#Especially when i recently found his tiktok account by chance

[lokidaemonium]

Wanting to put together my experience with being stalked online/having nothing for myself really bc i know it ll be ripped off and copied but not having the right amount of brain cells to put this all into a text

[vanilasky]

Okay, I just saw a tiktok with a really great take on what is recently going on with Carlos and Rebecca's' relationship and I feel like sharing this here.

In my opinion it's pretty obvious this is a classic PR relationship. She may have not been the best choice considering her being an escort and generally very questionable person, but she was certainly in the right place at the right time to be the best possible choice. She did the Ferrari commercial and fans already noticed that Carlos and Isa were growing apart. Could there be a better way to sell cars than pairing one of your drivers with a "model" who appeared in the commercial?

Apart from that, during Carlos and Isa's relationship we barely saw these two together. Carlos kept saying he protects love and he isn't an affectionate man. And suddenly, just after he announced he broke up with her, we were inundated with pictures of him and Rebecca holding hands, hugging etc. In a spare of two months there were already more pictures of these two together than with him and Isa. What happened to the "I protect love" agenda? And to the people saying that "omg he's finally in love so he can show how happy he is". Nobody can force a twenty-something, rich, childless man to be trapped in a loveless relationship. Especially when your work allows him to travel all around the world and you don't have any commitments.

The weird thing about these photos is that they are always staged and forced. Or leaked to the gossip pages by Rebecca's friend who decided to go public for 10 minutes. There is always at least one photo or one video when Carlos looks directly into the camera and poses cause he knows he's being filmed. He's holding her hand, hugging her or so. But when he doesn't know there's a camera on him, suddenly Rebecca disappears. He's totally ignoring her which is easy to see on some of Singapore's videos from the party. She's basically pushed back from his circles into the crowd.

And now we are coming to the photo posted on "accident" by Pierre. That's the take from tiktok so it's not mine but I feel like sharing it. Pierre posted that photo because the gossip accounts weren't enough. Not many people visit those types of accounts regularly since not all of them are interested in sportsmen's love life. But there's a 99,9% chance that people invested in sport will follow a sportsperson. Therefore, more people will see the photo and start searching. "Leaking" the photos to the gossip account by unknown sources wasn't enough for them. After the Singapore party there were already many people who started digging into Rebecca's past. They found out she is an escort and so they figured out she's only there to escort him to parties. A photo was used as proof that she's not only an escort (look, he took her on a date with his team) and to make this stunt feel more real because it came from Pierre. And obviously Pierre is kinda known in the F1 community as a creator of chaos. There were lots of people saying he made this as revenge on Carlos for calling him "pobrectio".

Last but not least, it's obvious she's (or all of them) are reading what people are saying. When she was at the paddock on Friday people were saying she always looks sloppy, dresses badly and always has her hair up. On Saturday she was wearing a dress, high heels and had her hair down. But sadly, no one cared cause even the gossip accounts didn't notice she was there in the first place. They were writing about Alexa (Charles' girlfriend) being there, but no one mentioned Rebecca, who was standing just a few meters away from Alexa. They posted about her only when another "unknown source" sent them the video of her being in the Ferrari's hospitality.

Honestly I don't know why Carlos' agreed on this. Seems like a very poor move from his team cause the only people who believe it's a true love are twelve years old or bots accounts. He will now be seen either as a person who hangs out with escorts, or as a man who is easy to manipulate and cannot stay single for three minutes. And for her, this whole stunt will backfire at some point. Not only was she not able to erase her past from the internet but people are already finding more questionable stuff about her. If there's at least one smart person involved in this, it's time to stop this.

[strangestofthings12]

Okay this is going to be a very rambling post because I’m tired and can’t sleep until I yell about this a little so here I am to vent on a throw away account😅

Scott McCall is a character that I don’t always love and I’m not going to lie and pretend like he is my favorite anything because he’s not. Everyone who I’ve talked about teen wolf with can tell you I have my issues with him and honestly with the writing of the show in general. BUT I will never understand the hate for him. I’ve been thinking about it because I was doom scrolling TikTok for a bit before I had to go to work and came across a video talking about how horrible Scott is and the thing is that they literally made zero valid points (to me at least. I am aware I am bias and I have a bad habit of doubling down on liking a character if I think someone is being unfair or anything so I don’t know). One of her points was literally that Scott “uses Derek as a weapon after dosing him with kanima (I can’t spell don’t tell me if that’s wrong I’ll cry😌) venom” which…… doesn’t happen?? I just rewatched the show recently and I’ll admit I don’t really like season 2 and I have issues with quite a bit of it but Gerard is trying ti play Scott because he has something over him. Allison. Derek would(probably) never bite Gerard willingly and Gerard knows this. But he thinks he can outplay and force Scott in a position where he has to choose between Allison and him being a werewolf. Derek is already paralyzed when Scott is put in this position. This would’ve happened no matter what. Scott just outsmarted Gerard because he and Deaton had a plan. One that Scott doesn’t really tell anyone. We as an audience don’t even know so why would Scott tell DEREK?!? Derek who has done anything to earn his trust they are ally’s and that is it. They aren’t friends (yet?) (I don’t know Derek is weird😭). I don’t know if any of this makes sense but what can you do. I can and probably will talk about it more but I am running in like three or four hours of sleep in like the past two days and I’m sick so this is just to help my brain shut up I doubt anyone is reading anyways😅

Now another thing is she said that Scott letting Deucalion live was irresponsible. One he is a teenager…… two Scott beloved in second chances. Oh no😭 he’s such a bad person because he doesn’t think people and irredeemable and deserve to die😭😭 I have never seen people say stuff like that for superhero’s who do that same thing unless they are people who think the punisher is a role model. Now I’m sure people have but from what I’ve seen it doesn’t really happen and we literally see Deucalion being better!!! Like??? Also she said that Theo deserves to die and I’m not going to turn this into a Theo post but how are you going ti get mad at someone being used as a weapon (I still think that dumb but can at least kinda see where she’s coming from) then say that the kid who has been manipulated and twist into the worst version of himself so that he can be a weapon deserves to be dead. Mind you Scott literally isn’t the reason Theo isn’t still in the Skin-walker prison?? Like Scott immediately wants to send him back?? Liam is the one who keeps him out because he is in love thinks Theo will be useful

Last thing (for now) is People who say the Acott is a horrible friend to Stiles. I don’t get it. At all. Like I am convinced we watched a different show?? ESPECIALLY IF THEY MENTION SCOTT NOT TAKING STILES SIDE WHEN HE FOUND OUT THE STILES KILLED DONOVAN. Nobody was actually communicating in that scene which was Theo’s whole plan(I’m sorry Theo baby I love you but I will always throw you under the bus with this😔 I have to. It is literally entirety your fault) Scott was never going to be okay with what Theo told him Stiles did. Theo used the guilt and fear that stiles was feeling to get in his head. Stiles was scared because he just fucking killed someone. He didn’t know what to do. Scott literally apologized after he found out the truth and made sure stiles knew he still loved him. I don’t get why so many people seem to think that Scott being manipulated means he’s a bad friend?? Like he and stiles werent seeing eye to eye about Theo from the moment they saw him because Scott is to trusting and Stiles to distrustful but Scott is listening and literally on stiles side UNTIL Theo gets in Scotts head. Theo wanted to drive everyone away from Scoot and turn them against him so he used Scott’s weakness. Wanting to trust and see the good in people and then he made Stlies, one of the only people who would always be by Scott (and vice versa), into a gray area when everything was already scary and new and just not going well. WHICH IS LITERALLY THE PLAN??

Anyways this is way to long and if you read this all I’m sorry and thank you?? I need ti go to sleep. Hopefully I can🙄

[boydepartment]

ive noticed you tend to apologise a lot when youre tired and taking a break 😅 you shouldnt do that. youre a human, of course you'd feel tired sometimes. hope youre taking enough rest and recovering soon, no pressure to take and accept requests.

im sorry your interview went weird, but its good you pulled back the moment you found it sketchy. hopefully youd get a chance to accomplish your dream sometime soon in the future! take care jayjay

-🎄

hi it’s okay 🎄 anon :) i’m gonna use your ask to talk abt something if that’s okay, this isn’t @ you, i pinky promise.

i’m gonna be honest after valentine’s day i might just leave this account ? i don’t think ill delete anything but i just can’t be on tumblr or read any of the content i used to. i talked about it a bit a couple days ago i just want to elaborate more.

it makes me really just idk :/ i don’t like the community at all anymore and it’s been declining my mental for a bit. i love enha and all my people in the different groups i like, but i really really hate how some ppl write them and it just freaks me out REALLY bad. ESPECIALLY RIKI. like fuck some of you guys are so weird bruh…. and shameless. like you have no respect and don’t even on the “it’s not that serious.” you’re fucking weird. period. there’s no reason to make some of the shit you guys say public at all.

it’s been talked abt more recently how dubcon and dark fics are more common now and i can’t keep scrolling past it and seeing it. it freaks me out that people will write about actual people like that especially someone who lived at the receiving end of abuse like that. why would you want someone you love to be put in the situation of the abuser? like it doesn’t click to me and sometimes even scrolling past and seeing the tags and send me into a bad episode so i just can’t anymore. i don’t know how people think that’s okay to push their coping mechanism that’s darker and extremely damaging on an actual HUMAN BEING. coping mechanism or not that’s fucking weird. they may be idols but they are human beings too.

i’ve also had a few asks in my anon that are just straight up rude, demanding, or calling me weird for liking riki at all? like you are attacking the wrong girl i have nothing but respect for him. those anons are just stressing me out aswell and it’s just too much. i’m exhausted constantly being disrespected. tumblr is supposed to be a platform where i can get away and get lost in lighthearted stories and it’s not that for me anymore.

i might come back after i leave on valentine’s day but i need time to actually enjoy kpop like i used to. the fans are ruining it for me and it’s just been making me really depressed. i can’t even go on tiktok sometimes because of the fan bases. i’ve always been very open with you guys and like, i need to pull back from these fan bases and take care of myself. i barely eat, sleep, or enjoy anything anymore(that’s due to offline stuff but being on tumblr doesn’t help any of that at all). i miss having fun and the communities are ruining it.

[fildzahputri]

Hi! Let’s continue with part 2 of this challenge created by @nunayoontae. This post will answer the challenges from day 16 to 30! Let’s go and bear with me! LOL!

Day 16 : Favourite lyrics Young K wrote? I love the lyrics from "Hurt Road," especially this part: "If I were you. I would hug myself without a word. If you were me. You would cry in embrace. You knew and I knew. That this is not an easy road.."

Day 17 : Which idol do you wish Young K to collaborate with? I wish he had the chance to collaborate with McFly as a solo singer or with Day6!

Day 18 : Your favourite Young K solo album? Both of his albums are my favorites! Each of his albums has a special story for me!

Day 19 : Unforgettable memory about Young K? I saw him right in front of my eyes during the Forever Young concert in Surabaya on October 16th, 2024. LOL! I should remember every detail that happened that day! I feel like I was dreaming, and even now, I can’t believe that experience happened to me.

Day 20 : Your favourite Young K solo song? I adore one of his songs titled "Natural" from the Letter with Notes album. I love how he makes a simple song about the simple feeling of loving someone you adore. I have one favourite from his unreleased song, titled 'Alone in This World.' The song features Song Heejin. I love the lyrics and the emotion he conveys, capturing the loneliness of losing a loved one.

Day 21 : Young K content that you want to see? I really want to see his vlog—Kang Young Hyun Vlog. I hope the second episode will be released soon! Watching his vlog gives me warm feelings, seeing how simple a person he is and, of course, how adorable he is.

Day 22 : Favourite Young K's airport look? I love it when he wears comfy clothes, like a bomber jacket, hat, glasses, and a big bag that contains his neck pillow. LOL!

Day 23 : Whats your favourite his IG post? I love this post from his IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/C23zGRrhoaq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== I can see how lovely they are to each other.

Day 24 : Your favourite Young K bass part? The recent one is his part in the song titled "Shxxty Game." His part with Ricky is a treat for your ears!

Day 25 : Favourite Young K quote? Stay happy and healthy! This quote has always been my favourite and my prayer for everyone around me!

Day 26 : What do you love the most about Young K? His mischievous and goofy side… He also really likes to get attention and act cute with the people around him whom he feels comfortable with. He is a lovely person and humble despite his "I-can-do-anything" side.

Day 27 : Favourite Tiktok of OP about Young K? I do not have a TikTok account, so I picked this from X (여기 @check_700 account). I love this video because he's so goofy and cute. I can't attach the video. This is compilation from DEKIRA and it used sound from TikTok. (I just found the video through Instagram!!)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 이겨냅니다. 마데죠? (@kwpil_0)

Day 28 : One word to describe Young K? Adorable!

Day 29 : Favourite love language of Young K? How he loves physical contact with the members to show them that he cares for them and will protect them.

Day 30 : If you have the chance to talk to Young K, what do you want to tell him? Thank you for all your hard work, for staying healthy, and for being so happy up until now. I truly hope that your future is filled with endless joy and that you find the path that brings you everything you deserve. Please continue to be the happy, goofy, humble, and adorable person you are—it’s one of the things we all love so much about you. You are loved deeply by so many, especially by those who are lucky enough to be around you. If ever you need to refill your love tank, know that we’re here for you—we’ll help fill it with all the love and care you’ve given us. And if you ever need someone to talk to, someone who can make you feel comforted and warm, we’re always here to listen. It’s okay to show your vulnerable side, because we’ll always love you no matter what. Thank you, thank you, and thank you again for your beautiful songs and for being the wonderful person you are. Wishing you all the best, always. Stay happy, stay healthy, and know you are cherished more than you can imagine

Done! :) xxx

[the-bau-quinjet]

Trending

Summary: Steve thinks you’re too young to like him despite the obvious hints you’re dropping.

Warnings: unspecified age gap

Word count: 2246

a/n: I’ve clearly spent too much time on TikTok recently, but inspired me to write something so that's good. It was loosely based on a request for a young reader x Steve, but I forgot part of the request so I'm gonna write something else for that one! Also, I wrote this on my phone so please excuse any typos I missed when trying to edit it lol

Masterlist

Messing with Steve is one of your favorite things to do. Tiny pranks, over the top flirting, poking fun at his lack of understanding of technology. Anything you can do to get him to roll his eyes and chuckle.

Nat would say it’s because of your feelings for him. She would be correct. Not that you’d ever admit that to anyone. Nope. So instead, you have your fun, and enjoy the way his eyes crinkle and his cheeks redden.

Your newest method of hearing the sweet sound of Steve’s laugh? TikTok. It’s a double whammy. One because he doesn’t understand the app and two because a lot of the trends make him blush.

It started as a fun way to blow off steam. Sometimes, being one of the younger and newer team members made you feel like an outsider. Of course, Peter was younger than you, but he had his own friends outside of the team. You didn’t have anyone else. When Tony found you and invited you to join, it was you against the world. Now you have this makeshift family.

Having your account on TikTok helped you when you hadn’t really become a part of the group yet. You bonded with Peter because of his account, and you found a new way to make Steve blush.

Anyway, you’ve learned way more TikTok dances than you ever would have thought just to see his pink cheeks. It’s not even always over the top dances that have him chuckling. The last trend you did had him laughing the entire day. It was that sound about Wednesday Adams having one thing on her mind. Only when it said homicide, instead of a deadpan expression you panned the camera to show Bucky and Sam arguing over who got the last donut.

Of course, you knew when you made the video it would appeal to Steve’s sense of humor. Sam and Bucky feature in a lot of your videos for that exact reason.

In general, you make a lot of videos featuring the Avengers just to keep Tony happy. He likes to be the center of attention, plus the only way he would approve of your account was if it could also feature as PR for the team. You agreed, as long as you had final say over what you posted. There’s nothing scripted or designed for a specific reason, you just feature the team sometimes.

Like when that sound from the Big Bang theory was popular amongst Avengers fans, you made a video confessing to Pepper that you’d been thinking about the Avengers, panning to show the team during training.

Of course, the text on the screen said “you are an Avenger” instead of “I believe that”, allowing you to play off the joke. But still, it was fun to include the team.

One of your favorite videos features none other than Scott Lang, mostly because nobody else would do it. Scott thought it was hilarious though.

Using the sound from New Girl, Scott played Schmidt and you Jess. The text on the screen read as follows:

Scott: You just walk around all day thinking about America’s Ass?

You: Yeah, don’t you?

Scott: No! How do you get anything done?

You: It’s hard…

Steve blushed like crazy when everyone cornered him to watch it. Bucky, Sam, and Tony wouldn’t stop bringing it up for at least a month. A part of you hoped he might make a move after that video, seeing as you put yourself out there, but he just assumed it was a joke and laughed it off.

Honestly, you were running out of trends that you could use to get him to understand your feelings. You only had two ideas left, and one of them would be mortifying if it didn’t work out…

-

“Steve. You’ve got to be kidding me.” Bucky sighed, exasperated with Steve for the umpteenth time that month. “You’ve been pining for forever, just make a move!” he whisper yelled, doing his best not to throttle his lifelong friend.

Steve rolled his eyes, purposefully ignoring Bucky’s pointed glare. The two men had spent the last hour looking through your TikTok account. Bucky was adamant that you liked Steve, but the blonde didn’t believe it, despite the so called proof Bucky kept forcing him to watch.

“Buck, would you please just back off? We’re friends. She’s too young to want to be with me like that.” Steve blushed, thinking about the context of his words.

Before Bucky could say anything about how repressing his feelings is bad for him, a new video popped up on your account. Bucky smirked when he saw the thumbnail was once again a picture of Steve, this time with a beard. Steve took the silence as an opportunity to escape, walking into his closet to change.

The video opened with a video of you and Natasha just hanging out, you lip syncing to the words “I like you have a cupcake.” You repeated the words as the video cut to you and Tony.

Bucky nearly dropped the phone when “smack my ass like a drum” blared from the speaker. He cackled bending over in a fit of laughter when he realized that’s what Steve’s picture was used for- and one where he had a beard to boot.

“What is it now, jerk?” Steve emerged from his closet, having changed into loungewear. The sight of Bucky fully cackling had him nervous.

Bucky tossed him the phone, doing his best to stop laughing long enough to tell him to watch the most recent video. With a hesitant sigh, Steve obliged.

Again, Bucky rolled his eyes at how obvious Steve’s feelings were. The second he saw you on the screen, he smiled. And not one of those half hearted polite smiles, a full on happy smile.

Steve’s eyes widened, nearly bulging out of his head when he got to the end of the video.

“‘She doesn’t want to be with me like that.’” Bucky mocked his friends earlier words, grabbing his phone back. “Punk, I don’t know how much more obvious she could be.”

With one more glare in Steve’s direction, Bucky finally left him to his own thoughts. Okay, so you made a lot of videos about how you find him attractive. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’d want to be in a relationship with him. Leave it to Steve to talk himself out of everything Bucky had spent so long trying to convince him of.

-

You were desperate at this point. You honestly thought the cupcake one would send him over the edge, but it didn’t work either. It has been three days, and you know Steve’s seen the video because everyone likes to tease him about it.

“Naaaaaat, it’s not working,” you whined, dramatically throwing yourself onto her bed. She laughed at your antics, briefly looking up at you before deciding to stop what she was going and give you her full attention.

“Look, not only is Steve one of the most clueless people I’ve ever met when it comes to women, but he can also talk himself out of believing someone’s interested in him. Especially you.” Nat watched as you lifted your head from her comforter, slowly turning to stare at her with narrowed eyes.

“Especially me?” you questioned. Why would you have a different standard?

“Y/N, Steve’s from the 40s. He’s super old fashioned. You're a hot young thing, super up to date on modern trends. He thinks you're just messing around as friends because he doesn’t believe someone as young as you would be interested in actually having a relationship with him,” she spelt it out for you, sick of trying to get you to figure it out on your own.

You took a minute to fully understand what she was saying, but then sat up when a new idea struck. “So you’re saying I need to be more direct?”

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded nonetheless.

“I’ve got an idea. Thanks Nat!” you ran from the room before she could question your newest plan, instead checking to make sure her notifications were on for posts from your TikTok account.

-

“Steve!” you shouted when you saw him down the hall, about to turn a corner. He immediately stopped, turning back to see you running at him. “I need your help!”

You pulled him into the gym, briefly glancing around the room to make sure it was empty. Confirming nobody else was present, you set up your phone on one of the weight racks to record the two of you. It was already open to the recording section of TikTok, the sound you needed queued and ready to begin.

“What’s going on?” Steve looked between you and the phone, nerves heightening as he realized what you were doing. All of your videos about him thus far hasn’t actually involved him filming anything.

“I just need you to react to this trend, okay? It’s kind of old, but that doesn’t really matter,” you spoke quickly, trying to start the video before he could decline.

The music started playing instantly, with Steve awkwardly looking between the screen and you. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was reacting to, and it had him on edge. Just as the song reached the chorus, you turned and grabbed his face. Throwing caution to the wind, you followed through with your plan before you could back out, kissing him with all the passion and emotion you’d been holding back.

Steve froze, clearly surprised by your actions. Before you could pull away, he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you closer. He kissed you with equal passion and emotion, no longer paying attention to your phone recording the moment.

Neither of you noticed when the music cut off, too wrapped up in each other. When the need for air overpowered the desire to keep kissing him, you pulled back to gasp in a few breaths. Steve leaned his forehead against yours, eyes closed and breathing erratic.

The two do you spent the next few moments just breathing, trying to come to terms with what just happened. You gasped when his hands moved, one resting on your waist and the other cupping your cheek. His eyes were still closed when you chanced a glance at him.

“What was the trend?” he breathily whispered the words, still coming down from the high of kissing you.

“Huh?” you mumbled, unable to comprehend the question when he was still touching you like this.

“The TikTok trend? What was it?” his grip on your hip tightened, but his hand framing your face remained gentle.

“Oh, uh, it was- it was kissing your best friend/crush.” You whispered, heart still racing from his proximity. Your nerves had never been greater. Yeah, Nat always tells you that Steve has feelings for you, but what if he was just being polite? Maybe he didn’t know how to reject you when you kissed him out of nowhere, and now he’s trying to find a way to turn you down gently. What if-

“Was my reaction good enough to post?” he broke your train of thought with another question. You took a minute to think about the question, your brain still moving like molasses

“Um, that depends…” you froze when his eyes opened and stared into yours.

“On?” he prompted you to continue.

“Which caption I can use.” you finished the thought, finally remembering the two most common outcomes of the trend.

“What are the choices?” Steve smirked when you looked flustered, clearly not expecting this conversation.

“Uh, the two-” he began rubbing small circles into your hip with his thumb, effectively cutting off your train of thought again. It wasn’t until he lightly squeezed your hip again that you remember you were answering his question.

“Right! The two most common captions are some variation of ‘this was so awkward’ or ‘we’re dating now’,” you managed to blurt out the choices, blushing when he smiled at you.

“Well, I know which I prefer…” you waited with bated breath as he prolonged the silence, enjoying seeing you so on edge. You nearly whined when he let you go, moving to pick up your phone from the weight rack.

You watched in silence as he typed out a caption, tapping each letter with his pointer finger. A small smile formed on your lips at his adorable old man behavior. He then managed to find the post button, adding the video to your account before handing you the phone to see what he chose.

Your smile only grew after you read the caption, dropping the phone and immediately kissing him again.

-

Meanwhile, Nat had gathered the rest of the team that happened to be around to wait for whatever video you had planned to be posted.

Tony, Sam, Bucky, Wanda, Vision, Peter, and Clint all watched as the new video popped up on the screen. Peter bounced with excitement when he heard the song, instantly recognizing the trend. The rest of the group watched as you kissed Steve, mouths gaping open when he actually kissed you back.

Fans were already commenting about how long it took for the two of you to get together, but the team was too focused on laughing at the caption to pay any mind to the comments.

She said the trend was kind of old, but that fits because I’ve got a habit of waiting too long anyways.

Permanent taglist: @averyhotchner @jesuswasnotawhiteman @strawberryspence @sebastnstn @jswessie187 @ellobruv

Marvel: @leyannrae @livstilinski @oceaniamaddness @justreadingficsdontmindme

[kojinnie]

AOT Characters’ Modern Jobs Headcanon; The Vets Edition!

The jobs that The Vets would have in modern!au, their workplace antics and their back story. There might be some inaccuracies when describing the job as obviously I don’t work at these industries to know its intricacies. Most of the jobs are office jobs. Enjoyyyy!

My Masterlist .::. Pt. II: Zeke Yeager’s Modern Jobs Headcanon   

Most recent work: Dream Me Home (Before Shiganshina) | reader x erwin smith

A/N: I really need to finish a presentation deck due tonight for an early morning meeting tomorrow but of course, this comes first hahaha 

erwin!

A/N: Basically lawyer!erwin is the way to go, innit?

He's in his 40s, so he may have a settled career

He came from a white-collar, middle-class family. So he wasn’t silverspoon-fed, but his parents had enough money to put him through good school

Got a scholarship to go to one of the nation’s finest law schools

Kept it lowkey in college’s social circle, graduated with summa cum laude, developed a strong academic relation with his professor, and got recommended for an internship at top law firm at the capital city

Starting his career as a corporate lawyer, but then built his expertise as white-collar crime attorney

In his early 30s, he represented a union suing against conglomerate corporation in a big case that had national coverage, from then on he began to know his calling

Expanding his portfolio and became well-known for defending workers, consumers and civilians against corporate fraud scheme

Currently doing a lot of pro-bono cases for deprived victims of big corporate fraud. You would see him frequently gracing your local newspaper we love us some socialist king

On the side, he often writes for law journal and fills in as guest professor at local universities for summer courses

Established his own law firm with some of his partners, specializing in white collar crime and labor & employment law

He’s damn accomplished, but never really had any time for self-indulgence. Even after he becomes a household name in the country, with tens of attorneys working under him, his employees would still see him working on New Year’s Eve

He was always attentive to his employees, though. Although he has a very strict, borderline no-life work ethics, he never forces his employees to follow his habit, in fact he despises when his employees works on holidays and can be seen blaming himself for it a bit of a hypocrite but thats ok

He still takes metro to work. He prefers a very lowkey, ordinary lifestyle because he fears if he shows any knack for indulgence, he will be susceptible to gratification from potential enemies or crooked politicians

Definitely a sight to see at the workplace, for he's tall and always oozes a sense of authority in the way he speaks and carries himself generally

His emotional intelligence is top-notch, you would never meet someone who is able to be very objective and calculating, while being kind and compassionate at the same time

His fellow attorneys put a lot for respect for him, and hundreds of applicants come to his considerably small firm every week, because a lot of aspiring attorney find him inspiring to work with

He wasn’t oblivious to his shiny reputation, but he’s trying his hardest to not let the compliments get to his head. Sometimes he doesn’t give himself enough credit for it

Was approached by one of the political party’s committee to run for local senate, but turned it down

basically he’s perfect if you like a man who’s never home for christmas

Hange!

A/N: Ok ok, I really wanna see Paleontologist!Hange because it has always been my fave dream job, but I want Hange to be out and about with people so here it is

Hange is the type to be incredibly good at one thing, that she will dedicate her whole life for that pursuit, but will be awfully oblivious to a whole lot of things (not intentional of course, they just have a very limited attention span) (they wouldn’t know who kanye west is or what tiktok is)

Like Erwin, they came from a middle-class family. While Erwin’s parents might have been teachers, accountants or other common profession, Hange came from a family of academician and researchers

Hange studied Human Geography at uni, but later found passion specifically in its relation to industrialization and urban development

Hange aims to advocate for a better living condition for workforce, and nearby inhabitants of industrialized city detroit would be a beautiful city if only they let hange designed it

Hange is a professor at university, where they also led a non-profit research think-thank that also serves as pressure group for better government policy.

The university that Hange teaches in, is also the uni where Erwin teaches in summer. They’re close-knitted colleagues as they share similar passion. Erwin relies on Hange a lot for some intellectual insights to help his cases  

Hange is relentless in their cause, you may find Hange everywhere! From street protest to a hearing in the government court. They are passionate and will do anything for the cause they believe in

Hange was once hired by the government as an independent consultant for a new housing project, but left because they grew to be frustrated by the government’s bureaucracy and their outward reluctance to follow Hange's recommendation

Hange spends a lot of time overseas, consulting and advocating development in newly industrialized countries

On Hange’s birthday, her fellow researchers surprised them with a ‘pampering day’ where they took them to an optometrist because Hange had been complaining about their eyesight for a YEAR that gave them a lot of migraines, but was always either too busy or too lazy to go

Hange never really considers themselves as working, because they enjoy their job very much. Hange likes to spend months observing a community, talking to people for hours, and trying their best in understanding their problem

Out of so many great qualities that Hange has as a researcher that meets different set of people everyday, prejudice or preconceived judgment is completely absent in Hange’s demeanor and perspective

Hange doesn’t get a lot of free-time, even if they do, they’d wander around the city to do a little observation. But when the weather’s bad and they’re stuck at home with their pet lizard, they would logged into Quora to answer random internet questions

They’re an avid writer for National Geographic, and one time Hange won a pitch to make a documentary about an industrial city project they were working on

After the docu-series got broadcasted, Hange gained a small but passionate and loyal fans on the internet. You could even find a subreddit dedicated for Hange’s works

for real I want to be Hange. I want to have that kind of passion in life

levi!

A/N: I spent a lot of times thinking about Levi’s job in modern!au. Because here’s the thing, either we adopt his unfortunate childhood into its modern!au equivalent, or let’s just recreate his whole upbringing. But I think his personality stems from a specific things he experienced during childhood, so let’s not dismiss that.

Levi came from a struggling working class family. I reckon his parents might have had worked multiple jobs to sustain their living expense. Unfortunately they both passed away when Levi was very little, and left little to no inheritance

Levi’s parents were not close to their extended family, so when they died, Levi was admitted to the system and had to brace several foster families who didn’t really pay attention to him

Little Levi had come to realize that life’s all about survival and so he had been able to fend on for himself since very young age, he never asked for things

His uncle, Kenny, finally won custody over Levi when he was in elementary. Kenny made money from small-scale racketeering here and there. Levi never asked what he did for living, as long as he got food to eat and tuition paid off

Kenny was emotionally absent, but he loved spending time with the oddly quiet little child, teaching him a lot of crafts, from carpentering to how to flay pig’s skin

Levi didn’t really care about getting into college, and thought that he’d probably end up working for his uncle, so he put his bare minimum throughout school, although he was really good with numbers, especially in math, accounting and finance

One time in high school, Levi’s teacher asked him to sign up for the olympiad team, Levi turned it down because he thought that was a rich kid thing

He didn’t even apply for college, and worked odd jobs after high school. Probably working as cashiers or assistant to retail shop’s owner for couple of years, enough for him to afford a cheap studio apartment on his own

One of his bosses came to acknowledge Levi’s talent, and trusted him to handle the company’s accounting

By sheer luck, the company hit it big, and Levi found himself running the day-to-day accounting of mid-sized business with over 300 employees

He made good money already without a college degree, but with a new-found confidence Levi applied for uni, where he chose to study accounting (of course)

Although he was confident with his skills, he understood he needed to widen his horizon and network -- thus uni

Levi was one of the oldest members of his cohort in uni, but graduated with highest distinction

After graduating, with his skills and experience, it wasn’t hard for Levi to score a job at top accounting firm

There, he discovered an interest for forensic accounting, where through audits, analysis and investigation, he basically finds out if a company is doing fraud and embezzlement or not

This is where he came to know and get acquainted with Erwin and Hange (yippie they’re together again)

The firm he works for was assigned to investigate the finances of a troublesome company that had been sued by its workers for a jeopardizing working condition. Erwin was on the case, and Levi helped him with evidences for legal proceeding.

By chance, Erwin introduced Levi to Hange. At first, Levi would find Hange annoying and overtly energized, but after learning the things they have done, Levi grew to appreciate Hange’s passion (and secretly wants to have more of his positive outlook)

Levi is fucking good his job. In short amount of time, he could get a really ideal position in the office. He was almost foolproof, finding even the tiniest bit of discrepancy in his audit. He’d get assigned to the big league case/project.

Although really good at his job, he’s not a social person, especially in his office. He couldn’t understand the lavish lifestyle that finance and banking people often lead. He will only show up to office party if it is really necessary for him to show up (usually to receive some kind of informal awards for, again, being so fucking good) 

He leads a no-bullshit attitude at the office, largely because of his background. He is a self-made man, and is not easy to impress by some young executives from posh school that talk bigger than they can chew

His cold, seemingly dismissive attitude gained him a reputation of being scary, when actually he is very considerate

One of the things he enjoys doing is to actually teach, he really likes when a new kid at the office come to him with none of that pretentious, big talk, and really asks for his guidance. He would love to teach you a thing or two

He would frequently check on his mentee, just to keep up with their development

And he doesn’t take credit too. When his mentee makes a milestone, he believes it’s 100% your work

If you’re his mentee, he probably doesn’t give a crap about your personal life, so don’t expect him to make small talk about that (and don’t ask him about his personal life either). But he really cares about your skill and career development

Same with Erwin, he leads a very ordinary lifestyle. He doesn’t go out often and would rather reading detective novel with his cat on the couch

He likes to spend Sunday at Uncle Kenny’s house, because he finds himself worried about the old man very often. They became close as Levi grew

Overall, Levi is a really kind and caring person if you know how not to push his button

[thenewscover]

The Rise Of TikTok | Explained By The News Cover

The News Cover: 2020 has been a year of chaos, uncertainty and grief. A global pandemic, record unemployment and nationwide protests have left people reeling. Through it all though, there's been TikTok, providing moments of levity and new dance crazes, interspersed with more serious commentary on the issues that we face. TikTok, it's like the party you want to be at, a t the moment. 

You'll see hair tutorials, cooking tutorials. People can create challenges, they can create duets, th ey can interact, they can engage. T ikTok is the most downloaded app of 2020. Since its global release less than two years ago, TikTok and its Chinese counterpart, Douyin, have amassed 800 million monthly active users, more than Reddit, Snapchat or Twitter. Its parent company, ByteDance, is the most valuable startup in the world. Its reach might surprise you unless you're a member of Gen Z or the parent of one. But as millions scramble for connection amidst quarantines, more and more users of all ages are hopping aboard. 

We're all just kind of going through the same thing together. And we happen to be documenting it all through TikTok. It's not all rosy, though. The Chinese-owned app faces a slew of regulatory hurdles, privacy concerns and allegations of censorship. Amidst these struggles, it's brought in a new CEO. This guy is Kevin Mayer. Formerly the Head of Streaming at Disney. That's basically what Kevin Mayer's first priority needs to be, is to make sure that Americans trust TikTok. In the long run, t hat may prove complicated. But in the short term, it hasn't prevented tens of thousands of new users from signing up. 

The predecessor to TikTok was an app called Musical.ly. Founded in 2014, it provided a platform for users to create short, 15 second videos set to a song of their choice. The content mostly involved lip-syncing and dancing, and it took off quickly among preteens and teens in the U.S. This is an app that was built around the fact that there was music that was licensed to be used on this app. This was something that Musical.ly decided really to invest in, because they knew that music and sharing music was inherently social. 

By July 2015, a year after its launch, Musical.ly reached number one in the iTunes app store. It continued to grow and was bought by the Beijing-based startup ByteDance for one billion dollars in 2017. ByteDance already owned Tik Tok, a similar video sharing platform, and merged the two apps less than a year later. Now TikTok's main office is in Los Angeles, California. They're essentially an American startup that is subsidized by a successful Chinese tech company. As the app has grown, it's given rise to a whole new pack of social media celebrities. 

Content is public by default on TikTok, and the algorithm that determines what appears on a user's home page gives every creator the chance to put their video in front of millions. Really what we saw was a different style of humor. It wasn't the sketches that you saw on Vine, and it wasn't longer-form YouTube videos. It was meme culture or like the general public's take on a meme. What I enjoyed about it is there was some deeper humor in there if you were paying attention to the trends that were happening. 

On TikTok, King uses creative video editing to make it look like he's performing magic tricks, a skill which has earned him over 44 million followers, the second most on the app as of June 2020. But at 30, King represents the rare millennial that's broken into TikTok's top ranks. Many of the most followed users are in their teens, and lip syncing and dancing remain wildly popular. So I originally started when I was 14 years old, and so I started using my facial expressions and hand motions to make these like larger than life lip sync videos. And as I grew up, I think the app also grew up. Now there's so much more that you can do. 

While Martin has found her niche with dancing and lifestyle content, she says there's something out there for everyone. There's like creators who are huge when it comes to comedy, some still do lip syncing, some cooking videos, tutorials. You can do whatever you want as long as it's fun, it's quick and it catches people's eye. Stay at home orders have propelled the app's rapid growth in the United States. So between October and March, according to research fro m Comscore, its unique visitors has grown from 27 million to 52 million, so doubled in the past five months. 

And within that time period, just in March alone, according to Comscore TikTok added 12 million new unique visitors. People in the U.S. on TikTok spent more time on TikTok than Instagram users spent on Instagram or Snapchat users spent on Snapchat in the month of March. That's a big deal since Snap and Instagram are two of the app's main competitors. They're all extremely popular among young users, b ut in the U.S. at least, TikTok still has some catching up to do. We estimate that this year TikTok will have 45 million users. 

But Instagram, we're estimating will have over 110 million and Snapchat will have 85 million users. But TikTok is also huge abroad, especially in India and China. In China, it operates as a technically separate but very similar app called Douyin. And in the first quarter of 2020, TikTok and Douyin were downloaded 315 million times globally, a 68 percent increase over the previous year. In April, the company reached two billion overall downloads. 

India is by far the app's largest market when it comes to downloads, accounting for 30.3 percent of the total. But China is definitely the largest from a revenue standpoint, accounting for about 72 percent of total spending on the app. The U.S. is third in terms of downloads and second in terms of revenue, and its influence continues to grow. Viral dances and memes have propelled a number of songs to the top of the U.S. charts, most famously, Old Town Road in 2019 . And now the moms, dads and siblings of the TikTok o bsessed have started to get in on the trends as well, learning dances and performing challenges together. 

You're still laughing at them, but actually the fact that parents are getting on it, I mean they needed that demo so badly to even make it to this level that they're at now. In order to build out a sustainable revenue model, e xperts say that TikTok eventually needs to attract older users. Advertisers are going after broader demographics and especially those with purchasing power. But TikTok is not under immediate pressure to make money just yet. Its parent company ByteDance is valued at over 100 billion dollars and made three billion dollars in revenue last year. 

That's because it owns a host of other, more profitable Chinese apps, most notably Douyin and a news aggregator called Toutiao. TikTok's revenue model is still very, very nascent. This is a company that has some advertising, we have some of the users starting to do sponsorships. But at the end of the day, this is a company with hundreds of millions of users here in the U.S. that's still not making as much money as it could some day. Monetization aside, many say that CEO Kevin Mayer's first priority needs to be the regulatory and privacy concerns facing the app, which stem from its Chinese ownership as well as its popularity among children. 

You know, it's never been the case that so many Americans are putting so much of their visual data in the hands of a Chinese company. And as we know, the relationship between the Chinese government and Chinese corporations is a pretty tight one. While TikTok claims that all American user's data is stored within the U.S. and is not subject to Chinese law, many security experts remain skeptical. Similar concerns exists in India, where data protection laws are weaker and thus citizens are more vulnerable. Regulators are going to be very weary of that separation. 

Where's the data held? What's the cross-pollination look like? A number of incidents over the years have provided ample reason for worry. An investigation by The Guardian last September revealed that TikTok moderators were instructed to censor videos related to Tiananmen Square and other content deemed sensitive by the Chinese government. 

While the company claimed that these guidelines had been phased out by the time of the investigation, it still helped spur the Federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to open an ongoing review into ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly. It seems unlikely that ByteDance would be forced to divest itself of what was Musical.ly, now is TikTok. But I do think that this all speaks to the great amount of concern and oversight over this app that's gone from a tiny little thing to this huge powerhouse. 

Most recently, the app received criticism for what it said was a technical glitch, in which post tagged with #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd appeared to have zero views when they actually have over two billion. And in the past, both India and Indonesia have instituted brief bans on the app due to concerns over inappropriate content like violence and pornography. 

Lastly, there are ongoing issues regarding children's privacy. Users under 13 are technically not allowed on TikTok, but there's not much really preventing them from signing up. In February 2019, the company paid 5.7 million dollars to the FTC to settle charges that it was illegally collecting children's personal information. This then prompted the U.K. to conduct their own investigation into the matter. While TikTok said it would make changes, in May 2020 a coalition of consumer groups filed a complaint stating that TikTok had not kept its promises. 

It's all undoubtedly a lot for Mayer to inherit. But given his background at Disney, some say he may be exactly the right person to address these concerns. So he is someone who has experience dealing with regulation, dealing with oversight, and especially dealing with online security issues, which are certainly front of mind for TikTok as they navigate their relationship with the FTC. If Mayer can secure the trust of U.S. consumers and investors, Byt eDance could be well positioned for an IPO in the next year or two. Beyond that, experts say that TikTok's long-term prospects depend upon its ability to keep users engaged while building out a sustainable monetization strategy. 

YouTube could be seen as a model in the way that YouTube shares advertising revenue with its content creators. Mayer's background in streaming services also has both analysts and creators excited about what new forms of content may lie on the horizon. I have been begging TikTok to get into the streaming game. People have speculated that TikTok might get involved in original programming.

 To make TikTok sustainable, you're going to have to do long-form content. I don't see a version where you make 60 second videos forever and it stays cool for another two to three years. King also says TikTok's live-streaming feature has room to grow. It's super popular in China, but hasn't yet taken off in the U.S. I think what's next for TikTok is how they figure out how to make money, how they figure out how to create a home for advertisers, and how they make sure that content creators themselves want to stick around and don't want to go jump off to whatever the next cool app is going to be.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/3hwmC8r via IFTTT

[margaretbeagle]

News Roundup: The Future of Facebook, Pinterest’s Latest Changes, the Most Popular Stories, and More

As ever, a ton is happening in the world of social media, and it can be hard to catch every story.

So we want to highlight some of the biggest news items from recent weeks that might impact your social media marketing.

We’ll touch on Facebook’s most recent product changes and strategic plans, how Pinterest continues making splashes with its business and shopping features, and the latest data on social media trends and usage. Learn what’s coming next to Instagram and find out what’s more popular: Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, or Snapchat.

Social media news item #1

The Future of Facebook (new audio from Mark Zuckerberg)

The Verge — a technology and culture news website — released two hours of leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg talking to his Facebook employees, answering questions about Facebook’s future, the risks it faces, and the strategies for things like privacy, reliability, and even Libra, Facebook’s new cryptocurrency.

The audio was a very sincere Zuckerberg talking openly and genuinely with his team. It was a side of him you don’t alway see in public forums.

What we found particularly interesting — and relevant to social media marketers — was his thoughts on Facebook strategy. 

At one point he started talking about Facebook’s response to a threat like TikTok, which has exploded in popularity recently. If you’ve yet to try it, TikTok is a social media app for sharing videos; it’s become especially popular with younger demographics.

Zuckerberg related TikTok to the Explore tab on Instagram, saying:

It’s almost like the Explore Tab that we have on Instagram,  which is today primarily about feed posts and highlighting different feed posts. I kind of think about TikTok as if it were Explore for stories, and that were the whole app.

So what will Facebook do about TikTok? 

It appears that Instagram is best positioned to compete with TikTok, and Zuckerberg mentioned that they’ll be making some changes to Instagram, including changes to the Explore tab so it’s more focused on Stories.

That’s a good takeaway for marketers. We already know that Stories are an incredibly popular way to reach your audience — you can check out last week’s episode on Stories examples and ways to schedule Stories with Buffer. 

The fact that Instagram might make Stories even more discoverable feels like even more reason to build Stories into your marketing strategy.

And one other tidbit worth keeping an eye on: Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook has built a TikTok-like app and is currently testing it in countries like Mexico, where TikTok has yet to be released. The app is called Lasso — Facebook is trying to find product-market fit with the app before bringing it to other countries to compete directly with TikTok.

(Not long after the audio came out, Facebook responded by livestreaming an internal Q&A session at Facebook.)

Social media news item #2

Like counts might be going away on Facebook, too

You’ve heard about likes going away on Instagram — perhaps you’ve even experienced it already. 

Well, the same thing is going to happen with like counts on Facebook.

Facebook is officially starting to hid like counts on its posts, starting first in Australia. Just like with the removal of likes on Instagram, with Facebook likes, the posts’s author can still see the count, but it’s hidden from everyone else who sees it. People can see who liked it but not how many people liked it. Same goes for the Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry reactions.

There’s been a lot of positive press about these changes for Instagram and Facebook, especially as it related to people’s well-being and experience on social media. There’s less social pressure for a post to perform to a certain threshold — less envy, less competition.

And to be clear, these hidden like counts are still being treated as tests. A Facebook spokesperson told Techcrunch, “quote”“We are running a limited test where like, reaction, and video view counts are made private across Facebook. We will gather feedback to understand whether this change will improve people’s experiences.” unquote.

The thinking is that if the test improves people’s well-being without affecting engagement or activity with Facebook, then it’s likely to keep rolling out to more and more countries.

We wrote on the Buffer blog about this shift away from like counts and what it might mean for marketers. 

Our take is that it signals a move toward attention metrics, which marketers have already been tracking and optimizing for some time now. In fact, I’d venture to say that marketers were ahead of the curve on this shift away from likes.

You’re right. Many social media dashboards now report on these more informative attention metrics, like

Completion rate for Stories

Video watch time and audience retention

Referral traffic and attribution

Engagement rate (total interactions divided by reach)

These give you a great signal of whether or not your content is working and keeping people engaged. It’s much clearer data than an ambiguous response of a like.

Social media news item #3

Pinterest debuts catalog uploads and new business profile features

All year long, Pinterest has been releasing a ton of great value to businesses and advertisers through new features on the app. The company went public earlier this year and continues to grow, most recently surpassing 300 million monthly active users.

What caught our eye with Pinterest’s most recent moves was its addition of more business features and e-commerce features with catalogues, profiles, and shopping.

Let’s start with the catalogs.

As of a couple weeks ago, if you’re an e-commerce company, you can upload your full catalog to Pinterest and automatically turn all your products into shoppable product pins. This feature was first rolled out to select partners in European countries and is likely to expand further as shopping season nears. 

The interesting signal that this news tells me is just how committed Pinterest is to creating an awesome shopping experience on the app. 

You’re right. We’ve seen similar with Instagram Checkout, which lets you buy directly in the app. It feels like both Pinterest and Instagram are moving in the same e-commerce direction. If your brand sells to consumers online, then these two social networks will be key places for you. 

In addition to catalogs, Pinterest also debuted new dynamic business profiles with video cover images and a dedicated Shop tab.  We’ll share a couple examples of these new profiles in our show notes at buffer.com/podcast so you can check them out. I think they look fabulous.

The new Shop tab is one of my favorite new parts of the profile. It’ll appear just under the main cover image and description, next to the options for Activity and Community.On the Shop tab, you’ll see a list of “Shop the Look” pins for your brand, even sorted into collections. The Ulta Beauty account is a great example — they have collections for things like Nail Polish, Eye Makeup, and Accessories.

Social media news item #4

Which is most popular: Stories on Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat?

Survey says: Facebook. (!?)

This news comes from our friends at HubSpot who recently shared some interesting findings on the popularity of Stories. 

Their survey showed that 70 percent of people prefer to watch Facebook Stories over Instagram Stories or Snapchat.

Isn’t that result suprising?

Now, before you go out and change your whole social media strategy, let me share a bit more context. The data had a small sample size — 275 people — and the demographics were a broad set of consumers in the United States alone. 

So had the survey been larger or more focused on a segment like 18-24 year-olds or even 25-34-year olds, we might have seen different results.

Nevertheless, the fact that Facebook Stories scored so highly in this survey is a surprise … especially when you consider that Facebook Stories are mostly an afterthought in many marketing articles and strategy conversations. 

From my point of view, this data made me think twice about Facebook Stories as a viable channel. 

It’s definitely hard to ignore the reach and size of Facebook in general, so it makes sense that its Stories might be visible to an equally large number of people. And especially if Facebook Stories are talked about less than, say, Instagram Stories or Snapchat, it feels like competition might be a bit less, too, and you’ll have more chance to stand out.

Right, and the HubSpot article even goes on to describe some easy ways to test the water on Facebook Stories. A lot of companies take the lean approach: They simply cross-post the same content from instagram Stories to Facebook Stories. 

Doesn’t get much simpler than that!

Lightning round

Pinterest has a dark mode now!

You can toggle on the dark mode in the Pinterest app. I know a lot of people love this for the way it saves their eyes. Even more good news, there’s a dark mode for Gmail now, too.

New Twitter timelines are here.

You can now use Twitter lists as alternate Twitter home feed timelines. You can pin up to five lists to your main screen then swipe back and forth to see them.

We’re huge fans of Twitter lists here at Buffer, so this feature has been a real hit.

Instagram announced the release of Threads.

Threads is a new camera-first messaging app to connect you with your friends. People are calling it another way that Instagram has taken inspiration from some of the features that Snapchat has built successfully. We’re eager to see how it performs for Instagram.

“Following Activity” goes away.

Also, Instagram recently changed its app so that you can non longer see“Following Activity” tab where it would show you the activity — likes, comments, etcetera — of the people you followed.

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Heather-Mae on Twitter

Dave on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

News Roundup: The Future of Facebook, Pinterest’s Latest Changes, the Most Popular Stories, and More published first on https://improfitninja.weebly.com/

[mariemary1]

News Roundup: The Future of Facebook, Pinterest’s Latest Changes, the Most Popular Stories, and More

As ever, a ton is happening in the world of social media, and it can be hard to catch every story.

So we want to highlight some of the biggest news items from recent weeks that might impact your social media marketing.

We’ll touch on Facebook’s most recent product changes and strategic plans, how Pinterest continues making splashes with its business and shopping features, and the latest data on social media trends and usage. Learn what’s coming next to Instagram and find out what’s more popular: Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, or Snapchat.

Social media news item #1

The Future of Facebook (new audio from Mark Zuckerberg)

The Verge — a technology and culture news website — released two hours of leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg talking to his Facebook employees, answering questions about Facebook’s future, the risks it faces, and the strategies for things like privacy, reliability, and even Libra, Facebook’s new cryptocurrency.

The audio was a very sincere Zuckerberg talking openly and genuinely with his team. It was a side of him you don’t alway see in public forums.

What we found particularly interesting — and relevant to social media marketers — was his thoughts on Facebook strategy. 

At one point he started talking about Facebook’s response to a threat like TikTok, which has exploded in popularity recently. If you’ve yet to try it, TikTok is a social media app for sharing videos; it’s become especially popular with younger demographics.

Zuckerberg related TikTok to the Explore tab on Instagram, saying:

It’s almost like the Explore Tab that we have on Instagram,  which is today primarily about feed posts and highlighting different feed posts. I kind of think about TikTok as if it were Explore for stories, and that were the whole app.

So what will Facebook do about TikTok? 

It appears that Instagram is best positioned to compete with TikTok, and Zuckerberg mentioned that they’ll be making some changes to Instagram, including changes to the Explore tab so it’s more focused on Stories.

That’s a good takeaway for marketers. We already know that Stories are an incredibly popular way to reach your audience — you can check out last week’s episode on Stories examples and ways to schedule Stories with Buffer. 

The fact that Instagram might make Stories even more discoverable feels like even more reason to build Stories into your marketing strategy.

And one other tidbit worth keeping an eye on: Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook has built a TikTok-like app and is currently testing it in countries like Mexico, where TikTok has yet to be released. The app is called Lasso — Facebook is trying to find product-market fit with the app before bringing it to other countries to compete directly with TikTok.

(Not long after the audio came out, Facebook responded by livestreaming an internal Q&A session at Facebook.)

Social media news item #2

Like counts might be going away on Facebook, too

You’ve heard about likes going away on Instagram — perhaps you’ve even experienced it already. 

Well, the same thing is going to happen with like counts on Facebook.

Facebook is officially starting to hid like counts on its posts, starting first in Australia. Just like with the removal of likes on Instagram, with Facebook likes, the posts’s author can still see the count, but it’s hidden from everyone else who sees it. People can see who liked it but not how many people liked it. Same goes for the Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry reactions.

There’s been a lot of positive press about these changes for Instagram and Facebook, especially as it related to people’s well-being and experience on social media. There’s less social pressure for a post to perform to a certain threshold — less envy, less competition.

And to be clear, these hidden like counts are still being treated as tests. A Facebook spokesperson told Techcrunch, “quote”“We are running a limited test where like, reaction, and video view counts are made private across Facebook. We will gather feedback to understand whether this change will improve people’s experiences.” unquote.

The thinking is that if the test improves people’s well-being without affecting engagement or activity with Facebook, then it’s likely to keep rolling out to more and more countries.

We wrote on the Buffer blog about this shift away from like counts and what it might mean for marketers. 

Our take is that it signals a move toward attention metrics, which marketers have already been tracking and optimizing for some time now. In fact, I’d venture to say that marketers were ahead of the curve on this shift away from likes.

You’re right. Many social media dashboards now report on these more informative attention metrics, like

Completion rate for Stories

Video watch time and audience retention

Referral traffic and attribution

Engagement rate (total interactions divided by reach)

These give you a great signal of whether or not your content is working and keeping people engaged. It’s much clearer data than an ambiguous response of a like.

Social media news item #3

Pinterest debuts catalog uploads and new business profile features

All year long, Pinterest has been releasing a ton of great value to businesses and advertisers through new features on the app. The company went public earlier this year and continues to grow, most recently surpassing 300 million monthly active users.

What caught our eye with Pinterest’s most recent moves was its addition of more business features and e-commerce features with catalogues, profiles, and shopping.

Let’s start with the catalogs.

As of a couple weeks ago, if you’re an e-commerce company, you can upload your full catalog to Pinterest and automatically turn all your products into shoppable product pins. This feature was first rolled out to select partners in European countries and is likely to expand further as shopping season nears. 

The interesting signal that this news tells me is just how committed Pinterest is to creating an awesome shopping experience on the app. 

You’re right. We’ve seen similar with Instagram Checkout, which lets you buy directly in the app. It feels like both Pinterest and Instagram are moving in the same e-commerce direction. If your brand sells to consumers online, then these two social networks will be key places for you. 

In addition to catalogs, Pinterest also debuted new dynamic business profiles with video cover images and a dedicated Shop tab.  We’ll share a couple examples of these new profiles in our show notes at buffer.com/podcast so you can check them out. I think they look fabulous.

The new Shop tab is one of my favorite new parts of the profile. It’ll appear just under the main cover image and description, next to the options for Activity and Community.On the Shop tab, you’ll see a list of “Shop the Look” pins for your brand, even sorted into collections. The Ulta Beauty account is a great example — they have collections for things like Nail Polish, Eye Makeup, and Accessories.

Social media news item #4

Which is most popular: Stories on Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat?

Survey says: Facebook. (!?)

This news comes from our friends at HubSpot who recently shared some interesting findings on the popularity of Stories. 

Their survey showed that 70 percent of people prefer to watch Facebook Stories over Instagram Stories or Snapchat.

Isn’t that result suprising?

Now, before you go out and change your whole social media strategy, let me share a bit more context. The data had a small sample size — 275 people — and the demographics were a broad set of consumers in the United States alone. 

So had the survey been larger or more focused on a segment like 18-24 year-olds or even 25-34-year olds, we might have seen different results.

Nevertheless, the fact that Facebook Stories scored so highly in this survey is a surprise … especially when you consider that Facebook Stories are mostly an afterthought in many marketing articles and strategy conversations. 

From my point of view, this data made me think twice about Facebook Stories as a viable channel. 

It’s definitely hard to ignore the reach and size of Facebook in general, so it makes sense that its Stories might be visible to an equally large number of people. And especially if Facebook Stories are talked about less than, say, Instagram Stories or Snapchat, it feels like competition might be a bit less, too, and you’ll have more chance to stand out.

Right, and the HubSpot article even goes on to describe some easy ways to test the water on Facebook Stories. A lot of companies take the lean approach: They simply cross-post the same content from instagram Stories to Facebook Stories. 

Doesn’t get much simpler than that!

Lightning round

Pinterest has a dark mode now!

You can toggle on the dark mode in the Pinterest app. I know a lot of people love this for the way it saves their eyes. Even more good news, there’s a dark mode for Gmail now, too.

New Twitter timelines are here.

You can now use Twitter lists as alternate Twitter home feed timelines. You can pin up to five lists to your main screen then swipe back and forth to see them.

We’re huge fans of Twitter lists here at Buffer, so this feature has been a real hit.

Instagram announced the release of Threads.

Threads is a new camera-first messaging app to connect you with your friends. People are calling it another way that Instagram has taken inspiration from some of the features that Snapchat has built successfully. We’re eager to see how it performs for Instagram.

“Following Activity” goes away.

Also, Instagram recently changed its app so that you can non longer see“Following Activity” tab where it would show you the activity — likes, comments, etcetera — of the people you followed.

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Heather-Mae on Twitter

Dave on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Thank News Roundup: The Future of Facebook, Pinterest’s Latest Changes, the Most Popular Stories, and More for first publishing this post.

[biofunmy]

China Masters Political Propaganda for the Instagram Age

Lu Yingxin has been singing “My People, My Country” for the past week. An earnest propaganda anthem from 1985, the song typically wouldn’t stand a chance against Taylor Swift, K-pop and other modern tunes the 18-year-old college student and her friends like to listen to.

Then, on Sunday, Ms. Lu and her roommates saw a hit Chinese movie of the same name. It depicts major events in recent Chinese history — its first nuclear bomb test, the Hong Kong handover from Britain and the Beijing Olympics, among others — through the eyes of ordinary people.

Its theme song is a polished cover of the 1985 version, sung by Faye Wong, the breathy Chinese superstar. It left them in tears, Ms. Lu said.

It’s easy to dismiss this outpouring of patriotism as evidence of the Communist Party’s successful brainwashing of the Chinese people, or as a result of heavy surveillance and heavy-handed tactics against dissenters.

The truth is more complex. The Communist Party indeed doesn’t hesitate to use state power to tell the Chinese people how they should think. But the displays of patriotism, especially from young people, also show that the party’s propaganda machine has mastered the power of symbol and symbolism in the mass media and social media era.

That’s why Ms. Lu can’t stop singing a song she first learned in a patriotism class in her elementary school.

“It was beautiful. But it was also part of the patriotism education, so it felt forced,” she said. “After I watched the movie and the military parade, I sang it from the bottom of my heart.”

Beijing may be still struggling to influence the outside world more effectively, but at home it has learned how to compete with short videos, Hollywood movies and mobile games for the public’s attention span. While imposing tight censorship, the Communist Party has also learned to lean on the most popular artists and the most experienced internet companies to help it instill Chinese with patriotic zeal.

It’s propaganda for the Instagram age, if Instagram were allowed in China.

So many people rushed to add a national flag logo to their profile photos on the WeChat social media platform that the webpage crashed. On Douyin, the Chinese version of the short-video platform TikTok, China’s biggest entertainment stars and ordinary people alike posted videos of themselves cupping their hands into a heart shape over their chests. The “My People, My Country” music video has been played 73 million times on Tencent Video, one of three big video sites.

“Even discounting some people who hide their negative opinions of the regime, the level of support for the party state is still very high, compared with other countries,” said Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

There are a number of other factors, including the unrest in Hong Kong. Angry demonstrators showing their dislike of the Chinese government have left many people in China feeling both defensive and proud of their country’s accomplishments.

And broadly speaking, Chinese people have reason to be proud of their accomplishments. In 40 years, they have lifted their country out of poverty while avoiding the wars and unrest that have plagued much of the developing world. Modern China has its problems, but most Chinese believe it is still vibrant and full of opportunity.

The Communist Party has tapped into that sentiment, and has been successfully blurring the line between love for the country and love for the party. For the first time, the flags of the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army appeared in the military parade along with the national flag. In fact, the party’s flag marched ahead of the national flag.

To blur those lines, the party has turned to potent symbols for the internet age.

Its propaganda symbols of old included Lei Feng, a selfless soldier who died in 1962 at the age of 21 after being struck by a falling utility pole.

Today’s version of Lei Feng is Azhong, a clean-cut cartoon character. The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, created Azhong, a boy from a poor family who is ridiculed by classmates. But he works hard and becomes a top student. Then it compares Azhong to China, saying it also rose from backwardness to power despite victimization, in the country’s case by foreign forces.

“He is China,” the cartoon declares. (His name also translates as “China,” in case anybody might miss the symbolism.)

Chinese online users began using the nickname while they waged digital war against young Hong Kong protesters on Facebook and Instagram in August. Then the Weibo account of the Communist Youth League, the party outreach arm to young people, picked up the nickname and made it bigger.

The Chinese internet has proved to be a fruitful place for the party to spread its message. A mobile game developed by the People’s Daily and Tencent, the Chinese internet giant, was the most popular free app on Apple’s China store last week, for example. Players compete to see who can build better cities while executing the party’s key policies, such as poverty alleviation and low-carbon transportation.

The “My People, My Country” film shows how far propaganda has come.

A decade ago, “The Founding of a Republic,” the first in a trilogy of patriotic films about China’s birth, played to mostly unimpressed audiences. They were so disliked that Douban, a Chinese film review site, disabled its ratings for those titles.

“My People, My Country” so far has a score of 8.1 out of 10 on Douban. It has sold nearly $200 million in tickets in five days.

Yan Feng, professor of Chinese literature at Fudan University in Shanghai, wrote on his Weibo social media account that “My People, My Country” is the best revolutionary-themed film in China’s history.

“After 70 years,” he wrote, “our culture and propaganda departments finally figured out how to combine propaganda with art.”

Clarence Lu, a 24-year-old blogger in Guangzhou, watched the movie twice in two days. The characters were flawed human beings instead of the epic heroes one usually sees in patriotic films, he wrote in a social media post.

“I have to admit that our country is getting much better at communicating with us, in ways we like,” Mr. Lu said in an interview. “I didn’t realize that I accepted the patriotic education until after I liked and shared the song.”

China certainly didn’t invent tug-at-the-heart patriotism, as anybody who has seen “Saving Private Ryan” can attest. The difference is that the Chinese government is playing an active role in creating media like “My People, My Country.”

The movie was co-produced by the state-owned Huaxia Film Distribution. Huang Jianxin, the film’s main producer, told Chinese media that he received a notice from “relevant government department” a year ago about making a film about the 70th anniversary.

In fact, the party’s central publicity department took over film regulation in China last year from a government agency, giving the party direct control of what appears in Chinese theaters. That will ensure that no historical films in China will depict some of the most disastrous events in the country’s collective memory, like the Cultural Revolution or the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Much of China’s success on the propaganda front still comes from silencing critics. A 24-year-old man in the southwestern Sichuan Province is serving a seven-day police detention for bad-mouthing the military parade on social media last weekend, according to the local police.

Mr. Lu, the blogger, said that he wrote his article because he couldn’t figure out why many people became so patriotic all of a sudden.

He was surprised to find that young people lined up to take photos with a national flag in a Guangzhou shopping mall last weekend. Some of them wore baggy hip-hop outfits, black lipstick and studded boots. They looked like they could be on their way to night clubs, he said. Yet they chose to take photos with the national flag.

“When I was growing up, it was considered uncool to be overtly patriotic and take photos with the national flag,” he said. “Not anymore.”

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