#also old posts often lead to an interest in new totally unrelated things to love which is like the best feeling ever??

[mobius-m-mobius]

Hypothetically, would it bother you if I dug into the deepest depths of your tumblr and reblogged posts from years and years ago?

Not at all!!

Tbh it's pretty likely whatever I was reblogging back then hasn't been on the forefront of my mind for a while but there's nothing on this blog I haven't adored or had great times enjoying so the memories are always fun, plus seeing someone discovering new to them content of something they're vibing with is a delight 💖

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

A visit to Coral Beach

What a fun time at the beach! Coral Beach is such a lovely place - from the clear blue waters and colorful mosaics scattered throughout the boardwalk, it's one of those places ideal for vacationing based on appearance alone. No photoshopping necessary when it comes to taking pictures here!

I'm surprised that I haven't visited the beach sooner since it's about an hour away from the camp. In fact, there's still so many places nearby that I haven't been to yet. The trip was kinda a spur of the moment kind of thing Pancetti, Audie, Snooty, Lyman, and I planned at the last minute. By chance I ran into an old friend who's vacationing there too and now she's coming back with us.

So we spent a couple days at Coral Beach exploring the sights and enjoying the resort and then tomorrow we're heading back to the camp. Of course, I also spent the time catching up with Desi, who's been enjoying the seaside scenery.

Desi Rivera's an aspiring singer-songwriter who hopes to make it big one day. Right now though, she's jumping off the ladder and starting from scratch. It's a risky move, but I think it's a necessary one. Given her talent and ambition, I know that Desi will come out stronger than ever.

I met Desi at summer camp years ago. Even though we only spent one summer together, we kept in touch for a while after that. The summer camp thing was something our parents made us do and to be honest it wasn't really our thing so they didn't push us when we told them that there wasn't going to be a next summer. The experience wasn't terrible - I did make a friend after all - but summer camp and I just didn't click at all. Now that I think about it, it's kinda interesting that as an adult I'm running a camp right now - though this and summer camp are totally different.

Since Desi lived in the town nearby we often ran into each other. As we got older contact became sporadic but we occasionally said hi to each other when our paths crossed. Then as adults we regained contact on social media and have been keeping up with each other since then. Desi often posts covers and original songs, which is how she got her online following. She could've easily made it big if it weren't for certain people.

Desi's journey as a singer-songwriter is sure to become an interesting one. Ever since she could talk, Desi knew she wanted to be a singer. She always had a nice voice, one that became more refined as she got older. Talented songwriter too, with an honest and poetic way with words. And it's a damn shame that her talent has been consistently overshadowed and sidelined for white mediocrity.

Yup, I said it - mediocrity. No disrespect to Meghan Tyler and Too Cool - I mean I can see their commercial appeal, but for the most part, their music is bland and forgettable. Music tastes aside, it is pretty impressive that Desi was in the same circles as people like Meghan and Joe of the Shayne Brothers.

Desi first met the two at a camp for aspiring musicians, the well known Camp Music. She was one of many talented nobodies who wanted a glimpse at stardom. Meghan Tyler is the daughter of pop star Ann Tyler, and it was her who ran the camp, the typical queen bee. I happened to cross paths with Meghan and her friends online (unrelated reasons) and they always gave me a vibe of a high school clique. I interacted with her indirectly a couple times but then actively avoided her when her friends stirred up drama. It's one thing to vagueblog about an ex-friend who screwed you over, it's another to ruin someone's reputation by claiming that they faked their trauma just because you had a petty falling out with them.

Then there's Joe Shayne, best known as the lead singer for the Shayne Brothers. He was amazed by Desi's voice and took an interest in her. The two started off kinda rough with Joe pushing his boundaries and Desi rightfully calling him out on his entitled behavior. The whole thing was kinda like a Cinderella story with Joe trying to figure out who was the singer he overheard while passing by while Desi tried too hard to impress him after realizing who he was. By the end of the summer, they began dating, becoming regulars at Camp Music for the next several years.

Despite what the others were saying, Desi and Joe were going strong for eight years. Desi was associated with the Shayne Brothers, which was a blessing and a curse. As much as she liked Joe and his brothers, she didn't want to be known solely because of her connection to them. They were going to get engaged until last year when Desi broke things off. According to her, things had been kinda rough for a while but they tried - probably a bit too hard, in her words - to stay together. They're still friends but Desi thinks in a year or two they'll drift away, which I think is what she wants.

On one hand it's kinda sad since they've been together for so long. And from what I've heard about Joe, being with Desi helped him a lot as before he met her he was on his way to becoming a short tempered almost has-been. Basically, she made him shape up and consider his future seriously. But aside from their love of music, Desi and Joe were from completely different worlds. In the years since they got together, they've grown into two different people. The two have spoken openly about their breakup and it seems like it's for the best. Sometimes things just don't work out in the end and that's okay.

As for Meghan, Desi always had a complicated relationship with her. Being the fish out of water, Desi tried to impress Meghan, even if it meant dumbing down herself to please Meghan's ego. There was always some sort of competition between them with Desi constantly feeling like she has to prove herself. While Meghan did help Desi out with her connections and fame, Desi never felt she earned her recognition, another reason why she wanted to start from the ground up.

For years Desi was part of Meghan's band, Too Cool. While Desi occasionally had some solos that charted, she and the other members were always overshadowed by Meghan. She considers the whole experience a mixed bag, one that started out exciting but in the end the bad outweighed the good.

A few months ago, not too long after leaving Too Cool, Desi did an insightful interview for a magazine where she spoke honestly about her ups and downs with the band as well as her breakup with Joe. I always felt that she deserved better than Too Cool, especially after reading the interview. From being constantly referred to as "the Mexican one" even though she stated multiple times she's Cuban, to being told to sing slightly off key in order to make Meghan sound better - no wonder she wanted out. It's an eye opening read on the ugly side of the music industry, particularly on how WOC artists are treated.

Following her departure, another member and longtime friend of Meghan, Maria Silva, also left the band for similar reasons. She too had also spoken out about the racism she experienced, having been constantly referred to as "the Chinese one" despite being Filipino. I don't know Maria too well but she comes across as genuine and I wish her well on her solo endeavors.

Right now Desi's taking a break on music, though not entirely. She's been writing songs and making demos but it'll be a while before she releases something. For now Desi wants to celebrate her freedom, starting with a long, well deserved vacation. Then once she's had enough rest and relaxation, she plans to jump back into the music scene with a bang, this time on her own terms with her calling all the shots.

Desi's been teasing me and the campers with what she has in store. In light of the racism she experienced with Too Cool, Desi wants to embrace her Cuban culture more than ever, starting with the music. Mainstream pop radio hits aren't her thing anymore, so she's going for a new sound inspired by her Cuban roots along with her usual pop rock style she's got going on since she began writing songs. She's also considering the idea of doing an album in Spanish, though that'll depend on a lot of factors.

It's nice to see her so excited and passionate about her music - that's one of the things I love about her! Like I said, Desi's got talent and ambition, and I know that she'll successfully make a name for herself without Meghan or Joe's shadows. I mean, the demos I've heard already sound a million times better than pretty much everything Too Cool has done - imagine how the final product will be! Once the album comes out, I'll be one of the first in line to buy and download a copy.

We met up with Desi by chance at the hotel, her room being upstairs. She's been traveling around, crossing off places where she always wanted to visit. So far she's crossed off four places from her list. After Coral Beach she was debating on Hero's Tunnel and Swan Park since they're right next to each other. Since the camp's along the way, I invited her over and hopefully during her time there, she can make up her mind on where to visit first. I know she'll enjoy the camp, especially Saltwater Shores since she's a beach gal.

Coral Beach is such a beautiful place. One of the first things we did when we got there was to pose in front of the fountain and toss a bell in for a wish. Then we checked into the Coral Beach Hotel, where we got a lovely view of the ocean and fountain.

The architecture of the hotel is so pretty, it reminds me of an old village on a tropical island. Along the boardwalk are charming little shops and cafes where we got to enjoy shaved ice and fine handmade souvenirs. I got a set of cute floral teacups, a dot grid notebook with a pretty mosaic cover, a gorgeous seashell necklace, and a painted ukulele.

We went swimming and snorkeling in the ocean, where we got to see the pretty coral the place is known for. Nature can be so fascinating sometimes - the coral really does look like fancy lace! I also collected a bunch of pretty seashells like pearl oysters, which are pretty rare, as well as pink oyster shells and obsidian shells, something I've never seen before. Desi suggested that we go parasailing - her new favorite activity as of recently - so that's what we did and it was a lot of fun! We also went surfing, watched a performance at the theater, shared cocktails during happy hour, and explored the gardens.

Today we went to a mosaic workshop and made some cool decor. Then we went to a ceramics shop where we watched how bowls were made, which was pretty cool. After that we had a late lunch at Sash, where we had poke and butter mochi. Next door was a bookstore where we browsed for a while and then we spent a couple hours at the beach before heading to the hotel for dinner.

Since we aren't leaving until tomorrow afternoon, we had some time to kill so we spent it at the pool, lounging around. Desi says she's looking forward to seeing the camp and meeting up with Daisy Jane. It's so good seeing Desi relaxed and having a great time, especially after what she had to put up with during her time with Too Cool.

It's getting late now and I still have a little bit of packing left to do. The ocean's so pretty at this time of night, the way the light of the stars reflect on the water like sparkles. I can't wait to come back in the near future.

[themjinterviews-blog]

48. Put your hands in the air and say hell yeah. Captain Jack! Johnny Depp!

What motivates you to do what you do? Sheer necessity, usually.

What was the weather like the last time you went out? Hot. It’s Arizona so it’s probably near 100 + sunny.

Do you go for walks often? I’m pretty lazy and try to avoid it. You sorta gotta trick me into walking, like take me to a big shopping mall or something so I inadvertently walk around it whilst shopping.

What color shirt are you wearing? Gray.

What is your favorite type of youtube video to watch? I don’t really watch any. I just use it to occasionally look up songs or to record snippets of stuff to remix songs.

Do you need any new clothes right now? I got plenty.

What’s the next project you are excited to start? I’m working on a nonsensical Adult Coloring Book featuring animals committing crimes.

Do you collect anything? If so, what? Used to collect rocks and Pokémon cards. I suppose in a sense I collect all sorts of art/office supplies.

^and if not, what would you like to collect? Nothing really.

What was the last disappointing thing that happened to you? I don’t know. Suppose work being closed for renovation for 2 weeks kinda sucks because I sort of need cash.

What is something God has healed you of? I don’t really do the whole God/Religion rigamarole... Chances are if we are healed of something, there is a psychological, sociological biological or generally rational explanation.

Have you ever experienced a miracle? Like, a phenomenal coincidence? I think as much as I hate to be a downer, there's probably a lot to do with our perceptions of events

What was the last thing you ate? Lucky Charms.

Do you ever eat food that’s intended for kids? Well, Lucky Charms. I also love pizza rolls and chicken nuggets. But I’m not eating Gerber Peas&Carrot baby foods or anything crazy like that.

What was the last stupid thing you did? Define “stupid”? Most things I do are probably stupid to others but perfectly acceptable to me.

Do you get embarrassed easily? Sometimes.

Are you wearing pants or shorts right now? I never wear shorts.

What are your top three names you like for a daughter? Elliot (this is also my pick for a boy name), Tara, Hazel.

Would you ever film a vlog of yourself giving birth? Ew. Fuck no. Honestly, adopting/fostering sounds way more my style anyway. To be totally frank, pregnancy sounds gross and being unable to take my adderall sounds awful. I’d gain like, a million pounds.

Do you like getting caught in the rain? It’s usually a refreshing break from the heat out here.

Do you think your hair looks best straight, wavy, or curly? Messy, or in a side-pony.

What was the last craft project you completed?: Coloring books for my friends’ kid.

Name 3 youtubers you would like to meet in person: I don’t know any.

Has anyone ever spread an untrue rumor about you? Sociopath ex. Not sure he actually said them aloud to people other than myself, but I was constantly being accused of weird stuff I absolutely did not do.

What’s one rumor you’ve heard about yourself, and is it true? N/A. No idea. Not aware of any relevant or applicable rumors. I literally just keep to myself and do crafts.

What color are your nails painted currently? Not painted.

Do you use a pill box? Jesus, I’m not 80.

List 3 people you know who were loving and then turned cold: it’s kind of generic to assume either of those things as permanent traits. But probably most flings or whatever. It always feels cold when one party loses interest.

Have you filmed a youtube video today? Never filmed one in my life.

Do you leave the house when you’re on your period? Um yes. Life doesn’t stop just because I have cramps.

^If not, why not? -

Have you ever felt threatened for your life? Yeah. Sociopath ex would get overtly paranoid and mistake harmless or unrelated things I did or said to be conspiracies against him. And occasionally my imaginary betrayals would lead to violent words or actions. Like, a bundle of index cards with Carrabba’s menu items and their ingredients, word for word, from the Carrabba’s menu, was somehow coded plots to who the fuck knows to have him killed. Irrational stuff like that.

What are you behind on? Student loans. And when I say behind, I really mean that I actively chose not to pay them.

Do you get enough sleep each night? No because night is my time to be productive, uninterrupted and without bothering anyone. I hate having to stop my thoughts just because other people are making noise or trying to converse with me.

Which did you like better: high school or college? Absolutely college.

Which year of your life stands out to you as the most significant so far? Probably last year or two.

…and why? Big personal transitions and revelations in my life philosophy.

What was the last store you shopped at? Walmart, most likely.

Do you have a favorite pharmacist? I used to back in NY. Her name was Evie. She wished a customer Happy Thanksgiving on Valentine’s Day accidentally once and it cracked me up and we had a running joke about it.

Do you have a favorite cashier at the grocery store? I don’t shop frequently enough and I switch up stores when I do.

What was the last thing you ordered at Starbucks? Probably a toffee nut Frappuccino.

What’s something you discovered recently?

What makes you more creative? Emotional turbulence, certain drugs.

What’s the last magical thing you experienced? Um…Magical? The herd of unicorns crossing the I-10.

What is the theme of your bedroom? None. We are staying in a spare room at a friend���s. But we're actually moving this week because being micromanaged and constantly scrutinized was getting old.

Have you ever lived in a dorm? Yes, for a few years

Who is someone whom you admire, and why? I guess the lady at work, Amanda. She’s like 64 and works open-close every day, and still has a great attitude.

When was the last time you stepped outside of your comfort zone? I don’t know. I test the waters every once in awhile.

Where would you like to travel to next? Nowhere crazy. Just back to New York for the Renaissance Faire.

If you could win three dream vacations to anywhere, where would you go? Portugal—New Zealand—Ireland.

Would you rather ride a camel or an elephant? Camel. They’re fuzzy.

Are you a free spirit? I don’t know what that even constitutes. I think outside the box and I question social conformity and other preset patterns of thought. But I don’t know that has much to do with my spirit.

Do you want to lose weight? I think I’m okay for now.

Which insects scare you, if any? They don’t scare me, they just creep me out …spiders, centipedes, millipedes, roaches…ugh.

Do you think it’s silly to be afraid of a tiny insect? It’s not like I think they’re going to murk me with a sawed off shot gun. I know they’re harmless and therefor not technically scary…but they’re still creepy and unsettling somehow.

Have you ever experienced paranoia? To some degree.

Have you ever hallucinated? Indeed.

Were you raised religious? We were raised Roman Catholic. Didn’t stick.

Have you ever been abused? Psychologically, emotionally, physically and sexually. #sociopathic ex.

Do you think the cops should do more about bullying? I think cops have enough shit to worry about as is and don’t know how effective extensive police interference would even be. I think the anti-bullying message is stronger when conveyed by people closer to kids like teachers, parents, siblings or a celebrity figure they idolize.

Is there a coffee shop you like better than Starbucks? I like them all about the same.

If you could afford to get your hair professionally done, what would you get? Probably dye and highlights. Definite trim of my bangs.

If you had a lot of money, do you think you would use it wisely? Absolutely not. I have little to no money now and I don’t even use *that* wisely.

Do you know any rich people who are very irresponsible? I don’t know many people to begin with.

List five careers that you’d like to have: Lawyer (like A.D.A. Barba!)...Graphic Designer...Psychologist...Self-Help writer...and oddly wouldn't mind being a waitress still.

List five far-out things that you’d like to do before you die: I genuinely do not have a bucket list. If I stumble upon something that seems cool, I do it. Making unrealistic lists won't help my quality of life very much.

Do you dream big? Quite the opposite. I sort of just fly by the seat of my pants. Weird expression. Can’t recall ever having very fixated dreams or visions for myself.

What was your first imaginary friend’s name? N/A

What was the name of the first pet that you loved? Comet. <3

What was the first work uniform that you had to wear? Waitress uniform of sorts. I wanna say it was white button down and black pants.

Do you like to go barefoot? Usually. On some surfaces it’s intolerable and I hate the texture, though.

Do you like the same colors now that you did as a kid? Pretty much.

Do you have a blog? You’re on it, buddy. This is a survey blog.

Do you have a youtube channel? What would I even post videos about?? I assure you, I do nothing that the general public would find entertaining.

[where-fading-princesses-live]

Either 1. Analyze Jimmy’s dream sequence from The Eds are Comin. It can be whatever length, with or without screenshots. OR If you don’t want to do an analysis you may answer this question: How do you interpret Jimmy’s dream in The Eds are Comin? (If you have any questions look at the post on my page)

OK, so I thinkthis dream is meant to be as weird as possible, not unlike ‘’One + One = Ed’’but that doesn’t mean it can’t be analyzed.

So it opens in a picturesque cornfield. Nothing unusual here.

But if we want to get deep, we can draw the conclusion that maybe this iswhere Jimmy is from? We find out later, after he wakes up from said dream, thathe gets a post card from Nebraska, so it’s implied Jimmy may not originally be fromPeach Creek, the only other two kids we know this to be true are Edd (fromLemon Brooke) and Rolf (from Europe). Maybe the postcard is from a relative? Wedon’t really know. 

And I guess if we want to get ever deeper, ‘’To dream that you are in a cornfield refers to your desireto escape from your daily demands and/or problems. Alternatively, being in acornfield suggests that someone one is listening in on you. All ears are onyou.’’ [x]Hm, if that is true, what can that mean? Jimmy dreams of this luxuriouscornfield, probably because it signifies happiness and true friends, hisexpectation of what he wants his relationship to the cul-de-sac to be likeversus the reality of what it actually is. Despite Jimmy’s dark side, he stillhas a pure child’s heart, and this is the Walgreen’s Perfect World he wants,where everyone lives in peace and harmony with each other, where outsidethreats (such as the Eds) are rightfully punished and justice is served. (Willget to that in a moment).

Thatbeing said, the cornfield can have yet a third meaning. I always found itstrange that, though this episode’s main conflict centers on Rolf, they decidedto open the episode with Jimmy. As the episode goes on, the POV is no longerfrom Jimmy’s as focus shifts from him to the other kids and their concern forthe absence of their dear foreign friend and what ever’s going on at his house.So the dream sequence can be a little misleading. This isn’t Jimmy’s story, sowhy begin with Jimmy? Why spend so much time on establishing this dream? Becauseit’s a special, maybe it’s just to fill up run-time, who knows? But I don’ttotally rule out its importance either. Because this episode was made forCartoon Network Invaded, that may also explain the significance of thecornfield. Cornfields are often associated with alien invasions, so this is a foreshadow of what’s to come. Still, I never knew why the writersdecided to start with Jimmy. His role in the episode’s main plot isn’t very big,and though the dream is briefly mentioned again, it isn’t the main focus.Ironically, Rolf doesn’t appear until the very end, and yet the episode isactually about him, seen through the POV of the other kids, of course. I alwaysthought this was a weird creative choice, switching POV’s. But this isn’t thefirst time EEnE has done this. They often have seemingly unrelated openings to episodesthat have nothing to do with the main story. A good example is ‘’Rambling Ed’’,where it begins with the Eds’ usual scam, but then the episode becomes moreabout Ed running away from home and crashing at Rolf’s place. The episodereally doesn’t become more of Rolf’s story until the middle. So I guess this isjust their strange writing formula, that they follow and do very well. In anyother show, this wouldn’t slide.

So nowJimmy’s skipping through the cornfield…

Now a sentient Mr. Yum-Yum joinshim, and I’m getting strange A.I. Artificial Intelligence vibes from this.What are you smoking, Jimmy?

Is it too muchof a stretch to say the creative team is paying homage to various sci-fielements here? It’s fitting.

As if one wasn’tenough…

Aaaawww  a butterfly. And Jimmy’s night cap is doingvery Double D-like motions here. Butterflies represent metamorphosis, soanother foreshadow that things are going to change, if not necessarily forJimmy in particular, then for the cul-de-sac.

Little birdscomb his hair, and I just love the face Jimmy makes here. Birds represent joy, harmony, ecstasy, balance, and love.Nothing too deep here, Jimmy’s just happy. Seems all very innocent and typicalJimmy right now.

Caterpillartrain. Creative. Caterpillars also symbolize change and transition, as theybecome butterflies, but because this is a train, it’s probably just the naturalcycle of life. Just as a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, Jimmy will eventuallygrow up. He won’t be a child forever.

DannyAntonucci sun. My favorite thing. Especially love the old Inkblot Cartoon Stylewith the 1920s, 1930s pie eyes.

Candy land andsunshine and rainbows. This is all typical Jimmy. This is all very Willy Wonkamagical chocolate factory. You can even eat the dishes! I love the gingerbreadmen in the background, a nod to ‘’Jingle Jingle Jangle’’.

Now we canargue whether this is Roald Dahl Willy Wonka, or Gene Wilder Willy Wonka, whichDahl himself thought was ‘’‘pretentious’ and insufficiently ‘gay[in the old-fashioned sense of the word] and bouncy’.’’ This is veryWizard of Oz, ‘’Somewhere Over theRainbow’’, a songthat’s been a symbol for pride. We’ll get more into the gay themes later.

Nope, uh, we’rethere. Here we go! AsI mentioned before, A LOT of people use this dream as evidence towardsJimmy’s sexuality.

I guess I cansee why. Being gay myself, it’s no joke there are things in this scene alonethat are nothing but elements of camp gay culture. Representation? I wouldn’tgo that far. Nebulous homoeroticism? Eh. Is the creative team just making gayjokes for the sake of gay jokes? Maybe. It wouldn’t be the first time. On thesurface, I think it’s meant to be innocent, nurturing the nostalgia ofchildhood, but at the same this may have been slipped in for the adults, andboy, did this shit get past the radar. There is gay imagery all over thisscene. 

Look, friends of Dorothy! The Delightful ChildrenFrom Down the Lane! Jimmy was enjoying a cobbler on a sunny afternoon. Gaymarriage is as American as Apple Pie. I’ll stop.

Let’s start with Nazz. Remind you ofanyone? What does Nazz represent other than the Doris Day quintessential Girl-Next-Doortype? Other than the unattainable love interest? Hm. I know. How bout the Diva and the Men whoWorship her? Ethel Merman, Barbara Streisand, Pearl Bailey, Angela Lansbury,Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Chita Rivera,Audra McDonald, Carol Channing…these straight women are all gay icons, especially in themusical theatre community which has a large LGBTQIA+ following. Gay Icon doesn’tnecessarily mean that person is gay, it just means they’re popular in the gaycommunity because they have something that pushes a gay agenda. For straightwomen, it’s gay men who admire them. Nazz has everything: flamboyance, glamour,strength, and androgyny. She can be both a tomboy and feminine, and EVERYONEloves her. Here, her femininity is exaggerated on purpose. Jimmy is the onlyboy, other than Rolf, in the cul-de-sac, who’s not in love with her, but heidolizes her. I’m not saying Jimmy’s gay, I like to think of him as ambiguous.But still, boys like Jimmy love their divas. Jimmy ‘’adores the glamorous,fabulous show diva who ALL the chorus boys swoon over’’ (chorus boys in thiscase being Kevin, Jonny, and the Eds). Nazz in this dream is ‘’capitalizing onthe camp appeal’’ ‘’who wears her femininity like drag’’. She is the Ethel ofthe cul-de-sac, she is probably someone Jimmy aspires to be. Everyone lovesNazz, and Jimmy is picked on. Nazz is a diva who ‘’turns her femininity intopower’’ rather than ‘’get lambasted for sissiness’’. This is the origin of DragQueens, and though Jimmy, other than Rolf and Kevin, is the only boy in theshow not ever seen in drag, I imagine he wants to cope with his own expresseddelicacy. He wants to live that openly flamboyant lifestyle and be worshipedlike Nazz (hence why everyone in this dream seems to worship him). For that,Nazz is a role model for him.  

Thenthere’s Rolf. It’s not news that sailorsare often depicted as pop culture symbols in gay culture. ‘’Hello, Sailor’’ is a runninggag that plays on the conception that many sailors are gay. Remember Jimmy’sshirtless sailor gingerbread men in ‘’Jingle Jingle Jangle’’? So why Rolf in asailor boy uniform? It seems innocent enough. Rolf isas undefined as Jimmy concerning his sexual orientation. He could be asexual,but he doesn’t fall for Nazz, or any girl for that matter, mainly because he’sold-fashioned. At the risk of sounding racist, I think it’s just a play on theforeigner stereotype that he is sexually ambiguous. Kinda like the Borat thing. Concerning his sexuality,or lack, thereof, as well as his origins, the less you know the better. Gayand being a sailor. Yeah, I dunno Jimmy. There’s a lot we don’t know aboutRolf, and that’s actually what marine life is. Men go out at sea, and there’s ahidden culture that goes on there, a secret double life. I don’t think Jimmydreamed up Rolf as a sailor to suggest he’s gay, I think it just means thatRolf is such a fish out of water. ‘’When seafarers come ashore theywere like colourful butterflies in a drab world.’’  They’re outsiders, trying toassimilate back into this life they left behind, but the sea becomes so familiarto them that life on land is just alien. This theme fits well with Rolf, who’san immigrant, who has trouble assimilating because he comes from another worldentirely, not unlike the life the sailors lead. He’s an alien, not literally, and they use this status as a very creativeplot for their Invaded episode.

There’s not much to say about Kevinother than yeah, he’s in swimwear, which isn’t particularly part of gayculture. But the fact that’s he’s shirtless makes a lot of people think Jimmyhas a crush on him. It’s just swim trunks, though. There’s really no hiddenmeaning, although yeah, Kev’s popular and a hunk. Maybe this is contributing to the stereotype that gay men, well, like to look at attractivemen, especially if they’re in swimsuits, and Kevin is…very good looking. ButI don’t think Jimmy has a crush on the guy.

Jimmy says goodbye to them…

Last stop for the caterpillartrain…End of life’s journey?

Lo and behold, the Eds are being spankedby Talky Tina from The Twilight Zone.This is where the dream takes a darker turn. There really is no deeperexplanation to this other then yeah, Jimmy wants to make the Eds pay foreverything they did, as if ‘’If It Smells Like An Ed’’ wasn’t already enough.But keep in mind, the Eds have never learned their lesson and never stoppedscamming, and Jimmy hasn’t stopped paying the price, so you can understand hisanimosity.

‘’My name is Talky Tina and I love you very much!’’

Danny knows what scares us…that giantdoll is the stuff of nightmares.

Oh, Jimmy, you sadistic lil shit.

Good Ed faces. Ed doesn’t even react togetting spanked which I just love. MAN OF STEEL.  

Wait…what? Now Jimmy has wings?Indeed, the caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

Somewhere over the rainbow…gingerbread men fly.

Everyone’s favorite brat has arrived…

Sarah gets the best introduction though.She’s literally sprouting flowers from the soles of her feet every time shetakes a step. This is how Jimmy sees her: in his own words, his ‘’guardianangel’’.

They run towards each other…dawweverything’s going well…

Oh shit.

Every time a machine sings, a fairyloses his wings.

The cul-de-sac literally tornapart…maybe this is Jimmy’s worst fear? That their once peaceful life will bethreatened? That everything they know and love will come to an end? Isn’t thatevery child’s worst fear: change?

Obviously, the War of the Worlds imagery is a foreshadow of the episode’s theme,but think what this dream may be reflecting back in Jimmy’s subconscious.

The rest of the dream, I think, echoesJimmy’s worst fears of losing Sarah. Sarah is always rescuing Jimmy, and here,he fails to protect her and save her from her doom. He loses his wings, so heloses his power.

Jimmy is powerless…

And that’s the end of the dream. Such agood shot of Jimmy by the way.

So that’s all I got to say about the dream. Sorry I didn’t go super deep on some parts.

[eienias20]

Thoughts On “Alone Together”

RWBY Volume 5 Chapter 8: Alone Together

More RWBY Volume 5 time with a chapter that goes through quite the mood swing towards the end. Seriously, the music kicks up and just...wow. What a rush it leaves ya on!

Btw somewhat unrelated but watching videos on RoosterTeeth is kinda annoying. Like you put the video to play, the ad starts running so you, or at least I, click away for whatever reason. But RT has autoplay at the START of video you watch. So when the ad ends, unless you Xd the prompt out, a DIFFERENT video you didn’t click starts playing.

WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?

Volume 5 Thoughts Masterpost

“Aw Yeah, Nice Weiss Strikes Again!”

I will always find the “complaints” (see: whining) that Volume 5 has been nothing but “standing around and talking” to be hilarious. I enjoy these moments, I want to hear what the characters think and besides its not like there was a fight every episode. Volume 1′s big fights were in chapter 1, 8 and the finale. 3 in the whole volume. Whatever, people just love to bitch.

Anyway, I LOVE CHARACTER INTERACTIONS! I wanna hear them talk about whatever it is, especially since its been quite a while since Weiss, Ruby and Yang were in the same spot. We get a little bit of stuff between them and how they’re falling back together so effortlessly.

Then its on to talking about Blake. And I get bummed out. Don’t know if I’ve said this before but Blake is my least favorite RWBY member, I’d put all of JNPR before her and when I’m getting fun character talks interrupted by a conversation all about how Yang feels being abandoned by her...yeah. I get miffed.

That said, it makes sense that Yang is angry, of course she would be. Her partner peaced out without a word. Not cool Blake. Not wanting to talk about it, Yang splits.

I do like seeing RWY together again but man do i just wanna see JNR and like I said last week: OSCAR! New kid interacting with the old kids? I wanna see that!

“I Need To Take Care Of Something First”

From RWY we go to a short scene with Blake being given a letter from Ilia (in secret of course. cause she a freakin ninja)

I know a lot of people thought this would be where Ilia broke off from the White Fang given her meeting with Corsec and Fennec in the other chapter, but I was never too certain. Then again, I’ve misread Ilia pretty hard which we’ll get into for that scene.

Sun drops by cause they still need to rally for the Haven Defense, but of course Blake has to go meet with Ilia. I’d say its a bad call but I’m sure everyone is screaming that its a bad call.

“I Had To Pick Up The Pieces”

MOVING ON! We get a great scene between Yang and Weiss with our defrosted Ice Queen letting Yang...let it all out in terms of what she’s been through and how she had to do so many things alone. Key among them: raising Ruby.

I do like hearing Yang talk about her past and all she’s done. From the beginning of the show we’ve known she’s strong since she’s a bare knuckle brawler, but its even more clear that she’s got much more than that! And that’s great.

Weiss decides to step in after Yang’s done and tell her about her own loneliness. Once again reaffirming that her home life was...well, not the best and that her leaving to Beacon was no doubt the best choice she’s ever made. Next to making friends with Ruby, Yang and Blake of course!

While I still think its odd that Mrs. Schnee was nowhere to be seen last Volume, at the very least it doesn’t sound like Weiss hates her since she specifically points out how she treasures RBY more than Whitley or Jacques. And rightfully so.

Then its back to more Blake talk. Hurray! >_>

Weiss makes the point that its possible Blake had sound reasons for leaving and explains what they might be. I mean yeah, the White Fang and all that actually coming to Beacon and wrecking shit was no doubt Blake’s biggest fear and it went down far worse than anyone could’ve imagined.

I don’t wanna say Yang is totally cool with Blake’s choice just cause of the conversation she had with Weiss. Its too easy for Blake to get out of the doghouse that way...i mean...wait...

But at the same time it seems Yang understands it more. RWBY will get back together one day. Its just a matter of time.

“There Is No Right Thing To Do. Only What’s Best For Us!”

Who misread Ilia super hard? Well, aside from me? Blake. We were both totally off.

I said back in my thoughts on Chapter...3? The one where Ilia interrupts Ghira’s speech. That one. I said that I didn’t believe Ilia meant anything she said, that she was just a monkey wrench being used by the Albains and that she’s being forced to follow the will of the White Fang.

I thought she was just in too deep to even consider backing out. But as she reveals to Blake, she has indeed always been like this. Blake (and I) just never noticed. She firmly believes that the actions she is taking are right. She is also aware of how messed up what she has to do is, but she’s doing it all for the Faunus as she said to the Albains before.

This scene is pretty intense I mean geez, just listen to the music!

Luckily for all of us, Blake most of all, she told Sun about the note and called him along for backup. Allowing her to escape the White Fang and chase after Ilia and Yuma who are headed to join the White Fang assault lead on the Belladonna manor by Fennec and Corsec. To be honest, I did not expect those assholes to actually be there getting their hands dirty.

I will say, as with most people, I have become very confused as to how Aura operates. I know its a source of energy you can’t see that encases your body and deflects harm...but more often than not it just seems so filmsy. Blake was uninjured but Yuma stepping on her had her incapable of fighting back for a while. The Manor guards are all getting one shotted by the White Fang and reverse. The Branwen Bandits took more hits from Yang. I don’t know, maybe I’m nitpicky but it definitely feels odd.

Thought I think I commented on this back when Oscar and Ruby were sparring. If I didn’t, others brought up the fact that aura needs to be activated so I guess Blake didn’t since she wasn’t expecting a surprise attack. At least not one like Yuma pulled. I could go on about this for way too long so I’m not gonna. I’ll only confuse myself.

Ghira, Kali and their guards are at war with the Albains and the White Fang back at the manor, everyone is placing bets on who is dying in that building and I haven’t the slightest clue. I feel any guess I throw out will just be proved wrong.

There were some other points on...well...shipping. I wanted to make but, I’ll save that for its own tiny text post. No need to put that here.

I did see screens from the RWBY Rewind preview as I do almost every week cause i browse the RWBY tag a lot and they’re always there. It upsets me but whatever. I lack context so I may as well be blind. All that said, next week is gonna bring some interesting stuff.

[lettersfromtaiwan]

Biking & Hiking SiFenZiWei Mountain 四分子尾山

I’m not sure where I first heard the saying, or whether I made it up myself, but it has been said that “Taipei is Taiwan on steroids”, by which it is meant that examples of almost all the things that are great about Taiwan can also all be found around the Taipei basin: mountainous vistas with breathtaking views, hot springs, delicious and diverse food options, great public transport infrastructure, interesting and historical architecture, waterfalls, and of course hiking. Visitors to Taiwan staying in Taipei don’t need to travel too far to enjoy many of things Taiwan has to offer as the premier living and touring location in East Asia. That’s also been a bit of a problem too in a way. For a long time when I was living in Taichung and in the South it was a source of predictable irritation to read the blogs and watch the videos (the endless parade of youtube videos!) from someone fresh off the banana boat claiming to have “discovered the real Taiwan” but who hadn’t made it further than Banciao or Danshui.  I even made a series of travel posts about this called “Not Taipei: A Real Taiwan Trip To ...”.  

Yet, when I was forced to come up here to live as part of my job, I came to see why Taipei was such a convenient city to be based from to experience much of what Taiwan is about. Make no mistake here though. If Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Taidong, Hualien, Pingdong, Chiayi, & Luodong had been equal beneficiaries of the immense amount of preferential spending from the Central Government that Taipei enjoyed since 1949 (and still does), those cities would easily rival and in many cases beat Taipei as the best of Taiwan’s urban spaces, if only because the weather in those parts of the country isn’t so routinely and monotonously overbearing.  Nevertheless, when it isn’t raining, there’s a lot to do in and around Taipei within fairly easy reach. For EVA and I that primarily means hiking.

Just over a week ago, following the official end of the annual Noah’s Rains (known in Taiwan as the Plum Rain Season, and known in Taipei for there being no ‘off switch’ for three weeks solid) I decided to explore a little of the area out of the back of (to the south southeast) Xizhi and Xike, two commuter towns in the thin strip of New Taipei City wedged between Taipei City and Keeling City. Having had a look at Google Maps and Maps.ME I saw what looked to be a promising route for an exploratory mountain ride on my trusty Yamaha, up out the back of Academia Sinica, along a ridge and down into Xike.  See the map below. (I’ve added red dots as guide lines for those who want to also ride/cycle/hike it).

Before I get into it, a couple of caveats first. As you will see my photos come from my camera phone which works well with direct light in the same way vampires love garlic, holy water, crosses, and sunbathing. I also must admit having little to no patience for fiddling with the meagre range of semi-impotent settings the camera app does have. The result is often that the ratio of usable to ‘delete later’ photos at the end of any trip is roughly 1 in 10, and many of the good ones are washed out and over saturated or under lit or poorly focused. One day I’ll buy a real camera.

This is a longish post which actually combines two separate visits to the same area so lets put a line break here ...

Setting off out the back of Academia Sinica on Jiuzhuang Street (Section 1) once I passed the turning for Route 109 to Shenkeng the road quickly became smaller and quieter (Section 2) and the seething mass of population dense Taipei was replaced with a few scattered locals and quite a few hikers. Stopping at a bend in the river, I could see why.  There are a number of hikes in this immediate area, some of which I intend to return to later ...

Driving on, and with a little help from Google, I located the first turn (across that little bridge in the picture below) to get up into the mountains. A strange little road that looks at first like it’s a private lane with a dead end but which actually rises continuously and very steeply to get you up on the ridge ...

There’s a couple of small adjustments to get on to the well paved and thankfully sparsely used Xiding Road. Below you need to take a right turn here ...

... and here you need to resist the urge to hook left and simply continue straight on that seemingly narrow lane ...

Once on Xiding Road, the quiet views across the mountains are expansive and very impressive, as seen in the header photo to this post and below ...

I puttered along at about 35kph, taking in the views. I love country lanes with no centre line marking but maybe that’s because although I’ve adapted to a city mouse lifestyle I was raised as, and will always at heart be, a country mouse.

Interesting also to see this apparently relatively new wooden building on the side of the road, something you don’t see much of in the north ...

After about twenty minutes, I came to this junction. You take a left here, up the hill onto Qinjin road ...

At, the top, looking back is a statue declaring the local area and culture and another interesting tall glass & steel building with an excellent viewing platform. Looking out south, more impressive vistas ... 

A little further on is the 光明禪寺 Guanming Buddhist Temple which has two parts. The section overlooking the mountains on the right side of the road (East direction) ...

... and the main temple across the road ...

I then took another left up through this gate ...

Climbing ever higher yet, I spied the Taipei basin through the bushes. Although it has terrible lighting and is indistinct, I like this shot because you can see both the Keelung and Danshiu Rivers glinting with sunlight in the distance ...

Another Alpine’ish wooden building along the road. Aesthetically this is a very pleasing change from the usual concrete, tile, and steel that Taiwan is awash with ...

When you get to this sign, and the turning opposite, turn right up on to Shixi Road...

... and here was my final turn. Easy to miss, it’s a pretty rough jarring concrete road that requires low speeds and it not advisable in wet conditions ...

Now, bear in mind that I had no idea what was on this road other than eventually it would lead me to Xiping Road Section 2 and back down into Xike. As I came to a peak in the road I first noticed this promising view ...

Aside from the Pacific glistening in the afternoon sun that triangular hump you can see is Keelung Mountain which lies opposite the charming hillside town of Jiufen.  Across from this point in the road was a small parking area and this ...

I had no idea what SiFenZiWei Mountain was but seeing as it was only 65 meters away and I’d been sitting on the bike for quite a while, I thought I’d stretch my legs a little and check it out.  I’m glad I did because when I did ...

That’s the view starting from the south east and looking all the way round 270 degrees to the south west. It was a simply stunning panoramic visage of the entire area including most of the Datuen Mountain Range. SiFenZiWei, roughly meaning ‘four points tail mountain’, is one of those rare places in Taiwan where you get high enough to see in all directions without an interrupted view.  I took a lot more photos but as you can see from above with the sun in my face my camera phone struggled to either get enough light or not be washed out in it.  I also took video of planes coming into land at Songshan on Runway 28 which was, as a former trainee pilot, fascinating to see how they performed a controlled loss of altitude and lined up on final through the Keelung Valley.  If you focused hard enough you could even see the moment they touched down.

Spying an entrance to a hiking trail leading west down off the mountain (below) I resolved there and then to return with EVA the following week to climb up to the same point ...

The next Sunday, I drove with EVA out along the No.5 to Xizhi to Ren’ai then Qinjin Road and up to the Wei Xing Jinguan, a temple which I had found was the starting point of the trail I had seen a week before. Here’s the route to SiFenZiWei ...

The first stage was the rise to Dajian Mountain, a very steep and pretty much unrelenting climb up stone steps.  Although only 0.7 kms, this was by far the hardest part of the entire trail but, as with most mountain hiking, there’s a direct correlation between pain of the ascent and the benefits of the views once at the top. Dajian did not disappoint, providing both a very pleasant and cool resting area (awash with butterflies) including a pagoda with an excellent view ...

As can be seen from the map above and the sign below, SifenZiWei was about 2km further on from this point.

The next sequence of photos are the route from Dajian to SiFenZiWei but I took all of them on my way back down from the peak to Dajian so the direction is the reverse ...

For the intrepid ‘off-road’ hikers, below is the historic trail from Xike ... 

After about two hours total time since setting off from the temple, we reached SiFenZiWei again, this time basking in the bright morning light and with planes departing from Runway 10 soaring not far overhead ...

EVA as ‘Sundial’, An LfTComiks™ Superhero Production ...

Wait ... I thought it was 1979 meters? Oh well, what’s 26 meters between friends ...

One thing to note. Taiwanese, aside from being amazing hiking trail builders, are also quite thoughtful in providing lots of nice little resting areas along trails. This trail was no exception ...

Although this trail is super busy, especially the first part from the temple to Dajian Mountain, it is now one of my favourites not just for the views but the variety of trekking environments and paths. I usually get tired very quickly of trails that are only straight up and then straight down the same path, preferring instead a mixture of flat and rise, paved and mud, open and covered. This one was also special for the little details, especially the butterflies.  Whether you’re a Taiwan old hand or new to the country and you find yourself in the north with a bright clear morning to spare, I highly recommend spending a couple of hours to do this trail, one of the best I’ve walked so far. 

(Hints: the best time of year to do this trail would probably be in October when the weather is still very warm but cooler with a breeze and the skies are clearer. Go very early in the morning (e.g. start at 4am) to get the sunrise at Dajian Mountain. You may need to get a taxi to the temple starting point as I think public transport is limited on that road. Some parts of the trail are fairly rough and require careful navigation and watch out for the wasp/hornets that occupy two or three places along the route)

[30-days-of-exciting-stuff-blog]

Day 10 - Black Mirror [Series]

Do you ever feel fabulously grateful for something crappy that happened to you, because it eventually led to something good? This is one of my favourite things in the world. I had one of these moments a few weeks ago. A co-worker had been motivating us all week to spend a crazy Friday night out. For totally work-unrelated reasons, I had been feeling pretty depressed lately and most of my evenings were spent alone in my apartment (mostly re-watching bad Youtube videos, probably in order to make sure that I still didn’t like them), so I looked forward to this night out. Getting anywhere close to drunk was off the table because I had made some damn good resolutions, but I was kind of hoping that we’d meet wonderfully weird people, and find a place where the decoration would make me laugh even more than the huge portrait of Angela Merkel that took up all the space of the ladies’ restroom door in a Germany-themed bar I once went to. Enjoying the city lights and probably dancing - to some terrible 2000’s music that would remind me of the awkward teenage parties I usually wasn’t invited to anyway – sounded like a nice sequel to this.

In case you wonder: The weird Angela Merkel bar is actually called the Black Forest Society, and it’s located in Lyon, France. They have nice, original, good-resolutions-incompatible cocktails made with Black Forest Gin and fancy liquors and cocoa, sometimes served in kitschy recipients. A bit expensive, but still a nice experience. Oh, and they have bretzels as well.

Unfortunately, they had all lost their motivation sparkle by the time Friday came. Some of them wanted to get up early tomorrow, some had other plans, some were tired. I ended up being the only one who actually wanted to go. I had booked my train tickets to my parents’ for the next morning, so it became clear that this would be another lonely night in my flat. I soon found myself texting my co-worker, whining about how bored I was and asking her if she could think of something nice for me to read or watch.  She suggested me to try Black Mirror if I wanted food for thought about modern society. Black Mirror is a series of one-hour standalone episodes. That, my friends, is already a pretty great point for people like me who try to watch a zillion series at once - and inevitably end up forgetting what the hell the hot smart gay intern’s name is because 1) all these character names adding up can be rather confusing 2) they find time for an episode of the show every two months or so. Standalone episodes have that great habit of rightly assuming that, just like Jon Snow, the viewer knows nothing. Each one has its own cast, setting, and reality, which basically makes them short movies. What they all have in common in Black Mirror is the theme of new technologies and their unexpected consequences.

By the way: Connor Walsh. The hot smart gay intern from How to get away with murder is Connor Walsh. He’s one of the main characters for the Seven’s sake, how could you even forget?

As you may have noticed, the theme is pretty broad, which allows for a number of variations. Some episodes are built around a specific fictional technology – what would happen, for instance, if everyone had a chimp implant that recorded everything they did, saw or heard, and allowed them to replay the entire memory, either in front of their eyes or on a screen? The Entire History of You is centered around that possibility. In an alternative reality where this technology allows personal data storage to go even further than it currently does – and anyone who once cringed in front of an n-th attempt from Facebook to revive awkward 8-year-old memories to celebrate a virtual friendship birthday will probably argue that this has already gone way too far – memories are never faded, let alone erased. Every recording is potentially an evidence to the jealous protagonist, who suspects his wife to have cheated on him with her ex and gets more and more paranoid as he keeps replaying potentially incriminating memories. The chilling Be right back, on the other hand, introduces us to realistic androids simulating the deceased using their previous communication data. Martha, a grieving young woman whose husband died in a car crash, reluctantly begins to communicate with an artificial intelligence accurately imitating her late partner – humour, interests, reactions, everything is calculated to sound like him. The digital ghost is convincing and Martha soon finds herself in love with him, until she gets frustrated with his inability to express emotions accurately, and his lack of the traits that were not expressed by her deceased husband in his digital life. The resulting story is truly haunting – no pun intended -, and is both a heart-wrenching exploration of grief and a starting point to an authentic riot of questions in the viewer’s mind, the most interesting probably being “What spares the human from a thinking machine anticipating its reaction to every situation, and able to be loved by the ones who knew the person behind?”.

The Entire History of You - Nah, you told me your relationship had lasted one week, not one month, LOOK, I HAVE PROOF. *Memory replays*

Hi digital ghost, I guess.

My favourite episodes, however, are those set in dehumanized, acerbic, cynical dystopias, built and revealed slowly over the course of the episode. In the thought-provoking Fifteen million merits, citizens only go out of their confined sleeping boxes to cycle endlessly on exercise bikes to power their screen-covered surroundings and generate Merits, a currency that allows them to skip the untimely, inopportune, sometimes obscene advertisements that keep interrupting their activities to sell them nothing but virtual items such as accessories for their avatars. Sleep. Cycle. Skip ad – if you can afford it. Interact briefly with one or two avatars. Repeat. The protagonist progressively becomes aware of the vacuity of this existence and craves realness since he got a glimpse of it in the singing voice of one of his co-cyclers, but even the only perceived escapes usually turn out to be smoking mirrors. Another great episode, Nosedive, is set in a colourful, alternative reality where people rate one another using their phones. Ratings determine their employability, access to services and overall value in society – some neighbourhoods are exclusively reserved to people with high ratings, and a low rating will make you lose your job. This leads people to obsess over their ratings and calculate every single social interaction, hoping to get the favours of high-rated people in order to raise their score and finally be able to get the discount they need to rent a house. Satires about social media society probably aren’t uncommon, but this one has that cynical feel created by the sharp contrast between the pink-and-pastel visuals and the hypocritical, chained social interactions that take place under a social media eye constantly ready to pull people under if they dare speak their minds or complain about anything. Nosedive gets even scarier when you think back about it and realise that the terrifying society described over the episode already exists, although in a less visible way. Social media does play a huge role in our personal and professional lives – who never thought of posting something on the social media just to impress someone? Who never heard a story of someone who got in trouble at work, or didn’t get hired, because of social media material? Who never got stuck into a conversation about what a common acquaintance posted on social media the day before? Who never paid at least a little attention to the number of likes they got on their Facebook post? And about the whole rating thing – I’m pretty sure you’re already familiar with “We’ll go to that restaurant, it’s really well-rated on Tripadvisor” or “If you liked it, please don’t forget to rate us”. And actually, apps that rate people are already a thing.

Fifteen million merits and Nosedive - Different atmospheres, different alternate realities, same feeling of suffocating fakeness.

This is where Black Mirror generally gets brilliant: Although the alternate realities depicted in the show are usually noticeably different from ours, the viewer always ends up seeing a reflection of their own society. The scenarios X-ray aspects of our modern world and disguise them in a satirical, clever, accurate way that makes you think back about Black Mirror episodes long after you watched them. The questions raised by the series go way beyond the usual “You should all turn off your phones, get real again and go for a walk in the forest with your neighbour, social media turned you into narcissist brainless zombies” rhetoric. The variety of scenarios, from political satire to intimate drama, make sure you keep being surprised and never get bored. However, you will probably get uneasy pretty often – and I’m not saying that because the first episode revolves around the Prime Minister being ordered to have sex with a pig in order to save a princess from being killed. A cuddly blanket, a nice cup of tea, your favourite biscuits and a pair of arms/loving cat/soft toy (depending on what you have in store) are probably advised during, or after, a Black Mirror episode. Not providing yourself with that equipment and watching it right before going to bed will be at your own risk – I promise you don’t want your nightmares to turn into technologically advanced dystopias. Old school monsters are easier to run from.

And also: This is the tenth post of this Tumblr, which definitely deserves to be celebrated with the song that kind of inspired it. As hinted in the Crypt of the Necrodancer post, it’s the famous standard “My favorite things” (except I usually write it, like everything on that Tumblr, with the British spelling – I’m neither British nor American, and I’m trying hard to avoid cliché-ridden justifications such as “because it makes my blog posts smell like my beloved Twinings tea”). Just like that enthusiastic blog of mine, it’s an enumeration of amazing things. Let’s face it, “whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens” probably sound much better than “sad novels, weird computer games, robot exhibits and sci-fi-ish series”, but I promise I love kittens and soft mittens as well. I just don’t have enough material to write about them. Anyway, I thought you may enjoy this cover by Pomplamoose as much as I do.

[clarencenicholsonata]

How to Run a Successful Facebook Raffle (2021)

Raffles - they’ve been a powerful marketing tool even long before digital marketing was as prevalent as it is today.

Now, in combination with a powerful social media marketing platform like Facebook, raffles are a great way for a business like yours to engage your target audience, increase brand reach, and generate leads and sales.

I’ve put together this simple step-by-step guide to teach you how to run a successful Facebook raffle.

Let’s jump right in!

6 Steps for Running Successful Facebook Raffles:

Step 1: Pre-planning

Step 2: Choose your prize

Step 3: Raffle rules

Step 4: Designing your raffle

Step 5: Raffle promotion

Step 6: Following up

Step 1: Pre-planning

Before you get started running your raffle, you need to do a little pre-planning.

The first thing you want to do is define your target market. Though you’ve probably got a big target market, you want to choose a relatively significant subset of them who share the same interests. This allows you to more easily choose your prize and define the theme.

Next, you’ll want to establish your goals. Do you simply want to increase social media engagement? Do you want to promote one of your new products to your existing fans and followers, help spread the reach of your brand to new potential customers, or highlight a collaboration with another brand?

Whatever your goal, running a successful raffle can help you achieve it. Just make sure you keep your target market and goal in mind as you move forward into putting together your Facebook raffle.

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Step 2: Choose your prize

Choosing your prize is one of the most important parts of running a great raffle. As awesome or massive as your brand may be, a suboptimal prize just won’t get you the best possible results for your contest. Think long and hard about what your target market wants, and pick one accordingly.

That being said, don’t pick one that’s totally unrelated to your brand because you think tons of people will enter to win it.

Just think about it: if you were offered a free iPad or trip for 2 to Mexico, would you even bother to see if the brand interested you at all?

Exactly. The most important rule you can follow when it comes to picking your prize is to pick one that’s both exciting and relevant to your brand - that’s the key to success.

Struggling to think of ideas? Here’s a few you can use, no matter what your brand is:

Your product: Go figure! Giving away your product is exciting (well, as exciting as your product is) and serves the second purpose of ensuring all of your contest participants are interested in your brand. Whether it’s an existing product or a new launch, giving away your product is a simple yet awesome prize idea.

A product bundle: Similarly, giving away a few of your products is another great idea. Many people look at the overall value of the prize when they’re considering whether or not to enter. Putting together a package of a few of your products can up the value of your overall prize while keeping it directly related to your brand.

A gift card: If you’d like to give your entrants the luxury of choice, you can also give away a gift card that they can spend on your products. Though it’s not quite as visually appealing as an actual product, the choice that winners get from one could actually net you more entrants.

A partnered bundle: One strategy I love is partnering with another related brand to put together an awesome prize. Choose a brand that you love within your industry that isn’t a competitor, but has a related product (if you’re a local tortilla chip company, you might look for a local guacamole brand). Put together a bundle to increase the reach of your Facebook raffle.

You always want to maximize the total value of your prize, while keeping in mind the total value you believe can get from the sales generated in your post-raffle efforts.

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Step 3: Raffle rules

Once you’ve planned your contest and decided on a prize, the next thing you’ll want to do is put together your rules. Facebook can be pretty strict about how you choose to run your contest, so you want to make sure you’re following all of their promotion guidelines when you’re putting together your raffle.

If you want a full, in-depth guide to the rules, check out this helpful resource my colleague James put together: Facebook Raffle Rules: A Step-by-step Guide

I’ll still give you a quick overview in case you’re short on time…

First, your Facebook raffle post. You want to make sure:

It’s not hosted on a personal profile. Facebook requires you to host your contest (or promote it) from your brand’s page, in a Facebook tab, or within a Facebook app. You can share the contest on your employees’ personal pages, but you can’t administer the contest from them (and really, why would you want to?).

You link to rules and regulations. Based on your local laws, contest regulations may require you to restrict your raffle to certain ages (along with other specific regulations). Though they don’t need to be right in your raffle post, make sure you at least link to them so all entrants can see your raffle’s exact rules and regulations.

You include a disclaimer. You can do this on your raffle page or on the raffle post itself - just make sure you make it clear that Facebook isn’t at all involved with the administration of your giveaway.

As far as entry rules go, there are only a couple of ways (since Facebook updated its rules and regulations) that you can get people to enter your raffle:

Fill out a form:

Within Facebook

Hosted on an external landing page

Keep in mind that you can’t ask entrants to do any of the following:

Like or Comment on a Post or on your Page

Share your Page

Tag themselves in a random photo (one they aren’t actually in)

Post on their own Timelines

Share your Page or raffle on a friend’s Timeline

Yes, you will see contests that do this - but if you’re putting together a Facebook raffle, the last thing you want to do is run a contest that breaks Facebook’s rules.

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Step 4: Designing your raffle

When you’re putting together your raffle, you’re going to need to choose between running it right on your page or using a third-party contest app to create an external landing page.

There are perks and problems with each of them.

Running a raffle on your page is awesome because it’s simple - it’s easy to create a Facebook raffle post that’s eye-catching and gets people to enter. On the other hand, you can’t really collect lead information because you won’t have an entry form, meaning post-raffle marketing efforts will rely on Facebook’s organic reach (and we know it’s not so great).

Running a raffle on a landing page is great for the opposite reasons - you can collect lead information, which means you’ll have the emails of your entrants. Having emails means you can create email drip campaigns and newsletters to send to them in the future, converting non-winners into sales. However, an external landing page means people need to leave Facebook to enter, which can make it difficult to maximize the number of entries your raffle receives.

Either way, you’re going to want to create an awesome Facebook post to promote your raffle. Create an eye-catching image that highlights your prize; feel free to includes some raffle details (what it’s called, when it runs until, etc.).

Side note - running a contest that has some sort of theme can be a lot more engaging than a random contest. Attaching your Facebook raffle to an occasion like Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day or even the Superbowl is a great way to boost interest in your raffle, especially if it’s related to the interests of your target market.

If you’re running your Facebook raffle externally, you’ll want to follow landing page best practices. This means having a clear, benefit-oriented headline, highlighting the value of your prize, minimizing the number of fields on your entry form, and including social share buttons to maximize the reach of your Facebook raffle.

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Step 5: Raffle promotion

The way you promote your Facebook raffle can mean the difference between contest failure and success.

First, let’s take a look at a couple organic methods to promote on Facebook:

Update your cover photo: Changing your cover photo to match your contest assets and direct Facebook Page viewers to your raffle post or page is a great way to get a few extra entries.

Send a newsletter to your existing email list: Reach out to current your current email subscribers to inform them of the contest. Though it might seem counterproductive to market to people who you know already like your brand, this could help renew interest from your inactive customers.

Add a popup to your website: Adding a popup to your website to direct people to your Facebook raffle is a great way to maximize the returns you get from website traffic. Make it an exit popup, so you don’t distract people who are already looking to buy.

And, of course, there’s paid promotion. Though you might think promoting a raffle is a waste (why not just promote your website or products directly?), often people aren’t quite ready to buy when they see your brand for the first time. Entering a contest is a lower-commitment action that allows you to create connections with buyers in your target market that you can more reliably convert to sales in the future.

Use Facebook’s native Ads platform to precisely target the people you want to reach with your contest. It’s a tool that allows you to serve ads with incredible specificity; use that to your advantage by retargeting past visitors or targeting the people who like competing brands within your industry, in addition to targeting based on interest.

Once your promotion efforts are underway, all you need to do is let your raffle go!

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Step 6: Following up

Once your raffle is over, there’s still work to be done. A raffle is random - so randomly draw your winner (using a randomizer or a more old-school method). Make sure you announce your winner(s) through Facebook. I’d suggest you include a discount code in this post, so you can turn some of the warm leads you generated through Facebook into sales for your business.

If you ran your raffle using a contest app, here’s your time to shine. Email the list of (non-winning) entrants telling them they, unfortunately, didn’t win, but that you’d like to give them a special discount as thanks for entering. You might even want to set up a drip, reminding customers (maybe a week out, and once again right before it ends) to use the discount before it expires.

Make sure these leads get added to your normal subscription list once the contest ends, so you can continue to market to them in the future through email and turn them into sales.

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Conclusion

Hopefully, this guide has given you everything you need to run your next Facebook raffle. If you have any questions (or want to let me know that I missed something), feel free to sound off in the comments below.

Good luck!

Related Reading

24 Amazing Facebook Giveaway Examples

Facebook Landing Pages: 38 Ideas, Tips and Examples

5 Facebook Landing Page Template Examples Critiqued

The 2017 Guide to Instagram Contest Rules

Social Media Marketing Plan: An 11-Step Template

10 Terrific Instagram Tools for Business

25 Awesome Ideas for Giveaways on Facebook

25 Creative Facebook Contest Ideas You Can Use Today

30 Amazing Examples of Branded Facebook Contests Done Right

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[sarahburness]

7 Effective Ways to Deal with Rejection in Relationships

We’ve all been there.

Do you remember how you felt when you failed that math test back in school? Or when your application for inclusion in that sports team was rejected? Or more recently, when that job application didn’t work out?

Rejection has been and always will be a part of your normal life as your daily mail. Still, it hurts. Even though we’ve experienced it a hundred times, each rejection is a new wound.

Rejection hurts and it’s real.

What is rejection?

Rejection basically means exclusion from a group, an interaction, information, communication or emotional intimacy.

When someone deliberately excludes you from any of these, your brain tells you that you’re experiencing rejection. The psychological term for this type of rejection is Social Rejection.

Does rejection hurt?

We all know it does. It feels lousy, especially in the context of a romantic relationship.

Should it hurt?

Many self-help gurus and personal development books will tell you that it shouldn’t, using one or more of the following myths.

Myth #1. Happiness is a choice, not an outcome. You can choose to be happy irrespective of external circumstances.

Myth #2. You don’t need anyone’s approval in order to feel happy. The only person whose approval you need is your own.

Myth #3. If you’re not happy alone, you’ll never be happy in a relationship.

According to Prof. C. Nathan DeWall, PhD of the University of Kentucky, the need to belong or the need to have strong and fulfilling relationships is as fundamental to human nature as is the need for food and water.

Research establishes that it’s not only natural to experience severe mental agony as a result of rejection, but it’s also as “real” as physical pain.

Simple Ways to Handle Rejection

So, does that mean there’s no way to alleviate your pain of rejection?

Fortunately, that’s not the case. You can’t wish away the pain of rejection, but you can control when you feel rejected.

Here are 7 proven steps to do just that:

Be conscious of differences

Each person in this world has a different reality. In any given situation, two people can never think or react in exactly the same way. No one else sees the same world as you do.

Hence, it’s not only possible but in fact likely, that people will behave differently from how you expect them to behave. In other words, how you would’ve behaved if you were them in a certain situation.

This expectation-reality gap often gives rise to feelings of rejection and hurt in people. The first step to avoid unwarranted feelings of rejection is to acknowledge this difference.

Force yourself to think of more than one possible outcomes

The rule of thumb that I follow to avoid surprise reactions from people in any situation is this: instead of having one particular expected outcome in mind, I force myself to objectively imagine at least two possible reactions. One is mandatorily less positive than the other. Also, try and find a few supporting reasons why each reaction could occur.

Have reasons for each possible outcome

Let me explain with an example.

Let’s say, you’re going to ask a girl out. Don’t expect that she’ll accept (in which case you’ll feel rejected if she doesn’t), but don’t expect that she’ll reject either (in which case, you might be so under-confident while asking her out that she might reject you anyway! ).

Instead, tell yourself this:

“There are two possible outcomes of this situation. First, she could accept my offer because I’m a handsome, smart, fun guy (use whatever reasoning you want, but make sure you come up with at least 2-3 reasons). Second, she might also reject me because at the moment she might not be interested in dating at all. She could be already seeing someone else, or she might need different qualities in a potential date/boyfriend than the ones which I have.”

Be objective in your analysis

As you can see, this reasoning exercise achieves two goals. One, it forces you to visualize both the positive and negative outcomes of any situation. Therefore, it mentally prepares you for the negative outcome.

Secondly, it also looks at the negative outcome in a way which is as objective as possible, thereby minimizing the feelings of personalization associated with the negative outcome.

Notice that in this particular example, you’ve identified three possible reasons for a rejection, two of which are entirely unrelated to you or your qualities. At the same time, you’re also being honest and realistic by including one possible reason which involves you.

However, even if you’re being highly objective, it’s just that she might need something different from what you’ve got to offer.

Avoid taking every outcome personally

This brings me to one of the most important aspects of handling rejection successfully-totally avoiding feelings of rejection where they are unwarranted and unnecessary.

Again, I’m not here to tell you that you can avoid feeling hurt by feeding yourself some distorted version of reality. I’d only like to draw your attention to the fact that often, you interpret a situation as a rejection when it’s actually not.

I’m talking about the common human tendency of over-personalizing negative outcomes. Going back to the earlier example, it’s important that you recognize that any rejection, in general, is largely unrelated to whether you are good enough for something (or someone) or not.

It only means what you’ve got to offer and what is needed by someone are not the same.

Actively seek alternative connections

When it comes to relationships, all possible sources of rejection are not so simple. Feelings of rejection can be caused by issues like your everyday expectations not being met by your partner, an incidence of infidelity or a real shocker like a sudden announcement by your partner of their desire to leave.

In such cases it’s not possible for you to be prepared for the feelings of rejection. It’s real. It hurts and you have to deal with it.

The healthiest and quickest way to recover is to find a sense of belonging through other connections.

According to Prof. Naomi Eisenberger from UCLA, lead researcher in the domain of psychological research on rejection, positive interactions with people cause a definite mood boost in humans by releasing chemicals which facilitate pleasurable reactions in the brain.

Actively seek out friends and family if you’re going through a phase of experiencing feelings of rejection from your partner. Try to invest yourself emotionally in these relationships.

Reduction in emotional dependence actually strengthens love

Shift your focus from your partner. Use the pain of rejection to find other reasons to live.

Pick up an old and forgotten hobby, maybe. Pursue it and connect with like-minded people. You’ll find you’re able to derive emotional nutrition from these connections. That will not only help you recuperate from your emotional hurt, but also prepare you for solving any issue at hand together with your partner in the near future.

Am I telling you to force yourself to fall out of love with your partner?

No. What I am telling you, however, is to stop being emotionally needy.

Remember, loving your partner and being unable to function without their emotional support are not the same thing at all. The first is healthy while the second is not. In fact once you’ve been able to overcome your emotional “needy-ness”, your relationship will improve greatly as your partner finds fresh reasons to fall back in love with the new you.

Next time you face rejection (and trust me, there will be a next time, ‘cause that’s how life is) try to apply these techniques and you’ll find you’ll be way better off in handling it– channeling it constructively even– if you can do it right.

Written by Sulagna Dasgupta, a relationship and personal development expert. Her personal blog, www.loveinindia.co.in is India’s first dedicated relationships & marriage blog – with the mission to facilitate more open thinking about this topic in India in the long run. Over the last five years she has also been sharing her lessons from life in her personal development blog here: http://wrytestuff.com/Sulagna.

The post 7 Effective Ways to Deal with Rejection in Relationships appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

from Dumb Little Man https://www.dumblittleman.com/7-effective-ways-to-deal-with-rejection/

[livefreeshop]

So, you want to get famous on social media, huh?

Even if you personally don't want to get famous, I'm sure you'd love for your business to extend it's reach and influence. You've likely heard of the value that a great social media following can bring to your business and you'd like to get there as quickly as possible.

What I'm going to provide you today are a few unique strategies that can help you gain a presence quickly, rather than just the tried and true slow and steady approach of “being active” on social media.

To be completely up front, a few of these strategies I've implemented and seen great success with.  And a couple of these I have not tried yet, but will be over the coming weeks and months.

Stick around, because I'll be sharing what I learn through this social media experiment in future blog posts.

To give you an idea of what I've done recently, I want to share a quick success story.  On Oct. 14th, 2017 I started a brand new Facebook business page.  I started with zero followers like everyone else.  However, in just 17 days, I grew it to 10,800 fans!  Plus, I have an additional private Facebook group in the same niche of nearly 500 highly engaged followers.

I'll share exactly what I did below.

Why Build a Following? Here's a Few Examples…

Is building a social media following just a vanity metric, or is there actually value in having lots of followers on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter?

Certainly in some regards, building large social metrics can be useless if the people behind those numbers aren't actually interested in you or your brand.

However, if you have an engaged audience that is willing to click your links, share your products, and actually pull out their wallets and pay…then having a large social media following can be an immensely powerful asset.

Rather than just take my word for it, I wanted to share a few success stories of people building very real businesses off the back of social media.

BeardBrand

Although it's difficult to know exactly how much money BeardBrand is making each month, it's safe to say that it's alot.  A few years ago they went from non-existant to $120,000 a month in sales in about a year.

According to the founder, Eric Bandholz, the company generates roughly 50% of all it's sales from social media traffic!

Eric started out being very active on Youtube and Reddit to start his brand.  However, you can see that the company does very well on a variety of social media channels.

They've clearly found a model that works by building a fanbase on social medial and driving that traffic to their online store.

Youtube subscribers – 380,000

Instagram followers – 129,000 

Facebook Fans – 88,000

Overall, BeardBrand has proven that social media can have a HUGE impact on a business.  Building the right following of raving fans can lead to massive sales.

Shawn Johnson East

Yes, she was an Olympian.  And her husband played in the NFL.

So, without a doubt they had an advantage in building nearly 500,000 subscribers on Youtube and 1.4 million followers on Instagram.

However, Shawn is a perfect example of someone that proves how valuable social media can be.  As explained in a recent interview, she makes much more now (as does here former NFL husband) with their social media following than they ever did before.

To reiterate, this couple makes more being active on social media than they ever did being an Olympian or professional football player.

Shawn reguarly helps brands launch their products to great success, as she often explains on the TV show, Adventure Capitalists.  So, Shawn makes money with her social media following through advertising, direct sponsorships, and ownership in brands that she promotes.

Not a bad way to make money at all.

Bottom line, social media works.

SneakerNews.com

What if you just have an affiliate website, and aren't a celebrity (like Shawn Johnson)?  Well SneakerNews.com is a good example of company driving a ton of traffic through social media.

With over 6.7 million followers on Instagram and nearly 500,000 fans on Facebook, this brand can drive a lot of traffic through their social media channels when they want to.

The best part is that they are actually an affiliate website!  They simply make a commission when they refer someone to Nike, eBay, or other shopping website that sells the shoes.

Now obviously this company is smart and does more than just social media.  They are actively producing content that ranks in Google as well.  However, the raving fan base they've built on social media is quite impressive.

Oh, and they don't follow a single person on Instagram.

How I Built a Facebook Fan Base of 10,800 in 17 Days

Now that you can see how valuable building up a social media following can be, how do you do it?

Well, there are 3 primary ways to build your following.  I'll share all 3 with you.

First is good old fashion hustle.  I'll share more details on this traditional option of starting from scratch.

However, the way that I quickly built up a Facebook page to nearly 11,000 “likes” in about 17 days was less traditional, I suppose.  I decided to run “like” campaigns to build up my social presence.

That's right, this isn't a free option.  But it's an option that works very well if you have a little money to spend.  In total, I spent $997.31 running ads on Facebook from Oct. 14th to Oct. 31st (17 days).

On Oct. 13th, I had no “likes” on this brand new Facebook page (in a niche completely unrelated to Niche Pursuits).  Then I started running “like” campaigns on Facebook for the sole purpose of getting people to like my new Facebook page.

As you can see from the image below, it worked very well:

That equates to a cost of roughly 10.8 cents per like on average.  I should point out that our ad costs were closer to 15 to 17 cents per like, but we also got some organic likes along the way that brought the overall average down.

As soon as I created the page, I also made sure to post multiple times a day (anywhere from 2 to 7 times per day) to keep it active and the audience engaged.  Most of the posts were just motivational thoughts and images that were relevant to my audience.  However, I also mixed in links to my own website to start driving a little bit of traffic.

(I created this Facebook page in a niche where I already have a website, so I had plenty of existing articles that I could link to on my existing niche website).

The social media traffic coming to my website increased about 20 fold from Oct. 14th to Oct. 31st!

You can see from the image below what my typical social media traffic is to my site and then what it grew to:

This screenshot from Google Analytics shows traffic coming from social sources only.  The traffic grew from roughly 10 or 20 visitors per day from social media to 200 to 500 visitors per day.

So, social media can absolutely drive traffic to your website.

What is a Like Campaign on Facebook?

This is not meant to be a comprehensive tutorial on how to run like campaigns on Facebook; however, I'd like to at least give you enough details to be dangerous.

I would also like to clarify I am not talking about “buying likes”.  There is a big difference between running like campaigns and buying likes.  Running ad campaigns to generate likes is a totally legitimate way to build a following.  Buying likes through services is not a legitimate way to build a following.  You can read more about why buying followers is a bad idea here.  But in a nutshell it's because fake audiences don't have real engagement and won't drive real revenue for your business.

On the other hand, Facebook (and other platforms have similar tools) has ad campaigns you can create called “like” campaigns.  Essentially you can create a Facebook like campaign, which will put ads in the newsfeed of the audience you specify.  When they click the “like” button, they become your fans or followers.

Adespresso has a great guide on how to create your first like campaign.

There are 3 critical components to running a successful like campaign to build a following quickly.  First, make sure you target the right audience.  You can select from millions of options on Facebook, so be sure to think through the demographic and interests that you want to target.

Second, is the headline of the ad.  You can obviously test several variations of the headline, but again, think about the one phrase that your perfect audience would resonate with.  Use that as your headline.

Finally, is your ad image.  Try to find an image that both resonates with your audience, but also stands out a bit on Facebook.  Depending on your audience a lower quality image might do better than a higher quality image.  Or one with bright colors might do better than one with darker colors. 

With these 3 variables, you can then test different ads to see what gets you the lowest cost per like.

Setting up a like campaign on Facebook is very simple and you could be up and running in just a few minutes.

What Should You Do With the Social Media Traffic?

Now that I have a Facebook fan page of over 10,000, what should I do with it?

If you are in the same situation, you COULD do a number of things:

Launch your own products (physical, digital, software, etc)

Drive traffic to an affiliate website and make money from Amazon Associates or display ads

Get paid to do sponsorship posts – see Famebit.

My personal plan is to create a membership site (digital product) that is a perfect fit for my audience.  A key part of this membership site will be a private Facebook group.

In fact, I've been mentioning the private Facebook group on my Facebook page (that I just built) and now have nearly 500 really active members in this group!  My plan is to then turn this group into a paid Facebook group for about $10 a month (it would remain free for any existing members).

I expect to launch this new membership site in the first week of December.

So, for now, I'm making very little money from my Facebook following; however, I have a new product I'm creating that will be launched in just a few weeks that I hope does very well.

I will share progress updates over the coming weeks and months, so be sure to follow along.

Method 2: How to Build a Social Media Following for Free

So, the way that I built a following quickly wasn't free, but it's a very valid strategy if you have a little bit of money to spend.

However, if you are more interested in building a following for free, there are plenty of options.  I will try to share a few general strategies briefly because I know you are smart of can fill in the gaps, but also because each social media platform is different.  (So, I'll share more in-depth posts that are platform specific in the future).

If you are starting from scratch, here are a few ways that you can build your following (this can apply to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and more).

Invite Your Existing Friends

Perhaps the easiest way to get started is to invite your friends and family to follow you on social media.  If you have a personal Facebook account, you can ask your friends and family to like your business Facebook page or Instagram account.

This might not move the needle a ton, but it will get the ball rolling.

Be Active and Engaged

You need to post multiple times per day with content that your audience will enjoy.  Not only post content, but also respond to comments and engage with your audience.  

Follow Influencers

See what strategies are working well for successful influencers in your niche and see how you can implement something similar.  Comments on influencer pages and share your links or content when it's appropriate on those pages.

Following others can work quite well on Twitter in particular, since many people will follow you back once you follow them.  However, I wouldn't recommend going overboard here.

Cross Promote on Other Social Media Platforms

If you have any kind of presence on Twitter or Instagram (for example), try to drive some of that audience to your Facebook on Youtube pages.

Blog and Email List

Be sure to add your social media links on your blog to make it easy to share content and for people to become your followers.  In addition, you can start adding your social profiles links in your emails as a way to generate new fans.

Hold a Contest

You can use software like Contest Domination to do a giveaway.  You give something away and people have a shot at winning by sharing the contest on social media.  This can build engagement and a following.

Make Something go Viral

I wish I could say I've had success with this, but I haven't.  However, there are plenty of examples out there of companies that were basically non-existent that built up significant followings on social media with one video or other piece of content.

Creative content can generate attention and interest.  So, even though this isn't easy to achieve, creating great content on a regular basis is still a smart business move.

Method 3: Buy a Social Media Account

In preparation for this blog post, I had the opportunity to connect via email with a social media influencer that had some interesting insights to share.

He really caught my attention when he said, “I currently manage over 10 million followers on social media and do over 10 billion impressions a month a times all organically through the various accounts I have.”

Wow, 10 million followers!  This must be someone famous that we have all heard of right?

Wrong.

Turns out that Kyle (I'll only share his first name), really is a behind the scenes guy.  He doesn't put his own name out there, but has several different accounts in various niches that all add up to millions of followers.

I had to get him on a phone call.

So, last week I picked his brain for an hour about what he does and how he does it.

My first question for him was, “Okay, so what's the secret?  How can I build a social media following quickly?”.  His answer wasn't what I was expecting.  He said, “Don't build it from scratch, go buy a popular account”.

This wasn't at all what I thought his strategy would be.  He then went into a long explanation of how he and many others buy and sell entire Facebook pages, Instagram, Twitter, and accounts on other platforms.  Rather than working for years to build up something with 100,000 followers, he just goes and buys an account that already has this many followers.

This got my wheels turning, as perhaps it is for you as well.

Is this legal?  Absolutely.  The owner of the social media account is completely turning over his or her account to you to own and run as you please.  In exchange, they get money.

Do Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram care?  Not really.  In fact, they all make it fairly easy to transfer ownership.

How much does something like this cost?  Well, obviously the price varies based on size of following, niche, but even more importantly, the engagement of the audience.  If you buy an account with 100,000 followers, but there is next to no engagement, then it's like throwing your money in the garbage.

But if you buy an account with just 10,000 followers that is super engaged, then perhaps your investment will pay off quickly.

Kyle shared with me where he buys his accounts, but it's an invitation only platform, so I won't share it here.  However, if you do a quick search, you will see that there are plenty of marketplaces where you can buy or sell social media accounts.

To be clear, I have not yet purchased any social media accounts before, so I can't vouch for how valid any of these marketplaces are.  However, a couple of websites that regularly sell social media accounts (just as examples) are ViralAccounts.com, FameSwap.com, and SocialTradia.com.

Like anything, I'm sure there are plenty of other places that you can buy accounts.  Or you can always contact account owners directly to see if you can buy their account.  While contacting people is more work, you are also likely to find better deals if you find the right seller.

For example, you could buy an Instagram account with 49,860 followers on FameSwap.com right now for $2,500.

According to the listing, the current owner makes $500 to $1000 a month from this account.  (Who knows if that's really true, but it very well could be).  And if you had your own products in the body building niche, you could probably leverage this audience for much more than $1,000 a month.

Or you could buy this Pets Life Instagram account on SocialTradia.com with 104,000 followers for $2,000.

The more I spoke with Kyle, the more I began to understand how well a buying strategy could work.  Obviously some accounts are much more valuable than others, and you have to do your due diligence; however, you definitely can drive traffic and sales with social media accounts.

Now it's up to you to decide which route you want to take.

A Quick Recap and My Plans…

Overall, if you want to build a social media following, you have 3 options.

You can use ads to get likes and followers.  Yes, this costs money.  But you get to target the exact audience you want and you can quickly build a following if done correctly.  I was able to grow a Facebook fanpage in my desired niche to 10,800 fans in just 17 days.

You can go the standard route of building everything organically through content and social interaction.  While this method is free, it is usually the slowest option of the three.

Finally, you can buy social media accounts and instantaneously have access to a large audience.  The downsides are that it might be hard to find an account that matches your audience perfectly.

Over the next couple of months, I plan to implement all 3 strategies as I use social media to grow one of my businesses.  I plan to blog about my progress here, so I hope you'll stick around and follow along.  I'll be sharing specific strategies for growing audiences on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and possibly others. 

In addition, I plan to share exactly what works and what doesn't for me as I implement these strategies.

Finally, as you follow along and implement some of these ideas in your business, I hope you find success!  I will be looking for success stories in the next 2 or 3 months of people that have implemented some of the things I talk about. 

So, as you see success, please let me know and we'll figure out a way you can share that on NichePursuits.com.

The post How to Build a Social Media Following of 10,800 in 17 Days appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

from Niche Pursuits http://bit.ly/2zHyQYL

[fluffandfiteme-archived]

#JustKeepWriting 1/13/17

Not 15 minutes ago I was planning to go to sleep. Between the ping pong game the medical “professionals” are playing regarding my mother’s well being and my own matters, I have been drained and exhausted. An unrelated note, the death of diets is mothers. I haven’t given up on eating less, but today certainly took a hit.

But no, as I went into my mother’s room to say good night, she read a question of her social media site of choice-Quora, a privately run question and answer site. A single question ignited me, and now I must write on a topic I have before, and likely will again.

“What is a Mary Sue and how do I avoid writing one?”

I sucked in my breath before answering. You see, in my dozen years of dabbling in social circles based on movies, games, and shows I have encountered this term. It has been used to terrify young women who really want to write a character who happens to be extraordinary. Most often it was used to refer to fan created characters who appeared in fan fiction or role play, frequently pairing off with a pre-existing character and potentially changing the course of canon.

I mean not that that it doesn’t make complete sense that a new character of substance could change the course of a history. Because you know what? It really does.

It was usually used as a shaming technique on female writers or writers who created female characters. Often called overpowered, too perfect, too happy, and too tragic and angsty all at the same time.

Over the years, the name calling of Mary Sue has moved to canonical characters, in other words, characters in the main narrative by the same writer as everyone else who do appear in the work. A fresh example was regarding Rey, in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Before that, I remember Xion who appeared in Kingdom Hearts Days. Technically there’s a number in that title, but it was confusing and false advertising so everyone calls it Days. Bella Swan from Twilight and the character that was once literally her in fanfiction, Anastasia Steele from 50 Shades of Grey have both been called it. (Yes, I read it. Will probably continue to for research to further tear it apart and write alternate reality fiction. Who knows, maybe I’ll knock off 50 to expose the dangers and conflict caused by the so called romance).

During the brief questioning regarding Rey, I wrote on my old blog comparing her to Anakin and Luke Skywalker as they appeared in the previous trilogies. Except I did it without identifying any of them until after their scores were in. My scoring methods were simple: did they follow the core components of Wikipedia’s definition, and how high did they score on the Universal Mary Sue Test.

[The mentioned Quiz is found here ]

[The full posts can be found here and here

Shockingly of the three leads, Rey scored the lowest on both counts. She was the most balanced of the characters. Anakin was inching onto the Sue scale. And Luke was no holds barred.

But you know what the funny thing I noticed in my own experiences are?

I have never once heard someone call a male character a Mary Sue. Now, there is a term for it-Gary or Marty Stu. But I have literally never heard it used.

(I mean, there are characters that are just really badly written, but this is about the Mary Sue stigma used to keep female characters demur, weak, and undeveloped.)

Now, the wikipedia intro blurb defines a Mary Sue as:

“An idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character, a young or  low rank person who saves the day through unrealistic abilities. Often this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.”

Author insert aside, because fuck you I have two characters that started that way but both of them and I have diverged and developed completely independent and because I write them well, no one could guess, and most enjoy writing against them in role play.

Idealized and seemingly perfection fictional character, often young or low rank who saves the day through unrealistic abilities.

Literally any and all Jedi could be shoved under this category.

Kingdom Hearts is literally full of lead characters and supporting cast fitting this classification-not to speak of Square Enix and Disney, the parent companies.

One could say Bella qualifies, given her unique resistance to vampire abilities, her teenage status, and how all the boys and girls lobe her.

The same cannot actually be said about her fanfiction counterpart, Ana Steele? I refuse to count 21 as young, she doesn’t save the day through unrealistic abilities, and she is not perfect.

But you know what? By that definite, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, is a Mary Sue. He was a kid from Brooklyn, barely old enough to be drafted, if he had ever qualified. He was poor as dirt, so also of low rank. He has no real character flaws of note, Civil War not withstanding because that’s a separate issue but the narrative still displays him as in the right. And suddenly through the power of science, he becomes a super human and saves the world time and time again.

Or hey kids, how about Batman? Little Bruce Wayne is orphaned, but over the years trains and uses the family fortune profits to run the company, improve Gotham City’s socioeconomic structure, win multiple hearts and minds, and oh yeah, create an arsenal of super advanced and cool tools and weapons with a bat theme, including a car, a super computer, a suit, and a secret lab.

Oh! Aragorn! You know, the Ranger, Strider, Aka, Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, Isulder’s heir from Lord of the Rings? His mother literally died dropping him on the doorstep of the elves in Rivendell. Thus he became a human raised among them, and oh yeah, he’s a Dunedin (not sure how that’s spelled) with super ranger tracking abilities and extra long life expectancy. Not like elf long, but easily topping dwarf or Hobbit. Wins the heart of Arwen, then Eowyn, basically the only two female characters that aren’t Galadirel. Who by the way is Arwen’s aunt so that would be weird. He unites the previously warring peoples of Elves, different nations of man, and even a few hobbits and a dwarf. And I mean like literally the day before he gave King Theodan a pep talk, Rohan was of the mind Gondor could go screw themselves. And the elves had been completely indifferent. Oh, and lets not forget the special chosen prince totally not Excaliber sword he used to summon the army of ghosts that wiped out the entire force attacking Minas Tirith.

Captain Kirk. Even before the reboot, he was mister Captain Perfect Hair. He could do no wrong, and generally had a different lover interest every episode. And oh yeah, he was born in Iowa, pre reboot, a good old country boy.

Lets see, Marvel, DC, Fantasy, Scifi…

I feel like I need anime and video game examples next.

Bleach. An old favorite though some of the final arc decisions-well, let me be honest, the final pairing decisions, left me put off. Anyway. Ichigo Kurosaki is the lead character. Spoilers ahead for anyone not familiar. It turns out he’s a half Shinigami on his father’s side, half Quincy on his mother’s side, and a pinch of Hollow because house Isshin met his mother. Which means all three main races, that DO NOT GET ALONG THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SERIES, he is part of. Even at the beginning of the show, he’s got the ability to see ghosts and spirits, and seems to be able to take on entire gangs on his own. He is a poor boy whose father runs an urgent care clinic, and is guilt stricken constantly about the death of his mother. Which later becomes a major plot point like twice over to give him angst. Once given Shinigami powers, or once his powers awaken, he is an instant bad ass, having more abundant spirit energy then anyone has ever seen. Literally every time a rule is explained in Bleach, you know its purpose is for Ichigo to break that rule. And oh yeah, with the exception of the lesbian and his sisters, literally every female character of note who encounters Ichigo has a a desire or longing for him of some form. Rangiku might be an exception, but I know Rukia, Orihime, Neliel, and Tatsuki all have a thing for him. And yes, he saves all of existence pretty regularly.

Video games are rife with examples of this blatancy. Cloud Strife comes to mind, a well known character from Final Fantasy VII. Multiple unlockable date scenes, boy from the country, tragic story. Low rank, still saves the world with the power of friendship. (TELL ME I’M WRONG). But I will also cite a much older known character.

Mario. Mario of Super Mario Brothers, Mario Party, and Mario Cart. Among many others. He is a plumber, who accidentally found up in the Mushroom Kingdom through the pipes. There he learns he can crush enemies by jumping on them, double in size if he eats the right mushroom, and develop a number of abilities such as pyrokinesis or growing a tail and being able to fly. And of course, he defeats the dragon and saves the princess. Remember: he is a plumber.

Now here’s my point. All of these characters would fulfill the qualifications of a Mary Sue. But none of them have ever been called one. Why not? I assume because they each have a penis. (Except maybe Cloud. I maintain Cloud is a gender fluid female).

There is literally an anime out about a dude who wins everything in one punch. If it was a chick I guarantee it would not have gotten past an episode.

The point I am making here is: most stories feature a hero that starts at a low point of some form, be it tragedy, rank, or age. They may develop a love interest, and eventually save the world through extraordinary means. This is actually a skeleton that can be applied to almost any movie, book, game, or show.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t be enjoyed. I encourage you to keep loving Batman and Captain America and Aragorn, and everyone else I highlighted. What I also encourage is to compare a female character if she wasn’t female to Batman, Superman, Captain America, or Aragorn. You may find Mary Sue falls apart. I know I have.

I have a friend. A chosen sister. We butt heads for a while because I got so paranoid about making overpowered characters, I didn’t like writing with them-even if they weren’t mine. I’ve now realized that’s not the point. If you write a character well, and let the reader or viewer understand that through the narrative, that’s all that matters. Male, female, power level, rank, and number of love interests just don’t matter.

Mary Sue doesn’t matter.

Perhaps I’ll bring back Mary Sue Monday...