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lilydalexf · 4 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Syntax6

Syntax6 has 17 stories at Gossamer, but you should visit her website for the complete collection of her fics and to see the cover art that comes with many of the stories (and to find her pro writing!). She's written some of the most beloved casefiles in the fandom. I've recced literally all of them here before. Twice. Big thanks to Syntax6 for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I’m delighted but not surprised because I’ve written and read fanfic for shows even older than XF. Also, I joined the XF fandom relatively late, at the end of 1999, so there were already hundreds of “classic” fics out there, stories that were theoretically superseded or dated by canon developments that came after them, but which nonetheless remained compelling in their own right. That is the beauty of fanfic: it is inspired by its original creators but not bound by them. It’s a world of “what if” and each story gets to run in a new direction, irrespective of the canon and all the other stories spinning off in their own universes. In this way, fanfic becomes almost timeless.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

(I feel these are similar, at least for me, so I will combine them here.)

First and foremost, I found friends. There was a table full of XF fanfic writers at my wedding. Bugs was my maid of honor. I still talk to someone from XF fandom pretty much every day. Lysandra, Maybe Amanda, Michelle Kiefer, bugs…these are just some of the people who’ve been part of my life for half my existence now. Sometimes I get to have dinner with Audrey Roget or Anjou or MCA. Deb Wells and Sarah Ellen Parsons are part of my pro fic beta team. I have a similar list from the Hunter fandom, terrific people who have enriched my life in numerous ways and I am honored to count as friends.

Second, I learned a lot about writing during my years in XF fandom. I grew up there. Part of this growth experience was simply due to practice. I wrote about 1.2 million words of XF fanfic, which is the equivalent of 15 novels. I made mistakes and learned from them. But another essential part of learning is absorbing different kinds of well-told tales, and XF had these in spades. Some stories were funny. Others were lyrical. Some were short pieces with nary a word wasted while others were sprawling epics that took you on an adventure. The neat thing about XF is that it has space for many different kinds of stories, from hard-core sci-fi to historical romance. You can watch other authors executing these varied pieces and learn from them. You can form critique groups and ask for betas and get direct feedback on how to improve. It’s collaborative and fun, and this can’t be underestimated, generally supportive. The underlying shared love of the original product means that everyone comes into your work predisposed to enjoy it. I am grateful for all the encouragement and the critiques I received over my years in fandom.

Finally, I think a valuable lesson for writers that you can find in fandom, but not in your local author critique group, is how to handle yourself when your work goes public. Not everyone is going to like your work and they will make sure you know it. Some people will like it maybe too much, to the point where they cross boundaries. Learning to disengage yourself from public reaction to your work is a difficult but crucial aspect of being a writer. You control the story. You can’t control reaction to it. It’s frustrating at first, perhaps, but in the end, it’s freeing.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I participated in ATXC, the Haven message boards, and the Scullyfic mailing list/news group. For a number of years, I also ran a fic discussion group with bugs called The Why Incision.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I started reading XF fanfic before I began watching the show. I had watched one season two episode (Soft Light) and then seen bits and pieces of a few others from season four. I’d seen Fight the Future. Basically, I’d seen enough to know which one was Mulder and which one was Scully, and which one believed in aliens. An acquaintance linked me to a rec site for XF fanfic (Gertie’s, maybe?) so that I could see how fic was formatted for the web. I clicked a fic, I think it was one by Lydia Bower dealing with Scully’s cancer arc, and basically did not stop reading. Soon I was printing off 300K of fic to take home with me each night. I could not believe the level of talent in the fandom, and that there were so many excellent writers just giving away their works for free. I wanted to play in this sandbox, too, so I started renting the VHS tapes to catch up on old episodes (see, I am An Old). After a few months, I began writing my own stuff.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to The X-Files. I’m not a sci-fi person by nature. I think my main objection is that, when done poorly, it feels lazy to me. Who did the thing? A ghost! Maybe an alien? I guess we’ll never know. You can always just shrug and play some spooky music and the “truth will always be out there…” somewhere beyond the story in front of you. You never have to commit to any kind of truth because you can invent some magical power or new kind of alien to change the story. I think, by the bitter end, the XF had devolved into this kind of storytelling. The mytharc made no kind of sense even in its own universe. But for years the XF achieved the best aspects of sci-fi storytelling—narrative flexibility and an apotheosis of our current fears dressed up as a super entertaining yarn.

What eventually sold me on the XF as a show is all of the smart storytelling and the sheer amount of ideas contained within its run. At its best, it’s a brilliant show. You have mediations on good versus evil, the role of government in a free society, is there a God, are we alone in the universe, and what are the elements that make us who we are? If Mulder and Morris Fletcher switch bodies, how do we know it’s really “them”? The tonal shifts from week to week were clever and engaging. For Vince Gilligan, truth was always found in fellow human beings. For Darin Morgan, humans were the biggest monster of all. The show was big enough to contain both these premises, and indeed, was stronger for it. The deep questions, the character quirks, the unsolved mysteries and all that went unsaid in the Mulder-Scully relationship left so much room for fanfic writers to do their own work. As such, the fandom attracted and continues to attract both dabbling writers and those who are serious craftspeople. People who like the mystery and those who like the sci-fi angle. Scientists and true believers. Like the show, it’s big enough for all.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

I look at it like an old friend I catch up with once in a while. We’ve been close for so long that there’s no awkwardness—we just get each other! I love seeing people post screen shots and commentary, and I think it’s wonderful that so many writers are still inventing new adventures for Mulder and Scully. That is how the characters live on, and indeed how any of us lives on, through the stories that others tell about us.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I ran the Hunter fandom for about five years, mostly because when I poked my head back in, I found the person in change was a bully who’d shut down everything due to her own waning interest. A person would try to start a topic for discussion, and she’d say, “We’ve already covered that.” Well, yes, in a 30-year-old show, there’s not a lot of new ground…

Most other shows, Hunter included, have smaller fandoms and thus don’t attract the depth of fan talent. I don’t just mean fanfic writers. I mean those who do visual art, fan vids, critiques, etc. The XF fandom has all these in droves, which makes it a rare and special place. But all fandoms have the particular joy of geeking out over favorite scenes and reveling in the meeting of shared minds. It will always look odd to those not contained within it, which brings me to the part of modern fandom I find somewhat uncomfortable…the creators are often in fan-space.

In Hunter, the female lead joins fan groups and participates. This is more common now in the age of social media, where writers, producers, actors, etc., are on the same platforms as the rest of us. Fan and creator interaction used to be highly circumscribed: fans wrote letters and maybe received a signed headshot in return. There were cons where show runners gave panels and took questions from the audience. You could stand in line to meet your favorite star. Now, you can @ your favorite star on Twitter, message her on Facebook or follow him on Instagram. In some ways, this is so fun! In other ways, it blurs in the lines in ways that make me uncomfortable. I think it’s rude, for example, if a fan were to go on a star’s social media and post fanfic there or say, “I thought the episode you wrote was terrible.” But what if it’s fan space and the actor is sitting right there, watching you? Is it rude to post fanfic in front of her, especially if she says it makes her uncomfortable? Is it mean to tell a writer his episode sucked right to his face?

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I own the first seven seasons on DVD and will pull them out from time to time to rewatch old faves. I’ve shown a few episodes over the spring and summer to my ten-year-old daughter, and it’s been fun to see the series through her eyes. We’ve mostly opted for the comedic episodes because there’s enough going on in the real world to give her nightmares. Her favorite so far is Je Souhaite.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don’t have much bandwidth to read fanfic these days. My job as a mystery/thriller author means I have to keep up with the market so I do most of my reading there right now. I also beta read for some pro-fic friends and betaing a novel will keep you busy.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I read so much back in the day that this answer could go on for pages. Alas, it also hasn’t changed much over the past fifteen years because I haven’t read much since then. But, as we’re talking Golden Oldies today, here are a bunch:

All the Mulders, by Alloway I find this short story both hilarious and haunting. Scully embraces her power in the upside down post-apocalyptic world.

Strangers and the Strange Dead, by Kipler Taut prose and an intriguing 3rd party POV make this story a winner, and that’s before the kicker of an ending, which presaged 1013’s.

Cellphone, by Marasmus Talk about your killer twists! Also one of the cleverest titles coming or going.

Arizona Highways, by Fialka I think this is one of the best-crafted stories to come out of the XF. It’s majestic in scope, full of complex literary structure and theme, and yet the plot moves like a runaway freight train. Both the Mulder and Scully characterizations are handled with tender care.

So, We Kissed, by Alelou What I love about this one is how it grounds Mulder and Scully in the ordinary. Mulder’s terrible secret doesn’t involve a UFO or some CSM-conspiracy. Scully goes to therapy that actually looks like therapy. I guess what I’m saying is that I utterly believe this version of M & S in addition to just enjoying reading about them.

Sore Luck at the Luxor, by Anubis Hot, funny, atmospheric. What’s not to love?

Black Hole Season, by Penumbra Nobody does wordsmithing like Penumbra. I use her in arguments with professional writers when they try to tell me that adverbs and adjectives MUST GO. Just gorgeous, sly, insightful prose.

The Dreaming Sea, by Revely This one reads like a fairytale in all the best ways. Revely creates such loving, beautiful worlds for M & S to live in, and I wish they could stay there always.

Malus Genius, by Plausible Deniability and MaybeAmanda Funny and fun, with great original characters, a sly casefile and some clear-eyed musings on the perils of getting older. This one resonates more and more the older I get. ;)

Riding the Whirlpool, by Pufferdeux I look this one up periodically to prove to people that it exists. Scully gets off on a washing machine while Mulder helps. Yet it’s in character? And kinda works? This one has to be read to be believed.

Bone of Contention (part 1, part 2), by Michelle Kiefer and Kel People used to tell me all the time that casefiles are super easy to write while the poetic vignette is hard. Well, I can’t say which is harder but there much fewer well-done casefiles in the fandom than there are poetic vignettes. This is one of the great ones.

Antidote, by Rachel Howard A fic that manages to be both hot and cold as it imagines Mulder and Scully trying to stay alive in the frosty wilderness while a deadly virus is on the loose. This is an ooooold fic that holds up impressively well given everything that followed it!

Falling Down in Four Acts, by Anubis Anubis was actually a bunch of different writers sharing a single author name. This particular one paints an angry, vivid world for Our Heroes and their compatriots. There is no happy ending here, but I read this once and it stayed with me forever.

The Opposite of Impulse, by Maria Nicole A sweet slice of life on a sunny day. When I imagine a gentler universe for Mulder and Scully, this is the kind of place I’d put them.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Bait and Switch is probably the most sophisticated and tightly plotted. It was late in my fanfic “career” and so it shows the benefits to all that learning. My favorite varies a lot, but I’ll say Universal Invariants because that one was nothing but fun.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I never say never! I don’t have any oldies sitting around, though. Everything I wrote, I posted.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I write casefiles…er, I mean mysteries, under my own name now, Joanna Schaffhausen. My main series with Reed and Ellery consists of a male-female crime solving team, so I get a little bit of my XF kick that way. Their first book, The Vanishing Season, started its life as an XF fanfic back in the day. I had to rewrite it from the ground up to get it published, but if you know both stories, you can spot the similarities.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

The answer any writer will tell you is “everywhere.” Ideas are cheap and they’re all around us—on the news, on the subway, in conversations with friends, from Twitter memes, on a walk through the woods. My mysteries are often rooted in true crime, often more than one of them.

Each idea is like a strand of colored thread, and you have to braid them together into a coherent story. This is the tricky part, determining which threads belong in which story. If the ideas enhance one another or if they just create an ugly tangent.

Mostly, though, stories begin by asking “what if?” What if Scully’s boyfriend Ethan had never been cut from the pilot? What if Scully had moved to Utah after Fight the Future? What if the Lone Gunmen financed their toys by writing a successful comic book starring a thinly veiled Mulder and Scully?

Growing up, I had a sweet old lady for a neighbor. Her name was Doris and she gave me coffee ice cream while we watched Wheel of Fortune together. Every time there was a snow storm, the snow melted in her backyard in a such way that suggested she had numerous bodies buried out there. How’s that for a “what if?”

What's the story behind your pen name?

I’ve had a few of them and honestly can’t tell you where they came from, it’s been so long ago. The “6” part of syntax6 is because I joke that 6 is my lucky number. In eighth grade, my algebra teacher would go around the room in order, asking each student their answer to the previous night’s homework problems. I realized quickly that I didn’t have to do all the problems, just the fifteenth one because my desk was 15th on her list. This worked well until the day she decided to call on kids in random order. When she got to me and asked me the answer to the problem I had not done, I just invented something on the spot. “Uh…six?”

Her: “You mean 0.6, don’t you?”

Me, nodding vigorously: “YES, I DO.”

Her: “Very good. Moving on…”

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My close friends and family have always known, and reactions have varied from mild befuddlement to enthusiastic support. My father voted in the Spookies one year, and you can believe he read the nominated stories before casting his vote. I think the most common reaction was: Why are you doing this for free? Why aren’t you trying to be a paid writer?

Well, having done both now, I can tell you that each kind of writing brings its own rewards. Fanfic is freeing because there is no pressure to make money from it. You can take risks and try new things and not have to worry if it fits into your business plan.

(Posted by Lilydale on September 15, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #syntax6

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princip1914 · 4 years

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Princip -- you're the only other person I know who is a bit iffy on participating in zines. What are your reasons? I feel like we probably agree on some of them.

Hey RF! This is a great question, and a timely one. I have seen a lot of zine apps floating around Good Omens fandom recently. I imagine that those of us who, like me, love the fandom but aren't interested in participating in a zine might be feeling a bit left out. So I am answering this ask in part as a way to say: if zines aren't your thing, that's fine! It also goes without saying that if zines ARE your thing, that's fine too. I love that there are a wide variety of ways to participate in fandom, and I don’t mean to say one way is better than another. My goal here is just to articulate why I don’t feel comfortable participating in zines. So, here goes. It’s a long one, so my answer is under the cut.

1) Inclusivity: One of my favorite things about fan culture is how radically inclusive it is. Anyone can post something to AO3. It’s so easy! All you need is an email address and a story to tell. I love that. I LOVE that. What’s more, anyone can read anything on AO3. All you need is an account for works that are archive-locked and then the internet is your oyster. There are so few spaces in life that are like this. Almost everything--from where we live, where we go to school, where we eat and drink, who we know, what media we consume--has an element of exclusivity to it. Even other online platforms, like facebook or instagram, have algorithms to steer how content is experienced. Zines--which on the writing end have applications and mod teams, and on the reading end make content available only to paid subscribers for a period of time after publication--are exclusive spaces within the vast inclusive world of fandom. For me, the benefit of having something printed out, edited, thoughtfully formatted, etc. is not worth the exclusivity of the process.

I want to add here that I think there are many important conversations going on about how to make AO3 and other fan spaces even more inclusive (especially for creators of color and survivors of trauma). I think there’s still a ways to go, but that the ideal of what these sorts of spaces are supposed to be, is radically inclusive and that ideal matters.

2) Costs: I mentioned this above in my point about exclusivity, and I can already sense the notes piling up to remind me that many zines have a “pay what you can” option and make no profit and/or have the profit donated to a charity. I think those approaches to pricing are admirable. For many people, the act of raising money for a charity through zine publication may feel like an important and cherished part of fan culture. For me, however, it is important that my participation in fandom remain radically anti-capitalist. I never want money to gate access to my writing, which I do for free and for fun. This is also why I will never have a patreon or ko-fi account.

I recognize that this attitude comes from a place of relative privilege--I am financially secure and able to donate a portion of my income to charity each year. I have time to participate in service work outside of fandom. I understand that not everyone may be in this position and that zine work may feel important to some as a way to raise money for worthy causes.

3) Competitiveness: The world is a competitive place. I constantly feel pressure in my IRL life to perform better than others to advance my career. To some extent, I have internalized this drive and I wish I hadn’t. For me, fandom is a wonderful place where I am relearning the importance of doing something just for the joy of it, rather than to be the “best” at it. By not applying for zines, I am consciously choosing to keep my experience of fandom free of any comparisons with others (I would banish the AO3 stats page from existence if I could, but that’s another story).

4) IRL/Fandom Intersection: Unfortunately, I am not able to be open about my participation in fandom in IRL spaces. I know I will never buy a zine because I will never feel comfortable attaching a credit card with my IRL name to a fandom purchase, or revealing my IRL address for shipping. This sharp separation between my IRL life and my fandom life means that I (and others who maintain the same boundaries) will always be limited in our consumption of paid content and physically printed content. I would rather not contribute to a product that a portion of the fandom (including myself) is unable to access.

With all the zine applications coming out these days, I wanted to provide a voice saying that it is possible to have a great fandom experience without participating in zines. If you’re worried about missing out on the social aspect of participating in a zine, there are a myriad of ways to make friends in fandom--participating in an event, joining a discord server, messaging writers you like on tumblr (yes, even if you’ve never DM’d them before, most of us love meeting new people and starting conversations!), reading and commenting on others’ fics, replying to comments on your own fics, etc.

While these are my top personal reasons why I have never chosen to apply for a zine, I know that many people do enjoy them and I’m happy that the fandom is big enough for many different kinds of content!

At the risk of inviting ~discourse~ I would love to hear others’ (respectful!) thoughts on why they like or don’t like being a part of zines!

#long post #princip's musings #zines #asks

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cagestark · 5 years

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Better Late Than Never//1

And Merry Christmas to YOU

Aka I started another project that I will take twenty years to finish. But @starkerflowers prompts were just too fucking good.

About: With interest in his work waning, famous writer Tony Stark (under the pseudonym AE Potts) changes his entire public relations platform, which includes hosting a meet-and-greet contest where one lucky fan will get to spend the day with him. That one lucky fan is Peter Parker. Peter is 21. Will contain nff, alcoholism, suicide attempts, character death (not major), drug mentions, anxiety, anxiety attacks.

Read here on AO3.

Tony is awakened from a drunken, dreamless sleep by a tub of envelopes and small packages being upended over his head. He jerks upright with a shout from where he was slumped over his writing desk, upending the (empty) bottle of whiskey that had lulled him to sleep. Pepper stands over him, impeccable in every way he is not.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, pushing envelopes off of where they have pooled on his lap. “You could have taken my eye out, Peppercorn. What are you trying to do, perform Lingchi on me? What is all this?”

“Fan mail,” she says. Her voice is stern and unsympathetic. The first time she’d found him passed out drunk over his desk, she had panicked and nearly called for an ambulance. The next handful of times she had just covered him with a blanket and regarded him with sad eyes the next morning when she brought him coffee. But those were ten years ago. Not to mention, all in her first few weeks on the job— “Social media is revolting. You never answer fan mail, you never do Q&A’s, you haven’t done an interview in almost a decade.”

“Fuck this,” Tony mutters, opening one drawer. “Where’s my whiskey?”

“In your bloodstream, I’d imagine. Don’t brush this off, Tony. Sales are waning. We need to make some serious changes in our PR or I’ll be putting in my two-weeks’ notice.”

That gets Tony’s attention. Pepper hadn’t threatened to quit after his last book when he’d killed off one of the most popular characters (one of his personal favorites, may she rest in fictional peace) and the public had flipped their shit. She hadn’t threatened to quit years before that when she walked in on him hunched over his desk with a straw to his nose, three sheets to the wind on far more than just whiskey. She has the disposition of a mountain: unflinching and ever-enduring.

“You mean it,” says Tony.

“I mean it.”

His shoulders sag. He glances around the room: the mess, the junk, the empty alcohol bottles, the half-finished manuscripts. There’s a strange feeling in the back of his throat, acidic, like he might throw up. Or cry. When his mouth opens to say something sarcastic, something about not letting the door hit her on the way out if she expects him to play nice with the media, all that comes out is a broken: “I can’t lose you, Pep.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder. “You will. If you don’t make some changes. Okay?”

Maybe this is what it means to be balanced on a knife’s edge, where one way ends in pain and the other ends in terminal inconvenience. But he knows which one he has to pick. His whole life is just a big inconvenience, but pain? Tony has spent enough time with his hand flat against the stove’s burner to know that he’d rather die than feel it again, rather die than lose one of the only people left who can stand him.

He picks up the closest letter and tears it open, blinking heavily to clear his eyes. Pepper leans down to press a kiss to the crown of his head and then gags. “Take a shower, when you get the chance,” she mutters, smiling.

The letters start off by being good for one thing: his ego. Adoring fans have been writing to his penname and business address for decades since he put out his first super-hero novel, titled IRON-MAN. Pepper has chosen to give him recent fan-mail, considering he’s spent so long ignoring it that if he were to answer them in order of reception, he might encounter fans who didn’t even remember the letters once sent. Or ones who were dead.

They are all variations of the same thing. The handwriting changes, gentle feminine cursive to childish scrawling to neat block lettering, but the message is usually the same. DEAR MR. POTTS. I’VE READ EVERY BOOK YOU’VE EVER WRITTEN. I GOT YOUR NAME TATTOOED ON MY ASS. IRON-MAN IS MY HERO. I’VE NEVER READ PROSE AS LOVELY AS YOURS. WHAT IS YOUR SECRET?

At Pepper’s request, Tony drafts a generic letter to send in response, something about how he can’t respond personally to every letter but he wants them to know that he’s read what they’ve written and ‘holds it close to his heart’.

“It’s good,” Pepper approves. “Sign them yourself.”

“Good?” Tony says. “I was joking—this letter is trash. Anyone who knows me would see this for the sarcasm it is—”

“Then thank God none of the fans know you,” Pepper responds coolly.

She has a point. Tony has existed in relative seclusion since he first began publishing his works at 24. After twenty years, he’d managed to remain mostly anonymous. A pseudonym does most of the work, including non-disclosure agreements for his employees. Any time a presence is required, he sends Rhodey or Happy or Pepper even. Theory pages abound on the internet, sites devoted to finding out who the real AE POTTS is. Even though one picture leaked of him during the early 2000’s (a grainy godforsaken thing that didn’t even show his best angle), there were still some disbelievers. One popular conspiracy theory is that AE is Pepper, considering Tony stole her last name to use as his own.

Maybe that’s why his declining image in the media bothers her so much.

A week later, Tony’s hand has a cramp the way it hasn’t since he was a little boy learning to write his letters. Freehand has never been his specialty—it’s far too slow for the way his mind works, bounding a sentence, a scene, a chapter ahead. Signing so many letters is going to freeze his hand in a claw like position. He’s sure of it.

Then Pepper drops the next bombshell on him: the contest.

“It goes against everything I’ve been working so hard to do for the last twenty years,” Tony shouts at the zenith of their argument. “I do not want to be known! I don’t want the fame; I just wanted the goddamn fortune, is that too much to ask for?”

“Times have changed,” Pepper says through her teeth. She holds her own, spine straight. She hasn’t shirked away from his angry outbursts ever, not even when they were children growing up together in Manhattan. “I’m not asking you to do a 20/20 Special. I’m not asking for an interview on Ellen. I’m asking for you to meet with one fan. Have a goddamn lunch with them. If you can’t handle that, then you can kiss your fortune goodbye. Mark my words.”

Tony marks them. He fucking marks them, okay? When he’s drinking himself blind, locked in his office (good luck getting in now, Pep), they ring around his skull like a dime in the dryer. Sometime around dawn, she picks the lock on the door and mops his brow while he vomits in the tiny trashcan beside his desk.

“I’m not doing this to torture you,” she says with uncharacteristic tenderness. Her hand on his forehead occasionally rifling through his greasy hair is not what’s making his eyes prickle with tears—it’s the vomiting. Honest. He’s not that touch-starved. “You know that, right? I hate seeing you like this.”

“I know,” he chokes miserably, gagging again. So he agrees to the Willy Wonka Initiative. Pepper puts out the word that the infamous AE POTTS will be selecting a single fan to meet face to face. Anyone eighteen or older is eligible to participate, as long as they write a letter explaining why they should get it blah blah blah. A golden ticket might have been funner. At least then Tony might have had an excuse to wear the tacky purple suit and tophat.

In the meantime, Pepper reveals that she’s been having Happy screen his mail to only show him the happy letters—figures. His hate mail isn’t extensive, but it certainly exists, having increased exponentially since he killed off Natasha in the last novel.

FUCKING MYSOGINISTIC ASSHOLE, Cheryl from Newport tenderly writes. YOU HAD ONE GOOD FEMALE CHARACTER, AND YOU KILLED HER OFF. I HOPE ANOTHER WOMAN NEVER LETS YOU BETWEEN THEIR LEGS AGAIN AND YOUR DICK SHRIVELS OFF.

Tony thinks that’s pretty succinct. He posts it up on his desk propped up against the last picture ever taken of him and his mother. Killing off Natasha had been an idea he’d personally revolted against for months. Sure, it made sense that sensitive, strong Natasha would be the one to sacrifice herself in order to stop the villain from succeeding in wiping out half the universe. It made sense for a woman to be the one to give her life to protect others.

After all, hadn’t his own mother died trying to protect Tony?

The weekend after the contest drops on their social media platforms, Pepper texts to tell him that it’s being received far, far better than they might have ever hoped for. Already dozens of letters had been received, letters which must have been penned and mailed just hours after the news had spread.

Joy, Tony texts back.

I haven’t told you the best news, she says. That’s how Tony knows that the next news will be the worst news, absolutely the worst news of all. You get to pick the fan.

“Any letter catching your eye?” Pepper asks him over lunch in his office.

“They’re all the same,” Tony laments. Even his own ego can only take so much stroking. After a while, the fan mail has become mostly routine and lackluster, though he keeps opening it, keeps signing the response letters, keeps sending them out. “I’m going to end up picking one at random, Pep.”

“I don’t care how you pick,” Pepper says. “As long as you do—and as long as you’re ready to suffer with the consequences of your choice.”

“Suffer? God, I love the light you bring into my life. The unending optimism. The unparalleled faith and trust in me.”

Her eyes glitter even as they roll. “If you like me so much, you can buy lunch next time.”

Tony snorts, taking a large bite from his burger. “Gold digger.”

“I’ve seen your taxes, Tony. These days, there isn’t much gold to dig for.”

“Ouch, kill shot.”

The letter arrives only one week before the contest deadline. In the top drawer of his desk are three other letters from potential winners, mostly picked at random, sometimes because Tony likes their handwriting, sometimes because they say something funny that actually makes him laugh. When he opens up the letter from Peter B. Parker, he scans the first lines not intending to be impressed.

Dear Mr. Potts, Peter writes.

I’ve written you so many letters that it should be easy by now. I don’t know why my hands are shaking. Maybe I’m nervous because I know for certain that this one, someone will actually read.

I received my first copy of IRON-MAN when I was eight years old—yes, a little bit heavy for a kid that age, but my parents had just died unexpectedly in a car accident. My aunt and uncle took me in, and my uncle gave me his first edition. Iron-man’s story was one of the only things that got through to me as a kid. His struggle to come to terms with losing his own parents, his loneliness, his fear. The way he overcomes all of that and still goes on to do good…yeah. It meant a lot to a grief-stricken kid. Obviously.

Pretty much every birthday and Christmas, I end up receiving one of your books as a gift. My family and friends know me so well, I have nearly a half-dozen copies of AVENGERS (it’s one of my favorites). The things you write about are so close to my heart, so close to some of the experiences I’ve had in real life. My struggle with mental illness. My abuse and neglect. And the way you write these things makes me think…fear, I guess…that maybe you know something about them too.

I would love to get to meet you and talk about your incredible books. I’d love to get to know you. Not going to lie, as a fanboy, I’d probably be happy to just sit at the same table with you and have a meal. I’ll buy. We don’t even have to talk (okay I swear I’m not as desperate as I sound!). I’m sure you’ve received so many awesome letters, and I know that the fan you pick will be so, so lucky.

(Every letter I write to you, I ask if you could please return my book. It’s been five years since I sent it. I’m sure you don’t even have it anymore, maybe you threw it away from the start. But if you do have it, even if you don’t pick me to win the contest, it would mean so much if you sent it back. When I mailed it to you in Jan. 2014, my uncle was still alive. He’s gone now…anyway it’s one of the only things of his that I have left.)

Your fan always,

PETER.

PS: please disregard the last letter I sent…obviously.

Tony rereads the letter twice. He feels a swirl of emotion in his stomach, not dissimilar to the queasiness after a long night of drinking. This—this is what he sacrificed by being so closed-off from his fans. While he’d known that his fans were real and obviously human, a part of him had never felt the magnitude of it before. These are people with feelings and experiences. This Parker kid (a self-proclaimed fanboy) lost his parents too, and far younger than Tony had. In a car accident.

Maybe Peter hadn’t been there, hadn’t been in the car, hadn’t watched his mother parents go up in flames, but it’s still a tragedy all in its own right. And all at eight years old. Jesus Christ. This kid has been looking up to him for ten years and more, and he had no fucking idea that kind of dysfunctional altar he’d been worshiping at.

Tony goes into the private bathroom connected to his office and gags up—nothing. Drool. But it still leaves his mouth slimy, so he brushes his teeth until he’s spitting pink into the sink, and when he catches sight of the haphazard reflection in the mirror, he pities it. He leans forward to touch foreheads with it, auto-intimacy. Do better, some voice in the back of his head says, but it’s not his voice.

Happy picks up his cellphone on the first ring. Of the ninth call.

“What do you fucking want, Tony?” he hisses into the receiver. “I’m at the movie theater seeing that new Star Wars. You made me go out into the lobby—”

“Then I’m doing you a favor,” Tony says, cracking open the cap on a sparkling water. “Look, I have important questions, I wouldn’t have called otherwise. My fan mail—how much of it has Pepper kept?”

“Jesus, how should I know? Totes and totes full, at least—”

“Brilliant—”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself? I’m missing the movie!”

“Didn’t I say you’re not missing much? I’m asking you because Pepper will make me do it myself: I need you to find specific letters from one fan: Peter B. Parker. Address is Queens, but he could be from anywhere. I’m also especially interested in acquiring a package he sent me in January 2014.”

“Christ, could you be any more mysterious?” Happy mutters. “Text me the details you bastard, I’m not missing another moment of Mark Hamill.”

It turns out that Pepper is not only a saint in all ways previously mentioned, but she is a saint in this as well: his fan mail from the last ten years has been saved and meticulously organized by month and year of reception. Happy comes to Tony’s office in the city the next day with a package, the outside brittle but address clear.

The writing is the same script as the letter newly received from Peter, though the handwriting has become more mature over time. Neater. Confined. No more hasty slant from an enthusiastic hand. The kid’s contest entry is in the top drawer of Tony’s desk—the previous potential winners are now the cherries on top of the reject pile. His stomach is heavy as a stone while he tears open the five-year-old package.

Out tumbles a pre-addressed package that was meant to carry the book back to its owner, back to Peter. Then, one first edition of IRON-MAN, the cover a little tattered, the spine creaky. Also included is another letter, torn from a spiral notebook. He opens it with shaking hands.

DEAR MISTER POTTS

I KNOW THAT GETTING A RESPONSE FROM MY LETTERS IS A LONG SHOT, BUT I’M REALLY HOPING THAT YOU’LL AUTOGRAPH THIS COPY OF IRON-MAN AND RETURN IT TO ME. IT IS MY UNCLE BEN’S…

It goes on to describe how his Uncle’s birthday is coming up and Peter hopes to give the autographed book to his Uncle. Tony reads with a heavy heart, knowing now that Tony hadn’t bothered even opening the package, hadn’t tried to sign it—and even if he had, Ben hadn’t lived long enough to celebrate his next birthday. What a son of a bitch Tony is.

For the first time in three months, Tony goes home.

Most days he stays at the space he rents in the fancy Manhattan building, the one that holds his office and Pepper’s own workspace as well as the other people who work for him (Happy, Beck, Rhodey). The mansion outside Manhattan belonged to Tony’s father and his mother. When his mother had still been alive, it had been a cold place that he had endured staying at for her sake. After his mother had died, it had been a torture chamber, or worse—a stale, suffocating tomb.

Then Howard had died and somehow left it to Tony (probably out of some misguided duty to ‘keep it in the family’). Tony made a personal habit to visit it infrequently and stay there even less often; but Pepper maintains it for him, has it cleaned, keeps it safe. Uses it as storage, Tony knows. For his fan mail.

It takes up three entire rooms, floor to ceiling clear totes labeled with months and years. Just looking at it makes Tony feel small, ashamed of how little he cared about interacting with his fans. It’s no wonder sales were down. Searching for Peter’s letters would be like looking for a needle in a haystack—but he has to do it, and he can’t let Happy bear the brunt of the weight anymore either. This is on Tony.

So he begins pulling totes from the room and scattering their contents on the oaken table and floors of the dining room. Five hours and seven totes later, and Tony still has no letter from Peter.

Pepper finds him at midnight. She comes bursting in through the front door—Tony can hear the sound of the door colliding with the wall from the force she’s used—shouting his name. The hysteria in her voice chills him to the bone. It’s worse than the tone she uses when Tony fucks up; this is the tone she uses when there’s a Tragedy, when something is Wrong.

She finds him in the dining room surrounded by letters, kneeling up from where he was slumped on the floor. He must be a sight, but she is one too, her hair a mess, her eyes red. When she sees him, all the breath goes out of her, one hand clutching at her breast as the other grabs the back of a chair for support.

“Jesus, Pep, what’s happened? Is it your father, another heart attack—?”

“Why don’t you ever answer your goddamn phone, you bastard!” She says through heaving breaths. “You don’t leave the office for weeks and suddenly no one can find you, you won’t pick up your phone—”

It takes a long moment for the pieces to connect.

“Oh Christ,” Tony says, chidingly. “What, you were scared for me?”

She slumps into one chair and puts her face into her well-manicured hands. Tony drops back onto his ass. He’s not a good man, not a sensitive man. The last woman who had cried in front of him was his mother, and look at all the ways he had failed her. But the longer he sits letting Pepper cry, the more it feels like bamboo shoots growing under his tender fingernails. Fuck it. He gets up, knees creaking, and goes to her.

They sit side by side at the dining table no one has eaten at in twelve years. Pepper leans into him, her thin shoulders shaking. Shame makes his own eyes burn, because he thought what did she have to be afraid of? But maybe she saw his car in the driveway of the unhappy home he avoids and assumed that he’d come here to Hemingway himself. Maybe she sat in the drive steeling herself to come into the sight of his body.

“I’m going through the fan mail,” Tony says at last.

“I can see that,” she says. Her scathing tone drips with tears.

“I’m okay, Pep,” he says. He’s not sure if it’s true. He’s not sure if he’s been okay ever since he blinked awake upside down and suspended by the seatbelt in the back seat of his mother’s Cadillac, glass littering the roof (and the roof had become the floor, then, see? Because they were upside down), the smell of gas and smoke in his nose). Maybe he’s not okay. Maybe it’s all a fucking lie, but he’s not going to off himself. Not when there’s a mystery afoot. “I promise.”

She nods, one damp hand reaching out blindly for his. It’s an awkward angle to hold hands at, but he doesn’t complain. And awkward or not, it feels nice to be touched in a kind, even platonic way.

“What are you looking for?” Pepper asks at last, wiping at the wet, swollen skin beneath her eyes.

“Why? You want to help?” Tony asks.

“Might as well,” she says. “I always do your heavy lifting, don’t I?”

With Pepper’s help, they find the first letter. Somehow the Willy Wonka Initiative has reversed until Tony feels like a kid, ripping open chocolate bars, desperate for a glimpse of gold. At dawn, a cry echoes in the dining room startling Tony from where he was slumping against a tote, dozing.

“I’ve got one, Tony!” Pepper shouts. She’s barefoot, her panty hose taken off and folded on the table, her sensible jacket removed and slung over the back of a chair. Her rumpled shirt and tendrils coming free from her ponytail reveal how much energy she’s been putting into this with him—maybe to make up for her emotional outburst earlier, maybe like a mother humoring a child’s singular beneficial interest. “From Peter B. Parker, address is Queens, same as before.”

“What’s the date?” Tony asks. He slips in a pile of letters from last August and nearly breaks his neck. Wishful fucking thinking.

“Last May. Here—”

Tony takes the letter and collapses in a chair, his lower back grateful for the support. He recognizes Peter’s handwriting as he tears the letter open, and he can feel Pepper’s presence over his shoulder, reading along with him.

This letter is different from the others. Tony knows it right away. The first indication should have been the date; Tony’s most recent novel dropped early May of last year. His most controversial work to date, with praise glorious and venomous in kind. Which way did the scales tip when it came to Peter, Tony wonders.

I know that you won’t read this. I’ve written you twice a year since I was ten years old, and you’ve never written back. I don’t blame you. I’m sure you’re busy—I guess I just needed to get these words down somewhere, so that they exist, so that somewhere there is a record of me after I’m dead.

Tony reads the rest in a dazed blur. At one point, Pepper’s hand lifts to press against her mouth, but still they read on, huddled together for convenience and then for comfort.

In the letter, Peter describes the tragedy of his uncle’s death and how he felt personally responsible, and how after months of guilt, when he’d read about Natasha’s sacrifice, he’d decided to take action. Against himself.

If someone’s death can do so much good in the world, Peter wrote with shaky script. Then maybe mine could too. I’m not deluded or anything. I know that I’m not a superhero and that I’m not fighting against some sanctimonious super villain. But I feel like if my death could make May’s life easier, then I have to do it.

“Jesus. Tony, don’t read this—” Pepper reaches out for the letter but Tony nearly rips it in half trying to keep it away from her.

It’s not just for May, Peter admits. I’m ready to stop hurting, too.

Peter signs off, for good. Only it hadn’t been for good—Peter’s most recent letter had obviously proven that, and hadn’t he written it himself? Ignore my last letter, obviously, he’d said. Something must have changed Peter’s mind, but one thing was clear: it hadn’t been Tony. Because Tony had been so self-absorbed, so tangled in his own grief and ego and addictions he hadn’t even read the letter. If Pepper hadn’t saved it, then it might have been destroyed, no record left of Peter’s words at all.

“Tony,” Pepper says. She takes the letter from his fingers and he lets it go. His hands are numb. “This isn’t your fault. Peter obviously was unstable—he’d just watched his uncle being murdered in front of him. No one in their right mind would read Natasha’s death and think that you were encouraging them to take their own life.”

“I know that,” Tony snaps. Lying. Then: “I’m not an idiot, Pep.”

Maybe the biggest lie of all.

#starker #writer!tony #fan!peter #tw: alcoholism #tw: drugs #tw: suicide attempt #cagewrites

148 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 5 years

Photo

Let’s take a break from specific fandoms to talk about:

Platform Wars

In 2020, we’re all asking what’s next after Tumblr. This is nothing new. “Is thing X killing thing Y?” is a question fandom has been asking since long before Escapade. But these panels offer comfort and insight into our current fear of change.

They’re also fucking hilarious.

So, without further ado, here are some past Escapade panels on the subject of Change Is Scary:

1997 - Effects of the Internet on Fandom & Slash (On the upside: more fans, more conventions, more excitement and a 24-hour party. On the downside: are the connections more shallow? Are the changes made to "fandom as we knew it" change what we enjoy? Do print fans have something to fear? Or is this simple another wave?)

2000 - Less is More: Gluttony & the Decline of Quality in Fanfic

2004 - Amusing Ourselves to Death (Fannish Discourse in the the Age of the Internet By sheer quantity, has the quality of our conversation declined to predominantly static?)

2004 - LiveJournal, Boon or Bane? (Has the advent of LiveJournal brought about the demise of mailing lists? Has it splintered the venue for discussion to the point where it's impossible to have meaningful conversation? Is the LJ phenomenon just one big egotrip? Come join us to discuss these and other questions.)

2007 - Is F’locked the New Black (Is the flocked post the future of fan communication? Are we returning to the dark ages of closed lists, zines under the table, and "have to know someone"? More and more LJ posts are locked, communities are closed, and groups are invitation only. Is there a way to protect our RL selves (and our fannish selves), yet share our fannish commentary and fic? How does this all look to a newbie? Where is our new comfort zone? And how do we keep track of all of this?)

2008 - The Organization for Transformative Works (The Best Thing Since Ever, or the End Of Days? The OTW is an incorporated nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans in multiple ways, including by providing open-source archive software (and an archive), legal assistance, and various efforts to preserve the history of fanworks and fan culture.)

2011 - Delicious - Rumors of Death Greatly Exaggerated? (Delicious, fandom's favorite bookmarking site may be getting shut down (or at least sold out) by The Man. What to do?)

2016 - Fandom Is Fic: from BNF to TL;DR. (From paper through Usenet to Livejournal, text was king. On Tumblr, long text is an imposition—isn’t it? Has fic been dethroned from its place at the top of the heap and fic-writing BNFs along with it? Discuss the dirty little social dynamics of the shifting patterns of fannish value and how we define 'fandom' itself. And what of zines and zine eds?)

2017 - The Kids Are Not the Problem (In recent years, media fandom has grown enormously. It has also scattered, spreading out to new platforms and meeting spaces. You often hear talk about "the kids" vs. "the olds," Tumblr vs. LiveJournal, or the problem of recruiting and retaining new fans. In this panel, let’s try flipping that script. If kids are not the problem, how can we change and grow? What awesome things are other fans doing/trying that people at Escapade should know about? Most importantly, what strategies can we use to leave our fannish bubbles and more fully experience fandom in 2017?)

2019 - The fall of tumblr (Fans have always looked for a good place to build communities on line. Recent events with Tumblr and other platforms like Facebook are restricting our gathering places and even blocking and purging our self-made content. How are people dealing with this? Fandom will survive, but where? Come discuss the problems and options out there.)

And below the cut, a whole bunch more panels on platforms and change:

1991 - Quality Control in Zine Publication/Economics of Fandom (Who is making money in fandom? Should they be? How accountable are fans? Editors? Artists? Have you ever written an LOC?)

1993 - Supply and Demand in Fandom (Can we have too much of a good thing? How many cons or zine is too many? Are we glutting the market?)

1994 - Changing Nature of Fannish Communication (E-mail, and virtual zines, computer video editing and morphing -- all the new toys at our disposal...)

1996 - Internet—Will it eat your brain? Or take you to the poorhouse? (Nearly everyone has or can get access to a computer and thereby the Internet and the World Wide Web. What's out there for fans? What should you look for? What might you want to watch out for? How can you protect your pocketbook at the same time?)

1997 - Net Fiction & Print Fiction (Is the very existence of net fic changing the characteristics or reducing the quantity of print fic? Are there really stylistic and/or content differences? What makes some shows predominantly produce netfic, while others happily generate both? How do the barriers of access to each affect the fan community?)

1997 - History of Fan Socialization (Was fandom really different in the "old days"? Was there a feeling of community that we're missing now? Or is that just nostalgia clouding our memories? In today's net-connected fandom, what is (or should be) different? And what elements of the past should we try and retain?)

1998 - Professionals: Is the Circuit Dead? (Or has it just moved on-line? Is Pros fandom split on the subject of the internet? Many old circuit writers don't want anything to do with the new on-line library. They have objected to having their stories retyped an sent out, even on private e-mail. Has the paper circuit given way to the on-line library?)

1998 - Netfic Formatting A: How to Print It Prettily (An instructional panel, covering the basics of formatting, macros, and other time-saving tips to get the results you want.)

1998 - Privacy and Community: Pseudonyms, Screen Names and Face-to-Face Meetings (As more and more fandom is found online, how are we adapting to the anonymity that comes with it?)

1998 - Netfic Formatting B: From Word to Web, Making Shapely Net Slash (This panel is for everyone who wants to venture into the world of online slash, but gets nervous when faced with the myriad technical difficulties. Relax, it's easier than you think. We look at stylistic conventions, how to make your work newsgroup and e-mail friendly, and the dreaded subject header alphabet soup. We'll also cover some basic info on how to make a www archive site user friendly.)

1998 - Crossing the Line (An instructional panel on how to get what you want (more stories) in a world that may be unfamiliar to you (the web for print fans, and the insular world of zines for net fans).)

1999 - Does Print Fandom Have a Future? (In the age of instant, free net fic, is print fandom a dinosaur on its way to extinction, or a promise of reasonable quality in a sea of mediocrity? What are the key differences between zines and netfic, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Can the two coexist happily? )

2000 - Promoting Critique on Mailing Lists (How to promote critical discussion and attention to the mechanics of writing on email lists?)

2000 - Changing Power Dynamics in Fandom (With the decline of zine editors and growth of the Net, what's changed, and how does it affect us and our fanfic?)

2001 - Website Workshop 2 by the lady of shalott (Setting up and maintaining a fanfic archive, and in particular how to set up the Automated Archive software used by 852 Prospect and the Due South archives.) [NB: Yes, she went through a bunch of name versions before ‘astolat’.]

2002 - How to run a Fiction Archive (and Maintain Your Sanity)

2002 - Nobody Here But Us Sockpuppets (How multiple personality disorder takes on a whole new meaning in the world of mailing lists.)

2003 - Getting slash onto your PalmPilot for computer free reading

2003 - Recs Databases! Creation and Commiseration (Do you run a recs database and want to commiserate? Do you currently have a recs page and want to become database-driven? Want to talk about the relative merits of using PHP, MySQL, or Access to organize smut?)

2003 - How to Set Up and Maintain Fanfiction Archives (If you're thinking of running an archive, or already do and need some help, this is the panel for you. We'll cover everything from choosing a method of archiving, handling fandom growth, dealing with troublemakers, and just how much time, webspace and money are we talking, anyway? Come pick the archivists' brains.)

2003 - Has Escapade Run Its Course (Scuttlebut says: It's not like it used to be. My old friends don't come any more. My new friends can't get in. It's too big. It's too small. Oxnard, for god's sake? I'm getting sick and tired of the same shit year after year. Is Escapade old and tired? Does it need to be retired?)

2004 - HTML and Website Introduction (if you don't have a website and want to create one. where doyoustart'This will cover creating basic HTML pages and common webhosting options, as well as things to think about as you set iin vour first website.)

2005 - Where Have All The Good Conversations Gone? Rise & Fall of the Escapade Panel (Are people still interested in talking about the characters, plots, and themes of their shows? Has in-depth analysis of our fandoms been abandoned in favor of meta and fannish introspection? The forums for analytical discussion are disappearing as self-censorship and over-moderation increase. Can we change this? Do we want to?)

2005 - The Fannish Wiki (So we have the directorium, the directory of All Things Fannish. We visit it and it's just so cool, and we look for our fandom to see what it says... and it's not there! How to add it? What sort of info belongs there? How does a wiki work?)

2005 - I Was So Much Older Then, I'm Younger Than That Now (We've all heard about or lived through the tumultuous era when fandom moved online. But how has slash fandom, particularly slash fandom, changed since then? Are the changes the result of online fandom, or simply of a change in culture?)

2005 - Fanfic Archives (Setting up and administering fanfic archives: concepts, considerations, techniques.)

2006 - Putting your fic on the web (Basic skills for putting your fic on the web, including building your own very basic website, using LJ as a fic-site building tool, various options for labeling adult content, and using the standard upload interfaces for popular self-submit story archive software.)

2006 - Nifty Technology and the Future of Fandom (Fandom is quick to adapt to change and continues to bring fen together and to create fannish product. Fans have thrived regardless of how they communicate; via the post office, mailing lists, message boards, and Livejournal; they've pushed the frontiers of video and audio technology; and have managed to survive changes in copyright, pornography, and other laws. What are the upcoming trends and shiny new technologies on the horizon and how will fen use them to enhance fandom?)

2006 - Intermediate Webmastering (Designing your website for usability, options for restricting access to your website, making your stories easily accessed by mobile devices, and things to consider so fans can easily locale your site.)

2007 - Free Webtools and How to Take Fandom Advantage (Lots of free tools are available on the web to help the needy fan! Tools to edit pictures, make icons, write stories, share recommendations, share stories, and be fannish are becoming more available and more user friendly. Come chat about tools like del.icio.us, google docs, pxn8 audacity, itunes, the gimp, bittorrent, imeem, youtube and lll other things that you come and tell us about!)

2008 - E-book Readers (Sony PRS-505 or Amazon Kindle what's all the fuss about? Introduction to E-Ink and other mobile devices. What are the pros and cons of various devices? Where do you find e- books and fan fiction, and most importantly how do you get fan fiction formatted so you can read it on your ebook reader?)

2008 - If You Build It, Will They Come? (Roundtable on meta fannish infrastructure building strategies. bethbethbeth can talk about some of the specific challenges OTW is facing in its brave new fan territory, while oulangi can talk about why metafandom has flourished while very similar projects have failed, while we'll both discuss some of the challenges of the established meta/fannish structure of new communities, new fans, new technologies—and most of all, how do you keep the meta-fan conversation moving forward?)

2008 - Livejournal: Should Fans Take Their Business Elsewhere? (A discussion of the pros and cons of fannish communication on the various blogging entities.)

2008 - How to Find and Use Free Stuff on the Web (All kinds of free webapps are available for fic, art, icons, communication, and all sort of other fannish stuff. Come share favorite sites—we can bookmark everything we talk about on del.icio.us in real time!)

2009 - The Organization for Transformative Works (Off the ground and starting to soar! Come here about the latest developments in the OTW's projects and discuss where you'd like to see it go next.)

2010 - Is Somebody Taking Notes On This?: A Discussion of the Role of Fannish History (In honor of Escapade's 20th anniversary, let's talk about recording fannish history. What are the challenges? Is it worth doing? Can it be done in a fair way? What are we afraid of happening if we try? Is Fanlore the right vehicle for the project?)

2010 - The OTW in Its Third Year led by Elke Tanzer and Shoshanna (Okay, sure, the Organization for Transformative Works bought its own goddamn servers and hosted an archive (that hosted Yuletide) and published a journal (with a special issue on Supernatural) and saved a bunch of Geocities sites and testified at the DMCA hearings (supporting the FFF's proposed exemptions for vidders and other remix artists) and made a bunch of lolcats—but what have they done for us lately? [5] What do you want them to do?)

2010 - We Are All Naked (On The Internet Now) led by treewishes (Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter are conspiring with Google and your ISP to out your slash pseudonym to your RL friends, and to tell all your slash buddies your real name. Is there any way to stop the wave of facial recognition software or your oh-so-helpful friends who type your birthday into the cloud? Or is all this an inevitable consequence of evolving technology? Come on in and let's talk conspiracy theories!)

2011 - Fanlore: Are BNFs Writing Our History?, led by Sandy H (Fanlore has an official policy of 'plural points of view', but is that really happening? Have you ever looked up a kerfluffle you were involved in, and seen how your side of the battle was portrayed.' And on the other side, are we afraid of conflict, to the point that Fanlore is bland and safe?)

2011 - OTW/AO3 Wish List Conversation, led by Sandy H (Do you feel like you don't know how to get your A03 or OTW wishlist through the bureaucracy? A03 is getting better all the time, but there's a ways to go. Let's brainstorm and turn a list over at the end of the panel.)

2011 - The Reccing Crew (Recommending a fanwork is deeply woven into our culture. Are there new social mores at work when we make public recs? How has the move from letters to mailing lists to Livejournal and Delicious affected reccing? Delicious was conceived as a bookmarking site, but often operates as a recs and comments site. If it goes away, what would replace it?)

2012 - Tumblr, Twitter, and Pinboard, Oh My (and GetGlue, too!) (In the past year, the ongoing fannish diaspora has picked up speed, as more fannish activity has moved away from LiveJournal and Dreamwidth, and onto sites like Tumblr and Twitter. And then there was the Delicious implosion. Now there's GetGlue, a social network specifically for entertainment. Let's talk about navigating these sites—their strengths and weaknesses, and how to use them.)

2012 - The Kids These Days (Ever wanted to tell someone to get offa your lawn? Strangle the next person who said that? Revive a dead fandom? Joined a fandom you were 20 years "too old" (or young!) for? Did you go from Usenet to mailing lists? From zines to livejournal? Are you eyeing Tumblr and Twitter with alarm? Let's talk about weathering changes in fandom with grace—or at least a little humor.)

2013 - Privacy, Secrecy, and the Fourth Wall (The fourth wall between fans and The Powers That Be is shrinking day by day. Are the technologies we're using changing fannish etiquette {from invite-only mailing lists, to friends-locked journals, to all public all the time tumblr)? Should we run for the hills or embrace the change? Discuss!)

2013 - The What With the Where Now?! (Every time you turn around fandom is playing on a new site that has new functionality, new ways of interacting and new lingo. Join us in surveying places like tumblr, twitter and getglue.)

2014 - Tumblr: Missing Missing E (So you've just gotten the hang of Livejournal when all of a sudden fandom has jumped shipped to this new "microblogging" platform called Tumblr. What is "microblogging" anyway, and where do you even start? Join us in this tutorial/discussion on creating an account, deciphering the culture, finding fandom, and making Tumblr work for you.)

2014 - Out Of Step With the World (You have no current fandom. You can't even get Tumblr to load. What do you do when you're feeling disconnected and alienated, but you don't want to leave fandom for good? If this sounds like you, come join us to figure out some strategies for rekindling the love, making new friends, and finding your place.)

2014 - Real Fannish Community (Has AO3 ended the era of real fannish community or has it ushered in a new era of increased connectedness? Is Tumblr better or worse than the old days (and were the old days livejournal? yahoo groups? APA snail mail zine groups?)? I'm hoping for equal parts 'get off my lawn' and 'the future's so bright I gotta wear shades' debate here.)

2015 - Tumblr 102: Into Darkness. You’re here, now what? Here we talk about etiquette and xkit and making the most of your fannish tumblr experience.

2017 - Home on the Web (LJ's Russian overlords have removed HTTPS support and are moving the server activity to Russia; some say a shutdown of US services is on the horizon. Yahoo fails to make money with Tumblr. Dreamwidth is slow, and doesn't have media hosting. Email lists are a hassle. Imzy, a startup, places branding aesthetics over design usability. Where's the next place for fandom, or should we reclaim one or more of the platforms from the past?)

2018 - How to Tumblr (Like it or not (often, mostly not), tumblr is where fandom is most active right now. How do you find anything? How do you have conversations? How do you archive the bits you like best? The good news: the answers are not, "you don't; you don't; you don't." Bad news: Those aren't actually good questions for being fannish on tumblr.)

2019 - Social Network of Our Own (SNO3?) (Between FOSTA/SESTA, Article 13, Facebook's new "don't mention that sex exists" policy, and the Tumblrpocalypse, is it time for our own fannish social site? Or are Dreamwidth and Pillowfort enough?)

#escapade 2020 #fandom history #fandom meta #escapade con

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60b3r · 4 years

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Memes Kill Creativity?

Memes vs. Genes

In the 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the term 'meme' to describe something with symbolic meaning that spreads by imitation from person to person within a culture. This idea is an analogue to the nature of selfish gene, described similarly as a piece of genetic material possessing information required to be able to replicate themselves inside a living. The only key difference in both terms is that the gene is natural, while memes are artificial. The rest of memes' operating schemes completely mimic the genes perfectly. In our current timeline, memes as we know today are taking many forms: as image macros, short videos, and rick-rollicking music. Memes in imageboards and forums have been pushing internet porn traffic into a stalemate and putting our power grid into unnecessary burden. Of course, memes are not to be regretted, but otherwise need to be taken seriously, since they are able to put our current understanding of media industry and economic system into shame.

As with every other thing that have existed, memes are not exempt in its dualistic nature. If you ever venture to the depths of dark web, you may know that memes also took part in the infamous mimetic Tumblr-4chan War. Not only that, some memes are reportedly causing harm towards some users, even though it is often disguised or said to be a dank joke or mere sarcasm. Memes have seen its share of use in online bullying, mass shootings, and hate crimes, cowering behind the freedom of expression tag. Regardless, memes are also an extremely effective form of information transmission. Like all living systems with no set moral standards, memes do evolve and are subject to natural selection. Memes, like genes, actually work like a mindless machine. Again, this is eerily like the performance of DNA in living systems. The last thing we want from this thing is virulence.

Every day, something went viral on Twitter. Hashtags are flaring into the top trends, some videos are being watched billions of times, and another cat vs. cucumber pic garnered thousands of likes. Viral properties of a virus (duh) is defined as the capability to multiply quickly in relatively short amount of time. The term saw a huge increase in usage during the dawn of the internet age and the rise of computer malwares spread through unsecured ports of network protocol. This term is being applied to memes, as it is like a virus (which is a pure embodiment of a selfish gene). Now, a lot of people are utilizing memes to create art, because it enables them to cater the short-attention spans of current internet users. They create shorts, illustrations, inside jokes, and small comic strips. Some of you might not agree with me on this one, but stay with me now and I will explain to you why I would like to treat memes and art as a single unit of interest in this argument.

The dawn of meme-technology

Viral memes and their popularity are now often considered important in defining a time period in the internet culture. Now every netizen can somewhat distinguish the approximate age, sex, and political views of other users from the usage of rage comics, meme songs, and meme platforms they use. Intuitively we can make a generalized difference between the userbase of Reddit, 4chan, 9gag, Vine, and now Tiktok. Others, by the share of relatability with sub-genres of different areas of interest (film memes and game memes). Some others, even, in the perspectives of different social and economic class system (first world problems and third world success memes). Meme preferences to us netizens are ironically giving away our anonymous identity. Identity which the media companies are vying to get their hands on. That's where I would like to come into my opening argument: both memes and genes which originally possesses no intrinsic value, suddenly become a subject of value with technology.

How do we draw the logic, I say? The ones and zeros inside electrical systems are value-free, so does DNA in living cells. As we meddle ourselves with biotechnology to manipulate genetic material for profit, we also simmer ourselves in the computer sciences and tweak physical computation to perform better. We give value in the inanimate object by manipulating them. In our world, we often heard these expressions: that communication is key, sometimes silence is golden, and those who control the information wields the power. What’s these three statements have in common? Yes, information and expression. Memes are the simplest form of both. This is the beginning of the logic: memes are no longer in and on itself independent of external values. The infusion of utilitarian properties in memes as artificial constructs are seemingly inevitable, and for the better or worse shapes our current society.

We might have heard that somewhere somehow, the so called ‘global elites’ with their power and wealth are constantly controlling biotech research and information technology—or, in the contrary, they control these knowledge and resources to keep shovelling money and consolidate their power. Memes are one of their tools to ‘steer’ the world according to their 'progressive agenda', seemingly driving the world ‘forward’ towards innovation and openness. Nah, I am just joking. But, stay with me now. It is actually not them (the so-called global elites) who you should be worried about. It is us—you and I, ourselves—and our own way of unwittingly enjoying memes that are both toxic and fuelling the age-old capitalism. Funny, isn't it? We blame society, but we are society. But how are be becoming the culprits yet also be the prey at the same time?

Middle-class artists are hurt

Now, aggressive marketing tactics using memes are soaring. Media companies are no doubt cashing in the internet and viral memes to their own benefit. Streaming and cataloguing are putting up a good fight compared to their retail, classic ways of content delivery. This is quite true with the strategies of Spotify and YouTube, other media companies alike. They can secure rights to provide high-quality content from big time artists and filmmakers and target these works directly to the end consumer, effectively cutting the cost of distribution which usually goes to the several layers of distribution line like vinyl products, radio contracts, and Blu-ray DVDs. I believe this is good, since it is like an affirmative action for amateur artists to start a career in the art industry. Or is it? Does it really encourage small-time artists to begin? Yes. How about the middle-class artists? Not necessarily.

You might sometimes wonder, “how the hell did I get somewhere just by following the trending or hot section in the feed?”. This toxicity of memes often brings some bad things to our tables. Social media algorithms handle contents (like viral memes) by putting those with high views or likes to the front page, effectively ‘promoting’ the already popular post and creating a positive feedback cycle. By doing so, they could capitalize on ad profits on just few ‘quality’ contents over huge amounts of audience in a very short amount of time. The problem is most of the time, these ‘quality’ contents have no quality at all. They just happen to possess the correct formula to be viral, with the correct SEO keywords and click-bait titles with no real leverage in the art movement. This way, I often find both the talented and the lucky—of which the boundaries between them are always blurred—overshadow the aspiring ‘middle-class’ artists who work hard to perfect their craft.

If you are already a famous guitarist with large fanbase, lucky you, you are almost guaranteed to top the billboards. What, you have no skills? Post a video of you playing ‘air guitar’ and… affirmative actions to the rescue. Keep on riding the hype wave and suddenly you get to top trending with minimal effort, thanks to your weird haircut. Those haters will surely make a meme out of your silly haircut, not even your non-existent guitar skills. But still, hype is still a hype, and there’s no such thing as a bad publication. This also answers why simple account who reposts other people’s content could get much more followers than the hard-working creators. Not only being outperformed by the already famous artists taking social media by storm, now the ‘middle-class’ artists are also dealing with widespread content theft and repost accounts because of the unfair, bot grading system. It is unimaginable how many nobodies got the spotlight they don’t deserve just because they look or act stupid and the whole internet cheers around them. Remember, this is not always about the artist, but also the quality of the art itself. I believe a good art should be meaningful to the beholder.

Why capitalism kills creativity

The problem in current art industry is that we are feeling exhausted with the same, generic, and recycled stuff. We indeed already see there’s less discourse about art now. Sure, the problem lies not in the artist or medium, but is in the viewers—the consumer of the art form—and how the capitalist system reacts to it. The hyper efficient capitalist system doesn’t want to waste any more time and money trying to figure out what’s new or what’s next for you. What we love to see, what is familiar to us, the market delivers them. The rise of viral memes phenomenon in the social media pushes the market system to the point where they demand artists to create the same, redundant, easy art form. Listen to some of The Chainsmokers’ work and we'll see what music have become: the identical 4-chord progression, the same drop, the predictable riser, and the absence of meaningful lyrics. We sat down and watch over the same superhero movies trying hard to be the next Marvel blockbuster. The production companies are also happy not to pay writers extra to come up with new ideas and instead settle with borrowed old scripts from decades old TV drama. Disney's The Lion King and its heavy use of the earlier Japanese Kimba The White Lion storyline is one guilty example.

Despite it initially being an economic system and not a political ideology, it is untrue that many Marxist philosophers usher the suppression of art. While it is ironic that Stalinist policy intends to curb ‘counter-revolutionaries’—in this case his enemies—by limiting freedom of press and media; American propaganda added further so that it seems that the ideology is also limiting art and kill creativity. We all know the Red Scare in the U.S. during the Cold War saw a popular narrative of communism and socialism that is devoid of freedom of expression. This state propaganda then further become ‘dehumanization’ and make freedom of expression invalid under the guise of equality. Marx argue that total equality is not possible, and the uniqueness is being celebrated by having them doing what they do best and provide the best for their community. Thus, an individual's interests should be indistinguishable from the society's interest. Freedom is granted when the whole society is likely to benefit from an action. According to Mao in his Little Red Book, freedom of expression in art and literature, after all, is what initially drive the class consciousness. It is capitalism, not communism, that kills creativity.

If left unchecked, the threat of this feedback loop is going to cause a lack of diversity, resulting in stale content, less art critique, and overall decline in our artistic senses. Artists’ creativity that are supposedly protected by the free internet are destroyed within itself through the sheer overuse of viral memes. Capitalism has successfully turned the supposedly open, free-for-all, value-free platform that is the internet against the people into a media in which they are undeniably shaping new values on its own: the art culture that's not geared towards aesthetics and appreciation, but towards more views and personalized clicks. How social media and media industry caters to the demands of the consumer are, in Marx's own words, “digging its own grave”.

Spare nothing, not even the nostalgia

Well, people romanticize the oldies. The good old days, when everything is seen as better and easier. Look at the new art installations that uses the aesthetics of naughty 90s graphic design to become new, the posters released in this decade but with an art deco of the egregious 80s pop artist Andy Warhol, or the special agent-spy movies set frozen in the Nifty Fifties. Nostalgia offers us a way to escape from the hectic choices of our contemporary: different genres of music, dozens of movies to watch, and different fashion to consider. We choose to settle with our old habits, that we know just works. Remember how do we throw our money on sequels and reboots and remakes of old movies we used to watch during our younger days? We don’t even care about new releases at the cinema! Did you remember how Transformers 2 and their subsequent sequels perform at the box office at their opening week?

The huge sales of figurines and toys of Star Wars franchise—if we could scrutinize them enough—came from the old loyal fanbase of the late Lucasfilm series, not primarily from new viewers. Then suddenly, surprise-surprise. Our love for an old franchise deemed dead enough to be remembered and treasure soon must be destroyed to pave way for three new outrageous sequels (the ones with Kylo Ren and Snoke) by the grace of our beloved capitalism. Sadly, nothing is left untouched by the capitalism’s unforgiving corruption. Nostalgia has become a gimmick that makes people like some art more than they should, because it’s familiar. It is another way of squeezing your pocket dry.

Not that it is bad to make derivatives like covers or remixes, but the trade-offs are far too high. Consequentially, the number of original arts is now very little, because artists don’t bother making new stuff if they just aim for a quick buck. Most of the young adult novels are essentially the same lazy story progression with only different time setting and different character names. Most of them even have the same ending! No more a beautiful journey like the thrillers of Dan Brown or the epic adventures of Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings, which defines their respective times. Do we seriously want to consider Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey as a unique work? Isn’t the Hunger Games and the Maze Runner essentially the same?

If you play video games, you must have known that the trend always starts over. Game developers are making gazillions of sequels, and only a few of them that are actually good. Most are outright trash. Oh, wait, old video games like Homeworld are also getting remasters to cater the demand of nostalgic consumers. No new Command and Conquer release from EA Games? Re-release the 25 years old Red Alert because people will re-buy it! Profit!

15 June 2020 8.03 PM

#essay #writing #exposition #meme #art #capitalism

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brunhiddensmusings · 5 years

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argument starters

top ten statements on my mind that might start moderately intellectual debates A- rick and morty still exists primarily as a vehicle to create more funko pop models and most episodes are written for the sole purpose of such B- the movie industry has learned nothing from marvel, not even marvel has learned from marvel. nor have they learned what made the original starwars films beloved, or lord of the rings, despite having literal decades to have studied it and having actual classes in colleges for filmography majors to have figured this out by now. or really learned anything from any good movie on what those movies did well regardless of if they were as big as those trilogies or if they were as off in left field as asking what worked about ‘labrynth’ and what didnt. any movie that ‘fails’ is assumed that the elements of the movies are what made it fail, not that it was poorly made and bad, so the attack will always be on any innovation of the movie or the genre, so that the studio shuns anything that isnt formulaic and safe even if that would also produce a garbage movie. honestly twats on youtube analyzing movies actually -DO- know more about what makes a movie shit or good then the actual executives in charge of multi billion dollar companies and thats both scary and satisfying. B part 2- this may sound like a petty concern but its literally an industry the not only employs millions of people and is worth a severe chunk of the economy but also is involved with shaping culture and whats seen and what is critisized, movies and tv impact the world by changing what people see as normal and guiding their worldview C- naruto, as flawed a thing as it is also has reason people enjoy it, however it could have been made into legitimately impressive and quality content if -naruto himself is not the main focus, he is instead a prominent side charachter -rock lee is the focus, as he actually idealizes the point of the show about hard work being more important then natural ability and isnt as much a twit -just put sasuke in the trash can, close the lid -open the lid briefly to also dump in the weird obsession with bloodlines, birthright superpowers, and reincarnations that make hardwork pointless as everyone has a lineage of superninjawizard powers over and above the normal ninjawizard powers so if your dad wasnt ninja-merlin you arent worth shit D- there is nothing wrong with zombie based media, its just mostly created by people who have no fucking clue how to use zombies in a story D part 2- if your moral is ‘man is the real monster’ i need to slap you E- creepypastas and SCPs are actually a very good practice ground for aspiring writers to toy with ideas within a prompt framework its just that we see predominantly derivative early works of people that hopefully later go on to surpass their bad fanfiction stage and we need to re-approach the style with the ambition to actually do something with the setting and move past the sea of cheap knockoff psycho teen with knife stories and thing that makes people die F- capitalism may be extremely flawed but ‘free market’ concepts can exist without capitalism much like socialism can exist alongside democracy G- avacados, while healthy, are relatively flavorless in addition to being damaging agraculturally due to how water demanding they are despite often being grown in areas with water shortages but are also being seen as a finantial diversification for cartels that typically manage drugs. avacado money actively funds gang violence H- well meaning people unintentionally hurt their cause all the time yet calling them out on it weakens the cause by creating needless infighting I- pie is an acceptable meal option, cheesecake is a pie not a cake, cheesecake might not be the best meal choice but its ironically far from the worst J- kickstarter, youtube, and patreon are amazing ideas that allow creators to actually produce content without relying on pitching a concept to a giant soulless corporation that will inevitably crush any innovation even on the tiny fraction of creators they ever say yes to and will only say yes to pitches that are garbage, however these platforms have taken such massive hits to reputation that they may soon become unusable for that intended purpose. you may feel bitter about mighty number nine style fiascos or ultra fake douchebros who have airhorns on every video as they tell you to smash their button but that bitterness threatens actual opportunities for real creativity and very worthwhile things being made K- shakespeare shouldn't really be given any more reverence then any other author, really no writer should be put on a higher pedistal simply because they were from a certain era of writing. conversely popular current/modern literature isnt inherently worse or better then the ‘classics’ as all the classics were popular/modern at some point in the past which is the only reason knowlege of them survived till to day for people to assume theyre somehow more profound

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secretgamergirl · 6 years

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The New McCarthyism

Today is International Trans Day of Visibility, which is as good a day as any for me to write about a very serious issue trans people are facing, which really needs more mainstream attention. Trans people are being actively erased from public visibility, in a surprisingly literal sense, and we have been for quite some time.

Back in the 1940s-50s, there was this nasty little thing called the Hollywood blacklist. In theory it was an effort to deal with dangerous spies, but in practice it lead to a massive witch hunt, where anyone who anyone had a big enough problem with would be painted as an enemy of the state, and any denial of such was presented as “proof” because “that’s just what a communist would say!” This was part of a general trend now referred to as McCarthyism to just arbitrarily paint people as “dangerous” and deny them any sort of career or platform to defend themselves. And of course various forms of prejudice piggybacked along on this, with LGBT people in Hollywood in particular being quite paranoid for the decade.

Those lists were backed up with fear of inquisition from specially created government committees, but mainly enforced by studio executives and others holding the reins of power passing around lists of people not to work with, making it nearly impossible for anyone targeted to find employment. The modern blacklist though is much more efficient, preventing those targeted (mostly trans people and those willing to stick up for us) from finding employment or even holding conversations, in a more or less entirely automated process. To explain just how that works though, first we need to have a brief discussion about Twitter.

Twitter represents a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Stand-Up comics use it as a quick way to test new material. Corporations use it as one of many vectors for for making announcements and PR statements (along with very bizarre one on one interactions with people mentioning their products). A lot of people use it as their primary vector for socialization, sending messages to friends, posting personal announcements, party invites, and so on. Some people use it as a news source, particularly those who have a particular special interest, as informal networks passing around story links make it impressively easy to stay up to date on every development of a certain type. Anyone doing any sort of creative work uses it for all their networking. And of course, radicalized bigots use it as a means of coordinating attacks against targets of whatever minority status they have a particular interest in that day. We’ll come back to that point, but allow me a moment to elaborate on the networking.

Personally, I wear a lot of different hats. I’m a game designer. I’m an artist. I’m a writer, of both news and fiction. I’m a professional critic. And I’m an activist for a number of causes. All of these fields depend on networking. And all of these fields have somehow decided that that networking is going to take place almost, or entirely, on twitter. I was hugely reluctant, personally, to ever register a Twitter account, and spent a few very confused years watching my carefully curated network of e-mail lists, message boards, and gossipy industry friends dry up completely. Having properly established a foothold in twitter however, I have lightning fast access to the ability to find work. Within an hour of anyone having the idle thought to ask if anyone out there has experience writing about a topic I have an interest in, that request will have flowed through whatever network is relevant in a string of reposts, landing right in front of me, along with a few quick tools for me to work out if the person making this request is someone I’d actually want to work with and vice versa. Literally every cent I have earned, job I have interviewed for, and update about a cause I’m concerned with has come to me this way, and only this way, since registering a Twitter account. Without one, I’d be completely unable to work in any of these fields.

Unfortunately, as anyone who relies on Twitter for their profession and lacks the luxury of being a white cis man, Twitter has a rather pronounced nazi problem. That is to say, neo-nazi organizations have come to the realization that they will face zero repercussions for using the site as a vector to launch absolutely vicious or even criminal attacks on their targets. As Twitter has made it abundantly clear that no real measures will be taken to address this under the current management, the only real tool available to the userbase is a block feature which prevents direct mentions from a blocked user to display to the user imposing the block (although these messages will still display for everyone else), and preventing the blocked user from viewing their posts (without first signing out or opening a private window).

Enter blocktogether.org, a site where any Twitter user can share a list of everyone they’ve ever blocked with subscribers, refreshing with each new block. If you were to subscribe to my Block Together list for instance, you would instantly block the several thousand malicious trolls I’ve blocked over the years for sending me harassing messages, plua a handful of people I happened to take personal offense to, and you would automatically block the next batch of 100 trolls I weed out of my twitter replies without any further input or notification. The appeal as a stopgap for an essentially unmoderated website is clear, as should be the mental image of a clique of bratty high school children lording The List as an instrument of social power. Note also the handy links to automatically block all newly registered accounts, or those with low post counts.

Originally, typical usage of Block Together involves picking a particular favored celebrity whose list to subscribe to, filtering from your view anyone that celebrity has taken issue with. In 2014 however, in the face of a massive neo-nazi uprising on twitter, a woman named Randi Harper hit upon the idea of writing a script to scan through twitter’s database of users, identify anyone following the majority of a list of known neo-nazi leaders, compiling them into a list which an automated twitter account would then block, updating daily, for a theoretical constantly updated list of every neo-nazi account, which combined with Block Together would preemptively keep them all out. A number of other lists followed suit, using similar logic to target members of other violent reactionary groups.

For a brief window, when Twitter’s neo-nazi insurgency was in its infancy, and individual hate groups and botnet owners were using the site to coordinate, and totally indiscriminate in choosing new targets, these lists were largely considered to be a necessity to make the site usable for anyone working in certain fields, particularly reporters, civil rights activists, game designers, and anyone working in the entertainment industry. As a result, Harper became a minor celebrity, whose personal Block Together list was subscribed to by much of Hollywood, the press, and those in activist circles, as neo-nazis worked out how to easily circumvent the automated list.

Unfortunately, Harper is not a conscientious, responsible, career activist, but a random computer programmer with a short temper and some serious personal biases and bigotries. In particular, her personal list of blocks contains hundreds of trans people, and vocal supporters thereof. Anyone subscribing to her Block Together list, advertised as “almost entirely” nazis, inadvertently blocks a significant trans population. Anyone raising this subject to Harper is also immediately placed on the list, and animosity over the subject once caused her to personally write a post on the reddit board of the very neo-nazis her list was created to thwart, encouraging those sending death threats to her and her son over the manufactured scandal of the day to instead target “Someone that goes on long unstable diatribes, thinks I'm a terf [a term for members of a particular dangerous hate group targeting trans women], yells a lot about Jesse [Singal, another notorious figure in trans circles, with a history of both fetishizing trans women and writing propaganda pieces designed to erode trans people’s rights, and repopularize conversion therapy for trans children].“

This post lead to immediate attacks against every trans person with any notable Twitter presence, along with our extended families, ranging from death threats, to abusive calls to elderly relatives, to coordinated efforts spread possible addresses, e-mail accounts, and phone numbers far and wide to aid in SWAT attacks and similarly dangerous behavior. There was, of course, absolutely no public outcry or acknowledgement of this, as both victims and those inclined to speak on their behalf had already been added to Harper’s Block Together list, which was subscribed to by exactly the sort of media voices who make it a point to raise awareness of such incidents.

Here lies the most obvious danger of this new form of McCarthyism. If a particular Block Together list is widely adopted within a given circle of people, the maintainer of that list can abuse their power, adding the names of those they’d like to see disappear for the pettiest of reasons, those so added effectively vanish from that circle completely, unable to explain what happened. The effectiveness of this is further strengthened by the sheer pervasiveness of these lists, making it unclear exactly which “anti-nazi” list one may have been added to, the intensity of the taboo Twitter users place on objecting to being blocked (bearing in mind that even those of us doing so by hand typically have thousands of trolls whining about having been blocked by us, and the impossibility of distinguishing the name of a complete stranger from the dozen people shouting slurs at us last week), and the fact that a subscriber to a list will not automatically block anyone they manually follow. So, hypothetically, if you were to be added to Harper’s list, and conferred with friends in an attempt to determine why you were suddenly cut off from interacting with the entertainment industry at large, those friends subscribed to that list would be just as in the dark as you.

Harper is far from alone in abusing Block Together in this fashion, and it is alarmingly common for trans people to suffer the most. Long lists of innocent trans people get discreetly added into lists advertised as filtering out misogynists, racists, homophobes, and the just recently, even a list explicitly created to shut out anti-trans bigots had one of its administrators load in a staggering number of trans people in an act of pure frustration and malice.

Often, these lists will note that a certain percentage of those blocked will be false positives, phrased in a way that makes them sound like acceptable casualties of war. A handful of strangers you’d never likely interact with to begin with losing access to you seems like a small price to pay for shutting 100,000 bigots out of your life, after all, but this is completely inexcusable when looked at from the other side of the equation.

As mentioned earlier, for people in many careers, unfettered Twitter access is a basic requirement in order to be able to work at all. As a freelance game designer, the entire industry inadvertently blacklisting you prevents you from ever responding to an open call. A struggling actor can’t learn about potential roles. A reporter can’t pitch story ideas to editors. A freelance artist can’t circulate a portfolio. This sort of thing is particularly devastating to the trans community at large, because we face intense discrimination in face to face interactions. As an unusually large and hairy woman, people find my presence uncomfortable, and routinely immediately reject me immediately as I sit down for any sort of interview. A man who comes across as slight and feminine has similar problems, and non-binary people unnerve potential employers in ways they can’t even put into words. This forces us into creative fields, the gig economy, and freelance work in general, where again, a single petty person throwing our names into a list can completely block off entire career paths along with our means to object.

Additionally, Block Together lists don’t actually have any real impact on combating the sort of mass harassment they’re touted as a cure for. Practically none of those hundred thousand accounts a given list might claim to block are actually active. As there are no real limits to a single person setting up an absurd number of Twitter accounts, those inclined to use the site as a vector of abuse have thousands if not millions of spare, disposable accounts, set up years ago as “sleeper agents,” destined to be used in a one-off flyby attack, and then never used again, at least against the same target, and if they ever run out, registering new ones isn’t a particular barrier.

Even after establishing that the abuse of these blacklists is something to take seriously, dealing with them is a seriously daunting task. The first barrier of course is raising awareness. This very article is bound to have a hard time making inroads with those who need to be made aware of the issue because they’re cut off from so many of those affected. Even once one is aware though, unsubscribing from one of these lists does nothing to undo the damage to those added to it.

Consider for instance the somewhat high profile case of Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Stand by Me, The Big Bang Theory, Tabletop). Wheaton is a genuinely well-meaning celebrity, concerned with mass-abuse campaigns, and an avid supporter of Block Together, having circulated his own blocks for some time, and being one of the first to subscribe to Harper’s aforementioned list. Due to the nature of Block Together, subscribing to Harper’s list caused all of her personal petty blocks and odd grudge against trans people in general to propagate to Wheaton, and from there, anyone subscribing to his list, or a list belonging to one of his subscribers.

Having over three million followers and a very good reputation, Wheaton’s list being infected in this manner was absolutely devastating to those spitefully added by Harper, becoming an incredibly far reaching blacklist. Upon being made aware of this situation thanks to a friend sharing an earlier piece on this subject, Wheaton promptly unsubscribed from Harper’s list, and manually unblocked those he was directly made aware had been affected. Unfortunately, Block Together’s functionality has no real “undo” button. Every block Wheaton acquired from Harper remains after unsubscribing from her list, and remains for everyone unsubscribing from Wheaton’s.

The only way for those placed on the blacklist to regain a normal level of access to the site would be to compile a list of those affected by blacklists of this nature (this Twitter account incidentally explicitly follows the best such list its creator is aware of), and for every individual to have subscribed to, really, any Block Together list at any point, to personally run threw these false positives, by hand, unblocking each one. Again, it’s difficult enough to spread awareness of the situation to everyone who would need to take action to remedy it, and said necessary action is frankly a fairly involving task, which for any individual is going to feel like a lot of work for no real benefit, either for themselves, or for the random strangers whose lives they are impacting in a very abstract, single drop in a vast ocean sort of way.

The practical upshot of all of this is that any given person with the ability to market a Block Together list is capable of doing massive, life-ruining damage to anyone who relies on Twitter for their livelihood, instantaneously, at any time, with virtually no chance of it ever coming to light, and even less chance of that damage ever being undone. And this is routinely used by people whose positions make them seemingly the last sort to ever do so to completely destroy the livelihoods of trans people en masse, while also making it nearly impossible for us to even beg for support in the aftermath.

I have no real solution for this problem. The best I can do is plead that you never subscribe to a Block Together list, and raise awareness of this issue, possibly by linking out this article. A lot of people I know, myself included are facing homelessness thanks to the brutal efficiency of this discrimination tactic, and even those devastating results are rendered invisible.

#tdov #trans awareness #discrimination

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sometimesrosy · 6 years

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Not ship related... I admire you so much, the way you talk about writing is so beautiful. It’s my passion and dream, I feel like I can change my whole world with my writing. But my parents keep telling me that I won’t get money doing that, that I’m not talented enough and already too old at 24. Should I give up on this? Maybe my talent is in my head and I’m leading myself to disappointment? Light me up Rosy! :c

:D this is so sweet. I am glad that I could help you be inspired, that is my calling, I think.

Listen honey. I don’t make money off my writing. I’ve made money off my blog and social media and art and tarot and teaching and curriculum planning. If you’re expecting writing to support you or make you rich, you should PROBABLY adjust your thinking. Most writers make some small amount of money like 10k a year or something. Being a writer is a SMALL BUSINESS. This is not something I realized when I started out a bright eyed and bushy tailed kid. Some do manage to make a living just off of writing novels or something, but most have to supplement their income with other things, whether that’s a full time job, family support, a rich mate, teaching, editing, freelancing or what have you.

BUT that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. I’m kind of starting over with my writing career, not because I ever stopped WRITING. Writing I’ve done continuously since I was 15, and I write to stay sane, to have fun, to connect with people, to think, and because I am actually compelled to write. I can’t stop writing. Whether it is novels and stories, poems, meta, blogs, a journal or whatever. I write because I must. And I’ve spent YEARS learning about the craft and practicing. Drafting, revising, editing, reading, workshopping, discussing, etc. When I decided to become a teacher, I thought I was giving up writing, but it only deepened my commitment to writing and actually gave me a better platform as a writer, more authority, more options, more experience. It turns out nothing teaches you how to do a thing better than teaching others how to do it. And now I can use what I learned as a teacher to improve my career as a writer, and improve my writing, too.

Writing is NOT just writing. And the business of writing is something entirely different. I ignored the business aspect for years, and instead focused on the craft, education, psychology, spirituality and ART of writing. Now I’m WAY older than you and am trying to get back into the business side. It feels very intimidating, but because I’ve done all that work in other areas, I find I am farther along than I thought I was.

Because I am not economically privileged and never have been, I’ve always had to support myself doing something else, whether that was scholarships, or waiting tables, or teaching, or freelance marketing, or even being a stay at home mom (which worked for a few years for writing but was not sustainable due to economics and life.) It’s PART of the the economic reality for almost everyone who takes on writing. But, because I’ve always had the focus of wanting to be a writer, it turns out that everything I’ve done while supporting myself has fed into my career as a writer. I can now pull on my background as a teacher, in a service industry, as a curriculum designer, as a blogger, as an artist, as a marketer, to create a career with many moving parts.

This is what I learned about this gig economy. Don’t expect to hit it big in one area. Going viral is HARD. When I DID go viral, it actually took me AWAY from my writing. I spent years working on that instead of my writing career, although I was still writing. And you can’t predict it and you can’t depend on one platform to be stable and not collapse in on itself. So, learn MULTIPLE fields, so that you can have MULTIPLE streams of income. If you don’t have a partner or family money supporting you, and you don’t want to work a day job, and you don’t want to be poor, and you don’t hit it big out of the gate, try to diversify, so you can still do what you love and have money coming in from various places.

It is work to do this, but it offers you more freedom, and can also support your writing career.

Oh. I forgot. Are you too late to have a writing career? Lol. No. You’re a journeyman still. Still learning. Writing is not like being a dancer, where your body has to be young to be at its best. As a writer, you just get better as you age, so you have time. Keep going. When you’re older, you’ll look back at your writing now and see how much growth you’ve had. It’s not that you’re not talented now, it’s that your writing is a journey and a process, and it won’t stop growing.

Are you fooling yourself about your talent? I can’t know that. I’m guessing not. But here’s another secret about writing. TALENT is not how you succeed. WORK and COMMITMENT is how you succeed. (and success is relative.) It doesn’t matter how talented a person is, if they don’t commit to the work, they won’t finish a book. If they don’t commit despite the struggle, because it IS hard, then they won’t continue to write. They’ll give up and become, idk, an editor or car salesman or something. If they don’t keep working, they won’t have a writing career.

So if you want it. Keep doing it. Be realistic about the struggles, about the financial realities, about your needs in life, about commitments and sacrifices. Because you WILL have to sacrifice things in order to be a writer. Even if it’s just time and energy, you have to give it to the writing. And the less support you have, the more you have to give up in order to keep writing.

I hope this isn’t disheartening. I’m trying to be real here. This is an un-romanticized version of a romanticized bohemian writer’s life style. It might look lovely and problem free from the outside, but it is NOT. It’s just as hard as a more traditional life. No. It’s harder, because you’re swimming against the stream. It would be easier to get a corporate job and just do what your bosses told you.

But if you want to be a writer, as an artist and a small business person, you aren’t choosing the easy way out. So be aware. Your parents are right about it being a struggle. But they are wrong about it being impossible, or not worth the struggle. You get to choose the work you want and the sacrifices you make. I’d rather struggle like this than sacrifice my creativity to a career I don’t want to do.

#the writer's life #writing advice #rosy-writes #life lessons

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jonathantaylorthomas · 7 years

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Diary entries, as a rule, don’t constitute art. Songs do.

That’s what drew me in to Taylor Swift and her music upon the release of her 2006 debut album, “Taylor Swift,” and that’s what has kept me closely tracking the remarkable arc of her career since then, up to and including today’s release of her sixth album, “Reputation.”

From the beginning, Swift — then a precocious, uncommonly smart, gifted and ambitious teenager — has written deeply personal songs that often sound like they’re ripped directly from the pages of a diary.

That hallmark of her songwriting has nurtured an especially close bond between Swift and her fans, along with her savvy use of social media from the outset. It’s also given her detractors no shortage of ammunition with which to attack her for everything from a new hairdo to her choices of dates to the logistics of selling tickets to her concerts.

The double-edged sword of success — and the fame and fortune that have accompanied it to stratospheric levels for her — inform many of the songs on “Reputation,” possibly the most anticipated album of the always-intensive fall season.

As one of a small handful of music writers offered an early listen to the new collection, I’ll venture to call it her most focused, most cohesive album yet.

In large part that reflects her dramatic narrowing of collaborators compared with her previous two outings: Nine of the 15 new songs written and produced for the most part by Swift with superstar producers Max Martin and Shellback, the other six in tandem with indie rock band Fun front man Jack Antonoff.

They conjure a sense of foreboding to illuminate her songs of betrayal, heartbreak and disappointment. There also are plenty of bright spots celebrating new love and new maturity in her outlook, most framed in dance-floor-conscious beats and employing inventive sonic textures that expand on or outright defy conventions of contemporary pop-R&B music production.

I’d also say that in many ways “Reputation” echoes one of Bob Dylan’s greatest lines of the last two decades: “I used to care…but things have changed.”

'Reputation' echoes one of Bob Dylan’s greatest lines of the last two decades: 'I used to care…but things have changed.' — -- Randy Lewis I say that based on many hours I’ve spent with her since first traveling to Nashville to interview her early in 2007, not long after her debut album put her on the map in country music circles.

Case in point: “Reputation” is the first album for which she’s given no interviews in advance. (I had sat down with her for extended talks about each of her previous four albums, “1989,” “Red,” “Speak Now” and “Fearless.”)

Additionally, only a small handful of music critics were invited to hear this album in advance (The Times’ pop music critic Mikael Wood was not).

She did once again hold several playback sessions for fans in recent months, as she did when “1989” was being readied for release three years ago. But no reporters were allowed to look in on those as a few did for “1989.”

Things have changed, indeed.

What struck me initially about Swift’s music was the refreshing viewpoint she brought to her songs, which sounded, for a change, like what real teenagers might think, feel and say.

That was a big part of what prompted me to single her out at the end of 2006 as one of the artists most worth watching in the year ahead, and to travel to Nashville a few months later to interview her about her ambitions.

So many other young pop and country acts spent most of their time attempting to pass themselves off as preternaturally mature, often singing of experiences well beyond their years.

That initially sparked my respect for her as a young artist—not just a pretty face and perky personality who’d been handed a batch of songs written by others and instructed by her handlers on what to say, how to dress and where to stand.

Clearly that resonated with a lot of listeners as well, and launched her on a meteoric rise: first in country music, and then to her place today as arguably the biggest pop star on the planet.

Along the way she has held tight to the innate understanding of social media platforms she expressed to me in 2008, shortly before her sophomore album, “Fearless,” was released.

“Blogging has been really fun because I like to let people into my life as much as possible,” she said back when MySpace was still the dominant social media outlet for most musicians, well before Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and, her new favorite outlet, Tumblr, took over. "I think it's important for the people who keep you going and support you and have your back out there in the world to know that you're thinking of them all the time.”

She quickly learned, however, that it’s not a big leap from having someone’s back to stabbing it, a harsh reality Swift has faced through intensely public Twitter feuds in recent years with Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, among others.

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms magnify vulnerability and hypersensitivity with snarky comments and images, making adolescence and young adulthood seem more perilous than ever.

She acknowledged the vipers in the room directly on her third album, “Speak Now,” with “Mean,” a song in which she transformed one blogger’s nasty comments about her into a hit song. That’s one tool with which she’s avoided the “Don’t get mad; get even” path of revenge, instead drawing illumination and creative inspiration out of the many barbs tossed her way.

Yet the more famous she’s become, and the more followers she’s cultivated, the more the world at large apparently feels entitled to pass judgment not only on her art but on her life, topics she takes on in several of the new songs on “Reputation.”

That’s a fact of contemporary life Swift recognizes in “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” In fact, it may well become an anthem for the Twitter generation, for whom every fleeting thought seems worthy of sharing with the world at large: “Did you think I wouldn’t hear all the things you said about me? And here’s to you… ‘cause forgiveness is a nice thing to do/ (laughter) I can’t even say it with straight face!”

I’ll go as far as to suggest that the whole “Reputation” theme of the album isn’t solely about Taylor Swift and her place in the world, but examines the extent to which most of us now live out our lives in public thanks to the omnipresence of social media, and the multiplicity of ways that plays out.

Indeed, in each of two elaborate 72-page magazines she has created for an exclusive deluxe edition of the album (available in the U.S. at Target stores), she includes an open letter noting, “This is the first generation that will be able to look back on their entire life story documented in pictures on the internet, and together we will all discover the after-effects of that.”

Another facet of Swift’s career that’s impressed me is the way she has respected her place as a role model for young women in general, and other female musicians in particular.

Among the many ways that’s manifested are her personal donation of $500,000 to disaster relief efforts when Nashville, and much of Tennessee, was flooded in 2010 — before she reached her 21st birthday. She ponied up an additional $1 million last year for flood victims in Louisiana after launching her “1989” tour there.

She wielded her industry clout to politely but firmly chastise Apple for initially placing some of the financial burden of a free trial period for its new streaming service in 2015 on songwriters with a plan that would have withheld their royalty payments — an idea the tech giant abandoned in response to her open letter.

Even when she briefly succumbed to the temptation to respond to a perceived diss from Nicki Minaj over yet another VMA Awards show in 2015, Swift quickly apologized and held out an olive branch rather than continuing to ratchet up a war of tweets.

As recently as August, she turned the tables on a lawsuit filed against her by a Denver radio host who claimed he was unfairly dismissed from his job after she complained that he had groped her during a post-concert meet-and-greet. She filed a countersuit in which she asked for, and won, a token $1 jury award after she took to the witness stand to speak out not only in her own defense, but on behalf of other sexual harassment victims.

Yet bloggers galore still seem determined to take her down for any number of issues, lately many of them revolving around the way she has set the stage for today’s release of “Reputation.”

A plan to create an incentive that would give priority for buying concert tickets to fans who most enthusiastically click away to watch her latest videos or place advance orders for the album was blasted as exploitative.

She’s also come under fire for not being vocal enough about alt-right demonstrators who have attempted to co-opt her music into endorsements of their positions, reminiscent of Charles Manson’s bizarre misinterpretation nearly 50 years ago of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter,” which he insisted was a coded message to him to start a race war.

Then there was the much publicized dissing of her last year from Kanye West in his song “Famous” in which he rapped that she owed him sex because he made her famous by snatching the spotlight from her at the infamous MTV Video Music Awards in 2009 — despite the fact she had scored multiple hit singles and sold millions of albums well before that incident.

She kept a relatively low profile last year when West and his wife, Kim Kardashian, spoke and tweeted ad infinitum that she had given him her consent about the way he portrayed her in “Famous,” offering only a terse denial that that had been the case.

When she released “Look What You Made Me Do” as the leadoff single from “Reputation,” she took flak in many quarters for a perceived belated response and for keeping a feud going long past its natural shelf life.

But based on how I’ve watched her process other life events, what I hear in the song is a woman who recognizes the hurt an ugly life situation has thrust upon her, and who owns the consequences of how it that has played out for her, emotionally and psychologically.

“I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me,” is how the sadder-but-wiser Swift portrays herself in this scenario. “Look What You Made Me Do” isn’t an exercise in the blame game; it’s an acknowledgment of loss over defenses one has been forced to erect out of self-preservation.

In a broader sense, the payoff I’m after in “Reputation” has nothing to do with any shade she’s throwing at West and Kardashian, or whether in other songs she’s leaving any clues on her breakups with Tom Hiddleston or Calvin Harris.

Many eyes, of course, also will be focused on whether “Reputation” extends her streak of albums that have sold more than 1 million copies in the first week. She’s the only artist to do so with three consecutive releases.

The only thing that matters in the long run is how she’s evolving as a songwriter, a singer and a record producer.

Will anyone care in 10, 20 or 50 years — heck, in five, even — who the “him” is in “Getaway Car,” when she confesses, “I wanted to leave him / I needed a reason”? What’s much more likely to stand the test of time is the whip-smart form the song’s expression of romantic betrayal delivers: “It was the best of times / The worst of crimes / The ties were black / the lies were white / In shades of gray and candlelight.”

Her commitment to growth as an artist is something I sensed more than a decade ago, when we first met in the bunker-like basement of her then-fledgling record company, Big Machine.

And it’s still why I fully expect to be as interested at what Swift writes at 37 and 47 as what she’s delivered at 27. In my book, that’s the only reputation that matters.

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lit--bitch · 4 years

Text

‘Hello’ by Crispin Best (2019)

(Disclosure, again: I don’t know Crispin Best, I know I’m “friends with him” on Facebook, but it’s one of those things where random poets/writers/artists add each other on social media platforms and there’s like a weird community in it but we still don’t actually speak to each other? That, basically. Hello is published by Partus Press, which is run by Vala Thorodds and Luke Allan. I don’t know either of them. They specialise in publishing Icelandic and international literature. Hello is a gorgeous book, the cover is like a pastel colour rainbow, I feel like it should taste of marshmallows. The paper is rich, the spine is strong af, it’s just a lovely, satisfying book. Also Partus Press’s website is incredibly pleasing to surf, it’s really slick, their interface is smooth. Buying books on there feels as good as having one of them in your hands. End of suck-up.)

I have known and loved Crispin Best’s writing since I picked up his pamphlet from Faber New Poets, which my friend Lenni Sanders recommended to me. There was this one line I read and I just fell in love:

‘I wish for you the perfect banana.’

It’s from Crispin’s poem, ‘is it still brunch if i am alone’, and of course it features in Hello. Every time I read it, I get such a great big smile on my face. Because there really is nothing more universally understood than the perfect banana, whatever the perfect banana is to you. (Side note: I like it when the banana’s skin starts to really freckle and yellow up). And images like these are totally emblematic of Crispin Best’s writing, because he has a gift for expressing feelings, in all their variations, within absurd, perfect metaphors that still somehow makes sense.

I mean this in poems like the very first in Hello’s collection, which incidentally is called, ‘Hello’. He writes, ‘i know that i’m here for the moment / that the pickles hit the plate / i’m here for good and to pair your socks / by windowlight’, it’s just so loving, so adoring, so doting. There is nothing more immediate and in-the-moment than pickles hitting the surface of a plate and yet it’s so random. I’m amazed by the assemblage of images in this collection, how the ordinary is so cleverly personified.

Hello sets out to beautify the triteness of our day-to-day, to kiss the things we sometimes ignore, like the word ‘fireplace’ (p. 42), or how the wind brings your clothes to life (p. 29). It is totally modest in its appreciation of everything, and experiences just about everything as having impact. It is funny, it is sad, it is grateful. It is a kind book.

There is an inherent “now-ness” in Hello. As I read each poem, I felt like I was in there, in every room, looking at every landscape, looking over the ‘I’s’ shoulder. It’s synonymous in the form that the poetry takes.

A lot of Crispin’s work is rooted in Internet culture, and this is plain as day in Hello, you can see how the Internet permeates through into the language and formatting of the writing. Most of the poems read like you would if you were receiving texts from somebody. Grammatical rules are thrown out the window, capitalisation is minimal. For many of us, when we’re texting, we’re not adhering to the rules of language, y’know, we’re not punctuating every sentence with proper full stops, or commas. This is evident in ‘what do i know’:

i love it when poems are dead and the light creeps under the door and not too far away something important is about to be crushed by that beautiful truck

There is a tightness to the work, which restricts where we look across the page. This technique, I think, recreates the action of the infinite scroll. We scroll down with our eyes, like we do with our thumbs, or fingers. Even the line-breaks mimic the dimensions of a phone screen, that rectangulation. It’s rare that sentences ever exceed half the length of this A5 book’s pages.

Sometimes I think this SMS-written style in Crispin’s poetry intimates other characteristics of texting-culture. A lot his poems are a mish-mash of images and thoughts which are relative to the sometimes anomalous-ness of texting correspondence. Not every conversation we have with someone over text starts with hello, nor ends with goodbye, and a lot of the time, conversations are staggered by minutes, hours, even days. If you were to visually recreate this in real-time, it’d be the equivalent of somebody saying something to you, standing there for 5 hours or however long you don’t speak for, and then finally responding. It’s such an absurdity that Crispin contains within these non-sequitur images: ‘if you can’t do the crime / don’t do the crime / and don’t thank me for the birthday wishes / please / just let me grow my beans’ (from ‘don’t call it a dream’). It’s hilarious—I can’t always understand why one sentence follows its predecessor in the way it does—this is absolutely intentional, though it might not be for the reasons I’ve interpreted. These non-sequiturs mirror the jagged, staggered incontinuity of how we sometimes interact online. And whilst they can distort and confuse the readability of the poetry, these non-sequiturs are a cornerstone to the collection’s confessionalism. In masking oneself behind these blurted, odd utterances, the ‘I’s awkward disposition is revealed. It promises to open up, slowly, someday. And it makes these promises in wonderful, subtle ways. Like ‘poem at the dinner table’:

here is the thing: the real reason i don’t let people get close to me is this faux denim shirt i’m scared that they will be able to tell [...] here is the thing: there are even tiny movements of your fingers that i don’t completely understand [...] here is the thing: between the boiler’s ticks i hear you whisper that you had a hunch about the shirt from this great distance i make my arms the perfect length

The realism in this poem really makes me smile. In just simple fragments, the ‘I’ says so much in a short, modest description. I understand the scene, simply denoted by the title, ‘poem at the dinner table’. The great thing about this stanza is how it’s prefaced by such seriousness: ‘here is the thing / the real reason i don’t let people / get close to me’. You’re misled into thinking that a sincere confession will follow, and it does, but not quite in the way you thought: ‘/ is this faux denim shirt’. The faux denim shirt—an analogy for the object of his insecurity in looking worth more than he actually is. The subversion is funny, but it equally intimates the personage’s insecurity about expressing what he really means, how he really feels, his shyness. By the end of the poem you find that the ‘I’ has acquainted himself with someone who understands, someone who helps him feel his wholeness again, and he jumps the distance. All of this is at the dinner table. And it’s in the spirit of the vernacular that Crispin Best does what he does, best, which is to take the ordinary and load it with meaningful subtexts, implying something much deeper is going on.

I was going to talk about ‘centralia’ last, because it’s my fav poem in the book. But there’s something about the structure of ‘centralia’ which intersects my previous point regarding the value in the ordinary.

‘centralia’ feels more like a section of the collection, rather than a poem. It’s 20 pages long and yet it’s only 405 words... I think. Might be a couple more or less. I was sad enough to count (but I’m shit at counting). How does a 405-word poem last 20 pages? Well, ‘centralia’ is made up of ellipsis which to me have a dualistic function in this poem: firstly they recreate the action of texting in real-time. You know when somebody’s texting you back and that little bubble comes up with three dots? The ‘...’? It’s kind of like that, except that there’s a superfluous amount of ellipsis which take up the whole space of the page, and they’re structured in such a way to form shapes and undulating curves bound by short quips of writing. The function of ellipsis is to omit words, sentences or whole paragraphs from a text without compromising the overall meaning. They can indicate unfinished thoughts or pauses. In ‘centralia’ they illustrate the series of written images which roll on from each other almost act like random, yet successive thoughts. But the ellipsis here doesn’t just precede the literary antecedent, it also succeeds it. The effect slows down the writing, and I read this piece very, very, slowly, as if to consider the ellipsis and the writing as inextricably bound, that the dots were were words in and of themselves. ‘centralia’ boasts some of my favourite lines in the work, like:

‘....today we’re going to talk about.......... / / / ........ how it feels to be ......... / / / / / / ...........how even a low moon....................... / / / can paint a bridge on a lake...........’

‘........picture a passion fruit........ / / / ..........why is it called that name... / / / ..............my only kink................ / is having my clothes blown off.......... / ...........by a leaf blower.............’

and,

‘..........i like things like...... / / ........how fast you climb the stairs.............. / / / like how werewolves............ / ..............don’t kill people................ / / / / / / .........full moons do............ / / / / / / / ............ like how ............. / / ........... you can just....... / / .............wear a pair................. / ............of trousers................ / / / ..........and people will assume............... / / .................they are................ / / / / .......................your trousers.......’

Obviously the way I’ve typed these particular parts out doesn’t do the format justice (you’ll have to buy the book to properly get a look) but I wonder if other people find themselves reading the text slowly as a consequence of this form.

‘centralia’ makes such beautiful and original observations about the things in which we take for granted, or things we don’t necessarily think twice about. It unpicks clichés, employs humour, it thinks laterally, by this I mean lines like ‘what if cum is ghosts’ ... 'centralia’ is like a whole collection within itself. It also makes for great Twitter material. It comes back to appreciating the immediacy of things around you besides what flags up on a phone screen, and that’s inherent in the way Crispin speaks to ‘you’. You just have to stop and enjoy the writing, in the same way you ought to stop and enjoy the world around you, as fleeting as it is:

(from nature poem) we’re here realise that at every moment you’re the only visible part of an almost infinite conga line ok now imagine crying while wearing cargo shorts it’s hard to do tonight we share a rocking chair toothpaste this blue-orange night sky

And you can’t help but feel as if you’re being directly addressed as a reader in the work, even though some poems are defined by their context; it’s clear some are break-up poems, lamentations on loss, or to Barack Obama. In some pieces, it seems like Hello is imploring us (the readers) to see reason, and catch up with ourselves, to contemplate the tangibility of what’s around us and remove ourselves from the artificialities of the virtual. I feel like this is evident in other poems like ‘🐬 but do dolphins want to swim with me ’ (the dolphin emoji in the book actually faces the other way and is a black silhouette).

the cooking apples / have long gone brown / on the countertop / nights arrive like iguanas in suits / and with them the long dream / on a beach / where a pop-up notification / blocks the sunset / these poems are the kiddie pools / i inflate while i’m alive

We’re confronted by these sorts of messages about social media all the time, like “take a break from your phone”, and it’s sort of an overdone cliché now, like the way people talk about bubble baths and retail therapy as ‘self-care’. Crispin approaches these clichés in his work but he does it in an unexpected, refreshing way, like imagine if a pop-up notification actually blocked the sunset. Again, it’s like, ‘put down the fucking phone, stop letting it get in the way of other things, stop letting myself get in the way of things taking their natural course’. This piece is a case for living without the reminder of one’s phone, a dissuasion of our present-day lifestyle gripped by the constant need to notified by blue-light disturbances. It asserts that is what is most healthy to us is the stuff we can physically touch. Tangibility is our final currency over which nobody else has any jurisdiction. Some things are more tangible and real and specific than others, and it’s up to us to choose and define that for ourselves.

Hello reminds me a lot of an ex I had a while ago. He didn’t have a lot of things, but he did hoard a lot of weird, random stuff, y’know like actual rubbish that needed to go in the bin, biscuit wrappers for example. When I stopped to observe why he kept these things, it seemed to me that it was because he’d glean more from a memory in a biscuit wrapper, than he might from a photograph of a loved one. He was invested in this vernacular trash we share together as human beings, rather than the typical artefacts we traditionally use to create memories, i.e. photo albums, or personal diaries. For him, it was like there was something much more profound, intimate, and vivid in sharing a packet of hobnobs together, than say taking a selfie at a pub. I feel like that’s something Crispin Best also shares in common with his “ode” in ‘io’: o tub girl in the rain / o modern american poetry / [...] / o fisher price / o fiddlesticks / [...] / o curly wurly wrapper / o nokia 3210 / o crepitating autumn leaf / o mars bar ice cream in september and the rain’. We can take comfort in these things, because they do, in a way, bring more order to our confusing truths, to the bewilderment of ourselves. We can confide in them and nourish ourselves in their familiarity, and keep on living, because like us, they too are objects and beings of impermanence in a trashy, ever-changing, impermanent world.

This is best summed by two lines in Hello. Page 16, in ‘one good thing’:

one good thing about being alive is the view

and from ‘io’ again, page 92:

when i die know that i died how i lived: not wanting to die

In life’s disposabilities, in the changing faces of the moon, in the oscillations between heartbreak, self-loathing, wheezing with laughter, eating pizza and sitting transfixed by a lover, life is still, well, life. Life is implied in these momentary consumptions and feelings. In fact, life is made better by them, as well as eggs and books, snowballs and party rings. Crispin Best’s poetry is contemplative, thankful and admirable. You can sit with his writing and appreciate it in the same way one might appreciate tulips or butterflies. You don’t necessarily have to understand it, but just be present with it, for now. It’s about taking stock, and loving every inch of your boring, amazing life. Hello has made perfect timing in our current predicament, felt by the world all over. In times like these, you need books like Hello. You need these soft lamentations and appreciations. You need these written reassurances. Hello is like being gently stroked as you wake up from a weird dream. It’s comfort food writing, where when you’re caught up in the chaos of our present-day, you’re reminded to slow down and look, and I mean really look. It’s a wonderful debut collection that is a testament to Crispin Best’s talent.

If this review’s won you over, then you can buy Hello from Partus Press here, follow them here and find Crispin Best all over the Internet via his website here.

#crispinbest #hello #debut #collection #contemporary literature #poetry #ukpoetry #writing #review #bookstagram #bookreview #litbitch #2020 #currently reading

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themessafterthemarty · 8 years

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20 questions...

I was tagged by: @monstermunch321

Just answer the questions and then tag twenty followers you’d like to get to know better! (In other words: time to get AWKWARDLY PERSONAL) (literally putting this under a Keep Reading because this is so long and you probably don’t care)

Name: Marty

Nickname: Technically Marty is already a nickname but there’s also MartyParty, Martypants, Mørterøl (don’t ask), nerd.... the sad thing is these are all from the same person, we just never refer to each other by name xD (tfw you barely socialize with anyone outside of le BFF @missgoldfishqueen)

Gender: idgaf

Sign: Scorpio

Height: 165 cm (literally gotta Google to convert that to feet, apparently I’m around 5′5″)

Sexual Orientation: idgaf

Hogwarts house: Ravenclaw if you ask anything but the Pottermore test which says I’m Gryffindor

Favourite colour: Indigo or red or anything in between (can ya tell??)

Favourite animal: Got many but any big cat, eventually settled on lynxes as my favourite

Time right now: 23:59 (11:58..... pm?)

Average hours of sleep: 3-4 (go ahead and be concerned, everyone else is)

Cat or dog person: Both are precious but since I’m most likely to get a cat and I’m allergic to dogs I’d have to go cats :P

Favourite fictional character from Harry Potter: I haven’t really thought that much about that but I think maybe Hagrid, actually - if I can’t just go, y’know, the dragons

Number of blankets you sleep with: a duvet, like two blankets and a huge scarf pluss a bunch of stuffed animals and sometimes a onesie

Favourite singer or band: Don’t even ask me this, I’m a massive music nerd and I could make not just a post but an entire tumblr blog dedicated to answering this question For now I’ll say Muse, they’re so varied and amazing I don’t even feel guilty leaving everything else out

Dream trip: I have a few things I want to do that I’ve wanted to do from childhood. This includes going to Austria both for the history and architecture (and Mozart’s house, I’m a Mozart nerd, don’t mind me) but also to go snowboarding in the alps. I want to go to Venice sometime in my life. I’ve already been to Paris but I’d love to go back. Maybe just kind of travelling around France - I mean there’s Alps to snowboard in there, too, and the food is to die for literally everywhere. There’s so much in the world I’d like to experience but to be honest, I think the most important part of any dream trip is who you go with. There are things I’d like to do that would be amazing, even travelling alone, but there’s infinitely many things to experience and any of those things could be your dream trip if you share the experience with the right person or people.

Dream job: Hah, ain’t that the big question. I literally don’t know. I’m too fond of creating things and not fond enough of sticking to one thing, so while it’s cliché to say in the fandom I’m in, I think YouTuber is genuinely my dream job at the moment. This is to say that I’m aiming for online artist, animator, composer, writer, video producer and some weird talk/comedy mix at the same time and YouTube combined with other social media is a very open platform where you can explore multiple fields. TL;DR: I fucked up life and can’t pursue any of my interests fully because I couldn’t decide so I want to combine them all. (In some alternate universe I’ve probably fulfilled my dream job of being a classical composer, but hah, that universe ain’t gonna be this one.)

When was this blog created: According to the little (c) thingie on my blog, sometime in 2011 - aka way too long ago like wow that was right after the first season of Sherlock aired.

When did your blog reach its peak: According to this website I got 225257 notes on 4 posts in 2014, but I refuse to believe that’s accurate - also I didn’t post at all in 2015 so it can hardly be called the same blog. For real my peak was probably this Dan and Phil plays Undertale fan art which got like a few notes for a few days and then underwent the magical “reblogged by dailyphan” treatment and got like 300 notes overnight a month ago, and then it’s come back a few times since then. This, while not being my most noted, was notable to me because it got relatively many notes without ever being reblogged by dailyphan which is a bit magical.

What made you decide to make a tumblr: Hell if I remember, it was like 5-6 years ago, I was a smol bean back then, it wasn’t much of a big deal, everyone had a tumblr. However a more relevant question is why I came back to tumblr and actually started posting this autumn and the answer to that is just that I wanted to be more active online and it keeps me a strange variant of sane to see something I do have any kind of effect on the world, if only it’s a few likes and reblogs. I’m doing something. Now I tag... well not twenty people, wow, I don’t even know that many people with a tumblr. I absolutely-no-pressure-to-even-consider-doing-this-but-I’ve-just-see-your-names-a-lot-and-appreciate-your-existence-and-may-indeed-follow-you tag: @missgoldfishqueen, @british-swimchick, @littledising, @deathwearsflowersinhishair, @tiredofbeingnice123, @laura-sketches, @flyingchocolatebunny-2p, @light-up-heelies, @chellarella

#text post #i was tagged #you never wanted to know this much about me #about me

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thelmasirby32 · 4 years

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Increasing Time on Site

Changing User Intents

Google's search quality rater document highlights how the intent of searches can change over time for a specific keyword.

A generic search for [iPhone] is likely to be related to the most recent model. A search for [President Bush] likely was related to the 41st president until his son was elected & then it was most likely to be related to 43.

Faster Ranking Shifts

About 17 years ago when Google was young they did monthly updates where most of any ranking signal shift that would happen would get folded into the rankings. The web today is much faster in terms of the rate of change, amount of news consumption, increasing political polarization, social media channels that amplify outrage and how quickly any cultural snippet can be taken out of context.

Yesterday President Trump had some interesting stuff to say about bleach. In spite of there being an anime series by the same name, news coverage of the presser has driven great interest in the topic.

And that interest is already folded into the organic search results through Google News insertion, Twitter tweet insertion, and the query deserves freshness (QDF) algorithm driving insertion of news stories in other organic search ranking slots.

If a lot of people are searching for something and many trusted news organizations are publishing information about a topic then there is little risk in folding fresh information into the result set.

Temporary Versus Permanent Change

When the intent of a keyword changes sometimes the change is transitory & sometimes it is not.

One of the most common ad-driven business models online is to take something that was once paid, make it free, and then layer ads or some other premium features on top to monetize a different part of the value chain. TripAdvisor democratized hotel reviews. Zillow made foreclosure information easily accessible for free, etc.

The success of remote working & communication services like Skype, Zoom, Basecamp, Slack, Trello, and the ongoing remote work experiment the world is going through will permanently change some consumer behaviors & how businesses operate.

A Pew survey mentioned 43% of Americans stated someone in their house recently lost their job, had their hours reduced, and/or took pay cuts. Hundreds of thousands of people are applying to work in Amazon's grueling fulfillment centers.

To many of these people a lone wolf online job would be a dream come true.

If you had a two hour daily commute and were just as efficient working at home most days would you be in a rush to head back to the office?

How many former fulltime employees are going to become freelancers building their own small businesses they work on directly while augmenting it with platform work on other services like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Upwork, Fiverr, 99 Designs, or even influencer platforms like Intellifluence?

If big publishers are getting disintermediated by monopoly platforms & ad networks are offering crumbs of crumbs there's no harm in selling custom ads directly or having your early publishing efforts subsidized through custom side deals as you build market awareness and invest into building other products and services to sell.

Wordpress keeps adding more features. Many technology services like Shopify, Stripe & Twilio are making most parts of the tech stack outside of marketing cheaper & easier to scale.

Some universities are preparing for the fall semester being entirely online. As technology improves, we spend more time online, more activities happen online, and more work becomes remote. All this leads to the distinction between online and offline losing meaning other than perhaps in terms of cost structure & likelihood of bankruptcy.

Before Panda / After Panda

Before the Panda update each additional page which was created was another lotto ticket and a chance to win. If users had a crappy user experience on a page or site maybe you didn't make the sale, but if the goal of the page was to have the content so crappy that ads were more appealing that could lead to fantastic monetization while it lasted.

That strategy worked well for eHow, fueling the pump-n-dump Demand Media IPO.

Demand Media had to analyze eHow and pay to delete over a million articles which they deemed to have a negative economic value in the post-Panda world.

After the Panda update having many thin pages laying around and creating more thin pages was layering risk on top of risk. It made sense to shift to a smaller, tighter, deeper & more differentiated publishing model.

Entropy & Decay

The web goes through a constant state of reinvention.

Old YouTube Flash embeds break.

HTTP content calls in sites that were upgraded to HTTPS break.

Software which is not updated has security exploits.

If you have a large website and do not regularly update where you are linking to your site is almost certainly linking to porn and malware sites somewhere.

As users shifted to mobile websites that ignored mobile interfaces became relatively less appealing.

Changing web browser behaviors can break website logins and how data is shared across websites dependent on third party services.

Competition improves.

Algorithms change.

Ads eat a growing share of real estate on dominant platforms while organic reach slides.

Everything on the web is constantly dying as competition improves, technology changes and language gets redefined.

Staying Relevant

Even if a change in user intent is transitory, in some cases it can make sense to re-work a page to address a sudden surge of interest to improve time on site, user engagement metrics & make the content on your page more citation-worthy. If news writers are still chasing a trend then having an in-depth background piece of content with more depth gives them something they may want to link at.

Since the Covid-19 implosion of the global economy came into effect I've seen two different clients have a sort of sudden surge in traffic which would make little to no sense unless one considered currently spreading news stories.

News coverage creates interest in topics, shapes perspectives of topics, and creates demand for solutions.

If you read the right people on Twitter sometimes you can be days, weeks or even months ahead of the broader news narrative. Some people are great at spotting the second, third and fourth order effects of changes. You can spot stories bubbling up and participate in the trends.

An Accelerating Rate of Change

When the web was slower & easier you could find an affiliate niche and succeed in it sometimes for years before solid competition would arrive. One of the things I was most floored about this year from a marketing perspective was how quickly spammers ramped up a full court press amplifying the fear the news media was pitching. I think I get something like a hundred spam emails a day pitching facemasks and other COVID-19 solutions. I probably see 50+ other daily ads from services like Outbrain & similar.

The web moves so much faster that the SEC is already taking COVID-19 related actions against dozens of companies. Google banned advertising protective masks and recently announced they are rolling out advertiser ID verification to increase transparency.

If Google is looking at their advertisers with a greater degree of suspicion even into an economic downturn when Expedia is pulling $4 billion from their ad budget & Amazon is cutting back on their Google ad budget and Google decides to freeze hiring then it makes far more sense to keep reinvesting into improving any page which is getting a solid stream of organic search traffic.

Company Town

After Amazon cut their Google ad budget in March Google decided to expand Google Shopping to include free listings. When any of the platforms is losing badly they can afford to subsidize that area and operate it at a loss to try to gain marketshare while making the dominant player in that category look more extreme.

When a player is dominant in a category they can squeeze down on partners. Amazon once again cut affiliate payouts and the Wall Street Journal published an article citing 20 current and former Amazon insiders who stated Amazon uses third party merchant sales data to determine which products to clone:

Amazon employees accessed documents and data about a bestselling car-trunk organizer sold by a third-party vendor. The information included total sales, how much the vendor paid Amazon for marketing and shipping, and how much Amazon made on each sale. Amazon’s private-label arm later introduced its own car-trunk organizers. ... Amazon’s private-label business encompasses more than 45 brands with some 243,000 products, from AmazonBasics batteries to Stone & Beam furniture. Amazon says those brands account for 1% of its $158 billion in annual retail sales, not counting Amazon’s devices such as its Echo speakers, Kindle e-readers and Ring doorbell cameras.

Amazon does not even need to sell their private label products to shift their economics. As Amazon clones products they force the branded ad buy for a company to show up for their own branded terms, taking another bite out of the partner: "Fortem spends as much as $60,000 a month on Amazon advertisements for its items to come up at the top of searches, said Mr. Maslakou."

Amazon has grown so dominant they've not only cut their affiliate & search advertising while hiring hundreds of thousands of employees, but they've also dramatically slowed down shipping times while pulling back on their on-site people also purchase promotions to get users to order less.

While they are growing stronger department stores and other legacy retailers are careening toward bankruptcy.

Multiple Ways to Improve

If you have a page which is ranking that gets a sudden spike in traffic it makes a lot of sense to consider current news & try to consider if the intent of the searcher has changed. If it has, address it as best you can in the most relevant way possible, even if the change is temporary, then consider switching back to the old version of the page or reorganizing your content if/when/as the trend has passed.

One of the pages mentioned above was a pre-Panda "me too" type page which was suddenly flooded with thousands of user visitors. A quality inbound link can easily cost $100 to multiples of that. If a page is already getting thousands of visitors, why not invest a couple hundred dollars into dramatically improving it, knowing that some of those drive by users will likely eventually share it? Make the page an in-depth guide with great graphics and some of those 10,000's of visitors will eventually link to it, as they were already interested in the topic, the page already gets a great stream of traffic, and the content quality is solid.

Last week a client had a big spike from a news topic that changed the intent of a keyword. Their time on site from those visitors was under a minute. After the page was re-created to reflect changing consumer intent their time on site jumped to over 3 minutes for users entering that page. Those users had a far lower bounce rate, a far better user experience, are going to be more likely to trust the site enough to seek it out again, and this sends a signal to Google that the site is still maintained & relevant to the modern search market.

There are many ways to chase the traffic stream

create new content on new pages

gut the old page & publish entirely new content

re-arrange the old page while publishing new relevant breaking news at the top

In general I think the third option is often the best approach because you are aligning the page which already sees the traffic stream with the content they are looking for, while also ensuring any users from the prior intent can still access what they are looking for.

If the trend is huge, or the change in intent is permanent then you could also move the old content to a legacy URL archived page while making the high-traffic page focus on the spiking news topic.

The above advice applies to pages which rank for keywords that change in intent, but it can also apply to any web page which has a strong flow of user traffic. Keep improving the things people see most because improvements there have the biggest returns. How can you make a page deeper, better, more differentiated from the rest of the web?

Does Usage Data Matter?

Objectively, if people visit your website and do not find what they were looking for they are going to click the back button and be done with you.

Outdated content that has become irrelevant due to changing user tastes is only marginally better than outright spam.

While Google suggests they largely do not use bounce rate or user data in their rankings, they have also claimed end user data was the best way they could determine if the user was satisfied with a particular search result. Five years ago Bill Slawski wrote a blog post about long clicks which quoted Steven Levy's In The Plex book:

"On the most basic level, Google could see how satisfied users were. To paraphrase Tolstoy, happy users were all the same. The best sign of their happiness was the "Long Click" — This occurred when someone went to a search result, ideally the top one, and did not return. That meant Google has successfully fulfilled the query."

Think of how many people use the Chrome web browser or have Android tracking devices on them all hours of the day. There is no way Google would be able to track those billions of users every single day without finding a whole lot of signal in the noise.

Categories:

publishing & media

from Digital Marketing News http://www.seobook.com/increasing-time-site

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brentrogers · 5 years

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Podcast: Don’t Let Coronavirus Impact Your Mental Health

It’s often said that fear is the most dangerous virus on the planet. While a relatively small percentage of people will contract the new coronavirus, or COVID-19, the fear it provokes will chip away at the mental health of nearly everyone who hears about it. So why does COVID-19 inspire so much fear when there are other diseases lurking in the shadows? And what can we do about it? In today’s podcast, our guest Dr. David Batman, a registered medical practitioner in the U.K., discusses how this high level of unprecedented global panic is being intensified by the non-stop media, and specifically, social media.

Tune in to hear a great discussion on how we can protect our mental health during the coronavirus pandemic.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

Guest information for ‘David Batman- Coronavirus’ Podcast Episode

Dr. David Batman has been a registered medical practitioner for 47 years and a Consultant in Occupational Medicine for 30 years. He spent 20 years as Head of Occupational Health, Safety and Employee Wellbeing for Nestle in the UK and Ireland and has special interests in mental health at work, risk assessments, rehabilitation and resettlement of employees.

He specializes in advising on lifestyle preventative approaches to medicine, developing resilience, and management of mental health issues. Dr. Batman previously served as Chief Medical Officer for Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) and is now a valued member of the Virgin Pulse Science Advisory Board.

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘David Batman- Coronavirus’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Welcome, everyone, to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Podcast. Calling into the show today we have Dr. David Batman. Dr. Batman has been a registered medical practitioner in the U.K. for over 40 years. He spent 20 years as head of occupational health, safety and employee well-being for Nestle in the UK and Ireland and has a special interest in mental health, at work, risk assessments, rehabilitation and resettlement of employees. Dr. Batman, welcome to the show.

Dr. David Batman: Happy to be here. Great to be able to participate.

Gabe Howard: Today, we are going to cover the COVID-19 pandemic that is on everyone’s mind. Specifically the mental health aspects. People are worried and that’s not just people with anxiety or mental health issues. Everyone is worried globally.

Dr. David Batman: I would agree with you on that, Gabe. I mean, I’ve been practicing medicine for 47 years. I have seen cases of malaria and rabies. I’ve helped businesses through avian flu, SARS, MERS. But in all my years, I’ve never seen anything that’s come on with this rapidity, severity worldwide. At the same time, and even as we talk, research is going on and we’re learning something new about it. I mean, it’s fascinating, but it’s rare that I’ve seen that look of fear on so many people’s faces. There’s a commonality here. It’s one thing that has actually brought humanity together across the world. So I’m hoping that when we get through this, and we will, something different will come out of this and possibly some real benefits.

Gabe Howard: Well, I certainly like that you’re looking on the bright side. You know, the phrase every cloud has a silver lining. I certainly hope will apply. But let’s talk about how quickly COVID-19 is evolving because people are feeling overwhelmed by just the disease in general. But the amount of information that is being shared, it’s coming out so incredibly rapidly. And I know that we in the best of times struggle to find reliable sources of information. What are reliable sources that you recommend people follow to stay ahead with factual information?

Dr. David Batman: I just have been through various things over my career. This is different, and I think the difference here and you’ve hit it on the nail on the head is the visibility of it through the media and not just standard media and mainly social media, which is which has caused the biggest difference in the past. We’ve had outbreaks of disease. When the news outlets were slow to get it to us, we had time to digest. This has been fast. I’ve been practicing mental health. I’m looking at people, mental health for many years now. And the common thread has been over the last eight to 10 years, a level of distrust and uncertainty. That’s been the new norm, the new stress. So why should we now suddenly start to trust what our medical profession, our leaders are saying when we’ve had all this level of distrust before? The social media has taken over and it’s catastrophized it. It is creating that fear. And I will say at this stage, I think it is a nasty illness. But for 90 percent of the people, you’re going to have a fairly mild illness. You might have a bad time of flu. But you are going to come out the other side. And we’ve forgotten that fact. We don’t talk about that enough. It’s catastrophized. None of us can give absolute reassurance. Some people will die. There’s no doubt about that. There’s just an unfortunate fact of life. Balanced against the number of people who die from flu, 650,000 people a year died from flu. In the states, every 30 seconds, somebody dies of a heart related condition, etc. Life comes to an end for some people, unfortunately. But this is very public and I think that’s the big difference. It’s very public now. Now, to me, sources I invariably go to is certainly the Center for Disease Control in the States, the CDC, a great source of information that. I go to the World Health Organization’s Web site and they are a wealth of information.

Dr. David Batman: Some here in the U.K., I look at Public Health England. Certainly, within the Virgin Pulse family that we’ve got, we’ve got a fabulous platform. We’ve developed a tool kit which is educational, it’s supportive, it’s resource heavy. You have experts like myself and others who are scientifically based, who are giving the right information. Johns Hopkins University has got a very good Web site. They’ve got a dashboard that one can look at which shows the evolving pattern of the disease and the numbers of diseases. Again, I’m going to give a degree of caution here to people. Because, the numbers, you know, if you look at death rates and that’s what people worry about most, quite catastrophic. The problem is here, we actually really don’t know the absolute numbers of people infected. We only know the number of cases who have actually been admitted to a hospital. So for the vast majority of people having this mild illness, etc., it doesn’t need reporting. And they self distance, they self isolate, they work at home, et cetera. We actually don’t have accurate data. But what we do know is it’s across every country in the world and it’s very visible. The science is developing. What I talk about today may be different tomorrow or the day after because the amount of research that’s going on is developing worldwide very fast. So sometimes what is right now is not right tomorrow. But I will say people really limit the amount of exposure that you’ve got through the media and to social media.

Gabe Howard: It’s really interesting that you said that we should limit our access to information. And I understand that from like a logical perspective because it’s so easy to get overwhelmed. And one of the things that you just said is that things are changing so rapidly and especially in America, we don’t like it when things change. And whenever somebody changes their opinion or their mind or the idea, you know, we call them flip floppers and we say that you can’t trust them because they can’t make up their mind. Again, speaking purely to my American audience, if you say something on Monday, you get new information on Tuesday and you update that opinion on Wednesday. We don’t like that. We want people to get it right the first time. Which, of course, is impossible, especially when something is changing so rapidly as this. Can you talk to us about that for a moment? Because I I have a feeling that the majority of people listening to this, they’re not going to stop watching the news even though they should.

Dr. David Batman: Yeah, the habits die hard, don’t they? It’s what I was talking on a webinar earlier today and we talked about why people were struggling to just regularly wash their hands, or to change their position of coughing and sneezing into the elbow rather than the hand, etc. We’ve all got these learned behaviors which are hard to break. And to break and create a new habit takes an average 60 days. You’ve got to decide why you want to do it. You’ve got to go through a contemplative stage. You’ve got to go through an assessment stage. It’s very difficult to be doing that. The world of medicine, most people tend to think of medicine, this is clearly part of it, as a science whereby we know everything and it is factual. In fact, medicine is more of an art and it is a developing art and there are different opinions from different experts. I’ve always quoted that if you put ten doctors in a room, you’ll probably get eleven answers because one will change their mind halfway through. And that’s what we’ve gone through. But because of the fear factor, because of the exposure, mainly on social media, this is sort of a death sentence, almost an apocalyptic scenario that’s coming to my village, my town, my state any minute now. And people find it very hard to accept and even the medical profession is asking the questions that your listeners are asking as well. And I think part of the realization has got to be that we are trying to give you as much information as possible, but literally we can be contradicted by something new coming in all the time. We’ve got a real conundrum here, but it’s really trying to create a paradigm shift in thinking and results. It’s only when we’ve actually crossed through this pandemic. And we will. I keep going back to your listeners, we will get through it. So only when we get back that we will learn. We’re not very good at learning from history, but we’ve got to learn from this.

Gabe Howard: Now, let’s flip the other way. We have a huge swath of the population that understands how serious this is because it is serious, but we also have a large portion of the population, again, especially in America, that really feel strongly that this is a hoax, that we’re overreacting, that this is no worse than the flu, that everybody’s gone mad. And this is all just an attempt to cover something up politically. What can we say to those folks? Because the fact is this is serious. I want to make that very, very clear. But I also sort of understand, again, especially in America, why people might think that we are overreacting, especially when they’re faced with, well, their routines being shut down. You know, here in Ohio, for example, where I’m from, we can’t even go to a restaurant or get a drink at like McDonald’s or meet at the local bar and throw darts or play pool to assuage our stress. So this really is allowing that other side to really fester. What can we say to that group?

Dr. David Batman: The problem is, I think at the moment, it doesn’t matter which country you go to is the political and economic situation in the early part of the spread of this, trying to protect companies, trying to protect countries, economies, et cetera, on the basis that we don’t want anything to happen. But now there is stark reality that no matter what you do, and it’s not their fault. At this moment in time, we didn’t know what was happening, clearly. They tried to give the best information, but they’ve got to have the trust, as we said. You’ve got to give as much information as you can because it has got to be accurate and it has to be consistent. Now, it’s hard to give that consistent information at the moment, it is variable, clearly, based on the way this disease is progressing. Now, I think part of the problem is it started in China and there’s always been sort of a level of distrust of that part of the world as to whether news is being suppressed and what’s actually happening. But when I look at the data and what’s happened, and the W.H.O. has actually had a delegation within the country. So the data and the information I’m getting, I trust now. Is that the measures that they put in worked, but they seemed to a lot of people very simplistic because we’re used to getting a disease, seeing a doctor, having it removed surgically or getting a treatment, then that’s all we need to do. But it’s very clear from watching out in China that data, they only had one new case yesterday. And you think of the thousands that they were having.

Dr. David Batman: And what they did was to put in containment, to break the transmission, to break the thread. Well, that’s hard for people to do it, but they have a population that actually listens. And because of the way that culture has grown, they comply 100 percent. We’re in a culture in the Western world where if somebody said to us, we are now contain and quarantine a city, a state, we are going to close borders of countries, that’s alien to our thought processes. And the message has never come across that first of all, that diseases need to be contained. We need to stop the transmission from person, from family to family, group to group, which is why we’re having to get into that and to do it. And therefore, we’re having to be fairly draconian to do that. And we don’t know how long that’s going to last. So there’s a conundrum here. I keep going back to we’ve never met before. There’s no playbook for this. There’s no way that we can go back and look at the score as to how it happened before. There isn’t one. We’re in a new play. We don’t know how many acts there are going to be. And we don’t know when the final curtain is gonna come down. So it’s very hard to put this into context, but it will be. People have got to have a belief in that at the moment. But there will be an end point and the vast majority of people are going to come through with this. This is the way it’s going to be.

Gabe Howard: We will be right back after these messages.

Sponsor Message: Hey folks, Gabe here. I host another podcast for Psych Central. It’s called Not Crazy. He hosts Not Crazy with me, Jackie Zimmerman, and it is all about navigating our lives with mental illness and mental health concerns. Listen now at Psych Central.com/NotCrazy or on your favorite podcast player.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: We’re back discussing the COVID-19 pandemic and managing our mental health with Dr. David Batman. We’ve talked a lot about the uncertainty, we’ve talked a lot about the things that we’ve lost. We’ve talked a lot about the fear. Let’s talk about some positive steps forward. What are some simple well—being activities that people can add into their day to keep them feeling positive and energized and keep good health habits on the top of their minds? In the midst of all this chaos and closure?

Dr. David Batman: Doctors are not always good at taking good medical advice, but I’ve always been a believer that 70% of your risk of becoming ill, 70% of your ability to actually get a cure and survive is due to lifestyle. And I believe this is all about lifestyle. Well, let me just give you examples of what I’m doing now. Because I’m approaching 70 next week, in this country, the edict from the U.K. government is now I’ve got to self isolate for the next four months. That’s a daunting figure. But I’ve got myself into a mindset now that says if I can’t change my circumstances, I’m going to change my attitude. And that’s sort of a banner that I keep putting out to people. So first of all, I’ve got myself a routine. I’m still working. I’m working from home. My sleep pattern is, sleep, the most important thing, probably one of the biggest risk factors we’ve got is lack of sleep. I will still go to bed at the same time. I still wake up at the same time. I set a routine that we can do. So that gets up. I still get washed and I get dressed into work wear, I’m not swimming around in my p.j.’s, etc.

Dr. David Batman: I’ve got my work set out. I’ve told my family that I need quiet time as to what I’m going to do. I’m exercising. I can go out and exercise as long as I’m six foot away from anybody else. I have a step counter. I’m still getting a thousand steps a day. I’m eating well, I’m drinking well, I’m getting plenty of fluids. And on the fluids side, a bit of research came out yesterday from a Japanese doctor, that said, this virus is sticky. If you’ve got a dry mouth and a dry throat, it sticks in your mouth, then it crawls its way down into your lungs. If you’re drinking all the time, the virus gets stuck into the fluid, gets washed into your stomach and the acid destroys it. So simple there. Don’t resort to alcohol to console it. Don’t resort to too much smoking too much alcohol, etc. My wife and I, she’s got the things that she does. I’ve got the things that I do. We have the things together. Because the danger is if you can come together with a partner 24/7, you’ve got nothing different to talk about. We can’t go out for a meal anymore. We’re gonna plan how we can have some special meals at home, etc.

Dr. David Batman: I’m communicating with my children, with my grandchildren, a lot more through Skype, through Facebook and through WhatsApp, and we’re doing that a lot more. So, I’ve got an outlook with the outside world. Within our community here, we’ve got a community app that we set up. We set up, and I’m helping them do, even though I’m here at home. We’ve got volunteers to help the elderly, the infirm, to get their food, to get their medicines. I feel as if I’m contributing, even though I’m isolating at the same time. All about lifestyle. I have limited, really do limit the amount of time I look on social media, maybe once, maybe twice a day, if I’m being honest into that area. I’m not getting the negative news. I’m looking at the positive news. But, my life goes on. I’ve got a to do list. I want to redesign my garden. So I’m going to do that. I’ve got some books I’ve always wanted to read. I’ve put time aside to read those, etc. It’s about positivity. What you’ve lost is your freedom a little bit at the moment. You can do so much, but it really is about I can’t change my circumstances. I’m isolated, but I can change my attitude.

Gabe Howard: I could not agree with that more, and I do think that a positive approach is very beneficial and I like what you said about we’re just not used to this, it really does show how much we take all of our freedoms for granted. Every morning I wake up and I flip the light switch in my bedroom. And I’ve got to tell you, every time I flip that switch, the light comes on. Ninety nine point nine nine percent of the time. But every now and again, I flip that switch and the light doesn’t come on and all I think of is, oh, how could this happen? What horrible luck. This is just terrible. So it really does show you it doesn’t matter how often something works. We really, really only focus on that one time that it doesn’t. Well, this is an extreme example of that. I really do think this is what’s happening to many of us. We’ve just really taken for granted how much we have on our normal day to day lives. And it’s become apparent to us now that so much of it is missing.

Dr. David Batman: I think you’re right on that. I think there’s a new norm that’s coming in. I think, I’m seventy in two weeks time. My wife and I have been planning for a year to go on a trip of a lifetime. But what it turns out is that trip of a lifetime was next Friday. We were due to go on a cruise around Japan. And yes, I’m sure you and your listeners can guess which cruise ship my wife had booked a cabin on. It was that floating petri dish; it was one of the big ones in the news with a floating liner in Japan. We looked forward to that. But at the same time, it’s gone. There’s no point dwelling in the past. The future will be there. It will be different. But people have been through transitions before. The world’s been through transitions and the world will sort it out. And I think at the moment, all we can do is trust the science. Trust the medics and indeed, accept that the change that is going on is developing. It’s not in any of my textbooks. It’s not anywhere on the Internet. As I said, there’s no playbook for this, and we’re going to have to ride through it. But there’s going to be an outcome.

Gabe Howard: And whatever that outcome is, we’re all going to arrive there together. Let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about your Coronavirus Toolkit for Employee Wellbeing. Can you tell us what that is and who it applies to?

Dr. David Batman: I’ve worked for the Virgin Pulse platform now probably for 12 years, et cetera, on our platform, and we believe in lifestyle change and what we are looking for is sustained behavioral change. It’s science based and what we, the aim is to empower people. We give people support for their mental health. We put mental health on the agenda. Financial help. We got counselors that can help. But suddenly realized we’re a different world here. And therefore, for the people who are part of our family, we thought we need to help them. And the one thing, again I come back to this and you alluded to it right at the beginning, where do we get sustained information that we can rely on? Everything that we put together, we’ve got a science advisory board, which I’m part of, therefore, everything is science based. And that’s when we said, well, what do people need? So we’ve got on that platform that people get access to it, we’ve actually got how can you keep your workforce motivated? Engaged in times of disruption, etc.? We’ve got the tipsheets, you know, tipsheets on how, we literally created one all about working from home. So how can you go into that new world of work where home has become the norm for work? Are we are giving you some healthy tips which know how they will work, etc. We’ve got a resource guide. We’ve got some prevention posters there, etc. as well. So it’s a myriad of things which are designed for employer and employee. What it is, is about getting consistent, scientifically based advice and that advice will change as the situation changes. We’re all working incredibly hard behind the scenes to make sure that this is consistent and correct and up to date, et cetera, providing both the employer and the employee with resources. So you don’t have to go to reinvent the wheel every time.

Gabe Howard: And where can our listeners find that tool kit right now?

Dr. David Batman: People will go on to the Virgin Pulse website, et cetera, and it’s linked there. We are putting it out whenever we are putting out our white papers, our information sheets. I have been working with one with one of my colleagues earlier on today, doing a webinar and a Q&A on that. And we will launch that with the link to that. We will use every opportunity to disseminate that to give people help. And yes, we share it with the businesses who are engaged with us there. But we also will put it through the links. It’s a myriad of things. It’s interactive. It’s moving with the time.

Gabe Howard: That’s wonderful, and of course, we will also put that link in our show notes over on PsychCentral.com so people can find it really, really easily. We’re nearing the end of our time. Dr. Batman. My final question is to kind of summarize this all up. What specific recommendations do you have for people adapting to this new time of uncertainty to get us through the next several weeks and and potentially several months?

Dr. David Batman: I know people feel anxious and fearful all the time. But I say to everybody, when you look at people walking around, people have got this public face where everybody on the surface, it’s a bit like a swan glides over the surface, but the feet are paddling like mad underneath. We’re all together. This is one of the few things across the world which is actually bringing people together. We’re all feeling the same way. We’re all feeling screwed up this time. We’re probably not sleeping well. We’re anxious. We don’t know what the future holds for ourselves and our families. Don’t be afraid. Ninety percent of you are going to go through this and you may have a mild illness to a moderate illness. You’re going to come through this. There is no treatment. You’ve just got to go through it. We will get a vaccine. It’s probably a year out before we’re going to get that vaccine. There’s no medication at the moment. Some may come along. The most important thing is listen to what the public health people are telling us. Social isolation. Distance yourself. Break those contacts from one person to the other. Six feet is a good distance. The isolation that we’re going to put people into, the closing of schools and offices, etc., is vital. Please listen to what the medics are saying. Listen to what our public health is saying. These are so vital. There is no magic treatment that will make a difference. You as individuals can make a difference not only to yourself. Your family, your community, your country, your country needs you. It’s been said before, but we need all to come together collectively by individual actions because nobody can do it for us.

Gabe Howard: And of course, I just want to echo what you said there, that we’re all in this together and that we will get through this together and that it really just is simply a matter of hunkering down and waiting it out and remembering that it’s one day at a time and we will all get there together.

Dr. David Batman: I totally agree, Gabe. It’s been a real pleasure to be able to actually come on in and talk to yourself and talk to your listeners, and hopefully we will take away some of that anxiety, that fear.

Gabe Howard: I cannot agree more, Dr. Batman, and thank you for being here and thank you to our listeners for being here. I know this is a time of uncertainty, so I hope that you will find the information that you can find on PsychCentral.com very, very beneficial. There are lots of other resources that you can check out. Just head over to PsychCentral.com and you’ll see it all there. And remember, wherever you downloaded the show, we’d like you to subscribe. We’d like you to rate, rank, and review. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere, simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We will see everybody next week. Please stay well.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at [email protected]. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com. To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

Podcast: Don’t Let Coronavirus Impact Your Mental Health syndicated from

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 5 years

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20 marketing ideas to use as inspo for your next campaign

As any marketing professional today will tell you, executing a successful campaign doesn’t just happen. Consumers and business buyers are more picky and finicky than ever – drop the wrong message or attempt to connect with them on the wrong channel, and it’s all over.

On top of this, consumers are exposed to 5,000 OR MORE ads each and every day across the numerous digital touchpoints in daily life. This is a sharp rise from the 500 or so ads we saw per day in the 1970s.

What does all this mean for you and your brand? Frankly, there’s more marketing noise across every industry than ever before. In order to cut the clutter and get through to your target audience, your campaigns have to be catchy, clever and unique, and speak directly to consumers’ needs and preferences.

It certainly isn’t easy to strike this balance. But here’s the good news – marketers today (including you!) have all kinds of tools and strategies available at their disposal. It’s just a matter of weighing your options, understanding the penchants of your audience, and selecting the right mix of content and touchpoints to get their attention.

We all hit a creative wall at some point. But, fear not! We’re here to help you get over that hump with rapid-fire inspo, ideas, suggestions and examples to help kick start your next marketing campaign.

Getting started: Lay the foundation

1) Understand your audience

Before you put any effort into your marketing campaign strategy, you need to ensure that what you come up with will resonate with the people you’re looking to sell to. But who exactly are the individuals in your target audience, and what do they need and want? If you haven’t put the time and thought into customer buyer personas, now is an ideal time.

Benefit: Ooh, I could really go on and on here. What isn’t beneficial about understanding your target audience? I mean really? But, to lay a few advantages out there, creating personas will help you better see what your ideal customers look like, the touchpoints they use during their buyer journey and the pain points they need your brand to solve. Using all these details, you can craft campaigns that not only enable your brand to connect with target audiences, but also support positive ROI for your marketing efforts. And that’s a win-win situation.

Difficulty: Moderate. This step will take some time and research, but will be worth the effort.

2) Come up with a theme

Some of the best marketing campaigns include an overarching theme to tie everything together. This could be a key piece of messaging that finds its way into all related campaign collateral, or a seasonal theme that aligns with a holiday or other occasion.

Benefit: The advantage to having a theme or one “big idea” to unite your campaign is consistency and recognisability. Your audience will be able to pick out your campaign content and assets, since they’ll include the same messaging, and likely, colour scheme and other uniting elements. Now that 60% of your millennial customers expect a consistent brand experience, leveraging a theme can help you appeal to these key buyers.

Difficulty: Easy, so long as you can get your creative juices flowing. We’ll delve into some more specific theme ideas that you can apply a bit further into the article.

3. Boost brand awareness – Get your story out there

Educating your customers should be a key part of any campaign, and these efforts can also extend to spreading awareness about your own brand. Your brand story is unique – did you meet your business partner in college and launch the company from your dorm room? Or was it a lightning strike of an idea for your brand that you funded with the help of friends and family? However it happened, publicising it and telling this story can help you forge an emotional connection with your audience.

Benefit: Telling your story means you won’t be just another faceless corporation in the market. This strategy can differentiate you from the competition. And, as a bonus, brands that are able to achieve this type of emotional connection also see more worth-of-mouth marketing from their loyal customer base.

Difficulty: Relatively easy. There are all different ways you can tell your brand’s story: an about page on your website, social media posts, a blog post on your backstory, the list goes on and on. However, make sure you tell this story in a way that humanises your brand and doesn’t just toot your horn.

4. ‘Ditch the competition’ comparison campaigns

This marketing idea is a relatively low-hanging fruit strategy that countless brands have used – and for good reason. In this approach, you compare your spotlight product or service to that of a competitor, showcasing all the reasons why yours is better.

You can do this through a chart comparing the features of your product to another in the same category, or through visual representation like a photo or video. However, facts work best here – if you can provide data-driven reasons for why your offering is better (Three times faster! Fifteen percent more product! Half the cost! etc.), the greater the chances are that it’ll catch the attention of potential customers.

Benefit: People appreciate comparisons, and you can educate your customers about your product in the process.

Difficulty: Easy, although you want to be careful about disparaging your competition, and make sure you can back up what you say.

Support your campaign with content

Okay, so, full disclosure, I may be a little biased in this section. I am a writer, after all, so content is my bread and butter. I’ve seen content work miracles for clients and I recommend content strategies for all my friends and their businesses in real life.

Content should be the star of nearly any type of marketing campaign – from email marketing to blogging, videos and beyond. And, you can leverage all of these assets for your social posts (which we’ll get into a bit later.) Overall, though, content is king.

5. Educate with a blog post

The actual messaging within your campaign will likely be succinct and to the point. But chances are also good that you have a lot more to say on the subject. A blog post (or another longer written asset like an eBook or whitepaper) provides you a chance to add depth or character to your campaign.

Benefit: Tell the story behind your campaign, build on the messaging that customers have already seen, and use the blog to move leads through your campaign sales funnel (i.e., include a link to the blog on social, or within your email messaging).

Difficulty: Easy. This cheap marketing idea is a staple, and as long as you have someone on your team with strong writing skills, creating a blog to support your campaign won’t be difficult to pull off. Here’s a little something to help you get started.

6. Make it visual with a video

People love videos – not only are they typically bite-sized and shareable, but they also allow you to show off your product or service in a more visual way.

Benefit: Photos are key, sure. But many customers complain – especially with online shopping – that they can’t adequately see or feel a product. Although video won’t help with the latter, it can offer customers a more in-depth look at what you’re selling than what they’ll get from a flat photo.

Difficulty: Moderate, depending on the subject and purpose of the video. Use video to demo the use of your product, showcase customer testimonials, and beyond. You’ll need the right video equipment and editing capabilities to create professional-level content here, though.

7. Build it out with an infographic

We looove infographics. When readers aren’t in the mood for a blog post, or more data-heavy whitepaper content, you can still offer something that will get their attention visually and provide them with memorable data points.

Benefit: Infographics can help break up the flow of more static content by providing something colorful and engaging. You can also cut a longer graphic into smaller, more shareable pieces and use them as jumping off points for email marketing campaigns or social posts, which then lead readers to the full graphic. Basically, the possibilities with infographics are endless.

Difficulty: Easy to moderate. You’ll need to do your research and dig up interesting and timely statistics to include. You’ll also need someone with the right design skills to tie your facts together with an eye-catching and flowing design. Check out our ebook here to learn more about infographic design ideas.

8. Make it interactive

This marketing strategy can be applied to content marketing, or just about any other approach you decide to use to support your campaign. Interactive marketing involves providing a next step, or an available action for customers to take after seeing your ad or content. The idea here is to take your marketing a step further, and not just throw messaging at your audience, but provide them with something to do afterwards. This approach is also known as trigger-based or event-based marketing, and you can read more on it here.

Benefit: Interactive content makes marketing a two-way street between your brand and your target audience, which fosters positive engagement. These assets are also particularly memorable as they encourage interaction from shoppers.

Difficulty: Moderate. This approach requires a bit of planning to ensure that consumers can truly interact and engage with your brand. You need to offer them a next best action that makes sense and provides them with something to do. But, pull it off and you’ll create a lasting and memorable connection between current and potential customers and your company.

Marketing through social media platforms

Social media marketing holds nearly endless possibilities, many of which are relatively low-cost. As with any type of digital marketing, though, it’s key to understand your audience and the particular social media channels that they use.

9. Repurpose what you’ve already created

Remember all the written and visual content you’ve created? Blogs, infographics, videos and the like? Social provides the perfect opportunity to repurpose these items and showcase them specifically on social.

Benefit: Get your content in front of more eyes, and make sure each piece gets as much exposure as possible. Plus, this is basically a free marketing idea, since you’re reusing what you already have.

Difficulty: Easy. This may be the simplest, lowest-effort approach on our list, since you’ve already put the work in. Take inspo from the individual piece of content you’re sharing, create a short but fresh teaser for your post, and voilà! Social marketing at its finest.

10. #Hashtag

This is another free marketing idea that can help get your brand in front of the eyes of your audience and potential customers. There are several approaches you can take here, including getting in on a popular hashtag that’s already trending, or creating your own and launching the buzz yourself.

Benefit: Boost brand awareness and get people talking. Encourage interactions between your audience and your brand.

Difficulty: Easy to moderate. Effective use of hashtags requires some strategising, and isn’t just about wallpapering the end of your social post with as many hashtags as you can come up with. The hashtags you use need to be relevant to your audience and your brand, and make sense considering the content of your post.

11. User-created content: Unboxing videos, testimonials, reviews

This is another budget-friendly marketing strategy idea that can help you make good use of the user-created content you likely already have on-hand. If your customer base has written to you with glowing reviews of your product, or have created unboxing or reaction videos involving your brand’s creations, why not put that feedback on display?

Benefit: Not only is this one of our most impactful, cheap marketing ideas, this approach also resonates with your social media followers. The vast majority of consumers – 92% – trust word-of-mouth marketing like reviews and testimonials over any other type of advertising.

Difficulty: Easy. With a bit of digging – and permission from users, of course – you can spotlight user-created videos, reviews and recommendations on your own social media platforms. And, from your customers’ perspectives, these mean more since they’re coming from other shoppers in your own audience.

12. Quiz ‘em

People love quizzes, especially when the subject matter is fun, engaging, topical and shareworthy. These work particularly well on social media platforms, and when one user shares their quiz results, it encourages others to engage with your quiz as well.

Benefit: Don’t think of quizzes as just a fun activity with a pretty face – in the context of your marketing campaign, quizzes are more than just busy work to engage your audience. As SEO expert and blogger Neil Patel pointed out, your quiz can represent a powerful marketing strategy that can support automated post-quiz interactions and help bring potential customers through your sales funnel.

Difficulty: Moderate to difficult. This strategy will take a bit more thinking, planning and automating to pull off. Patel outlined several different types of quizzes to consider as a jumping off point. It’s important to make sure that there is some sort of tie back to your business – a quiz that tells users what type of pasta they are sponsored by a company known for its cleaning products, for instance, won’t resonate well (unless the quiz concludes with the best stain remover for getting red sauce out of a bedspread … But, even still). A clear connection back to the brand will help keep your company name top-of-mind for users and better support brand recognition and campaign efforts.

13. Host a contest

Another engaging idea to try out involves hosting a contest for your followers. Similar to quizzes, there are several different types and formats to consider here, including:

Photo contests, where users provide their own photos of themselves enjoying a brand’s products. This user-generated content can also be repurposed for separate posts.

Caption contests, where the brand provides the image and users submit their own captions.

User upvote contests, where users vie for the votes of your audience followers, as well as from friends and family in their own social network channels. Voting contests are crazy popular, and can help your social content be shared further than you might have expected. As WordStream pointed out, you can also leverage this data for analysis on your social reach.

Benefit: A contest is one of the most sure-fire ways to spur engagement and interaction with your audience and followers. However, don’t forget that you have to offer something in return, whether it be a sneak peek at your next product unveiling, spotlighting users’ content across your social media platforms or a box of curated goodies from your brand.

Difficulty: Easy to moderate. This all depends on the type of contest you decide to host and the prize you give away. Contests can be simple, and remain completely on your social channels, whereas others may be more involved (see Cheez-It’s scavenger hunt, for example).

14. Influencer marketing

This is one of the newest and, when executed correctly, most effective social marketing strategies out there.

As Influencer MarketingHub’s study found, 92% of people feel that influencers are effective for brand marketing efforts. And now that more companies are engaging in this approach – and boosting their budgets accordingly – it’s worth a look, even for small brands who may not have considered it in the past.

Benefit: Influencers can bring their own level of credibility to the marketing campaign and help expand brand awareness into new target audience segments. These campaigns can boost engagement, generate leads and strengthen brand image, as personal and corporate brand consultant Gabriela Cordoza pointed out in our article, linked below.

Difficulty: Difficult. This one definitely doesn’t fall within our free marketing ideas. It’s also one of the most involved strategies, and requires just the right partnership and planning to pull off without appearing inauthentic. Read more about this strategy here in our blog.

Guerilla marketing: Big ideas for brick and mortar

While many marketing efforts these days are focused around digital channels, it’s important not to overlook physical marketing in the real world. Guerilla marketing approaches take regular real-world marketing to the next step – we’re not just talking about throwing a somewhat creative billboard together, slapping it up next to the highway and calling it a day.

Guerilla marketing can include indoor or outdoor promotions, and can take place at large-scale conferences or specific experiential events, HubSpot’s Amanda Zantal-Wiener pointed out.

15. On the street promotions

Some of the best guerilla marketing strategies take place on the street, within a brand’s local community or in an area where the company is looking to branch out. As these examples show, on-the-street promotions can be small, yet eye-catching:

Or a bigger production:

Benefit: These marketing ideas are almost sure to be talked about and posted on social channels. You might even get the attention of a local news channel. The buzz basically creates itself.

Difficulty: Moderate. This strategy requires considerable creativity, and a lightning strike-caliber big idea (that aligns with your brand image, offerings and services) in order to pull off. Typically, these campaigns are relatively low-cost, but provide a big return, particularly for brand awareness.

16. Event and experiential marketing

This is another more grandiose marketing idea, but one that can also pay off in spades. Organisations with larger marketing budgets – or those looking to create considerable buzz in a certain area – can host an event or create an experience for consumers with a specific outcome in mind. Events can be smaller scale, and include live on-site contests or activities, or include things like industry conferences with appearances from local influencers.

Benefit: Similar to creative on-the-street promos, event and experiential marketing really gets your audience talking. Depending on the type of event, the activity your brand provides for participants and the overarching theme or purpose, events can support a specific product launch or simply boost brand awareness.

Difficulty: Difficult. Event and experiential marketing depends on considerable planning and strategising. You need to consider the purpose of the event, what you’ll offer attendees, how you’ll draw a crowd through content creation and other channels, and how you’ll maintain attention on your brand. There are scores of examples out there (including in our article here) that showcase the advantages of this kind of strategy – as well as what can happen when it goes wrong (*coughcough* Fyre Festival *coughcough*).

Bonus ideas! Just throwing ‘em out there

Just in case you haven’t found an idea in our list so far that strikes your interest, here are a few more to consider:

17. Freebies and trial size giveaways

This has happened to me a few times as a consumer, and I can confirm that it’s always unexpected and exciting. Consider combining this approach with an event-based marketing strategy – in other words, when customers order a certain product, it triggers your team to include a sample size of a similar or complementary product during shipping.

Benefit: Who doesn’t love freebies? Including a sample exposes your customer base to other items or product lines from your brand that they might not have tried, and encourages them to buy the full size version. Talk about return on investment.

Difficulty: Easy, and usually pretty cost-effective.

18. Gift guides or product comparisons

This is the perfect time to put together a holiday gift guide highlighting key products in your brand’s top lines. You can also create more evergreen gift guides or comparisons for segments of your target audience (i.e., comparing different products to your competitor’s similar lines, or a specially curated men’s gift guide).

Benefit: A comparison between your own product line can educate customers and help ensure that shoppers buy the best items for their needs. A gift guide can also help you showcase specific products that might need a little more attention, or spotlight items that complement each other particularly well.

Difficulty: Easy. You can mine your existing product spec sheets and put something together relatively simply that will offer up good information to shoppers.

19. Take inspo from competitors

It’s always good to check up on what the Joneses are doing, especially when it comes to your marketing efforts. Your key competitors might be doing something particularly creative that you can build upon and apply to your own campaigns.

Benefit: A good idea can always be expanded on. Don’t be afraid to look to your competition for inspiration, take what they’ve done, and make it your own.

Difficulty: Easy. A bit of time and market research is all you need here.

20. The power of partnership

You can also consider forging a strategic partnership and launching a campaign around it. Some brand offerings just work better in tandem with the products of other companies, and organisations like Red Bull and GoPro, for example, aren’t afraid to capitalise on this. Who didn’t watch as Felix Baumgartner, armed with a space suit and GoPro and powered by Red Bull, jumped through the stratosphere?

Check out some other examples/inspo here in HubSpot’s article.

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Benefit: Combine the marketing power of both brands while simultaneously exposing new audience segments to your companies’ offerings.

Difficulty: Difficult. This approach can quickly go awry if the partnership and strategy aren’t thought out just right. The partnership has to make sense, both from the perspective of business marketing and for loyal customers in order to achieve a win-win situation. But, when things fall into place, a strategic partnership can be like striking gold.

Kick that campaign into high gear

Awesome marketing ideas certainly don’t just grow on trees or fall right into our laps. Everyone needs a bit of help, inspo and a creative push. We hope you’re able to take this list and hit the ground running with your next campaign. Happy marketing!

from http://bit.ly/2Rii7lF

#content marketing

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Best WordPress Viral Magazine Themes, Buzzworthy Video and Images | Templified

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Best WordPress Viral Magazine Themes, Buzzworthy Video and Images

We are always on the lookout for a great-looking viral magazine theme. These days, it seems like there are websites springing up all over the place trying to compete in the viral content market. Whether it’s funny cat videos or the dankest new memes, lots of folks seem to like to want to waste their time on the internet. I sure know that I do.

With any of the themes in this collection, you’ll be able to put together a great-looking magazine to share Cool, trending content with the world. most of these themes have specialized features that make them great for viral content. Things like built-in voting systems, plenty of social media integration and prominent AdSense placement. each and every theme in this collection is easy to use and easy to adapt to fit your specific needs.

Every website is a little bit different and you don’t want you or site looking like everyone else. That’s why any of the themes in this collection or a great starting point for building your own viral magazine. So, let’s have a look at the absolute best viral content themes for WordPress.

Extra, Divi Based Viral Magazine WordPress Theme

Extra is a premium quality magazine theme from elegant themes. I’ve included it in this collection because it is among the most flexible and powerful magazine themes out there. While it is not specifically built as a viral magazine, it has all the features that you need to make it one. there’s a strong social integration, excellent navigation, perfect responsive design and drag and drop content blocks that can make each and every page a little bit different, or you can use any of the pre-made templates to help style your site right.

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Papr, Simple WordPress Viral Magazine Theme

Papr is a completely responsive, well-documented and well-designed theme that is wonderful for viral content. These days, there can be no Short selling of how important selecting the right theme is. There are plenty of different viral magazines out there and each one of them is competing for the same traffic. Having a well-designed, fast loading a flexible theme like Papr is a great choice and can help set your content apart from the rest. For online magazines, reviews, publishers and folks who are creating viral content, that can be the difference between success and failure. This clean designed theme has 20 different unique pages, each one modern and perfectly styled for its purpose. There are a variety of post layouts, post formats come on other pages, contact pages and a whole lot more.

DemoMore Information Get Hosting

Maggz, Creative Viral Magazine Theme for WordPress

Creating a powerful and user friendly magazine for viral content just got easier. Maggz offers several well made layouts with eye-catching blocks and plenty of mix and match layouts. Maggz is a fine pick for any online publication, it’s not just for clickbait or viral content. There are designs included for relatively straight foward, traditional layouts. You get a powerful admin interface, a highly customizable set of features, one click demo import and nine well designed home pages. There are practical page layouts, a large collection of shortcodes and a variety of post layouts. So, all in all, this theme has what it takes to craft all sorts of great, viral websites.

DemoMore Information Get Hosting

Gloss, Slick, Glossy WordPress Theme for Viral Content

Among the newest themes that I’ve added to this collection, Gloss is a slick and attractive WordPress theme that can help you produce a popular magazine for viral content. there are several different pre-made pages that are included, five different home page has to be exact. For inner pages, you can use the included page builder to develop any sort of layout that you want. adding social media connections and AdSense has never been easier. This theme is very simple to customize at and includes quite a bit of documentation to help make sure you get the most out of it.

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Noes, Trending Topics WordPress Magazine Theme

This theme is called Noes. It’s a perfect WordPress theme for news magazines, viral content, buzzworthy content, news reviews or publishing websites. It even supports embedded videos from sites like Vimeo, Kickstarter, Vine, YouTube or Ted. each post features a ratings system, one of those features that makes it great for Bible content. I think that the simple, clean layout lends itself to any sort of online magazine.