#But this time the format is (Hopefully) better for those who want alt-text

[l-legomaster]

But, Uhm, Look guys, look: It's the Red Arlo 2, for the Portable Networks Graphics Interface, AhAhAh!

[artmwrites]

How I Write Blog Posts and Why You Need a Writing Routine

A lot of small business owners want to start writing blog posts for their business. Writing takes one part discipline, one part research, and one part art with a touch of psychology to do. I’ve written this post to help those starting out building their own writing habits. Writing is like any other skill, it takes practice and dedication. We all start somewhere and every one of us can become pro bloggers.

Planning

The first step I take to write my content is to sit and plan the post out. Writing isn’t like the movies where you sit by a sunny window and type away building a million dollar blog. Writing quality content takes practice and planning. You can achieve both over time.

Planning your post starts with your topic. Planning topics can be a huge roadblock and many people quit writing before they begin. Develop categories for your blog based on your products or services. After that develop topics for each category. Try to develop 10 to 20 topics to start. These topics can be further broken down or developed into long-form content.

Once you have a topic you know you can write 300 or more words for, start to plan out the post. On a Word document or Google Doc, start with a basic title you'll build-out later. Make a section for keywords to help get your post ranked. Make a section for SEO meta titles and descriptions. Finally, outline the actual post with headings for each point you want to make in your post.

Research for Your Blog

Researching key aspects of your blog before you write will help you create content that brings value to the people that need to read it. Researching before you write will refresh your memory and help you back up your facts. With researched data and info, you boost your authority and trust with readers. People that trust their information sources are more likely to convert.

Persona

Personas are a fictitious person that represents a segment of your target audience. Building an in-depth profile for your persona including a name, family, job, and pain points humanize your persona. Personalizing personas give you a “person” to create your blog post to read.

Having these personas allows you to write like you are having a conversation about your company to a friend. Knowing who you are writing for is a huge step in creating great blog posts. 

Keywords

Keywords act like triggers for search engines when people are looking for specific topics. Finding keywords can be tricky if you don’t know where to look or how to use them. How to do keyword research is an entire post on its own

Brainstorm a list of words that you would use to search for the topic of your post. You can use a tool like Google Keyword Tool or a free tool like Ubersuggest by Neil Patel to get an estimate of how much traffic those keywords get. Once you find a handful of relevant keywords, search them on Google, and look at the “People Also Asked” section. This is a great way to either find new topics related, refine your post, or find your alternative or long-tail keywords.

Authoritative Sources

The last thing to research to create your post is several sources to back your content and show trust and authority. Trying to find at least one credible source per point will help with readers and your SEO. You can also learn something new about the topic you’re writing about. If you use someone else’s work to back your post then it’s only right to give them credit.

Blog Writing

Now comes the fun part. Many people, myself included, get stuck in the writing phase. Here are a few suggestions and tips I use to start and finish a blog post.

Make Time to Write Like it’s Your Job

You need to set aside time to write. Create a block of time in your workday to just sit and write. Write one or two blog posts for practice and to publish later. Writing can be a very Zen-like activity once you start to develop solid writing habits. You’ll get better at writing as time goes on and you’ll start writing more and faster.

If you write your blog post a little bit a day, eventually you’ll find it takes 2 months to finish and by then the entire thing could be outdated or look like a jumbled mess. You need to sit and get your thoughts down while everything is fresh in your mind.

Find a Place to Write

Finding a comfortable place with little distractions is the next step. Unrestricted writing is key to getting your post written quickly. Find a space to call your own and camp out to build your writing habits. You need as little interruptions as possible to get all your thoughts on paper.

Don’t Stop to Edit or Think

One of the biggest contributors to writer’s block I run into is when I stop to correct grammar, spelling, or anything that doesn’t look right to me. I’ll fix all those little red underlines from Grammarly and next thing I know, boom there goes my train of thought.

When you start writing, don’t stop until you’re finished. Get all your thoughts out and in a logical order for your blog post. You’ll have time after to edit, add, or take whatever you want away. This is why large publishing companies and marketing agencies have editors. Their job is to fix errors and make sure the post is readable. Don’t let imperfections stop your progress.

Blog Editing

My process for editing my blog posts is waiting a day until I even look at the post again. By waiting a day to read and edit the post, I give myself a fresh set of eyes and detach from the post. I can make sure the post is accurate and conveys the message I need it to.

The first thing I do is make sure grammar, spelling, and punctuation are correct through an app like Grammarly. I use the free version which works great for me. Using another app like the Hemingway app will help you when you’re starting out to keep your post readable.

Next, I read through and make sure the information is organized and makes sense. I may reword sections or even completely remove anything I don’t see as relevant. Sometimes on more complex posts, I’ll ask someone to read it and make sure they understand what I wrote.

Blog Publishing & Distribution

Once the post is edited, it's ready for publishing. Before you publish, find a few decent and relevant images to add to the post including a featured image. These can be stock images or photos you took for your business. Your photos need to look professional and you need to be able to size them appropriately.

Once you’ve entered your post and images into your preferred platform, optimize it for SEO. Make sure you have one H1 and the other headings follow suit according to importance. Use ALT text on your images. Add your meta title and description. Any links need to be semantic for Google. Finally, make your URL short and descriptive for Google and readers.

Once you publish your post, decide what platforms and when you’ll distribute your post. Just writing a post won’t get eyes on it. The more traffic you get to your post, the more authority your post will get. Decide how you want to section your post for social media. Do you want to publish to Medium? Maybe you want to repurpose the post into a video for YouTube. There are a ton of possibilities. The most important thing is to get your post out there.

Repurposing Blogs

Repurposing your posts is something to consider down the road. There are several key ways to repurpose content that works great. Repurposing allows you to take an existing blog, build it out or fix it, and keep your existing link and SEO juice.

Pillar Posts

Pillar posts are for posts you can easily make into 3,000 plus words and create a web of links between smaller posts. Pillar posts are a comprehensive, long-form post that acts as the hub for a web of similar links. Pillar posts are amazing for boosting SEO.

One downfall is you need around 10 posts on the same topic you can tie together to start your pillar post. Once you have a good amount of posts on a topic, it's truly something you need to consider.

Updating Blog Posts

Google loves when content is updated with new information. I’ve seen client posts skyrocket and do extremely well with SEO once they were updated and given a fresh headline. The best part about updating posts is you get to put a new perspective and eyes on it while keeping the SEO you earned for the original post.

Alternate Media

Making your post into different media types is a great way to create funnels with video, infographics, podcasts, and other content types. Having your message out in multiple formats gives you a great opportunity to get more eyes and ears on it. The more funnels you get out there, the more traffic you get back to your site.

Social Media Posts for Funnels

This isn’t so much repurposing but a way to build more funnels with your post. I usually add this as part of a content marketing strategy. Planning to take stand-alone parts of your post with custom graphics make great social media posts. If you have a post with enough info, you can have months worth of social media posts from one piece of content.

Conclusion

Writing a blog post can be daunting and sometimes writer’s block will hit you and you’ll give up. Hopefully, this post will give you a little light on how someone who does this for a living handles it. With planning, research, and practice, you’ll become a pro in no time.

If you find yourself stuck or just don’t have time to start building your content, feel free to contact me to learn more about how I can help. I’m a content marketer, writer, and SEO specialist helping small businesses build an online presence for more conversions and sales. Contact me or email me today.

[astormyjet]

March 13th - July 18th 2017: ES and JHS Graduation Round Two, Korea and Osaka, Hanami, Early ES Sports Day, Becoming RA, Shiminami Kaido Round Two, More Farewells and the Start of Summer.

Yeah, it’s been a while folks. Life hit me full force. As did the looming threat of the future. I’ve been working on trying to motivate myself. It’s pretty hard, when you set the bar low and you eventually achieve what you want, there’s this big moment of well, this is temporary, what the f**k am I going to do with my life after this. Basically the last few months have been one existential crisis after another. Fun times.

A bunch of really cool 6th Grade Elementary School kids and 3rd Year Junior High School kids graduate in March. I keep seeing a bunch of the JHS Graduates on my bike to and from school this year, my fave tennis kid from last year nearly ran me off the road and into the river the other day she was so stoaked to see me. A bunch of my faves from ES came to the JHS, but I haven’t really had the opportunity to teach them or be in class with them as much as I was with the 1st years last year.  It’s made me a little jittery to be honest.

 I’ve only really had the chance to go to 2nd year classes, and that’s not picnic being that 80% of the kids are little punks. I love them to bits, but they are disrespectful, lazy little shits - and have been since they were in the 6th Grade. In part this is due to the way their English teacher taught them last year, but it’s also on them. It takes WAY to long to explain anything to them, so we’re stuck in discipline mode for 90% of class, review mode for 5% and have very limited time to do anything outside of the text book. They’re getting better, we’ve made more headway with the tougher kids which has bought the mood of the classroom back a bit, but there is still SO MUCH TO COVER. I want to go to 3rd and 1st year classes more. *sobbing* At least my 3rd years have been writing to me a lot. I have ninja-ed my way into some of their classes during my free periods, but it’s not the same...

My new 5th Graders are fantastic, cute and terrifyingly smart kids. I mean all the kids I teach are smart, but this lot are quirky and just so...genki? My 6th Graders are still great too. Which is a relief. I was worried they’d get one of the teachers from last year and that would change them for the worse, but that particular teacher was moved to another grade. English club is going well, it was so popular this year that a bunch of kids got turned down. We’re at capacity with 28 kids, and boy is it stressful having to think of fun stuff to do with a bunch of kids for an hour and a half every two weeks. But I love it.

South Korea and Osaka were fun. I’ll be honest, I think I bought the mood down A LOT in Korea, which I feel really guilty about. The person I was travelling with had so much they wanted to see and do, but I was a total fun sponge. I just felt REALLY uncomfortable in Seoul. I walked past a couple of anti-gay protests, and I think that had something to do with it. Being around other tourists also just..drove me mad? People are so rude? I think I’ve been in Japan too long as the standards I have for politeness are way too high...

That said, the lady in our hostel was really sweet. As were the other guests. Most of the vendors I interacted with were civil, even when I fucked up and started speaking Japanese instead of English out of habit (guy took it in his stride, and was almost relieved I think because his Japanese was better than his English). It was easier to find clothes that fit, particularly pants. The food was delicious, and the things we did go and see were pretty fun. I loved K-star Road and Myeondong. When we were leaving for Osaka, there was a drama or a CM being shot in the Airport, so while we were trying to get to sleep there was a lot of yelling and camera people running by. It was pretty cool. 

Osaka was much more my speed. I enjoyed going up the tower and doing some shopping in the Pokemon Center (this time minus the encounter with random 5th Grader from my ES) and ironically enough the Korea Town there. We were only in Osaka for a night, but as soon as we hit the ground back in Japan I just felt like I was home. There’s something that has always pulled me towards this place. I’m not sure how I’m going to leave in a few years. Hopefully by then somewhere else will be calling to me just as strong. 

After that trip it was right back into the new year with the teacher change and the new classes. Introduction lessons were about the only time I’ve had lesson with my 1st year JHS kids this semester so I’ve had words with my JTEs and they’ve paid lip service at least to timetabling me in for next Semester. Somewhere in this time I got pissed at my ES Supervisor for all the mucking around with the timetable and not informing the Japanese ALT about the changes and making her come all the way in for no classes or classes in the afternoon only. It stopped happening for a while...then it happened again today. Hopefully it was a one off thing or I’m going to have to talk to the BOE because it’s really not fair on anyone.

There were a bunch of Hanami parties ect too around this time. Also a couple more farewell parties. I applied for RA some time in Feb and got the position in March/April along with another person who is super cool and motivated, so that has had me busy.  In May there was Golden Week, which I did pretty much nothing in, besides go down to the Ikazaki Kite festival on Children's day again. It was fantastic. My ES had their Undokai/Sports Day in May too due to the big Paralympic championship being held here in September. It was so much fun this time, I dodged between tents and got to hang out with the really little kids as well as their parents and we all enjoyed cheering for our teams. The team I was on won for a change!!!

I graded from Green belt to brown finally after a four year period of dodging grading for Karate. I’ve learnt about 4 more kata since I have been here too, which is overwhelming. My teacher is threatening me with my black belt either at the end of this year or middle of next....so better get into shape a bit more before then. 

I bought a new skate board and have gone out a couple of times with my friend and his girlfriend. It’s surprisingly easier to cruise on compared to the old k-mart board I had, though I miss my longboard something shocking. I also miss being able to cruise around on it like back in Uni, you can’t really do that here without breaking the law or getting run over by someone. 

In June we held our first RA event, doing Iyo-kasuri dying in Matsuyama. It went well for a first event, I just need to relax a bit and plan stuff out for myself a bit more. The next event we’re hoping to hold is one for a Beach day after all the new people come in. But that is after Orientation, so I am going to start plotting that in about two weeks. 

I also did the Shimanami Kaido again with AJET. This time it actually went a lot better, it RAINED something fierce on the second to last island so we basically swam up the last couple of hills, but it was well worth it. It was hot, but not unbearable. There was also a festival at the end of it in Onomichi which was cool. The morning after, on the way to get breakfast we ran into on of the guys I came in with in 2015. I can’t for the life of me remember his name, but he pointed us in the direction of a really nice bakery. So props fellow kiwi. Best Curry-pan I have ever had. 

I took the JLPT N4 on July 2nd. I’m pretty sure I failed again. But I only have myself to blame. I need to figure out how to study. I was always one of those kids that did really well on tests with relatively little study at High School, I just needed to pay attention in class and do the homework. But everything changed when the firenation..I mean Uni attacked. I know for a fact my conversational Japanese has gotten heaps better (though it is strongly Iyo-ben/Yankii/Inaka), my reading and writing hasn’t improved at all. Nor has my ability to do their shitty grammar puzzles, really the format of that section is going to be what makes me fail in tests I study for even...but for now it’s over, I think I’ll wait until this time next year to sit it again, if I pass I’ll aim for N3. 

This last weekend there was the AJET leaving party on Kashima island in Hojo. It was a bit surreal to be quite honest. A fair few of the people who came in with me, as well as the sempai who guided us through our first month, are leaving. I know life will plug on as normal after they’re gone, that is the transient nature of this job, but it is going to be odd for a bit having new faces around in a couple of weeks.

It’s made me realize how fast time is going. I have no plan for after JET yet. I have no ambition or motivation really. I don’t really have anything waiting for me back home other than Student debt and few job prospects. So for now I guess the plan is to take more TESOL courses, brush up on my Japanese and look into what I need to acquire a similar job after my final renewal.

One of my 5th graders was on the island when we got there. So that was weird....but she was really cool today, bragging to all her friends about how she saw me and my friends. A bunch of kids were surprised I even had friends, but that’s another story for another time. The next day as I was going to pick my bike up from the repair shop (my back tire burst on my way to the supermarket/station on Saturday) I ran into one of the shyer 6th Grade kids and her cousin. We had a special fifth grade lesson with my teacher for JHS, we’re doing phonics, and it’s equal parts hilarious and terrifying how kiwi these kids sound. 

This weekend there is E-Talk camp, which I am looking forward too. One of the few decent 2nd year JHS boys is doing it again this year as well as one of my fave 3rd year girls. I think there might be one more kid, but my teacher didn’t really confirm that yet. I’ll find out on Saturday hopefully.

I’m going to my ES End of term party on Thursday, which I am looking forward to, but also dreading. The nurse who has been at the school for the last year or so is transferring out to Seiriyo High School and we’re getting someone new. So this party will be the last time I see her for a while. She’s been pretty cool about me coming in and out and chatting with the kids who have anxiety issues and the kids who aren’t feeling well, but are still genki enough to be sitting up. It’s also been really nice to hide in the nurses office while I don’t have classes because I can do my homework there a lot faster than I can in the teachers room, and they had the aircon on earlier...and not as high as the teachers room does...either way, I hope the dynamic doesn’t change too much, especially for the two kids who have that place as their refuge.

Next week, I have a trip to Tokyo coming up. I need to get off of the island for a bit again I think. And I need to do it on my own. So I’ve booked five days away, and only have tentative plans to meet up with my former Japanese housemate. I want to climb Takao-san, even though people say it’s nothing special and I want to go to Ueno Zoo and do a couple of nerdy things in Akiba/Ikebukuro again. I just need to push myself a little more. Then it’ll be right back into Orientation Prep and welcoming the new kids.  

Orientation prep is a bit stressful. I screwed up and made things complicated for everyone by trying to be considerate of my stressed out JHS JTEs. At the end of the day I should have just bitten the bullet and started planing the whole demonstration lesson on my own and run through it with whoever I was going to do it with a couple of times before the actual event, but noooooooo I had to go and try change things up by asking if we could have one of the other ALTs in our region do it with our old boss....but that’s a problem for tomorrow or the end of the week. I am confident I can pull it off if things fall through, but if not, there is really only me to blame for it all.  

I have so much to do before I leave, but I should wack the last of the urgent stuff out by tomorrow afternoon. If not, I took leave on Friday, so between cleaning my house up for Micheal to stay here on his last night while I am away and packing (hopefully not too hung over) I have time to get the bulk of what I need done out of the way before my holiday and the printing deadline. 

Basically I am happy, a little stressed, somewhat frustrated with lack of classes at my JHS, but also shit scared of the future. What else is new....

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The alt-right's worldwide weaponization of memes

Pepe has made his way to France.

Of the many wildly unpredictable aspects of the 2016 election, the usage of memes by a fiercely active, populist conservative movement stands alone. 

Using easily shareable and emotionally driven images to promote nationalist conservative politics, internet meme evangelists believe that they had a direct impact on the election, carrying Donald Trump all the way to the White House.

Six months later, this coordinated movement has taken their Great Meme War overseas to help elect Marine Le Pen, candidate of the far right National Front Party, as the next president of France.

"This is a global movement because people around the world are being forced to accept a globalist agenda that benefits the few at the expense of our nations, our cultures, and our peoples," the moderators of the subreddit r/The_Donald said about their campaign. "Memes, humor, images, and videos that people come up with ... draw people in... Meme magic works if you have the right message/plan."

Seemingly emboldened by Trump's electoral win, the weaponization of memes has been codified into something that mirrors the form of a social movement. 

That movement has zeroed in the French election. 

Allons meme!

France will elect their next president in a run-off election on May 7, when Le Pen — currently the face of extreme populism — will face Emmanuel Macron, a centrist from the En March! party. Thanks to Brexit, an increase in terrorist attacks throughout France, and the election of Donald Trump, the election is now the center of international attention.

In the months leading up to the election, American nationalists have taken their brand of online activism across the Atlantic, working hard to spread their message to the people of France. Some have even created best practice guidelines for using virality to push Le Pen to a win, while others have more deviously pretended to be French in order to better spread their partisan memes, as reported by BuzzFeed.

The American assistance has not been unwelcome. French meme-makers have deftly accepted the baton and are vocal about "Making France Great Again," even offering tips on how best to fight the Great Meme War on French shores. One post in Reddit's r/LePen forum explained that though French people might not be super familiar with Pepe, the oddly-shaped cartoon frog that became a standard bearer for the alt-right, the community should readily use memes with him. 

"There is no doubt that French people will react positively to dank Pepes, the danker the better," the post by TortueGeniale666 read. "No need to hold back, use Pepe the way he is the most efficient: destroy Political Correctness."

Following this advice, the community has not held back and have focused their attacks on what they see as the immigrant threat to France, and on Macron himself. Images invoking terror attacks, memes of Muslims in France (suggesting an overrun country), and emasculating pictures of Macron have been widely spread on Facebook, Twitter, 4chan, and Reddit. As they did during the 2016 U.S. election, users want these memes to be easily shared, replicated, and provoke an emotional response, enough so to hopefully sway voters.

Image: Storyful

This particular meme factory believes that they are spreading the will of a greater population than just their own; crossing international boundaries to do is a matter of duty in the fight as what they perceive to be dominant, malevolent forces like the mainstream media.

Many right-leaning meme-makers exude confidence, sure that their populism knows no global boundaries — memes, to them, are just an extremely effective tool to harness a movement and center it on a target.

"There exists a massive internet subculture devoted to creating these masterpieces and distributing them," Reddit user DecoySlug said. "This means that the idea of meme magic is not confined to a specific region but is rather spread over the world. An example is the French who are now using memes to support Le Pen."

The memes have indeed shown support for Le Pen and trashed her opponents, and the community was rewarded when Le Pen thanked her fans for the internet bravado, much as Trump did when he visited r/The_Donald for an AMA last summer, back when he was merely a presidential candidate.

A l'issue du 1er tour, je remercie les militants internautes de la #patriosphère, mobilisés depuis le début de cette campagne :#Marine2017 pic.twitter.com/Mki9Vzb8MT

— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) April 24, 2017

"At the end of the first round, I thank the Internet activists of the #patriosphere, mobilized since the beginning of this campaign," her tweet read, referring to the alt-right nationalist movement that supports her. 

The message added confidence to the web's alt-right activists, who feel that they are not only helping to elect Le Pen, but are actively involved with educating the masses in a hope for their future. All this, through memes. 

"The goal of weaponizing memes is to get a message across to as many people as possible," DecoySlug said. "With a well-made meme, a poignant point can be made in a format that allows it to be shared and distributed throughout the internet. In this way, these memes can have an actual and profound effect on people."

James Cohen, Program Director and Assistant Professor of New Media at Molloy College had a different take on the message that was being spread through the alt-right channels. He believes that the meme-makers ultimately want to disrupt conventional thinking and create more noise so that signals like traditional media and establishment governmental messages are distorted. The alt-right hope their reactionary ideas will grow dominant through their self-created static.

"It’s less about the message being delivered than about the obfuscation of the message," Cohen said. "The heavier the obfuscation, the less time there will be to do critical thinking. If they can do that, they believe the populism will prevail, because only those with clarity will be able to make the right decision. But the thing is, no one will be clear."

For many supporters of Trump, Le Pen, and memes, the goal is simple and universal: nationalism.  

A Reddit user named Spartharios, who said they lived in Bulgaria, had a basic outlook for what the community should use memes to accomplish.

"Ultimately, the goal of the whole culture of memes and 'meme magic' is to spread our political message, which is nationalism and a right to self-determination of all peoples," Spartharios said simply. 

However, Florian Cramer, lecturer in 21st century visual culture at Rotterdam University in the Netherlands, doesn't believe that the overseas attempt to harness a community into action has an easy path to victory.

"There's, however, one major obstacle for image meme campaigns in France and the rest of continental Europe," he said. "[I]mageboard and meme culture is a very specifically American phenomenon. Its popular cultural references and humor are incomprehensible to most Europeans."

That lack of translation has not, and most likely, will not stop them from trying.

Image: mashable/Christopher Mineses 

But can a meme really move mountains?

Of course, if you live outside of the realm of meme magic, you may have skepticism around memes and their effectiveness when it comes to changing the course of an election. How, you may ask yourself, could some weird frog and text on images really sway anyone's political leanings?

And it's true, measuring memes ain't easy. Gauging the IRL effect of a community spreading images around social media is not an easy task. Cohen called it a "very hard question" and said it was an ongoing focus of studies as they try to understand if it had any actual political impact. The New York Times' analysis actually said that American memes do not translate well to the French population.

However, online alt-right communities have no doubt that memes are successful.

"The whole concept of memes is that they spread from person to person, and there is literally no way of measuring that," Andrew Anglin, editor and founder of the neo-Nazi blog The Daily Stormer, said over email. "But there is no question in my mind as to the fact that memes elected Donald Trump. A lot of things elected Donald Trump, mainly Hillary Clinton, but without the memes it wouldn't have happened. That's not hyperbole."

While Cohen acknowledged that it's somewhat difficult to tell how effective memes may be at shaping a political climate, he did concede that the current global technological network, combined with the sense of anonymity that comes with joining a large, active group, is capable of imbuing its members with a real feeling of agency. 

"When someone understands the power of anonymity, we return ourselves to that guerrilla technique of power of masks, power without faces," Cohen said. "That one anonymous face could be one person or it could be all people. When you can create five memes per member... If you can show that a meme has power, that power can seem immense."

And, in fact, Cramer said that any meme movement thrives on the fact that no one can really tell if it is effective or not.

France 🇫🇷 is just about gone, LePen is probably the Last Hope ...hope the French people figure it out...😕 pic.twitter.com/WKyv9JAm5c

— DeplorableVETRN🇺🇸 (@DeplorableVetrn) April 29, 2017

"Meme culture is fundamentally based on the fact that neither the origins, nor the addressee of a meme are clearly identifiable," he said. "As a side effect, this leads to uncertainty about the actual size of the network and reach of memes... If people neither know the actual reach, nor the real impact of their meme campaign, they make themselves believe in the most optimistic scenario. This is fundamentally a religious belief."

But that isn't the only thing that the conservative meme movement has going for it. When Trump won his electoral victory, whether or not the meme community could realistically take any credit didn't matter — the win was more than enough encouragement.

"When Trump won it became, 'we could do this anywhere,'" Cohen said. 

When Charlton McIlwain, Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU was asked about whether Trump's win emboldened the meme-ing community, he said, "Absolutely."

"Sometimes people search for invitation to act in different ways, but there’s an increasing sense of visibility," he said. "People in the crowd who are like minded in their beliefs and their behavior say, 'When I see a president like President Trump and the way that they communicate, I look and say, it’s not so fringe or hush hush, I can say it out in the open, because there are people who think like me.'" 

To others in the alt-right, the success of their Great Meme War is nothing but highly specialized, and extremely effective, trolling against a mainstream media that they see has left their ideals far behind, but has also evolved into something easy to control — like Pavlov's dog.  

"The 'meme phenomenon' is simply a grass-roots push-back against the transparent shilling of [the mainstream media]," an active meme creator on Reddit, who preferred not to use their username.

According to them, prodding the media with inflammatory or emotionally reactionary expressions like memes ended in a predictable reaction; the alt-right has Pepe ring a bell, the media salivates.

"It has been insanely successful precisely because the media are not made of Journalists, but shills," this Redditor said. "The reason why we are winning is not the memes, they are a symptom. The memes win the day because the media is easy to troll."

But, in the end, regardless of the actual electoral results, the nationalist meme movement rests assured that its sheer exposure will attract more to their cause. 

"It has certainly been effective at reaching the youth on the internet, especially on Reddit," Spartharios said. "The reason why it's succeeding is because our memes are not only funny, but they ignore the PC culture and don't give a damn about offending anyone, which adds a certain edginess to it. Just enough edginess for it to be effective, and not annoying and polarizing."

Oh, the places Pepe will go

Naysayers may believe that the international spread of memes will make little difference to the ultimate outcome of the French election, but effectiveness doesn't seem to matter to the participants in digital populism. To them, the goal is to maintain their energy and grow their prospective influence.

Should this level of digital populism continue to grow in numbers and energy, how will that affect not only the American or French government, but ultimately the world? Even if the memes don't resonate into mainstream internet culture, the goal is still to build numbers and resolve. 

My fellow Kekistanis if Le Pen makes it past the first round this is not over until May 7th. Use your meme magic! pic.twitter.com/uVuhVhG1DH

— Keks Army 🥛🐸👌🏻 (@ArmyofKek) April 23, 2017

"The definition of populism is an appeal to the masses, and memes are intended to transmit concepts which hold universal meaning among the targeted group using simple language and imagery," Anglin said. "The democratization of meme-production would necessarily lead to a populist mindset among the masses."

For now, the masses are online, though the meme makers still see that as a place to rack up perceived victory after perceived victory.

"Hundreds of thousands of Redditors are on the path to nationalism, simply because of /r/The_Donald," Spartharios said. 

If that growth's gonna happen, this movement might have some growing pains. The meme movement has attracted a wide range of people that might not exactly agree on its goals. 

"I think earnest or sincere political memes produced by the alt-right are often effective at revealing the absence of a cogent political position among those who create them," Matt Applegate, Assistant Professor of English and Digital Humanities at Molloy College, said. 

The people I spoke to subscribed to widely varied politics, from far-right, racially-based ideals to simple disenfranchisement with a system they felt didn't represent them.

"These aren't white supremacist neo-Nazis, they are trolls who know that the media hates Trump and will grab at ANYTHING which makes him look bad...," the Redditor who asked not to be identified said of the meme makers. "I am Jewish, and I am more socially open-minded than any liberal I know. The internet trolls pretend to be crazy in a way that reveals the hypocrisy of the other side, but most of them are like me, I believe."

This view of people like Anglin and his readers over at the Daily Stormer have more rigid social ideas about the ultimate goal. 

"The goal is to create a new culture, a new identity for young white men who don't have one," Anglin said. "Basically, it took the young white male population some time to get to the point where a significant percentage of the intelligent members of that demographic understood that they were part of a collective - a populace - with collective interests. Once a certain number of such persons was reached, they began to meme the message. The meme is the message."

#TuesdayMotivation Paris, you can end all this crap by electing Marine Le Pen. Take your nation back. pic.twitter.com/Ge0jCYGbxi

— Philip Schuyler (@FiveRights) April 25, 2017

The professors that we spoke to had a much more alarmist view of a possible future highly influenced by this type of digital populism. They thought this emotionally-driven expression, filling up people social feeds could spell doom for us all.

Cohen, who encouraged "meme literacy" for everyone, had the most memorable description of this possible future. 

"What could happen is frightening as fuck," he said. 

For him, the natural outcome of the growth of digital populism is fascism, not necessarily on purpose, but as the result of particular people directing the expression of the masses towards an authoritarian fate.

"If we do not gain control of this [movement], we being people," he said, "If we do not take control of this and take a step back, we will accidentally walk ourselves right into this.” 

To sum up his ultimate thoughts on the end result of this globalized movement, Cohen pointed me to the German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin's 1968 book Illuminations, in which he writes:

"Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves."

Memes may have begun as harmless internet jokes, but their impact on the French election, and the world, is someone no one could have expected.

[charllieeldridge]

How To Blog Better: 5 Steps To Take Before Hitting Publish

Learning how to blog may seem easy at first, but blog writing isn’t as simple as you might think. It’s more than just putting words on a page. You need to think about adding images, page load speed, user experience, grammar and spelling, SEO (will Google like what you write), engagement, formatting and so much more.

In this post, I’m going to teach you how to blog better. I’ll show you my personal blog writing check-list that has helped us write better content, get more traffic and help more people with our website. 

Before we get started, it’s important that I explain why you need to have a check-list before hitting the publish button on your latest blog post. Think of the publish button like the launch button on a rocket. You can’t just hit it! You need to go over every part of your blog post to make sure that everything is ready to go before you send it into the universe.

By doing a full systems check before launch, you’ll give your blog post a better chance to be read, shared and to receive traffic from Google.

The first time Google bots crawl your site and find your newest article, they will also be checking it for the same things I’m going to list in this post. The more green lights you get from Google on that first pass, the most likely you are to rank in search results and thus, get more traffic. 

Once you’ve written what you think is the perfect article, it’s imperative to go over it a few times to ensure it’s ready to be published. Follow this list of items in my check-list to make sure your article is ready to go.

Note: for a more in-depth article on writing the perfect blog post, including the blog design, how to choose a topic, how to choose a title, and how to write more efficiently, have a look at our ultimate guide to writing a blog post.

Here 5 steps you should take before hitting publish on your article:

✓ 1. Spell Check

After writing your blog post, you should check it for spelling and grammar errors. Incorrect spelling and grammar will not only cause your readers to get annoyed and click away, but it will also harm your potential SEO. Google bots are sticklers for proper language so don’t make the mistake of hitting publish before checking your copy for errors.

There are a few WordPress plugins you can use to check grammar and spelling, but I don’t recommend using them. Why? Having more plugins means your site has more chances of getting hacked, running slower and being incompatible with future updates. Rather than downloading a plugin to your WordPress blog, download the Grammarly browser extension instead (not a sponsor).

Once installed and activated, this extension will automatically underline any errors while you’re writing your blog post. Simply click on the underlined words or phrases and Grammarly will explain why it believes the selected copy to be erroneous and will offer correction suggestions. 

Productivity Tip: Learning how to blog is one thing, but learning how to blog efficiently is equally important! When you’re writing your blog post and you see that Grammarly is underlining potential errors, don’t fix them right away. Instead, finish writing the entire blog post and then go back and correct any errors. This will ensure that you remain “in the flow” and don’t get too distracted along the way.

✓ 2. Check Formatting 

People who read blog posts are not like those who read novels and magazines. When you’re writing a blog post you need to think about how to blog for people who have extremely short attention spans.

The average time spent reading a blog post on most websites is under 2 minutes. That’s because people simply want the fastest answer available. When web users surf the internet, they’re not doing it to gain vast knowledge or to read flowery language, most of the time they’re simply looking for an answer and they want it fast.

To keep your readers’ attention, you need to format your blog so that it’s appealing to the eye. Here are a few tips on how to blog for actual human beings online.

Break up main points with headings – Headings are also known as H2, H3, and H4 in WordPress. Not only are they good for blog post formatting, but they’re also great for SEO. Google uses these headings to guess what your blog post is about. Make sure you break up your main points with H2 headings, your subheadings with H3 and anything below that with H4. As you can see in this post, the large blue font near the top of the post says “Here 5 steps you should take before hitting publish on your article” is an H2, and each of the subheadings below says “✓…”. These are H3. By breaking up posts like this, it makes them easier to read.

No paragraphs longer than 4 lines – I may have broken this rule ironically in my last paragraph, but as a rule of thumb your paragraphs should be short. Very short. Forget everything your high school English teacher taught you about paragraph structures. If your paragraph goes over 4 lines on a desktop screen or 7 on a mobile screen, it’s too long. Add a space after one of the periods.

Break up text with photos – Every blog post should have photos. If you want to know how to blog without boring your readers, then photos are your answer. Simply add a photo after every 3 or 4 paragraphs in your post. More about photos below.

✓ 3. Add Photos

There’s more to adding photos to a blog post than just uploading your best images. First, you need to resize and compress the images so that your blog post will load as fast as possible on your site.

There are three ways to resize and compress photos. You can either do it before you upload using an app on your computer (iResize for Mac, Office for PC), you can use websites like TinyJPG and CompressJPEG to resize images, or you can use a WordPress Plugin like Smushit or Imsanity.

For this, I do recommend using a plugin. We have used Smushit in the past and it works great as a free option. Once installed and activated, you can make it so that every time you upload an image to your blog, Smush will automatically resize it to a smaller file size (I recommend no larger than 1000px across) and it will also compress the file.

You should have a photo after every 4 – 5 paragraphs in your post and you should also be sure to upload a featured image. A featured image will be shown at the top of your post in most WordPress themes.

A few things to think about when adding photos:

The size of the featured image is decided by your theme. Check your theme settings in WordPress and make sure you upload the featured image in the proper dimensions for your theme.

All photos in the main content of your post (besides the featured image) should be uploaded no larger than 1,000 pixels wide and hopefully, after compressing them using the tools listed above, each photo is no larger than 500MB.

Every photo should have an “Alt Text”. To add alt text simply click on the photo in your WordPress Editor, then click the pencil or edit button on the photo. Then you will see a place to write your alt text. Alt text should explain the image and sometimes include the Keyword you’re trying to rank for in SEO.

Productivity Tip: While I do recommend using a plugin to compress and resize your images, this may not be the ideal solution if you have a slower wifi connection as you’ll still have to upload the full-size file before the plugin can work its magic. This can take forever! If you have slow internet or are travelling, I recommend using an app on your computer first before uploading it to the blog to save time.

✓ 4. Pick a Category

Once you’ve written your post, it’s time to add it to a category. Every blog post should be under a category, that way your readers can find it in your blog archives and menu when searching around your website. It’s also acceptable to have a single blog post in multiple categories. For example, if you’re writing about budget travel in Africa, then you may put that post in your “Budget Travel” category, as well as your “Africa” category.

✓ 5. Optimize For SEO

SEO is the single most important key to actually growing a successful blog. It’s great to learn how to blog, but if you’re not learning how to blog for SEO, then you’re basically just treading water. By learning proper SEO strategies, you’ll be able to drive traffic to your blog quickly. 

I’ll list a few of the most important aspects of learning how to blog for SEO below, but there’s a lot more to SEO than just writing better content and utilizing keywords. SEO is all about building authority links, creating pillar webs on your site and producing content on a schedule that Google will love.

To learn more about proper SEO, check out our Free SEO Training Video. You can also read our recent posts all about our best SEO tips for bloggers.

For now, here are a few of the most important things to keep in mind when learning how to blog and how to write better posts for SEO:

Keyword Research: Before you even write a blog post, you should use a keyword research tool to help you choose a blog topic that people actually search for in Google. If you were to write a blog post called “My Road Trip Around Europe” you might find that people search that term only 10 times per month in Google on average. While if you title your post “Best Road Trip Destinations In Europe” you might find that 2,000 people search it in Google.

Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool but it’s way too limited. To take SEO seriously you’ll want to get a pro tool like KeySearch. Using our affiliate code “GOAT20” you’ll get 20% off, plus you’ll help support this blog.

Keyword In The Title: Now that you’ve found a keyword or key phrase that thousands of people actually search for in Google, it’s time to put it in all of the right places in your blog post. The first is in the title. As in the example above, if your keyword is “Best Road Trip Destinations in Europe” then that should definitely be in your title. It doesn’t have to be the only thing in the title, for example, is your keyword was just “Best Road Trip Destinations” it would still be okay to include “In Europe” at the end, as long as the keyword appears somewhere in the title.

Keyword In The First Sentence: The keyword should always appear in the first sentence of the blog post. This helps Google and your readers understand what the post will be about right away.

Keywords in the Headings: As I talked about earlier in this blog post, using headings (H2, H3, H4 etc.) is important for formatting and for SEO. Your keyword should appear at least once in an H2, H3 and an H4 in your blog post. There is no need to use an H1 in your blog post because WordPress automatically uses an H1 for your blog post title, which as we already covered above, should include your keyword.

Keyword Density: Never overstuff your keyword into your blog post. Google is too smart for that and can actually penalize you for trying to trick the system like that. Instead, place the keywords as many times as you can throughout your post wherever it comes naturally. A keyword density of 0.5-1% is recommended (ie: if your blog post is 1,000 words, then the keyword should appear 5 – 10 times within the copy).

Keywords in the Alt Tags: At least 10% of your images should include your chosen keyword in the Alt Tag. Never add the keyword to all of the alt tags, but adding it into one or two of your photos is great for SEO.

Write a Strong Meta: The meta description is the text that appears in search results under your blog post title. Edit your blog Meta Description and make sure it entices the reader to click on your post while including your focus keyword at least once.

Interlinking: Once your post is published, you should go into all of your other relevant posts on your site and link to the new post. This is a simple step that many bloggers forget, but it can drastically improve your chances of getting traffic to your new posts, both from other posts on your site and from Google.

Backlinking: Good SEO is all about backlinking, but doing it in an ethical, non-spammy way. We teach a lot about backlinking in our SEO Training so don’t miss it. Basically you’ll want to get featured on other people’s websites that link back to your new blog post. This will help you rank in Google and will also drive traffic from other sites.

Update and Improve: No blog post is ever “finished”. Google loves when you go back and update older content. Every couple of months you should go back on your top-performing posts and improve them wherever possible. Add more useful content. Add maps, prices, whatever you can to make sure that the post is as good as it can be, add text that says something like “Updated August 2020”.

Productivity Tip: Utilize The Yoast SEO Plugin. While the Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress shouldn’t be your only reference for good SEO blog writing, it is a good place to start. This coupled with the tips I teach in our Free SEO Training Video can really help you drive traffic to your site. After writing your blog post, make sure that all of the green lights are showing up in Yoast. Yoast will automatically check for the things I listed above, it will allow you to edit your meta description plus give you some extra data to use for SEO.

Now You Know How To Blog Better

By making sure that you tick all of the boxes in this post, not only will you be able to write better content to serve your audience, but you’ll be able to get more traffic and grow your readership as well. Writing great content, properly formatting it and optimizing for SEO are the three pillars of any successful blog. 

Did I miss anything? Please comment below and tell me about your blog writing check-list. 

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How To Blog Better: 5 Steps To Take Before Hitting Publish published first on https://travelaspire.weebly.com/

[androidtvboxreview]

Tronsmart Pavo M9 TV Box Review By Android TV Box Review

The Tronsmart Pavo M9’s design an unobtrusive black square that follows in the footsteps of Tronsmart’s recent designs. It stays out of the way but I can’t help but wish they made something that looked distinctive.

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Tronsmart Pavo M9 TV Box Connection

Tronsmart Pavo M9 TV Box Package Content

Tronsmart Pavo M9 TV Box

The plastic Pavo M9 is surprisingly better-looking than the metal Draco HW80. A sleek black box with rounded corners, this smaller Tronsmart Android TV box omits the ugly antenna seen poking out of the Draco’s rear. Front the front all you see is a power button and the remote sensor, at the side sit three USB ports (2x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0) and a microSD card slot, and everything else is tucked away at the rear.

Pavo M9 TV Box

Despite the external power brick (note that you’ll need a UK adaptor which Geekbuying will supply on request), it sits nicely under the TV, and silent running means it won’t raise any eyebrows in the living room. The supplied remote control is also better-looking and significantly easier to use than that supplied with the Draco, but even so, you’ll want to add a mouse (a wired mouse). There is an app you can download to your phone or tablet that lets you use it as a controller, but both must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network in order to pair, and we found that after closing the app it wasn’t able to pick up the Pavo M9 without a restart.

SOFTWARE

Once up and running the Tronsmart Pavo M9 looks very different to the Draco HW80. Whereas the latter has a standard Android KitKat interface and looks very much like a large-screen tablet but without the touchscreen, the new Pavo M9 has a custom user interface, also based on KitKat. Finding our way around the various menus did take a little bit of getting used to, especially getting our heads around the two settings menus, but we liked the fact it made the Tronsmart seem more like a home-entertainment device and a proper Android TV than a glorified tablet. OTA updates are available for the Pavo M9, too.

Menu options

One of the menu options opens an app tray, which is the closest thing you’ll get to standard Android. You’ll also find menus for the browser, games (none are preinstalled, but you will see several shortcuts to download apps from Google Play), video, music, an app manager, settings (different to the settings app in the app manager and also where you find the weather and parental controls), media centre, HDMI (for recording from the HDMI input) and Google Play.

Setup

Setup, the second time around, was a cinch. On our first attempt, we unwittingly made life difficult for ourselves having hooked up the Tronsmart to an old projector sat at ceiling-level that refused to adjust its display size over HDMI. Although there is an option in the Display settings of the TV box itself to reduce the display size (you can independently adjust top-, bottom-, left- and right edges – that’s better than the Draco, which lets you alter only the overall size), we couldn’t see this because it was on the ceiling rather than the wall.

Display

The fact we couldn’t see the top of the screen made it impossible to use the remote control as a mouse, and it was equally impossible to use a wired mouse in mid-air. On top of that, we had tethered the Tronsmart to our phone’s internet connection, which meant we couldn’t connect both phone and TV box to the same Wi-Fi network to make use of the remote control app. Talk about making life more difficult than it needed to be.

HDMI Recording

Those who have used the Zidoo X9 will be right at home with the HDMI Recording function. You can select the recording resolution and format, and even schedule a time to start recording. Unfortunately, there’s no option to schedule recurring recordings (such as every Monday at 7 pm) but hopefully, Tronsmart will add it in a later firmware update.

Where to buy Tronsmart Pavo M9 TV Box

You can buy the Tronsmart Pavo M9 TV Box from GearBest, Amazon or Ebay

Amazon UK

  Amazon.com

  Buy from ebay.co.uk

Buy from EBay.com

  Buy from GearBest

Specification

Brand: Tronsmart Model: Pavo M9 Color: Black Material: Plastic Operating System: Android 4.4.2 CPU: MSTAR MSO9180D1R Cortex A9 r4 Quad Core Processor, MSTAR (The biggest LCD supplier, the best of best, occupies the global market sharing of up to 60% in consecutive 5 years. The biggest digital & analog television chip supplier covers the global market sharing of up to 50%, more than 75% for China mainland.) GPU: Mali-450 RAM: 1GB DDR3 ROM: 8GB eMMc Extended Storage: USB/HDD

Communication

Wifi Connectivity: Realtek 8188, built-in 150M WLAN card, 802.11b/g/ Ethernet: 10/100M

Media Supported

Video Supported Video format: TS.BDMV.ASF.WMV.MP4.MKV.BDISO.MOV; Video Encodes: MPEG1/2/4.XVID.H264.H265.VC1 Audio Supported Audio format: APE.M4A.MPEGAUDIO(MP1.MP2.MP3.MPA).WAV.OGG.FLAG; Audio encode: AC3,DTS,MPEGILAYER1/2/2.LPCM.PCM.FLAC Picture Supported: JPG.BMP.GIF.TIF Resolution: 4k2k/1080p/720p/576p/480p AV Output: PAL/NTSC Subtitle Format: text, smi, ass, SRT, SSA, sub+idx, PGS(Subtitle for blueray, only has MKV/TS/M2TS) Language: Chinese Simplified Chinese Traditional, English

Interfaces

HDMI Port: Standard HDMI female, Support HDMI IN, Support HDMI-CEC HDMI Version: HDMI 1.4b Other Interfaces: 2*USB2.0, 1*USB3.0, reset*1, Micro SD slot*1, Physical button*1 HDMI IN*1, HDMI OUT*1, CVBS*1, HDMI*1,HDMI OUT*1, FL/FR*1, OPTICAL*1 Front interface: LED Indicator*1, IR*1

Other Features

Other Function Built in XBMC ZIDOO version, support Dolby dts hardware decoding; Built-in Antenna; ABS housing+acrylic Logo: panel Power DC: 12V/2A

Dimension & Weight (Main Product)

Dimension: 1148mm*148mm*26mm Weight: 297g

Package Contents

1 x TV box 1 x IR remote control HDMI cable 1 x Power adapter (A right AC Adapter will be sent as your shipping country) 1 x User manual

Tronsmart Pavo M9 TV Box Review Reviewed By Android TV Box Review Tronsmart Pavo M9 TV Box Review By Android TV Box Review The Tronsmart Pavo M9’s design an unobtrusive black square that follows in the footsteps of Tronsmart’s recent designs.

[romancevsreality-blog]

the bachelorette, season thirteen, episode three: (infantile noises)

My friend Jack texted me on Monday and said, “This episode of The Bachelorette is so homoerotic.”1 And much like the dog I wish I was, my ears perked up and have stayed that way. Come at me, homoerotica.

We resume the episode where we left off - DeMario’s arrived at the mansion, and Rachel’s headed out with Rachel and Chris Harrison, the Bianca to my Chastity - followed by the men, who are all ready to defend their woman. I know I made a West Side Story reference last week, but it bears repeating: I’m waiting for these guys to start snapping while they’re walking2. DeMario’s rehearsed his speech, and really just wants Rachel to know that he owned up to what he did. All the guys are like “GROSSSSSSSSS, STOP IT.” One of the guys mentions that DeMario is a talker, which can or cannot be an insult, and in this case, certainly is.

Women everywhere: if you’re seeing a guy and in the early stages you feel like you can barely get a word in, get out. If you feel like he’s talking at you as opposed to with you, get out. DeMario comes in with all the moves that have probably worked lesser women - dropping quotes, talking about how he was kept up all night - and Rachel’s like, “Yeah, this is bullshit.” She says he’s a boy, not a man - considering his first instinct was to lie to her instead of owning up to his issues in the moment instead of 24-36 hours later. She’s happy he’s taken the time to reflect and acknowledge, but she’s done. He’s not coming back to the mansion, full stop.

Y’all.

We are unworthy of Rachel.

She returns to the guys, and they’re all applauding. Damn it, they should be carrying her around on the throne she deserves.

Jonathan, who I hate, has giant hands. Like, blow-up doll hands. I can only see this. Y’all, Jonathan is Buster Bluth.

Alex does a Rubik’s Cube in front of Rachel, and I’m still holding onto that little bit of hate I have in my heart for him, but damn, if he isn’t adorable. I wish my fuckboy radar was more on-point. We’re treated to more Kenny being a good dad, and he shows pictures of his daughter. I love McKenzie. So much.

Syllabic Noise’s suit offends me. It’s both somehow light blue, light grey, and yellow plaid. My eyes have been assaulted. Blake is still salty as fuck about the fact that Syllabic Noise is still there. Syllabic Noise thinks that Blake has a crush on him, and accuses… Blake… of sexually eating a banana near him? Licking a banana?

It turns out to be a fucking genius move, though. Oh my god.

Syllabic Noise turned the classic Bachelor/ette Move: tattling on one another - and escalated it to hilarious levels. He just made up the most ridiculous story he could think of and told Rachel, because he knew Rachel would bring it to Blake, and Blake would take it seriously, because Blake has zero sense of humor, and made himself look like the douchebag he is by talking about the fact that he’s on a ketogenic diet first. Plus, he planted the image of one man eating a banana over another man’s bed in the night in Rachel’s head.

I mean, I couldn’t marry a man if I saw that image every time I saw him. Syllabic Noise may be a waste of air, but this was fucking brilliant. I can acknowledge when people I hate do good things. It takes time, but I can. That’s adulthood.

We head into the Rose Ceremony, and everyone is nervous.

Bryan, Bryce, Eric, Anthony3, Will, Jonathan/Buster Bluth, JACKSTONE, Matt, Alex, Adam, Kenny <3, Brady, Lee, Iggy, Fred, and Diggy all get roses.

That means Jam(ie) (we hardly knew ye), Syllabic Noise, and Blake are all going home.

Syllabic Noise and Blake are both fucking pissed. They think the other ruined the experience for each other. They’re each doing their exit talking heads about how they hate each other. Blake more than Syllabic Noise, it seems - Blake goes on about how they live in the same town and they can’t escape each other, he fucking haaaates him. Meanwhile, Syllabic Noise is getting drunk(er) and sad(der) and basically calls Blake the meathead he is. Blake comes into Syllabic Noise’s talking...head...space? I guess? Blake calls himself a “nice gentleman” and accuses Syllabic Noise of just wanting to be on TV because he’s a washed-up comedian.

If I could sum this entire argument up into one image, it would be this:

I haven’t seen an argument dissolve so hilariously since Sheree Whitfield vs. Marlo Hampton.

Bye, fools!!!

The next day, Chris Harrison comes by the house to tell the remaining dudes what’s going down this week: two group dates, and a one-on-one. Chris Harrison is acting all chill, like he doesn’t know I’m coming for his gig. Pfft, what a fool.

Anyway, there’s a date card.

Bryan, Jonathan/Buster Bluth, Peter, Alex, Will, and Fred are all going to the set of Ellen, because we need some cross-promo this season!

All the guys are pumped. Everyone loves Ellen, which is a sentiment I don’t understand. I do get on Team Ellen when she says she doesn’t like Jonathan for tickling Rachel. Ellen asks why he’s still there, and really likes Rachel.

Fine, Ellen. You’re okay. I’m not going to comment on Rachel’s top because even perfection makes bad choices sometimes.

All the guys are going to be on the show with Rachel, and they all learn for the first time that she kissed someone. Jonathan solidifies his status as Buster Bluth when he expresses his wish to kiss her… at all… anywhere… period. Bryan admits to kissing her, and so does Peter, and then Bryan, who I was deeply infatuated with at this point, refers to Rachel kissing Peter as Peter getting his “sloppy seconds”. COME ON, BRYAN. DON’T REFER TO THE GIRL YOU’RE TRYING TO WOO AS SLOPPY SECONDS. Hello, Red Flag, it’s nice to see you!

I guess we’ll see Bryan in Paradise, tbh.

The guys are instructed to take off their shirts and go dance in the audience, which most of them do eagerly. Most of them, of course. Alex is built like a tree, and I am.. .God, I’m swooning. I’M SO ANGRY WITH MYSELF RIGHT NOW. Rachel is thrilled, as am I. I love a shirtless man. Rachel and the guys play Never Have I Ever with Ellen. You know what? I love Never Have I Ever. I love 10 Fingers, I love all of those stupid confession games. They’re so dramatic. Plus, I mostly love any game that can be mixed with drinking.

I love most games.

We get some wonderful shaming of the men - Alex peed in the pool! Alex sends nude selfies! Fred had sex with a woman twice his age! Fred knew Rachel when he was a kid! - and Alex really emerges in this date. Fred wants to show Rachel a different side of himself. They go to the After-After-After Party, where Alex talks about how Rachel looks at him Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopez to Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopez, because your left eye is connected to your emotions, and your right is connected to your logic.

Fuck, this would totally work on me, and I’m unashamed to admit so. Alex seems like the rare person who can be outrageous but be genuine and authentic in doing so in a manner than seems to be pure joy. I hate to call him this, but damn, he’s a ray of sunshine. Don’t fuck it up, Alex.

Rachel sits in Bryan’s lap, and ROAR. I hope you all know that whenever Rachel disappoints me this season, I will be referring to her in my mind as “Rachel”, pronounced the traditionally Jewish way, like the traditionally Jewish mother I am in my brain. They make out. I get it, he’s boneriffic. But be better than this, RACHEL.

Fred is feeling massively insecure about not having kissed Rachel yet. On their intimate date, he asks her if he can kiss her. As a person who’s all about consent, great. Yes or no, enthusiastic consent, all that. But like, he goes about it in such a roundabout way that I’m just like DUDE JUST FUCKING KISS HER ALREADY. It’s a kiss, it’s not like you’re Cate Blanchett choosing a merkin. He finally does it, though. He’s now claiming that she was his childhood crush, a fact that is new to me and hopefully everyone else.

Rachel gathers the guys and makes it seem like she’s going to give Fred the group date rose. She wasn’t feeling the kiss, which sucks for him, but she can’t return the feelings he has for her. I’m proud of her for doing this. She sends him home, which is a bummer - if I was interested in a guy from my childhood and he couldn’t see me past who I was back then (a literal child), I’d be upset, too.

The group date rose goes to Alex, and Fred leaves in the White Van of Doom.

The next day, we see Eric freaking out about Fred’s elimination and how he feels his relationship with Rachel lacks passion. Dude, you’ve known her two weeks. Calm down. Meanwhile, Anthony walks down Rodeo Drive, and I’m so happy! Anthony is too good for this franchise with his Fullbright and whatnot. He arrives to Rachel on a horse, and they’re going to ride horses on Rodeo Drive. Anthony’s never been on a horse, which I find charming. Everyone’s freaking out because QUEEN RACHEL HAS ALLOWED THEM IN HER PRESENCE, rightfully so.

They stop with their horses at West, which is full of cowboy attire. They get fitted for some cowboy boots and various other cowboy attire, and Rachel officially needs a Ted Baker campaign where she’s on a horse wearing a gorgeously large hat in some wonderful meadow wearing pastels. They order horse cupcakes from the Sprinkles ATMs, a thing I thought died in 2009. They ride horses into what appears to be the boutique that rejected Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and are afraid that the horses are going to poop. We’re treated to a blurred image of some green-ass poop inside the boutique, which if I ever get a chance to remake Pretty Woman, if will feature a scene wherein which someone poops in that shitty boutique.4

They have an nice, seemingly effortless date. It’s cute. Anthony’s low-key in a way that might not help him in the long run, though. Anthony gets a rose!

Back at the house, there’s a date card!!!

Brady (WHO), Jesse McCartney, Adam, Kenny, Bryce (WHO X2), Lee, JACK STONE, and Eric are all going on the group date.

Meanwhile, the guys are happy for Anthony, but Eric’s feeling massively insecure5. He accuses Rachel of putting up facades because they haven’t had a real connection yet. Iggy decides concern trolling is the correct path to take. Eric says Rachel is playing a game until she gets what she wants. The producer that’s planting this insecurity in his brain is excellent. Eric basically flips because Iggy inserted himself, and Eric wasn’t having it.

Rachel arrives at the house the next day with Corinne, Jasmine, Raven, and Alexis, and the girls are there to judge the guys on the group date they planned. They get on a bus with a stripper pole, of course, because this show can’t help itself. Raven asked Bryce and Lee who she thinks is a bad match for Rachel, and they of course both say Eric. They show up to a saloon, where guess what?

They’re mud wrestling.

Jack, you were totally right about the homoeroticism of this date. First we have the guys doing Chippendales, and then we have the guys mud wrestling in what literally looks like what came out of the horse in the boutique on Rachel and Anthony’s date. I guess anything to save some money?

All the guys are pumped, but no one more than Kenny, who’s a fucking professional wrestler and the guys are all going to get wrecked. The first match is Brady v. Bryce, two guys I DO NOT RECOGNIZE. Who are these men? They get rowdy. Especially Kenny. I really just don’t understand how these matches are judged. Can someone explain wrestling to me? It comes down to Kenny vs. Bryce, and Bryce wins because nothing in this world is fair or just. I hate dates like these. They’re so gross. I just hate date activities that don't provide any insight into who the guys are or how Rachel feels about them. Dean/Jesse McCartney was my wrestling MVP for looking as uncomfortable and grossed out by it all when they first walked in as I was.

Rachel talks to the girls while the guys go shower6 and Raven reveals the guys’ skepticism of Eric. Jasmine defends Eric, and Rachel’s now on edge. We’ll see!!

At the After-After-After-After Party, Rachel’s excited to spend her time with the guys. She’s wearing the chicest grey jacket paired with a grey top & skirt. I love her. Kenny reveals that he at one time was a Chippendales dancer - a fact I find entirely unsurprising. Is there a man employed in Vegas who hasn’t worked for Chippendales at some point? Rachel has no idea who’s getting the rose, but Eric admits that he doesn’t know what to do for the first time in his life. He feels like he’s vulnerable. Rachel tells him that Bryce and Lee said that he had incorrect motives. You can tell he’s pissed, but he tries to play it cool.

Eric goes to the other guys to talk about it and confront Bryce and Lee. Both Kenny and Jack are like, “soooooooo… We’re outta here.” I’m on no one’s side in this situation. Eric is too quick to flip the switch to anger in a way that frightens me, but he’s also correct in that he was being gaslit by three guys who just spent their time with Rachel talking about him. Lee came across as incredibly patronizing and gross, though. “I respect you, I just question your ability.” They’re like, “you were scaring us - we love you, but you’re not a good person.”

Regardless of what they tried to do, though, Eric gets the group date rose.

At the cocktail party, Rachel thanks the guys for challenging her, and I’m wondering what the hell she’s drinking. It looks like a beer in a rocks glass, and I am immensely confused. Iggy takes Rachel aside and talks about the conversation he had with Eric, and basically tells her that he questioned if Rachel is there for the right reasons. Rachel’s like, “hrm,” and they’re interrupted. Iggy goes to Eric and tells him that he ratted him out. Iggy wants him to listen more, to take pause and be present. Eric gets mad that Iggy talked about him during his time, but Iggy just wants him to be more mature in this scenario. He actually handles it with aplomb.

Then Lee goes and does the exact same thing, but with much more villainous intent. He literally says “I’m going to throw him under the bus, and I’m going to enjoy doing it.” Lee capitalized on Eric yelling at Iggy and decided to plant the seed of doubt in Rachel’s brain. He accused him of being scary and dishonest with his intentions. Rachel immediately goes to Eric and tries to clarify what’s going down. She doesn’t appreciate him basically accusing her of not being genuine. Eric doesn’t understand why he’s being attacked (simply put: he’s the easiest target). Rachel chooses to believe him with prejudice.

Eric, though, goes ahead and gathers all the guys and deals with it like a mature adult.

No, he’s basically like, “get my name outcha mouf” to Lee and Bryce, and tells them to back off. Lee keeps saying “wow,” and “oh my gosh,” and tries to play the victim. Eric flips, as they would like him to.

To Be Continued.

Next Week: Lee basically learns black history and how fucked up it is for a white man to accuse a black man of aggression/anger that’s undeserved. Fuck you, Lee.

Random Assessments from the Desk of Amanda:

Adam, Brady, Bryce, and Iggy are totally going home next week. Lee and Eric will get a two-on-one that Lee won’t survive.

I’m so glad there was no Josiah this episode, oh my god.

Rachel, again, is the best lead this show could have.

I don’t know who I want to see less in Paradise: Lucas, Blake, or Lee.

It’s his first season - he has no idea what’s to come in Paradise. ↩︎

I promptly did this on my way to the bathroom after writing this sentence. ↩︎

ANTHONY IS NOT GETTING ENOUGH SCREENTIME. ↩︎

I will not do that to Garry Marshall’s legacy. ↩︎

Eric’s also a ceiling talker - his eyes always roll up to the ceiling as if his next thought is up there. ↩︎

One time after Lollapalooza I was literally covered in mud from the thigh-down, and then had to deal with a 4+ hour drive home and got home at 5 AM, dysfunctional as hell, and then realized I had to clean my shit off. MUD IS HARD AS HELL TO CLEAN especially when it’s dry, so I hope these dudes had a ton of time/body oil. ↩︎