#I don't know how to do anything on this site but I think this is an ok format

[starfieldcanvas]

I think it's important to articulate that the perseverance being talked about here is not as condescending as "being miserable builds character," which is what a lot of people end up sounding like when they go off about why A.I. is bad.

things being easier and more accessible is generally a good thing, and there are a million non-A.I. tools that creators use to produce better end products more quickly. when i write poetry i have merriam-webster's thesaurus site open in one tab and RhymeZone rhyming dictionary in the other; i don't gain anything much by ditching those tools in favor of struggling more. when i draw i use photo references and digital modeling tools and perspective tools and brush packs. those things make my work easier and they make a high-quality end product more accessible to me in a shorter period of time with less struggle on my part. i do not actually need to calculate where all the chairs in the generic anime classroom ought to be; i can use an existing 3D model, turn it to the angle I want, and move on to actually drawing the part I'm actually invested in.

the 'perseverance' in question here is the ability to look at a multi-faceted challenge, consider all the facets, assemble relevant resources, and apply however much effort is necessary to use those resources to arrive at a finished product, however imperfect. this is a skill that for most children starts with simple arithmetic problems or sounding out words, and escalates in adulthood to things like "finding an apartment" and "getting a job", not to mention more complex group projects like "design and sell a useful product" or "write functional government policy."

tiny children are easily daunted by things that seem simple to adults. the reason we don't always step in and do their homework for them isn't merely that they need to learn arithmetic — in adult life we have calculators for that — or that they'll become 'coddled' if they are helped too much. it's that children must learn it is possible for them to do things that seem daunting or effortful. because there are always going to be tasks to do that are daunting or effortful!

do the kids in this example actually need to know how to write sports chants? no. having a sports chant that was written by a person instead of a computer is not in and of itself important. half the sports chants in use right now were written by someone long dead (be aggressive! b-e aggressive!). the problem is the underlying message of "if it isn't immediately obvious and easy, then why would i do it?"

that's not accessibility, that's learned helplessness.

Something I don't think we talk enough about in discussions surrounding AI is the loss of perseverance.

I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.

Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.

Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.

Idk I'm just really worried about kids having to grow up in a world where (for a variety of reasons beyond just AI) they're not given the chance to struggle through new and challenging things like we used to.

[zooophagous]

PLEASE say more about your cultural understanding of tattoos if/when you feel up to it; your perspective on it is really interesting!

I can only really speak from my own perspective on it as a fairly recent initiate into tattooing, but the way tattoos have been viewed in the past (even the very recent past) had changed very quickly with new technology.

Finer lines become possible, and greater variety of colors, so the necessity of sticking to thick lines and heavy black with few color options is no longer the case. Improved technology means more styles become possible to tattoo in, and as such instead of the restrictions of the media informing the tattoo, tattoos are now available in a wide variety of art styles and the art world and overall cultural zeitgeist now heavily influence tattoos instead of tattoos by necessity having their own set style guides and language.

This means more mass appeal, you can do almost whatever you want art wise now and many tattooers are fine artists in their own right. So now we have more and more women and young professionals into it and not just bikers, gang members or sailors as the stereotypes used to hold.

So now tattoos are trendy for everyone, as the nation slowly but surely sheds its puritanical leanings. But now that tattooing is no longer an underground art form and is largely regulated and legalized, a new underground form of it lives on.

Thanks to online buy-anything sorts of sites like Amazon, Temu and Wish, it's easier than ever for the garage, apartment or party to host impromptu tattoos. And because it is often very difficult to get someone to agree to teach you how to tattoo, almost all of these people are self taught and receive instructions via youtube.

So why then, if you can get anything you want as a tattoo, would people still go for these dubiously sanitary pieces by untrained artists?

Part of it is related to why tattoos may have existed in the first place- they denote your culture, your people, who you belong to. For a lot of the apartment tattoo getters, they're allowing their friends or family members to practice on them as a sign of love and trust.

Part of it is cost. Cheap things always have a market, even if they're not good.

But part of it I think is nihilism. That is, a sense that you have no future, nothing to live for and therefore nothing to lose. Many young people cannot envision themselves in old age and many of them tell you they'll likely die young. So why not, then, get the bad tattoo? The tattoo is temporary because life is temporary. We lead such short desperate lives that refusing a tattoo because of some imagined professional setting you might be in seems as asinine as thinking one day you might be a billionaire. It's just as unattainable.

Throw in a little postmodernism, a little dadaism and you have the perfect storm for the rise of ignorant style tattoos. They're not good, but that's largely the point. They don't have to be. In fact the ugliness is largely the point of this art form. Much like how Duchamp's Fountain was never meant to be a beautiful piece of sculpture but rather a biting satire, ignorant style tattoos become the response to the former underground artform of tattooing going mainstream and suddenly costing thousands and thousands of dollars, and people showing off wealth with perfectly technically done sleeves.

It's for obvious reasons a very divisive style of tattooing, and now even legitimate shops are turning out things that look "bad on purpose" but are technically well applied when examined closely. Personally I think most of them are ugly as shit but what the Hell do I know I'm just some bitch.

[autumngracy]

Okay, so we all know how Trump has been cutting "DEI" funding, jobs, legislature, etc., to the point of scrubbing mentions of "related" words from government websites (in a hilariously incompetent manner, I might add).

Well. I go into work yesterday, and find something very interesting.

Now, I have a federal job; I'm currently a civilian DoD (Department of Defense) employee. And this entails having limited administrator privileges for a government run website.

Yesterday, while making a document, I go to copy a hyperlink from said website—specifically, the link to our page about the Exceptional Family Member Program (or EFMP), which is a subset of Army Community Service (or ACS).

And lo and behold, what do I find?

On the page that's supposed to show the list of Army Community Service programs, all the pages are still listed there, BUT! I hover my mouse over the EFMP link, and discover it is no longer a link! It is now simply a line of text.

"Hm," I think to myself. All the other pages are still hyperlinked. So I go to the website's search function. I type in the program's name.

The search results are alarming. The only semi-relevant results consist of the main local installation's Army Community Service page, and another page that is the national, generic page for EFMP (which simply describes the program in generic terms, without providing local resources).

But not our local installation's program page.

Our local installation's EFMP page is gone. Like, deleted from the site entirely. Though the program location page still exists—which merely lists its contact information—when you click the link at the bottom of said location page, which is supposed to take you to the local installation's EFMP page, it instead redirects you to the local ACS page.

Why is this so alarming?

Well. The Exceptional Family Member Program helps military families with disabled children get the screening, medical care, resources, and accommodations they need. It also provides these families with (usually free) recreational activities and educational opportunities tailored to individuals with disabilities or their caregivers.

Simply put, the program improves the day-to-day mental, emotional, and physical welfare of disabled children and their families who live in or around US military bases.

And it would appear the program has been gutted. Not only gutted, but quietly removed as though it never existed. Sure, there remains a generic reference page explaining what the program is, but it's functionally irrelevant and useless without any local resources.

(And to be clear, I don't believe they've left ANY local resource pages. For anyone. If they deleted our page with zero warning, and without ever telling us even after the fact, then I would bet they've deleted every other installation's local program page, too. And it's probably safe to assume they'll soon delete even the generic page.)

There are only three people on this installation with admin access to this website, and that's me, my manager, and my coworker. And the coworker has been out on extended sick leave. So that means that it was the federal government itself that deleted the EFMP program page. Not the actual installation's employees.

And it's not just EFMP. I've heard rumblings about more expansive cuts to the other family and child welfare related programs. Employees are talking in hushed voices and behind closed doors. People are scared. They don't know what will happen next, or even exactly what's happening now.

What's more, it appears the government has also cut funding for Month of the Military Child, a huge month-long event at every military base that celebrates children of military families—providing free fairs, contests, activities, giveaways, and more that involve pretty much every organizational division on the base, as well as outside sponsors.

And of course, federal employees have also been banned from recognizing or discussing anything about "Identity Months" like Black History Month, Women's History Month, Pride Month, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and more.

At West Point, they've also gotten rid of all the "DEI related" cadet clubs, including the following:

Asian-Pacific Forum Club

Contemporary Cultural Affairs Seminar Club

Corbin Forum

Japanese Forum Club

Korean-American Relations Seminar

Latin Cultural Club

National Society of Black Engineers Club

Native American Heritage Forum

Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers

Society of Women Engineers Club

Spectrum

Vietnamese-American Cadet Association

These clubs were ordered to "permanently cease all activities or club External Official Presences" and "unpublish, deactivate, archive, or otherwise remove all public facing content."

Additionally, all other clubs not listed above were ordered to "cease all activities until such a time as the club's status has been reviewed and re-validated in accordance with [Trump's Executive Orders, Department of Defense guidance, and Department of the Army guidance]."

And the creme de la creme? The fetid cherry on top of this wretched cake? Trump's spending cuts have apparently even taken away the funding for installation Fourth of July fireworks displays. Y'know—the same Trump who's so obsessed with idea of "Making America Great Again" and "America First".

It seems the Trump administration doesn't want you to be proud of being anything, anymore—even, ironically, of being an American.

Although, given the current circumstances, that wasn't very hard anyway.

[canonkiller]

✨ "Your online print store is broken?" FAQ

Yeah I did that: A Summary

Q: Why did you remove everything from your Redbubble / INPRNT / etc?

A: A bunch of reasons. I made the choice for myself after thinking about it for a long time and not liking it. Some of these reasons include:

I don't like not knowing the workplace conditions or compensation given to the people actually manufacturing physical goods of my work through these services

I don't like the waste of easy-to-buy, easy-to-break manufacturing or the shipping process

I personally stopped giving a shit about the potential for theft-by-loss-of-potential-profit because it made me feel like a corporation and that sucked

There is no way in hell Redbubble will ever be profitable enough to get me to overlook this, and I don't think I should try to make it so.

The ones that haven't been emptied are having login issues. I'll be killing them as soon as I am able.

Q: So what's the alternative? How can I get prints now?

A: Anyone interested in prints can just ask me for the full resolution files of whatever piece you want and I'll send them over. Then you can either use your own printer or order something from a local store / chain and tada, print made.

In the future, I'll have the files up on Ko-fi (like the Avex body pillow) as pay what you want, so you don't even have to ask. I'd still prefer if you didn't make extras to sell for your own profit, but I can't stop you.

Q: But isn't that going to lose you money?

Probably, but the $20-odd I was making across all of my merch sites was not enough to overpower my concerns listed above. Someone tossing me $5 through PWYW is already paying me more than any of those sites would pet sale (Redbubble can be adjusted higher, but the price is already so inflated), and the end result is still more affordable for the buyer.

I also want my art to be more accessible to people like me: ones who can't casually spend $30 getting a piece of paper shipped internationally, but enjoy being able to experience shapes and colors. Differences between currency conversions, payment platform options and mail access are things I don't think should create a barrier in enjoying and adding art to your space.

Q: What about the other types of merch? Like clothing?

I've been keeping an eye on secondhand gadgets and would like to one day offer on-demand items with thrifted or secondhand base materials, but this is not a priority for me at this time. You'll live without a shirt, and if you won't, try an iron on transfer or whatever the modernized equivalent is. Anything I can't find a way to make, nobody needs to buy, simple as that.

The pin-back button press calls to me like a beautiful siren but I have yet to find one that is both affordable and close to me. The grind never stops.

Q: I also have concerns about the things you mentioned and want to try and be more accessible and sustainable with my art. Is it okay if I also do this?

I don't own the concept of sending people PNGs CMYK JPGs when they ask for them and even if I did I'm sure as hell not gonna charge people for doing it. The more people turning away from mass manufacturing the better, imo.

[clockworkreapers]

I want to do a video kinda like what you do for TFTGS, but I don't know how to start:[ How do you typically start projects like that???

Of course! And you totally should- they do take a lot of time and work though so pace yourself. You have no obligation to anyone to get it out at a certain time, that parts very important. You gotta remind yourself you are doing this for yourself above anyone else, Its to make you happy before anyone else. Song wise make sure its one you enjoy, cuz you will be sick of it by the time you are done. Make sure its one you have ideas for or can picture things happening in tandem with the music. Look up the lyrics and break down the lines so you can pair the lines you want to use with the images in your head. Id rec starting with a SHORT song one thats under 3:00 if you can help it because the longer the song depending on BPM the more images you will probs end up with. Then comes the hardest part, storyboarding. which looks a lil like this:

(using the boards from the most recent video) This one ended up being 50 shots in total by the time I was done because this is the DRAFT, this is you getting all your first ideas down. Sometimes you redo panels or add more or take away others but this is where you draw out all your most basic sketchy starting points. And no one sees this stuff unless you choose to show them so they can be super messy as long as you can come back to them and know ah I know what I was drawing there. I say it is the hardest part because this is where you're trying to visualize what is in your head which is difficult. A few ways to make it less difficult though is -for backgrounds pull up sims or minecraft or a 3D program and build a set to then use screenshots for placeholders so you can go over them later. - I recently found this amazing site called sketchfab that has a huge store of 3D models for anything you are looking for, this is good for references of objects at ANY angle or you can use the models themselves. From there all you need to really do is line/color (to any level you prefer, don't strain yourself) some extra stuff you may find useful: - A standard video format is 4800 x 2700 px aka 16 x 9 but to not brick your art program you can lower to like 12 x 6.75 or lower (as long as you keep the same aspect ratio tbh) and 300 dpi and it will still be HD. - Try to think about what ways you want the camera to pan when boarding because if you want something to pan UP or DOWN dont make what's in the image too wide because you will need to zoom in a bit for an image to be able to pan like that without it hitting a hard edge. - I use Shotcut to edit these together which is a free video editing program but it can only be used on a computer. USE THE KEYFRAMES to pan and move shots, DONT use the sliders trust me its a lot more accurate to keyframe and learning how to use them is very important.

Lastly, just for some extra info you might find helpful:

Hope this is enough solid info to get started on your own projects!

[spacexfucker]

when I worked at a call center for a large retailer of hunting/camping/etc goods. I'd get multiple calls daily from people who had bought something off the website and just not read anything about it besides the product name and price.

We sold recliners (usually camo or some other flavor) as part of the home goods line. And on the website and at three separate points of the purchasing process, told people that our delivery drivers would not take it inside a home and would leave them at the end of a driveway. It was an insurance issue. They had to agree to those terms when they bought it. And yet every day I would get a call about how the driver just left it at the end of a driveway and they'd bitch and moan about it, demanding a refund or for someone to go out and do it. And every time I had to tell them that it says clearly on the site that it works that way and that they had to agree to it to purchase and every time they'd say some version of "well, I didn't read that!"

Most people don't read. Most people cherry pick phrases they think they understand and use it like an independent fact. Most people don't do anything more than a casual glance with their brain turned off when they do just about anything. And when they get bit in the ass for it, they make it everyone else's problem.

This experience told me years ago that most people you interact with have likely not actually looked into half the things they fight you tooth and nail over. That the same people sending you articles or videos about stuff to prove you wrong have, likely, not even actually read the article or watched the video all the way through. And if they have, probably didn't make an effort to understand it and just read it to find key points they think supports their narrative.

And I still get reminded of this!

My parents are MAGA. I've been trying for years to get them out of that cult. Recently, we had a fight about the autism/adhd mental illness ssri bad vaccine bullshit the white house put out in an executive order. I talked to them about it and instead of listening to what I had to say, they just sent me a video of the press release from rfk jr. And told me to watch that so I didn't have "media bias". And I lost it. Because the whole conversation was happening BECAUSE I watched the press release and read the executive order. And when I told them that, they admitted they hadn't actually watched or read either thing! Because their whole belief system is built on barely knowing anything but what tik toks and fox news say.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

First of all I would like to thank the three different people who sent me these videos the moment they came out. I love how fast multiple people recognized that this is very much my thing. These are very much things that I will want brought to my attention. These are very relevant to my interests. Very relevant.

I must confess I did not initially understand what I'd been sent. I glanced at the videos, and figured John Oliver had gone on an American news program - he'll answer a bunch of questions about how important and difficult Last Week Tonight is, it'll be somewhat interesting, but he does stuff like that all the time. What's so special about this one that it's suddenly got everyone talking?

Then I started the video. Saw a shot of - be still my heart - present-day John Oliver, with the white hair of the post-CMG years, at what was unmistakbly the Edinburgh Festival. And I heard the voiceover say the words: "Edinburgh, Scotland: where modern life is set against a medieval backdrop."

Oh my God. Oh my God oh my God oh my God. I remember last summer, when we saw those couple of pictures and Twitter posts about John performing at The Stand - I said someone must have recorded that. There must have been cameras there. John Oliver is very very famous, he can't just turn up at a comedy club and have people not notice. Please tell me someone has some, any, footage of this happening.

And there he is, in this 60 Minutes interview. Obviously I know it won't be what I really want, which is a recording of his whole stand-up set. But still, I'll take anything. Any evidence of John Oliver in Edinburgh in August 2024. I think that's amazing. I'm still relieved that he didn't arrive there until nearly two weeks after I'd flown home, because I can't imagine how furious I'd be with myself if I had been in Edinburgh when he was, and I didn't see him because I didn't happen to magically guess that he'd be at The Stand that night.

When I saw that moment I got too excited and paused the video to do other stuff. I will now come back to it and watch that second video while liveblogging:

Yes, that's it!

Look! It's the Royal Mile! That's exactly how it looked when I was there! Mainly because this would have been taken about two weeks after I was there! John Oliver was in a place where I was! I walked up that street many times! I was in a place and now John Oliver is there! We inhabit the same geographical plane!

Yep, there's the montage of street performers and people in costumes doing weird things. I'm familiar with that montage, as I see it in any video that covers the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I thought about that type of montage when I was at the Fringe in person last year. I walked past all those street performers, and thought, "The montages on TV make these look really exciting. They don't really emphasize enough how annoying it is to have someone forming a large traffic-blocking circle in a street that's already incredibly overrun with pedestrian traffic, when people everywhere are trying to get to all the shows on time.

John Oliver holding flyers, as though someone just ran up and flyers John Oliver while he's being followed by a camera crew.

I assume the flyers are just a prop to show how you will get overrun with flyers on that street. But I like the idea that some of the flyerers did not give one fuck who John Oliver was, and foisted their wares upon him as easily as anyone else. Even with the camera crew.

I feel a bit like that character in Portlandia who used to constantly, and annoyingly, say "this is how they do things in New York". A way to both brag about, and greatly exaggerate, her expertise on the matter, because she'd only been to New York for like a week. Am I becoming like that with Edinburgh? I don't care, I'm going to keep doing it anyway. I just want anyone reading this to know that I am aware of what I sound like.

"I’m at the Edinburgh Festival, sitting in my flat overlooking a building site and some teenagers setting fire to a bicycle. Feel the spirit of the Fringe." - John Oliver, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2003

"Edinburgh has become, for me, the point of doing stand-up. The 'circuit' is disintegrating into a series of chain clubs that are increasingly full of comedians linguistically disgracing themselves with the cheapest, laziest form of comedy imaginable. Edinburgh is full of people making an effort, trying to do something that they're proud of. It is a fantastic place." - John Oliver, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2004

"it’s the steepest learning curve you can possibly have. I learned – it’s the most consequential lessons, that I learned, in comedy. It’s kind of, going to university to be a comedian." - John Oliver, on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023

"Some of it will be great, some of it will be otherworldly bad. But, the fact that the two can exist concurrently is kind of the point." - John Oliver, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024

New Cambridge-era picture of John Oliver just dropped.

We can put it next to the other images, from that Footlights documentary, where John Oliver shouted at Richard Ayoade on a fence post, and - to be fair to the many haters who accused him of this at the time - did, in fact, look quite a bit like David Baddiel:

Yep, this is what it looked like! That's the Royal Mile, all right. This is how they do things in New York.

Now imagine some magician cleared a large area of this with music blaring from a giant boom box, while you were trying to navigate this crowd fast enough to get good seats to a comedy show. It's fucking annoying.

I stood under that little balcony to get out of the rain before running off to see Sarah Keyworth!

I was there! It was so cool and I can't wait to go back! This is how they do things in New York!

Interviewer [among flyerers on the the Royal Mile who are constantly trying to shove flyers in people's hands]: Were you doing this [back when he was performing there as a young comedian]?

John Oliver: I was absolutely doing this. When you're first coming up here, the only way to do it is to almost beg for people to come and see you.

That's a funny idea. It hadn't occurred to me before that not only was John Oliver one an Edinburgh performer, he was presumably also his own flyerer for at least a while. Maybe. Or do the Footlights alumni just automatically get given a flyering team on their debut show?

And there it is, finally! Some footage of the night he performed at Edinburgh 2024. There's the MC introducing him.

And The Stand! That's the one major venue of comedy history that I wanted to see in Edinburgh last year, but didn't (aside from the Gilded Balloon Cowgate site, which was closed for renovations). I saw a couple of comedians at The Stand, but the were in an alternative venue upstairs.

I do want to see the proper Stand. The one with the iconic mural of a guy in a cowboy hat, in the background of so many of the finest filmed comedy nights. The one where Stewart Lee's Alternative Comedy Experience was filmed. The one where Kitson did many of his best CMG-era shows, often the ones that started at midnight from the peak of his cool underground reputation. The one where the double act Zaltzman and Oliver hosted Political Animal for multiple years. I'll have to make sure at least one show at the proper Stand venue gets onto my schedule in Edinburgh this year.

I'm vaguely aware that The Stand may have had some ethical issues with platforming certain comedians in recent years, but if we start thinking too hard about ethics at the Edinburgh Festival, I'd have to look at the volume and flyers and start wondering about the environmental impact of all that printing.

Oh my God it's history in the making. The prodigal Victor Gooch returns. The prodigal Political Animal host.

The British man is in Britain. But trust me, it's a big deal.

"I want you to know that I've befouled this stage so many times before, there's no guarantee this will go well."

If those are the only words recorded of John Oliver on stage in Edinburgh 2024 - I wish there were more, but those are a pretty good set of words. There are some great old Political Animal stories.

New Cambridge-era picture of John Oliver just dropped.

The Pleasance Courtyard! I was there! I saw many shows there! I wandered awkwardly around that plaza! It was absolutely never that devoid of people!

That also has history with John Oliver, of course. While Political Animal used to happen at The Stand, John Oliver's debut solo show, as well as the joint shows that Zaltzman & Oliver did as double acts, were all at the Pleasance Courtyard. The Pleasance Below, one of the rooms in the Plesance Courtyard, is the site of John's story about the time he got a 100% walkout.

And obviously immediately after I wrote that, I pressed play on the video and saw that they were introducing the Pleasance Courtyard to tell that 100% walkout story.

Last year, I saw Jin Hao Li in the Pleasance Below, and I thought it was nice that I'd been in that venue, because now I know what room to picture, when I hear John Oliver tell his story about getting a 100% walkout at the Pleasance Below. I've heard that story many times before, and I pictured John in a different type of room - I adjusted my image when I saw how the Pleasance Below actually looked.

It's a relatively narrow room with a high staircase of seats. Echo-y. Sound techs sit way at the top, in a way that would seem very far away, if you were standing on stage and they were suddenly the only people left in the room with you.

Anyway, the room they're in in that picture is definitely the room where I saw Jin Hao Li. So now everyone else can start picturing that correctly as well.

Here is John Oliver pointing at the four seats that were occupied when he started that famous gig, only to have those four people end up all leaving.

One of those seats he's pointing at is the seat where I sat during Jin Hao Li's show. I've sat in the seat from which someone walked out in John Oliver's 100% walkout show. How cool is that? This is how they do things in New York.

Aw, they shorted the 100% walkout story. They didn't include the part where the guy abandons his girlfriend in his haste to escape John Oliver's stand-up.

Hey! Hey! Hey, what the fuck, CBS?

Fuck you CBS, how dare you crop Andy Zaltzman out of a picture?

Though on the other hand, I'm interested that they seem to have acquired a third picture from this gig, from which I'd thought there were only two pictures out there:

Are there more of these?

A whole profile of John Oliver's Edinburgh Festival career that doesn't mention Andy Zaltzman... I guess it's not quite "Ed Gamble leaving Ian Boldsworth out of his book about his history with food" levels of bad, since they only had four minutes, rather than an entire book, to get this relevant part in. But come on, they could have cut a couple of those shots of people on stilts or whatever, to include a real quick reference to the double act.

"His dad was a school principal. His mom, a music teacher." First of all, this is a reminder that John Oliver is on the weirdly long list of comedians who had one or both parents be teachers. Secondly, I believe the term for his father's job is headteacher. And John sounded slightly annoyed that time that Marc Maron translated that to "principal" in American. Come on CBS, have a little bit of faith that viewers would able to get it from context.

"In 2006, he sent a sample of his work, and was called in, to try out [for The Daily Show]." I'm still not clear on how this happened, because other people say that the Daily Show people were in London looking for another correspondent, and Ricky Gervais told them about Zaltzman and Oliver. I have also heard that John and Andy both auditioned in London, but only John got called to audition in New York. And Demetri Martin claims to have been involved, which is possible as he was working on The Daily Show at the time and knew John Oliver from the CMG/Cowgate. Now John sent in a sample of his work. Did he sent this in before or after Ricky Gervais recommended him? How exactly did it happen?

I have also recently had a friend of mine in London walk up to Andy Zaltzman after a gig and ask him about this, because it turns out you're allowed to do that, and apparently, John and Andy auditioned both together and separately for The Daily Show. Also, fun fact, Iain Lee from The 11 O'Clock Show auditioned as well. Before I learned this, it somehow hadn't occurred to me that there would have been other people auditioning too, and probably people I've heard of, if they were established enough to be doing Daily Show auditions. Although there are many people who would argue that at the time, John Oliver wasn't established enough to be doing Daily Show auditions. Which is why I want to know the details of it, how a comedian on John Oliver's CMG-era track got plucked out of there so fast to become a main face on one of the biggest comedy shows in the world.

Oh my God they're actually showing his audition tape. Not the one in London where Andy auditioned too, obviously. The one in New York, the second interview for which he got called back and Andy didn't. Or Iain, apparently.

Wow, that audition tape was fascinating. I don't know what I pictured when I pictured a Daily Show audition, but it wasn't that. I was just picturing Zaltzman and Oliver performing their sketches, I guess. Hadn't occurred to me that they'd be doing Daily Show stuff.

And he was good! Really good, for being off the cuff with Jon Stewart, a man he did not know, and couldn't rely on established chemistry. All the little vocal and physical mannerisms that made him so funny on The Daily Show - so many of those were right there in that audition tape, from the beginning. And that's not the same as his stand-up persona at the time. He'd come up with a new way to play things for his Daily Show persona, and he struck gold from the first audition tape. That's amazing.

Honestly, looking at that tape - I don't know if Andy Zaltzman could do that. Not right away, not as comfortably as that, with someone he didn't know. I've heard Andy Zaltzman try to interact with people he doesn't know. He definitely do not vibe with them as well as that.

I was a highly competitive wrestling coach for many years, and the look on Jon Stewart's face here is the exact look I used to get on my face when I was watching a potential new athlete perform, and thinking, "God damn... they don't even know how much talent they've got, I need to recruit this person immediately."

The rest of the video was about Last Week Tonight, which was cool and interesting and worth watching, but I stopped pausing the video every few seconds to write something because doing that for the whole video would have taken me about a week. That was very, very cool though. Definitely going in my Chocolate Milk Gang folder. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I will now watch the second clip that's about stand-up, but I'm going to post this for now.

John Oliver had a camera crew with him in Edinburgh. There is no way they didn't film his entire set at The Stand. Who do I have to hold hostage to get them to release that footage?

Oh my god, the 60 Minutes interview segments are so good. Tagging @tellthemeerkatsitsfine for all of this, because there's Edinburgh talk, a rundown of a disastrous gig at Pleasance, and photos I have never seen before.

From the shorter segment on stand-up, I always love hearing John's thoughts on stand-up and hearing Seth Meyers's view on him as well. John does really enjoy failure and tlking about failure, which is fascinating. (I would also never describe John as chill. This man is nuts.)

The longer segment is really lovely from a historical perspective as well. There's a lot here that I hadn't seen before, including A PIECE FROM JOHN'S DAILY SHOW INTERVIEW HOLY SHIT THE HOLY GRAIL I'M TOTALLY FINE Y'ALL (I'm not fine) - look, I'm writing this on break from my new job, just give it a spin, my weirdoes.

[ebthestarryknight]

I don't get how people can have very specific dedicated blogs, I just see a fun thing and I'm like "Oooh pretty!! Reblog! >:)" or "ooooh cool!! Reblog >:)" or "Wow amazing AND important!! Reblog >:)". I'm like a magpie of posts, if it catches my eye? Reblog!

[runawaymun]

the whole tiktok ban situation is super crunchy and I'm conflicted. Because on the one hand...it does feel startlingly close to a kind of censorship and I think the whole 'chinese government links' thing is pure scaremongering. But on the other hand I genuinely think that tiktok has accelerated the rate of enshittification of so, so many things. Like it has been a net harm in basically everything. Even the publishing industry is suffering now. As someone who wants to get novels published, the entire state of the publishing industry catering to tiktok and the quality of even bookbinding rapidly deteriorating in the past couple of years, I've been reconsidering and thinking about simply setting up a website/archive to self publish my work.

So...I don't know. It's not as if other social media sites (X, Facebook, etc.) haven't done harm, and it's not like huge media giants like Google haven't caused possibly irreparable damage to how things work now, but...I just distinctly remember a pre-tiktok, pre-covid world and things legitimately weren't as bad online then as they are now. Tiktok actually feels uniquely bad. The change happened so rapidly, too. At what point do we decide that a product causes enough visible harm that it needs to be removed? Because that's what tiktok is, at the end of the day. It's a product. We don't have the same clear measurement as we do with, say, lead paint on children's toys, but idk idk idk...

[x-adoringvoid-x]

Apparently that's called the 'irresistible force paradox'

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

-.-

[anonyanonymouse]

🙈

[medicinemane]

Really really don't get why so many people seem to have this burning hatred for Ukraine where they'll just... bring them up randomly purely to drag them through the mud and it's like... ok... but... do you actually know a single thing about Ukraine or what's been happening there?

Do you for instance remember when a major dam was destroyed by russia causing massive ecological damage?

Like I'm dead serious here, can you tell me a single thing that's happened in Ukraine in the last 2 years? Can you in any way demonstrate any basic understanding of the situation?

Cause if not... why do you think you should have an opinion on it, especially if your opinion is gonna be how awful people getting bombed are?

Just legit bothers me and... even more so bothers me the number of smart and caring people I see doing this. Basically I'm not even trying to be rude here, I'm trying to remind you to pay attention and remember that not everything you read on the internet is true, a tumblr post isn't a source unless they're giving you a reputable source

Cause like me? I can go track you down articles about the Nova Kakhovka dam being destroyed, and I can talk about all the reason why it's pretty clear that russia destroyed it

Can you do the same for me? Can you back up your claim about Ukraine with something concrete?

In many ways I'm not even asking you to support Ukraine, I get we have a limit to how much we can focus on, it's ok if you focus on your cause and I focus on mine and... both of us giving our undivided attention, maybe we both make some small impact on the world

What I'm asking is you don't be an asshole for no reason. You don't need to throw Ukraine under the bus. Don't you think your cause stands up on it's own two feet?

And again I'm not Ukrainian, I don't know as well as someone there, though... I spare you a lot of the stuff that crosses my dash because I don't want to burn people out with horrible stuff, but please understand it's worse than you probably think

So no, not Ukrainian, but I'll tell you why I'm still worth listening to: I've followed this every day since the invasion began. I keep my ear to the ground. I do know a fair bit and again can back what I have to say up

Anyway, my plea is to just not be a dick to people for no reason. The correct number of bombed civilians is zero, that's my stance

[spiltspit]

Thanks @4byun for the tag :3 ♡♡♡

15 Questions for 15 Mutuals

1. Are you named after anyone? I was named after many people, there were at least 100 billion people who lived before me. (No.)

2. When was the last time you cried? Does crying from allergies and being sick count? Yesterday. (꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

3. Do you have kids? Terrifying question. No.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Almost never. I’m very direct when I talk to someone… I don’t want people to misinterpret/misunderstand me. I want them to know I mean what I say.

5. What sports do you play/have you played? I’m a serial quitter, tried many sports at some point.

6. What's the first thing you notice about other people? How they treat the other people around them.

7. Eye colour? Hazel

8. Scary movies or happy endings? Entirely depends on my mood, both are good. Together is even better ¬‿¬

9. Any special talents? I can make art (also my special curse). Trying new things even when I know I’ll fail at them.

10. Where were you born? Canada.

11. What are your hobbies? Reading, Hyper fixating, scraping the hyper fixations out of my brain with a scalpel and drawing them, ♬♪♫, video games, weightlifting.

12. Do you have any pets? No, I’m too afraid I wouldn’t be able to provide them with the level of care they need to thrive.

13. How tall are you? 5′9.

14. Fave subject in school? Hm. I suppose I like subjects pertaining to the fields of my degrees: Archaeology and History. I don’t generally like institutionally structured learning, though.

15. Dream job? Nothing that exists in a capitalist reality. (눈_눈) Maybe working as an artist, drawing only the things I wish to.

Tagging mutuals i’m curious about: @friuut @exotic-inquiry @tempii @lisanmil @yellowistheraddest @fraeulein-freya @miewll ♡

[wild-at-mind]

I wish I could be a weird queer zine artist :/

[autumngracy]

Not to clown on you because it's really good you've decided to start reblogging things, but like—of course no one was going to follow you if you weren't posting things on your blog?

Most people look at an empty blog and shrug and either say "must be an extremely new user" or "must be a bot". They have no reason to follow or interact with an empty blog.

Anyway, y'all, this is the blogging website, where people come to blog. We are having a fun little show and tell circle on the gymnasium floor, passing around scraps of our writing and handicrafts and pictures of our blorbos, and you are way over on the bleachers watching us through binoculars, occasionally giving a thumbs up.

You are up there wondering why we haven't invited you to join the conversation yet, and we are wondering why you haven't come down off the bleachers to join us.

You gotta interact with people to make friends!!

if you’re a new tumblr user from tiktok or IG or something and only like posts and dont reblog them yeah people will think you’re a bot and block you but you will also make this website actively worse. they want “algorithmic” users like you, served recommended posts through likes, not people who just follow each other and respond to the direct chronological feed. there is a reason this website is still better than the rest, even with all its problems, do not ruin this