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youreignhere · 3 months

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Mental Health & The Lack of Mental Health Care in the K-Pop Industry

The K-Pop Industry has helped brought forward the Greatest Performers, Dancers, Singers and Groups to this day. The industry is a Billion Dollar powerhouse for South Korea and has boosted the Nation’s connection to the World.

K-pop has played a huge role in Korea’s Tourism boost, the rising love for Korean Dramas and Movies being appreciated by International fans. With the growth of Korean Media, for example Youtube Videos by Korean Content Creators are being viewed by Foreign viewers, all of this contributing to the overall Economy of South Korea. While K-pop has only been around since the early 1990s, over 30 years old and it has changed the entire Music Industry for the better.

While K-Pop may have many great things, there are also a lot of dark sides within the K-Pop Industry as a whole. Today, we’ve decided to write a semi-well-researched rant about some things that we have a problem within the K-Pop Industry. Starting with the Overworking Crisis and the Lack of Mental Health Care in the K-Pop Industry.

Before we begin, feel free to like the blog and lease note, if you want to support or request a Blog Topic, please follow me here and Message us on Twitter. We will link all the sources used within the blog and in a Google Doc visible for all.

This Blog is also supported by affiliates as we’re not in a country that allows Stripe Pay, so Medium can’t support us. We are grateful for any comments, likes and shares even if you can’t support us financially.

Bare in mind, this post contains references to Suicide, Depression, and other Mental Health Disorders with references to Trauma. We will do our best to pay respect to the Names mentioned. May they all Rest in Power. Please continue with caution if this may trigger you in any way. After all, your mental health also matters and I will not fault you for finding something more comfortable to read.

Now, if you are still with me, let’s get into the nitty gritty.

Chapter One: Toxic Productivity in the K-Pop Industry

Before we delve into Mental Health, I would like to start with Toxic Productivity, or in simpler terms, Overworking. From what we have witnessed online and sometimes in person, Idols just collapsing after a performance or when the lights go down. They are so tired that they can barely stay standing or walk off a stage.

But what exactly is Overworking or in other words Toxic Productivity? And how has this become the norm in both Western & Asian Culture, specifically the K-Pop Industry?

Better Up dot com says that “Toxic productivity describes the drive to produce while neglecting other important aspects of our lives. We value productivity over everything else, like rest or quality time with loved ones.”

This has become Hustle Culture or that “Grind” Mindset that many on social media push to their audiences. While there is nothing wrong with working hard, working to the point of exhaustion, to the point where you forget or disregard your own needs or those that rely on you, is Toxic and even Physically Harmful.

Companies and even the media have pushed that “Grind” mindset for years but fortunately Millenials and Gen Z have picked up on the bullshit and many are fighting against the system or simply disregarding that system by refusing to work countless hours for barely minimum wage. But the sad fact is that companies don’t care that the Hustle mindset is Toxic or unhealthy, they only care about the revenue they can bring in the more their employees work and as you can tell, even the K-Pop Industry and Korea as a whole has companies like this.

Better Up goes on to state, “Productivity equals revenue, so companies want employees to value it as much as they do. This frame of mind is considered toxic because it’s culturally contagious. The more a society promotes overworking as valuable, the harder people work. And it can also have negative consequences like burnout and poorer relationships.”

Companies that encourage overworking have a special space in Hell. I am sure most of you guys reading think the same and feel the pain when your Fave rapper, singer, dancer or group is tired and obviously working too much. Especially after learning just how much Overworking or Toxic Productivity can Physically affect a person. Overworking of course leads to burning out- which let me tell you guys, is so horrible- but it is also proven to lead to adverse health problems, neck chest and back pains and even stroke to name just a few. Just take a look at this 2016 article reporting on some Idols who suffered the effects of Overworking.

At this point, I don’t even care if they have to put out that reality series or work on a new song. I’d much prefer if they took a week off, no actually. I want them to take an entire month off. I just want them to visit family, relax, don’t touch a lick of music or choreography. Have the free time to catch up on trends and just sleep. God, some of them just need to sleep for a month, shaking my head.

Sometimes, this isn’t the companies’ fault and more so the Idol/s pushing themselves too much, mentally and physically, all for the sake of their loving fans. Due to Korea and many times, Black & Asian, even Western Culture pushing this “Hard & Long Work Hours guarantees Success mentality”, ignoring the fact that Suicide has become rampant due to the pressure on many Teens or Young Adults in or out of the K-Pop Industry. With the stress to perform well academically starting at the young age of 10, it has been ingrained into many, in or out of the K-Pop Industry.

However, as we know, Overworking does more harm than good and I wish I could just grab certain Idols and just shake them until they see sense. I know at the end of the day, many of them choose the life of an Idol and are adults who can make decisions for themselves. I just don’t agree with some of their choices (that’s pretty fair too, not like they are going to care about what some stranger on a blog says lol).

If you have any experience with Toxic Productivity, please let me know in the comments, I would love to see everyone’s thoughts on this as a whole, because we pretty much see it everyday in our normal lives as well.

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Chapter Two: Mental Health & Mental Health Care in the K-Pop Industry.

Let’s start with, What is Mental Health?

This is taken from our past blog, Everyone has Mental Health; The World Health Organization states, “Mental Health is an essential component in overall Health, as Mental Health decides our emotional, physical and social well-being. This can affect any person’s contribution to their environment and overall life.”

To put it in layman’s terms, Mental Health helps how we handle stress or anxiety, relate to others and topics, and determine our choices or behavior in life. The World Health Organization, or WHO continues to state that, “Mental Health is key at all stages of Life.”

Just like Physical Health, Mental Health is equally important for every person. However, it has been pushed aside in the media, education, and by society as a whole. Mental Health is never brought up when it can decrease your overall health just as much as diabetes or a stroke.

Just like you have Physical Health, everyone has Mental Health. Please feel free to read more about what is Mental Health on our Everyone has Mental Health Blog Here.

Mental Illness or Mental Health Disorders (they can be referred to as both) are classified as a or many significant disturbances in a person’s cognitive, emotional, and even physical behavior. As of a 2019 study from the World Health Organization, 1 in every 8 people globally is affected by Mental Illness. Making that an estimate of almost 1 Billion people worldwide (as of 2021) are directly affected by Mental Health in one way or the other.

Anxiety and Depression are the most common for Entrepreneurs and in this case Musicians or Idols. You can read more about the link to Mental Health Disorders and how it connects to Entrepreneurs from our blog post here. Toxic Productivity and Overworking also connects to Mental Health Disorders, as overworking is known to harm your physical and mental well being. Sadly, many Idols show symptoms of these and other Mental Illnesses and unfortunately, there are many times where no amount of fame or money can help ease that pain.

Remember, K-Pop Idols are many times put on harsh diets, told to look and act a certain way or their real personalities would not be liked. They are constantly put in the spotlight and have to conform to rigorous schedules, while many of them deal with Anxiety, Depression and low self-esteem or Self Hatred. Not to mention the mental pressure that Society and many fans place on them to be “perfect”.

With the fact that many K-pop Companies rarely care that much about Mental Health, much less their Idols’ mental health, not taking into consideration just how much toxic productivity, anxiety and depression can physically affect a human being. Causing them to spiral and fester for sometimes years, in absolute silence. Until they feel absolutely alone, even when surrounded by loving fans and a family like group. Suicide, seemed to be a last and, sadly many times, most pleasing option of a way out of the Industry and pain.

Considering how many Idols we have lost just in the past decade due to the lack of Mental Health Care and Mental Health Awareness in the K-Pop Industry. We may not have been able to save them all, but if at least one or few had the ability to get the professional help they deserved, then we may still have many of our loved ones with us. Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers, would not have to mourn and Fans would not have to grieve.

Psychology and Psychiatry Professor, Lim Myung-Ho said, “For a long time, celebrities have mostly avoided meeting a psychiatrist or a psychological counselor as they were afraid that their health condition would somehow tarnish their image,”

We have lost brilliant and beautiful Lights, due to the fear that society has put on these human beings, as well as the lack of understanding for Mental Health or the resources to give Idols the help they deserve as human beings.

Thankfully, since the last decade, there’s been a rise in Mental Health Awareness in the K-Pop Industry and Korea as a whole. Many Idols or Musicians in the Industry, like Solo Star, AleXa and Lim Jaebeom, the Leader of Got7, have opened up about his Struggle with Depression and Mental Health. Groups like BTS, Stray Kids and Ateez are known for making music that addresses mental health struggles and societal pressures.

Personally, I think it’s time that K-Pop Companies implement Mental Health days for K-Pop Idols, as well as have some professionals within the company have weekly to monthly mandatory mental health sessions with whoever needs or wants counseling and help. Just like if an Idol was Physically sick and had to go on hiatus, then an Idol should be able to take Mental Health Days for their emotional and mental, as well as overall physical well being.

Professor Lim also thinks that there are easier ways, as in Online Counseling, especially considering how fast paced most Idol’s lives can be, it would make sense to have Online Counselors if Idols simply need to distress or vent on the go.

Cho Jung-Hwa, a Life Coach at Starship Entertainment, home of Monsta X, said in a telephone interview, “K-pop singers have managers, hair designers and makeup artists, but they often do not have any experts to resort to when they feel emotionally taxed,” she said. “If they can get some direct help from a mental health trainer or professional, they would feel much better.”

She made some good points and I would like to stress that for the Idols or Trainees, it should be a safe and open discussion so that they can feel less isolated and have less to carry on their shoulders.

There has been progress, for example, KQ Entertainment allowed Song Mingi, Main Rapper and Co-Writer for Ateez, time off for his Mental Health due to Psychological Anxiety, from late 2020 to 2021 (a total of 8 months). While KQ is still a Family like and small Entertainment Company (that is still flawed), I would like to see this more, from Companies like JYP, Starship, Cube Entertainment and even Hybe.

“Celebrities are generally more impressionable than non-celebrities,” Lim Myung- Ho said. “They often take the brunt of the emotional labor too, because they frequently conceal their genuine emotions in front of the public. In the short run, having a regular mental health check-up may seem unnecessary, but in the long run, it will help the K-pop companies’ financial success by ensuring the mental stability of their stars.”

I would like to mention that SHINEE’s Jonghyun has a foundation in his Memory, created by his mother, that aims to help Idols and Trainees with their Mental Health. I highly suggest checking it out here and seeing how you can support them or even visit if you are going to Korea or in Korea. I have to admit, that is one strong and amazing woman, to take her loss and try and make some changes in the Industry for other Idols and trainees. I wish her the best and all my love to the Shawols reading this.

You can probably tell by now, there’s still a long way to go, but I am glad to see some progress at least. I sincerely hope that those gone too soon are finally resting easy, seeing the growth and recognition that K-Pop has achieved and knowing that their art, their music will live on in the hearts of K-Pop fans worldwide. I just wish that it didn’t have to take, the passing of many amazing beings or the abuse of Idols, as well as countless backlash from fans, for it to finally start to have changes within the Industry.

Chapter Three: What can we do as Fans?

Kpop fans hold a lot of power; We can literally make or break an Idol’s or Groups career. I would honestly prefer to use that power for advocacy.

You have the power to raise awareness for these topics in the K-Pop Industry. Your favorite Idol is overworking and the rest of the group is tired but they continue to put out that reality show. Start a hashtag, bring up the topic to other fans or members of the community. Discuss it in groups and forums.

Remember Toxic Productivity does more harm than good so remind Idols that they are human too and not just a form of entertainment to us. Raise Awareness in respectful ways like starting a Twitter account and sharing your ideas or events with like minded individuals. Check out the Shiny Foundation, in honor of the late Jonghyun from SHINEE. Do your research and advocate for Mental Health Days or Mental Health care as a whole for Korea and Kpop Idols.

Raise Awareness in respectful ways like starting a Twitter account and sharing your ideas or events with like minded individuals. Do your research and advocate for Mental Health Days or Mental Health care as a whole for Korea and K-pop Idols. Support Idol from Companies like KQ or Starship Entertainment, that allow their Idols the time & resources needed to mend their mental state.

Highlight Speakers on the topic of Mental Health in Kpop, like BTS, Jay B and recently Beomhan the Ex-F M Trainee that Spoke up on his own Mental Health Struggles.

Show support to content creators that touch on topics like this. Follow and share their content to bring more eyes on the issues. Share this blog with your friends and fellow fans to help bring more eyes and start discussions. Try making your own content, be it blogs on Tumblr, Tweets on Twitter (yes I am still gonna call it twitter) and Videos on Tik Tok or Youtube to bring more awareness on these less spoken about necessities in the industry.

If you get a chance to meet your Idols at fan meets or on a fan call, quickly speak to them about your own experiences with mental health, how they helped inspire you. Let your fave Idols know that they are not alone. That they and their feelings do matter.

So, what do you think? Should K-pop Idols and Trainees be allowed Mental Health Days and have access to mental health care? Did anything else I mentioned stand out to you, tell me what in the comments.

That was probably a lot, but this will be separated into more parts because I would like to talk about homophobia, racism, abuse and other issues in the K-Pop Industry soon!

If you like how this sounds so far, please feel free to check out my blog on Medium or Tumblr and follow for more. If you’d like to get more information on Mental Health you can read my post here.

That’s all for now, I will see when I see you. Remember, you can always, Reign Here.

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Notes

All of the graphics in this blog were created by myself in Canva Pro, or taken from our Pinterest.

The links for any more sources and videos are here in this google document.

This Blog post does include affiliates as I’m not in a country that allows Stripe Pay, so Medium (where this is crossposted) can’t support me. You can save money on stationery supplies and K-Pop Merch using the link here!

All funds go towards bettering content quality and speeding up production (getting better devices, paying for medium, canva pro and more). It means a lot if you can support, even if it’s just by liking, sharing and commenting.

Feel free to correct or critique (respectfully) and I’ll edit any errors with links, information and grammar.

#kpop blog #kpop #kpop stan #ateezatiny #got7 #bts #mental illness #mentalheathawareness #gidle #dreamcatcher #shinee #kim jonghyun #ateez mingi #fx sulli

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erhiem · 3 years

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From left: Photo by Gi Naps/Getty Images; Photo by Rose Hartman/Archive Photos/Getty Images; Photo by Victor Virgil/Gamma-Rafo via Getty Images

Today, the House of Jean Paul Gaultier is relaunching its ready-to-wear line after a hiatus of six years. It comes 16 months after fashion’s “Maestro of Mehmed”, as journalist Georgina Howell dubbed her in the early ’90s, took her final bow as the brand’s designer, implying that this iteration of its namesake. will not be designed. Instead, the reins are taken over by a dedicated team from their atelier, with help crafted from the rotating doors of some of the most independent designers working today – Palomo Spain, Ottolinger, Nix Lecourt Mansion, Alan Crosetti and Marvin M’Tumo .

Since starting his own label in 1976, Jean Paul has been instrumental in turning underwear into acceptable outerwear, making sailor fashion sexy and, more generally, paving the way for designers to experiment with diverse and unexpected castings on the runway. have been responsible for. He also dedicated an entire collection – AW97 – to the fight against racism. The collection, titled ‘Fight Racism’, featured graphic prints of young anti-fascists with slogans printed on their chests.

In fact, with such a rich history behind it, and vintage JPGs becoming increasingly collectible since the recent renaissance—partly stemming from the Kardashians’ love of all things net—more thanks to the label’s revival. Couldn’t be the right time- the line to wear from now. Although it is a well-known fact that Jean Paul himself decided to step back from the category in 2014 after a somewhat tumultuous feud with Florence Tetier (graphic designer and co-founder). November MagazineNow serving as the brand’s creative and brand director, Ghar is poised to enter the field again. in an interview with WWDJPG’s general manager, Antón Gégy, described the relaunch as an opportunity to “celebrate Jean Paul Gaultier, its values, its archives and its history”. And what better way to raise the glass to the core of fashion? Horrible Instead look at seven of the most show-stopping moments from its most iconic era, the ’90s. Long live Gaultier!

Photo by Gie Knaeps/Getty Images

Madonna’s Conical Corset from the Blonde Ambition Tour, 1990

Back in 1989, when Jean-Paul Gaultier was told by an assistant that Madonna had told the audience, she was convinced that he was playing a trick with her. They knew how obsessed he was with her, just could not do be true But she soon found herself on the phone to the original queen of pop, making a match in ’90s fashion heaven. Naturally, Madonna already knew what she wanted: to create something for her that surrounded Jean Paul’s signature masculine-feminine crossover. Inspired by his love of the late ‘queen of Paris punk’ Edwij Belmore, Jean Paul conceived a pinstripe suit – the top of ’80s manhood – and a corset with the now famous conical bra, which he designed six years ago on AW84 had started for. /85.

Photo by Victor Virgil/Gamma-Rafo via Getty Images

Eva Herzigova’s cut-out dress, 1992

Thought harnesses were a new thing on the runway? Wrong! After all, you’re not known as a fashionista Horrible Without a sprinkling of kinks here and there, as this look proves well. Presented on JPG’s AW92 runway, this dress, so slick in its fit that clothes can even put on Eva’s body, exemplifies the powerful-yet-playful take on sexuality that serves as a throughline throughout the French designer’s body of work. runs as. Styled with bicep-clad opera gloves and proudly crafting the Czech-Italian supermodel’s bust, there’s a distinctive dome-y tone at play here, though no compromise on the beauty of the silhouette or the quality of the make. It speaks to an ideological throughline that runs through Jean Paul’s work – that no matter who a woman is or wants to be, she always has the right to be chic!

Photo by Pierre Guillaud/AFP via Getty Images

Houndstooth bodysuit inspired by Leigh Bowery, 1991

In an interview with iD in 2018, Jean Paul declared his love for the “London Way”, which means “just creating your own style, your own creativity and being free to do what you want to do”. When he took the idea back to Paris, it wasn’t very popular, but that didn’t stop him from creating his own trademark approach to design. He spent his youth in the 80s at famous London nightclubs such as Blitz and Heaven, where he met performance artist Leigh Bowery. In a nod to Bowery’s influence on fashion, Jean Paul sent down his interpretation of the Leigh Bowery Houndstooth bodysuit—which would later inspire Alexander McQueen for AW09 and Gareth Pugh for SS07.

Photo by Pierre Guillaud/AFP via Getty Images

‘Chic Rabbi’ Collection, 1993

For AW93/94, Jean Paul presented the ‘Chic Rabbi’ collection, inspired by the traditional dress of Hasidic Jews. Models in streamels and black suits danced to the sounds of a violinist who played live on the catwalk. The usual circle of supermodels was there, but Jean Paul also decided to cast someone who visually embodied the cultural context: a man with a big beard. During the ’80s and ’90s, designers were known for their casting choices, pioneering their diversity. “I’m fascinated by strong personalities, people who capture my imagination because they walk well down the street,” Gaultier explained in a 2014 interview. “Showing just one type of girl is a flaw,” he adds, “something I’ve always fought with. One kind of beauty – no. If I show a bigger girl, I’ll always show a younger girl.” will show.” It is now legend that Gaultier once posted an advertisement in a French daily newspaper release Looking for “atypical” models, saying that “facial distortions should not be avoided in application”.

Photo by Arnal/Garcia/Gama-Rafo via Getty Images

Mesh Tattoo Top, 1993

Back in 1993, the trend Declared this prestigious collection as “a startling vision of cross-cultural harmony”. While we’d be inclined to cringe at the somewhat reasonable look now that Jean Paul drove down the runway for the SS94 (which can actually be read as another nod to Leigh Bowery) it certainly Historical perspective. It also marked the debut of Jean Paul’s iconic mesh tops, which were inspired by a tattoo convention he once found himself spinning around – today, they are some of his most sought-after designs. The collection also includes heavy notes of punk, grunge, and 18th century men’s frock coats made in Jodhpur and denim in the typical JPG style. How did he ever find the place for all this?!

Photo by Pierre Vuthe/Sigma/Sigma via Getty Images

Björk!, 1994

Jean Paul’s celebrity friends don’t start and end with Madonna. A year after Björk’s properly titled debut solo album, First entry, Taking the music and fashion worlds by storm, she appeared on the designer’s AW94/95 show, about a magical train that stopped in a small village somewhere high in some mountains. And what, duh?! As you’d expect from JPG, the show was a mish-mash this time in terms of different styles of traditional arctic costume. The models trotted down the snow-covered runway (which almost tripped Kate Moss), decked out in a hell of a lot of fur, silk, wool, and leather.

Photo by Pierre Verdi / AFP via Getty Images

Op-Art Inspired Catsuit, 1995

Two women riding a motorcycle hit them. One of them descends and climbs onto a loft at a DJ booth. Jean Paul’s AW95 ‘Mad Max’ Show Has Started. As he was in the middle of designing the costumes for Luc Besson’s famous film fifth element In which Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich fight a mysterious cosmic force, they had science-fiction in mind, which means it was technology and cyber-heavy. The bodysuit inspired by Viktor Vasarelli’s op-art paintings became the show’s most memorable aspect—now made super collectible by Kim K and Cardi B and partly responsible for the JPG-madness we’re seeing on Depop these days. Also on the show was Carmen Dell’Orefice, who walked with a live falcon on her arm and sported ornate football armor that lit up like a circuit board. Really prestigious.

Photo by Victor Virgil/Gamma-Rafo via Getty Images

trompe l’oeil torso top, 1995

The next season, Jean Paul took his quest for sci-fi polka dots further, this time translating it into menswear. This time, however, he brought his knack for trompe l’oeil print placement to the table—skills he had previously flexed in the aforementioned Les Tautouzes, and even as early as 1992, when he sculpted the enviable Presented Printed Mesh Top with Toros. The look sported here by Tanel Bedrossiantz is perhaps a little more figurative in its approach, though no less direct is its infrared-style suggestion of what might lie beneath the longtime house muse’s button-down shirt.

Photo by Danielle Simon/Gamma-Rafo via Getty Images

JPG Set Sale, 1998

In a promo video for JPG’s new ready-to-wear line, Bella Hadid is wearing a big red ship on her head. In case you didn’t already know, it debuted at the Haute Couture SS98 show, where it takes us back to the Age of Enlightenment. It was a time of scientific progress, the advent of modern capitalism and of course colonialism. The ‘explorers’ were sailing around the world from Europe, ‘discovering’ new lands for them – a ship serving as a nod to the continent’s shameful past. Some say, however, that it was during the Enlightenment that the fashion we know today – as a form of self-expression that can be accessed by the public – first began to emerge, making the historical period a fashion show. became an ideal subject. .

Photo by Rose Hartman / Archive Photos / Getty Images

Man Himself!, 1992

Sure enough, to write a list of Jean Paul Gaultier’s most iconic looks from his most iconic decade, and not for the man himself. Indeed, as Florence Tetier spoke to her before the label’s launch, “Everybody knows who she is!” whether it’s his striped Whether paired with a pleated black skirt or, as seen here, a denim vest and a punkish tartan kilt, JPG’s personal style has made her one of the most instantly recognizable designers of our time. Plus, there’s a direct connection between what she wore and what we then saw on the runway. While we may have never seen a proper, French Navy-standard Sailor From the designer, “he’s done a lot of stripes and nautical-inspired pieces,” notes Florence. “It’s really nice to see the link between the way he dresses and the way he designs.” we love you, Jean Paul! Follow iD on Instagram and TikTok for more fashion.

The post Jean Paul Gaultier’s most iconic 90s moments appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.

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keyders · 3 years

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full name: montana kıvanç keyder (pronounced kuh-vanch kai-dir). nicknames: tan. gender and pronouns: cis man, he / him. age: thirty. date of birth: may 17, 1990. hometown: pleasance, ohio. nationality: american. religion: muslim. sexual and romantic orientation: bisexual biromantic. occupation: author & stand up comedian. living arrangements: lives with his family and a boarder (PLS GIVE ME THE BOARDER) languages spoken: english, conversational turkish. strange history: the death ranch.

trigger warnings: assault, death, injury, pregnancy.

this is the clown montana, but u can just call him tan. he grew up in pleasance but moved to seattle around 10-ish years ago to study law ( but also bc he had a falling out with his ex-bestie @kincadedonnelly which just made the decision to study out of state so much easier ) and only just returned last december!

tan is the middle child of three. he has an older brother and a younger sister. their family used to own a mom and pop store that has since then been bought out by alby and turned into the pleasance general store under new management in 2000. his father had since turned to various enterprises to try and support the family which included carpentry and being a delivery truck driver. his mother, on the other hand, took to music tutoring on the weekends apart from being a high school teacher. needless to say, things had been pretty tough financially on the family since alby took their business away from them.

growing up, tan was p much....mediocre. which was never a dirty word for him, but it was to his parents. it was actually their dream for him to become a lawyer, which he wasn’t exactly opposed to, mostly because he didn’t really have anything else in mind.

he had enough in the way of friends, played sports, did ok in school. wasn’t super smart but also wasn’t at the bottom. he just coasted by and it was fine. he was fine. at least he was funny.

when he was 21, he was accepted into law school thru a scholarship at the university of washington. it was the first time he’d ever really gone out of state, let alone lived away from home on his own.

but seattle treated him well. it was there that he was able to explore more of who he was and what he wanted to be—and really wanted to be—which was, to no one’s surprise, not to become a lawyer, but a writer. a storyteller. but knowing that he couldn’t come home without a law degree, he sought to finish his four-year stay and make his parents proud all the while harboring words in his journal as a hobby.

he was out drinking with his friends when he got into a drunken fight with another patron for some dumb reason he couldn’t even remember anymore even if he tried. it really started early into the night but then hours later when the group was set to go home, they had run into the patron and his friends outside. tan couldn’t keep his blasted mouth shut and the long and short of it is that he’d ended up in the hospital with a dislocated jaw, a broken nose, and a lesion in his brain after he took a crowbar to the head. he was on his last semester of law school.

which, of course, put a damper on his parents’ plans of finally having a lawyer in the family. and it took a while, but throughout the frustration of relearning how to put a shirt on or the staring spells he would have in the living room or the fact that he started having atonic seizures that required a service dog in his aid, he decided to see the silver lining coming about a year into his recovery.

meds were expensive and therapy didn’t come cheap, so when he submitted a column narrating his experience from small-town mediocrity from a turkish-albanian background to big city law school dropout now with a disability card to a local publication, he’d only expected the cash it came with in exchange for his submission; he didn’t expect an email from a guy who, as it turned out, was a pretty big tv producer saying that he’d read his column and wanted to meet up to chat about an ‘opportunity’.

said opportunity turned out to be a job offer. or, well, a trial offer— he was currently producing the second season of a show on comedy central and wanted to invite him on as a writer’s assistant. with no employment opportunities on his immediate horizon ( with the alternative being to book a plane ticket back to ohio ), he knew he couldn’t say no.

the job was not glamorous and the salary was dismal, but it helped him remember how to become a person again, this time in an environment he actually enjoyed. no more case readings, no more depressing internship hunts with law firms who didn’t want him.

as he became more and more immersed into the culture of the show ( and other programs in the network ), he was eventually given his own episodes to write, all the while making his debut on stage as a stand up comic ( which was a difficult feat to even try and muster the courage to face an audience, let alone an audience in bars ). shortly after he’d made a relatively dignified name for himself, he started working on publishing his first book, which he liked to describe as ‘part-memoir, part-fiction, 100% mediocre’ entitled ‘Stop and Smell the...’ which chronicled his experience as a small-town midwestern boy who gre up in an immigrant household and was then living in a big city with a condition that could very well be attributed to his big mouth.

and he was, by no means, famous. maybe not even quasi-famous. but his new life had allowed him to support his family back home especially when his father had come down with a mysterious illness that prohibited him from continuing work. on top of that, his younger sister had gotten pregnant and was then forced to marry a businessman in cincinnati just so she could raise the child.

his father finally succumbed to his illness last december and it was only then that tan finally came home to deal with the funeral arrangements. he took a sabbatical from work, with every intention of his trip back to pleasance being temporary, but it’s months and he still hasn’t found it in him to leave pleasance again.

extras:

he has been living with his family again and has no plans of getting a place on his own since this is just ‘temporary’.

yes, he also brought his service dog, dakota ( and yes, he’s montana and she’s dakota and they’re just quirky like that 🤪 ) with him to pleasance and he takes her everywhere. since the move, dakota has enjoyed the bigger spaces that pleasance has to offer and you can find the pair most often at the park or playing catch on death ranch where the thrill of getting caught has never gotten old since he was seven.

he’s bisexual and he came out in 2013. he’s always sort of known that he’s not just attracted to girls since he was younger ( as evidenced by the will-they-won’t-they relationship he had with his ex-best friend kincade fuckin rippp ) but he’s never really been open about that part of himself until then.

a serial dater and a serial flirt. also soooo so so needy.

he’s a taurus sun with an aries moon so he’s equal parts ‘date me uwu’ and ‘fite me uwu’

like his fc bariş, tan sports a half-sleeve tattoo on his left arm: (body image tw) click here for reference !! also a smiley on his right thigh, his siblings’ initials on his right ankle, and a small ‘K’ on his left hip.

his comedy is very hasan minhaj meets bob newhart: all the ~~~~woke millennial goodness of hasan wrapped with bob newhart’s brand of deadpan delivery sprinkled with a little bit of john mulaney’s observational humor.

#phqintro #assault tw #injury tw #illness tw #death tw #pregnancy mention tw

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rhyolight · 3 years

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🍀, ☁️, 🐬, 💥, Idk what this is asking. I haven’t thought about that, having wings would be cool. Hmm, I’d transform into some kinda seabird, that way I could experience flying, but also still be close to water and be able to enjoy swimming! My first thought was to go with politics, but that’s a fire I don’t want to start. Idk, I think k-pop is overrated. It’s not bad, but it’s like any other pop music. I also would be fine with it if 1990s and early 2000s trends came back. -ゆう

if you could be any fictional character's best friend/lover who would you choose?

hmm... I'm torn between being best friends with Habit and Ticci Toby. They're dangerous, but being their friend gives you some safety, right?

talk about your dream universe

In my perfect world I'd have all the people I care bout in a house high in the mountain surrounded by forests that are not pine trees because I hate pine trees. There would be a lake that would be crystal clear and always the perfect temperature, the ocean would be close, and of course a town for me to terrorize as the local cryptid.

If you could transform into any animal/magical creature what would you choose?

Ooh, wings sound cool! Also, I'd love claws. So a dragon.

what are some unpopular opinions that you have?

I actually agree with you, but here are some of mine. Milk in cereal is disgusting. The endgame movie thing is overrated. The pythagorean theorum is fun. The old town road song, whip nae nae song, and that thunder song always have been and always will be terrible. And at least among my friends this is unpopular, but I don't like the character of the observer. And if people disagrees, remember that these are unpopular opinions.

#carrot fish #tw emoji

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everythingwrong · 3 years

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EVERYTHING WRONG WITH KPOP

Before we start discussing about the problems or the backlashes faced by the Korean Pop industry, we need to know a little about how and where this entertainment industry began. A term now widely used to refer to the popularity of Korean entertainment and culture across Asia and other parts of the world, Hallyu or the “Korean Wave” first appeared during the mid-1990s. After Korea entered into diplomatic relations with China in 1992 and Korean TV dramas and pop music gained great popularity in Chinese-speaking communities.

Me personally being a Korean entertainment fan cannot choose to ignore the various flaws in the Korean entertainment industry. As a K-pop the music given me positivity and happiness. And I do think that a lot of fans of the K-pop and K-dramas will agree with me that the Korean Entertainment industry has brought in more happiness in our lives. And, I think a lot of us are well aware of the tight schedules, unhealthy diets and toxicity within the industry. Through this video I would like to address the problems the idols face due to this beauty standard and perfection that Korean entertainment industry showcases.

Now, let's start addressing the actual problems that this industry faces. This industry is racist, xenophobic, sexist and fatphobic.

1. EXISTENCE OF SLAVE CONTRACTS

The idols are made to sign slave contracts with the entertainment labels. And, these contracts gives the entertainment labels complete control over the idols and their daily life is strictly monitored by their managers. Even, the food that they consume is monitored by their managers. Now, addressing about "slave contracts ".In the past, K-Pop contracts usually were around 7-15 years, so they were nicknamed “slave contracts. However, many artists started filing lawsuits due to how unreasonable these contracts were. Over the years, companies started settling down and shortened the length of their contracts. Despite all of this, even if an idol group becomes famous majority of the money goes to the managers and the entertainment label.

We all know how draining the kpop industry is,the idols are overworked, pressured and always have to be on their best behaviour. This makes them sacrifice their mental health. And along with all of these they even have to deal with a lot of criticism from the audience. And we have also seen several cases of kpop idols who not having been able to deal with the pressure in the industry and having received hate from people choose to end their lives. And, the scandals in industry are on a different level and that it.

2. THE BEAUTY STANDARDS

Idols are sometimes forced to have a plastic surgery to meet the beauty standard. But, nowadays due to a lot of emphasis on the freedom of idols, the idols can sue the company if they are forced to undergo a plastic surgery, but majority of the time the idols are trainees when they are asked undergo surgeries and stuff. What more would a trainee want than getting a chance to debut. So instead of taking any legal courses the idols end of altering themselves to just be part of the industry. And, this negatively influences not only the idols but also the fans who follow them. All Asian countries in general have a perception that if a person has white skin he/she beautiful. And this perception is overemphasised by this industry. Now, about them being fatphobic. Any female idol weighing above 50 kgs is forced to go on a strict diet,due to this a lot of idols end up being underweight and and they also develop several health complication. And on several instances companies and idols have been caught lying about their weight just to maintain the image and be a part of the beauty standards. And we have also seen instances where idols have fainted while preforming on stages.

3. HARDSHIPS THAT TRAINEE'S HAVE TO UNDERGO

Trainee's. We all know that before a new idol group is formed the entertainment label conducts auditions. There are usually many auditions held each year but it’s pretty hard to pass the audition since there are many people auditioning.

When you become a trainee you have to take singing, dancing, and acting lessons as well as some language classes if you are a foreigner. Life as a trainee can be hard because of the tight schedules and also the mistreatment. During the evaluations the trainees have to perform their best to show the company that there are making progress in their training or else they’ll get kicked from the company if they’re not improving. And they are also graded on a monthly basis and ranked, due to which the idol trainees are under constant pressure to be number one.

In addition to their training, trainees also usually receive homework to do on a daily basis, and if they don’t do their homework given to them by their company, they’re going to get left behind. There are many trainees who give up their dreams of becoming a kpop idol because of the tight schedules and all the training and practice they have to do in order to not get kicked from the company. And also, there are certain companies who request to get paid training fees by their trainees,but, it’s not common. And, in addition to this, there have been situations in which several people who have trained for years to be become an idol ,have not been able to become one. Just think,what career options do they have left, they would have put in all their efforts into becoming a idol and if they or their group fail to debut what are they supposed. How are they supposed to fend themselves.

4. RACISM

There have been several instances of racism that kpop stars belonging to different ethnicities or mixed race stars have undergone.SBS Pop Asia reported that Fei from Miss A had stated that during her early days in the kpop she was tormented by people who thought that she showered only once a week as she was Chinese. And,singer Shannon was repeatedly called a foreigner despite her being half korean. Mamamoo, a girl group has also given a lengthy apology for putting on a blackface to portray Bruno Mars.

5. CULTURAL APPROPRITATION

https://twitter.com/adorebybeykook/status/1270817395242827778?s=20

https://youtu.be/uUCrK4aQOlg

youtube

On June 26, one of the biggest groups in the K-pop music industry made their long-awaited comeback. Blackpink, a four-member girl group, released their single "How You Like That" and its accompanying music video after over a year, breaking several records. It became the YouTube video, as well as the music video, with the most views in a day at a whopping 86.3 million. But as fans rejoiced about their favourite group’s comeback, another corner of the internet outraged. In yet another incident, K-pop idols were called out for misappropriating South Asian culture and religion.In a scene that has now been removed, one of the members could be seen rapping sitting beside a sculpture of Lord Ganesh, a Hindu god. South Asian K-pop fans expressed their anger at the fact that the bust was just used for aesthetic purposes on the set—which had nothing to do with Hinduism. In Hindu religion, the elephant-headed god is invoked at the beginning of prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies. Fans not happy about seeing the deity being used as prop then spoke out against cultural appropriation in the music industry, lashing out against it on social media.

In 2017, Korean idol Lee Hyo Ri came out with a song called “White Snake”.The song was just one of the thousands that K-pop idols had released that year, except for the one thing that made it stand out: It had a stanza of the Gayatri Mantra, a Sanskrit chant that is said to be one of the holiest mantras in Hindu culture. It is a Vedic prayer, associated with the divine and the pure. So obviously, when South Asian fans saw her perform a seductive sequence to it, they weren’t very happy, to say the least.

Despite all of the flaws in the industry. I will continue to support my favourite idols because they deserve a lot of support for what they are doing. And it is our support that keeps them going. And again,thank you for watching this video and do not forget to like, subscribe and comment.

#kpop #racism #slavecontracts #fatphobic #Spotify #Youtube

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revivallifestylechange · 4 years

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Returning to the Internet

Hey guys, it’s The Pop Cult Gamer here. It’s been awhile. After thinking about it long and hard, I decided that I am gonna return to the internet. At least for the time being? But there are few things:

1) No tagging me in anything Sonic-related - I have gotten over Sonic for good and put it behind me for good. I have successfully let the series fade into obscurity in my memory. I have put my Adult Sonic and Amy redesigns behind for good. I want nothing to do with Sonic anymore.

2) No talking to me about politics - It’s just gonna start a fight and I don’t want that.

3) I have dropped Funimation’s dubs - Because of all the scandals and controversies surrounding Funimation lately, I have boycotted Funimation’s dubbing. I am only watching subs of their shows now. I have been praying that Funimation will change their ways.

4) No sharing NSFW with me - As a Christian, that goes against my morals, standards and values.

5) No tagging me in or sharing PlayToons 1: Uncle Archibald with me - That game traumatized me back in my childhood in 1999 and I am trying to erase that game from my childhood. I have been getting horrible nightmares about lately it just like when I was a kid. The game was extremely scary and disturbing. I can’t believe that game was actually marketed towards children Ages 4-10 and was rated K-A by the ESRB. They should have recalled that game and re-rated M for Mature.

6) No arguments tagging me or sharing arguments with me about whether or not someone is a “90’s kid” - I am pretty fed up with seeing this argument on literally any kind of nostalgic post. Everyone is different with how they can remember things and how far back they can remember. Anyone who was born in 1981-1996 was a 90’s kid. I was born in 1994 and I remember 1996-1999 (but I have much, much more memories of 97-99 than 1996.) Just because someone else was born in 1990-1994 doesn’t mean they can’t remember the 90’s. And I don’t consider myself a true 2000’s kid because I was also a teenager in the 2000’s and I was too old for many, many shows that 2000’s kids grew up on. I actually stopped watching Nickelodeon and Disney after 2004. In 2005-2009, I was watching more serious and mature shows including FOX reality shows like American Idol and Hell’s Kitchen, crime dramas, teen dramas, Adult Swim, anime including Bleach, Inuyasha, FMA, Code Geass, Death Note, Family Guy, American Dad!, etc. And also, my teenhood was awkward as well. That’s why I am more nostalgic for the 90’s and the early 2000’s. It was a more happier time in my life.

Anyway, I may not be as active as I once was before. But I have some drawings planned out. This a series I am gonna be making as part of my future career. It’s gonna be a Christian, action series. It’s gonna be both a video game and an anime. I am also gonna be drawing characters from other series as well.

One more thing, when you’re out in public. Please remember to wear a mask and social distance. Even you don’t think you’re gonna get COVID-19, be of courteous to others.

#thepopcultgamer

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seeksstaronmewni · 5 years

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Oh, Joy! The Insanely Amazing Art of Animation Cartooning in Ren & Stimpy

In the era and world of the “modern” cartoon, there’s one show that started and defined most of the cartoons that we watch today... and that show is Spümcø’s/s The Ren & Stimpy Show.

What is there to love about a crazy, wacky, gross, dark and violent cartoon that people say is “ground-breaking”?

The gags. The detail. The sound. The stock music. The design. The animation. The layout artists...

I could go on about a show that was a part of @nickanimation’s/@nickelodeon... although, while considered a “kids” show, it truly is one of those... “cartoons for MEN”.

WARNING FOR HATERS: Before I go on, in regards to the show’s controversial creator, If his wrongs cause you to think hatefully of him, AVOID THIS POST! Don’t associate your hate with my posts and tweets about this ground-breaking cartoon.

Anyway, let’s look deep into the magic of the wackiest cartoon ever created that changed animation--namely “Western” animation--forever and for good...

THE TALENT

Under the creators Lynne Naylor-Reccardi, Jim Gomez, Felix Forte, and controversial creator John K., many gifted artists were a part of this amazing series, including @donshank, Charlie Bean, Carey Yost, Bob Camp, Chris Savino, @stephendestefano, the late and great Chris Reccardi (I began this article prior to his death on May 2nd, 2019 A.D.), Marc Perry, Mr. Lawrence (the “Ooh! My leg! My leg...” guy), Vincent Waller, Donovan Cook, Larry Murphy, Richard Pursel, @gadworks, @ncrossanimation, and many others. These people, many of whom were in the layout department, would go on from Spümcø to work on some of the most popular pieces of “Western” animation in history, like Spongebob Squarepants, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Dexter’s Laboratory, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Mickey Mouse (Paul Rudish era), The Incredibles, the also ground-breaking The 2 Stupid Dogs/Super Secret Secret Squirrel Show and so much more!

One thing to note about these creatives is that John K.’s production company, Spümcø, was based in Canada, and so were its staff and creatives. I note this as most Canadian cartoons these days have no creatives who work in popular American animation (save for Wild Kratts character designer Alan Stewart, who did character design for some Season 7--or, in “reboot terms”, season 2--episodes of The Powerpuff Girls, as well as Lauren Faust’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Season 1 of Johnny Test). Most Canadian cartoons these days are on PBS or Cartoon Network, and some of those are imported from Teletoon or YTV. Such Canadian cartoons as Total Drama’s franchise, The Adventures of Benjamin Bear, My Pet Goldfish is Evil, and the like don’t have creatives who work on more “American” media.

Certain talents of Ren & Stimpy included Michael Fontanelli, Charlie Bean, Vincent Waller and Eddie Fitzgerald (creator of CN’s Tales of Worm Paranoia), who went on to contribute their artist talents in the YouTube Poop-phenomenon Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, which somewhat resembles that art direction of The Ren & Stimpy Show. Such talents also contributed to another insane-looking cartoon, Film Roman’s The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat. Likewise, one of my favorite character designers, Carey Yost, who contributed to The Powerpuff Girls, Uncle Grandpa and Spongebob Squarepants, was a major layout artist on this show. Charlie Bean (Samurai Jack, The Powerpuff Girls, The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog) and Don Shank (most of the above, plus Sym-Bionic Titan) also served as layout artists, and they with Carey created a gem of a Cartoon Network Minisode, Buy One, Get One Free*, which reflects the animation and art of Spümcø and features creatives of Spümcø.

THE DETAILS

First thing to note in both art and animation is the barrier-breaking levels of exaggeration. The “wild take” is a common element to slapstick cartoons like The Ren & Stimpy Show, and the controversial creator was a part of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons (which developed the Cartoon Network and its studios). Many Spümcø creatives would work at H-B, too. Hanna-Barbera, who worked with animation legends like Tex Avery, would create some of the wildest takes in cartoons with A Pup Named Scooby-Doo!, but The Ren & Stimpy Show’s Season 2 opener “In The Army”, written & directed by Bob Camp, features what is probably the wildest wild take ever conceived by man in the history of history:

“You don’t want to anger that big, dopey...”

“...sar...”

*( Sound Ideas, BOING, CARTOON - FLAT JEWS HARP BOING )*

*clink!*

*( Sound Ideas, THUMP, CARTOON - TUBE THUNK 01 )* [+12 pitch]

*glass breaks*

*( Sound Ideas, WOBBLE, CARTOON - SAW BLADE WOBBLE, MEDIUM )*

This wild take is really slow, huh?

Wait for it...

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

As if that weren’t wild enough, his brain pops out of his skull! Now, that’s more than just icing on the cake... it’s GENIUS!

Teen Titans GO! is perhaps the peak in the evolution of the “modern” cartoon that began with Ren & Stimpy, and in the hands of producer/director Luke Cormican, a layout artist on Ren & Stimpy’s “Adult Party Cartoon” episodes. It’s very nice that, in TTG episode “The Streak (Part 2)”, there was the parody illustration of duos in media, comparing Robin to Ren and Beast Boy to Stimpy. Some of the character designers on TTG worked on shows that included creatives from The Ren & Stimpy Show, too, namely Chris Battle.

One of the most popular episodes, of course, is the season one finale, Stimpy’s Invention.

These shots from the scene of Stimpy attempting to invent something are just beautiful! Great attention to detail and the lighting (including effects design) give a very cinematic, theatrical feel to a mere, 11-minute episode of a TV show. The art of the series has the charm of a 1940′s Paramount/Famous Studios “Noveltoon”, the Bob Clampett-directed Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes shorts (a major inspiration for John K.), and the Saturday morning cartoons of the 1960s, and the show’s creatives would become part of certain modern cartoons in the 1990s, some of which were dubbed by @cartoonnetwork as “Cartoon Cartoons”.

Also cinematic to the quality is the authentic film grain, a result of recording the cels (animated frame by frame on their respective backgrounds) on film. The deterioration of the episode’s film masters make it look believably like something out of the 1960s or even The Golden Age of Hollywood, the 1940s! (I personally dislike the quality that the videotape masters add to the picture, though. It may be that, in the future, UHD / HD prints could use the actual film masters, though!)

Some shots of Stimpy in Stimpy’s Invention have a color mistake where, like in the title card of the pilot “Big House Blues”, Stimpy’s nose is red instead of blue. It looks pretty swell on him, though.

The grooves and moves that Ren & Stimpy make during the montage of the song Happy Happy Joy Joy are filled with bouncy, weight-distributing pieces of animation, with lots of squash and stretch.

Speaking of “squash and stretch”, the above pics are of the extremes as Stimpy does a take of joy when he succeeds at making Ren be happy.

The takes of the characters really stretch their design and animation. Aurally, a common sound effect to accent these takes is a quick, loud record scratch, and their shaking/trembling movements often sound like a record rapidly skipping.

Regarding one of my favorite character designers, much of the designs by @cheyennecurtisart and @lynnvwang in early episodes of Disney’s Star vs. the Forces of Evil (particularly “Brittney’s Party”) are highly graphic and detailed, and that work of hers reminds me of the designs by Chris & Lynne Reccardi, Jim Smith, John K. and others. Very similar are the designs of @stephendestefano on Disney’s Mickey Mouse, which are also very graphic and extreme with character takes and injury aftermaths.

In the infamous Happy Happy Joy Joy sequence in “Stimpy’s Invention”, to stop himself from being controlled by the Happy Helmet, Ren whacks it (and thus himself) with a hammer to break it..

...and every hit pushes the extremes of not only the looks of his body, but also the styles of the psychotic-looking backgrounds.

Often in the show is a lot of mental breakdowns, including the end of Stimpy’s Invention as Ren goes from being the angriest he ever was in his entire life...

...to becoming very jovial as he comes to love being angry. That also causes a change in these psychedelic, psychotic backgrounds. The practice of such backgrounds came to other cartoons of the 1990s, such as The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show, in the episode “Night of the Living Shnookums”, with art direction by Lynne Naylor.

Another great episode, one of my favorites, is “The Boy Who Cried Rat!”, directed by Vincent Waller, who, replying to my tweet compliment, described the episode as “a chance to tip the hat to all the amazing cartoonist/ writer/ funny people who took the time to invest theirselves into their artwork for the enjoyment and tutelage of the regular folks and cartoonists to come.” The episode involves a literal game of “Cat and Mouse” and Stimpy tries to make a living for him and Ren by unleashing his inner cat in service to a couple. It probably bases itself, of course, on Tom and Jerry, and Ren’s costume references the fashion of Mickey Mouse.

Eventually, Stimpy is forced into eating the rat whom Ren plays (this reminds me of another classic cartoon, @paramountpictures’s Noveltoon called Cheese Burglar, featuring Herman and Katnip). In terms of cartoon physics, though, how did Ren become small enough to fit inside Stimpy’s mouth?

This episode features a very clever, unexpected visual gag that is the result of being hit with a frying pan.

See? and it’s not even a violent image, either.

Sometimes, the show would feature various segments among the episodes, including their close-out segment “What’ll We Do ‘Til Then”. The Ren & Stimpy Show actually predates Animaniacs (1993), VeggieTales (1993) and Uncle Granpda (2013), which were similar with a variety of segment material.

THE ANIMATION

The animation is certainly something when one considers the defining quality of this show’s animation, which occasionally was produced by Rough Draft Studios in Seoul, Korea, one of the most popular animation studios today. There’s also some great timing directors, like David Feiss (Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy), Bob Jacques, James Tim Walker (Samurai Jack, The Powerpuff Girls, Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring), Kent Butterworth (Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog) and even the awesome Tony Fucile (Osmosis Jones, The Iron Giant, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, Inside Out, The Little Mermaid), who was uncredited for a few episodes like “In The Army” and “Ren’s Toothache”).

This scene of animation from the episode “Nurse Stimpy” (frame shown above) is one of the very best pieces of animation ever done in the series. The balance between slow and mostly fast-paced animation/timing, along with weight, looks very cinematic--of theatrical-quality animation (like Don Bluth, Tony Fucile, etc.). The film’s quality is fairly deteriorated here, but film specks and stuff add to the cinematic feel.

THE SOUND

The sound design, of course, done at Horta Editorial and Sound, which became/folded into Hacienda Post at Sabre Media Studios, was also defining for the modern cartoon as an unusual array of sound effects were used to accent all sorts of takes, impacts, etc. The use of Hanna-Barbera & Warner Bros. sound effects (mostly available from Sound Ideas) with Disney sound effects (mostly available from Hollywood Edge’s Cartoon Trax Volume One) became a very common blend for many sound designers, up to today. Hacienda Post’s founder and president, Timothy J. Borquez (Spongebob Squarepants, Samurai Jack, The Powerpuff Girls), served as the Re-Recording Mixer and Supervising Editor, as well as the uncredited sound designer, and considers the groundbreaking show to be “a laboratory for using classic sounds (in different contextual situations); adding Foley and new design to create "hybrid" textures and moments. We conscientiously did this and it opened up a whole new world for us! A lot of this was done on the mix stage.” He worked with talented sound editors like Michael M. Geisler, M.P.S.E., Michael A. Gollom, and sound/music editor William B. Griggs. Speaking of cartoon sound design expert Michael M. Geisler, M.P.S.E., in an Animation World Network article, Michael Geisler described the detailed process of sound design in a moment of the controversially violent scene in “Man’s Best Friend” (which never showed the credits): “Sometimes the eyelid closing and the eyelid opening are two very separate actions, and so each motion, open and close, must have different sound effects. In "Man's Best Friend," the classic Ren & Stimpy episode that introduces George Liquor, Ren smacks George with his own "Prize Bludgeoning Oar" and George's eye pops out of his head like a piece of meat. The eyelid does a wet sounding movement down over the eye until the eyelids meet and blink (splat, wet hit), and then slosh up again.” For some reason, however, on prints of that episode, George’s blink is silent.

The music for the show was usually unoriginal, very much like the series soundtrack to Spongebob, as it was mostly composed of music provided by Associated Production Music (APM). This included classical music, too, just as Tom and Jerry, Disney’s Silly Symphonies and Warner Bros.’ Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes would often use. Someone even created 3 volumes of Production Music from Ren & Stimpy, unofficial collections of APM music from the series. I kind of wish that they made those.

You may wonder at this point: After many years of seeing almost nothing of this series, how found I The Ren & Stimpy Show in my life?

I knew or remember very little of the show as I grew up (at least attempting to watch the episode “Ren’s Pecs” one Sunday afternoon in 2007 on Nick), but on August 13th, 2016 I saw another Spümcø project, the later Yogi Bear (or Ranger Smith) episode “Boo Boo Runs Wild”, on @adultswim. John K.’s approach to a classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon (CN doesn’t even air this stuff on anymore) was very inspiring. Looking the names of the team up on IMDb, I found that they were a part of many amazing cartoons that i grew up watching! In May 2017, recommended on my YouTube user were “disturbing” scenes from The Ren & Stimpy Show, including Ren’s insane threats in Sven Höek (the audio of which I heard in a YTP where the King [of Hyrule] goes psycho and does the same menacing threats) and perhaps a spiritual taste of Hell in Stimpy’s Fan Club. Ren’s acting (voiced then by creator John K) was so hilarious that, from that point onward, I desired to see more of this groundbreaking cartoon on which I was missing out.

On the day that I began to concept this post, June 18th, 2018, in my final visit to Toys ‘R Us (a local one, though I remember visiting the New York one in 2001), I got collectible Ren & Stimpy figures, and at the time of this post’s original concept I placed Ren and Stimpy in the presence of my Aku wacky wobbler.

It’s interesting that a 2018 Google spot regarding how children react to crowd noise used an excerpt from the episode Stimpy’s Fan Club. This practice is like certain phone commercials (namely T-Mobile, I think) that use some brief footage from “public domain” cartoons. Likewise, what Google did with that ad makes The Ren & Stimpy Show feel like a public domain cartoon (and the highly famous Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes and Popeye shorts were often distributed as “public domain” too, though WarnerMedia holds the ultimate rights to the shorts).

From a Christian viewpoint, The Ren & Stimpy Show is sometimes controversial, but its biggest controversy is whether it’s really a kids show or not--perhaps more of an adult show--mostly due to violence and intense situations like the aforementioned mental breakdowns (this excludes the “Adult Party Cartoon” episodes as those were deliberately produced for adults). Of course, classic cartoons of MGM, Warner Bros. and other studios would often show violence, sensuality, smoking, and alcoholics (even though Cartoon Network/Boomerang still rates them “TV-G”), so even those weren’t produced completely with children in mind. That’s why I consider this show and the aforementioned classic cartoons as “cartoons for MEN”.

The humor and heart of The Ren & Stimpy Show isn’t the purest either, given all of Ren’s hate and violent anger, but Stimpy’s Fan Club has an actually touching ending: after attempting to kill Stimpy or otherwise at least upset him, Ren discovers that the one fan letter addressed to him was from no one else but Stimpy himself--and Stimpy meant every word in his letter. Then, Ren is broken to tears.

THE FUTURE?

As a devote cartoon-watching guy, I find great inspiration from the barrier-breaking art and animation, visually and aurally, of The Ren & Stimpy Show. If you love slapstick comedy and cartoons, then this one’s definitely worth a watch--essential viewing. I surely hope that it comes back again; I can agree on one’s opinion for the show to come back (and, if you want the show to be rebooted as I do, share this IMDb list with Nickelodeon/Spümcø or whatever studio’s in charge). Now, if Viacom/Nick is willing, [adult swim]/Turner/WarnerMedia or some other studio may be better off to purchase the rights to Ren & Stimpy, as Nick or at least Paramount no longer wants anything to do with the series (due to the objectionable material in the “Adult Party Cartoon”), according to this article.

There were rumors of an upcoming Ren & Stimpy short that Nickelodeon Animation was producing. IMDb once removed the title, but now the short “It’s Our House Now!” may be in production by Jessica Borutski, also a former layout artist on the “Adult Party Cartoon”; this may be based on a short John K. sketched to promote Sponge Out of Water.

The closest thing to Ren & Stimpy so far is John K.’s Cans with out Labels [WARNING: some strong language and nudity], a dark, edgy Kickstarter short featuring George Liquor, including storyboards & layouts by Jim Smith and amazingly cartoonish, detailed, over-the-top animation, contributed by @gadworks, @mikepelensky and @sandrarivasart (a DVD is available for $25 purchase here). Color cards were made by @kalikazoo too.

In the future, also, it would be swell to see true high-definition transfers of the actual film negatives for the non-digitally animated episodes of Ren & Stimpy. Most filmed cartoons were often recorded onto videotape masters, which lowered the quality, and I suppose that some of the film negatives still exist in Spumco’s/Nickelodeon’s archives. In point of fact, this clip of The Muddy Mudskipper Intro here looks like it came from an actual film negative (of which I tweeted), with brighter colors and no videotape quality. Though the film looks fairly aged, it looks better than usual prints of the scene.

As we come to the conclusion, I have some additional notes: I began this post in January 2019. 5 months later, Chris Reccardi died, so I refer to him in my posts as the Late and Great Chris Reccardi. He and his family are in my thoughts and prayers. A documentary premiered at Sundance 2020 on January 28th, 2020, Ron Cicero’s Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story; while the controversial creator is known for some terrible things he did due to mental issues in the past, the least people could do is respect the work of both John K and his groundbreaking team. If it weren’t for them, many great Western animation projects for Cartoon Network, Pixar, Disney TVA, Nickelodeon and others would not be the same.

Before I close, whether or not you think negatively of John K., here’s something you should know, understand, and remember about the value of the creatives of The Ren & Stimpy Show: "Brilliant cartoonists like Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith, Bob Camp, Vincent Waller, Rich Pursel, Elinor Blake, Bill Wray, Chris Reccardi, Gabe Swarr and many many more added a lot of richness and personality to the cartoons. Actors like Billy West, Cheryl Chase, Mike Pataki, Gary Owens, Eric Bauza and others inspired us all to capture the subtle nuances in their readings. Henry Porch, Bill Griggs and Tim Borquez contributed much to the wacky new sound design style Ren and Stimpy was known for. We also had some very talented producers like Chris Danzo, Libby Simon and Kevin Kolde who helped me execute the totally new production system that gave the artists ways to express themselves more personally. These people and more are all heroes to me. Think of them when you remember my cartoons." I will always think of these people and pray for them.

For the inspiration, I give thanks to the entire Spümcø staff and creatives who went on to produce some of the best cartoons ever made.

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thekonnection82 · 5 years

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As promised, Mamamoo completes their year long project ‘Four Seasons Four Colors’ with the release of their ninth mini album ‘White Wind’ on March 14. ‘Four Seasons Four Colors’ had goals of building up Mamamoo’s artistic repertoire by exploring new sounds that are unexpected of the group. Using seasons and colors for the concept gives the quartet wide range to accomplish these goals. Reviewing the last two mini albums (‘Red Moon’ and ‘Blue;s’) have been awesome, and I felt obliged to post about the final piece of the project.

The concept for this album treats white as the blank canvas for Mamamoo to freely create an array of colors by using the colors they had showcased in the past, conceptually both primary and neon colors. Mamamoo pays homage to their start as they use their bright colors in a modernized way parallel to their jazzy, retro-pop concept of debut. The way they are bolder and cooler with the pop of neon gave me the essence of their previous releases under the primary colors. Even the album cover design used a gradient accent of blue and purple that reminded me of their mini album cover for ‘Purple’ that was released prior to this project, which they first expressed the concept of mixing colors to symbolize a new sound. With all this said and seeing the teasers, I wondered if they were in any way revisiting their old sound.

I’ll be quoting Mamamoo as they gave descriptions of each song in their highlight medley video.

Let’s get to it!

‘White Wind’ Album Art

‘Where R U’

R&B song that expresses the heart fluttering feelings of waiting for a destined lover, as if they’re playing hide-and-seek.

This track took me by surprise by how airy and light the production was. The plucked chords reminded me of strings from the violin family, and the flute synth notes created a refreshing, dreamy sound. If you listen closely during the pre-chorus you can hear xylophones chiming in and it plays as a cute little accent. These parts gave me the feeling that I was probably going to transcend into heaven, but the guitar and the main beat helped balance out the mentioned parts as if to keep listeners grounded. The vocals expressed well about wondering where their future lover is. Although Mamamoo sang lightly, they didn’t sound weak or broken but rather firm. The way the song ended felt abrupt and awkward, only to realize it emphasized the wonder that surrounded the repeated question.

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‘Gogobebe’ (Title Track)

The song uses the ‘jijibee (…)’ from Kim Gunmo‘s ‘Jjanga‘ as a motif for the lyrics and melody. You will be able to see Mamamoo having fun and enjoying themselves without clinging to past loves or things that have happened.

Mamamoo embodies a liberating dance track here. Solar and Hwasa have entrancing control of the refrain as it draws you in and encourages you to continue partying with the group. Wheein delivers her lines in a sassy and chic way that you can forget her soft side. Moonbyul, raps her self-written lines coolly and with ease, and I appreciate her parts had two differing tones. The chorus’ melody reminded me of R&B girl groups of the 1990’s, which gave a different kind of retro vibe (compared to their rookie funky-pop releases). Within the chorus, the line where the members sang in unison gives emphasis to the theme of letting everything go. Yet, I find the theme ironic when the arrangement and production of this song sounded like it was crafted carefully and intricately. I never would have thought the combination of reggaeton and this latin guitar riff would be tasteful. So this is a fun, colorful track that will make you move in any way as you please.

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Check out ‘Jjanga‘ by Kim Gun Mo, who co-composed this track.

‘Waggy‘

Bossanova-style song that tickles your heart like a spring wind, and has witty lyrics. It’s a song that’s like listening to a friend who has fallen in love and can’t hide their heart fluttering excitement.

When the simple instrumentals started playing, I already had good feelings towards this song as it sounded upbeat and sweet. ‘Waggy’ really oozes fluttering affection, perfect for the spring season. The vocals are charming as they sing like a fresh breeze, and bounced to the rhythm like animated springing flowers. Mamamoo’s “beagle” humor could not be avoided as they added cute but subtle animal sounds throughout the song. The trumpet solo was a nice, classy touch that rides along the track’s wholesomeness. This quaint song was a little reminiscent to their similar, but more relaxing bossa nova track called ‘My Hometown’ (2016). It was nice to hear Mamamoo do this style of song again as it reminded listeners of their strength in making something a little old sound new while maintaining their boisterous group personality. You can definitely see this come to life as they performed ‘Waggy’ on music shows as they dressed up in various costumes and finding amusement out of Hwasa’s tsundere attitude.

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‘25‘

…still clumsy at 25, missing her natural, pure younger days while still loving her own self now, a step closer to her dream by maturing strongly.

Since Wheein holds the color and wind symbol for this project, ‘25’ is the album’s obligatory solo track. Knowing her discography, Wheein is usually the one being featured, or has had a rapper feature on her tracks. It was nice to hear Wheein sound relaxed yet her serious effort was still prevalent. Even co-writing this song, ‘25’ gives listeners a chance to hear a personal, introspective side of Wheein. Besides the lyrics, the smoothness and steady groove of this song gives a sense of nostalgia, especially for those who grew up with ‘90s-early 2000s R&B. The simple arrangement of guitar and snap beats didn’t overshadow Wheein’s varying vocals as it expressed genuine gratitude. Mamamoo’s fanbase, or Moomoos, would find this track so obvious in style as they are familiar with her leaning towards R&B and soul. It’s a down-to-earth, chill song which acted as a nice break between the livelier songs throughout the album.

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On the set of ‘You Hee-yeol’s Sketchbook’ .

Backstage at M Countdown.

‘Bad Bye‘

Pop slash R&B track that ardently expresses the painful feelings of not being able to accept an approaching breakup. As the farewell is too painful and bad, a ‘good bye’ is expressed as ‘bad bye’.

This song started off with sad piano notes and I assumed it would be Mamamoo’s classic pop-ballad like the way they performed on music show “Immortal Songs 2” or their diva-esque ‘I Miss You’ (2016). But the thought was immediately denied when the mid-tempo beat with brief pulsating synth high hats, rain drops as snaps, and deep basses came in. The vocals are strong throughout the song, even at their lowest, softest parts. The melody sounded distressing and reminiscent (again) of old-school pop slash R&B tracks of the early millennium. The arrangement briefly alters during Moonbyu’s first rap part, and I thought it was interesting how dark it felt. Overall, listeners can belt out their heartache with some rhythm and soul.

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‘My star‘

It expresses ‘You are my star’ to someone who can’t be compared to anyone else. The heavy bass and trendy beat hit you powerfully.

A few seconds of the intro created a dramatic mood. Mamamoo is definitely right when they say that this song hits you hard, especially since the heavy bass drives the song. To match the heavy bass’ booming energy, the vocals had to sound mighty and confident as well. Solar’s tone fits perfectly for this, and Hwasa’s raspiness added some texture as it stands out more when reaching for those loud, high notes. The rap sounded gritty and flowed rhythmically well even though it was so brief. I kind of expected the bridge to be totally toned down, but there were spurts of the resonant notes (in the background) that tells me the energy was not going to be halted at any time. Kudos to Wheein who sprinkles the ending chorus with her falsettos. This song was very enjoyable and can uplift one’s mood.

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‘4season (Outro)‘

It’s a song that brings Mamamoo’s ‘Four Seasons Four Color’ project into one. It has lyrics about each of the album themes, ‘moon, wind, flower, and sun’

This definitely ties up the ‘Four Seasons Four Colors’ project nicely. The arrangement felt warm and laid back, and it had me reminiscing of what Mamamoo tried to prove with this project for the past year. It’s parallel to their song ‘Paint Me’, but instead of talking about the colors they mention each season. Like how Mamamoo has described in their highlight medley, the outro encourages listeners and fans alike to continue on making memories with the group, which implied that just because the project is over, does not mean their musical ventures end.

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Promoting to vote on M Countdown.

Promoting on Music Bank.

‘White Wind’ for the majority of the album reached the retro vibes in a way I did not expect. Rather than the funk and blues similar in their debut, Mamamoo took elements of 90s-2000s R&B pop and showed a more modernized confidence. It is a unique take of fusing old trends with the current trends of programmed music. I mostly enjoyed the diverse beats and production of this album, thanks to the magic provided by Cosmic Girl, and Rainbow Bridge World’s Cosmic Sound, Park Soo Wang, and hit maker CEO Kim Do Hoon. They were able to provide clean, vibrant backdrops while keeping Mamamoo’s vocals shining upfront. This EP also compiled the gists of previous albums: the freshness of spring like ‘Yellow Flower’, the bold and daring like ‘Red Moon’, and the chicness like ‘Blue;s’. Mixing these sounds gave Mamamoo more to paint with and it has produced vivid and entertaining tunes for any kind of listeners.

What do you think of ‘White Wind’? Comment your thoughts down below!

Take Our Poll

Written by: Eliana L.

Sources: Mamamoo Facebook | Mamamoo Twitter | Mamamoo Youtube | TV-People Youtube | Mnet K-POP

Check out Mamamoo's newest album 'White Wind' ! As promised, Mamamoo completes their year long project ‘Four Seasons Four Colors’ with the release of their ninth mini album ‘

#four_season_four_color #girl group #girlgroup #gogobebe #kmusic #KPOP #mamamoo #mini album review #mini-album #music #news #RBW #The KONNECTION 82 #whitewind #white_wind

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1962dude420-blog · 3 years

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Today we remember the passing of Peter Banks who died March 7, 2013 in London, England

Peter William Brockbanks (15 July 1947 – 7 March 2013), known professionally as Peter Banks, was an English guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and producer. He was best known as the original guitarist in the rock bands the Syn, Yes, Flash, and Empire. Former Sniffin' Glue and NME journalist Danny Baker described Banks as "the architect of progressive music".

Banks started with the Nighthawks in 1963, and played his first concert at the New Barnet Pop Festival before leaving that band to join the Devil's Disciples in 1964. The band consisted of Banks on guitar, John Tite on vocals, Ray Alford on bass and Malcolm "Pinnie" Raye on drums. They recorded two songs on an acetate, Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On" and Graham Gouldman's "For Your Love" which would be a hit record for the Yardbirds one year later. These two songs can be found on Banks' archival album Can I Play You Something. According to Chris Welch, The Devil's Disciples used to play the Rolling Stones' first album in its entirety, just for the sake of it. About a year later, Banks joined The Syndicats, replacing their guitarist Ray Fenwick, who himself had replaced Steve Howe, who would later replace Banks in Yes.

Banks then formed a new band with ex-the Selfs bassist Chris Squire, this band being the Syn. They were joined by keyboardist Andrew Pryce Jackman, Steve Nardelli on vocals as well as Gunnar Jökull Hákonarson on drums. They recorded two singles, "Created by Clive"/"Grounded" and "Flowerman"/"14 Hour Technicolour Dream" both in 1967 before calling it a day a year later. Squire meanwhile joined friends Clive Bayley (rhythm guitar) and Bob Hagger (drums) in Mabel Greer's Toyshop, and Banks came to join that band. He briefly left the band, which was subsequently joined by singer Jon Anderson and then drummer Bill Bruford replacing Hagger. During that short period of time, Banks played with the band Neat Change, recording one single, "I Lied to Aunty May" with Squire on tambourine and chorus. Banks then returned to Mabel Greer's Toyshop, and with the loss of Bayley and the addition of organist/pianist Tony Kaye, they started to write new music together, adding to a repertoire already including two songs already written, "Beyond and Before" by Squire and Bayley and "Sweetness" by Anderson, Bayley and Squire.

The members searched for an appropriate name, Anderson would suggest Life and Squire would propose World but all would agree on Banks' proposition of Yes. Atlantic Records took notice of the band and, in 1969, got them into a studio to record their first album, Yes. The next year another album was in progress (Time and a Word) but Anderson and Squire decided they wanted an orchestra backing the five musicians. The idea was not well received by Banks, and things got worse when the orchestral arrangements left the guitarist, as well as Tony Kaye, with little to do (strings replaced their parts almost note-for-note). Once the album was released, a tour ensued; Banks was asked to leave the group, playing his last concert with Yes on 18 April 1970 at The Luton College of Technology. He was replaced by Steve Howe.

During Yes' 1991 Union tour, Kaye invited Banks to play during the encore at 15 May show at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California, United States. Banks accepted the invitation and went to the show, but says he was told by Kaye that Howe did not want him to play.

In August 1994, Banks was a featured guest at a Yes fan festival called Yestival. In 1995, he performed "Astral Traveller" on the Yes tribute album Tales from Yesterday. In 1997, he coordinated the release of a Yes compilation titled Something's Coming: The BBC Recordings 1969–1970. His liner notes described his early days with the band. Banks was also present at Yestival in July 1998. In 2006, he was interviewed for the Yes documentary Classic Artists: Yes. Several music videos featuring him with Yes during their early days can be seen in The Lost Broadcasts DVD released in 2009.

Work in the second half of the 1970s included a number of session appearances, on separate albums by Lonnie Donegan and Jakob Frímann Magnússon. Banks made an appearance on Romeo Unchained, a 1986 album by Tonio K. He also worked with Ian Wallace in The Teabags, including Jackie Lomax on vocals and Kim Gardner on bass, the two played before with Tony Kaye's Badger, David Mansfield on guitar and Mel Collins on sax and flute. No recordings came out of that.

In 1993, Banks released Instinct, a solo album of instrumental tracks with him playing all the parts. Only a keyboard player, Gerald Goff, joined him for his next album, Self Contained (1995). In 1997, Banks was mainly responsible for the release of a double live Yes album, Something's Coming: The BBC Recordings 1969–1970 (renamed Beyond and Before in the US), a collection of appearances at the BBC during 1969 and 1970, featuring the original line-up in all tracks and with a booklet containing the guitarist's account of those early days.

Another archival release was Psychosync, a live Flash recording made in 1973 for the King Biscuit Flower Hour and finally released in 1998. Also, between 1995 and 1997 all three Empire albums were released (one per year). Banks also collaborated in 1995's Tales from Yesterday (a Yes tribute album) performing a version of the song "Astral Traveller" with Robert Berry; appeared on the album Big Beats in 1997; and played on 1999's Encores, Legends and Paradox, an Emerson, Lake & Palmer tribute album. He contributed to 1999's Come Together People of Funk by Funky Monkey (including keyboardist Gerard Johnson who helped on a number of Banks' projects in the 1990s and who also worked with Banks' old bandmate Chris Squire).

Those collaborations filled the gap in his own recording career, until 1999, when the album Reduction was issued. In 2000, Banks put out a collection of his oldest recordings (many previously unreleased) called Can I Play You Something?. The front sleeve of this last record showed an eight-year-old Banks posing with his first guitar. The track listing includes some early recordings by The Syn, Mabel Greer's Toyshop, and Yes, including an early rendition of the song "Beyond and Before".

A short track in the latter collection was called "Lima Loop". This is because Lima, Peru, became a special place for Banks in recent years. Cecilia Quino, a Peruvian girl who was a Yes fan, met and later wed Banks. They married in Lima, where the bride's parents lived. They later divorced.

Following an appearance by Banks and Geoff Downes together at the 1998 edition of Yestival (a Yes fan festival), the pair played some sessions and the possibility of Banks joining Asia was mooted. However, these sessions did not lead anywhere.

Banks appeared in small concerts by new young local bands, including the Yes tribute band Fragile. Later recorded appearances by Banks included Jabberwocky (2000) and Hound of the Baskervilles (2002), a pair of albums recorded by Oliver Wakeman (Rick Wakeman's son) and Clive Nolan. Rick Wakeman also narrates on the Jabberwocky album. Peter Banks also guested further on the Funky Monkey project.

Banks was initially involved in a reunion of The Syn in 2004 but left the band. After early talks in 2004, he was also not included in the current Flash reunion, which made their debut return at the Prog Day Festival 2010 with Flash bassist Ray Bennett taking over on lead guitar.

In late 2004, Banks formed a new improvising band, Harmony in Diversity, with Andrew Booker and Nick Cottam (who had been working together as duo Pulse Engine). They played a short UK tour in March 2006, and released an album called Trying. Booker left the band soon after. He was replaced by David Speight and the band continued to play further dates in the UK and Hungary in 2007. Banks was also planning a related project with keyboardist Gonzalo Carrera.

In Gibson Guitar's Lifestyle e-magazine of 3 February 2009, Banks is listed as one of the "10 Great Prog Rock Guitarists". According to the article, "Before there was Steve Howe, there was Peter Banks. Artistic differences between Banks and singer Jon Anderson prompted Banks's departure from Yes in 1970, but in his little-known '70s band, Flash, Banks used an ES-335 to create several should-have-been prog rock classics. "Lifetime", from Flash's In the Can album, is his tour-de-force."

Banks died of heart failure on 7 March 2013 at his home in Barnet, London. He was reportedly found after failing to turn up for a scheduled recording session. He was 65.

#march 7 #2013 #r.i.p.#rest in peace #peter banks #yes

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haydee-gd · 6 years

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2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea: A guide to all things K-pop

1st Generation of K-pop artists: The 1990’s

These groups literally created “K-pop”; they set the standard for Korean pop music, started the Hallyu Wave, and even created today’s fandom culture. They are the pioneers who are now behind some of today’s biggest K-pop groups.

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2nd Generation of K-pop artists: The 2000’s

This generation of K-pop is credited for the Hallyu Wave–their success was unprecedented and the world began to fall in love with Korean music and culture because of these artists.

6. Bigbang

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This group is undoubtedly the most popular K-pop group not only in South Korea, but in the world. They’ve been in the forefront of fashion, art, and music since they debuted under YG Entertainment in 2006. “Haru Haru,” “Lollipop,” and “Lies” are some early hip-hop hits that shot them into stardom. But 2012’s “Fantastic Baby” and 2015’s “Bang Bang Bang” are the groups most legendary hits. Big Bang has proven to be popular among all age groups in South Korea and have sold out stadiums all over the world–North America, South America, Asia, Australia, and Europe. ALL members have released great solo albums too, which are just as successful as the group’s albums. Leader G-Dragon is the most followed Korean celebrity on Instagram and a fashion icon, while T.O.P is the most unfollowed celebrity (you’ll know why if you follow him). Sadly, the members have started their military enlistments, but we recently celebrated the wedding of member Taeyang to actress Min Hyo-rin!

3rd Generation of K-pop artists: The 2010’s

After the success of K-pop in the 2000’s, the industry began to accelerate and 50-100 groups were being produced every year, making the competition even more intense. These are the biggest groups in K-pop today who start trends, go viral, set new standards, and continue to spread K-pop to every corner of the earth.

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Note: this article has been shortened. To read the complete article, please refer to the link: michiganjournal.org

#the you'll know why if you follow him part tho...#bigbang #ot5 #kpop #2018 winter olympics

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michaelandy101-blog · 4 years

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7 Australian Companies with Great Taglines [+What Marketers Can Learn From Them]

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/7-australian-companies-with-great-taglines-what-marketers-can-learn-from-them/

7 Australian Companies with Great Taglines [+What Marketers Can Learn From Them]

It’s no secret that people who live in startup-filled cities have seen some of the wildest brand names.

And, that variety in company names makes sense. When many startups in similar industries are founded in one geographic area, brands need to come up with a name that grasps attention, lightly hints at their mission, differentiates them from competitors, or encourages prospects to learn more about them.

This is especially true in Australia, which hosts startups from Sydney to Melbourne. These cities are the founding place of uniquely named startups and major brands like Sukin, Canva, and Billabong.

While the successful companies listed above have made their names noteworthy and easy to recognize, their company titles only hint at what their brands offer. This is why successful brands like these also lean on taglines to give prospects a quick, clear view of a brand’s overall mission or purpose.

With a great name and an effective tagline, prospects will remember your brand’s uniqueness, mission, or what types of products you offer. Then, when they’re looking for a product in your industry or space, they might think of your brand’s name and catchy tagline.

If you’re working in a busy startup hub like Australia, or are starting a business in an already crowded business landscape, take note of these seven Australian companies with taglines that stand out and set them apart from the competition.

7 Australian Companies With Great Taglines

“More than Money” – National Australian Bank (NAB)

During a rebrand in 2016, National Australian Bank changed its tagline from “More give, less take” to “More than money.”

The new tagline came with a series of commercials led by NAB’s agency — Clemenger BBDO. Each ad highlighted the bank’s history, credibility, and how their financial institution still plays a positive role in impacting countless Australian lives.

In the ad below — which was part of the “More than money” campaign — NAB invokes nostalgia by showing home video-like clips that follow a new-born baby as she grows into an adult, as well as the milestones her parents will need to budget for, such as violin lessons, schooling, and travel:

In an interview with CMO, Andrew Knott, NAB’s Chief Marketing Officer, said the pivot aimed to be more customer-centric.

“We felt it was time to move on from what has been a very effective brand expression around fair value, and ‘more give, less take’, to something that’s far more reflective of what we stand for today, but that’s also consistent with our heritage,” Knott explained. “When we are at our best is when we take time to understand customers and understand where they are at in their lives and to help them with the financial aspects of doing so.”

By linking money to major life milestones, NAB’s tagline and campaign effectively place emotion behind logistical offerings. To prospects unsure of where to place their money, the tagline makes the financial institution seem more relatable and potentially more trustworthy than other banks with basic emotionless marketing.

“Life’s better in boardshorts.” – Billabong

When it comes to taglines, Billabong keeps there’s short and sweet. Knowing that most of its customers are looking for swimwear for surfing, beach vacations, or summer sports, Billabong created a tagline just to remind people how much fun they can have in bathing suits.

Throughout Billabong’s history, it has embraced this tagline in a number of its online and print campaigns. Beginning in 2017, the brand began producing a YouTube surf series with the same phrase as its title. Here’s one of its chapters:

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Billabong’s tagline is a great example of how a bold statement in a tagline can persuade a prospect to buy a product to make their lives more enjoyable. But, depending on the prospect who hears it, the tagline could also either play up a sense of vacation-related FOMO or seasonal nostalgia.

For example, if someone lives in a cold climate and hears that life could be better in boardshorts, they might yearn to go surfing somewhere warm. Or, if someone has been working long hours, they might remember a time they spent on the beach as a child. The emotions or memories invoked by this tagline might not convince someone to buy a ticket to a beachy destination. But, if they do go on vacation, Billabong might be the first brand they remember when making beachwear purchases.

“Skincare that doesn’t cost the Earth” – Sukin

As a budget-minded, environmentally conscious shopper, I can attest to the fact that it’s hard to find environmentally-friendly products that meet your skin’s health needs and don’t cost a fortune.

Sukin, a Melbourne-founded skincare brand, aims to solve for the dilemma above, by selling affordable, sustainably produced skin products. It’s tagline cleverly reflects this mission with a play on words: “Skincare that doesn’t cost the Earth.”

Aside from cleverly explaining the brand in just one sentence, Sukin’s tagline also lines up well with its overall mission.

“Here at Sukin, we’re committed to providing skincare that doesn’t cost the earth. This isn’t merely a commitment to creating affordable products, but also with minimal cost to our precious environment. We achieve this by thinking and acting sustainably wherever possible. Keep reading for our environmental initiatives,” Sukin’s Brand Values page notes.

“Design anything. Publish anywhere.” – Canva

While Canva seems like a giant global company now, it was once a startup founded in Sydney, Australia.

For those who haven’t used Canva, the website allows individual users or teams to easily create and publish aesthetically-pleasing graphic designs for websites, social media, and other platforms.

Because Canva is artsy by nature, the brand could’ve gotten away with an overly creative tagline. But, instead, the company keeps things simple — but still incredibly effective — with, “Design anything. Publish anywhere.”

In just four simple words, Canva describes its minimum viable product and entices both designers and artistic novices to try its tools.

“Australians Wouldn’t Give an XXXX for Anything Else.” – XXXX

Today, XXXX beer’s tagline simply reads “Pride of Queensland.” But, before the brand became globally known, they had another great tagline that caught attention from Australian masses due to the light curse-related controversy around it.

For decades, XXXX — formerly known as Castlemaine XXXX — embraced Australia’s edgy sense of humor and slang with the memorable tagline, “Australians Wouldn’t Give an XXXX for Anything Else.”

The tagline, which cleverly uses XXXX to insinuate a four-letter curse word, dates back to 1985. At that time, commercials would present a longer, TV-friendly tagline of “Australians Wouldn’t Give a Castlemaine XXXX for Anything Else.”

These early commercials often showed rural Australian residents, farmers, and construction workers getting into humorous, but dangerous, situations just to get XXXX beer. After a wild scene, a narrator would read the tagline, insinuating that Australians wouldn’t care so much about any other beer. Here’s one classic example:

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Moving into the 1990s, the brand began using the shortened headline to express a more eye-popping message.

Although the tagline was scrapped in a 1996 rebrand, it’s still a historically great example of how a company can be cheeky, attention-grabbing, and memorable while still tastefully marketing a product.

“Tastes like Australia.” – Vegemite

For generations, many Australians and Australian visitors have spread on Vegemite on to bread and sandwiches for extra flavor.

Not only is Vegemite a common snack in Australia, but it’s also been featured in global content such as films or TV shows that discuss the continent. And, when people who aren’t from Australia see or taste Vegemite, they might ask, “What is this made of?”

Knowing that people link Australian to Vegemite, while also wondering what’s in the iconic snack, the brand launched, “Tastes like Australia.” — a new tagline and commercial in 2018.

The commercial, which explains the tagline, opens with a confused person wondering how Vegemite is made. A narrator with an Australian accent then presents videos of Australian scenes — such as sporting events, crocodiles, and destinations — along with photos of fruit-based ingredients. Ultimately, the ad insinuates that Vegemite is metaphorically made of fruits, vegetables, cheese, and iconic scenes of Australian pride.

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“Find your thing.” – Redbubble

Redbubble is a store chain and online store where people, organizations, or small businesses can sell clothing, art, or other items that might be considered zany, humorous, or unique. When scrolling through the site, you might find T-Shirts with pizza cat memes on them, strangely decorated pottery or pants with sparkles or brightly colored patterns.

Because you can buy all sorts of unique or funny independently-made treasures on the site, Redbubble keeps its tagline broad — but still motivating.

With, “Find your thing,” Redbubble insinuates that there’s something for everyone on the site. It also embraces that everyone has an independent style and can look to this site for the clothing or items that will allow them to embrace their inner uniqueness.

Aside from including “Find Your Thing” in videos like the one below, Redbubble also includes a section with the same name on its website.

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“Find your thing.” is a great example of how a company with many offerings can create a broad tagline that hints what their company is about without being too vague.

Crafting a Great Tagline

If you’ve been inspired to change or create your own tagline, here are a few themes you can take from the Australian examples above:

Keep it simple: You don’t need to be vague or overly clever to persuade someone to check out your brand. Sometimes, simply reiterating your MVP — as Canva does — is effective enough to win over an audience.

Be Bold: Is your company or product known by locals, award-winning, or potentially iconic. If so, you can try incorporating your company or product achievements into a bold phrase, like Vegemite’s “Tastes like Australia.”

Get clever: If you can’t cram your entire mission into a short concise phrase, consider using an easily recognized metaphor or play on words, like Sukin’s “Skincare that doesn’t cost the Earth.”

Want to learn more about brainstorming and crafting catchy taglines or slogans, check out this helpful guide or download the free resource below.

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thesinglesjukebox · 6 years

Video

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BRUNO MARS FT. CARDI B - FINESSE (REMIX) [6.77] This one's for you, James! (Spoiler: the next two are also for you)

Katie Gill: I am 100% here for the Bruno Mars Tour Through The Decades. 1970s retrofunk, 1980s Kool & the Gang R&B, and now 1990s Bell Biv Devoe New Jack Swing -- complete with an amazing homage video (they kept the frame size, y'all!). As always, Mars gives us a pitch-perfect homage that's draws enough from the original style for a beautiful throwback but adds in fun, fresh takes. The song lyrically doesn't bring anything new: it's just 'damn we look good.' But more and more, it seems you don't really listen to a Bruno Mars song for the lyrics; you listen for whatever throwback sound he's reworking today and you watch to see Mars be a legitimate showman, giving it his all with his charisma and borderline impeccable dance moves. Cardi B is also in top form: she matches Mars's infectious fun and swaggering confidence level for level. Considering what a boring blight 2017 top 40 pop music seemed at times, what a refreshing way to start off the new year. [9]

Edward Okulicz: I hear those drums and this is instantly Cardy! Cardi! Cardé! Very affectionate, very accurate, and very welcome. I wouldn't have said no to more Cardi, but I still enjoy the song when she's not around. [8]

Maxwell Cavaseno: During the holiday visit, me and my father caught up and I showed him a bunch of current generation female rappers that he didn't know of: Molly Brazy, Bali Baby, Asian Doll, Queen Key, just to name a few. Of course he knows about Cardi so we both brought her up and he jokingly called her "The New Real Roxanne." Ironically here she is on this Bruno remix of early-'90s New Jack Swing, the kind of stuff Full Force would've primed up for Roxanne to guest on or even rap over herself -- and she sounds actually like she's having fun. Bruno, on the other hand, is kind of just way too stiff to really engage with. For all the obvious Bobby Brownisms he's going for, the Vegasness that runs through him keeps him from hitting the sweet spot of engagement. Still A+ effort on both parties. [6]

Julian de Valliere: In "Finesse," Cardi's your charismatic friend, Bruno's that guy from her work who you've said hello to once, and the 127 second space between her appearances is when she takes a trip to the restroom while he makes small talk and you keep glancing at your phone's lock screen. Still, everyone has a fantastic time when she's around. [7]

Anthony Easton: I wonder if Cardi B's charm is a kind of rough hewn minimalism, and I know Bruno Mars' charm is mostly a whole scale riffling through nostalgic desire. Neither of those modes read finesse to me. [4]

Alfred Soto: I get that fans get off on Bruno Mars releasing eerie simulacra of extinct R&B sounds. "Finesse" is his Teddy Riley or "Poison" Move, and it's the aural equivalent of a Meryl Streep performance. [5]

Austin Brown: The single cover says it all, really -- the queen of the new generation of hyperreal, social media-bred celebrity, mugging for the camera next to an unconvincingly stony Bruno Mars, once described by TSJ's very own Katherine St. Asaph as an "animatronic sequined suit" for Pitchfork. Cardi's verse is tacked on at the very front, after which she disappears entirely until she throws in some outro vocals. As a result, the two parts of the song (which was basically "fine" before) work great independently, but feel like a weird medley of two generations of pop sitting next to each other. Oh, and here's some added weirdness: the two generations aren't even their native ones, with Cardi mining peak hip-house while Bruno sticks with new jack swing. Come on, Diddy and Blackstreet already figured out how to make this work fluidly more than 20 years ago. [4]

Thomas Inskeep: I love the hell outta Bruno's 24K Magic album, and this song was always a highlight, as New Jack Swing as it gets -- the production/writing teams of Shampoo Press & Curl and the Stereotypes are on their shit. Adding a rap intro from the hottest woman of the moment makes it even mo' betta, though I wish they'd brought her back for a 16-bar bridge, too. Mars may be the ultimate musical chameleon, but damned if he doesn't sound the most comfortable plumbing the sounds of '80s R&B. More, please. [8]

Will Rivitz: I'm kind of ashamed it's taken me this long to fall in with Cardi B. "Bodak Yellow" and "Bartier Cardi"are both phenomenal songs, to be sure, but to me they've never sounded like the glamorously regal performances others have advertised, the rapper vibrantly excellent but not unquestionably dominant. It's taken till this, a new jack swing song which would seem well out of her wheelhouse in which she nevertheless so commandingly stomps all over the track's first thirty seconds that Bruno Mars almost feels like an afterthought, but I finally understand what her fans have been saying. [8]

Katherine St Asaph: Things I didn't expect but probably should have: A) Cardi B turning around "Bodak Yellow" with a pop-rap verse this effervescent B) on a Bruno Mars new jack swing track. Can 2018 be full of this kind of good surprise? [7]

Will Adams: The song knows which side of the bread is buttered, which is why Cardi B kicks things off with a verse that proves her versatility as a rapper. After that, the excitement wears off a bit. As I've mentioned before, merely recreating the sounds of yore as meticulously as possible doesn't always result in a modern jam. And while Bruno Mars is absolutely the best man for the job, "Finesse" rides the line of novelty and creates distance between it and me. [6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Not much is as emblematic of Bruno Mars's modus operandi as a music video shot in 60fps with a 4:3 aspect ratio. He creates nostalgic music that's as flashy as it is alien-like, and the only way he seems comfortable overcoming the latter is by doubling down on the former. A line like "Blame it on my confidence, oh blame it on your measurements" is as garish as it comes, but his commitment to the shtick overcomes any apparent personality deficiencies. It reminds me of why a lot of K-pop is successful, and it's one of the reasons why I believe some people have been making comparisons between it and Mars's music for the past few years. Naturally, "Finesse" was produced by The Stereotypes, and this ends up being a stronger effort than Korea's recent new jack swing efforts precisely because of how effortlessly fun it sounds. It's, of course, in no small part due to Cardi B's presence--she plays her role comfortably, utilizing lines and a flow that feel like a love letter to the '90s. With "Finesse," she's already more versatile than many of her peers, and it's the best case for her staying power yet. [8]

Alex Clifton: I still hear the chorus as "trip to Inverness," but I don't even care. This is fun! Cardi B and Bruno Mars are an unexpectedly charming collaboration--Bruno brings his usual upbeat magic and Cardi lets loose a little. It's a delight to hear something that simultaneously invokes the 90s while never actually feeling dated; it's just a shot of joy. I'm ready to start off 2018 with a good party banger to cleanse myself of the past year, and this fits the bill. [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#bruno mars #cardi b

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amplesalty · 4 years

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Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on!

In honour of the fact that yesterday was July the 4th, it felt appropriate to finally check out the sequel to the 1996 classic Independence Day. Not that I should really be honouring it considering my side lost in that particular exchange. Plus, as K-Pop stans on Twitter taught us: #allcountriesmatter

I remember thinking it was a bit strange that it took 20 years to get a sequel. I mean, the original was one of the highest grossing movies of the 1990’s (and still within the top 100 of all time) and featured the iconic image of the White House being blown to smithereens. There was a massive marketing push at the time with that scene featuring heavily and the nickname ‘ID4’ seemed to be everywhere. And whilst not exactly in line with the contents of those movies, its scenes of mass destruction helped continue the ongoing disaster movie trends and helped it kick on into the late 90’s and early 00’s with the likes of Twister, Dante’s Peak, Armageddon, Deep Impact and The Day After Tomorrow.

Of course the most notable part of that first movie is President Whitmore’s stirring speech that is rivalled perhaps only by the words of Colonel William F. Guile in Street Fighter as the most inspirational speeches in cinematic history. Even Gilbert Gottfried felt compelled to give his own reading to this glorious battle-cry.

The sequel leans quite heavily into this speech, with Whitmore’s words echoing out across the galaxy and being picked up by what seem to be brethren of the original attack force from 96, giving rise to the new invaders.

But Earth isn’t going to be a pushover this time around, we’ve been able to meld the alien technology from that first wave with our own, developing plasma weapons and even establishing a moon base with a giant frickin’ laser beam. It’s cool to see that technological leap and how humanity was able to learn from that event in a materialistic way. Plus, it provides a nice contrast later on in the film when the aliens wipe out all satellite communication and people are forced to go back to the old ways of radar and radio waves. There’s something amusing about people literally dusting off an old piece of equipment they found in a cupboard and it helps save the day.

If revisiting the speech wasn’t fan service enough, the movie really starts to wallow in it as it starts trotting out all the old faces, even if that’s only a painting in Will Smith’s case. Apparently he wanted too much money to sign on so his character was killed offscreen in a test flight back in the year 2007. Still, it’s high praise to have his picture hanging on the walls of the White House alongside Washington, Jefferson etc. We still get an ace pilot named Hiller though in the form of his son, whose old friend Patricia Whitmore, the former president’s daughter, is working in the White House. Her fiancé is out in space and has a bit of a rivalry with Hiller. I spent the whole movie thinking the actress who plays Patricia looked really familiar and it turns out she’s the girl from It Follows. These characters are a bit underdeveloped and it feels like they just drafted them up last minute as a replacement when they realised they couldn’t get Smith to come back, only apparently they knew for years that he wasn’t going to be involved so chalk it up to incompetency I guess.

As happily coincidental as it seems to have them just happen to have grown up and filled these crucial roles, it does save us from further movie padding from having to break off the story to go find out what happened to them. Like, there’s a good portion of the movie dedicated to Julius Levinson (Jeff Goldblum’s dad in the original) miraciously surviving the initial wave of this 2016 attack before meeting up with a bunch of kids that just spring up out of nowhere and their grand adventure to get to the safety of Area 51. Only, they still end up in danger when they get there and we have this whole scene of David trying to save them whilst also trying to co-ordinate the big fightback at the end of the movie. It just feels like these kids were inserted as a means of providing some sort of connection with the adults in the audience, as if they can’t sympathise with the fate of the entire planet so they have to give them a bunch of primary school kids to worry about instead.

Even Dr. Okun is back, seemingly from the dead! And he seems to have been Dumbledore’d because apparently he was gay this entire time? I don’t remember that from the first movie. I can only imagine the proverbial angry fist waving going on at the time of the release when the internet found out about this; ‘They’re ruining my childhood with this SJW bullshit!’. Being in a coma for 20 years doesn’t seem to be the hinderance you might think it would be because he’s up and about within minutes, running around marvelling at how the world has progressed and barking orders at people. Kinda lose a bit of your dignity in that when you’re still in your hospital gown with your arse hanging out mind you.

He does have a bit of a lasting effect from his close encounter from the first movie, remnants of the psychic connection to the aliens that is also lingering in President Whitmore and a new character, Dikembe Umbutu who is a African warlord who has been leading a groundfight with his troops against an outlier set of aliens who were able to land and survive the 96 invasion. There seems to be a bit of a wider ID4 canon through various novel releases so I wonder if any of those cover this African war, that might be interesting. I thought this whole psychic connection story might be going somewhere, like maybe the aliens might be able to control those individuals when they do invade and they might use it to sabotage some of Earth’s defences but no. Even President Whitmore starts out portrayed like he’s gone a bit crazy and that he’s barely able to function at times but he heals up pretty quick.

Either that or maybe the US General is in cahoots with the aliens somehow? I mean, he does end up being sworn in as acting President when the current President is killed along with her line of succession so he has benefited from it personally. I probably wouldn’t have had any thoughts like that though if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s William Fichtner playing him and he’s just a perennial bad guy.

That Umbutu guy is pretty badass though, runs around with a pair of big knives that he goes into close quarter combat with, cutting the aliens out of their suits and then chopping their heads off. Which ties in to an aspect of the movie that I liked, there’s much more hands on combat between the humans and the aliens in this movie. The first one obviously had a big focus on aerial combat, which is largely present here as well, but there’s a lot of ground combat as well which freshen things up a bit. There’s a section where the air troops are sent to attack the mothership and end up inside it, only for it’s defense mechanisms to ground them. It has this jungle/marshland vibe to it, like they have this whole habitable land with crops and stuff within the ship, and it leads to this section where a couple of the pilots are hiding beneath the water, sneaking around to avoid detection.

On the other hand though, I didn’t feel anywhere near the impeding level of threat of the first movie. The story is that the aliens are drilling into the Earth in order to harvest it’s molten core in order to fuel their systems before moving on to the next world, kinda like Galactus I think? Whilst this would lead to the destruction of the entire planet, it just felt more threatening when they had their ships stationed over all the major cities of the world. Plus, it feels like they’re more content on their drilling operation than actually engaging in any fights with humanity which leads to a lot of scenes where people are just standing around not really doing anything. It seems at odds with the introduction to the movie as well where the initial attackers distress beacon is sent out, that would imply they’re calling for reinforcements but now it just seems like they were just going to come and steal our shit anyway? Or maybe they just consider us vastly inferior that it’s not even worth the effort. Pretty dismissive considering we wrecked you last time out.

That’s not to discount some of the special effects on show, the movie is bookended by big action scenes that are a particular highlight. The invading mothership is said to be so big that it has it’s own gravitation field leads to a really cool visual of our heroes trying to navigate their ship through a skyline littered with buildings, cargo ships and jumbo jets.

The finale with the alien Queen attacking Area 51 is really cool as well. You’ve got this massive alien rampaging through the desert, controlling all the alien fighters around her like a swarm. I think all the sheer size and all the tentacles lend it a bit of a Cthulu vibe.

Absolutely massive amount of sequel baiting at the very end though which doesn’t look like it will ever be fulfilled. It did take us 20 years to get this one but they seem to have had ideas to make a trilogy of sequels in fairly quick succession but the critical and financial failures of this one means it’s looking kinda dead in the water at this point. It still grossed some $390m against a production budget of $165m but you’ve probably gotta factor in a fairly sizable marketing budget that will really eat into that margin.

It’s a bit of a shame, I would have been interested in the series continuing as I personally found this enjoyable in spite of some the issues I have with it’s run time, bloated cast list and inadequate replacements for the charm and energy that Will Smith brought to the original. Trim off some of the fat and it would have made things a lot smoother. Did we really need to know what Mrs Hiller was up to 20 years on? I think just about the only character we didn’t revisit from that movie was their dog. I guess Boomer will not live.

#Independence Day #Independence Day: Resurgance

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go-redgirl · 4 years

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Passed By for Decades, Clarence Thomas Is a New Symbol of the Trump Era May 18, 2020 in News, Politics, U.S.8 min read

Among certain conservatives, an idea has started to take hold: Could Justice Clarence Thomas ever be the kind of pop-culture icon to his followers that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become to hers?

Justice Ginsburg, 87, has a book to her name, a touring museum exhibition and a surprise box-office hit in a 2018 documentary about her life. She is tattooed on her fans. Her personal trainer has his own book out. She was appointed to the bench in 1993 but came to realize and embrace this level of celebrity in recent years when her dissents became liberal rallying calls, leading to the nickname homage — and then best-selling book on her life — “The Notorious R.B.G.”

Justice Thomas, the Supreme Court’s most conservative member, is catching up in his own way at age 71.

After 28 years of rarely speaking from the bench, Justice Thomas is newly in the public eye (or ear) as he regularly asks questions during oral arguments that are being conducted by conference call and broadcast live during the pandemic.

He was the subject of a recent book, “The Enigma of Clarence Thomas,” which led to a flurry of articles and book reviews on his life and legal thought. A new biographical documentary, made by the conservative filmmaker Michael Pack, airs Monday on PBS. For the project, the justice spoke to filmmakers for 30 hours — an astounding feat for a jurist who once went 10 years without asking a question from the bench.

“He would have never said, ‘Gee whiz, I should be an icon,’” said Helgi Walker, a lawyer at the firm Gibson Dunn who clerked for Justice Thomas in 1995 and 1996. “But life is long, and it’s amazing how things can turn out sometimes.”

Since his confirmation hearings in 1991, which included sexual harassment allegations, Justice Thomas has largely been out of the public eye. And for decades, his legal thinking was considered too extreme even for the court’s conservative members, who often declined to join his dissents and concurrences.

Justice Thomas hasn’t changed, nor has his bitterness about the way his confirmation hearings unfolded. But the political moment has. Renewed interest in his life, work and philosophy may be coming from the same place as that in Justice Ginsburg: the Trump era.

Justice Thomas, currently the longest-serving justice, is known as Mr. Trump’s favorite on the court, with many in the legal world citing the numerous former Thomas clerks who have been tapped for the federal bench.

As Justice Ginsburg has become the flag bearer of the Supreme Court’s diminished judicial left, Justice Thomas, who spent years dissenting on the fringes, is a potent symbol for an ascendant conservative wing.

“He’s the most right-wing member of the court, and we are in a right-wing moment,” said Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard Law School and critic of the justice. In a piece in The Nation last fall, he criticized those who he said had recently “been solicitous of Thomas” in terms of his biography and his legal thinking, writing that he’d once been the same himself.

Last November in Washington, when gathering in a group was festive and not contested, a largely libertarian crowd convened at the Cato Institute to watch the documentary about Justice Thomas, “Created Equal: Clarence in His Own Words,” in which Justice Thomas laid out again his side of the confirmation showdown. Archival footage showed a younger Mr. Thomas in a red-and-grey tie.

“As far as I am concerned, it is a high-tech lynching,” the younger Mr. Thomas said of the hearing as the film’s audience nodded approvingly.

The camera then flipped to another man who has re-emerged into the political debate lately: Joe Biden, who was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time. There were guffaws until the camera turned elsewhere. Justice Thomas then appeared on the screen years later, in a dark suit and with white hair.

“I mean, come on, we know what this is all about,” he says to the camera. “This is the wrong black guy. He has to be destroyed, just say it.”

The line had an impact on Carol M. Swain, a former law professor and conservative political commentator who recently watched the film and said she saw the 1991 hearings in the context of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s in 2018. “It’s not just an agenda to derail a nomination, it’s an effort to destroy a person,” she said.

Many conservatives also now see vindication in the way the court has recently begun to adopt Justice Thomas’s thinking. His legal views spent the 1990s and the early 2000s bottled up as dissents and concurrences that his colleagues often did not sign onto. Now, many are becoming the law of the land.

A little-noticed case in 2009 involving an Austin, Texas, utility district offers a telling example. The district sought to be exempted from the 1965 Voting Rights Act “preclearance” requirements, under which states with a history of discrimination must get federal approval to change the ways in which people can cast votes. The court ruled unanimously that the requirement, a response to Jim Crow efforts to stop African-Americans from electing representatives, shouldn’t apply to a utility district.

Justice Thomas, however, went further: In a concurrence, he agreed with an argument the district had made that the preclearance requirement was itself unconstitutional.

Four years later, a higher-profile case, Shelby County v. Holder, reached the Supreme Court. This time, a five-to-four conservative majority overturned the portion of the Voting Rights Act used to determine which states had a history of discrimination and required preclearance. The decision lifted much of its reasoning from Justice Thomas’s earlier concurrence.

“It was a testament to his influence,” said Jennifer Mascott, a former clerk for Justice Thomas who now teaches law at George Mason University. “It’s a testament to how his thinking is moving the ball forward.”

Justice Ginsburg saw it in different terms. Her dissent said the ruling would effectively gut the Voting Rights Act and was tantamount to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” An estimated 1,700 polling places have been closed, mainly in the South, since the court ruling, and voter suppression is already shaping up to be a battleground in the 2020 election.

Those gathered at the Cato Institute last fall were talking less about Justice Thomas’s jurisprudence than they were about his biography. The story of his life and the intellectual home he found among American conservatives is one that, his supporters note, runs contrary to the notion that the Trumpist version of the Republican Party is sympathetic to white nationalist influences.

Justice Thomas grew up impoverished in a Gullah-speaking community in Georgia and spent his youth as a black nationalist radical in the mold of Malcolm X before reluctantly accepting a job with a Republican attorney general in Missouri, the only job offer he was given, he explains in the film. He voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980, in what he called “a giant step for a black man.”

“It really isn’t just about correcting the record about him: I think it’s an important story, a great American story, the classic American story that I think should be told,” Mr. Pack, the film’s director, said during a question-and-answer period.

Mr. Pack is engaged in publicity on two fronts at the moment: for the Thomas film, and for a new job of his own. He was nominated by Mr. Trump in 2018 to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the independent agency that oversees Voice of America and Senate Republicans have recently renewed efforts to confirm him. Last week, however, a vote on his nomination was postponed and news broke that the attorney general for the District of Columbia was investigating whether Mr. Pack unlawfully used funds from a nonprofit organization that he runs.

That came to light after Mr. Pack went on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle” on Monday to promote his latest film and note, with some amazement, a different confluence of events: Joe Biden, presidential candidate, now facing a sexual-assault allegation that he has vehemently denied, is the man who presided over Justice Thomas’s confirmation hearings, which featured a harassment allegation that Justice Thomas vehemently denied.

“It’s amazing that Justice Thomas saw — and this was even before Kavanaugh that we interviewed him — that sooner or later you’ll be the next one in the Tower of London,” Mr. Pack said. “And now Joe Biden is in the Tower of London.”

Last week, as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the question of whether Congress may subpoena Mr. Trump’s financial records, Justice Thomas ended one line of questioning by saying, “I think we all know it’s about the president.”

And in many ways, Justice Thomas’s higher public profile is about the president, too. Mr. Trump rose to power with help of Christian evangelicals, who have long sought to change the makeup of the court, and they have largely been supportive of the judges he has appointed.

“There is a sense that no president has given them as much as Trump has,” said Daniel K. Williams, a history professor at the University of West Georgia who focuses on religion.

Justice Thomas’s vote is crucial if conservatives wish to attain their longest-held ambitions, from rolling back abortion rights to ending affirmative action.

Yet black conservatives like Ken Blackwell realize that the rehabilitation of Justice Thomas’s legacy may have it its limits. Mr. Blackwell, a former mayor of Cincinnati, said that while the justice might be experiencing a renaissance among conservatives, making the sale to the black community, which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, would be more of a challenge.

Mr. Blackwell said he regretted that the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington did not have a permanent exhibition on Justice Thomas, even though he is the only black member of the court. African-American conservatives deserve their place in history as well, Mr. Blackwell said.

But he did not rule out the possibility, with the rekindled interest in Justice Thomas.

“If by some accident of history, he had passed away at 65, I’m not sure the full appreciation of Clarence Thomas would have happened,” Mr. Blackwell said. “But the fact that he has lived this long means he may well outlive the mischaracterizations, and maybe it’s just long enough that his story finally gets heard.”

The post Passed By for Decades, Clarence Thomas Is a New Symbol of the Trump Era appeared first on New York Times.

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