#tumblr would be the most popular social media platform in the world if its tagging system wasnt stuck in the fuckign 80s

[br1ghtestlight]

*through gritted teeth" i looove tumblr's extremely functional and not at all annoying search engine that always works 100% as intended all the time everyday

[transcend-and-evolve-with-renzo]

First Post: Reference

09/07/2022 - 1:54am

Do you consider this time to be early in the morning or late at night? I'm a night person, so I call this time "late at night". And this is a time I thrive in. For some reason, nighttime brings out the best in me. I do most of my thinking during these hours. It's calm, there is little distraction, the sounds of crickets chirping, and cicadas making noise using "tymbals" opens an entire world for me. Yes, I just looked up what it's called when a cicada makes noise. If you didn't know that term, then I'm happy we have both learned an interesting fact.

This is my first blog post ever, and when I think of blogs, I immediately think of Christopher Breaux, now known as Frank Ocean. tumblr was, and still is from time to time, his place to "speak" to whoever. Here's an example of an artist using an unconventional tool to communicate. I say unconventional because most big artists advertise themselves or speak to their fans or whoever through other social media sites such as Twitter or Instagram. Elusive as Frank has always been, he used this specific platform (tumblr) to speak his mind. I always wondered why, and now that I'm taking Social Media Marketing at Kennesaw State University and have decided to start my very own blog on tumblr, I can see why.

I typed "best website to make a blog free" into my search engine and up popped Wix, Weebly, and tumblr. After opening up pages for each of the aforementioned sites, I chose tumblr because 1) I felt it had the best description and 2) I thought of Frank. And here we are. To be honest, I feel scattered while typing now because so many ideas are flooding my mind and I'm working to pick and choose what I say. So allow me to discuss what I would like this blog to be.

I'm Lorenzo. I'm easily inspired, I'm an optimist, and I love to see the beauty in life. One of my favorite things to do is stare at the sky. One of my greatest passions is music. I am absolutely astounded by the art form. Some of my favorite artists include, but are definitely not limited to, Kanye West, Jaden Smith, J Dilla, Logic, Pi'erre Bourne, Playboi Carti, A Tribe Called Quest, Joey Bada$$ and Pro Era, The Alchemist, Madlib, Frank Ocean, The Pharcyde... I could go on and on. All of these people I've named have inspired me one way or another to create my own art, and last year (August 2021) I finally released my first project titled "ChillTape, Vol. 1" on all platforms under the name renzoproduced. I'll discuss that project in further detail in future posts. At this point in time, I want you to know it was a huge stepping stone for me in developing my own unique artistic style. It'd mean the world to me if you gave it a listen. I know you'd love it!

With this blog I'm creating, I'm hoping to build an amazing music/art thought stream. And with this first post, I am taking my first step on this new journey. I want to post music reviews, talk about and show off music I'm listening to, and show who I am through this wonderful art form.

To start, last Friday (09/02/2022) Pi'erre Bourne released his third studio album titled "Good Movie". Before I talk about the project, here's some history on Pi'erre as best as I know it. Pi'erre, born Jordan Jenks, became super well known for producing Playboi Carti's super hit "Magnolia" back in 2017. "Magnolia" featured Pi'erre's now iconic sampled producer tag said by Jamie Foxx on the Jamie Foxx Show that goes, "Yo Pi'erre you wanna come out here?", and a catchy drum pattern as well as a simple yet unforgettable melody. Due to the song's popularity, Pi'erre became a sought-after producer seemingly overnight and other producers began imitating his unique production style. After "Magnolia['s]" release, fans and music listeners alike were begging for more music from the "Carti'erre" duo (a term I coined), and thus in May of 2018, Carti released his debut studio album titled "Die Lit" which was executive produced by none other than Pi'erre. Upon its release, the album was rather controversial as it featured 19 songs (long in today's standards), a seemingly punk front cover, and a rather hard to decipher Playboi Carti rapping over a diverse array of beats. Though this project was misunderstood upon its release, it has since gone on to become platinum (has sold 1 million plus copies) and has been heralded as a classic by fans, many of whom want Carti and Pi'erre to join forces again and create music like it again. From the success of "Magnolia" and "Die Lit", Pi'erre Bourne's name in the music industry became huge, and he wanted to capitalize on it. So in 2019, Pi'erre released his debut album titled "The Life of Pi'erre 4"! And you may be thinking how is "TLOP 4" a debut album if it's the fourth iteration of "The Life of Pi'erre" series? And that is where the early Pi'erre fans such as myself, and Pi'erre himself, will tell you Pi'erre was rapping before he made it big as a producer. In 2016, Pi'erre released three "The Life of Pi'erre" mixtapes on SoundCloud in hopes of one day catching the attention of Kanye West who had just then put out his seventh studio album titled "The Life of Pablo" (which I want to discuss in the future). It was always Pi'erre's dream/goal to make it big as a full artist, not only a producer, and he wanted to create "The Life of Pi'erre" mixtapes until he made it big and worked with Kanye. Thus in 2019, after releasing "TLOP 4" in June, Pi'erre finally worked with Kanye to make the song "On God" for Kanye's ninth studio album titled "JESUS IS KING". He had finally done it. He achieved his goals. Now, it was time for his "TLOP" series to end. But before it went away, Pi'erre wanted the series to go out on a bang. So in June of 2020, he released "TLOP 4 Deluxe" and filled it with snippets of his songs fans had been wanting for the longest times. Then in June of 2021, he did it again with the release of his sophomore studio album "TLOP 5". That brings us to now. Pi'erre has been doing everything he can to make it as a successful music artist and show that he's more than just a producer. The same issue Kanye had when he released his debut album "The College Dropout". Pi'erre knows his strengths and understands what his audience wants/needs, so for his third album titled "Good Movie", he went out of his comfort zone to create music us fans haven't heard from him before and created a vibe like no other. A major strength of Pi'erre's and something fans love from him are the transitions he creates from one song to the next. In past albums and mixtapes, songs would just flow seamlessly from one song to the next. With this album, Pi'erre allowed some of his transitions to have their own space and be their own songs! These transition songs help to build this world Pi'erre creates in his music and literally help to set the scene like any "Good Movie" does. Pi'erre's production style on this album was beyond special and his rapping/vocalizing helped blend everything together so nicely. To me, this truly is one of those albums that I can listen to and it gets better every time because...

I can hear something new in it every time. I feel as if Pi'erre created a masterpiece with "Good Movie" and it's made me super excited to see and listen to his artistry grow, considering I've been an early fan of his. Same thing with Jack Harlow, but I'll save that for another day.

Thank you for reading this far. Let this journey begin!

[lovee-infected]

I'm about to start my own (twst) writing blog and I'm going around writers that I follow for some advice q*q could you give me any wisdom on what I should do when starting a writing blog? thank you!! I love your works and you're one of the writers that inspire me

Aa thank you baby I'm so happy to hear that I inspire you!! First off, good luck with the new writing blog! I'm glad that more authors are joining the fandom and wish you all the best with your works! 💞💖💞 Other than trying to keep your blog organized by creating a proper masterlist, choosing a suitable aesthetic, having a set of rules and making sure to tag all of the warnings and necessary mentions (gender of reader, n/sfw or trigger warning), I tried to come up with some useful advises that might help!

1) Keep up the great confidence!

First and the most important thing about a writing blog, is to be confident and strong. Look, you shouldn't be afraid of posting your works and sharing with the redt of the fandom, even as they're not as perfect as you want them to be. The more you write, the more you learn! And you'd grow to be better and better as you continue to share your works! Not even the greatest authors had been any perfect on their first days!

2) If you're accepting requests, try to set a limit

Being overwhelmed with asks is never pleasant, if you just open your inbox to face 500 requests you'd be to be terrified and confused and even lose your passion to work on any of them because of the stress and not knowing where to begin from. Try to set a limit based on your personal limits, how many requests do you think you can have at the time without stressing out because of how much they are? 10? 20? 50? 100? 200? Doesn't matter! If you feel like you're fine with huge numbers like 200 and 150, it's totally fine! If not, remember that setting a character limit would not only reduce the possible chance of stressing out and overwhelming anxiety but it'll also help you manage your inbox better and easier! You can start taking requests again just as soon as your inbox in cleared!

3) Try to treat yourself every once in a while!

Working on requests can be tiring and sometimes, boring. It's great if you enjoy working on requests no matter what they are but remember to write for your own pleasure every once in a while too!

Even if you have like 100 requests laying in your inbox, feel free to write self indulgent fics or something that you'd like to write even if it's super odd an irrelevant to your normal writings! Remember that you deserve to read something you enjoy just as much as the others do, so don't forget to bless yourself with that beautiful writing of yours ;) Remember that it's your blog, you are free to do everything that makes you happy or anything that you simply enjoy doing ^^

4) Remember that no matter what, toxicity always exists and it's not your fault

Look toxicity is very common to be found social medias, especially platforms like tumblr in which anonymous function exists. Even celebrities and world-famous artists might get attacked over pretty silly stuff every once in a while so it's something usual to happen! I wish you never receive any potentially harmful or rude asks or messages but if you ever do, best would be to block or simply ignore them! People in this platform can be ridiculous sometimes lol, there are people who DM creators just to spam hate and block the creator whom they spammed after wards lol, so don't even bother t waste your time with such people!

If anyone comes to your inbox/DMs/comments to say something harsh or leave a sharp critique, best would be to ignore them. Even if you like to answer or respond to reply to them tey to be chill and not take them seriously. Remember, even if they didn't like your content they could've just scrolled down without bothering to read your work, so if they had the guts to come and spam you with nonsense just because they didn't like your work, it's their fault! They didn't have to read, and it doesn't even matter if they liked your work or not! It's their problem and all, so remember not to let these kind of people get to you at all!

5) Take it easy with writing

Don't push yourself too hard, remember that not everything you write is supposed to be *perfect. This is even more serious when it comes to requests, thousands of unexpected ideas might pop up in your inbox and it makes it quite confusing to choose what to write or do!

First off, don't be any shy or anxious about rejecting the requests which don't follow your rules or come when you aren't accepting requests. Those who violate your rules aren't worthy of your time and work!

Secondly, keep this is mind that you aren't expected to be able to write everything! Sometimes the requests are hard to write, the idea seems odd or hard to understand, or sometimes you just don't feel comfortable or don't want to write it all, which is okay!

You always have the right to take/drop whichever of your requests and you don't owe anyone anything for this, it's your own blog, your work, and your content. Don't ever force yourself to write something which you don't like to write!

6) Your health is always the top priority

Remember that no matter how popular you are, how many followers you have, how many requests are left in your inbox or how much people are wishing to get more of your content, you're free to stop writing and put this wrong at a temporarily (or even permanent) hiatus.

Sometimes you just don't feel like writing, then don't write. If you feel like you're being too busy with work/family/school and anything please don't force yourself to write! Remember that your real life matters always come first!

Also, you might even need a break from writing without necessarily being really busy or sad, sometimes you just need to take a break from everything, and it's totally fine to do! Take as much time as you need and stay healthy during your breaks. It'd be even better if you don't even think of any new ideas/Aus while you're taking a break from writing so you can fully set your mind off stuff! Doesn't even matter if followers/readers are going to appreciate this or not, it's not about them, it's about you. Remember that your good readers/follwers who understand that authors are normal humans and not writing machines would surely understand if you need to take a break too!

7)Keep yourself motivated!

There might be days when you can and have the time to write, but something's holding you back. You feel like procrastinating over and over at some point lose the motivation to write. First off, that's a really normal matter to see as many of us have to struggle with laziness sometimes lol, but there are some useful tips to keep yourself Motamedi and hyped while you're planning to write! A bit of challenge would not only make it a lot more fun, but is also a good way to keep yourself motivated and inspired!

First, try prompt lists! They've always got plenty of useful ideas and inspirational quotes to use and are absolutely amazing to give you new ideas for a writing!

Second, try to challenge yourself by simple stuff like setting yourself word limits, trying to see how much you can write in an hour, use some suggested words in your stories (ex: Banana, train, knife, turkey) as a small challenge! You can also try small events (like milestone or holiday events) to celebrate on your blog with stuff like: Prompt list requests, CYOAs, character interaction and other new stuff that gives you a better motivation tp write instead of just having to work on the same, usual writing requests over and over.

Also, I suggest putting an specific hour for writing/ checking on your blog in your daily schedule as this is also a way of avoiding procrastination, instead of writing 10 requests a day and not writing anything for two weeks, try to set an schedule like writing 1-2 writings everyday! Remember to put your real life activities in the schedule too so you won't have to go through any trouble to find a balance between your real life and running a writing blog!

8) Remember the crediting/copyrights

I'm just adding this here because I can see quite a few of writers using uncredited art for their stories and it's been much and less of an issue lately ^^;

First off, the arts/headers used in your writing. Make sure not to use any uncredited card or anyone else's edit without their permission, otherwise it's nothing different from stealing the work from the original artst!

If you're going to leave a link to the artist, make sure to check on them and check if they allow reposts with credit or not. If they don't, don't use their art. If they do, make sure to give them a proper credit with a link to them! (:

Editors too on the other hand spend a very long time making their edits and and aesthetics, so not copying their work is just as important as not stealing art from the artsits!

Pinterest is filled with uncredited art and if there's a pinterest art who is not linked to the original artist, putting the empty pinterest pin link would be useless and steal counted as stealing art.

9) Stick with your own writing style!

Writing style is like signature, everyone's got their very own and unique writing style. From the way you portray characters to what elements you use as the story develops, you're totally different from each and every of other authors in this fandom!

You may sometimes wonder if your writing style is any good at all while you look at other creators writings and feel the difference, and I gotta say: It doesn't even matter what others are doing! All that is important, is you.

Don't try to change your style to become close another writer's style, your own style is great as it already is! Even if you aren't yet that experienced with writing and feel like your writing could be better, remember that your writing skills will indeed improve as you continue to write and read newer and newer stuff, so don't worry about it!

Each and every writing style has got its own beauty, not everyone may totally enjoy your style at first but and as you continue to write, you'd get to learn what makes people enjoy your writing even more or how you can attract new readers with your writings, your style will change for the better as you write!

Though it's totally fine if you feel like there are writers who inspire and motivate you, remember that you won't have to be them in order to improve! You don't need to be just like them to be great! Even if you do have some issues like being a non-native speaker which can make it quite hard for you to write, you'd automatically learn and have most of your errors fixed as the time passes. I made LOTS of mistakes in my first writings but I hardly ever make any mistakes now because I'm used to it! Though it was a bit late I finally recognized my mistakes and corrected them! And I'd continue to correct more of my mistakes as I continue to write!

10) It's very good to have different writer mutuals

This one is rather optional, just a small recommendation! Though there are many writers who might recommend this as a rather important factor for running a writing blog, I'd say that this isn't necessary as there are still well-known tumblr authors and even twst authors who gained attention to themselves on their own and not with the help and support of any mutuals or writer friends, so it isn't impossible to be successful even without having any mutuals!

The thing with having mutuals is that it makes everything easier. A totally new twst blog can gain around 100 followers on its first without even posting anything more than a writing and a list of rules only because of being supported and boosted by well-known blogs while a for normal blog without any support or boosting, it may take up to 2-3 weeks or even an entire month to gain that 100!

Also, getting to talk with different authors (especially those who are more experienced than you) is motivational and heartwarming, you can feel like you have a team to belong to. You can discuss different writing ideas/issues/blog chores with them and see what they may think. You can even have their support with new ideas if you feel stuck/unmotivated while writing a piece!

I didn't have any mutuals on my first days either and I admit that this made things a bit hard, but it didn't hold me back from continuing to write! Yet I admit that it's surely very useful to have a couple of writer friends around you whom you can share your ideas with! Mutuals support each other, reblog each other's works and give each other a better chance of having their works read by more users, which is quite amazing and helpful!

11) Go for it and don't give up!

Remember that no one, not even the greatest writing blogs have been perfect on their first days. They weren't well-known back then either! And they wouldn't have been any successful today without being hard-working and strong. Leaving up to the previous 10 rules is the hardest part of having a blog, and it's all about not giving up!

Do not try to judge your writing and talents based on the amount of notes your posts get or how many followers you have, because these aren't ever going to show your true worth and talents! But I assure you, if you continue to write even through your hard days, your unmotivated days and your sad days no matter how hard it's supposed to be, everything will change. The more you write, the higher the chance of having new people find and read your works would be! Keeping up the hard work and believing in yourself is the key to achieving anything you may wish for, even having a successful writing blog!

As you continue to write, you'll get more readers, more notes on your posts, more followers and more people who enjoy your content!

Hope that these are helpful, wish you all the greatest and good luck with your writing blog!!💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞

[bettsfic]

do you know anything about like, the development of the purity rhetoric that now seems to be ubiquitous in fandom and how it got there? i used to be on tumblr in like, 2014 and only recently came back to fandom and i remember everyone being generally kind of cool with things like incest ships and morally grey characters (speaking specifically re the frozen fandom and elsa/anna here lmao) whereas now it seems like the conversation about those things has drastically shifted and i am..puzzled by it

this is what i imagine that experience was like for you:

according to fanlore, purity culture started in the homestuck fandom which. based on what i know of homestuck, that tracks. however i’ve never been in homestuck so i’m not sure what that transformation was like. all i know is my personal experience with the disk horse. afaik there’s no cohesive timeline of events across fandom, and i lack the time and resources to be able to make one myself. if anyone knows of one, or wants to make one, please let me know.

i do know that purity culture is a movement started by very young teenagers, who were maybe 13-15 in 2014 and are now 18-20. they were 8-10 when ao3 was founded, and therefore seem to have a limited knowledge of fan history, censorship, and critical thinking. i’m hoping that since they’re now entering college, they’ll get some insight and broader social awareness, and this movement will finally die out in the next few years. 

on any other platform, at any other time, their toxic rhetoric would not have gained traction. but here and now, on tunglr dot com where anyone can gain a platform, where mob mentality thrives and inciting an anonymous dogpile is as easy as hitting Post, where the brokenness of this place makes it difficult to control the content you’re exposed to -- it’s the perfect storm. we live in an age of hopelessness. young people grow up with social media as an extension of their identities, tethered to devices that hold all the information in the world. i think it’s fair for them to be afraid of their futures, and i can understand the desire to control the online spaces where they have the most agency, where their voices are the loudest. 

that may explain why, but not how. as in, where did they pick up this mentality at all? @freedom-of-fanfic (whose work is a necessity in understanding the disk horse) connected anti-shipping to TERF rhetoric. i’ve linked the fanlore page because it has all of the links and some of the responses. i honestly do believe that the language surrounding purity culture has its ugly roots in TERFdom. at its core, purity culture -- the policing of female and queer sexuality -- is misogyny. 

when i started writing destiel circa 2014, fandom was as you described. wincest was a juggernaut on par with destiel. teen wolf was full of underage and noncon. a/b/o was on the rise. it seemed like fandom was a genre without restraint -- anything you wrote, if it found the right audience, would be celebrated unabashedly. people who have been following me for a long time know that i was addicted to adderall at the time and pounding out all sorts of manic nonsense. i remember living on the validation of comments (and at the time, there were lots of comments. not so much anymore, but that’s another story). i got critical comments only rarely, and they were the type that i admired -- readers without judgment thinking through the story, reacting to it earnestly. i made some of my best friends because they left long, critical comments on my work. sometimes they didn’t like it, sometimes they did, but ultimately, they were engaged, and that’s what counted.

i remember my first policing-type comment, i think at the start of all the purity nonsense. it was a destiel fic, and someone very angrily told me i should tag my bottom!cas because it was triggering. i’ve thought about that comment a lot over the years. top/bottom discourse is nothing new, but to say that bottom castiel is triggering? that was ridiculous. but then i realized -- there was a writer in fandom at the time i won’t name, who was known for being extremely sensitive (for bottom!cas especially, which they found triggering), and their very dedicated following offered fic that was safe for their fave to read. i have nothing against this person at all. they were not part of the purity discourse, they were up front about their sensitive nature, and as far as i knew (i believe i met them at a con once?) they were very kind. 

but that commenter had been clearly influenced by this person and believed that a specific fictional character receiving anal sex from another specific fictional character was actual, real triggering content, and it was my obligation as a writer to tag for it. which i did, because i felt bad, and i was baffled by that request. at the time, i wanted more than anything to be liked, and conformed wherever i could. if i got such a request now, i would ignore it because it was rudely written and honestly kind of bonkers. i’d happily add a tag for something i may have missed, or even something i’d never considered before, but there’s no reason a person can’t make that request politely. 

this situation isn’t about purity discourse proper (the commenter didn’t tell me not to write the fic, and it had nothing to do with morality), but it’s the earliest example i can think of where the process of policing had occurred: a person of influence on tumblr affected their follower’s thinking, and that follower felt entitled to command another writer to conform to that ideology.

i could be completely wrong about making these connections. maybe that commenter truly believed bottom!cas was a legitimate widespread trauma. they did not say the fic was triggering to them, but that it might be to some other people, in the same way purity police say “think of the CHILDREN” when in fact they don’t give a fuck about children at all. 

after destiel i moved to stucky, which was, at the time, a juggernaut ship where anyone could write anything. this was also the time when the term “cinnamon roll” became incredibly popular, circa 2015. it was a fun and seemingly innocuous meme, but it positioned the ideas of “purity” and “wholesomeness” in sharp relief, and cemented these ideas by beginning to give it a distinct vocabulary. “trash” was pitched as its opposite. stucky is where i first came into contact with “antis.” in destiel, there had been ship wars, sure, but it was of a different flavor than antis. destiel vs wincest wasn’t about morality in 2014. it was about everything but.

in stucky in 2015, however, the disk horse was running rampant. the MCU had a sub-section of fandom called HTP (hydra trash party) in which steve and/or bucky have dubious or nonconsensual relations with various or many members of hydra. this is the first time i remember being aware of morality becoming a cornerstone of shipping. HTP was loathed by purity police. by the time i wrote a stucky bdsm au, i’d accumulated multiple nasty anons, rude comments from entitled readers, and other nonsense that all said the same thing: your filth is not welcome here in our space of purity. go away.

but the release of the force awakens is what really turned the tide. TFA offered three major ships: stormpilot (as it was called at the time, now finnpoe), reylo, and kylux. the fandom that developed around the sequels was firmly divided. franzeska wrote an amazing meta about this phenomenon which gives some insight into the seeds of purity policing. in short, stormpilot should have been the primary pairing of the sequels, but instead many of the badwrong writers from other fandoms (and HTP specifically, which was how i entered the fandom) flocked to the blank slate of kylux. 

it took a long time for the ship to gain traction. a friend told me that kylux had started with angry star wars racists who hated that there was diversity in the sequel trilogy. and i told them no, i was there, there were twelve of us and a cornchip, and all we cared about was the dirty/darkly comedic potential of these two ridiculous villain characters in one of the biggest franchises of all time. it wasn’t that complicated. i don’t mean to dismiss the discussion of race in fandom; i think it’s important to acknowledge that racism, as franzeska describes far better than i can, plays a huge part in fandom, particularly in star wars, and it’s an important and ongoing discussion to be having, especially given what kelly marie tran has gone through, and how it affected (presumably) rose tico’s extremely limited presence in TROS.

the early fics of kylux weren’t particularly taboo. they were post-TFA hurt/comfort mostly, then slowly the bdsm and power dynamics crept in. those of us who wanted to get away from purity discourse had finally found a new home. for a while. 2016 was the golden era of kylux. we were all very happy.

i remember talking to a friend about how there were certain things i couldn’t write in certain ships. being from ye olden days of fandom, she was appalled by this idea, and told me i could write anything for any ship i wanted, wasn’t that was the whole point of transformative works? and i agreed! but i tried to explain, if you post badwrong for a fandom of purity police, you’re going to, at best, get dogpiled in your comments/inbox. at worse they will find you, call your employer, and try to ruin your life. people will tell you to kill yourself. they’ll report your tumblr and try to get your blog shut down. there are real-life, harrowing consequences to writing taboo fic, and many who write fic as a hobby don’t have the emotional energy to field these risks.

around this time, discord became popular, which offered a private space for badwrong writers to congregate. i had started grad school and didn’t have much time to write fic. metoo was happening. tromp got elected. kylux was slowly turning mainstream so a lot of us turned our attention to gradence in fantastic beasts. some went on to hannibal and other fandoms that hadn’t yet caught the attention of purity police (but it was, as it is now, just a matter of time). kylux, i feel, was specifically decimated by a single fan creator, who was like a police chief. they would get wind of someone writing underage or noncon and write a call-out post about them, and that writer/artist would get pitchforked. a few times, my comments or posts got screencapped, and posts were written urging people to stop reading my works because of how heinously immoral i was. this happened to several of my friends too. 

the great tumblr tittyban of 2017 happened, which only added fuel to the fire and further legitimized the purity movement. i shifted hesitantly to the 100 fandom, which seemed small in comparison to supernatural, marvel, and star wars. i thought it was a chill place. i was wrong; it was just as toxic as other fandoms. but i also didn’t care anymore, and i appreciated that i was mostly left alone. more importantly, i found a lot of support from other people who were as tired of the purity as i was, and @the100kinkmeme was reborn. 

the state of things is pretty abysmal. there are some really amazing writers out there writing under multiple sock accounts, keeping their fandom identities shattered so as not to call attention to themselves. as much as i understand why writers do that, and i respect that decision, i also think it’s sad. it deprives readers the chance to read that author’s other works. it limits the sense of community and our ability to make friends. it fractures the future of the genre.

what’s most important to acknowledge is that none of this is happening solely in fandom. i went to a writers’ conference where 2 of 3 panels were about the history of moral policing and censorship in art. it is worth noting that of the 40-ish visiting writers on faculty, only one (1) was a woman of color (jaimaica kincaid). naturally, older rich white people who have spent their life in the arts are all about death of the author, separation of art and artist. they’re on the total opposite side of purity police, and they won’t acknowledge at all that racism and sexism are a problem in the creative world. they don’t have any nuance on the discussion, or modern perspectives in light of metoo or popular culture. 

this went on longer than i anticipated. i neglected to mention YFIP (your fave is problematic) an old blog that started the idea of call-out culture by pulling receipts on celebrities, and how call-out culture led to cancel culture, which also aided in the purity disk horse. i think a lot can be said about how some of this stuff is genuinely good (metoo and holding men accountable for their bullshit) while also being profoundly toxic (punishing criminals via mob mentality, ruining their careers and livelihoods through social media, rather than giving them their due process in court. i understand it -- the judicial system is built by the hands of the very predators we seek to condemn, but still. the jury of the internet is never a fair trial). 

if you want to read more, my tag is tsatp (the sacred and the profane). i’m sure i’ve left out a lot, but i can only speak to my experience. i think it would be good if people would share their experience dealing with purity policing, too, so we might get a cohesive timeline in place. feel free to reblog and add your story.

[aahsoka]

So having been on tiktok for a bit I wanna talk a little about it.

What I like

It’s actually rather entertaining to scroll through up to 30 second videos one after the other. Sometimes the humor falls flat or it’s not your taste, but the algorithim is quite good at recommending the kind of content you will like.

I joined right when there was a big trend going around about sharing your culture, and soon after a Blackout trend where non-Black creators stopped posting for a day & spread/supported videos by Black creators. So I ended up with a fairly diverse fyp or “for you page”. It also quickly gathered that I am bisexual, so I get plenty of lgbt+ content. There’s some art mixed in there, some cosplay, some historical costuming/seamstresses, lots of avatar jokes lately, musical theatre content, fashion, girls in bikinis on rollerskates (in outer space), commentary on political issues, body positivity, all the kinds of stuff I like. To get a feed that caters to your interests you just have to watch & like videos you’re interested in & eventually it gets a feel for what you’ll watch and what you won’t.

Theres a trend where people say which ‘side’ of tiktok they’re on and I get ‘science side of tumblr’ flashbacks but I’ve mostly avoided the “straight” and conservative sides of tiktok. I would be considered a part of “woke”, “alt” (as in alternative) and lgbt+ tiktok (there are separate ones for each letter of the acronym). Possibly also “theatre” and “cosplay” tiktok. These categories are nebulous and you’re usually part of multiple communities; its just as arbitray as ‘science side of tumblr’ was.

The format reminds me of snapchat a little, and I love to talk to myself on video & post dumb thirst traps for my friends (none of which I’m attracted to so idk what my goal is there) and make stupid jokes. So this app is kinda perfect for my attention seeking side & hyperactive tendencies. Its very easy to consume on a short attention span, though not as easy as vine was.

Being in quarantine, its a way for a lot of people to engage in hobbies that involve community. Cosplay is pretty popular, as its a fun way to show off a costume & dress up & have fun without having to attend a convention. I enjoy the way lip synced audios can be used to emulate the character someone is dressed as; that’s something you couldn’t really do unless you were really good at impressions. Its a nice succinct way to show the process of creating a cosplay as well.

Those who enjoy theatre, but cannot perform in shows at this time, are able to create mini-monologues & sketches as well as sing parts of their favorite songs. Its an avenue through which to perform without putting anyone at risk of the virus. It’s also an easy way to show off your talents without having to go through the audition process & actually get cast in a show as a prominent enough role that someone will notice it.

It’s a convenient format for discourse and educational videos. Nice, short, easily digestible tidbits that stay in your mind. This extremely catchy song, for example: “Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime, and white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime. And all of those stupid stats you keep using are operating off a small sample size. So, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up”.

As well as other videos where people take the time to explain historical events, satirize racist arguments to demonstrate why they are wrong, talk about prevalent tropes in movies, teach a few signs in ASL, share facts about their culture, etc, etc. I have found there are quite a lot of people there from unique and fairly unknown cultures and backgrounds- and this is a place where they’re able to share their culture & existence with people all over the world. There are a thousand different viewpoints. Their videos are doing far more for diverse representation than any other platform, I’d argue, as everyone is extremely visible on the app. (‘Their’ as in the creators, not the app itself).

I also have enjoyed coming across new artists on the app. It’s really fun to watch the process they go through, as most art videos deal with the whole creation of a piece. It’s inspiring. I have also come across a painter who’s work I’m in love with, and a woman who makes and sells the CUTEST ceramic mugs, and I need to purchase some stuff from them both.

Now onto the bad:

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t have much in the way of a filtering or warning system. I talked about that tiktok of the kids coming across human remains? That was just on people’s fyp. Just popped up. No warning. No reason for it to still be up. Traumatizing.

You can click on a video and say ‘not interested’ (I do this to literally every video I get where some girl is thirsting after kylo ren 🤮..... like I want the star wars videos just not THOSE videos). However, it doesn’t seem to know exactly why you weren’t interested, because I still get those videos from time to time. There’s no content filter where I can blacklist the kylo ren or any other hashtag.

There’s some very shitty content. There are racist conservatives. Misogynistic teen white boys. Really weird thirst traps. Videos where people lip sync to something with a straight face and tag it with #acting. Harmful body image trends. I thankfully stay very clear of this, but this kind of content makes me worry for the minors on the app. The one’s who don’t have enough of a concept of self yet to realize they don’t need to be able to do the newest pointless beauty trend to be beautiful, to realize it’s ok for them to be gay, to realize how predatory some adults can be, etc etc.

It is extremely easy to come across minors on the app who don’t look like teens. One time I went to a girl’s page and it said she was FIFTEEN. I’m usually good at guessing ages but something about this app messes that up. I wish there was a way to separate people under 18 and adults. Where I don’t have minor’s thirst traps popping up on my fyp. Where pedophiles don’t get a chance to curate that fyp intentionally. If anyone reading this has kids, I highly recommend they make their tiktok private or only viewable to friends.

Just like any site, there are plenty of bigots. Lots of racist comments. Plenty of transphobia. Any hatred you’ve seen elsewhere, of course it exists on tiktok. I have actually zero clue if you can report people & if it works. Most people seem to send a video commentary to their haters or duet a video of a racist pointing out their racism. I’ve heard of creators blocking people, however. I remember a tiktok of a Black woman who’s video somehow went fairly viral in Poland and now she gets a lot of racist comments from this large group of random racisf Polish followers she has and its extremely time consuming to block them all, as there’s no mass block feature.

The rumors about what works with the algorithm and doesn’t abound. I’ve heard well lit videos get more views. Many people suspect they have been shadowbanned for speaking out about current events. TikTok will remove the audio from videos sometimes if they deem it controversial enough. Most of us know they were criticized recently for intentionally keeping Black creator’s videos from being seen (a catalyst for the Blackout, actually). Or you may also recall when it was criticized for widely removing lgbt+ content. Those creators are fighting to be seen the same amount as straight cis white creators are allowed to be seen with no effort.

The effects some trends could have on teen girls. So many of them are already so uncomfortable in their own skin simply because of societal standards, but the absolutely meaningless challenges people come up with on tiktok make it so much worse. One trend was based around whether your finger touched your lips when you put it in your nose. Or if you could get your clasped hands around the back of your legs and over your butt (if they get passed, you have a flat ass, if they get stuck, its big). These completely arbitrary signifiers of the things you need to have in order to be pretty, are far more ridiculous that anything I have seen yet in my life. I worry about little girls taking these ideas to heart. There is a very kind body positive community on the app & I hope more people can find that.

There’s also that thing where they steal your data. Like most apps. But apparently they got a lot more invasive than usual, so I would look into it before making an account; if you want to do that.

I think the apps users can be great & its a pretty intuitive set up. It certainly deserves its popularity solely as a creative form of social media. That being said, its owners are so so insidious & do the worst things. Just like all other social media, its controlled by the worst kind of people. Who can never figure out how to effectively get rid of nazis or keep kids safe from adult content.

These are my less serious gripes with the app:

1) Lip syncing

When people lip sync and don’t do any kind of skit, joke, etc, just look as if they’re saying what someone else said; I hate that. I have to go back and find the original tiktok so I can like it instead. You literally did nothing interesting by ripping off someones audio and moving your lips along to it. So many people on this app are creative and so many others lack any semblance of creativity.

Also people are too easily impressed by lip syncing to kinda-fast songs. I lip synced to like....10 seconds of the devil went down to georgia and two people praised my lip syncing abilities. Like, I can also sing and talk fast, out loud, isn’t that more impressive? more skillful? The fiddle playing in that song is impressive, not the fact I can lip sync ‘the devil went down to georgia, he was lookin for a soul to steal, he was in a bind, cause he was way behind.’ Have you ever seen someone play Johnny’s fiddle solo????? It’s insane!!!

Rather than see someone lip sync to the verse in Stressed Out 2x faster than normal (which is, extremely simple and the song was overplayed and ingrained into our collective consciousness) and go WOW what about someone.....doing the verse out loud. You can litterally just mouth random words and look like you’re saying the right ones. It’s driving me crazy lmao. I’m set to become a God of tiktok because I have a repertoire of fast songs and rap verses memorized. It’s not even an uncommon skill to speak or sing quickly, people literally make rap music for a living! Listen to it maybe.

2) “Acting”

I am begging you to stop making me sit through those horrible POVs. I cannot take another girl not quite fake crying towards the camera as she lip syncs the words from a song that apply to the random situation she decided she was in. I cannot take another boy who thinks its sexy to stare into a camera and smirk in every single situation he creates.

Back to lip syncing, making facial expressions along to words isn’t really acting. Try saying the words out loud perhaps? The inflection you use with your lines is a pretty big part of acting. Like you can lip sync all you want, just stop tagging it with #acting.

3) Comedic timing, or lack thereof

You don’t need the entire intro to sit there looking at the camera waiting until the first line starts and you can lip sync to the part that’s the joke. You could cut off at least 15 seconds. Brevity is the soul of wit.

When your joke involves both reading text on screen and listening to the song for the punchline, if it isn’t done prefectly, its so difficult to follow. I can’t read a paragraph in 5 seconds. Paraphrase.

4) self deprecating artist audio

the audio thats like ‘this wont get views’ ‘I suck’ ‘you probably won’t see this anyway’ LOVE YOURSELF

It sucks when people dont enagage with your art but it sucks worse when your value in yourself and you art is based solely on receiving that validation. Please find a healthy medium.

Also you’re asking for pity, and you don’t want that. You want people who genuinely love your art for what it is.

5) editing videos is really hard how do you make such cool & smooth transitions????

please help me I don’t understand

Finally

here’s my account if you’re interested

[lanxelot]

LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO ICT

ICT– Information and Communication-

It deals with the use of different communication technologies such as mobile phones, telephone, Internet to locate, save, send and edit information

Is a study of computers as data processing tools. It introduces students to the fundamental of using computer systems in an internet environment.

ICT in the Philippines

          Philippines is dub as the ‘’ICT Hub of Asia” because of huge growth of ICT-related jobs, one of which is BPO, Business Process Outsourcing, or call centers.

        ICT Department in the Philippines is responsible for the planning, development and promotion of the country’s information and communications technology (ICT) agenda in support of national development.

Computer– an electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program. Internet– is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the internet protocol  suite (TCIP/IP) to link billions of devices worldwide.

        Means of connecting a computer to any other computer anywhere in the world via dedicated routers and servers.

    Sometimes called simply ‘’the Net’’, is a worldwide system of computer networks- a network of networks in which the users at any �� one computer can get information from any other computer.

World Wide Web

        An information system on the internet that allows documents to be connected to other documents by hypertext links, enabling the user to search for information by moving from one document to another.

        Is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by URLs, interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet.

        Invented by Tim-Berners Lee

Web Pages

Web page is a hypertext document connected to the World Wide Web.   It is a document that is   suitable for the World Wide Web.

The different online platforms of World Wide Web:

Web 1.0 – refers to the first stage in the World Wide Web, which was entirely made up of the Web pages connected by hyperlinks.

Web 2.0 – is the evolution of Web 1.0 by adding dynamic pages. The user is able to see a website differently than others.

 – Allows users to interact with the page; instead of just reading the page, the user may be able to comment or create user account.

Web 3.0 –  this platform is all about semantic web.

  –  Aims to have machines (or servers) understand the user’s preferences to be able        to deliver web content.

Static Web Page- is known as a flat page or stationary age in the sense that the page is ‘’as is’’ and cannot be manipulated by the user. The content is also the same for all users that is referred to as Web 1.0

Dynamic Web Pages– web 2.0 is the evolution of web 1.0 by adding dynamic web pages. The user is able to see website differently than others e.g. social networking sites, wikis, video sharing sites.

FEATURES OF WEB 2.0

Folksonomy- allows user to categorize and classify information using freely chosen keywords e.g. tagging by FB, Twitter, use tags that start with the sign #, referred to as hashtag.

Rich User Experience – content is dynamic and is responsive to user’s input

User Participation- The owner of the website is not the only one who is able to put content. Others are able to place a content of their own by means of comments, reviews and evaluation e.g. Lazada, Amazon.

Long Tail– services that are offered on demand rather than on a one-time purchase. This is synonymous to subscribing to a data plan that charges you for the amount of time you spent in the internet.

Software as a services- users will be subscribe to a software only when needed rather than purchasing them e.g. Google docs used to create and edit word processing and spread sheet.

Mass Participation– diverse information sharing through universal web access. Web 2.0’s content is based on people from various cultures.

TRENDS IN ICT

Convergence– is the synergy of technological advancements to work on a similar goal or task. For example, besides using your personal computer to create word documents, you can now use your smartphone. 2. Social Media– is a website, application, or online channel that enables web users web users to create , co-create, discuss modify, and exchange user generated content.

Six types of Social Media:

a)Social Networks – These are sites that allows you to connect with other people with the same interests or background. Once the user creates his/her account, he/she can set up a profile, add people, share content, etc

Example: Facebook and Google+

b)Bookmarking Sites – Sites that allow you to store and manage links to various website and resources. Most of the sites allow you to create a tag to others.

Stumble Upon, Pinterest

c)       Social News – Sites that allow users to post their own news items or links to other news sources. The users can also comment on the post and comments may also be rank.

Ex. Reddit and Digg

d)      Media Sharing – sites that allow you to upload and share media content like images, music and  video.

Ex. Flickr, YouTube and Instagram e) Microblogging – focus on short updates from the user. Those that subscribed to the user will be able to receive these updates. Ex. Twitter and Plurk

f) Blogs and Forums – allow user to post their content. Other               users are able to comment on the said topic. Ex. Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr

                         Mobile Technologies– The popularity of smartphones and tablets has taken a major rise over the years. This is largely because of the devices capability to do the tasks that were originally found in PCs. Several of these devices are capable of using a high-speed internet. Today the latest model devices use 4G Networking (LTE), which is currently the fastest.

MOBILE OS

iOS – use in apple devices such as iPhone and iPad

Android – an open source OS developed by Google. Being open source means mobile phone companies use this OS for free.

Blackberry OS – use in blackberry devices

Windows phone OS – A closed source and proprietary operating system developed by Microsoft.

Symbian – the original smartphone OS. Used by Nokia devices

WebOS- originally used in smartphone; now in smart TVs.

Windows Mobile – developed by Microsoft for smartphones and pocket PCs

Assistive Media–   is a non- profit service designed to help people who have visual and reading impairments. A database of audio recordings is used to read to the user.

e.g. Yahoo!, Gmail, HotmailCloud computing-distributed computing on internet or delivery of computing service over the internet.

 -Instead of running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web

e-mail account remotely. The software and storage for your account doesn’t exist

on your computer – it’s on the service’s computer cloud.

It has three components

Client computers   –   clients are the device that the end user interact with cloud.

Distributed Servers – Often servers are in geographically different places, but server acts as if they are working next to each other.

Datacenters – It is collection of servers where application is placed and is accessed via Internet.

TYPES OF CLOUDS

PUBLIC CLOUD allows systems and services to be easily accessible to the general public. Public cloud may be less secured because of its openness, e.g. e-mail

PRIVATE CLOUD allows systems and services to be accessible within an organization. It offers increased security because of its private nature.

COMMUNITY CLOUD allows systems and services to be accessible by group of organizations.

HYBRID CLOUD is a mixture of public and private cloud. However, the critical activities are performed using private cloud while the non-critical activities are performed using public cloud.

LESSON 2: ONLINE SAFETY, SECURITY AND RULES OF NETIQUETTE

INTERNET SAFETY- it refers to the online security or safety of people and their information when using internet. NETIQUETTE- is network etiquette, the do’s and don’ts of online communication.

TEN RULES OF NETIQUETTE

Rule No. 1: Remember the human

        You need to remember that you are talking to a real person when you are online.

        The internet brings people together who would otherwise never meet.

        Remember this saying when sending an email: Would I say this to the person’s face.

Rule No. 2: Adhere to the same standards online that you follow in real life.

     You need to behave the same way online that you do in real life.

     You need to remember that you can get caught doing things you should not be doing       online just like you can in real life.

       You are still talking to a real person with feelings even though you can’t see them.

Rule no. 3: Know where you are in cyberspace.

        Always take a look around when you enter a new domain when surfing the web.

        Get a sense of what the discussion group is about before you join it.

Rule no. 4: Respect other people’s time and bandwidth.

        Remember people have other things to do besides read your email. You are not the center of their world.

        Keep your post and emails to minimum by saying what you want to say.

        Remember everyone won’t answer your questions.

Rule no. 5: Make yourself look good online.

        Be polite and pleasant to everyone.

        Always check your spelling and grammar before posting.

·        Know what you are talking about and make sense saying it.

Rule no. 6: Share expert knowledge

       Ask questions online

       Share what you know online.

       Post the answers to your questions online because someone may have the same question         you do.

Rule no. 7: Help keep flame wars under control

       Netiquette does not forgive flaming.

       Netiquette does however forbid people who are flaming to hurt discussion groups by putting the group down.

Rule no. 8: Respect other people’s privacy.

        Do not read other people’s mail without their permission.

        Going through other people’s things could cost you, your job or you could even go to jail.

        Not respecting other people’s privacy is a bad netiquette.

Rule no. 9: Don’t abuse your power.

        Do not take advantage of other people just because you have more knowledge or power than them.

        Treat others as you would want them to treat you if the roles were reversed.

Rule no. 10: Be forgiving of other people’s mistake.

        Do not point out mistakes to people online.

        Remember that you were once the new kid on the block.

        You still need to have a good manners even though you are online and cannot see the          person face to face.

 Internet security

 Security Requirement Triad                  

ConfidentIality                                  Data confidentiality Privacy

              Integrity         Data integerity                                                        System integrity

              Availability

Threat ConsequenceThreat Action ( Attack)

Unauthorized Disclosure

A circumstance or event whereby an entity gains access to data for which the entity is not authorized.

Exposure: Sensitive data are directly released to an unauthorized entity.

Interception: An unauthorized entity directly accesses sensitive data traveling between authorized sources and destinations.

Inference: A threat action whereby an unauthorized entity indirectly accesses sensitive data by reasoning from characteristics or byproducts of communications.

Intrusion: an unauthorized entity gains access to sensitive data by circumventing a system’s security protections.

Disruption

A circumstances or even that interrupts or prevents the correct operation of system services and functions.

Deception

A circumstance or event that may result in an authorized entity receiving false data and believing it to be true.

Incapacitation: prevents or interrupts system operation by disabling a system component.

Corruption: Undesirably alters system operation by adversely modifying system functions or data.

Obstruction: A threat action that interrupts delivery of system services by hindering system operation.

Masquerade: An unauthorized entity gains access to a system or performs a malicious act by posing as an authorized entity.

Falsification: False data deceive an authorized entity.

Repudiation: An entity deceives another by falsely denying responsibility for an act.

Usurpation

A circumstances or event that results in control of system services or functions by an unauthorized entity.

Misappropriation: An entity assumes

unauthorized logical or physical control of a

system resource.

Misuse: Causes a system component to perform a function or service that is detrimental to system security.

Types of System Intruders

        Masquerader

        Hackers

        Clandestine user

Parts of Virus

Infection mechanism

Trigger

 PayloaD

Virus stages

  Dormant phase                                                                                                                                   Virus is idle.

     Propagation  phase                                                                                                                           Virus places an identical copy of itself into other programs or into certain system areas on t        the disk.

  Triggering phase                                                                                                                                 Virus is activated to perform the function for which it was intended.                                             Caused by a variety of system events

      Execution phase                                                                                                                                 Function is performed

Key Terms

Cyber crime- a crime committed or assisted through the use of the Internet.

Privacy Policy/Terms of Services (ToS) – tells the user how the website will handle its data.

Malware- stands for malicious software.

Virus- a malicious program designed to transfer from one computer to another in any means possible.

Worms– a malicious program designed to replicate itself and transfer from one file folder to another and also transfer to other computers.

Trojan-a malicious program designed that is disguised as a useful program but once downloaded or installed, leaves your PC unprotected and allows hacker to get your information.

Spyware– a program that runs in the background without you knowing it. It has the ability to monitor what you are currently doing and typing through key logging.

Adware- a program designed to send you advertisement, mostly pop-ups.

Spam– unwanted email mostly from bots or advertisers.

Phishing- acquires sensitive personal information like passwords and credits card details.

Pharming- a more complicated way of phishing where it exploits the DNS system.

Copyright- a part of law, wherein you have the rights to work, anyone who uses it w/o your consent is punishable by law.

Fair Use- means that an intellectual property may be used w/o consent as long as it is used in commentaries, criticism, parodies, research and etc.

Keyloggers- used to record the keystrokes done by user. This is done to steal passwords or any other sensitive information.

Rogue security softwares– is a form of malicious software and internet fraud that misleads users into believing there is a virus on their computer, and manipulates them into paying money for a fake malware removal tool.

Four search strategies

   Keyword searching

Enter terms to search

Use quotation marks to search as a phrase and keep the words linked together

Common words are ignored (That, to, which, a, the …)

+ and – can be used to include or exclude a word

   Boolean

AND – enter words connect with AND- it will include sites where both words and found

  Uses: joining different topics (i.e. global warming AND California)

OR   –  requires at least one of the terms is found.

  Uses: join similar or synonymous topics (i.e. global warming OR greenhouse effect)

NOT – searches for the first term and excludes sites that have the second term.

(i.e. Washington NOT school)

Question                                                                                                                                  

a question may be entered in the search field of search engine    

       Advanced                                                                                                                         Features are offered on many engines by going to an “Advanced search” page and  making selections. Effective in narrowing search returns to a specific topic or phrase.

LESSON 3: Advanced Word Processing Skills

Lesson Discussion

In the professional world, sending out information to convey important information is vital. Because of ICT, things are now sent much faster than the traditional newsletters or postal mail. You can now send much faster than the traditional newsletters or postal mail. You can now use the Internet to send out information you need to share. What if we could still do things much faster – an automated way of creating and sending uniform letters with different recipients? Would that not be more convenient?

I. Mail Merge and Label Generation

A. Mail Merge

         One of the important reasons in using computers per se is its ability to do recurring tasks automatically. But this ability has to be honed by learning the characteristics and features of the software you use with your computer. After all, no matter how good or advance your computer and software may be, it can only be as good as the person using it.

         In this particular part of our lesson, we will learn one of the most powerful and commonly used features of Microsoft Word called Mail Merge. As the name suggests, this feature allows you to create documents and combine or merge them with another document or data file. It is commonly used when sending out advertising materials to various recipients.

          The simplest solution for the scenario above is to create a document and just copy and paste it several times then just replace the details depending on whom you send it to. But what if you have hundreds or thousands of recipients? Would not that take too many hours? What if you have a small database of information where you can automatically generate those letters?

Two Components of Mail Merge

1. Form Document

         The first component of our mail merged document is the form document. It is generally the document that contains the main body of the message we want to convey or send. The main body of the message is the part of the form document that remains the same no matter whom you send it to from among your list.

          Also included in the form document is what we call place holders, also referred to as data fields or merge fields. This marks the position on your form document where individual data or information will be inserted. From our sample document, the place holders are denoted or marked by the text with double-headed arrows (<< >>) on each side and with a gray background. On a printed standard form, this will be the underlined spaces that you will see and use as a guide to where you need to write the information that you need to fill out. In its simplest form, a form document is literally a “form” that you fill out with individual information. A common example of a form document is your regular tax form or application form.

2. List or Data File

          The second component of our mail merged document is the list or data file. This is where the individual information or data that needs to be plugged in (merged) to the form document is placed and maintained. One of the best things about the mail merge feature is that it allows data file to be created fro within the Microsoft Word application itself, or it gets data from a file created in Microsoft Excel or other data formats. In this way, fields that needed to be filled up on the form document can easily be maintained without accidentally altering the form or main document. You can also easily add, remove, modify, or extract your data more efficiently by using other data management applications like Excel or Access and import them in Word during the mail merge process.

B. Label Generation

           Included in the mail merge feature on Microsoft Word is the Label Generator. It just makes sense that after you print out your form letters, you will need to send it to individual recipients in an envelope with the matching address printed directly on the envelope or on a mailing label to stick on. By using virtually the same process as a standard mail merge, Microsoft Word will print individual addresses to a standard form that it has already pre-formatted. Simply put, it creates a blank form document that simulates either a blank label or envelope of pre-defined size and will use the data file that you selected to print the information, typically individual addresses. So even in generating labels, the two essential components of creating a merged document are present: the form document and the data file. Only in this case, you did not have to type or create the form document yourself because it was already created and pre-formatted in Microsoft Word. All you need to do is select the correct or appropriate size for the label or envelope and select the data file that contains the addresses (data) to be printed. You can also preview your merged labels before printing if you want to.

II.  Integrating Images and External Materials

          Integrating or inserting pictures in your document is fun and it improves the impression of your document. A common use of inserting a picture on a document is when you are creating your resume. Though seemingly simple to do, your knowledge on the different kinds of materials that you can insert or integrate in a Word document and its characteristics can help you create a more efficient, richer document not only in content but also in physical form. A better understanding of the physical form of your document as well as the different materials you would integrate in it would allow you to be more efficient and versatile in using Microsoft Word.

A. Kinds of Materials

          There are various kinds of materials Microsoft Word is capable of integrating to make the documents richer, more impressive, and more informative.

1. Pictures

         Generally, these are electronic or digital pictures or photographs you have saved in any local storage device. There are three commonly used types of picture files. You can identify them by the extension on their file names.

a. .JPG/JPEG

         This is pronounced as “jay-peg“ and is the short form of .jpeg or Joint Photographic Experts Group. Like all the rest of the image file extensions, it identifies the kind of data compression process that it uses to make it more compatible and portable through the Internet. This type of image file can support 16.7 million colors that is why it is suitable for use when working with full color photographic images. Unfortunately, it does not support transparency and therefore, images of this file type can be difficult to integrate in terms of blending with other materials or elements in your document. But if you are looking for the best quality image to integrate with your document then this is the image file type for you. .JPG does not work well on lettering, line drawings, or simple graphics. .JPG images are relatively small in file size.

b. .GIF

         This stands for Graphics Interchange Format. This type of image file is capable of displaying transparencies. Therefore, it is good for blending with other materials or elements in your document. It is also capable of displaying simple animation. Apparently, this may not be too useful on a printed document but if you are sending documents electronically or through email, or even post documents into a website, then this could be quite impressive. The downside is that it can only support up to 256 colors so it is good mostly on logos and art decors with very limited, and generally solid colors. .GIF is much better for logos, drawings, small text, black and white images, or low-resolution files.

Example of a .gif format picture.

c. .PNG

          This is pronounced as “ping“. It stands for Portable Network Graphics. It was built around the capabilities of .GIF. Its development was basically for the purpose of transporting images on the Internet at faster rates. It is also good with transparencies but unlike .GIFs, it does not support animation but it can display up to 16 million colors, so image quality for this image file type is also remarkably improved. .PNG allows the control of the transparency level or opacity of images.

Example of .png format picture.

2.  Clip Art

         This is generally a .GIF type; line art drawings or images used as generic representation for ideas and objects that you might want to integrate in your document. Microsoft Word has a library of clip arts that is built in or can be downloaded and used freely. There are still other clip arts that you can either purchase or freely download and use that come from third-party providers.

Clip Art Icon in Microsoft Office 2010.

3.  Shapes

         These are printable objects or materials that you can integrate in your document to enhance its appearance or allow you to have some tools to use for composing and representing ideas or messages. If you are designing the layout for a poster or other graphic material for advertising, you might find this useful.

Shapes Icon under the Insert ribbon tab.

4. Smart Art

         Generally, these are predefined sets of different shapes grouped together to form ideas that are organizational or structural in nature. If you want to graphically represent an organization, process, relationships, or flow for infographic documents, then you will find this easy and handy to use.

Smart Art

5.  Chart

Another type of material that you can integrate in your Word document that allows you to represent data characteristics and trends. This is quite useful when you are preparing reports that correlate and present data in a graphical manner. You can create charts that can be integrate in your document either directly in Microsoft Word or imported from external files like Microsoft Excel.

Chart – Used to illustrate and compare data.

6. Screenshot

Sometimes, creating reports or manuals for training or procedures will require the integration of a more realistic image of what you are discussing on your report or manual. Nothing can get you a more realistic image than a screenshot. Microsoft Word even provides a snipping tool for your screen shots so you can select and display only the part that you exactly like to capture on your screen.

III. Image Placement

Layout of  text wrapping options.

A. In Line with Text

This is the default setting for images that are inserted or integrated in your document. It treats your image like a text font with the bottom side totally aligned with the text line. This setting is usually used when you need to place your image at the beginning of a paragraph. When placed between texts in a paragraph or a sentence, it distorts the overall appearance and arrangement of the texts in the paragraph because it will take up the space it needs vertically, pushing whole lines of texts upward.

B. Square

This setting allows the image you inserted to be placed anywhere with the paragraph with the text going around the image in a square pattern like frame.

C. Tight

This is almost the same as the Square setting, but here the text “hug” or conforms to the general shape of the image. This allows you to get a more creative effect on your document. This setting can mostly be achieved if you are using an image that supports transparency like a .GIF or .PNG file.

D. Through

This setting allows the text on your document to flow even tighter taking the contours and shape of the image. Again, this can be best used with .GIF or .PNG type of image.

E. Top and Bottom

This setting pushes the texts away vertically to the top and/or the bottom of the image so that the image occupies a whole text line on its own.

F. Behind Text

This allows your image to be dragged and placed anywhere on your document but with all the texts floating in front of it. It effectively makes your image look like a background.

G. In Front of Text

As it suggests, this setting allows your image to be placed right on top of the text as if your image was dropped right on it. That means whatever part of the text you placed the image on, it will be covered by the image.

IV. Key Terms

Mail Merge – a feature that allows you to create documents and combine or merge them with another document or data file.

Form Document – the document that contains the main body of the message we want to convey or send.

Data File – includes the individual information or data or the recipient’s information.

Merge Field/Place Holder – marks the position on your form document where individual data or information will be inserted.

.JPG – file extension for the Joint Photographic Experts Group picture file.

.PNG – file extension for Portable Network Graphics image file.

.GIF – file extension for the Graphics Interchange Format image file.

Clipart – line art drawings or images used as a generic representation for ideas and objects.

Smart Art – predefined sets of different shapes grouped together to form ideas that are organizational or structural in nature.

Text Wrap – adjusts how the image behaves around other objects or text.

LESSON 4: Advanced Spreadsheet Skills

What is a Spreadsheet Software? • allows users to organize data in rows an columns and perform calculations on the data • These rows and columns collectively are called worksheet.

3. Examples of Spreadsheet Software: • LibreOffice Calc • OpenOffice.org Calc • Google Sheets • Apple iWork Numbers • Kingsoft Office Spreadsheets • StarOffice Calc • Microsoft Excel

4. MICROSOFT EXCEL

5. To open Microsoft Excel, Press “Windows Logo” + R then type “excel” then enter.

6. Key Terms in MS Excel: • Row – horizontal line of entries in a table • Column – vertical line of entries in a table • Cell – the place where info. is held in a spreadsheet

7. Key Terms in MS Excel: • Active Cell – the selected cell • Column Heading – the box at the top of each column containing a letter • Row Heading – the row number

8. Key Terms in MS Excel: • Cell Reference – the cell address of the cell usually combine letter and number (ex. A1, B4, C2) • Merge – combining or joining two or more cells • Formula – is an expression which calculates the value of a cell.

9. Key Terms in MS Excel: • Functions – are predefined formulas and are already available in Excel • Formula Bar – the bar that displays the contents of a cell

10. FUNCTIONS

11. BASIC MATH OPERATIONS: • =SUM(x,y) or =SUM(range) – returns the sum of x and y or (all the numbers within the range) • =PRODUCT(x,y) – returns the product of x and y • =QUOTIENT(x,y) – returns the quotient of x divided by y • =x-y – returns the difference of x subtracted by y

12. BASIC MATH OPERATIONS: • =x+y – returns the sum of x and y • =x*y – returns the product of x and y • =x/y – returns the quotient of x divided by y • =x-y – returns the difference of x subtracted by y

13. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =ABS(x) – returns the absolute value of x • =AVERAGE(x,y) – returns the average of x and y • =CONCATENATE(x,y) – joins x and y

14. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =IF(Condition, x, y) – returns x if the condition is true, else it returns y • =ISEVEN(x) – returns true if x is an even number • =ISODD(x) – returns true if x is an odd number

15. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =COUNT(range) – counts the number of cell containing a number within a range • =COUNTIF(range, criteria) – count the number of cell that fits with the criteria within the range

16. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =ISNUMBER(x) – returns true if x is a number • =ISTEXT(x) – returns true if x is a text • =LEN(x) – returns the length of characters in x • =PROPER(x) – returns the proper casing of x

17. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =LEFT(x,y) – returns the characters of x specified by y (from the left) • =RIGHT(x,y) – returns the characters of x specified by y (from the right) • =PI() – returns the value of pi

18. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =MIN(x,y) – returns the smallest number between x and y • =MAX(x,y) – returns the largest number between x and y • =MIN(range) – returns the smallest number within the range • =MAX(range) – returns the largest number within the range

19. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =POWER(x,y) – returns the value of x raised to the power of y • =ROUND(x,y) – rounds x to a specified number of digits (y) =COLUMN(x) – returns the column number of x • =ROW(x) – returns the row number of x

20. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =SQRT(x) – returns the square root of x • =TRIM(x) – removes extra spaces in x • =UPPER(x) – returns x in all capital form • =LOWER(x) – returns x in non- capital form

21. OTHER FUNCTIONS: • =TODAY() – returns the current date • =NOW() – returns the current date and time

22. EXERCISES

23. Consider this data: NAME MATH GRADE SCIENCE GRADE FILIPINO GRADE ENGLISH GRADE A.P GRADE MARK 75 70 78 81 78 PETE 84 87 86 88 85 ANA 91 92 95 90 90 REA 73 75 74 75 70

24. Give the formulas to get : • Mark’s , Pete’s, Ana’s and Rea’s averages • The highest grade that Ana got • The lowest grade that Mark got? • Sum of all Math Grade? Science? A.P.? • Sum of all Rea’s Grades • The Lowest Number among all grades • The remarks (Passed or Failed)

25. Now, consider this data: FIRST NAME MIDDLE NAME LAST NAME MARK CURTIS WILLIAMS PETE MCCLOEY HARRISON ANA MONROE FRITZ REA TAN COLLINS

26. Give the formulas to get : • Mark’s Full Name • Ana’s Full Name in Proper Case • Count the number of letters that Pete’s Last Name has • “COLL” from Rea’s Last Name • “LOEY” from Pete’s Middle Name • Combining “WILL” and “LINS” from Mark and Rea’s Last Names respectively

LESSON 5: Advanced Presentation Skills

Powerpoint is a highly innovative and versatile program that can ensure a successful communication whether you’re presenting in front of potential investors, a lecture theatre or simply in front of your colleagues. The following are the five features you should be using-if youy aren’t already. Learn everything about these tips: they will improve your presentation skills and allow you to communicate your message successfully. The five features of powerpoint was

1)adding smart art

2)Inserting Shapes

3)Inserting and Image

4)Slide Transitions

5)Adding Animations

Creating an Effective Presentation

1.

Minimize

: Keep slides counts to a minimum to maintain a clear message and to keep the audience attentive. Remember that the presentation is just a visual aid. Most information should still come from the reporter.2.

Clarity

: Avoid being to fancy by using font style that is easy to read. Make sure that it is also big enough to be read by the audience. Once you start making your presentation, consider how big the screen is during your report.3.

Simplicity

: Use bullets or short sentences. Summarize the information on the screen to have your audience focus on what the speaker is saying than on reading the slide. Limit the content to six lines and seven words per line. This is known as the 6 x 7 rule.4.

Visual

: Use graphics to help in your presentation but not too many to distract the audience. In addition, instead of using table of data, use charts and graphs.5.

Consistency

: Make your design uniform. Avoid having different font styles and backgrounds.6.

Contrast

: Use a light font on dark background or vice versa. This is done so that it is easier to read. In most instances, it is easier to read on screen if the background is dark. This is due to the brightness of the screen. LESSON 6: Imaging and Design for Online Environment

PHOTO EDITING

Photo editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are digital photographs, traditional photo chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such as an airbrush to modify photographs, or editing illustrations with any traditional art medium.

Graphic software programs

Which can be broadly grouped into vector graphics editors, raster graphics editors, and 3D modelers are the primary tools with which a user may manipulate, enhance, and transform images. Many image editing programs are also used to render or create computer art from scratch.

BASIC OF IMAGE EDITING

RASTER IMAGESare stored in a computer in the form of a grid of picture elements or pixels.

VECTOR IMAGESsuch as Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape and etc. are used to create and modify vector images, which are stored as descriptions of lines, Bezier curves and text instead of pixels.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RASTER AND VECTOR IMAGES

RASTER IMAGESuse many colored pixels or individual building blocks to form a complete image JPEGs, GIFs and PNGs are common raster image types. Almost all of the photos found on the web and in print catalogs are raster images.

VECTOR IMAGES alternatively, allow for more flexibility. Constructed using mathematical formulas rather than individual colored blocks, vector file types such as EPS, AI and PDF are excellent for creating graphics that frequently require resizing. 3. 3D MODELING (OR MODELLING) is the process of developing a mathematical representation of any three dimensional surface of an object via specialized software. The product is called a 3D model. It can be displayed as a two-dimensional image through a process called 3D rendering or used in a computer simulation or physical phenomena. The model can also be physically created using 3D printing devices.

IMAGE FORMATS

Ø  JPEG is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by a digital photography.

Ø  PNG (PORTABLE NETWORK GRAPHICS) is a raster graphics file format that supports lossless data compression.

Ø  GIF a lossless format for image files that supports both animated and static images.

Ø  BMP is a raster graphics image used to store bitmap digital images

Ø  EPS used in vector-based images in Adobe Illustrator.

Ø  SVG is an XML-based vector image format for two-dimensional graphics w/ support for interactivity and animation

Ø  .3ds is one of the file formats used by the Autodesk 3Ds Max 3D Modelling, animation and rendering software.

Ø  .fbx is an exchange format, in particular for interoperability between Autodesk products and other digital content creation software

FEATURES OF IMAGE EDITORS

SELECTION One of the prerequisites for many of the app mentioned below is a method of selecting part(s) of an image, thus applying a change selectively without affecting the entire picture

Ø  MARQUEE TOOL for selecting rectangular or other regular polygon-shaped regions

Ø  LASSO TOOL for freehand selection of a region

Ø  MAGIC WAND TOOL selects objects or regions in the image defined by proximity of color or luminance

LAYERS which are analogous to sheets of transparent acetate, stacked on top of each other, each capable of being individually positioned, altered and blended with the layers below, w/o affecting any of the elements on the other layers. IMAGE SIZE resize images in a process often called image scaling, making them larger, or smaller. High image resolution cameras can produce large images which are often reduced in size for Internet use.

CROPPING creates a new image by selecting a desired rectangular portion from the image being cropped. The unwanted part of the image is discarded. Image cropping does not reduce the resolution of the area cropped.

CLONING uses the current brush to copy from an image or pattern. It has many uses: one of the most important is to repair problem areas in digital photos.

IMAGE ORIENTATION – Image editors are capable of altering an image to be rotated in any direction and to any degree. Mirror images can be created and images can be horizontally flipped or vertically flopped. Rotated image usually require cropping afterwards, in order to remove the resulting gaps at the image edges.

PERSPECTIVE – is the art of drawing solid objects on a two- dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point.

SHARPENING AND SOFTENING– Sharpening makes images clearer. Too much sharpening causes grains on the surface of the image. Softening makes images softer that removes some of the highly visible flaws. Too much causes the image to blur.

SATURATION- is an expression for the relative bandwidth of the visible output from a light source. As saturation increase, colors appear more “pure.’’ As saturation decreases, colors appear more ‘’ washed-out.’’

CONTRAST AND BRIGHTENING

Contrast of images and brighten or darken the image. Underexposed images can be often be improved by using this feature.

Brightening lightens the image so the photo brightens up. Brightness is a relative expression of the intensity of the energy output of a visible light source.

Adjusting contrast means adjusting brightness because they work together to make a better image.

PHOTO MANIPULATION

Photo manipulation involves transforming or altering a photograph using various methods and techniques to achieve desired results. Some photo manipulations are considered skillful artwork while others are frowned upon as unethical practices, especially when used to deceive the public, such as hat used for political propaganda , or to make a product or person look better.

 DIFFERENCES PHOTO EDITING – signifies the regular process used to enhance photos and to create them ‘’Actual editing simple process’’. Also includes some of the regular programs used for editing and expose how to use them. PHOTO MANIPULATION – includes all simple editing techniques and have some manipulation techniques like erasing, adding objects , adding some graphical effects, background correction, creating incredible effect, change elements in an image,  adding styles , eliminating blemishes from a  person’s face and changing the features of a person’s body.

b.) Infographics

also known as data visualization, information design, and communication design

It is any graphic that display and explains information, whether that be data or words. When we use the term ‘’infographics’’, we’re using it as a general term used to describe data presented in a visual way.

Infographics are important because they change the way people find and experience stories. Infographics are being used to augment editorial content on the web, it create a new way of seeing the world of data, and they help communicate complex ideas in a clear and beautiful way.

TYPES OF INFOGRAPHICS

Statistical

Process Flow

Geographic

PROCESS OF MAKING INFOGRAPHICS

Research

a)Know what is needed

b)Take a reference

c)Know the audience

d)Decide the type of infographics

Brainstorm

a)Gather ideas

b)Build thought process

Design

a)    Choose your tool and start designing

Review

a)     Cross check the data to deliver flawless output

Launch

a)    Make it viral

b)    Share on social network

BEST PRACTICES WHEN CREATING INFOGRAPHICS

a)Maintain a structure

b)Don’t use more than 3 color palletes

c)Typography matters a lot

d)Include source and references

LESSON 7: Online Platforms for ICT Content Development

1.Facebook

Posted on

February 13, 2017

Marketplace – allows members to post, read and respond to classified ads.

Groups – allows members who have common interests to find each other and interact.

Events  – allows members to publicize an event, invite guests and track who plans to attend.

Pages – allows members to create and promote a public page built around a specific topic.

Presence technology – allows members to see which contacts are online and chat.

Within each member’s personal profile, there are several key networking components. The most popular is arguably the Wall, which is essentially a virtual bulletin board. Messages left on a member’s Wall can be text, video or photos. Another popular component is the virtual Photo Album. Photos can be uploaded from the desktop or directly from a smartphone camera. There is no limitation on quantity, but Facebook staff will remove inappropriate or copyrighted images.  An interactive album feature allows the member’s contacts (who are called generically called “friends”) to comment on each other’s photos and identify (tag) people in the photos. Another popular profile component is status updates, a microbloggingfeature that allows members to broadcast short Twitter-like announcements to their friends. All interactions are published in a news feed, which is distributed in real-time to the member’s friends.

Facebook offers a range of privacy options to its members.  A member can make all his communications visible to everyone, he can block specific connections or he can keep all his communications private. Members can choose whether or not to be searchable, decide which parts of their profile are public, decide what not to put in their news feed and determine exactly who can see their posts. For those members who wish to use Facebook to communicate privately, there is a message feature, which closely resembles email.

2. Instagram

Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing site that allows its users to share pictures and videos either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr. Originally, a distinctive feature was that it confined photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid SX-70 images, in contrast to the 4:3 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras. In August 2015, version 7.5 was released, allowing users to upload media captured in any aspect ratio. Users can also apply digital filters to their images. Videos on Instagram debuted in June 2013, allowing prerecorded square standard definition resolution clips of up to 15 seconds to be shared; later improvements added support for widescreenresolutions of up to 1080p and longer recording times for either prerecorded (up to one minute) or disappearing live (up to one hour) videos.

Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010 as a free mobile app. The service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April 2012[10][11] and over 300 million as of December 2014.[12] Instagram is distributed through the Apple App Store and Google Play.[13]Support for the app is available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Windows 10 devices and Android handsets, while third-party Instagram apps are available for BlackBerry 10 and Nokia-Symbian Devices.

3. Twitter

Twitter  is an online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages, “tweets,” restricted to 140 characters. Registered users can post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface, SMS or a mobile device app.[10] Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco, California, United States, and has more than 25 offices around the world.

Twitter is about learning and adding value

It is also about adding value to others by giving or sharing something valuable to them so that they are able to learn something. That is why I usually tweet about stuff that I read, learned or have good value. I have learned so much from the others that is why I love twitter. It is also about helping others, I disagree with many‘experts’ that say you should only follow ‘influential’ users because I don’t judge someone that way, and because I believe the people at Twitter don’t believe in them either. I also disagree that you should only share your own stuff otherwise you will dilute your brand. Sure it makes sense but 24/7 sharing your own blog post and following influential people?

BLOGGING SITES

Weebly

Weebly is one of the easiest website builders in the market.  They allow you to drag and drop content into a website, so it’s very intuitive to use (click here to see our opinion on Weebly).

By using Weebly’s website building elements, you can literally drag them into your website and have a website built relatively quickly, and painlessly.  The beauty of this system is that you can pretty much drag the elements to wherever you want – so it’s not very restrictive on where and how you place your website content.

Weebly’s elements include pictures, paragraphs, videos, buttons, maps, contact forms – basically all the basics for website building.

2. Tumblr

Tumblr is a popular microblogging platform designed for creative self-expression. It is considered a mindful alternative to Facebook and other social media websites where users blog on a myriad of topics.

You can link your Tumblr account to other social networks you use and you can feed your traditional blog or other RSS feed to your Tumblelog. You can also create static pages such as your own Questions page that people are automatically taken to when they ask you a question. If you want to make your Tumblelog look more lie a traditional website, you can do it by adding pages. You can make your Tumblelog private or just make specific posts private as needed, and you can schedule posts to publish in the future.

Tumblr is perfect for people who don’t need a full blog to publish lengthy posts. It’s also great for people who prefer to publish quick multimedia posts, particularly from their mobile devices. Tumblr is also a great choice for people who want to join a larger community. If a blog is too much or too big for you, but Twitter is too small or too little for you and Instagram isn’t versatile enough for you, then Tumblr might be just right for you.

It’s also easy to invite other people to contribute to your Tumblelog.

If you want to track your stats, you can add any analytics tracking code to your Tumblelog. Some users will even burn a feed with Feedburner, create custom themes, and use their own domain names

3. Pinterest

Pinterest is a free website that requires registration to use.Users can upload, save, sort, and manage images—known as pins—and other media content (e.g., videos) through collections known as pinboards. Pinterest acts as a personalized media platform. Users can browse the content of others in their feed. Users can then save individual pins to one of their own boards using the “Pin It” button, with pinboards typically organized by a central topic or theme. Users can personalize their experience by pinning items, creating boards, and interacting with other members. The end result is that the “pin feed” of each user displays unique, personalized results.

Content can also be found outside of Pinterest and similarly uploaded to a board via the “Pin It” button, which can be downloaded to the bookmark bar on a web browser, or be implemented by a webmaster directly on the website. They also have the option of sending a pin to other Pinterest users and email accounts through the “Send” button. Some websites include red and white “pin it” buttons on items, which allow Pinterest users to pin them directly.

Initially, there were several ways to register a new Pinterest account. Potential users could either receive an invitation from an already registered friend, or they could request an invitation directly from the Pinterest website that could take some time to receive. An account can also be created and accessed by linking Pinterest to a Facebook or Twitter profile. When a user re-posts or re-pins an image to their own board, they have the option of notifying their Facebook and Twitter followers. This feature can be managed on the settings page.

On the main Pinterest page, a “pin feed” appears, displaying the chronological activity from the Pinterest boards that a user follows.

A “board” is where the user’s pins are located. Users can have several boards for various items such as quotes, travel or, most popularly, weddings. A “pin” is an image that has either been uploaded or linked from a website. Once users create boards and add pins, other users can now repin, meaning they can pin one user’s image to their board as well. Once the user has set up their account and boards, they can browse, comment, and like other pins. Users might be discouraged by repeated images and difficult-to-follow direct linking features. Pinterest has also added the option of making boards “secret” so that the user can pin to and view boards that only the user can see when logged into their own account.

Pinterest does not generate its own content; rather, it draws from many resources around the web and compiles them in one convenient location for users.

[60b3r]

Memes Kill Creativity?

Memes vs. Genes

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

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

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

The dawn of meme-technology

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

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

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

Middle-class artists are hurt

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

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

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

Why capitalism kills creativity

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

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

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

Spare nothing, not even the nostalgia

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

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

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

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

15 June 2020 8.03 PM

[minnesotadruids]

What does tumblr offer to you as a social media platform that others do not? Have you found better response here? Is this your number one place as opposed to facebook or instagram?

Short answer: For me, Tumblr seems to be the platform that is the least inconvenient. 

All social media sites seem to have some sort of baggage, particularly in the way each one handles its own policies for sure, but also in a number of different aspects as well.Facebook: Oakdale Grove has a Page [here] where I post photos and ritual event listings. Despite Facebook being a bustling megalopolis, my page doesn’t see that much traffic. In fact as of today it has exactly 200 likes since 2012. I really dislike the feature of “invite John Doe to like your page,” it’s just smarmy to me. Facebook buries or removes all the best features to the point that I just post less and less so that I don’t have to deal with the hassle. I lost a lot of trust in Facebook in the 2014 News Feed Experiment, and I decreased my activity there in general thereafter. I also deleted the Facebook and Messenger apps from my phone because of feature creep and my custom settings getting reset with each update.

Instagram: I’ve never wanted an Instagram page. Pretty much all social media sites compress uploaded image files to take up less server space, but Instagram seems to downscale photos the most aggressively. Aside from that it’s really just not my thing.

Pinterest: Is Pinterest even a social media platform? It either needs to just go away or at least not be indexed by search engines. Do a search for why I hate Pinterest and the millions of search results are pretty much how I feel about the site. It’s basically imagery that lacks context.

Twitter: As John the Verbose, it’s hard to make concise posts sometimes. By far I mostly post Oakdale Grove event listings from Facebook, but sometimes I throw in a few pics or general Tweets as @ReformedDruid: 

Google Plus: Well it’s dead and gone, but it never was a social media powerhouse. I had a Plus page on druidry but pretty much abandoned it in under a year.

YouTube: This was once quite a social media haven. It was never perfect, but YouTube has fallen from grace repeatedly. Until 2011 or so, you could add users as friends, messaging was also easier then, and you also once had the power to delete subscribers that you didn’t want, including dead accounts. These days you can only block users you don’t like, but they can still subscribe to you. There’s also the latest YouTube policy enforcement fiasco which demonstrates that they are permitting hate speech to continue. I just reached 2000 subscribers [on my YouTube channel] but I haven’t uploaded a video since 2017. I really should come back because my fans have been asking really nicely. 

Tumblr:

Overall, I really like the things you can do on the site. That said, Tumblr really shot themselves in the foot in December. Tumblr had ample opportunity to purge the porn bots, Nazis, and pedophiles, yet they haphazardly went after the whole NSFW community. A lot of regular Tumblr users left in protest after that, too. I’m still getting followed by porn bots, and I have them to thank for reaching 1000 followers this past May. Though my thousand followers here seem more interactive than my 2000 subscribers on YouTube. So yes, I feel that I do get a better response here.

As it pertains to Druidry, I created my blog on Tumblr in 2015 because of the lack of representation of druidry. The Witchblr community is huge here in my opinion, but there is far more gaming content in terms of the search tag Druid. The search results churn up almost exclusively role playing content such as D&D, World of Warcraft, and related fan art. That’s nice for the gaming community, but they have a disproportionate monopoly of content under the Druid tag. Druidry and Druidism yield more relevant search results in terms of spirituality and paganism, but spiritual druidry is still not that well represented here.

Tumblr is also most popular among Millennials and Generation Z. The demographics of druidry are shifting, but I’ve heard (by hearsay) that most people tend to find druidry in their 40s or later, and that many of them didn’t even know it existed beforehand. As a mostly typical Millennial myself, and as someone who dove into druidry back at age 20, Tumblr seemed like a good place to set up a blog where I could help other young adults discover druidry, too. There have been plenty of times where older practitioners of druidry have said “I wish I would have found druidism sooner” or something to that effect. 

So that’s part of why I’m here, to help others gain in Awareness, and to help them discover something potentially meaningful while they’re still in their prime.

[tazusher-blog]

To Hashtag or not to Hashtag?

                                            Is it Progression?

For 10 years now, the hashtag has been a symbol of both unity and division: with hashtags such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter making breakthroughs for equality, #JeSuisCharlie and #machesterattack igniting emotional responses to terrorist attacks, and #brexit causing a huge political divide in Britain. Whoever you are, however many followers you have, with the use of a hashtag, you can both start and contribute to conversations. 

The influential and popular hashtag was first championed by social media platform Twitter in 2009 when it established a filter system allowing users to search for tweets on the basis of hashtags. Consequently, the internet saw the rise of the hashtag as a method of categorising data on the basis of interests, topics, and opinions; also known as ‘Collective Intelligence’.

So, why has the hashtag gained so much prominence in the study of digital literacies?

Amongst the many symbols found on our keyboard, the hashtag is unique owing to its ability to convert the data of the online world into information which is relevant to each of us. Examples of which can be seen on the social media applications Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr where users’ extensive classification of the platforms’ data using hashtags, has developed a system shaped by the interests and opinions of real people. A system also referred to as a folksonomy.

However, whilst the authenticity of this system seems ideal for such digital communities which are largely user-led, there has been much controversy as to whether the hashtag is the best means of communication; and whether the restrictions (constraints) of using this symbol, outweigh its benefits (affordances). Notably, writer Cory Doctorow (2001) argues that collective tagging has three constraints; all of which I explore below:

1) People are untruthful when tagging

2) People are careless when tagging

3) People tag incompetently

Hashtagging to form identities

One of the most harmless forms of hashtagging is that used in personal posts. For example, I use hashtags in my own Twitter and Instagram posts to add information to my posts which go beyond what the Tweet and Image captions state. For example, in a recent photo that I shared of my friends and I at our annual christmas get together, I hashtagged #christmas, #mygirls and #biglove; all of which were personal comments which, had I elaborated on these comments, would have resulted in a quite soppy and amusing post! These hashtags therefore enabled me to establish an identity which demonstrated my care for my friends as well as my enjoyment of the festive season.

Alternatively, hashtags can also be misleading when used in this way, especially when they are used sarcastically. For example, someone might use the hashtags #lovinglife #travels #paradise at the end of a sarcastic post displaying their congested commute to work on a Monday morning. These hashtags, although used to create an identity which evokes humour, are misleading and demonstrate Doctorow’s 1st constraint. This would be particularly evident if another user used the same hashtags to search for utopian holiday destinations: the result would certainly not satisfy.

Hashtagging to debate

Nowadays, the most widely used form of hash tagging is that to contribute and ignite debate. For example, if I wanted to access updates on the latest progression of the Brexit campaign, I could search #brexit on Twitter, and immediately find updates on the campaign, as well as members of the public’s opinions. Similarly, if I wanted to narrow down my search results to receive posts related to the Leave argument only, I could search both #brexit and #leave to find tweets using both. Using multiple hashtags on Twitter can have a huge advantage for those wanting to voice their opinion. Additionally, it is also important for users to know which hashtags are trending in order to reach a wider audience. For example, the below tag cloud display the most used Brexit-related hashtags on Twitter, many of which are used collectively to extend their reach.

On the other hand, the use of hashtags to spark debate can occasionally be harmful to others and result in harassment and offence. Notably, #stopislam has been used by many extremists as an attack against the entire Muslim community. Such uses as these are a constraint of the digital tool which demonstrates the users’ carelessness and irrationality.

Hashtagging for engagement

Another common use of the hashtag is to boost engagement with digital content: commonly used in the business industry. Hashtagging is a great way for businesses to capture the interests of their target audiences, as well as reaching out to individuals who might be less likely to see their advert in a magazine or on TV. However, once again, this type of hash tagging takes skill and knowledge to receive a successful result; a skill which has become a focal point of market research.

Whilst there are some constraints of hashtagging, it is very clear that the affordances have provided users of the internet with abilities which are a progression from what we could previously do. However, next time you hashtag: THINK. Is it relevant? Is it true? Is it harmless? If so, post ahead! 

Referenced sources: 

Cover Image: Retrieved from: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/social-media-hashtags/

Doctorow, C (2001). Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia. Retrieved from: https://people.well.com/user/doctorow/metacrap.htm#2 on January 22, 2019. 

[darkspellmaster]

Could you explain what's happening? All I know is that Tumblr is getting rid of any explicit content, but shouldn't that be a good thing? Especially with all the annoying bots and such.

Okay so I needed to do some research about this before I wrote this as there’s a lot going on that’s being filtered around and it seems like people are freaking out and that’s not helping. 

1. What’s happening?

So, basically here’s what’s been going down. A few years ago -two or three I think -Yahoo Inc. bought Tumblr from the original creator of it as he couldn’t keep up with the demand. Server space cost had shot through the roof. 

Just to clue everyone up here who are bemoaning about the sale in the first place, just to buy Amazon Web servers (which I think Tumblr ran on and now runs on a different company Srimax or something like that) or AWS, cloud space, it cost (USD) $2010 monthly, that compared to Googles which is roughly $2200 per month. 

So total yearly is roughly $24,000 for AWS, and $26,000 for Google (and that’s on the low end). 

So Yahoo is then bought out by Verizon Telecommunication services, who owns a number of sites right now and is trying to compete with AT&T and it’s services and Comcast, and Google. A

Tumblr, when it was built, was designed as an art place, mostly for artist who were leaving Deviant art at the time due to an influx of (let’s just say) undesirable artists and art work, and for other reasons. Over time Tumblr has become very popular and mixes of people have come here because it’s become mainstream in the media. It’s used in TV shows and the demographics here have become between the ages of 12 to in their 30s. And because it’s become more mainstream this has put a spotlight on it. 

So what the heck happened? Well several things. 

1. There was a case here were a person, or persons, were putting up explicit child porn, and this was rightly reported. However, because of this and the infestation of porn bots and other illicit content, Apple felt that Tumblr was not a good app to have on their store front, so they removed it. 

Apple is determined to “Save the internet”. 

“Steve Jobs famously suggested that “folks who want porn can buy an Android phone,” and Apple has repeatedly leveraged its unprecedented power over millions of smartphones to sanitize the apps that are available on iPhones. Apple does not allow apps “that contain user generated content that is frequently pornographic.” In 2016, Apple famously deleted all third-party Reddit apps that allowed users to toggle NSFW posts on and off; even now, it is impossible to access porn on an iOS Reddit app unless you jump through various hoops.”  - Vice.com

This should come as no surprise to anyone that is over the age of 30 at this point as Apple has been notorious about this for years, even during the early time of the Mac computers. 

I should note that Android did not, nor has Google Play as Tumblr has followed all of it’s guidelines.  But, internationally, Apple is still a big name and is a highly sought after device, especially in China, and most Telecommunication companies want to invest in there because the economy is good and they can make money in sales to people in China. But because of an extremely strict policy about anything related to porn and the like, Verizon couldn’t sell Apple phones with Tumblr linked into it due to the nature of the space, along with Apple’s very strict policies. 

(There is in fact a lawsuit going on right now in regard to Apple’s bans on apps.)

As seen here. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zmd38y/supreme-court-weighs-whether-apples-app-store-is-a-monopoly ) 

So because of this Tumblr felt it needed to do something and that something was to unleash an algorithm that, unfortunately, seems to have taken on a life of it’s own. My guess, and I can only hazard a guess here is that the algorithms are taking meta key words that could be associated with sex or porn or child porn and searching these things out to flag. So like animals that are connected with the fur community will be hit, people with Chronic pain may become hit because the CP in the tag could be related to Child Porn and thus the algorithm is hitting that. Color words, association with women and men, kinks and other things that these bots tend to use are probably also in there, which means that things as simple as chicken thighs, or chicken breasts, are being hit and flagged. That’s not to say that some of this may not be connected to the issue of trolls coming in and reporting things making the Algorithm even more buggy. 

See an algorithm works like this: 

So what is going on here. A question is asked, in this case let’s say it’s a key word, “Does this site have the tag Bookworm in it’s tags or in it’s content?” So the program then goes and analyzes a blog, and looks for that word in the tags. If the answer is yes, then that blog is then “flagged” for having that term and can be reviewed, and the algorithm can go to the next blog to look. 

If the answer is no, then the program goes to the next word in it’s list and looks again, and if the answer is yes, it can then flag and move on, etc. This is how this is working. On top of that, you again may have people flat out using this to attack others and flagging and reporting, adding to the confusion of the program. 

2. Second aspect is a bit more complicated, as it’s not just affecting Tumblr but a number of sites as well. Two bills that were signed into law here in the US and other similar bills are going around the globe.  These two bills, while of the right mind to stop sex trafficking and should be lauded for that idea (because it’s something we as a world need to really address as a whole), both cause a huge problem to platforms. 

So you have the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act" Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act" (FOSTA)Stop Enabling Online Sex Trafficking Act, or SEOSTA, or Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act, or SESTA.  This act is both good and bad. The good part is that it “clarify the country’s sex trafficking law to make it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking,”  which means it makes it clear why sex trafficking is illegal and will allow more laws to be created to stop it from happening and helping out victims to go after those that harmed them. 

The bad though is the follow up, “and amend the Section 230 safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act (which make online services immune from civil liability for the actions of their users) to exclude enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking laws from its immunity.” 

So the Section 230 safe harbors allowed for platforms, like Reddit, Tumblr, AOL messenger, etc, to not be liable for these situations. However this act changes that and makes it where the owners of the platform are going to have to be the ones that are liable. Meaning that site’s like tumblr can be taken to court over what their users put up, even if they don’t know what’s going on. 

3. And this is on the smaller end of things. There apparently is a lot of piracy going on in the porn industry right now. As with the cases of theft here on Tumblr in regard to Pivix and other sites, people are not happy. While the industry is smaller than mass media studios like Sony, Disney, WB, NBC, etc. they are not happy with the grand theft of their copyrighted material, and yes it is copyrighted even if it is nude video and the like. These companies are considering possibly getting into legal matters with Social media sites (like Tumblr and Twitter) over the thefts and reblogging issue of copyrighted material. Unlike Youtube, where you can just take it down, Tumblr is build on the idea of sharing so there’s that to contend with. 

Because of these things Tumblr has decided to create a very strong and yet vague policy that seems to be hurting people that are original content creators rather then the perpetrators that are causing the harm on this site. The thing is that in order for Verizon to push this as a mainstream social media site, they have to create a cleaner image. 

The reason for that is the same reason why you had the advertising issues on Youtube. Straight up, when things become popular and more mainstream (and Tumblr has become main stream my friends make no mistake of that, as it’s shown up in a lot of different media including ones for teens and tweens) then sites tend to have to spend more money on server space and that means ads and more people coming in to see said ads. And the more popular and mainstream a site get’s the more the site tends to want to become more all ages over a limited age group, as that means you can have more users on the platform and thus generate more advertisements. 

See Facebook, instagram, snap chat, etc. All platforms that have some age restrictions, but also are designed so Little Billy and June can be on there along with Grandma and their teen brother Tommy, and mom and dad, etc. 

All I know is that Tumblr is getting rid of any explicit content, but shouldn’t that be a good thing?

Okay to explain this. On the one hand certain explicit content needs to go, including things like cannibalism, extreme gore, etc. Because a lot of that shit is disturbing as hell. But on the other hand you have consenting adults that do have a right to look at art and pictures that are not safe for work. 

The problem really comes down to a few things. First are the people in the video doing this of their own volition, and if not, then we’re looking at something that needs to be taken down as it would be seen as possibly blackmail porn and gather illegally. Secondly Users need to learn to actually check what they reblog and look into where the material is coming from. Just because a gif looks cool doesn’t mean that the people involved in that act are okay with it being put on the net. 

It’s a good thing in a way because this means that people that have been stealing art and video from others that make money off this sort of art work and photograph, can at least now known that it’s gone off of one site, though many more still will put it up. 

The problem is that people that do their own work and sell it on here are being kicked off and that means that they may have to go to more shady sites where people who are not as nice tend to hang out, which could mean some serious risks for them. 

While I’m not for this whole thing. I do see both sides of the issue. Personally I don’t want to have to see video of someone jerking off if I’m not searching for it, and it suddenly showing up in the notes section. On the other hand if this is a way for someone who needs the money to create content that allows them to live and afford to have food, housing and other things that keep them healthy and safe, then that should be their right to do. 

My feeling is that all artwork and the like should be behind a pay wall. And I know I’m gong to be yelled at for that, but hear me out. Artist need money to live, Sites need money to keep servers up and running. In order to keep kids and those that don’t want to see this sort of content from seeing it, honestly one of the most effective ways I can think of, is to create a pay system and create Sub area where you can have groups, and then include some sort of state or country id so that only adults can go into the adult oriented area. 

It’s a good thing to be getting rid of the bots, and possibly cleaning up the issue of illegal porn and other things that could hurt not only the companies image, but also could lead to the victimization of those that are not doing this willingly. But it’s a bad thing for people who tend to make their living with art that isn’t safe to view in public. 

As I said the best thing to do would be to create a pay system for those that want to view it, and have it free to everyone else. If you really want to see stuff, and help support the site and creators, then maybe it’s time to start paying and be willing to show you’re an adult. 

Especially with all the annoying bots and such.

This is the sad thing. The bots will follow wherever people go. Pillowfort will get hit at some point too by these things because they will come and bother people. The reality is that there really is no way to escape them until there are regulations set in place that can be put out all over the world that stop sites like the bots and protect people that are trying to make money via their skills as an artist. 

Thing is that in this day and age because people have grown up with the idea that “Everything on the net must be Free!” there’s this desire to fight against actually paying for services and we’re already seeing the down fall of that. I’m pointing to the recent outrage of people bemoaning that Ao3 asked for money to keep their servers up and running. 

Personally I have mixed feelings about all of this. While I’m against censorship, I also feel that there needs to be a way for people who don’t want to see certain forms of art or the like to have that option as well. You have to strike a balance so that you can have a good community of people, and if it means either paying money or creating a second site for those that want to view this art, well then that’s what it should be. 

Thing is, as Matpat said in his article 13 video, when things like this start up companies tend to pick to go after the smaller user base and use them as the main cause for change, because then it covers everything even the larger base. And I think a part of this may have to do with that upcoming issue. 

We live in a global world now, and we can’t just think about one culture or the other anymore as separate things. Companies are seeing things as whole rather than singling things out, and thus the net users need to start thinking the same way. 

Hope this all makes sense. there’s a lot more going on, but I’m trying to keep it easy to read. 

[nievefergie]

Bill Gates predicted that the internet would be the downfall of television, saying, “I’m stunned how people aren’t seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we had” (Clarke 1). Many people agree with Gates, such as Television Week and Wired, stating that the media landscape of US network television is dying. The invasion of the internet also brings major changes in marketing for television, which is historically what fuels network television. With the loss of marketing viewers to advertisers, marketing has had to find new ways of advertising products in new mediums (Clarke). Digitalization is one of the most active parts of marketing in todays society. With the global market revolving online due to its easy access and cost efficiency, social media has also helped develop the relationship between brands and consumers. This allows digital media to use multi-platform strategies and social media presence to enhance their show. This is called transmedia storytelling (Bjursten). Many new cable, network, and online television shows have used social media to further enhance the realism of their characters and plots to entice viewers, and with the upcoming success of the national branding of the show, SKAM, the marketing formula of adding extra online tie-in content seems to be working. Many television shows have released texts between characters. Shows like Andi Mack (2017) on Disney Channel have texts between Andi and her friends after certain episodes, usually reflecting on what happened. A Canadian television show on Teennick called Open Heart (2015) also tried a similar approach. The Teennick show debuted with an app for the iPhone where viewers could read texts from characters and further investigate evidence found in the episode to unlock more clues about the mystery the story revolved around. It also had found footage of what would be on Dylan Blake’s phone, such as videos of her and her friend, Teddy (Open Heart: Unlocked). However, Open Heart’s app had many glitches, as does the Disney Channel app, making it hard to scroll and find anything. SKAM’s messages were posted on the same website that the show was aired on, so viewers did not have to go out of their way to find extra immersion — it was already a major component of the format (Machell). SKAM, translated as ‘Shame’, is a Norwegian television show produced by NRK (Norwegian State Broadcasting), a government-owned broadcaster known for its radio stations and television channels (McDermott 31). The show was produced by NRK P3, the youth based radio station of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation as a web-based series (Pearce 156). NRK is the biggest media company in Norway, with a large following (McDermott 31). In 2015, NRK set up a website for SKAM episodes to be broadcast in real time throughout all hours of the day. This kept a sense of longing as well as the audience truly feeling a part of the action with watching, as it was happening in ‘real time’. Thirty-four year old Julie Andem created SKAM by traveling around Norway and interviewing teenagers about their own lives. She auditioned over a thousand people and created the characters based on the actors and their own lives. Each episode is written almost within the week that it is shot, as well as only being shot three days a week. As Andem writes, she uses feedback from actors and viewers to keep the storyline believable and enjoyable for teens (Donadio). SKAM is newly renowned as, “one of the best TV shows about high school ever made” (McDermott 31). Each season revolves around a different student in revolving friend groups attending Hartvig Nissen, an actual public school in Oslo. The first season follows Eva, who lost all her friends the summer before starting high school. The second season follows Noora, who begins a romance with a boy who played with her friend’s heart. The third season, which gained the most popularity, is about Isak, a teen boy coming to terms with sexuality and his budding romance with Even. The fourth and last season follows Sana, a muslim teen who is falling for her brother’s best friend and coming to terms with her religion and what it means to be a woman of color in a white society like Norway. When American fans discovered the show around season three in 2016, NRK, due to copyright, stopped making the episodes accessible to those outside of Norway; but this didn’t stop fans. Norwegians would download the episodes, translate them, and put them on Google Drive and share it around Tumblr and Twitter for their English speaking friends to experience. Although English speaking fans didn’t quite get to experience the show in real-time like fans in Oslo, they were still able to watch the clip the day it was released to keep their interest.   NRK used social media to promote SKAM with the exception of one television interview with actors from the show once it gained popularity. Hakon Moslet, the show’s executive producer said, “The idea was for teenagers to find it themselves, not from their parents” (Donadio). Social media was used to promote the show through actual teenager’s word of mouth, rather than promoting it through the eyes of adults. By bestowing the characters with social media accounts, SKAM promoted the show and enhanced blurring the line between fictional characters and real people. This further creates more authenticity rather than selling the show (Bjursten 3). SKAM used social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to further blur the lines between the show and reality. Each character had their own instagram page. Season four revolved heavily around Sana’s instagram, @saranors2, where she took screenshots of hate that Sara, the bus leader, had been sending her boyfriend as revenge to start a civil war on the bus. Sana tagged the girls actual accounts and then deleted it once she felt guilty ("Vi må stå sammen"). The account was then deleted off of Instagram in real time when Sana deleted it. Then, a new account called @ellevillevillde2 was created and deleted in real time with the show as well. The show even ended using real quotes from social media about the show when addressing hate and love, expressing gratitude and showing disservice that the fans spread online about the show (“Takk for alt”). Mari Magnus, the web producer for SKAM, writes the instagram accounts and text messages posted between episodes. The texts from characters are posted to the website from different characters to each other and create excitement for the next episode. Magnus’s goal, “is combining reality and fiction and the line between them isn't so clear” (Donadio). The immersive online world for the characters in SKAM add drama to the already dramatic show. By reading texts and Facebook messages, the characters feel even more real to the audience. They get a little peek at what the characters do when they’re not watching. It adds to the cult following and truthfulness to the story (Machell). SKAM provides a good example of how social media enhances storytelling. In the previous television market, viewers were listeners rather than participants. With the new digital age of media, the audience is allowed to help co-create the story and participate in the creation (Bjursten 4). SKAM was written in real time, as well as shot in real time. Viewers had a direct say on what happened in the story, as shown in the last episode where online comments were featured in a montage during Jonas’s ending monologue (“Takk for alt”, Donadio). By using the transmedia storytelling, SKAM and other television shows are able to tell better stories due to the strengthened relationships between the audience and show, or product and brand (Bjursten 4).

Bibliography

Connor, Pearce. 2017. "Reality and Fiction in Contemporary Television: The Case of Skam." no. 4: 156. ProjectMUSE, EBSCOhost (accessed March 15, 2018).

DONADIO, RACHEL. 2016. "Will a Norwegian Hit Translate?." New York Times, December 13. C4. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 15, 2018).

2017. "'SKAM''s universal appeal." UWIRE Text, 2017. Academic OneFile, EBSCOhost (accessed March 15, 2018).

2017. "How Real-Time Marketing Affects Social Media Engagement." BASE, EBSCOhost (accessed March 15, 2018).

McDermott, Patrick D. "The Planet's Realest Drama." FADER, 2017, 31-35.

Andem, Julie. “Vi Må Stå Sammen.” SKAM, season 4, episode 7, NRK, 2 June 2017.

Andem, Julie. “Takk for Alt.” SKAM, season 4, episode 10, NRK, 24 June 2017.

Open Heart: Unlocked. Computer Software. Apple App Store. Vers 1.2. Epitome Pictures Inc, 2015.

Clarke, M. J. Transmedia Television: New Trends in Network Serial Production. Bloomsbury, 2013. Bjursten, Amanda, and Felicia Norman Sylvendahl. “How Real-Time Marketing Affects Social Media Engagement: A Study of the TV Series SKAM.” Lund University Library, Lund University, LUP Student Papers, 2017, lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download? func=downloadFile&recordOId=8926717&fileOId=8926718.

Machell, Ben. “Why Teens Love Skam; Ben Machell on Norway's Cult TV Hit.” The Times (London), 16 May 2017.

[onlineadventureofgroup2]

[ 🎈 ] DIGITAL NATIVES

❏ A person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and therefore familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age.

[ 🎈 ] WHAT IS ICT

❏ It deals with the use of different communication technologies such as mobile phones, telephone, Internet, etc. to locate, save, send, and edit information.

❏ Example: When we make a video call, we use the internet. When we send and receive text messages, we use mobile phones

[ 🎈 ] ICT IN OUR COUNTRY

❏ The Philippines, dubbed by most as the ICT Hub in Asia due to the growth of BPO Industries

❏ Time Magazine’s “The Selfiest Cities around the World for 2014” placed two cities from the Philippines in the top 1 and 9 spots:

Makati City – Ranked 1st

Cebu City – Ranked 9th

❏ The Philippines is one of the largest countries which houses BPO centers.

❏ There are 106.8 million of cell phones for every 100 Filipinos.

[ 🎈 ] INTERNET

❏ An infrastructure that connects users together. These users may range from companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to end-users

❏ The internet has been a vital tool to our modern lives that is why it is also important to make the best of the internet

[ 🎈 ] WORLDWIDE WEB

❏ A huge collection of information, data, and resources that facilitates communication between users and computers

❏ Is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by URLs, interlinked by hypertext links, can be accessed via the Internet

❏ The Web uses the Internet as its medium to transfer or exchange data. IT also uses a client-server model

❏ Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web/Father of WWW

[ 🎈 ] WEB 1.0

❏ It is the “readable” phrase of the World Wide Web with flat data. A static pages, meaning users cannot interact with the page and the page is in read-only format

❏ Examples of Web 1.0 applications are shopping carts, mp3.com, etc.

❏ This refers to the first stage in the World Wide Web, which was entirely made up of the Web pages connected by hyperlinks.

[ 🎈 ] WEB 2.0

❏ It is the “writable” phrase of the World Wide Web with interactive data. Unlike Web 1.0, Web 2.0 facilitates interaction between web users and sites, so it allows users to interact more freely with each other. Web 2.0 encourages participation, collaboration, and information sharing.

❏ Examples of Web 2.0 applications are Youtube, Flickr, Facebook, etc.

❏ It is the evolution of Web 1.0 by adding dynamic pages. The user is able to see a website differently than others.

❏ Allows users to interact with the page; instead of just reading the page, the user may be able to comment or create a user account.

[ 🎈 ] FEATURES OF WEB 2.0

❏ Folksonomy - It allows users to categorize and classify/arrange information using freely chosen keywords (e.g., tagging). Popular social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. use tags that start with the pound sign (#). This is also referred to as a hashtag.

❏ Rich User Experience - Content is dynamic and is responsive to user’s input. An example would be a website that shows local content. In the case of social networking sites, when logged on, your account is used to modify what you see on their website.

❏ Long Tail - Services are offered on-demand rather than on a one-time purchase. In certain cases, time-based pricing is better than file-size-based pricing or vice versa. This is synonymous with subscribing to a data plan that charges you for the amount of time you spent on the Internet, or a data plan that charges you for the amount of bandwidth you used.

❏ User Participation - The owner of the website is not the only one who is able to put content. Others are able to place the content of their own by means of comment, reviews, and evaluation. Some websites allow readers to comment on an article, participate in a poll, or review a specific product (e.g., Amazon.com, online stores).

❏ Software as a Service - Users will subscribe to a software-only when needed rather than purchasing them. This is a cheaper option if you do not always need to use the software. For instance, Google Docs is a free web-based application that allows the user to create and edit word processing and spreadsheet documents online. When you need software, like a Word Processor, you can purchase it for a one-time huge amount and install it on your computer and it is yours forever. Software as a service allows you to “rent” software for a minimal fee.

❏ Mass Participation - It is diverse information sharing through universal web access. Since most users can use the Internet, Web 2.0’s content is based on people from various cultures.

[ 🎈 ] WEB 3.0 AND THE SEMANTIC WEB

❏ Semantic Web - It is a movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The semantic web provides a framework that allows data to be shared and reused to deliver web content specifically targeting the user.

❏ Web 3.0 - It is the “executable” phrase of Word Wide Web with dynamic applications, interactive services, and “machine-to-machine” interaction. Web 3.0 is a smarter version and semantic web which refers to the future. In Web 3.0, computers can interpret information like humans and intelligently generate and distribute useful content tailored to the needs of users. One example of Web 3.0 is Tivo, a digital video recorder. Its recording program can search the web and read what it finds to you based on your preferences. This platform is all about the semantic web that aims to have machines (or servers) understand the user’s preferences to be able to deliver web content.

[ 🎈 ] SEVERAL PROBLEMS OF WEB 3.0

Compatibility - HTML files and current web browsers could not support Web 3.0.

Security - The user’s security is also in question since the machine is saving his or her preferences.

Vastness - The World Wide Web already contains billions of web pages.

Vagueness - Certain words are imprecise. The words “old” and “small” would depend on the user.

Logic - Since machines use logic, there are certain limitations for a computer to be able to predict what the user is referring to at a given time.

[ 🎈 ] TRENDS IN ICT

1. Convergence – is the synergy of technological advancements to work on a similar goal or task. For example, besides using your personal computer to create word documents, you can now use your smartphone.

2. Social Media – is a website, application, or online channel that enables web users to create, co-create, discuss, modify, and exchange user-generated content.

❏ Social Networks – These are sites that allow you to connect with other people with the same interests or background. Once the user creates his/her account, he/she can set up a profile, add people, share content, etc.

Ex: Facebook and Google

❏ Bookmarking Sites – These are sites that allow you to store and manage links to various websites and resources. Most of these sites allow you to create a tag that allows you to and others easily share them.

Ex: StumbleUpon/Pinterest

❏ Social News – These are sites that allow users to post their own news items or links to other news sources. The users can also comment on the post and comments may also be rank.

Ex: Reddit and Digg

❏ Media Sharing – These are sites that allow you to upload and share media content like images, music, and video.

Ex: Flickr, Youtube and Instagram

❏ Microblogging – These are sites that focus on short updates from the user. Those that subscribed to the user will be able to receive these updates.

Ex: Twitter and Plurk

❏ Blogs and Forums – These websites allow the user to post their content. Other users are able to comment on the said topic.

Ex: Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr

3. Mobile Technologies

❏ The popularity of smartphones and tablets has taken a major rise over the years. This is large because of the device's capability to do the tasks that were originally found in PCs.

❏ Several of these devices are capable of using high-speed internet. Today the latest model devices use 4G Networking (LTE), which is currently the fastest mobile network.

❏ Long-Term Evolution

[ 🎈 ] MOBILE OS

iOS – use in apple devices such as iPhone and iPad.

Android – an open-source OS developed by Google. Being open-source means mobile phone companies use this OS for free.

Blackberry OS – use in Blackberry devices.

Windows Phone OS – a closed source and proprietary operating system developed by Microsoft.

Symbian – the original smartphone OS; used by Nokia devices.

WebOS – originally used in smartphones; now used in smart TVs.

Windows Mobile – developed by Microsoft for smartphones and pocket PCs.

4. Assistive Media

❏ It is a non-profit service designed to help people who have visual and reading impairments. A database of audio recordings is used to read to the user.

❏ Examples are: Hearing aid, Educational Software

[maychorian]

Is Livejournal still an active platform? I think when I first got into fandom LJ was more of a place for kink memes (not necessarily based in erotic content or ships) than just a fanfic scene. FF. net was more popular at the time. As much as I feel Ao3 is superior to FF, I think it had its bonuses. I appreciated being able to PM other users and the forums, features Ao3 doesn't have. What were some bonuses to LJ, if you don't mind my asking?

I don’t think LJ is active much anymore, no. Everyone once in a while I’ll go check out my Friends page to see if anyone is still posting there, and there are a few, but not a lot. Policies killed the fandom community on that site, and it’s really sad. Free speech is important, y’all. On the other hand, those policies are probably why AO3 exists, and that’s a good thing.

LJ was a BIG upgrade from FF.net, that was for sure. It wasn’t specifically made for fanfic, so you had to have some rudimentary HTML knowledge to put links to your chapters, and also had to make your own table of contents (here’s mine), or at least tag your posts in a way so that people could find your fanfiction if they wanted to. It had a private message function, yes, as well as a Friends page, which was basically a dashboard (without a reblog function) where you could scroll through and view all of the posts made by the people you had added to your friendslist. You also had the option of making your posts private, so only friends could see them, and also make friends groups WITHIN your friendslist so only THOSE particular people could see. For instance, I had a lot of friends, because I tended to friend back anyone who friended me so they could see my private posts for the rare things that I wanted to hide from the world but was okay with fellow fans seeing. I made smaller friends groups to view fellow writers, so I could see their stuff when they posted it, and another smaller group for people who I knew would be willing to beta my work, so I could send out a request for a beta if I needed it without cluttering up the Friends page of everyone who had added me, and an even smaller group for friends that I trusted with deep personal secrets for when I really, really needed to vent. Those kinds of posts were called “friends locked” or “flocked” for short. When I was obsessed with SPN and deep in that fandom, I checked my Friends page multiple times a day. I keep my following list on tumblr quite small because I don’t have the time to read hundreds and hundreds of posts, and tumblr doesn’t have the function to narrow down who you see on your dashboard.

LJ also had the ability to make communities, where multiple users could post on the same blog, and we had fic communities for every permutation of fandom under the sun. Big ones for all SPN fic (those were incredibly active), ones just for gen, ones for hurt/comfort and whump, ones for crossovers, specific ones for each pairing… Whenever I made a post with a fic, I had a list of about five communities that I would cross-post to, basically with a header and a link to the full post. And the fic finder community, of course, which I think was the most valuable of all, where someone could make a post asking for a specific idea they wanted to read and everyone else could comment with fics they knew that fit or almost fit that desire. Or if you had read a fic a long time ago and couldn’t remember the name or title, you could describe it as best you could on the fic finder community, and chances were someone would know what you were talking about. A lot of my fics got mentioned on fic finder communities multiple times, whenever someone asked for deaged fics, haha.

The biggest advantage of LJ, though, and I think the reason it became THE place for fanfiction for a while, was the nested commenting. AO3 has the same kind of comment system now, where one person starts a thread, and then the author can respond, and they can go back and forth. If the thread gets too long it will get shortened so those going through the comments don’t have see every single comment written on the entire story, just the first ones. This was a huge upgrade from FF.net, which didn’t even allow replies to reviews for a long time. If you wanted to respond to someone’s review, you had to PM them directly and tell them. And your replies didn’t show on the review page, and the reviewer couldn’t write back. Nesting comments on LJ changed all that. Now people could have entire long, involved discussions in the comments of any post, any fic. And people did. It wasn’t always just the author and a single commenter having a conversation, either. Sometimes other people joined in, and we’d have long squeefests and share headcanons (though that word didn’t enter fandom vernacular until tumblr) and talk about the show or whatever we were writing about. It was a great place for making friends and sparking ideas.

AO3 did well in bringing that commenting system over to the archive, but it doesn’t usually get used the same way it did on LJ. I think it’s because AO3 is a place specifically meant for storing fic, not necessarily a social media service, so there’s not as much emphasis on making friends and forming personal relationships. Sure, you can subscribe to people and follow their work and make bookmarks, but there’s no Friends list or anything like that. It’s just a different thing. And since tumblr doesn’t have nesting comments, there’s not the option to have those sort of conversations here, either. I mean, you sort of can, by reblogging replies and having discussions in posts, but it’s awkward and it gets reposted to your dashboard every time, and it gets really annoying to have to scroll the bottom every time. 

Messaging on tumblr is a little better, but it’s a chat with just one person. You can’t have multiple people in a direct message, and even with those it can be very hard to scroll back and find earlier conversations. This why I think Discord is such a great addition to the current fandom life. You can have conversations with multiple people about anything you want. It’s more freeform, since you’re not responding to a post in particular, but it still works well for building relationships and sharing headcanons and ideas.

Tumblr is not without its advantages. The reblog function means that something good, that grabs attention, can spread around the fandom very quickly. But it’s definitely much better for art than fic, and that’s mostly because of the way it’s designed. It’s an art-sharing service with a half-assed messaging service in the sidebar, not a social media site the way LJ was. It’s for artists to make art and other people to follow them and occasionally ask questions, so it really encourages a BNF mentality and jockeying for position rather than making a circle of friends and developing them. Fandom has found ways to socialize anyway, because life finds a way, but it’s not like LJ, not at all. Sometimes I really want LJ back, to be honest, but that ship has sailed. There was an attempt with Dreamwidth, but for some reason most people just moved their fandom activity to tumblr instead, possibly because the existence of LJ and tumblr overlapped and many people who used LJ already had a tumblr when LJ collapsed. That was how it worked with me, anyway. The novelty of tumblr probably encouraged the movement here, as well. People love the new.

I think most likely what will happen in the future is tumblr will screw the pooch in a major way and fandom will migrate off it, just like we did from the old webrings  to ff.net, then to LJ, then to here. Probably some savvy fans will make a social media site actually MEANT for fandom, like, perhaps, pillowfort.io, which looks absolutely fantastic, just needs some bugs worked out and more people using it. That’s what happened with fic archives: fans got sick of all the problems with FF.net and LJ and made AO3, and it’s great. I’m looking forward to getting off this site, honestly. Let the migration come. I just hope all of you come with me.

[shirlleycoyle]

Pornhub’s Content Purge Has Left Fetish Creators Wondering What’s Next

Before the purge that disappeared more than 75 percent of content on the platform, Pornhub hosted a lot of videos and photos that weren’t humans having sex. There were full-length movies, memes, and video game playthroughs that you might see on a non-adult site like Twitch, but there was also a ton of animation, 3D renderings, audio erotica, music videos, fanfic from furries and bronies, and stop-motion animation like LEGO minifigs fucking. 

Pornhub became a dumping ground and safe harbor for a lot of stuff, and a lot of these creators didn't necessarily want to upload a photo of themselves to a huge porn corporation's database in order to get verified. They were just throwing things on the site for fun, to share with others in their respective communities, and the wider world. Compared to a site like Milovana (an adult message board and the birthplace of Cock Hero, videos of which are mostly gone from Pornhub now) or the furry fan art forum e621, Pornhub was a way to reach a more mainstream audience. With last week’s action, a lot of that stuff is now gone.

For victims of abusive imagery and non-consensual porn, as well as anyone who's had to deal filing takedown requests for pirated content uploaded to Pornhub, the removal of unverified content is a positive: between Pornhub's new policy for only allowing content partners and performers in the model program to upload and download, and the retroactive suspension of all this content pending review, the platform seems to be making long-overdue changes that sex workers and victim advocates alike have asked for. But by applying a blanket solution to a complex problem, it's caught small, independent creators from niche communities in its net. 

Several creators told me that Pornhub's damage-control scramble has created issues for verified users, locked many unverified creators out of their own content, and left many more wondering whether there's even a future for indie and fetish works on the site.

“It was a betrayal”

In a month when sex on the internet is being attacked from all sides—from Instagram's new terms of service, to TikTok kicking sex workers off the platform, to payment processors leaving Pornhub—some creators are concerned that losing one of the most popular porn sites in the world as a platform is another blow against fetish and outside-the-mainstream content on the internet as a whole. 

For a lot of creators, Pornhub's melting pot was a source of inspiration for artists, Lifty and Sylox, hosts of the Furry Frequencies podcast, told me in an email. "Many of the videos that were uploaded onto Pornhub from the furry community were sexual videos of furries partaking in sexual acts in fursuit," they said—which could include videos of furries in fullsuit with “strategically-placed holes” performing solo or with one or more partners. "Some furries perform with just their fursuit head, handpaws, and feetpaws to provide better nude content. An unverified, but significant amount of this content catered to specific fetishes of the furry community, such as feet fetishism or watersports." 

"Furries won't abandon PornHub immediately," Lifty and Sylox said, noting that more creators will likely migrate to Onlyfans or communities like Furaffinity to post content. "Changes like this tend to take time before the effects can be measured… PornHub's status as a repository for one-stop furry porn content will eventually diminish significantly." 

It's not just illustrators and furries who have lost Pornhub as a platform in the last week. Audio erotica creator Goddess By Night told me that she lost all of her content—about 40 videos. She's been making audio erotica for five years, and in the last two she'd made a business out of it. She makes Gentle Female Dominant and Dominant Mommy-themed stories, as well as Futanari role play and other kink-related fantasies.

"Most of my work is a niche within the adult entertainment industry, and Pornhub allowed me to reach a broader audience, so it’s a pretty significant loss," she said. "However, my community has been incredibly supportive and intend to follow me to the next platform(s) I choose. I don’t plan on returning to Pornhub because of this. It was a betrayal, especially to the loads of creators they explicitly welcomed after Tumblr’s ban two years ago. I know some creators who lost work that they may never get back because Pornhub didn’t offer a grace period."

Each of the creators I talked to, whether they were verified or unverified, said that they weren't given any warning before Pornhub's content suspension took place. Pornhub used the word "suspension," not "deletion," and told Motherboard at the time of the suspension announcement that this meant content would be "removed pending verification and review." 

Creators whose content was removed saw a message in place of their uploads that explained the video was "flagged for verification" and invited them to apply for the Model Program or Content Partner Program in order to re-enable the videos, or wait for the new verification process to start in 2021.

They were locked out of their own content at that point and were unable to even download it from the platform.

When Tumblr removed all NSFW content from its platform in December 2018—similarly for allegations it hosted child sexual abuse imagery, but also to appease Apple—the social media platform gave creators about two weeks of notice to get their stuff off the site. Pornhub's announcement came at 7 a.m. EST on a Monday and went into effect immediately. By the time most people saw the news, the suspensions were underway, and more than 10 million uploads were gone by 9 a.m.

This is especially bitter news for creators who, in 2018, took Pornhub up on its invitation to move to the platform from Tumblr.

"Amusingly [Pornhub was] very happy to take advantage of the Tumblr refugees back when all that went down, inviting us to upload all our galleries there," adult content illustrator IzzyBSides told me in a Twitter message. "I think most of us on Twitter know we're living on borrowed time, people have backup accounts set up and occasionally plug them to their followers letting them know to follow it in case their main account randomly disappears overnight."

Because the mass suspensions were meant as a broad solution to get unlawful, abusive content on the site under control, allowing users to download their content would miss the point of stopping the spread of any abusive imagery. But the move also meant that a lot of content that wasn’t abusive and fell well within Pornhub's terms of service was removed in the process. People didn't have the chance to choose whether they wanted to pack their bags and go elsewhere. If they want to recover their own content, they'll have to play by Pornhub's verification rules, which have yet to be announced and won't start until sometime early next year.

One animator who asked to remain anonymous told me that they lost about 20 videos, "including story animations, which I loved very much …This was sad for me as the videos were deleted without warning," they said, but added that they luckily had a backup of their videos saved to their hard drives. "However, I didn't have any income from Pornhub, so it's okay, the videos are saved and I'll just move them to another site." 

That illustrator wasn't verified, but even being a verified user didn't save some people from the purge. Pornhub's policy changes were intended to skip over verified accounts, but some users still saw their verified content taken down.

“Sex workers are under attack everywhere”

Another confusing aspect of Pornhub's cleaning spree is the effect it has had on verified creators and performers. Many have reported on Twitter that some of their verified content has been disappeared, seemingly at random, even while other uploads have stayed online. Others in the comments of Pornhub's own verification policy page say that they were verified, but now they aren't. From the outside, there seems to be no consistent reasoning for this. 

Before the policy changes, there were three types of verification, according to Pornhub: Content partners, users in the model program, and verified users. The last category is now gone, and only uploads by models and content partners remain. The users reporting verification issues were likely in that last category—verified based on the old standards Pornhub used, which involved sending Pornhub a selfie with your face and holding up a sheet of paper with your name written on it. Those users are all now unverified. But inconsistencies remain.

Riley Cyriis, a performer who's been verified on Pornhub for more than a year, told me that most of her free videos and around 40 of 120 paid videos were removed, along with 20 videos she had set to private, only viewable by her. 

"My best guess would be certain tags, like 'teen' or 'daddy,' but it's really just a guess," she said. "The majority of flagged videos were my most successful ones ranging from 200k to 700k views, so maybe it's just how they came up? My profile is pretty obviously made by a real person and I listed my age publicly."

She wasn't using Pornhub as a main income source (although many performers do), so she's planning to focus more on other platforms like Onlyfans and Manyvids. 

Pornhub has said that it will restart the verification with new requirements in 2021. But the gap is a long time to wait if you're losing an audience and relied on the site for income. Many performers have already lost significant income due to Mastercard and Visa's decision to drop Pornhub. Performer Mary Moody said in a video about the payment processing news that she was making enough money from Modelhub to cover rent each month.   

And the verification process, which still hasn't been clarified publicly by Pornhub, could bring up new issues for anyone who wants to get their content back. IzzyBSides said that they'd received verification rejections before Pornhub's content purge, because their avatar—a fire sprite—obviously doesn't match their real-life face. The reason Pornhub gave for their rejection the last time, before the content suspensions, was that their avatar didn't match their verification photo. "We need to see your face to confirm," Pornhub's customer service email to them said. According to Pornhub, this method of verification is now outdated.

It's unclear how verification will work in the future, but Pornhub has said that identification of some kind will be part of the process. There are obviously many reasons that not everyone would want to use their real face as their avatar on a porn website.

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get verified with those sorts of requirements," IzzyBSides said, adding that performers who wear masks or keep their faces cropped out of videos would be excluded from verification on these terms. "It would force anyone experimenting out of the closet."

I asked performer Dylan Thomas how a verification system with even more strict requirements for identity could impact trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming content creators and performers. He said Pornhub could avoid excluding these groups by consulting with, and hiring, them to help create the new system. 

"Some of us with intersectional experience in both creative strategy, the digital space and sex work would like nothing more than to serve our community and get everyone back online, generating income and having an enjoyable, safe and sexy time," he said. 

How Pornhub’s new verification policies and process will unfold in practice is yet to be seen, but by including the voices of people who use the site, it could avoid future mistakes—just as it could have avoided this month’s backlash—and listen to the sex workers and content creators who've been asking for things to change for a long time.

"Pornhub was blatant about their disregard to what appeared on the site. But sex workers are under attack everywhere," Cyriis said. "Aside from the payout issues caused by Visa/MC, YouTubers and celebrities are flicking onto our platforms and basically doing whatever they want with no real financial repercussions. The consequences fall squarely on the shoulders of sex workers who built these platforms."

Pornhub’s Content Purge Has Left Fetish Creators Wondering What’s Next syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[scuttleboat]

There’s no cursing in The Good Place... (spoilers for season 1)

This post may contain graphic and sexual language. Most of my blog does. Sorry this is way too fucking long.

I had a thought a few weeks ago about how the “no cursing” rule is used on The Good Place, and how a benign act of “appropriateness” is actually an early sign that the characters are living in a dystopian scenario.  And how--bear with me here--this reads to me as a clear analogy for dramatic flailing of fandom groups this last two years. Now, I may not make this point in the most thorough or elegant way possible, as I feel vaguely intimidated talking about a show that has such thoughtful philosophical consideration behind it, but I’m going to give it a shot. If I flub, blame the messenger not the essence of the idea.

In season 1, Eleanor and the audience are presented with a world that is supposed heaven, specifically a “neighborhood” of the good place that is specifically curated to fit its residences (in this case, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jianyu, and others). Of course, we learn right away that Eleanor believes she’s there by mistake, and one of the first rules that demonstrates her “wrongness” is that she wants to curse, and can’t.

Eleanor: “Why can't I say ‘fork’?” Chidi: “If you're trying to curse, you can't here. I guess a lot of people in this neighborhood don't like it, so it's prohibited.” Eleanor: “That's bullshirt.”

The show glosses over this pretty quickly, and it’s played for laughs for the rest of the season. It very cleverly supports the show’s season 1 misdirect: any awkward or unsettling aspect of The Good Place is excused away by the audience (and by the characters) as simply being a side-effect of Eleanor’s misplacement. Of course you can’t swear in heaven!  Swearing is for bad people, and good people wouldn’t even want to hear it. So, therefore, it doesn’t exist here.

And yet, this is not just a subtle form of personal torture for Eleanor (as she is, of course, really in The Bad Place), it’s actually a pretty grotesque form of censorship on all of the characters. Notice that Chidi doesn’t say he is particularly averse to swearing. He says “I guess a lot of people in this neighborhood don’t like it.” Although not nearly as much as others, Chidi does curse a couple times in the show, himself. So, clearly, it’s not a thing he feels particular discomfort about---so why is it censored when they’re alone?  If this were truly a heavenly place customized for each soul, then Eleanor would be able to express herself and Chidi would be able to hear it, but other people who didn’t want to hear it would simply not be subjected to the cursing. 

Instead, the neighborhood completely outlaws cursing anywhere, at any time. In the s1 premise, it’s not enough for the other citizens simply to not hear the swearing, it matters if it’s even happening anywhere in their environment, whether they themselves are witness or not.  So why am I focusing on that idea, when we know the whole thing is manufactured, and the people who made up this rule did so as a lie, just to be cruel?

Because that line of thinking is so endemic to certain parts of fandom right now. Whether it’s making a story or fanart that contains content someone morally disapproves of, or whether it’s only a simple text post or meme going around, there’s thing now where people feel like content boundaries and warnings aren’t enough. It’s not enough to acknowledge that public platforms like Tumblr are unmoderated and that venturing forth to search or browse is accepting a certain amount of risk that one might run into something that makes one uncomfortable.  

[read more below the cut]

When people are campaigning that content they disapprove of--sexually, romantically, politically, morally, paternalistically--shouldn’t exist, they’re doing what the demons of The Bad Place have done to Eleanor and Chidi. They’re saying “This offends me, so it should not exist anywhere that I can know about or ever possibly visit.” Yes, that’s fic about characters who are underage having sex. Yes, that’s fic about characters having sex in a way that doesn’t fit their canon sexuality. Yes, that’s fic about violence and torture being done to characters for brutal and bigoted reasons. Yes, that’s fic about rape, assault, and abuse. Yes, that’s fic about uncomfortable, even disgusting things. Yes, it’s fic about noncon, dubcon, bad bdsm, ABO, slavery, fetishism, power differences, incest, and unrealistic depictions of drugs or sex. It’s fanart and headcanons about those things too.

These ideas, posts, fanworks, and concepts are part of fiction and literature. They’re part of fandom too, and are in fact one of the ways that fandom has pushed the edge of creative development for decades. As they said in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, “We do the weird stuff.”  Now most people in fandom don’t want to be a dick and just shove things in the face of someone who isn’t interested in consuming it--the artists and writers usually want their work to be found by people who want to consume it. So various media platforms have tools or informal conventions for negotiating shared spaces: tags and ratings on AO3, for example, serve a primary service of sorting the archive and secondary service of warning people of undesired content. On tumblr, it’s most an honor thing where people typically don’t follow blogs that post stuff they know they don’t like, and if someone is going to post something controversial they usually throw up an “FYI” at the top, or put it behind a read-more tag. Those decisions are voluntary, however, and everyone who uses a site like Tumblr is doing so with the express acknowledgement that they cannot control what others post, and may in fact browse a post with content they don’t like. For emotional, personal, or political reasons. ((Note: I’m not referring to personal targeted bullying  and harassment, which may violate the TOS of particular social media sites, and is off-topic for this discussion.))

What happens when you see that post that offends you? Well, you have three primary choices. You can engage with the OP, you can ignore it, or you can hit the “block user” or “report” options. At any given time, those various options may be what you decide to do, and that’s fine. That is, pretty much, the system working. It’s not a perfect system for sure, but it’s a reasonably functioning one on sites like Tumblr that try to accommodate the needs of millions of users. (don’t worry, fandom wont stay on tumblr and twitter forever.) AO3 has similar protections in place, with the difference being that AO3 is a far more opt-in user process: there is no personal “dashboard” or “my feed” on AO3. A person has to seek out content and utilize filters, and doing that only gets the user to the basics like title, summary, and tags. To actually SEE content, the user has to willfully click into the story.

I’m describing these processes (which most of you reading this will already know) because it’s important to keep in mind scope when we’re talking about content exposure and potential resulting damage. When you use these sites (and for the most part, the whole internet), the onus is on the user to curate their experience. On Tumblr that means blocking or blacklisting what you see, and on AO3 that means not clicking the link to a story unless you’ve read and accepted the warnings and description. On Google, it means don’t search “HS History teacher Dean takes teen Castiel in the locker room” if you don’t want to read something fitting that description. Yeah, it may offend you that it exists, but that doesn’t mean that you have to engage with it to prove that it’s harmful to you.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion this last 18 months about what people “can” or “cannot” write, draw, post, or squee about. I’ve seen it in The 100 fandom, I’ve seen it in Teen Wolf fandom, I’ve seen it in Star Wars fandom, I’ve heard about it in anime/cartoon fandom, and I’ve even seen it crop up in, OF ALL THINGS, Game of Thrones fandom.  (side note: if you complain about sexual content in fic while also posting gifs of GoT or Sense8 then I personally would like to throw a pie in your stupid face.) For some people, the answer to “I don’t like that this thing exists” seems to be to aggressively rail against it, to the point of targeting the creator, harassing them, or campaigning for websites or forums to change their rules so that XYZ offensive content does not exist. They say “I don’t care if you write it, just don’t post it where I might find it.”  The idea here is that the world around us is better without XYZ being part of our creative works or discussions, and that shunning that content and those creators makes the world (the internet) a kinder, softer, more welcoming place. 

A good place. 

A place where only good things can be. Where no one is made sad, and nothing that happens here can bring discomfort to anyone. And if you want something that’s not allowed in the good place, the righteous place, then it’s you who doesn’t belong. 

To circle back, the show The Good Place has gotten more popular this season, and I couldn’t be happier. I think it’s a fascinating examination of the ambiguity of people, as well as how mental stress can be used to torture. It’s a funny show with a lot of heart, but it’s a dark show too. And one of the darkest, subtlest things the show has ever done was reach into Eleanor’s mouth and change the words she is speaking. Not to prevent actual harm, but to make sure that other people could live in a world where things they abstractly disapproved of didn’t exist at all. For that, Eleanor was denied her basic concept of self and expression. The elimination of communication like that is such a profound violation of individuality and self that it’s almost incomprehensible that any world in which that happens could be ever perceived as a “good” place. That’s not a nice neighborhood where everyone gets along and is sheltered. That’s mind control. That’s gaslighting. That’s Hell.

There are a lot of ways to handle the struggle of content filtering, and hopefully we’ll figure out new and better ways in the future to balance the needs of artists with the needs of consumers, but one way that doesn’t work is censorship. AO3 isn’t going to change its rules to prevent content you don’t like. They know where that road ends. Tumblr might someday, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it. And if they do, this whole network of fan culture will migrate to another site without those constraints. It’s already happened twice since I’ve been around. Purity wank is an old problem for fandom, but it used to be an attack from the outside. Now it’s coming from the inside too, probably because the community is so much bigger. So it’s time to really examine the discussions we hear, and sort out if silencing each other is really going to fix anything.

[clarencenicholsonata]

4 Fun Ways Instagram Gifs Help to Increase Sales & Engagement

Gifs have firmly placed themselves on our screens and as content marketing essentials for both B2C and B2B brands. We honestly can't get enough GIFs. They perfectly convey what we feel, would like to express, and love in just a few frames.

via GIPHY

Web Tech Survey found that around 22.7% of all websites have GIFs. They also found that Facebook ranked for the highest use of GIFs in the world, so we can ultimately assume that Instagram will follow suit joining the list of platforms dominated with GIFs as of 2020 and beyond.

GIF's are the perfect combination of video and images, mobile-friendly, but cheaper than video, not to mention there's an entire library of GIF you can tap into on Giphy and Tumblr.

After all, Instagram has incorporated GIFs as a long-standing Instagram Story feature. Don't forget that striking visuals are key players when it comes to building a compelling brand presence on Instagram. Brands have caught on to the wave of connecting with customers through engaging, relatable, and viral content, such as videos, memes, and now GIF's.

What smart marketers know is that GIFs can also help to increase sales and engagement. When used right or creating a GIF, you can tap into GIF culture's power on Instagram, whether it's in your feed or stories.

1. Use GIFs on Instagram as Call to Actions (CTAs)

Brands on Instagram are now using GIFs to highlight CTA's (call to actions), and why not?

How many of us have scrolled through our feed and tapped past hundreds of stories.

Humans overall have short attention spans, and we forget the most basic of things without the help of pretty colors and GIF highlighting actions we need to take, like (Swipe up!).

Instagram now offers thousands of CTA's you can add to stories to grab your viewer's attention. Whether it's a shop now tag, neon highlighted arrow, or new video button.

If you feel like diving deep into the business features Instagram Stories can provide check out Later's The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories for Business.

2. Use GIF's for Creatively Product Display on Instagram

GIFs aren't only for stories, and you can create your own GIFs and use them to spice up your content, give followers a new experience, or take on your brand's personality.

When it comes to Instagram content, it's sometimes easy to see the same old content, and if you're creating content, you can find yourself stuck in a rut. Instead, use GIFs in your Instagram feed to spice up your content and creatively display your products on Instagram.

GIFs are perfect for launching a new product or sales, so create something fancy that will stop your followers from scrolling past. For example, check out Oreo's Limited Edition Tiramisu OREO cookie GIF!

View this post on Instagram

?NEW FLAVOR ALERT ? Limited Edition Tiramisu OREO cookies are now being served up at home! Get your own pack at ShopOREO.com

A post shared by OREO (@oreo) on Apr 15, 2020 at 1:03pm PDT

The key to creating GIFs with your products is to capture lifestyle and fun content that connects easily with customers. Balancing creativity and sales helps you to make the most out of it. Keep the sales pitch and details in the captions and let the GIF do all the razzle-dazzle. The best GIFs have little to no words, instead, they're focused on a product or action.

For example, Starbucks is a brand known to add a bit of GIF here and there showcasing new beverages. When they launched their new Iced Coconut Milk, they used a GIF to quickly display the two flavors available with their Ice Coconut Milk. Short, simple, and sweet (literally).

View this post on Instagram

It’s good to have good options. ? The new Iced Coconutmilk #PineappleMatchaDrink and #GoldenGingerDrink are ready when you are. ? (US only)

A post shared by Starbucks Coffee ☕ (@starbucks) on May 13, 2020 at 7:00am PDT

You can take things to the next level by combining GIFs and Memes (yes, that's a thing, you just haven't realized).

3. Increase Engagement on Instagram with GIF's

Engagement and followers are the two main currencies on Instagram. You either have it, or you don't. If you find that you need to boost engagement, then use GIFs to spark up a conversation with your audience.

The British Bake Off Uses GIF content to celebrate food holidays, quiz followers, and share the exciting news. Instead of using a static image, a GIF conveys far more information in a short amount of time than a regular video. In this example, they are asking followers to share their favorite cake day lyrics!

View this post on Instagram

#CakeWeek. You’ve gâteaux see it. Share your #CakeSongs in the comments to get warmed up for tonight. #GBBO

A post shared by The Great British Bake Off (@britishbakeoff) on Sep 4, 2018 at 6:54am PDT

Here are some tips you can use to create engaging GIF content:

Ask your followers what they would choose (this or that)?

Ask questions to get feedback from your followers relating to your content, product, or services, or what they'd like to see on your Instagram page.

Create a pop quiz on your website and use a GIF post to promote it.

Create a GIF to highlight any online activities such as giveaways, going live, or uploading a new video.

View this post on Instagram

Sometimes the choice is not simple ;) #tictac #tictacglobal #meeting #choice #mint #orange

A post shared by Tic Tac (@tictacglobal) on Jun 3, 2020 at 7:25am PDT

4. Stay Relevant on Instagram with GIF Culture

Social media is a reflection of the trends, changes, and news that affects its followers. So it's essential to stay up to date with what's happening.

When Covid-19 hit the US, food service providers had to find a new way to meet their customers halfway. Food delivery skyrocketed like never before because it seemed the only way people could safely consume food from their favorite brands. Krispy followed suit when they used GIF on Instagram to announce their Drive-Thru, Pickup & Delivery options for their Krispy Kreme lovers.

View this post on Instagram

Your #neighbors need some sweetness this Saturday – in the form of a front-porch ? delivery! ? #BeSweetSaturdays #KrispyKreme #Doughnuts Buy one full priced #OriginalGlazed dozen & get a FREE Be Sweet dozen to share! Cannot be combined with other offers. US shops only. Available through #drivethru, #pickup & #delivery - all info & how to order here at link in bio.

A post shared by Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (@krispykreme) on Apr 25, 2020 at 11:26am PDT

You can use GIFs to showcase that your team knows what's happening, and you're providing solutions and helping them along the way. Tap into GIF culture so you can lighthearted and effectively connect with your customers during the fun and hard times.

5 Best Tools to Create GIFs for Instagram

With thousands of graphic tools and apps, you don't need a graphic designer to create fun and exciting GIFs. Here are five of the best tools to create GIFs for Instagram:

Canva

Adobe Photoshop

GIF Maker

Giphy

Summary

Using GIFs on Instagram is just the tip of the iceberg; there's a whole digital marketing world out there already using GIFs to capture and retain leads. GIFs are a worthy investment for any content marketing strategy.

If you're not sure where to start with GIF, take a look at what other brands are doing or what popular GIFs are trending and make them your own. Here's a quick recap of the four fun ways Instagram GIFS help to increase sales and engagement:

Use GIFs on Instagram as Call to Actions (CTAs)

Use GIFs for Creatively Product Display on Instagram

Increase Engagement on Instagram with GIF's

Stay Relevant on Instagram with GIF Culture

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