#What is online lead generation

[montdigital1]

What is online lead generation

What is Online Lead Generation?

Online lead generation is a marketing process that involves attracting traffic to your website and convincing visitors to share their contact information. It is an important part of growing your business and creating a long-term relationship with prospective customers.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a powerful form of online lead generation. It focuses on providing valuable information to potential customers and positioning yourself as an expert in your field. It also enables you to target specific audiences, which helps in converting them into leads. However, generating marketing leads through content can be challenging. You must find the right mix of formats and content types to be successful.

White papers and reports are tried-and-true lead generation favorites. They’re great for establishing yourself as a thought leader and are especially useful in industries with specialized knowledge, such as financial services, healthcare, IT, and tech or engineering.

Blog posts are another popular and effective way to generate marketing leads. They can be informative, entertaining, or a combination of both. They’re also an inexpensive way to attract and nurture potential leads. The key is to ensure that your blog post answers the questions that your prospects are most likely to have.

Creating free tools that solve your audience’s day-to-day problems can help you position yourself as a helpful brand and keep you top of mind. These can include calculators, diagnostic tests, or other resources that will save your audience time and effort. You can find these opportunities by searching for relevant topics on forums like Reddit and Quora. Remember to answer questions thoroughly and avoid spamming with links to your website or products.

Social media marketing

Online lead generation can be achieved by using social media marketing as a form of online advertising. By using paid ads on Facebook and Instagram, you can target specific users based on their demographics, interests, and online behaviour. This is a quick, high-impact way to generate leads.

Creating a buyer persona and understanding your audience is crucial to successful online lead generation. Once you know who your ideal customer is, you can create content that appeals to them and encourages them to take action. It also helps to know where your prospects spend their time online — what blogs do they read, which social media platforms do they use?

Blogging is a great way to attract leads, but it’s important to make sure your blog content is relevant to your business. Adding links to your products in your blog posts can also help to drive traffic and sales.

Another effective lead generation method is to host events. This can be done in the form of a virtual summit or an in-person event. For example, Search Engine Journal hosts an annual e-summit to share industry insights. They promote the event on their social media channels and encourage participants to attend by offering discounts.

Paid advertising

Online advertising is a form of lead generation that involves paying for an advertisement on a social media site or search engine. It is often used to target specific groups of people and can be a powerful tool in generating high-quality leads. It can also help you reach your target audience more quickly than other methods of promoting your business.

Using paid ads to generate leads can be a great way to increase your brand visibility and drive traffic to your website. When done properly, it can also help you convert visitors into leads by offering them an incentive such as a free product or service. However, it is important to know your target audience and understand what they are looking for before you start running your paid ads.

Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are one of the most popular forms of online marketing, and they can be used to drive traffic and generate leads. These ads are displayed when a user searches for a specific term, and they can be targeted to users of certain devices, such as mobile phones or tablets.

The main benefit of online advertising is its ability to target your audience accurately. You can choose who sees your ad based on age, gender, and interests. You can even target specific types of content, such as what they’re reading on a website or their search history. This level of targeting can help you lower your cost per click and boost your ROI.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a form of online lead generation that involves using email to share content that encourages people to buy your products or services. This can be done by offering exclusive content in exchange for contact information, such as a free download of an industry research report, white paper or case study. The people who provide their email address in exchange for these resources are likely to be interested in the solutions that your company offers, making them qualified leads. Providing weekly or monthly newsletters is another way to generate leads, but it’s important to ensure that the content you send to your email list is relevant to your business.

Ultimately, the best online lead generation strategy is to use a combination of techniques and tactics. This approach allows you to meet your target audience where they are in their buyer journey, increasing the likelihood of conversion. It also ensures that your message is consistent across channels and platforms, ensuring that your brand has a consistent image and voice.

Small businesses that are unable to focus on their lead generation efforts may want to consider partnering with a professional lead generation company. These companies specialize in capturing and converting potential customers into loyal clients. Their expertise allows them to provide customized, targeted marketing campaigns for each type of customer.

[dionysus-complex]

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[dimdiamond]

You know I totally understand the "not proship or antiship but a secret third thing an adult who doesn't care about online discourses" because I do! I am an adult with a job and obligations and tiredness and worries about the future and all kinds of problems! And I can't afford the little energy I have to be wasted on meaningless discourses online! But at some point you have to get a good look at the general state of things online and I am sure you'll see how worrying this situation becomes. People (re)invent new things to feel guilty about and "witchhunt" has become "hunt the creep and absolutely irl abuser/pedophile/etc". There are the normals and there are the freaks. Yes, you have to choose a side. Even if you don't, we'll make the decision for you depending on what you post. None of these ring a bell to you? Isn't censorship a legitimate problem that will affect our lives offline too? I mean yes in the microscope it seems like a trivial matter for fans of a media that will be forgotten until the next new shiny thing. Outside of the microscope, though, you'll see it's a way of thought and attitude that affects almost all online spaces and if this return to puritanism isn't concerning then I guess I do spent too much time online and should go touch some grass. Maybe I will and it will help me push back my concerns for a bit.

[cyberphuck]

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(tumblr cut off MOST of my tags in this, thanks Tumblr)

[cathalbravecog]

based on 90% vibes and 10% facts about the characters. i do not take constructive criticism. buck ruffler never read warrior cats but he'd act like a cat and bite others and invade warrior cat larps as a rogue

[serial-unaliver]

there was a tiktok I made a while ago basically saying "your abusive ex boyfriend is more likely a misogynist than a narcissist" and while most people agreed some said I was victim blaming(?) and that I couldn't know what their ex is like, and while obviously I don't, every fucking person describing their narcissistic ex is describing a typical misogynist. ask yourself, is this behavior you associate with narcissism directed at women or does he treat his male friends the same way? is his general functioning in life impaired?

many people don't seem to know this, but a mental disorder is NOT based on symptoms alone, it's based on how much the symptoms actually impair you in daily life. most people could look at a list of mental disorder symptoms and identify either themselves or someone else with them. as far as a narcissistic personality, we all know people who appear more self absorbed than others, but this is typically subclinical narcissism (presence of narcissistic traits without significant impairment of functioning) which is not a disorder. there is also a misunderstanding of what npd is. a narcissist is not a supervillain invincible to emotion. npd is a defensive reaction to trauma that lead to deep insecurity and fear of being seen as weak or vulnerable. so narcissists aren't actually "in love with themselves" at all and often are diagnosed when seeking help for other issues such as substance abuse resulting from their struggles.

this focus a lot of abused women in online pop psychology have on narcissism is particularly concerning because it completely glosses over misogyny which is literally a huge factor in violence against women. people really only know misogyny as a surface level thing. they don't know it can lead to family annihilation, for example, and is one reason most family annihilations are committed by the husband. it's always "this man is a sociopath" "this man is a narcissist" when the man's behavior is driven by ideology. I am so fucking tired of everything being tied to mental illness and left at that. you know what this leads to? courts "fixing" abusive men by...giving them anger management therapy. guess what? it doesn't fucking do anything because the problem isn't mental instability leading to anger, it's targeted, purposeful abuse. we are getting nowhere

[quecksilvereyes]

oh my god do not click links in emails that tell you to verify your data or your bank account gets locked or click links in messages telling you your safety protocol is ending, like, tomorrow, you will get SCAMMED SO BAD AND YOU WILL LOSE A LOT OF FUCKING MONEY never ever let anyone pressure you into giving away login information especially to your online banking by creating a sense of urgency oh my GOD

some things to look out for

1. spelling mistakes. do you know how many rounds of marketing and sales experts these things go through? if theres a spelling mistake dont click it

2. not using your name. if an email adresses you with "dear customer" or, even worse, a generic "ladies and gentlemen", it is most likely not actually targeted to you

3. verifying or login links. even IF your bank was stupid enough to send these to customers, dont EVER click those. look at me. they can legally argue that youve given your data away and thus they dont have to pay you anything back DONT CLICK THAT FUCKING LINK

4. creating a sense of urgency. do this or we lock your account next week. do this or your ebanking stops working tomorrow. give us all your money in cash or your beloved granddaughter will get HANGED FOR MURDERING BABIES. no serious organisation would ever do something like that over email or sms. ever. hands off.

5. ALWAYS CHECK WHO SENT YOU THE EMAIL. the display name and the email adress can vary a LOT. anyone can check the display name. look at the email adress. does it look weird? call the fucking place it says its from. you will likely hear a very weary sigh.

6. if its in a phonecall, scammers love preventing you from hanging up or talking to other people to have a little bit of a think about whats happening. there should always be a possibility to go hey i wanna think about this ill call back the official number thanks.

7. do not, i repeat, do NOT a) call a phone number flashing on your screen promising to rid your computer of viruses after clicking a dodgy link and b) let them install shit on your computer like. uh. idk. teamviewer.

7.i. TEAM VIEWER LETS PEOPLE USE YOUR COMPUTER HOWEVER THEY WANT AS LONG AS THEYRE CONNECTED. IF YOU DONT KNOW FOR FUCKING SURE YOURE TALKING TO ACTUAL TECH SUPPORT DONT GIVE ANYONE ACCESS TO YOUR COMPUTER.

fun little addendum: did you know a link can just automatically download shit? like. a virus? an app you can't uninstall unless you reset your entire device? dont click links unless youre extremely sure you know where they lead. hover your mouse over it and check the url.

thanks.

[etirabys]

new heights of extraversion - was at an airport, saw some guys repairing these friction lines, went up to them and asked questions

the lines turn out to be called 'grip strip' and they are using a 'putty knife' and a 'margin trowel' to apply it. The mixture will dry in 15m. Before it dries they also have to sprinkle sand on top and press in with the knife/trowel.

I was writing this down in a notebook, and they asked me what for, and I told them I'm sick of not knowing the words for things. Sometimes it feels like I don't know the words for anything! I've read so many words without ever mapping them to the physical things they corresponded to.

I'm going through the corridor that's outside of the airport building and leads into the airplane, I don't know what it's called either (edit: just asked the flight attendant, it's called a jet bridge)

There's yellow and black angled striped tape on the sides of the floor of the jet bridge, and I don't know why THAT'S there or what it's called. (edit: kind online people have informed me this is "hazard tape" / "hazard stripes" / "safety tape", and the general class is called "barricade tape".)

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Pollen and Pheromones

Kinktober Day 13: Sex Pollen

Male Alpha Yandere x Gender Neutral Omega Reader CW: Noncon, sex pollen, aphrodisiac, pheromones, knotting, biting, claiming bite, stranded, spaceship crash, sci-fi, outer space, alien planet, a/b/o dynamics, bigotry/prejudice against omegas, rivalry, breeding, general yandere behavior, tsundere, betrayal Word Count: 1.6k (Enjoy this kinktober meal I have prepared <3)

"Star log: This is Pilot 2418 currently operating vessel Starlion: Orion. I am currently on route to pass the threshold of our galaxy in less than five minutes."

You were a shuttle pilot, one of the Exploration Guild's best. Ever since humanity had achieved interplanetary travel, they had sought to extend themselves ever further. With the new drift-space drives, that dream was now a reality.

They were only currently suited for small 1 to 2 man shuttlecraft, and only a couple such craft had been made. Two different ones had been commissioned through the guild, with both pilots competing to see who could exit the Milky Way first. The new drive could only be used in bursts to prevent overloading, so the journey had still taken a few months. But it seemed like you were about to succeed. Then you could make a U-turn and start drift-jumping back towards the nearest station.

Since you were an omega, this was a great achievement, a notice to the universe that your kind could do whatever betas and alphas could. You would be able to help stamp out the lingering bigotry and inspire others all with one action.

You were just about to cross the finish line!

Suddenly, your opponent, Tetsunori, came out of drift-space behind you. He had been your long-time rival, with both of you being about equally skilled.

But this was unacceptable to him as he was an alpha and held to the knothead mindset that an omega's place was bouncing on an alpha's prick or maybe in a teaching or nursing job.

You weren't worried, though. You had a solid lead. There was no way he could close the gap.

You rolled your eyes at the incoming transmission.

"Why don't you just give up now? If you surrender nicely, I'll let you celebrate my victory by letting you keep my knot warm!"

The temptation to reply was too great.

"Ha! You may be good at navigating the stars, but I doubt you have ever found your way into an omega."

Conversing with him hadn't distracted you or made you pause, so he growled as he switched to another plan. He fired on his tractor beam.

What the fuck, was he insane? Stooping so low to make sure you couldn't have a historic moment? You fired an equal and opposite tractor beam through his, which forced him to disengage. Something only possible because both ships were similar in size and energy output. Did he think you were some amateur?

In a desperate bid to prevent you from winning, Tetsunori rammed his shuttle into yours.

This type of bumping wasn't unheard of. It wasn't lethal if both ships were similar and had their shields up. But the bouncing was pretty strong for both parties, which is why it was a last-ditch effort. It could push you past the line, or it could bump him further. Neither of those things happened, though.

Instead, you careened right into the gravitational pull off a planet. You did everything you could to slow down and stabilize, but nothing seemed to be working.

Tetsunori sped after you in his spacecraft as he spoke into the comm link.

"I'm sorry, oh my god, I'm so sorry! I just had to be first! What omega would want to be mates with someone who they bested??"

You didn't have time for his weird ass confession and barely registered it. Your shields were still online and he had started pulsing his tractor beam to slow you down, full usage of it at such speeds could rip your ship apart, thankfully he wasn't an amateur either and knew that.

You put all available power and quickly put it into overloading the shields. You hit the emergency crash button, and two nozzles came out from the sides of the cockpit and sprayed you with a rapidly drying foam that would reduce damage to you if you got flung about the ship. Tetsunori's reckless and speedy entry into the atmosphere may have been enough to save you, but he had lost control of his vessel as well.

As you crashed, he careened away and crash-landed as well.

It was a good thing the high-tech impact reduction foam was so effective. Despite having shields, the ship was still shaken pretty badly, and the inertial dampeners weren't powerful enough to thwart damage from such a landing.

You took stock of the condition of your systems.

Almost everything was fried. You could at least scan the planet. It seemed like you had actually lucked out. In the entire galaxy planets that supported life were incredibly rare. But you had landed on one.

It seemed there were no known biological hazards present. No recognized toxins, dangerous bacteria, or viral agents. You were cleared to remove your suit. The temporary foam had started to dissolve, so it wasn't hard to remove.

The scanner also indicated there was a strong human life sign. It appeared that Tetsunori was okay.

You took the survival kit from underneath your seat as well as some beverages and rations you had procured at the last station and headed in the direction of dust and smoke in the distance.

You didn't even need the ship's scanner to tell you that the great imbecile, Tetsunori had landed there.

As you got closer, you stepped into a field of flowers that surrounded the entire crash site. You were probably still a mile away, but all around you were odd glittery silver and gold flowers.

The smell of them made you just slightly lightheaded and tingly. You realized the tiniest bit of slick was dribbling down your leg. They must be an aphrodisiac. The scanner hadn't warned you of anything in the air that was truly dangerous, so it probably wouldn't matter very much. And it really didn't. For you. As you trudged through the flowers and pollen, the effects did not get worse.

But for Tetsunori, the pollen was much stronger. When it hit his nostrils, it immediately put him into rut. Not a typical rut either, one of the ruts you see in pornos where the alpha is almost feral and unable to control their mating drive. When you came upon him, he was sitting on a piece of debris from his shit and rocking back and forth in clear distress. Through his outfit, his bulge was immediately visible.

"T-tetsunori? Uh... are you okay? D-did you get hurt in the crash?"

You took a step back when he looked up at you. His eyes were red, giving him a demonic appearance.

"The flowers, I think... they... UGH! My thoughts are all jumbled..."

He started to rub and massage his crotch desperately. He finally caught a whiff of your scent, ripe from the recent hike over to him and from being without a proper shower since your last space station stop. Not to mention the smell of the slick the aphrodisiac had coaxed out of you.

He started wildly sniffing at the air.

"Y-you smell so nice. You can help!"

You started backing away slowly.

"Uh... help with what?"

He got up and closed the difference between the two of you. Sweat had his dark hair clinging to his head. He was significantly taller and looked down at you intensely before sniffing and licking your neck with lazy broad strokes.

"S-smell so gooood. Always wanted to knot youuuu~"

You tried to push him off.

"Tetsunori! St-stop!"

You slapped, smacked, kicked, punched, and flailed, but nothing you did deterred him in the slightest.

"I'm sorry, but I fucking n-need this!"

He pinned you to the ground, clawing and biting off all your clothing until only your underwear was left, he removed it more delicately before inhaling its scent deeply and putting it in his pocket for later.

"Please don't do this, Tetsunori, PLEASE!"

He looked down at you, and it seemed like he was genuinely trying to resist before the pollen-charged rut won out.

Tetsunori unzipped his pants and let his drooling cock and full heavy balls out.

"G-gonna put all my babies in you! Have to! Have to!"

The lust-drunk alpha wasted no more time in ramming into you, an insertion that would have been more difficult had the pollen not slicked you up. Though it was still sudden and slightly painful.

"A-aaah!"

You tried to kick at him, but he growled viciously before pushing you into a mating press and slobbering all over your neck with his eager tongue.

The pollen must have increased the potency of his pheromones, or at least your susceptibility to them, because his musk was starting to cloud your thoughts.

Your grunts of pain became gasps of pleasure as your body quickly accommodated to his large size. You winced as he bit down hard on your neck to claim you. He kept right on fucking into you without skipping a beat.

He licked and kissed the lightly bleeding bite mark, some part of him remembering to comfort you despite his dominating need to fill you with cock. And by that point, the last of your resistance finally melted away.

"T-tetsunoriiiiii~" You moaned as your toes curled and body twitched in orgasm.

He growled your name in response and gave a few hard, deep thrusts before cumming as deeply as possible.

A comforting fullness filled your hole as his knot locked the two of you together. He pulled you close as he sat down so that you were in his lap facing him. The two of you caught your breath, then remained in an awkward silence until his knot deflated.

"G-got it out of your system?"

"Yeah... for the most part... sorry about that..."

You lifted yourself off of his lap, his half hard cock springing free with a lewd plopping sound.

"Well... it wasn't your fault. It was just the pollen..."

He grabbed your wrist and pulled you back into his lap, his cock ramming directly into you, then began humping.

"Well... it wasn't just the pollen..."

[novy2sirius]

MERCURY HOUSE CORE ©novy2sirius

trigger warning: mental health issues, pedophilia, killing, physical health issues ☘️

this is just a random post abt things ppl with these placements could experience ☘️

these r only abt isolated placements so take it with a grain of salt bc the whole chart matters ☘️

a lot of these r experiences i’ve heard from my friends and ppl who’ve purchased readings from me directly ☘️

☿ mercury in 1h core

being diagnosed with more mental illnesses than u can count, being very intelligent which leads u to be anxious just by existing bc of all ur knowledge, saying things u don’t mean cuz u were angry, being told u have a youthful face, knowing a bunch of random facts abt things and telling ppl and them asking why tf u know that or care, hyper-fixating on things u can’t control, getting internet hate by simply existing, getting dmed sexual stuff by random weird dudes trying to prey on u (especially when ur younger), getting nauseous bc ur anxiety is so bad (especially before school), having sexy hands, skipping school to be on ur phone all day and do nothing, asking way too many questions bc of ur curiosity abt everything and annoying ppl (especially as a kid), giving ur opinion when no one asked for it, being told u could be a good rapper/singer, being rly good at flirting bc of ur charm, cussing a lot

☿ mercury in 2h core

being obsessed with mukbang/eating videos and then making urself rly hungry and being frustrated bc u can’t have the food they’re eating in the video, valuing ur own opinions more than others, not answering texts or calls bc ur too lazy to but then liking those same ppls posts on instagram, saying “um” too much or having a lot of pauses in between words bc ur a slow thinker, talking to ur toys as a kid when u were lonely, getting all ur food recipes from pinterest, buying online gift cards for ppl instead of putting effort into an actual gift/on the flip side if ur a more creative person putting a lot of thought into gifts, being good at making things from scratch, being more wealthy in online games than in real life, being obsessed w the papa’s food games on cool math as a kid, holding grudges against ppl who kill u on roblox, liking scents that smell like food or scents that make u smell rich/boujee, always making money, making money online

☿ mercury in 3h core

double texting bc u have sm to say and will forget abt it if u don’t type it immediately, being able to get lots of followers on social media, being gossiped abt online, being a huge reader, enjoying hearing abt other ppls drama but not wanting to be in any, having a child-like energy (this can be in a positive or negative way depending on what vibration ur at in life), saying childish things in arguments when ur at a lower vibration (example: meh meh meh :p), drama following u wherever u go, aging well, being obsessed with sims, not believing things unless there’s very good reasoning to back them up, being able to communicate well, being a talented writer, forming all ur opinions from ur older siblings (if u have any), math or literature being ur favorite subject, being a good driver, enjoying traveling but not for too long bc u get tired quickly of it, being charming af, being witty and quickly thinking of good jokes

☿ mercury in 4h core

posting all ur feelings on social media or going thru that emo phase in middle school where u would post those sad lyric vids on ur snapchat, ur family gossiping abt u a lot and u overhearing it in the next room, having a super low pain tolerance, enjoying watching self care vids, getting baby fever after seeing tiktoks of cute babies, being a rly good person to come to if someone needs a comfort person, living in an rv/camper at some point in ur life, telling ur mom everything and her giving u advice abt certain situations but then u don’t listen and she ends up being right abt the whole thing, coming to ur mom for advice on everything in general, ur mom being more childish than u, being able to write stories that readers rly emotionally relate to a lot, ur mom having videos of u still up on her facebook from when u were little that still haunt u to this day

☿ mercury in 5h core

being creative as hell, being a natural performer, having a fun childlike energy, being a huge risk taker and thrill seeker, being a talented actor, being rly good at video games and possibly becoming famous from playing them, living for the drama but not wanting to be a part of it, downloading tinder and not knowing y u don’t just delete it, being sassy, being told ur trying to hard to be the main character but u literally r the main character and can’t help that, not having ur first love until ur an adult and only experiencing puppy love in ur youth, going to a bunch of concerts, being turned on by wattpad stories and feeling like a whore bc of it, flirting w ppl online and then being scared to say anything to them in person when u see each other, being a good driver

☿ mercury in 6h core

ppl saying u come off super innocent (even if ur not), constantly doing things for others even when they don’t give the same energy in return, being obsessed with improving ur health or with videos online abt being healthy/fit, feeling awful before going to school bc it gives u horrible anxiety and makes u feel like ur gonna puke, thinking ur gonna get a stroke every time u have a normal headache (and being a hypochondriac in general), not functioning without consistency in ur life, having an entire pinterest board of cute animals, being good with animals, being obsessed w ur hygiene and feeling nasty when u don’t shower everyday, weirdly loving medical shows such as greys anatomy, having a lot of stomach issues

☿ mercury in 7h core

convincing ppl to do things with ur charm, wanting to tell ppl something and be honest with them but being too scared bc u don’t want them to hate u and r constantly afraid u’ll hurt them, copying ur romantic partners slang/ur partners copying urs, meeting lovers online, dating or marrying gemini/virgo placements, having age gaps in ur relationships, getting into a lot of conflicts online, ur ex partner/ex best friends posting abt u and subbing u (not saying ur name directly but talking abt u) online after u have a fallout, flirting with ppl on club penguin or roblox when u were younger, changing ur opinions easily based on what ur partner or close friends think, dating ppl when ur too young to even drive, posting a lot abt ur relationship online

☿ mercury in 8h core

analyzing ppl well and understanding them before anyone else does, ppl randomly telling u their deepest darkest secrets when u didn’t even ask, being interested in the way ppls minds work which leads u to become obsessed w books abt psychology/astrology/tarot/etc, starting to masturbate from a rly young age that’s almost concerning, having a lot of mental health issues bc of ur childhood trauma, using dark humor as a way to cope with ur trauma, not realizing how much trauma u’ve went thru until someone verbally tells u that u’ve been thru a lot (usually a therapist), being a tomboy as a kid, being obsessed with true crime, being told ur mysterious, saying out of pocket shit that has high shock value, being stalked online

☿ mercury in 9h core

having a more optimistic mindset than everyone around u, enjoying traveling a lot, wanting to leave ur hometown as soon as possible, driving when traveling instead of taking a plane cuz u don’t wanna pay for the flight, majoring in communications or something involving technology or literature, having an interest in other cultures more than ur own, coming off as intelligent bc of the way u talk and ur mannerisms, being told that u could be a good lawyer from a young age, being a good interviewer, knowing multiple languages, having logical ethics, being a comedian, being an amazing story teller

☿ mercury in 10h core

trying to keep ur daily life private and ppl still getting in ur business, being able to influence the public easily bc they seem to care a lot abt what u say, being famous on social media, being a famous singer, rumors being spread abt u to the public, having a talent for teaching others, having goals that u set as a kid that u feel u must fulfill, having a career involving cars, having a career involving technology, having a career involving writing/literature, being seen as someone who’s intelligent (especially in ur workplace), having dad humor, coming off as a know it all (10h is associated with experts and mercury is the thinking/the mind), being known for ur humor and how funny u r, playing online games that involve having a job such as papa’s freezeria

☿ mercury in 11h core

having random bursts of creative ideas and doing crazy stuff like writing an entire movie and then literally forgetting abt it the next day, ur best friends being ur siblings, having the most random thought processes, being able to make friends easily, having lots of online friends, being clumsy as hell, having a fan page/editing page when u were younger, being known as “the weird kid” in school (this doesn’t mean it’s always in a bad way tho it can mean in a unique/fun way), being popular online, having unique mannerisms, having a unique voice/unique speech patterns, being a good rapper, being dragged into online drama, cussing a lot, saying random things out of nowhere like ice bear from we bare bears, having a lot of ideas that r unique bc u think outside of the box, having unique perceptions, constantly changing ur mind abt things

☿ mercury in 12h core

speaking/writing things into existence with minimal effort, being obsessed with the feeling of nostalgia and making urself feel it then regretting it bc it hurts, ppl interrupting u and talking over u a lot, ppl ignoring what ur saying and making u feel like a ghost, having a huge interest in spiritual things, manipulating and lying a lot when at a lower vibration, being bullied (especially as a kid/in school), feeling lonely even when ur literally socializing or at a social function, having an astrology account, having more online friends than friend’s in person, daydreaming a lot in social settings (and in general), gaslighting ppl when at a lower vibration, being able to speak to the dead thru ur dreams, hearing ppl talking when ur half asleep, sleep walking, being sensitive to things ppl say but trying to hide it, healing ppl through ur words, hiding ur true thoughts abt someone, hiding ur true intentions, having strong emotional intelligence when at a high vibration, easily figuring out what someone’s feeling, being able to do rly good impressions

[imsobadatnicknames2]

How can you consider yourself any sort of leftist when you defend AI art bullshit? You literally simp for AI techbros and have the gall to pretend you're against big corporations?? Get fucked

I don't "defend" AI art. I think a particular old post of mine that a lot of people tend to read in bad faith must be making the rounds again lmao.

Took me a good while to reply to this because you know what? I decided to make something positive out of this and use this as an opportunity to outline what I ACTUALLY believe about AI art. If anyone seeing this decides to read it in good or bad faith... Welp, your choice I guess.

I have several criticisms of the way the proliferation of AI art generators and LLMs is making a lot of things worse. Some of these are things I have voiced in the past, some of these are things I haven't until now:

Most image and text AI generators are fine-tuned to produce nothing but the most agreeable, generically pretty content slop, pretty much immediately squandering their potential to be used as genuinely interesting artistic tools with anything to offer in terms of a unique aesthetic experience (AI video still manages to look bizarre and interesting but it's getting there too)

In the entertainment industry and a lot of other fields, AI image generation is getting incorporated into production pipelines in ways that lead to the immiseration of working artists, being used to justify either lower wages or straight-up layoffs, and this is something that needs to be fought against. That's why I unconditionally supported the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and will unconditionally support any collective action to address AI art as a concrete labor issue

In most fields where it's being integrated, AI art is vastly inferior to human artists in any use case where you need anything other than to make a superficially pretty picture really fast. If you need to do anything like ask for revisions or minor corrections, give very specific descriptions of how objects and people are interacting with each other, or just like. generate several pictures of the same thing and have them stay consistent with each other, you NEED human artists and it's preposterous to think they can be replaced by AI.

There is a lot of art on the internet that consists of the most generically pretty, cookie-cutter anime waifu-adjacent slop that has zero artistic or emotional value to either the people seeing it or the person churning it out, and while this certainly was A Thing before the advent of AI art generators, generative AI has made it extremely easy to become the kind of person who churns it out and floods online art spaces with it.

Similarly, LLMs make it extremely easy to generate massive volumes of texts, pages, articles, listicles and what have you that are generic vapid SEO-friendly pap at best and bizzarre nonsense misinformation at worst, drowning useful information in a sea of vapid noise and rendering internet searches increasingly useless.

The way LLMs are being incorporated into customer service and similar services not only, again, encourages further immiseration of customer service workers, but it's also completely useless for most customers.

A very annoyingly vocal part the population of AI art enthusiasts, fanatics and promoters do tend to talk about it in a way that directly or indirectly demeans the merit and skill of human artists and implies that they think of anyone who sees anything worthwile in the process of creation itself rather than the end product as stupid or deluded.

So you can probably tell by now that I don't hold AI art or writing in very high regard. However (and here's the part that'll get me called an AI techbro, or get people telling me that I'm just jealous of REAL artists because I lack the drive to create art of my own, or whatever else) I do have some criticisms of the way people have been responding to it, and have voiced such criticisms in the past.

I think a lot of the opposition to AI art has critstallized around unexamined gut reactions, whipping up a moral panic, and pressure to outwardly display an acceptable level of disdain for it. And in particular I think this climate has made a lot of people very prone to either uncritically entertain and adopt regressive ideas about Intellectual Propety, OR reveal previously held regressive ideas about Intellectual Property that are now suddenly more socially acceptable to express:

(I wanna preface this section by stating that I'm a staunch intellectual property abolitionist for the same reason I'm a private property abolitionist. If you think the existence of intellectual property is a good thing, a lot of my ideas about a lot of stuff are gonna be unpalatable to you. Not much I can do about it.)

A lot of people are suddenly throwing their support behind any proposal that promises stricter copyright regulations to combat AI art, when a lot of these also have the potential to severely udnermine fair use laws and fuck over a lot of independent artist for the benefit of big companies.

It was very worrying to see a lot of fanfic authors in particular clap for the George R R Martin OpenAI lawsuit because well... a lot of them don't realize that fanfic is a hobby that's in a position that's VERY legally precarious at best, that legally speaking using someone else's characters in your fanfic is as much of a violation of copyright law as straight up stealing entire passages, and that any regulation that can be used against the latter can be extended against the former.

Similarly, a lot of artists were cheering for the lawsuit against AI art models trained to mimic the style of specific artists. Which I agree is an extremely scummy thing to do (just like a human artist making a living from ripping off someone else's work is also extremely scummy), but I don't think every scummy act necessarily needs to be punishable by law, and some of them would in fact leave people worse off if they were. All this to say: If you are an artist, and ESPECIALLY a fan artist, trust me. You DON'T wanna live in a world where there's precedent for people's artstyles to be considered intellectual property in any legally enforceable way. I know you wanna hurt AI art people but this is one avenue that's not worth it.

Especially worrying to me as an indie musician has been to see people mention the strict copyright laws of the music industry as a positive thing that they wanna emulate. "this would never happen in the music industry because they value their artists copyright" idk maybe this is a the grass is greener type of situation but I'm telling you, you DON'T wanna live in a world where copyright law in the visual arts world works the way it does in the music industry. It's not worth it.

I've seen at least one person compare AI art model training to music sampling and say "there's a reason why they cracked down on sampling" as if the death of sampling due to stricter copyright laws was a good thing and not literally one of the worst things to happen in the history of music which nearly destroyed several primarily black music genres. Of course this is anecdotal because it's just One Guy I Saw Once, but you can see what I mean about how uncritical support for copyright law as a tool against AI can lead people to adopt increasingly regressive ideas about copyright.

Similarly, I've seen at least one person go "you know what? Collages should be considered art theft too, fuck you" over an argument where someone else compared AI art to collages. Again, same point as above.

Similarly, I take issue with the way a lot of people seem EXTREMELY personally invested in proving AI art is Not Real Art. I not only find this discussion unproductive, but also similarly dangerously prone to validating very reactionary ideas about The Nature Of Art that shouldn't really be entertained. Also it's a discussion rife with intellectual dishonesty and unevenly applied definition and standards.

When a lot of people present the argument of AI art not being art because the definition of art is this and that, they try to pretend that this is the definition of art the've always operated under and believed in, even when a lot of the time it's blatantly obvious that they're constructing their definition on the spot and deliberately trying to do so in such a way that it doesn't include AI art.

They never succeed at it, btw. I've seen several dozen different "AI art isn't art because art is [definition]". I've seen exactly zero of those where trying to seriously apply that definition in any context outside of trying to prove AI art isn't art doesn't end up in it accidentally excluding one or more non-AI artforms, usually reflecting the author's blindspots with regard to the different forms of artistic expression.

(However, this is moot because, again, these are rarely definitions that these people actually believe in or adhere to outside of trying to win "Is AI art real art?" discussions.)

Especially worrying when the definition they construct is built around stuff like Effort or Skill or Dedication or The Divine Human Spirit. You would not be happy about the kinds of art that have traditionally been excluded from Real Art using similar definitions.

Seriously when everyone was celebrating that the Catholic Church came out to say AI art isn't real art and sharing it as if it was validating and not Extremely Worrying that the arguments they'd been using against AI art sounded nearly identical to things TradCaths believe I was like. Well alright :T You can make all the "I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a catholic" legolas and gimli memes you want, but it won't change the fact that the argument being made by the catholic church was a profoundly conservative one and nearly identical to arguments used to dismiss the artistic merit of certain forms of "degenerate" art and everyone was just uncritically sharing it, completely unconcerned with what kind of worldview they were lending validity to by sharing it.

Remember when the discourse about the Gay Sex cats pic was going on? One of the things I remember the most from that time was when someone went "Tell me a definition of art that excludes this picture without also excluding Fountain by Duchamp" and how just. Literally no one was able to do it. A LOT of people tried to argue some variation of "Well, Fountain is art and this image isn't because what turns fountain into art is Intent. Duchamp's choice to show a urinal at an art gallery as if it was art confers it an element of artistic intent that this image lacks" when like. Didn't by that same logic OP's choice to post the image on tumblr as if it was art also confer it artistic intent in the same way? Didn't that argument actually kinda end up accidentally validating the artistic status of every piece of AI art ever posted on social media? That moment it clicked for me that a lot of these definitions require applying certain concepts extremely selectively in order to make sense for the people using them.

A lot of people also try to argue it isn't Real Art based on the fact that most AI art is vapid but like. If being vapid definitionally excludes something from being art you're going to have to exclude a whooole lot of stuff along with it. AI art is vapid. A lot of art is too, I don't think this argument works either.

Like, look, I'm not really invested in trying to argue in favor of The Artistic Merits of AI art but I also find it extremely hard to ignore how trying to categorically define AI art as Not Real Art not only is unproductive but also requires either a) applying certain parts of your definition of art extremely selectively, b) constructing a definition of art so convoluted and full of weird caveats as to be functionally useless, or c) validating extremely reactionary conservative ideas about what Real Art is.

Some stray thoughts that don't fit any of the above sections.

I've occassionally seen people respond to AI art being used for shitposts like "A lot of people have affordable commissions, you could have paid someone like $30 to draw this for you instead of using the plagiarism algorithm and exploiting the work of real artists" and sorry but if you consider paying an artist a rate that amounts to like $5 for several hours of work a LESS exploitative alternative I think you've got something fucked up going on with your priorities.

Also it's kinda funny when people comment on the aforementioned shitposts with some variation of "see, the usage of AI art robs it of all humor because the thing that makes shitposts funny is when you consider the fact that someone would spend so much time and effort in something so stupid" because like. Yeah that is part of the humor SOMETIMES but also people share and laugh at low effort shitposts all the time. Again you're constructing a definition that you don't actually believe in anywhere outside of this type of conversations. Just say you don't like that it's AI art because you think it's morally wrong and stop being disingenuous.

So yeah, this is pretty much everything I believe about the topic.

I don't "defend" AI art, but my opposition to it is firmly rooted in my principles, and that means I refuse to uncritically accept any anti-AI art argument that goes against those same principles.

If you think not accepting and parroting every Anti-AI art argument I encounter because some of them are ideologically rooted in things I disagree with makes me indistinguishable from "AI techbros" you're working under a fucked up dichotomy.

[nostalgia-tblr]

What's the definition of "oneshot" here? I've always that to mean any single-chaptered work? Which is what I voted for, it'd be that or "short."

I'll read things that are longer but usually only if it's a situation like I like the author and I've read all their shorter stuff so it's longfic or nothing. While they're being posted it can be hard to follow a multi-chapter because I might forget what's happening in it between updates (which may also never arrive anyway) and once they're finished I can see the 250k wordcount and that's a lot of words. In some cases it's gonna be too many words. (We may all have a novel inside us, but do we all have a novel in us that's the length of several novels, needs no outside editor, and also we can write this novel on our first attempt at writing anything ever?)

I probably write shorter fics because I read shorter fics. More plots and scenarios in the same amount of time, give me all the content NOWWWWW.

(OBVIOUSLY a drabble is exactly 100 words long and many of those are great but I don't generally seek them out cos... well, too short.)

[gothicprep]

i've been meaning to write something for a while now about how misinformation is not a partisan issue, it's just an issue in general. i was mulling over writing something about how infowars waterboards statistics into saying whatever alex jones wants – i'll still probably do that in the future – but it's not something that exactly supports my thesis here.

but, lucky me, i had a perfect example fall into my lap this week.

so, was andrew tate taken into custody over twitter beef with greta thunberg? the short answer is "no" but i'll elaborate.

here's the primary romanian news report about the cops taking the tate brothers into custody. the way that this has been reported in US news media has basically been that a pizza box in andrew tate's video response to thunberg helped romanian authorities confirm his location. here's a daily beast article that insinuates this:

In a video rant he uploaded to Twitter, in which he smoked a cigar and tried to brush off the online spat, he unwittingly displayed a pizza box from a local pizza chain—alerting authorities looking for him to his presence in the country.

here's the problem with that, though – none of the romanian journalists who reported on this story said anything about the pizza box thing. there's also a huge problem with these stories just... citing each other.

if you dig through the citation loop long enough, you end on this daily star article that cites tweets (jurnelism!) from, of course, alejandra caraballo

According to Alejandra Caraballo, a writer and clinical instructor posting on Twitter: “Romanian authorities needed proof that Andrew Tate was in the country so they reportedly used his social media posts.

(as an aside, if you follow her on twt, i'd heavily recommend against doing that. she spews bullshit like her life depends on it and i think this is inexcusable.)

these are caraballo's tweets in question:

the source for this is the romanian article i linked to earlier in this post. it doesn't say any of this. at least, the english translated version of it doesn't. for what it's worth, i'm not a romanian speaker, and i don't have any benchmark for judging if google's translation service is missing linguistic nuances. here's what it actually says:

Sources close to the investigation stated, for Gândul , that shortly after the completion of the computer expertise, the authorities waited for the right moment to catch the Tate brothers, who were always out of the country.

After seeing, including on social networks, that they were together in Romania, the DIICOT prosecutors mobilized the special troops of the Gendarmerie and descended, by force, on their villa in Pipera, but also on other addresses.

it's also probably worth pointing out that tate's villa was previously searched in april. while the article does say that social media was used to help confirm their location, it doesn't say anything about pizza boxes. and, like, given that tate is a prolific social media poster and was tweeting out videos of romania on sunday, i think it's safe to assume they had a wealth of other information to go off.

and if you don't want to take my word for it, nyt and wapo both reported that the spokesperson for the romanian prosecutor presiding over the case denied the pizza box thing:

Speculation online centered on whether a distinctive pizza box featured in one of Mr. Tate’s tweets to Ms. Thunberg had helped lead the authorities to him, but Ramona Bolla, a spokeswoman for the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism, told The New York Times on Friday that that was not the case.

anyway, ain't it funny how caraballo's made the fuck up pizza tweet got 76 million views, 97k retweets, and 525k likes, while her appended correction got 78k views, 100 retweets, and 820 likes. her initial "source: my mind" tweet is still up. ain't. it. funny.

[turtlesandfrogs]

I'm taking this free online class from Yale on the Science of Well-Being,

and it's free, so I'm gonna share the extremely short notes about what I'm learning. Why does well-being and happiness matter? Because people have more energy and more capacity to effect change if they are doing well mentally.

And because I think American culture in general is structured in a way that ignores human needs and leads to increased suffering in all sorts of ways.

[liminalweirdo]

HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO:

email, call, or write your reps (this is the most important one) — use this tool to find your reps HERE IS A TEMPLATE that you can pull from.

Here is the text used in the petition that you can pull from to include in your email/letter to your reps:

I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk. KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources. KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity. There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data. KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.

Here is an open letter from parents of trans and GNC kids that you can also add your name to/ pull from in writing your own letter

sign this petition

[toskarin]

sorry to ask, but can you explain your last post to someone who knows nothing about the musician community youre talking about... it sounds like a really really good post if i just understood it better

this is another one of those posts where I'm transcribing a stream of consciousness, so I'll throw in a courtesy readmore

the musician community, as a whole, is much more segmented than the visual artist community

this leads to good and bad things, but generally it allows for more awareness of one's position and an acknowledgement that the needs of an underground folk artist are going to be different than the needs of a composer who receives a name credit. this means there is always going to be heavy pushback when someone tries to impose ethics downward

one element of this is the inward acknowledgement that the monolithic musician community isn't actually real in a way that isn't really mirrored in the visual artist community. besides making music and navigating the financial (and legal) landscape of that, there is very little that intrinsically unites musicians

this acknowledgement allows discussions about concerns among poorer musicians to exist without being completely shut down by someone who has different concerns, because they're not seen as the subject of the discussion unless they are respectfully contributing to it

one big reason for this being possible is that musicians are less respected than visual artists in the professional world

that might sound absurd if you only know of one landscape, but think of how many game (and movie, and tv, and etc. etc. etc.) franchises with identity-defining composers go on to swap out the composer at the first sign of a labour dispute, to very little protest as long as the quality of music isn't seen as dropping

hell, if someone else can copy your style satisfactorily, there's often no fuss at all! this leads to a pretty violent disillusionment with your place in the creative world

even beyond that, there exists an entire industry based around creating a parasitic body of IP landlordism for anyone whose music isn't attached to another product. the musician is, in a way that is deeply and thoroughly beaten into them, a labourer

the visual artist community (until recently) didn't tend to have this disillusionment, so it often follows the sway of its most popular and established members

in fact, the modern visual artist community as a broad cultural body is carved almost entirely from social media discussions that treat the community as one entity. accordingly, becoming established basically requires participation in this online entity

to further poison the well, the position of a visual artist is regularly talked about in spiritual terms rather than labour terms. there is something special that makes you a visual artist. it's the exact mentality that people rightfully made fun of in those ordinary people vs creative people comics. it's the unspoken cultural assumption that natural talent exists, even if most people would deny believing in it if put into explicit terms

while this does feel very good, it means that acknowledging labour-originated conflicts of interest is a bit rude

when a community unites itself around a spiritual core, it can't properly assert "your experiences are not applicable to what is being discussed and you should not be imposing yourself" because, by all metrics, an artist is a fundamentally unique demographic that can speak in all conversations about art

it's a warped form of anti-gatekeeping, a one-way gate through which you can strike down at other poor artists, but not up, enforced from below and framed as a desire for openness

the visual artist community's relative homogenisation of popular consensus is, on the whole, very very very bad for what it does to its norms. it hashes out and legislates within itself with an unspoken assumption that its most prolific members are simply further along the artist lifecycle, and therefore the most trustworthy

discussions with direct parallels ("is it okay to be obviously influenced by someone else's style?") come to much hazier conclusions which lean towards the opinions held by people with the most followers

most egregiously, this manifested in how visual artists react to piracy

the past ten years (in large part because of patreon making viable the paywalling of material behind a regular subscription) have been consumed by arguments about piracy that all seem to terminate in the assumption that piracy is theft, with little stratification of opinion between the hobbyist and professional scenes on this matter

this assumed spiritual core of the community is felt strongly in every conversation. look at the difference in attitudes around the distribution of cracked VSTs and the distribution of brush packs. hell, even on the corporate level, look at the difference in attitudes around pirating DAWs vs visual art programs

even when people are implying an approval of piracy, they find ways to frame it from a position of revenge on a company for something wrong it did, because they still need to conform to the community understanding of piracy as theft

individual visual artists can be (and often are!) more conscious of this stuff, but even then, people react with shock when these visual artists aren't horribly concerned about the possibility of their paywalled work existing on a torrent site

in a word, if you can see the ways these conversation spaces are different and similar, it's all so exhausting