#and then an author retweeted and assumed I don’t know that books are picked in advance

[beforeviolets]

bruh I just deleted threads

[alittlefrenchtree]

Is every media article that comes out instigated by an actor’s or studio’s pr teams? Or do some outlets monitor social media, etc, and report on some stuff just for clicks or whatever? I’ve always wondered about that.

(Disclaimer: I’m going to try to answer as best as I can but I obviously don’t know everything as I’m not some big entity in the media game) and I studied and work in France so I assume some things are slightly different in other countries and cultures).

No, they’re not behind every word said/written about their clients, especially not with big names like these. That might have been truer in the past to some extand, but with the numerous forms of media now and all the internet content, you can’t control everything. You mostly focus on the biggest medias or eventually niche media that have credibility or an aura in the specific audience you want to reach.I don’t know the sci-fi general fandom but I imagine they have reference medias/websites that are loved, popular and often read by that specific audience. In the context of Dune, it would be nice from their teams to, for example, do special or specific things for them even if they’re not as big as an Empire magazine for example.

Many smaller (and not smaller) medias will do things for the clicks or to sell. As much as they can’t control them, it’s not very hard to influence them. Some people who aren’t in the business might imagine that every person writing for media is a well formed journalist with a lot of time to investigate on the topic of their articles, when, in reality many content you read is written by interns or freelancers who work on several articles on 24 or 48 hours deadline, with a relative knowledge of the subject they’re working on and not a very big paycheck at the other end. It’s one of the reasons why these writers mostly depend on people providing the content because it’s easier and quicker. Let’s say teams what media to talk about Timmy and Zendaya as work buddies and bff. They’re not going to pick up their phone and call every editorial board and ask for articles to every one of them but they know every word said or written by Timmy is picked up by media (for clicks) and retweet, repost and reblog by fans. So they just have to make him say something nice about her and it’s on. Then you make sure Empire have a Timothée related question in the Zendaya itw (I’m sure Empire know what they’re doing and already planned to but I guess teams are still skating) and you’ve probably already made enough to encourage many many articles from casual ones just using the quotes as a headline to talk about the movie to the ones who are going to milk the thing to “Z & T are friendships goal” to “are they couple material?” like... Melty. (Is melty an international thing? If you know about Melty, you know what I’m talking about).

So they’re not investigate every word per se but... they kind of still do it in a way?

If every word isn’t investigate by teams, teams know about most of the words written about their clients, even by smaller medias. When I was working with the pr team of a publishing house (not a big one but not a tiny one either), we had a subscription that an app/website that was sending us every article written with the key words you subscribed to inside it. For us, key words were all the names of our collections and authors and all the titles of our books. For every mention of these, we received a transcription of the context (part of the articles, transcription of the radio things, etc.) and could choose to buy the whole article/transcription or not. So teams definitely know and are closely watching and adjusting as the things go.

I hope I answered your questions, Nonny! Thank you for trusting me enough to ask 😘

Wait, I might have partially not answer your question, hang on... (I’ll edit)

Well, I’m not sure actually. Feel free to tell me if I have like, answer to a completely different thing than you had in mind 😅

[fabulizemag]

Ain't I a woman: The speech that never happened.

New Post has been published on https://fabulizemag.com/aint-i-a-woman-the-speech-that-never-happened/

Ain't I a woman: The speech that never happened.

I originally wrote this article for Huffpost a couple of years ago but it is worth sharing again for Women’s History Month. The fact remains that white feminism has never included Black women and when given a chance they will erase us from all visible movements and important progress in history.

We are all guilty of reciting this poem as we know it in its current form. But what most don’t know is France Gage exaggerated Truth’s speech for reasons unknown. We can only assume Gage’s exaggerations are based on racism and the need to box Black women in stereotypes to fit their own personal narrative.

“What Frances Gage did to Sojourner Truth’s speech — and later, her image — was so much more deliberately sinister.”

Reflecting on Black History Month and anticipating Women’s History Month allows me time to reflect on some of my favorite heroes. I was on Twitter when an interesting tweet was retweeted into my timeline. At first, I thought I was reading it wrong — my heart suddenly stopped. I was feeling betrayed, ignorant and most of all naïve. Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I Woman” is purposely exaggerated.

But why?

“I first learned of the lie of ‘Ain’t I A Woman’ as an undergrad. One of my instructors, a professor of African-American studies and a Black woman mentioned it, offhand, near the end of class. It was like she dropped a bomb! We had so many questions that class accidentally carried over; folks were queuing at the door waiting for us to get the hell out!” explains Shafiqah Hudson, a freelance author from Philadelphia who also has a B.A. in Africana Studies.

"Ain't I A Woman?" was a White protofeminist's WILLFUL MISINTERPRETATION and belittling of Sojourner Truth's charisma and oratory gifts.

— Fiqah (@sassycrass) February 6, 2016

Say what?

“This was back before Internet resources were that comprehensive and Wikipedia hadn’t really become a go-to thing, so I headed to my campus library and picked up a biography. I skimmed it — no time to read another whole book but I was able to confirm that Truth was born and raised in New York and spoke Dutch before she spoke English. She probably would not have sounded like a former slave from the South and there are multiple accounts of her transcribed speech that were presented for publication by Francis Gage over a decade after it was given,” Hudson explains to me as she recalls being just as shocked as I was when this information was revealed.

Truth was born and raised in New York and her native language was Dutch, so the implication she spoke with a slave dialect is completely false.

The version we all have embraced is exaggerated, but why? What is the purpose? Was it intentional?

“Oh, it was absolutely intentional. Abolitionist (and friend of Truth’s) Marcus Robinson transcribed her speech as faithfully as he was able to, with minimal editorializing. (At the time, Francis Gage, a convention organizer, was seriously preoccupied with event management.) Robinson and others present during Sojourner Truth’s speech reported that she was warmly received and sincerely applauded when she finished speaking, which varies hugely from Gage’s first published account 12 years after the event.

Here’s the original speech:

Marcus Robinson — One of the most unique and interesting speeches of the convention was made by Sojourner Truth. It is impossible to transfer it to paper or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience. Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled, earnest gesture and listened to her strong and truthful tones. She came forward to the platform and addressing the President said with great simplicity: “May I say a few words?” Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded:

I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now.

As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart — why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, — for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble. I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right siI want to say a few words about this matter.

I am for woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart — why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, — for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold.

The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights, give it to her and you will feel better. de up again. The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him.

Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.

However, Francis Gage is responsible for the rendition that we have all recited in school and quoted faithfully.

“In my tweets, I described Frances Gage as a White protofeminist. She was concerned primarily with suffragist issues, which Black women at the time, so many of us then enslaved, had very little to gain from directly. Gage’s offense wasn’t limited to her absolutely atrocious rendering of Truth’s speech in what she must have believed was credibly authentic Southern African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Truth, who prided herself on how well she spoke English, her second language — had 5 children; Gage declared that she had said she had 13!. (Ascribing exceptional fecundity to Black people was and is a strategy used by racists to dehumanize us; the roots of the “welfare queen” go right on back to slavery.) Truth didn’t speak in detail about never being treated in a chivalrous manner. Finally, she didn’t refer to other Blacks as “niggers.” That was all Gage”.

Why would Gage intentionally change who Truth really was?

I asked Hudson what she thought and she replied, “Gage, ironically, did not view Truth as a woman — her concept of womanhood, like those of her suffragette compatriots, was intimately bound to Whiteness. A woman was White. period. Gage could accept that Truth was an extraordinary person, but she could not view her as an equal, and a sister. That would have required a complete overturn of her socialization. Because, like her contemporaries, she had a lot of unexamined race bigotry. A lot. Gage’s account, tellingly, centers her, not Truth. In a very “Anyway… back to me!” It’s not that different in tone from that awful White woman yoga class on xoJane.”

The attempts to water-down historical black pioneers are not just alarming but it leaves even more room for confusion. If we can’t trust our history books, who can we turn to in attempts to discover who we are? If you think that’s disturbing, check out this Dick Gregory video as he recalls the day Malcolm X was murdered and his explanation on why Alex Haley didn’t write Roots or Malcolm X himself.

12

[ponyregrets]

No One Told You Life Was Gonna Be This Way

Kabby social media AU, 3200 words, T

did u know that 1. it is @kane-and-griffin‘s birthday 2. she accidentally went viral for ranting about Friends and 3. once I start thinking about how A Thing (random example: Marcus Kane writing viral Friends tweets) would go down I cannot stop until I just write the thing

anyway happy birthday claire!!

Marcus Kane is, unfortunately, very familiar with the Nice Guy phenomenon.

It's an occupational hazard of writing science fiction, especially in the internet age; all he has to do is look for his most obnoxious fans, and he finds an unfortunately loud contingent of entitled mostly white men who believe that the world owes them women and happiness without any effort on their parts. It's something he tries to combat as much as possible, wherever he can, and he knows it works in some cases. For every reader who's turned against him for being an SJW cuck (whatever that means), he has another who's expressed appreciation for his opening them up to perspectives they hadn't considered and broadened their empathy and understanding.

That's what sci-fi should do, as far as Marcus is concerned. The heart of science fiction is acceptance and unity.

Which is why he tells Bellamy, "I need you to do one of those Twitter threads for me."

"For what?" Bellamy asks, wary. As Marcus's assistant, he seems to think his most important duty is talking Marcus out of interacting with social media. And he may be right.

"Ross Gellar."

It takes him a second. "The guy from Friends?" he finally asks.

"Yes. I want to explain to my followers why he's bad romantic lead and role model."

To his shock, the response is instant. "Okay."

"No arguments? No lecture on how that isn't what Twitter is for?"

"No, fuck Ross," he says. "What do you want to say? I'll make it happen."

Marcus clucks his tongue. "I'll write up a statement."

* Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Last week, while ill, I watched Friends on Netflix for the first time. So, a thread on friendship, romance, Joey Tribiani, and Ross Gellar.

O @o-so-cool reblogged Sometimes my brother's boss is pretty okay.

raven @queenreyesthefirst reblogged brb adding @kanemarcus to non-sucky white dude sci-fi authors and shipping him with @scalzi

Finn Collins @finnishfirst reblogged this is kind of interesting but way too hard on ross. he does a lot of good things! see thread

Bellamy @bradburybell reblogged this is not nearly hard enough on ross

Clarke Griffin @clarkegriffin reblogged Relevant to your interests @ark-abby

*

"So here's what I think happened," says Bellamy. He's brought Marcus a coffee without being prompted, so whatever it is must be bad.

Marcus takes a sip of the drink. "When?"

"With your Twitter rant."

"Ah. I assume there are a lot of protests from the louder, stupider portion of my fanbase about how I've allowed the liberal fake media destroy my mind and masculinity?"

"Yeah, there are some of those. But, uh--it went way past your fanbase."

"Excuse me?"

"This is your most retweeted post ever. Not even close. It's viral. You've got people fighting you, people telling you it's a revelation, and about a thousand new followers already. In the last day."

He frowns. "Is Friends really still that popular?"

"Apparently." He shrugs. "Clarke says you made Buzzfeed and a couple of the other aggregator sites too. She and Raven have been texting me updates. They think it's hilarious."

"What does that mean?"

"Honestly? I don't fucking know. I told you when you hired me I'm not actually good at this stuff. I tried to warn you."

"You did." He takes another sip of coffee. "So, what do you think happened?"

"My sister retweeted it, and she spends about ninety percent of her time thinking about her social media brand, so she's got a ton of followers. Then Raven picked it up from her, her tech friends got a hold of it, and after that--" He shrugs. "You got out of your niche and into broader Twitter, and I'm not going to be able to find anything useful in your notifications for weeks. It's all Ross/Joey shipping discourse. Clarke's words, not mine," he adds.

"Should I be concerned?"

"I don't know. I guess we'll find out if it actually sells more books. And Clarke thinks we should try to leverage it into more publicity, she's got an idea for that."

Marcus hasn't actually met most of Bellamy's friends, but he references them enough that he knows who they are. Octavia, sister, Raven, ex-girlfriend, Clarke, current girlfriend. He also knows that all of them are more familiar with social media than Bellamy is, so he's not surprised that he consulted them.

Mostly, though, he still can't believe anyone really cares about this.

"An idea to leverage the Friends discourse?"

Bellamy shrugs. "Apparently this fit into an ongoing conversation she's been having with her mother. Abby Griffin? She writes for Ark AV. She did that think-piece about what mainstream science fiction gets wrong about female characters."

"Ah," says Marcus. He remembers the article, which had been harsh but ultimately fair, and an interesting take, once he'd gotten over the initial hurt of being used in a not entirely positive light. "I didn't know that was Clarke's mother."

"Yeah, I figured I'd tell you later. Once I didn't think you were going to call her up and argue with her about how much better you've gotten."

"And now you don't think I will?"

"Honestly, I don't care. I just want to see you guys fight about Friends," he says. "That sounds awesome."

"So, you have no ulterior motives here. Just looking out for my best interests."

"Obviously."

"If she's Clarke's mother, I assume she's local? Or will I be fighting her on a podcast?"

"We were thinking Starbucks on Saturday. Caffeine and lots of witnesses."

Marcus finally lets himself open up Twitter, now that he's had enough coffee. He almost always has some notifications when he looks; he's a public figure with a passionate fanbase, he's used to people trying to talk to him on Twitter. That's why he has a Twitter in the first place. But the number of notifications has never been so high, not in his memory. And, as Bellamy said, it really is a lot of passionate Friends discourse, both for and against his opinions. It's an overwhelming amount of love, hate, and passion. Like discovering an entirely new world.

He thought he understood fandom, but apparently he has a long way to go.

"Starbucks would be fine," he tells Bellamy, a little faintly. "I'd enjoy that."

*

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus A lot of new followers today. Here are a few notes for you:

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus I am a published science fiction author. Those of you telling me to just write a book instead of many tweets, I have written many books.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus You can find the link to purchase them in my header.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus I have never claimed to be an expert on Friends. This was my first time watching, and these are my impressions based on one viewing.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus My opinion on the Friends canon does not invalidate yours. Yours is as valid as it ever was. But if you feel threatened, examine that.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus My ideas may have merit you're reluctant to fully accept because of your own perceptions of how things should be in relationships.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus If you followed me for more Friends content, please be aware this is an outlier. I usually talk about science fiction.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus On that note, would anyone like to discuss the Hugo Awards?

Masper @gogglesdonothing Replying to @kanemarcus ross/rachel is forever tho

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus and @gogglesdonothing I'll take that as a no.

Jonty @themediumgreen Replying to @kanemarcus and @gogglesdonothing I'm so sorry Mr. Kane just ignore him I want to talk about the Hugos tell me all your favorite winners do you like Chuck Tingle

Jonty @themediumgreen Replying to @gogglesdonothing I CAN'T TAKE YOU ANYWHERE

*

Marcus will admit he does not feel broadly prepared to seriously enter the Friends discourse. He is, after all, a neophyte. If there are scholarly works on Friends, he has not read them. If there's any academic discussion of these issues, he is not familiar with it. His knowledge is vague and still forming, but for some people, this show was a huge part of their development. It matters to them on a deep, personal level.

For him, it was a decent use of his time while he was sick and confined to his couch. He had a fever for most of the first season. He's not sure he's prepared to fight anyone about it. Based on his mentions, he has many, many fewer horses in this race than other people. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe his perspective as an outsider is valuable.

Or maybe he just wants the chance to sit down with Abby Griffin. Because instead of spending the past week either working on his next book or even familiarizing himself with Friends and the criticism surrounding it, he's mostly been researching Abby Griffin herself. He'd done it some after the first article Bellamy sent, curious to see her other work, but he'd been busy with a deadline and hadn't really had much time for that, had barely scratched the surface of this woman.

He doesn't have time for it now either, of course, but it's at least relevant to something in his life. And, as Bellamy and his friends have pointed out, this is at least good publicity. It's not a complete waste of time.

The Abby Griffin stalking might be a waste, but he can't help it. She's interesting. The pop-culture writing is, apparently, a side job, something she never intended to get seriously involved in. The website had been her husband's, and when he passed away, Abby and Clarke had taken over its upkeep, and Abby had started producing content when she had time. Given her full-time job is as the director of internal medicine at the hospital, he's frankly amazed she has as much time for content as she does.

And it's good content. She and Clarke have a weekly column where they discuss a movie they went to see together, and the female characters in science fiction piece was apparently part of a series. Her taste is good and her opinions are interesting, and by the time he's meeting her, he has one big question, and one only.

They get through introductions and are settled in at the table before he finally lets it out. "Honestly, I don't understand how you can like Ross."

She lets out a surprised laugh. "Excuse me?"

"Bellamy said he was looking forward to us fighting over Friends, but I have trouble believing you disagree with my opinion of Ross. I don't know what we'd be fighting about."

She smiles into her mug. He'd known she was beautiful from the picture he found on the hospital website, but it's different to see in person, and more awkward. Bellamy and Clarke are hanging out at their own table, pretending not to eavesdrop; it's not an ideal time to be caught staring. "I don't know what he told you, but I didn't disagree. It was an impressive rant. Well reasoned and accurate. I was more interested in discussing why you posted it and the reactions you got. I saw it wasn't popular among some of your readers."

"To say the least."

"One of the things I've been curious about since getting involved in online fandom is what counts as acceptable ways to interact, especially for those of us over thirty or so. I saw a lot of people asking why a heterosexual man in his late forties would care this much about Friends at all. As if that was the problem."

"Judging from the angry responses, plenty of heterosexual men are very invested in Friends. Although I'm not sure how old they are," he grants.

"Age is the biggest issue, in my experience. You'd been participating in an acceptable way, as a creator, but once you show yourself to be invested in Friends shipping--"

"I stepped into the wrong part of fandom."

"That's my thesis, yes."

He considers. "Am I on the record?"

"I'm not a reporter, Marcus," she says, sounding amused. "I'm not trying to trick you into saying something I can use against you. But if you'd like to officially be off the record, we can say that you are."

"My hope with that post was that it would make some of my readers rethink their attitudes towards women and romance. The number of responses I got to Valena's story in Bright Sky Morning that boiled down to her being wrong for not returning Pavel's feelings even though he'd been so devoted to her was--staggering. And depressing."

"Did your female readers appreciate it?"

"They did. Apparently Jin was a much more appealing partner."

Abby smiles. "I certainly thought so."

It's not his first time meeting a fan, of course, and she might not even be a fan, in the sense they're talking about. But she's read his work and has opinions on it, and that's always a little bit flattering. Especially when they align with his. "I'm glad. I was hoping he would be." He clears his throat. "So, you'd like to talk to me as a forty-eight-year-old man who publicly had opinions on shipping."

"And to get your thoughts on Monica and Chandler," she says, all innocence. "If you don't mind."

He can't help smiling himself. "Not at all. I'm all yours."

*

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Expanded my horizons this weekend with the High School Musical trilogy. A curious cultural phenomenon.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus I appreciated that Troy and Gabriela didn't go to the same college, but still stayed in the same general area.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus I still don't think the couple has much of a future, but in an unrealistic movie, I appreciated that nod to practicality.

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus Very disappointed about the last-minute attempt to cement Ryan's heterosexuality. Let children have LGBT role models.

Murphy @firstnameredacted Replying to @kanemarcus If you're seriously going to be talking about Disney movies from now on I'm unfollowing you, I don't give a shit about this

Marcus Kane @kanemarcus Replying to @kanemarcus and @firstnameredacted Please do.

*

"Look," says Bellamy, two months after the first Friends rant, "I'm not going to pretend I'm good with crushes, but it would be a lot easier to just ask Abby if she wants to get dinner off the record instead of coming up with new weird shit to have opinions about on Twitter every week."

"I assume the timing of this isn't a coincidence," Marcus says. He was just getting his coat on to go meet her.

"You've already got a standing coffee date. Turn it into a real date. I'm begging you."

"You don't enjoy my opinions on the High School Musical series?"

"I actually do, I'm just getting tired of blocking people. Also, I don't know if you're aware, but dating is awesome. You should try it."

"I appreciate your concern. You don't think it would be weird for you if your boss was dating your girlfriend's mother?"

"No weirder than whatever's actually happening right now. And don't even try to tell me you're not asking her out because you're worried about how it would affect me."

It does sound absurd, when he puts it like that. "No. That wasn't a major factor."

Bellamy rolls his eyes. "Just ask if she wants to come check out the Descendants franchise with you next weekend. Definitely a solid pickup line. Chicks dig it."

"The what?"

"It's like the spiritual successor to High School Musical. I'll send you a link. You should know this stuff if you're really going in on this."

"I should give you a raise."

"That too. Say hi to Abby for me."

It's not entirely accurate to say that he thinks about what Bellamy said as he walks over to his weekly meeting with Abby. Every time he walks to her favorite coffee shop near the hospital, he's thinking these same kinds of thoughts, so it's not really Bellamy's fault. He enjoys Abby's company company and would be happy to see more of her. He already knew that. But it's been a long time since he navigated anything like this.

If only Friends had prepared him for this kind of romance.

"Marcus," says Abby, giving him a smile when he sits down across from her. As usual, she's surrounded by papers, and he sometimes doubts that she'd even have time for a relationship. She does keep herself busy. "I enjoyed your meditations on High School Musical."

"I'm glad to hear it. Bellamy says it gave me a net loss of followers, but not as much of one as he thinks I deserved."

"I'm not surprised." She considers him. "I didn't mean for our friendship to hurt your career."

"I don't think it is. Plenty of people just read my books and never even find out I'm on Twitter. It's not a large percentage of sales. You're blaming yourself for the High School Musical tweets?" he adds, curious. They are her fault, broadly speaking, but he wasn't sure she knew.

"If you don't keep coming up with hot takes, we don't have much to talk about."

He laughs. "I hope we'd come up with something."

"I hope so too."

The conversation lags, but it's not a bad lag. It feels like she's given him an opening, and it's his job to figure out how to take advantage of it.

The easiest way would be to simply propose a dinner date, as Bellamy suggested. But he's never been good at simple.

"You know, you never told me your favorite relationship on Friends."

"I didn't?"

"No, we usually talk about my opinions."

She levels her gaze at him, considering. "Do you know what I think when I watch Friends now?"

"No."

"They're all so young. And don't get me wrong, I met my husband when we were young, and the two of us were happy, but--sometimes it worries me how much emphasis we put on meeting people early in life. The younger you are, the more romantic it is. And that's one kind of romance, but it's not everything. It makes me want to shake all these kids and tell them that life doesn't end at thirty, or forty, or fifty. You'll keep on meeting new people, and you can still be happy."

He lets himself reach for her hand, and relief floods him when she lets him take it, even turns it over so she can squeeze his fingers. "So your favorite relationship on Friends is the one Rachel has when she's forty-five and Ross is dead?" he teases.

"I hope you're not comparing my husband to Ross."

He has to laugh. "No. I would never."

Abby's smile is warm, and it's suddenly so easy to not be nervous at all. "Good. Because the rest of that was right."

"Good," he agrees. "I was hoping you'd say that."

*

Sky Crew Reviews @kaneandgriffin New list from @kanemarcus: top 10 YA sci-fi books for adults! Up next, top 10 adult sci-fi books for teens. Age is nothing but a number.

Murphy @firstnameredacted Replying to @kaneandgriffin I will pay you to stop

Bellamy @bradburybell Replying to @kaneandgriffin and @firstnameredacted when are you actually going to unfollow like you keep saying you will? asking for a friend

Murphy @firstnameredacted Replying to @kaneandgriffin, @firstnameredacted, and @bradburybell I keep hoping I'm going to come back and he'll be normal again

SJW Cuck @kanemarcus Replying to @kaneandgriffin, @firstnameredacted, and @bradburybell Don't hold your breath.

[creationtheatreoxford]

“How did you hear about the show” Or, what influences a marketing strategy.

When you buy a ticket or a workshop through our website, a little questionnaire asks how you found out about the event. There are a lot of options to choose; eflyers, our website, posters, letters, leaflets, listings, press – all of these are various strands of our marketing campaign.

It used to be that the majority of bookings were taken over the phone, where our Box Office team would ask each customer how they heard about it. Customers frequently tell you what’s prompted them to book at that moment as well, making it nice and easy to document.

(Full disclaimer: this is very much still an essential element of our Box Office. I, however, am lousy at asking. I promise now that I will endeavour to be better at it). 

However, the rise of technology (coupled with Creation not having a physical Box Office to book at) has seen a shift in booking patterns. In 2016, 58% of all transactions were put through over our website. Here, you can just choose not to answer this question, leaving us in the dark about why you booked.

Here at Creation, we often base our marketing on the idea that the average customer needs to be reminded of the show an average of five times before booking. The way they get reminded can be varied, from driving past a banner to seeing a Facebook ad, we keep nudging our audiences in as many ways as possible. With limited resources, we want to build the most efficient strategy - not knowing what prompted our audience to book makes this harder.

When assessing our sales casually in the office, we frequently end up using anecdotal evidence. A customer who lives in a village where we’ve just done a school’s drop books their family in for a Christmas show – we assume that hooray, schools drops work! When a Friend of Creation books online, we can assume it’s off the back of a newsletter or Friends Update.

This anecdotal evidence does end up shaping our marketing strategy. We know that we can reach a much wider audience over social media, and over the past few months have focused a lot more on developing our social media (read Arts Marketing: A Critique for more information). However, we don’t know whether we’re barking up the wrong tree. Certainly, with social media you can immediately see audiences react yet you have no idea whether that Like or Retweet translates to a sale. 

In the physical world, marketing through printed items like banners have their strengths - primarily which it allows artwork to be recognised by people on a daily basis (and surely driving past the words “A Christmas Carol” twice a day every day must have some subconscious impact). However over the past year, a lot of our banner campaigns in Oxford have been thwarted (including the one which was cut down from a Creation team member’s own fence). In Banbury, we’ve had more luck, though the local paper suggests that authorities will soon turn their scissors to banners too. 

What then is the next step?  

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to answer that little question.  If you book online, let us know how you heard about the show. Let us know which banner you saw, or where you picked up a leaflet from. If it’s a Facebook post, comment on it saying you’ve booked. If you really liked an eflyer we sent, reply to it and tell us (seriously, this makes our day!).

Promise to do this for me, and I promise to be better at asking those Box Office questions.

- Maddy