#also fun (not so fun) fact ive played league for 10 years now
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plays The Line on repeat
#arcane#jayce talis#viktor#leauge of legends#arcane spoilers#obsessionobsessionobsession#jayvik#i suppose? in a platonic soulmates kinda way maybe#love aroace viktor#also fun (not so fun) fact ive played league for 10 years now#i have a few league drawings from 2016#my art
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After having played the game, here are my thoughts on Sword and Shield. (SPOILERS)
RIVALS You’re stuck with yet another annoyingly happy friendly rival, though he does experience some character growth and becomes the most challenging of your three rivals. Bede and Marnie, while both better rivals characteristically, one a jerk who pulls a Vegeta and literally refers to himself as a “Super Elite” at one point, and the other how a friendly rival should be done, “I don’t hate you, but we’re rivals, not friends, and I’m gonna keep coming at you till I win” kind of deal, are sadly both are made easy by the fact that they’re mono-type users. Bede Psychic and Marnie Dark. VILLAIN TEAM Team Yell amounts to nothing. They are exactly as advertised. A bunch of hardcore Marnie fans from Marnie’s home town. Its Team Skull without the conspiracy. Chairman Rose’s, (The actual villain) plan makes no sense. He wants to awaken Eternatus, which causes Pokemon across the region to spontaneously dynamax, causing untold damage to the region and its people. He wants to do this because it will somehow solve an energy crisis Galar is not currently facing and won’t face for another 1000 years. How this works is never explained. His battle theme was awesome tho, it straight up sounded like something out of Final Fantasy. At times it felt like they were trying to comment on global warming. “Taking action today to solve a problem tomorrow”, but it framed it as a bad thing.
DIFFICULTY These games are more difficult than X/Y, but slightly less difficult than US/UM The gym leaders are finally free of their “3 Pokemon with only 3 moves” thing that plagued Kalos, but they’re not exactly “wall” difficult. There is no Whitney. They’re not rocking type-coverage moves or anything.
Hop is the only trainer to present you with any real challenge throughout the game, mainly because he changes his team up every now n then, even adding a surprise Snorlax out of nowhere.
I personally didn’t have any trouble taking down Leon, but I’ve seen him nearly wipe some people so idk. Regardless, his battle was really hype because he’s built up throughout the game as being unbeatable. He’s not a total pushover, but he’s probably the weakest champion to date.
MISSING MOVES You’re not going to miss any of the removed moves and not as many have been removed as that list that was floating around was claiming. GameFreak trimmed the fat.
QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE META GAME As far as breeding, raising Pokemon, etc for competitive goes? this is hands down the best Pokemon game to date. If you’re playing Pokemon solely for the meta game and you’re not hung up on some Pokemon being gone, then this is going to be the best Pokemon game in your eyes.
Mints let you change a Pokemon’s nature.
Ability capsule is only 50 BP now.
Egg moves don’t require breeding to be learned
Dittos with good IVs can be easily obtained in a specific raid den (I have two 4 IV dittos just chilling)
Move reminder/deleter is one NPC located in every Pokemon center and his services are free. (He’s also the name rater)
IV checker is a feature of the PC after you complete 6 battles in the battle tower in post game. thanks to the remote PC item thing, the PC is accessible from anywhere so you can check IVs where ever and when ever you want
Eggs seem to take less time to hatch now. That, or the wild area is just weird, because thats where I do all my egg hatching.
Hyper training is still a thing, with bottle caps you can boost a level 100 Pokemon’s IVs Getting your Pokemon to level 100 is easy because the game throws rare candies and EXP candies at you. Very easy to amass a bunch. You can also choose to feed as many as possible to the Pokemon at once, so no more one at a time crap.
Speaking of “No more one at a time crap”, you can now max out a Pokemon’s EVs with vitamins, where as in the past you could only use 10 of a vitamin max. It takes 26 to max out an EV. Expensive, but fast. Vitamins can be purchased for their usual price, or bought at battle tower for 2 BP each
PRESENTATION While the story wasn’t great, the presentation was. When they did a cutscene, they DID a cutscene. However this made the fact that there’s no voice acting very jarring. There are points in this game that legitimately feel like they were supposed to have voice acting. Maybe in the next one.
THE MISSING POKEMON I’ll be 100% real here. I didn’t miss them (and some of the Pokemon I use frequently didn’t make it in) And honestly, it shakes up the meta game. Meta game was getting stale for a while now. I just used different Pokemon and honestly found some new favorites because of it.
MUSIC The music in this game is great. Not every song is a banger, but a lot of them are. All the major battle themes are absolutely fantastic. Sadly you’ll have to wait until post-game to hear the battle theme Toby Fox contributed. Or you can just go to youtube.
THE WILD AREA The wild area is a pretty good chunk of land, but at the same time I hoped it would be bigger. After you beat the Pokemon league, the Pokemon in the wild area all scale up to a minimum level of 60, with some of the raid dens having level 70 Pokemon
MAX RAID BATTLES Surprisingly fun, though the game will give you the absolute most brain dead NPC teammates if you play offline. You have 10 turns to take down the kaiju mon, BUT if it KO’s pokemon on your team 4 times, the raid ends. The “Playing raid battles with NPCs” experience can be summed up like this. “Oh the Pokemon’s barrier only needs 1 more hit to break and that hit will also result in us winning? And the Pokemon only needs to get one more KO to make us fail the raid? And everyone is on low HP and will surely get KO’d in the next attack? Lemme just... Rock polish real quick...” The game doesn’t take type advantage into account when setting you up with NPCs for raids so sometimes you’ll go into a raid against a fire type and the NPCs will all have things that are weak to fire, or just not good against fire. So for the love of god, play raids online with real people if its a high level raid
The game is a solid 7/10 9/10 if you’re in it just for the meta game
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is that [JOE KEERY]? no, that’s just [ELVIE CROFT]. [HE/HIM] is [TWENTY-FIVE] years old and is a [NIGHT JANITOR AT CURTAIN CALL]. rumor has it they’ve been in town for [ONE MONTH]. on a good day, they’re [JOCUND & PERSPICACIOUS]. but watch out! they can also be [SCATTERBRAINED & OBSTREPEROUS]. [SCRAWNY BY WALLOWS] plays in my head whenever i think of them. can’t wait to see them around Springhill! [sam, 23, est, she/her]
hey there demons! *ba dum tss* i’m sam and this is one of my favorite muses ever so without further ado, character info is under the cut and please message me if you would like to plot!
i. stats
full name:elvin tupelo croft
preferred names:el, elvie, spooky guy
hometown:salem, massachusetts
date of birth:october 31st, 1994
age: twenty - five
zodiac:scorpio
orientation:demisexual
occupation:night janitor at curtain call movie theater
pos. traits:jocund, perspicacious, loyal, open - minded.
neg. traits:scatterbrained, obstreperous, flippant
ii. history
elvin tupelo ���elvie” croft was born in salem, massachusetts ( yes, really ) on halloween day ( yes, really ). he's an only child and his father is the district attorney for essex county, massachusetts while his mother owns a small local business that sells witchcraft supplies such as crystals, herbs, grimoires, and more. interesting fact: she’s the descendant of an accused witch, meaning that elvie is as well.
as it turns out, beneath of the surface of the few tourist attractions that it has to offer, salem has a small town, stuck in the past vibe. it’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone all their lives because no one ever leaves and no one ever moves in. he grew up in this…eccentric…environment, living in the same house all his life and only ever leaving to visit his grandparents in boston.
he was five years old when he saw his first horror movie ( an apathetic teenage babysitter let him stay up long past his bedtime to watch nightmare on elm street ) and from that moment on he was HOOKED.
when he started school, two things about him became apparent: 1) he was highly intelligent and 2) he struggled greatly with tasks such as sitting still and staying focused. he was tested ( a few times, much to his irritation ) and it turns out that he has a genius level iq and adhd.
he could have been one of those child prodigies who finished high school at the age of ten and then college at the age of fourteen, BUT his parents decided that they didn’t want him to miss out on the experience of going through school with peers his own age.
HOWEVER, as the smartest kid in class with glasses and braces and an insatiable obsession with all things horror and halloween, he…was picked on. mercilessly. he never had many friends, but he was content to go right home after school and spend the rest of the day reading comic books or watching horror movies or researching local urban legends and paranormal stories.
so, when he got to his senior year of high school, he was a shoe - in to be named class valedictorian ( he was ) and he was even getting ivy league offers. of course, his parents mainly his father were really pushing him to attend college and elvie, genius level iq and all…didn’t want to go. he had a van ( a turquoise monstrosity painted to look like the mystery machine ) and he just wanted to drive. alas, his dad was absolutely NOT having it.
he attended harvard for both his pre law and law school studies, breezed through classes, graduated with honors at the top of his class and once he passed the bar exam there were countless job offers waiting for him. elvie ignored them all and finally embarked on that road trip he had been meaning to take.
he’s been on the road for about a year now and he’s traveled all over the country. he often breezes into a town or a city, lives in his van, and takes up some odd jobs to squeeze a few dollars out of before he inevitably gets fired for messing up or not taking the work seriously or getting high on the job. he arrived in springfield a month ago, continuing his pattern or having fun and exploring somewhere he’s never been before.
iii. extras
his name is elvin but basically no one ever calls him that. his own parents don’t even particularly like the name. long story. most people call him elvie and some who are super close to him just call him el.
BIG RYAN BERGARA ENERGY. a huge believer in the paranormal and urban legends, and one of his favorite things to do when he goes somewhere new is check out the local cemeteries and haunted locales. unlike ryan, the poor guy he’s definitely NOT a scaredy cat in fact, all his life there’s been this running joke that he doesn’t seem to be scared of anything, and who knows? maybe he isn’t.
has the most cartoonishly exaggerated boston accent that one could ever hope to hear, except he doesn’t seem to realize it at all.
10/31 blaze it he’s a HUGE stoner.
he’s got jokes. stay vigilant.
he’s OBSESSED with all things horror, halloween, and 80s. he makes a lot of film references that are often so obscure that most people don’t even catch them.
he’s a lawyer! at least in the state of massachusetts. however, this is not at all common knowledge because…
most people don’t know how smart he actually is as he intentionally plays dumb and he’s really good at it. being high all the time and his natural chaotic energy is quite helpful in hiding his intelligence. he just doesn’t like to be seen as smart, so the whole once - brilliant law student thing? not common knowledge whatsoever. he tries not to mention the college he attended by name at all, but if he has to then he lies and says that he went to salem state.
and yes, he has SO MUCH chaotic energy. he’s the kind of person who will stick a fork in his microwave just to see what would happen out of sheer boredom. he has two pet mexican redknee tarantulas named freddy and jason who he just…fucking loses track of every other day. his favorite drink is literally black coffee mixed together with a can of monster energy and 5 ( f i v e ) teaspoons of sugar. he is c h a o s. he has absolutely NO IMPULSE CONTROL whatsoever.
he has slight Daddy Issues™. slight. when he was born, his dad was hoping that he would get a star athlete kid who would go on to follow in his footsteps and one day become a successful, respectable lawyer but instead he got…elvie. he’s never outright said that he’s disappointed but he didn’t need to. elvie’s a really difficult person to rattle but every time, without fail, he ends a phone call with his dad and he’s in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
his car is this PIECE OF JUNK giant turquoise van that he painted to look like the mystery machine. her name is laurie strode.
even though he makes constant pop culture references about horror movies and the 80s, but outside of those areas he’s completely clueless about pop culture. like, he can recite the entire scripts of the shining and empire strikes back and ferris bueller’s day off word for word, but if someone tried to talk to him about the new beyonce song or the latest marvel movie he would just stare blankly.
he has a HUGE sweet tooth. his favorite food is halloween candy and his favorite candy is black licorice disgusting i know.
he takes adderall for his adhd and he’s usually good about keeping up with it. started keeping them on his person in college because he realized that his meds were getting stolen and it’s a habit he’s held onto that doesn’t really keep his shit from getting stolen.
he’s good at…A LOT of things because he’s a really fast learner. he can play the guitar, he can draw, he did drama in high school. he just has to watch someone do something once and then he can usually immediately do it himself. this skill doesn’t extend to physical activities such as sports, however. he’s terrible at those.
he’s basically a cartoon character
iv. wanted connections
best friend from salem who travels with him *will probably submit as a wc
friends
cousin ( their grandparents would probably be from boston but otherwise anything really goes for this )
his weed dealer
smoking buddies
people who don’t like him / find him annoying
i know there are a lot of business owners so : people he worked for who have since fired him for being an all around awful employee.
has stolen his adderall
maybe someone who knows how smart he really is
romantic connections!
( these are just ideas and i’m trash at coming up with these, so please don’t feel limited by what’s listed here. )
#springhillintro#bullying tw#drugs tw#medication tw#tl;dr what if shaggy from scooby doo was a real person
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Snyder Explains Endgame
2014.10
Scott Snyder: While I was writing "Zero Year," I kind of had this thing in the back of my mind as a story that we'd eventually return to. It just became a question of what was the best time to actually launch into it. Ultimately, I thought about doing it about six months from now, but I kept looking at the date, being like, "It's Batman's 75th anniversary!" I remember one of my friends was like, "It's also Joker's 75th anniversary at the end of that." "You know what, we've got to do it. We've got to do it then."
It's something we've been looking forward to for a very long time. It's the conclusion, I think, to the arc for us with the Joker as a character that really began in "Death of the Family" in terms of his psychology.
How has the Joker changed at this point? Where do we find him in this story? If he's controlling a Joker-ized Justice League, that seems to be an upgrade.
Scott Snyder: He's changed a tremendous amount since the last time we saw him, and this story is really sort of an inversion of the other one -- we would never want to do something that felt, in any way, repetitive. For us, if that one was sort of a comedy, or was about him saying, "This story is all about friendship and love and this sense of immortality and you coming with me and your villains, who are your true family, who are your royal court -- we're the ones who transformed ourselves into these eternal figures, because we saw you do it, and we have transcended our bodies and death to become these things of legend and to give meaning to what we do" -- and Batman rejects all of that in "Death of the Family," where he says, "No, what makes me stronger is my humanity -- the people that love me and the people I love as Bruce Wayne." In doing so, he severed all ties with the Joker.
This time, the Joker's back to say, "Actually, your life means nothing. Your life is a joke, and the fact that you think that it has any kind of significance or meaning, what you do, and that it has an effect on things in the greater picture, is laughable, and I'm here to prove that to you." So this one is really about hate. [Laughs] And death and suffering -- tragedy as opposed to "Death of the Family." If that one was happy, this one is sad. But, that said, it's not going to be centered on a character dying or going after one person -- Joker's really here to say, "I am out for all of you. I'm here to burn everything down this time."
can you tell us if this is this Joker's endgame against Batman -- or the world at large? What can you share about the significance of that title, now that we know Joker's the villain?
Scott Snyder: Joker's saying, "This is the end of us. This is it. This is the last Joker story of 'Batman and Joker.'" Joker is moving on, is what Joker would say. So it's really the end of the game played between the two of them.
For him, he's funeral. He's ready to end everything with Batman. For us, it's incredibly fun to write him in this psychological state, because it's no-holds barred. It's the kind of thing where nobody is precious, no one matters, he's out to prove a point and to make Batman feel like his life is meaningless. In that way, he's incredibly vicious and incredibly fun.
His plan is huge -- you can imagine, if we open with the Justice League Joker-ized, we're not going to go smaller from there. [Laughs] It's very, very big, and very out of control, and a lot of fun to write. I don't want to say I'll never write the Joker again, because I always feel like you do that, and then 10 years down the line you get some opportunity and you become a hypocrite about it. But I would say this is really the concluding chapter for us for the Joker, given the relationship we've created between him and our version of Bruce Wayne, for this run of "Batman."
Scott Snyder: Really, it's a celebration of Batman and Joker's 75th anniversary in that way, where we're trying to show how far-reaching their influences are on other characters, how big their relationship is, how long a shadow it casts over Gotham in general and the DCU.
Scott Snyder: "Death of the Family," for us, was incredibly claustrophobic and dark and nightmarish, so there was a lot of sense of close spaces, hallways, cables, tiny rooms, darkness -- it was always nighttime. All of that stuff.
For this one, what we wanted to do was kind of invert that. So Joker is out in the daylight -- or out in the gloom of Gotham, which is essentially bright afternoon. It's like a good day in Gotham when it's raining.
But him out there in the midday celebrating his own return, with the city all around him, and this sense of space, a more muscular, bombastic story -- a story where he doesn't care about needling his way into Batman's world, he's changing the world himself, and he's waiting for Batman to come to him. A totally different visual landscape for Greg to play in. This one is spacious, it's out of control, it's very open, you get a sense of Gotham being very -- I'm trying to say things without giving anything away. I'm not at a loss for words, it's that I don't want to give away Joker's plan as it goes forward. But you'll see a very vast canvas, where "Death of the Family" was very centered on specific characters. It was more piercing.
[Capullo] has had some great opportunities, and FCO also, the colorist, and Danny [Miki, the book's inker]. We have different mission statements for each one. "Zero Year" was meant to be highly technicolor and punk rock, to invert "Year One" and not to use the gloomier, realistic colors that we had used in "Court of Owls." This one is meant to be like a kaleidoscopic use of color and art. Where the first one was black, horror, grisly; this one is, Joker's just sort of there, taking everything he wants. So there's a sense of scope to it that I think will be reflected in the art and coloring.
And wait until you see Greg's design for Joker. It's just awesome. It's very distinctive, too. [Laughs] I already see it and I'm like, "Oh my god, I haven't seen the Joker look like that." It's very good. I really like it.
Is his face going to be reattached?
Well, his face is over with Joker's Daughter. Although he has it at one point in this story -- spoiler! I would imagine he would need a face. I wouldn't have him walking around with a mask, or something like that. Without giving too much away, I think it's safe to bet that he will probably have a face of some kind, yes.
Also wanted to ask about the back-up stories written by James Tynion IV for this arc, with the one in #35 rather moodily drawn by Kelley Jones. What can you say about the plan for those back-ups, and how they're working in tandem with the main narrative?
They're great. They're connected to the main narrative in that they follow the things that are happening to Gotham, and are happening to the characters that you see in "Batman" itself. But essentially James' mission when we discussed them, we talked about the possibility of him doing five stories really that give different origins for the Joker. Different tales of how he is capable of doing what he does, and who he is. That's the narrative there -- even though it has a plot, and it has a very dark place that it's going.
It's also a celebration, artistically, of great Batman artists both past and present. So you'll see that people that I think you'll really be excited and shocked to have return to Batman in different capacities. It really is like a big birthday party for Joker and Batman -- though they would argue whose birthday it really is. [Laughs]
https://www.cbr.com/snyder-explains-batmans-endgame-and-35s-major-last-page-reveal/
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I KNOW ITS BEEN LIKE 300 YEARS BUT-
5 things you’ll find in my bag
Right now theres uhh Notebooks, both school and 1 art. Drink mix ins, with such great flavors as sour apple jolly rancher and crush pineapple (tm) Two packs of cards, one of which steam punk themed and the other your regular ol bicycle. A calculator. Its a shitty old one but its for tests, i have google and shit for anything i need myself.
5 things you’ll find in my bedroom
A roommate. Idk if he is gay or what but he isnt straight, name’s will. Chill dude. Sleepin rn, what a fella MY SICK ASS COMPUTER IM MISSING OUT ON BECAUSE MY ROOMMATE IS ASLEEP AAAAAAAAAAAAAA I WANNA PLAY ROCKET LEAGUE WITHOUT LAGGING TO HELL also programming my mods. Need to upload that shit. Shit what number we on, 3? Okay cool. A bed. Wow really a bed in your bedrooM? yeah its pretty fuckin spectacular i know. I dont have posters n shit so like i gotta be creative you feel. A microfridge. Now i know what youre thinking, “ah a small fridge whats the big deal?” but no you dont understand, its a microwave fucking bolted onto the top of a fridge. They gave zero fucks attaching these two together and apparently the name is the same way, WHY NOT A FRIDGEWAVE EVEN LIKE MICROFRIDGE JUST SOUNDS LIKE A SMALL FRI- Last but not least, im tempted to just say my wallet here tbh, cuz its old but like, youd EXPECT that now would you? Something boring and mundane for me to fill out the word count with making everything super exciting so nah man, fuck it. Theres air in my bedroom. Fight me.
5 things I’ve always wanted to do in my life
Make a videogame. Like okay, a lot of stuff on this list is jokes and stuff, and I know im going into too much detail and my followers will probably murder me in cold blood for this shit, but im serious about this one like - i have some ideas, but i never have the motivation alone to like work whole-heartedly and finish one but like, at some point in the future id love to sit down and just go at it and make a game. Doesnt matter if its popular or big or small just i wanna make something that i love ya feel? I wanna like, go to newark, delaware. I know, its delaware and all, no one lives there, but ive met a bunch of cool people there and i was promised a donut run sometime, so lookin forward to that. Yknow that post awhile back that was like “i dont wanna be rich and like buy shit, i just wanna have enough money to throw at kickstarters whenever i want without having to strain on my food and rent costs” thats me. 100% Like i wanna have just enough money to be able to donate to cool people and watch them do cool shit - it wont always work out but thats fine, I just love shit. I wanna be able to donate like the high prize and fly out to meet these game studios for coffee and shit and just talk with em and see their passion and ideas. I love it. Im not actually really sure besides those. Like idk. I think itd be cool to enter a game tournament with my brother and win, but i doubt thatll happen and its not super like on my desires just itd be cool cuz we named ourselves Sora and Shiro after NGNL and to see that like, have us win would be great. Yeah. Ill make my fifth to think of a fifth one.
5 things on my to do list
FLOPPY DICKS i mean disks. Floppy disks. I do binding of isaac ab+ modding shit, and im currently working (its mostly done for what i want it to do) which adds a new consumable called floppy disks, effects are based on viruses, bugs, and just computer based shit. Like BSOD for instance, which makes the screen literately bluescreen. Or atleast look like it. Cant wait to watch people play with it. I gotta work on the programming class project too but honestly i dont waannnaaa. Like its cool as shit. Recreate a card game using c++ code. But man, i just love Apocrypha and Floppies so much more. Eat today???? Please. Dining hall opens in 3 hours. Its goddamn 4 am. I want my food. Dunno if ill get it - if ill stay awake till then. But i want it. Probably draw some stuff? Like i posted one drawing already (check it out if u wanna ;) kay?) but like theres wacom tablets here i can just kinda use whenever???? its great. I love being able to just draw stuff on em. Even if i suck at drawing, even if it took 10 hours to make the one i posted here, still love. Probably play more rocket league. Sleep first, soon as i get that food im CRASHIN BOI IM OUTTIE HA but uhh, rocket league has a halloween thing rn and i like playing it. Was playing earlier today and i matchd with a dude in 2v2 that had the same car, skin, AND colors set up as mine. Totaly random. We kicked some major ass together. I kept thinking of the same hat comic the entire time. (also my card was superior because it had furry ears on it ;))
5 things that make me happy
Getting an idea for a thing and working at said thing until like boom it went from this abstract idea to now it has a physical form and it works! And its fun and its great and i can share it with other people and they can have fun too!!!! that feeling is wonderful. Obviously friends man. Just doing shit with people can be so great sometimes - like not all the time sure but like man. Its nice to talk to people and share experiences and just smile and tell bad jokes and have them groan but like it anyway like thats the shit. Going out at 2 am and walking to a nearby run down schoolyard and swinging on the swingsets and watching shooting stars burn up. Thats the good shit. Getting tents and setting em up in your friends back yard when your friend from far away comes up for a few days, and playing ridiculous games in a group like kick the can or fuckin zombie screaming your lungs out in the dark to freak em out, or just talkin around a fire about fuckin life man. The people make life great. Shits worth living for. I realize that last answer covered a LOT of shit but like, im just gonna add here videogames. Would be amiss if i didnt mention that, considering the rocket league rant above lmao. Yeah i better not make this category any longer.
5 things I’m (currently) into
Isaac modding, probably will be for awhile. Its good shit. As a suggestion from one of the people I work with (we also fuck around its a good time) i have started watching space dandy. Its a slow progress through lol like an episode or two a day but god man like its pretty ridiculous and the main character is pretty much everything i was expecting from seeing him everywhere. Rocket league again. It comes and goes with various different games to tide me over, give me a break from working. Bout 2 months ago or so said relaxing time was dominated by anime - i suddenly went on like a massive streak of watching shit. By that i mean, i watched all of hunter x hunter in like 2 weeks, among other shows prior to it. But yeah. Fuck man HXH I LOVED THE KING WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I have too many emotions about that. I wrote a rant to the Groupchat (tm) about the fucking battle and how everything is in slow motion but it fucking like makes it like foreshadowed and have so much of an impact and still so much fucking happens even while everything runs at super slow mo just GOD KLASFJBHUGHASFIUHIPJASK anyway. Yeah. Music, as always im listening to like constantly. Wireless headphones are a wonder for this, but uhh....i cant say im especially into any specific thing rn right? Like a bit ago i was super into joywave and then that faded out and now im just listening to whatever random shit, yknow? But I am into music in general. Its good. Art! A lot of times i dont do shit like for drawing right, like especially not in like pencil in notebooks but like, i sorta started doing a lot more art stuff? Like i had a period awhile back last year where i stopped using pencils and used only pens and i just loved the aesthetic of the ink like how it looked (funny how im doing the opposite of the fucking inktober though, huh?) but yeah im back into using pencils to draw shit occasionally. Im still terrible at drawing people (which is what i see mostly everyone drawing on tumblr lmao RIP) but its fun to sketch stuff out and just let my thoughts run and bounce to some music and shit right? Also the tablets. Especially with the tablets.
5 things people may not know about me (at least on tumblr)
I basically constantly wear sweatshirts, and they all have like earbuds where the strings go. All the earbud shits are broken pretty much, like occasionally they work (the one i have rn does) but like, i dont ever really use them? i have wireless headphones for my phone and a headset (because i need the mic for my computer) for said computer so like, idk. But yeah. I rarely take em off when im not home, and sometimes even when i am i just kinda keep em anyway? (also just now i realized i talked in the section for room shit about all the stuff in my current dorm, my room at home has all KINDS of wierd fucking shit in it. Really missed an opportunity there.) Like many people i like to stay hydrated and shit, but drinking water all the time seemed like a chore more than anything so i got like drink mix ins and shit, mio’s or whatever offbrand version you can find at your local SUPERSTORE CONGLOMERATE. I drink em like all the time pretty much so atleast im health in one way :P. Also gummy vitamins. I dont excercise but you can only ask for so much. Idk, its hard to think of things for this section because tumblr knows so little about me yknow? Like i never make my own posts or shit like its SUPER rare so im pretty much just tryna find random facts but that might not be interesting? Like i have a bad habbit of like talking way too loud when im excited about something right? Not quite yelling but like getting there and like idk. See? Thats not super interesting but it is something no one online would be able to really know ya feel? Idk. I mean physically im kinda fat as you do, but im also like wierdly strong? Like for someone who never works out i sure do have arm strength if nothing else lmao. My endurance is shit tho. Honestly? I can only blame it on osu and groceries. Osu is just a game i like where you mash buttons to the beat of weaboo shit tier music. The groceries is just because like, well, my policy is Least Trips Possible which means carrying in 13 bags at a time if need be it, fuck it milk too? And a watermellon? Bring it.
Who am I tagging? Idk man. Just for shits and stuff tho i do wanna tag @theoriginalyami just to see what all’s changed in teh long time since i actually went to fill it out :P Dont feel like you have to add as much as me tho omg @milkchocolateowl because honestly? love you. Think about you a lot, just like glad im mutuals with that ray of sunshine. Good. @fantaledfish <3 (this is the friend i mentioned earlier, runs a QUALITY blog i guarantee it, better than mine for sure) @dragonfucker-supreme always top in my notes, a silent bond, like two guards assigned to watch back to back in the early dawn. Birds gather round. I can only tag so many people (i set myself a limit of 5 because...idk why i just mentally it felt right) so for my last trick gotta go with @ask-oncies-jizz like cmon man name changes for the win, also has quality icons and quality shitposts tbh, supreme top meme. Have fun yall.
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IV Therapy Benefits You Need to Know
Over the past couple of years, IV treatment, which injects vitamins straight, has actually come to be a growing number of preferred. The therapy's surge in appeal was perhaps as a result of its usage by stars, including Adele, John Legend, and also Rihanna. Currently, many others have actually sought the therapy program for the countless wellness advantages it can provide.
When utilized legally, IV treatment could be rather helpful. However, as the popularity of IV drip treatment has actually increased, so also has the variety of clinicians with little to no clinical background offering these services. If you want to use IV treatment, it's critical that you research the center you're utilizing beforehand. Listed below, you'll find a brief introduction of what IV treatment is, together with the advantages as well as possible dangers of IV treatment.
What Is IV Therapy?
When you take your early morning dosage of vitamins, the best absorption rate you can anticipate is just between 50-60%. That means that as much as fifty percent of the supplements are literally going to waste, as in right out of your body using your urine. This is discouraging taking into consideration supplements are commonly costly. IV hydration methods, on the other hand, have a 90-100% absorption price.
An infusion can take 20 mins to a hr and is done at a clinical office under the guidance of a certified professional. By absorbing the nutrients through an IV, you are allowing them to go into the blood stream much faster than if you ingested them.
In the past, those who sought IV vitamin treatment were people who aren't able to eat enough food or have an ailment that interferes with nutrient absorption. Newer utilizes for this therapy consist of dehydration alleviation after severe workout or alcohol consumption, a boost for the body immune system, and an increase in energy levels. Most healthy people can obtain sufficient nutrients from a balanced diet regimen, however that takes longer as well as calls for regular maintenance.
What Are the Advantages of an IV Drip?
IV drip therapy can provide lots of wellness benefits. However, there hasn't been much research concentrated on IV therapy explicitly, with numerous studies being unscientific. However, there is substantial evidence supporting the possible health and wellness advantages of high dosages of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids for middle-aged grownups, especially when infused straight. The absorption prices of oral supplements are marginal, especially when contrasted to the absorption rates of straight shots.
To get an IV drip, you will certainly get a needle injected right into your blood vessel that's linked to a tube attached to a bag filled with vitamins. The drips include fluid that might have a combination of vitamins and also antioxidants. It typically takes about 45 to 60 mins to complete.
An intramuscular injection (shot) of vitamins is the fastest means to get vitamins and also there is no IV access called for. An intramuscular shot is pushed into your gluteal or deltoid muscle and also takes only 10 seconds. The dosage is a lot smaller sized due to the fact that the muscular tissues can not deal with as much volume, however the absorption rate is almost as high as an IV drip.
Everyone is various, so normally, the clinic will establish your requirements based upon your private wellness.
Why Not Simply Take Vitamins By Mouth?
Statistics show that nearly half of males and females over the age of 50 make use of an oral multivitamin supplement, with sales coming close to $11 billion yearly [R] When you take a vitamin supplement, it needs to degenerate entirely within 20 minutes of ingestion for you to receive its full benefits. Or else, the vitamin goes to waste.
One research evaluated supplements on the Canadian market to discover if they absorbed as rapidly as the tag suggested [R] The study hinted at false advertising and marketing, claiming that lots of manufacturers utilized terms as well as statements to "include pseudoscientific and unjustified worth to the item." It wrapped up that "today's customers can not presume that the item they acquire will certainly have an appropriate high quality with regard to the fragmentation behavior."
In addition, the American Fda does not manage vitamin supplements. As well as, the absorption rates of dental supplements is rather reduced. For example, if you take a calcium supplement, your body's digestion system takes in 20-30% of the pill. You will certainly urinate out whatever your body does not absorb, indicating that you're squandering money on supplements.
Likewise, studies have located that the body takes in about fifty percent of an oral vitamin B12 supplement. The research study also discovered that the absorption rates decrease when the dosage of the vitamin is higher. It's reasonable to conclude that injecting high-dose vitamins into your bloodstream by means of IV therapy is one of the most reliable method for your body to absorb B complicated and also various other essential vitamins [R]
Does It Actually Work?
If you're going to drop a pair hundred dollars on a solitary therapy session, you would like to know if it functions. Since there are few research studies available now that have evaluated the effectiveness, it is hard to definitively say if it is advantageous for major or chronic problems.
There may be a placebo impact with this treatment. Refresher course: The sugar pill result is basically a mental "technique" where you believe you are feeling much better even if the medicine has not functioned yet.
What Is in the IV Drip?
The most usual components found in an IV drip are vitamin C, B vitamins, magnesium, as well as calcium. There are likewise leaks that include amino acids and also anti-oxidants, such as glutathione. If you're familiar with how to build muscular tissue, you might know the benefits of amino acids, the building blocks of protein.
There are no limitations to which vitamins as well as nutrients can be administered, however the best ones are those that can be gauged with degrees to make sure that the infusion is delivered at a healthy dosage.
Who Can Take Advantage Of IV Treatment?
IV therapy might assist people from different histories, including:
Professional athletes
Recuperating from extreme training is what aids you do much more intense training as well as get faster, bigger, more powerful. By replacing your electrolytes and also obtaining B vitamin doses, your power can return, as well as dehydration goes away. Amino acids, electrolytes, and also other vitamins can boost endurance, and also this recuperation does it without energy beverages, pills, drinks, and the undesirable negative effects of the ingredients in many of them. It can additionally eliminate lactic acid, making the treatment a good choice pre- or post-workout or event.
Runners
Marathons are grueling. Specialized trickles can offer you expanded immune support, helps detox, as well as keeps you stimulated and also freshened. There are also hydration as well as antioxidant representatives included. Be cautioned, however-- some events, leagues, as well as sporting activities do not enable IV treatment due to the fact that it can alter your efficiency, so be sure to check before you participate.
People in Their 30s
In your 30s, you're most likely to be burning the candle at both ends much faster than you can also get even more candles. In between job as well as play, IV therapy might supply you with the energy increase you need to keep all things you are doing while looking terrific.
It's also OK to be straightforward as well as confess that you're most curious regarding IV therapy for hangover relief. There are mobile centers that most likely to concerts and also events to offer this solution. With IV hangover treatment, you obtain hydration, a high dosage of vitamins, antioxidants, as well as micronutrients so you can help your liver detox and also get your power back.
Individuals in Their 40s
Power levels are possibly your main concern now. If you simply had a little a lot more oomph you might get even more done at the office, workout on a daily basis, have fun with the youngsters, and also fix the globe's problems.
People in Their 50s and also 60s
Retirement is so close you can taste it. If you have been desiring for taking a trip and occupying your leisure activities full time, you want to have the power and toughness to do it. A general dosage of vitamins works to reduce inflammation, muscle mass pain, exhaustion, and stress and anxiety.
Just how much Does the IV Treatment Price?
IV therapy is not affordable. Depending on the center as well as combination of vitamins, it's most likely going to run in between $75 as well as $200 for one therapy session. If that seems like too much, consider this-- your body just absorbs concerning half of the vitamins as well as nutrients that you take by mouth, suggesting you lose your hard-earned money. The money you spend on IV treatment is totally made use of the way you want.
Sorts Of IV Treatment
Modern IV treatment was derived from the work of Dr. John Myers, that established what ended up being referred to as the "Myers Mixed drink." The exact formula of the mixed drink is not exactly clear since Myers did not release any composed material on the therapy and patients were not able to supply full info. The most effective estimates think Myers carried out a slow IV press of a combination of magnesium chloride, calcium gluconate, thiamine, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, calcium pantothenate, vitamin B complex, vitamin C, and weaken hydrochloric acid.
Myers's individuals got monthly, weekly, or two times regular injections for approximately 25 years to deal with chronic concerns such as fatigue, depression, upper body pain, as well as palpitations [R]
A customized variation typically utilized currently has magnesium, calcium, B vitamins, and also vitamin C. This mix has actually been effective in treating migraines, fatigue, fibromyalgia, severe muscle spasm, top respiratory system infections, chronic sinusitis, seasonal hay fever, heart disease, as well as other things.
Not Just a Hangover Cure
You may have heard of IV therapy being utilized as a hangover "cure," however there are additionally extremely genuine advantages for your daily life.
If you find yourself sleeping better, being more kicked back, and also able to educate tougher and also a lot more regularly, you are likely to stick with the treatment program. You do not need to be a singer, celeb, or in a consistent event setting in order to profit. Many who seek IV therapy are regular people that just need a boost.
Research Your Medical Professionals Prior To IV Treatment
When looking for IV therapy, it's important that you investigate the clinic you want to use. Some facilities make fraudulent claims regarding IV treatment, giving clinical suggestions that they are not authorized to use. Over the past couple of months, the Federal Profession Compensation has punished entrepreneur' administration of IV treatment without proper licensing [R] Make sure you locate a company with a seasoned clinical history who you depend administer your intravenous therapy.
As well as Now?
While couple of research studies have actually been published thus far that have actually tested the efficiency of IV vitamin therapy, it can be a valuable therapy when offered by a medical professional. As it ends up being more popular and gathers even more focus, more research and also screening will likely be done to verify the benefits.
If you are searching for remedy for a persistent problem or if you just stayed up far too late enjoying the night life with your buddies, IV vitamin therapy can be an outstanding choice for you.
Visiting well-informed medical professionals will dramatically raise the possibility that your intravenous therapy succeeds. At Prime, we have actually made it simple for you to start and also discover the treatment program that's right for you.
The post “ IV Therapy Benefits You Need to Know “ was first appeared on PRIME
In Toronto? The IV Lounge is a full service IV vitamin therapy clinic offering intravenous infusions such as Myers cocktail, Hangover IV, and high dose vitamin C just to mention a few.
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Fun Facts Tag
was tagged by @jj-nyoung !! Thank you ! (heart eyes emoji)
HOW TALL ARE YOU?
5′2 feet
WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR EYES?
hazel but usually more greenish?
DO YOU WEAR GLASSES OR CONTACTS?
usually glasses bc im too lazy to put in my contacts, but yes
DO YOU WEAR BRACES?
i did for three years, but not any more (yeet)
WHAT IS YOUR FASHION STYLE?
whats style?
WHEN WERE YOU BORN?
august 18
HOW OLD ARE YOU?
17 lol
DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS?
yep! a younger sister & older brother
WHAT SCHOOL/COLLEGE DO YOU GO TO?
im in high school, but i want to go to an ivy league college
WHAT KIND OF STUDENT ARE YOU?
i used to be really shy and quiet in class, but ive gotten better. i dont study, but i do all my homework and review sheets, so maybe thats studying idk
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECTS?
calculus (math) & physics
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE MOVIES?
big hero 6 and life of pi
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE PAST TIMES?
reading and attempting to draw
DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS?
dude im only 17 i havent done much
WHAT IS YOUR DREAM JOB?
astrophysicist or exotic animal veterinarian
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET MARRIED?
i honestly could care less, but if my partner wanted to i would
DO YOU WANT KIDS? HOW MANY?
i love kids but i also dont so i have no idea
HOW MANY COUNTRIES HAVE YOU VISITED?
4 countries as of now, but im going on a cruise next summer to a new place
WHAT WAS YOUR SCARIEST DREAM?
i was aware that i was dreaming and i kept repeatedly falling off a building, but i could create anything to stop it or wake myself up, but i kept falling, hitting the ground, and starting back up at the top to repeat. not fun.
DO YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND OR GIRLFRIEND?
not atm
PUT YOUR PHONE ON SHUFFLE, WITHOUT SKIPPING, POST THE 15 FIRST SONGS THAT PLAY
1. stressed out - twenty one pilots
2. pound the alarm - nicki minaj
3. golden days - panic! at the diso
4. everything i didn’t say - 5sos
5. tic tic tok - got7
6. run - bts
7. just right - got7
8. swalla - jason derulo
9. the night is still young - nick minaj
10. if you do - got7
11. dont wanna cry - seventeen
12. dumb dumb - red velvet
13. cant help falling in love - haley reinhart
14. stigma - bts
15. russian roulette - red velvet
tagging - @sky-suga @jeh-beom @cuddletuan @paradisejaebum @youngjaesloudlaugh
y’all dont have to do it i just wanted to put atleast five instead of zero or one for once lol
#tag: me#i dont know how three of the songs involved nicki minaj but i mean the heart want what it wants#also i need to update my music wowee
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ITS 4:30 AM AND I DONT FEEL LIKE SLEEPING so I’m gonna do this meme that i got tagged for twiCE and totally forgot to do til now!!!! (i had 2 dig through your blogs to find them omg)
ANYWAY i was tagged by both @mooitstimdrake and @cynessie (I MISS U BOTH BTW ❤)
RULES: Share 11 facts about yourself, answer 11 questions provided by the tagger, tag 11 awesome people and leave 11 questions for them to answer!
(I’m gonna skip tagging people/asking 11 questions - 1) because I’m lazy 2) because a lot of people who I would tag either have already been tagged or woN’T DO IT and 3) I have to answer two sets of 11 questions anyway so I’ll let one of those sets take the place of my 11 questions!!)
11 Facts
I was supposed to leave to move into my college 3 days ago but since my college is in Savannah they pushed off move-in/orientation for a weEK BECAUSE OF HURRICANE IRMA AND I’M STILL UPSET/DISAPPOINTED
That being said I’m about to start as a college freshman at art school, planning on majoring in animation! :D
I binged all of Buzzfeed Unsolved in like 2 days and I fuckin LOVE IT
Also BNHA is like my current main obsession???? I fell in love w that anime and uhhhh I’d Die For My Kids
I almost never use skype anymore - I’m always on Discord now (mutuals may add me just message me if you want my tag :3c)
I loooove creating OCs and my main OC is a forest elf named Rally and he’s precious and I LOVE HIM AND COULD TALK ABOUT HIM FOR HOURS (also my best friend @/harpxer and I have a huge ongoing rp with him and her mountain elf oc, Kahl!! they’re really gay)
Hmmm fun fact I guess I’ve been involved with internet communities since I was 10 years old and I made my very first internet friend when I was 10 and we’re still great friends and talk p much every day to this day (hi @/fiishr)
I want a tattoo super bad but idk what I’d geT
I worked at a jewelry engraving stand at an amusement park this summer and one night I accidentally gave myself a 1st degree burn on my finger from the hot glue gun and it hurt So Bad
I had my graduation party this July and it was really fun but the best part was when 14 of us played this giant game of spoons and it got really intense, made worse by people randomly screaming during it, and then we collectively decided to blast hardcore rap music from the speakers and Let Me Tell You i have not been involved in a more stressful card game in my LIFE
I’ll always always always fall for the hero/happy character/protagonist basically....idk what it is about me but I’m so Predictable...I love cute optimistic brave characters who just wanna do Right.....I don’t cARE IF PEOPLE THINK THEY’RE BORING I THINK THEY’RE PERFECT AND AMAZIGN AND I LOVE THEM
AS FOR AN EXTRA 12TH FACT ABOUT ME AS U CAN SEE I WRITE WAY TOO MUCH AND ALSO I’M THE BIGGEST OVERSHARER E V E R IT’S SO BAD SOMEONE STOP ME
ANYWAY ONTO THE QUESTIONS :3c
@mooitstimdrake‘s Questions:
If you were to make a new blog dedicated to one single thing (fandom, hobby/activity, etc) what would it be? Honestly, right at the moment probably BNHA!!!! it’s legit my most recent big obsession and I love it?? so much???
If you could have any kind of animal as a pet, what would you have? A RACCOON!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THEM SOSOSOSOSOS MUCH and some people actually do have them as pets! They can be difficult though but WORTH IT
Who was your favorite teacher and why were they your favorite? OH BOY......I’m gonna say it’s a tie between my AP studio art teacher and my AP US government teacher from this past year, my senior year! My AP art teacher because our class was super tiny, 12 kids, and it really felt like a family?? She was a-okay with letting us all goof around and say weird shit, she was really chill and funny and like. part teacher, part friend, which was always nice. As for my AP gov teacher, he was SO. FUCKING. FUNNY. OH MAN. NOT EVEN ON PURPOSE he just like? put up with SO MUCH? we had some real character kids in that class and my teacher’s reactions were HILARIOUS. he had a sarcastic streak too so his responses were equally as funny when someone did something weird. He would say the funniest stuff just ask @/harpxer I would tell her so many stories from that class sohboshrb. Aside from the humor that class was really interesting, and he’s a really good, invested teacher - he wanted us to learn, he’s super passionate about government and history, and he always started off each class with 2 current events which was really nice and helped me learn more about things happening in the world too!!! overall that was like my fav non-art class I’ve ever taken!!!!
What’s your guilty pleasure (and I’m challenging you not to say some kind of food)? HMMMMM. Honestly I’m gonna go ahead and say really cheesy or lame movies/shows (like, Disney channel movies, dumb shows - like the one summer I watched all of Glee LOL, stuff like that). Like yeah I know 90% of it is terRIBLE but it’s still amusing/lighthearted stuff that makes me happy KLSDJVLSDHB
Favorite pizza topping? EXTRA CHEESE IF THAT COUNTS, if not then pepperoni!!
What’s the last thing you bought (that wasn’t food)? I’ve actually been buying a lot the past few weeks in prep for college/spending a little money for ONCE since I worked all summer. I got a bunch of boring stuff but the things I’m most excited about are: two posters I got for my dorm (The Office is one and one is Lord Huron), a giant wall tapestry (it’s Up themed!!!), tWO BNHA/POKEMON CHARMS THAT CAME TODAY AND EVERY TIME I LOOK AT THEM I START CRYING BC THEYRE SO CUTE, and oh my GOD I BOUGHT THIS GIANT PILLOW FROM TARGET AND IT IS THE SINGLE SOFTEST THING I’VE EVER FELT AND IT’S HUGE AND IT IMMEDIATELY BECAME MY #1 COMFORT OBJECT AND TOP FIVE FAV THINGS IVE EVER BOUGHT!!!!!! I guess MOST recently though I just bought Clip Studio Paint online today (art program) since it’s on sale for 50% off and I’ve heard great things about it!
What upcoming movies/tv shows are you looking forward to? UHHHHH as for movies... justice league part 1, the incredibles 2, kingsman 2, the neW POKEMON MOVIE I CHOOSE YOU, probably a lot more I can’t remember rn. AS FOR SHOWS HMMM I’m...excited for the next season of the good place and izombie, and oh I’m excited for the punisher netflix show!! and the next season of voltron of COURSE!!! and next season of stranger things!! probably more I’m forgetting too tbh
Any recommendations (this could be anything just throw your best pitch at me)? JFISDJKLBJ I DON’T KNOW OMG tbh rachel you watch a lot of the same things I do already LMAOOO
What’s your favorite thing to wear that you own? OH FUCK I DUNNO HMMM I really like wearing my various leggings and scarves, but as like a Single Item....I like wearing....uhhhh I have this giANT sweater like it’s WAY too big for me but it’s so COMFY and I love it. I also love wearing my Star Labs sweatshirt bc it’s soft and comfortable
What was your first pet? my cat!!! we took her in as a stray kitten living in our backyard when I was like. 2 or 3 and so we’ve basically had her my whole life!!
If you could learn any language, what would it be? UHHHHHH honestly probably spanish - I took it 4 straight years and was okay at it in class but one year went by with me not taking it and I forgot everything LOOOL I’m...bad....at languages....
@cynessie‘s Questions:
Where is the coolest place you’ve ever been? I haven’t been many cool places :( I guess the coolest isssss I dunno it depends? Lake George is where I go on vacation every year, I LOVE NYC, I love Savannah too and it’s where I’m gonna be for college so?? ?? ? ? I’VE NEVER BEEN OUT OF THE COUNTRY AND I’M SAD BUT I’M POOR AND CAN’T AFFORD IT
What was the first thing you remember wanting to be when you grew up? veterinarian!!
Look to your right. What do you see? a dirty plate on my desk, my bed just past that, and my CHARMS THAT CAME TODAY THAT ARE SO CUTE I CRY EVERY TIME I SEE THEM
What are you procrastinating on? ajkldjboidj lik e 4 art commissions,,,, and 7 MAP parts,,,, and my pre-work for 2 of my classes,,,,,,,and cleaning my room,,,, and sending thank-you notes to relatives,,, SOMEONE KICK MY ASS AND MAKE ME DO SHIT
Which family member are you closest too and what is their name? UHHHH.... I guess my younger brother Luke? or maybe my mom? I’m not on bad terms with anyone though, I love both my older brothers too and we all have a good sibling relationship I just talk more with my younger bro I think - second closest would be with my second older brother Connor!
What’s the last song you listened to? I’m listening to Ultralife by Oh Wonder right now :3c I’ve been on a huUUGE Oh Wonder kick lately!!
What do you generally carry in your bag/pockets when you go out? my wallet (w my license and money and debit card and all), travel size lotion, phone, and chap stick!!
What is one thing you are excited for? FINALLY GETTING TO COLLEGE NEXT WEEK AND STARTING CLASSES FJIODFHINBDFHBNSBO
Do you believe in ghosts? I’m gonna hesitantly say YES but I’m not 100% convinced I don’t think
What is a skill you want to learn? MAYBE THIS IS WEIRD but I think learning how to act would be kinda neat. On a more realistic note I wish I could learn to exercise without dying
Tell me a joke. I’M BAD AT JOKES DON’T DO THIS TO ME NESSIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SO YEAH THAT’S ALL FOLKS it’s 5am now...Nice..... :’) I love my ability to stay up obscenely late while also getting Nothing Done JLSDNVDHAGHVDLAK
#about me#my life#hell ya i havent done one of these in a while but it was FUN#sorry for not tagging anyone......im lazy.............
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30 Years of Genesis: Going 30 Years Playing No More Than 30 Minutes of Sonic
This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Sega Genesis in North America. I had such a nostalgia trip reliving my memories of the GameBoy while crafting my recent GameBoy 30th Anniversary piece, that it only seemed fitting that Sega’s iconic 16-bit platform gets the same honors of recounting my memories with it. If you are looking for a more authoritative historical piece on it I recommend either Phoenix IV or Console Wars. The former is a strictly informative recounting of the history of the system while the latter is an entertaining retelling done in the form of a novel after days of interviews with everyone involved. The following are my own personal experiences of playing the Genesis over the past three decades.
I remember first encountering the Genesis while spending either Thanksgiving or Christmas 1991 over at my older sister and brother-in-law’s house. I was only eight at the time, and remember being perplexed at the black gaming box and the thought that there could somehow be other systems than the good ‘ol NES. I did not subscribe to any gaming magazines at this point and I think I was still about a year away from experiencing Sega’s deluge of combative commercials against the SNES. During that holiday season of ’91 I recalled playing the first Streets of Rage on the Genesis with my little brother nonstop the couple days we were there. I remember being blown away by how superior it was graphically to what I experienced with other NES brawlers before like Double Dragon. We only got up to the stage where we faced off against the dueling karate sisters who kept whooping us and neither my brother nor I had the skills at the time to get past. The next year or two the only times I recall playing the Genesis were at my sister’s for the holidays or the occasional store kiosk. I remember my brother-in-law picked up other games we played regularly like ToeJam & Earl, Buster Douglas Boxing, Toxic Crusaders and PGA Tour Golf. I dug all of them, especially ToeJam & Earl where I had no idea what was happening half the time with its unorthodox level structure and item pick-ups, but loving the co-op gameplay, stylish graphics and its funky beats at the time. Brief memories of store kiosk play from the early 90s consisted of being horrible at the original Sonic the Hedgehog because it was too fast for my childhood noggin’ to comprehend. I also recall being confused at early editions of Madden Football at store kiosks because when I would press buttons to hike the ball ‘Audible’ would appear on screen and then eight or nine-year old Dale had no idea what that meant compared to easier pick up and play NES pigskin games I was conditioned to.
Until Christmas of 1995 I probably played no more than about 10 Genesis games all together. I was more aware of the system by that time thanks to reading magazines more regularly at that point and hearing from classmates who had the system, but until that point I was pretty loyal to my NES still (I did not get a SNES until late ’96). For the Christmas season of ’95 my best friend at the time who coincidentally lived three blocks away from me, Rich, received a Genesis and that was when I got a lot more hands-on time with its extensive library of titles. Rich and I shared a lot of similar game interests which at that time was a ton of sports games, fighters and action/brawlers. For the next several months I was over at Rich’s for countless sleepovers and going nuts with fighters like Mortal Kombat II and Evander Holyfield’s Real Deal Boxing. Real Deal Boxing blew away Buster Douglas Boxing with more authentic boxing gameplay and an insanely thorough career mode where we would take a created boxer and move him up the ranks as champion until his skills gradually weakened with age to force his retirement. We absolutely ate up the sports games at that time. We played what seemed like an infinite amount of Madden NFL ‘97. A much wiser 13-year old Dale was no longer befuddled by the intricacies of Madden and we had so much fun with it. We would create many players to deck out our teams and keep running blitzes to try and injure the players because there was an intense bone-breaking injury sound effect that we ate up. It was like the equivalent of Favreau and Vaughn going nuts in Swingers when they made Gretzky bleed in NHLPA ‘93.
Mutant League Football was another favorite of ours that made that injury sound effect in Madden child’s play. EA also made MLF and it was the equivalent of NFL Blitz at the time with larger-than-life mutants and animals literally killing each other on the field with over-the-top hits. It was possible to force a team to retire due to killing off too many of its players which was always our desired objective! If you have not played its spiritual successor follow-up, Mutant Football League on PS4/XB1 I give it the highest of recommendations because it perfectly capture the sensation of the Genesis game while bringing it up to contemporary standards. We also played a lot of EA’s violent driving game, Road Rash II. Being able to race motorcycles and knock out your competition with chains and nightclubs while trying to evade the cops seemed revolutionary when playing it for the first time! We later discovered EA’s take of Road Rash on rollerblades in the awesome rollerblade stunt/racing game Skitchin’! Fun fact about Skitchin’ is that the competitors you race against have gnarly nicknames like ‘Thrasher’ and ‘Jackal’ and thus in ’96 was the origin of how I came up with what wound up as my online handle but at the time was my radical Skitchin’ username, ‘Gruel’ to blend in with the rest of the pack and have stuck with it all these years later!
After spending several months devouring a good dozen or so Genesis games with Rich, it did not compare to the summer of ’96 when Rich signed up for the Sega Channel! I remember it launched in 1994 and seeing commercials for it at the time where it seemed too good to be true where for about $15/month would net the user a Genesis cartridge that would connect to a cable line and get the Genesis online streaming access to a rotating 40-50 Genesis games a month. That is right, decades before services like OnLive and Playstation Now, the Genesis did streaming gaming back in ’94 and it worked like a charm! Check out this pristine archival footage of the menus to see how it all worked. Sega Channel essentially was what Xbox Game Pass is today, and I am surprised to hear how little it is discussed when people reminisce about the Genesis. We discovered so many new games this way and for that entire summer I was over at Rich’s about three to four days a week binging on Sega Channel games until Rich’s dad got on my case because I was over so often. I remember discovering new sports games on there like the innocuously titled Super Volleyball that we became somehow addicted to and the surprisingly awesome Tiny Toons ACME All-Stars that had its own killer spin on arcade basketball and soccer that it played like NBA Jam but filled with crazy Tiny Toons power-up attacks. Sega Channel is what additionally exposed me to co-op games like General Chaos, the Streets of Rage sequels and Gain Ground and classic single player games like Shadowrun, Comix Zone and Vectorman that Rich and I took turns trying to keep progressing through. Sega Channel also was my first exposure to the classic Bomberman franchise with many nail-biting rounds played of Mega Bomberman! It came as no surprise to me when I finally bought a Genesis a few years later in 1999 that the first games I hunted down for it were those same games I first discovered on the Sega Channel! In April of 1999 shortly after I turned 16 I got my first after-school job and after a few paychecks I went to Wal-Mart to determine what should be one of the first games to buy on my own! This was around the time when Majesco re-released the third, mini-sized Genesis model at a discount price of around $30. I was legit stunned at that price for a brand new system, even if it was for a ten-year old platform at that time I could not help but instantly snatched it up!
If you read my GameBoy special from several weeks back you will recall my lamenting over its lackluster wrestling games compared to the superior ones on the 16-bit platforms. On Genesis, Rich and I played way too much Royal Rumble on the system. Other wrestling games I picked up for the Genesis over the years was the inferior predecessor to Royal Rumble in Super Wrestlemania. While I had a blast with Rumble way back when, it regrettably does not hold up well all these years later with its over-reliance on a button mashing grapple meter that obliterated thumbs that I have no idea how I tolerated at the time. Saturday Night Slam Masters was a unique wrestling game from Capcom. It is essentially Street Fighter II in a wrestling ring, complete with victory taunts, Mike Haggar from Final Fight in its roster and even has a few wrestling moves sprinkled in! I loved how they had over-the-top laser light entrances and larger-than-life character sprites at the time, and I recall enjoying the Genesis version more than the SNES. There was nothing else like it since, and on occasion I will still throw it in every couple of years. I continue to hope one day Capcom will release its sequel, Ring of Destruction in a random collection of arcade games because it never got a home port all these years later.
Sports games ruled on the Genesis! Pictured from clockwise at top left is Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing, NHLPA '93, Super Volleyball and Tiny Toon ACME All-Stars I mentioned some of my favorite sports games for the system above, but it really needs to be emphasized how big sports games were on the Genesis. Both Sega and EA pumped out a seemingly endless line of sports titles for the system. I remember getting into silly speculation with Rich over how much extra memory that yellow tab on the EA carts allowed EA games to play better. For hoops titles I got my NBA Jam and Live fix on SNES, but on the ‘ol Genny my go-to basketball games were the oft-forgotten NCAA skinned version of Jam in College Hoops. I occasionally also threw in the hand-me-down street ball version of NBA Jam in Barkley Shut up Jam. I loved Madden, but Sega’s Joe Montana line of gridiron games were just a notch or two below too. For baseball, Sega’s World Series Baseball titles were in a league of its own when it came to gameplay and presentation with its larger-than-life hitter/batter perspective. For hockey EA’s NHL line was/is legendary! About four or five years ago my friend Derek gave me a ring to come over for some impromptu random gaming and he never played much Genesis before so when he got over I had the Genesis hooked up and laid out all my games for it and of that night we had the most fun playing a few rounds of NHL ‘94. At that point it was a 20-21 year old game and it still held up as one of the best hockey games of all time.
For brawlers I loved the Streets of Rage games, but I think it is my secret shame that I have yet to complete a single one. That must one day change! I did love the exclusive Genesis TMNT game, Hyperstone Heist! It was right up there with Turtles in Time and every couple of years my friend Matt and I make it a ritual to plow through that game. After many attempts we also conquered the Genesis port of the awesome arcade brawler, The Punisher! It does not have as friendly of a continue system as Hyperstone Heist so Matt and I had to learn to play a little more conservatively and not rely on mindless button mashing. It felt gratifying to have all that hard work pay off and beat The Punisher….until we got a copout ending screen of text saying ‘Now play like the Punisher and try hard difficulty.’ We did not, but I wound up looking up the ending several years later and at least Capcom made it worth your while because it had a far more intricate ending than many other brawlers at the time. The one Genesis brawler that always had our number was Captain America and the Avengers. It is a lot of fun to play, but it does not allow that many credits and by setting ourselves up with the max lives and continues that game was still a beast, and even playing conservatively and having so many attempts we only managed to make it to the final boss, The Red Skull, only once. Let us fast track to about a little under 10 years ago when a co-worker approached me about being interested in buying his Genesis/Sega CD/32X along with a couple dozen games. He was saving up to pay off his upcoming wedding and he gave me a list of everything he had along with prices for everything he wanted going by what he saw off eBay auctions. I did some price researching of my own and made him an offer of around $250-ish for the ‘tower of power’ and about 20 games combined for all three systems. Looking back I accidentally lucked out with that offer because it was only a couple years later when 8/16-bit prices on the used market took a huge jump. I never had a must-have desire for a Sega CD or 32X, but there were always a couple of games I wanted to play on them that I eventually hunted down. I liked the versions of WWF RAW, Doom, Virtua Racer and especially Virtual Fighter the most out of my dozen 32X games. I recall as a then 10 and 11 year old being disgusted by early polygonal console games like Star Fox and Virtua Racer and was more on board with FMV games being the future, but remember being a little taken aback by Virtua Fighter indicating that there may be something to these 3D polygons. The 32X version is a surprisingly faithful version to its arcade counterpart.
I need to dive into my SegaCD games more one of these months. I hunted down all the must own titles for it like the Working Design RPGs, Shining Force CD, enhanced versions of Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Returns and Snatcher which I hope to one day knock off my gaming bucket list. Regrettably now my only SegaCD games I invested a decent amount of time into are WWF Rage in the Cage (essentially Super Wrestlemania but with some FMVs and a bigger roster), Slam City with Scottie Pippen (a abysmal FMV-based street hoops title) and the underrated SegaCD exclusive brawler, Prime. I am a huge Ultraverse comic nut and I ate up Prime on SegaCD since it was the only game released featuring characters from that comic book line before Marvel acquired them and cancelled all their books within a couple years (yes, I am still bitter over it). It is only one player, but Matt and I spent a few attempts taking turns at beating levels until we finally vanquished it. We even had an attempt thwarted when Prime was loading the final boss battle when a flipping blackout halted our progress! As memorable as that moment is I will instead forever associate Prime with its unrivaled and unforgettable opening theme music (seriously….give it a listen!). I need to give a shoutout to the official handheld Genesis, aka the Nomad! My brother surprised the hell out of me one year with it for a birthday present. My favorite Nomad memory is my brother getting hyped for getting his own version of Genesis Shadowrun and I told him I would come over and bring my Nomad and my version while he played on his television and we could both start off our own new game and exchange tips and hints in a friendly rivalry type of way. I think my brother must have gotten the Genesis version of Shadowrun mixed up with the completely differently designed SNES version because he tried to run around aimlessly and gun down everything which is not how you want to play the Genesis version. We were planning that day out for weeks and I remember being stunned after about 15 minutes when I was starting to sink my teeth back into Shadowrun’s cyberpunk action-RPG brand of awesome when my brother out of nowhere went ‘screw this, let’s play something else!’
As I wind down I want to give many thanks to Sega for keeping the Genesis relevant throughout this century with its gratuitous re-releases of physical and digital collections. I have no idea why, but I keep on buying them for the convenience of having them for the latest system. It started with the Sega Smash Pack on DreamCast seeming like a killer value in 2001 for 12 games for $40. Then a few years later on PS2 I snatched up Sega Genesis Collection which seemed like an even better value with just over 30 games for $30! Then in the 360/PS3 era along came Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection which offered 40 games for $30!! Sega also sold a lot of the games ala carte via each console’s digital storefronts. Then last year we got Sega Genesis Classics on Xbox One/PS4 with 50 games for $30!!! The last several years Sega also has been licensing out to At Games to release their own pre-programmed Genesis mini console with dozens of pre-installed games. I held off on getting those after hearing how awful its emulation and shoddy production quality is, but after hearing how Sega finally decided to manufacture their own Genesis Mini themselves this fall and handed off the emulation duties to the acclaimed emulation studio M2, I could not pre-order fast enough! I have no idea why I keep deep diving down this well, but hats off to Sega for keeping me coming back again and again! Similarly with my GameBoy flashback piece, I had an unorthodox experience with the Genesis. I was not a hardcore Sonic or Phantasy Star player like the average Genesis owner. If you ask me any day of the week my answer to what my favorite Genesis game is, it could be either The Punisher, Madden NFL ‘97, Shadowrun, Hyperstone Heist, NHL ‘94 or Skitchin’. That is another thing that made the Genesis great was its mammoth library of diverse titles so there was no doubt something for everyone! With that I will put the kibosh on this look back of my favorite moments with the Genesis as I anxiously await for my pre-order of the Genesis Mini to arrive in a few months! Want more Genesis Love from me in Audio and quasi-video form? I was looking through my hard drive archives and a decade ago while I was still doing my videogame podcast, On Tap, we did a special 20th anniversary special on the Genesis where my co-hosts and I reminisce about the Genesis. I went ahead and uploaded it on YouTube so if you want even more Genesis takes then click here to give it a listen! Also recorded throughout 2009 from the On Tap archives was installments from our history of comic book videogames series. In this next episode I uploaded to YouTube is the second part of series where we breakdown every single comic book licensed game on the SNES and Genesis! My co-host Matt and I did thorough research for this episode and played almost nearly every single comic book game from this era in preparation for the episode to give the most up to date research and to see if these games (of which a vast majority are beat-em-ups) still hold up. Click here to give it a listen! My Other Gaming Flashbacks GameBoy 30th Anniversary
#videogames#genesis#Sega#mega drive#punisher#madden#nhl 94#skitchin#shadowrun#teenage mutant ninja turtles#hyperstone heist#captain america and the avengers#evander holyfield#world series baseball#prime#tiny toons#streets of rage#toejam and earl
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Jabari Back in Rotation As Bulls Beaten By Lakers
Is it time for a change after the Bulls eighth consecutive loss, this time 107-100 Tuesday to the Los Angeles Lakers? Perhaps a change of pace; certainly a change of heart. Because the Bulls clearly have to change their ways, which would be a welcome change.
“I‘ve thought about it,” said Bulls coach Jim Boylen when asked about the starting five sagging late in the game once again. “I think it’s a good point. We put our starters back in Utah and the lead got built up and tonight I thought we did (again).”
So Jabari Parker to the starting lineup?
Never say never in this Bulls season. Especially since the previously banished Parker not only returned to the playing rotation in what Boylen said is not temporary, but Parker led six Bulls in double figures with 18 points on seven of 10 shooting. The recent outcast then inspired a group of Bulls irregulars to the team’s best run of the game in the last three minutes when the Bulls cut a 17-point deficit to five and even denied the devastated home crowd free tacos with 19 points in the last 2:31.
“It’s a blessing to be out there on the court again,” said Parker, whose media sessions even have turned somewhat expansive. “I just have to remember this is the game that I love and all the distractions go out the roof when I step on the floor. Getting these opportunities was obviously something I like and I was just trying to make the right play. It’s the same way I’ve been playing when I was playing before; no change. Just who I am.”
Just who these Bulls are remains a much larger question.
Lauri Markkanen added 17 points, but it again was a struggle with tough shooting chances and six of 14 shooting. He was part of that starting group that was subbed out late before the team’s best play of the game.
“I haven’t thought about it like that,” Markkanen said when asked whether he expects lineup changes. “We’re just going out there and playing as hard as we can. If that’s what the coach wants to have, then we go from there. We’re trying as hard as we can, and if it’s not working it’s up to him. Today it was was one period. We were up (four, early in the third quarter) and a minute later they were up 10. A couple of mistakes in transition. We didn’t talk and didn’t rebound the ball; they got second shots. I don’t know what it is, but we have to fix it.”
In that early third quarter stretch, actually one of two long droughts with the second early in the fourth quarter, Boylen took out Kris Dunn, apparently for passing on open shots.
Dunn had a brutal game with a team high minus-25 plus minus with six points. Ryan Arcidiacono had 12 points and a team best plus-17 with Chandler Hutchison also scoring 12 points. Shaquille Harrison and Zach LaVine each had 10 points and LaVine had a team high eight assists.
“I thought he needed a break,” Boylen said about Dunn. “The shot clock violations (two in four possessions with two other turnovers, one by Dunn) were frustrating because you have to shoot the ball. You have to get the ball on the rim. You never know what will happen. Sometimes we are hesitant to take a shot in the rhythm of the offense. With four seconds to go you can’t throw it to your 19-year-old rookie center and expect him to do something.”
There wasn’t enough done by the Bulls, except for the usual good moments. Just not enough of them, also as usual.
“Again, I thought we played maybe about 28 to 35 minutes of good basketball and 12 to 15 minutes of not good basketball,” said Boylen. “And we don’t have enough fire power to be able to just turn it on and take over the game. So we just have to plod through it and get the lead and hang onto to the lead and we didn’t do that.”
Hutchison was an early bright spot back home in Southern California with his second consecutive game scoring in double figures. Hutchison had just two such games previously all season.
“I knew that playing and being out there and learning to play with these guys out there, I felt it was only a matter of time before I got more comfortable,” said the rangy 6-7 forward. “Today I just wanted to be aggressive. They are starting to trust me more and being aggressive offensively. So I just wanted to do that.”
With Hutchison scoring in three consecutive possessions midway through the first quarter, the third on a slashing dunk on a Wendell Carter Jr. pass, the Bulls trailed 19-18 after the first quarter.
The Lakers were again playing without the injured LeBron James and slumping, coming off a home loss to the Cavaliers and losers of seven of their last 10, including also to the Knicks at home. The jackals were eying the job of coach Luke Walton with another loss. But the Lakers went to 24-21 while the Bulls fell to 10-34 and second poorest record in the league.
“Just comes down to us being (upset enough) about it and finding a way,” said Hutchison. “You can blame this and that, but it’s going to be up to us to figure it out.”
One guy who is having continued trouble figuring it out is Markkanen. The seven footer who was a prodigy last season had a burst of life in the third quarter with a pair of driving scores and a tough jumper to get the Bulls within 66-62 after a run of Lonzo Ball scores enabled the Lakers to break from a 44-43 halftime lead. Ball scored 13 of his team high 19 points in the third quarter with three of four threes. Which is a hint you have problems when Lonzo Ball is outshooting Markkanen.
Markkanen has scored more than 18 points just once in the last 10 games, seemingly struggling with a more deliberate offense and more difficult shots. He never complains and always says he has to work harder. But his play, so exciting a year ago, often appears to lack the joie de vivre common previously,
“Just trying to go to the next game and fix this and go day by day,” Markkanen said evenly. “That’s the only way we can fix this, practice and work hard. It’s not fun to lose. It’s a part of it. We are just trying to get out of it as quickly as possible. The good part of the NBA is you play almost every night. Have a bad game, just restart and go back at it again. That’s what we have to do.
“It’s a fact I was playing better in December,” Markkanen admitted even as he was just returning from 10 weeks out with an elbow injury. “There are different coverages they are throwing at me. Then, of course, sometimes someone else is feeling it and I am not. I’m trying to get back to that. I just try to read the defense when I have the shot. Standing still is hard to get anything from it. I’m just trying to be a compete player and try to do a little bit of everything.”
Like, you know, Jabari Parker.
Parker was effectively removed from the playing rotation after playing four minutes in the game in Mexico City. He didn’t play the next nine games even in blowouts, played 14 minutes against the Pacers Jan. 4, and then not again for three games until scoring 11 points in 19 minutes in the loss to Utah Saturday.
Then before Tuesday’s game, Boylen said Parker was back in the playing rotation, and against the Lakers Parker was the best player on the floor for the Bulls with 18 points in 17 minutes with two of four threes and a pair of steals.
It appears the 6-8 Parker is back to playing regularly again as he did earlier in the season as the major free agent signing of the summer; a trade still remains possible. Parker says he’s just glad to be back on the floor, though he said he never really was told why he wasn’t playing. But he said he’s again ready to move forward. That was apparent when he came into the game to open the second quarter and immediately made a driving slam dunk and a three pointer.
Tuesday’s game got away from the Bulls after Parker was dominating the start of the fourth quarter. He was fouled and made a pair of free throws, hit Wayne Selden with a snappy pass on the run for a score and then picked up a loose ball between three Lakers for a slam dunk to bring the Bulls within 80-76 with 9:32 left. The Bulls then went five minutes without a point as the Lakers scored 14 straight for a 94-76 lead. That bench group with Parker scoring 11 fourth quarter points, Arcidiacono, Hutchison, Cristiano Felicio and Shaquille Harrison hustled their way back to at least forcing the Lakers to reinsert three starters in the last two minutes. The Lakers offer fans free tacos for winning and holding the opponent under 100 points. So the Bulls scored on nine straight possessions in the last 2:46 to get to 100, denying the fans who pay an average of $445 per seat those two tacos that go for 99 cents.
Hey, it’s California. And it was raining. They were not happy.
“Just communicate with me; that’s what the struggle has been so far,” said Parker. “I don’t know what’s going on. I (feel I) bring a lot of aspects to the game. I don’t bring just one dimension. I can play any position, so position is not the excuse.
“But just to get my name called out there is a privilege,” Parker acknowldged. I’ll just say this, when you experience certain things and you see certain things happen to you, I think it’s rare for you to have those same type of feelings (you had before). It’s kind of hard, especially when people are indirect with you. But right now it’s just about me and what I can do to help this team. I’m focusing on my growth, how I can get better. Anybody in any situation if they have been dealt some bitterness, I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be the same, so that’s all I am going to say about that.
“I know what I can do; I am the same guy,” said Parker. “Every time when I go out there it’s going to be the same thing, be solid, play smart and see how it goes. (For us now), it’s just stay with it, keep on trusting each other, keep on boosting each other’s confidence. That’s what’s going to help us. Play for one another, and just the things we have already. We just have to sharpen them and we’re going to do that.
“I know who I am and confidence has never been a problem for me,” said Parker, who only last February returned from his second ACL knee surgery. “Just want to continue to do what I know I am capable of. Just have to remind myself that I am still fortunate. I am not hurt and I am still able to get on the court. That kind of perspective goes a long way for where I’ve been in my life. That’s behind me; that’s in the past. But it’s something I also have to keep in the back of my mind, to count my blessings. It beats being on the couch for three months.”
Time for the Bulls to start getting in the game as well and making it a change for the better.
Source: https://www.nba.com/bulls/gameday/jabari-back-rotation-bulls-beaten-lakers
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Halloween Holiday via /r/islam
Halloween Holiday
Halloween
Too often, we are in the dark about the background of occasions and holidays like Halloween, Easter, etc. Don’t think this is a trivial matter because once you find out why these are celebrated, you will think twice about getting yourself or your kids involved in it.
Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain. The festival of Samhain was a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture. Samhain was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and prepare for winter. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped, and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops. Masks and costumes were worn in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or appease them. The festival would frequently involve bonfires. It is believed that the fires attracted insects to the area which attracted bats to the area. These are additional attributes of the history of Halloween.
Roman and Christian influence:
By 43 AD, “Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory.” For the 400 years, they occupied Celtic lands, two Roman festivals, Feralia (the commemoration of the passing of the dead), and a day to honor Pomona (the Roman goddess of fruits and trees), were celebrated. The apple was served as a symbol for Pomona and might have been incorporated into Samhain by the practice of “bobbing for apples”.
When “local people converted to Christianity during the early Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church often incorporated modified versions of older religious traditions in order to win converts.” Pope Gregory IV wanted to substitute Samhain withAll Saints’ Day in 835, but All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2nd) which is closer in resemblance to Samhain and Halloween today, was “first instituted at a French monastery in 998 and quickly spread throughout Europe(1).” In the 16th century, “Christian village children celebrated the vigil of All Saints’ by doing the Danse Macabre. The Seven Brethren whose grisly death is described in the seventh chapter of the deuterocanonical book of Second Macabees” is also said to have resulted in children dressing up in grisly costumes to signify these deaths(2).
What is Halloween made of:
Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, bonfires, costume parties, visiting “haunted houses” and carving jack-o-lanterns. Part of the history of Halloween is Halloween costumes. We find it innocent enough to let our children dress up as a Vampire or a Frankenstein at the parties held at a house or at the very least, attend the school functions because the teacher says “it’s mandatory.” But we forget or are oblivious to the fact that the practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays goes back to the Middle Ages, and includes Christmas wassailing. This was done so that the spirits of the dead would not recognize people. The Druids would actually sacrifice animals and sometimes humans and dress in these animal skins. Wearing these clothes, they would engage in fortune-telling. Another explanation is that today, children who dress up, represent these spirits.
Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of “souling,” when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). Today, when kids are offered treats by neighbors, this goes back to the time people would offer food to appease the spirits.
Halloween can be a time for MAJOR SHIRK (making partners with Allah ). There are games and rituals which involve fortune-telling. Young people, for instance, try to see what their marriage prospects are by using omens like apple pairings that are thrown over their shoulders, or nuts being burned in a fire.
Jack-o’-lantern started off as a legend associated with a man of Irish origin named Jack who supposedly enjoyed playing pranks on the Devil. After his death, Jack did not go to Heaven or Hell and therefore, had to wander the earth carrying a lantern which gave him some light to see where he was going. Pumpkins that were hollowed out and had candles lighted inside did the job and they were also supposed to scare evil spirits away.
The Islamic stance is clear:
When you look a few of these evidences, (there are a whole lot of them), you get the clear Islamic stance towards Halloween:
“Say: ‘None in the heavens and the earth knows the ghayb (unseen) except Allah…" - Quran 27:65
This leaves no room for Halloween fortune-telling; and, “Whoever imitates a people is one of them(3)” puts an end to all the Halloween hype. In Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah, it says:
“The clear evidence from the Qur’an and Sunnah – on which there is consensus among the early generations of the ummah – that there are only two Eids or festivals in Islam:
Eid al-Fitr (Celebration after fasting for 30 days on the month of Ramadan) and Eid al-Adha. Any festivals other than these, whether they are connected to a person, a group, an incident, or anything else, are innovated festivals and it is not permissible for the Muslims to celebrate them or approve of them, the express joy on them or help with them in any way because that is transgressing the sacred limits of Allah …” And to top it off, it becomes totally out of the league for us Muslims when it includes pagan-origins. It may seem very alluring to you with all the hype, and it may also be very difficult for you to stand apart from the mainstream crowd, but no matter how much fatwa shopping we do, how many ever “moderate” versions we try to seek, there is still just two words for it: not permissible.
And since it attracts children mostly, what with all the free candy, it becomes increasingly essential for parents to be proactive and handle the situation wisely.
Here are some handy tips for parents:
Be open and tell them the origin of Halloween and why our religion can’t allow it. Telling them the reason of banning it in the house will convince them more than any other lame excuse you could come up with.
Whenever you take away something from someone and leave a gap, never forget to provide them a suitable alternative. In this case, get your children to anticipate Eid more or get them involved into some other halal fun activities.
Another way is to keep them entertained on a daily basis. Sports, baking, hanging out with friends, and food of their choice should be a regular-fun-thing in their time table. This way, they will not be so keen to seek it elsewhere.
Last but not the least, keep them away from school when Halloween parties take place. Because no matter how many times you tell them it’s wrong, they are bound to get influenced to be a part of its festivities. Remember, what your children SEE influences them more than what they HEAR. Your advice will not affect them if their environment preaches otherwise.
Closing Thoughts:
The Halloween hoop-la is crazy and seems like it takes over everyone every year. But instead of going with the tide, we need to educate ourselves and especially our kids about it and tell them why we do not become a part of its festivities. It’s not a bad thing to be different. Our religion gives us fun-off times (Come on, you just celebrated two Eids!)
and-that should be enough for us. Having fun is absolutely permissible but going to extremes to have it and on the way trampling our beliefs is not only revolting but also implies our extreme lack of faith and lack of pride in our religion. Moreover, it can promote useless phantom fears in the minds of our children and affect their psychology by getting them desensitized to the idea of begging/asking people for things. Hopefully, trick or treat does not look so tempting now. It’s important to stay clear from these dangerous festivals because when we become a part of these things, we bear witness to that which is AGAINST our basic aqeedah (creed). Watch out.
Reference:
(1) MSN Learning & Research- Halloween
(2) Source: History of Halloween 29 Feb. 2001. Indiana University. 12 Oct. 2002
(3) Narrated by Abu Dawood, 4031 (classed as saheeh by al-Albaani)
Source: Islamic Online University Blog
Submitted September 10, 2020 at 02:02PM by KaitouDoraluxe via reddit https://ift.tt/32k4clL
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From Tim Burton’s iconic Batman to the baseball-bat swinging Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, DC Comics superheroes and their villainous counterparts have been lighting up the box office since the 50s. With the launch of the M-Net Movies DC Heroes pop-up channel for DStv Premium subscribers, which is also available to stream on DStv Now, we’ve ranked every live-action DC comic movie ever!*
30. Stamp Day for Superman (1954)
Superman takes time from fighting crime to promote war stamps, used to fund the fight against the Axis powers of World War II. So it’s not the worst movie on this list, but it’s not actually a movie either - just something designed to be shown in cinemas.
29. The Return of Swamp Thing (1989)
This movie had about as much budget as the Joker has sanity. With that in mind, it does a respectable job. But only with that in mind - otherwise, this is just an awful low-budget monstrosity.
28. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Everyone had lost interest in making another Superman. But they were contracted to make one, so we got a fourth movie starring the man of steel. Its most memorable moment is how bad the special effects of the finale are. Yikes.
27. Catwoman (2004)
The first Batman character to get their own movie (other than Bats), there was a lot of hope for Catwoman’s maiden outing. Alas, very little is right here. It opted to invent its own story for the character, but just made a mess of everything. Not even Halle Berry could save it.
26. Batman & Robin (1997)
This movie shouldn’t be ranked so low. It’s funny and has some entertaining villains. But you know what? The entire thing was motivated to sell action figures. Seriously. Even the director apologised for it.
25. Steel (1997)
Back in 1997 nobody wanted to make comic book movies, not unless it was Batman. Steel, already a B-list DC character, got a low-budget straight-to-video movie. It doesn’t help that Shaq, who plays Steel, is not as good at acting as he is at basketball…
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24. Jonah Hex (2010)
If comic book movies teach us anything, it’s that actors should stick to the genre. It worked for Ryan Reynolds, Chris Evans and Ben Affleck. Ditto for Josh Brolin, who has portrayed three comic book characters. But even though he was a cool Jonah Hex, the movie not so much…
23. Green Lantern (2011)
Some comic characters are relatively simple and easy to put into a movie. Green Lantern is not, yet this movie wanted to make things even more confusing. Even Ryan Reynolds started making fun of it in his other films.
22. Superman and the Mole Men (1951)
It’s the 1950s, things are still in black and white, and Superman has the time to work out squabbles between frightened small-town people and underground creatures with big eyebrows. Most memorable as the first Superman movie and perhaps the first-ever true superhero movie.
21. Batman: The Movie (1966)
Back in its day, this was a big hit. But it’s really a case of “you had to be there”. Shot after the success of Season 1 of Adam West’s Batman, it’s a whole movie of WHAM! BANG! POW! and 60s pin-up girls gyrating with the dark knight to surf music. No, we’re not making any of this up.
20. Superman III (1983)
Superman III would have been forgotten today, were it not for three things: the Superman vs Superman fight, Richard Pryor’s non-stop jokes, and that scary android woman created by Lex Luthor’s supercomputer. Oh, and Superman dumping a frozen lake on a chemical fire. Ah, the 80s.
19. Supergirl (1984)
Superman’s cousin comes to Earth to retrieve a powerful artefact, while a wannabe witch uses it to amplify her powers. The result is a weird tale that stumbles and jumps through plot holes, but it’s still entertaining. Fun fact: Supergirl actress Helen Slater later played Superman’s biological mom in Smallville.
18. Suicide Squad (2016)
It is overstuffed, convoluted and had some nondescript bad guys that nobody can remember. Too much icing on too little cake. On the other hand, the main cast of characters are really cool and the soundtrack rocked, so it has a place in some fans’ hearts.
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17. Swamp Thing (1982)
It’s the DC movie you’ve never heard of - and the DC character you’ve never heard of. This quirky comedy would have been lost to time, were it not a campy cult masterpiece directed by Wes Craven long before he created Freddy Krueger.
16. Batman Returns (1992)
Tim Burton’s second Batman film is a little overproduced and lacks that raw shine of the original. But Michelle Pfeiffer is still the best Catwoman to appear in a movie and Danny DeVito is the perfect Penguin. Yet leave it to Christopher Walken to play a villain with no mask and no powers, yet still be the meanest thing in Gotham.
15. Batman Forever (1995)
Joel Schumacher’s first go at the Batman world is a clear hat-tip to the 60s era of the character. It was more fun and camp, and who doesn’t like George Clooney’s smirking Bruce Wayne, or Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones as Riddler and Two-Face? But it was a little too much at times...
14. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
The hopes were really high for this film and it was never going to please everyone. Lex Luthor’s inane and complicated plan sucks a lot of wind from its sails. On the other hand, the Batman combat scene not only saves the movie but shows why Ben Affleck is great as the character.
13. Watchmen (2009)
There are very few graphic novels more revered and complex than this epic - and director Zack Snyder tries to fit every bit of it into his film. Yet even after cutting a major sub-plot, Watchmen is still a long and dense experience. It’s got its fans, but like the comic, is the antithesis of superheroes. That’s not for everyone.
12. Justice League (2017)
Justice League isn’t perfect and its biggest problem is an overly generic bad guy that nobody cares to remember. But the team works well together, the fight with Superman is epic, Jason Momoa was born to play Aquaman, and we definitely want to see more of The Flash.
11. Superman II (1980)
The sequel to the original Superman movie was mired with problems, from losing its director and design consultant to being filmed right on the heels of the first film. But it holds up well, not least because Terence Stamp’s General Zod gives us every reason to remember why we need superheroes.
10. Superman Returns (2006)
Lex Luthor proves why he is as dangerous as any villain with superpowers, while the darker tone helps create a Superman persona that fits better with the 21st Century.
9. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
It gets a little tiring to hear how old and beaten Batman is and maybe Tom Hardy’s Bane does too good a job, overshadowing just about every other character in this movie. But as a conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, this was a classy send-off for Gotham’s saviour.
8. Man of Steel (2013)
Not only do we finally, after many years, get a new Superman movie, but some inspired genius casts Michael Shannon as the evil General Zod. It’s been too long and we’re happy Krypton’s son is back!
7. Constantine (2005)
At the time it was not a hit. But the first movie adaptation of the Hellblazer comics has since gathered a big cult following. Today it can claim a lot of fans because it’s actually really good. Hey, Keanu, where’s our sequel?
6. Batman Begins (2005)
Since 1989’s Batman, there have been other superhero movies that made their mark on the genre. Then Christopher Nolan shows up, hires Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, and turns comic book movies into crime thrillers. Brilliant.
5. Wonder Woman (2017)
A slightly weak third act doesn’t hurt the appeal of the Amazonian superhero in her first major movie outing. Let’s face it - nobody is panicking anymore about what might happen to Superman. Wonder Woman can take care of things.
4. Superman (1978)
There had been a few superhero movies before 1978’s Superman. But this set the stage: big effects, great hero, amazing soundtrack - and Gene Hackman deserves more credit for his mean Lex Luthor.
3. Batman (1989)
Tim Burton unleashes his quirky style in grand form, creating the superhero movie that still influences the genre today. Then there’s Jack Nicholson’s Joker, Michael Keaton’s dry wit and the original soundtrack by Prince. Enough said!
2. V for Vendetta (2005)
This dark tale of a near future under a totalitarian state is already a gritty and powerful movie. But Hugo Weaving as the antihero V just takes it to another level. On top of that, this is an experience with real purpose and a serious message underneath. Remember, remember, the fifth of November...
1. The Dark Knight (2008)
Why so serious? Heath Ledger’s Joker is just entirely in his own league. And not just him - everything in this movie fires on all cylinders. The greatest DC movie? No. This is the greatest comic book movie in history.
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Your Friday Morning Roundup
Yo, the Flyers.
After getting shut out by the Blackhawks the night before and losing to the Arizona Coyotes in overtime Monday night, the Flyers got a much-needed 2-0 victory over the Blues in St. Louis. Michal Neuvirth had a night with stopping all 33 shots on goal, but the biggest star of the night has to be Ivan Provorov.
The second-year defenseman is a Russian machine. This was the fourth straight game he played more than 27 minutes (27:11), recorded five hits, and tied a franchise record with 10 blocked shots.
The Flyers didn’t lose any defensemen, and thank god they didn’t. This was the defense for the night:
Reminder: Tonight's defense is inexperienced. http://pic.twitter.com/clQOPWdvjF
— Chris Jastrzembski (@CFJastrzembski) November 3, 2017
I mean…
Mark Alt trying to cause permanent eye damage to Neuvirth. http://pic.twitter.com/d3R6vVVrOl
— Chris Jastrzembski (@CFJastrzembski) November 3, 2017
There were plenty of scary moments for the defense, but Neuvirth came to play. That was big. It sounds like Ron Hextall won’t be searching the trade market for another defenseman either.
Flyers return home to take on the Colorado Avalanche Saturday night. A defensemen or two back would help.
The Roundup:
The Phillies introduced Gabe Kapler as their new manager yesterday afternoon. We highlighted some of his top moments, such as his jawline and coconut oil.
But why did Matt Klentak choose Kapler?
“As we were reaching the end of the process, it became very clear there was one person who separated himself and was the right man to lead the Phillies into the future,” Klentak said. “That person is Gabe Kapler. Gabe Kapler is incredibly prepared. That came through in the interview process. It came through as we talked to people throughout the industry that either played with him or worked with him, players who had played for him. If he brings the same level of preparation and grit to the Phillies that he brought to the field as a player, our fans are going to love this guy.
“He has a unique ability to connect with people. We saw this in the interview process. But we’ve also seen this in our talks with people who have been around him in his career. He can connect with players. He can connect with the media. He can connect with the front office. He has a very unique ability to do that. I think that bodes very well for our young roster.
—
The Eagles continued practicing in preparation for Sunday’s game against the Denver Broncos. That will be a blackout game.
On the injury front, Ronald Darby (ankle) and now Zach Ertz (hamstring) were limited during practice. I don’t expect Darby to play Sunday. As for Ertz, hopefully he plays.
Carson got an award:
October's NFC Offensive Player of the Month.
Congrats, @cj_wentz!#FlyEaglesFly http://pic.twitter.com/MPFE8ROX5Q
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) November 2, 2017
Thoughts? 🤔 http://pic.twitter.com/OHp86NKCM5
— SB Nation (@SBNation) November 2, 2017
Facts only.
NFL Films had Doug Pederson mic’d up during Sunday’s game, and he got angry. I really like angry Doug.
Fletcher Cox spoke to Joe Staley after his eye injury Sunday afternoon.
A local note on Broncos kicker and former North Penn and Temple product Brandon McManus:
Talking Philly today with Philly-born Broncos K Brandon McManus today. He has 136 friends/family coming to game Sunday. 136. #9sports
— Mike Klis (@MikeKlis) November 2, 2017
Finally, what’s going on with Sidney Jones?
Updating…
— Sidney Jones IV (@SidneyJonesIV) November 3, 2017
—
On the hardwood, the Sixers were back at practice after Wednesday night’s win over the Atlanta Hawks. Kevin Kinkead highlights the team’s second quarter struggles and Amir Johnson on social media.
Some of the top highlights from the Hawks win.
Sam Hinkie has risen from a short Twitter slumber.
The attendance is one of the best in the league.
Sixers try to increase their winning streak to four games and get above .500 for the first time since 2013 tonight against the Pacers. Tip off is at 7. Richaun Holmes is available for the game.
The Delaware 87ers open up their G League season tonight in Maine against the Red Claws. They released their Opening Night roster.
—
Frank Nutile’s four touchdown passes helped Temple defeat Navy 34-26. The 4-5 Owls snapped Navy’s nice 69-game streak of a rushing touchdown and their 12-0 undefeated record at Lincoln Financial Field.
—
In other sports news, Texans rookie quarterback DeShaun Watson is done for the season after tearing his ACL in a non-contact drill. The team signed former Eagle Matt McGloin as well as T.J. Yates. They will start Tom Savage on Sunday.
Odell Beckham Jr., through Josina Anderson, send Watson a get well message. Read that first before you check out Jimmy Kempski’s breakdown:
Oh my God, there's so much to make fun of here, which I will… https://t.co/ax7oLVQmtJ
— Jimmy Kempski (@JimmyKempski) November 2, 2017
Also done for the year is Colts QB Andrew Luck.
This was Buffalo’s only highlight in their 34-21 loss to the New York Jets:
Football players are doing pretend lightsaber fights in the end zone, no Star Wars fan can self-describe as a nerd again http://pic.twitter.com/HtufFTC157
— Mike Tunison (@xmasape) November 3, 2017
Richie Incognito is on the side of no Thursday Night games.
Damian Lillard beat the Lakers last night:
IT'S DAME TIME http://pic.twitter.com/ixj7nx3lLP
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) November 3, 2017
Lonzo Ball had zero points.
Most ESPN employees won’t be able to break news directly on Twitter. They’ll have to do it on ESPN’s website first. That’s backwards.
The FBI has cleared Louisville basketball freshman Brian Bowen and the school can now reinstate him. His recruitment led to the firings of head coach Rick Pitino and AD Tom Jurich.
Oh?
Translation:
Personal achievements and medals – all of this great, but in hockey, like with everything, to win it’s important to have a team. Only a team is capable of changing the course of a game, achieve the impossible. Lately, in the Western Press, I’m noticing a comparison to Putin’s team. And you know, I really liked that comparison. Personally, I’m ready to be a member of that team. I never hid my relationship with our president, always openly supported him.
I’m certain that there are many of us that support Vladimir Putin. Let’s unite and show everyone a strong and united Russia. Today, I want to announce a social movement in the name of Putin Team. Be a part of this team – to me it’s a privilege, it’s like the feeling of when you put on the jersey of the Russian team, knowing that the whole country is rooting for you. #putinteam
—
In the news, a man and woman were found dead inside an SUV in Port Richmond.
Donald Trump’s Twitter account was deactivated for a little bit:
Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
What a way to end your job at Twitter:
Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
‘House of Cards’ employees have accused Kevin Spacey of harassment.
The iPhone X goes on sale today.
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The age of banter
The long read: It used to be just a word now it is a way of life. But is it time to get off the banter bus?
Its the most fucking ridiculous story, isnt it? We went to watch fucking dolphins, and we ended up in fucking Syria. Last summer in the Mediterranean party resort of Ayia Napa, Lewis Ellis was working as a club rep. I mean, it was fucking 8am, he told an Australian website soon afterwards, and the last fucking club had closed, and we thought, We can still go dolphin watching. Well blag our way on to a fucking boat and go dolphin watching.
But when the boat sailed so far that Cyprus disappeared from view, Ellis explained, they started to worry. Why are we so far from land? they asked the crew. Were fucking miles away and weve got no fucking wifi. Something, Ellis said, had been lost in translation; his exuberant season as a shepherd for the resorts party pilgrims had gone terribly awry. The crew wasnt taking them to watch dolphins: they were going to a Russian naval base in the city of Tartus, on Syrias Mediterranean coast. Yeah, it is a little ridiculous.
It was, nonetheless, a story that had legs. Hungover lads boat trip boob lands them in Syria, wahey-ed the Mirror; British holidaymakers board party boat in Ayia Napa and end up in war-torn SYRIA, guffawed the Express. If you saw these headlines at the time, you may dimly remember the rest. A stubborn trawler captain, chugging doggedly onwards to Tartus, where he turfed the friends out upon landing; interrogation at the hands of Russian intelligence officers; mutual hilarity as the Russians realised what had happened; and, after a hot meal, a quick tour of the area, and a good nights sleep, spots on the next fishing vessel headed back to Cyprus. It was never made clear why the captain had let them on the boat in the first place, but whatever. Everyone lapped it up.
Reflecting on the whole thing five months later, Ellis, a 26-year-old with a business degree and a marketing masters, couldnt totally wrap his head around it. I think I found 35 stories about us, he told me. I read about myself in the Hawaiian Express, do you know what I mean? (Notwithstanding that there doesnt appear to be any such newspaper, yes, I definitely do.)
What made it really weird to see the media pile in with such unstinting enthusiasm was that the story was total cobblers. I could not believe how gullible they were, Ellis said, a top note of glee still in his voice. We were just having a laugh! It was banter!
Lads: this is the age of banter. Its long been somewhat about the banter, but over the last few years, it has come to seem that its all about the banter an unabashedly bumptious attitude that took up a position on the outskirts of the culture in the early 90s and has been larging its way towards the centre ever since. There are hundreds of banter groups on Facebook, from Banter Britain (no memes insinuating child abuse/dead babies!!!) to Wanker Banter 18+ (Have a laugh and keep it sick) to the Premier League Banter Page (The only rule: keep it banter). You can buy an I banter mug on Amazon for 9, or an Archbishop of Banterbury T-shirt for 9.99.
There are now four branches of a restaurant called Scoff & Banter. When things were going badly at Chelsea FC under Jos Mourinho, it was reported the team had banned all banter in an attempt to focus their minds, and that terminology appeared in the newspapers, as if you would know exactly what it meant. Someone has created a banter map of London using a keyword search on the flatshare website SpareRoom, showing exactly where people are looking for a roommate with good banter (Clapham tends to feature prominently). When a 26-year-old man from Leeds posed for a selfie with a bemused aeroplane hijacker, Vice declared it the high-water mark of banter.
Lewis Ellis (left) and friends in Ayia Napa, pretending to be in Syria. Photograph: Lewis Ellis
If you are younger than about 35, you are likely to hear the term all the time. Either you have banter (if you are funny and can take a joke) or you dont (if you arent and cannot). The mainstream, in summary, is now drunk and asleep on the sofa, and banter is delightedly drawing a penis on its forehead.
As banter has risen, it has expanded. Long a word used to describe submerged expressions of fraternal love, it is now also a word used to excuse uninhibited displays of masculine bravado. Today, it is segregated by class, seized on by brands, picked over by psychologists, and deplored by cultural critics; it is dominant, hotly contested and only hazily understood.
And so, whether he intends it to or not, Ellis use of the term raises some questions. Is he throwing his lot in with the most pervasive branch of the blokeish mainstream, a sanitised and benevolent hilarity that stretches from lad-dad panel shows to your mates zinger about your terrible haircut? Or is he lining up with the misogynist imitators of the Bullingdon club, a sprinkling of racists, and, as we shall see, an actual murderer purveyors of a malicious and insidious masculinity that insists on its indivisible authority and calls you a slut if you object?
Ellis isnt preoccupied by these questions, but for what its worth, he does say that he and his friends never had the slightest intention of going to Syria. We werent really trying to fool anyone, he told me, although Im not sure thats entirely consistent with the facts. We were out for a stroll, and we came across this area that looked really run down, we thought it looked like Syria. So we put it on the club reps [Facebook] page that thats where we were. And everyone started liking it. And then one of the people who contacted us was from LADBible which is like the Bible, but for LADS so we said, well have a mess around here. Well tell a completely ridiculous story, see if the media believes it. See if we can become LADBible famous.
It did, they could. Eventually, the truth came out, not thanks to any especially determined investigative journalism, but because Ellis cheerily admitted on Facebook that his tale of magnificent idiocy was a fiction. Hahaha what a prank, he wrote, with some justification.
The confession only brought another cycle of attention. Publications that had picked up the story in the first place resurfaced it with new headlines to reflect the audacity of the invention; social media users adduced it as evidence for their views of young men, or the media, or both. The Russian embassys Twitter account called it a telling example of how many Syria (and Russia) stories are made up by UK papers, which was great geopolitical banter. The attention entertained Ellis, but he says it wasnt the point. We just thought it was funny, he said. People are too serious. I keep being told to grow up, but I still want to have a good time. Ive had the jobs, Ive got the education. But when Im off work, I want to escape.
Ellis is an enthusiast and an optimist. He is, he told me late last year, desperate to take every opportunity, just to say yes to everything I can. We were on a night out in Manchester with his friends Tyson, John and Chris. In the course of the evening, the following things found their way into my beer: fingers; salt; vinegar; mayonnaise; a chip; saliva; a 10 note; and, I hazily remember being told after the fact, at least two shots of vodka.
Everyones got a thing in the group, Ellis said, as we walked from one bar to the next. One guy, hes not even that ugly, we say he looks like a Peperami. Tysons got this mole on his face, its like a Coco Pop, so youve got a Coco Pop on your face. I looked like Harry Potter when I was a kid, so they call me Potter, thats my nickname. Every single one of us has something. So you youve got Chinese eyes. Youre Chinese.
For the record, I didnt think this was OK, but coming after such a harmless litany, it didnt seem malicious enough to confront. Of course, tacit endorsement is what makes such offensive epithets a commonplace, and so it troubles me that it made me feel mysteriously welcome, just as it had when John punched me lightly in the balls when I arrived. There was no doubting Elliss sincerity: as he spoke, the sheer daft beauty of male friendship seemed to amaze him, almost to the point of physical pain. We just take the piss out of each other, and thats how we show our love, he said. So many group chats on the phone, and you just take the piss until they cry. And its like, when youre really killing them, you go, Ill stop if you want, because you know they cant say yes, so you just keep going. Then we arrived at the next bar, where I was made to drink something called a Zombie.
Early in the evening, before any of this had undermined my ability to take useful notes, Ellis broke off from talking as we walked down the street and sidled into a window display at Next Home, where he Tracey Emined a carefully made bed by climbing into it and rolling around. Everyone cracked up. Give the world a laugh, Ellis tends to think, and the world will smile back at you. Jump on a boat, and youll end up somewhere great; make the boat up, and youll get there faster. Its all about having fun, its all about the banter, he said, after hed rejoined us outside. Banter is about making the world a more exciting place.
If nobody can agree on what banter is, thats hardly a new problem. The first usage of the word recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary comes from noted Restoration lad Thomas dUrfey, also known for his hit song The Fart, in a satirical 1677 play called Madam Fickle. Banter him, banter him, Toby, a character called Zechiel urges, which may be the first time that someone called Toby was so instructed, but certainly wasnt the last.
The OED also notes early attempts at a definition by Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson. (Swift mentions a banter upon transubstantiation, in which a cork is turned into a horse, and fair enough, turning a cork into a horse would be classic banter.) Both are a little disgusted by the word, and neither unearths much of an origin story: by their accounts, banter is so coarse that it emerged, fully formed and without antecedent, out of the mouths of oafs.
As it turns out, though, the OED is not at present fully able to handle the banter. According to Eleanor Maier, an associate editor on the dictionary, a search of earlier English texts reveals that a number of previous examples are missing from the dictionarys definition, which was first drafted in 1885 including a quote from a 1657 translation of Don Quixote. (After examining the history, Maier told me that she would be adding banter to the list of entries that are up for review.)
dougie stew (@DougieStew)
Welcome to London #BagelGate pic.twitter.com/KcJoz0ycZU
February 26, 2017
In recent years, banter has barged into our lives at a remarkable clip. Googles Ngram Viewer, a tool that assesses (with some limitations) the frequency with which a term appears in a large database of written sources, finds that banter popped up about twice as often in 2008, the most recent year covered, as it did in 1980.
But banter plugged away for a long time before it became an overnight success. In the 19th century, it often denoted a kind of formal sparring. Even as the term evolved over the 20th, it continued to seem a little prim. In the House of Commons in 1936, Ramsay MacDonald, the former Labour prime minister who had returned in a new seat after losing his old one, was subjected to a good deal of banter Dear old Granny MacDonald!, among other witticisms.In 1981, a Guardian report that chess champion Anatoly Karpov and his handlers had successfully protested at his challenger Viktor Korchnois constant cross-board talk ran under the unlikely headline: Chess banter banned.
Such stories do little to prepare us for what banter has become. Consider the viral video that became known as #bagelgate earlier this year. In the recording, a minor scuffle broke out on the 00.54 train from Kings Cross to Huntingdon, and then for no obviously related reason a woman who had a large bag of bagels decided to put one on the head of the guy sitting in front of her, and then another after he took it off and threw it out of the window, and another and another, and then everyone in the carriage started chanting hes got a bagel on his head, and eventually the slightly spoddy victim who is me when I was 13 and someone filled my pencil case with Mr Kipling apple pies (squashed, oozing) because I was fat lost it and screamed Get the fuck out of my face!, and then another fight broke out on the platform, and then the police got on to the train, and every single person fell into not-me-guv silence: this is not Granny MacDonalds banter any more.
If it is hard to understand how these activities can fall under the same umbrella, it should be noted that a phenomenon may predate our choice of term to describe it its just that the act of definition makes it more visible, and perhaps more likely to be imitated. At some point, though, banter became the name for what British men already regarded as their natural tone of voice. There is a very deeply embedded folk culture in the UK of public ribaldry, extreme sarcasm, facetiousness in other words, of laddishness, says Tony Thorne, a linguist and cultural historian. What you might think of as banter now is rooted in that tradition.
That tradition first lashed itself to banters mast in the early 1990s, and controversy soon followed. In June 1992, a Guardian story headlined Police fire sex banter officer, about the dismissal of a sergeant for sexual harassment, recorded an early skirmish in the modern banter wars, and an important new layer to its meaning in the wild: The move is seen as part of the Metropolitan polices desire to reassure women officers that what has previously been tolerated as banter is no longer acceptable. Two years later, the lads mags arrived.
The first edition of Loaded magazine appeared in May 1994, with a picture of Gary Oldman on the front smoking a dog-end, under a banner that declared him a super lad. What fresh lunacy is this? the editors note read. Loaded is a new magazine dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of sex, drink, football and less serious matters Loaded is for the man who believes he can do anything, if only he wasnt hungover.
If banter dismays you, James Brown, the magazines first editor, is quite an easy bogeyman. As he acknowledges himself, he created a title that defined a genre. Loaded was swiftly recognised as a foundational text for a resurgent and ebullient masculinity that had been searching for public expression. While it was always overtly horny, the magazine was initially more interested in a forlorn, slackjawed and self-ironising appreciation of A-listers (one reversible poster had Cindy Crawford on one side and a steam train on the other) than the grot-plus-football formula that successors and imitators like Maxim, Zoo and Nuts milked to destruction. But it also flirted with something murkier.
To its critics, Loaded and its imitators aimed to sanitise a certain hooliganistic worldview with a strategic disclaimer. Banter emerges as this relentless gloss of irony over everything, said Bethan Benwell, senior lecturer in language and linguistics at the University of Stirling and the author of several papers on mens magazines. The constant excusing of sexist or homophobic sentiments with this wink that says you dont really mean it. Benwell pointed to Loadeds emblematic strapline: For men who should know better.
Brown denies that his magazine invented banter. Instead, he says, it captured a zeitgeist that the media had previously failed to acknowledge; the folk culture that Tony Thorne refers to, brought out into the open. Before Browns intervention, GQ had run John Major and Michael Heseltine as cover stars, for Gods sake. I took the interests and the outlook of the young men that I knew, and I put them in a magazine, Brown said. Im not responsible for the tone of the later entrants to the market. We were criticised because we fancied women, not because we belittled them.
The thing about Loaded was that the way we wrote reflected the way we were with our mates, he went on. Theres definitely a thing that exists in the male outlook: you take the piss out of the people you like, and you ignore the people you dont.
Accept this as your starting point, and objections become exhausting to sustain: what youre objecting to is an act of affection. Of course, this is what makes it insidious. Because Browns account rests on the intention behind the magazine, and Benwells on the effect it had, they are impossible to reconcile. Its a very difficult thing to resist or challenge without looking like the stereotypical humourless feminist, said Benwell. But by laughing, you become complicit.
Loaded gave this new kind of banter escape velocity, and it began to colonise other worlds. On BBC2, for example, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner were staking out their own territory with Fantasy Football League, a mixture of sketches and celebrity chat that managed to be enthusiastic and satirical at the same time, and reached its peak when the pair became national icons, thanks to their Euro 96 anthem, Three Lions. While a long-running joke about the Nottingham Forest striker Jason Lees pineapple haircut seems flatly racist in retrospect Baddiel did an impression of him in blackface by and large, the tone was milder and more conventional than the magazines were: this was the sensibility of the university graduate slumming it before embarking on grown-up life.
Baddiel implied that laddism could easily occupy a spectrum from ogling to literature, drawing a line to Nick Hornbys memoir of life as an Arsenal fan, Fever Pitch. Hornby once said to me that all this stuff you know, fantasy football and his book is men talking about things that they like and for a while in the mid-80s they werent allowed to, he said in 1995. Ive always liked football and Ive always liked naked women, and its easier to talk about that now than it was eight years ago. Those comments reflect a kind of sneer at its critics that you could often detect in Fantasy Football League, even as its hosts protested that they were just having a laugh though Baddiel himself denies that view. Twenty years on, he, like Brown, is at pains to draw a line between the approach that he and Skinner popularised, and the forms that came later. I guess me and Frank did specialise in banter, he said in an email. In a time before it was known as bantz.
Over the next 10 years, two things happened that ushered in the age of banter. (You might call it mature banter, except that its also the opposite.) First, instead of just being a thing that happened, it became a thing that people talked about. Then, as it became a more tangible cultural product, everyone started trying to make money out of it. The watershed moment, the forms equivalent to Dylan going electric, was the invention of Dave.
Like most good ideas, it looks simple enough in retrospect. Before Dave was Dave, it was UKTV Gold 2. The predecessor channels audience share was 0.761%, and no one could tell who on earth it was supposed to be for. But we had the content, says Steve North, the channels brand manager in 2007 and content of a particular kind that the existing name did very little to communicate: Have I Got News for You, They Think Its All Over, Top Gear. Viewers said they loved the repartee, the humour. It reminded them of spending time with their funniest friends.
The first issue of Loaded magazine, from May 1994
The target audience was highly specific. It was men married or in relationships, maybe with young children, not going to the pub as much as they used to, says Andy Bryant, managing director of Red Bee, the agency brought in to work on the rebrand. And they missed that camaraderie.
Their purpose thus fixed, North started to run brainstorming sessions at which people would shout out suggestions for the name. One of the ones we collected was Dave, he says. We thought, great, but we cant call it that. But then we thought, Its a surrogate friend. If the audience really sees it as that, if they see it as genuinely providing the banter, maybe we can really give it a name.
They put their hunch through its paces. The market research company YouGov was commissioned to test Dave alongside a bunch of other names (Matthew and Kevin were also on the shortlist), but nothing else had the same everyman resonance. For us, Dave is a sensibility, a place, an emotion, a feeling, said North, his tone thoughtful, almost gnomic. Everyone has their own sense of who Dave is, thats the important thing. Its hard to find anyone who doesnt know someone called Dave.
Now the channel had a brand, it needed a slogan. Lots of people claim they played a part in the naming, says Bryant. But it was just as important to encapsulate what the channel was all about. And at some point someone, I dont know who, wrote it on a board: The home of witty banter. The rebrand added 8m new viewers in six months; Dave saw a 71% increase in its target audience of affluent young men.
Conceived by the first generation of senior professionals to have grown up with banter as an unremarkable part of their demographics cultural mix, the channel crystallised a change, and accelerated it. In 2006, The Ricky Gervais Show, in which Gervais and Stephen Merchant relentlessly poked fun at their in-house idiot savant Karl Pilkington, became the most popular podcast of all time. In 2007, the year of Daves rebrand, Top Gears ratings shot from below 5m to a record high of 8m. The following year, QI moved from BBC4 to BBC2. (A tie-in book published the same year, QI: Advanced Banter, sold more than 125,000 copies.)
North saw the kind of fraternal teasing that was being monetised by his channel, and the panel shows that were its lifeblood, as fundamentally benign. The key thing is that its two-way, he said. Its about two people riffing off each other.
But like his 20th-century forebears, he can see that something ugly has evolved, and he wants to keep his brand well away from it. Bants, he said with distaste. That thing of cover for dubious behaviour we hate and despise it massively. When we launched, it was about fun, being light-hearted, maybe pushing each other without being disrespectful. When people talk about Ive had a go at that person, great banter no, thats just nasty.
By the turn of the decade,as other branding agencies mimicked the success of Dave, banter was everywhere, a folk tradition that had acquired a peculiar sort of respectability. The men who celebrated it werent just lads in the pub any more: they had spending power and establishment allies on their side. But they were, by the same token, more visible to critics. Aggression from an underdog can be overlooked; aggression from the establishment is serious enough to become a matter of public concern.
Take Richard Keys and Andy Gray, Sky Sports brand-defining football presenters, who got themselves up to their necks in some extremely bad banter in 2011. Keys blamed dark forces, but everyone else blamed him and Gray for being misogynists. We knew this because there was footage.
The firestorm, as Keys called it, centred on claims that the two men had said and done heinously sexist things off-air. Most memorable, at least for its phrase-making, was the clip in which Keys eagerly asked his fellow pundit Jamie Redknapp if hed smashed it it being a woman and asserted that he could often be found hanging out the back of it.
Gray went quickly. In the days before he followed, Keys burned hot with injustice in a series of mea-sorta-culpas, particularly focused on the tape in which he expressed his derision at the idea that a woman, Sian Massey-Ellis, could be an assistant referee in the Premier League.
It was just banter, he said. Or, more exactly, just a bit of banter, as he said Massey-Ellis had assured him she understood in a later telephone conversation in which, he added, much banter passed between us. She and I enjoyed some banter, he protested. It was lads-mag banter, he insisted. It was stone-age banter, he admitted. We liked to have banter, he explained. Richard Keys was sorry if you were offended, but also, it wasnt his fault if you didnt get it. It was just banter, for goodness sake!
Up to their necks in some extremely bad banter Andy Gray and Richard Keys in 2011. Photograph: Richard Saker/Rex
Keys insistence that his mistake was simply a failure to move with the times was nothing new: banter has always seemed to carry a longing for the past, for an imagined era before male friendship was so cramped by the tiresome obligations of feminist scrutiny. But while his underlying views were painfully dated, his conception of banter was entirely modern: a sly expansion of the words meaning, and a self-conscious contention that it provided an impregnable defence.
The Keys variation understood banter, first, as a catch-all means of denying responsibility if anyone was hurt; and, second, as a means of reinforcing a bond between two people by being cruel about a third. The comparison wouldnt please a couple of alphas like Keys and Gray, but both strategies brought it closer to a style of communication with classically feminine associations: gossip. Deborah Cameron, the Rupert Murdoch (lol) Professor in Language and Communication at Oxford University, argues that the two modes of interaction follow basically the same structure. People gossip as a trust game, she said. You tell someone your unsayable private secret, and it bonds you closer together. Theyre supposed to reciprocate with a confidence of their own. Well, banter works in the same way now. You say something outrageous, and you see if the other person dares to top your remark.
The trust game in banter was traditionally supposed to be: do you trust me when I say were friends in spite of the mean things Im saying about you? But now theres a second version of the game: do I trust you not to tell anyone the mean things Im saying about other people? I think originally it was a harmless thing, said Cameron, whose analysis is rooted in an archive of male group conversation, mostly recorded by her students, that goes back to the 1980s. But then it started to be used as an excuse when men were caught out engaging in forms of it that werent so harmless.
It comes down to context and intent, says the comedian Bridget Christie. The gentler form of banter is still knocking around, she suggested, but now it exists alongside something darker: I found The Inbetweeners adolescent banter hilarious, because it was equal and unthreatening. But there is obviously a world of difference between a group of teenage boys benignly taking the piss out of each other, and a bigot being racist or misogynist and trying to pass it off as a joke.
Trace the rise of banter, and you will find that it corresponds to the rise of political correctness or, anyway, to the backlash against political correctness gone mad. That phrase and just banter mirror each other perfectly: one denoting a priggish culture that is deemed to have overreached, the other a laid-back culture that is deemed to have been unfairly reined in. Ironically enough, just banter does exactly what it accuses political correctness of, seeking to close down discussion by telling you that meaning is settled by category rather than content. Political correctness asserts that a racist joke is primarily racist, whereas banter asserts that a racist joke is primarily a joke. In the past, the men who used it rarely had to define it, or to explain themselves to anybody else. Today, in contrast, it is named all the time. The biggest change isnt the banter itself, says Bethan Benwell. Its the explicit use of the word as a disclaimer.
By sheer repetition and by its use as an unanswerable defence, banter has turned from an abstraction into a vast and calcified description of actions as well as words: gone from a way of talking to a way of life, a style that accidentally became a worldview. He bantered you, people sometimes say: you always used to banter with your mates, but now it often sounds like something you do to them. Once it was directionless, inconclusive chatter with wit as the engine that drove it, said the comedian Russell Kane. Now, if I trip you up, thats banter.
You might think the humiliation suffered by Keys and Gray would have made banter less appealing as a get-out, but not a bit of it. Banter, increasingly, seems like the first refuge of the inexcusable. In 2014, Malky Mackay, who had been fired as manager of Cardiff City Football Club a year earlier, was caught having sent texts that referred to Chinese people eating dogs, black people being criminals, Jewish people being avaricious, and gay people being snakes all of which were initially optimistically defended by the League Managers Association as letting off steam to a friend during some friendly text message banter. The comedian Dapper Laughs, whose real name is Daniel OReilly, established himself as banters rat king, with his very own ITV2 show, and then lost it after he suggested that an audience member at one of his gigs was gagging for a rape. A man was convicted of murder after he crushed his friend against a wall with a Jeep Cherokee after an argument over badger-baiting, a course of action that he said had been intended as banter. Another slashed the throat of someone he had met in a pub and described the incident as a moment of banter after 14 or 15 pints. Both are now in prison.
By any sane measure,banter was falling into disrepute, as often a disguise for malice as a word for the ribaldry of lads on the lash. Still it did not go away: instead, the worst of it has mutated again, asserting its authority in public and saving its creepiest tendencies for the shadows or, at least, for the company of five, or 10, or 20 of your closest mates.
At the London School of Economics, it started with a leaflet. Each year at the universitys freshers fair, LSE Rugby Football Club distributed a banterous primer on rugby culture. In October 2014, says the then-president of the student union, Nona Buckley-Irvine, a student came to her in tears with a copy in her hand. The leaflet talked about trollops, slags, crumpet, mingers, and the desirability of misogyny; there were passing references to the horrors of homosexual humiliation and outright homosexual debauchery. Anyone charmed by all this was invited to sign up for the club and join the banter list, entitling them to participate in the exchange of chappish email conversation.
To anyone with a passing knowledge of university laddism, it was hard to imagine a more ordinary iteration. Still, after the unreconstructed chappishness of the leaflet came to light, the club knew it had a problem. It issued a collective apology acknowledging that we have a lot to learn about the pernicious effects of banter, and promised to organise a workshop. But there was reason to be sceptical about the depth of that commitment.
When Buckley-Irvine and her colleagues published a report on the incident, they noted a string of others, including an antisemitic assault on a university ski trip to Val dIsere in 2011. And there were other indiscretions it didnt mention. According to two people who were present, one club dinner at an Indian restaurant on Brick Lane ended with a stripper having bottles thrown at her when, already intimidated, she refused to take her clothes off. She hid in the toilet, and had to be escorted out by a member of staff as the team vandalised the restaurant.
Photograph: Alamy
According to five people who were either members of the rugby club or closely associated with it, one notorious senior member was widely thought to be responsible for the leaflet. (He did not respond to requests for comment.) But when they came to defend themselves to the student union, members of the club fell back on one of the most revered pillars of laddism: all for one, one for all. Theyd clearly worked out a line, says Nona Buckley-Irvine. No one individual was responsible. They were sorry. It was just banter. Thats what they all said.
The accountancy firm KPMG, which sponsored the universitys wider Athletics Union, decided that banter was not an especially helpful brand association, and withdrew funding worth 22,000. The students union decided to disband the club for the academic year. The decision moved some observers to disgust. It was a gross overreaction, a former team member told me. We were the best-behaved team when it came to actually playing rugby but they banned that bit and they couldnt ban any of the rest.
Others took a less measured tone. I had old members emailing me and calling me a fascist, says Buckley-Irvine. Asking me if I didnt understand that it was just banter. Rugby players chanted abuse at her on nights out, she told me. They shoulder-barged her, and called her a cunt.
These kinds of interactions would tend to take place on Wednesdays, also known as sports night, at a bar in Leicester Square. Sports night was the apotheosis of the rugby clubs bleak solidarity. In deference to what you might call the wingers-before-mingers code, for instance, members of the club who were expected to dress in suits werent allowed to speak to women before 9pm. So they would just shout abuse instead, one female former student, who Ill call Anna, remembered. One chant, she said, went, Nine nos and a yes is a yes. At the time, Anna thought that it was all a joke. People would say, Its just banter all the time. After everything. Absolutely everything, she said, sitting in a cafe in south London. If you were meeting someone new, saying they had good banter, that was a pretty high compliment. Whereas if you dont go along with that stuff, its seen as, you cant take the chat, you cant take the banter. And its not seen as having a stance against it. Its seen as not being able to keep up.
After the rugby club was disbanded, nothing much changed in sports night social life. Many members of the club still went on the same nights out; they just colonised other teams. They still addressed girls as Sarah 2 or Sarah 8 depending on how attractive they considered them out of 10; they still had shouted conversations about their sex lives in front of the women they had slept with but refused to acknowledge.
That culture was not confined to Wednesday nights. Anna remembers a guy who took her picture as she slept, naked, in the bed they were sharing, and circulated it to another non-university sports team via WhatsApp. She wasnt meant to see it on his phone.
Ask anyone well-informed where banter resides now, and theyll give the same answer: WhatsApp groups and email threads, the safe spaces of the lad class. What youd get out of those WhatsApp threads, its another world of drama, one former member of the football club said. The details of girls bodies that youd read, a few funny jibes, that was the limit for me. But when it moved on to, like, really, really bad stuff, always about sex it was too much. Those threads are the source of everything.
If the threads were an outlet, they were by no means the limit. Banter, by common consent, wasnt confined to mocking each other: it was about action. If you dressed up for a night out, one female student remembered, it was just kind of status quo that you could have your arse grabbed. It was just like, Oh, that was kind of weird, but OK, thatll happen. Like everyone else willing to speak about it, her view of that culture was perplexingly nuanced, sometimes contradictory. It sounds scary, she said, but that being said, some of my best nights were there, and like it was fun. But then she said: What was defined as serious just got so pushed. I think for someone to lodge a complaint they would have to be actually hurt.
Anna remembers lots of sketchy incidents. She recalls nights when her choices faded into a blur, and she wondered if she had really been in control. But at the time, I would never call it out, she said. And then, youre all living in halls together, and the next day, its like: What did you do last night? Thats hilarious. Thats banter.
When Anna thinks about the behaviour of some of the men she knew at university, she finds it hard to pin down exactly what she thinks of them. Theres one in particular who sticks in her mind. On a Wednesday night, he was a banter guy, she said. He was a Wednesday animal. But the rest of the time, he was my friend.
Controversial though all this was at the time, no one seems to think that it will have cost the perpetrators much. Ive tried so hard to leave all that behind, said the former member of the football team. But those guys theyre all going on to run banks, or the country, or whatever. The senior rugby man who many held responsible, by the way, has landed on his feet. Today, he has a job at KPMG.
In 2017, every new instance of banter is immediately spotted and put through the journalistic wringer. (Vices Joel Golby, who wrote the definitive text on the bagel thing, has made a career from his exquisite close readings of the form.) But when each new absolute legend emerges, we dont usually have the context to make the essential judgment: do the proponents tend towards the harmless warmth of Ellis and his mates, or the frank hostility of the LSE rugby boys? Is their love of irony straightforward, or a mask for something else?
As Richard Keys and Dapper Laughs and their cohorts have polluted the idea of banter, the commercial entities that endorsed its rise have become uneasy with the label. They wanted it to go viral; they hadnt expected it to go postal. Dave, for example, has dropped the home of witty banter slogan. Its not about classic male humour any more, its a little bit smarter, says UKTVs Steve North. We definitely say it less than we used to.
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The age of banter
The long read: It used to be just a word now it is a way of life. But is it time to get off the banter bus?
Its the most fucking ridiculous story, isnt it? We went to watch fucking dolphins, and we ended up in fucking Syria. Last summer in the Mediterranean party resort of Ayia Napa, Lewis Ellis was working as a club rep. I mean, it was fucking 8am, he told an Australian website soon afterwards, and the last fucking club had closed, and we thought, We can still go dolphin watching. Well blag our way on to a fucking boat and go dolphin watching.
But when the boat sailed so far that Cyprus disappeared from view, Ellis explained, they started to worry. Why are we so far from land? they asked the crew. Were fucking miles away and weve got no fucking wifi. Something, Ellis said, had been lost in translation; his exuberant season as a shepherd for the resorts party pilgrims had gone terribly awry. The crew wasnt taking them to watch dolphins: they were going to a Russian naval base in the city of Tartus, on Syrias Mediterranean coast. Yeah, it is a little ridiculous.
It was, nonetheless, a story that had legs. Hungover lads boat trip boob lands them in Syria, wahey-ed the Mirror; British holidaymakers board party boat in Ayia Napa and end up in war-torn SYRIA, guffawed the Express. If you saw these headlines at the time, you may dimly remember the rest. A stubborn trawler captain, chugging doggedly onwards to Tartus, where he turfed the friends out upon landing; interrogation at the hands of Russian intelligence officers; mutual hilarity as the Russians realised what had happened; and, after a hot meal, a quick tour of the area, and a good nights sleep, spots on the next fishing vessel headed back to Cyprus. It was never made clear why the captain had let them on the boat in the first place, but whatever. Everyone lapped it up.
Reflecting on the whole thing five months later, Ellis, a 26-year-old with a business degree and a marketing masters, couldnt totally wrap his head around it. I think I found 35 stories about us, he told me. I read about myself in the Hawaiian Express, do you know what I mean? (Notwithstanding that there doesnt appear to be any such newspaper, yes, I definitely do.)
What made it really weird to see the media pile in with such unstinting enthusiasm was that the story was total cobblers. I could not believe how gullible they were, Ellis said, a top note of glee still in his voice. We were just having a laugh! It was banter!
Lads: this is the age of banter. Its long been somewhat about the banter, but over the last few years, it has come to seem that its all about the banter an unabashedly bumptious attitude that took up a position on the outskirts of the culture in the early 90s and has been larging its way towards the centre ever since. There are hundreds of banter groups on Facebook, from Banter Britain (no memes insinuating child abuse/dead babies!!!) to Wanker Banter 18+ (Have a laugh and keep it sick) to the Premier League Banter Page (The only rule: keep it banter). You can buy an I banter mug on Amazon for 9, or an Archbishop of Banterbury T-shirt for 9.99.
There are now four branches of a restaurant called Scoff & Banter. When things were going badly at Chelsea FC under Jos Mourinho, it was reported the team had banned all banter in an attempt to focus their minds, and that terminology appeared in the newspapers, as if you would know exactly what it meant. Someone has created a banter map of London using a keyword search on the flatshare website SpareRoom, showing exactly where people are looking for a roommate with good banter (Clapham tends to feature prominently). When a 26-year-old man from Leeds posed for a selfie with a bemused aeroplane hijacker, Vice declared it the high-water mark of banter.
Lewis Ellis (left) and friends in Ayia Napa, pretending to be in Syria. Photograph: Lewis Ellis
If you are younger than about 35, you are likely to hear the term all the time. Either you have banter (if you are funny and can take a joke) or you dont (if you arent and cannot). The mainstream, in summary, is now drunk and asleep on the sofa, and banter is delightedly drawing a penis on its forehead.
As banter has risen, it has expanded. Long a word used to describe submerged expressions of fraternal love, it is now also a word used to excuse uninhibited displays of masculine bravado. Today, it is segregated by class, seized on by brands, picked over by psychologists, and deplored by cultural critics; it is dominant, hotly contested and only hazily understood.
And so, whether he intends it to or not, Ellis use of the term raises some questions. Is he throwing his lot in with the most pervasive branch of the blokeish mainstream, a sanitised and benevolent hilarity that stretches from lad-dad panel shows to your mates zinger about your terrible haircut? Or is he lining up with the misogynist imitators of the Bullingdon club, a sprinkling of racists, and, as we shall see, an actual murderer purveyors of a malicious and insidious masculinity that insists on its indivisible authority and calls you a slut if you object?
Ellis isnt preoccupied by these questions, but for what its worth, he does say that he and his friends never had the slightest intention of going to Syria. We werent really trying to fool anyone, he told me, although Im not sure thats entirely consistent with the facts. We were out for a stroll, and we came across this area that looked really run down, we thought it looked like Syria. So we put it on the club reps [Facebook] page that thats where we were. And everyone started liking it. And then one of the people who contacted us was from LADBible which is like the Bible, but for LADS so we said, well have a mess around here. Well tell a completely ridiculous story, see if the media believes it. See if we can become LADBible famous.
It did, they could. Eventually, the truth came out, not thanks to any especially determined investigative journalism, but because Ellis cheerily admitted on Facebook that his tale of magnificent idiocy was a fiction. Hahaha what a prank, he wrote, with some justification.
The confession only brought another cycle of attention. Publications that had picked up the story in the first place resurfaced it with new headlines to reflect the audacity of the invention; social media users adduced it as evidence for their views of young men, or the media, or both. The Russian embassys Twitter account called it a telling example of how many Syria (and Russia) stories are made up by UK papers, which was great geopolitical banter. The attention entertained Ellis, but he says it wasnt the point. We just thought it was funny, he said. People are too serious. I keep being told to grow up, but I still want to have a good time. Ive had the jobs, Ive got the education. But when Im off work, I want to escape.
Ellis is an enthusiast and an optimist. He is, he told me late last year, desperate to take every opportunity, just to say yes to everything I can. We were on a night out in Manchester with his friends Tyson, John and Chris. In the course of the evening, the following things found their way into my beer: fingers; salt; vinegar; mayonnaise; a chip; saliva; a 10 note; and, I hazily remember being told after the fact, at least two shots of vodka.
Everyones got a thing in the group, Ellis said, as we walked from one bar to the next. One guy, hes not even that ugly, we say he looks like a Peperami. Tysons got this mole on his face, its like a Coco Pop, so youve got a Coco Pop on your face. I looked like Harry Potter when I was a kid, so they call me Potter, thats my nickname. Every single one of us has something. So you youve got Chinese eyes. Youre Chinese.
For the record, I didnt think this was OK, but coming after such a harmless litany, it didnt seem malicious enough to confront. Of course, tacit endorsement is what makes such offensive epithets a commonplace, and so it troubles me that it made me feel mysteriously welcome, just as it had when John punched me lightly in the balls when I arrived. There was no doubting Elliss sincerity: as he spoke, the sheer daft beauty of male friendship seemed to amaze him, almost to the point of physical pain. We just take the piss out of each other, and thats how we show our love, he said. So many group chats on the phone, and you just take the piss until they cry. And its like, when youre really killing them, you go, Ill stop if you want, because you know they cant say yes, so you just keep going. Then we arrived at the next bar, where I was made to drink something called a Zombie.
Early in the evening, before any of this had undermined my ability to take useful notes, Ellis broke off from talking as we walked down the street and sidled into a window display at Next Home, where he Tracey Emined a carefully made bed by climbing into it and rolling around. Everyone cracked up. Give the world a laugh, Ellis tends to think, and the world will smile back at you. Jump on a boat, and youll end up somewhere great; make the boat up, and youll get there faster. Its all about having fun, its all about the banter, he said, after hed rejoined us outside. Banter is about making the world a more exciting place.
If nobody can agree on what banter is, thats hardly a new problem. The first usage of the word recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary comes from noted Restoration lad Thomas dUrfey, also known for his hit song The Fart, in a satirical 1677 play called Madam Fickle. Banter him, banter him, Toby, a character called Zechiel urges, which may be the first time that someone called Toby was so instructed, but certainly wasnt the last.
The OED also notes early attempts at a definition by Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson. (Swift mentions a banter upon transubstantiation, in which a cork is turned into a horse, and fair enough, turning a cork into a horse would be classic banter.) Both are a little disgusted by the word, and neither unearths much of an origin story: by their accounts, banter is so coarse that it emerged, fully formed and without antecedent, out of the mouths of oafs.
As it turns out, though, the OED is not at present fully able to handle the banter. According to Eleanor Maier, an associate editor on the dictionary, a search of earlier English texts reveals that a number of previous examples are missing from the dictionarys definition, which was first drafted in 1885 including a quote from a 1657 translation of Don Quixote. (After examining the history, Maier told me that she would be adding banter to the list of entries that are up for review.)
dougie stew (@DougieStew)
Welcome to London #BagelGate pic.twitter.com/KcJoz0ycZU
February 26, 2017
In recent years, banter has barged into our lives at a remarkable clip. Googles Ngram Viewer, a tool that assesses (with some limitations) the frequency with which a term appears in a large database of written sources, finds that banter popped up about twice as often in 2008, the most recent year covered, as it did in 1980.
But banter plugged away for a long time before it became an overnight success. In the 19th century, it often denoted a kind of formal sparring. Even as the term evolved over the 20th, it continued to seem a little prim. In the House of Commons in 1936, Ramsay MacDonald, the former Labour prime minister who had returned in a new seat after losing his old one, was subjected to a good deal of banter Dear old Granny MacDonald!, among other witticisms.In 1981, a Guardian report that chess champion Anatoly Karpov and his handlers had successfully protested at his challenger Viktor Korchnois constant cross-board talk ran under the unlikely headline: Chess banter banned.
Such stories do little to prepare us for what banter has become. Consider the viral video that became known as #bagelgate earlier this year. In the recording, a minor scuffle broke out on the 00.54 train from Kings Cross to Huntingdon, and then for no obviously related reason a woman who had a large bag of bagels decided to put one on the head of the guy sitting in front of her, and then another after he took it off and threw it out of the window, and another and another, and then everyone in the carriage started chanting hes got a bagel on his head, and eventually the slightly spoddy victim who is me when I was 13 and someone filled my pencil case with Mr Kipling apple pies (squashed, oozing) because I was fat lost it and screamed Get the fuck out of my face!, and then another fight broke out on the platform, and then the police got on to the train, and every single person fell into not-me-guv silence: this is not Granny MacDonalds banter any more.
If it is hard to understand how these activities can fall under the same umbrella, it should be noted that a phenomenon may predate our choice of term to describe it its just that the act of definition makes it more visible, and perhaps more likely to be imitated. At some point, though, banter became the name for what British men already regarded as their natural tone of voice. There is a very deeply embedded folk culture in the UK of public ribaldry, extreme sarcasm, facetiousness in other words, of laddishness, says Tony Thorne, a linguist and cultural historian. What you might think of as banter now is rooted in that tradition.
That tradition first lashed itself to banters mast in the early 1990s, and controversy soon followed. In June 1992, a Guardian story headlined Police fire sex banter officer, about the dismissal of a sergeant for sexual harassment, recorded an early skirmish in the modern banter wars, and an important new layer to its meaning in the wild: The move is seen as part of the Metropolitan polices desire to reassure women officers that what has previously been tolerated as banter is no longer acceptable. Two years later, the lads mags arrived.
The first edition of Loaded magazine appeared in May 1994, with a picture of Gary Oldman on the front smoking a dog-end, under a banner that declared him a super lad. What fresh lunacy is this? the editors note read. Loaded is a new magazine dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of sex, drink, football and less serious matters Loaded is for the man who believes he can do anything, if only he wasnt hungover.
If banter dismays you, James Brown, the magazines first editor, is quite an easy bogeyman. As he acknowledges himself, he created a title that defined a genre. Loaded was swiftly recognised as a foundational text for a resurgent and ebullient masculinity that had been searching for public expression. While it was always overtly horny, the magazine was initially more interested in a forlorn, slackjawed and self-ironising appreciation of A-listers (one reversible poster had Cindy Crawford on one side and a steam train on the other) than the grot-plus-football formula that successors and imitators like Maxim, Zoo and Nuts milked to destruction. But it also flirted with something murkier.
To its critics, Loaded and its imitators aimed to sanitise a certain hooliganistic worldview with a strategic disclaimer. Banter emerges as this relentless gloss of irony over everything, said Bethan Benwell, senior lecturer in language and linguistics at the University of Stirling and the author of several papers on mens magazines. The constant excusing of sexist or homophobic sentiments with this wink that says you dont really mean it. Benwell pointed to Loadeds emblematic strapline: For men who should know better.
Brown denies that his magazine invented banter. Instead, he says, it captured a zeitgeist that the media had previously failed to acknowledge; the folk culture that Tony Thorne refers to, brought out into the open. Before Browns intervention, GQ had run John Major and Michael Heseltine as cover stars, for Gods sake. I took the interests and the outlook of the young men that I knew, and I put them in a magazine, Brown said. Im not responsible for the tone of the later entrants to the market. We were criticised because we fancied women, not because we belittled them.
The thing about Loaded was that the way we wrote reflected the way we were with our mates, he went on. Theres definitely a thing that exists in the male outlook: you take the piss out of the people you like, and you ignore the people you dont.
Accept this as your starting point, and objections become exhausting to sustain: what youre objecting to is an act of affection. Of course, this is what makes it insidious. Because Browns account rests on the intention behind the magazine, and Benwells on the effect it had, they are impossible to reconcile. Its a very difficult thing to resist or challenge without looking like the stereotypical humourless feminist, said Benwell. But by laughing, you become complicit.
Loaded gave this new kind of banter escape velocity, and it began to colonise other worlds. On BBC2, for example, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner were staking out their own territory with Fantasy Football League, a mixture of sketches and celebrity chat that managed to be enthusiastic and satirical at the same time, and reached its peak when the pair became national icons, thanks to their Euro 96 anthem, Three Lions. While a long-running joke about the Nottingham Forest striker Jason Lees pineapple haircut seems flatly racist in retrospect Baddiel did an impression of him in blackface by and large, the tone was milder and more conventional than the magazines were: this was the sensibility of the university graduate slumming it before embarking on grown-up life.
Baddiel implied that laddism could easily occupy a spectrum from ogling to literature, drawing a line to Nick Hornbys memoir of life as an Arsenal fan, Fever Pitch. Hornby once said to me that all this stuff you know, fantasy football and his book is men talking about things that they like and for a while in the mid-80s they werent allowed to, he said in 1995. Ive always liked football and Ive always liked naked women, and its easier to talk about that now than it was eight years ago. Those comments reflect a kind of sneer at its critics that you could often detect in Fantasy Football League, even as its hosts protested that they were just having a laugh though Baddiel himself denies that view. Twenty years on, he, like Brown, is at pains to draw a line between the approach that he and Skinner popularised, and the forms that came later. I guess me and Frank did specialise in banter, he said in an email. In a time before it was known as bantz.
Over the next 10 years, two things happened that ushered in the age of banter. (You might call it mature banter, except that its also the opposite.) First, instead of just being a thing that happened, it became a thing that people talked about. Then, as it became a more tangible cultural product, everyone started trying to make money out of it. The watershed moment, the forms equivalent to Dylan going electric, was the invention of Dave.
Like most good ideas, it looks simple enough in retrospect. Before Dave was Dave, it was UKTV Gold 2. The predecessor channels audience share was 0.761%, and no one could tell who on earth it was supposed to be for. But we had the content, says Steve North, the channels brand manager in 2007 and content of a particular kind that the existing name did very little to communicate: Have I Got News for You, They Think Its All Over, Top Gear. Viewers said they loved the repartee, the humour. It reminded them of spending time with their funniest friends.
The first issue of Loaded magazine, from May 1994
The target audience was highly specific. It was men married or in relationships, maybe with young children, not going to the pub as much as they used to, says Andy Bryant, managing director of Red Bee, the agency brought in to work on the rebrand. And they missed that camaraderie.
Their purpose thus fixed, North started to run brainstorming sessions at which people would shout out suggestions for the name. One of the ones we collected was Dave, he says. We thought, great, but we cant call it that. But then we thought, Its a surrogate friend. If the audience really sees it as that, if they see it as genuinely providing the banter, maybe we can really give it a name.
They put their hunch through its paces. The market research company YouGov was commissioned to test Dave alongside a bunch of other names (Matthew and Kevin were also on the shortlist), but nothing else had the same everyman resonance. For us, Dave is a sensibility, a place, an emotion, a feeling, said North, his tone thoughtful, almost gnomic. Everyone has their own sense of who Dave is, thats the important thing. Its hard to find anyone who doesnt know someone called Dave.
Now the channel had a brand, it needed a slogan. Lots of people claim they played a part in the naming, says Bryant. But it was just as important to encapsulate what the channel was all about. And at some point someone, I dont know who, wrote it on a board: The home of witty banter. The rebrand added 8m new viewers in six months; Dave saw a 71% increase in its target audience of affluent young men.
Conceived by the first generation of senior professionals to have grown up with banter as an unremarkable part of their demographics cultural mix, the channel crystallised a change, and accelerated it. In 2006, The Ricky Gervais Show, in which Gervais and Stephen Merchant relentlessly poked fun at their in-house idiot savant Karl Pilkington, became the most popular podcast of all time. In 2007, the year of Daves rebrand, Top Gears ratings shot from below 5m to a record high of 8m. The following year, QI moved from BBC4 to BBC2. (A tie-in book published the same year, QI: Advanced Banter, sold more than 125,000 copies.)
North saw the kind of fraternal teasing that was being monetised by his channel, and the panel shows that were its lifeblood, as fundamentally benign. The key thing is that its two-way, he said. Its about two people riffing off each other.
But like his 20th-century forebears, he can see that something ugly has evolved, and he wants to keep his brand well away from it. Bants, he said with distaste. That thing of cover for dubious behaviour we hate and despise it massively. When we launched, it was about fun, being light-hearted, maybe pushing each other without being disrespectful. When people talk about Ive had a go at that person, great banter no, thats just nasty.
By the turn of the decade,as other branding agencies mimicked the success of Dave, banter was everywhere, a folk tradition that had acquired a peculiar sort of respectability. The men who celebrated it werent just lads in the pub any more: they had spending power and establishment allies on their side. But they were, by the same token, more visible to critics. Aggression from an underdog can be overlooked; aggression from the establishment is serious enough to become a matter of public concern.
Take Richard Keys and Andy Gray, Sky Sports brand-defining football presenters, who got themselves up to their necks in some extremely bad banter in 2011. Keys blamed dark forces, but everyone else blamed him and Gray for being misogynists. We knew this because there was footage.
The firestorm, as Keys called it, centred on claims that the two men had said and done heinously sexist things off-air. Most memorable, at least for its phrase-making, was the clip in which Keys eagerly asked his fellow pundit Jamie Redknapp if hed smashed it it being a woman and asserted that he could often be found hanging out the back of it.
Gray went quickly. In the days before he followed, Keys burned hot with injustice in a series of mea-sorta-culpas, particularly focused on the tape in which he expressed his derision at the idea that a woman, Sian Massey-Ellis, could be an assistant referee in the Premier League.
It was just banter, he said. Or, more exactly, just a bit of banter, as he said Massey-Ellis had assured him she understood in a later telephone conversation in which, he added, much banter passed between us. She and I enjoyed some banter, he protested. It was lads-mag banter, he insisted. It was stone-age banter, he admitted. We liked to have banter, he explained. Richard Keys was sorry if you were offended, but also, it wasnt his fault if you didnt get it. It was just banter, for goodness sake!
Up to their necks in some extremely bad banter Andy Gray and Richard Keys in 2011. Photograph: Richard Saker/Rex
Keys insistence that his mistake was simply a failure to move with the times was nothing new: banter has always seemed to carry a longing for the past, for an imagined era before male friendship was so cramped by the tiresome obligations of feminist scrutiny. But while his underlying views were painfully dated, his conception of banter was entirely modern: a sly expansion of the words meaning, and a self-conscious contention that it provided an impregnable defence.
The Keys variation understood banter, first, as a catch-all means of denying responsibility if anyone was hurt; and, second, as a means of reinforcing a bond between two people by being cruel about a third. The comparison wouldnt please a couple of alphas like Keys and Gray, but both strategies brought it closer to a style of communication with classically feminine associations: gossip. Deborah Cameron, the Rupert Murdoch (lol) Professor in Language and Communication at Oxford University, argues that the two modes of interaction follow basically the same structure. People gossip as a trust game, she said. You tell someone your unsayable private secret, and it bonds you closer together. Theyre supposed to reciprocate with a confidence of their own. Well, banter works in the same way now. You say something outrageous, and you see if the other person dares to top your remark.
The trust game in banter was traditionally supposed to be: do you trust me when I say were friends in spite of the mean things Im saying about you? But now theres a second version of the game: do I trust you not to tell anyone the mean things Im saying about other people? I think originally it was a harmless thing, said Cameron, whose analysis is rooted in an archive of male group conversation, mostly recorded by her students, that goes back to the 1980s. But then it started to be used as an excuse when men were caught out engaging in forms of it that werent so harmless.
It comes down to context and intent, says the comedian Bridget Christie. The gentler form of banter is still knocking around, she suggested, but now it exists alongside something darker: I found The Inbetweeners adolescent banter hilarious, because it was equal and unthreatening. But there is obviously a world of difference between a group of teenage boys benignly taking the piss out of each other, and a bigot being racist or misogynist and trying to pass it off as a joke.
Trace the rise of banter, and you will find that it corresponds to the rise of political correctness or, anyway, to the backlash against political correctness gone mad. That phrase and just banter mirror each other perfectly: one denoting a priggish culture that is deemed to have overreached, the other a laid-back culture that is deemed to have been unfairly reined in. Ironically enough, just banter does exactly what it accuses political correctness of, seeking to close down discussion by telling you that meaning is settled by category rather than content. Political correctness asserts that a racist joke is primarily racist, whereas banter asserts that a racist joke is primarily a joke. In the past, the men who used it rarely had to define it, or to explain themselves to anybody else. Today, in contrast, it is named all the time. The biggest change isnt the banter itself, says Bethan Benwell. Its the explicit use of the word as a disclaimer.
By sheer repetition and by its use as an unanswerable defence, banter has turned from an abstraction into a vast and calcified description of actions as well as words: gone from a way of talking to a way of life, a style that accidentally became a worldview. He bantered you, people sometimes say: you always used to banter with your mates, but now it often sounds like something you do to them. Once it was directionless, inconclusive chatter with wit as the engine that drove it, said the comedian Russell Kane. Now, if I trip you up, thats banter.
You might think the humiliation suffered by Keys and Gray would have made banter less appealing as a get-out, but not a bit of it. Banter, increasingly, seems like the first refuge of the inexcusable. In 2014, Malky Mackay, who had been fired as manager of Cardiff City Football Club a year earlier, was caught having sent texts that referred to Chinese people eating dogs, black people being criminals, Jewish people being avaricious, and gay people being snakes all of which were initially optimistically defended by the League Managers Association as letting off steam to a friend during some friendly text message banter. The comedian Dapper Laughs, whose real name is Daniel OReilly, established himself as banters rat king, with his very own ITV2 show, and then lost it after he suggested that an audience member at one of his gigs was gagging for a rape. A man was convicted of murder after he crushed his friend against a wall with a Jeep Cherokee after an argument over badger-baiting, a course of action that he said had been intended as banter. Another slashed the throat of someone he had met in a pub and described the incident as a moment of banter after 14 or 15 pints. Both are now in prison.
By any sane measure,banter was falling into disrepute, as often a disguise for malice as a word for the ribaldry of lads on the lash. Still it did not go away: instead, the worst of it has mutated again, asserting its authority in public and saving its creepiest tendencies for the shadows or, at least, for the company of five, or 10, or 20 of your closest mates.
At the London School of Economics, it started with a leaflet. Each year at the universitys freshers fair, LSE Rugby Football Club distributed a banterous primer on rugby culture. In October 2014, says the then-president of the student union, Nona Buckley-Irvine, a student came to her in tears with a copy in her hand. The leaflet talked about trollops, slags, crumpet, mingers, and the desirability of misogyny; there were passing references to the horrors of homosexual humiliation and outright homosexual debauchery. Anyone charmed by all this was invited to sign up for the club and join the banter list, entitling them to participate in the exchange of chappish email conversation.
To anyone with a passing knowledge of university laddism, it was hard to imagine a more ordinary iteration. Still, after the unreconstructed chappishness of the leaflet came to light, the club knew it had a problem. It issued a collective apology acknowledging that we have a lot to learn about the pernicious effects of banter, and promised to organise a workshop. But there was reason to be sceptical about the depth of that commitment.
When Buckley-Irvine and her colleagues published a report on the incident, they noted a string of others, including an antisemitic assault on a university ski trip to Val dIsere in 2011. And there were other indiscretions it didnt mention. According to two people who were present, one club dinner at an Indian restaurant on Brick Lane ended with a stripper having bottles thrown at her when, already intimidated, she refused to take her clothes off. She hid in the toilet, and had to be escorted out by a member of staff as the team vandalised the restaurant.
Photograph: Alamy
According to five people who were either members of the rugby club or closely associated with it, one notorious senior member was widely thought to be responsible for the leaflet. (He did not respond to requests for comment.) But when they came to defend themselves to the student union, members of the club fell back on one of the most revered pillars of laddism: all for one, one for all. Theyd clearly worked out a line, says Nona Buckley-Irvine. No one individual was responsible. They were sorry. It was just banter. Thats what they all said.
The accountancy firm KPMG, which sponsored the universitys wider Athletics Union, decided that banter was not an especially helpful brand association, and withdrew funding worth 22,000. The students union decided to disband the club for the academic year. The decision moved some observers to disgust. It was a gross overreaction, a former team member told me. We were the best-behaved team when it came to actually playing rugby but they banned that bit and they couldnt ban any of the rest.
Others took a less measured tone. I had old members emailing me and calling me a fascist, says Buckley-Irvine. Asking me if I didnt understand that it was just banter. Rugby players chanted abuse at her on nights out, she told me. They shoulder-barged her, and called her a cunt.
These kinds of interactions would tend to take place on Wednesdays, also known as sports night, at a bar in Leicester Square. Sports night was the apotheosis of the rugby clubs bleak solidarity. In deference to what you might call the wingers-before-mingers code, for instance, members of the club who were expected to dress in suits werent allowed to speak to women before 9pm. So they would just shout abuse instead, one female former student, who Ill call Anna, remembered. One chant, she said, went, Nine nos and a yes is a yes. At the time, Anna thought that it was all a joke. People would say, Its just banter all the time. After everything. Absolutely everything, she said, sitting in a cafe in south London. If you were meeting someone new, saying they had good banter, that was a pretty high compliment. Whereas if you dont go along with that stuff, its seen as, you cant take the chat, you cant take the banter. And its not seen as having a stance against it. Its seen as not being able to keep up.
After the rugby club was disbanded, nothing much changed in sports night social life. Many members of the club still went on the same nights out; they just colonised other teams. They still addressed girls as Sarah 2 or Sarah 8 depending on how attractive they considered them out of 10; they still had shouted conversations about their sex lives in front of the women they had slept with but refused to acknowledge.
That culture was not confined to Wednesday nights. Anna remembers a guy who took her picture as she slept, naked, in the bed they were sharing, and circulated it to another non-university sports team via WhatsApp. She wasnt meant to see it on his phone.
Ask anyone well-informed where banter resides now, and theyll give the same answer: WhatsApp groups and email threads, the safe spaces of the lad class. What youd get out of those WhatsApp threads, its another world of drama, one former member of the football club said. The details of girls bodies that youd read, a few funny jibes, that was the limit for me. But when it moved on to, like, really, really bad stuff, always about sex it was too much. Those threads are the source of everything.
If the threads were an outlet, they were by no means the limit. Banter, by common consent, wasnt confined to mocking each other: it was about action. If you dressed up for a night out, one female student remembered, it was just kind of status quo that you could have your arse grabbed. It was just like, Oh, that was kind of weird, but OK, thatll happen. Like everyone else willing to speak about it, her view of that culture was perplexingly nuanced, sometimes contradictory. It sounds scary, she said, but that being said, some of my best nights were there, and like it was fun. But then she said: What was defined as serious just got so pushed. I think for someone to lodge a complaint they would have to be actually hurt.
Anna remembers lots of sketchy incidents. She recalls nights when her choices faded into a blur, and she wondered if she had really been in control. But at the time, I would never call it out, she said. And then, youre all living in halls together, and the next day, its like: What did you do last night? Thats hilarious. Thats banter.
When Anna thinks about the behaviour of some of the men she knew at university, she finds it hard to pin down exactly what she thinks of them. Theres one in particular who sticks in her mind. On a Wednesday night, he was a banter guy, she said. He was a Wednesday animal. But the rest of the time, he was my friend.
Controversial though all this was at the time, no one seems to think that it will have cost the perpetrators much. Ive tried so hard to leave all that behind, said the former member of the football team. But those guys theyre all going on to run banks, or the country, or whatever. The senior rugby man who many held responsible, by the way, has landed on his feet. Today, he has a job at KPMG.
In 2017, every new instance of banter is immediately spotted and put through the journalistic wringer. (Vices Joel Golby, who wrote the definitive text on the bagel thing, has made a career from his exquisite close readings of the form.) But when each new absolute legend emerges, we dont usually have the context to make the essential judgment: do the proponents tend towards the harmless warmth of Ellis and his mates, or the frank hostility of the LSE rugby boys? Is their love of irony straightforward, or a mask for something else?
As Richard Keys and Dapper Laughs and their cohorts have polluted the idea of banter, the commercial entities that endorsed its rise have become uneasy with the label. They wanted it to go viral; they hadnt expected it to go postal. Dave, for example, has dropped the home of witty banter slogan. Its not about classic male humour any more, its a little bit smarter, says UKTVs Steve North. We definitely say it less than we used to.
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Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/08/02/the-age-of-banter/
from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/the-age-of-banter/
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