#I recently saw a youtube video about the benefits of posting art even if you dont like how it came out. So here you goooo

[craptainkirk]

Sweet baby jesus

[iciousill]

Fragaria Memories Fanwork Guidelines

This is an unofficial translation of the guidelines for Fragaria Memories fanworks/ fanart/ doujin works.

I thought I saw conflicting translations/interpretations from shared posts about the guidelines that I came across recently, so I decided to translate them myself to (hopefully) avoid misinterpreting the actual guidelines. I do not track the official site for updates so there may be future changes not reflected here.

Last updated: 2023/10/23

୨୧:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::୨୧

Definition of 'fan content activities'

'Fan content activities' refers to works based on Fragaria Memories that either contain creative additions or are wholly new creations. These guidelines exclude copying as-is or activities* that can be treated as such.

*Examples of activities not covered in the guidelines: cropping official character illustrations, filtering/recolouring official art and so on, and making such images public

(T/N: I'll just use 'fanwork' in the main text from here on)

୨୧┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈୨୧

Applicable scope for these guidelines

The moment you upload your fanwork publicly, you're assumed to have agreed to the guidelines fully. Whether a fanwork is considered to have violated the stated guidelines or not is determined at Sanrio's discretion.

Sanrio may update the content of the guidelines anytime without advance notice.

୨୧:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::୨୧

Terms of Use

Terms of use regarding fanworks

(1) Not for commercial purposes (such as advertisements, promotions, sales) regardless of whether the work is made free or paid. *However, doujinshi distribution, video monetisation, paid membership perks and livestreams are allowed subject to fulfilling certain conditions mentioned later.

(2) Do not use Fragaria Memories' assets (illustrations, logos, marks/labels, scenarios, videos, voices, music, etc.) in the creation of your fanwork. Tracing is also not allowed even if you do it yourself.

(3) Do not misrepresent yourself as being related to or having the approval of Sanrio or Fragaria Memories.

(4) Do not deviate extremely from the worldview of the series or tarnish the image of the series. Inserting certain ideas/beliefs, or content of political or religious nature in fanworks is not allowed.

(5) Do not harm the reputation or status of others, and do not slander or libel others or commit other acts beyond public order and morals.

(6) Do not use content which third parties have rights to in your fanworks, such as content from collaboration events between Sanrio and its partners.

୨୧┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈୨୧

Terms of use regarding fanwork involving monetary/paid benefits

Notwithstanding (1) above, the distribution (sales) or publishing of fanworks may be allowed to a reasonable extent for the enjoyment of fans.

♦ Sales of doujinshi

Physical/paper forms, digital forms, illustrations, manga/comics, novels, cosplay photobooks and so on must adhere to the below terms.

(1) They must be sold approximately at cost price (the cost of your materials and production tools)

(2) The below links to a QR code that you can place somewhere easily visible to viewers (to avoid issues arising from being misidentified as official goods).

Fan Contents Nijigen Code (QR Code)

♦ Monetisation on video sharing sites

Monetisation of videos containing official instrumental music for cover songs (utattemita) is limited to the below video sharing sites:

YouTube

Nico Nico Douga *Please refer to these guidelines (the guidelines on the official site) if the video sharing site asks about usage rights when you monetise your video.

♦ Fanwork in paid membership perks and livestreams

Only for non-age restricted platforms (pixivFANBOX, Fantia, YouTube Live, Nico Nico Live Broadcast [Nico Nico Namahousou], TikTok)

୨୧:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::୨୧

Regarding goods/merch

Please refrain from distributing merchandise (clothing accessories, image accessories, plushies, etc.) regardless of whether they're free or paid to avoid issues of the items being misidentified as official goods.

You may still create items for personal use, but if you're uploading them to social media, it would be appreciated if you tag them clearly as fanwork/fan content.

Even for items for personal use, please refrain from using or tracing Fragaria Memories assets (illustrations, logos, marks/labels, scenarios, videos, voices, music, etc.)

୨୧┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈୨୧

Recommended hashtags on social media

Sanrio recommends using the hashtag #Fragari_Art when you upload fanwork to social media platforms.

୨୧:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::୨୧

Miscellanous Terms & Conditions

Fan content activities by official illustrators

Official illustrators (contracted by Sanrio or its business partners) may still make fanworks.

Official illustrators have to follow both their contracts as well as the fanwork guidelines so as to avoid having their fanworks misidentified as official.

୨୧┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈୨୧

Other conditions

(1) If your fanwork is determined by Sanrio as having violated their guidelines, Sanrio can demand you to immediately cease conducting fan activities, as well as completely scrap and delete the offending fanworks.

(2) There may be times when official projects/adaptations by Sanrio and its partners overlap with or seem similar to fanworks. In such cases, Sanrio and its partners reserve the rights to conduct their projects anywhere, anytime, and in any form without consideration for payment.

(3) In the case that Sanrio or its partners contact creators to make Fragaria Memories content, it will be done with a fixed contract from Sanrio or its partners.

(4) As Sanrio continually fixes and adds new content to Fragaria Memories, there may be times when Sanrio's projects, goods or services unintentionally seem similar to your fanwork. Sanrio and its partners reserve the rights to continue with their project plans and you may not assert legal claims against them on the grounds of copyrights or moral rights.

(5) Even with these guidelines, Sanrio reserves the rights to suspend fanworks to protect their copyrights and moral rights.

(6) Sanrio makes no guarantees of non-infringement on third party rights regarding the use of Fragaria Memories by these guidelines or of Fragaria Memories itself.

(7) You may not simplify/abridge, paraphrase or distort/misinterpret these guidelines through any method when posting on any third party platforms including social media. (T/N: I hope I'm not lol)

(8) Sanrio takes no responsibility for damages or disputes with third parties resulting from fanworks made by these guidelines and will not provide compensation in such cases.

(9) As these guidelines may be updated without notice, Sanrio takes no responsibility for any issues resulting from such changes.

(10) Sanrio reserves the right to take legal actions against fanworks that violate these guidelines.

(11) Sanrio will not respond to individual inquiries on these guidelines.

(12) These guidelines were written in Japanese and follow Japanese laws.

(13) Any disputes between Sanrio and others regarding fanworks or other uses of Fragaria Memories will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Tokyo District Court (東京地方裁判所) or Tokyo Summary Court (東京簡易裁判所) in the first instance.

[kevv]

a goodbye letter- abandoning current social media

i'm not the best at writing out my thoughts. forgive me if this feels scrambled and scraped together. my best friend, Fox, once said in abridged words; "it takes two to play out an abandonment fantasy, one to have it, and the other to follow suit".

i've known several handfuls of people who fear abandonment, or more specifically, being the one abandoned; scared that one day everyone in their life will take leave. and sometimes, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, they do. they leave in mass exodus, set into motion by one person who wants to set-forth their own abandonment fantasy– abandoning everyone else.

for me, my own fear of abandonment is not anyone abandoning me, i'm unbothered by people entering my life and leaving of their own accord; i'm scared i'll be the one to abandon everyone in my life. because i have. several times. i still do, even. i'll meet people in my lifetime that i loved harder than the universe itself, a deep love so terrifying i feel that it'll demolish cities and townships, friends and lovers and found-family. my skin will buzz and blaze alight with such an intense fear, a fear that i will ruin them and everything they are so i must run. it's unfounded, but it drives me away, and i fight tooth and nail to get to that escape route for those who won't let me leave quietly, until it ends in disaster. it's my own abandonment fantasy. i recall once, an ex-lover wanted me to stay. tried to lock the door and toss away the key, and said it hurt that i wanted an out. so i caused problems until i could break out through the window. not being allowed an option to leave made me feel like a feral, caged animal; because in the end, that's all i am. i hadn't done it on purpose. the need to escape everything had been there months prior. the events leading up to it had been fuzzy at best, sickly at worst, and i had been spoonfed misinformation. not on purpose, not in malicious intent, but still it struck genuine fear in my heart. like a feral animal, i want the option to roam. to come and go as i please. i can't be kept, i just want the trust that i'll find my way back eventually. if i feel contained, i scratch and bite until i'm released. but if you hold out your hand and wait patiently, i'll come to you. but don't ask me to stay. please don't ask me to stay. there's a lot that lead up to this current migration. the inability to be allowed to stand on my own two-feet and exist as just purely Kevin, not adjacent to someone, was a big one. still to this day i am asked about a youtuber i am no longer affiliated with by my own choice. i don't like attention, it's something i've said to her, said to many, and why i chose to never appear in her videos. which seems contradictory for an artist who posts on social media and previously did all of her older channel art. but maybe now i'm realizing that truthfully, i wanted recognition for me, not for others or for who i made myself sick in order to create content for. it's inescapable. i harbor no hard feelings anymore, i understand i was in the peak of my codependency and was willing to ruin myself for the benefit of another. to run myself broke and dry because at 19 years old i was still a child who didn't know how to handle the extent of his emotions. i want to apologize to penny. neither of us are really blameless, but we were inexperienced and young– still young. it's easy to not know what we're doing, to unintentionally take advantage of someone who was willing to burn themselves to give you warmth, or to latch onto an unfounded rumor and bare my teeth. i hope you're doing well, and i'm sorry. i'd like to give you a proper apology one day, when i'm more ready. that day is not today. sometimes i feel like there are four people living inside my brain, all with dissenting opinions and voices that i can't tell who i am anymore. i feel like i'm constantly contradicting myself because i don't know what my own thoughts are. i don't know who i am anymore. i don't know who i am anymore because i'm several different people all trying to be "kevin", all with different beliefs that go against a previous one. i prematurely deleted my twitter account for this reason, i couldn't stand a second more of being in a toxicity cycle i had previously taken part in, because sometimes that's all social media is. it's very... Online. i want to be one, unified person. whose thoughts and feelings are unadulterated by others surrounding him. additionally, there's the elephant in the room. some have already guessed it, suspected it, saw something like it coming from miles away. but for others who have known me for the past decade, it might be a surprise. someone once told me that words have power, and while at the time i disagreed, i'm starting to understand what she meant now. i've been afraid to speak it into existence, because it means it's real, and coming to terms with this unavoidable truth is a terrifying experience, one i need to face and stop running away from. 

i'm detransitioning. giving life to this phrase doesn't make me feel any better. words have power, and that power is to make me crumble and break. since as early as 4 years old, i felt as if i was born a boy who was just being raised as a girl. at 12 was when i learned about and started identifying as transgender. at 18 i legally changed my name. for a decade, i lived as a transgender man. i've mentioned this before, but i'm intersex. i have an androgen insensitivity syndrome. what this means is that androgens, male sex hormones, have no effect on me. they instantly are reconverted back into estrogen by my body. this has been a reoccurring nightmare of mine since i was 14, and having it become my reality is.. heartbreaking, to say the least, crushing a lifetime of dreams and wishes. i've tried testosterone, self-medicated in my teen years, and "officially" more recently. it has no effect on me. a friend of mine says i shouldn't give up hope until i properly see an endocrinologist about HRT, but the reality is– i know my body, and i know my condition. i don't grow body hair, and my body cannot masculinize. these are unavoidable truths. i don't need to spend hundreds of dollars to be told what i already know. HRT will not affect me; i will never be able to transition. any attempt will become a scientific study in which i'm a guinea pig. i don't want that. i will never pass for male. my voice is high, my body is undoubtably female, my face is feminine, and i'm 4'11". it's disheartening and i've shed many tears over it. for what feels like my whole life, i've longed for SRS/GRS, top surgery, a deeper voice, and a couple inches of height. i ache for body hair, masculine fat redistribution, and male pattern baldness. all the good and the bad associated with testosterone is what i so desperately yearn for with such a soul-crushing depravity. i am genuinely heartbroken. maybe it's my punishment for all the bad things i've believed in or done. it's what i'd deserve, i guess. this punishment. it is for those reasons that i feel like i can no longer find comfort in identifying as ftm, to struggle seeing myself as a man. it's crazy, i've referred to myself as male since early childhood, and now that i'm coming to terms with my intersex condition am i feeling wrong in every conceivably way of identity. truthfully, i don't even identify as anything anymore. i'm not nonbinary, cis, or i guess trans. i feel as if i just exist. i just am. you can still call me kevin. it's my name, my legal name– which i love to point out. i'm not changing it. it's the first time i made a decision purely for myself, and went through with it. i love my name. i don't think i will love anything about myself quite like my name. i chose it when i was 12, it was my first choice. i never wanted another name. i still don't. but i like nicknames, particularly kitty and K-K. you can call me those too. these have always been options available. i reiterate– i really like being called nicknames. (: you can still use male pronouns for me. i never minded being "misgendered" because, well, i never passed, and i made peace with that years and years ago. while being called she/her or otherwise will probably always leave a stale taste in my mouth, i've learned to accept the reality of what i am a long time ago. biologically female. you can still use male identifiers for me, like husband or boyfriend or whatever other male terms there are...... actually you'll have to pry those out of my cold dead hands. i will not accept being called a "girlfriend" i will literally go feral and foam at the mouth and bite your ankles until you take it back. there's comfort in these things that i'm not ready to let go of, and frankly, i don't think i'll ever feel ready to. moving forward, i don't really know what i'm going to do. right now i'm taking a break from the internet, so i can soul-search and truly find myself, in all senses of the word and every iteration that it can be built upon. i'll make a new twitter account when i'm ready to, probably. there's a lot more i want to say, to add onto this in addendum, and pour so much of myself into this until it spills out the sides and trickles down into tiny cracks. but truthfully, i don't know how to say it. i don't know its relevancy to this eulogy of an account, and quite honestly, there are still some things i can't find myself able to say. to speak into existence. to give power to those words. admitting aloud to a 6-year long love that burnt like candles catching a home on fire was intense enough (hi Charlotte it's you, it's you and it's always been you and everyone knows this). so maybe i'd rather keep some things to myself, perhaps. preferably. so i guess that's it. i've bared my heart and soul and skin and bones to whoever will read this piece of myself. it's the end to katidoj, one that's been a longtime coming. i've never been very good at staying in one place for very long. please take care, i love you. and i'll miss you. a piece of my heart left with you, here buried deep in this account. (pressing the submit button has never been so hard in my life.)

[artandhuddle]

Artist Interview with Daphne Hutcheson

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Daphne Hutcheson, an artist I’ve admired for quite some time. Her work and knowledge in the arts has helped me, along with many other artists in the online community.

Daphne Hutcheson, also known as @paperwick on social media, has been creating artwork from a very young age, with works in both traditional and digital media. Her work covers a broad range of fandoms, original content, and client based works along with some very useful and resourceful tutorials. 

K: I wanted to first ask about your experience attending SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design)?

D: My experience at SCAD was tepid at best. The teachers were good, but I mean very specifically the professors who were teaching in my major, which was sequential art. SCAD is really not a great institute for anyone who isn't rich enough for their parents' to cover the cost. That's my biggest issue with it, they will cripple you with debt, so if anyone is lower-income, I would highly suggest learning via some of great online courses or using a state college's art program to sort of direct you if you need direction and deadlines. I know I need them. SCAD's loans are no joke. The college itself was very good my first year, they do a lot to make sure incoming students feel heard and welcomed, and then after that they really don't try for you. As soon as you're a sophomore, they could care less about how you feel to be there. Their class attendance requirements are grueling and there's no room for accidents--you miss four class sessions and you fail the course. It's wild, and even if you're in the hospital, those absences will not be forgiven. If you're late, it counts as an absence.I don't recommend it. At all. All the learning I garnered there is online accessible these days, one just has to hunker down, find it, and put it to practice. My professors were great, but no education is worth that price tag. Depending on your major there, you will be treated differently by the school. For example, their fashion and fibers majors are doted on, whereas a major like animation is ground hard into the dirt. There were unrealisitc deadlines to meet for class projects and kids would be in the school buildings overnight trying to meet them. Some fell asleep in their chairs and Paula Wallace (the owner) saw that one day and had them replace the chairs with far less comfortable chairs. Some kids had heart attacks from staying up to meet deadlines. Such a bad work culture of "all-nighters". In part the students' fault, but none of the faculty really stopped it or discouraged it, save one teacher in a different major, and that being said, that teacher still gave ridiculous deadlines so we'd "be prepared for the industry". That's not at all what the industry is like (discluding the game industry right now). It is truly a hard place to thrive and everyone I've known who has graduated had months to years of burnout after finishing, including myself. I'd hazard real caution when choosing to go to a private art college, art institutes included.No education is worth that amount of debt.

K: Wow, that’s unfortunate to hear. I wonder if students are having similar experiences at colleges such as CAD or RISD?

D: I have heard very similar things about places like RISD and CAD where it’s all about the money, but I can’t point you towards any of the specifics. I really just want people to go into it with a clear head and know it’s going to be hard exiting. They really don’t prepare you for business.

K: What would you have done differently? Would you have signed up for online courses?

D: If I was to do it over, I would have liked to dive straight into developing personal projects, just making the work. Watching and reading free youtube videos and blog posts by artists. That would not have flown with my parents, they’re very by the book “go to college or get a job” type people. With than in mind, I would’ve gone to the local college I was within biking distance of as a sort of clean, and done fairly half assed studies by full assed my artwork.

K: That sounds like what a lot of artists, particularly those interested in digital art are doing. But, have you ever considered going back to school, or enrolling in a program or an atelier that you think would be beneficial to your art career?

D: Not genuinely. If I had time, I wouldn't mind enrolling in something that would teach me puppet animation, but between freelance and my day job, it's hard to find time to produce personal work and then also learn. I am pro-learning, always learning because that keeps your work fresh, keeps your mind sharp and ready to switch up on a dime. But course work is something I'm not super fond of, to be honest.

K: I understand. So, you've graduated and are currently doing freelance work along with your other day job. In your freelance work, what kind of work are you taking from clients?

D: Mostly I do storyboard animatics for a few advertising agencies, but I do some card art for games here and there, like Companion's Tale. I just signed on to do some tarot card artwork for a company called Legacy: Fables. I'll take anything that sounds interesting and that I have time for. It's all digital; traditional art is way more personal for me so I almost exclusively make traditional artwork as gifts for friends.

K: Are there any particular fandoms or genres that you tend to work more in?

D: As far as fandom work and commissions, it's Dragon Age all the way BABY! It's a good community and I owe a lot to them. I'm planning on reopening my tarot commissions here soon once I finish up a few of my freelance projects. I am an old hat with fantasy stuff and most comfortable there, but I really want to start working on robots and mechanics and cities. All that sci-fi goodness.

K: Wow, that's great to hear you've got very steady work, and they’re with industries and agencies! I hope you'll get to share that work once it's gone down the production pipeline. Have you ever considered applying for work with a company like EA/Bioware?

D: Yeah! I've lucked out a lot, it feels like all of this sort of dumped itself in my lap. My biggest resistance to applying to Bioware or any gaming industry position right is rooted in how they treat their workers. Bioware, specifically back when Anthem was released, had a nasty report come out on how management had run their workers to the point of many having mental breakdowns, and several just leaving and never coming back. They refer to those who have breakdowns while working during their months and months of crunch as "stress casualties", and I'm honestly quite disgusted by what I hear. I think once the gaming industry unionizes I'll consider applying, but the things I hear, not just about Bioware and EA... It's horrifying. Riot, Blizzard, Activision, Treyarch, Rockstar... the list could go on. Not to like tank the conversation into a dark place, I just have such strong feelings about it.

K: That's ok! It's good to hear different perspectives, especially when talking about the industry. Alright, on to the next question. Looking at your work, from sequential narrative to tarot artwork, I’m really impressed by your storytelling. When you’re creating stories and characters, do you pull a lot from your own experiences and emotions, or more from other sources such as music, film, or literature?

D: Ahh that's a hard one. I think I pull far more from outside of me than inside of me.The way things are shaped comes from my own experience, but I think a lot of my content comes from outside influences, like movies, books, music, and art.Howls Moving Castle, the book not the film, had a huge affect on me and how light I want the stories I tell to be, but I think I have a long way to go when putting stories together.I am super empathetic so it's easy to take outside influences and really feel them, but also it's hard to tell where I start and those influences ends.

K: Very well said, and the comment about the novel, I can really feel that in your personal work, especially your recent animated landscape piece.

D: Thanks!

K: The first time I came across your work was one of your Dragon Age tarot works, but also the tutorial on how you created them. It was incredibly helpful to me and I know to lots more artists. Your tutorials and words of advice have proven very successful, but have you ever received any advice or tutorials that really switched gears or level upped your techniques?

D: The answer is yes, absolutely. Let me see, I don't seek out tutorials anymore, but there was something I saw recently that was good. Sinix's head from any angle is a great approach to drawing faces at crazy angles. Also, check out Bunabi on Tumblr. Bunabi is so fast and her work is beautiful, and has great tutorials also, just incredible. 

I unfortunately can’t link to any specifics, but tutorials like this one do me a lot of good.  

People can just screenshot process stuff that reminds me that there are a million ways to approach art, like sketch up, grids, freehanding. I think I benefit from understanding that there are a million approaches more than following the tutorials super hard.

K: Great,thank you! I wanted to ask a few more questions, one about your Patreon. It seems like the next big wave for digital artists. How has it been creating one and keeping on top of the awards, and is there anything you would want to do differently with yours?

D: So Patreon is kind of a basket you can fill with prizes, maybe some of the prizes for money (probably prizes for money), and that works for a lot of people. I have a more of a "here's content I don't put elsewhere if you'd like it" approach to it cause I'm inconsistent with patron pay-outs. Patreon for artists with chronic mental illness is a struggle. Hands down. I started one hoping it would iron out my discipline issues a year or two back, and it didn't. It made me feel hella guilty cause I could not keep up with what I said I'd keep up with, and then I felt worse. It was disastrous. I refunded most of the pledges I got during the three months I had it open. Then I closed it for a year and brought it back online recently. Now all my content is free, it's still inconsistent, but if people want to support me I welcome it. I think Patreon is a good platform, but I will never be able to use it is intended. I respect the people who can keep up with it all, that kind of discipline takes a crazy amount of strength of character, but I don't motivate with money very well. In the end, I motivate through helping others as best I can, so it'll always be free content. I have very few plans for it, other than I want to put together a brush pack and share it there with brushes I made. I just need a moment to sit down and make that happen. I've got a tutorial for using photos to make quick painted backgrounds too, and I just have to organize that sucker.

K: Thank you for being so open about it. I think what you're doing is so insightful and helpful in what you're offering to your followers, especially those who may also be struggling with anxiety and depression.

K: Can you share what your process is like from a sketch to a finished piece? Do you thumbnail a lot before, use references to build from, and so on?

D: I like to do throw away thumbnails on notepaper.

And then I take those thumbnails and do a more thought out version digitally.

K: Wow, these are both beautiful. If you don't share these with patrons already, I would! I also like that you've given each one their own color, a good way to organize!

D: Thank you! I'll make sure to share these, I forget about them genuinely. I'll diverge in two directions from here depending on need. If what I'm working on is simple, I hop straight into color. If it's going to be complicated, ie crazy armor, specific architecture, I will do a line pass first and then launch into color. Either way, this is where most of my references come into play. Once that is solid I add detail work.

K: Reference can be so important in art; it really can bring work to a new level if used properly!

D: Yeah reference is king. I use it constantly, even when doing the most stylized thing, cause there's always stuff you forget. The waves I did for my last card, I had reference of barrel waves up constantly, and it helps a ton.

K: My last question is where do you see yourself in five years? I know this can be a challenging question, but if you had any goals or plans you’d like to see come into fruition, what would they be?

D: Five years? These questions are always a struggle for me. I try not to look past a week at a time because it's all so BIG. And my life has undergone so many huge changes in such a short period of time SO MANY times that it's hard to make long term plans. Especially when dealing with mental illness. So I try to think less about where I'll be in any amount of time, and more about what I want to progress towards achieving, it's a little easier and sets up less expectation. So this is not necessarily a five year plan, and more an eventual future plan. I want to have enough tutorial work to put together an art resources book/pdf online. I want to develop my freelance work further and create my own studio, ideally for illustrative style work, smaller animations, and maybe some classes for people interested in color and storytelling. I want to put together a small guide of sorts also for artists and people who need healing, since there's so many of us. That one is harder because it's an amorphous subject, but I think there's a lot of room for commentary there and a lot of people wanting to hear it, and I think it'll have to come from all those hurting. It's just a matter of how we'll organize that.I am a huge sap. That's my way. So in 5 years I'm hoping I'll be a better and more helpful sap.

K: Well, I hope you're able to make a lot of this happen, we need more empathy and help in the world. Thank you again Daphne for your time, this was really informative and an honest interview which I know others will appreciate.

D: Thank you, Kallie!

You can find more of Daphne’s beautiful works (and tutorials) here:

Patreon

Twitter

Tumblr

[revisionaryhistory]

Three Days ~ 32

Catch up on AO3

~*~Sebastian~*~

The train was pretty crowded with people commuting into the city. I can't imagine spending three hours going back and forth to work every day. But right now, I thought an hour and a half with headphones sounded ideal. Processing didn't feel like the right word. I usually think of processing as something you do to deal with a negative or incorporate some insight you just had. Emma certainly wasn't a negative. But I guess process is the right word. A lot had happened in the last four days.

About fifteen minutes out of town my text alert went off. Emma sent me a picture of her in her classroom in front of a bunch of words. I doubt her pointing at baby, boy, and blue was accidental. I sent back the first thought that came to my mind, "Damn."

Next thing I knew I was at my station. I had not processed shit. I'd sat staring at her picture while my music played. Maybe that was processing?

I ducked into a shop to buy a bottle of water before hitting the gym. I was the last to arrive. I was going to get shit for this.

"Mr. Stan, glad you could join us."

Len looked at Don," Leave him alone. He slept in."

"I've been up since five-thirty, but thanks for the support." I dropped my bag close to the wall, "Got a train back from Beacon at seven."

Jackson crinkled up his face, "What's in Beacon?"

"Parents moved there. I was helping them unpack."

I must have smiled or something because Brad jumped on me, "I don't think that’s all you were doing."

I could feel my cheeks turning red. I joined them stretching out. "I did meet a woman"

There was a chorus of, "Oh yeah", from the four other men.

"Don't be like that," I admonished. "I haven't had a real date in forever."

George laughed, "We know. You'd given up."

I laughed too. I'd forgotten about that conversation. It had been George's twentieth anniversary and I'd commented I'd given up getting a date, forget about getting married. "I guess I was too hasty with giving up."

Len put his hands behind his head and thrust his hips, "If you're rusty and need some tips just let me know."

I covered my eyes with my hands, "Thanks, but I’m doing fine."

Hours later I walked into my apartment. Fuck, was I tired. Hadn't gotten much sleep the last couple of days. I smiled thinking about why. Checking out the picture on my phone again, I headed upstairs to shower. I wanted her face. I asked for a closer picture, put my phone on the charger, and hit the shower. Still wet, I fell face down on my bed and was out, not waking up until my manager called. We were going to have dinner tonight. I hung up and I saw I had a text. I closed my eyes and said, “Please."

The look on Emma's face in the picture was sweet with a touch of sexy. Her smile showed off her single dimple, but the slight quirk of her lip was like she had a secret. If I kept thinking about that I was going to get hard.

I was surprised when she responded to my text. It was a short conversation. I like how she'd brought up skipping past the when is it ok to call or text part. I suck at that shit. I think everyone does except assholes who like games. I don't have the time or inclination to figure out if I’ve waited long enough to contact someone. What happens is I'm waiting for the appropriate time, something happens, and I’m outside the window. Which, oddly enough, is exactly what happened with me trying to kiss Emma.

While I say I suck at this shit, I don't suck at all of it. Honestly, I'm a good date. I'm attentive and can be romantic. I like romance. I like how Emma and I started. The touching and talking were refreshing. It was like time stopped. There was nothing but she and I getting to know each other. I know that's not completely true. There were bumps and anxious moments, but that's part of it, part of life. I like how I felt as we maneuvered the bumps. I didn't feel alone. Feeling anxious feels alone. It feels like stuck in your head and you don't want to let the thoughts turn into words because it makes it real. If you don't say it out loud it’s not real. Good and bad with that. If it's not real, it's not real, but if you don't say it out loud no one can help. That’s a double-edged sword too. People think they're helping when they flood you with reasons you shouldn't feel how you do. If only anxiety disappeared with logic. Some people understand, some even know how to help. Then some people use it against you. I’ve known all three types. Even fell in love with the worst type.

The point of all that is to say Emma made it better. Without a pause she did the thing, said the thing, to make it better. By itself, not such a big deal, but when you combine it with everything else. She's smart, beautiful, fun, articulate, kind, sexy, and she makes me feel good. I feel like I've hit some kind of fucking jackpot.

There is an assumption that being famous is a sex buffet. Yes and no. Do you get offered anything you want and a few things you don't? Yes. I got talked into going with several of the Marvel guys to Vegas. I'd heard the stories. There were places one could have no strings sex and little to no risk of anyone talking. I'm not talking about brothels. I mean clubs frequented by locals who knew how to keep secrets. More than one of the guys had "usuals". There is money involved, but it's for discretion, not sex. Yeah, I know. I don't see the difference either. I went, but wound up out of my mind drunk with the faithfully married men. Wasn’t for me. Honestly, I got laid much more in college and the early years. Because once people knew who I was and the offers started I never knew if they wanted me, a story, a name crossed off their "to do" list, a photo op, or were a gold digger. Not that I had any money back then. When you’re shooting somewhere you're not running around fucking locals because you’re busy. And tired. I get up about two hours before call time, so I'm a human being before I get to set. What I'm saying is it's complicated and not easy. A buffet would be easy.

I'm more of a serial monogamist. I like relationships. I like being part of a couple. There are dry spells. There are dates with sex. And there are dry spells. Most recently there's been a friend with benefits. She picked today to call. After the texts with Emma, but before dinner with my manager. We haven't seen each other in, I don't remember exactly, three or four months. It's been a while. Dry spell. Thankfully, this arrangement was not complicated so when I told her I was seeing someone she was happy for me.

The dinner meeting with my manager, Emily, went well. I stayed focused despite the little part of my brain that stayed acutely aware of the time. Volleyball practice was over at nine. Theoretically. It’s a bar league and timing might be loose. She has work in the morning. Probably won't be too late. I should probably stop thinking. If she can't talk she won't answer. Just like all day today when we texted when we could. You know, like functional adults.

Sebastian ~ You home?

Emma ~ Yep

I hit call and waited to hear her voice. "No, no, no."

Click.

Not what I was expecting. I pulled my phone away from my ear and looked at it like it was a foreign object. FaceTime popped up. Oh, okay. I answered and her face filled my screen, "Hey."

Emma smiled, "I'd much rather see you than only hear you."

"This is better." Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was without makeup. She looked like the day we met. "You're beautiful."

"Thank you." She laid her head to the side and shrugged her shoulders, "Why'd you think I wanted FaceTime?"

I pulled my eyebrows down and pursed my lips, "So I could tell you I think you're beautiful?"

Emma shook her head with a grin, "Because I wanted to see your handsome face."

"Thank you." I inclined my head slightly. "How was practice?"

"Brutal." She laughed. "Sand absolutely everywhere. I miss gym floors and shoes. A lot of drills and some three on three."

"Keep going." I liked listening to her talk. She went into more detail while I listened and watched her facial expressions. She was animated with small movements that brought her words to life. I was especially aware of the quirk of her mouth. I was missing her hands and how they talked as much as her words.

"And how was your morning at the gym?"

I raised a hand, palm up, "Didn't you see my Instagram post?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." I had posted a picture of the group with me lying face down. "You looked tired."

"It was a heavy weight day." I entertained her with some of the day’s antics. The comradery made it less exhausting. We worked hard and we laughed often. "I took a nap before dinner with Emily."

"How'd that go?"

"Good." I nodded. "We've worked together for over twenty years now. I start filming in Rome end of July."

"That will be warm."

"Yeah, it will be. June will be the longest I've been home for a long time."

"Lucky for me."

"When's school out?" I was making plans. Pretty global and unstructured, but plan.

"We have through next week to finish up with work. Then it's fun and games. Celebrations of art and music to show off the projects we've worked on but haven’t sent home. Then there’s a day of outside athletic stuff. Relays, three-legged races, carrying eggs, tug of war. All sorts of things to celebrate sending our fifth graders away and the others flying up a grade.  All three weeks away. School ends on Wednesday. Closing ceremony for staff Thursday. Then Friday I am going home to Alpharetta for a few days. then back to do some curriculum work."

"I thought it was summers off." I was a little disappointed. I, like many, assumed teachers were really off during the summer. This wasn’t working with my as yet unmade plans.

"Depends on what’s going on. The last winter we had so many kids out with flu and an ice storm closed school. We decided we wanted to have options like video lessons on YouTube or Google Classroom. Right before school started, we got our curriculum cleaned up. Figuring out what are the necessary things we need to make sure we teach. Then over the school year we've been recording lessons.  After faculty meetings, we’ve spent time organizing them. This summer we just have to finalize and work with IT do develop the web site."

"Wow, sounds like a huge undertaking."

"It has been, but it will be so helpful if a student is out for them to be able to see the lesson that goes along with their makeup work."

"Are all the grades doing this?"

"Eventually. First and third did this year. We’ll help them to learn from our mistakes."

I got an idea, "Does that mean I can watch videos of you teaching?"

She laughed, "If I enroll you in my class. You'd want to watch that?"

"Maybe. I mean you like watching me do my job."

"Ah, Sebastian. Leveraging a movie to be able to see me teach.”

"I'm not going to promise I'll be in class every day. Never was. But I'd like to see what you do? Someday you'll go on set with me and see how boring most of it is." What did I just say? I’m not shooting anything for almost two months. How very optimistic of me.

"Well, there's an offer I can't refuse."

Good answer. "I've got a photo shoot in a couple of weeks. I think it’s the same week you're going home."

"Ooo, where are you going?" Her face lit up with excitement.

"Toronto. It's promo stuff for the film festival."

"I feel like I should know what you have showing there."

I wanted to reach out and wipe away the annoyed curve of her lips. There was no way she could know unless she was poking around the internet. I liked that she wasn't. "I'll catch you up. It’s a love triangle kind of thing. I'm the bad choice." I told her about filming, how much was improv, and the basic plot. She asked questions to clarify and I enjoyed explaining. I never felt like I was being interviewed. Emma wanted to learn about me.

With the conversation, I'd lost track of time. Again. When I glanced at the clock it was much later than I'd thought. I ran my fingers through my hair, "It's like our first date all over again. Talking for hours."

She smiled, "Its a theme for us. I hate to, but I need to go to bed."

"Believe it or not I’d planned on watching the time, so we could both get some sleep. I, at least, took to a nap." We shared a smile, "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"OK. Good night, Sebastian."

"Night, Emma" She disappeared from my screen and I wasn't very happy. I wanted to keep talking, to keep seeing her expressions. Her green eyes weren't as vibrant on FaceTime, but my memory could fill in the details.

Wednesday was text free and my phone rang at three-thirty. "The children were horrible today."

The exasperated look on her face made me smile, "Could it be their teacher was extra tired today?"

She huffed out a breath, "It’s possible.” Her lips turned to a smile, "Wouldn't change a thing."

"What do horrible children do?"

"Tommy used his folders as frisbees. Annabelle and Brooklyn gave each other tattoos during recess with Sharpies. No one could sit still for lessons or story time. And finally, Marta threw up all over the table and we had to evacuate the room until the custodian got it cleaned up. Room smelled like vomit and Glade the rest of the day."

I had been cringing since the tattoos. "Sorry about the definitely bad day."

Emma nodded, "What did you do today?"

Not much. "Um, long run this morning. Lighter weights today. More core and flexibility. Picked up some Thai food on the way home. Took a shower. Then I started reading a book on female spy units. You called. Now, I’m mostly trying to figure out a way to climb through the internet so I can kiss you. We've still got some catching up to do.”

[xxairo-dev]

Next Log

So I started making a 2D pixel art game. Welcome to my new Dev blog!

No official name, but the unofficial name is Bowfish.

(TLDR and Dev log with pretty gifs at bottom)

Hello internet, friends, and 2020 -- those of you that have been following me all this time know that I’ve been doing art for a loooong time. Even before I got into digital art in 2010, I’ve been drawing with paper and pencil for as long as I can remember and probably started playing video games right at the same time. For reference, my earliest memories of video games consist of Lemmings 3D on PS1, followed shortly by Rayman and Spyro the Dragon. 

I’m still a big Spyro fan, also pretty sure this is how I became obsessed with dragons in general. 

Science based dragon MMO girl, wherever you are -- I feel you, I am you.

Basically, I’ve been playing video games all my life (to the detriment of my parents) and I owe it to gaming for igniting my early artistic ambitions. In fact, I remember learning how to draw by copying the character art of Neopets and Sonic Advance before one day stumbling upon one of my dad’s Game Informer magazines and being blown away by the art that I saw in there (particularly the WoW art). I’m pretty sure that was when I was first introduced to Big Boy™ game art and instantly thought, “Whoa, I want to be able to draw like that”.

Later, when I got my first drawing tablet and started making digital art, it became “I want to draw for a video game”.

Even later, when I learned that being a video game artist was not a very realistic career path and opted to pursue a bachelors degree in biology instead of art, it became “I want to draw for a video game... on the side”.

Even later-er, when I got my degree in 2017 and started working full-time and realized that work saps you of all energy and motivation to work on projects at home, it became “I want to draw for a video game... some day”. 

Well, today here we are in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, I got furloughed from my biology job due to the quarantine. I spent four months passing time, thinking that I’d go back to work soon. But by the end of July, I was at wit’s end of what to do with myself after getting burnt out on a number of hobbies, games, shows, books, etc. without spiraling into some very expensive hobbies (hello aquariums) with the money I wasn’t making. I badly needed to find something productive to do that I thought would also benefit me in the long run i.e. post-quarantine, and unfortunately I couldn’t work on wet lab techniques at home.

“Learn to code” is what my parents have said to me about a thousand times for the past 5 years. “Learn to code” is what I did try for about two weeks with Code Academy a few years ago before realizing that none of what I was learning was going to stick because I wasn’t programming in any part of my daily life. As a biologist, in evolution we like to call this “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. 

I know all too well about how coding is one of the best skills you can learn. However, I also know myself all too well to know that learning code for the sake of learning code wasn’t going to work for me. I wanted to wait to learn when the right situation presented itself, ideally when I would have an opportunity to use it almost every day at like a job or something.

Well, one of my good fellow artist (and biology) friends had recently taken the plunge into creating his first video game Meganura earlier in the year. I was (and still am) seriously -- and I cannot emphasize this enough -- impressed by his progress, dedication, and ability to learn coding for this game. Or more frankly, I was seriously impressed by his dedication and progress in to learning how to code for this game.

Meganura in all it’s crispy pixel-y goodness. Man, my friends are talented.

I dwelled on this for a while. 

I always considered making a game to be out-of-reach because I absolutely could not muster up the motivation to learn a single drop of code without being paid to do so after 1) being beaten over the head by “learn how to code” for so long and 2) having already tried and given up in the past. 

But as it got harder to sleep well, eat well, and feel happy during the quarantine, I feel like I hit a rock bottom where I felt like if I didn’t make a big effort to find a new purpose, then I was probably going to become depressed. To preface this, I have experienced depression before, and ever since I got out it has been my goal in life to never experience it again. 

The only way I was going to survive this quarantine was to give myself a new “job”.

I already had a creative mind and the skills to create art and animations for a game. I already had a lifetime of game playing experience that had formed a detailed list of specific mechanics and visual details that I knew I wanted or didn’t want in a game. I already had an analytical and detail-oriented mind (thanks biology... or thanks videogames?) that liked to plan and build things. 

All it would take is just a little bit of code...

If you’ve read this far, thanks for listening and I hope some of you hear yourselves in my story.

TLDR;

I am just a daytime biologist and hobby digital artist with zero coding experience.

I’m extremely proud to say that since 07/29/20, I have been successfully developing and coding my own 2D pixel art video game in Unity and am in full swing!

This is the start of my dev blog, where I’ll be logging my progress and thoughts throughout this journey for like-minded and aspiring individuals. 

My Goals:

- To create everything from scratch -- art, scripts, etc.

- To create a game about bow hunting with intuitive drag/release controls

- To create a game that has cooking and campfires

- To create a game with pretty water graphics

- To create a game that has sushi and cats

- To have a playable demo by mid 2021 (my guess for the end of quarantine)

How I’ve been learning C#:

I have been following along with YouTube tutorials to create a base script and then looking up things in Unity’s scripting documentation to expand and modify my code to achieve exactly what I want. I’ve been learning C# and how to read documentation through almost entirely pattern recognition (e.g. mimicking and experimenting with code I’ve copied from tutorials and recognizing keywords in documentation) and turning to Google or my Tech Career Peers™ for help when I get stuck or to clarify things.

The key thing is that even after copying some code, I read the documentation and figure out how every line of code in my script works before moving on.

This is because after spending a few days of looking up YouTube tutorials, I realized there were no tutorials for the exact bow controls that I wanted. Instead, I ended up watching multiple tutorials and learned how all of their scripts worked before combining and modifying pieces together. Then, I started relying entirely on documentation to write lines of code. 

I don’t know how many original lines of code I’ve written so far, but there are so many now and I am so proud of all of them.

So anyway, here’s what’s happened over the past 2-3 weeks.

Dev Log:

7/29/20

- Came up with an idea for a game

7/30/20

- Installed Unity and started watching Unity tutorial videos

7/31/20 

- Created water shader via shader graph (no coding required!)

- Created a basic background, player sprite, bow sprite, and arrow sprite in Photoshop

08/03/20

- First time coding in C#

- Struggle to code in Notepad++, switched to Visual Studio Code

08/06/20

- Created physics based slingshot controls for the bow and arrow with a line renderer bowstring

- Colliders!

08/09/20

- Unable to find a way to pull arrow back horizontally (-X) regardless of mouse Y movement (OnMouseDown)

- Decided that slingshot controls are for slingshots, not bows and arrows

- Scrapped physics based slingshot controls due to overcomplication (rip)

08/10/20

- Created new projectile based controls that still include drag/shoot physics

08/11/20

- Limited rotation of the bow while aiming to max 45° and min -45°

- Developed distaste for vector algebra

- Made it so that if you don’t drag far enough, you won’t release an arrow

08/12/20

- Created a trajectory line coming off the bow

- Made arrows fade away after colliding

- Created git repository to keep all project files backed up on github (Don’t wait to do this! Should’ve been done on day 1)

08/14/20

- Added physics and collider to player

- Allow you to face and move left/right with the A and D keys + updated bow controls to match

- Created left/right movement while aiming + updated bow controls to match

- Created mouse drag line for development use

- Created waterline

- Made it so the bow resets to it’s default position if you haven’t used the bow for over 2 seconds

08/15/20

- Updated Player sprite in Photoshop

- Obtained Asesprite

- Created walk animation

08/16/20

- Created  bow walk, bow equip, and bow unequip animations

Next Log

[squeemcsquee]

Anime Midwest 2018, Day 2

Ah, Day 2. Aka, the day I forgot to really mark things in my program guide, so I’m having to read the schedule now, 9 days later, to figure out what I did.

Can I repeat my wish for AnimeCon.Org to create or pay to utilize an app that will let you highlight panels/take notes/etc? Please?

Day two’s morning started with another visit to the manga library. I didn’t stay long, but even just popping in briefly was a nice way to get my day going. From there, I wandered over to the “Two Guys Walk Into the Internet” panel so I could see Linkara and The Last Angry Geek again.

This was the panel to attend if you wanted to get not just info on YouTube experience and their preferred reviewing styles, but also the recent Channel Awesome debacle from April of this year. Some of it was what I knew from the Twitter thread and the Not So Awesome Google doc, but some of it was not stuff I’d known. And it’s sad to know that The Geek took a big hit to his viewing and subscriber base when he cut ties with the site. From what I saw of him during Midwest, he seems a cool guy, and I’ll be looking into his channel more.

From there, nothing really caught my eye for the next hour, so I decided to check out the game room, and man, I wish I had spent more time there. Honestly, I haven’t dabbled in the gaming rooms as much as I’ve been tempted, because of the “funk” that usually pervades them. But Midwest’s game room smelled just fine, and looking at the games on display, I was like a kid in a candy store. From giant-sized games meant to be laid out on the floor to classic board and card games, from games aimed at younger players, to games for adults, to all ages...seriously, the people they’d partnered with had it all. And the game room staff knew their stuff! I spotted a copy of Betrayal at the House on the Hill and was talking to @shbumi about it, and a staffer overheard and joined in. I love that game - it does not love me back. 

If I do another Anime Midwest, I am going to have to spend more time in this area, that’s for sure!

After that, it was time for the Bad Music Videos panel with V is for Villains. Only one band member was on hand, but he made the panel a blast. Instead of my usual pic from the panel (even though I stole @lechevaliermalfet ‘s phone to take one), I’m going to include one of the videos shown. This one is a classic, so you may have seen it before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC35cQKHwzg

I’m glad that this is a staple V is for Villains panel because I found it entertaining and wouldn’t mind sitting it again sometime. 

Also, I need to thank @shbumi - while I was at this panel, she was out trying to catch a shiny Articuno for me. The raids in the area didn’t pan out, but I appreciate her making the effort!

I wandered for a bit, then I checked into the tail end of the “Sexy Multimedia Q & A with D.C. Douglas” panel, since I knew he’s funny to listen to.

I went back through the dealer’s hall and artist alley after the panel. I stopped to say hi to a friend of a friend in the AA, and snagged a copy of her comic.

I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet (I’m bad about that - I snag indie comics at cons, then they sit on my shelf for quite a while) but I’m looking forward to it!

This was my other score for the artist alley during that time:

@falsedelusion does absolutely gorgeous work and I was happy to find art for Violet Evergarden, since Violet could be considered my latest anime waifu. 

After dropping my comic and print in the room and grabbing some food, I went back to the con for some people-watching before going to the “Great Graphic Novels You Should Be Reading” panel. 

This is another one I’ll probably have to attend again. See, the manga librarian apparently updates it every 2 weeks. And she’s got waaaayyyy more titles to choose from than you might think. Everything she recommended during the panel, she had on hand in the manga library. She also gave out personal recommendations for attendees, if asked.

I did end up taking photos of each slide, though I didn’t take notes of what was said. Still, I can do a photo post of what was recommended that weekend, at least.

From there, it was time for the “Women in Anime, TV, Film, and Beyond” panel.

I tried to like this one - I really did. It was nothing against the women who were answering questions and talking about the industry. It had everything to do with the setup. See, to even get a clear view of who was talking, you needed to either be up front or super tall. I don’t know how the A/V setup would work, but this particular panel is one that would have benefited from using the projector to show the image of who was talking and when. Since I couldn’t see from where I sat (my photo was taken by holding up my phone way about my head), it was hard to follow who was talking. In the end, I had to leave - I just couldn’t focus.

The evening was moving on so I snagged some free ramen, then headed off to the “LGBT Equality in Anime and Games” panel, which was 18+. The staffer checking my ID recognized my cosplay as the Impala from Supernatural, which was awesome.

(Side note: my favorite moments from Saturday were the one I just mentioned and running into Sam, Dean, and Cas cosplayers and taking a photo with them.)

I don’t know that I’m as familiar with Oscar Seung’s work, but I can say this: Hearing him sing and play the violin was awesome! And it was funny to hear how he’ll stop, mid-conversation, if he learns he has a voice role for Funimation - he takes his prep that seriously. Which is great, but I would hate to be the one talking to him at the time!

After that was “So You Think You Can Broadway.” This was easily the panel I was most conflicted about, after attending it. See, here’s the panel description, from the program:

 “Are you suddenly bursting in song? Being “Pulled” in a new direction? Can’t seem to “Wait for It” or “My Shot”? Do you think being on stage has always “Meant To Be Yours”? Then you might have caught the Broadway Bug. Let us “Whip Into Shape” and see if you have the guts to survive the stage.”

It was a Jeopardy-style panel. Okay, fine! I like Jeopardy! But a lot of the rules seemed to be sorted out as we went: how to divide into teams, how teams would give answers, how many turns before allowing the other team a chance at the board, etc. People were having fun - including me - but there were grumbles at times about how the uncertain rules were causing possible unfairness in the judging process. 

The panel ended with the option to sing in front of the judges and be told if they thought you were Broadway-material or not.

After that, it was time to wait in line for the conclusion of my evening: The Forbidden Fandom Dames Broadway Burlesque Adventure!

It was only in line waiting for this event that I learned that Anime Midwest had wristbands for 18+ events, just like the parent company had done for Anime Zap!.I’ve since looked over the program booklet to see if this was mentioned anywhere, but it wasn’t.

The room was packed, and it was an amazing experience. All involved were incredibly talented and entertaining. I admire their confidence in being able to perform and show some skin in front of a room of strangers.

It was a great way to end the day.

All of my Anime Midwest 2018 Coverage:

[fmshahin]

Commission Trooper Review — Real Life Case Study

Commission Trooper Review – What is Commission Trooper ? Welcome to my Commission Trooper Review. Commission Trooper is a brand new Video Created method by Art Flair (Team Black Belt). As usual, many affiliate marketers are promoting this Commission Trooper to their email list. Maybe you are one of them who saw their promotions and came here to read an honest Commission Trooper review.

See my full Review: https://imsaikat.com/commission-trooper-review/

You want to know if Commission Trooper works or not ! Right ? So welcome to my honest Commission Trooper review based on real user’s results and opinions. Comment below your experience and results using this Commission Trooper below. It will help our readers to make decisions .

Commission Trooper Review : Creators And Who are Behind This This product Commission Trooper is launched from Art Flair account and the creators are Art Flair, Pallob Ghoshal and Ram Rawat.

They are knows as Team Black Belt. You can see the vendors profile stat. Every recent products got over 2000+ sales. And they already sold over 74,000+ sales.

That’s why Art flair is Top 1% affiliate at Warrior+Plus. Along With TOP 5% vendor. And I pretty much sure, after this product being launched, he will be TOP 1 % vendor again.

Vendor Profile Commission Trooper review -cover In this field……

Commission Trooper Review-traffic Commission Trooper Review – My Personal thoughts After seeing their sales page and lots of promotional emails you can expect or dream a lot of things from Commission Trooper. This is natural . People fall for promises.

Let me explain, suppose a product or course named X can be workable for one and can be not working for another person.

Before buying any product you must know if it will fit you or not.

And as usual , these types of softwares and courses like Commission Trooper give a lot of reasons and promises why you should purchase this.

But we always try to advise our readers to do more thinking and do some research before falling for something which may not work for you.

You obviously should have noticed that, every week more than 7-10 products/softwares are launched and everyone promises you a lot ! Products are launching one after one !

So, will you buy every product or you should stick with one PROVEN method ?

And before I continue, I want to let you know that if you are still struggling to make money online and searching for a real solution that can transform your life then – It will must change your life :

Learn How You Can Copy My $1,000 Per Day Part Time Business…

…even if you’ve never made a dime online before”

Go Here To Check Out Everything And Learn How You Can Make Your First Commission Online This Week…

…even if you’ve never made a dime online before!

Go Here To Check Out Everything Commission Trooper Review : Overview Vendor                 Art Flair (Team Black Belt) Product Commission Trooper Front-End Price $17-$197 Launch Date 2020-Apr-19 Launch Time 09:00 EDT Commission 50% Product Type Video Refund Yes, 30 Days Money Back Guarantee Skill Level Needed   All Levels Rating 7/10 Support   Effective Support Commission Trooper Review : Features [+] This teaches how Videos Rank Easily & Fast.

[+] This Videos Bring In Passive Traffic.

[+] Most importantly Video Traffic Is Free & Super Targeted.

[+] Moreover You Can Send Unlimited Traffic to ANY Offer

[+] And the fun fact is you can send Buyer Traffic Directly to Your Affiliate Link.

[+] This Works In Any Niche ñ Not Just IM/MMO

With this easy to follow training you can Generate easy commissions online by generating high quality targeted traffic ..

[+]You can easily Re-assemble ANY existing video & get Free Traffic in 3 minutes

[+]Surprisingly you can Add an intro & outro for branding

[+]And You can Add your own watermark image. This really mind blowing.

[+] Therefore you will be amazed that you can Add text and/or animated text for Call To Actions. This will boost your income in the sky limit.

[+]For your information that Video SEO Guide is included which means Instant Rankings & Free Traffic.

[+]And as like other training, Step-by-Step Training & Case Study is included.

NO NEED A WEBSITE FOR THIS Many people hate websites. They just make head spin. And when you’re first starting out, it can seem like A LOT to take on. Heck, even after you’ve been doing this a while they’re still extremely annoying…

That’s why They decide to create this Free Traffic App in the Cloud, so that you don’t have to be dealing with domains, hosting, wordpress, or anything else of that sort!

So, no website or blog is needed – just a free YouTube channel – that’s it! Of course, if you do have a website, you can use Commission Trooper to send traffic to it – or anywhere else. It is BEGINNER FRIENDLY

Included Here:

[+]Instant Access to the Commission Trooper Cloud Based App

[+]Re-assemble any video & turn it into a free traffic magnet

[+]Use any video in any niche, no matter how small

[+]Video SEO Guide included = Instant Rankings & Free Traffic

[+]Access to Their Facebook Mastermind Group

[+]This matjods Step-by-step Video Tutorials included

[+]A Real Life Case Study included

[+]Professional eye-catching templates included

[+]Instantly add royalty free images or upload & use your own images

[+]World Class Support

Commission Trooper Review - stat “THE FUNNEL BREAKDOWN” Commission Trooper Review-sales funnel Learn How You Can Copy My $1,000 Per Day Part Time Business…

…even if you’ve never made a dime online before

Go Here To Check Out Everything

And Learn How You Can Make Your First Commission Online This Week…

…even if you’ve never made a dime online before!

Go Here To Check Out Everything Commission Trooper Review-Demo So, Should you Buy Commission Trooper ? First, it depends on you. You need to think about whether you should invest your money and time on Commission Trooper or not.

But keep in mind that you can also lose your money if it won’t work ! It doesn’t matter what type of promising they claimed you .

If it’s your type then there’s a chance it may work but if not you will just lose. So think twice if this fits you before purchase.

I am not discouraging you to buy this but just try to warn you. Many people fall for promises and lose their money by buying products after products. So, you must be determined !

In the end, this Commission Trooper review post offers users leave their honest reviews after testing and experiencing this product.

Anyone can give their positive testimonials or scam report if it is ! Feel free to comment below if you have tested this product and if any results. Also if it does not work, you are welcome to let us know below on this post.

Why I am Doing To This ? Our readers will benefit with your honest real user review. And we will know the real performance of this product.

Commission Trooper Review-oto Advance Version Upgrade 1 + You will have Unlimited Video Editing.

+Along with you can Work on Multiple Niches at once.

+Moreover it offers Unlimited Traffic Magnets Creation.

Upgrade 2

+This DFY Evergreen Affiliate Campaigns

+This DFY AUTOMATED Campaigns

+DFY Social Media Promos

+It can be DFY Engagement Posts

+It can DFY Squeeze Pages

+DFY Stock Music

Upgrade 3 +Make Up To $498 Per Sale

+Resellers License To Commission Trooper

+Resellers License To 5 Additional Funnels

+All Promo Material

Upgrade 4 45+ WSOTD Products

Get your hands on every single product TEAM BLACK BELT released since 2015 that got a Warrior+ DOTD Award or the JVZoo POTD Award! This includes multiple traffic formulas, sales making strategies and even software!

Upgrade 5

+Instagram Traffic Module

+Google Adwords Module

+Product Creation Module

Upgrade 6

+Rapid Lead Magnets

+Keyword Research Ninja

+Twitter Marketing Bot

Conclusion : Commission Trooper Review So, before I finish the Commission Trooper review, I want you to know that to build a real online business, you need the best and working online marketing methods and funnels created by the best person in the industry .

Instead of buying products after products blindly and getting into something you don’t know about, see my no#1 recommendation https://imsaikat.com/entre-institute-start and see exactly how to make $200 – $300 per day as a complete newbie without having any website, list or any complicated process. Work on something that is working now and changing many people’s lives every day with LIVE proofs and testimonials .

And before You Leave, I want to let you know that if you are still struggling to make money online and searching for a real solution that can transform your life then – It may help you :

Learn How You Can Copy My $1,000 Per Day Part Time Business…

…even if you’ve never made a dime online before

Go Here To Check Out Everything

And Learn How You Can Make Your First Commission Online This Week…

…even if you’ve never made a dime online before!

Go Here To Check Out Everything This is just a life changer in single sentence !

So, thanks for reading my honest Commission Trooper review and don’t forget to comment below of your thoughts.

See my full Review: https://imsaikat.com/commission-trooper-review/

[janetberrymx]

Viral News Jacker ReviewØ3DÜEEDemoØ3DÜEE$3125...

Viral News Jacker ReviewØ3DÜEEDemoØ3DÜEE$3125 BonusØ3DÜEE*ViralNewsJacker PRO ReviewØ3DÜEE

Viral News Jacker ReviewØ3DÜEEDemoØ3DÜEE$3125 BonusØ3DÜEE*ViralNewsJacker PRO ReviewØ3DÜEE

Early Bird discount %B6þ0F Full Review %B6þ0F IM Roadmap Ø3DÜ49 News Jacker Review! What’s inside Viral News Jacker? Well, if you want to create a passive income stream for yourself, it’s definitely for you! It’s a piece of software that created self-updating websites, with auto-added viral content to them. You can pick the source of the content for your site and guess what - Viral News Jacker will automatically spin it for you, so you end up with a brand new, freshly created unique post - which is exactly what Google loves. That alone would be amazing - but there’s more! Multiple traffic sources are also included, so you can start getting thousands of eyeballs on your posts - the more the better. Of course, at this point you can monetize it - in a bunch of different ways. Watch my full review and demo for details.

Viral News Jacker Review - Making money online is great and it definitely changed my life. It created a level of freedom I would never been able to achieve when working for a boss. You control your own time, business and what you do… with that being said, there’s still work to be done every single day. Any business needs to be managed - an online business too!

That’s why I’m really looking into creating passive income streams, that will make me money, regardless of me working or not - that’s the next level. When I was a newbie I’ve heard a phrase and it stuck with me: “Passive Income is the Holy Grail for anyone making money online” - and it’s absolutely true, all these years later. That’s definitely my next focus.

When I saw Viral News Jacker, I thought - that’s it! A great way to create a passive income stream - you set it up once and you reap the benefits for the months or even years to come. Completely hands-off, and guess what - you can pick between monthly passive income coming in, or selling the whole thing and cashing in on the Big Bucks.

I saw a couple of products that are similar to this one recently, but with Viral News Jacker, there’s one big difference - you actually get a spinner software included with it, which means that all auto-created posts and content will be 100% unique - you can even sell the content itself if you want to. The sky is the limit here when it comes to income opportunities - both passive and immediate cash.

If you’re enjoying this Viral News Jacker Review and want to learn more about Viral News Jacker, check out my in depth video review above!

Viral News Jacker Review, Demo & $3125 Bonus - *ViralNewsJacker PRO Review

Early Bird discount %B6þ0F Full Review %B6þ0F IM Roadmap Ø3DÜ49 News Jacker Review, ViralNewsJacker PRO Review, ViralNewsJacker Review, Viral News Jacker Review and Bonus, Viral News Jacker Review and Bonuses, Viral News Jacker Demo, Viral News Jacker Bonus, Viral News Jacker Bonuses, Viral News Jacker, Get Viral News Jacker, Buy Viral News Jacker, Viral News Jacker Scam, Viral News Jacker Tutorial, Viral News Jacker Walkthrough, Viral News Jacker Preview, Viral News Jacker Funnel, Viral News Jacker Upsells, Viral News Jacker OTOs

—

If you’ve enjoyed this Viral News Jacker Review video, please Subscribe to this YouTube channel for more!

SUBSCRIBE ‘A1þ0F this Video 'A1þ0F Art

#ihelpyoumakemoneyonline #workfromhome #howtomakemoneyonline

DISCLAIMER: Some of the links mentioned in the video and in the description might be affiliate links, which means that if you use it and will end up buying something, I 19ll receive a small commission. These commissions help support the channel and allow me to continue to record more of these Free Training videos for you guys. Thank so much for your support! Please note that results may and will vary. I cannot guarantee that you or anyone else will make any sum of money - it all depends on each person’s situation, drive and even luck. I highly suggest you simply look into it and draw your own conclusions.

===>>> ===>>> Check out your viral income today

from The IM CHARRO https://theimcharro.tumblr.com/post/189427231486

[samuelpboswell]

5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits of B2B Podcasting

We all know by now that podcasting is a fantastic content marketing tactic, right?  To review: 

Over 81 million people listen to podcasts (Edison Research)

80% finish the majority of every episode on their favorite podcasts (Edison Research)

Most people who listen to one podcast are likely to pick up more (Edison Research)

In other words, there’s an enormous audience out there, ready to spend multiple hours with your quality content. And now they can get your episodes right on the Google results page. So, since you’re ready to start your podcast anyway, how can you use it to elevate the rest of your content marketing efforts? It turns out podcasts can do more for your editorial calendar than just deliver value to your subscribers. At Content Marketing World this year, I saw a presentation from Ryan Estes of Frontline Education about the hidden marketing powers of podcasts. The points he hit on were spot on with how we view the potential of B2B podcasting. So, with a tip of the hat to Mr. Estes and his Field Trip podcast...

B2B Podcasting: 5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits

#1: Content Research

Say you’re a marketer who just got hired by a supply chain logistics company. Odds are you don’t yet know how your target audience thinks and talks about supply chain issues. You might not even know what problems supply chain folks are currently looking to solve. You’re good at marketing; you’re not a subject matter expert... yet. Usually, the answer is to fire up your web browser, pull up some industry publications, and do hours of research.  Certainly, some first-hand research is a must, but what if you could deepen your knowledge and create content at the same time? Interviewing industry experts for your new podcast will help you learn the industry, the lingo, the concerns, the potential solutions, you name it. Each interview is a podcast episode and a treasure trove of audience research, all in one.

#2: Prospect & Customer Relations

Planning a B2B podcast means finding subject matter experts — trusted voices who can lend credibility to your podcast and provide riveting content. When you’re looking for these guests, include prospects and customers in your search.  For prospects, the podcast interview can be a great way to start a conversation. Which is more compelling:

Let’s book a half hour so we can talk about our supply chain solution?

I would love to get your industry expertise in an interview for our podcast.

The second one is clearly the easier (and more value-driven) ask.  Inviting customers on your podcast can help deepen that business relationship, too. But it also provides proof to your prospects that you support and promote your customers — something that will come in handy for the next deal.

#3: Influencer Relations

We may have mentioned this before: Co-creating content with influencers results in better content an a wider audience to receive it. Podcasts are no exception. In fact, the basic interview format that is a perfect fit for podcasts is also the perfect way to engage industry influencers. We have found that people are amenable to an audio interview who would never, say, contribute a guest post to your blog. It’s easier to say 2,000 words than to type them out. Simply put, a podcast gives influencers another option — a fun and creative one — for co-creating content. [bctt tweet="Simply put, a podcast gives influencers another option — a fun and creative one — for co-creating content. @NiteWrites #B2BPodcasting #ContentMarketing" username="toprank"]

#4: Repurposing Possibilities

Think of a podcast as you would any other marketing content: When you’re producing it, you can plan for endless content repurposing. That doesn’t mean just using the transcript in a blog post, though you should do that, too. You can pull quotes for an eBook, do a roundup with highlights from every episode, even add video to portions of the audio for organic social or YouTube. Here's a recent example from SAP*. Following the release of Season 1 of its Tech Unknown Podcast, original and previously unreleased content was brought together for a tales from the trenches eBook. My favorite repurposing tip, though, comes from Ryan’s session: When he does a podcast interview with a Frontline Education customer, the first half of the interview is customer-focused. There’s no talk about the education software Ryan’s company sells, no testimonial, just the customer’s story about finding and solving a problem. That part is what goes into the podcast. The second half of the interview is explicitly focused on how the customer used the software to solve a problem. Ryan then repurposes that audio into case studies, using embedded audio excerpts to emphasize the customer quotes. It’s a powerful way to get a podcast episode and a case study in one go.

#5: Podcast Cross-Promotion

We know that people who listen to one podcast are likely to listen to more. That makes podcasts unique among marketing channels: Other podcasts aren’t your competition. Your ideal potential listener is the one who makes podcast listening a habit, who is looking for the sixth or seventh show to round out their weekly listening. As such, having a podcast gives you the opportunity to cross-promote with other podcast hosts. Look for podcasts where your host might make a knowledgeable, valuable guest. And look for podcasts hosts who might bring value to your show. The ability to expand and cross-pollinate audiences is one of the cooler aspects of the whole podcast community. Read: How to Promote Your B2B Podcast

Cast Your Pods to the Wind

A podcast in and of itself is a great channel for bringing valuable content to your audience. But the benefits don’t stop there. From filling out your editorial calendar to spicing up your case studies and beyond, a podcast can elevate your B2B content marketing efforts across your entire strategy. Guess what? There happens to be an on-demand webinar covering the art of B2B podcasting, featuring moi and TopRank Marketing President Susan Misukanis: The 4 P's of B2B Podcasting Success. Check it out! *Disclosure: SAP is a TopRank Marketing client.

The post 5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits of B2B Podcasting appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/09/content-marketing-benefits-podcasting/

[ralphlayton]

5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits of B2B Podcasting

We all know by now that podcasting is a fantastic content marketing tactic, right?  To review: 

Over 81 million people listen to podcasts (Edison Research)

80% finish the majority of every episode on their favorite podcasts (Edison Research)

Most people who listen to one podcast are likely to pick up more (Edison Research)

In other words, there’s an enormous audience out there, ready to spend multiple hours with your quality content. And now they can get your episodes right on the Google results page. So, since you’re ready to start your podcast anyway, how can you use it to elevate the rest of your content marketing efforts? It turns out podcasts can do more for your editorial calendar than just deliver value to your subscribers. At Content Marketing World this year, I saw a presentation from Ryan Estes of Frontline Education about the hidden marketing powers of podcasts. The points he hit on were spot on with how we view the potential of B2B podcasting. So, with a tip of the hat to Mr. Estes and his Field Trip podcast...

B2B Podcasting: 5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits

#1: Content Research

Say you’re a marketer who just got hired by a supply chain logistics company. Odds are you don’t yet know how your target audience thinks and talks about supply chain issues. You might not even know what problems supply chain folks are currently looking to solve. You’re good at marketing; you’re not a subject matter expert... yet. Usually, the answer is to fire up your web browser, pull up some industry publications, and do hours of research.  Certainly, some first-hand research is a must, but what if you could deepen your knowledge and create content at the same time? Interviewing industry experts for your new podcast will help you learn the industry, the lingo, the concerns, the potential solutions, you name it. Each interview is a podcast episode and a treasure trove of audience research, all in one.

#2: Prospect & Customer Relations

Planning a B2B podcast means finding subject matter experts — trusted voices who can lend credibility to your podcast and provide riveting content. When you’re looking for these guests, include prospects and customers in your search.  For prospects, the podcast interview can be a great way to start a conversation. Which is more compelling:

Let’s book a half hour so we can talk about our supply chain solution?

I would love to get your industry expertise in an interview for our podcast.

The second one is clearly the easier (and more value-driven) ask.  Inviting customers on your podcast can help deepen that business relationship, too. But it also provides proof to your prospects that you support and promote your customers — something that will come in handy for the next deal.

#3: Influencer Relations

We may have mentioned this before: Co-creating content with influencers results in better content an a wider audience to receive it. Podcasts are no exception. In fact, the basic interview format that is a perfect fit for podcasts is also the perfect way to engage industry influencers. We have found that people are amenable to an audio interview who would never, say, contribute a guest post to your blog. It’s easier to say 2,000 words than to type them out. Simply put, a podcast gives influencers another option — a fun and creative one — for co-creating content. [bctt tweet="Simply put, a podcast gives influencers another option — a fun and creative one — for co-creating content. @NiteWrites #B2BPodcasting #ContentMarketing" username="toprank"]

#4: Repurposing Possibilities

Think of a podcast as you would any other marketing content: When you’re producing it, you can plan for endless content repurposing. That doesn’t mean just using the transcript in a blog post, though you should do that, too. You can pull quotes for an eBook, do a roundup with highlights from every episode, even add video to portions of the audio for organic social or YouTube. Here's a recent example from SAP*. Following the release of Season 1 of its Tech Unknown Podcast, original and previously unreleased content was brought together for a tales from the trenches eBook. My favorite repurposing tip, though, comes from Ryan’s session: When he does a podcast interview with a Frontline Education customer, the first half of the interview is customer-focused. There’s no talk about the education software Ryan’s company sells, no testimonial, just the customer’s story about finding and solving a problem. That part is what goes into the podcast. The second half of the interview is explicitly focused on how the customer used the software to solve a problem. Ryan then repurposes that audio into case studies, using embedded audio excerpts to emphasize the customer quotes. It’s a powerful way to get a podcast episode and a case study in one go.

#5: Podcast Cross-Promotion

We know that people who listen to one podcast are likely to listen to more. That makes podcasts unique among marketing channels: Other podcasts aren’t your competition. Your ideal potential listener is the one who makes podcast listening a habit, who is looking for the sixth or seventh show to round out their weekly listening. As such, having a podcast gives you the opportunity to cross-promote with other podcast hosts. Look for podcasts where your host might make a knowledgeable, valuable guest. And look for podcasts hosts who might bring value to your show. The ability to expand and cross-pollinate audiences is one of the cooler aspects of the whole podcast community. Read: How to Promote Your B2B Podcast

Cast Your Pods to the Wind

A podcast in and of itself is a great channel for bringing valuable content to your audience. But the benefits don’t stop there. From filling out your editorial calendar to spicing up your case studies and beyond, a podcast can elevate your B2B content marketing efforts across your entire strategy. Guess what? There happens to be an on-demand webinar covering the art of B2B podcasting, featuring moi and TopRank Marketing President Susan Misukanis: The 4 P's of B2B Podcasting Success. Check it out! *Disclosure: SAP is a TopRank Marketing client.

The post 5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits of B2B Podcasting appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

5 Unexpected Content Marketing Benefits of B2B Podcasting published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[ramblingonandonandon]

The Rewired Soul: A Rundown

What follows is an account of the drama surrounding The Rewired Soul PRIOR to the Taylor Nicole Dean drama.

Who is The Rewired Soul?

The Rewired Soul (whom I will hereafter refer to as TRS or Chris) is a Youtuberfrom Las Vegas Nevada named Chris Boutté. He is the son of a mental health professional (Dr. Carrie Randazzo, who is simply listed as ‘psychologist’on their teachable homepage), who has collaborated with Chris previously. He has a girlfriend and one son.

He is a recovering addict (with 7yrs clean and sober), and formerly worked as an alumni coordinator at a treatment center. Chris now runs a channel that was once billed as a mental health channel, but that he knows refers to as a commentary channel. He has written several books and offers online mental health courses, and is being certified as a sober coach.

BetterHelp

BetterHelp is a service/app billing itself as “the world’s largest e-counseling platform”. Many Youtubers have been sponsored by BetterHelp and/or have advertised for BetterHelp, including Chris.

Many people felt it was unethical for Chris, as a mental health advocate, to accept any kind of monetary compensation in exchange for promoting a particular for-profit service. Some felt like he should, at least, state clearly in his videos that he was benefitting from BetterHelp’s success. Others felt like it should be clear, given that deals for sponsorship are common. Still others felt that because Chris is not a licensed professional, it is not unethical (or at least, not as unethical as it could be) for Chris to make sponsorship deals with a MH company.

Elle Love’s Tea’s video goes more in depth into the issues with BetterHelp and Chris.

More issues have sprung up around BetterHelp, including the quality, safety, and professionalism of the service.

Mental Health Courses

This video by Youtuber Elle Loves Tea discusses the controversy surrounding the courses themselves as well as their cost. I highly recommend this video is you want the details on this particular issue, as Elle provides a tremendous amount of sources and screencaps/clips in her video.

Credentials

Now THIS is one of the biggest controversies surrounding Chris’s channel.

At the time of the February scandal, Chris was not licensed or certified as any kind of mental health provider (he is currently being certified as a sober coach). The majority of his experience in mental health came from his mother (whom he has collaborated with), his work experience as an alumni coordinator, running meetings at the center, personal relationships with addicts, and his own experience as a recovering addict himself. These are not irrelevant or anything to sneeze at, but they are not the same as a degree or the clinical work experience that a doctor, nurse, social worker, etc. would have.

That said, in many of his videos, he is not specific about his qualifications. Sometimes as unclear as saying he “worked with addicts” or “worked at a treatment center” or even saying he is a “mental health professional”. It can be argued that, by being vague in describing the capacity in which he was involved with the treatment center, that Chris was being misleading.

That’s not to say he lied, just that by only saying you have ‘worked with’ recovering addicts and not HOW, you allow people’s own biases in thought to flourish, and a lot of people will hear ‘worked with’ and assume a clinical role.

Again, that’s not Chris’s fault per se, but it is a misconception that would have been easy to correct. In fact, it was easy to correct, because it should be noted that Chris has done a few videos on his role at the center, and in his newer videos often clarifies his experiences and lack of degree.

Further, many are now unsure of just how qualified his mother, Dr. Carrie Randazzo, is as well.  

Diagnosing and Treating

As someone without the proper schooling and licensing, Chris cannot professionally diagnose someone with a mental or physical condition.

There are at least two examples of this happening anyways, as well as multiple instances where an issue was implied but not outright stated.

In the first, he claims Trisha Paytas (more about her below) has BPD. While this clip exists, it has been speculated that she was joking or not serious, and she has not since claimed to have BPD.  

In the second, Leif E. Greenz, another Youtuber, was the person in question. Leif. E had previously been diagnosed with BPD, but believes it was a misdiagnosis. At the time of this scandal she believed it was more likely C-PTSD. It should be noted that this was NOT the only diagnosis she had ever received, or her most recent, so it does not make sense to assume that she has/had it. Except he did.

Beyond that, some people think Chris’s descriptions of his knowledge of addiction treatment crosses over into medical advice, as opposed to simply sharing experience. Worse, they say it is incorrect information.

For example, look at his older video regarding suboxone and his newer videos about suboxone maintenance as well as several responses to the latter video.

Problems with the Mental Health and Recovery Communities

Bipolar Corner (Gary) in particular does not like Chris, and has several videos explaining just why that is. It’s a very complex situation that Gary has many videos about, so I highly recommend watching a few to understand what is going on.

Dr1ven Industries has expressed concern over Chris’s actions as well.

Youtuber According to Jexi, who has almost the same amount of sober time as Chris, has also called out his behaviors as being detrimental to the recovery community.

These are far from the only MH or recovery bloggers who have had issues with TRS, but they are some of the most vocal.

Trisha Paytas

Trisha Paytas is a Youtuber, singer, dancer, and entertainer. She has been vlogging since 2006 (according to her wikipedia), and has made many music videos. Trisha has admitted to using drugs in the past, and in May posted about her most recent opiod withdrawals. While many (including Chris) have speculated that she is faking the withdrawals, most people believe that he does indeed have a history of drug use (and may still be using), as well as other mental illnesses.

Chris has made multiple videos about Trisha, to the point where she has called him out for it. She has accused him of attacking her and overstepping into her life, especially with the personal nature of his comments and her videos. He has commented on her relationships, sobriety, mental health, etc (please see links below for example, there are too many to hyperlink here).

Regardless of how one feels about Trisha, it is clear that Chris did make a lot of videos about her, often very close together timewise. Even now, that hasn’t changed. Below are the videos from his channel about Trisha that Youtube says are from the last month.

Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Link 4 Link 5 Link 6 Link 7 Link 8 Link 9 Link 10 Link 11Link 12

Note that up to link 12, Youtube says these are all from the last month (give or take, as Youtube’s definition of ‘within the last month’ is pretty loose). That’s twelve videos about one person within a month or two. Like Trisha or not, that’s a lot.

If you search for her name on his channel, you’ll get dozens of videos. This isn’t new, either, as some of the videos date back quite a ways.

Problems with Other Youtubers

Other Youtubers have also expressed displeasure with how Chris talks about theirs lives, including Bobby Burns (who Chris has accused of using drugs (sorry the original video has been removed, but Primink discusses it and uses clips here)).

He also once lambasted a Youtuber for not sharing about her very personal experience with BPD, claiming she had an obligation to share (this, despite the fact that he seems to think any public facts about a person are fair game for discussion).

These are only two examples, but there are many more.

Part of this problem is that these videos are not designed to help the subject but the viewer. These meant a lot of click-baity titles and thumbnails (often on videos that barely or never actually discussed the youtuber mentioned), overly personal exploration into other people’s lives (with the excuse that it was public information already, and after all, he was using it to help people), unsolicited advice, etc.

The February/March Scandal

Around the beginning of February 2019 through to March 2019, TRS was a hot topic on Youtube. For the most part, it seemed to be a combination of a lot of factors - his lack of credentials, whether he was diagnosing people, whether he was acting ethically as a MH Youtuber/advocate, his general tone and attitude, Trisha Paytas’s responses, etc.

To make matters worse, he then messaged several drama channels about Trisha, ended up blocking most of them, posted a video many saw as threatening, and eventually posted an apology and took a break from Youtube (he would later come back as a commentary channel).

Here are Chris’s videos regarding the scandal. Please note that several of the videos he made were removed, but you can see clips of some of them in other reponse videos.

Video 1 (re: Primink’s first video, prior to the main drama but during the time things were ramping up)

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Apology Videos 1 2 and 3

Reupload of his deleted video

Here are some videos (from both drama and MH channels alike) regarding the scandal. Please note the inclusion of any video in this list does not mean I endorse or agree with it, just that it offers a view on the issue that I felt was relevant. There are many more videos that I chose not to include for various reasons. Please be aware that many of these videos were linked earlier in this article, so you may see a video that I’ve already mentioned.

Links are in alphabetical order by Youtuber name, then by order uploaded.  

Ashley Kyle

Creepshow Art

Crimson Studios

Dr1ven Industries

Dustin Dailey Video 1 Dustin Dailey Video 2

Elle Loves Tea Video 1 Elle Loves Tea Video 2 Elle Loves Tea Video 3

Hedda Gold Video 1 Hedda Gold Video 2

Internet Infamous

j aubrey

Petty Paige

Primink Video 1 Primink Video 2

Psych IRL

Smokey Glow Video 1 Smokey Glow Video 2

Syren Cove

Tea by Ali Video 1 Tea by Ali Video 2 Tea by Ali Video 3

The Viewer’s Voice Video 1 The Viewer’s Voice Video 2

Drama, Commentary, or Mental Health?

This is the crux of the issue.

When Chris tweeted about how he was “leaving the toxic ass drama community”, he not only offended the drama community, contradicted his previous statements that he was not a drama channel, etc., but he also brought up some important questions.

Firstly, what divides a drama channel from a mental health channel from a commentary channel? Where are the lines, and what is the acceptable behavior for each one?

Is it ethical for someone, even someone who is not a mental health professional, to delve into people’s lives like that? Is it ethical to call oneself a mental health advocate when people claim your advocacy is hurting them?

Is it worth it to tear apart one person’s private life to discuss a topic you think is important? Is it worth it if it’s for views? What is too private, and what is fair game?

[loveintthetimeofbpd]

The Rewired Soul: A Rundown

The Rewired Soul: A Rundown

What follows is an account of the drama surrounding The Rewired Soul PRIOR to the Taylor Nicole Dean drama.

Who is The Rewired Soul?

The Rewired Soul (whom I will hereafter refer to as TRS or Chris) is a Youtuberfrom Las Vegas Nevada named Chris Boutté. He is the son of a mental health professional (Dr. Carrie Randazzo, who is simply listed as ‘psychologist’on their teachable homepage), who has collaborated with Chris previously. He has a girlfriend and one son.

He is a recovering addict (with 7yrs clean and sober), and formerly worked as an alumni coordinator at a treatment center. Chris now runs a channel that was once billed as a mental health channel, but that he knows refers to as a commentary channel. He has written several books and offers online mental health courses, and is being certified as a sober coach.

BetterHelp

BetterHelp is a service/app billing itself as “the world’s largest e-counseling platform”. Many Youtubers have been sponsored by BetterHelp and/or have advertised for BetterHelp, including Chris.

Many people felt it was unethical for Chris, as a mental health advocate, to accept any kind of monetary compensation in exchange for promoting a particular for-profit service. Some felt like he should, at least, state clearly in his videos that he was benefitting from BetterHelp’s success. Others felt like it should be clear, given that deals for sponsorship are common. Still others felt that because Chris is not a licensed professional, it is not unethical (or at least, not as unethical as it could be) for Chris to make sponsorship deals with a MH company.

Elle Love’s Tea’s video goes more in depth into the issues with BetterHelp and Chris.

More issues have sprung up around BetterHelp, including the quality, safety, and professionalism of the service.

Mental Health Courses

This video by Youtuber Elle Loves Tea discusses the controversy surrounding the courses themselves as well as their cost. I highly recommend this video is you want the details on this particular issue, as Elle provides a tremendous amount of sources and screencaps/clips in her video.

Credentials

Now THIS is one of the biggest controversies surrounding Chris’s channel.

At the time of the February scandal, Chris was not licensed or certified as any kind of mental health provider (he is currently being certified as a sober coach). The majority of his experience in mental health came from his mother (whom he has collaborated with), his work experience as an alumni coordinator, running meetings at the center, personal relationships with addicts, and his own experience as a recovering addict himself. These are not irrelevant or anything to sneeze at, but they are not the same as a degree or the clinical work experience that a doctor, nurse, social worker, etc. would have.

That said, in many of his videos, he is not specific about his qualifications. Sometimes as unclear as saying he “worked with addicts” or “worked at a treatment center” or even saying he is a “mental health professional”. It can be argued that, by being vague in describing the capacity in which he was involved with the treatment center, that Chris was being misleading.

That’s not to say he lied, just that by only saying you have ‘worked with’ recovering addicts and not HOW, you allow people’s own biases in thought to flourish, and a lot of people will hear ‘worked with’ and assume a clinical role.

Again, that’s not Chris’s fault per se, but it is a misconception that would have been easy to correct. In fact, it was easy to correct, because it should be noted that Chris has done a few videos on his role at the center, and in his newer videos often clarifies his experiences and lack of degree.

Further, many are now unsure of just how qualified his mother, Dr. Carrie Randazzo, is as well.  

Diagnosing and Treating

As someone without the proper schooling and licensing, Chris cannot professionally diagnose someone with a mental or physical condition.

There are at least two examples of this happening anyways, as well as multiple instances where an issue was implied but not outright stated.

In the first, he claims Trisha Paytas (more about her below) has BPD. While this clip exists, it has been speculated that she was joking or not serious, and she has not since claimed to have BPD.  

In the second, Leif E. Greenz, another Youtuber, was the person in question. Leif. E had previously been diagnosed with BPD, but believes it was a misdiagnosis. At the time of this scandal she believed it was more likely C-PTSD. It should be noted that this was NOT the only diagnosis she had ever received, or her most recent, so it does not make sense to assume that she has/had it. Except he did.

Beyond that, some people think Chris’s descriptions of his knowledge of addiction treatment crosses over into medical advice, as opposed to simply sharing experience. Worse, they say it is incorrect information.

For example, look at his older video regarding suboxone and his newer videos about suboxone maintenance as well as several responses to the latter video.

Problems with the Mental Health and Recovery Communities

Bipolar Corner (Gary) in particular does not like Chris, and has several videos explaining just why that is. It’s a very complex situation that Gary has many videos about, so I highly recommend watching a few to understand what is going on.

Dr1ven Industries has expressed concern over Chris’s actions as well.

Youtuber According to Jexi, who has almost the same amount of sober time as Chris, has also called out his behaviors as being detrimental to the recovery community.

These are far from the only MH or recovery bloggers who have had issues with TRS, but they are some of the most vocal.

Trisha Paytas

Trisha Paytas is a Youtuber, singer, dancer, and entertainer. She has been vlogging since 2006 (according to her wikipedia), and has made many music videos. Trisha has admitted to using drugs in the past, and in May posted about her most recent opiod withdrawals. While many (including Chris) have speculated that she is faking the withdrawals, most people believe that he does indeed have a history of drug use (and may still be using), as well as other mental illnesses.

Chris has made multiple videos about Trisha, to the point where she has called him out for it. She has accused him of attacking her and overstepping into her life, especially with the personal nature of his comments and her videos. He has commented on her relationships, sobriety, mental health, etc (please see links below for example, there are too many to hyperlink here).

Regardless of how one feels about Trisha, it is clear that Chris did make a lot of videos about her, often very close together timewise. Even now, that hasn’t changed. Below are the videos from his channel about Trisha that Youtube says are from the last month.

Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Link 4 Link 5 Link 6 Link 7 Link 8 Link 9 Link 10 Link 11Link 12

Note that up to link 12, Youtube says these are all from the last month (give or take, as Youtube’s definition of ‘within the last month’ is pretty loose). That’s twelve videos about one person within a month or two. Like Trisha or not, that’s a lot.

If you search for her name on his channel, you’ll get dozens of videos. This isn’t new, either, as some of the videos date back quite a ways.

Problems with Other Youtubers

Other Youtubers have also expressed displeasure with how Chris talks about theirs lives, including Bobby Burns (who Chris has accused of using drugs (sorry the original video has been removed, but Primink discusses it and uses clips here)).

He also once lambasted a Youtuber for not sharing about her very personal experience with BPD, claiming she had an obligation to share (this, despite the fact that he seems to think any public facts about a person are fair game for discussion).

These are only two examples, but there are many more.

Part of this problem is that these videos are not designed to help the subject but the viewer. These meant a lot of click-baity titles and thumbnails (often on videos that barely or never actually discussed the youtuber mentioned), overly personal exploration into other people’s lives (with the excuse that it was public information already, and after all, he was using it to help people), unsolicited advice, etc.

The February/March Scandal

Around the beginning of February 2019 through to March 2019, TRS was a hot topic on Youtube. For the most part, it seemed to be a combination of a lot of factors - his lack of credentials, whether he was diagnosing people, whether he was acting ethically as a MH Youtuber/advocate, his general tone and attitude, Trisha Paytas’s responses, etc.

To make matters worse, he then messaged several drama channels about Trisha, ended up blocking most of them, posted a video many saw as threatening, and eventually posted an apology and took a break from Youtube (he would later come back as a commentary channel).

Here are Chris’s videos regarding the scandal. Please note that several of the videos he made were removed, but you can see clips of some of them in other reponse videos.

Video 1 (re: Primink’s first video, prior to the main drama but during the time things were ramping up)

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Apology Videos 1 2 and 3

Reupload of his deleted video

Here are some videos (from both drama and MH channels alike) regarding the scandal. Please note the inclusion of any video in this list does not mean I endorse or agree with it, just that it offers a view on the issue that I felt was relevant. There are many more videos that I chose not to include for various reasons. Please be aware that many of these videos were linked earlier in this article, so you may see a video that I’ve already mentioned.

Links are in alphabetical order by Youtuber name, then by order uploaded.  

Ashley Kyle

Creepshow Art

Crimson Studios

Dr1ven Industries

Dustin Dailey Video 1 Dustin Dailey Video 2

Elle Loves Tea Video 1 Elle Loves Tea Video 2 Elle Loves Tea Video 3

Hedda Gold Video 1 Hedda Gold Video 2

Internet Infamous

j aubrey

Petty Paige

Primink Video 1 Primink Video 2

Psych IRL

Smokey Glow Video 1 Smokey Glow Video 2

Syren Cove

Tea by Ali Video 1 Tea by Ali Video 2 Tea by Ali Video 3

The Viewer’s Voice Video 1 The Viewer’s Voice Video 2

Drama, Commentary, or Mental Health?

This is the crux of the issue.

When Chris tweeted about how he was “leaving the toxic ass drama community”, he not only offended the drama community, contradicted his previous statements that he was not a drama channel, etc., but he also brought up some important questions.

Firstly, what divides a drama channel from a mental health channel from a commentary channel? Where are the lines, and what is the acceptable behavior for each one?

Is it ethical for someone, even someone who is not a mental health professional, to delve into people’s lives like that? Is it ethical to call oneself a mental health advocate when people claim your advocacy is hurting them?

Is it worth it to tear apart one person’s private life to discuss a topic you think is important? Is it worth it if it’s for views? What is too private, and what is fair game?

[latestnews2018-blog]

For IGTV, Instagram needs slow to mean steady

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/for-igtv-instagram-needs-slow-to-mean-steady/

For IGTV, Instagram needs slow to mean steady

Instagram has never truly failed at anything, but judging by modest initial view counts, IGTV could get stuck with a reputation as an abandoned theater if the company isn’t careful. It’s no flop, but the long-form video hub certainly isn’t an instant hit like Instagram Stories. Two months after that launched in 2016, Instagram was happy to trumpet how its Snapchat clone had hit 100 million users. Yet two months after IGTV’s launch, the Facebook subsidiary has been silent on its traction.

“It’s a new format. It’s different. We have to wait for people to adopt it and that takes time,” Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom told me. “Think of it this way: we just invested in a startup called IGTV, but it’s small, and it’s like Instagram was ‘early days.’”

It’s indeed too early for a scientific analysis, and Instagram’s feed has been around since 2010, so it’s obviously not a fair comparison, but we took a look at the IGTV view counts of some of the feature’s launch partner creators. Across six of those creators, their recent feed videos are getting roughly 6.8X as many views as their IGTV posts. If IGTV’s launch partners that benefited from early access and guidance aren’t doing so hot, it means there’s likely no free view count bonanza in store from other creators or regular users.

They, and IGTV, will have to work for their audience. That’s already proving difficult for the standalone IGTV app. Though it peaked at the #25 overall US iPhone app and has seen 2.5 million downloads across iOS and Android according to Sensor Tower, it’s since dropped to #1497 and seen a 94 percent decrease in weekly installs to just 70,000 last week.

Instagram will have to be in it for the long haul if it wants to win at long-form video. Entering the market 13 years after YouTube with a vertical format no one’s quite sure what to do with, IGTV must play the tortoise. If it can avoid getting scrapped or buried, and offer the right incentives and flexibility to creators, IGTV could deliver the spontaneous video viewing experience Instagram lacks. Otherwise, IGTV risks becoming the next Google Plus — a ghost town inside an otherwise thriving product ecosystem.

A glitzy, glitchy start

Instagram gave IGTV a red carpet premiere June 20th in hopes of making it look like the new digital hotspot. The San Francisco launch event offered attendees several types of avocado toast, spa water and ‘Gram-worthy portrait backdrops reminiscent of the Color Factory or Museum of Ice Cream. Instagram hadn’t held a flashy press event since the 2013 launch of video sharing, so it pulled out all the stops. Balloon sculptures lined the entrance to a massive warehouse packed with social media stars and ad execs shouting to each other over the din of the DJ.

But things were rocky from the start. Leaks led TechCrunch to report on the IGTV name and details in the preceding weeks. Technical difficulties with Systrom’s presentation pushed back the start, but not the rollout of IGTV’s code. Tipster Jane Manchun Wong sent TechCrunch screenshots of the new app and features a half hour before it was announced, and Instagram’s own Business Blog jumped the gun by posting details of the launch. The web already knew how IGTV would let people upload vertical videos up to an hour long and browse them through categories like “Popular” and “For You” by the time Systrom took the stage.

IGTV’s launch event featured Instagram-themed donuts and elaborate portrait backdrops. Images via Vicki’s Donuts and Mai Lanpham

“What I’m most proud of is that Instagram took a stand and tried a brand new thing that is frankly hard to pull off. Full-screen vertical video that’s mobile only. That doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Systrom tells me. It was indeed ambitious. Creators were already comfortable making short-form vertical Snapchat Stories by the time Instagram launched its own version. IGTV would have to start from scratch.

Systrom sees the steep learning curve as a differentiator, though. “One of the things I like most about the new format is that it’s actually fairly difficult to just take videos that exist online and simply repost them. That’s not true in feed. That basically forces everyone to create new stuff,” Systrom tells me. “It’s not to say that there isn’t other stuff on there but in general it incentivizes people to produce new things from scratch. And that’s really what we’re looking for. Even if the volume of that stuff at the beginning is smaller than what you might see on the popular page [of Instagram Explore].”

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom unveils IGTV at the glitzy June 20th launch event

Instagram forced creators to adopt this proprietary format. But it forget to train Stories stars how to entertain us for five or 15 minutes, not 15 seconds, or convince landscape YouTube moguls to purposefully shoot or crop their clips for the way we normally hold our phones.

IGTV’s Popular page features plenty of random viral pap, foreign language content, and poor cropping

That should have been the real purpose of the launch party — demonstrating a variety of ways to turn these format constraints or lack thereof into unique content. Vertical video frames people better than places, and the length allows sustained eye-to-lens contacts that can engender an emotional connection. But a shallow array of initial content and too much confidence that creators would figure it out on their own deprived IGTV of emergent norms that other videographers could emulate to wet their feet.

Now IGTV feels haphazard, with trashy viral videos and miscropped ports amongst its Popular section alongside a few creators trying to produce made-for-IGTV talk shows and cooking tutorials. It’s yet to have its breakout “Chewbacca Mom” or “Rubberbanded Watermelon” blockbuster like Facebook Live. Even an interview with mega celeb Kylie Jenner only had 11,000 views.

Instagram wants to put the focus on the author, not the individual works of art. “Because we don’t have full text search and you can’t just search any random thing, it’s about the creators” Systrom explains. “I think that at its base level that it’s personality driven and creator driven means that you’re going to get really unique content that you won’t find anywhere else and that’s the goal.”

Yet being unique requires extra effort that creators might not invest if they’re unsure of the payoff in either reach or revenue. Michael Sayman, formerly Facebook’s youngest employee who was hired at age 17 to build apps for teens and who now works for Google, summed it up saying: “Many times in my own career, I’ve tried to make something with a unique spin or a special twist because I felt that’s the only way I could make my product stand out from the crowd, only to realize that it was those very twists and spins that made my products feel out of place and confusing to users. Sometimes, the best product is one that doesn’t create any new twists, but rather perfects and builds on top of what has been proven to already be extremely successful.”

A fraction of feed views

The one big surprise of the launch event was where IGTV would exist. Instagram announced it’d live in a standalone IGTV app, but also as a feature in the main app accessible from an orange button atop the home screen that would occasionally call out that new content was inside. It could have had its own carousel like Stories or been integrated into Explore until it was ready for primetime.

Instead, it was ignorable. IGTV didn’t get the benefit of the home screen spotlight like Instagram Stories. Blow past that one orange button and avoid downloading the separate app, and users could go right on tapping and scrolling through Instagram without coming across IGTV’s longer videos.

View counts of the launch partners reflect that. We looked at six launch partner creators, comparing their last six feed and IGTV videos older than a week and less than six months old, or fewer videos if that’s all they’d posted.

Only one of the six, BabyAriel, saw an obvious growth trend in her IGTV videos. Her candid IGTV monologues are performing the best of the six compared to feed. She’s earning an average of 243,000 views per IGTV video, about a third as many as she gets on her feed videos. “I’m really happy with my view counts because IGTV is just starting” BabyAriel tells me. She thinks the format will be good for behind-the-scenes clips that complement her longer YouTube videos and shorter Stories. “When I record anything, It’s vertical. When I turn my phone horizontal I think of an hour-long movie.”

Lele Pons, a Latin American comedy and music star who’s one of the most popular Instagram celebrities, gets about 5.7X more feed views than on her IGTV cooking show that averages 1.9 million hits. Instagram posted some IGTV highlights from the first month, but the most popular of now has 4.3 million views — less than half of what Pons gets on her average feed video.

Fitness guides from Katie Austin averaged just 3,600 views on IGTV while she gets 7.5X more in the feed. Lauren Godwin’s colorful comedy fared 5.2X better in the feed. Bryce Xavier saw the biggest differential, earning 15.9X more views for his dance and culture videos. And in the most direct comparison, K-Pop dancer Susie Shu sometimes posts cuts from the same performance to the two destinations, like one that got 273,000 views in feed but just 27,000 on IGTV, with similar clips fairing an average of 7.8X better.

Again, this isn’t to say IGTV is a lame horse. It just isn’t roaring out of the gates. Systrom remains optimistic about inventing a new format. “The question is can we pull that off and the early signs are really good,” he tells me. “We’ve been pretty blown away by the reception and the usage upfront,” though he declined to share any specific statistics. Instagram promised to provide more insight into traction in the future.

YouTube star Casey Neistat is less bullish. He doesn’t think IGTV is working and that engagement has been weak. If IGTV views were surpassing those of YouTube, creators would flock to it, but so far view counts are uninspiring and not worth diverting creative attention, Neistat says. “YouTube offers the best sit-back consumption, and Stories offers active consumption. Where does IGTV fit in? I’m not sure” he tells me. “Why create all of this unique content if it gets lower views, it’s not monetizable, and the viewers aren’t there?”

Susie Shu averages 7.8X more video views in the Instagram feed than on IGTV

For now, the combination of an unfamiliar format, the absence of direction for how to use it and the relatively buried placement has likely tempered IGTV’s traction. Two months in, Instagram Stories was proving itself an existential threat to Snapchat — which it’s in fact become. IGTV doesn’t pose the same danger to YouTube yet, and it will need a strategy to support a more slow-burn trajectory.

The chicken and the IG problem

The first step to becoming a real YouTube challenger is to build up some tent-pole content that gives people a reason to open IGTV. Until there’s something that captures attention, any cross-promotion traffic Instagram sends it will be like pouring water into a bucket with a giant hole in the bottom. Yet until there’s enough viewers, it’s tough to persuade creators to shoot for IGTV since it won’t do a ton to boost their fan base.

Fortnite champion Ninja shares a photo of IGTV launch partners gathered backstage at the press event

Meanwhile, Instagram hasn’t committed to a monetization or revenue-sharing strategy for IGTV. Systrom said at the launch that “There’s no ads in IGTV today,” but noted it’s “obviously a very reasonable place [for ads] to end up.” Without enough views, though, ads won’t earn enough for a revenue split to incentivize creators. Perhaps Instagram will heavily integrate its in-app shopping features and sponsored content partnerships, but even those rely on having more traffic. Vine withered at Twitter in part from creators bailing due to its omission of native monetization options.

So how does IGTV solve the chicken-and-egg problem? It may need to swallow its pride and pay early adopters directly for content until it racks up enough views to offer sustainable revenue sharing. Instagram has never publicly copped to paying for content before, unlike its parent Facebook, which offered stipends ranging into the millions of dollars for publishers to shoot Live broadcasts and long-form Watch shows. Neither have led to a booming viewership, but perhaps that’s because Facebook has lost its edge with the teens who love video.

Instagram could do better if it paid the right creators to weather IGTV’s initial slim pickings. Settling on ad strategy creators can count on earning money from in the future might also get them to hang tight. Those deals could mimic the 55 percent split of mid-roll ad breaks Facebook gives creators on some videos. But again, the views must come first.

Alternatively, or additionally, it could double down on the launch strategy of luring creators with the potential to become the big fish in IGTV’s small-for-now pond. Backroom deals to trade being highlighted in its IGTV algorithm in exchange for high-quality content could win the hearts of these stars and their managers. Instagram would be wise to pair these incentives with vertical long-form video content creation workshops. It could bring its community, product and analytics leaders together with partnered stars to suss out what works best in the format and help them shoot it.

The cross-promo spigot

Once there’s something worth watching on IGTV, the company could open the cross-promo traffic spigot. At first, Instagram would send notifications about top content or IGTV posts from people you follow, and call them out with a little orange text banner atop its main app. Now it seems to understand it will need to be more coercive.

Last month, TechCrunch tipster Jane Manchun Wong spotted Instagram showing promos for individual IGTV shows in the middle of the feed, hoping to redirect eyeballs there. And today, TechCrunch researcher Matt Navarra found Instagram getting more aggressive by putting a bigger call out featuring a relevant IGTV clip with preview image above your Stories tray on the home screen. It may need to boost the frequency of these cross-promotions and stick them in-between Stories and Explore sections as well to give IGTV the limelight. These could expose users to creators they don’t follow already but might enjoy.

“It’s still early but I do think there’s a lot of potential when they figure out two things since the feature is so new,” says John Shahidi, who runs the Justin Bieber-backed Shots Studios, which produces and distributes content for Lele Pons, Rudy Mancuso and other Insta celebs. “1. Product. IGTV is not in your face so Instagram users aren’t changing behavior to consume. Timeline and Instagram Stories are in your face so those two are the most used features. 2. Discoverability. I want to see videos from people I don’t follow. Interesting stuff like cooking, product review, interesting content from brands but without following the accounts.” In the meantime, Shots Studios is launching a vertical-only channel on YouTube that Shahidi believes is the first of its kind.

Instagram will have to balance its strategic imperative to grow the long-form video hub and avoid spamming users until they hate the brand as a whole. Some think it’s already gone too far. “I think it’s super intrusive right now,” says Tiffany Zhong, once known as the world’s youngest venture capitalist who now runs Generation Z consulting firm Zebra Intelligence. “I personally find all the IGTV videos super boring and click out within seconds (and the only time I watch them are if I accidentally tapped on the icon when I tried to go to my DMs instead).” Desperately funneling traffic to the feature before there’s enough great content to power relevant recommendations for everyone could prematurely sour users on IGTV. 

Systrom remains optimistic he can iterate his way to success. “What I want to see over the next six to 12 months is a consistent drumbeat of new features that both consumers and creators are asking for, and to look at the retention curve and say ‘are people continuing to watch? Are people continuing to upload?,’” says Systrom. “So far we are seeing that all of those are healthy. But again trying to judge a very new kind of audacious format that’s never really been done before in the first months is going to be really hard.”

Differentiator or deterrent?

The biggest question remains whether IGTV will remain devout to the orthodoxy of vertical-only. Loosening up to accept landscape videos too might nullify a differentiator, but also pipe in a flood of content it could then algorithmically curate to bootstrap IGTV’s library. Reducing the friction by allowing people to easily port content to or from elsewhere might make it feel like less of a gamble for creators deciding where to put their production resources. Instagram itself expanded from square-only to portrait and landscape photos in the feed in 2015.

“My advice would be to make the videos horizontal. We’ve all come to understand vertical as ‘short form’ and horizontal as ‘long form,’” says Sayman. “It’s in the act of rotating your phone to landscape that you indicate to yourself and to your mobile device that you will not be context switching for the next few minutes, but rather intend to focus on one piece of content for an extended period of time.” This would at least give users more to watch, even if they ended up viewing landscape videos with their phones in portrait orientation.

This might be best as a last-ditch effort if it can’t get enough content flowing in through other means. But at least Instagram should offer a cropping tool that lets users manually select what vertical slice of a landscape video they want to show as they watch, rather than just grabbing the center or picking one area on the side for the whole clip. This could let creators repurpose landscape videos without things getting awkwardly half cut out of frame.

Former Facebook employee and social investor Josh Elman, who now works at Robinhood, told me he’s confident the company will experiment as much as necessary. “I think Facebook is relentless. They know that a ton of consumers watch video online. And most discover videos through influencers or their friends. (Or Netflix). Even though Watch and IGTV haven’t taken the world by storm yet, I bet Facebook won’t stop until they find the right mix.”

There’s a goldmine waiting if it does. Unlike on Facebook, there’s no Regram feature, you can’t post links, and outside of Explore you just see who you already follow on Instagram. That’s made it great at delivering friendly video and clips from your favorite stars, but leaves a gaping hole where serendipitous viewing could be. IGTV fills that gap. The hours people spend on Facebook watching random videos and their accompanying commercials have lifted the company to over $13 billion in revenue per quarter. Giving a younger audience a bottomless pit of full-screen video could produce the same behavior and profits on Instagram without polluting the feed, which can remain the purest manifestation of visual feed culture. But that’s only if IGTV can get enough content uploaded.

Puffed up by the success of besting its foe Snapchat, Instagram assumed it could take the long-form video world by storm. But the grand entrance at its debutante ball didn’t draw enough attention. Now it needs to take a different tack. Tone down the cross-promo for the moment. Concentrate on teaching creators how to find what works on the format and incentivizing them with cash and traffic. Develop some must-see IGTV and stoke a viral blockbuster. Prove the gravity of extended, personality-driven vertical video. Only then should it redirect traffic there from the feed, Stories, and Explore.

YouTube’s library wasn’t built overnight, and neither will IGTV’s. Facebook’s deep pockets and the success of Instagram’s other features give it the runway necessary to let IGTV take off. With 1 billion monthly users, and 400 million daily Stories users gathered in just two years, there are plenty of eyeballs waiting to be seduced. Systrom concludes, “Everything that is great starts small.” IGTV’s destiny will depend on Instagram’s patience.

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttp://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

[technicalsolutions88]

Instagram has never truly failed at anything, but judging by modest initial view counts, IGTV could get stuck with a reputation as an abandoned theater if the company isn’t careful. It’s no flop, but the long-form video hub certainly isn’t an instant hit like Instagram Stories. Two months after that launched in 2016, Instagram was happy to trumpet how its Snapchat clone had hit 100 million users. Yet two months after IGTV’s launch, the Facebook subsidiary has been silent on its traction.

“It’s a new format. It’s different. We have to wait for people to adopt it and that takes time,” Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom told me. “Think of it this way: we just invested in a startup called IGTV, but it’s small, and it’s like Instagram was ‘early days.'”

It’s indeed too early for a scientific analysis, and Instagram’s feed has been around since 2010, so it’s obviously not a fair comparison, but we took a look at the IGTV view counts of some of the feature’s launch partner creators. Across six of those creators, their recent feed videos are getting roughly 6.8X as many views as their IGTV posts. If IGTV’s launch partners that benefited from early access and guidance aren’t doing so hot, it means there’s likely no free view count bonanza in store from other creators or regular users.

They, and IGTV, will have to work for their audience. That’s already proving difficult for the standalone IGTV app. Though it peaked at the #25 overall US iPhone app and has seen 2.5 million downloads across iOS and Android according to Sensor Tower, it’s since dropped to #1497 and seen a 94 percent decrease in weekly installs to just 70,000 last week.

Instagram will have to be in it for the long haul if it wants to win at long-form video. Entering the market 13 years after YouTube with a vertical format no one’s quite sure what to do with, IGTV must play the tortoise. If it can avoid getting scrapped or buried, and offer the right incentives and flexibility to creators, IGTV could deliver the spontaneous video viewing experience Instagram lacks. Otherwise, IGTV risks becoming the next Google Plus — a ghost town inside an otherwise thriving product ecosystem.

A glitzy, glitchy start

Instagram gave IGTV a red carpet premiere June 20th in hopes of making it look like the new digital hotspot. The San Francisco launch event offered attendees several types of avocado toast, spa water and ‘Gram-worthy portrait backdrops reminiscent of the Color Factory or Museum of Ice Cream. Instagram hadn’t held a flashy press event since the 2013 launch of video sharing, so it pulled out all the stops. Balloon sculptures lined the entrance to a massive warehouse packed with social media stars and ad execs shouting to each other over the din of the DJ.

But things were rocky from the start. Leaks led TechCrunch to report on the IGTV name and details in the preceding weeks. Technical difficulties with Systrom’s presentation pushed back the start, but not the rollout of IGTV’s code. Tipster Jane Manchun Wong sent TechCrunch screenshots of the new app and features a half hour before it was announced, and Instagram’s own Business Blog jumped the gun by posting details of the launch. The web already knew how IGTV would let people upload vertical videos up to an hour long and browse them through categories like “Popular” and “For You” by the time Systrom took the stage.

IGTV’s launch event featured Instagram-themed donuts and elaborate portrait backdrops. Images via Vicki’s Donuts and Mai Lanpham

“What I’m most proud of is that Instagram took a stand and tried a brand new thing that is frankly hard to pull off. Full-screen vertical video that’s mobile only. That doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Systrom tells me. It was indeed ambitious. Creators were already comfortable making short-form vertical Snapchat Stories by the time Instagram launched its own version. IGTV would have to start from scratch.

Systrom sees the steep learning curve as a differentiator, though. “One of the things I like most about the new format is that it’s actually fairly difficult to just take videos that exist online and simply repost them. That’s not true in feed. That basically forces everyone to create new stuff,” Systrom tells me. “It’s not to say that there isn’t other stuff on there but in general it incentivizes people to produce new things from scratch. And that’s really what we’re looking for. Even if the volume of that stuff at the beginning is smaller than what you might see on the popular page [of Instagram Explore].”

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom unveils IGTV at the glitzy June 20th launch event

Instagram forced creators to adopt this proprietary format. But it forget to train Stories stars how to entertain us for five or 15 minutes, not 15 seconds, or convince landscape YouTube moguls to purposefully shoot or crop their clips for the way we normally hold our phones.

IGTV’s Popular page features plenty of random viral pap, foreign language content, and poor cropping

That should have been the real purpose of the launch party — demonstrating a variety of ways to turn these format constraints or lack thereof into unique content. Vertical video frames people better than places, and the length allows sustained eye-to-lens contacts that can engender an emotional connection. But a shallow array of initial content and too much confidence that creators would figure it out on their own deprived IGTV of emergent norms that other videographers could emulate to wet their feet.

Now IGTV feels haphazard, with trashy viral videos and miscropped ports amongst its Popular section alongside a few creators trying to produce made-for-IGTV talk shows and cooking tutorials. It’s yet to have its breakout “Chewbacca Mom” or “Rubberbanded Watermelon” blockbuster like Facebook Live. Even an interview with mega celeb Kylie Jenner only had 11,000 views.

Instagram wants to put the focus on the author, not the individual works of art. “Because we don’t have full text search and you can’t just search any random thing, it’s about the creators” Systrom explains. “I think that at its base level that it’s personality driven and creator driven means that you’re going to get really unique content that you won’t find anywhere else and that’s the goal.”

Yet being unique requires extra effort that creators might not invest if they’re unsure of the payoff in either reach or revenue. Michael Sayman, formerly Facebook’s youngest employee who was hired at age 17 to build apps for teens and who now works for Google, summed it up saying: “Many times in my own career, I’ve tried to make something with a unique spin or a special twist because I felt that’s the only way I could make my product stand out from the crowd, only to realize that it was those very twists and spins that made my products feel out of place and confusing to users. Sometimes, the best product is one that doesn’t create any new twists, but rather perfects and builds on top of what has been proven to already be extremely successful.”

A fraction of feed views

The one big surprise of the launch event was where IGTV would exist. Instagram announced it’d live in a standalone IGTV app, but also as a feature in the main app accessible from an orange button atop the home screen that would occasionally call out that new content was inside. But in essence, it was ignorable. IGTV didn’t get the benefit of being splayed out atop Instagram like Stories did. Blow past that one button and avoid downloading the separate app, and users could go right on tapping and scrolling through Instagram without coming across IGTV’s longer videos.

View counts of the launch partners reflect that. We looked at six launch partner creators, comparing their last six feed and IGTV videos older than a week and less than six months old, or fewer videos if that’s all they’d posted.

Only one of the six, BabyAriel, saw an obvious growth trend in her IGTV videos. Her candid IGTV monologues are performing the best of the six compared to feed. She’s earning an average of 243,000 views per IGTV video, about a third as many as she gets on her feed videos. “I’m really happy with my view counts because IGTV is just starting” BabyAriel tells me. She thinks the format will be good for behind-the-scenes clips that complement her longer YouTube videos and shorter Stories. “When I record anything, It’s vertical. When I turn my phone horizontal I think of an hour-long movie.”

Lele Pons, a Latin American comedy and music star who’s one of the most popular Instagram celebrities, gets about 5.7X more feed views than on her IGTV cooking show that averages 1.9 million hits. Instagram posted some IGTV highlights from the first month, but the most popular of now has 4.3 million views — less than half of what Pons gets on her average feed video.

Fitness guides from Katie Austin averaged just 3,600 views on IGTV while she gets 7.5X more in the feed. Lauren Godwin’s colorful comedy fared 5.2X better in the feed. Bryce Xavier saw the biggest differential, earning 15.9X more views for his dance and culture videos. And in the most direct comparison, K-Pop dancer Susie Shu sometimes posts cuts from the same performance to the two destinations, like one that got 273,000 views in feed but just 27,000 on IGTV, with similar clips fairing an average of 7.8X better.

Again, this isn’t to say IGTV is a lame horse. It just isn’t roaring out of the gates. Systrom remains optimistic about inventing a new format. “The question is can we pull that off and the early signs are really good,” he tells me. “We’ve been pretty blown away by the reception and the usage upfront,” though he declined to share any specific statistics. Instagram promised to provide more insight into traction in the future.

YouTube star Casey Neistat is less bullish. He doesn’t think IGTV is working and that engagement has been weak. If IGTV views were surpassing those of YouTube, creators would flock to it, but so far view counts are uninspiring and not worth diverting creative attention, Neistat says. “YouTube offers the best sit-back consumption, and Stories offers active consumption. Where does IGTV fit in? I’m not sure” he tells me. “Why create all of this unique content if it gets lower views, it’s not monetizable, and the viewers aren’t there?”

Susie Shu averages 7.8X more video views in the Instagram feed than on IGTV

For now, the combination of an unfamiliar format, the absence of direction for how to use it and the relatively buried placement has likely tempered IGTV’s traction. Two months in, Instagram Stories was proving itself an existential threat to Snapchat — which it’s in fact become. IGTV doesn’t pose the same danger to YouTube yet, and it will need a strategy to support a more slow-burn trajectory.

The chicken and the IG problem

The first step to becoming a real YouTube challenger is to build up some tent-pole content that gives people a reason to open IGTV. Until there’s something that captures attention, any cross-promotion traffic Instagram sends it will be like pouring water into a bucket with a giant hole in the bottom. Yet until there’s enough viewers, it’s tough to persuade creators to shoot for IGTV since it won’t do a ton to boost their fan base.

Fortnite champion Ninja shares a photo of IGTV launch partners gathered backstage at the press event

Meanwhile, Instagram hasn’t committed to a monetization or revenue-sharing strategy for IGTV. Systrom said at the launch that “There’s no ads in IGTV today,” but noted it’s “obviously a very reasonable place [for ads] to end up.” Without enough views, though, ads won’t earn enough for a revenue split to incentivize creators. Perhaps Instagram will heavily integrate its in-app shopping features and sponsored content partnerships, but even those rely on having more traffic. Vine withered at Twitter in part from creators bailing due to its omission of native monetization options.

So how does IGTV solve the chicken-and-egg problem? It may need to swallow its pride and pay early adopters directly for content until it racks up enough views to offer sustainable revenue sharing. Instagram has never publicly copped to paying for content before, unlike its parent Facebook, which offered stipends ranging into the millions of dollars for publishers to shoot Live broadcasts and long-form Watch shows. Neither have led to a booming viewership, but perhaps that’s because Facebook has lost its edge with the teens who love video.

Instagram could do better if it paid the right creators to weather IGTV’s initial slim pickings. Settling on ad strategy creators can count on earning money from in the future might also get them to hang tight. Those deals could mimic the 55 percent split of mid-roll ad breaks Facebook gives creators on some videos. But again, the views must come first.

Alternatively, or additionally, it could double down on the launch strategy of luring creators with the potential to become the big fish in IGTV’s small-for-now pond. Backroom deals to trade being highlighted in its IGTV algorithm in exchange for high-quality content could win the hearts of these stars and their managers. Instagram would be wise to pair these incentives with vertical long-form video content creation workshops. It could bring its community, product and analytics leaders together with partnered stars to suss out what works best in the format and help them shoot it.

The cross-promo spigot

Once there’s something worth watching on IGTV, the company could open the cross-promo traffic spigot. At first, Instagram would send notifications about top content or IGTV posts from people you follow, and call them out with a little orange text banner atop its main app. Now it seems to understand it will need to be more coercive.

Last month, TechCrunch spotted Instagram showing promos for individual IGTV shows in the middle of the feed, hoping to redirect eyeballs there. And today, we found Instagram getting more aggressive by putting a bigger call out featuring a relevant IGTV clip with preview image above your Stories tray on the home screen. It may need to boost the frequency of these cross-promotions and stick them in-between Stories and Explore sections as well to give IGTV the limelight. These could expose users to creators they don’t follow already but might enjoy.

“It’s still early but I do think there’s a lot of potential when they figure out two things since the feature is so new,” says John Shahidi, who runs the Justin Bieber-backed Shots Studios, which produces and distributes content for Lele Pons, Rudy Mancuso and other Insta celebs. “1. Product. IGTV is not in your face so Instagram users aren’t changing behavior to consume. Timeline and Instagram Stories are in your face so those two are the most used features. 2. Discoverability. I want to see videos from people I don’t follow. Interesting stuff like cooking, product review, interesting content from brands but without following the accounts.” In the meantime, Shots Studios is launching a vertical-only channel on YouTube that Shahidi believes is the first of its kind.

Instagram will have to balance its strategic imperative to grow the long-form video hub and avoid spamming users until they hate the brand as a whole. Some think it’s already gone too far. “I think it’s super intrusive right now,” says Tiffany Zhong, once known as the world’s youngest venture capitalist who now runs Generation Z consulting firm Zebra Intelligence. “I personally find all the IGTV videos super boring and click out within seconds (and the only time I watch them are if I accidentally tapped on the icon when I tried to go to my DMs instead).” Desperately funneling traffic to the feature before there’s enough great content to power relevant recommendations for everyone could prematurely sour users on IGTV. 

Systrom remains optimistic he can iterate his way to success. “What I want to see over the next six to 12 months is a consistent drumbeat of new features that both consumers and creators are asking for, and to look at the retention curve and say ‘are people continuing to watch? Are people continuing to upload?,'” says Systrom. “So far we are seeing that all of those are healthy. But again trying to judge a very new kind of audacious format that’s never really been done before in the first months is going to be really hard.”

Differentiator or deterrent?

The biggest question remains whether IGTV will remain devout to the orthodoxy of vertical-only. Loosening up to accept landscape videos too might nullify a differentiator, but also pipe in a flood of content it could then algorithmically curate to bootstrap IGTV’s library. Reducing the friction by allowing people to easily port content to or from elsewhere might make it feel like less of a gamble for creators deciding where to put their production resources. Instagram itself expanded from square-only to portrait and landscape photos in the feed in 2015.

“My advice would be to make the videos horizontal. We’ve all come to understand vertical as ‘short form’ and horizontal as ‘long form,'” says Sayman. “It’s in the act of rotating your phone to landscape that you indicate to yourself and to your mobile device that you will not be context switching for the next few minutes, but rather intend to focus on one piece of content for an extended period of time.” This would at least give users more to watch, even if they ended up viewing landscape videos with their phones in portrait orientation.

This might be best as a last-ditch effort if it can’t get enough content flowing in through other means. But at least Instagram should offer a cropping tool that lets users manually select what vertical slice of a landscape video they want to show as they watch, rather than just grabbing the center or picking one area on the side for the whole clip. This could let creators repurpose landscape videos without things getting awkwardly half cut out of frame.

Former Facebook employee and social investor Josh Elman, who now works at Robinhood, told me he’s confident the company will experiment as much as necessary. “I think Facebook is relentless. They know that a ton of consumers watch video online. And most discover videos through influencers or their friends. (Or Netflix). Even though Watch and IGTV haven’t taken the world by storm yet, I bet Facebook won’t stop until they find the right mix.”

There’s a goldmine waiting if it does. Unlike on Facebook, there’s no Regram feature, you can’t post links, and outside of Explore you just see who you already follow on Instagram. That’s made it great at delivering friendly video and clips from your favorite stars, but leaves a gaping hole where serendipitous viewing could be. IGTV fills that gap. The hours people spend on Facebook watching random videos and their accompanying commercials have lifted the company to over $13 billion in revenue per quarter. Giving a younger audience a bottomless pit of full-screen video could produce the same behavior and profits on Instagram without polluting the feed, which can remain the purest manifestation of visual feed culture. But that’s only if IGTV can get enough content uploaded.

Puffed up by the success of besting its foe Snapchat, Instagram assumed it could take the long-form video world by storm. But the grand entrance at its debutante ball didn’t draw enough attention. Now it needs to take a different tack. Tone down the cross-promo for the moment. Concentrate on teaching creators how to find what works on the format and incentivizing them with cash and traffic. Develop some must-see IGTV and stoke a viral blockbuster. Prove the gravity of extended, personality-driven vertical video. Only then should it redirect traffic there from the feed, Stories, and Explore.

YouTube’s library wasn’t built overnight, and neither will IGTV’s. Facebook’s deep pockets and the success of Instagram’s other features give it the runway necessary to let IGTV take off. With 1 billion monthly users, and 400 million daily Stories users gathered in just two years, there are plenty of eyeballs waiting to be seduced. Systrom concludes, “Everything that is great starts small.” IGTV’s destiny will depend on Instagram’s patience.

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2o9VBgD ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/

[sheminecrafts]

For IGTV, Instagram needs slow to mean steady

Instagram has never truly failed at anything, but judging by modest initial view counts, IGTV could get stuck with a reputation as an abandoned theater if the company isn’t careful. It’s no flop, but the long-form video hub certainly isn’t an instant hit like Instagram Stories. Two months after that launched in 2016, Instagram was happy to trumpet how its Snapchat clone had hit 100 million users. Yet two months after IGTV’s launch, the Facebook subsidiary has been silent on its traction.

“It’s a new format. It’s different. We have to wait for people to adopt it and that takes time,” Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom told me. “Think of it this way: we just invested in a startup called IGTV, but it’s small, and it’s like Instagram was ‘early days.'”

It’s indeed too early for a scientific analysis, and Instagram’s feed has been around since 2010, so it’s obviously not a fair comparison, but we took a look at the IGTV view counts of some of the feature’s launch partner creators. Across six of those creators, their recent feed videos are getting roughly 6.8X as many views as their IGTV posts. If IGTV’s launch partners that benefited from early access and guidance aren’t doing so hot, it means there’s likely no free view count bonanza in store from other creators or regular users.

They, and IGTV, will have to work for their audience. That’s already proving difficult for the standalone IGTV app. Though it peaked at the #25 overall US iPhone app and has seen 2.5 million downloads across iOS and Android according to Sensor Tower, it’s since dropped to #1497 and seen a 94 percent decrease in weekly installs to just 70,000 last week.

Instagram will have to be in it for the long haul if it wants to win at long-form video. Entering the market 13 years after YouTube with a vertical format no one’s quite sure what to do with, IGTV must play the tortoise. If it can avoid getting scrapped or buried, and offer the right incentives and flexibility to creators, IGTV could deliver the spontaneous video viewing experience Instagram lacks. Otherwise, IGTV risks becoming the next Google Plus — a ghost town inside an otherwise thriving product ecosystem.

A glitzy, glitchy start

Instagram gave IGTV a red carpet premiere June 20th in hopes of making it look like the new digital hotspot. The San Francisco launch event offered attendees several types of avocado toast, spa water and ‘Gram-worthy portrait backdrops reminiscent of the Color Factory or Museum of Ice Cream. Instagram hadn’t held a flashy press event since the 2013 launch of video sharing, so it pulled out all the stops. Balloon sculptures lined the entrance to a massive warehouse packed with social media stars and ad execs shouting to each other over the din of the DJ.

But things were rocky from the start. Leaks led TechCrunch to report on the IGTV name and details in the preceding weeks. Technical difficulties with Systrom’s presentation pushed back the start, but not the rollout of IGTV’s code. Tipster Jane Manchun Wong sent TechCrunch screenshots of the new app and features a half hour before it was announced, and Instagram’s own Business Blog jumped the gun by posting details of the launch. The web already knew how IGTV would let people upload vertical videos up to an hour long and browse them through categories like “Popular” and “For You” by the time Systrom took the stage.

IGTV’s launch event featured Instagram-themed donuts and elaborate portrait backdrops. Images via Vicki’s Donuts and Mai Lanpham

“What I’m most proud of is that Instagram took a stand and tried a brand new thing that is frankly hard to pull off. Full-screen vertical video that’s mobile only. That doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Systrom tells me. It was indeed ambitious. Creators were already comfortable making short-form vertical Snapchat Stories by the time Instagram launched its own version. IGTV would have to start from scratch.

Systrom sees the steep learning curve as a differentiator, though. “One of the things I like most about the new format is that it’s actually fairly difficult to just take videos that exist online and simply repost them. That’s not true in feed. That basically forces everyone to create new stuff,” Systrom tells me. “It’s not to say that there isn’t other stuff on there but in general it incentivizes people to produce new things from scratch. And that’s really what we’re looking for. Even if the volume of that stuff at the beginning is smaller than what you might see on the popular page [of Instagram Explore].”

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom unveils IGTV at the glitzy June 20th launch event

Instagram forced creators to adopt this proprietary format. But it forget to train Stories stars how to entertain us for five or 15 minutes, not 15 seconds, or convince landscape YouTube moguls to purposefully shoot or crop their clips for the way we normally hold our phones.

IGTV’s Popular page features plenty of random viral pap, foreign language content, and poor cropping

That should have been the real purpose of the launch party — demonstrating a variety of ways to turn these format constraints or lack thereof into unique content. Vertical video frames people better than places, and the length allows sustained eye-to-lens contacts that can engender an emotional connection. But a shallow array of initial content and too much confidence that creators would figure it out on their own deprived IGTV of emergent norms that other videographers could emulate to wet their feet.

Now IGTV feels haphazard, with trashy viral videos and miscropped ports amongst its Popular section alongside a few creators trying to produce made-for-IGTV talk shows and cooking tutorials. It’s yet to have its breakout “Chewbacca Mom” or “Rubberbanded Watermelon” blockbuster like Facebook Live. Even an interview with mega celeb Kylie Jenner only had 11,000 views.

Instagram wants to put the focus on the author, not the individual works of art. “Because we don’t have full text search and you can’t just search any random thing, it’s about the creators” Systrom explains. “I think that at its base level that it’s personality driven and creator driven means that you’re going to get really unique content that you won’t find anywhere else and that’s the goal.”

Yet being unique requires extra effort that creators might not invest if they’re unsure of the payoff in either reach or revenue. Michael Sayman, formerly Facebook’s youngest employee who was hired at age 17 to build apps for teens and who now works for Google, summed it up saying: “Many times in my own career, I’ve tried to make something with a unique spin or a special twist because I felt that’s the only way I could make my product stand out from the crowd, only to realize that it was those very twists and spins that made my products feel out of place and confusing to users. Sometimes, the best product is one that doesn’t create any new twists, but rather perfects and builds on top of what has been proven to already be extremely successful.”

A fraction of feed views

The one big surprise of the launch event was where IGTV would exist. Instagram announced it’d live in a standalone IGTV app, but also as a feature in the main app accessible from an orange button atop the home screen that would occasionally call out that new content was inside. But in essence, it was ignorable. IGTV didn’t get the benefit of being splayed out atop Instagram like Stories did. Blow past that one button and avoid downloading the separate app, and users could go right on tapping and scrolling through Instagram without coming across IGTV’s longer videos.

View counts of the launch partners reflect that. We looked at six launch partner creators, comparing their last six feed and IGTV videos older than a week and less than six months old, or fewer videos if that’s all they’d posted.

Only one of the six, BabyAriel, saw an obvious growth trend in her IGTV videos. Her candid IGTV monologues are performing the best of the six compared to feed. She’s earning an average of 243,000 views per IGTV video, about a third as many as she gets on her feed videos. “I’m really happy with my view counts because IGTV is just starting” BabyAriel tells me. She thinks the format will be good for behind-the-scenes clips that complement her longer YouTube videos and shorter Stories. “When I record anything, It’s vertical. When I turn my phone horizontal I think of an hour-long movie.”

Lele Pons, a Latin American comedy and music star who’s one of the most popular Instagram celebrities, gets about 5.7X more feed views than on her IGTV cooking show that averages 1.9 million hits. Instagram posted some IGTV highlights from the first month, but the most popular of now has 4.3 million views — less than half of what Pons gets on her average feed video.

Fitness guides from Katie Austin averaged just 3,600 views on IGTV while she gets 7.5X more in the feed. Lauren Godwin’s colorful comedy fared 5.2X better in the feed. Bryce Xavier saw the biggest differential, earning 15.9X more views for his dance and culture videos. And in the most direct comparison, K-Pop dancer Susie Shu sometimes posts cuts from the same performance to the two destinations, like one that got 273,000 views in feed but just 27,000 on IGTV, with similar clips fairing an average of 7.8X better.

Again, this isn’t to say IGTV is a lame horse. It just isn’t roaring out of the gates. Systrom remains optimistic about inventing a new format. “The question is can we pull that off and the early signs are really good,” he tells me. “We’ve been pretty blown away by the reception and the usage upfront,” though he declined to share any specific statistics. Instagram promised to provide more insight into traction in the future.

YouTube star Casey Neistat is less bullish. He doesn’t think IGTV is working and that engagement has been weak. If IGTV views were surpassing those of YouTube, creators would flock to it, but so far view counts are uninspiring and not worth diverting creative attention, Neistat says. “YouTube offers the best sit-back consumption, and Stories offers active consumption. Where does IGTV fit in? I’m not sure” he tells me. “Why create all of this unique content if it gets lower views, it’s not monetizable, and the viewers aren’t there?”

Susie Shu averages 7.8X more video views in the Instagram feed than on IGTV

For now, the combination of an unfamiliar format, the absence of direction for how to use it and the relatively buried placement has likely tempered IGTV’s traction. Two months in, Instagram Stories was proving itself an existential threat to Snapchat — which it’s in fact become. IGTV doesn’t pose the same danger to YouTube yet, and it will need a strategy to support a more slow-burn trajectory.

The chicken and the IG problem

The first step to becoming a real YouTube challenger is to build up some tent-pole content that gives people a reason to open IGTV. Until there’s something that captures attention, any cross-promotion traffic Instagram sends it will be like pouring water into a bucket with a giant hole in the bottom. Yet until there’s enough viewers, it’s tough to persuade creators to shoot for IGTV since it won’t do a ton to boost their fan base.

Fortnite champion Ninja shares a photo of IGTV launch partners gathered backstage at the press event

Meanwhile, Instagram hasn’t committed to a monetization or revenue-sharing strategy for IGTV. Systrom said at the launch that “There’s no ads in IGTV today,” but noted it’s “obviously a very reasonable place [for ads] to end up.” Without enough views, though, ads won’t earn enough for a revenue split to incentivize creators. Perhaps Instagram will heavily integrate its in-app shopping features and sponsored content partnerships, but even those rely on having more traffic. Vine withered at Twitter in part from creators bailing due to its omission of native monetization options.

So how does IGTV solve the chicken-and-egg problem? It may need to swallow its pride and pay early adopters directly for content until it racks up enough views to offer sustainable revenue sharing. Instagram has never publicly copped to paying for content before, unlike its parent Facebook, which offered stipends ranging into the millions of dollars for publishers to shoot Live broadcasts and long-form Watch shows. Neither have led to a booming viewership, but perhaps that’s because Facebook has lost its edge with the teens who love video.

Instagram could do better if it paid the right creators to weather IGTV’s initial slim pickings. Settling on ad strategy creators can count on earning money from in the future might also get them to hang tight. Those deals could mimic the 55 percent split of mid-roll ad breaks Facebook gives creators on some videos. But again, the views must come first.

Alternatively, or additionally, it could double down on the launch strategy of luring creators with the potential to become the big fish in IGTV’s small-for-now pond. Backroom deals to trade being highlighted in its IGTV algorithm in exchange for high-quality content could win the hearts of these stars and their managers. Instagram would be wise to pair these incentives with vertical long-form video content creation workshops. It could bring its community, product and analytics leaders together with partnered stars to suss out what works best in the format and help them shoot it.

The cross-promo spigot

Once there’s something worth watching on IGTV, the company could open the cross-promo traffic spigot. At first, Instagram would send notifications about top content or IGTV posts from people you follow, and call them out with a little orange text banner atop its main app. Now it seems to understand it will need to be more coercive.

Last month, TechCrunch spotted Instagram showing promos for individual IGTV shows in the middle of the feed, hoping to redirect eyeballs there. And today, we found Instagram getting more aggressive by putting a bigger call out featuring a relevant IGTV clip with preview image above your Stories tray on the home screen. It may need to boost the frequency of these cross-promotions and stick them in-between Stories and Explore sections as well to give IGTV the limelight. These could expose users to creators they don’t follow already but might enjoy.

“It’s still early but I do think there’s a lot of potential when they figure out two things since the feature is so new,” says John Shahidi, who runs the Justin Bieber-backed Shots Studios, which produces and distributes content for Lele Pons, Rudy Mancuso and other Insta celebs. “1. Product. IGTV is not in your face so Instagram users aren’t changing behavior to consume. Timeline and Instagram Stories are in your face so those two are the most used features. 2. Discoverability. I want to see videos from people I don’t follow. Interesting stuff like cooking, product review, interesting content from brands but without following the accounts.” In the meantime, Shots Studios is launching a vertical-only channel on YouTube that Shahidi believes is the first of its kind.

Instagram will have to balance its strategic imperative to grow the long-form video hub and avoid spamming users until they hate the brand as a whole. Some think it’s already gone too far. “I think it’s super intrusive right now,” says Tiffany Zhong, once known as the world’s youngest venture capitalist who now runs Generation Z consulting firm Zebra Intelligence. “I personally find all the IGTV videos super boring and click out within seconds (and the only time I watch them are if I accidentally tapped on the icon when I tried to go to my DMs instead).” Desperately funneling traffic to the feature before there’s enough great content to power relevant recommendations for everyone could prematurely sour users on IGTV. 

Systrom remains optimistic he can iterate his way to success. “What I want to see over the next six to 12 months is a consistent drumbeat of new features that both consumers and creators are asking for, and to look at the retention curve and say ‘are people continuing to watch? Are people continuing to upload?,'” says Systrom. “So far we are seeing that all of those are healthy. But again trying to judge a very new kind of audacious format that’s never really been done before in the first months is going to be really hard.”

Differentiator or deterrent?

The biggest question remains whether IGTV will remain devout to the orthodoxy of vertical-only. Loosening up to accept landscape videos too might nullify a differentiator, but also pipe in a flood of content it could then algorithmically curate to bootstrap IGTV’s library. Reducing the friction by allowing people to easily port content to or from elsewhere might make it feel like less of a gamble for creators deciding where to put their production resources. Instagram itself expanded from square-only to portrait and landscape photos in the feed in 2015.

“My advice would be to make the videos horizontal. We’ve all come to understand vertical as ‘short form’ and horizontal as ‘long form,'” says Sayman. “It’s in the act of rotating your phone to landscape that you indicate to yourself and to your mobile device that you will not be context switching for the next few minutes, but rather intend to focus on one piece of content for an extended period of time.” This would at least give users more to watch, even if they ended up viewing landscape videos with their phones in portrait orientation.

This might be best as a last-ditch effort if it can’t get enough content flowing in through other means. But at least Instagram should offer a cropping tool that lets users manually select what vertical slice of a landscape video they want to show as they watch, rather than just grabbing the center or picking one area on the side for the whole clip. This could let creators repurpose landscape videos without things getting awkwardly half cut out of frame.

Former Facebook employee and social investor Josh Elman, who now works at Robinhood, told me he’s confident the company will experiment as much as necessary. “I think Facebook is relentless. They know that a ton of consumers watch video online. And most discover videos through influencers or their friends. (Or Netflix). Even though Watch and IGTV haven’t taken the world by storm yet, I bet Facebook won’t stop until they find the right mix.”

There’s a goldmine waiting if it does. Unlike on Facebook, there’s no Regram feature, you can’t post links, and outside of Explore you just see who you already follow on Instagram. That’s made it great at delivering friendly video and clips from your favorite stars, but leaves a gaping hole where serendipitous viewing could be. IGTV fills that gap. The hours people spend on Facebook watching random videos and their accompanying commercials have lifted the company to over $13 billion in revenue per quarter. Giving a younger audience a bottomless pit of full-screen video could produce the same behavior and profits on Instagram without polluting the feed, which can remain the purest manifestation of visual feed culture. But that’s only if IGTV can get enough content uploaded.

Puffed up by the success of besting its foe Snapchat, Instagram assumed it could take the long-form video world by storm. But the grand entrance at its debutante ball didn’t draw enough attention. Now it needs to take a different tack. Tone down the cross-promo for the moment. Concentrate on teaching creators how to find what works on the format and incentivizing them with cash and traffic. Develop some must-see IGTV and stoke a viral blockbuster. Prove the gravity of extended, personality-driven vertical video. Only then should it redirect traffic there from the feed, Stories, and Explore.

YouTube’s library wasn’t built overnight, and neither will IGTV’s. Facebook’s deep pockets and the success of Instagram’s other features give it the runway necessary to let IGTV take off. With 1 billion monthly users, and 400 million daily Stories users gathered in just two years, there are plenty of eyeballs waiting to be seduced. Systrom concludes, “Everything that is great starts small.” IGTV’s destiny will depend on Instagram’s patience.

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2o9VBgD via IFTTT