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strikearose · 4 years

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It’s all about connections (SasuNaru) (Part 1)

Finally, here’s the very first part of the !YoutubeSasuNaru story - the idea’s quite silly but I had fun writing it so hope you guys enjoy it! (English is not my first language so please don’t be too much of a grammar nazi Summary : Sasuke has had that massive crush on a youtuber for years when Rasengan randomly starts going to his class. You can also read it on ff.net and ao3. Part 1 (here), Part 2 (clic), Part 3 (clic), Part 4 (clic)

Poc.

The ball of paper missed its trajectory and crashed into the corner of the wall, barely half an inch away from the waste basket that originally intended. The student didn’t mind, though - he was far too busy trying to finish his economics presentation that was due for the next day.

Despite the fact that many of his classmates insisted on seeing him as a relentless hardworking student, Sasuke Uchiha was very much like any other normal twenty-one year old boy : a procrastinator at heart. So it was precisely on the night before the big day that he finally decided to finish it, even though he had had all of his vacation time to do so. Well - it would be a lie to say that it would take a superhuman effort to accomplish that task, but unfortunately the young man had another flaw: he was a perfectionist.

Even if he had to pull an all-nighter or give nothing back at all, Sasuke had always refused to be average - because before (and in addition of) setting high standards for others, he would always set himself very high standards.

The black-haired man frowned as he read what he had written on the previous line and, impulsively, he ended up tearing up the entire page of his notebook and threw it on the floor.

However, the paper pellet did not make a Poc - as he had, this time, managed to reach the bin, it made a Ting instead : he had just received a notification.

His mind being elsewhere, the student rummaged around on his desk, looking for his phone. It wasn’t a text message, but a Youtube alert. One of his Subscriptions had just uploaded a new video. Sasuke took a quick look at the time (1:03 am) and let a loud sight when he saw how long the video was: fifty-seven minutes.

Of course, it has to be Rasengan.

He was the only one there who could publish a barely edited gaming review at such odd hours. One hour of uncut video was too much, even if it was to discuss the New Zelda. ‘That moron clearly don’t understand how the logistics of youtube work,’ the young man thought while stretching his legs under the table in order to get into a more comfortable position.

Because even though Sasuke might found the Youtuber’s marketing choices quite stupid and questionable - he was still his favorite. The only one he was following so.. assiduously.

And if he was really going to pull an all-nighter in order to finish his presentation on time, he might as well relax a little on the go

The coffee machine finally agreed (even though it sure had taken its’ sweet time) to give him his change money, but it still wasn’t not enough to lift Sasuke’s spirit. He really had spent his entire night working on the presentation. Well - he even had to give up his usual fifteen minutes of hot morning shower for just three minutes of shampoo-rinse-toothbrush altogether to make sure that everything was perfect.

But at last - there he was ! His eyelids stung horribly and he could feel the dark circles hollowing out his eyes, but everything was finally ready to make sure he would receive his usual congratulations for the seriousness and thoroughness of his work.

An amused grin escaped his lips when he looked into the face of Kiba Inuzuka, one of his classmates - a gamer and procrastinator emeritus who unfortunately didn’t have enough wits to back it up. With some luck, they would be called in alphabetical order for once and it would save Inuzuka the embarrassment of going Sasuke’s presentation.

Or maybe not.

Sasuke left the cafeteria just as the legendary lack of luck of the dog-loving student seemed to catch up with him:

« FOR FUCK’S SAKE NARUTO DON’T PUT YOUR DR PEPPER ON TOP OF MY COMPUTER ! »

« Hey Sasuke, did you also get Ichiraku’s mail about the internship? »

Shikamaru Nara calmly called out the black-haired young man as he sat down.

« Yes, I got it. And my documents have been signed and validated by the office earlier today.

- Cool, mine too, Shikamaru sighed. ‘t'was about time. »

He nodded his head knowingly: all the steps of searching, finding and getting the official documents concerning the internship signed were an unspeakable mess. Luckily, though, his partner this time was not a nutcase of Zaku Abumi’s caliber.

The Nara was placidly calm (Sasuke wouldn’t dream of seeing him threatening the Dean of blowing up the uni if he were to fail the exams) and quite intelligent: in short, he was one of his peers. And their little discussions were not too unpleasant.

« Well, we’ll talk later about carpooling?

- Yeah. And also dividing the task.

- Yeah, no problems, Shikamaru sighed as he turned away - tired in advance of the amount of work ahead. Ah, good luck with your presentation by the way. »

Pfft.

He didn’t even bother to answer.

Wishing him luck ? Sasuke gladly left ‘good luck’ to losers such as Inuzuka or Sarutobi who were very likely to be sending prayers at that very moment to every heavenly spirit existing, Jashin included, to have the course delayed.

Good luck ?

Sasuke definitely didn’t need it.

He was brilliant, meticulous and confident: talking in front of sixty or more people didn’t bother him at all - unlike the younger Hyuuga who getting more and more on the verge of fainting as she practiced her speech. More than that, it was even something he enjoyed. Knowing every aspect of a subject - mastering it ; defending it tooth and nail, tearing apart every remark made by his opponents until they surrender..

Some malicious people would say that Sasuke liked to boast on stage, that he was too arrogant. That he was far too pleased to thwart the traps set by his teachers, to answer the questions of his classmates with a smirk. A smirk just visible enough to make them understand how foolish he thought their interventions were. Or worse, that he had precisely expected for a moron to make that remark, thus allowing him to assert his assistance with a dutifully prepared response.

Saying that Sasuke Uchiha sometimes behaved like a complete asshole would be quite slanderous - indeed.

Because, no he did not.

He was brilliant, meticulous, confident… and humble on top of that.

« Hurry up, Kiba, I think it’s already started!

- You should have eat your lunch quicker ! »

The two latecomers were forced to take the front row seats of the auditorium while Sasuke finished to prepare. The slide show was on, the cable was connected - he was simply waiting for Mr. Hatake’s approval to start.

« And to finish with and anticipate some questions you may have, I’d like to add that while the data I used regarding market flows may be from two thousand and four, other studies that I have provided in the appendix tend to show that all exchanges concerning telephony have been profitable thanks to the takeover of the company by its competitor three years ago. »

Click.

He couldn’t have done better.

The teacher scribbled an umpteenth inscription on his rating form with a discreet approving wink and Uchiha smiled smugly.

Perfect - everything had gone on smoothly.

His onyx eyes wandered around the room: not surprisingly, half the auditorium hadn’t listen a word to what he had said, too focused on themselves (and the realization of their own projects).

Pfft.

The other half, however, completed his little moment of glory: some of them shook the head in bitterness, disappointed in what they had done in comparison, others gave him an admiring look. In the distance, Shikamaru nodded his head slowly while the Egyptian fury sited beside him, more belligerent, pretended to stifle a yawn.

But Sasuke quickly looked away, his mouth pinched, as he saw the thumb up that Lee Rock had kindly addressed to his attention. Lee was overall quite a nice fellow - Sasuke himself had to recognize it, - but no.

Just no.

« Well, if no one has any question, because I don’t have one either, let’s move on to the next presentation, Kakashi Hatake thought for a moment as he watched over the assembly. Inuzuka, you, in the front row? Well, that’s great, now’s your turn. »

Sasuke, quite disdainfully elated, was about to come down from the stage when a voice stopped him dead in his tracks:

« Oops, you’re in deep shit, Kiba! »

That particular tone was familiar to him.

Strangely familiar.

« Heyyyyy everybody! I know, I know, sorry! I promised to upload more often… But sometimes I just completely forget to turn the cam on. Or to remove the lens cover ahah! Anyway, today…- »

…

Come to think of it, Sasuke knows that he should have, at least, tried to make it look like it wasn’t that big of a deal. He should have try to tighten his jaw, clench his teeth or even hold his breath until he could return to his seat but of course - he didn’t.

That damn brain of his really had to go on mental-break down as he looked over to the lips from which those sweet, sweet words had just escaped.

He literally froze on the spot.

HOLY FREAKING FUCKING FUCK.

Why the hell did Rasengan have to show up in his class on the very-day he looked like utter shit?!

Sasuke let himself fell on a chair of the uni library. The research room, fortunately, was still quite empty - this haven of peace was the only place where, he was ready to stake his life on it, this stupid Inuzuka had not and would never set foot in.

Yes - Sasuke Uchiha had simply run away : with clenched fists, he had spent the forty-two minutes separating him from the end of the class to scrutinize meticulously the auditorium clock’s second hand. He had tried everything: scrolling down his twitter feed, pretending to be interested in what was happening downstairs, humming softly a bit of that stupid Latin-sounding song that his brother Itachi kept playing in the car, but nothing helped. That same frightening moment was played again and again in his mind:

Meeting certain cerulean eyes had literally made him go speechless. If he had for a long time now suspected the blond guy of drowning his instagram pictures with saturated filters, he was now forced to admit that this guy had the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

And by blue, Sasuke wasn’t talking about that pale, bland cyan that Ino Yamanaka, a high school ‘friend’ he often saw in the cafeteria, boasted about - no, Rasengan’s pupils were of a deep, bright, intense blue. It wasn’t a grey that stretched to be too light or green; his eyes were neither grayish nor turquoise: they were blue. Irrevocably blue.

Wonderfully blue.

The more he thought about it, the less Uchiha was willing to accept it: there was no way a guy who spent at least twelve hours a day on screens could have such marvelous eyes. He probably wore contact lenses, yeah, there was no other explanation.

All Sasuke could remember was meeting that seing that blue and then - nothing. His foot had stayed up in the air, his breathing hastened and he had stood there like an idiot - staring at the video maker who hadn’t pay the slightest attention to him, his mouth wide open.

How long had he been frozen there, like a fucking fangirl oozing hormones and sebum?

…

Thank’s God - an unfortunate accident had come to his rescue : Kiba Inuzuka and his legendary clumsiness who, probably not expecting Sasuke to suddenly freeze on the spot, had stumbled over the stairs.

PAF.

He had cracked his forehead open and the fit of hilarity (well - they didn’t need much at eight o'clock in the morning) in the auditorium had instantly brought Sasuke out of his enamored trance. He had quickly taken his attention away from the blond young man hurried back to his place, his heart beating fast.

Shit - what the hell was Rasengan doing in his college?

And why did he have do pull an all-nighter on the day before?

Sasuke looked around him and hesitated for a moment before putting his phone in selfie mode in order to inspect the extent of the damages.

Ouch.

He had rarely looked so bad. His eyes were red because of the entire night spent on a computer screen, his skin was tugging at him and - what the hell was that old scale on the edge of his eyelid ? But despair truly overcame him as he looked at the state of his hair - thank God it was still pretty clean, but there was absolutely no volume left. Nasty, long (too long) strands of hair were stuck to his temples and fell back a little on his forehead.

Shit - it was as if he was unpleasantly reviving his teenage years when - even though he still adamantly claimed to that day he had never turned emo, he had tried numerous dubious kind of hairstyles.

The Uchiha turned pale when it really came down to him : this was indeed the very first impression he ever had make on Rasengan.

When Sasuke set foot on campus the next day, curious glances were exchanged. While his complexion was as fresh and glowing as ever (he had gulped down five liters of water the night before), his hair was…-

Well - he rather gave the impression that he had swallowed five litres of gel. That observation made the usually impassive Shikamaru raised an eyebrow - for a moment he thought that he too had returned to his high school years. The Nara genius finally shrugged it off, plunged back into his textbook - well everyone had bad hair day every now and then.

Fourth day of the week - Sasuke grumbled as he put his computer back on his bag.

Of course, Rasengan had to disappear completely off the face of the earth as soon as he had decided to rock his best outfits to go to class.

It was as if Rasengan’s divine appearance had to be provoked by Sasuke losing some of his splendor.

…

The next day, Sasuke had the impudence of wearing a T-shirt… with a hole on it (an old accident involving a hook and his brother-in-law, a fisherman), but still - nothing happened.

There was not the slightest sign of the handsome blond with eyes too blue to be true. In a bad mood, Uchiha decided after lunch to put the Ralph Lauren sweater, which he’d slipped into his bag in the morning just in case, in top of his crappy shirt.

The following Monday came quickly but - no, Sasuke wasn’t expecting anything.

His decision to resume his daily abdominal sessions hadn’t been motivated by any hope of meeting a certain blond again.

He was doing it for himself - and for himself alone.

Although it was true that he didn’t even need it.

The coffee machine forgot inadvertently to give him a stirrer - Sasuke sighed. Great, the day was starting out just fine : how the hell was he supposed to retrieve the sugar that had fallen to the bottom of the cup and drink his coffee now?

« Ahah, I can’t believe it, I didn’t even finish my presentation and Hatake gave me the passmark ! »

Sasuke’s ears tensed imperceptibly as he recognized the voice of the injured-Inuzuka who had just entered the cafeteria.

« He felt sorry you had a concussion Kiba, Shikamaru was there too.

- Whatever, man ! I’m definitely going to pass that semester ! We got to go celebrate. »

Celebrate?

Like in a bar or club where Rasengan might also go to ?

Sasuke suddenly found his cup too heavy to carry around and chose to sit down at the table next to the one the two friends had chosen, any worry of lost-stirrer long forgotten.

« Mhhh. Shikamaru sighed and rummaged through his wallet, seeking enough change to buy himself a hot drink. The delicious scent of Sasuke’s coffee was tempting him. You know what I think about your improvised parties.

- Pfff, anyway, you hardly go out anymore now than you got hitched.

- It's not like that, Shikamaru sighed again. Tem and I simply go to different places. »

Sasuke rolled his eyes out, bored. He wasn’t there to hear about other people’s marital relationships: why didn’t they discuss Rasengan’s appearance AND disappearance instead?

The black-haired man had spend the weekend trying to figure something out, but nothing helped. Not a new video on Youtube (well, there was nothing that strange about that, Rasengan’s upload schedule had always been rather dubious), not a single clue on twitter or insta.

Nothing.

« …- never thought you’d actually manage to hook up with her. By the way…-, Kiba’s sentence was left hanging in the air. Oh, here he is. It’s about time! »

Sasuke’s pulse suddenly accelerated. Damn it.

He hadn’t expected Rasengan to pop up out of the blue, though.

Wasn’t his presence so close to his group of friends too suspicious?

Was he going to get busted that easily ?

He needed a pretext - quickly.

« Hey Shino. You’re here just in time, let’s go! »

Eyes glued to the poster for dark-metal band, Uchiha struggled to conceal his disappointment.

Shino Aburame - of course.

Always where he wasn’t expected.

Jaw clenched, Sasuke pretended to take a closer look at the tour dates on the wall while the three companions got up to go to class. The disappointed student was about to do the same when a voice called out to him:

« I didn’t know you liked this kind of music, Sasuke.

- Uh… yeah.

- We’re performing next month at the bar around the corner, Shino let out a rare smile as he reached into his pocket to hand him something. Here, I’ve got plenty more.

- … Thanks ? »

Uchiha arched an eyebrow as he received a Radioactive Worms sticker.

…

Well.

It took all sorts to make a world.

Wednesday, nine o'clock - Sasuke sighed as he realized that his computer was already out of battery. He pulled the charger out of its’ case before giving a nasty glance to a student who was cackling a little too loudly a few rows away.

Inuzuka.

Again.

He was getting on his nerves more and more.

For how long has he been getting along like pigs in a blanket with Rasengan? And was he, as Sasuke strongly suspected, responsible of his mysterious disappearance?

It was all so damn confusing.

« Um, yeah? »

The microphone sizzled and Sasuke turned his attention back ont he lecturer who he had almost forgotten.

When he saw who standing next to him, he almost fainted.

Rasengan.

#sasunaru #narusasu #sasunaru fic #sasunaru fanfiction #narusasu fic #narusasu fanfiction #naruto #naruto fanfiction #youtube #sillyme #shino is a key character there #hope you guys enjoyed it #i really need to study but oh well #naruto x sasuke #narutoxsasuke #sasuke x naruto #sasukexnaruto #sasuke x naruto fanfiction #it's all about connections

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ellusquirk · 5 years

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Oh wow sorry I’m spamming , I just looked and you haven’t yet done a marriage alphabet for my boy shouji !! Is it okay if I request one for him ? Sorry and thank you ! 😅

marriage alphabet || mezo shouji

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a - about (what about you made them want to marry you?)

most likely the fact that you’re unique and interesting. he’s not really into collecting things or having anything more than the bare essentials, so he’s really interested in everything and anything you do. he loves all of your different mannerisms and other things.

b - baby (would they want kids with you as soon as possible?)

not immediately, no. honestly he most likely won’t want them, but if that’s what you want then he’s happy to provide. he’d much rather have a quiet life with you and maybe the occasional pet, as he worries that having a family would mean his attention is taken away from you, and he doesn’t want that.

c - celebration (how would they celebrate your anniversaries?)

breakfast in bed, a bouquet of flowers and maybe a box of chocolate, he may take you out for a dinner if that’s what you want to do. he’s not big on celebrations, so he wouldn’t do anything eccentric unless you bluntly say that that’s what you want. he’ll be very affectionate and loving towards you.

d - divorce (how would they handle if you wanted a divorce? what caused it?)

he’d be upset, but respectful and understanding. he wouldn’t want any bad blood between the two of you, so he’ll try his best to make sure that the split is as pleasant as possible, and will give you all the space you need in order to deal with the divorce.

e - earnest (are they serious about your marriage? or can they be a little immature about it?)

he’s very serious. it’s a commitment for life and he would do nothing in order to ruin that. marriage isn’t something that should be taken lightly and he certainly wouldn’t do anything to ruin your marriage.

f - favorite (what was your favorite things before and after you got married to each other?)

he loves taking walks either really early in the morning or really late at night. it’s nice to just walk with you and take in the calm of the morning or the night, holding your hand and letting himself just breathe.

g - giving (do they spoil you?)

not really. he isn’t one for letting things pile up, so it’s very rare that he actually buys you anything. of course he’ll buy you the occasional thing that’s really sentimental, but he won’t buy you everything for the sake of you having it.

h - honeymoon (what did you two do for your honeymoon?)

he took you away to this cute little countryside cottage just outside of a sweet little town. it’s a nice, relaxing place where the two of you can just chill out and enjoy each other’s presence. the two of you can go out and about and do as you in the small little town or on some hiking trials, or just

stay in the cottage.

i - invest (how much do they contribute to your marriage?)

a lot. he’s completely invested in your marriage and he tries to contribute everything he can in order to ensure that you are happy and always at peace.

j - jealous (do they still get jealous even though you’re completely theirs?)

no. he knows that he can trust you and that you would never be unfaithful. if the person flirting with you gets to flirtatious with his liking he’ll definitely interfere, but it’s more out of concern for your safety than it is because he’s worried you may fall for it.

k - kiss (how often would you two kiss? do you still have that spark?)

he tends to kiss you mostly at the beginning of the day and at the very end of the day. he presses a kiss to your forehead in the morning when you wake up, when you’re making breakfast and before either one of you leave. he’ll do the same at night too.

l - live (where would you two settle down at?)

wherever is hero work takes him. of course he wants to ensure that you’re safe and happy, so if you’re genuinely unhappy then he’ll move and try and find work elsewhere where you’ll be happy.

m - make (do they still make your heart flutter after years of marriage?)

yes. he loves to leave you little notes and messages and randomly present you with bouquets of flowers too, just to show his affection.

n - never (what is something they would never do?)

he would never ever be unfaithful. he’s completely and utterly faithful to you and would never consider betraying your trust.

o - opportunity (do you two still get the opportunity to be intimate with one another?)

of course - he loves you and wants to be able to fulfill any of your needs and be able to show you how much he loves you. sometimes if his hero work gets quite intense it’s difficult, he’ll try and make time for you.

p - pet names (what pet names do you two give each other?)

he doesn’t use pet names, he just uses your nickname, but occasionally he may drop the odd ‘love’.

q - quiet (do you two keep quiet about your marriage? or do you always brag about one another?)

yeah. he doesn’t want you to be put in danger by revealing too much about you, so he’ll keep it on the down-low. if anyone asks then he won’t deny it, but he’d rather no one knew so that he knew you were safe.

r - romance (how do you two keep your romance alive?)

his little love notes and displays of love to you. he’s incredibly sweet and tender and affectionate, so it honestly would never die.

s - selfie (would they take multiple pictures of you? would they save them on their phone?)

not really no. he doesn’t really see the need in excessive amounts of photos when he gets to be with you every single day. he has a couple of photos of you from holidays and your wedding, which are on his desk at work, at home, in his wallet and a few on his phone too if he’s away from you.

t - teenagers (do you still act like teens when you’re older?)

nope. he’s not really that type.

u - unrelenting (what hasn’t stopped since you two got married?)

his sweet little gestures. he makes sure to carry them on to remind you of how much he loves you, just to prove that the extent of his love doesn’t just stop at marriage.

v - valentine’s day (what plans do you two make?)

he does whatever you want to do. he’ll make you breakfast in bed though, that’s always a definite, and he’ll probably make you cuddle for a while too. after that it’s up to you whether you want to go out of stay in.

w - wedding (what was your wedding like?)

small but sweet. it’s pretty and endearing, but not over the top. a few friends and family are gathered, and it;s not too intense. it’s meant to be about you two and he doesn’t want anyone else stealing the show from you. it’s also nicer to have it kind of quiet rather than a raucous celebration.

x - x-ray (can you two see through each other? can you see when you’re lying or not?)

yes. he knows you like the back of his hand and he can tell in an instant when something is bothering you or you’re covering up.

y - yearly tradition (what do you two do every year for your wedding anniversary?)

the two of you go on an early morning or late evening walk together, maybe bringing a picnic of breakfast or dinner with you. it’s a nice and quiet time for you.

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written on 04/09/19. requests: CLOSED.

#bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #mezo shouji #mezo shouji x reader #shouji #shouji x reader

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makeste · 5 years

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BnHA Episode 39: It’s Freestyle

Previously on BnHA: Pretty sure this takes place just after the whole “Deku goes to the shopping mall with his pals! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN -- oh. Oh, no” incident. Deku, Shigaraki is coming. OH MY GOD HE HAS AIRPODS ON. HE CAN’T HEAR US. OH MY GOD.

But of course it all turned out fine and Tomura skipped back home to plot how to destroy All Might by something something kidnapping Bakugou.

Today on BnHA:

It snowed, and I went home from work early. So I turned on The Pool Episode of the BnHA anime because WHY NOT.

Just FYI, I’ve only watched this once before, several months back, and don’t remember too much of it except that everyone has a very loose concept of what freestyle swimming is, and that I very much enjoyed it.

This recap will be manga spoiler-free since we want everyone to be able to have a fun time! So as long as you’re all caught up with the anime you should be good to go. I think I made a few references to the forest lodge arc but that’s it.

okay so the episode opens up in the ol’ villain bar (man I miss this place), with some All Might TV special playing, until Kurogiri switches it off

and now he’s turning to Tomura and they’re just like. staring at each other

and now Tomura is grinning and saying “I figured it out”

again, if you recall, he’s just had the epiphany that his purpose in life is to fuck up the Symbol of Peace in whatever way he can. so he’s pretty happy. I think it was Mark Twain who said, “the two most important days of your life are the day you were born, and the day you go to the mall and realize you just want to make All Might really sad”

so he’s recapping that the reason why Stain and the U.A. Wunderkinds piss him off so much is because of All Might, and All Might pisses him off because he’s always smiling “so thoughtlessly”

and now he’s running off somewhere. probably to plan the kidnapping

alone again, huh Kurogiri

he’s so cute lol

he’s looking at the photo of Izuku that Tomura conveniently left sitting on the counter, and mentally summarizing who Izuku is and what his most notable accomplishments are. because this is lowkey a clip show filler episode to ease people into the anime’s third season. but it’s pretty well done though

and now we’re cutting to Deku’s apartment, and he’s narrating about how they’ve finished their first semester at U.A. and have now started their summer vacation!

au contraire, Deku. this episode begs to differ

so he’s continuing his workouts to prepare for the upcoming training camp

I’m sure that camp is going to go great, by the way

and now we’re getting a flashback to that video of All Might rescuing people. the one that baby Deku loved so much

and he’s thinking about how All Might gave him his power. you know. just to remind anyone who’s only just now tuning in, for whatever reason. and they’re like “what is this weird show and who is this green-haired person who gives me weird Tsuna vibes”

and then the doorbell rings, cutting into his reverie!

and LOOK WHO IT IS

how do you guys know where Deku lives. and you do know that Bakugou also lives just like the next block over, yes? I mean. since you’re here and all

no one would ever do this, by the way. wear a long-sleeved black button-down shirt in Tokyo in August, I mean. but also, no one would just randomly visit someone’s house just to ring the doorbell and invite them to go someplace when they could have just texted them instead

but that is indeed what they are doing! they have come to invite Deku to go with them to the school pool! for training. wink

and now we’re cutting to Vlad and Aizawa as they plan the training camp

but before that, Vlad has a favor he’d like to ask Aizawa

“all twenty of them. in detail. but also, like, don’t take too long, though. just maybe kind of summarize it and give me a presentation that’s roughly, let’s say, about two minutes long”

and Aizawa just agrees. just rolls with it with no hesitation at all

and starts rattling off his students in alphabetical order

meanwhile my mind starts wandering and I start to wonder if Horikoshi intentionally planned it so that Izuku would come directly after Katsuki in an alphabetical list of the class 1-A kids. or if that was just a coincidence. he puts so much thought into the names that I wonder if he rejected any last names that started with an H or a P or a B just so he could do this

anyway now Aizawa is done. it actually took two and a half minutes

obviously there’s no time for that, Aizawa!!

lol and he’s interrupted by Deku, Kami, and Mineta barging in and asking if their request to use the pool was approved

you mean to tell me you guys dragged Deku all the way here and you didn’t even know if it was okayed or not

thankfully, Aizawa says that the school did indeed approve them to use the pool until 5pm

[shifty eyes] yep. endurance training. you know us. fuckin’ love to endure. and train. yessirree

there is no way he actually bought that even for a second, right?

but anyways, he’s telling them to do their best

he probably doesn’t actually care. or he just bought it because Deku was there, which of course was Kami and Mineta’s plan the whole time

and now we’re cutting to the pool, and sweet, innocent Deku genuinely believes they’ve really come here to train. “what a great idea, Mineta!”

he’s also excited because since they’re at school they can also use their quirks

which yeah, I forgot that would normally be forbidden at the ocean or at a municipal pool or whatever. for reasons which will later become apparent in this very episode

anyways, so Kami and Mineta are all, “[shifty eyes] [snrrk] that’s right! PLUS ULTRA”

I fucking love how Deku is just the ultimate rube here

meanwhile Kaminari is telepathically communicating to Mineta that inviting “the diligent Midoriya” was a good call. he really does lend legitimacy to the whole operation

Mineta is telepathically communicating back that if it had just been the two of them, they might not have gotten permission

wow they’re actually having a whole damn conversation in this manner

so now Kaminari (still via telepathy) is asking “by the way, there’s no problem with that, is there?” and Mineta is all “nah I overheard all the girls saying they were gonna meet up at the school pool over the summer break”

except he doesn’t get to the point right away, and we actually see a cute flashback scene with the girls all talking about how the school said they were supposed to refrain from taking any long trips over the summer

meaning that poor Momo had to cancel her vacation plans

sorry Momo, instead you’re just going to have to settle for being attacked by a monster with chainsaw hands, and saving Bakugou’s life. when life gives you lemons

and then they go on to plan the meetup at the pool

and there’s a scene of Mineta and Kaminari fantasizing about the girls in their cute swimsuits. but it’s tainted by Mineta’s perverted aura

and now the two of them are running down the hall heading for their paradise

ONLY TO FIND

oh right, this was the episode when I realized that Iida Tenya and Ryuugazaki Rei = maybe the same person?? I don’t know, what do you guys think. it’s just a theory

anyway so all these cuties are also here

hey hey hey indeed

because it’s The Pool Episode, Mineta. listen, we’re going to see Todoroki without a shirt. whether you like it or not

Deku says that since they were doing endurance training, he messaged everyone to see if they wanted to come

doin’ god’s work there, Deku

and like, we already knew this, guys, but Iida Tenya is fucking ripped. like, he is built. he is SOLID

I’m just saying

now Kaminari is clutching a fist woefully and saying that Deku is too diligent

but Mineta is telling him to calm down and that the girls are still here too

and they are!

hey ladies

anyway so Kaminari is annoyed that they’re not wearing bikinis, but it’s still good enough for Mineta

I don’t know why I’m detailing their antics, but I mean they are responsible for getting us here in their own roundabout way, so

anyway, now this towering Muscle God is coming up to them and congratulating them

it’s like his arms are made of Cotati metal fibers

and now he’s cheerfully lugging them off to come exercise with them

oh wow we’re doing the commercial break thing. so we’re already halfway through the episode. how bout that

so the girls are splashing around with a beach ball and having a blast, and it’s very cute

meanwhile the boys are taking a 15-minute break, and Kami and Mineta are lying on the ground already exhausted

and Iida is opening up a cooler full of orange juice

Kami is bitterly asking why Mineta applied to use the pool for endurance training when they could have gotten permission to use it for sunbathing like the girls did

meanwhile poor Aoyama is shivering and clutching his stomach, having apparently overworked himself

so my takeaway from this though is that his navel laser is waterproof. technology is so cool

Iida’s walking over to Deku and handing him a drink, and now Iida is getting all reflective on how far their friendship has come

which is of course a means of segueing to more flashbacks (of the U.A. entrance exam, and their first battle training exercise at Ground Beta)

and then at the end of all that reminiscing, Kacchan decides to make his grand entrance!

and of course since this is a filler, full Flanderization is in effect, and he’s pretty much immediately establishing his personality as Hates Everyone But Especially Deku by stomping over towards Deku like he wants to fight him for basically no reason

but thankfully this guy’s here too

and of course, Kiri’s own Flanderized personality is basically just The Bakugou Whisperer

Bakugou is all “HEY SHITTY DEKU YOU WANNA SETTLE OUR SCORE RIGHT NOW” lmao

and Deku is all “eh heh, no thanks”

BUT!

Iida Tenya has other ideas!

and now he’s raising his hand high into the air and loudly asking if the other guys want to see which one of them can swim 50 meters the fastest

yesssss Iida. somebody realizes he’s in a filler episode! time to get our pointless competition on!!

and now the music is picking up and the other guys are like “YEAH! THAT’S A GOOD IDEA!”

and the girls are volunteering to help as well! because Momo also realizes she’s in a filler!

Ojiro does not realize he’s in a filler, apparently, if he’s asking a stupid question like this

no, Ojiro, you’re just going to spend the rest of the episode swimming like normal people. pssh. as if. who tf would watch a whole anime just about a bunch of hot guys swimming. who would watch three whole seasons of that. who would watch three seasons and four movies of that. god, Ojiro

anyway, Iida is like, yes, duh, quirks

Bakugou is grinning and stomping over to Deku and he’s all “I’LL CRUSH YOU, DEKU.” because you know Bakugou. all day long, he’s just, “gotta crush that Deku!” all day erryday

oh wait, and we can’t forget about that other guy too

“why am I involved in this, I was just sitting here quietly”

so now that we’ve established how Bakugou wants to crush everyone, we’re cutting to our first race!

and it’s Mineta, Tokoyami, Kouda, Bakugou, and Kaminari

Momo’s telling them to take their marks

and of course, as soon as she blows her whistle, Bakugou activates his quirk and just blasts off to the other side

Kiri and Sero are all WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘HOW WAS THAT’, YOU DIDN’T EVEN SWIM

and Bakugou is all

which is honestly the best joke of the entire episode ngl

so then next are Satou, Kirishima, Sero, Aoyama, and Todoroki

and given what we just saw from Bakugou, it’s pretty obvious what’s about to happen here

thank you filler gods

and then Iida, Deku, Ojiro, and Shouji

and by this point you have to figure that Shouji and Ojiro already know they’re screwed

amazingly, even though Iida activates Recipro, Deku still somehow beats him to the other side. we’ll all agree this is blatantly impossible and that Iida for whatever reason just let him win. Iida would have already been at the other side of the pool before Deku could even fucking say the words “full cowl”

and now Todoroki is watching Deku help Iida out of the pool, and he’s flashing back to the sports festival when Deku broke all of his fingers in the name of love and friendship

lol and Iida’s flashing back to all that Hero Killer arc stuff

it’s so dramatic. you’re at the fucking pool guys. calm the fuck down

then for some reason we briefly cut over to the police station where Naomasa is showing All Might a slideshow of stuff that he already knows, and summing up the rest of the League of Villains’ activities up to this point

and now we’re back at the pool where the three main char -- I mean, the winners of the previous three heats, Deku, Bakugou, and Todoroki, are going to race each other for first place

and Bakugou’s telling Todo not to hold back like he did at the sports festival! and Deku too!

and they’re all lining up! and their squads are cheering them on!

baby~ this is what you came for~

and Iida blows the whistle, and they all leap into the air -- !

BUT THEN

oh my god I forgot about this part

I’m laughing so hard

and everyone is all WHAAAA

and Sero is holding up his hands in confusion and he’s all “their quirks were erased?”, as though it’s a complete and utter mystery how something like that could ever possibly happen!

and then this mofo walks in announcing that it’s now 5pm

and he’s telling them all to go home

they’re starting to argue with him that they just got to the good part

but Aizawa is all

and they’re all “LOL NOPE”

so then we cut to Bakugou and Kirishima walking home, and Bakugou is complaining about how Aizawa stopped the race

and he’s thinking that he won’t lose to Todoroki and Deku

and meanwhile Deku is standing on Dagobah beach, and All Might walks up to him

and there are a few more quick flashbacks about One for All being passed down to Deku, blah blah blah

and then All Might is all “Midoriya-shounen, the training camp will be tough,” which may just be the most hilarious understatement of all time

and that’s it! that’s the episode!

I gotta say, even with it basically being just an excuse for flashbacks, I still enjoyed this ep even on the second go-around. this should be a template for all future BnHA anime filler. just have all the class 1-A kids hanging around doing stupid stuff. that’s it. I’m easy to please lol

#bnha #boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #kaminari denki #iida tenya #bakugou katsuki #pretty much everyone from class a tbh #makeste reads bnha #makeste watches bnha #filler bakugou's life is basically just greentext of >be me >gotta crush deku #just on repeat #is it weird that I find it really endearing #you get that bread filler bakugou

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john-cardoza · 6 years

Text

I know a guy

I gave in and used a song as the title. Now that there’s a fandom I’m actually finishing all my Bandstand stuff.

Nick/Wayne

“Move in with me" It was a horrible idea. Looking back on it Nick wasn't sure why he thought it was a good idea. Wayne was probably one of the hardest people to get along with, and Nick had a really short temper. They were a ticking bomb, on the edge of an explosion. But when Nick saw how helpless and lonely Wayne looked he couldn't help it.

So that's why Nick was now packing back and forth in his living room waiting for Wayne to show up with his stuff.

Knock knock knock

Even the was Wayne knocked on doors was precise. Nick opened the door quickly “Hello"

“Thanks for letting me stay with you" Wayne picked up his worn suitcase and stepped into Nick's apartment. He slipped off his shoes and put them on the little shoe shelf that Nick stopped using three days after he got it.

“It’s no problem" Nick led him into the apartment “The couch folds out into a bed. I'm washing sheets right now, they should be done in the next hour"

“Oh,” Wayne looks surprised.

“Yeah, I've been meaning to wash them for ages" Wayne didn't need to know that Nick took one look at the dusty sheets in the closet and realized that Wayne would want clean things.

“Thank you" Wayne finally looked around the apartment more and looked slightly disgusted by the piles of stuff laying everywhere.

“Feel free to clean up" Nick offered

“I was going to anyway" Wayne remarked “Do I even want to see the kitchen?’

Nick laughed “Probably not"

---

It shouldn't have worked. Every aspect of reality said that they should have hated each other after a day of living together. When they first told the band Davy’s response had been a sarcastic Yeah right. Julia tried to be supportive, but the look on her face said differently. But it had been a month and they were fine. “Where did you put my green shirt?”

Wayne rolled his eyes “It's in the drawer"

A quick look confirmed that it was in fact in the drawer “If I want my shirt in the drawer I'll put it in the drawer myself"

“Sure" Wayne didn't even look up from where he was arranging books on the bookshelf (Alphabetical of course)

Nick went to work digging through the cupboards for breakfast. He was annoyed by the fact that he didn't know where anything was until he found a nearly written list that said where everything was. He turned around to thank Wayne before realizing the sound of books moving and sliding into shelves had stopped.

Wayne was sitting completely still next to the bookshelf. When Nick got closer he could see that Wayne was holding one of the books tightly and his eyes were squeezed shut like he was warding off bad memories. “Wayne?”

Wayne let out a small squeak and remained frozen in place.

“Shit" Something was wrong, and ten bucks said it had something to do with the book. “Wayne, hey talk to me" He reached out to put his hand on Wayne’s shoulder, but pulled back when he realized that might make the situation worse. “Buddy can I touch you? Or is that going to make it worse"

Wayne’s eyes darted back and forth and he seemed unable to answer.

“I can't help if you don't tell me how” Nick held his hand in front of Wayne so he could reach it if he wanted “You just have to nod or shake your head"

Wayne nodded and took Nick's hand in a tight grip.

Nick took Wayne into a tight hug and thanked every God he didn't believe in when Wayne's muscles relaxed. “There we go"

“I'm sorry" Wayne mumbled as soon as he could speak “It doesn't usually happen like that"

“It’s fine" Nick didn't let go and didn't mention the growing wet spot on his shoulder.

“It's this fucking book" Wayne pulled away and tossed to book off to the side.

Nick was mourning the loss of contact until he caught a glimpse of the cover “Romeo and Juliet?”

“I'll explain later" Wayne redoubled his efforts on the bookshelf, without mentioning how hard his hands were shaking.

∞∞∞

Wayne was drunk. Nick wasn't exactly sure why, but he was sure it had something to do with the family dinner he just got back from. After watching him sit at the kitchen table for an hour Nick decided it was time to intervene. He put all of the bottles of liquor in the cupboard and sat across from Wayne. “What happened?”

“Nothing" Wayne lied

“Really?” Nick pulled Wayne's hand away from where he was picking at his nail and almost making it bleed “Because this is the first time I've seen you this drunk"

“I'm not drunk" Wayne straightened his back and pulled his hand away.

Nick sighed and considered letting it go like he had been for weeks. But one look at Wayne told him what a terrible idea that would be. “Please, tell me what happened”

“She's moving” Wayne tended to not say his ex wife’s name if it could be avoided. He didn't hate her, but the name always brought back more then he wanted “With the kids"

“God" Nick couldn't believe she would do that. Wayne loved two things, his kids and the band, in that order.

“They are moving in with their grandmother in Vermont” Wayne said each word slowly, as though he still had trouble believing them.

“That sucks" Nick stood up and held out a hand to Wayne “Let's go"

“Where?” Wayne looked confused but he still took Nick's hand. “It's like eleven”

“We are going to that bakery on 5th. They stay open until midnight” Nick explained. He went there sometimes when he couldn't sleep. Wayne seemed to think the idea was good or at least acceptable, because he stood up and followed behind Nick. They walked to the store, Wayne didn’t let go of Nick’s hand until they stepped inside. “Two chocolate chip cookies”

“Coffee?” Wayne prompted

“No” Nick didn’t order coffee, hopefully Wayne would actually sleep. The lady at the counter handed him a paper bag and he paid.

“I’ll pay you back” Wayne offered. He stuck his hand in his pocket but pulled it out empty handed “Later”

“No” Wayne made decent money, but he sent most of it to his kids. Nick on the other hand, made money teaching and had no kids to send money to.

“Fine” Wayne grumbled. Nick had a feeling a dollar was going to randomly appear on his kitchen counter.

They sat in the bakery eating their cookies and talking until the shop had to close. The walked home together and in much better moods. When they got home they both went to bed.

∞∞∞

Wayne woke up to the sound of someone shouting. He sat straight up on Nick’s couch, his hands held up defensively before he even realized what he was doing. After a second to wake up he realized the sound was coming from Nick’s room. He cautiously walked down the hallway and stopped in front of the bedroom door. He rested his hand on the doorknob and quietly opened the door. Nick was still asleep, which was good because it meant he wasn’t hurt, but bad because he was clearly stuck in a bad nightmare. After a little thought about what to do Wayne walk slowly over to the side of the bed “Nick” Wayne tried “Nick!” A little louder. Wayne finally reached out and poked Nick’s shoulder “Hey wake up”

Nick moved a little and his eyes fluttered. It was working, however ineffective Wayne’s strategy was. With a second to compose himself on the fact that he would have to touch someone by choice, Wayne shook Nick’s shoulder “WAKE UP”

Nick sat up in bed and pushed Wayne’s hand away. All of his body movements were defensive even while half asleep “Who? Wayne?”

Wayne smiled and hurried to explain “You were having a nightmare…”

“Right” Nick didn’t offer an explanation and Wayne didn’t ask.

“I should probably-” Wayne gestured loosely at the door and turned around

“Wait” Nick’s eyes darted around the room. He had spent plenty of nights unable to sleep from nightmares. Instead sitting in the corner of the kitchen (It had the best vantage point) for hours, but if someone was there maybe it would be better. “Can you stay? I don’t want to be alone”

Wayne hesitated for a second before shaking off his shock. Nick was his friend. “Sure”

“Thank you” The words were quiet. Nick didn’t look up from his hands that were playing with the blanket. Wayne walked over and sat on the side of the bed. Nick moved over a clear invitation. They sat side by side in silence, shoulders together.

“When I got drafted my wife gave me a copy of Romeo and Juliet” Wayne broke the silence, finally answering Nick’s earlier question “It was her favorite book, the copy she gave me had all her little notes in the margins” Wayne pushed away the bad memories and focused on what the notes said “Simple stuff: What happened to this character? This is like us. I hope you stay safe”

“That sounds great” When Nick left he didn’t leave anyone to miss him. His parents were super distant and he didn’t have any friends to leave behind.

“It was” Wayne paused. He had never told anyone the rest of the story even his wife- ex-wife didn’t know “There was a bomb. I wasn’t there, but when I got back all there was was blood and the damn pages of that book”

Nick didn’t say anything, he just leaned against Wayne’s shoulder to offer comfort. Before he fell asleep Wayne realized that he hadn’t had the urge to wash his hands after touching Nick, and that he was unbothered by the weight on his shoulder. It was actually nice. For the first time since he got back, he was okay with someone touching him.

∞∞∞

“Do you have the room key?” Nick asked. It was the night before the preliminary and everyone had stayed down at the bar getting a little more drunk than they probably should have. Nick decided it was time to go back to the room when Jimmy dragged Johnny up the stairs. He brought Wayne with knowing if he didn’t Wayne would spend the next morning complaining about how Nick left him.

“What do you think?” Wayne pulled the key out of his ridiculously organized wallet and opened the door

“Show off” Nick mumbled. His wallet was the opposite (Every once in a while he would find his drivers license in the coin pocket)

“Here’s your key” Wayne picked it up from the table and tried to hand it to Nick. It would have been fine, but Wayne tripped and fell against Nick knocking them both on to the bed “Oops”

Nick couldn’t help his eyes from darting down to Wayne’s lips. It was such a stupid thought he didn’t even know how Wayne felt about… that.

“Can I kiss you?” Wayne asked. He looked just as shocked as Nick felt even thought he was the one who said it. Nick nodded nervously. The kiss was light and quick, sped up by the knowledge that if anyone walked in they were dead.

After Wayne pulled away with a nervous twitch, Nick finally was able to breathe again “What the fuck is happening? That was amazing, but what?” He couldn’t even process everything going on in his head.

“I really like you” Wayne realized it as he said it. That was what that feeling he got when he looked at Nick was, the buzzing and the warmth in his chest when he watched Nick play

“I like you too” It was the only thing Nick could think of, but the look on Wayne’s face was worth it. Pure hope and happiness for the first time since they played together before the war.

They sat down side by side on the bed, just like the night before, except they were both happier. No matter what happened the next day, they were together.

∞∞∞

They blew it up. They obviously didn’t win, but things were still better. They booked gigs everywhere, even going on tour. Donny and Julia finally worked out their thing, and they both seemed happier because of it. Johnny sat a little closer to Jimmy during rehearsals. And Wayne had a boyfriend. He couldn’t say it out loud, but at home it was his favorite word. And it was home, Nick was home.

#i almost made myself cry #im so glad the bandstand fandom actually exists #im just going to write all the ships #nickxwayne #Nick Radel #Wayne Wright #donny novitski #julia trojan #bandstand the musical #v writes bandstand #bandstand fan fiction #mine #v writes

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futureteacher · 3 years

Text

Putting the 'Fin' in Finished

27 April, 2021

Practicum Final Blog

Today’s blog is the final one. I have done my 45+ hours of observation and will be graduating with my associates degree in just a couple weeks. That being said, this blog will be a little different than the last ones. We are going to do a review of my Intro to Ed class and see if I actually learned anything. Let’s all hope so.

Basically, I have this big long list of the things I should have learned about this semester. I have gone through and picked the ones I think are the most important. I would like to note that all of the things we have learned are important in some way, or we wouldn’t have learned about them. Right? Anyway, I chose ten (or fourteen and then deleted four randomly) I thought all teachers needed to know about. For each one, I will give you a description, an example, and what I think about the concept. Simple enough. I struggled to put these in any sort of ranking, so they’ll just be in alphabetical order.

1. Academic Engaged Time

· Academic engaged time is when the students are spending time being academically engaged. “The time a student spends on academically relevant activities or materials while experiencing a high rate of success.”

· In my experience, a lot of teachers use academically engaged time for review. For example, in high school, I had an English teacher that would play a team version of Jeopardy to review for any of our tests. We were all engaged, having fun, and wanting to be a part of the experience. He was evaluating if there was anything we should go over in more detail before the test.

· I love the idea of academically engaged time. The students are having fun. For some activities, they can be up and out of their seats. When the students are having fun, teaching is more fun. Plus, the students really absorb the information so much better when they are engaged, and not being lectured to.

2. Bloom’s Taxonomy

· Bloom’s Taxonomy is a chart that helps teachers with their lesson plans. Basically, it is broken into six different steps of learning, and for each there are a bunch of verbs to build your lesson plan with. For example, if your students are just starting to learn a subject, you want them to first remember the information (knowledge). You would want them to define terms, memorize a passage, or label a diagram. However, if they are more advanced in the subject, maybe just about to move on to a new subject, they should be at the create stage. They can collaborate with others on a project, compile information for a research project, or test their hypothesis.

· Bloom’s taxonomy is important and definitely something every teacher needs to understand and utilize. Mrs. E.’s exact words were: “Every teacher should use Bloom's Taxonomy. At the college we have to write our objectives (they call them course outcomes) for the syllabus using action verbs from Bloom's… Some teachers may not understand Bloom's or utilize the idea that students need to progress from lower order to higher order thinking, but they SHOULD understand it and be able to take almost any concept and write an objective at each level for it.”

· I used Bloom’s taxonomy for each of the lesson plans that I built. For me, it really did help to understand where my students should be in their understanding of a subject, and what sort of activities they may be able to do at that point.

3. Differentiated Instruction/ Scaffolding

· This is actually technically two different things, but they work so well together I couldn’t not include one of them. Differentiated instruction is “a variety of techniques used to adapt instruction to the individual ability levels and learning styles of each student in the classroom.” Scaffolding is one of these techniques. “Providing assistance-some structure, clues, help with remembering certain steps or procedures, or encouragement to try-when a learner is on the verge of solving a problem but cannot complete it independently.”

· I recently attended an online symposium/ caucus thing for KNEA in which there were two guest speakers, both of whom were special education instructors, who talked about how they implement differentiated instruction and scaffolding in their classrooms. One of them spoke about giving their students a ‘Love Language’ test at the beginning of the semester, keeping that info on file, and using it whenever the students need that help. This means the students who are Words of Affirmation need to hear “great job” and “I can tell you’re really working hard and I appreciate that”. Students who are Receiving Gifts may need gold stars and an award system. Either way, differentiated instruction and scaffolding are about getting to know your students as individuals and building a learning plan tailored to them.

· This one seems like one of those things that will begin as hard work but will turn into a “Why didn’t I do this sooner” kind of thing. Does that make sense? Students of all ages can tell when their teacher cares and when they are just collecting a paycheck. This one does take some effort, but will be worth it.

4. Diversity (In general and specific issues)/ Inclusion

· Having diversity in the classroom means to include students from all ethnic and demographic backgrounds. Basically, everyone has the right to an education and that means all kinds of students are going to mix together to learn and to teach. Inclusion, on the other hand, is often associated with students with disabilities (physical or learning). I have put them together on the list because I don’t think you can talk about one without talking about the other.

· When I was first assigned my practicum teachers, I noticed that two of them were English teachers with inclusion classrooms and the other was an English Special Education class. I was honestly a little nervous because Special Education is not something I had ever considered teaching. However, I loved the way the students in AA’s class. They felt more open to having discussions with each other and with AA. They were the only students who actually talked to me. AA does a great job tailoring her class lessons to include time to answer questions, she is patient in reviewing the information, and the students were excited to learn.

· Here’s the thing: I grew up in a mostly white town. Diversity (of any sort of demographic) wasn’t really discussed or something I ever really thought about until I moved into a larger city and worked with a wider range of people. Being able to meet these people and be exposed to these different cultures has really been a learning experience for me, one I wouldn’t trade. I love learning about the different places in the world and the different people out there. I really think exposing children to this kind of melting pot learning experience is important and shouldn’t be a novel idea. The world includes all kinds of humans, so many ethnicities, backgrounds, or even disabilities. Shouldn’t we be teaching our kids as soon as possible that all humans have value and should be included?

5. Lesson Planning

· To be honest with you, lesson planning may possibly be the most boring part of teaching. It is important, obviously, but it is kind of time consuming and monotonous as well. Lesson planning is sitting down with your curriculum, breaking it down to a day-to-day plan, and then breaking that down into daily activities and objectives. A lesson plan should include: a title, subject, rationale/goal, lesson’s learning objective (which needs to be written in a certain format), assessment/evaluation, introduction, teaching and learning activities, a check for understanding, closure/ conclusion, and your list of materials needed. It is how you, as a teacher, can be as prepared as possible for the day. Or, heaven forbid, you get sick and need a substitute, the lesson plan should be detailed enough for them to use.

· I haven’t actually seen a lot of examples of this in my practicum or in my student career. Because my practicum was online, I wasn’t able to see all of the materials the teachers used. I can tell which teachers used more detailed versions of them though. RG always knew how much time she could use on each task, was great with transitions, and had good classroom management skills. If I had to guess, she was the one who had the most detailed lesson plan. AA and I spoke briefly about her lesson plan. She told me she mostly uses the same ones she has used in previous years, just tweaking them as needed. Her lessons are structured a little more loosely, and you can tell sometimes one group will not be at the same point another group will be at. I know when you are making sure all of your students understand the lesson, each group may be a little different, but I can tell her lesson planning is a little more loosely structured.

· Lesson planning is boring and monotonous, but it must be done. It is important to know how one lesson is going to tie into the next, at what stage of learning your students are at, and what would happen if you needed a substitute. I am going to spend the next couple of years figuring out a way to make it fun, or at least more entertaining. Challenge accepted!

6. Philosophies of Educations

· A philosophy of education is basically a teacher’s letter to their future employers about what kind of teacher they will be. How they think, learn, instruct, and their values. A philosophy of education can be broken down into four basic schools of philosophy: Perennialism, essentialism, romanticism, and progressivism. There is technically also eclecticism, but that one means to systematically take pieces from the other philosophies until you are satisfied with your own style.

· I asked WG about her own philosophy of education, after we wrote ours in class. She told me she hadn’t written one since she got hired at her current job, a couple decades ago.

· From talking to WG, writing my own philosophy of education, and observing my practicum teachers, I believe each teacher’s philosophy is always changing. It is like the Constitution: a living, breathing document. It changes as needed. Teachers are constantly learning from their students, colleagues, and administration. They see the world in new ways with each new experience. Their philosophy of how to teach their students will change with their students. I don’t necessarily believe it will be easy to keep up on writing out a new philosophy every year, but maybe every couple of years evaluating yourself would be a good idea.

7. Planning/ Implementing/ Evaluating Decisions

· As we discussed, having a plan is important. Being able to implement it, and evaluate how well it works is a whole other beast. You need to be able to look at what you are doing, how well the students are doing, what administration sees, and then shift whatever isn’t working. It can be difficult to look at the plan you worked so hard on and then change it, but if it isn’t working for your students, then it isn’t working.

· WG and I had a great discussion about this a couple months ago. I asked her how she feels about evaluations from herself, administration, and her students. She told me that she loves what she does, has a mutual trust with the administration, and believes they will make the right decision for her students. The administration will give her constructive feedback that she can improve on and help her students. She also told me she isn’t great at purposeful reflection and tends to just change her plan in the moment instead of reflecting on it. Her students usually evaluate her pretty favorably, but sometimes it is hard for them to see the big picture of what she is teaching and why.

· I know that each teacher must be evaluated by their administration, and self-evaluation is something I do pretty regularly. However, the idea of having my students evaluate me intrigues me. Of course, I want them to like me, but whether or not they are learning is what I need to know. I think having my students fill out an anonymous survey, maybe once a month or so, to give general evaluations would be an interesting idea. Not necessarily a good idea, but we will see. Knowing how to critically, but kindly, evaluate others and themselves is a good skill to learn, right?

8. Relationship with Students

· A relationship with students is exactly what it sounds like. You need to have a relationship with your students. Now, every teacher takes a different approach to this, but the goal is to be friendly enough that they trust you, but not too friendly that they do not see you as an authority figure. You are their teacher, after all.

· AA has a great relationship with her students. They are very good at communicating openly with her during discussions, she can always tell when one of them is having an off day, and she knows which ones need special attention.

· I had some great teachers, and some not-so-great teachers, when I was younger, so I have some examples of what things to do and not to do. Be kind. Do not be overly friendly. Be respectful. Do not be their friend. Get to know them. Do not be condescending. Be the teacher you needed when you were their age.

9. Subject Matter

· Teachers need to understand the subject they are teaching well enough to analyze and convey their elements, logic, possible uses, and social biases. Teachers need to be able to understand the content of the school curriculum that pupils are expected to follow. Effective teachers must show pedagogical content knowledge, the knowledge that bridges content knowledge and the pedagogical.

· I think WG is a great example of this. I have made it pretty clear in the last several blogs how much I enjoy Oedipus and Julius Caesar. They are both great plays with the weirdest nonsense. I love them, but it was really clear WG does too. She is able to link the plays with an overall theme for her semester, and make it clear to her students what they mean. For Julius Caesar, she had a constant dialogue about the ethos, logos, pathos, and Kairos. That isn’t easy, but she has a thorough understanding of her subject material, so she is able to make these connections in a way her students understand.

· As I stated earlier, I am just about to graduate with my associates. This means I have two more years before I get to be a real teacher. Over the next couple of years, I will have to take all of the English courses. I have three just next semester. It will be my job to know what I am talking about. How can I expect my students to want to learn something if I didn’t take the time to learn it?

10. Teacher’s Attitude Toward Self, Students, Peers, Parents, and Subject Matter

· This one is a little complicated because there are so many parts to it. Despite that, they all break down to the basic treat others how you would want to be treated. That sounds cheesy, but it works. A teacher having the expectation that all of their students can and will succeed makes a difference in the students’ achievement. Reflection, study, and evaluation can determine the attitude you have with yourself. Using collaboration and open communication can determine the attitude you have with colleagues and parents. Your attitude toward subject matter, as we discussed, should be passionate and enthusiastic. Your positive can-do, not yet attitude will be contagious to your students and set high expectations for them.

· I have a mixed bag of examples for this one. All of the teachers I observed treated their students with respect. AA was great about joking with her class or setting the tone when they needed to be serious. You can tell her students respect her as well and want to succeed. In contrast, WG told me about the struggle she has had this year with communicating with parents. Especially since so many students have had to learn remotely, many of them are not paying attention in class or keeping up with their work. She sends out emails once a week to the students and the parents about missing assignments, but has a hard time getting back any replies with substance. I think this just goes to show that sometimes communication is difficult. WG is doing what she can to get the information to her students and their guardians, and they should show the same kind of respect by communicating with her as well.

· Both of these teachers are good examples of trying your best to have a good attitude, in and out of class, even when it is difficult. The pandemic has been difficult on students and teacher. Period. Everyone has had to work harder and learn differently. Being understanding of others’ circumstances, having mutual respect, and open communication are all vital to having a positive attitude with everyone you will be working with.

Those are my top ten most important things I have learned this semester. This is not a career that just anyone would be good at. I do not agree that ‘those who can’t, teach.’ I believe teaching is hard work. It is a labor of love, though.

#Future Teacher

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thelankyrandman-blog · 7 years

Text

Annotated Album-A-Day List:

Alphabetical Order: January - June 2017

So this is every album I listened to from January to the end of June. Every one has a quick opinion of mine. Let me know what you think of my thoughts if you know the albums or decide to check them out!! Happy listening!!

Actress - AZD: A solid electronic album that messes with sound in some very interesting ways. Worth a listen but it hasn’t been pulling me back as much as I would have hoped.

America - America: Really enjoyable classic folk rock that most definitely was influential. They do a great job layering their tracks with percussion and a fleet of guitars. Donkey Jaw is probably my favorite track due to how hard it rocks out (for folk) at a few points. If you like folk, you’ll enjoy this album quite a bit.

Anderson .Paak - Malibu: Sweet Kraken!! This album is fantastic! It’s groovy, smooth, sexy and has some nice hip hop flavor to it. It gets a little long with some more fatty songs, but I can’t stop going back to it.

Angel Olsen - Half Way Home: Honestly, this isn’t my cup of tea. It’s just a bit too twangy for my taste. If you like country a lot, check it out.

Animal Collective - Marriweather Post Pavilion: This album is a wall of sound. There are no empty spaces in any song. If there was empty space at any point they popped in another synth layer, or another vocal track to fill the gap. This is what makes this album unique. It sounds like nothing else from that time where rock bands were going for more stripped down sounds with kitschy melodies played on xylophones while their acoustics shit out the same chords over and over. This showed that Animal Collective wasn't like the rest of the “indie” rock bands of the day.

The Avalanches - Since I Left You: What an incredible album! This is what electronic albums should use as a baseline and it’s influence has been seen since it released in 2000. This is a sample album, so every sound used on it is taken from something else. While that sounds like it may be a bit derivative or outright copying, it isn’t. They are able to create utterly new and unique sounds and songs that will no doubt blow you away. Also, this album has a near impeccable flow from track to track. A must listen.

BADBADNOTGOOD - BBNG: This is a great jazz album with some hip hop influence. It’s even better if you’re into video games because of their covers of songs off of the Zelda soundtrack. Even if you are not familiar with those though, this album is worth your time. And I’m sick of Giant Steps too.

Beach House - Depression Cherry: If you like dream pop, this is the album for you. It’s spacey, catchy and clean. If you’re looking for variety though, go somewhere else. This is very much an album from a band who has found their sound and is sticking with it.

Blank Banshee - Mega: This is a weird album. It’s some good electronic music, but the songs started to blend together in my mind, and when it was over, I was surprised I had listened to an entire album.

Big L - Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous: You can’t go wrong with Big L! His rhymes were incredible and his lyrics were nasty. It’s not often that you find more accessible horror core.

Big L - The Big Picture: Another solid album, but it has a little weirdness to it considering that it is a posthumous album. Big L will spit a verse then Jay Z will come on and finish up with a respectful rest in peace to the man of the hour. It feels incredibly odd, but weirdly special.

Bob Dylan - Empire Burlesque: Ooffa dooffa! This is a bad album. There is such a palpable lack of effort on this album that kills me when I listen to it. Dylan was just going track by track hitting the highs and lows that he knew would sell. It just feels like a lazy album that doesn’t even remotely stand out as a good one in his career. If you love Bob Dylan I’d say check it out to have more of an appreciation for his good stuff, but otherwise maybe skip this one.

Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded: Fucking classic masterpiece. Required listening. ’Nuff said.

Capital STEEZ - AmeriKKKan Korruption: Man, this is such a solid record, it sucks so bad that STEEZ took his own life. His topics and flows feel good and his beats are that nice and comfortable Pro • Era style.

Carly Rae Jepsen - E•MO•TION: This album has no right to be as awesome as it is. I was expecting some pop drivel that I’ve heard since birth just regurgitated for the billionth time because producers know that it will make money, but Jepsen actually knocks it out of the park with an original pop album. My only gripe is the lack of lyrical variety, but it doesn’t drag the album down too much.

Chance the Rapper - 10 Day: Man, it’s crazy to think that a 17 year old Chance was able to put this together. It’s tight, it’s mean and god damn is it solid. With the ethos surrounding it I wasn’t expecting such a great mixtape, but man, does he deliver with it.

Chance the Rapper - Acid Rap: This is the best Chance mixtape in my opinion. With the exception of the extended period of silence in the first half, the album has a great pace peaking with Cocoa Butter Kisses. Chance finds his style here and never has it been as strong!

Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book: Coloring Book is great, don’t get me wrong, especially with songs like No Problem but this album drags. It hits about the halfway point and runs head first into a brick wall with some of the most skippable tracks that Chance has ever made.

Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um: I mean… It’s Mingus, obviously it’s amazing.

Childish Gambino - Because the Internet: I wanted to like this album so badly. I love Donald Glover in almost every other avenue, but as a rapper his style isn’t distinct enough, his lyrics can be half baked, and his sense of pacing is sorely lacking. This is another album that’s first half is stacked well, so when the second half comes in all you want to do is take a nap.

Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love: Now this, this is where I think Glover should be going. This album is better than Because the Internet in every way. From song writing to the production, not to mention the more obvious fit of the new genre he decided to tackle. With the exception of California, every song is pretty solid.

Clarence Clarity - No Now: I literally can’t get enough of this album. It’s so weird and perfect. Clarence Clarity creates pop songs with somewhat familiar sounds and distorts them beyond a sane level. They sound like they were made in space and that’s what makes the album so compelling. Each time I listen I hear a new song in the track listing. Also, Cancer in the Water is such an incredibly powerful track!

Crosby, Stills & Nash - Crosby, Stills & Nash: Coming out in 1969 Crosby, Stills & Nash began their journey to become on of the best folk bands of all time. They basically created modern folk as we know it, so if you enjoy Fleet Foxes or Mumford and Sons then do yourself a favor and check out their stuff. It has an older style but it still has acoustic guitars and beautiful vocals.

Crywank - Tomorrow is Nearly Yesterday and Everyday is Stupid: I found this album incredibly randomly and wasn’t shocked or disappointed with it. It’s fine. It has some catchy tunes and deals with some heavier emotions like existential dread and depression, but unfortunately sometimes it just comes off as a little whiny.

(Quick Danny Brown Note: I’m a huge Danny Brown fan, but he isn’t for everyone because of his unique sound, don’t be discouraged if you don’t like him)

Danny Brown - The Hybrid: If there has ever been an album that has shown potential, it’s The Hybrid. Danny Comes through with a great tape with his signature two styles of songs, the more party based ones, and the serious ones.

Danny Brown - XXX: Man. This album is good. Every song is good. Every. Fucking. One. Danny does this cool thing too where he changes hist style on the fly. The first half of the album is crazy. Danny raps about drugs women and partying while using his unique higher pitched vocals. Then the second half is a much more toned down serious sounding bunch of tracks that deal with more difficult topics. Instant classic.

Danny Brown - Old: Old is another strong album from Danny, but can get a little patchy at the very end. But man, I can’t stop listening to it. Dip stands out as one of the coolest sounding tracks that Danny’s put out.

Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition: Jeezers peezers, what a goddamn album!! This is one of Danny’s (I’m assuming there will be more) magnum opuses. This album gets weird. The production on the first track gives us the perfect tone for this record, that coincide with the lyrics that just tell us that something is off. And every other track works towards this idea. Ain’t it Funny feels like this massive cry for help and Really Doe is a perfect track talking about the problems in the rap game. This is another must listen.

Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism: This album is fantastic. I’m not a huge Death Cab fan, partially due to a lack of knowledge of them and partially due to the singers voice, but this album is undeniably good. It his some raw emotions with perfectly crafted music to back it up. I will be coming back to this album again and again.

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs: I Will Possess Your Heart is an awesome 8-minute track that feels anxious and perfectly repetitive, but this album drags. The pacing here is an issue. By the end of the album I was ready to bail and finally be done with it. There are some good tracks, but there are too many duds.

(Quick Death Grips Note: I’m also a huge Death Grips fan, they are incredibly aggressive and experimental hip hop, not for everyone but give them a shot, good to use as a gaming soundtrack for the first time you listen to them so your brain can get used to their sound)

Death Grips - Exmilitary: Death Grips sounds so incredibly different from any of their other albums on this mixtape, but that’s what makes it so compelling. Their unique use of sampling mixed with MC Ride’s classic shouting delivery packs a massive punch to your ears and gut. It’s abrasive, but you can’t help but jam along with it.

Death Grips - The Money Store: This album is probably perfect. I wouldn’t cut a single song from its 40-minute runtime that ends much much too short. This album is mandatory listening. It’s abrasive, catchy, disgusting and aggressive. It makes you want to scream out into the night with a big “fuck you!”

Death Grips - No Love Deep Web: Where could Death Grips go after the money store? Darker. This album looses any sense of light which makes it feel like Ride is forcing rocks into your ear canals, but these emotions feel right at home in Death Grips unique sound.

Death Grips - Government Plates: This album starts off incredibly strong, hitting a great stride with Birds. As it goes on it slowly looses its footing, and Ride’s vocals which makes for a slightly lackluster album. Yet, it still keeps me coming back for the first half and the last two tracks.

Death Grips - Fashion Week: There are some great instrumentals here, but I had two problems with it. First, it is hard to call it Death Grips without MC Ride screaming murderous lines into my head, and second the album has very little focus musically. It ends up being a bit long for it’s own good and misses a few great places to end in favor of an incredibly abrupt ending.

Death Grips - The Powers That B: This two parter is interesting. Most critics prefer the second half like I do, but I still enjoyed the first part quite a bit. But man, Jenny Death (disc 2) ends up blasting Ni**as on the Moon out of the water with it’s punk rock influences, something that they would later touch more on in Bottomless Pit.

Death Grips - Interview 2016 EP: This is a strong instrumental album that is a perfect length. It feels less criminal in its exclusion of MC Ride than Fashion Week does, but I could always use more Ride.

Death Grips - Bottomless Pit: Shit, this album is nasty! Like really nasty and makes for such a strong Death Grips album. The beats are disgusting, the samples are depraved and the lyrics shouldn’t even be allowed they’re so gross, and that’s why I love it.

Denzel Curry - Nostalgic 64: It’s amazing that this was Curry’s first mixtape because it sounds like he’s been in the game a long time. He has style and his flow is tight. He knows when to get emotion and delivers a powerful song discussing the difficult topic of police violence.

Denzel Curry - Imperial: Another solid record with great pacing. Slowly Curry is growing into one of the greats of this generation of rap and I’m happy to be on board now while he’s still on his way up. He’s got some great anger and intensity that I haven’t heard since like Young Pappy.

Earl Sweatshirt - Earl: Earl comes out swinging for the fences, or for peoples faces. This mixtape is short, sweet and vicious. His lyrics range from poetic to downright disgusting. He shows off his skills and a little influence from the Odd Future crowd.

Earl Sweatshirt - Doris: Doris is incredibly solid. Every track is great instrumentally and lyrically. Features from Frank and Tyler propel this album into being a good album, but it’s Earl’s wordplay and unique flow that make it great.

Earl Sweatshirt - I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside: This is such an unpopular opinion, but this is my favorite Earl record (even Siri likes Doris more). Earl is introvert, anxious, anti-social and distrusting, which speaks to me very clearly. Each song is brimming with emotions that hide just beneath this tough guy facade, briefly showing their faces from time to time. Grief and DNA are the two best tracks as they paint such gnarly pictures.

Elucid - Valley of Grace: Wowzers bowzers, this is awesome. This is so awesome. It’s short as hell, but it comes in throws some great tracks and socially conscious lyrics at you then gets out. There is no fat on this, if anything I want more, but this is already the most experimental hip hop album I’ve heard in a while. He messes with industrial sounds, messes with mixing so that he is sometimes overshadowed by the music, messes with samples and messes with you. Listen to this, it’s half an hour so if you somehow don’t like it, it’ll be over soon.

Eric Clapton - Eric Clapton: This is a great album by Clapton that feels very much like a debut record. It’s not as catchy as Slowhand but still manages to entertain you. Worth a listen but I’m not going to be returning to this particular record month after month.

Everything Everything - Get to Heaven: It’s fine. The first few tracks are great, the last track is great. The middle is long and tough to get through, and the extended version just throws on songs that were rightfully cut from the regular studio version.

Father John Misty - Fear Fun: Father John Misty makes a great first album apart from Fleet Foxes that immediately sets him apart from their sound. His humorous and cynical lyrics help to make the album standout as musically it isn’t anything you haven’t heard before.

Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear: Man, Father John Misty makes a solid album from front to back here. It’s funny, it’s awkward, its pretty and it’s a little nasty. Father John Misty found a style that mixes modern lyrics that are cynical and jaded with this happy sounding almost 50’s-esque rock that just inherently happy. The music and lyrics kind of oppose each other which makes this amazing disconnect that shows Father John Misty’s discontent with the current state of things. This is a must listen.

Father John Misty - Pure Comedy: This album is black comedy. Make no mistake, it is funny, but it is also depressing. The best way I can describe this album is that it’s like getting punched in the balls then riding a ferris wheel. You know it’s magical and beautiful, but it fucking hurts.

Feist - Let It Die: Mushaboom is so god damn catchy and sweet. There are some amazing songs on here, and then some that are… less amazing. Some can be a bit boring or just kinda iffy. Worth a listen though, it has a nice unique pop sound to it that is nice and soothing.

Fleet Foxes - Sun Giant EP: This EP feels very much in the same universe as Fleet Foxes first studio album which makes sense that they often package them together. It feels like a continuation of a fantastic album.

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes: Talk about a strong album, this is pretty much perfect from the first second to the last. White Winter Hymnal is a great indie rock track that most people should know, but that may be the most underwhelming song on the album, which is saying a ton!

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues: This sophomore record does not suffer from a slump, in fact it’s right on par with their first album. It hits hard and beautifully with some of their most beautiful and odd tracks to date.

(UPDATE) The more I listen to this album the more I love it. And dare I say that it may be a perfect album. Its just so beautiful, so romantic, and just so goddamn perfect.

Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up: Crack-Up is weirdly dark for Fleet Foxes. There are some emotions that they are dealing with here that they haven’t had to deal with before. Isolation and alienation are common themes on this due to Robin Pecknold’s isolation from the band prior to the recording of this record. They also get more experimental. Their quiet moments are dead silent while their crescendos are blaring. I will be coming back to this album throughout life.

Flying Lotus - 1984: I wanted to like this album, but I found it to be a little repetitive and I couldn’t quite tell each song apart. It’s just a bit too focused for me and I was hoping for more of an array.

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma: This is the one though, the sounds are weird and fresh and feel full of energy. FlyLo pops out a record that will be remembered in the electronic community for years to come.

Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra: Man, I wanted to like this mixtape a lot. It had great reviews, Frank’s voice and songwriting are usually top notch, but this one just didn’t do it for me. What bothered me was a lack of catchy tunes, too many filler tracks, and some pretty lazy sampling that actually resulted in a (probably unwarranted) lawsuit from the Eagles. This mixtape showed potential, but that was about it.

Frank Ocean - channel Orange: I really like this album. The first time I head it, it blew me away. Frank’s songs are catchy and his emotions run high through his lyrics. It’s a must listen, but what I will say is that after hearing Blonde, I think it has aged weirdly. This album has a loose concept that doesn't always work and not every song is perfect. His big focus of the album, Pyramids is basically two songs just jammed together with one being honestly kind of obnoxious while the other is incredible. It’s a great album but his next is better.

Frank Ocean - Blonde: Some prefer channel Orange to Blonde, but I’m not sure why, or how for that matter. It is less catchy, there are some weird flaws to the album, but it’s a much better album because of it’s emotional impact and the way in which it all comes together at the end of the album to make one of the strongest R&B albums out there. There are catchy songs like Solo and Nikes, if you don't mind the pitched vocals, then there are more subtle tracks that have palpable energy like Skyline To, a song about the every accelerating passage of time. You can literally feel the song, the day, week, months slipping away from Frank on this track. It’s amazing. And the ending track gets me so good every time.

Freddie Gibbs - Shadow of a Doubt: This is a great hip hop album that makes you feel cool. It’s drug dealing talk isn’t always glamorous, but Gibbs’ always lets it slide off his back. Also, any track with Dana Williams is bound to be incredible.

Freddie Gibbs - You Only Live 2wice: Short, bitter, redemption. YOL2 is nothing new, but it was a necessary album before we get anything new sounding from Gibbs. He’s been through a lot, and he lets us know in full detail. He’s happy to be home, but he is definietely a changed person.

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Piñata: This is probably as close as we are going to get to a followup to Madvillainy, and that is okay because this album is fiyah! The two complement each others styles nicely and are able to push out fantastic beats and rhymes together that outshine most acts out there today. Not even remotely as good as Madvillainy, but it’s a worthy successor.

Ghost Ship Octavius - Ghost Ship Octavius: If you like metal, especially classic metal, you’ll love it. These guys blast out songs with blaring guitars that shoot up scales faster than I knew hands could move. The singer holds these notes that force your index and pinky fingers up while sending your middle and ring fingers up. It’s nothing too new, but it’s great classical metal.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Life Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven: I don’t want to say much about this album because of what it means to me, but it is a must listen. It’s simply remarkable that humans made something this beautiful. I’m not too proud to say that this one made me cry.

Grizzly Bear - Horn of Plenty: Man, this album is lonely, but beautiful and ends on one of the most emotionally resonant songs you can listen. Check out the comments for the song ‘This Song’ on Youtube, people can’t help but get nostalgic with the track.

Grizzly Bear - Yellow House: Every song is a 3-D space. It sounds almost like the whole thing was recorded in a vast valley where sound was able to travel on its own time to the microphones. Each guitar, trumpet, violin and bass sounds perfectly orchestrated, yet utterly spontaneous. It’s beautiful and near perfect.

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest: Grizzly Bear went a slightly different route here and made their songs a little less 3-D. Instead they feel tighter. The band feels like they know each note upcoming note from whoever is placed next to them. The songs are a bit catchier too, Two Weeks being a beautiful indie pop rock darling used in plenty of soundtracks over the years.

Harry Styles - Harry Styles: I wasn’t expecting much from this album which made for a nice surprise, it’s not half bad. Problem is that it sounds incredibly dated and it came out a few weeks ago. The songs feel recycled from either some band in the sixties and seventies or Wolfmother, who would do it much better. His vocals are fantastic and clean, but that almost doesn’t work with the nature of the music. It almost sounds like it needs some more grit to it to be able to stand a chance.

Ice Cube - AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted: A classic. Ice Cube is a wordsmith, his rhymes are deadly and so is his attitude. It’s worth every second it takes to listen to the whole thing.

Ice Cube - Death Certificate: Another strong album that ends on the most brutal diss track I’ve ever heard. No Vaseline was so brutal that Ice Cube and Dre still haven’t talked about it to this day! That’s pretty fucking awesome!

Isaiah Rashad - Cilvia Demo EP: It’s weird, this album starts similar to how Rashad’s next album feels, with much more laid-back tracks you can vibe to. Right towards the end though, Rashad picks up the intensity and drives it a bit. It works for him and the album has a really cool ending to it.

Isaiah Rashad - The Sun’s Tirade: Great if you like music that vibes a bit. It’s not gonna blow your socks off with energy, but it’s a great record that tackles tough emotions and drug abuse. Rashad is someone to watch in the future, if he can pop albums out in time.

J Dilla - Donuts: Beats baby, beats!! Holy god, this is an amazing instrumental album that you can just feel the influence on. J. Dilla was on another playing field and this album shows just that.

(Quick J.Cole Note: I’m not a big J.Cole fan, nor have I ever been at any point, keep that in mind, if you like him keep liking him)

J. Cole - 2014 Forest Hills Drive: J. Cole is sort of an enigma to me, people love him and swear that he is rap royalty on the same level with Kendrick and Kanye, but he clearly isn’t. His production is good, yet lacks a certain dimension that others are able to attain. His lyrics, while slightly conscious, lack focus and self-awareness. And his albums in total feel jumbled and messy. This album is worth a listen, and sure has some catchy tunes, but will not go down in rap history as a classic. Also, Wet Dreamz is the most predictable song I have ever heard.

J. Cole - 4 Your Eyes Only: I enjoyed this album a bit more than 2014 Forest Hills Drive, which seems to be the opposite of most people. It has a more nineties sound, it’s a bit darker, but overall much more focused. With the exception of Neighbors, which comes out of absolutely nowhere, the album feels like a cohesive idea. Again though, this album just isn’t as good as it should be for the sales and praise that it gets.

Joey Bada$$ - 1999: How the hell was Joey 17 when this came out? This album is a solid 90’s throwback album with some great flows and rhymes. It’s not particularly conscious or aware, but as a debut mixtape, there are few that compare to it’s quality.

Joey Bada$$ - B4.Da.$$: I enjoyed this album a lot, but it feels almost like a continuation of 1999 and maybe comes off a bit better if it is listened to directly after 1999. It has a really similar 90’s hip hop sound, similar lyrical style and delivering. Great tracks, but not too different.

Joey Bada$$ - All-AmeriKKKan Badass: This is where Joey really changed things up a bit. Joey put out a fantastic record that will be on year ending lists. With this one he took a slightly more modern sound to his beats. His lyrics, if you can’t tell by the albums title, are much more politically charged. People have complained about the album being a bit jumbled and unfocused, but too me it felt right due to the amount of problems that we face today.

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme: Sweet Jesus!! This is that shit. This is a must listen album for every person alive.

Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon: Joni Mitchell writes poetry, then songs. This usually works incredibly well, but every once in a while it can make her songs feel like they have too little structure. This happens a few times on this record and it makes it a little hard to follow. When it does work though, which is most of the time, it’s beautiful music.

Joni Mitchell - Blue: Dimbo wimbo, this album is probably perfect. There are few records that are as beautiful as this one. Joni Mitchell takes poetry and turns it into music to incredible, INCREDIBLE results. A Case of You may be the most beautiful breakup song ever written, and the palpable sadness in The Last Time I Saw Richard is sure to get you to choke up a bit. Perfect on nearly all fronts. If you like folk, look no further.

Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark: Another nearly perfect album. More beautiful lyrics, more beautiful singing from Joni. My only problem with the album is it’s final track. The album feels very focused with a particular sound, and right at the very end she throws it out the window for a jazzy cover of Twisted that isn’t necessarily bad, it just doesn’t fit. Other than that, it’s pretty fan-fucking-tastic!!

Ka - The Knight’s Gambit: Listen to this more than once. The first time you listen to it, it will feel kind of one track minded and slow. The production on each song feels a little similar, and so does Ka’s delivery. It’s his lyrics though that make his albums so astounding. Take some time to listen to his poetry in the music.

Ka - Honor Killed the Samurai: This album is similar to The Knight’s Gambit in the fact that it’s dense and requires more than one listen. If you like Ka you will like this album, if you don’t like Ka, it’s pretty similar sonically to his previous record.

Kamasi Washington - The Epic: Wow. This album brings something new to jazz, an genre that basically lives on retreading the past. This album feels fresh and like it could bring about a jazz revolution. It’s a bit of a beast though clocking it at around three hours, so take it slow when listening to it.

Karriem Riggins - Alone Together: Want fucking great beats that you can jam to? Check this one out, it’s easy to miss but should not be.

Kendrick Lamar - Section.80: These songs are all amazing, but have really meh hooks. Every hook just feels like it could have been thought out more and leave me a little disappointed every time. Yet, after every verse I’m thinking, or gasping, or wanting to listen again. This was telegraphing what would soon be some incredible albums.

Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, m.A.A.d City: This is Kendrick’s first masterpiece. There are no bad songs. Every song is catchy, every song is thought provoking, and every song is rock solid. The track order is thought out and the tone of each song is perfectly crafted. With Kendrick’s focus comes conscious lyrics, or stories that paint pictures, or the hubris of a 16 year old growing up in one of the toughest towns in the world. This album is endlessly replayable.

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly: This is Kendrick’s magnum opus. Kendrick mixes jazz, hip hop, politically charged anger, the frustrations of fame, and the fear of mortality into a living album that seems to show a new side to it on each listen. It’s depth almost can’t be understood on the first listen through. It’s dense, long and a little obtuse at times. But once the full picture comes together, you’ll notice the album’s perfection. Each song feels like it serves a purpose, each feature is utilized perfectly, and each word was picked with thought and precision. This is a must listen.

Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered.: Leave it to Kendrick to have golden b-sides. How is he so good? These incredible tracks were the throw aways from the same recording sessions as To Pimp A Butterfly. They share the same jazzy funky style, but showcase new ideas. Sometimes it makes sense that a song or two wasn’t on TPAB, but never are the songs bad. This collection could’ve been a studio album, but at least he decided to release them in some form rather than cast them out to deluxe editions of albums down the line.

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.: How do you follow up one of the best albums of maybe the past twenty years? It seems like a weird task, and even Kendrick knew it. This album is a departure from his previous styles. It sounds more modern, more catchy, much darker. From the album cover to the grime laced track Lust, this album reeks of depression. Each song sends us further down this pit that Kendrick was finding himself in. That even goes for the songs that seemingly attempt to throw us off from that. Love, a summer jammy type song, feels off, a trait that I’ve never heard on a Kendrick album. While this isn’t Kendrick’s best album, it has some of his most aggressive and brutal tracks to date.

Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music: This is basically an RTJ album before RTJ. Killer Mike does a majority of the rapping while el-p does the production, and pops in on a few songs. There’s raw anger that the two bring to RTJ albums here and Killer Mike comes through with some astounding bars. This album is a great listen and a great precursor to the stuff they would later do together as RTJ.

Local Natives - Gorilla Manor: The first half of the album sounds like your ex-girlfriend’s “indie rock” playlist that features only recycled sounds from all the other bands that were out there around 2010. The second half feels like it was thought about a bit more thoroughly. The songs flow a bit better, the sounds are at least a little more unique, but for the most part this album feels like a mediocre “indie pop rock” album.

The Long Winters - Putting the Days to Bed: This album I listened to because I had heard of it from one of the many podcasts I listen to (MBMBAM). I am kind of on the fence with this record. When it hits a high, like the track (It’s A) Departure, it nails it, but there is a lot of downtime where songs either leave you wanting more or something different. It’s worth a listen or two but that’s about it.

Lorde - Pure Heroine: This is pop music with some surprising depth. Lorde doesn’t go the same route that most pop artists go talking about their money and fame, or other topics that no one can relate to. In fact, she goes the opposite direction and tells us how bored of that she is. On Team she sings one of the most accurate examinations of pop music, “I’m kinda over getting told to throw my hands up in the air.” Lorde makes an anti-pop pop album that is pretty great.

Lorde - Melodrama: Golly gee, this one’s a gooden!! Lorde makes an angsty album that isn’t obnoxious or really that trite. She feels alienated, she doesn’t like being famous, and she feels like people use her, and she is able to share those ideas with us in 11 awesome songs that are all catchy and serve their purpose well on the album. She even gets a little experimental from time to time, which is where I hope she goes next, in between her radio hit type tracks. Definitely surprised me with how good it really is.

Madvillain - Madvillainy: This is an absolute must listen. Madlib basically defines what good production is on this album. His beats are incredible backdrops for MF Doom to drop some of the smoothest rhymes and bars you’ll hear. I keep coming back to this album over and over again because of Madlib’s production. He absolutely destroys it with weird samples and risks that should never work. Who puts an accordion on a hip hop track? Fucking Madlib does.

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?: Smooth, sexy and ahead of its time both sonically and in its subject matter. It’s a classic and required listening simply for how influential it has been the R&B as a genre. We would be nowhere without Marvin Gaye, absolutely nowhere!!

MF Doom - Mm.. Food: This album is so weird. It’s a concept album about food. MF Doom makes a whole album about food, and it is somehow legendary. He’s able to spin this concept about a billion different ways with his weird sample heavy production. Just listen to it, I really don’t know what to say about it other than it’s incredible.

Mick Jenkins - The Water[s]: It’s kinda weird thinking that a concept album about water could be as good as it is. Mick Jenkins has an awesome flow, mixed with beats that literally feel like they’ve been drowned. They have this weird spacey underwater feel that just makes the album come together as a whole. If you like vibes hip hop that is weirdly aggressive (yeah I know that’s a contradiction but that’s kind of an accurate explanation), then you will like The Water[s].

(Quick The Microphones Note: The Microphones and Mount Eerie are both projects from Phil Elverum, he just changed his name after four albums to Mount Eerie)

The Microphones - Don’t Wake Me Up: How was this his first album? How was he 21 when he made it? He, ladies and gentleman, is Phil Elverum. He writes folk with weird noise rock stuff in there and this album is awesome and shows incredible potential. I can’t get enough of him. Listen to his entire discography. You will not be disappointed.

The Microphones - It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water: This is probably Phil’s first masterpiece. I don’t know anyone who uses sound in the same way. It’s lo-fi and grainy, he messes with the stereo mix, he throws in sounds that are literally unrecognizable. But under that are these incredibly rich folk songs that come straight from the heart. Phil’s lyrics are unique and beautiful. This can even be seen in the beautiful simplicity of the album title. This is another incredible album by Phil.

The Microphones - The Glow Pt. 2: This is probably one of my top five albums of all time. It’s weird experimental folk that has some elements of noise rock and metal et cetera. This album literally has me on the verge of tears a few times each time I listen to it because of Phil’s lyrics, his still fresh, even 16 years after it’s release, use of sound and beautifully flawed vocals.

The Microphones - Mount Eerie: This album picks up exactly where The Glow Pt. 2 leaves off. This album though is a much, much slower burn than The Glow Pt. 2, and can give you a bit more existential anxiety. This album feels massive in ambition and almost otherworldly. There is this odd feeling to all of the tracks that make it feel incredibly important and like you are just for listening to it. It’s just as experimental as The Glow Pt. 2, but in very different ways. This was, if you couldn’t tell by the name of the album, the beginning of Phil’s Mount Eerie style.

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue: This is the gold standard for jazz standards. These are some of the most famous jazz songs that are nowadays repeated at nauseam. On the record though they have some great life to them and are recorded beautifully. If you enjoy jazz this record is a must listen not only because it’s beautiful, but due to it’s historical significance.

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew: Oh baby, yes please!! Experimental jazz has never sounded so goddamn good!! This is such a weird and awesome album that just leaves you wanting more and more, despite it’s long length. This is where a lot of bands took their experimental influences from. Radiohead for example cited this as a major inspiration when they wrote OK Computer. This is such a good one.

(Quick Mount Eerie Note: The Microphones and Mount Eerie are both projects from Phil Elverum, he just changed his name after four albums to Mount Eerie)

Mount Eerie - “No Flashlight” Songs of the Fulfilled Night: Weirdly enough this album has a similarity to The Microphones first album. When listening to this album you can kind of feel that Phil has changed. His sound is much more subdued here than it is on The Microphones Mount Eerie album. it feels less grand in scope, but more personal to Phil. It sounds like he wrote these songs in the woods, by himself, with no flashlight. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking. The perfect start to the Mount Eerie name.

Mount Eerie - Lost Wisdom: This is probably tied with Ocean Roar as my least favorite Mount Eerie album. It isn’t bad so much as it is a little boring for Phil’s discography. It’s incredibly short and doesn’t really explore anything too new for him other than having a female vocalist on every track. I just wanted more and not really in a good way. This album only clocks in at 24 minutes so it feels too short for its own good.

Mount Eerie - Dawn: Aside from his most recent album, this is Phil’s quietest record. It’s easy to miss, but really shouldn’t be. It’s soft and thoughtful, but comes in and out of your life quickly and quietly. You won’y be itching to hear that one catchy track again, but you may come back to it to feel some quiet tracks on a sad night. Absolutely beautiful and understated record from Phil.

Mount Eerie - Wind’s Poem: Wow. This is a killer album, potentially his best, but it’s another one that is a little more difficult to listen to. This album mixes his normal folk style with these screeching metal guitars that thoroughly shake your head when you’re listening. This album feels like a sonic manifestation of anxiety and depression. That’s all I’ll say. Go listen to it.

Mount Eerie - Clear Moon: This album honestly feels like beauty and anxiety or tension at least are just having the most intense showdown. This album has some of Phil’s most beautiful songs that he has ever written on it, like Through the Trees Pt. 2. You can’t listen to that song without falling under it’s perfect, spacey spell. On the other side though are some of the most chillingly anxious tracks that envelop your body with their dissonance. This is another near perfect album by Phil.

Mount Eerie - Ocean Roar: In theory this album is a sequel to Clear Moon, but its predecessor is a thousand times better. Ocean Roar is just kind of… well boring honestly. It’s very slow, very droney, and very meh. If you love Phil, you’ll at least enjoy it a little bit for what it is, but it just doesn’t stick out like his other immaculate albums do.

Mount Eerie - Sauna: Phil was in a good place in his life here, which makes his next album so goddamn sad. This album is pretty lighthearted, to the point where Phil has a song about books. It’s not his regular death contemplation or the exploration of depression. It feels like he was happy, I wish he could’ve stayed happy…

Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me: This album is a little weird to talk about due to its subject matter. This is one of Phil’s most stripped back albums because the music almost doesn’t matter, even though it is very good. This album is basically Phil venting to us about the recent death of his wife. It isn’t a fun time. There are times during this record where Phil is talking directly to his deceased wife, saying the exact amount of time since he saw her last. It’s incredibly raw emotion and rare truth that Phil spills on this record. Each song is soft and sets the tone for Phil to come in and just break your heart with each song, each idea and each word that comes through on this record. If you can, please support Phil and buy this record, or at least check it out.

M83. - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is big and catchy, each bubblegum, neon dripping hook easily able to fill stadiums. Dead Cities is smaller, more intimate, weirder, more tortured and slept on. It takes more than one listen to hear it’s intricacies and emotions. Sometimes it’s beautiful, like on Unrecorded. Synths fill the air as soft piano-like notes flutter on top of it. Other times it’s nasty and harrowing, the last part of Beauties can die feels utterly hopeless and covered in grime. This is a great electronic album.

NAO - So Good EP: So Good is so good. This EP is pretty awesome, mostly due to the catchy titular track with A.K. Paul. Their chemistry is awesome and this song is sexy as all hell. Definitely worth a listen, and I’ll bet that you’ll come back to So Good when you need an extra dose of sexy in your day.

NAO - For All We Know: Not every track is a winner, but when NAO hits, she has a killer song on her hands. For example, In the Morning is incredible, absolutely incredible. But this album is long, and there is a lot of filler in between the great songs. NAO’s voice though is what pulls this record together into a project that is satisfying despite it’s misses, and she is going to stay on my radar in the future.

Nas - Illmatic: Looking back at it, it’s absolutely insane that I somehow missed this album. This is one of those albums that is pretty goddamn perfect from start to finish. It’s production defined the nineties and it’s lyricism was smart, cynical and sometimes heart breaking. And to top it all off, Nas was only 19 when this album came out. That always makes me feel bad about being 20 and not having one of the most genre defining albums out. Check this one out.

The National - The National: I went into this album with lower expectation due to it’s mixed reviews and I wasn’t really surprised either way. There isn’t anything super new or really too impressive here. It’s some decent rock with a slight country or Americana twang to it. If anything this album showed that they were a band to keep an eye on in the future. Potential, potential, potential.

The National - Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers: This one is a step in the right direction. This album has some great tracks on it. But the best parts of the record come when the band decides to really take a step out of their comfort zone. There are a few tracks where they decided to go slightly punk with it and begin to ramp up the intensity in the instrumentation and Matt really lets loose with some passionate yelling. This album is the direction I wanted the band to go in, more intense, more raw, more brutal.

The National - Alligator: This album is where the band really starts to get some buzz and good reviews, but honestly, I’m not sure why. This is the opposite direction in which I was expecting, and hoping the band would go in. Rather than lean into the more raw and intense, semi-punk driven style, they go back to their softer “indie” rock (I hate that moniker but I’m not sure what else to use) sound with Matt’s regular delivery. Speaking of his delivery, good lord can he please change it up? Literally every song he uses the same exact inflection and tone of voice, which makes them all blend together into this album sized amalgamation that just makes me lose interest around the midway point. He has this weird deep, throatier sounding drawl that gets old fast. Not quite my style.

The National - Boxer: More of the same… I mean, I’ll keep trying, because people say they’re amazing, but they just aren’t doing it for me. And Matt, please, stop with the weird throaty drawl. Please stop.

Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms: How is Neon Indian so cool without even trying? This album has this almost Strokes level of swagger in a drastically different genre. This electronic album is funky, danceable without being fast, and spacey. This is the type of music you listen to by yourself while staring at the ceiling, mesmerized by all the weird sounds and smirking knowing that you are cool for knowing who Neon Indian is. It feels like a album that was slapped together pretty easily from the heart and just nailed everything perfectly, even finding one of the most unique sounds in the electronic genre. This is feel good music that is original.

Neon Indian - VEGA INTL. Night School: Neon Indian’s second album Era Extraña lost the magic that Psychic Chasms brought to the table. It felt self conscious and much too aware of what it was going for. This album feels like a slightly fed up Neon Indian deciding to just make something that they enjoy rather than cater to every audience at once. All I want to do when listening to this album is dance. It’s catchy, it’s sexy and it makes you feel awesome just for listening to it. This album isn’t quite like his previous ones because of it’s more catchy melodies and danceable beats, and I don’t think it’s quite as good as his debut album, but it packs a gnarly punch from its first track to its last.

Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island: Their first record is this amazing mix of folk and noise rock that they would later perfect on their next record, but this record is nothing to sneeze at. It feels much different from their next partially due to the amount in which they utilize noise rock here. There are a few songs where the instrumental would be called, “not music” by those who can’t appreciate the experimentation. Not only did this album show potential, it also takes you on an awesome journey that you will come back to, no doubt.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea: This album is plagued by memes and obnoxious 4chan users who think they are funny just writing lyrics on repeat at nauseam on threads, but there is actually a reason for it. This is one of those albums that from the moment it starts, you can feel something special about it. It has weird, often surreal or fantastical lyrics mixed with a sort of folk rock with these noise rock accents. There are beautiful melodies and dissonant ones too that each work together to make an utter masterpiece. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you miss this album, it is spectacular.

Nick Murphy (fka Chet Faker) - Missing Link EP: I wanted this to be good, I wanted it so badly, but it’s just not great. Nick is in a weird place right now, he has no idea where to go right now. What do you do after an album that blasts you out of obscurity, that’s style is no longer appealing to you? I have no idea… and Nick doesn’t either. This EP feels so uncomfortable, and not in a good way. Each song feels like a different album, hell, even a different artist. None of them are particularly shocking or catchy, they just kind of roll off your back once they finish. It’s just… disappointing.

Noname - Telefone: Noname is like the quiet girl in high school who, when she does speak up, is by far the most interesting and entertaining person in the room. Her style is similar to the likes of other Chicago artists (or you could call it the Chance style). She uses some hints of gospel as a backdrop for her subtle and soft lyrical style that make you take a minute and think about. She doesn’t show off her beats and vocals though, she opens up and really gives us some incredibly touching stories and emotions. She’ll be around a long time, and she can only go up from here.

Notorious B.I.G. - Life After Death: Biggie is one of those rappers that is just on the boarder of being overrated, then when you listen to his stuff you don’t think he’s popular enough. He just had a way with rhymes and beats. He was able to rap about slinging crack, then immediately after share some deeper emotions and have it all fit into these crazy visions he had for his two records. Just incredible stuff, truly incredible. We lost Biggie much too soon.

Oddisee - The Iceberg: This just barely missed being on my best of 2017 list. This is a great, conscious hip hop album. Oddisee has some interesting insights and is a great storyteller. My favorite song on the project, or at least the one that sticks with me the most is You Grew Up. It takes an interesting look at racism and how that can grow in children if it is fostered, definitely a powerful portrayal.

The Pablo Collective - The Death of Pablo: I usually do not enjoy remix albums. Their lack of creativity usual defines the style, slapping on today’s most obnoxious trends onto previously released songs. But this… this is different. This doesn’t even remotely feel like The Life of Pablo. Following their mission statement, this album is darker, grittier and so much more disgusting. It will drain the life out of you and make you feel utterly hopeless, especially in the middle where there is about a ten minute industrial sounding interlude attempting to simulate the sounds of death. Right as you want to shut it off from just being too much, it comes back around and hits you with this incredible speech from Kanye set to music. This is an incredible project.

Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It: You ready to cry a little bit with me? Goddamn, Hadreas delivers an incredible album that is stripped back to basically just his own soft shaky vocals and piano chords that are reverbed the fuck out of. He throws in a few background sounds here and there, like heavily distorted vocals or strings, but the take away hear are the lyrics. This is an emotional ride that will break you. He sings about the struggles of being a gay man, domestic abuse, just being sad, and be able to power through that.

Perfume Genius - Too Bright: Hadreas brings the feels again with this soft, at times nasty, sludgy record that mixes his previous style with something a bit more layered. The song Queen is a good example of what this album is. Hadreas uses vocals that could be found on his last record, but with an instrumental that would’ve felt outlandishly out of place due to its thickness and staggering dimensions. With that being said, it’s still able to remain subtle, soft and slow. But if there weren’t emotions flowing through each lyrics veins, it wouldn’t be a Perfume Genius album.

Perfume Genius - No Shape: Man, this album immediately shows that it’s different from Hadreas’ previous records. On the first track, it starts like his other albums, soft and subtle, then it just explodes with a wall of sound and textures. This is Hadreas’ most difficult album to listen to if you are not acquainted with more experimental sounds, but in my opinion, it’s his best record.

Phoenix - Ti Amo: I love Phoenix. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is such an awesome album that just hits high after high until you’re left mashing the repeat button on every track. I listened to Ti Amo on its release date, and I genuinely don’t recall a single lyric or melody. It’s just really boring and uninspired. It feels like they were contractually obligated to pop out another album so they put something together in three months that at least sort of sounds like Phoenix and called it good. I hope they take some time to find themselves and a good direction forward before making another album.

The Postal Service - Give Up: I almost guarantee that you’ve heard a majority if not all of this record before just on radio stations or your friends barbecue mix tape. It’s influential no doubt, it’s sounds are familiar at this point due to how often people have borrowed their sound, but that doesn’t alway mean it’s good. Some songs are fantastic and each catchy note or melody gets burned into your skull, yet other songs can get a little boring. It’s just a bit inconsistent. I wish that they had made more albums together because if they had let their sounds grow a bit I bet they would've put out a killer record.

Quelle Chris - Being You is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often: This is an awesome hip hop album that skates through humor and existential fear at the same time. Quelle Chris’ delivery stays at a lower, almost monotonous, level that works with his dry humor and battered emotional state. His production also has some Madlib-esque spice to it that is entertaining and experimental. Please check out this record, it is worth your time.

Quasimoto - The Unseen: This is one of those classic hip hop albums that only intense hip hop heads know. I wouldn’t have found it had my good friend not told me to check it out. Quasiomoto is one of Madlib’s alter egos. He works in some great production and lyrics into this must listen album.

Radiohead - Pablo Honey: This album gets a lot of hate from Radiohead fans for being too generic and of the nineties. It’s not terrible, but it’s definitively not Radiohead. Creep is by far the best song on the album but should not be Radiohead’s most popular song. The bad songs on the album though could have been popped out by any band from that time period.

Radiohead - The Bends: This is the first “real” Radiohead album. They really began to find their footing here. This album is filled with two types of songs, way more of the latter than though. The first are songs that feel slightly dated with that nineties alternative rock sound. These are songs like The Bends. The second type are songs that feel right at home in Radiohead’s discography. The songs that feel dated though aren’t bad, they just have a little nineties stank on them. But when this album hits a high, similar to Radiohead’s other albums, it hit’s so hard that you are amazed for the next five minutes because of that one note. High and Dry comes to mind as a song that will blow you away.

Radiohead - Kid A: They say that OK Computer was what solidified Radiohead in history, then Kid A solidified them in the future. This album showed us that Radiohead had legs past the nineties. They came out with this album that is part rock, part electronic and all weird. It was polarizing when it came out, but an undeniable classic now that has influenced the rest of their discography and so many other bands all over the place. Listen to this record. Period.

Radiohead - Amnesiac: Packaged as a sort of sequel to Kid A, Amnesiac is a collection of Kid A b-sides that are surprisingly good. These tracks were so good in fact that they warranted another studio album rather than being scattered and released at weird times throughout the years. The rock tracks here are Radiohead’s classic style that is always able to amaze me, and their electronic tracks give you new sounds to wrap your head around. All in all, a great record.

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief: People have thought of some weird analogies for this record. Pitchfork even went as far as to say that it’s an anti-masterpiece (in a good way somehow?). All you need to know is that this is a great record. It won’t alter your life like some of their previous projects, but it’s got some fantastic stuff on it.

Radiohead - In Rainbows: This is the album that they needed after Hail to the Thief, a great but not spectacular album. They took some extra time with this one and popped out one of their best records. This thing is filled with amazing songs from the almost dancey 15 Steps, to the soft and thoughtful track Nude. This was Radiohead telling us that not only did they still have it, they were better than most even after 15 years since OK Computer.

Radiohead - The King of Limbs: People hate this record. It’s fine. It’s not amazing, but it’s not terrible. It’s just kinda middle of the road. Listen to it if you love Radiohead, if you don’t know Radiohead don’t start with it. That’s it. It’s fine.

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool: Oh man… where to begin. This shows Radiohead’s brilliance. After over 20 years they are somehow still able to pop out one of the best records of the year!! It’s slow and soft, yet it drags you into it’s atmosphere immediately and holds you under what feels like sonic water. The highs are spectacular and the emotional lows can be felt throughout your whole body. This is just another one of Radiohead’s immaculate albums.

Ratt - Out of the Cellar: It’s Ratt. Their fun, they put out some good hair metal, they’re fun live. I don’t think that their music will really go down in history as incredible stuff. It also kinda says something when I was the youngest person at the show. It’s just kind of a dated sound that doesn’t really need to come back because we’ve just moved past it. Again, it will occupy you for about thirty minutes but it’s not something that will change your outlook on life.

Red House Painters - Down Colorful Hill: Eh… Not for me. It’s too slow and dramatically emotional. I’ll try again with them in the future, but I was more waiting for the album to be over than listening for subtle details.

Run the Jewels - RTJ3: This is not my favorite RTJ album, but by no means do I think it’s bad, it’s spectacular. These two have some of the best chemistry in hip hop today. Their political opinions blast through and give this album the most anxious feeling. Even when they step away from political ideology it works well. Their song to their deceased friend is heartbreaking and perfectly accented by Kamasi Washington on the tenor sax.

Sampha - Process: My god. This album is incredible. Sample fuses R&B with electronic music, just sings over the piano, and get’s slightly experimental here. It’s pretty amazing that this is a debut album because it feels like he’s been doing this a while. This album will have you moving, will make you try and hit the notes that Sample belts out, and will tug at your heart a bit. He really blew it out of the park with this album.

(Sandy) Alex G - Rocket: Damn. Incredible fusion of folk, punk, experimental, industrial and everything else. It’s so goddamn good. Poison Root kicks off the album softly and as it progresses it gets intense, then it eases back out. One of the best albums of the year in my opinion and may make it into my year end list. Go listen to this sucka!! (Also, he was opening for Fleet Foxes when I saw them, but I got to the show late and missed him, I’m beyond crushed!!)

Shabazz Palaces - Black Up: I had heard these guys compared to Death Grips a couple of times so I had to check them out. After listening, they are only similar in their use of experimental beats. But man, if they aren’t experimental. These guys do some crazy things from polyrhythms, to throwing out song structure completely. That may sound interesting, or be a deal breaker to you, but either way, you should check these guys out if not to only see what is possible under the hip hop umbrella.

Shapes & Colors - Love / Sex / War EP: Okay, so these guys talked to me on twitter and seemed really nice, so I will try to be gentle. It’s… not great. It feels very generic and done a million times before. It’s just indie rock that maybe would’ve sounded new in 2008, but it feels a little dated upon release. Check it out if you want to support these guys, but I found it difficult to get through it’s short length.

The Shouting Matches - Grownass Man: I wanted this album to be amazing, but it just isn’t. There are some amazing tracks, like the great Gallup, NM, but there are also some boring tracks. It feels like the boys weren’t quite sure what they wanted to do with this album, they just knew they wanted to make a bluesy record. With the few exceptions, most of the album feels a little stale.

Snakadaktal - Sleep in the Water: That reverb be heavy doe!! I wasn’t expecting much from this due to the band’s silly name, but this is a pretty great dream pop album. It feels spacey, yet emotionally potent. Plus the band’s dual vocalists adds another dimension to songs like Too Soon. These guys reminded me of Beach House a bit, but not so much that it felt like either band was stealing from each other.

Soft Cell - Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret: Look, this album is incredibly 80’s. It feels like they were using synths for the first time in the studio they sound so simple. But this album has some killer tracks. First off, the classic Tainted Love is undeniably catchy despite being so 80’s you can basically feel the neon dripping off of each beat. The final track Say Hello, Wave Goodbye also stands out because of its emotional impact coming late in the record. If you can get behind the 80’s clichés and rock with this britpop, you will find something to enjoy here.

Spoon - Hot Thoughts: It’s weird how Spoon is incapable of making bad albums. They just seem to pop out good albums one after another. While this isn’t my favorite of theirs, it still has some great material, including the title track that bounces in your head and gets stuck their for weeks. Britt’s vocal delivery fits so perfectly with their sound it seems like these musicians were born to play together. Another great one from the boys in Spoon!!

Squarepusher - Feed Me Weird Things: I don’t know if there are any other artists that have a similar sound. Squarepusher has made a career out of the most unique mix of jazz and… I don’t even know it’s just incredible. His first album must’ve seemed so weird when it came out. I can’t imagine what people who knew him must’ve said about it. I know this is vague, but I’m not sure what to say about his stuff, just go listen to it.

Squarepusher - Music is Rotted One Note: I feel like I will be listening to this album when I finally go insane. This is like jazz if jazz had schizophrenia. It’s so weird and experimental and anxiety ridden, yet beautiful at the same time. It makes you feel like you’re crazy when you listen to it, but it also takes your breath away at least once every song. It’s not for everyone, but goddamn it’s at least for me.

Squarepusher - Go Plastic: This is Squarepusher going plastic, or at least synthetic. These songs are all electronically produced, which is different from his normal style of physical instrumentation. This is another great album by the always weird always awesome Squarepusher.

Substantial - The Past is Always Present in The Future: This album really surprised me. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. I hadn’t heard of Substantial, and his album cover for this thing is… just really bad, like really bad. But good goddamn if it’s not fantastic!! It’e emotional, socially conscious, utilizes Tonedeff very well, and is thoroughly enjoyable. It sounds weird, but I do think that the tracklist should be shuffled around a little bit in order to really make certain songs have more of a payoff, but this is a great hip hop album even without that.

Syd - Fin: I knew Syd a little bit from her days in Odd Future, providing backing vocals for Tyler, Earl and Frank. I hadn’t listened to her stuff from The Internet, so I went into this pretty unaware of how she would sound. Goddamn does she have a voice. This album is enjoyable because of her voice.

SZA - Ctrl: Man, SZA is fun to listen to. She’s got a great voice, can write lyrics well and has some great beats backing her. The one problem I had with the album is just the lack of focus in terms of emotions. I didn’t feel a central idea coursing through it, which isn’t necessary, but I feel would be greatly impacting and powerful for her style. Kung Fu Kenny also has a good feature on this thing.

Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog: This album is another one, similar to Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked at Me, that sends a past loved one off. Rather than being as detailed and soft, this one goes for a different approach. It’s music as opposed to lyrics are what do the trick here. This super group of nineties rockers came together to pop out this one beautiful record. Chris Cornell (RIP), Mother Lovebone and Eddie Vedder all bring their styles together for an incredible and heartbreaking project that will go down as a fantastic nineties moment.

Thundercat - The Golden Age of Apocalypse: This is Thundercat at his absolute best musically. Every song is incredible with some of the most impressive bass playing that I have ever heard. If you like jazz, hip hop, funk, or anything in between, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you missed this incredible record.

Thundercat - Drunk: Thundercat’s lyrics get funnier, his songs get catchier, but his focus gets wider. This album is fantastic, but is a little on the long side and could probably use a few edits here and there of songs that don’t quite stand out among the others. And let’s just get Wiz Khalifa off of this, he just doesn’t do the album any good. Kendrick can stay though, Kendrick can always stay.

Todd Terje - It’s Album Time: This album is so weird and funny and cool and stupid and amazing. It feels like Todd wrote and performs this album with a giant smirk on his face the whole time. I mean for god sake, it’s called It’s Album Time. His tongue is in his cheek and it works so well for this electronic joyride. It’s just fun and weird. I have no idea what else would fit into the same category.

Tonedeff - Polymer: Tonedeff is interesting to me. On paper I should love him. He is a fantastic producer, an artist who tries to go deeper than most, and a great storyteller on top of that. But for some reason I have a hard time getting into his stuff. There always seems to be some aspects of his songs lyrically that I just can’t get over. Sometimes they just feel like he’s trying a little too hard, sometimes he’s just trying to go for the quick emotions. He’s okay, but just not my cup of tea. However, he is great to see live and if you get the chance please do, because he makes his shows incredibly entertaining and interactive.

A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory: Tribe is legendary. If you don’t know them you are depriving yourself of some of the best jazz hip hop ever to be produce. ‘Nuff said!!

A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders: Another stellar projects from Tribe. Their chemistry is always amazing, their beats are perfectly stylish and practical, and their lyrics always surpass expectations. Legendary group that will go down in history!! Perfection!!

Tycho - Past Is Prologue: This album showed me that Tycho had a little growth throughout his career, but it’s honestly pretty subtle. There are just certain droney sounds he likes using more now than he did then. Still sounds like Tycho.

Tycho - Dive: Don’t get me wrong, I like Tycho, but his music isn’t anything I haven’t heard before. It’s something that you would find on one of those YouTube playlists called, “Chill Music,” or “Chill Wave.” It would have some picture of a sunset or beach and this would be perfect to zone out to with friends while talking about the universe. It’s slow and meant to be in the back of your head.

Tycho - Awake: Tycho’s albums kind of all feel like a continuation of the last one. This is vibe music through and through. If you are looking for something challenging or incredibly interesting, look somewhere else. This one is basically filler music, or entertaining elevator music.

Tycho - Epoch: More of the same. It just sounds like Tycho, which can sometimes just be aggressively average.

Tyler, The Creator - Bastard: When you go back and look at all the old Odd Future stuff, if you’re like me, you’ll get a little nostalgic and watch Oldie with a huge grin. So much of their stuff at the time was great but has aged pretty poorly, or I can just see that it was never very good. But Tyler, Earl and Frank did always have something special. Of the mixtapes that came out in the early Odd Future days, this and Earl are the two best. Bastard is one of those albums that provoked and prodded, but above all, it showed potential. The beats are nasty, the lyrics are nastier and Tyler’s attitude is above all the nastiest. If you can stomach his shit, this is a great one to check out.

Tyler, The Creator - Goblin: This is an awesome concept album that starts so strong then kinda peters out under its own weight. This album is chalk full similar to his next album, and not every song is great. But Tyler brings a certain anger that just makes me want to throw shit out the window in defiance. His nasty lyrics itch that fucked up part of your brain that is often discouraged, but Tyler forces it out of you on songs like Yonkers and Tron Cat. If you enjoy hip hop and can handle song goddamn disgusting lyrics mixed with a cool concept, check this one out.

Tyler, The Creator - Wolf: Wolf is Tyler’s strongest album, despite the fact that it lacks a lot of focus. (UPDATE: Flower Boy is now his strongest with Wolf as his second most) I’ve listened to Wolf probably ten times now and I can recall songs from it, but when I try to think about the overarching themes or ideas, I kind of tend to draw a blank. Yet, the high moments are high, raw and fucked up. Rusty is a great ensemble track that tries to piss you off in classic Tyler style, Awkward is a heartfelt song from Tyler to his dad, and IFHY is an amazing song to an ex who he had a bit of a rough breakup with. Tyler also used his features incredibly well making them important and necessary parts to each song. This is a great album that you should really check out.

Tyler, The Creator - Cherry Bomb: Oh boy… Cherry Bomb is Cherry Bomb. It’s weird, it has some good stuff, but it’s also got Tyler’s worst stuff. It’s such a mixed bag that just doesn’t always work, in fact it doesn’t most of the time. This is one of those ones for die hard Tyler fans, but if you don't love him it’s not really for you…… I’m sorry, I’m trying to be positive here, but it’s just bad.

Vagabon - Infinite Worlds: Look, I like the genre, but Jesus Christ, can someone please, PLEASE just think of something new?! This album is literally every single idea that I’ve been hearing for years just jammed up in the same album. There are like two songs of note and I don’t remember which ones because I didn’t want to listen to it a second time. This album was just disappointing to me.

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks: This is one of those albums that you would find in your parents or aunt and uncles collection that upon first glance would skip, then when listening to it cry like a fucking baby. I’ve always been a fan of Van Morrison, and Moondance was what I’ve always thought of as his best album, but this one… this one is different no doubt. This one is less catchy, a bit more long winded, but maybe more powerful. Morrison’s almost strained Irish vocals are carried along by the soft guitar and meandering flute player on the title track, setting a perfect tone for the album. If you want a great album that is soft, but will blow your socks off, check this one out.

(Quick Vince Staples Note: I have seen Vince Staples live and that may have caused me to be a little biased, I don’t think it did but just keep that in mind)

Vince Staples - Hell Can Wait EP: This is a great EP. This is what put Vince on the map. This album shows his talent and incredible struggle to get to where he is now. The beats slap and his vocals cut through the mix like knives. Some may find his voice to be whiney or too high pitched, but it works for his style in my opinion. This is a can’t miss, especially if you are interested in seeing where he came from and where he will go.

Vince Staples - Summertime ’06: Badabing!! Wowzers bowzers, radio hits, spacey beach sounds and Kilo Kish. This is Staples at his best. This album’s structure is incredible, starting off strong with Lift Me Up and Norf Norf, then Lemme Know all on the same side?! Unreal shit. This album is awesome!!

Vince Staples - Prima Donna EP: This one gets a little darker. Vince sounds like he’s been trapped in his own head for a little too long and is pleading to get out. His lyrics are anxious and his delivery varies from emotionally distant on War Ready to a little more urgent on Pimp Hand. His beats are ugly, in a good way, they’re lo-fi and glitchy, almost as if he rubbed sand into the soundboard in the studio. Great EP.

Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory: This is where Vince Staples needs to go. This album is a bit more experimental and uses his style in a way that is different from his previous releases. He seems to be experimenting more with beats than lyrics, which makes a few songs have eh lyrics, but overall it works. This album to me, seems like it will be a stepping stone to another album that just pushes everything further and he’ll pop out his magnum opus next, mark my words!!

Warren G - Regulate… G Funk Era: Makes you want to go to the East Side Motel. (It’s a classic that is required listening, so go listen to it… like now.)

Wavves - You’re Welcome: It’s just so aggressively mediocre that I began to resent it after the first ten seconds. There is nothing that sets this album apart from others, there is nothing that makes it very good or very bad. The road they drive down is very much in the middle. Yucko.

X - Los Angeles: Never thought I would hear Ray Manzarek playing punk music, but man, he fits in perfectly. This album is one of those ones that is the perfect amount of time. There is no fat on this album and every song fits in like it should. And again, Manzarek on keys was such a smart choice.

The xx - I See You: It’s pretty good, probably my favorite album of theirs. But it left me just wanting more of Jamie’s solo stuff. On Hold is just a Jamie xx song that the other two members of The xx jump on and deliver their usual meh style on. I liked it for what it was but I'm just sick of The xx sounding the same on every song… and I want more Jamie xx.

YG - Still Brazy: YG gets pretty brazy on this album. His production uses that classic G Funk style with a few updates to keep it fresh. The beats perfectly complement his vocal delivery that changes on tracks on in tracks too like on Don’t Come to L.A. YG also get’s pretty political on this one with tracks like FDT (Fuck Donald Trump), Blacks & Browns and Police Get Away Wit Murder. This is a surprisingly good album that I wasn’t expecting much on.

Young Pappy - 2 Cups Part 2 of Everything: This kid had some talent. Sadly, he is no longer with us, but, man, he knew how to write songs. His style is aggressive, Killa sounds like he’s gonna jump through your headphones and bite your head off. His production is sample heavy and bass heavier. We lost this guy too soon, I would’ve loved to see what he would’ve been able to put out in his later years.

Your Old Droog - Packs: The Jeselnik skits are pretty useless, forgettable and low energy from Jeselnik, but if you skip those this album is pretty amazing. Droog is a great storyteller, his beats are bonkers and utilize sound effects to help push his stories along and he knows how to write some real hot hooks. One of the best hip hop albums of 2017. Also, Danny Brown has a killer, KILLER feature on Grandma Hips that you can not miss!!

You guys are the best!! Thanks for everything!!

--Andrew

#music #reviews #lankyrandman

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kitchenwitchsuperwhovian · 6 years

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Get to Know Me...the oddball edition.

So, I was scrolling through my dash, (and had a little time on my hands), when I saw this posting. I changed it up a little from the original and I forgot who posted it first so I’m saying sorry for not tagging you in advance. I put my spin on it since most of us out in Tumblr-land have answered this or similar questions in the past.

I have only two rules: You are to tag one person and you must answer these questions honestly, sort of...

Just a warning though, there are 100 questions below the keep reading so if you don’t want to do that many, you won’t be wasting your time scrolling through the questionnaire forever.

@tardisspeedsterfanfiction ....I choose you!

1. What is your middle name? Something I am embarrassed about when said with my first name. Makes me sound like a hillbilly from the sticks.

2. How old are you? How dare you ask a lady such a question?! And the answer is older than I care to admit.

3. What is your birthday? In the first month of the year...and every year after that...on the same day.

4. What is your zodiac sign? A stupid song….EVERYONE SINGS when they find out my star sign.

5. What is your favorite color? Mostly dark colors. Heaven forbid you get me something pastel pink!

6. What’s your lucky number? Anything printed on money in my wallet works for me...

7. Do you have any pets? Does family count?....then no.

8. Where are you from? My parents.

9. How tall are you? Average for a person of my age.

10. What shoe size are you? Too big to find a decent pair of fancy shoes.

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Five-ish. Slippers count, right?

12. What was your last dream about? Making enough money to take an actual vacation instead of two days off in a row.

13. What talents do you have? I try not to kill stupid people at work and so far…..SUCCESS!

14. Are you psychic in any way? I knew you were gonna ask that….

15. Favorite song? Whatever is currently an earworm from the radio that plays continuously in my head most days.

16. Favorite movie? Do I have to pick just one? FINE! It’s….none right now cause I have no time to watch anything since picking up a second job. Adulting is hard.

17. Who would be your ideal partner? One who pays their own way instead of putting the weight of their emotional and monetary issues onto me.

18. Do you want children? Most days...YES! Those with little to no sleep…..I don’t even want to take care of myself let alone a child.

19. Do you want a church wedding? EMPHATICALLY NO!

20. Are you religious? I’m more of a spiritualist. I believe that everyone had the right to their own beliefs and practices but don’t try to force me to conform to your ideals because “My deity” believes you should be like me.

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? Unfortunately.

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? Not so much.

23. Have you ever met any celebrities? Met personally, yes cause of convention OPS.

24. Baths or showers? Why not both? Start in one and finish in another...

25. What color socks are you wearing? Flesh colored because they invisible for my sandals...

26. Have you ever been famous? Not something I wish for so no….

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? Pay-grade...yes. Notoriety, paparazzi, stalkers, taxes, fake friends and family….no thanks.

28. What type of music do you like? Not much.

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Does taking a bath in a giant Jacuzzi count? Then no….

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? Three..so far but I am always willing to add more!

31. What position do you usually sleep in? I’m a roller so no one solid position for long.

32. How big is your house? No house, just apartment.

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? A nice big bowl of air.

34. Have you ever fired a gun? No and don’t wanna start either.

35. Have you ever tried archery? For shits and giggles at the Renaissance Fair.

36. Favorite clean word? Balls.

37. Favorite swear word? Shit.

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? 39 hours.

39. Do you have any scars? Too many for such a young life.

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? Nope and it feels stalker-ish if I did have one...or was one.

41. Are you a good liar? Most days, with enough sleep...people believe I’m a kind and caring person every day.

42. Are you a good judge of character? Eh...could go either way most days.

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? Yea and it annoys the fuck out of my friends when I refuse to use my “normal” voice.

44. Do you have a strong accent? Not so much.

45. What is your favorite accent? Irish/Scottish but I can do Jersey in a heartbeat if you cross me.

46. What is your personality type? My own unique style.

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? Forty dollar shoes count, right?

48. Can you curl your tongue? No. Why would I want to?

49. Are you an innie or an outie? I like to stay indoors. I burn easily.

50. Left or right handed? Both if I’m super hungry.

51. Are you scared of spiders? FUCK YEA! I’ve been chased by the little bastards.

52. Favorite food? Anything involving cheese is a good start.

53. Favorite foreign food? Thai noodles. Hands down, you have a bowl for me...I’m yours for life.

54. Are you a clean or messy person? Clean at work (OCD kicks in HARD) and an organized mess at home.

55. Most used phrase? Son of a biscuit eater! (I usually hang around my 5-year old nephew).

56. Most used word? Fuck.

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? Most days, about 30 minutes. Special occasion...I start getting ready the night before.

58. Do you have much of an ego? Only in one aspect of my life. The rest, I’m a timid mouse with no voice.

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? Neither. They kind suck. (ha ha ha...suck)

60. Do you talk to yourself? Most days, yes. When I answer back….RUN!

61. Do you sing to yourself? Always when at home or in the car. Shower’s a good place too.

62. Are you a good singer? No idea but no complaints from my car yet so YEA!

63. Biggest Fear? Fears are something I try not to think about cause I will likely overload and break down….in the middle of work...during rush hour.

64. Are you a gossip? I try not to be. Or so multiple people tell me.

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? Beetlejuice. What?! You die in the eighties and try having a weird family with a goth kid re-decorate your house and see how you like it!

66. Do you like long or short hair? Depends on the activity? You nasty people! I mean work or chilling at home...weirdos.

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? Yep and thanks to the song from elementary school, it’s in alphabetical order too!

68. Favorite school subject? Recess cause food and friends man.

69. Extrovert or Introvert? A little of both, depends on the group I’m in at the time.

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? Not for me man.

71. What makes you nervous? Stupid decisions. Most of the time, I back out of fully committing them.

72. Are you scared of the dark? No...are you?

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? At work, yes. I ain’t got time for that shit. Off the clock...hell no. It’s entertaining as fuck.

74. Are you ticklish? Come here and find out. Just kidding. Don’t cause then I’ll have to punch you.

75. Have you ever started a rumor? Hasn’t everyone?

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? Multiple times and let me tell you...adulting is hard.

77. Have you ever drank underage? Once on accident. I was 9. Thanks for the learning experience Grandpa.

78. Have you ever done drugs? Prescribed...yes. Other...HELL NO!

79. Who was your first real crush? A celebrity probably. I was young...heartache to heartache. Sorry, got off topic for a sec.

80. How many piercings do you have? Too many according to my mother.

81. Can you roll your Rs? Yea and it pisses my mom off when I do it randomly in a conversation.

82. How fast can you type? Faster than most, slower than the speedsters of literature.

83. How fast can you run? I only run for the ice cream truck.

84. What color is your hair? Currently...too many to count. I need to fix it soon.

85. What color is your eyes? Depends on my wardrobe but not black or violet.

86. What are you allergic to? Stupid people and their unending belief that they are doing just fine as they are.

87. Do you keep a journal? Does Tumblr count...then no.

88. What do your parents do? Be parents. What kind of question is that?

89. Do you like your age? No cause age is just the odometer of your life span.

90. What makes you angry? *See the above allergy answer*

91. Do you like your own name? Mostly unless someone is yelling it in my face.

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they? Cute ones but not weird like Apple or North. Why people!? Why?!

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child? One of each mostly so they can be raised as equals in the game of life.

94. What are your strengths? Bad judgement calls and poor money handling skills.

95. What are your weaknesses? Peanut butter...thy mortal nemesis of my thighs.

96. How did you get your name? Parents named me it cause you know….reasons.

97. Were your ancestors royalty? Stubborn, thinks they are always right no matter what, lords power over everyone in family, SO MUCH DRAMA…..maybe.

98. Do you have any scars? Already answered this my dude.#39. Look it up.

99. Color of your bedspread? Dark...like my soul!

100. Color of your room? Like every other apartment...white as hell.

#get to know me #irl #not fanfiction #yes i'm weird

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wjwilliams29 · 7 years

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Ultimate Digital Marketing & SEO Terms Glossary | The List That Covers Them All

Has it ever happened to you to read an SEO article and, on the verge of your maximum concentration, to stumble upon a term you don’t quite know what it means?

Be it slang, jargon or an expression used with a different meaning than we might have thought, at some point everyone has been in the position of browsing several web pages just to understand what that term actually referred to.

So, we created an “ SEO Lingo”, maybe the most comprehensive and user-friendly glossary of SEO terms.

Now you don’t have to go from page to page in order to find the idiom you are looking for. We put them all together in a nice, organized list so you can easily access it any time you need it.

Alphabetic Navigation (or hit CTRL+F to quickly search for a word)

# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W

As this kind of work is a perpetual process, we would be more than grateful if you could suggest new terms to add to our list.

Share any “Undocumented” Term here (and we will add it to the list)

.htaccess

The .htaccess is a configuration file for Apache Web Servers. You can use it to enable and disable different Apache functionalities. It is commonly used for redirecting pages, but can also be used for many other things. And yes. It does start with a period. The file itself has no name. So basically… it’s just an extension.

200, 301, 302, 400, 404, 410, 500

All these numbers represent HTTP status codes. 200 means that the URL was reponsive, and that it works. 301 is a redirect. It means the URL has been moved permanently. 302 is also a redirect, but temporary. 302 cases are very rare. 400 code indicates that a bad request was made and the client could not communicate with the server. 404 is the most popular, and it means that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the address was not found. It’s usually a result of a badly typed URL. 410 represents an URL that once existed but is now gone. Lastly, the 500 codes indicate problems with the server. It could either be offline or have some other issues. See the full list here.

Above the fold

This term refers to the first section of a website, the one that is visible without using the scroll wheel on your mouse. It was used in newspapers, too. The section usually holds the most important pieces of news, and the most expensive ads. Google recommends that you prioritize the loading of above the fold content. The section under it is called below the fold.

Ahref

The <a> tag defines a hyperlink. It’s basically a link that points to another location, internal or external. The location it points to is indicated by the attribute href. An ‘a href’ is then Hypertext REFerence. Between the opening tag <a> and the closing tag </a> we have our anchor text. This is where the tool Ahrefs draw it’s name from.

ALT tag

ALT text is an alternative text associated with an image, used by web browser agents that cannot display graphics. Basically, alt text ensures that your web page is visible and accessible and no functionality is lost, even if the viewer has turned off images or uses a screen reader. The Alt attribute is a description of an image in your site’s HTML. For instance, people with impaired vision can still interact with that image due to this feature.

Alexa

Alexa is a subsidiary company of Amazon that provides traffic rankings based on the analysis of people who access the sites while using the Alexa toolbar. The accuracy of this data may be questioned due to the fact that the analysis is made only on the internet visitors that use the Alexa toolbar.

Algorithm

Heaven’s gates are closed. Google changed the algorithm! Tweet

Most likely referring to Google, the Google algorithm is the system that determines what sites rank for particular keywords. If you want to get a general idea as to what Google algorithms look for, you can refer to Google’s own How Search Works page.

Anchor Text

Anchor text refers to the word(s) that you use when you link to a page. Generally, the more links you have which use a specific anchor text, the higher your website will rank for them. At one time, Adobe Reader ranked number one for the words click here because so many people used those words as anchor text when linking to the free download.

API

API stands short for Application Program Interface. This interface specifies how different components of a software interact with each other.

API Key

An API Key is a unique value assigned to a user of that particular service. It acts as an identifier to let the software know if access should or should not be granted to the tool.

Article Marketing

Article Marketing is a link building strategy where you submit short pieces of content to article networks like EzineArticles, HubPages, Squidoo and similar networks in order to gain backlink in the article itself or author bio. Many article networks were penalized when Google created an algorithm to judge the quality of content on a website. Some have recovered while others have not, making article marketing links lower quality.

Authority Links

Authority links are simply backlinks from a highly trusted website. Authority links would be those from major news networks (CNN, BBC, etc.), brands (Apple, Amazon, etc.), or any other authority site on the internet.

Authority Site

An authority site is a site that covers a specific topic to the very core of its depths. In theory, a site becomes an authority once it reaches 100.000 words. Let’s say that you randomly pop up into a site called www.cognitiveseo.com when searching for something, but you realize you can find anything about SEO on it. That’s an authority site.

Backlink

A backlink is a link pointing from another site to your site. In Google’s eyes, this is seen like a vote. The more votes you get, the more popular you are, therefore the better you rank. However, the voting should be natural. If you try to get fake votes (spammy or paid links) you can get penalized and lose the campaign forever.

Backlink Analysis

Backlink Analysis is the process where you review the links to your website and to your competitors’ websites to determine the strongest links, weakest links, link types, link categories, and links you should go after next.

Backlink Checker

Backlink checker – is a tool that determines how many backlinks are pointing to your website. It is important to keep track of the backlink numbers as they influence your search engine ranking overall.

Black Hat

Black Hat SEO refers to aggressive search engine optimization that violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Blacklist

A blacklist is a database of queries that are blocked by a specific service. There are blacklists for e-mails, websites, or IPs. The most popular blacklists include IPs, as they can block entire servers (both websites and e-mails). Servers and search engines use these blacklists to protect their users from spam and malicious intent. You can check if your IP is blacklisted here.

Blog/Blogger/Blogging

A blog is short for weblog. It’s a log… on the web. You post articles on it and they are usually listed in a chronological order. Most websites now have a blog. They post useful and interesting things related to their niche in order to attract traffic. A blogger is a person that owns a blog and writes on it. There’s a difference between someone who writes on blogs and a blogger. A blogger has a following and something to say. A blogger could earn his living off blogging.

Blog Comment Spamming

Comment spamming is a blackhat SEO technique in which a user constantly comments on other websites in order to get a backlink to his own. It can be manual commenting or automated commenting through software such as ScrapeBox or GSA Search Engine Ranker. Blog commenting isn’t a bad thing, as long as it’s relevant and not done excessively.

Broken Link

A broken link is a hyperlink that returns an error code such as 404, which means it doesn’t exist or can’t be found on the server. It’s usually a result of misspelling the URL. A broken link can come in the form of internal links or backlinks.

Broken Link Building

Broken Link Building is a link-building tactic in which you can contact a webmaster who has a broken link and recommend him/her various alternatives that can include the target site. This is considered to be a successful white hat technique of link building strategy with relevant results in markets with thick content and a dynamic community. Yet, it didn’t generate good outcome for links relating to pure sales pages. This tactic should be advantageous for yourself but also for the web, as you replace lost or abandoned content with quality content.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate represents the percentage of visits in which people leave your site from the entrance, without interacting with other pages. The bounce rate can measure the effectiveness of a site. A high bounce rate can be due to the content of your site but also due to usability issues or because the “netizens” found the information they needed on the first page.

Bread Crumbs

Bread crumbs refers to links that are usually above the main content. They have two main functions: to allow the user to easily navigate on your site and also search engines to easily determine the structure of your site. An example of how breadcrumbs usually look like is this: Home >On line books >Gone with the wind > Chapter 2

Cache/Web Cache

A cache is a hardware or software component used to store data so it can be served faster. On the internet, a web cache stores the content of your website so it can be served faster to the user. That’s why, sometimes, it seems like the page hasn’t been updated. The cache has not been refreshed. There are more types of cache. The most popular is a Broswer Cache. It stores data, such as images, in a temporary folder on your computer storage. This way, they won’t have to be downloaded once you access the website again. Other types of caches include server cache and router cache.

Call-to-action

A call-to-action is a message that suggests to an user that an action should be taken. It can appear under many forms, such as text links, buttons or images. A call to action can suggest actions such as purchasing a product, clicking on a link or liking something, etc. Call-to-actions can be verbal as well, if you’re recording a video or podcast

Canonical Tag/Canonicalization

Yes, canonicalization can also make you a champion at Hangman. Tweet

Choosing a preferred URL for your website. For example, you may want to choose http://www.domain.com as your preferred domain and set your web server to redirect traffic from http://domain.com, http://domain.com/index.php, and other variations to http://www.domain.com. You can read more about this in the help section for Google Webmaster Tools.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A content delivery network stores your content under cache format in a series of servers. These data centers are placed in different points around the globe. This way, users can access your sever faster. For example, if your main server is in the US, it will be fast for the US, but slower for somenoe in Europe. If your CDN has a datacenter in Europe, the user will access that one instead.

Click Fraud

Repetitively clicking on your own Internet Ad can lead to severe injuries. Tweet

Click fraud is an illegal practice that occurs when individuals, automated software or online bots are clicking on a pay per click advertising link with the purpose of generating a charge per click. Click fraud has generated a lot of controversy. Research on this matter shows that persons that make most use of click fraud are individuals who aim to increase their own ad banners incomes and companies who want to impair the competitors’ budget.

Cloaking

Cloaking is a form of doorway page technique in which the content presented to the web crawler is different from the content delivered to the user’s browser. Cloaking is considered to be a violation of Google’s Guidelines as the user receives different content than he expected. Cloaking is often considered to be a black hat SEO technique because it tries to trick and manipulate the search engine index.

Code Swapping

Code swapping is similar to cloaking and aims at changing the content in a site after high ranking has been achieved for that site. Basically, the optimised page is switched with another, different from the original one in terms of content. Yet, on a re-index, the content that has been changed will be detected and another ranking algorithm will be applied. The use of this technique might lead to Google penalization.

Compression

Data compression is used to reduce the bit size of files, without necessarily affecting its quality. It’s useful on the web, as the lower a file is in size, the faster it will download. For example, a CSS file could contain attributes of a HTML class written separately, like this: .class {font-size:12px;} .class {font-color:red;}. A compressed version would look like this .class {font-size:12px; font color:red;}. Images can also be compressed. This process is referred to as Image Optimization.

Content Scraping

Content Scraping is the blackhat SEO process of mass collecting content from the web and posting it on a website. The webmasters that use these techniques try to get their content indexed first, so that the other site looks like the duplicate.

Content Spam

Content Spam is a type of content generated with the purpose of manipulating search engine ranking.

Contextual Advertising

Contextual advertising is a type of targeted advertising, relevant to the content, where ads are selected by automated systems and customized for each user. For example, if a user is visiting a site with online movies and that site uses contextual advertising, the user might be exposed to ads such as cinema tickets or DVD sellers. Being linked to the context, this type of advertising is more likely to be clicked and thereby, is likely to be a generator of generous income.

Conversion Rate

Shortly, conversion rate refers to the number of potential online visitors that become “buyers” on a web site. “Buyers” can mean actually buying a product, filling out a form or subscribing to something on a site, depending on the web page’s goal. For example, if there are 100 visitors on a site that sells books and 5 of those visitors actually buy books from that site, then the conversion rate is 5%. The larger the conversion rate is, the more successful that site will be, usually.

Contextual Link

A contextual link is a hyperlink that appears under an anchor text and is surrounded by relevant content. Contextual links are usually the best type of links that you can get for SEO.

CMS (Content Management System)

A content management system is a software for creating and managing web content. Some of the most popular CMS out there are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. They are usually user friendly and a lot easier to implement than creating a website from scratch.

A cookie is a small file used to store specific information, such as browsing activity, or affiliate links. It can affect search results. For example, if you visit a site more often, that site might rank higher, only for you. To accurately check rankings, use Incognito mode or private windows in your browsers. These windows ignore cookies.

Copyright is the legal right that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights to use it and distribute it. It applies to any type of content, be it visual, audio, or text.

The unauthorized use of copyrighted material is known as copyright infringement. Be careful what content you take from the web, as it might result in legal consequences. A common issue is the use of images on Google. While they may seem free, they’re actually not! If you want images that are royalty free, go to Tools -> Usage Rights when searching on Google Images.

CPA

Cost per acquisition (or cost per action) refers to the price that a publisher pays to an advertiser for each unique user action the advertiser provides.

CPC

CPC is an abbreviation for Cost per Click and refers to the actual price you pay for each click in your pay per click campaign (PPC). CPC is important because it represents a form of interaction between a visitor and a company’s product and also determines the financial success of the paid campaigns.

CPM

The dilemma with “M” from “CPM” is solved. In the Roman numerals, M stands for 1000. Tweet

CPM is an acronym for Cost per Thousand. If you’re wondering where the “M” from “CPM” comes from, you should know that in the Roman numerals M represents 1000. It is also referred as “cost per thousand impressions” and represents the cost paid by an advertiser for the display of 1000 (one thousand) impressions of a banner or other types of advertisement on a web page. CPM can also be a method to find out how profitable a website is or what potential it has of becoming one. For instance, Facebook is the leader of the market in CPM niche.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) represents a mechanism of adding style to Web documents. Its main characteristic is that it enables the separation between a document content and a document presentation in order to improve the accessibility and flexibility of a content. CSS include elements such as fonts, colors, layout or spacing. Another regular use of CSS is for adjusting the display differently, depending on the device or the screen size that is used by the viewer.

Crawler

A crawler is a program, also known as a “spider” or a “bot” that systematically browses web sites and reads their pages and their content with the purpose of web indexing. In the context of SEO, crawlers are important for the determination of a site’s importance and ranking in the results of web searches for a specific keyword. Crawlers are very active and can visit a website several times a day, checking for updates. Maybe the most famous crawler is Google’s crawler, known as Googlebot.

Funny fact: They are called spiders and crawlers because WWW means World Wide Web.

Crawl Depth

The crawl depth is the extent to which a crawler indexes the pages on a website. When a crawler accesses you website, it keeps digging through the links. A page can have subpages and those subpages have subpages of their own and so on. It’s similar to how folders and subfolders work on your storage.

Citation

Citations are listings for your business that designate it as a local business. Popular citation sources for local search marketing include Google+ Local, Bing Local, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and other local directories.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

The number of times people click on a link in search results vs. the number of impressions (times seen) in search results.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor Analysis (SEO) is the process of researching your competitors in search to determine the best on-site and off-site search optimization strategies they use to rank high.

Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is a server exclusive to a single owner. Other known types are VPS (Virtual Private Servers) and Shared Hosting.

Deep Link

A deep link is a hyperlink that points to a sub-page of a website, instead of a homepage. The more slashes you can find in the URL, the deeper the link is.

Deep Link Ratio

The deep link ratio is the percentage of hyperlinks that point to other pages than your homepage. If you had 100 pages and 60 were pointing to pages other than your homepage, your deep link ratio would be 60%.

Domain Name

On the internet, a domain name is what you type in your browser to get to a website. It’s the website’s name. It can point to one or more IP addresses and it’s always accompanied by one or more suffixes known as extensions (.com, .net, .org, .co.uk, .com.au).

Domain Name Age

In SEO, the domain name age refers to when a website’s name was first registered. It is believed that domain age plays a role as a ranking factor. If we’re in 2017 and the site’s domain name was registered in 2010, the domain age would be 7 years.

Dwell Time

In digital marketing, dwell time represents the time a user spends on the same page of a website. Dwell time is believed to be a ranking factor.

Dynamic URL

A Dynamic URL is the result of a search in a database driven website. The contents of the URL change depending on the search queries. The content of those pages also changes accordingly. Although they can be indexed and ranked, it is believed that static URLs provide SEO benefits. A mixture of both is recommended. For example, if your site has category pages with filters, the categories themselves can be static, but the filters can generate dynamic strings in the URLs. It’s far better than having thousands of static URLs, one for each type of filter. Using a canonical tag from the filtered strings to the main static URL is recommended.

Doorway Page

Doorway page concept is often used in the context of black hat SEO and refers to poor quality pages that are optimized for a particular keyword or phrase. The purpose of a doorway page is to mislead the search engines and gain high ranking for certain sites. Basically, doorway pages redirect the visitors to other web pages without their knowledge, using a form of cloaking. They are also known as portal pages, gateway pages, entry pages or jump pages.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content represents a block of content that is similar or identical within several domains. Although it is not deceptive in origin, there are cases where content is duplicated with the purpose of manipulating search engine rankings. The main problem with duplicate content is that search engines don’t know which version is the original one and are forced to choose the version that is more likely to be the original. This usually leads to loss in terms of traffic and ranking for site owners and less relevant results for the search engines.

Dofollow/Nofollow

Dofollow / Nofollow – Nofollow is an attribute webmasters can use when linking to a website that tells search engines to essentially ignore the link. Social networks are notorious for using nofollow links when linking to external websites. Links without the nofollow attribute are referred to as dofollow.

Editorial Link

An editorial link is a backlink acquired naturally from the editor of a website. These links are not requested or sponsored and are the result of a good content strategy. Google likes editorial links, so it’s a good idea to have them.

Encrypted Search

Encrypted Search refers to the fact that Google encrypts searches that people do through a secure connection. In an encrypted search, the keyword data doesn’t pass through websites, thereby the users cannot be tracked. Also, a segmentation of the users by keywords within their analytics software cannot be done anymore. According to Google Webmaster Blog, “a web site accessed through organic search results on http://www.google.com (non-SSL) can see both that the user came from google.com and their search query. However, for organic search results on SSL search, a web site will only know that the user came from google.com”. One of the effect of encrypted search is the increased quantity of not provided.

Ethical SEO

Ethical SEO is a synonym of WhiteHat SEO. It’s the process of optimizing a site for search engines without the use of shady, black hat tactics. An Ethical SEO strategy would include good on page optimization, quality content and influencer outreach.

Exact Match Domains (EMD)

In SEO, EMD has nothing to do with Electro Motive Diesel . Tweet

Exact Match Domains are domains that use a particular keyword or phrase instead of a branded name. For example, seotools.com would be an EMD whereas cognitiveSEO.com is a branded domain. EMDs ranked well for a long time, but in 2012, Google released an update that lowered many EMDs rankings in search. There are still lots of EMDs that rank well for their keywords today, mostly based on whether or not they have quality content.

Exit Page

An exit page is just what it sounds like. It’s the page through which a user exists your website. It’s a good idea to know which pages are exit pages so you can optimize them for user retention.

External Link

An external link is a link pointing from a website to another website other than itself. If your website links to someone else’s website, that’s an external link. If someone else’s website links to your website, that’s still an external link.

Fresh Content

Fresh content is a concept in SEO that refers to how often a site is updated with new information. It is believed that Google likes it when sites update their content on a regular basis. Updating more frequently might get search engines to crawl your website more often. Fresh content could be either completely new articles and pages, or simply new information added to old one. (this article, for example, has been updated once with fresh content).

FFA

FFA stands for “Free for all” and refers to websites that allow anyone to add a link pointing to their pages. FFA pages have no human intervention and usually they don’t weight much in search relevancy as they usually point to low quality website. For example, on an FFA page you can find a sport site listed between art museums and spatial engineering.

Frame

In the digital world, a frame is more than a fancy piece of a painting. Tweet

A frame is a part of a webpage that displays content independently of its container. This means that the elements that are in a frame may or may not come from the same web site as the other content elements. As a result of that, in terms of SEO, although the data in the main body, the header and footer appear intact, they actually are different files that, when indexed by search engines, are broken into pieces. For instance, search engines may see your home page as empty and will not index the content of your website at all.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

You use the file transfer protocol to transfer files between your computer and server. You can create FTP accounts on your server. These accounts can then connect to your server using a user and a password. A popular FPT client is FileZilla.

Gateway page

Gateway page is the same as a doorway page.

Google Penalty

Google Penalty is considered when a website has broken Google Webmaster Guidelines, and Google penalizes it by lowering its rankings in search results for particular keywords or removing the website entirely from the index.

Google Panda

Google Panda is not a new type of Asian bear. Tweet

Google Panda is the name of a series of Google algorithm updates that evaluate a website’s quality of content. Websites with low quality content and a high number of ads see a loss in search rankings when the algorithm is updated.

Google Penguin

Watch out, web spam! The penguin is coming for you! Tweet

Google Penguin is the name of a series of Google algorithm updates that evaluate a website’s use of off-site (some on-site) optimizations. Websites that use techniques such as unnatural linking, keyword stuffing (trying to optimize for too many keywords on one page), low-quality link building, spam link building, etc. saw a loss in search rankings.

Google Bomb

The first known Google bomb returned Microsoft for the search “more evil than Satan himself”. Tweet

Google bomb refers to the practice of making a group of keywords searched on diverse searching engines return a totally unexpected website. This can be made through the creation of numerous links to that websites’ page, including the searched keywords. This practice usually has humorous purposes but is also used to share a political or social ideology or to drive traffic to a business. The first known Google bomb was in 1999, when the returned site for the search “more evil than Satan himself” was Microsoft. Maybe the most famous Google bomb was “the miserable failure” from the year 2000. When searched on Google, this keyword would return George Bush’s biography site from the White House.

Google Bowling

Shortly, Google bowling means spamming in somebody’s else name. It’s usually brought into discussion related to negative SEO and refers to the practice of spam links to the competitor’s website with the purpose of causing them a Google penalty.

Google Dance

Google dance represents the period of time that major index updates were made by Google. As a result to this period, rankings of web sites may fluctuate even several times a day. In the Google dance, Google calculates the pagerank, and many other metrics, of each page and changes the SERP for all keywords.

Google Juice

Google juice is slang for a website’s value as determined by Google through Page Rank. The more juice a web page has, the higher it will be positioned in search results. Google determines the “juice” according to “who links to what”, mostly. If, for instance, a high-ranking page links to other pages, it will transfer relevancy for the pages it linked to and, implicitly, will give it more Google juice.

Googlebot

Googlebot/Google’s spider program refers to Google’s web crawler, also known as “Google spider”. Googlebot collects information from the web in order to permanently update the Google index. Google spider visits billions of webpages and detects new sites, changes to existing sites or dead links in order to keep the Google index up to date.

Google Disavow Tool

Disavow the links? Hmm..let’s be cautiously optimistic… Tweet

Google Disavow Tool is a tool through which you can remove links that you believe to be unnatural, spammy or low-quality. It’s actually a tool that asks Google not to take into account certain links when it evaluates your site. The main problem is identifying correctly the links that negatively affect your site. Disavowing the wrong links might lead to a drop in ranking and also to a Google penalization. Identifying unnatural links may be a tough job. You may use tools like the automatic unnatural link detection tool in order to ease the process.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a service offered by Google that provides statistics and digital analytics about a web’s traffic, traffic sources, conversions rate, customer segmentation, sales, bounce rate, etc. It is a tool that can be useful for marketing professionals, content developers but also webmasters. The service is free of charge for sites that generate less than 10 millions hits per month.

Google Adwords

Google Adwords refers to Google’s online advertising program that allows your ad to appear on Google and its partner websites. According to the keywords you are interested in, Google Adwords helps you place your ad in relevant search results. The charging is made when a visitor clicks an ad, usually.

Google Adsense

Adsense is part of Adwords. Adsense is used by publishers (website owners) to earn money from displaying ads on their sites. Every time a visitor clicks on an Adsense ad on your website, the advertiser pays you some money.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a free, basic keyword research tool from Google Adwords. You use it to determine which keywords are best for your PPC advertising campaigns, but can also be used for SEO purposes. However, Google offers more information about the search volume to those who have active advertising campaigns.

Google Search Gonsole (GSC)

In a few words, Google Search Console (former GWT or Google Webmaster Tools) is a free of charge web service that allows webmasters to check their indexing and to optimize their site’s visibility. CSV is designed to function as a communication mechanism between Google and site owners, helping webmasters to identify the main issues on their sites.

Google Sitelinks

The Google Sitelinks are the links that display under a website’s name in Google when a brand name search is performed. They are used to help users access the section they need faster. There is no clear way to get these links to show, but domain age, domain performance, structured data (schema markup) and a good internal linking strategy can help.

Google Universal Search

Google Universal Search is a type of search in which results from multiple specialized areas are displayed in the web search listing. For example, results from Google News, YouTube or Google Images will be listed in the main Google results web page.

Grey Hat SEO

Grey hat is basically a black hat who uses cheap laundry detergent. Tweet

Grey Hat refers to SEO using both Black and White Hat techniques.

Guest Blogging

Guest Blogging is a strategy used for link-building and brand generation, where you submit content to other websites in order to gain a backlink within your author bio and/or generate interaction with the site’s readers. Guest blogging works best when you don’t think about it as link building but approach it as authority building instead. In 2014, Google announced possible penalties on Guest Blogging done for the sole purpose of influencing a site’s ranking in Google.

Headings (H1, H2, H3)

Headings are HTML tags that carry a significant weight in rankings. Usually, the H1 is very similar to the title tag, if not exactly the same. There should only be a single H1 tag on each page. It’s also a good idea to use heading hierarchy. For example, a H2 may contain three H3s, then you could have another H2 with another three H3s. The H3s could have some H4 childs, but you could also just bold that text.

Hidden Content

Hidden content is content that exists in the HTML version of the page, but isn’t directly visible in the browser. Although not always the case, it’s often used as a black hat SEO tactic, to add extra content that only the search engines will see.

Href and A Href

Href, short for Hyperlink Reference, is an attribute of the <a> anchor tag or what we know as a link. The href specifies the source where the anchor tag should point to. It can be internal (your own website) or external (another website), relative (/page/) or absolute (www.site.com/page). A full anchor tag with href also contains an anchor text and would look something like this: <a href=”http://site.com”>anchor text</a>.

Hreflang

Hreflang is an HTML meta tag attribute that specifies what language version of a site should be displayed in the search engines. The attribute must be reciprocal. For example, if you have both English and German versions of your website, the English version should have a hreflang=”de” attribute, and the German version should contain a hreflang=”en” attribute. More about this can be read here.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

HTML is the most popular markup language for creating websites and web applications. HTML is often used in combination with JavaScript and CSS (Cascadig Style Sheets).

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

HTTP controls how hypertext is transfered around the web. It represents how components communicate with each other, and has a series of permissions and restrictions.

HTTPS

HTTPS is the same as HTTP, the only difference being that it usess SSL encryption to secure the transfered data.

HTTP Status Code

The HTTP response status code indicates whether a HTTP request has been successful or it has encountered some sort of problem. See status code examples here.

Hummingbird (Google Update)

Google Hummingbird is an update in the Google search algorithm that addresses synonyms and context. It was released in 2013 and its purpose is to identify the user’s search intent in order to return the most relevant search results.

Icognito Tabs/Private Windows in Browsers

In a Web Browser, an incognito tab (or private window) is a tab that does not store Cookie information. This means that previous searches or visited sites won’t affect your search results, although location might still influence them. You can access a private tab by pressing CTRL + Shift + N.

Image Optimization

There are two types of image optimization. The first one refers to the keywords used in the image’s URL, description and title. Although Google can recognize images, it can’t really tell what it’s about, so it uses the description to figure that out. A well optimized web page should include some keywords in its image descriptions. The second type refers to size. This is very important in SEO, as it directly affects a website’s loading speed. Slow loading websites get a lot less traffic than fast loading ones. Don’t use CSS to shrink a 500×500 pixels image to 200×200 pixels. Resize it and use the 200×200 version directly. Also, use image compression websites or plugins to make your images KB size as small as possible.

Impressions

Impressions refer to how many times your link/ad/website has been in the view field of a person, without being clicked. For example, if your site is ranked 3rd in Google and 1000 people view that Google web page, you would have 1000 impressions.

Inbound Link (Backlink))

Inbound Link (Backlink) refers to an incoming link to a website or a web page. A high number of inbound links is an indicator of the importance of that website. In SEO lingo, inbound links are also known as Backlinks, Incoming links, Inbound links, Inlinks or Inward links.

Internal Link

Internal Link is a link on a web page that links to another page on the same site or domain.

Indexed Pages

Indexed Pages refer to the website pages that have been visited, investigated and stored by a search engine. The purpose of indexing is to improve the relevancy in a search query. If a page has not been indexed by a search engine, that page will not be listed in the search engine results.

ISP (Internet Service Provider)

The ISP is the company which provides you the internet. If an ISP has a lot of spammy users, entire IP classes can get blacklisted. If your IP is also on that blacklist, sites might start blocking your computer from accessing them.

Javascript (JS)

Javascript is a programming language often used to create interactive effects in web browsers, such as animations in sliders. Although very powerful, it’s also very heavyweight. Sites with a lot of scripts tend to load slower.

John Mueller

Juhn Mueller is the current head of Google’s Webspam team. He hosts regular hangouts on the Google Webmasters channel. Webmasters from all around the world can ask questions about SEO and website performance there, and John will answer.

KPI

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator and it’s a value used to measure how effectively a business is in achieving its main objectives. For example, in a web based business, traffic can be a KPI. You measure it to determine the success of your SEO and marketing efforts.

Keyword Density

Keyword density refers to the percentage of times a keyword or a keyword phrase is found in the content of a page, among all other content. For example, if on a 100-word webpage a keyword phrase is repeated 5 times, regardless if it’s in the content, headlines, captions, advertising, etc., the percentage of the key density will be 5%. There isn’t a rule or an optimum percentage of the keyword but you have to take into consideration that too little might not be clarifying enough for the search engine to figure out what the page is about and too much might have an unnatural aspect.

Keyword Research

Keyword Research is the process of determining the right keywords to target for your search marketing campaign.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is usually correlated to unethical SEO techniques and refers to the practice of inserting a large number of keywords into a webpage with the purpose of manipulating the search results. This kind of keywords appear in large lists or groups with other keywords, usually out of the context. Keyword stuffing is also known as keyword loading or spamdexing.

Landing Page

Landing page is the page where a visitor arrives after he/she clicks a link from the search engine result pages usually. A landing page can be a page that naturally ranked in the SERPs or can be a website that was advertised on the search engine results. In digital advertising campaigns, such as Pay-per-Click campaigns, the landing page is considered the place where the deal is closed. There are two types of landing pages: transactional pages (pages that encourage a visitor to take an action of some kind, buying a product, filling out a form, etc.) and reference pages (pages that offer information according to the searched keywords).

Link Exchange

Link exchange is the process of trading links for links. If you have a blog and your friend also has a blog, you could exchange links. These links will send traffic from one to another and will also bring an SEO benefit. However, excessive link exchanging is considered to be a black hat tactic, so don’t overdo it.

Link Bait

Link Bait, also known as click bait, refers to the content within a website designed with the purpose of gaining attention and attracting other links, used specially in social media area. Matt Cutts defines link bait as “anything interesting enough to catch people’s attention”. Some of the most common link baits are humor hooks, news hooks, infographics, informational hooks.

Link Building

Link Building is the process of building incoming links to a website. There are many different link building strategies that SEO’s use to procure links including direct requests to webmasters, article marketing, directories, guest blogging, social bookmarking, etc.

Linkerati

Also known as linkers, linkerati describes very active and enthusiastic internet users that are most likely to create incoming links or link generating traffic. Linkerati are most likely to become the target of a linkbait campaign as they generate and share quality links that help sites to gain higher traffic.

Link Sculpting

Link or page rank sculpting is the process of manipulating how page rank flows through your website. It’s obsolete, as explained here.

Local Rank Tracker

Local Rank Tracker is a feature that allows you to see how your site is performing in specific locations. Rank positions can vary dramatically for one region to another, or even from a city to another. A Local Rank Tracker gives you the opportunity to see how your site is ranking in different geographical areas.

Link Juice

Link juice is not just really a soda. Tweet

This is a term used to refer to the value of a link. For example, a dofollow link from CNN to your website would have a LOT of link juice. Also, pages with an excessive amount of links are leaking link juice.

Link Reclamation

Link Reclamation is a link-building strategy where you go to find mentions of your brand or business to see if you can get links from those mentions. It also includes the process where you find links pointing to missing pages on your website so you can redirect them to live pages.

Link Profile

Link profile is considered to be the distribution of the links that are pointing from other sites to a site. The link profile does not include internal sites’ links.

Link Velocity

Link velocity – represents the growth trend of a sites’ link profile. Link Velocity trends can also be natural or unnatural. An unnatural link velocity will have various spikes on various timeframes without generating a natural looking trend.

Link Audit

Do you want to develop a strong digital marketing strategy? Start with a link audit! Tweet

Link Audit is an in-depth analysis that allows you to closely inspect elements related to the link building strategy, link positioning, unnatural links, link velocity, link authority, competition analysis, etc. A link audit is at help in detecting problems and opportunities for your website but it should also be the first step in developing a strong digital marketing strategy.

Link Quality

Search engines examine each link on the websites and determine their value. The precise algorithms that the search engines use to determine the quality of a link are not known. Yet, in determining the quality of a link page, terms as domain authority, trustworthiness, relevance or popularity are taken into consideration.

Link Farm

Link farm refers to any group of sites where all the pages link to each other. Link farms are usually a form of spamdexing as most of them are generated by automated programs. Link farms created manually are designed to allow websites to exchange links with relevant web pages. These ones are not considered a form of spamming.

Local Search Optimization

Local Search Optimization is the process of optimizing your business website for local search results. This includes optimizing your website itself to help search engines determine your location and building local citations to further confirm your business’s local status.

Local Search Query

Within a Local Search Query, results are displayed as an outcome of a search for a specific location. Search engines allow users to submit geographical constraints on their search query. On a local search query, a user will also include information such as city name, neighborhood, street, postal code, etc. For example, a local search for bookstores will look like this: “Manhattan bookstore”, “Bellevue Avenue bookstore”.

Long Tail Keyword/Head keyword

Long Tail Keywords are types of keyword phrases that come from the right part of the search demand graph. There’s a correlation between the search volume and the number of words. That’s why many people think that a long tail keyword must actually be long. In fact, long tail keywords are keywords that have a very low search volume individually, but a huge one when combined. Head and body keywords only compose about 30% of the traffic on the web. The rest are Long Tail Keywords. They are more specific than the usual keywords and are used when the website wants to refine search terms to the website or when the searcher is looking for something very specific. They are also used as an SEO strategy as they are less popular and therefore, less competition. For example, “most effective cold and flue medicine” is a long tail keyword, as it average about 10 searches each month. Head term keywords, on the other side, are more frequently searched. In our example, the head keyword would be “flu medicine”, with about 22000 searches. The correlation between search volume and phrase length is pretty visible in this example. However, if your name is not Donald Trump or Tom Cruise, it could also be a long tail keyword.

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing)

LSI is linked to an algorithm called Latent Semantic Analysis which analyses keyword ratios and relationships between different documents. Basically, search engine now don’t just look at the keywords on your page, but also at other relevant keywords on related documents around the web. We also use LSI in our Keyword Tool and Content Assistant to help you improve your content. The tool will recommend keywords you should add to your content in order to make it more relevant for a topic.

Low Quality Links

Low Quality Links are links from sites that Google does not deem as valuable. Links from pages with tons of links on them (like link farms), article networks with low quality content, and link exchanges on “resource” pages are considered low quality.

Manual Penalty

A manual penalty is a ranking penalty unrelated to any of Google’s algorithms. A manual review penalty is applied to a website by a Google employee. If you get a manual penalty, you will receive a warning in Google Search Console. These penalties are usually applied to websites with thin content that aren’t really useful for the users. To protect yourself from these penalties, make sure you add a contact and an about section, so that the Google employees can see you’re a legit business.

Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts is larger than life. He cannot fit in 140 characters. Tweet

Matt Cutts is a software engineer and the former head of Google’s Webspam team. His work was concentrated on fighting spam and helping webmasters understand how search works. The current head of the Webspam team is John Mueller.

Metadata

Metadata can come in many forms. It represents data that summarize basic information about other data. Using metadata, search engines can find information about a page easier.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are HTML tags on each page that tell search engines what the page is about. The title tag is the most important element to optimize a page for a particular keyword in search. While the meta description doesn’t help with keyword optimization, it is usually shown in search results below the title tag and can help increase click-throughs if written well.

Meta Description

The meta description is a HTML meta tag that displays the description under your page’s title in Google’s search results. Although it doesn’t affect SEO directly, it can have a big impact on CTR. Google doesn’t always display the exact description you want. Sometimes, it just selects chunks of relevant text from your website.

Meta Keywords

Meta Keywords used to specify what keywords a website should be ranked for. Because it was heavily abused, Google declared them obsolete in 2009.

Minifying HTML CSS JS

Web code and files such as HTML, CSS and Javascript can be minified in order to make them smaller in size. This way, they will be downloaded faster and the website will load faster. See Compression.

Mobile Friendly

A mobile friendly website should display accordingly on a mobile device. If it displays the same as on a desktop device, then it’s not mobile friendly. Browsing a desktop version on a small device can be difficult, as you have to zoom and swipe a lot. There are two types of mobile friendly sites: the first is the sepparate mobile version, and the second is the responsive version, that adjusts its width according to the screen size. Since more than 50% of the searches on the internet are made on mobile devices, Google announced in 2015 that sites that are not mobile friendly will get a penalty. This update was also called Mobilegeddon.

Mobile First Indexing

Since most people browse the internet using their mobile devices, Google announced in late 2016 that they will use the mobile versions of the websites to evaluate their relevance for the user. This could cause problems in case the mobile version doesn’t show the entire content of the site. In this case, a responsive version would be better, as the content will remain mostly the same.

MOZrank

MOZrank is a popular score in the SEO industry and it is Moz’s authority score based on the number and quality of incoming links.

Nameserver (DNS)

A nameserver (Domain Name System) simply connects a server’s IP to a more friendly name. This way, you won’t have to memorize an IP when trying to connect to a server.

Natural Language Processing

Computers understand human language through a process called natural language processing. It involves linguistics, artificial intelligence and computer science. Google uses Natural language processing to determine what pages are more relevant to different search queries. It also uses it in voice search, translations and spam detection.

youtube

Natural Links

Natural links are a type of backlinks that Google prefers. They are harder to get and are a direct results of your content and marketing efforts. However, unlike unnatural links, they will provide long term SEO benefits.

Natural Search Results

Natural search results, also known as “organic search” refers to that search where the results are returned based on a natural indexing, due to the search engine’s evaluation algorithms and not based on a paid ad.

Negative SEO

Negative SEO is the process of using black hat SEO tactics in order to get someone else penalized by Google. It’s usually done by unethical people to their competitors. Since they can’t outrank the competition fairly using the Google guidelines, they will try to pull the competition down instead.

Niche Site

A niche site is a website build specifically for a single niche/subject. It’s usually small in size (10-20 pages) and offers information on a single topic. In order to have a sustainable business, more than one niche site must be created. These sites are monetized through affiliate sales or Google Adsense.

Noindex

Noindex is a command that tells search engine robots not to index a certain page so that it cannot be found in SERP. Noindex can be used on pages that one wishes to keep private, employee only pages or on webpages that are very transitory.

Not Provided

Not provided. A term you should definitely know about in SEO industry Tweet

In October 2013, Google made an important change by stopping providing keywords for search traffic. That means that when a search is made on a secure Google webpage, the search term would no longer be passed on the destination website but will be grouped in Google Analytics under the keyword “not provided”.

Off-Site Optimization (OffPage SEO)

Off Page optimization refers to Google ranking factors and signals that are outside of your direct control (not on your website). The most popular offsite optimization technique is link building. Some other types are reviews, social media and citations.

On-Site Optimization (OnPage SEO)

On-site optimization is configuring your website to be discovered by search engines and indexed according to the keywords you are targeting. This includes optimizing meta tags (title, description, etc.) for keywords and optimizing content on each page to support the keywords a page is optimized for.

Organic Links

Organic links are simply natural links. Ones that you don’t have to request, purchase, or otherwise place yourself. They are the ones given freely by other website owners based on the merit of your content. These are the most sought-after links, and the reason why link baiting exists.

Organic Search Results

Organic search results are the websites that show in Google that are ranked by Google Bot’s ranking algorithm. They display under the paid ads results, but are usually the most clicked links anyway. To get ranked higher in the organic search results, you have to optimize your website for search engines (SEO).

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is the web traffic that gets to your website through the organic search results.

Outbound Link

An outbound link is a hyperlink that points from your website to any other website other than your own. It’s also known as an external link.

Pagerank

Google pagerank is a metric used by the search engine in its algorithm to rank web pages. Contrary to common popular belief, Pagerank is not obsolete.

Page Views

Page views is a metric that measures how many pages a user visits in a single session on your website.

Paid Links

A paid link is a backlink that has been purchased through a service or directly from a website owner. Google advises that these links should include the nofollow attribute to specify that they are sponsored and that PageRank should not flow. Not following these guidelines can result in Google penalties.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is the acronym for “Pay per Click” and is an online advertising technique in which an advertiser pays the website owner when the ad is clicked. Adwords is maybe the most known PPC advertising platform.

Pay Per Action (PPA)

PPA is the acronym for “Pay per Action” and is an internet advertising technique very similar to PPC with the mention that the pay is done only when clicks result in conversions.

Paid Search

Usually refers to pay per click search marketing through Google AdWords.

PageRank

Judge me by my PageRank, do you? Tweet

PageRank is the Google authority score given to pages on the internet. This score is based on the number and quality of incoming links a website has. PageRank ranges from 0 (lowest authority) to 10 (highest authority). Only sites like Google itself, Twitter, etc. have PageRank 9 or 10. Average sites with strong link profiles usually fall between PR 3 to 6.

Persona

Persona refers to fictional character whose purpose is to give a sense of empathy for your users. Persona is generating information about your target’s needs and gives you insights about the reasons visitors are on your site. Personas are working like information and knowledge seekers.

Personalization

A search engine’s attempt to bring more personalized results to searchers based on their social networking connections. Google bases personalization on a user’s connections on Google+ and location, and Bing bases personalization on a user’s connections on Facebook and location.

PHP

PHP is the main programming language used for developing websites and web applications.

Private Blog Network (PBN)

A private blog network is a blackhat/grayhat SEO method. It consists of purchasing expired domains with high domain performance and using them to link to your main website. This will provide and SEO boost. However, if detected, these PBNs can cause serious penalties.

RankBrain

Rank Brain is a Google ranking algorithm which uses Artificial Intelligence to determine what websites are the best for the user. It’s considered to be one of the top 3 most important ranking factors, along with backlinks and content quality. RankBrain’s algorithm versions are tested offline before going live.

Ranking Factor

Ranking Factor represent the factors that search engines use in order to rank webpages. For instance, Google uses at least 200 of these factors in its algorithm, such as trustworthiness, domain length, social signals, keyword density, etc. Ranking factors differentiate better positioned websites from pages placed beneath in search results.

Rank Tracking

Rank Tracking is a tool that gives you the possibility to investigate search engine rankings by pages and keywords. Tracking your ranks daily or weekly would give you insight both on your site’s traffic and your competitors’ traffic.

Redirection

A redirection happens when someone accesses a link/URL and immediately lands on another. It’s the result of the HTTP status code 301.

Referring Domain

The number of referring domains is more important than the number of backlinks. Tweet

Referring Domain, also know as “ref domain”, represents the domain that people “came from” when visiting your site. It is basically the domain from which an inbound link is pointing to a certain page. If, for instance, you are looking in Google for a part of your website and Google returns your site in the search list, when you access your site from that list, the referring domain will be Google.com. If people are talking about your site on forums and someone links to your site from that forum, then the forum will be the referring domain. The number of referring domains is more important than the number of backlinks.

Reciprocal Link

Trading your wife 4 links doesn’t mean you’re doing reciprocal linking. Tweet

Reciprocal link refers to an agreement between two site owners to provide mutual link between their websites. Reciprocal link purpose is to increase traffic for both sites but also to show a partnership between the two or to provide a quick access to a related website.

Relevancy

Relevancy usually applies to content, but can also be applied to anchors and keywords. Google prefers backlinks that are coming from relevant pages. If you have a sewing website, links from automobile forums might not be very helpful. However, adjacent topics can easily be found. In our example, those links might be helpful if you’re posting them in a custom car upholstery thread. If the links are surrounded by relevant content, they will be more valuable.

Responsive Design

A website with a responsive design (as opposed to a full mobile version) will adjust its width according to the device’s screen size. Responsive design is based on CSS. The main advantage of a a responsive design is that both the mobile and desktop versions will work on the same URL (no m.site.com version). A big issue with responsive websites are the images. Many designers/developers forget to resize the images accordingly on smaller widths. If images are made smaller through CSS only, the full size image will be downloaded anyway. This slows the website down drastically on mobile devices. To get the right sizes images on the right widths, one can use the srcset image tag attribute.

Return On Investment (ROI)

The profit you make from an invested amount of money is called return on investment. If you invest $100 and make $150, your return on investment is 50%. Compared to direct PPC advertising, SEO ROI is a little big harder to figure out, so it requires a very good monitoring system to be set up.

Robots.txt

Robots.txt , also known as “Robot Exclusion Standard” or “robots.txt protocol”, refers to a standard text file that instruct search engine robots how to crawl and index webpages. For instance, through robot.txt you can instruct a search engine not to crawl and index certain files or directories within your site.

RSS Feed (Rich Site Summary)

The Rich Site Summary notifies you of new content on your favorite websites. Instead of you having to check what’s new on each site, the sites RSS can notify you when something new has been posted. It’s like Netflix vs. the old video store.

Search Algorithm

Most likely referring to Google, the Search Algorithm is the system that determines what sites rank for particular keywords. If you want to get a general idea as to what Google algorithms look for, you can refer to Google’s own How Search Works page.

SEM

SEM – stands for “Search engine marketing” and describes the paid search activities whose purpose is to increase webpages’ visibility in SERPs. SEM is a form of internet marketing that often uses SEO techniques for obtaining high rankings in SERPs.

SERP

SERP- is the acronym for Search Engine Ranking Page and refers to the list of results returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query.

SERP Volatility

SERP Volatility stands for ranking fluctuations. Variation in the algorithmical SERP may occur due to changes in the content of a ranking page, the number of inbound links pointing to that page, the competitiveness of a given keyword or niche, etc. This fluctuations may appear even daily or hourly.

Search Engine

A search engine is a software/program that identifies items in a database. When an item corresponds to a search query, it gets pulled and shown as a search result. Google is the biggest known search engine.

Search Query

Search Query refers to a request that a user makes using a search engine. Every time an internet user “searches” for something on a search engine and presses “enter”, a search query is made. Every search query adds data to the search engine and the results generated become more accurate.

Shared Hosting

As opposed to a dedicated hosting package, a shared server hosts multiple website owners on the same hardware and IP. This can be dangerous, as if one website spams or gets blacklisted, the penalty will be shared through the IP. If you’re on a shared hosting package, it’s a good idea to purchase a dedicated IP address.

Sitemap

An XML Site Map is a web file that lists and structures all the URLs of a specific website. Search Engines use XML Sitemaps to easily identify new pages on websites. It’s especially helpful if your site is brand new, and search engines don’t crawl it very often.

Site Submission

A site can be submitted for indexing to search engines. Google used to have a page where you could submit your URL, but it’s deprecated. To submit new URLs now, you have to connect your site with the Google Search Console and access Crawl > Fetch as Google > Fetch and render. Submitting new content as soon as possible is essential, as content can be stolen from your website by content scrapers. Bing still has a simple submit page, but can only insert the Homepage.

Snake Oil

Snake oil is usually a term assigned to those called “salesmen” that offer webmasters guarantees to appear in the top ranking for a certain keyword. They usually try to convince the site owner that their site is not well optimized and promise groundless high ranking for unreasonably amount of money.

Sockpuppet

In SEO, sockpuppet has nothing to do with The Muppet Show. Tweet

Sockpuppet refers to an online identity created with the purpose of hiding a real identity or assuming multiple user profiles. The sock puppet usually poses as an independent third-party that defends or supports a person or an organization.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a link building strategy where you bookmark a webpage on a social site, such as Delicious, StumbleUpon, Diigo, and similar networks. These bookmarks are usually listed under a profile that is visible to the public. Many of these networks will count the number of bookmarks/votes for a webpage and potentially move it to the homepage if it becomes popular within in a short period of time.

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing includes all the marketing/promotion methods that imply social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.

Social Media Poisoning

SMP is not just PMS being read backwards. Tweet

Social media poisoning is a black hat technique that refers to the practice of generating spam content on behalf of a competitor. SMP’s purpose is to put a negative light on a certain brand, making it look like a spammer on social media channels, forums, blogs, etc.

Spam Ad Page

Spam is more than Matt Cutt’s breakfast. Tweet

Spam ad page refers to a page with advertising purpose in which the content is generated automatically by a machine. This kind of pages don’t add value for the viewers, other than promoting Ads.

Spambot

A spambot represents an automated program which assists the sending of spam. Spambots can harvest email addresses, on chat rooms or web forms.

Spider

To read about search engine spiders, check the crawler section.

Spider Trap

Spider trap refers to a set of links that are used to cause a web crawler to create an infinite number of pages which don’t exist on the site or cause a poorly constructed crawler to crash. Spider trap may be used intentionally or unintentionally and are created to catch the spambots.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a link-building strategy where you bookmark a webpage on social sites such as Delicious, StumbleUpon and similar networks. These bookmarks are usually listed under a profile that is visible to the public. Many of these networks will count the number of bookmarks/votes for a webpage and potentially move it to the homepage if it becomes popular within in a short period of time.

SSL

Secure Sockets Layer is the standard security technology for establishing secure connections between servers and browsers. An SSL connection’s information is encrypted, which means that even if a man in the middle were to steal the information package, they could not read it without the decryption key. It’s very useful (mandatory these days) when doing credit card purchases.

Static URL

On a static URL webpage, the content remains the same. The static URL is like a unique identifier for a unique webpage. For more information, see Dynamic URLs.

Supplemental Index

Supplemental Index refers to Google’s secondary database containing pages considered to have less importance. The importance of a page is measured by the number of links pointing to it. If, according to Google’s algorithm, a page is depreciated, it will not pass to the target page. It will appear on a supplemental page that will rank in search results only if there are not enough pages in the main index. Supplemental results are rarely rank and, thereby, they don’t pull much weight in Google.

Topical Authority

Topical authority refers to the expertise of a website on an entire topic. Instead of targeting a bunch of keywords, think of covering topics that relate to your main industry. For example, if you have a marketing blog, you could talk about SEO, PPC, Content and many other related topics. Topical authority has been linked to better rankings overall.

Traffic Rank

Traffic Rank is a measure that allows to see the popularity of a website and how a webpage is ranking in comparison to other sites. Traffic rank is based on traffic statistics and is calculated using a combination of the estimated daily unique visitors and the estimated number of pageviews.

Title Tag

Title Tag is one of the most important elements in SEO and refers to the main text that describes an online document. The title tag is supposed to give information about the whole page in a few words. Thereby, it is very important to get the title tag right in order to have good search engine results. Title tags can appear in browsers, in search engine results pages and in external websites.

Trackback

Trackback helps bloggers keep track of who is linking to their articles. Can be seen as a way for bloggers to communicate between their web-blogs, a kind of “link notification”.

Trust Flow

TrustFlow is a metric from Majestic SEO that measures how trustworthy a website is.

Trust Rank

Trustrank is a semi-automatic link analysis technique that helps separate spammy webpages from good ones.

Universal Results

The first sample for Google universal search was made in 2001 for Britney Spears. Tweet

Universal Results represents the lists of results generated by Google Universal Search system, which integrate a vast amount of information available (images, text, video, etc.) into one set of search results. For example, if you search for “Michael Jackson”, Google will return images of him blended with videos or biographical information, all in the main webpage result.

Unnatural Links

Unnatural links are like unnatural food. Looks good but has incredibly bad long-term consequences. Tweet

Links deemed as unnatural are those that are created with the sole purpose to influence Google’s ranking and are against the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Unnatural Link Profile

A site may have an unnatural link profile if the collection of unnatural links that are pointing to the site is very high. Sites that have an unnatural link profile have a high risk of being penalized by Google or other search engines.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

A URL is the address of a web page. It’s what you type into your Browser to access a website. http://cognitiveseo.com is a URL.

User Generated Content

The term speaks for itself. Forums have user generated content. This kind of content is really useful. It’s unique, and you don’t have to put much effort into creating it. Medium is built with user generated content. This concept applies to games as well. Many games have their own editors in which players can create their own maps and scenes. One of the most popular games in the world, Dota, was created in the Warcraft 3 Map Editor.

User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX)

The user interface is the front-end section of an application or website. It’s what the user interacts with in order to use the application. User experience refers to how easy the application is to use. For example, a low contrast between the text color and its background might result in a bad user experience.

Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing is the act of creating content that gets popular very fast. The terminology comes from viruses, that also spread very fast. It’s not easy to make a viral content, but once you get the hang of it, you can profit a lot. The easiest way of making viral content is through video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zIbM7jSJrg

Vlog

A vlog is just like a blog but with videos instead of articles. The most popular vlogging platform is YouTube.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

A virtual private network adds a layer of security to your connection. It’s usually used to encrypt data and hide location. It’s useful as you can protect yourself from cybernetic attacks.

Virtual Private Server (VPS)

A virtual private server is a remote computer that you can access from your home or office and run operating systems and applications on it. It’s useful if you want to run tools that take time to complete tasks, without overwhelming your PC.

Web Directories

Web Directories are used as an easy source of links for any website. Some well-known quality directory link sources include DMOZ, Yahoo, and Best of the Web. There are many others and some easy ways to spot whether a directory is a good fit for your business, or not.

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO refers to search engine optimization techniques recommended by Google, such as clear linking structures and using descriptive titles.

Whois Privacy

Whois Privacy is hiding the name and contact details of a web domain owner. Google considers Whois Privacy a way of “having to hide something”. For example, Private Blog Network owners might want to hide their names so that their networks won’t be found.

Are there any other terms you would like to see added to this SEO glossary? Please share them with us in the comments section!

The post Ultimate Digital Marketing & SEO Terms Glossary | The List That Covers Them All appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

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