#and i took like 200 screenshots not an exaggeration. not all of them are good but the ones that are. well i want to post them

[jefferythejelly]

foolish as the march hare🐰🤎

[evenstevensranked]

#17: Season 3, Episode 18 - “Stevens’ Manor”

With the house to himself for the weekend, Louis decides to open up a bed and breakfast to afford a snowboarding trip for the gang! What could possibly go wrong?!

I’ve been meaning to tell you guys to ignore any typos in my reviews within the first day or so of them being posted. It takes a few read-throughs for me to catch any/all errors. 

That being said...

This episode opens with the subplot. Although, this is yet another one where the subplot and main plot work together super well. I’ve noticed that this is becoming a theme with these higher-ranked episodes. Huummm. 

It starts off with Ren spying on Ruby breaking up with some random guy Dexter. Her oh so serious, love of her life boyfriend of 4 days. Sounds about right. This show seriously nails how ridiculous middle school ~relationships~ truly are. Ruby is devastated, so Ren presents the idea of turning their upcoming weekend sleepover into girls night complete with nail polish, magazines and ice cream! Yeeee!

Ruby clearly shocked and offended by Dexter’s decision to end it. We don’t actually hear the conversation, so this exaggerated expression really gets the point across.

It cuts to Louis, Twitty, Tawny, and Tom (who I will refer to as “the gang” from this moment forward) discussing how badly they want to go snowboarding at some lodge. Tawny estimates that it’d cost around $200 per-person, and I mean, what 13-year-olds have that sort of money laying around? I’m a grown adult and I can’t even afford Starbucks on some days. So, yeah. To any sane person, the idea would be totally off the table and seem completely farfetched... But not to Louis Stevens!! He’s all “Oh, it’s no problem” as he runs to answer a call on the school’s payphone, which is the millionth thing that closet space next to the stairs has been used for. The call is from someone looking to book a reservation at Stevens’ Manor. I really hope that payphone has a different number than the school and that Louis didn’t give out Lawrence Jr. High’s number as the contact info for “Stevens’ Manor.” I can’t. 

He explains to the gang that Steve and Eileen are going away for their anniversary, Donnie has an away game, and Ren is sleeping at Ruby’s... which means he’s got la casa all to himself. Twitty asks how he’s gonna get his parents to actually let him stay home alone though... and like??? I know that Louis can get a little crazy, but does he really need a freaking babysitter or something? Actually, wait. What am I talking about?! He immediately seized the “home alone” opportunity to turn the house into a bed and breakfast. Here we go again with the give Louis Stevens an inch and he will take 100,000 miles trope, lol. His plan is to fake cry to Eileen about wanting to come with her and Steve and not wanting to stay alone, before deciding to be ~strong~ and stick it out. Steve even calls Louis a “soldier” for it, haha. Okay. Whatever works I guess! I’d like to point out this kinda ugly transition they do of Louis smirking about his plan, to the moment where he’s actually executing it. It’s so weird looking omg. 

That morph tho. I guess the editing job isn’t too bad for 2002... but dang, it’s just slightly unsettling to me lol. 

I like how this episode basically jumps right into the plot asap! We’re only two minutes in at this point and the BnB transformation is already underway! Eileen and Steve ultimately leave and trust Louis to man the fort of course, and the birth of Stevens’ Manor happens the second they’re out the door -- courtesy of a short montage. Louis must’ve been preparing for this bed and breakfast idea for a long while, just waiting around for the opportunity -- because he has shirts embroidered with a fancy “SM” ready to go for him and his friends to wear! He’s even set up the technology to accept credit cards. Louis Stevens does not play! 

The first guests arrive and I’m assuming it’s supposed to be a joke when Louis greets them “Welcome to Stevens’ Manor! You must be the Mannings!” lol. The Mannings are an older couple made up of a “fellow Lou” Louis and his wife Edna. This information is vital for later on. When they’re shown to their room, (which is Louis’ bedroom transformed into the “Lincoln Bedroom” lol) Edna says “This is even cozier than the pictures we saw on the internet!” WOW!!! Louis really did have this planned! He probably whipped out a www.stevensmanor.com domain for this. How did he rearrange and clean his room with enough time to take the photos, post them, and get hits on the website (in 2002, mind you) without his parents noticing though? That stuff took tiiiime back then. Not to mention cleaning that filthy room of his would require the help of a garbage company! Oh, well. That’s an irrelevant detail. I told you he’d been preparing for this moment! 

Where did he get that bust of Lincoln (see 2 photos up) and that painting too? I searched out of curiosity and found this near-exact bust which costs $850!!!!! That thing better be some cheap plastic knock off because something tells me Louis somehow spent more money on making the place look legit than he’ll ever make back from it lol. 

The next guest is a woman named Mrs. Colepepper. What is up with these writers and throwing the word “pepper” into last names? We already have Ryan Zellpepper and now we’ve got this lady lol. I also just realized that both of these characters are black... not that that means anything at all. It’s just randomly sort of interesting imo. 

The last main guests are a pair of twin teenage boys and their parents. Now, Even Stevens is good at not double casting people (a.k.a being weird and having the same actors play two or more different characters throughout the series and hope the audience doesn’t notice) -- But they messed up here and I gotta call it out!! They’re acting like this is the first time we’ve seen these twins, but they actually already made an appearance as LJH students back in Season 2! Their first appearance is literally sooo brief that only a weird superfan like me would notice, but yeah. 

The twins in this episode.

The twins in Season 2! We haven’t covered this episode yet so I feel really weird including a screenshot but.. lol. 

There’s this short scene where Louis introduces Tawny as the Manor’s “human jukebox” because apparently she’s a piano wiz and knows “all kinds of songs” (Also, where’d Louis get the grand piano?! haha) One of the twins sarcastically asks “Does she know ‘I hate it here, we should’ve gone to Hawaii’?” And Tawny adlibs a song “I hate it here, we should’ve gone to Hawaii, where they say Aloha and roast little piggies!” This one line always gets stuck in my head. Always. I’m tempted to continue writing additional lyrics just to give myself more to sing.

There’s also a fantastic bit here of Tom arguing with Mrs. Colepepper about the pulp in her orange juice. I can’t even explain it, all you have to know is that it’s amazing. Also, Louis tells the twins to check out the “Rec Room” and hands them two ping-pong paddles. They’re like “All you have is a ping-pong table?” and Louis says “Yeah... Well... I never said anything about a table. So.” IT ALWAYS GETS ME! It’s such a small line, but I love it. ALSO Beans is the BnB’s “licensed masseuse.” Right.  

At Ren and Ruby’s sleepover, Ruby gets a make up call from Dex and they talk on the phone all giggly for an hour and a half. Ren is fed up and decides to head home. Safe to say Ren was in for a surprise when Mrs. Colepepper was asleep in her bed... 

Louis tries to explain the situation to her and of course, Ren is vehemently against it until she sets her eyes on the ~gorgeous~ twins. As they’ve already stated -- The twins hate it there, so she catches them juuust as they’re about to check out. Ren literally referred to these guys by name in S2. They were some weird names like “Mosh and Stosh”?! lol, Smosh. But now she’s acting like it’s the first time she’s ever seen them in her life and it always bothered meeeeee. 

Something that kills me about this bit is when their father says “The boys just aren’t happy here. I kinda have to agree with them. Your kiddie pool hardly qualifies as an ‘aquatic center’ so...” -- LOUIS REALLY PUT “AQUATIC CENTER” as a selling point knowing that all he had was a kiddie pool.

Imagine showing up to a BnB where this is the advertised “aquatic center.” I am dying of laughter. First the nonexistent Rec Room, now this. I can just hear Gordon Ramsay ripping this place apart on an episode of Hotel Hell.

Ren immediately tries to persuade the twins to stay for obvious reasons by bribing them with lame board games, but they apparently reciprocate her attraction and decide to stay. The fictional board game they pick to play is The Organ Donor Game (sounds like a fun time???) and it’s so suggestive. Ren says “Ooo! You landed on my kidney. That’s gonna cost ya! No cheating and... Hands off my pancreas” in the most sultry voice ever. Like... WHAT?! The doorbell rings while they’re playing and it’s Ruby coming over to apologize, but she too decides to stay at the Stevens’ once she sees the twins. Wow. I love how a fan is always conveniently there to blow Ruby’s hair dramatically whenever she sees a guy she likes.  

It happened the moment she developed a crush on Louis, too. And, uh... Didn’t Ruby JUST GET BACK TOGETHER with Dexter like, an hour ago?  

Meanwhile, Beans is giving Louis Manning a massage by walking on his back in hiking boots??? Beans just further solidifying his place as “The Worst” in my heart. Old Louis (which is what I’ll call him now I guess) gets his back thrown out thanks to their wonderful, 8-year-old, obviously not licensed masseuse. This place is a lawsuit waiting to happen. 

Eileen decides to call home and check in with Louis, which creates one of my favorite situations everrrrrrr in the series. Y’all know I love when shows highlight the comedic side of miscommunication, and this is probably Even Stevens’ best stab at it. Edna is the one who answers Eileen’s call and all hell breaks loose when Eileen asks for Louis. “Louis hurt his back, he’s in a great deal of pain right now.” Edna explains. And Eileen says “You tell him I’ll be there in two hours and that I love him very much!!” Of course, Edna thinks Old Louis is cheating on her with some woman named Eileen and it’s great. 

Louis (Stevens lol) overhears the conversation and starts freaking out because how the hell are they gonna get all of the guests out of the house and revert it back to the way it was when it’s only midnight? That’s when Ren gets the brilliant idea (no seriously, it’s brilliant) to set all of the clocks forward to 7am checkout time! Oh my freaking god. Most of the guests have only been asleep for an hour or so, and suddenly they’re being told breakfast is ready. It’s absolutely hilarious! “Skies will be mostly... dark” Ren informs them of the days’ weather, omg. 

There’s no way they have enough time to serve everyone a full breakfast, so they shove all the food into a blender and give it to the guests as the “Deluxe Breakfast Combo To-Go!” Seriously, Gordon Ramsay would have a field day with this.

They pretty much scream at the guests to “move it!” and get outta the house at midnight while they’re all still in their pajama’s and disoriented. Even if it was 7am, this is some terrible service. At this point, I’d give Stevens’ Manor a generous zero stars on Yelp.  

Amazingly, they get everyone out with enough time to hustle and clean up the house before Steve and Eileen get back! *Whew!* Louis and Ren scramble to explain the whole Enda lady who answered the phone situation and claim that she’s the school nurse. Steve is so confused, “The school nurse made a house call in the middle of the night?!” Honestly, though. Suddenly Edna walks back in the front door “Excuse me, I forgot my umbrella.” Haha. That’s when she and Eileen have their final brush with miscommunication. Eileen is all “Thank you for taking care of Louis!” and Edna says “Well, let me tell you something, Eileen. I have dedicated my entire life to taking care of Louis, so let me give you a little warning... STAY AWAY FROM HIM!” 

Steve: “These school nurses are so protective...” 

Steve and Eileen decide to head upstairs and go to bed immediately, to Louis and Ren’s relief -- which actually made me realize something... Where do Steve and Eileen sleep?! From what we’ve seen of the upstairs it seems to only have a bathroom and Louis, Ren, and Donnie’s rooms! I’ve never seen space or a door for a third bedroom up there! Omg. Maybe they have a secret bedroom in a hidden attic or something? Hey! They had a giant secret cave underneath their house. It’s possible. 

The final minute bit of this episode is great. Steve and Eileen are watching some local news program and Mrs. Colepepper happens to be the host. She shares her experience at Stevens’ Manor and how she’ll never forget it in a strangely positive review segment. The best line is when she says “I don’t normally sleep through the night, but when my head hit the pillow -- the next thing I knew, it was morning!” HAHAHAHA. She makes a point to mention the “hip, young staff” and shows a picture of the gang (see cover photo.) And yeah. Steve blows a gasket. 

THE END!

This is a great episode. I mean, really. It’s super memorable, funny, and it’s an awesome episode for the cast as an ensemble. I cracked up countless times writing this review! It definitely gets a lot of “iconic” points for sure. I just personally prefer episodes that have more of a story to them and focus on the characters. As great as this episode is, it’s definitely one of those wacky plots that could only make sense in crazy Season 3. But I gotta give it to them... This is such a wild and elaborate plot, but they somehow make you believe that Louis could’ve actually pulled this off irl. I’m sure there were some impressionable kids out there who entertained the idea of doing something similar themselves, lol. I want y’all to know that #17 isn’t a “bad” spot by any means. I feel like I say this a lot, but at this point in the countdown, everything seriously is pretty much top notch. I’m simply arranging the best of the best in an order I hope is both personal and objective. It’s a difficult line to straddle, believe me.

To top off the review, I’ve added not one -- but two Stevens’ Manor designs to the Redbubble shop!! AYYYYYYYYY! I got carried away. I’m actually really excited about these, haha! Ya can now get the main “Stevens’ Manor” design and the employee logo design printed on whatevaaa you want. Doing these reproductions of things that exist within the shows’ universe is so fun. I’m really trying my best to get as close to the way they appear on screen as I possibly can (with my limited photoshop skillz)

They’re available in the shop now! Yay!

Thanks for reading!!

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[prorevenge]

Collectibles scammer now collects bad reviews.

This may get long but I will do my best to reign my ramble-y self in. (tl;dr at the end)

Names faces and some details have been changed to protect the innocent and prevent more harassment.

My little brother(in-law...known from here out as LB) told me about a decent sized FB group devoted to a type of collectible we are both into. I join the group and he tells me about this great deal he took part in. The group has sponsored vendors a.k.a. people who throw a few bucks at the group's mod and they get a shiny star saying everyone should trust them...keyword should.

That stated, LB tells me about a particular vendor who was running this deal..read scam. Another bit of pertinent info. These collectibles, there are common ones and rare ones. The rare ones are worth many times more than the commons and are generally available to the public. The company puts out the rares at a set ratio like 1 in 20 on the shelves will be a rare but for the same retail price as the commons. Although some store will grab it and jack the price up to make up for the price of the commons which don't sell as quickly. That all being said this vendor was offering a type of gamble, they would show a picture of a dozen or more of the collectible but with many more of the rares than would normally exist with that many commons. All you have to do is pay a price that is higher than the retail for the commons and you have way better odds at getting a rare one. My LB thought he was slick and got around 3-4 from the person playing the odds that he should get at least one rare for less than the book value/ebay cost. Immediately my bullshit meter goes off. Quick math says when all his merch sells (which they stated needs to happen before they ship anything out...odd)it goes for way under book value in a group of nothing but people marking things up to make an immediate profit. As in some of these collectibles come out and after costing around $15-20$ they get a day 1 book value of 200+...so there is some real profit to be made...but not this guy. Also, he is selling these deals to minors.

So, I go look up the post and the vendor, no exaggeration, sells out his stock in just under 30 mins of posting almost $2k worth of inventory. Seeing that I almost reconsider that I might have jumped to the wrong conclusion, thinking that a scammer would get called out really quickly in a community like this. So I posted a very polite question asking what proof we get that they ship out the rares and not just commons. Immediately they start giving me shit saying I am ruining the "good times" everyone is having with his "sale". Also, they have done this repeatedly and have sent out tons of rares I just have to search all the happy customers posting pics in the group. I'm now thinking shit I messed up. Off I go to look at all these pictures. Magically, there is only 1 pic of all the dozens of rares they claim to have sent out and wouldn't you just know it was the cheapest rare available at the moment. So now I know something's up and I'm pissed they took my LB's $$ for what will be effectively over priced commons when they sell for way under retail from multiple large sources.

Overnight things blow up on FB the vendor gets a buddy or two to start messaging me teling me the commons they got are great(wut?) and I need to fuck off and stop ruining the fun and good times for everyone...wtf? They kept using that as the main attack on me...apparently asking for what is promised is no fun for anyone. Asshole start then asking me to take down the questions I asked and then offers me a rare just to shut up and go away. I decline the offer then he tells me I need to take it down or the cops will be called and I will be removed form the group...that pushed me over the edge.

Now I was on a mission. So I start googling the company. First thing I find is a negative review that is buried by replies from the owner and his friends and partner. Slamming this kid for complaining about them charging a 30% re-shelfing fee for shipping him a damaged item in an undamaged box. Unluckily for the owner of this company I'm a stay-at-home Dad with odd hours of free time. I basically became a semi-pro reviewer in my free time. I have some special crap with Amazon because my reviews have been liked so often? They also sent me some kind of offer with Amazon Next Generation? So my reviews seem to hold some weight with them, Google too. I got in the beta of Google Guides. The service where you review anything and everything and get points, last time I checked I was lvl 7+ due to a couple bored slightly buzzed nights out and about leading to some stupid but popular reviews. Now that you all believe I am a big man of the interwebs.../s let me show you how I put those finger muscles to use.

Basically I just searched for everywhere you could review his company and didn't leave a negative review(1 star of course) but one with screen shots asking Hmm is this legt, what do you think? The majority of them blew up. Also contacted Amazon with the same screenshots asking if they were interested in knowing a vendor was self reviewing their own business w/o listing they are an owner (big no no on Amazon) and are running gambling offers to minors (another big no no in their particular state). Now I have the top half dozen posts when you Google this person's company, with almost daily replies of more and more people coming out of the woodwork calling this company out. Seventy-two hours later they are no longer on Amazon. Thier business had started out with a 4.75 start rating average, now it's 2... They did get me kicked from the group, but an alt account magically got the word and reviews out to the rest of the group, who's numbers have dropped post this. Wonder why. I am quite okay with not being in a scammer supported FB group TY.

Also I will update this later on today, as LB is suppose to be recieving his stuff, wonder what it will be....ha ha ha.

TL;DR - asshole tries to rip-off kids with a gambling scam, gets left a ton of bad reviews gets kicked off Amazon.

(source) (story by StendhalSyndrome)

[passionatefanfictionbka]

Chrianna Interlude: Trending

“Robs, come on. What is taking so long?” Noella exclaimed.

“I’m coming. Relax!”

  Rihanna scoffed as she turned to her laptop, “Babe, they in here trippin’”

Chris chuckled, “where y’all going, the parade isn’t until tomorrow right?”

“They wanna go shopping for some other stuff. I don’t even know why they rushing, it ain’t like the damn store is gonna close in ten minutes.”

Chris laughed, “you so rude.”

Rihanna shrugged her shoulders as she pulled a fitted over her blue hair. Chris squinted hard, “Baby Girl?”

“Yes?”

“Is that my hat?”

Rihanna took the hat off and stared at it for a few moments before placing it back on her head, “Nah, I don’t think so.”

“Robyn, look at me.”

Rihanna looked at the screen as she bit down on her lip, “huh?’

“Robyn Rihanna Brown, is that my hat?”

“Babe….”

“No. No. No. Why you keep doing this to me?”

“What?”

“Stealing all my shit. Every time I see you, you got something else of mine on. I’m surprised you haven’t stole my boxers.”

“Well...I wouldn’t exactly say-”

“Robyn….come on Baby Girl.”

“Chris, you got a million of these. It’s not like you’re gonna miss it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“So what is the point?”

“Stop stealing all my shit. It’d be different if you actually brought it back to my house.”

“Well if I do that then I can’t wear it again. Duh.”

“You know what? I can’t with you.”

Rihanna giggled, “besides it serves you right for being mean to me.”

“How was I mean to you?”

“You didn’t come to Barbados with me.”

“Baby Girl, you know why I didn’t.”

“Uh no I don’t.”

“Robyn, yes you do and we are not doing this.”

She stuck her tongue out at Chris and turned to face her vanity mirror, “ you always wanna be so serious, Christopher. Besides, as much as I think your reason for not coming is stupid, I respect it because I know where it’s coming from.”

“Why does it have to be stupid?”

“Because I don’t like it therefore it’s stupid.”

“Baby Girl what?”

“You heard what I said.”

“But if you were to give the same reason and I called it stupid, you’d call me an asshole.”

“No. A spoiled brat maybe but not an asshole.”

“So does that mean I can call you a spoiled brat?”

“I never said I wasn’t one. Doesn’t make your reason any less stupid.”

“I’m gonna pull a Rihanna and hang up on you, seriously.”

“You could but you won’t.”

“And why is that?”

“Then you won’t get a peek at my Grand Kadooment outfit.”

“The outfit you sent me a thousand fabric and stone choices to look at?”

“Yup”

“You think that’s enough for me not to hang up?”

“If you knew what it looked like, it’d be more than enough.”

Chris scoffed, “I’ll take my chances. I love you and be safe.”

“Chris, I’m serious. I’ma block you and everything.”

“No you won’t.”

“Ok, I won’t but still don’t hang up.”

“Baby Girl, I wanna take a nap and I’m tired of you calling my reasoning stupid.”

“But it is,” she whined.

 *Beep Beep*

 “This muthafucka really hung up on me,” she said to herself in disbelief.

Yellow Nigga: So…. you just gonna go outside like that without me?

Baby Girl: Yup. Should've been there 😜

Yellow Nigga: Don’t play with me, Robyn

Baby Girl: I’m not. I invited you but you decided not to come. Would’ve been worth your while as you can see

 Rihanna closed out her messaging app just as her phone started ringing with a FaceTime request. He was so predictable. She brushed some hair out of her eyes and slid over the answer bar, “Yes Christopher?”

‘Why you play so much?”

“What did I do?”

‘You know what you did.”

“Chris, I invited you to Crop Over. You didn’t think it was a good idea, I wasn’t about to force you.”

“But you knew you were wearing that.”

“So did you. You helped me pick it out.”

“All I saw were the fabrics and the stones and you know it.”

Rihanna laughed, “You mad?”

“No. Jealous a little but not mad.”

“What you jealous for? It’s yours.”

“But I didn’t get to see it firsthand.”

“Maybe next time you’ll come somewhere when I invite you.”

“All that attitude, you must want me to fly down there and correct it.”

“I don’t have an attitude. Just stating a fact. So what you doing?”

“About to have your notifications blowing up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re about to see.”

“Chris, I swear to God, you better not do something ignorant.”

“It’s not ignorant. You just about to have a comment section full of novels.”

“Babe….”

“What? I swear it’s not a big deal at least not to us.”

“Is it nasty?”

“Nope. I’ll save that for our text messages.”

Rihanna laughed, “so what are you about to do?”

“Comment on your picture.”

“Seriously? That is not gonna do anything.”

“Wanna bet?”

“How much?”

“200 and you gotta wear that outfit without the tights underneath when you get home.”

“Oooh you real confident.”

“You taking the bet or what?”

“I’ll take it and if I’m right, you also gotta get me a new purse.”

“Ok. Bet.”

“Bet.”

Chris scrolled through his timeline and clicked comment under the full body photo of Rihanna’s Kadooment outfit. Placing nothing but the eye emoji, he pressed send and left her page. A couple of minutes later, his phone rang and he slid over the answer bar. Two crisp hundred dollar bills were placed directly in the camera and he laughed, “Told you so.”

Rihanna groaned as her face filled his phone screen, “I really gotta give you this money?”

“Yup. Don’t worry, I’ll still buy you another purse. Just because I love you.”

“Babe, why are people like this?”

“Like you don’t know why.”

“Chris…but come on. Seriously, this is ridiculous.”

“Who you telling? I can’t do shit without people losing they damn minds and as funny as it is, it’s really pathetic.”

“I just- I really thought you were exaggerating. These muthafuckas are really writing paragraphs in my comments over a damn eye emoji.”

Chris laughed and shrugged his shoulders, “I’m used to it. They did the same thing when I told Mama Fenty Happy Birthday, like she ain’t my second mama. If you think your comments are bad, imagine all those blogs that were lurking as soon as I posted.”

“Ch...I ain’t bothering with their bullshit. Like I really wanna turn my comments off but that’ll just make it worse.”

“Yup. Damned if you, damned if you don’t.”

“Babe, this is crazy.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I know this has to be hard for you.”

“Hard for me? Why? I’m with you, this shit doesn’t phase me. It’s harder for them than it is for me. Hell they the ones carrying around all that anger and gotta sit at home banging on their keyboards complaining about something that’s completely out of their control. I laugh at it, it doesn’t do shit to me. “

“I guess you’re right.”

“Robyn, I know you worry about me especially when people bring up old shit every time I fucking breathe but I’m fine. What do I always tell you?”

“That you can handle it.”

“Exactly so let me handle it, Baby Girl. I got this. I’m good.”

“Ok. I guess.”

  They fell silent for a few moments before Chris burst out laughing, “Baby Girl, check your texts. I just sent a screenshot. This shit is wild.”

Rihanna furrowed her brow as she went to her text messages, “Baby, you have got to be kidding me.”

“I told you, this shit bothers them way more than bothers me.”

“Baby, this is beyond bothered. Sometimes I think I need new fans seriously because this is ridiculous.”

Chris chuckled, “Baby Girl, they aren’t worth the headache or the energy to be honest. What you up to later?”

“Family shit.”

“When you coming home?”

“Probably in a few days. Not sure. I know you wanna change the subject but this is still blowing my mind.”

“Want me to give you something else to focus on?”

“Depends. Does it involve a dick pic?”

“Do you want it to?”

“I’d prefer to see it in person but I can make due with a picture.”

“You know you nasty right?”

“You asked. I’m horny and slightly drunk. You should’ve know better.”

Chris laughed, “All jokes aside, you looked beautiful and I hope you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did. Next time, I really want you to come though.”

“You know I don’t like making promises so I will try and come next time. Good enough?”

“Are you gonna give me another answer?”

“Probably not.”

Rihanna pouted, “I guess it’ll have to do.”

“You know I love you right?”

“Yea.”

“Baby Girl, don’t look so sad. You making me feel bad.”

“I’m not trying to, it’s just- you know.”

“What’ll make you feel better right now?”

“Can you sing to me?”

“What you wanna hear?”

“I’m scared to say this but you pick.”

Chris laughed, “why you scared?”

“Because you be coming out of left field with stuff sometimes.”

“You have nothing to worry about. I’ll keep it clean.”

Rihanna giggled, “don’t be mad if I fall asleep though.”

“My voice is soothing, I know.”

“Uh...more like I’m drunk so…”

“Now I’m not singing for you.”

“No. Wait, I was just playing.”

Chris chuckled, “relax, I was joking. You good?”

“I’m great.”

“You love me?”

“With all my heart. Now sing me to sleep please.”

Chris smiled, “this normally goes better when you’re physically here.”

“That’s just because you like touching me.”

“True.”

Rihanna giggled, “Babe…”

“Ok, ok.”

[viralhottopics]

How technology gets us hooked

The Long Read: From a young age, humans love to press buttons that light up and make a noise. The thrill of positive feedback lies at the heart of addiction to gambling, games, and social media

Not long ago, I stepped into a lift on the 18th floor of a tall building in New York City. A young woman inside the lift was looking down at the top of her toddlers head with embarrassment as he looked at me and grinned. When I turned to push the ground-floor button, I saw that every button had already been pushed. Kids love pushing buttons, but they only push every button when the buttons light up. From a young age, humans are driven to learn, and learning involves getting as much feedback as possible from the immediate environment. The toddler who shared my elevator was grinning because feedback in the form of lights or sounds or any change in the state of the world is pleasurable.

But this quest for feedback doesnt end with childhood. In 2012, an ad agency in Belgium produced an outdoor campaign for a TV channel that quickly went viral. The campaigns producers placed a big red button on a pedestal in a quaint square in a sleepy town in Flanders. A big arrow hung above the button with a simple instruction: Push to add drama. You can see the glint in each persons eye as he or she approaches the button the same glint that came just before the toddler in my elevator raked his tiny hand across the panel of buttons.

Psychologists have long tried to understand how animals respond to different forms of feedback. In 1971, a psychologist named Michael Zeiler sat in his lab across from three hungry white carneaux pigeons. At this stage, the research programme focused on rats and pigeons, but it had lofty aims. Could the behaviour of lower-order animals teach governments how to encourage charity and discourage crime? Could entrepreneurs inspire overworked shift workers to find new meaning in their jobs? Could parents learn how to shape perfect children?

Before Zeiler could change the world, he had to work out the best way to deliver rewards. One option was to reward every desirable behaviour. Another was to reward those same desirable behaviours on an unpredictable schedule, creating some of the mystery that encourages people to buy lottery tickets. The pigeons had been raised in the lab, so they knew the drill. Each one waddled up to a small button and pecked persistently, hoping that the button would release a tray of Purina pigeon pellets. During some trials, Zeiler would programme the button so it delivered food every time the pigeons pecked; during others, he programmed the button so it delivered food only some of the time. Sometimes the pigeons would peck in vain, the button would turn red, and they would receive nothing.

When I first learned about Zeilers work, I expected the consistent schedule to work best. But thats not what happened at all. The results werent even close: the pigeons pecked almost twice as often when the reward wasnt guaranteed. Their brains, it turned out, were releasing far more dopamine when the reward was unexpected than when it was predictable. Zeiler had documented an important fact about positive feedback: that less is often more. His pigeons were drawn to the mystery of mixed feedback just as humans are attracted to the uncertainty of gambling.

Decades after Zeiler published his results, in 2012, a team of Facebook web developers prepared to unleash a similar feedback experiment on hundreds of millions of humans. The site already had 200 million users at the time a number that would triple over the next three years. The experiment took the form of a deceptively simple new feature called a like button.

Its hard to exaggerate how much the like button changed the psychology of Facebook use. What had begun as a passive way to track your friends lives was now deeply interactive, and with exactly the sort of unpredictable feedback that motivated Zeilers pigeons. Users were gambling every time they shared a photo, web link or status update. A post with zero likes wasnt just privately painful, but also a kind of public condemnation: either you didnt have enough online friends, or, worse still, your online friends werent impressed. Like pigeons, were more driven to seek feedback when it isnt guaranteed. Facebook was the first major social networking force to introduce the like button, but others now have similar functions. You can like and repost tweets on Twitter, pictures on Instagram, posts on Google+, columns on LinkedIn, and videos on YouTube.

The act of liking became the subject of etiquette debates. What did it mean to refrain from liking a friends post? If you liked every third post, was that an implicit condemnation of the other posts? Liking became a form of basic social support the online equivalent of laughing at a friends joke in public.

Web developer Rameet Chawla developed an app as a marketing exercise, but also a social experiment, to uncover the effect of the like button. When he launched it, Chawla posted this introduction on its homepage: People are addicted. We experience withdrawals. We are so driven by this drug, getting just one hit elicits truly peculiar reactions. Im talking about likes. Theyve inconspicuously emerged as the first digital drug to dominate our culture.

Chawlas app, called Lovematically, was designed to automatically like every picture that rolled through its users newsfeeds. It wasnt even necessary to impress them any more; any old post was good enough to inspire a like. Apart from enjoying the warm glow that comes from spreading good cheer, Chawla for the first three months, the apps only user also found that people reciprocated. They liked more of his photos, and he attracted an average of 30 new followers a day, a total of almost 3,000 followers during the trial period. On Valentines Day 2014, Chawla allowed 5,000 Instagram users to download a beta version of the app. After only two hours, Instagram shut down Lovematically for violating the social networks terms of use.

I knew way before launching it that it would get shut down by Instagram, Chawla said. Using drug terminology, you know, Instagram is the dealer and Im the new guy in the market giving away the drug for free.

Chawla was surprised, though, that it happened so quickly. Hed hoped for at least a week of use, but Instagram pounced immediately.

When I moved to the United States for postgraduate studies in 2004, online entertainment was limited. These were the days before Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube and Facebook was limited to students at Harvard. One evening, I stumbled on a game called Sign of the Zodiac (Zodiac for short) that demanded very little mental energy.

Zodiac was a simple online slot machine, much like the actual slot machines in casinos: you decided how much to wager, lazily clicked a button over and over again, and watched as the machine spat out wins and losses. At first, I played to relieve the stress of long days filled with too much thinking, but the brief ding that followed each small win, and the longer melody that followed each major win, hooked me fast. Eventually screenshots of the game would intrude on my day. Id picture five pink scorpions lining up for the games highest jackpot, followed by the jackpot melody that I can still conjure today. I had a minor behavioural addiction, and these were the sensory hangovers of the random, unpredictable feedback that followed each win.

My Zodiac addiction wasnt unusual. For 13 years, Natasha Dow Schll, a cultural anthropologist, studied gamblers and the machines that hook them. She collected descriptions of slot machines from gambling experts and current and former addicts, which included the following: Slots are the crack cocaine of gambling electronic morphine … the most virulent strain of gambling in the history of man Slots are the premier addiction delivery device.

These are sensationalised descriptions, but they capture how easily people become hooked on slot-machine gambling. I can relate, because I became addicted to a slots game that wasnt even doling out real money. The reinforcing sound of a win after the silence of several losses was enough for me.

In the US, banks are not allowed to handle online gambling winnings, which makes online gambling practically illegal. Very few companies are willing to fight the system, and the ones that do are quickly defeated. That sounds like a good thing, but free and legal games such as Sign of the Zodiac can also be dangerous. At casinos, the deck is stacked heavily against the player; on average the house has to win. But the house doesnt have to win in a game without money.

As David Goldhill, the chief executive officer of the Game Show Network, which also produces many online games, told me: Because were not restricted by having to pay real winnings, we can pay out $120 for every $100 played. No land-based casino could do that for more than a week without going out of business. As a result, the game can continue forever because the player never runs out of chips. I played Sign of the Zodiac for four years and rarely had to start a new game. I won roughly 95% of the time. The game only ended when I had to eat or sleep or attend class in the morning. And sometimes it didnt even end then.

Casinos win most of the time, but they have a clever way of convincing gamblers that the outcomes are reversed. Early slot machines were incredibly simple devices: the player pulled the machines arm to spin its three mechanical reels. If the centre of the reels displayed two or more of the same symbol when they stopped spinning, the player won a certain number of coins or credits. Today, slot machines allow gamblers to play multiple lines. Every time you play, youre more likely to win on at least one line, and the machine will celebrate with you by flashing bright lights and playing catchy tunes. If you play 15 lines, and you win on two of the lines, you make a net loss, and yet you enjoy the positive feedback that follows a win a type of win that Schll and other gambling experts call a loss disguised as a win.

Losses disguised as wins only matter because players dont classify them as losses they classify them as wins. This is what makes modern slot machines and modern casinos so dangerous. Like the little boy who hit every button in my lift, adults never really grow out of the thrill of attractive lights and sounds. If our brains convince us that were winning even when were actually losing, it becomes almost impossible to muster the self-control to stop playing.

Every time you play a slot machine it will celebrate with you by flashing bright lights and playing catchy tunes Photograph: imageBROKER/Rex/Shutterstock

The success of slot machines is measured by time on device. Since most players lose more money the longer they play, time on device is a useful proxy for profitability. Video-game designers use a similar measure, which captures how engaging and enjoyable their games are. The difference between casinos and video games is that many game designers are more concerned with making their games fun than with making buckets of money. Bennett Foddy, who teaches game design at New York Universitys Game Center, has created a number of successful free-to-play games, but each was a labour of love rather than a money-making vehicle.

Video games are governed by microscopic rules, Foddy says. When your mouse cursor moves over a particular box, text will pop up, or a sound will play. Designers use this sort of micro-feedback to keep players more engaged and more hooked in.

A game must obey these microscopic rules, because gamers are likely to stop playing a game that doesnt deliver a steady dose of small rewards that make sense given the games rules. Those rewards can be as subtle as a ding sound or a white flash whenever a character moves over a particular square. Those bits of micro-feedback need to follow the act almost immediately, because if theres a tight pairing in time between when I act and when something happens, then Ill think I was causing it.

The game Candy Crush Saga is a prime example. At its peak in 2013, the game generated more than $600,000 in revenue per day. To date, its developer, King, has earned around $2.5 billion from the game. Somewhere between half a billion and a billion people have downloaded Candy Crush Saga on their smartphones or through Facebook. Most of those players are women, which is unusual for a blockbuster.

Its hard to understand the games colossal success when you see how straightforward it is. Players aim to create lines of three or more of the same candy by swiping candies left, right, up, and down. Candies are crushed they disappear when you form these matching lines, and the candies above them drop down to take their place. The game ends when the screen fills with candies that cannot be matched. Foddy told me that it wasnt the rules that made the game a success it was juice. Juice refers to the games surface feedback. It isnt essential to the game, but its essential to the games success. Without juice, the game loses its charm.

Novice game designers often forget to add juice, Foddy said. If a character in your game runs through the grass, the grass should bend as he runs through it. It tells you that the grass is real and that the character and grass are in the same world. When you form a line in Candy Crush Saga, a reinforcing sound plays, the score associated with that line flashes brightly, and sometimes you hear words of praise intoned by a hidden, deep-voiced narrator.

Juice amplifies feedback, but its also designed to unite the real world and the gaming world. The most powerful vehicle for juice must surely be virtual reality (VR) technology, which is still in its infancy. VR places the user in an immersive environment, which the user navigates as she might the real world. Advanced VR also introduces multisensory feedback, including touch, hearing and smell.

In a podcast last year, the author and sports columnist Bill Simmons spoke to billionaire investor Chris Sacca, an early Google employee and Twitter investor, about his experience with VR. Im afraid for my kids, a little bit, Simmons said. I do wonder if this VR world you dive into is almost superior to the actual world youre in. Instead of having human interactions, I can just go into this VR world and do VR things and thats gonna be my life.

Sacca shared Simmons concerns. One of the things thats interesting about technology is that the improvement in resolution and sound modelling and responsiveness is outpacing our own physiological development, Sacca said. You can watch some early videos where you are on top of a skyscraper, and your body will not let you step forward. Your body is convinced that that is the side of the skyscraper. Thats not even a super immersive VR platform. So we have some crazy days ahead of us.

Until recently, most people thought of VR as a tool for gaming, but that changed when Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $2bn in 2014. Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg had big ideas for the Oculus Rift gaming headset that went far beyond games. This is just the start, Zuckerberg said. After games, were going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court-side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face just by putting goggles in your home. VR no longer dwelled on the fringes. One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people, said Zuckerberg.

In October 2015, the New York Times shipped a small cardboard VR viewer with its Sunday paper. Paired with a smartphone, the Google Cardboard viewer streamed VR content, including documentaries on North Korea, Syrian refugees, and a vigil following the Paris terror attacks. Instead of sitting through 45 seconds on the news of someone walking around and explaining how terrible it is, you are actively becoming a participant in the story that you are viewing, said Christian Stephen, a producer of one of the VR documentaries.

Despite the promise of VR, it also poses great risks. Jeremy Bailenson, a professor of communication at Stanfords Virtual Reality Interaction Lab, worries that the Oculus Rift will damage how people interact with the world. Am I terrified of the world where anyone can create really horrible experiences? Yes, it does worry me. I worry what happens when a violent video game feels like murder. And when pornography feels like sex. How does that change the way humans interact, function as a society?

When it matures, VR will allow us to spend time with anyone in any location doing whatever we like for as long as we like. That sort of boundless pleasure sounds wonderful, but it has the capacity to devalue face-to-face interactions. Why live in the real world with real, flawed people when you can live in a perfect world that feels just as real? Wielded by game designers, it might prove to be a vehicle for the latest in a series of escalating behavioural addictions.

Some experiences are designed to be addictive for the sake of ensnaring hapless consumers, but others happen to be addictive though they are primarily designed to be fun or engaging. The line that separates these is very thin; to a large extent the difference rests on the intention of the designer.

When Nintendos superstar game designer Shigeru Miyamoto created Super Mario Bros, his primary aim was to make a game that he himself enjoyed playing. Thats the point, he said, not to make something sell, something very popular, but to love something, and make something that we creators can love. Its the very core feeling we should have in making games.

When you compare Super Mario Bros regularly voted by game designers as one of the greatest games ever to others on the market, it is easy to recognise the difference in intention.

Adam Saltsman, who produced an acclaimed indie game called Canabalt in 2009, has written extensively about the ethics of game design. Many of the predatory games of the past five years use whats known as an energy system, Saltsman said. Youre allowed to play the game for five minutes, and then you artificially run out of stuff to do. The game will send you an email in, say, four hours when you can start playing again. I told Saltsman that the system sounded pretty good to me it forces gamers to take breaks and encourages kids to do their homework between gaming sessions. But thats where the predatory part comes in.

Super Mario Run was primarily designed by its creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, to be a game he enjoyed playing Photograph: PR

According to Saltsman: Game designers began to realise that players would pay $1 to shorten the wait time, or to increase the amount of energy their avatar would have once the four-hour rest period had passed. I came across this predatory device when playing a game called Trivia Crack. If you give the wrong answer several times, you run out of lives, and a dialogue screen gives you a choice: wait for an hour for more lives, or pay 99 cents to continue immediately. Many games hide these down-the-line charges. Theyre free, at first, but later you are forced to pay in-game fees to continue.

If you are minutes or even hours deep into the game, the last thing you want to do is admit defeat. You have so much to lose, and your aversion to that sense of loss compels you to feed the machine just one more time, over and over again. You start playing because you want to have fun, but you continue playing because you want to avoid feeling unhappy.

A game in which you always win is boring. It sounds appealing but it gets old fast. To some extent we all need losses and difficulties and challenges, because without them the thrill of success weakens gradually with each new victory. The hardship of the challenge is far more compelling than knowing you are going to succeed. This sense of hardship is an ingredient in many addictive experiences, including one of the most addictive games of all time: Tetris.

In 1984, Alexey Pajitnov was working at a computer lab at the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow. Many of the labs scientists worked on side projects, and Pajitnov began working on a video game. Pajitnov worked on Tetris for much longer than he planned because he couldnt stop playing the game. Eventually Pajitnov allowed his friends at the Academy of Science to play the game. Everyone who touched the game couldnt stop playing either.

His best friend, Vladimir Pokhilko, a former psychologist, remembered taking the game to his lab at the Moscow Medical Institute. Everybody stopped working. So I deleted it from every computer. Everyone went back to work, until a new version appeared in the lab.

Alexey Pajitnov, the inventor of Tetris Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features

Tetris spread from the Academy of Science to the rest of Moscow, and then on to the rest of Russia and eastern Europe. Two years later, in 1986, the game reached the west, but its big break came in 1991, when Nintendo signed a deal with Pajitnov. Every Game Boy would come with a free game cartridge that contained a redesigned version of Tetris.

That year I saved up and ultimately bought a Game Boy, which is how I came to play Tetris for the first time. It wasnt as glitzy as some of my other favourites, but I played for hours at a time. Nintendo was smart to include the game with their new portable console, because it was easy to learn and very difficult to abandon. I assumed that I would grow tired of Tetris, but sometimes I still play the game today, more than 25 years later. It has longevity because it grows with you. Its easy at first, but as your skills improve, the game gets more difficult. The pieces fall from the top of the screen more quickly, and you have less time to react than you did when you were a novice.

This escalation of difficulty is a critical hook that keeps the game engaging long after you have mastered its basic moves. Twenty-five years ago, a psychiatrist named Richard Haier showed that this progression is pleasurable because your brain becomes more efficient as you improve. Haier decided to watch as people mastered a video game, though he knew little about the cutting-edge world of gaming. In 1991 no one had heard of Tetris, he said in an interview a few years later. I went to the computer store to see what they had and the guy said, Here try this. Its just come in. Tetris was the perfect game, it was simple to learn, you had to practise to get good, and there was a good learning curve.

Haier bought some copies of Tetris for his lab and watched as his experimental subjects played the game. He did find neurological changes with experience parts of the brain thickened and brain activity declined, suggesting experts brains worked more efficiently but more relevant here, he found that his subjects relished playing the game. They signed up to play for 45 minutes a day, five days a week, for up to eight weeks. They came for the experiment (and the cash payment that came with participating), but stayed for the game.

One satisfying feature of the game is the sense that you are building something your efforts produce a pleasing tower of coloured bricks. You have the chaos coming as random pieces, and your job is to put them in order. The game allows you the brief thrill of seeing your completed lines flash before they disappear, leaving only your mistakes. So you begin again, and try to complete another line as the game speeds up and your fingers are forced to dance across the controls more quickly.

Mikhail Kulagin, Pajitnovs friend and a fellow programmer, remembers feeling a drive to fix his mistakes. Tetris is a game with a very strong negative motivation. You never see what you have done very well, and your mistakes are seen on the screen. You always want to correct them.

The sense of creating something that requires labour and effort and expertise is a major force behind addictive acts that might otherwise lose their sheen over time. It also highlights an insidious difference between substance addiction and behavioural addiction: where substance addictions are nakedly destructive, many behavioural addictions are quietly destructive acts wrapped in cloaks of creation. The illusion of progress will sustain you as you achieve high scores or acquire more followers or improve your skills, and so, if you want to stop, youll struggle ever harder against the drive to grow.

Some designers are very much against infinite format games, like Tetris, said Foddy, because theyre an abuse of a weakness in peoples motivational structures they wont be able to stop.

Humans find the sweet spot sandwiched between too easy and too difficult irresistible. Its the land of just-challenging-enough computer games, financial targets, work ambitions, social media objectives and fitness goals. It is in this sweet spot where the need to stop crumbles before obsessive goal-setting that addictive experiences live.

This is an adapted extract of Irresistible by Adam Alter, published on 2 March by The Bodley Head in the UK and Penguin Press in the US on 7 March

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