#and i say this as the disabled artist who has had accounts on every major platform and relies on them for income

[androdragynous]

"why are we LYING and saying THIS social media is better for art than that social media because OBVIOUSLY that social media is better and-"

shut up. the site that will be ""most useful"" for selling your work has nothing to do with the site itself and everything to do with 1. if the people you want to sell to are there (and, surprise, there are other users on literally every site) and 2. if you can tolerate using it enough to reach an audience.

implying signing up for different social media is the only way to succeed as an artist is just straight up stupid. you want people to find your work? try starting with remembering to sign your fuckin name on it

[grapecaseschoices]

Representation in IF (or the lack thereof)

In recent days, the topic of race and ethnicity - as well as treatment of marginalized communities within IFs and their fandoms - has been the premier point of conversation. It has become paramount for people of color, lately, to advocate for themselves in regards to issues of white washing, stereotypes, and white people (...and sadly, other people of color) feeling too comfortable using slurs.

Nothing new there.

As I saw someone recently point out, this is something that crops up every two months. And if you’ve been on tumblr for that length of time, in more than more than one fandom, this is likely something you’ve had to deal with several times within that space of time. It’s an unfortunate byproduct of being a fan of color. (And, often, any type of minority, period.)

We don’t get to escape within the internet into fantasy the same way the “majority” gets to do so. If it isn’t toxic people in the community, it is being disappointed by content creators - either through their comments (or lack thereof) or what they put out in their work.

I can’t speak for every black person or every person of color, however, my fandom experience is one of hyper vigilance. And I’ve noticed that sort of attitude in others.  We have to cut away from certain parts of the fandom. Or cut out work we used to love because of certain outlooks or behaviors.

It is a protective attitude that I’m unapologetic about. By curating my content consumption, it’s pushed me to find, and support, artists that care enough to see people like me as people.  Someone mentioned to me that “as marginalized communities, we have a right to be choosy about our representation in media.” And I agree. We do and we should never, ever feel guilty about it. 

That being said, it can feel kind of alienating.

As I mentioned before, there’s been a continued - one I am glad for - movement in the IF/VN community in calling out bad representation (and treatment of fans).  Fans have pushed for accountability and gotten it. However, I’ve noticed - or at least, I feel - the call for change is sort of limited. There’s a hesitance in our community to ask for that same change of ‘indie’/smaller creators as we do of companies or more established writers. And, honestly, this hesitance has left me with a feeling that the IF/VN community isn’t really one for people of color, particularly black people.

Now, I’m one who tries to give credit where credit is due. The creation of ~interact-if … is probably one of the best things I have ever seen in any community (and I’ve been in fandom/written rpg since HS). I’ve also noticed an increase of writers of color feeling comfortable in writing for their culture or having characters of their culture as well as white creators holding themselves accountable. All of that is what keeps me hopeful about improvement regarding IF works but motivates me to one day do my own. That being said, there is still a lot that needs to be addressed regarding the whiteness of IF work and the depiction of characters of color.

I am going to start off by saying something that may come off as kind of harsh. If you know me, you know what I’m going to say, so you can clock out. If you don’t, take a deep breath, feel frustrated, and then let it go to move on: I don’t think uncomfortability with writing about a marginalized group or unfamiliarity with said group is an excuse. I don’t think “well it’s my work, this is what I know/this is what I want to write” is an excuse. 

IF works in the year 2021 are uncomfortably, awkwardly white (and able-bodied, cis, thin, etc). And I do not think there is ANY excuse, ANY actual reason for it to be that way.

I am sure there are several excuses coming to mind (as I said, I’ve been in RP and fanfic for years, I’ve seen them all—heck, I’ve thought them all. I still do think them at times). However, I’ve always held to the belief that every work that is put out into the universe matters. Everything has an impact.  NO work is too small, nothing is too insignificant. Every art has an effect. And if you’re writing a story, telling a tale, something from your heart to share with others you’re trying to affect your environment in some way, you’re trying to say something.

I feel a lot of us—as I said, I include myself in this too—do not consider what we’re saying to our audience when we create works that are mostly white (or when we can’t have a single character or work with numerous characters that are disabled, fat, mentally ill, trans, I can go on). 

If you’re writing a story, I don’t think you can give yourself any pats on the back for having one or two characters of color. I think we’ve moved beyond that type of ‘diversity by numbers’ … especially when the numbers are often piss poor.  I’m seeing IFs where there are three characters of color to six white ROs. Not only is that ‘ratio’ (for lack of a better word) shitty on it’s own, people don’t consider that the actual dynamic is 1:1:1:6. People of color are not a monolith. I, as a black Haitian-American woman, may have similar experiences as an indigenous woman from Canada and a persian person from Iran …. But we are not the same. Yes, it is great to have a diversity of characters. I’m not saying you shouldn’t include people from different backgrounds in your works.

But please consider why it is never the case that there are two Japanese-Brazilians, three black people from Manchester, and a mixed-race Indigenous/Afro-Latina from Queens, and one white person. It is extremely rare to see multiple of one race or ethnicity in an IF if that race isn’t white.

I feel not only is that problem, I believe it is a conversation that needs to be had. Both as a community and as something writers discuss with themselves, as they review their work. 

And that is the tip of the iceberg. We need to have discussions on the tendency of characters of color to have light colored eyes, or the preference of East Asians (and light skinned ones at that) over any other Asian, or the ambiguously brownness of descriptors. We need to talk about white-washing in face claims that directly oppose established descriptions, or how Artbreeder being bad at black people is NOT an excuse for your black character looking similar to the one in three different other IFs (put the effort in). 

We as a community need to have several discussions or else I feel it will be another five years before we’re dragging our feet toward better representation. And that shouldn’t be the case. At all. 

[dailytomlinson]

When reflecting on music’s most influential artists, critics tend to use statistics to measure their legacy—whether it’s a band reaching #1 on the charts, multiple sold-out tours, or albums that represent a generation. Those types of accolades and praise are for bands that, typically, exist within rock with a predominantly sizeable male fanbase, like The Rolling Stones or The Beatles. For English-Irish boyband One Direction, who actually broke one of The Beatles biggest achievements by having five Top 10 debut tracks on the Hot 100 compared to The Beatles’ four, have sold out multiple tours and delivered five albums five years in a row, they have not been regarded as much of an influential force in the music industry as they should be.

Today—on July 23rd 2020—the band celebrates ten years since they first became a band, even if five years of that time was during a prolonged indefinite hiatus while each of the members pursued solo ventures. A decade marks ten years of One Direction and, for the fans, ten years of an impactful legacy the band, both together and apart, has had on their lives.

After being thrown together on The X-Factor back in July 2010, the band did more in five years than most bands do in their entire careers; they released five albums and sold more than 6.49 million copies in just America alone, filmed one concert documentary and one tour film, completed multiple world tours, and pursued philanthropic ventures. All of those things didn’t come without a price, though. Zayn Malik left the band in 2014 due to his mental health suffering. The band toured consistently every year with hardly ever having any personal time off, and add in an album release a year, they were extremely overworked.

There’s a belief boy bands have an expiry date, and it’s likely their management felt they needed to get as much out of the band while they believed they were still relevant. It’s likely that fans would’ve stuck around if the members took time between their albums and tours. In 2015, when the hiatus began, people wondered if One Direction really could ever come back and, if they did, would fans still really care about them?

“One Direction was one of the biggest and most successful bands,” said @TheHarryNews, a Twitter fan update account. “They achieved amazing things in the five years they were together, despite being overworked by putting out albums and touring every year, which isn’t normal.”

One specific thread that ties together every fans’ thoughts when they reflect on why they decided to become fans of the boys in the first place is the carefree and loving rapport the band has with one another. We’ve all seen The X Factor video diaries, laughed over their banter during interviews, and watched every live performance they did to look out for cute interactions between our favourite members. In their own unique way, One Direction helped defy traits typically associated with toxic masculinity; they didn’t shy away from their affection for one another and made that known in interviews and concerts. Their friendship set them apart, made them more real, and through them, we made friendships of our own.

When someone seeks out new friends, they go to where they feel safest: the communities of people who love the same things as they do. Social media not only propelled the band to international audiences, but it also helped many fans meet the people they now call their lifelong friends. “They have impacted my life in ways I never thought a ‘boyband’ could,” said Lauren, a fan from Buffalo, NY. “They gave me the best friends I could ever ask for, helped me when I was lost and thought I had no one. They ultimately helped me find myself.”

Social media did more than just help us make friends. It was also a major catalyst for the band’s success, and a large part is due to update accounts on Twitter that were created by fans, for fans. Fan-created update accounts would document every single movement and moment made by the band’s five members, whether it was live-streaming a concert or updating fans on the band’s whereabouts. For @With1DNews, a UK/Canada-based update account, it’s a labour of true love for the band that “glued them together” in the first place. “We found each other through our 1D fan accounts on Twitter,” they said. “We started talking about the boys, then our lives, and quickly became great friends.”

Even though they started the account after the hiatus already began, they still felt like fans needed One Direction news. “We had noticed there weren’t really any active 1D update accounts left and we knew a lot of fellow 1D fans were still interested in seeing news about the boys’ careers and lives. It was also because we missed seeing 1D together and hearing about them together. We thought, why not create this space that connects them even if they’re now all going their own way.”

Update accounts take as much time, effort, and energy as an unpaid second job; it requires those who run them to schedule themselves accordingly to cover certain times of each day to ensure their fellow fans get updated in a timely manner, and they do as much fact-checking and researching that any other traditional news outlet does.

Even if some critics might not consider One Direction an influential force in the music industry, the impact they continue to have on their fans is what has set them apart from every other musical act. In a scene in One Direction’s concert documentary, This Is Us, a fan breathlessly states “I know they love me, even if they don’t know me.” This type of parasocial relationship to a band is something not many understand; it’s a sense of intimacy that doesn’t require either party to actually deeply know one another on a personal level but is still as meaningful and significant as actual relationships.

A connection with the band is even more prevalent for Amy, a Los Angeles based writer and mum of two, because of the impact the band has had on her family is something that isn’t tangible but has been detrimental to her children’s development. “I have a child with physical and neurological disabilities who, prior to One Direction, was completely non-verbal and really struggling to find motivation and happiness amongst all the doctors and therapy appointments,” stated Amy. “They have done more for her development, including indirectly teaching her to speak and sing, than any therapy she’s ever done. Up until we found the boys, everything was trial and error; trying to find what makes sense to her and would, in turn, make the world make sense to her. Who knew the key would be a ‘silly’ boy band?”

Many fans have expressed that the band is their happy place – the only positive light in their life when things got tough. For so many, the band came at a time when they desperately needed something to help them through difficult situations whether that be pressure from school, jobs, peers, or life in general. Watching the ‘Best Song Ever’ music video, or a funny interview felt like a cure to smile and laugh after a long day. “They were what we turned to when we felt overwhelmed in our own lives. Now, we’re adults, and they still bring us as much happiness as they did when we were younger,” says @With1DNews.

Not only that, but the band has also helped fans gain more confidence in themselves. By helping create a space and community for them, fans who may have felt lonely, different, or struggled to find a place they belonged had somewhere to go now. They made friends who accepted them, endless content that felt like a burst of serotonin, and a band of boys who told them through lyrics how great and valuable they are, songs like ‘Through the Dark’, ‘Diana’, and ‘Little Things’. Through the band, One Direction fans created their own safe space to work out and navigate their own identity; a space that is free from outside shame where they could be whoever they wanted to be because the people they loved the most accepted them for exactly who they are.

Despite the safety found in those spaces, others have given those fans different descriptions: Hysterical. Rabid. Extra. ‘Screamers.’ Those are just a few of the many words that have been used to describe female fans of boy bands, both past and present. Although these words carry negative connotations, they imply something more powerful than any naysayer could understand or try to define: the sheer force that comes with unashamedly loving something so deeply, you don’t really care about anyone else’s opinions.

Young female fans are the most supportive, passionate fanbase an artist can have, yet they are the most trivialized and ridiculed both within and outside of the music industry. At the start of their career, music’s most beloved band The Beatles was a boy band that catapulted into fame because of, not despite, their female fans. It wasn’t until male fans noticed the band’s progression into an experimental sound when they decided to embrace the band and deem them worthy of their support after they began playing ‘real’ music.

Even if there are major similarities between The Beatles and One Direction, the latter is still regarded by many to be a manufactured pop boy band with a ‘teenybopper’ fanbase. The members of the band have consistently embraced and validated their predominantly female fanbase; Harry Styles has been consistently vocal about this matter, going so far as to say “Teenage-girl fans — they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you.”

In ‘Girl Almighty’, the fifth track on their fourth album, Four, the band addressed the way their fans have been misjudged and labelled ‘crazy’ because of their passion and not only applauded them for their dedication and love, but bowed down to them as well; “Let’s have another toast to the girl almighty […] I get down on my knees for you.” Not only has One Direction always known who helped them get to where they are today, but they’ve also never shied away from declaring their respect for them, constantly validating their fans’ feelings.

For One Direction’s fans, a decade of the band’s formation represents ten years of a legacy that will continue on, even if the band never formally get back together. For Amy, it doesn’t really matter if they got their start on a TV talent show because it’s the fans that made them and set the band apart from every other boyband. “What we all created together feels so untouchable in regards to boy bands of the past and ones to come. I think people will look back in awe and see what we see; we’ve been so incredibly lucky to have witnessed the magic of One Direction.”

They might not be aware of it, but One Direction was incredible at predicting what was to come in their own music; “Who’s gonna be the first to say goodbye?” / “But it’s not the end, I’ll see your face again” / “We had some good times, didn’t we? We wore our hearts out on our sleeve” / “We could be the greatest team that the world has ever seen.” In ‘Best Song Ever’, a song that ordinary listeners would not exactly consider overly sentimental or profound, there is one lyric that will always stand out for the fans to represent One Direction’s legacy perfectly: “I hope you’ll remember how we danced.” Ten years later, we haven’t forgotten.

[petekaos]

so whats up with this whole gmm thing? are you gonna forgive/forget like what happens now :/

hiii nonnie! i’ve gotten a multitude of asks exactly like this but now that i’ve thought about it a bit more, i think i’m ready to answer this for me personally. forgiveness is an incredibly personal thing and that’s a decision you’re gonna have to make for yourself, i cannot make that for you. but these are my own thoughts on the matter!

i think something i’ve learned from all this--a lesson i already know but was deepened through these incidents--is that celebrities are not your safe space. we all play it up and talk about how much we love this person or that one and to some extent, or to all the extent, it is true. but in the end, we have no clue what genuinely goes on in these people’s heads. they’re their own people, and while they need to take responsibility and be careful of what they say considering their large platforms, the majority of them don’t. so... always be critical, in everything you do.

personally, i’m very much of a forgive but not forget person. i’m going to use concrete examples here -- for example, krist. he’s someone i can’t particularly forgive because of the sheer multitude of things he’s done. maybe you can, and that’s your business, but he is neither strong nor brave for coming out with an apology, which was facilitated by gmmtv anyway. singto and new? i think singto i will forgive at some point, but in terms of rb’ing hctm gifsets and the like, not him as an actor. while i may forgive him, he has lost my respect and he needs to earn it back. now... new. i liked him before, but he, too, has completely lost my respect through this. and his apology only made it worse -- there is no way i can forgive him right now. perhaps someday in the future if he comes out with a proper apology, but not now. the extent i will go to is rb’ing petekao and dbk gifsets, if i ever get to that point again. i agree that something we have to consider is cultural difference and the fact that is okay to joke about certain topics in thailand, and that must be taken into account before criticism. however, criticism is still important, especially considering the fact that these are actors with international audiences who are under contract at thailand’s biggest entertainment company. you think they would have had a pr department funded course on cultural differences and interactions with fans, wouldn’t you?

which brings me to my biggest problem and something i’ve been wanting to talk about: gmmtv itself. i had a couple of conversations with @bbrightwin about this, but something i noticed is how singto and krist’s apologies were facilitated by gmmtv (krist had a press conference, and singto’s apology was clearly looked over by his manager, at least) and how they also have shows coming out later this year at gmmtv. new’s “apology” was very much from his own volition. this doesn’t excuse his comments. i think it’s worth noting, however, that new has no shows coming out later this year with gmmtv and that his apology was not facilitated by gmmtv. again, i want to stress that this is not a defense at all, but rather a way to prove my point that gmmtv... cares about the money, and the money only. they wanted to clear these allegations up for krist and singto as soon as possible because they’re gmmtv’s #1 ship and because they have shows coming out later this year. new, however, does not. this leads into my point about us not knowing the actors, truly. new showed his true colours, for example, and his true beliefs on his “jokes” about disabled people, because his “apology” was not screened by gmmtv. but do we really have a way of knowing what singto and krist truly think? do we really have a way to know what any other person, especially men, working at gmmtv think? the company saves their ass if they make them enough money or will do so in the future. but that’s... it. because of this, we have no way of knowing if their apologies were genuine or not. we know, however, that the bullshit new spouted from his mouth are his true beliefs. 

in addition, the workplace culture at gmmtv is toxic like i have never seen before. especially after watching smaller shows like my engineer, it’s become even more apparent to me just how busy the gmmtv artists are, especially the bigger ones. obviously that makes sense, because they’re more popular, but they were working even through the quarantine period. i think i’ve heard from almost every major gmmtv artist that they haven’t seen their families in a while. also, their lives? again, faiza and i were talking about this, but it is so apparent that gmmtv could not give two shits about their artists’ mental health. in their lives, as well, you see the actors constantly look behind the camera to their managers and the rest of the team. now, this is fair, considering that they are thailand’s #1 entertainment company and therefore need to be careful in what they say, but something one must also consider is this entire mess with their scandal, let’s put it that way. this was terribly handled and completely disingenuous in my opinion. the mental health aspect of it all plays into asian beliefs again, especially not taking mental health seriously, you know? it’s all work with this lot. even when they have time to unwind, they go on holiday with their... coworkers. a lot of them are good friends (they have to be, they see them almost every day) but... work/life balance is a thing that’s nonexistent at gmmtv. while it’s important to be friends with your coworkers, it’s also important to set boundaries and make friends outside of work as well.

in the end... will i forgive and forget? well, i may forgive. i won’t forget, and my respect for many artists in gmmtv has been lost, not just these three. i think the workplace culture at gmmtv and their larger motivations need to be examined, as well as cultural differences but also the responsibility that these actors have.  

[whatwouldyourbiasdo]

Finding Cinderella | Series | Chapter Two

Title: Finding Cinderella

Pairings: Donghae x reader,(Primary) Heechul x reader (Secondary), Kyuhyun x reader (Secondary)

Author’s Note: I have been planning this story for a while but have been battling many writers’ blocks in doing so. This story will mainly focus on Donghae and the reader but will have branching stories between Heechul, Kyuhyun and two secondary OC characters.

Sidenote: Yes, this series will include Kangin and Sungmin. This was originally started back when the two of them were still active members and in my heart they will always be members so I will include them wherever I see fit.

SM Entertainment plans to host the event of the century and you are invited!

The news headline offered as click bait got a lot of people talking. It wasn’t a complete lie as SM Entertainment was gearing up to host what they believed to be the event of the century and even a handful of lucky fans were going to be granted access to this exclusive party. But there was a catch.

Only a few lucky fans were going to receive a V.I.P. invitation to the party, a chance to meet all their favorite artists and celebrities as well as experience the best food and music they had ever come across.

In order to be considered for an invitation, fans had to record a video message stating why they loved SM Entertainment, what they felt like the company’s artists changed their lives and why they should be one of the honorable guests for the party. SM Entertainment artists would judge the videos and each group would collectively vote on one fan to personally invite to the party.

Some netizens criticized the requirements, stating that they were basically begging for people to praise them on video so they could use that to their advantage later as part of a sneaky promotional stunt, while other netizens praised the company for including fans who helped the company gain so much success over the past year.

Videos came flocking in as soon as the signup had opened, people had to create a personal account on the official SM Entertainment event page, fill out their profile and personal information and upload the video. On the first night, the event page managed to crash due to the traffic from all over the world though many netizens claimed the company would end up picking fans within Korea as they always seemed favorable to their country.

Not all the applications were valid to the competition, however. Some people thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get their own rise to fame and uploaded a video of them dancing, singing or acting in a desperate attempt to get discovered. Paying tribute to their favorite artists they sang their hearts out and tried to mimic the complicated choreography for as much as possible to showcase their own talents and abilities. Unfortunately for them, SM Entertainment wasn’t looking for new trainees and took no heed of these desperate audition attempts. And then there were the desperate fans who were just grasping the chance of conveying their messages to their favorite idols, hoping that their love confession would set off a series of events only seen in dramas.

Some, however, took it to the extreme. This platform was also the perfect opportunity for the so-called “sasaengs” to come forth with extreme and desperate messages stating that their “oppa” needed to love them and whoever would love them instead would face serious consequences. Most of them would receive a message that their account had been disabled for not following the rules and the company even issued a warning that those would continue sending disturbing messages would face legal repercussions.

   Lee Chanhee had hesitated several times about signing up and giving it a shot. She had been a big SM Entertainment fan for years, their artists and music ignited a light within her which sparked her passion for singing. There had even been people who told her she had actual star potential, the only thing that held her back was her fear. A fear to audition and get rejected. A fear of people who were supposed to be experts, rejecting her and crushing her dreams, killing the fire that fueled her passion. And the idea of the stress and demanding schedules she had heard about, it definitely made the idea of signing as an artist less favorable. Having all eyes on her, judging her every action and movement, commenting on anything she did or said or didn’t do or say, the pressure of being perfect… That was something she rather lived without. Instead, she decided to keep it low and sing for fun. Releasing online songs under a pseudonym to keep the mystery going, she gathered quite a fanbase of followers and viewers. And that was enough, for the time being.

But a chance to be invited inside SM Entertainment, to meet, greet and party with her favorite artists and get an idea of how the people she admired were in real life, without the cameras and the pressure to keep up their good image, that intrigued her. And so her mouse hovered over the signup button on the event page. But she didn’t click.

“Signing up means I have to record a video...” She let out a soft sigh as she considered her options. “Which means people will see my face… And they’ll judge my story...” They made it quite clear in the promotions that the artists were actually going to be reviewing the applications themselves and personally pick out a fan to invite. Which would mean she could have the chance to personally convey her feelings and experiences with her favorite artist, but that could also mean making a great fool out of herself. She could just imagine the groups watching her video, laughing at how ridiculously cringeworthy she looked.

But what exactly did she have to lose? None of them knew her and if her video was laughable at best, they wouldn’t invite her over which means that they would just as easily forget about her embarrassment. And if she did get invited then maybe, just maybe her video wasn’t as cringeworthy as she imagined it in her head.

“Yah! Chanhee-ah!” A voice called from the hallway as she heard the front door slam shut. Footsteps approached her bedroom door and a second later the door flung open revealing the dark haired girl that had burst into her apartment. Sometimes she regretted giving her the password. “Aish, there you are!”

“Oh, Miya-ah!” The curly haired girl nodded as she finally moved from her spot behind her computer and greeted her friend. Miya was a student at the Korean National University of Arts, majoring in vocal and dance courses whom Chanhee had met online right after she released her first ever song online under the pseudonym 월광 신데렐라 (moonlight cinderella). Miya was her first subscriber and commenter and had proceeded to comment, like and even promote every song she released after that. When Miya sent her a message asking if she was a student at her university and that she could introduce Chanhee to one of the music producer majors, she took the plunge and met up with Miya. And they have been friends ever since.

“Sorry, I’m late since the semester is ending they are killing us with exams and preparations,” The slightly shorter girl huffed as she dragged her bag over the floor.

“No problem!” Chanhee smiled as she inched closer to the girl with a curious gaze down on the bag she was dragging along. “So… You got the goods?”

“Ah?” Miya exclaimed, looking up at the taller curly haired girl with a somewhat confused gaze before realizing what she meant. “Oh! Yes! Miya's goody supplying service has done it again!” She grinned proudly as she crouched down and rummaged her bag until she pulled out the small USB stick. “Tadaa! I swear, Yunghwa was going to have a mental breakdown since his program kept crashing and it deleted his final project, you should have seen his face!” She mused, showing no signs of consideration towards her music producer friend she put in charge of helping produce and mix Chanhee’s releases.

“Aigoo, please thank him for me!” Chanhee humbled as she held her hands out for the USB stick, impatiently waiting to hear the final product. She had worked hard on this release, usually, she only produced covers of popular and lesser known songs, but this was the first re-write of a song she composed and she was eager to hear how it turned out before releasing it online.

She did feel sorry for putting so much pressure on Miya’s friend who she could imagine was under a lot of stress as was with finals creeping up. And to top it off, Yunghwa wasn’t even getting paid for the producing he did. Chanhee did offer, but Miya somehow found a way to have him do it without any reward. Chanhee decided not to ask questions.

“Psh, all he needs is a couple of cups of coffee and he’ll be good to go!” Miya smirked as she placed the USB in her hands. “So what were you up to?”

“I was wondering if I should sign up for the SM Entertainment event...” She muttered as she made her way back to her computer, playing with the USB in her hands.

“Oh, right… The fan event where they’re asking you to stick some feathers up their butts to make them feel good,” Miya hummed thoughtfully. She had heard about the event, not surprising since it was advertised everywhere and several of her fellow students had signed up. Not to mention her former roommate had been talking about all the things she had to arrange for it seeing as she found a full-time job at the company after dropping out of university.

Personally, she didn’t feel the appeal of the event, she highly doubted those lucky fans would even catch a glimpse of their idols and would most likely be stuffed in one corner of the venue. She could imagine most of the people that signed up merely did so to get to meet their wannabe husband or wife.

“It would be a chance of a lifetime to attend… Even if it’s just for the food.” Chanhee explained. “But I’m not sure if I’m so comfortable with recording a video message. Especially since the artists will hand pick the winners themselves.“

“Huh, you would think they’d have better things to do than to go through millions of fan videos.” Miya clicked her tongue as she brushed her fingers through her already messy hair. The thing about college students was that after a certain amount of time you stopped giving a crap about your appearance, the dress code was pajamas and dark eye circles most of the time anyway. “But these idols don’t know you, right? So what’s the worse that could happen? You’ll be one of a million rejected and they’ll probably not even remember your face or voice or anything.”

“See, that is what I was telling myself but still...” She bit the inside of her lip as she stared back at the signup screen.

“C’mon! Just do it, you know you want to or you wouldn’t be hesitating so much!” The smaller girl pressed her finger onto the curly haired girls to make her point. “Don’t think too much and just do it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!”

“Yes! Yes, you’re right! Let’s do it!” Chanhee encouraged herself as she finally clicked the sign-up button and filled out the information they requested. It also asked for a preferred group, seeing as they were going to divide the applications between all the groups to limit the amount of time their artist had to spent on watching and judging the videos. After thinking about it, she decided to sign up for Super Junior, reasoning that the group barely seemed to take themselves too seriously so if she ended up making a fool out of herself they would most like just brush it off as adorable at least. Or that’s what she kept telling herself as encouragement.

“Lemme know how the track sounds before releasing it and if you need anything changed hit me up and I will pester Yunghwa into fixing it!” Miya mentioned as she hoisted her bag over her shoulder again. She didn’t have enough time to stick around unfortunately, a student’s duty called and she had to get back to campus for a couple more classes.

“Thanks a lot, Miya!” Chanhee beamed as she turned to look at her friend. “I owe you a lot!”

“Aye, what kind of fan would I be if I didn’t go to the extreme for my precious unnie!” She flashed her a cheeky smile and winked as she finished her words before heading out. “Good luck!”

Chanhee waited for her friend to leave and the sound of the door falling back into its automated lock before opening her recording program and turning on her camera. She stared at her own reflection in the screen, huffing as she brushed her fingers through her soft curls trying to get them to twirl a way that would look decent on camera. Patting her cheeks she wondered if she needed to add some more makeup or if it were best to just go with the natural look to give them the right idea of the girl proclaiming her love to the company.

“Ok Chanhee,” She took a deep breath, her finger hovering over the record button. “It’s now or never, I can do this!” She cleared her throat and hit the red button.

“Annyeonghaseyo, Lee Chanhee imnida. Twenty-five years old, veterinary assistant... “ the curly haired girl introduced herself with a shy smile and soft voice. She was fidgeting with her curls as she seemed to try and think of the right words to say.

“I guess I should be answering some of these questions…” Her eyes darted off to the words on the screen for a moment as she mouthed the question first before turning back to the camera with a thoughtful look on her face.

“Um… How has SM Entertainment influenced my life? I guess I would say it has turned my world upside down...” A soft chuckle escaped her lips as she finished her words. “Ah, but not in a bad way! Not at all… It has shown me that music is so much more than a simple melody and some words. It’s about the feeling and message that it’s trying to convey. Connecting people with a mutual feeling, regardless of boundaries set by society… I think that’s what makes it beautiful.”

She seemed to really be contemplating her words as she no longer focused on the camera and as her mind wandered off to the message she was trying to convey, she seemed less nervous. “The first song from SM Entertainment that I had ever heard was sung by Super Junior, and it seemed to speak to me in a way I never expected music to do… In particular when Kyuhyun’s part came up. His voice managed to capture the words and the message, touching every heartstring by singing. It felt like he was conveying the message straight to my heart without ever having met. That’s the power of real talent, it says a lot about the artist's abilities.”

A soft hum escaped her lips as she let her own words sink in for a moment, hesitating whether or not she should keep speaking. It was clear that there was more to say, but she wasn’t sure if she could. “Music has saved my life in more ways than one. And to show gratitude I have always supported all the artists. If I ever had the chance to meet them, I would like to thank them for all the strength their music has given me…”

Her eyes moved up to the question on the screen again as she read the final question. “Ah… In all honesty, I’m not sure if I can answer the last question. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would deserve being invited more than me. So I’m not going to answer why I think I’m more deserving or special than all the other fans, everyone has their own reasons for being and their own story to tell. So if I get chosen I will feel blessed and thankful, but if not then I will still be right here, supporting the artists to the best of my abilities, that’s the least I could do.”

As she spoke her final words the screen turned to black as the video had finished. The boys stared at the screen for a moment as they let the message sink in before speaking.

“Wow, that has to be the most genuine message we have seen so far...” Sungmin finally spoke up, breaking the silence filling the Super Junior office.

So far they had seen fans declaring their undying love to the company and them as artists draped in every single Super Junior merchandise they could find. Swinging lightsticks, screaming out their names, high on energy drinks and showing the posters that covered their bedroom walls.

But this girl seemed to really take the requirements seriously. She recorded a video and answered the questions diligently and genuinely. Judging by appearance compared with some of the other videos, you could hardly tell she was a fan. But listening to her words, it was clear she thought long and hard about what she wanted to say and she actually knew what she was talking about.

“Tch, unbelievable she chose Kyu’s voice over mine!” Heechul smirked as he nudged the younger male playfully. He had seemed flustered when the girl started speaking about his ability to convey a message. Sure, he had been praised for his voice and talent before but for some reason the way she praised him felt different.

“She knows her stuff, that’s for sure!” Ryeowook nodded in agreement, it wasn’t surprising that someone praised Kyuhyun’s voice. He was one of the main vocalists after all.

“Let’s just pick hers since I doubt there will be any other actual entries on this list!” Kangin stated as he pulled out his phone. They had been watching videos for several hours now, some more cringeworthy and loud than others. He could understand that people were excited to have a chance to meeting them, but after several hours of sitting in one spot and watching these videos, he was in dire need of some change of scenery.

“That wouldn’t be fair towards the other fans,” Leeteuk felt somewhat guilty about the idea of skipping the rest of the entries right away. “I’m sure all of them put a lot of thought and dedication into it.”

“Well, can we at least call in for some food and drinks then?” Shindong suggested, maybe if they had food to keep them busy, enduring these videos would seem a lot less tiring. It was nice to hear all the praise their fans had given them, it definitely made all of them feel grateful for having such a dedicated fanbase.

“Pizza?” Yesung suggested, feeling peckish himself.

“No, chicken!” Eunhyuk protested as he was craving the taste of juicy fried chicken a lot more at the moment, already licking his lips at the thought of it.

“Why not both?” Donghae shrugged, it wouldn’t be the first time they mix and matched their food preferences because honestly, trying to decide on what to eat with ten - thirteen different cravings wasn’t exactly the easiest task in the word.

“Pizza and chicken sound good to me!” Kyuhyun nodded, finally joining in on the conversation. His mind had been replaying the words of praise Chanhee had spoken before, wondering why those specific words seemed to get to him so much.

“I’ll be right back, you guys keep watching!” their manager nodded as he left the room and headed down the hallway. “Ah! Park-ssi!”

The girl stopped in her tracks as she heard her name being called, turning in the direction of the voice as her crimson locks danced around her face. She bowed in greeting as the manager approached her.

“Yes? How can I help you?”

“I need you to order a couple of pizzas and boxes of fried chicken,” the manager told her as he nudged his head back to the office behind him. “The boys are going through the applications and they’re starting to get restless so they need some food to tie them over.”

“The boys?” She arched a brow curiously as she glanced over at the door leading to the office, hearing muffled voices from the other side. “Ah, Super Junior right? Pizza and chicken? Sure, of course, I can arrange that for you.”

“Thank you, I knew I could count on you!” he smiled thankfully as he bowed his head in gratitude. “Don’t take too long, though. They still have a lot of applicants to review.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have them deliver in fifteen minutes,” Eunmi grinned as she nodded in understanding. “You know how persuasive I can be after all.”

[citrineghost]

A Letter to WordPress

Dear WordPress,

Tumblr has been around for a good while now and many of us have been here since the beginning (or close to it). It’s become something of a comfort and a home base for many. You can understand then why it’s so terrifying and tension-setting when a new owner comes around.

This website has been through a lot of changes, very few of them good in recent years. I want to open up a dialogue from the user base about our feelings and desires surrounding this site, because to so many of us, not only its design and function, but its success and future are a big deal.

Obviously not all of the things I list below will be universal opinions, but I’ll try to outline some of the things I’ve seen the majority of users want. I’ll also throw in some things that are more personal, because I can’t claim to know everything the rest of the users want, but I can tell you where I see obvious problems.

First and foremost, here’s an obvious one. You can’t really go anywhere on Tumblr without knowing: we want the bots and the nazis gone. We need some kind of captcha system for every time someone wants to include a hyperlink in a post or response. Until the staff count gets higher, I would honestly suggest closing down the report system for everything but bots, nazis, and death threats/suicide bait.

Make NSFW content welcome again. Outside of porn bots, the pervasiveness of NSFW content is slim to none. As long as minors and those with ‘NSFW’ blacklisted aren’t seeing the NSFW content, there’s nothing wrong with it being here. A large number of the people posting NSFW content on here are artists who use this content to make a living on commissions. The ban has done nothing but make valuable members of the Tumblr community leave and take their art elsewhere. The focus should be cracking down on anyone who isn’t properly tagging NSFW content with ‘NSFW’. If the focus is put on that, the problem with NSFW content will be null.

Please keep Tumblr unintegrated with other social media. Most users will agree, the anonymity is such a huge part of what draws us to Tumblr. Other people only know what we tell them and it’s very appealing for our real life accounts (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.) to be completely separate. When users want to share links to other accounts, they can do so easily with links on their blogs.

Replace ads with either, better, more sensible ads or members content. A large part of the ads on Tumblr make absolutely zero sense just by looking at them. Not to mention, they’re all completely unfit for the user base. I’ve seen weight-loss ads (harmful to the many people on the site recovering from eating disorders) and ads for products most people wouldn’t need or want until their forties. Most of the user base is 13-35, if I had to guess. I can tell you right now, you would make more money and the user base would be much happier if ads were removed in favor of members content. Adding a paid membership that allows users to gain access to new features (rather than restricting what’s already here) would be a huge boost in morale and company income. Use that income to improve the site. Don’t get comfortable making more than the bare minimum in profit until the website is functioning reasonably well. Hint: it’s not right now.

Keep the base functions of Tumblr. Don’t try and get radical, hoping big changes will excite the community. They won’t. We’re creatures of habit and we just want memes, fandom, and relatable nonsense. Keep reblogging, replies, customizable blogs, tags, and likes functionally the same.

Be receptive to bug reports and post change logs so that the community knows that they’re being addressed and fixed.

These are the obvious pleas of the community. Please keep in mind that the heart of Tumblr is in its users and if you ostracize us, there will be nothing left. We love this website and we want to see it thrive as much as anyone. We just don’t want to sacrifice the spirit of the community in the process.

Read more under the cut if you want to see some more of my own personal suggestions. I’d love for other users to sound off in the replies with whether they agree with any of the pleas or suggestions and also give their own!

Okay, so, here are some personal opinions that are by no means the voice of the community. I think they’re pretty sensible, but what do I know?

Change back the color. I hate this saturated navy color and I’m pretty sure a lot of others do too. I’m part of the disabled community and I know and have seen people saying that these extremely contrasted colors that were added are making their Tumblr experience worse. It gives people headaches due to light sensitivity and, frankly, it’s ugly. If you’d like to cater to those who are visually impaired/colorblind, that’s fantastic! Do so with an account setting that turns on higher contrast mode or adds patterns to things to make them distinguishable.

Add an option to blog suggestions and posts that have shown up on your dash from followed tags that says “Stop Suggesting This.” I’ve been suggested a number of blogs that I’m not interested in following. I don’t want to block the user, but I do want some different suggestions and for those blogs to stop showing up in suggestions. I’m also tired of seeing the same post twenty times from a tag I follow. There is currently an option that says “This particular posts sucks.” While I think that was a great attempt at catering to the community, I don’t want to use it because my intuition says that there’s a negative connotation. Does me saying the post sucks make it show up less for other people? Does it lose popularity? I can’t tell. The only thing I know is that I don’t want to say that a good post sucks just to make it quit showing up on my dash.

Implement some of the features that XKit uses. I would bet at least a quarter, if not more, of Tumblr users use XKit to make using Tumblr less painful. That shouldn’t be the case. Tumblr should have these functionality options available in dashboard settings.

A very hot take here that many might disagree with: Make notes viewable more like mobile has them. As it is, it’s hard to tell which ones I’ve seen on desktop. It can be tricky on mobile too, honestly, but it’s easier than on desktop. I would also heavily suggest making the unseen notifications darker so that they stand out and making a button to indicate that you’ve seen them.

Keep the dash, messages, notes, and profile as separate processes similar to how mobile has it. The trek all the way down the damn dashboard is a long one. I want to be able to see notes and messages in full size without losing my dash progress. When I switch back I want to be right where I was. I understand if this one isn’t possible or practical. It was just something I like about mobile over desktop but I’m aware that they’re two different beasts with different capabilities.

As far as the aforementioned members features, I do have some ideas, but I can’t guarantee they’re the best the user base has to offer. I’m sure others could think of better. Anyway, some things I’ve thought of are groups/clubs, digital currency, and separate dashboards. So, as it stands, You can have multiple blogs on one account. People can follow them separately. That’s fantastic. What would also be nice though, is being allowed to make separate dashboards. This would probably take up another chunk of server space, so I understand if it isn’t feasible right now, but I would jot it down. The ability to separate shitposts, aesthetic imagery, fandom content, and NSFW would be amazing. If you follow a huge number of blogs, like me, you could even make a friends dash so that you don’t miss your friends’ posts. It would just be a matter of allowing people to add and name their new dashboards. Then, when they go to follow people, it prompts them to choose what dash their content goes to. You could even simplify it by making the follow button default to the main dash, but adding a little dropdown arrow beside it. You could then choose which dash to add them to from a list. Below are some bad paint-drawn concept drawings.

Anyway, I hope this has all been helpful in some way. I’m fairly certain that WordPress will never actually read this, but it was cathartic to write and I hope it will be cathartic for someone else to read.

Sincerely, birb-ghost

[trulycertain]

Mum always tuts at me when I say I hate my country, because hey, we aren’t starving, we aren’t war-torn, we have rights for women, it’s not like this is Iraq...

Certainly, yes, and perspective is important, but smugness is dangerous. We currently have worse quality of life than the United States, we have one of the worst homelessness crises in the developed world, hate crimes are hugely on the rise, and we took in some of the least Syrian refugees in Europe. We’re somehow, remarkably, managing to be inhumane to those abroad and at home. 

Then there’s the whole Brexit stupidity, because people want to pretend we’re strong and independent when Britain has never been any such thing. Britain’s industries are dead and gutted, and even at their height, they relied on first colonialism and then imports. We are a tiny island with no industry and no empire; do people think that will magically change?

If Britain had nowhere left to go, we wouldn’t be having a crushing Conservative victory every fucking year. I wouldn’t have to go and work in a food bank that is more crowded than ever, and I wouldn’t have to watch people cry because benefits are harder to claim than they have been in years, or because they’re disabled and terrified and they’ve just been given bullshit fit-for-work status; I wouldn’t have to watch people who’ve worked here back-breakingly hard for ten years and have kids born here be afraid they’re going to get deported and that their kids will never see them again; I wouldn’t have to hear that a fellow volunteer’s friend has been put on a cheaper insulin because there are fears about medicine trade after Brexit; I wouldn’t have to watch people desperately wave their status paperwork in front of me because they’re afraid that without citizenship papers, they’re not entitled to a basic fucking human right like food; I wouldn’t have to take the odd cup of tea to the bloke who sleeps under the porch and offer him a sandwich and lie to the police who come and ask if we’ve had any rough sleepers so they can move him on. I wouldn’t have to listen to my boss crow that the Tories are just cleaning up the messes Labour made, that Donald Trump did nothing wrong and Hillary Clinton is evil, that halal meat directly funds ISIS terrorism. I wouldn’t have to realise the majority of my generation seems to have forgotten, or never learned, that the miners’ strikes ever happened. I wouldn’t throw away the Suns and the Mails left on tables, disgusted, because the vast majority of our news is bullshit right-wing propaganda. I wouldn’t have a friend who when reporting her rape to the police, after being lured to a false “party,” was told, “Why did you go home with him when you had a boyfriend?” I wouldn’t sit and cross out all the places we used to refer people to for debt counselling, for addiction help, for citizenship or homelessness crises, for benefit appeals, because we have to make a new list every two months due to all the closures and the lack of funding. There wouldn’t be four people begging just on my high street, twelve to a street in the city centre. I wouldn’t have to go to a memorial march because a man from my area froze to death alone on the street and wasn’t found for two fucking days. One in eight people in my city wouldn’t be homeless.

Sure, first-past-the-post voting has a hell of a lot to answer for, and without it, maybe we wouldn’t have such a fucked-up two-party system. But if this is genuinely what the majority of my country supports - policies of isolationism, benefits that are nigh-impossible to claim and degrading even if you’re doing everything that’s asked of you, the shutting down of immigration even from refugees, anti-homeless spikes, the selling off of council housing without building of new homes so that people in dire straits have nowhere to go... 

And sure, “but it’s not like people vote for all that! And people can be lied to! And you’re not accounting for propaganda’s influence! And people think the Tories are genuinely helping!” 

You know what I get from most Tories I know? “But money doesn’t magically come from nowhere.” Quite true. But weirdly, they’re too busy frothing at the mouth about “benefit scammers” and “halal meat terrorism” or “but my business will be affected!” to worry about tax evasion from companies like Amazon and Google, and tax-raising is “always a bad thing and taking your hard-earned money from you.” So where do they get the money from?

All it really means is that Tories are quite all right with denying money and resources to people so they and theirs can get it. All it really means is that Tories saw Grenfell and still thought voting pro-austerity was a conscionable decision. It’s always taken from “them” - the homeless, single mothers, ungrateful unions, ungrateful miners, ungrateful teachers, ungrateful junior doctors, immigrants, Muslims, the “not-really-disabled,” pretentious artists, LGBT people, “Zionists,” pick the flavour of the month, it’s always someone they don’t understand or give a shit about  - because “they” are bad and frauds and will destroy our country. Ask a Tory about this, and watch them shift uncomfortably and talk about “necessary tightening of the belt” and “the immigration crisis” and “the ringfenced NHS” (oh, aye, it is, but extending medicine patents and privatising it out from under us aren’t officially making spending cuts, and Tories just love loopholes) and try to avoid your point.

The best case scenario is that people voting are too fucking stupid to question right-wing propaganda that plays right into their prejudices, and the left are either being suppressed or not fucking turning up. The worst is that this result is pretty true to life. And if all that’s what the majority of my country stands for - if that’s what they think is a necessary evil, if they think others don’t deserve basic rights and humanity -

then yes, I fucking hate my country. I hate a majority of the British people. I’m disgusted with them and I’m disgusted with this place. The British public are fucking idiots, and “the turkeys have voted for Christmas.”

[hyperfixation-stations]

Alright y’all I gotta give my two cents on the whole Michael in the Bathroom parody at the Tony Awards.

So little bit of background during the Tonys on Sunday James Corden along with the previous years hosts Sara Barielles and Josh Groban talking about the nervousness that comes with being a host to a major awards show. The awards did not credit the composer Joe Iconis and people lost their minds over it. This is something the show does every year and generally people don’t have an issue with it

So first things first the song was a parody which means legally they do not have to credit to the original artist explictly and it’s kind of a given thing that you don’t really mention the original source work in the parody. Should they have given credit definitely, did they really do anything wrong though no. In this case I imagine because the show is relatively well known, this song in particular, they believed that it was common knowledge and it was supposed to be a fun joke and nod to the show.

You also have to take account that this a live televised broadcast with little bits that may have been pre-corded for the sake of time or convinence. This means that they could have originally intended to put up credit and something happened and it didn’t go up, especially if it was automated to go at a previously set time.

I also see people complaining that Be More Chill should have performed instead and wanted to perform, but were told no due to time constraints and were also not willing to pay 200k to perform on the show. There’s a very good chance that this parody has been in the works for way before they decide the nominees for the season and considering that they probably had to pay Barielles and Groban for that appearance it makes sense that they would go with the segment that’s already in the works and had performers secured. Be More Chill also wasn’t really nominated for any major awards and every show that performed was up for a major nomination and I’m sure that also contributed to who they wanted to perform. Also to those who are saying they made a joke about anxiety I can probably guarantee you that they they are not. The song was about hosts being nervous to host, and I imagine that there is definitely some real anxiety surrounding it (this is coming from someone with social anxiety).

Now here’s my biggest issue with the entire thing: the cast and creatives addressed this all on social media. This was something that should have been delt with in private, and should not have become such a public thing. There is so much behind the scenes stuff that goes on, that you should probably talk to those in charge before taking it out on social media. Especially because it takes a little bit away and overshadows the shows and actors that won awards, considering how heavily this is being talked about. Not to mention that Joe Iconis and Lauren Marcus posted something while Anis Mitchell was literally in the middle of giving her speech for winning best score, do you know how incredibly disrespectful that is. I don’t care how made you are, you wait for someone who is essentially your colleague to accept their award and make it to commercial break before making that kind of post. Also a large portion of the cast was passive aggressive and from what I’ve heard and see have called the shows and actors that won awards privalleged, the is incredibly undermining to the other shows which include a show written and produced by an all female team and a woman who an award that has a physical disability and is not very commonly represented in the media.

All in all this is not a good look for fans of the show and probably has alienated a lot of people, which is not great for a show that seems to be struggling financially. I get it, be mad and get angry, but there is a good way to do this and a bad. The entire situation really was poorly handled on both ends.

[pinkyiepumpkin]

Amino Rant

Don’t Use Art Amino

I’ve seen a lot of people get paid to endorse Amino on their Youtube channels, Instagram stories, etc. Amino has some cool features, such as the ability to join communities aligning with your interests and the ability to create your own “Amino”, but it’s severely lacking in structure and supervision, damaging the experience. For me personally, I’ve tried amino , gained a decent, yet small following (which does nothing), made a few friends (most of whom have left now), gotten featured (which meant little), more than I have ever achieved on any other site -- yet I hated every second of it. Why? Well there’s a few reasons.

Curators cause more issues than they solve.

You know how I said the Amino community mainly consists of over sensitive, melodramatic individuals? Well they let them run the app too. On an amino, any person can become a curator with approval, which means they immediately gain the powers to disable posts, shut down chats, and ban accounts. This sounds like a good idea in theory -- Amino curators can appoint other leaders so that the creators don’t have to invest in a massive amount of staff to monitor and conduct each individual Amino. But, when you appoint a ridiculous amount of curators, give them all the powers off a staff member with little supervision, and set no rules to hold them accountable for their actions, what happens? Pure chaos. Users who receive the power to be Curators get  a ridiculous superiority complex. It’s almost like making the “cool kids club”. These curators are rude, unprofessional, and ban-happy. I’ve seen whole chats shut down because one person was causing issues and the curators liked them (therefore didn’t want to ban their account). I’ve had curators disable my posts for a vague reason and completely ignore me when I ask for more clarification. I’ve seen people completely banned from the app because they simply disagreed with a popular user or a curator. By the way, there’s not even away to report curators. There’s not one set rule in the guidelines that tells you how to appeal an issue or report a curator -- they simply don’t care about their members. 

Your follower count means nothing.

On most websites, your following is important to the algorithm and how many people are able to find your account. Your followers see your posts because they chose to, your page grows, and you get more interactions with your posts which in turn increases your chance of showing up in other people’s recommended feeds. This doesn’t happen on Amino. The site opens onto the featured page, so you instantly see curator-approved material before your own following feed. The layout of the amino itself is confusing and crowded, and it actually took me a while to realize i could even access my following feed. Even then, most users don’t even bother with it. Instead, they usually remain on the featured page and the latest feed. Because of this, you may gain a large following, but your followers will almost never see your post unless it gets featured. And you know how you get featured? By curator approval (and we all know how great they are). Even after being featured, it’s a one time dose of five minutes of fame before you return to no one seeing your posts and no one interacting with them. The majority of your likes will come from random people seeing it on the recent page before it immediately disappears underneath hundreds of other posts.

You’re not allowed to raise awareness for mental health.

Art is often an outlet for those with mental illness. It’s a coping mechanism, and artists can also find solace in knowing others are struggling just as they are. For some, letting out their frustrations and thoughts in healthy conversation with others who have had similar experiences is therapeutic and can even save some from falling deeper into despair. How ever, this is absolutely unquestionably unallowed on the art Amino. You are never, EVER allowed to mention depression, or suicide, or thoughts of self harm, even if you’re venting and reaching out for help and include a trigger warning. The Amino specifically states: “The following are strictly prohibited: In-depth discussions...on the topics of depression, self-harm, and suicide.” That’s right kids! Bottle up your feelings! Don’t share your struggles! And make sure to never, ever reach out for help because we WILL ban you!

Making your own Amino is nearly impossible.

Okay, so you’re probably like “Connie if you don’t like the rules, just make your own Amino!” Yeah right. The guidelines for being able to list your Amino publicly make it nearly impossible to get started. First, you have to download a separate app to create your Amino. Then, you have to create at least 10 posts. Next, you must have 15 members, which you must find without advertising on another amino because most of them have rules specifically against that. Then, you must appoint at least one other curator, and each of you have to spend at least 10 minutes on the app every. Single. Day. Your Amino also must be 4 days old. If you manage all this, you can finally submit it for others to see, that is IF Amino approves it. 

Amino has predators.

I haven’t personally experienced this, but I noticed a lot of parents complaining in the reviews that strangers are trying to bait children into sexually-explicit conversations and who knows what else. I don’t know what Amino is actively doing to combat this, since I haven’t seen them say anything about it themselves or address it. However I think it should be noted so that parents are aware of it, ESPECIALLY because I’ve seen a lot of youtubers endorse the app through paid promotions.

In conclusion, Amino sucks and you should use other art sharing sites instead.

For the record, these are things that I personally have experienced in the year I’ve used the app. Others may have had a more pleasant, or even a more negative experience. I’d like to know how your experience was!

https://rottenwebsites.miraheze.org/wiki/Amino_Apps     ←- website that talks about issues i missed/ didn't experience

[acehotel]

Interview with “Triple Threat” Hector Jones from Arts of Life

Hector Jones is an artist, illustrator and self-proclaimed “triple threat” with a love for drawing people, writing original songs with his band Van Go Gos and working on his first book, The Girl Who Lost Her Way. As part of Inside Job — a monthly artists’ series led by LAND Gallery’s Sophia Cosmadopoulos — Jones, an artist at Arts of Life, talks about thanking Tyler Perry, the importance of melting pots and letting disabled folks “live how they want to live.”

LAND Gallery and Arts of Life are both nonprofit art studios celebrating and supporting the work of adults living with intellectual disabilities.

Sophia Cosmadopoulos: Hi, would you like to introduce yourself?

Hector Jones: My name’s Hector, and I work at the Arts of Life out in Glenview, 1963 Johns Drive.

SC: When I first met you, you described yourself as a “triple threat.” Can you explain what you meant by that?

HJ: That means I work as a sketch artist, I am in the band called Van Go Gos and I am also working on a book called The Girl Who Lost Her Way.

SC: And which would you like to talk about first?

HJ: We can talk about my artwork first. My artwork is very cartoonish and I try to make it as real as possible, close to the person. And since I’m colorblind, I only see the world in black and white. I try to differ between the colors, but usually I only see the world in black or white.

SC: What is your favorite subject matter in your work?

HJ: I go off of people, sometimes famous, sometimes just people. But I love doing people.

SC: What it is about people that you love so much?

HJ: Just sometimes what their expressions are.

SC: Who are some of your favorite people to draw? HJ: Um, Denzel Washington, Salma Hayek, R. Kelly, Brian Austin Green. I drew Brian Austin Green in a dress one time.

SC: And what are the materials you like to use?

HJ: I like using pencil, I just mainly use pencil and then I will use pen also to do the outline. But I have done drawings in pen also.

SC: How many days a week do you go to Arts of Life?

HJ: It differs. I go two days a week mainly, but since I have four days off of work, I can go three days. I work at Walmart the other days.

SC: When did you first start going to Arts of Life?

HJ: I started there probably about four or five years ago. My mom found out about it and she got me into it because she was like, “Oh you like to draw, here’s something that you could do.”

SC: Can you describe the program?

HJ: It’s fun. On a daily basis you sit and draw and get to interact with a lot of artists and curators. Everyday they get in there and they do meditation, I stay out of that because I don’t want to do it. Then, people get to doing their paintings and drawings. We get to decide what art supplies we use, what the drawing is and how we like to do it.

SC: And what about your book?

HJ: Yeah. It’s fictional but it has to do with real life situations. I got to really thank Tyler Perry for that one because I want to show that even though a book can be non-fictional, real life situations can come out of it. I decided to write a book and you know, it’s about a girl from Bristol, Virginia, she wants to be a professional singer and a mom of two one day. But, she gets in a situation where she meets a 30-year-old singer, and she ends up having a baby by him. His mom and dad don’t know that his wife is a billion dollar stripper until the daughter ends up throwing the mom under the bus. I did the rough draft on it, I am rewriting it now.

SC: Woah, sounds like a wild story! And last but not least, tell me about your band.

HJ: I am a singer in the Van Go Gos. We did a music video about four years ago called “Get the Dinosaurs on the Phone!” The video got funded, because we had to get funding to do the studio time and video time. We had to do the video in two days. It was fun. We write all of our songs, we don’t do covers or anything, so we write all of our songs.

SC: Where did you come up with the title “Get the Dinosaurs on the Phone?”

HJ: I guess the dinosaurs were robbing the bank and nobody knows why, so we are trying to get them on the phone so they can tell us. We don’t ever get them on the phone, so we end up leaving them a message. Whoever’s writing the song comes up with the title. Of my songs on the album I’ve got “Tennessee,” “It’s Gonna Rain” and “Time Machine.”

SC: And you perform? HJ: Yeah, we have concerts every once in a while, some are down here in Chicago, some are in Evanston, the majority are out in Glenview.

SC: Now can you explain where we are and what the weekend has been like so far?

HJ: We are in the lobby of the Ace Hotel for the Art Against the Flow Summit. It’s been a good weekend, the people on the panel are great. Seeing all the artwork from all the different people on the panel has been great. The way they describe their artwork has been awesome. My favorite was Dr. Charles Smith, he spoke about how real his stuff was and he threw some throwback stuff in there about how he got his stuff from slavery and how we should be coming together as one big mixing, melting pot and not tearing each other down. But we seem to lose our tip on that, somewhere along the line, someone broke the tip off of that and we need to get it back and keep it, because where do you say we are as a worldwide community if we can’t stop killing each other and start helping each other out?  

SC: Yeah, I loved seeing you stand up and ask questions in the Q&A, you seem like a real advocate for your community. In general, how do you feel about the services the state provides for people with disabilities?

HJ: The state treats us like trash. Okay, they say two thousand dollars is enough for us to live on, they say we can have close to that or under that. They don’t want us to have it because they think it’s rich money. That is not a lot to live on. I am no millionaire from making that much, I am gonna use it for the right reasons. If I had a kid I would use it for the kid, I’d use it for my bills, I would use it for me, I would use it for my girlfriend, I would use it for us. It’s not that I am gonna go out and play with it, it’s not Monopoly. And they don’t think about that.

The state does not want disabled kids to live normal. Because, okay, let’s say a disabled person wants kids, they always talk about then how the disabled person is gonna lose their benefits. Or, you make over two thousand dollars in a month, you can’t have over two thousand dollars in your bank account. It’s unfair. Let a disabled person live how they want to live.

SC: And how do you feel about Arts of Life?

It’s where I get to express myself creatively, it’s where I get to work with wonderful coordinators, like Lexi, Vincent and Hilary. Even though they don’t want to take any credit, you know, they help me, they help me idea-wise and advice-wise, that’s where I give them the credit. Even though I am doing all the drawing and the coloring and everything else, they give me advice.

SC: Is there any last thing you want to add?

HJ: I am just a creative person that just wants to get himself out there. I do other things other than just work at a store, I am creative art-wise. If I do get my books published, look out for The Girl Who Lost Her Way and also Sleeping With The Homeless Man, which I am gonna be working on next. I do use word play in my book titles so if it seems a little awkward, it’s because I want you to think about it.

SC: And lastly, where do you see yourself in the future? What are your goals?

HJ: I want to have somebody else in my life, that we work together to have a substantial, official living to where we can make it and not have to worry about anything. I am not saying be rich but just to thrive on the thought of just being able to live.

SC: That’s a great goal, thank you Hector.

[thelittlepalmtree]

@markkzuccerberg and everyone else who blindly follows capitalism. Let’s have a little chit chat about small government. 

When I said small government was bad and cited Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman I was citing two of the most influential members of the modern conservative party. Milton Friedman’s philosophies Barry Goldwater which was basically the first Trump (the only reason he didn’t win the nomination was because the parties were not quite as democratic in the 70s). Now let’s take these concepts out of the historical context which reveals them to be blatantly anti progress and social justice and examine them as ideas. 

The modern conservative (let’s say libertarian as Rand was pro-union and pro-abortion and Friedman called himself a neo-liberal) believes that small-government is best because when government gets involved it messes things up. Rand would often say something about how it was wrong to force the majority onto the individual (I actually have a lot of complicated feelings for Ayn because her books really did influence me a lot as a writer). What this concept fails to understand is that without regulation there cannot be true competition. 

There’s a good documentary on netflix that explains this called Saving capitalism but I’ll give a brief summary of what I’m talking about. Right now we live in a world where a company cannot outright lie to you, and has to disclose any issues that might arise with their product. But without regulation you’d have companies constantly cutting corners and not telling you about it. “Well we could research our products” someone might argue. The thing is that without government agencies actually doing the research there wouldn’t really be any reliable information to go off of. What we’d have instead would be very similar to the Gilded Age when people were constantly sold faulty products with no accountability. 

I remember when I first read Atlas Shrugged Dagny (the main character) decides to build a transcontinental railroad after her brother and CEO kicked the only competing company out of Colorado. She decides to make it out of this special medal created by her friend and future lover Hank Rearden. People are concerned about the metal which is untested and Dagny says something along the lines of “If you don’t think it’s safe don’t ride our trains.” Even back when I loved those books that bothered the shit out of me. People didn’t have a choice, the Taggart company had kicked out the competition! Of course people were upset! 

Too often a similar situation happens with corporations in our world. Companies like Walmart will use underhanded means of keeping prices low. If you make $11 an hour you can’t be the ethical consumer you want to be (I’ve literally been there). You may be saying “well why were you only making $11 an hour why couldn’t you find a better job there must be something wrong with YOU” actually no, I was getting my degree and literally all the jobs open to me without a degree offered me less than $15/hr and I was looking for a job in child care specifically. I couldn’t find a single place that would hire me and pay more than $12/hr. For watching children. Do you want the person caring for, educating, feeding, and entertaining your child to be paid $12/hr (especially considering tuition at that daycare was $330 a week)? Regardless of your answer, I had no choice but to take a job that did not value the amount of work I was doing. Literally every job in the area was going to pay at the same rate. 

And here’s where I quote Karl Marx who (contrary to popular belief) was not some radical revolutionary but rather an economist who was merely reporting back based on his expertise. This quote is from Wage Labor and Capital. 

But the worker, whose only source of income is the sale of his labour-power, cannot leave the whole class of buyers, i.e., the capitalist class, unless he gives up his own existence. He does not belong to this or that capitalist, but to the capitalist class; and it is for him to find his man – i.e., to find a buyer in this capitalist class.

Marx, Karl. Wage Labour and Capital (Illustrated) (Kindle Locations 312-315). LeoPard Books India. Kindle Edition.

Capitalism was seen as a tool of feudal liberation. No longer did individuals belong to a noble lord. The reality was that nothing really had changed. True it is rare these days that someone can say “I belong to that person who lives in the nice house on the hill.” But the entire lower class does belong to the entire upper class. We may be able to choose who to work for but we can’t choose not to work. 

What does this really mean? It means that people with severe physical or mental disabilities will often live in poverty because they cannot work and cannot support themselves. It means that a woman who is being abused will stay with her abuser because she will be homeless otherwise. It means a child may stay in an abusive household because they will be homeless otherwise. It means people forgo taking their medicine because it has side effects that keep them from being able to work. It means people being stuck with medical bills because they took a job that gave them cancer because they had no other options. It means your kid getting the flu because my coworker couldn’t afford not to come into work. 

But the government does other things too. We think of capitalism as a merit-based system but how can it be that way if the government does not even the playing field? Things like copyright (which, to be fair, Ayn Rand did believe was the job of the government), and intellectual property laws keep people like writers, musicians, artists, etc in business. Regulations on every industry not only protect the consumer but protects people who do try to run ethical businesses and keep shoddy work from being passed off as the real deal (there’s a great episode of Rotten on Netflix about Chinese companies importing some sort of food product that was sub-par and hurting the industry in America) Without government assistance we wouldn’t have things like Railroads which were subsidized by the government. In the great depression agriculture was subsidized by the government in order to preserve the infrastructure (both physical and non-physical) that would develop into our current ability to produce food at an amazing rate. 

I am not saying capitalism is evil. It has given us a lot of great stuff, but it never existed in a laissez faire world. Small government is great when it means the King doesn’t have the right to take your pee for gunpowder (yes this did happen). But it’s not so great when it means Walmart can pay people so little that the town it’s in goes bankrupt because of all the assistance its employees needed. We need to balance government with capitalism. That doesn’t mean seizing the means of production, it means taxing the DeVoss family so we can all have the right to life (aka universal or single payer health insurance). 

I get that this was long and I didn’t cover everything I wanted to, but I urge you to read Wage Labor and Capital by Karl Marx, Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman, and The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. Another great one is  The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist is another great one about Slavery and Capitalism in America. I also urge you to read or watch Freakonomics or listen to their podcast (freakonomics raido). Or the documentary Saving Capitalism on Netflix. You can also look at this site for a little more information about wealth inequality in America. 

[whittlebaggett8]

Coping With War, Afghans Turns to Art and Books

Rubaba Mohammadi, 19, hardly ever appeared to suffer immediately from the long war in Afghanistan. Mohammadi may perhaps have born and lifted all through the war, but she never ever crossed an improvised explosive unit. She has under no circumstances been caught in the crossfire or an airstrike. But she utilised to stay home all working day lengthy on her individual. She’d look at her siblings going to faculty, graduating, attending weddings, and heading on vacations. Mohammadi was confined to her dwelling, not simply because she was wounded by a suicide bombing but simply because she was born partially paralyzed.

Mohammadi endured from neglect under the bodyweight of her disability, amid a turbulent and troubled Afghan society, until she wiped off her tears to decide up a colored pencil. In 2013, she developed her initially at any time painting applying her mouth.  

“I utilised to sense helpless and weak ahead of portray,” suggests Mohammadi, adding a smile. “That aged Rubaba is no extended here… I in no way believed I could rock the world with my art.”

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Rubaba Mohammadi, 19, paints at Rubaba Heart for Arts and Tradition in Kabul. Image Credit score Ezzatullah Mehrdad

In Afghanistan, chronic violence not only statements many life but also weighs major on the shoulders of the country’s youths. Disabled people are quite usually left driving. The war shatters everyday everyday living, and Afghanistan’s youths, disabled or not, have confined options.

To cope with the side outcomes of the war, educated folks, specifically youths, turn to arts and books to emotionally endure. In inventive performs, they look for to thrive in a place that has sunk into violence and misery over 4 a long time of relentless  violence.

“I started portray 5 several years in the past due to remaining left on my personal at home all the time,” Mohammadi, states, describing the journey of developing a vocation and a occupation in painting. “I couldn’t go anyplace, I couldn’t go college.”

Mohammadi gathered her braveness and dared to draw a vase complete of fruit, a portray that took her a year and a 50 % making use of her mouth. She threw absent her first drawing.

“I made use of to continue to be up late nights crying and wailing at God and asking Him why me,” she remembers. “Everyone seemed at my physical visual appearance, but no 1 saw what I have been going via at the corner of my household.”

But Mohammadi begun having fun with painting. Remaining house turned into a privilege, instead than a jail. She could concentrated on painting. “I really don’t know whether my father preferred me or not, but I am guaranteed my mother hardly ever appreciated me,” she claimed of the time just before she commenced drawing. Right after she commenced painting, Mohammadi became the pride of her family members. “My painting gained me the heart of my mother.”  

Mohammadi arrived out of the shadows and has held exhibitions in important art centers in Kabul. In Oct 2018, she held an exhibition at a present in Turkey for disabled artists, symbolizing an Afghanistan on a planet stage that offers her nothing in return. Mohammadi developed a job, track record, and profession out of a everyday living that usually seemed unfair to her.

She opened social media accounts and has connected with thousand of fans. Mohammadi is a celebrity. “I want to convey my desires, my feelings, and my planet by means of my portray,” says Mohammadi.

After 5 decades of painting, she marketed her functions and saved money to open a centre, named the Rubaba Center for Artwork and Lifestyle (RCAC), where by quite a few learners occur to study portray, general public talking, audio, and other handicrafts.

Learners along with Rubaba Mohammadi, in a blue headscarf, pose for a image at the Rubaba Middle for Arts and Tradition in Kabul. Image Credit score Ezzatullah Mehrdad

Mohammadi printed out organization cards: “President and founder of RCAC,” they study. She has a secretary who enrolls new college students and sets up her meetings. Each individual day, she wakes up in the heart that she operates, is effective and paints for two to eight hours, experiments English, and performs music.   

“It disappoints me that the governing administration does not support disabled people,” states Mohammadi, who wears a blue headscarf. “I want to establish a university and university for my fellow disabled men and women.”

Artwork is not the only device Afghan youths use to offer with the war and, extra, to thrive. In the past ten years of reconstruction, nevertheless the war carries on on, a new generation of guide addicts has grown up. Despite the fact that Afghanistan’s literacy price is as reduced as 38.2 %, educated Afghans examine regularly to emotionally survive.

“Book viewers have high self-self confidence,” says Dr. Jafar Ahmadi, an unbiased psychologist in Kabul. “The extra people today read through textbooks, the improved they are performing and primary their day-to-day life.”

Sohrab Sorosh, a author in Kabul, under no circumstances went to fight on the front lines for the army or the police, or the Taliban. Sorosh’s luck has not run out he’s prevented being caught in bomb blasts. But he suffers from the psychological toll of the war: “In the burdensome moments, e-book looking through is the best pastime.”

Born and lifted throughout the war, Sorosh had usually had a deep passion for guides. Back when he was young, curling up with guides was his hobby. “My uncle experienced two bins comprehensive of publications,” Sorosh recollects. “I study couple of of the publications, and I noticed primarily the photos in the publications. Properly, my siblings did not even see the photos.”

Sorosh graduated from sixth grade but could not proceed his schooling. Even so, he by no means stopped looking through. In late 2000s, Sorosh immersed himself in textbooks and commenced often borrowing from a library in Mazar-e-Sharif.

“[My writing] is the result of e book reading through,” says Sorosh, who landed a profession in journalism and crafting. Sorosh has become just one of the best narrative writers in the region. He functions with a properly-regarded newspaper and has drafted a small tale collection completely ready for publication.

Abdullah, 38, dropped out of university after eighth quality. He sells textbooks in the heart of Kabul. “Every evening, I read 10 web pages just before heading to bed,” suggests Abdullah, who goes without having a surname. “I experience interior peace by looking at guides immediately after a lengthy day in fast paced avenue selling guides.”

Abdullah sells books of every style, from novels to get-prosperous self-enable textbooks. His table shows translated edition of the ideal sellers, together with Michelle Obama’s Starting to be and John Kerry’s Each Day is Further.  

These Afghans who have tasted the sweetness of studying hope to transfer the practice to Afghanistan’s long run generations. A facet influence of the extended war has been the neglect of kids so lots of go without good education and learning and lots of absence the possibility to read fairy tales before heading to bed.

Abul Ali Payk, 65-yr-previous co-founder of Shirin Library, sits powering desk of Shirin Library in the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. Impression Credit history Ezzatullah Mehrdad.

When, in the west outskirts of Kabul city, schoolboys chased a dog close to the neighborhood and caught him in a ruined house’s garden. The boys tied a rope all over neck of the pet dog and hung him up. Abdul Ali Payk, a 65-calendar year-aged resident of the neighborhood, noticed the boys hanging the puppy. He rushed more than to help you save the puppy. 

“I definitely endure from the social inadequacy,” states Payk, who was a guide addict and employed to run a shadow month to month named Payk Melat in remote locations of Ghazni province through the war against the Soviets in 1980s.

Coronary heart broken and upset, Payk returned household, where by his daughter, Rabia Salihi, greeted him. Payk informed his daughter the tale and they made the decision to build a mini library for the neighborhood boys, named Shirin Library. Perhaps books could save Afghan youth from the cruelty and war all over them. The father built the library and his daughter campaigned to obtain publications to stock it.  

“The library is my lifestyle,” suggests Payk, laying down in the library. “If the library was not established, I would have a coronary heart attack.”

Ezzatullah Mehrdad is a freelance journalist based mostly in Kabul.

The post Coping With War, Afghans Turns to Art and Books appeared first on Defence Online.

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[discountggdbsneakers-blog]

Golden Goose Sneakers Portugal My 810 Successful endeavor Tips

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[nimblecivet]

Trans Guy Needing to Pay for Surgery -COMMISSIONS-

TL;DR: I’m a trans guy trying to save up for lower surgery. The approximated cost is $2,000. My family is excessively poor and unable to help financially. I’m also disabled and can’t work, but I do not receive benefits as I am still fighting to get them.

All information on commissioning me can be found on my DeviantArt (more examples of my art are on there) or on my tumblr art blog

So here’s the situation. I am twenty-three years old and an FtM transmasculine individual. I had top surgery back in 2015 and have been on testosterone (as of right now) for a total of 18 months. I’ve spent a long thinking about if I wanted to go through lower surgery, and if I did, what exactly I did and did not want from such a procedure. Many years passed and now I’m confident in saying that I do indeed this surgery to be who I truly am. I know what I want, I know what I don’t, and I know exactly who I’m going to go to for the procedure. However, like most seeking GRS, money is a big issue.

I’m waiting to hear back from the surgery office if my insurance will cover the full cost of surgery, but even if it does, my costs will still be around $2,000 for flights, transit, food, and lodgings. It may not be much to save up for someone who is able to work, but herein lies my other main issue. I am disabled. I have a number of acute and persistent mental health issues. I’ve been able to acquire temp work in the past, but the longest I’ve been able to hold out is about a month. And even then, when I chose to leave, it was after I had reached the end of my rope and had a break down. My therapist of six years is confident that I can apply and receive disability benefits, but that process is notoriously long and grueling. I’ve been at it for a year already, though people seem to report it taking around three years to finally be approved.

I’m lucky to be part of a loving and supporting family. They encourage me to continue on my journey towards my true, authentic self. They are unable to help at all with the financial aspect of my transition though, everyone in a similar state where we’re just barely able to hang on until the end of each month. The only reason I still make it every month is from the help of food stamps.

I feel bad if I just begged for donations and gave nothing but thanks in return. So I’m adamant about providing a service I CAN do in exchange for money. I am an art major and drawing has been my passion ever since I could pick up a pencil. I am a digital artist on my own time but have taken and will continue to take multiple college courses that focus on fine art and life drawing.

Examples of work from school:

Life Drawing (warning: contains nude models)

Oil Painting

If you want to help, but don't want to commission any art from me, I also have: A paypal pool & A Ko-Fi account

[shyheartkitty-blog]

Disable Text To Landline Service.

In the 1995-set motion picture 'Landline,' communication is hard enough without texting and Facebook. Emphasizes include efficiencies by Lonnie Holley, art-making with local artists, and pop-up talks that probe assumptions about imagination, artistic practice, and the role of the artist in contemporary culture. While teens of all ages get the phone to say hey there and chat with good friends, more youthful teens are less most likely to sign in with someone to discover where they are (81% vs. 91% of teenagers 14-17) or to coordinate conference somebody - 78% of 12-13 year-olds compared to 87% of 14-17 year-olds. The country is extremely open up to foreign financial investment, and its organisation environment ranks very first internationally in the World Bank's Operating 2017. Applicable features based upon the AT&T Landline Texting package purchased. When asked whether they ever use the web from their cell phones, 27% of mobile phone users replied yes. MMS messages (Multimedia Messaging Service) offer you the capability to send out photos, video, and audio through a text message. This app deals with iOS and Android devices, implying iPod touches and iPads are supported too. The function of teens' calls: Signaling your whereabouts. The amount you pay for Part D deductibles, copayments, and/or coinsurance differs by plan. IPlum brings powerful communication functions best to your smartphone at unbelievable low expense. Below are several frequently asked questions from our customers. The only variance in the average is among younger teens ages 12-13 who typically get or make 3 calls daily. All text are searchable and archived in your exchange server. Vonage Mobile uses your existing smart phone number to connect with other users to make totally free web phone calls, text messages, and video calls. And while SMS has traditionally been for personal use, people are utilizing text messaging for business more and more every day. If there is no answering service, the system will attempt to provide the message till the maximum variety of rings is reached, then will retry after 10 minutes, and again after 30 minutes. To A particle used to mark the following verb as an infinitive. landline texting to cell phone Another option is $10/month + $25 established fee and a proof of ownership (copy of a bill) and they will SMS allow your landline and provide an API that you can use to connect with the number along with other SMS features (Disclaimer: I work for Swift SMS Gateway) - Trevor Watson Dec 16 '15 at 20:33. These first-generation (1G) systems might support far more simultaneous calls however still utilized analog cellular innovation.

However, it does support several SIP accounts, call diversion, VoIP tunneling and file encryption, voicemail abilities, and IM. The UI is a little older than we 'd like. Text messages may be sent over a cellular network, or might also be sent via an Internet connection. Both the text message and action from Sprint are complimentary, and they do not count to your text plan. Property Supervisor Workflow- Text-Enabled Direct Dial Number. Now the business is expanding its service from individuals to the business sector, an underserved market that HeyWire's CEO Meredith Flynn-Ripley calls old. Upgraded short article on July 2 with quotes from both Frontier and ZipWhip. In the UK, text can be utilized to call emergency services just after signing up with the emergency situation SMS service. As noted earlier in this chapter, after texting, the most common method to call friends was calling by means of the cell phone. However, if you wish to move your company into phone functions galore, you'll discover it has robust offerings, albeit at a greater rate. A lot of businesses have developed years of equity in their landline numbers-their primary identities in the customer world. That is, they do not need to listen-- maybe at length-- to exactly what may be on the other individual's mind.) Again, future research study will be had to establish whether a sense of responsibility to give interlocutors a hearing is more a feature of contemporary eastern (instead of Western) cultural standards. American Personal Communications (APC), the very first GSM provider in America, offered the first text-messaging service in the United States. Keep in mind: Returning long-distance call utilizing Cox Voice Mail performance will result in Cox long-distance charges being assessed, consisting of calls made from consumers with Toll Constraints on their Cox account. Turn on the texting channel with their consumers, however don't need the complete business experience yet. COMPLIMENTARY calling and texting (SMS texts + MMS) in US & Canada with FREE telephone number. You accept get occasional updates and special deals for The New York Times's services and products. Users aren't restricted to who they interact with, either. Fifty-nine percent of boys send out or receive images, whereas 69% of women do this. Insect offers the type of features expected from a business-oriented phone system. Beth Steinberg, the chief individuals officer at the online insurance provider Zenefits, who previously operated at Electronic Arts, Facebook, and Nike, informed me, It's quite uncommon that a job candidate does not take a look at Glassdoor prior to they come in. Frequently, they bring it up in the interview.

Daniella Vitale, primary running officer and senior vice president of Barneys New york city, discusses innovation in style and the business of luxury retail. In the Bench Web Project survey, the most regularly offered reason teenagers get and send out text messages is to just say hello and chat." More than nine in ten teens (96%) say that they a minimum of sometimes text simply to state hello, and majority (51%) state they do this a number of times a day. At first, the majority of the jobs noted and reviewed were at tech business in Silicon Valley, but the site now has thirty-three million evaluations of more than seven hundred thousand companies in nearly 2 hundred nations. When connected to your Wi-Fi network, PhonePower likewise consists of an iPhone and Android Phone app so you can use your mobile phone or tablet to make calls.

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I Post, Therefore I Am (Please Follow Me)

I don’t keep track of how much time I spend on social media, but I know it adds up.

Before the internet, my creative progress was easily measured. I spent most of my day alone in my office, bringing ideas to life, or doing something ancillary that enabled my work—interviewing, filling out expense accounts, prospecting new jobs. In any case, something would be started or finished or added to. Something on my to-do list would be checked. Honest effort would be expended and I’d see the result.

Now, at the end of a work day—which never really ends until I scroll one last time thru the platforms, send an appropriately ironic goodnight Bitmoji to my son, and turn my cellphone face down on the night table—I sometimes strain to remember what I’ve accomplished during the previous hours.

With a lifetime of accomplishments as fuel, my star may be as bright as ever, but my universe has expanded to such an extent that keeping my head down and doing killer work is no longer an option—not if I want my stuff to be seen, not if I want further employment. And definitely not if I want to maintain my own self esteem.

We are all of us judged by the clicks we receive. By our Google rankings, our numbers of friends and followers; our hearts, wows and thumbs up—and our shares, most especially our shares: the hardest to come by and the most telling. To like is no investment. Even to love. But to share is to take someone else onto our own timeline, to truly support, yea, even to advertise for them. (Or to steal a little of their thunder.)

You might have a boffo blurb from The New York Times Book Review, a photo show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or a three-car garage courtesy of happy clients, but if you don’t get enough good customer reviews to trip Amazon’s algorithm, you’d better learn to be happy being the very best artist nobody’s ever heard of.

I post, therefore I am. Please follow me.

***

Before the internet, the media universe was very small.

It wasn’t hard to know which magazines, newspapers and television shows were the most popular and important, or which stories were making the most impact. All you had to do was step up to one of those iconic newsstands that, according to a Google search, once occupied more than 1,300 street corners across the great city of Manhattan, which itself was once the central axis of world communication. Compact and convenient, fashioned of plywood, each newsstand displayed a nearly identical collage of riotous photographs and screaming headlines, an ever-evolving portrayal of the American zeitgeist.

To be published in one of these titles, or in a book—or to appear on a television or radio show on one of the finite number of broadcast networks operating over the airwaves—was an obvious indication that your work, your talent, had been recognized and was valuable to the culture at large. Usually, it took years of dues, practice and salesmanship to break into one of these arenas, though a talented first-timer, given a little luck and the right rabbi, could land there, too.

In any case, you couldn’t just post something yourself. Which also meant you couldn’t publicize yourself, either—unless you wanted to hire a publicist. Or buy a lot of Xerox copies and an industrial stapler.

For the most part, the publicity part was up to the client, the news organization, the network, the studio—whoever paid for the work. As the creative, all you could do was hunker down and make the best product you could come up with. If it was really good, it got noticed. Or it didn’t. Whatever. Basically, I always believed that my every effort was created with only three people in mind. My subject, Myself and The Guy Who Authorizes the Checks.

Day to day, alone in my room, nobody else mattered.

***

Among the greatest guilty pleasures I’ve experienced during my forty-year career have been the several times I actually spotted people in the act of reading something I wrote. It’s happened on a beach. On a plane. At a newsstand, my piece on the cover, an actual reader’s nose buried in something I did. But I never—not for even one second—did I think about tapping the person on the shoulder and saying, “Hey! Look at me! I wrote that!”

Now I do it all the time.

According to Google, there are only 300 newsstands left in Manhattan. But there are so many outlets where one can publish, broadcast or otherwise exhibit one’s work or ideas that aggregating services are thriving. Even though I’m entering my fifth decade in the biz, when I receive my various emailed lists of best new stories, there are always publications (and writers) of whom I’ve never heard. And it’s a pretty good possibility they’ve never heard of me, either.

So now we post, we like, we share. We hope for shares back. We jump up and down: Hey! Look at me! I did that! And sometimes, even after months of labor, we swallow the bitter pill of indifference. Four impressions. One thumb up. One heart…from my mother. 

And then there’s the reach. Years ago, I wrote for a newspaper with a Sunday circulation of about one million—it seemed huge. Most major glossy magazines, up through the 2008 economic downturn, hovered at about 700,000. This past summer I wrote a sports story that got 200k likes in one hour. Remember the first time you went viral? Holy crap.

 ***

In some ways the internet is like an opiate. You use it and develop a tolerance. You need more and more to maintain. And even more to get high.  

Recently, I wrote a whole section for a major magazine. I was proud of the work. A Father’s Day special, it featured stories about some pretty special guys— the fathers of a trans woman and a multi-racial son, an American-Muslim man raising his son in difficult political times, and another dad with two severely disabled twenty-somethings. For reasons having to do with marketing strategy (something about wanting to sell actual magazines?), it wasn’t featured online.

Being a magazine devoted to men’s health,  a copy of the new issue was easily found at the local drugstore. Seeing it there on the shelf, stacked with the others like days of yore, I felt…weirdly unfulfilled. Even after buying the usual four copies.

So I went home, tore the pages out of one of the magazines, and photographed each of with my iPhone.

I post, therefore I am. Please, follow me?