you doing enough to stand out?

Rand Fishkin

Hailley: Let’s take some advice from Rand Fishkin.

You may not know it, but Google indexes every tweet (which makes it a great tool for search engine optimization or SEO).

Most importantly, Rand talks about how you can’t ignore that 60% of a business’s or brand’s followers are likely to purchase or recommend after following them on Twitter.

Brian: Rand suggests limit how often you share links – Research has shown that tweets without links perform better and get more engagement, surprisingly.

Lee Odden

Hailley: On the topic of investing in your brand on social media, let’s talk about the advice from expert Lee Odden.

Brian: This is something we’ve noticed as well this year and that’s the rise of what we’re calling purpose-driven marketing.

James Cohane

And long the same lines is the advice from growth expert, James Cohane. James’ take is all about the importance of finding the right partners.

By hand selecting a group of key partners to launch various co-marketing campaigns with, you’re greatly increasing the chances of success as well as the potential audience for your content.

Even something as small as a social media takeover can expose your brand to a new set of targeted customers.

Brian: It’s amazing what two brands can do together rather than trying to do everything yourself.

And if you align with the right brand in terms of messaging, and content, and values, it can really help to amass an audience quickly, which we’ve experienced first hand here at Buffer.

Adriana Tica

Our last expert piece of advice from Adriana Tica, CEO of marketing agency, Idunn.

Hailley: Adriana believes that switching things up and keeping your audience on their toes is a surefire way to grow your following and engagement on social media.

And to do that, she recommends content curation.

But don’t just share any content you come across or because it’s from an influencer or a big brand. Make sure that it’s on-brand and provides real value to your audience.

Brian: Adriana calls it going for underground’ content.

As you might expect, everybody reads content from top publications and influencers – so that’s nothing new. Spending some time to find unique content will help your brand stand out.

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Hailley on Twitter and Hailley’s Website

Brian on Twitter and Brian’s Website

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Thank 13 Social Media Experts Share Their Biggest Piece of Marketing Advice for first publishing this post.

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davidanderson7162 · 3 years

Text

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Lots of couples select picture photography for a landmark in their partnership like an anniversary or interaction. You could even give a voucher for the picture session as a present to amaze your other half. For couples that have simply got involved, an image shoot is a wonderful way to obtain used to being in front of the cam prior to your wedding, and be familiar with your selected photographer. You can also make use of the pictures from your photo session as 'save the date' cards or include them into your wedding celebration invitations or thanks cards Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

You need not be restricted to pairs photo portraits in the studio either - way of life picture digital photography is ending up being more and more popular, as well as enables you to pick a location that is very important to you. Probably you could have your picture photographer concern your residence as well as stage a photoshoot in acquainted environments, or in your yard. Conversely, why not celebrate the occasion at a location that is additional unique to you - where you first satisfied, where you married, or one more venue that holds individual memories for you.

One of the best elements of couples portrait digital photography is the fact that you have your partner with you - so even if you're really feeling timid or nervous, you have your most relied on companion with you to coax out a natural, beautiful smile. There's no reason why you need to posture or look straight at the video camera, either. Often the sweetest couples portraits are honest, with the subjects trading caring appearances, or from a range, welcoming or holding hands. Your professional photographer may additionally take information shots and close-ups to capture all the little looks as well as motions that show the deepness of your connection, and your environments Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

To assist you get into an unwinded mood, why not bring along your favorite songs, or your special track as a pair? Sometimes photoshoots can be a fantastic justification for a tiny event, as well as if you're celebrating a special celebration, you might also be able to bring some nibbles and a bottle of bubbly to actually eliminate restraints before the electronic camera!

Pairs Digital photography

People drop in love. Pairs break up. Some individuals get wed. These are all points that happen as time goes on in your lovemaking. Why not record some of the moments? If you truly love a person, it is always wonderful to document the journey you take place with each other in your connection.

A connection is an enchanting terrific part of life and as you age you understand this more and more. If you and your sweetie take a couple pictures throughout the years there can only be benefits in advance Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

A professional photo session together will certainly bring you more detailed. It is an enjoyable task that you can share as well as have a good time with together while catching the memories. Bonding is a large component of making a partnership work as well as by taking the plunge right into an enjoyable as well as exciting day together while someone takes images of you will sure obtain you in touch with each other on a much deeper level Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

With a specialist video camera, you two love birds can look your best as well as you can keep that for the remainder of your lives. If you get married wouldn't it behave to aim to way-back-when and have the pictures to display at your wedding and even on your anniversaries years in advance?

You can utilize the photos as Xmas cards, valentine's day cards, birthday cards, wedding invitations or any various other sort of invite that you desire! The pictures are not just meant to be stored in an image cd, but can be posted online, can be framed as well as held on the wall surface or can even make a nice present.

Utilizing expert photography can reveal you how valuable you are as a person in addition to show your partner how valuable he or she is as well as vice versa. It is a wonderful way to say "I love you" and also add value to your friendship Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

When you see a specialist photographer they will certainly take you in studio and also to locations where you can play and laugh with each other. This will help capture you in a serious setup as well as a more fun and light hearted setup which will allow you to record all facets of your love on cam. This could also make for an enjoyable date!

All-natural as well as Gorgeous Wedding Event Digital Photography Tips

The wedding is generally among the most effective crucial days in the lives of a pair. Photography is a biggest preparation as well as expense, which typically catches the memories of the day. The images are a terrific technique to record and tape lots of attributes of the wedding Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

Many people as well as even specialist wedding celebration photographer usage electronic video cameras. The resolution of the digital electronic cameras is a vital part of the high quality and results, which can be conveniently obtained. The electronic camera variety ought to be from 1 to 20 mega pixel resolution. Additionally, a greater resolution generally use for applications where huge images offers ideal results. A lower resolution camera constantly provides coarse look, which does not look excellent if you expand those pictures excessive. If we speak about ideal wedding celebration digital photographer then they typically takes short quantity of time by clicking lovely pair portraits on the wedding day. There are likewise some methods and also strategies, which definitely improves your wedding digital photography. Best photography pointers can surely give the specialist side in the wedding pictures. The simple as well as natural wedding digital photography pointers are as complies with:-.

Firstly, the wedding celebration professional photographer must click images with the accessible light and also without flash. It reaches a few objectives like skin tone will certainly look much less shiny without flash as well as you can additionally capture an extra genuine history color and also light in your image without flash. After this, you must close rate to keep your pictures sharp and also serious. While recording the image, you ought to attempt making use of major and primary lenses, which actually provides specialist search in your every photo. Afterwards, the wedding couple should be really comfortable as well as they should have all-natural smiling face and you can likewise inform them that they look excellent when they smile in front of each other.

If we speak about even more all-natural and also stunning photos then photographer must check out frameworks, displays as well as representations as well. Whatever from doorways like blossoms, trees and also mirrors creates great representations as well as considerations for your subject as well as additionally provides more specialist and also all-natural feeling. The photographer must be imaginative with lighting as well as he should likewise look the lays out and also darkness before windows or the sundown. The photographer should also search for unexpected sides as well as point of views while recording Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

Selecting Your Wedding Digital Photographer - Wedding Photography Styles Explained.

You've picked your date, reserved your venue and also began purchasing gowns. Now you're trying to find a wedding event digital photographer. There are a lot of styles of wedding event digital photography available, and also while individuals in the industry may know these styles inside out they be puzzling for pairs. Keep in mind also that not only are you selecting a style of digital photography, yet different types of wedding celebration digital photography can make different needs on your time on your wedding Trinidad.

Selecting the design of photography you desire at your wedding celebration comes down to 3 points. What design of pictures you want, the length of time you intend to invest with a professional photographer on your wedding day, and most significantly of all your very own character and convenience before the cam.

There are a lot of various photography buzzwords around. Classic, content, creative or modern are simply a couple of. Possibly much more confusingly they are made use of by various photographers in various means. Inevitably it is up to couples to ask a lot of questions as well as do plenty of research study before selecting a professional photographer, and to rely upon seeing complete collection of photos from completed weddings Do not rely on the best 5 or six shots from a number of wedding events to decide Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

Wedding event photography styles are a compromise between generating amazing job and keeping to a timetable. A photographer might produce brilliant photos, yet if he takes also long to create them you possibly won't take pleasure in the experience Trinidad.

Conventional (or Postured) Wedding Celebration Photography.

A great deal of individuals think of typical wedding celebration digital photography as endless stuffy team pictures where every person looks rigid as a board. Worse still, the different collections of individuals appear to go on permanently. I assume there is a fashion to be down on standard wedding digital photography, but the real functioning framework is still the very same for the majority of wedding professional photographers. The photographs may be more stylish however the actual experience on the day for the groom and bride is very comparable.

There is constantly a trade off in between the kind of job a digital photographer does as well as the moment it requires to fire it. Extra formal positioned pictures will take longer to set up and achieve. Any kind of professional photographer who generates creative posed work will need a particular amount of time to produce his best work. It is important that you discover how much time he will certainly need, and work out just how it will match your day. There are photographers that spend a number of hours on formal shots. Make sure you are happy with providing over that amount of time on your wedding day. If you are not that comfortable before the cam you may find this sort of digital photography harder. An excellent digital photographer needs to be able to assist you and put you at your simplicity but also for many people it can still seem a bit daunting Trinidad.

Narrative Wedding Photography (Wedding Event Photojournalism).

If traditional is all about postured pictures, after that reportage wedding event digital photography is the opposite. It relies on catching minutes as they happen, and is much more like a fly on the wall surface documentary. This kind of wedding event photography means that the digital photographer spends a lot of his time in the background, and so has actually ended up being increasingly prominent with pairs. Weddings are additionally progressively less official than they utilized to be. Documentary wedding celebration digital photography demands a various skill set from traditional wedding celebration digital photography so you need to make sure that your professional photographer has the correct photographic background as well as can show you full wedding celebrations to back this up. Wedding event photojournalism is more about a total collection of pictures from the entire day than a collection of a dozen highlights. There are professional photographers around that will jump on the most recent bandwagon to get organization, yet still use the usual style they constantly have. Wedding celebration photojournalism is all about expectancy and also remaining in the appropriate area at the correct time. It is not about carefully directing individuals, so it puts several standard wedding event professional photographers beyond their skill set. There are some less ethical professional photographers that will certainly use the most recent buzzwords to enhance their internet search engine presence, yet still fire the very same tired old pictures Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

If you are reserved regarding having your photo taken, wedding event photojournalism is probably your ideal choice. The photography occurs without you really understanding and also you'll look your natural ideal Trinidad.

Although these 2 approaches might show up polar opposites, in reality most wedding event professional photographers will offer a mix of these two styles. There are not many wedding celebration photojournalists that do not shoot at least some formal photographs as well as traditional wedding event professional photographers will shoot casual pictures too. Find out what percentage of each a digital photographer suches as to shoot, and better still inquire what they such as to shoot the most - opportunities are this is what they are best at Trinidad.

Classic Wedding Celebration Digital Photography.

Vintage wedding digital photography is a style that has actually been entering into style lately, however in great deals of methods its a hard one to measure. Vintage can suggest anything from utilizing old film electronic cameras during some of the wedding celebration to simply a various approach to publish production to create 'classic' looking electronic files. There are some terrific photographers out there, but bear in mind that if you are receiving data that are heavily modified in a particular style, you risk of your pictures looking rather dated a few years later. If I was working with a classic design photographer, I personally would want at least some of the wedding celebration shot on movie, I'm not a massive follower of forging things. As constantly ask inquiries, see instances and also make an informed decision Portrait Photographer Trinidad.

Editorial Wedding Celebration Digital Photography.

This wedding style is influenced by the fashion content of glossy magazines, at it's best it can generate great premium photos. To generate this efficiently on a wedding the digital photographer requires to be extremely organised, and also would most likely require an aide to aid establish some of the shots beforehand, although that would certainly rely on his/her style. Do your research study to ensure that the moment demands for this sort of shoot fit in with your plans. If you actually similar to this kind of photography but don't wish to dedicate way too much time to it on your wedding day, consider booking a different image session after the wedding event. Typically refers to as a garbage or value the outfit shoot, a separate picture session might be the most effective method to get the big day you desire as well as the pictures you'll like without losing a big portion of your wedding. It likewise indicates that you and your digital photographer can pick the ideal time of day for the right light and also you have range for rescheduling if it's pouring with rain. In many nations, especially the US, luxury wedding event digital photography is progressing in the direction of three shoots: the engagement shoot, the special day, and a content session. Do not always assume that it all has to be done in someday Trinidad.

Artistic or Art Wedding Celebration Digital Photography.

Basically an evolution of typical wedding event photography, this type of digital photography supplies a modern take on the typical collection of positioned photographs, although these are both terms that have actually been rather over utilized by the photographic area, so once again do your research. At its best this style can generate relocating enchanting images, yet some professional photographers can over utilize the exact same poses, so it can feel a little bit impersonal. Ask to see great deals of shoots as well as do not hesitate to input your own suggestions at your pre-wedding meeting Trinidad.

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jeroldlockettus · 6 years

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Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling? (Ep. 357)

Ford Motor plans to cut $25.5 billion of spending by 2022 — and to monetize the data its cars collect about drivers. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty)

The Ford Motor Company is ditching its legacy sedans, doubling down on trucks, and trying to steer its stock price out of a long skid. But C.E.O. Jim Hackett has even bigger plans: to turn a century-old automaker into the nucleus of a “transportation operating system.” Is Hackett just whistling past the graveyard, or does he see what others can’t?

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

* * *

Stephen DUBNER: Okay, if I’m looking at your résumé, I’m not seeing C.E.O. of an auto firm.

Jim HACKETT: Oh God, you and me both.

And yet: he is.

HACKETT: I’m Jim Hackett, president and C.E.O. of Ford Motor Company.

DUBNER: I have to ask, how’d you get to our studio today?

HACKETT: A Lincoln Navigator.

DUBNER: When’s the last time you rode in a vehicle that wasn’t made by the Ford Motor Company?

HACKETT: Probably a year before I was the C.E.O. I actually had three other vehicles in my garage when I was on the board, and I got rid of all of them.

Hackett became C.E.O. of Ford in May 2017.

NBC 4: We begin with a big shakeup at Ford. Mark Fields is out and Jim Hackett is in.

NBC 4: I mean, look, let’s face it, Jim Hackett wasn’t on anybody’s radar when it came to automotive succession here at Ford.

One reason Jim Hackett wasn’t on anyone’s radar is that he’s not what they call “a car guy.” In Detroit, the world is pretty much divided into “car guys” and everybody else. Hackett is a 63-year-old Ohio native who started out in sales and management at Procter and Gamble; then worked for many years at the Michigan furniture company Steelcase, including 19 years as C.E.O.; and after that, he was interim athletic director at the University of Michigan, his alma mater, where he hired the football coach Jim Harbaugh. He did join the board of directors of Ford in 2013, while he was still at Steelcase. But, like we said: not an obvious candidate for C.E.O. of one of America’s Big Three automakers.

However, as it is often said: desperate times call for desperate measures. And the old-line auto industry definitely has an air of desperation about it. Consider the challenges. Decades of foreign competition; the rise of ride-share services and autonomous vehicles; environmental concerns and the rise of electric vehicles, especially the ones made by Tesla; the rise of urbanization, with all that bothersome walking and biking and public transportation; the steep decline in car ownership among young people specifically and, more generally, the fact that we seem to have passed “peak motorization,” as one transportation scholar puts it. So, yeah, welcome to the Ford Motor Company, Jim Hackett!

Most C.E.O.’s we’ve interviewed for our “Secret Life of a C.E.O.” series told us about their challenges and dramatic turnaround efforts long after the fact. Like Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo:

Indra NOOYI: [From “‘I Wasn’t Stupid Enough to Say This Could Be Done Overnight’”] A few months after I became C.E.O., there was a financial collapse. The retail environment changed, the U.S. market slowed down. So one had to learn in a hurry how to run this company through extreme periods of adversity. And there’s no book you can read.

But Jim Hackett and Ford aren’t reminiscing about tough times. They’re in the middle of it, right now.

CNBC: What wrong with Ford, what’s going on in Dearborn?

NBC 4: We’re now learning more from analysts who believe the turnaround is about to get very painful.

Bloomberg: They did close under $9 a share for the first time in six years; what’s going on with Ford?

What’s going on is … a lot. Hackett recently announced a huge restructuring plan, hoping to cut $25 billion in costs; this includes a lot of layoffs and a realignment of how Ford does business in Europe, South America, and China. Hackett also announced that Ford will cut way back on making cars.

NBC 4: Adios to the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus.

FOX BUSINESS: Ford says it’s going to focus on SUVs and trucks.

Hackett said at the time that Ford would, “focus on products and markets where we know how to win.” What will those products and markets be? Hackett, for all his old-school credentials, has long been enamored with the Silicon Valley growth mindset. Over the past decade, Ford’s research-and-development spending has nearly doubled, and Hackett shows no sign of slowing it down. This has led one industry analyst to say Ford is “burning a lot of cash in a lot of places”; another argued that Hackett will, “keep bleating buzzwords like ‘fitness’ and ‘mobility’ without any … real plan to remake the Blue Oval.” It’s recently been reported that Ford is considering some sort of merger with VW, the German automaker that’s got its own mountain of troubles.

If you had to make a bet on the future of Ford: well, the people who do make bets — stock-market investors — they’ve been pretty decisive:

BLOOMBERG: They did close under $9 a share for the first time in six years.

So how does Jim Hackett plan to turn things around?

HACKETT: It’s beyond vehicles to transportation, and actually a transportation operating system.

A “transportation operating system” sounds an awful lot like something a pure technology company might talk about. This leads to several questions. Can a traditional manufacturing company like Ford really turn itself into a modern tech company? What makes Ford think they can succeed, when the companies whose turf they’re invading — Amazon and Google and Uber — are already so good at what they do? And what, exactly, is Ford good at these days? Finally: will Hackett’s vision for Ford turn out to be a brilliant repositioning or a desperate grab for relevance?

HACKETT: Well, there is a long answer to that.

* * *

Ford C.E.O. Jim Hackett was visiting New York in late September, when we sat down with him in our studio.

DUBNER: Okay, so the late Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States, was a great athlete and played center on the Michigan football team.

HACKETT: And an all-American as well.

DUBNER: And all-American, M.V.P. of the team, they won two national championships. You also played center for Michigan and are now the president of Ford. Tell me that’s just a coincidence. Come on.

HACKETT: That’s hard, isn’t it?

DUBNER: That sounds like conspiracy to me.

HACKETT: Yeah, and there’s a history there, quickly, with President Ford, because he was sitting in office when I played at Michigan. He loved the team, so he landed Marine One on the practice field, came and talked to the team, went to the training table with us. X-years later, when I’m running Steelcase in West Michigan, there happens to be a portrait of that evening. Someone brings it in, and it’s he and I sitting together. And so I became very close to him after he was president. I would talk to him often. Always before the Ohio State game, I would call him. And the one Ford story I love to tell is that when he was negotiating arms agreements with Brezhnev in Helsinki, they stop the negotiations so he can find out what the score of the Michigan-Ohio State game is.

DUBNER: Okay, so this is a parallel out of nowhere, but I think it’s appropriate. One of the reasons that football has become dangerous — on some dimensions, and less on others — the helmet was invented to prevent skull fracture, and it’s done a great job at that. Unfortunately, the helmet is such a good protector that it began to be used as a weapon.

Interestingly, with auto travel, cars have gotten so much safer over the generations, highways have gotten safer, etc. I don’t know if drivers have gotten any better, that’s hard to prove — and yet the last numbers I saw, somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 traffic deaths a year in the U.S., more than a million a year globally. It’s funny, when you talk to people, people are worried about terrorism. They’re worried about murder. But if you ask people how many people they know who’ve been connected with one of those things, very few have; whereas auto fatalities, we all know someone.

So I’m curious: you’ve taken over Ford Motor Company fairly recently and this is a way of transportation that totally changed the way that we live our lives — in many positive ways and some negative ways. So what I’d like to ask you is: consider for just a moment all the positives of auto travel to date, and all the negatives, and where you see the industry at the moment, and what are the big problems or what are the big challenges to address?

HACKETT: Well, only with you would I make a connection of football with that question, but like what happened in football, if we studied the mass of the players over that period: mass equals force, right? So the size of the players and your wise observation that they could move faster and not knock themselves out caused the brain to take 100 percent of the concussive shock. So all the design now in the future is about trying to push that outwards, and then change the techniques. Mass found its way in automobiles, too.

So the earliest one’s 1903 — 115 years, Ford is — Henry worked on an electric vehicle with Thomas Edison. He was a foreman in Edison’s factory. And the early models are really light, very small because they’re trying to use bicycle components and things like that. And then, as we’ve seen in history, as the mass gets bigger, mass production allows stamping tools to take really large sheets of metal and, for a fraction of the cost if you had to do this by hand, you get to have them wrapped around those skeletal structures. What’s cool about its is that the drive to get the vehicle more fuel-efficient means we’ve got to get rid of all that weight. In trying to do that, we actually are making the structures safer for crashes. And then, of course, this isn’t a reach prediction, but we won’t have crashes in the future.

DUBNER: Because of autonomous vehicles and software?

HACKETT: And sensing, and a third thing we’ll talk about, which is the cloud. A system that’s mediating the interactions of these objects. So, we have in computing, there’s packets that move really quickly. At an atomic level, they could run into each other and do harm, but they’re mediated in a way at the speed of light. So we can do this with the design of transportation.

At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, or C.E.S., Hackett and other Ford executives unveiled several components of what Hackett calls “The Living Street” and Ford’s vision of a “transportation operating system.”

HACKETT: Now, the power of artificial intelligence, the rise of certain autonomous, that are all going to be connected, for the first time in a century, we have mobility technology that won’t just incrementally improve the old system, but it can completely disrupt it. So a total redesign of the surface transportation system with humans and community at the center.

But he began by addressing the question that a lot of people had to be thinking:

HACKETT: You might wonder why a furniture guy would be asked to run an automotive company.

We did wonder, and we asked him.

DUBNER: So Steelcase was regarded as a great company to work for, which, I’m guessing, you had a little something to do with. And you were regarded as — the Wall Street Journal called you,“a pioneer of the open office,” and it really did change the way that we began to think about how an office should look and feel and work. So first of all, persuade me that the notion of the open office wasn’t just a commercial idea to encourage every company in America and the world to redo their offices so that you could sell more furniture. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

HACKETT: No, no, no. I’m going to endorse that notion, but I was not the father of it. By the time I came in as C.E.O. in the late 80’s, Herman Miller, Inc. was really the early purveyor of the open office, and it came from Germany. And the real movement really started here in New York. As the rents went up, it allowed you to get more density. That was really the underlying thing.

If I want to take credit for a movement, it was shifting the amount of space that you actually devoted to cubicles, and moving that to teams. So I call that “The shift between I and we.” But to make team spaces really cool and attractive, we had to do some unique things that weren’t being done. And I want to give credit here, I buy this really cool little company in Palo Alto called IDEO.

DUBNER: And they’re like a design consultancy? How would you describe them?

HACKETT: Yeah, that’s fair, and David Kelley, its founder, is noted for architecting the mouse with Steve Jobs in its first product. So Jobs hires IDEO to do design work from outside of Apple, forever. So right until when Steve passes away, he’s using IDEO.

I meet them and I start learning about the nature of a way work might be different watching how they work. I want to tell you, I was right about that. It actually changed the way teams work. And there’s another hour on that whole thing, but it leads to an important conclusion, which is that Steelcase needs to see itself beyond furniture and be about work. And if there’s anything that enticed Bill Ford about me, it was the notion that the company, almost as long-lived as Ford, finds a higher purpose that makes its market now bigger.

Bill FORD: I’ve known Jim a long time personally.

And that is Bill Ford, chairman of the Ford Motor Company, announcing Hackett’s appointment.

FORD: And we’ve always clicked in terms of thinking about the future. But make no mistake: he’s not just a futurist, he’s a very good operating executive.

Bill Ford said that Hackett had shown himself to be a “transformational leader” at Steelcase, that he’d made the company more profitable by seeking out a higher purpose.

HACKETT: I’m saying the same thing about Ford. I think our higher purpose is that the smart vehicle and the smart world have an interaction in the future that’s much bigger than it was in the past.

DUBNER: So as Steelcase is to being beyond more than work, even though it’s making office furniture, Ford is beyond transportation, being a mobility company, tech, etc.?

HACKETT: It’s beyond vehicles to transportation, and actually a transportation operating system that we can talk about.

Hackett’s involvement in the Ford overhaul began a few years ago, when he was just a Ford board member.

HACKETT: And it’s really straightforward. I’m on the board. I’m in Palo Alto with a meeting with the board and Bill, and we’re trying to get ourselves around the question of: how can we manage the core business and this emerging thing in parallel?

This “emerging thing” would come to be known as Ford Smart Mobility, a unit meant to boost the company’s role in ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles.

HACKETT: And I tell the C.E.O. Mark Fields — I have a great relationship with him — I say, “You know, you ought to get somebody to help you manage the emerging business. Your job is too big. You need to do this.”

DUBNER: And he said, “How about you, Jim?”

HACKETT: Within half a day, Bill came and said, “That’s a great idea, why don’t you do it?” And I thought, “Eh, I ran a company. I don’t want to run a company.” So it’s like two guys playing office. He goes, “Well, just be chairman and you can hire a C.E.O.” And as I look back on that, I was naive, because I couldn’t go in there and help invent it without running it. Then running it led to — I had nothing to do with Mark’s situation, I wasn’t in the boardroom anymore. I wasn’t reporting to them. So Mark’s evolution out surprised me.

DUBNER: You business guys and your business-speak. His “evolution out.” He was fired, right?

ABC-7: The Dearborn automaker parting ways with C.E.O. Mark Fields.

CNBC: If you look at shares of Ford since Mark Fields took over in July 2014, it’s down 36 percent!

HACKETT: Yeah. But he was ahead on a bunch of ideas and I would have loved the reverse role, could I mentor him — I was the old guy — could I teach him what we’re talking about. I mean, I miss having him right now with some of the issues that I’m facing, he really had mastery of.

DUBNER: Well, let me ask you a central question here, and I guess this speaks to your ascension as C.E.O. as well, because we tend to attribute failure and success often to individuals or to single events, when in fact the world is much more complicated, plainly.

HACKETT: That’s for sure.

DUBNER: Here you are, the older guy, as you said, coming in to the company, taking over when Mark Fields was put out. And you mentioned earlier that the big concern for the Ford Motor Company and Bill Ford was how to balance the core business — making vehicles — and the emerging business, which is this smart mobility, cloud-based, etc. My big question for you is: what made all of you think that Ford needed to be in that emerging business?

HACKETT: Well, there is a long answer to that, but I’ll tell you. The way you’ve got to think about competitive sets is: the nature of what makes a business win over time is not unlike any other kinds of system — the way our bodies win in the battles they have, or the way a football team wins, or the way a market moves. I’m a student of this, complexity theory, and what that tells you is that over time, you have to mutate and evolve, because the nature of random things is going to cause more things that come at you.

So let’s just be specific: in the auto industry, it’s the randomness of climate conflict. It’s a real science thing. We’re in support of meeting a really high standard. So this starts to birth Tesla and then you put a rocket scientist, truly, in charge of that, who has a computer background, understands design really well, and he starts to question the model of the way a vehicle’s ordered and built. So he’s got a lot of that right. And it’s just one. And then he gets copied and then all of a sudden there’s a company called Lucid Motors that Chinese companies put a lot of money behind. We looked at it. These are people that are redesigning the car business.

So the board sits there and sees this happen over and over again in other industries. You don’t want to be the one that does that. So the story I tell is: let’s play Kodak for a moment. And what you have to start with: the board is smart. They’re not dummies. They have the patent for digital photography.

DUBNER: They made one of the first digital cameras, right? They were there.

HACKETT: I know a board member who was there and the issue is: you make more money on chemicals and paper than you do this new idea. So if you’re just doing pure investment comparison, stay with the old.

So what a guy like me, having gone through this in another company, Steelcase, I’m trained now to look at that problem differently, and I frankly didn’t get to talk about that much in the boardroom, but maybe Bill picked that up. Now I’ve got to prove — I’m very confident here — but I have to prove to a lot of people that we can make the core business really profitable. We’re working on that and the disruption shouldn’t scare us at all because we can lead in some areas there. So when I’m done, no date on that, but I want to make sure we’re on the right track in both of those areas.

DUBNER: Before we get into the specifics, let me just, not challenge, but question the premise a little bit more, because if you look at business history, you just look at legacy firms generally, you see that technology and time are really tough on companies. Most companies don’t stick around for too long and when the technology changes enough, many companies try to adapt with the changes and very few do well.

G.E. is a really interesting example on a number of dimensions, they went very broad and so on. What makes you think that, with that substantial history, Ford is special, or that any legacy automaker is special and can adapt and add on the technologies that are so strong and powerful, but not get beat by the companies that are tech firms and telecom firms and so on?

HACKETT: Yeah. You’ve grabbed the essence of the challenge. The affirmation is: they did it before, we just forget.

DUBNER: What do you mean?

HACKETT: Well, we didn’t always have computing, in the way a factory was run. We didn’t have — the telephone wasn’t, I don’t think, in 1903, highly pervasive, right? So think of people being paid in the factory out of a paddy wagon with real cash instead of direct deposit.

So, actually, I have a theory about this, and I’ve not written, but talked to other C.E.O.’s and I get support. The notion is that over time, you have to think about the business over phases. You can say “past” but let’s hold that off. You think about “now” and “far” and I’m going to sneak a word in, “near.” “Now, near, far.” Now what separates those time spans, because we could just make up: what’s the future? Is it a year? Is it 25 years?

What I’ve bought into, it’s science-derived. In other words, what makes the increments grow in time is Moore’s Law. Reed Hastings is on a Charlie Rose interview, and Charlie says, “Reed, what do the people in Palo Alto know that everyone else doesn’t know?” And he said, “Moore’s Law.” And Charlie goes, “Well, I know what Moore’s law is.” And he goes, “Yeah, but Charlie, you don’t understand. We’re designing for the next iteration now.” That changed me, a number of years ago. So Moore’s Law only swallows you up when you don’t think about it. So imagine we’re in meetings right now where people are talking about technology and the vehicle and they go, “Jim, can’t afford it, it’s too expensive, people won’t pay for it.” Well, I know from my friend David Kelley that Steve Jobs would say, “I want it in now because I know the price is going to be one-tenth very quickly.” So he forced the design to adopt the next iteration.

And then, of course, in Apple’s case they made money right away. Ford’s got to find a way to make money faster on that kind of theory. So, in parallel, you’re not just trying to make the product adaptive, you’re thinking the business model is going to be under attack because the economic principles have totally changed over that time.

DUBNER: So what you’re describing now are the real economics, but added to your challenge, running a company like Ford, is stock market psychology — which is a whole other realm. It’s based on economics to some degree but then the market has its own ideas. So, I’ve read, and tell me if I’m wrong, I’ve read that one thing that led to Mark Fields’s firing from Ford was when Tesla, which makes many, many fewer cars than Ford does, beat it in market cap.

HACKETT: I never was in a discussion where that was cited. But let me just cite, I know about myself in this regard. There’s a fair amount of stress around: does Jim Hackett get that the market’s got to be rewarded for these great ideas? And I totally do. Because I did it once before, first of all. And the question is: is the design of the business such that there’s a patience factor here and you get rewarded? So let’s talk about Amazon’s profitability in its history. I mean, it took a while. Let’s talk about Apple. If you look at Apple’s stock price when Steve came back —

DUBNER: Took a long time.

HACKETT: Yeah, and what they want, which those two guys gave, which I know I’ve got to, is believable momentum. They could show the compounding of the number of customers, they could show the case of add-on revenue, they could show the case of users being delighted with products.

DUBNER: They’re also due — because their products were new though, I’m curious whether they get a novelty premium that you don’t get.

HACKETT: Fair. I think that happened with the automotive competitor.

DUBNER: So we should say, as we speak, Ford Motor market cap is about $37 billion and Tesla’s market cap is about $53 billion, which I’m guessing as the C.E.O. of Ford, whether you’re going to say it or not, is a little frustrating, perhaps?

HACKETT: We make a new vehicle every four seconds.

DUBNER: There goes another.

HACKETT: You get to observe — in their business model, they’re trying to get 20,000 of them — or whatever the number was built — in a quarter or something.

DUBNER: But if you were doing the business case: let’s say you’re teaching Harvard Business School right now and the case that you want to study is Ford Motor Company versus Tesla for the moment. And we know what Ford does, what they represent, how they make their money. And we know what Tesla does. And we try to project it into the future and see what the stock price is really all about. Make the best case that Ford is undervalued right now.

HACKETT: And I really believe this. You’re not supposed to, as a C.E.O., speculate on stock price, so all I can say is: I’m really optimistic about the price-earnings ratio that understates the real value. First of all, we’ve got an industrial price-earnings ratio of six or seven, something like that.

A company’s price-to-earnings ratio is a key metric used by investors to assess how the company’s share price relates to its true value.

HACKETT: And I asked Ginni Rometty today what theirs was at I.B.M. and I think she said 11 or 12, and we were discussing Microsoft’s probably in the 20’s, right? Now these three companies, all of them are actually dealing with bits and cloud structures and data, right? But one’s in the 20’s, the other one’s in the sixes. So the case I would make is that we have as much data in the future coming from vehicles, or from users in those vehicles, or from cities talking to those vehicles, as the other competitors that you and I would be talking about that have monetizable attraction.

Now, I talk to lots of investors and they go, “Got it. Boom. Thumbs up, Jim. Go for it. Can you just prove to us that you’ve got that working?” And what you and I just agreed when we saw some of the early tech startups, they could go to market with investors only seeing a fraction of what they were going to become, and that caused belief.

I mean, who am I speaking to, right? I think that’s unfair for industrial companies at 115 years old. We have a lot of talented people. We can generate returns on that invested capital. My belief is: we have 100 million people in vehicles today, that are sitting in Ford blue-oval vehicles. That’s the case for monetizing opportunity versus an upstart who maybe has, I don’t know, what, they got 120,000 or 200,000 vehicles in place now. Just compare the two stacks: which one would you like to have the data from?

DUBNER: I hear you entirely. But I also think, “Well, who are the companies that have been good at monetizing customer data?” And we can name them. There’s Facebook, there’s Google, etc. And have they already mastered or owned that market? So what makes you think that Ford can monetize that in any significant way, enough to invest in developing that whole scenario?

HACKETT: Well, first of all, we already know as a proxy that those really wonderful firms you talk about, like Facebook — we’re a great customer of Facebook, they love us. Google loves us, because Ford’s a big advertiser. So we talk to these folks all the time. But they don’t own the healthcare data market. They are not controlling aviation data today. They may be doing flight reservations. I mean, we can find proxies where there’s data and they don’t own it. Now let’s let that just be an argument that says they’re not everywhere. They’re very powerful.

The issue in the vehicle, see, is: we already know and have data on our customers. By the way, we protect this securely; they trust us. We know what people make. How do we know that? It’s because they borrow money from us. And when you ask somebody what they make, we know where they work; we know if they’re married. We know how long they’ve lived in their house, because these are all on the credit applications. We’ve never ever been challenged on how we use that. And that’s the leverage we’ve got here with the data.

DUBNER: So the question I have is whether Ford necessarily has, not only a big role in that, but a big opportunity to monetize. So at the C.E.S. presentation, you rolled out a couple components of “The Living Street.” One is called the Transportation Mobility Cloud.

Marcy KLEVORN: Our Transportation Mobility Cloud, or T.M.C., will support the rapid development of services and applications that will enable people to move more efficiently and have access to smart, connected transportation.

DUBNER: Another was called C-V2X.

Don BUTLER: C-V2X, or Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology, has the potential to enable a city’s various components and applications to share information with each other, from vehicle to pedestrians and bicyclists, to the whole infrastructure, enabling collision-avoidance safety systems, traffic signal prioritization, and much more.

DUBNER: And one of the examples that your team gave was on the C-V2X component. They described a scenario in which a vehicle, “without requiring a network, can communicate when a driver needs help. Maybe he has diabetes and is going into shock … C-V2X can coordinate the response, the system can recognize the driver’s distress, send a signal to emergency responders … The vehicle can even send medical records for drivers who have opted in for that.”

So when I read that, why is this wonderful-sounding, but very-complicated-to-me-sounding solution — having the vehicle diagnose a medical emergency, for instance, rather than, say, a wearable medical device, which I’m wearing. My smartwatch is that now. And I saw a variety of examples of that in your vision whereby it seems like Ford is describing itself as a major player in this reimagining of the public square, the public space. I don’t understand what you bring to it that makes you think that you can be a big player in that space beyond the transportation component.

HACKETT: You mentioned the diabetic thing. I’ll give you a real one that’s working right now. The Los Angeles Police Department drives Ford Explorers. We have a high market share of police vehicles. In an application, that is one of our tests, they have this terribly sad story where an officer is on a mission, gets in a wreck. And the airbag knocks him out, so he dies. They can’t find him because they’re radioing him. I don’t know why they didn’t have G.P.S. or something like that, that positioned him.

What we’ve invented with them is that, every time the airbag goes off, it’s communicating its location. And now we have a team sitting inside L.A.P.D. right now, working on a dozen other ideas that we get monetized for because of the data they’re willing to share that helps build a response system for them. So that’s in use — like a person in their vehicle to the cloud.

The promise of the diabetic is: in India, this is really extreme, you can’t get an ambulance in to somebody that’s in trouble. The traffic’s too congested. The theory here is the vehicles give priority to that. So they’ll know where to go. So if you’ve been in an environment where the siren’s on, you go, “Do I go right or left?” The command will be the way air traffic is. They just tell a plane, if it’s on a collision course, they just go up or down, they don’t tell them to turn right or left. Our commands will tell you go right or left, and everybody’s moving the same way, and it knows what the oncoming traffic is doing. The simple transactions are Ford’s reducing the friction in somebody’s life.

* * *

Just a decade ago, Ford Motor Company was the most stable of the Big Three U.S. automakers. General Motors and Chrysler both declared bankruptcy during the financial crisis and received a government bailout; Ford didn’t, although, under then-C.E.O. Alan Mulally, it did accept some federal assistance. From both a financial and business perspective, Ford seemed to be in relatively good shape. But that’s no longer the case. Despite a strong economy and stock market, Ford has been struggling, even more than the other U.S. automakers, as evidence by its battered share price.

Ford is still the king of pickup truck sales, but Moody’s Investor Service, in a recent downgrade of Ford, cited “erosion in the company’s global business position and the challenges it will face implementing its Fitness Redesign program.” “Fitness Redesign” is Ford’s way of saying it’s downsizing and restructuring — a fate that Chrysler and G.M. had forced upon them during their bankruptcies. But which Ford, paradoxically, was able to avoid — until now. One big part of Ford’s restructuring has been Jim Hackett’s recent decision to phase out nearly all Ford sedans currently on sale in North America.

NBC 4 (DETROIT): Ford has decided to get out of the car game except for its iconic Mustang.

FOX BUSINESS: Ford says it’s going to focus on S.U.V.’s and trucks.

HACKETT: So the sedan, as a platform, you’d be shocked at how the sales have dropped off globally for everybody.

It’s worth noting that just a couple decades ago, Ford’s Taurus was the best-selling car in America. But consumer preferences have changed; the price of gas is relatively low; and there may be something of an arms race among consumers, who feel that S.U.V.’s and trucks are safer — especially when you’re on the road with so many other S.U.V.’s and trucks.

HACKETT: Yeah, well, definitely. I know with women buyers, they prefer the height, they just see better. It’s a function of seeing where you’re driving and the car’s relative position. But the other thing is: in the past, you would have to hedge if fuel prices went up, and the vehicles have gotten so fuel-efficient. Our F-150 — I give Alan Mulally a lot of credit for this, he aluminized the body of it.

DUBNER: Right, very controversial at the time. We should say that he was an airplane guy.

HACKETT: He was an airplane guy; he knew aluminum; he knew riveting; it was a really hard problem to rivet the panels. We have a lot of patents on that. But guess what: the vehicles — so this is a hard way to understand, but in the CAFE standards that are calculated for the world’s fleet, or in this case U.S. fleet, the vehicle that made the most progress in making it better is the F-150. Now it’s not as fuel-efficient as a smaller vehicle, but in contributing to global climate, it’s less of a problem.

DUBNER: But what about the profit margin; trucks and S.U.V.’s versus sedans?

HACKETT: Well, the reason you make more on them is because your price point’s higher.

DUBNER: Really? Pickup — I thought pickup trucks are cheap. We don’t have any pickup trucks in New York City, as you’ve seen.

HACKETT: So that’s the issue. But come with me to Texas.

DUBNER: No, no, no, I understand, I’ve seen the numbers.

HACKETT: I’m driving a King Ranch, which is the nickname of a luxury F-150. And I mean the leather seats and the ride —

DUBNER: That could run over the whole Ohio State defensive line, I guessing. Not that you would do that.

HACKETT: And the cool thing is: that frame — I don’t mean the physical frame of a vehicle but the idea of people sitting in vehicles like that — there’s another series below that called Ranger and it’s much smaller and it’s global and it’s very profitable. And we’re working on other ideas in that category, because people love these things.

This is the part of the Ford reboot story that you may find confusing. Which many investors seem to find confusing — or, to be fair, concerning. On the one hand, Ford talks about remaking itself as a technology firm, with their “Living Street” model and their “transportation operating system.” Earlier, you heard Hackett comparing Ford’s price-to-earnings ratio to those of I.B.M. and Microsoft, which are actual tech firms. So that’s the forward-looking part of the reboot mission.

On the other hand, Ford’s increasingly heavy reliance on truck and S.U.V. sales has more than a little throwback feel to it — especially in how the company markets itself. Jim Hackett says Ford is eager to collaborate with the Silicon Valley heavyweights in order to get a piece of their pie. But one TV ad in a new campaign called “Built Ford Proud” opens by mocking Silicon Valley. The actor Bryan Cranston, looking very Elon Musk-y or maybe Steve Jobs-y, takes the stage in front of a backdrop labeled “Future Talk.”

FORD AD: Thank you. Now let’s get started.

But then Cranston, switching out of that character, confides to the viewer …

FORD AD: The future isn’t created in a keynote address.

What does create the future?

FORD AD: Building does. Building like we have for the last 115 years. And building for the next century. Building cars. New technology. And transforming cities.

And by now Cranston is barreling through the desert in a Ford pickup truck, windows down, engine roaring.

FORD AD: So let the other guys keep dreaming about the future. We’ll be the ones building it.

The ad ends up looking like pretty much every other pickup truck ad you’ve ever seen. It doesn’t seem like the most convincing way to declare that Ford is the company that’s working on what Hackett calls “a total redesign of the surface transportation system.” By the way, these promises of new technology and transformed cities all happen atop an orchestral version of the Rolling Stones song “Paint It Black,” which came out more than a half century ago.

DUBNER: So one of the big changes in the world, but especially for your industry, is the oncoming autonomous vehicle scenario, which is incredibly exciting, and will probably have a lot of effects that many people can’t quite imagine yet, pro and con. But it strikes me that Ford is a little bit late to the starting line. And I’m curious to know, again, what makes you think that you’re going to do well in that realm?

HACKETT: I actually think it’s a myth that we’re behind. So robotics is not new; of course, they’ve been in the factories for years. Mark Fields deserves credit here. He decided that to get there faster, he was going to invest in a group of people who wanted to leave some of the notable firms working on it: Google, Uber, some others. They came to us and said, “We want to do our own startup.” So we’ve created that. It’s called Argo A.I. It’s in Pittsburgh, near Carnegie Mellon, of course.

DUBNER: Pittsburgh’s become the capital of autonomous vehicle research.

HACKETT: Yeah. And we’re the sucking sound there, because this is the who’s-who from that alumni. The guy leading our company was the number-two guy at Google working on Waymo, which, I give lots of credit to Google. I think they’ve done a great job. We believe we’re behind them, but the velocity of the vehicle’s learning’s ahead because we have people that worked there. So we’ve taken a different tact with the design of the software.

Just a quick lesson for the listeners. It’s only three years old that neural networks actually found their way into A.I. So, before that, robotics were making progress, but this is the breakthrough.

DUBNER: So let me ask you this. You recently led a team of Ford executives making a big presentation at the 2018 C.E.S., Consumer Electronics Show. And it is a huge multi-dimensional vision of how what I think of as an auto company is creating a large ecosystem that includes all different kinds of inputs. And I want to know, is that the kind of presentation you make at C.E.S. because it’s kind of good for business to invite those technology firms who come to come and play in your sandbox? Or is this a real part of your business model?

HACKETT: Yeah, I mean — and I did that in January of this year, and I’m really happy I did it because I was trying to get out the three parts of the technology evolution, which is: the nature of propulsion’s changing — to electric and hybrids. There will be gas, hybrids, and electric. There’s a robotic system. Let me give you the three letters: it’s called S.D.S., Self-Driving System is what they’re called. They’re trying to get away from autonomy and have it be labeled this way.

DUBNER: Because “autonomous” is a little too scary?

HACKETT: I think so. It’s not human-centered. It’s making the vehicle the celebrant, and we want the people inside. The third technology is this cloud structure.

DUBNER: Which you call the Transportation Mobility Cloud.

HACKETT: That’s our phrase. But all we really trying to do is orchestrate these three technologies to have an advantage for customers. The mere fact that 70 percent of the world’s population is going to be in city centers by 2050. It means we’ll be paralyzed. So I’m in New York this week, when the U.N.’s going on, and you can’t get around with the rain. President Clinton told me that he had to stay in town last night because he couldn’t get out to his home.

So we got to choreograph the system so that you reduce all this friction. The study after study that’s done about what causes jams and things like that show that a fallacy is: if you add more highway capacity, you get more throughput. The opposite happens. So there’s a famous story in China where there’s a month-long traffic jam on their biggest superhighway. Can you imagine getting in a car and you can’t get out of it for a month? So Chinese government and other places are dealing with it.

You’ve done a piece with Sidewalk Labs about smart cities. But I’m saying something different. I’m saying it feels utopian to talk about a smart city. Let’s start down the ladder and just get the transportation system to be smart. Let’s just coordinate mass transit, micro transit and your vehicles, and then the Uber-Lyft combinations, around what’s really going on in the lives of people.

And the opportunity here is enormous to change the way your life is in a city, because that system gives you the permission and the force of having what you want, when you want it. And you go, “How does it do that?” We took off 45 minutes earlier to come to you today, so I’m adding to the congestion. If I actually knew when I needed to be here, and the city mediated that, it would take all the people who are trying to get ahead out. Now that’s the traffic thing. Another quick one is parking. You lose more fuel efficiency trying to find a spot.

DUBNER: And then there’s just the real-estate question of parking.

HACKETT: I actually think a cool thing is the origami of parking, because the way lines are designed and parking lots that we’re going to be able to park really weird ways because the vehicles will negotiate their packing.

DUBNER: Well, and theoretically, with autonomous — or whatever we’re calling it, S.D.S. — we don’t need to hang on to our cars anymore, right? If you’re summoning the next one, to some degree.

HACKETT: Well, we’ve taken away the street from the people. Where’s your favorite city you like to visit? I mean, New York is one of mine. But when I go to Paris and the way the food spills out, the vehicles kind of destroy that. So we’ve painted a picture: there’s more green space, there’s more human interaction with the streets. How’s that happen? It’s because of this transportation mobility cloud, smart cars.

DUBNER: Before you go, I do want to ask you: in a recent interview you said that Ford has lost about a billion dollars in profits from metals tariffs, so a) just confirm for me I heard you right, and b) tell me if that’s true or if it’s even half-true, what are you doing about it?

HACKETT: Well, the number’s true if — the way I did the model in my head, and I should have been clear about this — you add the time the tariffs have started through next year. But still, it’s a billion dollars, and this is a really interesting thing. In my lifetime running another company, I never thought about trade. I never worried about it. So, now the C.E.O.’s time is tied up in something that they didn’t have to worry about. It needs to be updated because what happened is: those were emerging countries that are now. And the deficit’s got bigger and bigger.

So I think the administration has momentum from other administrations who likewise wanted to address it. All I’ve been asking for is that if you go in and you attack this problem, the winning state is a state of equilibrium, not a constant fight. A trade war will take away — these are stats that maybe you’ve read. The tax cut benefit to our citizens right now is going to get wiped out by this current inflation on what they’re calling the Walmart effect. So the goods that people are buying in stores have now been hit. So two-thirds of the tax benefit could be actually wiped out if we don’t get this fixed.

DUBNER: And as the C.E.O. of a car company, the uncertainty, I would imagine, can be very difficult, because we all know it’s hard to make even a personal decision when there’s that much uncertainty. So let me just really, finally, ask you the final question. When you look forward, do you see less uncertainty than I do? Do you see a clear path toward what Ford can actually accomplish based on these rather large dreams that involve everything from cloud computing to telecom in cars and so on?

HACKETT: Well, this gives you insight into me. My dad never had a bad day and he had a lot of challenges. But the optimism when he got up every day, that’s the way I was raised; as opposed to someone who heard, “Life’s going to hell in a handbasket.” I never heard that.

So I told a story to one of my colleagues today that said, “Why do you think there was a milkman in the day?” And, well, it was because we couldn’t refrigerate milk in our homes, so then they could get it to you because it had to be fresh. And then what happened was we had refrigerators, and to get scale, they moved the dairy farms further away. Then they started adding chemicals to them so they didn’t spoil, beyond homogenization. And today the average distance from farm to market’s 1,500 miles.

So the world’s looking at that and saying, “Was that the best design for humans?” What I’m optimistic about, based on the way we’ve talked today, is the transportation system caused some of that. It now can actually go backwards, so that you can have produce very close. You can send these objects of intelligence on missions for you. You can know where anybody you love is at any given time, if they want to tell you. And we can kind of know that now? But what you’re going to be able to know is going to be incredible. And in a way that I think is safe and helping humanity. So we can make Ford a really cool futuristic company in just building and making cars and selling them. We have a lot of great ideas there.

Whether these ideas are truly great, whether Ford will buck the trends of history and reinvent itself as a firm for the middle of the 21st century — I have no idea. Thanks to Jim Hackett, though, for taking the time to explain his vision for the Blue Oval.

* * *

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Greg Rosalsky, with help from Zack Lapinski. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Alvin Melathe, and Harry Huggins; we had help this week from Nellie Osborne. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Jim Hackett, president and C.E.O. of Ford Motors.

RESOURCES

“Has Motorization in the U.S. Peaked?,” Michael Sivak, U.M.T.R.I. (June 2013).

“Ford CEO’s Cost-Cutting Strategy in Focus During Earnings Slump,” Christina Rodgers, The Wall Street Journal. (April 2018).

EXTRA

“How to Build a Smart City,” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

“The Secret Life of a C.E.O.,” Freakonomics Radio.

The post Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling? (Ep. 357) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ford/

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theblackshades · 7 years

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Astral Travel and the Seven Planes

Flashback to some centuries ago and I would have been burnt at the stake had I mentioned if I had revealed that I actually traveled on the astral plane, seen the future or could read someone’s thoughts that I have an astral body, probably burnt twice. Even as recently as twenty years ago when I spoke openly about my astral senses people looked if I was ‘gaga’ at me as. I remember a game I played I was with a group of people, I would perch myself up in a corner near the ceiling and watch everyone including myself interacting with myself as a young child and later too as an adult, when. I enjoyed doing that and did it naturally. I did this without giving it a second thought, not being aware it was my astral body that was floating up there. I knew though that it as a right part of myself. Earlier on I used to believe that everyone else could do the same until I learned otherwise. Of course I did not share this experience with anyone. I had to be careful to be with the proper people in the right surroundings to mention anything about my busy life that is inner other dimensions of being. Today ‘astral travel’ is a buzzword spreading like crazy fire over the worldwideweb. More and more people are curious and want to know about astral projection. Real or perhaps not, it appears to me that every second person I meet claims to having had an ‘out of body experience’ or is an old hand at ‘astral travel.’ Some travel while meditating, others while resting and yet others via lucid dreaming. Many experience this phenomenon at times of crisis and have had near death experiences.

Traditional science has not yet caught up with thousands years old esoteric secret knowledge. The door to this esoteric kingdom of knowledge still remains locked to many scientific minds. But it really is opening very slowly by sheer force of the masses that not only believe, but also know and sense through personal experience. More than ever before physicists and scientists are joining the spiritual onward march, mainly because they have no choice as they find themselves at a cul-de-sac and have no where else to turn. More and more physicists that are spiritual speaking out and because they are physicists their words have more clout. This might be news that is good about time too.

In this essay I shall share with you all that I know about the astral plane, as a ‘baby’ occultist. First let me explain that there is nothing sectarian nor mystical about an occultist. A mystic is someone who believes in the presence of other planes of being without being interested to find out such a thing in detail as to the hows and whys. Most saints fall into this category. An occultist is a mystic who does not only believe but goes a step further to do extensive research and to experiment, to observe and experience with oneself. Famous occultists are for example, Edgar Cayce, Pythagoras, C. W. Leadbeater and Gopi Krishna. There are hundreds of other occultists that are famous in the eastern and the western worlds and perhaps thousands scattered all over the world, that are not famous at all. All these social people know of and are in constant touch with other dimensions of existence.

Here’s what I found as I surfed the internet on astral travel.

‘Amazing Scientific Breakthrough enables you to have a Astral that is successful projection 20 minutes! Learn how to leave your body, walk through walls, fly around your neighborhood, meet your deceased loved ones, communicate together with your guides and teachers, travel through time to witness past or future events and much much more! 100% guaranteed or your money back!’

Now who can say No to such a fascinating invitation!

Unfortunately, many dabble today in a mystical globe oblivious of the fact there is some danger when one is ignorant of the details and the hazards involved when entering other dimensions. I aspire to shed some light on this for you in this article and to raise your curiosity so that you will continue to research, to read more writings and studies about astral travel and to understand as much as you possibly can, before you venture out to send your astral body to explore unknown worlds.

schmuck gravur männer günstig The oldest therefore the latest occult teachings inform the student that there are seven planes of being. The lowest is what we know as the material plane; the second is the plane of forces; the third is the astral plane and the fourth is what we know as the plane that is mental. Above these four planes are three more planes but we shall not be pressing these at this time since we should concentrate on the plane that is astral. For information only, you should know though that each of these seven planes have seven sub-planes each, and each of the sub-planes have seven sub-divisions, and this goes on to the seventh degree of each of the sub-divisions. I will leave you to figure out the mathematics of that one.

These planes are not consists of matter nor are they group of straight layers. The planes are graded according to their respective levels of vibration of energy, matter being the degree that is lowest of vibrations of energy and these planes interpenetrate each other in the same point of space. ‘A plane of being is not a place but a state of being’ as one teacher that is ancient it. Every student of physics knows that a point that is single of may contain vibrations of heat, light of many shades, magnetism, electricity, etc. each manifesting its own rate of vibration and not interfering with the others. Every beam of sunlight contains many different colors, each with its rate that is own of, and yet not crowding out the others. Prana or ‘vital force’ is found on the plane of forces.

In occult teachings there are frequent references to the regions that are astral the inhabitants and phenomena of these regions. The astral regions are vibrational manifestations on the astral plane that occupy the same space once the material regions, neither one interfering using the other. Your message ‘astral’ is derived from the Greek word meaning ‘related to a star’ and was originally used when describing the heavens of the Greek, the abode of the Gods. From this sense the term widened to be used to indicate ‘ghost-land’ to ancient people. They believed that disembodied spirits and angelic beings of a higher order inhabited this ghost-land. The occultists that are oriental their very own terms derived from old Sanskrit roots, which were much older than the Greek terms, but as these terms confused western occult students, they settled to using the Greek terms. In ancient times they were familiar with the astral and other dimensions of life. This knowledge was lost someplace along the relative line as humans advanced becoming more material bound arriving to our century.

There are two avenues of approaching the plane that is astral. One is by employing the astral senses; the other is by visiting with the astral body. Each associated with physical senses of man has its astral counterpart, which functions regarding the plane that is astral as the physical senses do upon the material plane. Thus every human being has, the power of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting on the plane that is astral by way of these five astral senses. In addition to these five some humans have developed two more senses and these likewise have their counterparts on the astral level. Basically everyone can be trained to develop these senses that are astral.

One can with training develop astral vision, which is perception through astral sight. There is a documented case of a blind woman who is being operated on. Each of the doctors and nurses, what they were wearing and even their features and the color of their eyes after the operation when she woke up, she was able to describe the operation room, she could describe in detail. She could tell them exactly which doctor operated although she was anaesthetized on her and how many were assisting, she could even repeat the conversations they had while operating. This was a mystery but to the occultist it was no mystery at all to the doctors. She had obviously seen and heard everything with her astral sight and hearing. Although her physical eyes had been reduced, her astral vision was not. She had obviously detached her astral body from her physical body and was floating around in the operating room everything that is watching on.

The ordinary clairvoyant has flashes of this astral vision, as a rule but not through an act of will. The occultist that is trained however, is able to shift from one set of senses to the other, whenever he wishes to do so. With training an occultist can function at will on both planes at the same time. A clairvoyant has no need to go into a trance nor to leave the physical body to experience the astral plane all she needs to do is move her perspective.

The other way is to travel to the plane that is astral. The individual leaves his physical body to travel on the astral plane in his astral body in this case. The body that is astral composed of an ethereal substance of a very high degree of vibration. It is not matter and yet it is not force but in between. The astral body is an exact counterpart of the physical body but survives the latter by a number of years but it is not immortal and finally disintegrates just like the body that is physical. The advanced occultist is able to leave the physical body that remains in a state of sleep or trance, and to visit at will anywhere on the plane that is astral. The astral body, however, is connected with the physical body by a thin, cobweb like thread of ethereal substance, which extends or contracts as he travels away from or toward the body that is physical. If the filament is broken by an accident on the plane that is astral his physical body dies and he is never able to return to it. Such accidents do occur but are rare and history that is occult records showing their occasional occurrences. Tales have also been told of astral bodies getting lost on the astral plane and are unable to find their way back for their physical bodies for a long time. In the meantime, the physical body is declared dead and is buried. I will leave it to your imagination to think of what are the results if and when the astral body after a long time, finally finds its way back to the physical body that has, in the meantime, been declared dead and has already been buried. The soul that is poor talk about having a nightmare!

Just as steam is as real as water and ice, the astral is just as real and fixed as is the material world. To the traveler on the astral plane the scenery and everything they see seems as solid as the most solid material to the physical eye. The astral world has its geography, forms and things just as has the material world. The law of Change operates on the astral just as on the material plane. The astral has its laws just as has the material world. These laws must be learned and observed otherwise the inhabitants of the astral world as well as the visitor will have to bear the consequences. There are regions, points of space, places, kingdoms, countries etc. regarding the astral just as there is on the physical plane. As an example one can travel from Zurich to Bombay in a twinkle of an optical eye, by merely wishing to do so. You can without leaving your seat, travel, traverse all the sub-planes, one after the other, witness the scenery, the inhabitants and their activities, and return to the material world, all in a moment of our time if you have the knowledge and power. You can also descend you wish on the physical level, visit far away friends and loved ones if you wish to the material plane and travel with your astral body to anywhere.

In traveling through the astral world, you meet with many strange inhabitants, some pleasant and others unpleasant, some have passed on from the material plane and others who are natives of the astral plane, who have never dwelt in the material world. Often astral shells and spirit that is apparently real which are nothing but semi vitalized thought forms, artificial entities, are mistaken for departed loved ones. Astral shells are astral corpses, just once the body that is physical the grave is the material corpse, which the soul has left to move on to spiritual realms. Artificial entities are those formed by people who pray with a passion, example a mother prays for angels to protect her children. The angel forms actually take shape and exist on the astral level in such cases. Many family ghosts have been created and kept in being by just the constantly repeated belief and tale in their reality. Many haunted houses are explained in this way. Repeated thought and repeated belief will serve to keep such entities alive, otherwise they would in time disappear. On certain planes of the world that is astral occur or living beings that were never human and never is because they belong to an entirely different order of nature. Normally these entities are invisible to humans but in certain conditions can be sensed by astral vision.

On the astral plane there is no time, no distance, no hindrance, you can experience a lot in one second, you can go through walls, you can travel from one end of the world to another in an instant. You can go forwards and backwards in time and you can fly. You have experienced all of this at least once in your dreams. You can meet loved ones long gone and you can meet your guardian spirits. All of this is true. You can astral travel without having a clue or remembering passing it off as a dream or you can travel consciously. You can learn to reach that particular state of mind or in other words, a different state of consciousness in order to travel on the astral plane and keep the memory of it. All of this and even more you and I, as every one else, can afford to do without a doubt. In the majority of cases, however, people are perhaps not prepared for such adventures if met with demanding situations could go mad from the shock.

It is known that very advanced souls travel that is often astral their spiritual guides at night while their material bodies sleep deeply, to attend spiritual classes where they receive intensive advanced spiritual teachings. It is also said that many indigo children, whom are reincarnated advanced souls, attend spiritual schools at night while their physical bodies are fast asleep. There has always been throughout the ages indigo children born but in our time today these are typically here in masses to help humanity to get through the great shift cycle that we are experiencing.

It's erroneous to think that astral vision unexpectedly dawns on anyone. In the majority of cases it is a slow development that is gradual. Many people possess it to a degree and fail to further develop it for want of proper instruction. Many have occasional flashes of astral vision. If you must experiment and try out any of the advertised on the web technical help to enter into astral travel, then here is one little piece of advice. When going through the plane that is astral do not listen to anyone beckoning to you to join them, you could be tricked into staying there, look forward not backward, look upward not downward. It’s imperative that you feel no fear, fear attracts negativity that you have faith in your heart and. Consider within your soul is a spark of the Divine Flame and also this will protect you.

Could it be possible that someone can in fact teach you to definitely travel on the level that is astral in twenty minutes as claimed in one of the websites on the internet, I really cannot say one way or another. Perhaps those with very high advanced consciousness can. We see miracles happening every day. On the other hand, could it just be possible that you are hypnotized into believing that you are traveling through an astral plane and told to remember whatever is said to you during the hypnosis. This could very well be possible. Once again all I can say is take heed, handle with care. The more light you have it is in you the less risky. If you are someone who is inclined to being negative and afraid then I would say stay away. Some gurus still insist it is risky and dangerous for untrained novices to travel through the astral world without an experienced guide. If you still are burning to experiment, so be it, go at your own risk. You may be irritation to take to this novice experience and you go ahead along with it blindly and survive without a problem. It reminds me of when I first learnt to ski. When on the top associated with hill I just let go and skied straight downhill totally unafraid, thrilled with the speed and the wind in my face, loving every second of it. It now and how silly I was then, I know it was a miracle that I did not topple over and break both my legs when I think about. It absolutely was my total ignorance of the rules that saved me. Now that I know how to ski I’d never dream of going straight downhill so fast and if I did I would probably break all my bones. The ignorance or innocence, call it what you want, is what often saves us from calamities. The principle that is same here too with astral travel, like children get away with many things that we grown ups could not do, total innocence and a fearlessness can save the day. At least now you've got an basic idea what to expect. There is much more to know, but this is a good beginning.

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