#any social media algorithm is showing me horrible things

[hestia-tunnnblr]

Wow, thanks, I needed this.🥹

There are not nearly enough “Izuku midoriya in denial” fics for me.

Katsuki has accepted and is trying to confess but Izuku won’t let him or constantly forces himself to only see what Katsuki says in a platonic way. Eventually Izuku is stressed and cornered. Katsuki tries confessing but Izuku childishly slams his palms over his ears — eyes squeezed shut. Katsuki is devastated and feels like Izuku must be burdened by his feelings so he just…stops trying to talk and his own eyes go cloudy while he fights back tears. Izuku can’t hear or see but somehow feels the air change around him.

He opens his eyes. He sees the person he cares most about with a hand clutched over his breaking heart and the other trying to wipe away the tears falling down his face — twisted into an expression so broken it’s something that Izuku can no longer ignore.

His own hands drop from his face to settle on quivering shoulders while he panics internally. He can feel blackwhip on the edges of his fingertips in a painful bid to be free of his iron will grasp on his own heart. It’s unceremoniously shoved back into that tight spot between his ribs that seems to ache with every uncontrolled hitch or sob in Katsuki’s breath while he tries desperately to understand what’s happened and how he can fix it unscathed.

Asking what’s wrong doesn’t seem to help and Katsuki only shakes harder and diggs deeper into his chest. His hands grow tight on the taller boys shoulders as Katsuki is able to scrape out the barest hint of his overwhelming feelings.

“Why won’t you let me? Are you angry with me now — disgusted? You let round face confess and gave her every bit of the kindness and compassion I know you have while rejecting her…don’t I deserve that too? The be able to speak and be spoken to? To love freely and hear an honest answer?”

“Will you not even look me in the eye so I can tell you the truth? That I love you?”

The thin thread of steel control that Izuku has been grasping to from that very first time he allowed himself to see, and love, and care, fully for the man in front of him snaps. Controlling that feeling has been the only way to keep blackwhip strangled and weak but the acknowledgment is paramount to the heavy door put on it with lock and key slamming open without mercy or thought.

Izuku suddenly let’s go of his companions shoulders to grasp desperately at his thin shirt — now covered in a foreboding inky blackness that seems intent on grasping something. Katsuki only has a moment of warning before he’s violently tugged straight to Izuku — their torsos knocking the air out of both of them in a rush. They’re both covered in strings of agitated looking tendrils that seem to tighten around them with every breath or unapproved move away from the other.

Izuku can feel the humiliation creep up his throat while his nose knocks into another. All he can see is twin red eyes that read to him as shocked. The blood finally reaches his face as he thrashes against the tight renforced hold that black whip — his own damn quirk!— has got them in. Quickly he ducks his head down and pulls at their restraint. He’s embarrassed and can’t choke out an apology fast enough.

“No!! I’m so sorry! I - I can’t make it stop — I don’t want you to hate me and I can’t even get control of my own quirk! God Kacchan please — !”

The tears are cold on his burning cheeks but there’s a soft hand to delicately wipe them away and gently pull Izuku’s face back into view. The other rests sweetly on his chest while Katsuki wears a unreadable look on his face. Their noses are close again and they can feel the breath the both let out unevenly.

Izuku’s eyes are wide and searching while Katsuki slides his hands over Izuku’s shoulders to clasp together around his neck. Katsuki’s head drops down in a thud against his collar bone while his own hands find themselves desperately grasping at his oldest friend’s school uniform. Not really caring about the creases he’s making his eyes squeeze out another tear or two before his head hits Katsuki’s collarbone in a mirror image.

They both take a moment to steady their breathing and hold each other like they’ve never been able to before.

Once they’ve both had their fill their heads pull up so they can meet eyes once more. Izuku feels a shutter come up his back as he croaks out a few words heavy with months of held back feeling.

“…you love me?”

Katsuki eyelids flutter and then pin Izuku with a fierce and determined expression.

“Yes. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you before you run away or make some lame excuse or fucking — put your hands over your ears?! Like a little kid?!”

He huffs petulantly and ironically child like in his own way. Izuku’s finally able to whisper out—

“…why?”

His eyes shoot wide as they take over Izuku’s face. He’s so lost for words he almost doesn’t hear the next confession.

“You — you don’t know me at all. You don’t know how selfish I am Kacchan…you haven’t seen me without you. I…I wanted Shigaraki dead when I saw what happened…it’s too much — and black whip! Just now didn’t even listen to me at all and just — took what I wanted! I don’t want you to be chained to someone so…so not worth your time Kacchan. You don’t deserve to be chained to my mistakes…my selfishness for you.”

“You don’t need such a burden to drag you down.”

Katsuki could only stare in disbelief that someone so forgiving, so loving, so kind could treat themselves so horrifically — could talk like that about themselves. It made his stomach turn watching Izuku fold more into himself with every nasty declaration of his own worthlessness. It fills him with so much anger he can’t help the venom in his voice when he replies.

“Who the hell do you think you are telling me what I can or can’t love?! It’s not your decision to make whether or not you’re a burden to me. As if I couldn’t handle you!”

[antimony-medusa]

Okay so, why do we tag things (on Ao3). Story hits you with a little summary and then a list of things that happen in it that's as long as your arm— why's that happening? So on Ao3, there are two reasons to tag things, and they both fit into how Ao3's search function works. You tag a story with "hurt no comfort", and "cyberpunk au" and that means that it shows up when people search "hurt no comfort" (the opt-in aspect of tagging culture), but it also does NOT show up when someone is searching "cyberpunk au" but has blocked "hurt no comfort" (the opt-out aspect of tagging culture).

Tags can serve as both an enticement, for people who want specifically that thing, and a warning, for people who might be like "you know actually I don't think I can handle that right now". And I sometimes see people who are used to the way other sites use tags hit Ao3, and they are NOT used to how the tagging culture works, and they either tag their work inappropriately, or they are freaked out by the way other people's work is tagged.

On most social media sites nowdays, you tag things for exposure. People follow or search certain tags, and if you tag your tiktok with #foryoupage, it's more likely to show up on people's For You Page. (I think, Tiktok is an arcane mystery to me). There are definitely tags that circulate your fandom that are there to lure people in who are searching for that tag, I know for sure that people search on "humans are space orcs", and I have searched for "Technoblade is autistic" and I know there are people searching for "Tommyinnit gets a hug", etc. Sort of positive tagging.

Anyways, I have seen people scrolling and then they hit something tagged with like, "rape/non-con", and then they go WHAT THE FUCK WHAT ALGORITHM IS ON THE GO HERE WHY AM I BEING SHOWN THAT.

But the thing is, there's no algorithm on the go here. Sometimes yes, people are tagging with a tag that you personally see as horrible and they mean it as an enticement (A) horny brain works in marvellous and non-logical ways, B) sometimes people want to read about the worst possible thing happening), but a very good portion of the time that tag is there as a warning and to make sure that if people have excluded that tag, they don't even have to see it. You can't rely on the algorithm to not show you things you don't want to see, you're responsible for excluding the stuff that you go "uh no" to from the search. But once you HAVE excluded it, poof. You will not see that shit.

The tag is there specifically to make sure that nobody has something triggering hits them when they're unprepared, just reading along happily and then boom, erotic cannibalism. That shit is supposed to be in the tags.

(The one exception to that is if the author has selected "choose not to warn", which you are supposed to take as a warning that it's alllll on the table. Buyer beware, there could be absolutely anything happening here, including major triggering content. So I know people who search with a bunch of excluded content, and they just exclude Choose Not To Warn as well.)

Anyways, people get used to the way other sites use tags, and not only do they not know why people are tagging with all these negative things, they get used to the shadowbans. If you mention [list of things tiktok hates], you won't show up when people search. So then they don't put any tags they figure are objectionable on the work.

This is EXTREMELY counterproductive to the way Ao3 actually works, because there is no algorithm or shadowban on Ao3. Anyone who's been there a long time has had the experience of searching something and then like the third hit is something where you go "I did not even know that was a kink, okay, life is a rich tapestry", which on any other site would have been shadowbanned so hard. Which means that yes, your post is going to show up in more searches, but actually that's a bad thing, because it's going to show up as a hit for people who would really prefer not to see that.

The whole idea of Ao3 tagging culture is that you can opt in to your experience when you choose to read, whether that means you're searching for the [bad thing] or blocking the [bad thing]. When you avoid tagging things, surprising people with things like underage sex when they have had every expectation to know that they avoided that, that's BAD.

Tagging lets you actually find the target audience of people who wants to read what you wrote, and it lets people who are going to be mad or hurt by your work stay away.

Anyways this is a really long-winded way to say TAG YOUR SHIT PLEASE.

[alittlefrenchtree]

I feel like a horrible person and terribly guilty because all the hatred and toxicity of these months have completely taken away my joy for these projects of Nick's and I know that it's not his fault and he can't pay the consequences, my rational side knows it very well but on the other hand I was too upset and every time something comes out about m&g or the other film I would like to be happy and hyped instead I feel frustrated and sad and they all got into my head convincing me that that guy isn't supported as it seems and that in the next few months they will all shift focus from him and don't care anymore about him or rwrb and I repeat I feel stupid and guilty and I'm so sorry seriously

I’m so sorry it took me so long to answer, but I wanted to do it at the right time and with the right words.

First and most of all, please don’t be so harsh on yourself. You don't owe anything to anyone, not even to Nick or Taylor. You only owe to be gentle to yourself.

I know it's easier said than done and that you probably know it already (and that social medias and algorithms don't help with the way they work) but I can only encourage you to stay away as much as possible of all the toxicity, even if it means only following a couple of people or no one at all, and (and it's much harder) even if it means unfollowing people you actually like but who spend too much time talking about and reporting the said toxicity.

It's ok not to be excited about something, even if it's something your fave is doing, for any and every reason. It's ok not to love or show support to everything your fave is doing, whatever some "fans" try to make you think. It's ok to just love RWRB and stay there if you want. It's ok to love them both but talk more about one than the other or to love only one as long as you stay respectful to both and to everybody. I don't know how to say this but "perfomative fans" are a thing. Like you said, and like performative activism, they get to your head and try to make you think that the only right way is their way. That everything has to be public and loud to matter when they're the one doing so little at best, and so much wrongs at worst.

If you're truly interested in m&g and tioy, I hope you'll find a way to peacefully watch and appreciate your moment even if it's not right away, at the release date. If you aren't, it's ok too. Unfollow, block and do whatever you need and focus on the content and the things you like.

There is really nothing to be sorry about. Just be kind to yourself 💜

[mariacallous]

Long gone are the days when fan fiction was treated as a guilty pleasure, exclusively consumed on a glowing iPad screen under the covers at night and never to be discussed outside of Tumblr. We’re living in an age where Supernatural star Misha Collins boasts about Dean/Castiel fanfic stats on Twitter, a Harry Styles fanfic on Wattpad has been adapted into a major movie franchise, and even Academy Award–winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao openly admits to writing fan fiction. The hobby has become a cultural phenomenon, referenced casually in shows like Euphoria, Only Murders in the Building, 13 Reasons Why, and Bob’s Burgers. And who could forget Archive of Our Own (more widely known as AO3) snagging that Hugo Award in 2019?

Born in 2009, AO3 is one of the biggest fan fiction sites today. It’s an open source, multi-fandom archive for transformative fanworks that, as of January 2023, is home to approximately 10.5 million works across over 55,000 fandoms, ranging from big names like Stranger Things and Marvel to the most niche corners of the internet you could imagine. AO3 is pretty much a household name now, at least for any Gen Z or millennial with some degree of online presence. And as fan fiction has become more mainstream, there’s also seemingly been a push by some users for AO3 to keep up technologically. More specifically, for the archive to function … well, more like TikTok. Picture a “for you” page greeting you as you log in to the archive. It automatically recommends your next fanfic to read, like an oh-so-helpful friend plucking a book off the shelf for you that they just know you’ll love.

Let’s be clear though: This idea isn’t going to see the light of day. “An algorithm is never going to happen,” Claudia Rebaza, a volunteer for AO3’s parent group, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), tells me outright. But the debate about whether AO3 should have an algorithm reveals what’s special about fan fiction and the importance of maintaining a space where creative works can just exist.

I get it. As someone born in 1997, it’s hard to remember a time before algorithms, rankings, and personalized recommendations. It feels like every place on the internet is trying to become more like TikTok, from Instagram with its Reels (until Kylie Jenner complained) to Twitter’s “for you” feed. For better or worse, the world today feels deeply online. When nearly every aspect of our lives feels optimized, it makes sense that some want fan fiction to keep up with the times too. 

But here’s the thing: AO3 isn’t social media. It’s simply a space that hosts an enormous collection of works. It’s basically a library on your phone. Being a nonprofit run entirely by volunteers distinguishes AO3 from other fan fiction sites like Wattpad, which is an entertainment company. “AO3 is designed to be an archive, not a social media site, and we’re a nonprofit that will also never run ads,” explains Rebaza. “So we’re not trying to make people spend more time on the site or make anything go viral.” 

Another aspect that sets the archive apart is its lax content policy. While the site still draws the line at some content—explicit material of real minors, flat-out plagiarism—nearly all fanworks are allowed. The only major requirement is that users must tag works containing rape/non-con, graphic violence, major character death, or underage content (alternatively, authors can simply tag “Creator Chose Not to Archive Warnings”). But as long as it’s properly tagged, it’s probably permitted “no matter how awful, repugnant, or badly spelled we may personally find that Content to be,” per the site’s terms of services.

It’s a policy that has been both praised and criticized. But one of the reasons for AO3’s hands-off philosophy is that fan fiction has historically faced a great deal of opposition and censorship. For instance, Fanfiction.net (FF.net), one of the first major fanfic sites on the web, banned all works based on anything by Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice after she reportedly threatened legal action. (The law as it pertains to fan fiction is murky, but OTW believes nonprofit, transformative works fall under “fair use.”) In 2002, FF.net began implementing a strict “no NC-17 content” policy. Then in 2012, the site famously deleted a large number of stories, presumably ones deemed too mature. The move was widely coined the FF.Net purge by fans, and it sparked concerns about potentially disproportionately affecting authors of slash (same-gender pairing fics).

AO3 is one of the few remaining places on the internet where you alone are responsible for curating the content you consume. You’re armed with only a search bar and the use of tags and filters, sent out into the Forbidden Forest to find whatever your heart desires. And sure, that may feel like a daunting task, especially if you’re used to the likes of TikTok. But part of the beauty of it being algorithmless is that you can hand-pick the works you’re looking for and also easily avoid content you don’t want to see. If AO3 were to implement an algorithm, it’s highly likely you would encounter a lot more content you would have otherwise filtered out, scrolled past, or simply just been blissfully unaware of.

An AO3 algorithm could present a problem not just for readers, but for creators as well. Harassment has long been an issue in fandom, but it feels more intense and intimate in the social media age. In the early 2000s, ship wars and heated discourse mostly lived within the confines of forums, under usernames that nobody would care enough about to track down. Now? Not so much. Hollie, a moderator for the 329,000-member group r/fanfiction on Reddit, tells me how she’s seen things change over the 15 years she’s been involved with fandom. “Fandom has become more clustered into a smaller number of spaces, rather than being able to easily separate into different groups. [So] people with very different interests and takes overlap,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong, there were ‘sporking’ (mocking fics) sites back in the day, as well as bullying and ship wars, but for the most part, people complained in their own groups about how terrible their rival ship was or how gross they found certain kinks or whatever. They didn’t usually go to the creators/shippers’ social media and fics to complain at them.” (Plus, if your fandom self is even slightly intertwined with your public persona, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you will at some point be harassed, threatened, or even doxxed over fictional characters.)

An algorithm would only further knock down these walls. If someone really dislikes a ship or trope for whatever reason, one might assume they would go out of their way to avoid such content by using tags and filters, or simply interact only with fans who have similar taste. But if the algorithm shows people something they hate, they might feel more inclined to engage with that content and go out of their way to make it known just how much they hate it. 

There’s something quietly beautiful about AO3 not making it easy for us to snap our fingers and have a personalized story recommendation fall into our laps. I’d liken browsing the archive to wandering into a bookstore, picking a novel off the shelf, and being pleasantly surprised by how good it is. Sure, you might head to a genre you know you enjoy or gravitate toward a familiar author or friend’s recommendation. But when it comes down to it, you picked the book. Maybe an algorithm would have found a story you liked just as much, maybe not. 

Algorithms and modern technology can be convenient for discovering new content and tailoring things to your personal taste, but they can also impose their own limits. Sure, streaming is great—but are we really taking advantage of this infinite amount of content if all we see is Netflix’s top 10 and Recommended for You tab? Or are we perhaps missing out on shows we would have enjoyed, if only we’d known about them before they were canceled after one season due to (supposedly) low viewership? Is the skill-based matchmaking algorithm used in multiplayer online games like Call of Duty actually helping us enjoy gameplay more? Or is it ruining video games altogether?

If you’re on TikTok, you’ve likely experienced seeing a video on your “for you” page that you never would have clicked on yourself. Sometimes it’s merely annoying (no, I’m really not into watching people eat that Pink Sauce); other times, it can be outright distressing. For instance, if you’re into cute cats, the algorithm might think you actually want to see a viral video mocking domestic abuse. Algorithms often lack the ability to distinguish tone, and they generally don’t account for triggers or content warnings. It’s like shelving Stephen King’s It in children’s fiction just because the characters are kids.

Safety and practicality issues aside, an algorithm would ultimately just plain suck the fun out of AO3. I don’t want to see only the biggest, most popular content. I want to live in the corner of my little niche fandom, enjoying whatever weird things I like regardless of how many views, kudos, or comments are involved. In a world dominated by algorithms, stats, and virality, let me have my fan fiction.

[jpchathamandfriends]

All right so I've been thinking a bit more about this. You know what might actually work? Crabs. Hear me out. Tagging @staff because I legit think this is a good idea.

First let's consider what people don't like about algorithms in social media feeds. Algorithms take away our feeling of control, turning us into passive consumers of whatever the algorithm chooses for us to see. They're inscrutable, choosing posts based on some occult machine learning model that either can't be comprehended by humans or is kept a jealously guarded secret. They usually are optimized to maximize things that can be measured, like clicks or time spent staring at something, instead of things that matter like enjoyment or dialogue. And they're really not that great at the end of the day, they tend to settle on showing someone the same sort of thing over and over again, and that thing tends toward nazism more often than it really should.

There are benefits to algorithms too! A few of them are beneficial to both users and corporate overlords, and many are beneficial to corporate overlords but hostile to users. With all the nonsense that the overlords of other social media sites are getting themselves into these days, it really makes sense that tumblr users are worried that our own overlords are going to mess things up unrecoverably. Fortunately the benefits in @staff's original post look beneficial to users as well, but a competent evil marketing genius could easily try and sneak something horrible in there too.

So here is my proposed solution!

Don't mess with our feeds at all. Our followers' posts should still come up chronologically like they always have. But, what if there were some algorithm bots that we could follow *if we wanted to*? We'd interact with them the same way we interact with user-created bots: follow them if we want, unfollow them if they get annoying. They'd put posts in our feeds. The user experience doesn't change, there's just more stuff there.

The reason I'm suggesting multiple bots is that I think they should be a) cute, b) comprehensible, and c) stupid. And, d) they should be tumblr crabs. Imagine: There are twenty or so crab bots out there. They all have names, and their profile pictures are the same pixelated crab emoji except all in different colors with a different hat or thing in their claw. But each one has a different algorithm. Maybe there's a green one named Sally The Crab and she has a flower. Her page is titled "I'll bring you pictures of landscapes!" and if I follow her, then whenever it's time for her post to show up on my feed, I get a photo that someone else recently posted, that has been somehow determined to be a landscape photo. Maybe Ivan The Crab shows me literally the most recent post that anyone posted to the site. Maybe Rodrigues The Crab randomly chooses a reblog of a random post that's at least 1 year old and has at least 1,000 reblogs, or Maureen The Crab shows me a random user's 10th post. Or, I can go to any of their pages, and I can see an entire blog full of whatever their specialty is. Or, I can choose not to follow any of them and my user experience remains unchanged.

But here are some very important notes:

- These bots choose different things for different people. When it comes time for Ivan The Crab to post to my feed, he chooses a post based on his algorithm. When Ivan posts to your feed, his algorithm will almost certainly choose a different post. When I go to Ivan's page, it will almost certainly not show me the post he put on my feed, or on yours. In this way, they don't behave like real users - they have the complete tumblr database and API available to them. This way, it's not like winning the lottery when a crab finds your post, and it's much more likely that a given post will end up in front of *someone*.

- I would still like a slider or something to control how often a crab posts to my feed. If I have my slider set to 1/30 posts (or whatever), then on the 30th post I see, one of the crabs I follow will run its algorithm and show me something. I probably won't use tumblr for the purpose of seeing what the crabs have to show me, I just want to see them stop by every once in a while. If I have my slider set to more than 0 crab posts but I'm not following any crabs, I should probably get an error message.

- The algorithms should be simple and comprehensible! "Algorithm" is a scary word these days. In popular culture it really does have connotations of a huge inscrutable neural network/ machine learning model that's trying to influence culture to some nefarious end. Don't do that. Maybe one or two crabs can try and guess posts that I might like based on my likes and/or reblogs, but I honestly probably won't follow those. Instead, go for something that's non-threatening, fun or interesting or a bit bizarre, and easy for someone who's not a coder to understand. It's all about the accessibility and the feeling of control.

- Crab posts should probably be marked specially, like the "Sponsored" or "Blazed" posts are. Just for maximum transparency. Tumblr users are scared of algorithms, and they're not entirely wrong to be scared of them since algorithms tend to destroy community and tumblr is all about community. Please be transparent.

- If I reblog a crab post, I don't think the reblog chain should show that. If someone likes one of my posts enough to reblog it, I don't really want to know whether they found it organically or from a crab putting it in their feed.

- Maybe new users should automatically start out following some crabs - either all of them or a curated selection. Maybe the curated selection should even include a very annoying one, so people are motivated to figure out how to use the unfollow feature early?

Anyway that's what I think :) 🦀

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[madfantasy]

I just wanted to say that we all care about you. I know most of the time life sucks, but please keep being strong. I'm sure even if it doesn't look like it right now things will get better ❤🌸❤

I believe in that, but it's not comforting to hear at the moment to be honest..

I'm embarrassed to have not deleted the post because I usually just type out my frustration and save them as a draft.. but I honestly feel I'm always pushed to the end of my wits nothing makes sense..

One step forward and three back.. I cried all day while starving, you can't do that if u don't want horrible headaches

It feels like I'm living— constantly and simultaneously 2 realities, where one I'm physically at consumes my living drive and the other trying to be here, and in my mind effortlessly keeping me in bliss just to hold on to the last bits of me, it now doing art.. I know if I stopped, there's no more Mani..

I remember being a teenager+ scattering the net for any remote jobs and applying behind guardians back but never getting anything because there was no such thing as online jobs in the Eastern world and everything was USA based or a scam, I fell into 2 scams even.

Now, I only have the energy strictly to draw, anything else will kill me, there's no other way around it and I'm tired of sugar coating it

also coming to know I am different and my perception of the world is different, more and more certain of it now. And it is why no matter the culture I was thrusted into, I could not adapt, gulf culture, Shami culture, western or the general English speaking online culture, I could only feel that I'm intruding. And it's okay only when your lifelyhood or income is not through them or forced through them.. so I suppose its not okay, and because I'm trying to be social and failing, maybe that's why I'm failing too as an artist, but can't deny such things as social media quirks, luck and algorithms..

Living an isolated life is to blame as well, thanks to a balanced mixed of poverty and abuse, the last crowd encounter was durring my schooling days, slowly seeing people's faces becoming an impossible hurdle than it used to be, as I never made eye contact but was able to tolerate existing in a foreign space, now the mere thought of leaving the house reduce me into a panic driven mess.. just looking at people through a screen is already constantly hard.. I'll be thirty soon and I still have not experienced irl in a general– getting used to it– sense... I only know what common sense, documentaries and the so called reality shows have taught me.

It's so hard to consider the value of someone like me still procuring space on earth, a burden while I never wanted to be and tried anything not to be worst and feeling guilty all the time, killing me more having my siblings in the same boat...

While in the surrounding I inhibit, there's no much choices of help (unless if u willing to be humiliated for nothing) or independence anyway. Either u be wed like a stock or have deep connections or an actual good sensible family to back u..

I can not hold on much longer without hope or a breather..

Thank u so much my dears tho, thank u for making me feel heard and seen..

My greatest wish to just draw and share art and make my corner a safe haven, I fail at doing so too..

[kezibun]

New to tumblr?

If your new to tumblr and have been on here longer then two minutes and still don't know how to exist here... what are you doing? My dash has been filled to the brim with these how to exist on tumblr posts XDD

Anyway WELCOME TO THE HELLSITE (affectionate)

Always remember when in Rome do as the Romans do. So when on tumblr... you get it. (Also if you're in Rome stab Julias caesar for us) you'll get the joke after a year here you missed this event but it'll be back to haunt us next march.

Here are some more tips you may or may not have heard yet!

From someone hows been here long enough to know whats what but not so long I've forgotten what it was like to be new here.

Btw If you haven't been here since the day tumblr was created you will feel like a newbie all the days of your life here but thas fine ^-^

Ok! First things first your icon.

If you haven't already set a pfp, almost everyone you've interacted with so far has blocked you. That's just a fact. If you have no profile picture we will think you're a bot, because they dwell here unwelcomed. Many here frequently bot check, and see who just followed them or who reblogged a thing from them. We check our notes for those who are sus and for potential freinds.

Any kind of icon is better than default, ok? A pic of ur cat, a meme, a stock photo you pulled from google, your favourite character in whatever you like, just something, I highly recomend a picrew/character creator or a doodle of your sona. BUT, a selfie can be kinda suspicious, especially if you're pretty/good looking. We are all gremlins here who have no clue what anyone else looks like so someone pretty is immediately sus XDDD

User name

This is all personal preference really but xX(name)Xx eg: xXLisaXx is suspicious we will either block or investigate and if we find any of the other things highlighted in this post wrong you'll definitely get blocked.

Blog header

The picture at the top of your blog. It's ok blank but you're boring and it's a slight red flag, but not too major unless coupled with some other things wrong.

Blog description and title

It's a must!!! Even if it's just a "hi im new here." But you can also include: your pronouns (helpful if you don't like being gendered wrong) your age/whether you're a minor or adult (not necessary but some prefer to know.) What fandoms you're in. (Fyi Fandoms are big here) or a description of what your blog will be about.

Posts

Empty blogs get blocked. If you got all the above correct u might be ok but you're being really risky here. Post something even if it's just... "Hi I'm new here (don't hurt me) I don't know what to post, maybe I'll figure it out maybe I won't."

Reblogs/reposts

Reblog is where you hit the little swirly symbol at the bottom of the post. This shows it off to your followers but all the notes, coments and reblogs still go to the original creator of that post. Reblogs are good, infact it's how Tumblr works since your dash is only what the people you follow post and reblog. Always reblog posts, art and writings you like to support the creators of that cool thing.

REPOSTS ARE BAD. They are basically post theft. A Repost is if you copy and paste a post or download someones art and post it again on your blog. This is bad, everyone hates this. Don't do it.

Likes?

You'll see a lot of people say likes do nothing because Tumblr has no algorithm that other social media you may have tried might have. A like tells the op you liked their thing, and saves it to your like page on your blog (private or visable) but it doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help the art, writing, post or whatever you pressed the little heart on, get any more visibility.

Interacting

Most here love to interact with their followers. Just remember to be nice. Hate gets blocked.

Outing/exposing posts (were u say so and so is transphobic/a jerk/horrible person etc. so unfollow them) are not readily accepted. If u think so and so is a #badperson unfollow/block them but you don't need to scream it from the roof tops, let everyone make their own decisions. We don't like these kinds of posts/asks mostly because these are mostly rumours and can really hurt people...

YES PEOPLE! EVERY BLOG HAS A PERSON BEHIND THEM (except for bots but we don't interact with them). A real actual person with thoughts and feelings just like you. And we're all here just to have fun. Remember that.

Some people have their ask boxes closed but not actually closed. Try and check (usually it'll say in their description or pinned post) before you send an ask.

Like bombs?

This is when u go through a blog and like loads of their posts or better yet reblog almost everything on their blog. We love this here. This is highly encouraged and has no negative effects like some other websites. (I heard somewhere if someone like bombs your tictok account you get suspended or something, that doesn't happen here)

Heritage posts

There are many inside jokes here for just us on tumblr and most have been here since the dawn of time, you'll find them, you'll get to know them and you'll learn to love them. You'll get asked if you like the colour of the sky, you'll see colour theory in a children's hospital, you'll find out about stealing the presidents shoelaces, and see everyone get a stab at Julias Caesar. These are Heritage posts.

People here love to reblog and like old posts. The very first post on Tumblr is still going around and you'll see it like a dozen times. We love these inside jokes and familiar posts from long ago so don't worry if you like someones old post, actually do worry cuz you didn't reblog it.

Your dash

Your dash/home page/the first thing that pops up when u log in. It's completely custom. It is literally all the post the people you follow have posted in chronological order. If your finding content on your dash that makes you unhappy/upset unfollow whomever is posting that. You are in control of what content you see and no one else is responsible for the desturbing thing you just saw/read.

Tags

Tags sometimes get used as extra commentary so check the tags for something funny or a little extra something. You can block tags you find triggering or upsetting, you'll find it in your settings. Note some people don't tag things correctly. If there is something potentially triggering tag it as so and don't tag things with numbers or symbols mixed in like K1ll m_rd3r, those aren't needed and just make it harder to block.

EXTRA TIPS

Cringe is not a thing here. Nothing is cringe, if someone says something is cringe unfollow them, they are toxic.

Remember you're pretty much anonymous here, tumblr doesn't connect you with all your contacts.

Your Boss cannot find u here.

With great power comes great responsibility.

If you're stuck ask for help, someone will probably lend a hand.

Shadow bans are not a thing but if people think your a bot you'll get blocked by everyone which is almost the same

Always reblog

Be kind

No one is #famous or #popular here we are all doing are own thing in our little blogs.

Don't do art theft

Fandom is huge here.

Don't ever own up to owning youtube or Spotify premium!!! Uf for some ungodly reason you happen to have it.

We don't pay for things here

We endure adds

Or we find free ways to block them

And pirating totally isn't promoted here ;)

Have a look through all your settings to customise your experience.

Have fun customising your blogs appearance.

Feel free to ask questions. And anyone not new here please add anything important I may have missed ^-^

[shootingstarssel]

I agree that seasons 6 and 7 are where the ML writers should show that Marinette's "friends" are truly worthy of their miraculous, and that the kids can finally mature and grow up from the immature and toxic mindset they had in the previous seasons. There's a confirmed time skip, so seeing how much they have changed will be interesting. Well, they did change a little, and in seasons 6 and 7, we see their full character development and learn from their mistakes. Cause I can see what the ML writers are doing by showing their toxic mindsets and errors as they are 14-15 years old and still have a lot left to learn, but that being said, I feel like there were times they should've thought to themselves and reflect without relying on Marinette or someone else when it comes to their opinions.

I completely forgot about the death glare Alix gave Marinette in Ladybug, especially after what happened in Reverser, where Alix reminded Nathaniel who Marinette is and that she would never do a mean prank like that to him. I'm also questioning why Nathaniel concluded that Ladybug Marinette was referring to cause in no way that's possible, in theory. However, I can definitely see Alix defending Marinette in season 6 if something similar is to happen to Marinette again because we also don't know how far into the future Alix has been into, so there is a lot she knows that could jeopardize all of Lila's plans so there's a chance that Alix will have a target on her back but knowing Lila she'll do the bare minimum, but it is still something to look out for.

As for what Lila said, "I'm only telling people what they want to hear," she's not wrong because I think back to Spider-Man: Far From Home and what Mysterio said to Peter is true with "It's easy to fool people when they are already fooling themselves" "They'll see what I want them to see," and "You'll see Peter. People believe nowadays, they'll believe anything." What Mysterio said in the movie always stuck with me cause it's actual people tend to fool themselves, which makes it easy for people to believe any lies; they'll also see what manipulators and lairs want them to see without thinking much, and most notably, one where people believe anything nowadays is more accurate because of the technology that's around and how social media algorithm is built is easy for people to believe what they see, hear and read. It reminds me of influencers who claim to be "experts" on something when, in reality, a lot of things they say are BS and what the brand they are promoting wants them to say, but because they have a prominent following, people will assume its the truth, and it's also what they want to hear. We see that with everyone who's interacted with Lila in the show, Alya fools herself into believing everything Lila says, but also how Alya is fooling herself into thinking she's right about everything when that's not true. The class believes in everything Lila says without checking their facts, as people will believe anything, especially if it sounds exciting or awesome. When Lila is akumatize into Volpina/Hoxar and shows illusions that she wants people to see, her debut episode, Heroes Day Part 1 and Revelation, are the perfect examples. There's also how it's canon that the class hangs out with Lila when Marinette isn't around off-screen. Without telling Marinette where Lila can quickly and slowly poison their minds about Marinette to the point they "see" Marinette doing something terrible, those thoughts pop up, making them now believe that she is a horrible person without talking with Marinette.

I think they could be jealous or envious of Marinette because, for a long time, everyone has been Choe's punching bag, with Marinette being Chloe's favorite target, so the moment Marinette started to stand up for herself and do all these things that take Chloe's power away from compared to the rest they don't do anything and expect Marinette to do it for them, it isn't until season 5 where they stand up for themselves without Marinette doing anything. Also, it's around season 1 when Marinette makes a name for herself and starts to get famous before any of them. I know Alya runs the Ladyblog, which makes her famous from that, but it's Marinette getting to talk and meet all these famous people because of her skills and who she is as a person, like Jagged Stone and Claire Nightingale. So one, Marinette is living the life that Lila is lying about, and two, it could lead them all to be jealous of Marinette as she was able to accomplish more in less than a year compared to them, who are just now getting the accomplishments and fame that comes with their work. But I'm going to need to think about this more.

About Evil teenagers antagonists in Miraculous

I currently wonder how can some fans still want a redemption for somoene like Chloé who willingly hurt people just because that's was her definition of "fun".

Why not accept Chloé as somoene evil ? Just because she's 14 years old ? Just because Gabriel was worst than her doesn't take away the fact that Chloé is a truly bad person who has the potential to become as evil, if not worse than Gabriel while growing up.

Even in real life, adults are not the only ones who are capable of cruelty and crimes. If only adults were capable of monstrosity, I wouldn't have 14-year-olds killing each other with callache nikoffs in the drug trafficking districts of my city. we wouldn't have young people beating up little ones and pushing others to suicide and absolutely not regretting their actions. And we wouldn't have stories to raise eyebrows about kids capable of committing murder and acts of torture without necessarily having been abused in their lives.

To me, anyone who loves to make others suffer for their own sick pleasure (and their victims are people who objectively don't deserve such cruelty) has serious mental issues and can be a danger to others.

Both Chloé and Lila love to make others people suffer or don't care about hurting innocents, and they certainly don't feel any empathy for anyone, or in Chloé's case, no longer feel any empathy (she may have felt sympathy and empathy for Adrien at some point, like during the episode Felix in season 3, but that's definitly no longer the case as soon as Adrien asked her to stop being a biatch). Maybe Lila may feel a form of attachment toward her mothers, yet that doesn't stop her from manipulating them and fooling them in a way that's pretty cruel if you dig deeper in Lila's scale of truancy and imposterization.

I know that technically when a 14 year old kid behaves like Lila and Chloé we could say to ourselves that it is unfair to give them no chance and to condemn them when they are only 14-15 years old and could change for the better if they could be guided on the right path.

But Miraculouse is a show in which the superheroes with the fate of the world in their hands are 14 year old kids. And as such in this fictitious reality, other 14 year olds are perfectly likely to become real cruel and threatening villains i without any scruples, especialy if they are influenced by the wickedness of an adult supervillain.

And I believe that Gabriel's evilness only made Chloé's and Lila's wickedness worse.

He put those two girls in positions of power where they could hurt others and act according to their darkest and Manichean impulses. And Lila and Chloé would only want more taste of that power to crush others. And you know how power easilly corrupt the most greedy hearts.

On several occasions, Gabriel even approved of Lila and Chloe's horrible plans and actions. He has encouraged Lila on numerous occasions to "get rid of" Marinette, thus giving the impression that he supports Lila's jealousy, and during collusion he will have the nerve to say that Chloé's ideas, which consist literally ruining the academic future of your classmates and putting your pregnant teacher in jail for no good reason are good ideas. Having a rich adult in a position to approve of their actions in this way will only have given Lila and Chloe the feeling that their acts of cruelty and malice are justified, and thus reinforced their evil nature.

On several occasions we have seen Chloe and Lila voluntarily let themselves be akumatized, and worse than that, we have seen them plan to be akumatized (Chloe in Penalteam, and Lila in Revelation) and not for understandable reasons like that of a desperate Jalil brainwashed by lies on social media. Because Lila and Chloe have only ever been motivated by their narcicism, their ego, and their desire to get revenge on people they hate for the most pettiest, vain and selfish reasons possible.

Lila and Chloé may be kids, but they are evil teenagers, because they would gladly become supervillain if that means getting what they want. And what they want is anything but noble. For their selfish goals, Lila and Chloé were willing to endanger the city they live in and all its inhabitants. I don't even know if I can still call Lila and Chloé kids or teenagers, with how far they're willing to go and hurt people for the sake of their ambitions.

Although there's still the possibility that Lila may be an adult with a youngfull appearance or a hormonal abnormality making her look like a teenager when she could be an adult. But that would risk making her a pedophile so I don't think the show will go that far ^^ At most they could give her the same as Théo Barbot

But an antagonist adult would be needed then to balance an antagonist teenager supervillain.

Good thing we still have Tomoe Tsurugi then

It's tragic that Chloé and Lila wickedness and evilness could be due to serious mental issues or Chloé's bad upbringing, and the show may have decided that it's more important to protect others from the harm Chloé and Lila can cause rather than to prioritize "helping" them with their issues. Both Marinette and Adrien proposed another path for Chloé to chose, one that could have helped her heal from the emotional and mental wounds her mother's abandonment and neglect. Chloé instead chose Hawkmoth's/Monarch

Ladybug offered Lila her friendship, and Adrien also offered Lila to be there for her as long as she didn't hurt those he loved. Yet both Lila and Chloe voluntarily chose to continue committing bad deeds and hurting others, regardless of the fact that someone reached out to them and offered them another path to get love, acknowledgement and recognition from people. Adrien and Marinette don't have to sacrifice their mental health for people who wish them harm, so I understand very well that it wasn't and won't be their priority to help Chloé and Lila find potential redemption. And especially when Lila and Chloe seem determined to refuse to change and continue to cling to their wickedness.

It should be the adults responsabilities to deal with Chloé and Lila issues, and unfortunatelly the adults in Miraculous are pretty lousy and incompetents. It's very tragic when we don't know that one kid is a psychopath, and if another has always gotten away with his narcissistic behavior disorder and nothing had ever been done to help them deal with that issue, that only leaves the opportunity for the seed of evil in these kids to germinate and flourish, and then reach the level of nastiness that is more often found in adults.

[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[theotherackerman]

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Any recognizable elements belong to Attack on Titan.

NOTES:

Friday January 22nd

chapter twenty-five: said i'm fine but it wasn't true

It was Mikasa and Levi’s grandfather’s birthday.

Mikasa only knew it was by the calendar in the kitchen.

“He was an ass anyway. You didn’t miss much by not knowing him,” Levi informed her as he did every year.

Armin and Eren left that afternoon.

--------------------

Apparently being a dumbass was contagious.

While Zeke was trying to process the file Levi had given him, Armin had dropped Eren off back at the house on Friday morning.

"Niccolo and Sasha broke up," Eren informed him. "Well, not that they were actually together yet…"

Zeke groaned. "Why?"

"Apparently, he had some issues with her still being friends with Connie...is Pieck drunk on our couch? It's not even the afternoon!"

"You're one to talk, tiny Jaeger," Pieck said from the couch.

"Oh see that dumbass there just broke up with her boyfriend too," Zeke said as he pointed at her.

"He wasn't my boyfriend!"

"Wait, is this the mystery guy? Who was he?"

Pieck face planted into the couch and mumbled something that Eren and Zeke didn't understand.

"Is she drunk?" Eren asked him.

"On sugar probably. She already ate the last of the ice cream."

Eren didn’t say anything as he went to his room upstairs.

Zeke looked over the still face planted Pieck.

“Will you go talk to him already? It is not too late to go back and tell him you are a dumbass,” Zeke said as he looked at the scans of the file on his computer.

“It is! I broke his heart and now he’s going to go out with a younger woman.” Pieck said as she sat up.

Why did Zeke have to be the only sane one in his group of friends?

“You didn’t see his face, Zeke. I destroyed him and just left. Without looking back.”

“Pieck...go back. Go admit your fuck up.”

Zeke had seen Pieck cry a handful of times. Once when her father had been diagnosed with cancer and the other when Dina had died.

But not like this.

Pieck hadn’t been in many relationships. She always said things like she was allergic to relationships or why waste time on something that statistically wouldn’t work out. No, Pieck was married to her art.

It was this moment that Zeke realized Pieck had said all of these things to keep herself safe from this.

The tears were streaming down her face.

Eren came downstairs and stopped there.

“Pieck….” Eren said as he crossed to Pieck.

“I just see him in my head. I go back and he’s already with her. She’s so much younger and prettier than I am. I just...I can’t. Eren, I’m sorry,” Pieck apologized.

“Why?” Eren asked.

Zeke moved from the table over to sit next to Pieck.

“He’s your friend and you’re going to find out very soon. It’s Jean. I’m sorry,” Pieck began crying more.

Zeke did not have the first clue about what to do. Neither did Eren.

“I’m going to make a phone call,” Eren said before stepping out of the room.

“Don’t! It has to be over. I don’t want to feel this….anymore..”

“Okay,” Eren said. “I won’t call Jean.”

Eren stepped out of the room.

After what happened with Armin and Mikasa, Eren said he wouldn’t lie about things like this anymore. But Eren had to lie this time.

He went out of the room and pressed Jean’s contact in his phone.

“What do you want, Jaeger? Now is not a good time,” Jean’s voice rang out on the other side of the phone.

“Are you in love with Pieck?” Eren asked.

“What? Why is that any of your business?”

“Because she’s crying to Zeke in my living room right now.”

“She’s the one who ended it. Not me! So don’t come at me about it.”

“I’m not. I just..”

“What do you want me to do, Eren? Beg her to stay? I told her just to say the word and I’d tell my mom not to set me up on a date. I told her I loved her. She said she didn’t feel the same. She said she didn’t love me and it was just sex. So no, I’m not fucking begging her when she’s made her feeling perfectly clear. We’re not you and Mikasa. If she wanted to be with me, she had the chance.”

Eren couldn’t argue with that.

“I’m sorry,” Eren said after a moment.

“It’s whatever. I’ll bounce back. I mean how can I not? I’m me.”

“If you need to talk…”

“You’d be the one I’d call?”

“If anyone knows about losing the one they love…”

“Well, you’ve got a point there. You do know about fucking things up, don’t you? You idiot. How is that going by the way?”

“Good.”

“Good. Don’t do that again.”

“Oh. Don’t worry. I won’t. By the way, why didn’t you make a move on Mikasa when we were broken up?”

“Because unlike you, I’m not an idiot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I dropped that idea the day I asked her out and she turned me down. She told me she had feelings for you and then when I saw you two together the next day, I knew. You two were meant for one another. Even if you’re an idiot who fucked it up, I wasn’t. I knew there was no way I could compete with you...when it comes to Mikasa.”

“Did you just say something nice to me?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Okay, horseface.”

“Fucking idiot.”

“...you want to get online and shoot some shit?”

“Give me ten minutes.”

“Don’t pull my rank down.”

“Don’t pull mine.”

--------------

Pieck eventually stopped crying.

Zeke patted her on her back while she cried.

And Pieck cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.

She was done.

“So teach me another song.”

“Do you..”

“No.”

“Okay. Yeah, sure.”

----------------

Mikasa’s writer’s block had begun to disappear. She spent most of the day in the sun room writing lyrics to one of the unfinished pieces she had from Historia.

Annie had given up on work half way through her shift and shuffled into the sun room where Ymir was restringing her acoustic guitar.

The sound of power tools in the basement could be heard.

“They having any luck down there?” Annie asked before she sat down in one of the chairs.

“They brought up some ripped out carpet,” Ymir said as she tightened the string down.

“So this is actually happening. We’re going to record,” Annie gave a small smile.

“We’ve come a long way in a little over a year,” Ymir replied as she finished tightening the string down. “Speaking of coming a long way, how’s our social media numbers looking?”

Annie sighed, “well, Facebook sits at the same numbers. Twitter gained a few. YouTube has gone up. Instagram is the problem. We’re dropping views on whatever we post in the feed.”

“Why?” Mikasa asked as she stopped playing.

“It’s the algorithm. The more people who see and interact with our stuff, the more it spreads but it has to show up on the feed first. We’re fucked sometimes. I’ve been trying to put everything into stories where I can but people still have to interact with it.”

“You remember the days when things were just chronical on our feeds?” Ymir asked. “Now you have to be a math genius like Annie to get anywhere.”

“To be fair, I still haven’t beat it.”

“You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

“We all need to interact with the posts. That’ll help too. I know we have been but we have to keep it up.”

“Just tag me in that shit and I’ll share it everywhere. Speaking of genius...are we going to have another new song or what?” Ymir asked as she looked over at Mikasa.

“I’m working on it. Have we thought about the idea of collaborating with The Restorationists? Their follower numbers are larger than ours. Plus, they just got a new bassist. Might be a good idea to see if they want to do a livestream with us or something,” Mikasa said before she shrugged.

“What about Niccolo and Sasha?” Ymir asked.

“Yeah, I’m worried about that too,” Mikasa sighed.

“Wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Annie shrugged.

-----------------

Sasha kept her word of not speaking to Niccolo for a little bit. He didn’t try to contact her and she didn’t try to contact him. However, as Sasha had said, the farm was doing great at the farmer’s market. Mr. Blouse even gave both Sasha and Historia a bonus when they finished work today.

“I don’t know how we’re going to have four guitars,” Ymir scoffed.

“And a bass,” Annie added.

“Yeah, that too. I love the song as much as you all do but I’m wondering how we’re going to pull it off.”

“What about a collaboration with The Restorationists?” Annie asked.

“Oh yeah. Niccolo did tag us on their Instagram. We should do that,” Sasha said.

“Even with you and Niccolo being all….whatever?” Ymir asked.

“I can be professional. Besides, I thought you all wanted this to be a more stripped down song. I can use the cajón,” Sasha shrugged.

“What the fuck is a cajón?” Ymir asked.

“The percussion box,” Sasha answered.

“Then just call it that!”

“This song is pretty personal, Historia. I’ll leave it up to you,” Sasha said before she hit the cymbal, causing Ymir to jump.

Ymir responded with a very horrible sound from her bass.

Annie sat down on the piano bench next to Mikasa and Historia as she sighed.

“It is pretty personal,” Mikasa said as she looked over Historia.

“We need four guitars, two percussion, and a bass. Can they read music?” Historia asked.

“Eren can,” Mikasa answered.

“Pieck is their bassist now. She can read music,” Annie said.

“Didn’t she work at the tutoring center with you for a while?” Ymir asked.

Annie nodded.

“Small world,” Ymir said.

“That leaves Zeke and Niccolo,” Historia said.

“Niccolo can,” Sasha answered before looking down.

Levi walked by the sun room with Sawney and Bean following him.

“Hey Levi, can Zeke read music?” Ymir asked.

“Why would I know the answer to that?” Levi asked as he stopped.

“He’s your therapist. Maybe you two bond over music or something. I don’t know but do you know?”

“No, I don’t. It really doesn’t come up in conversation.” He continued on his path with Sawney and Bean followed him.

“I’m sure Zeke can read music. I can always call Eren after practice,” Mikasa said as she turned to the next page of her sheet music.

“Are you okay with it being a collaboration, Mikasa?” Historia said.

“I’m okay with it,” she smiled.

“Guess that settles that. Just need to ask The Restorationists. Do you want me on bass, electric, or acoustic for this song?” Ymir asked.

“Acoustic,” Historia and Mikasa said at the same time.

“All of our band…” Historia started.

“On acoustic,” Mikasa finished.

“Add their band here,” Historia said as she pointed to the music.

“Should we do all five of us singing this lyric here?” Mikasa asked.

“Wait, I didn’t agree to sing on this song!” Sasha said as she stood up from her drum set.

“Oh yes, let’s do that. That should be low enough for everyone to sing, right?” Historia asked.

“It’s hopeless, Sasha. They’re in the zone. They’re not hearing a thing we’re saying,” Ymir said as she put her bass down on its stand.

“If that’s the case, I’m going to go figure out what to make for dinner,” Sasha said as she left the sun room.

“I’m going to go make myself some more tea before I get morning sickness again,” Annie said as she placed her guitar on the stand.

Historia and Mikasa were left alone in the sun room to continue work on the song.

While Rod Reiss sat on his throne, his daughter was dismantling it in her music.

[raisingsupergirl]

I Didn't Vote

Yep, you heard it right. On 11/3/20, I didn't go anywhere near the polls. I woke up, went to work, went home, and went to bed. Sure, I'd had a long day, but I certainly had a chance to swing by and punch my ticket. I thought about doing it. From the time I woke up I thought about it. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it, and I didn't really know why. Even the next day I couldn't figure it out. And I've been mulling it over since then. I still don't have a satisfying reason, but at least I have a reason. Actually, I have several.

Okay, let's get this out of the way. My first reason for not voting is ignorance. No, not on the part of the political candidates, or social media, or you. I didn't vote because I'm ignorant. I know so little about the two old guys (and there was a woman, too, right? That third-party so-and-so?) fighting to "rule" our country. Here's what I do know… First, Trump: He's filthy rich. He owns some companies (honestly couldn't tell you which ones). He had a TV show (can't remember the name) and a tower. He has been our president for the past four years, and he did some things that veterans and conservatives like (I can't tell you with certainty even one thing that he's responsible for changing). He's a republican, but I think he used to be a democrat. I also think his wife's name is Ivanka, he has a daughter, and his VP is Mike Pence. Lastly, people either love him or hate him, which has only further divided our nation. He comes off at different times as a megalomaniac, a bully, and an idiot (though he may not be any of those things. Who knows?). He has no filter, he has Twitter, and he claims that everyone else is out to lie, steal, and cheat to make him look bad, which is ironic, because his ridiculous hair does that all on its own. And now on to the other guy.

I actually forget Joe Biden's name a lot. I want to call him Pence or Kerry or even McCain. Seriously, though that's not saying much. I'm horrible with names. But I also forget what he looks like. When I think about him, all I see is Jim Carrey. Oh! That must be why I tend to call him Kerry in my head. Silly me. Now… what about him? He's a lifetime politician, he's democrat, and he's really old. I know that much. And his running mate is a woman, I think. Seems like he's probably going to be our next president based on the Electoral College, but I couldn't tell you with confidence what that means. And that's about it. Honestly, I don't know anymore than that.

But why don't I know more? Am I dumb? Well… I don't think so. I received a master's degree over a decade ago (with honors, no less), and I like to think I've only grown smarter and wiser since then. I love learning new things—ideas, talents, how things work. But one of those things just isn't politics. So, the second reason I didn't vote is disinterest (I'm racking up quite a compelling argument, I know). I've written about how I don't have a passion for BLM even though I think it's a worthy cause. And I think the main reason is because it falls under the "politics" umbrella in my mind. Too many people with too many emotions and not enough listening. I just don't have the stomach for it. I would rather spend my one life changing the world one person at a time. I'd rather show love to my neighbor (as a Christian), fix someone's knee pain (as a physical therapist), and help other people get their ideas across clearer (as an editor). And, if I'm being honest, all of the doom saying just doesn't scare me. I'm a country boy at heart, and I have simple needs. My family is small, and I have a cabin in the woods. I was sad when Y2K didn't happen. I love individual people, but I'm not a big fan of society. In large groups, people are mean and naïve. And so, fear just doesn't enter into the equation for me. Life is so much bigger than what the marketing campaigns claim.

If you haven't caught on yet, I'm a bit of a skeptic. I don't know if I was born that way, but I became aware of it in college. I didn't particularly like my research classes, but I loved learning how to read scientific articles. Specifically, I love learning how to recognize BS (Biased Science, that is…). I have a knack for seeing through it in any situation. I can generally tell when people are lying, and even though I don't know everything, I do understand concepts, theories, and ideas better than the average person. And like Aristotle (and Plato), I'm keenly aware of my own ignorance as well as that of others. I see how people embrace sensationalized "fake news" and assume causality just because of correlation. Everyone does it. I do it. But I'm aware of it. I'm aware of social media algorithms, of herd mentality, of confirmation bias. And so, the third reason I didn't vote is because I assume everyone is either lying or buying into lies (lying and bullying are my two biggest pet peeves, by the way). And we've already established that I don't have the time or the energy (or the mental capacity) to learn the truth of every political topic and use those truths to set everyone straight. But hey, at least I'm honest…

Remember when I said earlier that fear didn't factor into the equation for me? Yeah, obviously that’s not true. I mean, sure, I'm not afraid of societal collapse or the end of the world. But I'm obviously afraid of being wrong. We've established that I don't know much about Trump or Kerr—er… Biden. That I'm ignorant about politics, in general. And we know that I'm a skeptic—that I have to come to my own conclusions. And most of the time that looks like stubbornness. I hate being told what to do. I hate being micromanaged. I hate the virus on my computer that sets Bing as my default search engine instead of Google. I hate the alarm on my wife's van that makes me wear my seat belt. And I hate the Facebook banners that keep telling me it's my duty to vote. I'm a grown boy. I can make those decisions all on my own. And I will not blindly trust a random source with dubious intentions to make those decisions for me. And, as much as I love my friends, I don't buy their claims that it's my duty to vote, either. Countless brave men and women did not die for my DUTY to vote. They died for my freedom to do so. Same as my freedom to be a Christian. Which means I'm also free to NOT vote.

But why wouldn't I WANT to vote? Because I'm afraid of whom I would have voted for. I'm aware of where I live and what my local culture thinks. In short, I voted for Trump last time, and I probably would have voted for him this time. And I couldn't stomach that thought (side note: I do have one regret, and that’s not voting local. I do know people personally who were running for office--as well as local bills--but I missed the opportunity to vote on things that I DO know about because of my fear of voting for the “wrong” president). It’s not that I doubted that Trump would do positive things while in office (even though, as I said, I'm not sure what he actually did the past four years…), but I'm just so tired of everybody acting insane. There's a reason I don't have cable. There's a reason I only get on social media to post pictures and check my notifications. And while I don't buy into all the sensationalism claiming the president has ultimate power, I do believe that he has a microphone. And a Twitter account. And even though our government is based on checks and balances, our media definitely isn't. If Biden is, in fact, our president for the next four years, my only hope is that he'll keep his mouth shut.

Okay, everyone's mad at me now. And that's okay. I put myself out there. I was honest about my ignorance, my bias, and my fear, which is more than I can say about most other people (presidents included). And maybe my honesty will compel others (you?) to reevaluate the "truths" they (you?) assume are self-evident. It's taken me four years, but I finally understand what "Make America Great Again" means. What would it take for our country to be great? Accountability. That's it. If every man, woman, and child did everything possible to give back to our country, we WOULD be great. If we worked hard to repair crumbling buildings, if we painted breathtaking murals, if we learned classical philosophy and used it shape our thoughts, if we refused to blame someone else for our unhappiness, if we did everything in our INDIVIDUAL power to contribute to the greater whole, if we truly loved our neighbors and gave them the shirt off of our back regardless of their political leanings… THAT would make us great. Right now, we're all so divided. We're all so afraid and easily manipulated. I've chosen to put my time and energy into things "smaller" than politics, but that doesn't mean I don't care about the future of my country. Quite the opposite, in fact. And hopefully, when I'm dead and gone, my tombstone won't read, "The guy who didn't vote in the 2020 presidential election."

[xrprainmaker]

The Significance of Being Insignificant

What is the value of one life? Do you know? Is it measured in how many people's lives we affect while we're alive, is it quantified by how much money we leave to our loved ones when we eventually all at one point or another die? Is it merely the number of loved ones we know or who knows us? Is it measured by how many likes and retweets and shares we get accumulatively on all social media platforms and when we get to the pearly gates of heaven or in some cases the rusted gates of hell going to be just yet another algorithm of the universe held over our head as either a badge of honor or Scarlett letter of failure in which even in the afterlife we will still be either praised or shunned for all the things we've either done wrong or right.. and God or the Devil Themselves will take turns choosing teams in purgatory & just like in middle school we'll either be chosen first with the "cool kids" or be picked last like the outcasts some of us already feel & we'll spend another eternity pondering the effects and affects of our decisions and thoughts and actions until we literally just become dust underneath their nails? These are the questions I ask myself in a world where killing has now become an open sport and done by people that swore an oath to protect our lives and the lives of the ones we love & the ones we don't. But for George Floyd he's life was no more meaningful for those cops that day, than the ants they probably crushed under their boots on the way to go put their knees in his throat and his head. The watched and continued draining the life from his body like a smartphone addict who just watches his or her phone drain to zero battery but is too lazy to get up and plug it into the wall. Did that police officer think he was playing a level in Grand Theft Auto? Did the surrounding policers officers who also complacently just "followed" orders and also held down & pinned him by the legs and arms and allowed this act to be committed without thought or hesitation did they also think they were "doing a good job " or were they just not thinking at all. You see you might be confused right now why I'm talking so much about the "Evil Cops" and why I'm not raving about "defund the police " or talking in a way that I have lost compassion for the cops, instead of just shooting from the hips and calling them Murderers ( which don't worry, I do believe all of them are and should go to jail, as I believe all of them are 100% guilty) . Because let's be clear - to watch and do nothing for 8 minutes straight while somebody begs and pleas " I can't breath", " I can't breath" " I can't breath" and is not putting up a fight or intoxicated or belligerent or on drugs but is just one human being begging for another human being to take notice & show compassion & acknowledge that that person is seen and heard and valued and to watch that for eight whole minutes is almost an eternity of time for those cops to have done the right thing or as Spike Lee would've said in Public Enemy " Dooo Thaaa Right Thang" and they failed, they failed with flying colors. I don't know what they got on their test scores to get into the Police Academy but to get out of it, they went out with a Bang of F's that's for sure. But I digress, the real reason I'm so interested in why NOBODY did ANYTHING even though they were in the middle of the street, broad daylight and with hundreds if not thousands of people walking by and NOT ONE, NOT A SINGLE ONE except One girl who filmed the whole thing and put it up on Youtube - tried to save this man's life or question the cops that were so nonchalantly breaking the law in plain sight, right in front of everyone's nose and the reason why it happened It's because the value of someone's life in Real life - not the after school special you watched growing up or on the multiple motivational videos you can binge-watch on Youtube or "feel good" movies on Netflix where you watch a movie with 1 black actor in it in a cast of 500 white people and pat yourself on the back because you're not a racist. Or because you don't actually call black people the N-word to their face but lowkey wonder what it would feel like if you did. Like would it be laughs and high fives like on the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" or would you get knocked the FUD out like if you were in the ring with Mike Tyson and he's biting off your ear. You see racism never went away or stopped, it just got brushed underneath the rug or the fabric of humanity we like to refer to as the "Human Existence". People like to use the word " I didn't Know" a lot in society - ever notice that - it's like the fewer fuds you give about life or the people around you the more accepted you are. Our world or simulation, whichever way you want to spin it, is built on the combined premise that showing emotion or compassion or crying is something that only "Weak" people do or a sign of weakness. But I call BS, I think that if that's the type of world you want to live in - then DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT, be walking in marches, with your fists up in the air, pretending that you have any type of allegiance with those who have lost their lives from racism or police brutality or any type of abuse for that matter where one party was "Stronger" and abused of the situation on somebody they deemed to be weak either because of gender or skin color or because they grew up on the wrong side of the tracks - Do not think that your 1 white fist in the air publically can magically erase the millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of other unknown fists that took that same symbol but in private and in the horizontal position & punched through the walls of the heads or the walls of the ribs of so many other innocent and unsuspecting lives of both young and old, white & black. That so many don't even know about and that, we'll most likely never know about because they did not have the money in their wallets or the special contacts in their phone or special certifications on their walls saying that they were somebody to be respected and thus the fight for their lives and struggle to share the truth will be buried among so many others that " lead quiet lives of desperation" as Thoreau's once said. You see what I'm getting at here is until we stop shaking our hands in frustration and anger and hatred and hostility at this police officer who did this, we will never truly understand what drives a man or men to this point of no return. Where their souls have left their bodies long before they'll ever be declared dead and how they were allowed to not just roam the streets but to rule the streets with a clad iron fist and destroy anything and everything they touched because they themselves, can no longer feel. You see this to me is the even scarier part. I'm not happy that George Floyd is dead or that he had to die this way, but in reality, if those cops hadn't killed him, how they did George Floyd would just be another African American Man that led a quiet life of mediocrity instead and now his face and his name is known all over the world and his legacy that he will leave to his family in some un-ironic, ironic way because of all of this will be of nobility and peace even though he was caught trying to buy things with fake money and that's what led the cops there, to begin with. To me, this just goes to highlight every relevant rule of life of Yin and Yang and that even in the best people there is bad and even in the badest people there is good. To me is this right or is this wrong to say, that's not up to me to decide, but it's the truth and the truth is hard to digest for many because it's not like a placebo, laced in sugar and will slowly rot your teeth and your brain. It's like a shot of Tequila either your system can handle it or it can't but either way, you'll only find out once you try. Try to see things from different angles, try to listen to a different perspective and try to understand, that no one is born 100% evil, I believe that evilness is learned and that even though the absolute last human beings on the face of the earth that you or many others would deem worthy or deserving of compassion right now or a voice or somebody to listen to them, I would say, it's that cop/cops that killed him. Why? Because as heinous as it is what they did, is that I also envision those same cops as young kids, running and playing and laughing and waiting for the weekend to play "Cops and Robbers" and how do you go from that level of innocence to this? Was it a gradual chipping away at their souls like water drop Chinese societal torture device, or did something cataclysmic in their youth or adult years happen like their father or uncle showed them how to hunt a deer when they were just 8 or or or... You see to me " an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" or in this case and many, many, many other unsolved cases- it's worth a literal pound of flesh and until we as humans and society start truly asking these hard questions, of ourselves and all other people who make up this world, we're just fooling ourselves into believing change is happening or that #BlackLivesMatter - because black lives won't matter until #ALLLivesMatter - including the lives of these horrible - soulless police. Rest In Power Mr. George Floyd

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G_GyEL-R_Q8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> N.B - I've never met you but I can tell you your life even after you're gone has and will continue sending Ripples throughout the world. Martin Luther King Stood Up To Fight Bigotry - Rosa Parks sat down to fight against segregation and I'm sorry you had to roll over and die to fight against racism 15 - 20 years later - You deserved better and so does this world & hopefully one day in the future it will be considered "cool" to have & heart and show compassion - but the now jaded adult inside of me says " don't hold your breath"

[abriannakillino]

Writing Journal 10/16

In the video”Dana Boyd on the Spread of Conspiracies and Hate Online” , and the article “Estee Back Ch.2 SUSTAINING CRITICAL LITERACIES IN THE DIGITAL INFORMATION AGE: THE RHETORIC OF SHARING, PROSUMERISM, AND DIGITAL ALGORITHMIC SURVEILLANCE″, they both talk about how social media outlets and search engines are ways that individuals get the information that they are looking for. In the video, Dana Boyd mentioned how Youtube is the main way individuals under 25 get help with things that they are struggling with. Some things that she mentioned that they use it for homework, tying a tie, or to figure out a problem. I found it interesting because I, like any others thought that Google would be the main search engine. Another thing that Dana talks about is  about how small towns or cities become known. She mentioned that after a horrible event happens, people will find ways to put that town or city basically “on the web map”. 

I chose this gif because I believe it goes along with the concept of the individuals who create content to put those small towns and cities on the map when something horrible happens here. 

In chapter 2 of Estee Beck’s book, it mentions how the social media outlets works with advertising companies to bring ads that would interest the individuals that search for certain things on the interesting. I found this interesting because as I am scrolling through my social media outlets, there are always ads on things that I either search about or for. I always wondered how these social media outlets know things that interest me when I typically do not search for them on the outlet. Estee talks about how there is a range of monitoring systems on the outlets that helps bring the ads to the outlets. 

I chose this gif because it shows how a system, which goes with how the advertisers have a system on what ads to show individuals. 

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

8 Oct 2019: The AI will interview you now. Uber work. Amazon rumours. Facebook leak.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: Bladerunner fandom]

The AI will interview you now

Face recognition technology and AI is being used in job interviews in the UK “to identify the best candidates”, says the Telegraph. Unilever and other use HireVue’s AI to 

“analyse the language, tone and facial expressions of candidates when they are asked a set of identical job questions which they film on their mobile phone or laptop. The algorithms select the best applicants by assessing their performances in the videos against about 25,000 pieces of facial and linguistic information compiled from previous interviews of those who have gone on to prove to be good at the job.”

It’s not doing face recognition, it’s doing behaviour recognition. Something like: “These facial and speech behaviours are correlated with the interviewee being a good employee - thumbs up, +4 career points”.

It’s natural that this feels a bit wrong because humans are unique and special, right? In truth though, they are bound by fairly predictable behaviours, and really it’s not that hard to have a computer watch the face of a human and make judgements. It’s science you can trust, and in fact it weeds out bias because the machine doesn’t care, unlike a human interviewer who’ll bring loads of messy biases. So it’s a good thing, it’s progress.

Oh sorry wait, it’s a science you can trust as long as the data the machine learning model was trained on was large and unbiased. And as long as none of the interviewees look different to the ones in the training data. And as long as the machine learning doesn’t inadvertently amplify any systemic biases in the hiring organisation’s practices (or Hirevue itself’s). And as long as interviewees can meaningfully give consent to be catalogued by a machine. And as long as no discrimination law is being broken by having the computer say no. And as long as some job applicants aren’t freaked out by being video-interviewed by a Voight-Kampff machine.

Here the newsletterbot is guilty of bias: it believes humans to be sufficiently complex that it will be hard to effectively “machine learn” the problem that is organisations, their people, their culture, their politics, the webs of motivations and incentives, their jobs and the humans that might potentially fit well.

Still, HireVue says they’re serious about ethical and accurate machine learning, so fingers crossed 😬. An interesting read on video interviews. YouTube is full of videos about how to do well in a HireVue video interview, here’s one. Watching them, you’re struck by the asymmetry: the machine and later an employer watching your interview video, but you seeing nothing except the questions and the webcam’s black eye. So interviewing would be perhaps be a bit fairer if the employer also had 30 seconds to consider and 3 minutes to answer on camera the interviewee’s questions.

Unrelated, but relevant because it’s about bias and how it and power are inadvertently expressed in technology: “Google contractors allegedly offered darker-skinned homeless people $5 dollar gift cards to scan their faces for facial recognition software”.

Uber work

Uber’s temp agency platform, Uber Work has launched in Chicago. The company says: “We believe that finding work shouldn’t have to be a job in itself. For positions as diverse as being a prep cook, warehouse worker, a commercial cleaner or event staff, Uber Works aims to make it easier to find and claim a shift.”

Here’s a fictional look at temp workers in 2023, and hopefully Uber Works doesn’t nudge work in that direction. Something that empowers shift workers is a better model: “crowdsourcing information about what it’s really like to work somewhere, turning it into recommendations about employers that could be better for you” (from plucky UK startup Poplar).

Elsewhere, a successful taxi co-op: “A worker owned taxi coop in Southend has grown from 6 to 70 drivers. They repaid all their investors and returned £3000 to their members last year. The same year Uber left the area after failing to compete with them.”

Amazon rumours

Amazon to sell its Go technology to airports, cinemas, sports venues? Interesting if true - eventually there would be a tension between the platform and the grocery businesses (see also: Ocado in 2017ish).

Amazon is said to be hiring property experts in UK.

Similar rumour: but in Los Angeles. A dozen leases have been signed in Los Angeles, reports the Wall St journal. 7 burning questions about Amazon's new grocery chain.

Facebook leak: trust deficit internally?

A Facebooker leaked audio of an all-team Zuckermeet. The media reported it as FB boss Zuckerberg saying he’d fight (too) hard against politicians etc, but the transcript suggests that his comments were actually fairly standard stuff. This story is more notable for the fact that an employee recorded and leaked the meeting - growing cultural/trust deficit internally, perhaps?

Cryptocurrency news

Paypal has pulled out of the Facebook-led Libra cryptocurrency consortium, saying that it’s not you Libra it’s me. Rumours: Mastercard and Visa aren’t so sure either.

Police auctioned off £240,000 of cryptocurrency confiscated from a hacker - if it had been a confiscated 3 Series with a spoiler kit and spinner rims you’d have expected to be able to snag a good deal, but money’s money so maybe there wasn’t a discount in this case.

“The pain in my jaw from holding just one cryptocurrency had reduced me to an all-liquid diet. I was not cut out to be a trader.” - a good piece on the subsistence lives of small-scale cryptocurrency traders (also a decent backgrounder on cryptocurrencies).

Other news

How grocery pickup is evolving - supermarkets trying to make click-n-collect faster.

Supreme Court hands victory to blind man who sued Domino's over website accessibility - see previous story on this.

Climate Action Tech: “empower technology professionals to play our part - to meet, discuss, learn and take climate action” - needed because the tech industry uses a lot of energy.

No good urban ebike deed goes unpunished. “Horrible. One good deed rewarded with a scary blend of the so-called sharing economy, the commercialisation of communal spaces, and authoritarian surveillance capitalism, all sugared with the unbearable style of wackaging. May every dockless bike and scooter scheme go bust as soon as possible.”

Workshop tactics for agile teams - looks good.

Job ad for Ocado developers is neatly placed in the website’s code.

Previous newsletters:

Most opened newsletter in the last month: competing with Amazon Go. Most clicked story: Why don’t we just call agile what it is: feminist.

News 1 year ago: curated convenience and paying with your data.

News 2 years ago: eGovernment (single digital market) and first mile logistics (Amazon keeping inventory in retailer warehousing).

Co-op Digital news and events

What the data and feedback show about 3 digital services in our Food stores.

Public events:

Manchester WordPress User Group - Wed 16 Oct 6.30pm at Federation House.

Tech for Good Live vs the climate crisis - Thu 17 Oct 6.30pm at Federation House.

Business Growth Hub - Moving your business forward - Mon 21 Oct 12pm at Federation House.

Meet the expert - marketing approach - Tue 22 Oct 12pm at Federation House.

Meet the expert - hints and tricks on social media - Wed 23 Oct 1pm at Federation House.

Human values in software production - Tue 5 Nov 6pm at Federation House.

Practitioners Forum: vital lessons for key co-operators - Thu 7 Nov at the Studio, Manchester.

Pods Up North , an event for podcasters - Sat 23 Nov 9am at Federation House.

Mind the Product - MTP Engage - Fri 7 Feb 2020 - you can get early bird tickets now.

Internal events:

Digital all hands - Wed 9 Oct 1pm at Fed House Defiant.

Co-operate show & tell - Wed 9 Oct 3pm at Fed House 6th floor kitchen.

Food ecommerce show & tell - Mon 14 Oct 10.15am at Fed House 5th floor.

Delivery community of practice - Mon 14 Oct 1.30pm.

What has the web team been up to? - Tue 15 Oct 1.30pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Health show & tell - Tue 15 Oct 2.30pm at Fed House 5th floor.

Engineering community of practice - Wed 16 Oct 1pm at fed House Defiant.

Targeted marketing (CRM) show & tell - Wed 16 Oct 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor breakout area.

Membership show & tell - Fri 18 Oct 3pm at Fed House 6th floor kitchen.

More events at Federation House - and you can contact the events team at  federation.events@coopdigital.co.uk. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West. 

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s word gardener @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[camariba]

Not to bring everybody down, but I’m seriously worried/pessimistic about the future of Tumblr.

I see people reacting like “Oh they’re banning porn, that’s great, finally they’re gonna get rid of the porn bots and also my blog is super wholesome and sfw, so nothing will change for me.”

And look, I also find the bots annoying and also holy shit apparently this site has a serious problem with child porn (which I was thankfully pretty ignorant about until fairly recently), so great that they’re cracking down on that.

BUT

It’s not like they’re finally listening to users who report this stuff, and then use actual employees do delete content of that sort. I’m sure it would be possible to make the site safer and less of a haven for the worst kind of people, but that would probably take more time, money and effort than Tumblr is willing to invest. So nah, better get rid of any and all, uh, “explicit content” right along with the horrible harmful and illegal stuff, and use algorithms to do it.

Do you guys realize what the consequences are gonna be?

So, first thing that comes to mind, all the actual porn blogs are gonna disappear. That’s a pretty sizeable number of users gone all at once, so I’m worried that they’re gonna increase the number of ads to compensate for that, since, as far as I know, that’s where the money comes from.

Then, “explicit content”? “Female-presenting nipples”? Where do I even start with that? First of all, there’s that double standard again - male nipples are fine, female nipples are inherently sexual apparently. So that means not just porn, but any and all instances of artistic nudity, journalistic content, activist stuff, etc. that happens to show nipple will be gone. That’s gonna be a huge loss. Also, let’s not forget that LGBTQ+/Queer* content is already treated as somehow more “mature” and “explicit” than het content, I’ve read many a thinkpiece mentioning how this content is already hidden when you use safe mode. And in the last few days, a loooot of it has also been flagged in addition to that. And I’m not talking hardcore gay porn here, but people kissing, holding hands, that kind of thing. So tumblr as a (at least semi-) safe space for LGBTQ+/Queer people will cease to exist. As if that wasn’t horrible enough, I can totally see something like this opening the door to even stricter rules that crack down on any subject that can be considered even remotely controversial, to keep the site “safe” for advertisers, similar to what is happening on youtube (for those who don’t know, videos with “controversial” subjects get demonitized really fucking fast nowadays), which would probably spell the end for Tumblr as a tool for activism. Even if Tumblr won’t go quite that far, the way they treat LGBTQ+/Queer content even now is awful and I hate it.

And last but not least, don’t forget that all of this is being done with algorithms that are set to be super sensitive. I’m a real IT n00b, so I freely admit I don’t understand how it works, but it looks to me like they are programmed to respond to (read: flag) content that contains certain colours, shapes, or with gifs, certain movements, that you commonly find in porn (so for example, probably anything with fleshy colours is at risk now). The last few days have already shown that completely wholesome stuff is flagged en masse - pictures of bread, of flowers, 18th-century paintings of fully clothed people, etc, nothing is safe. That also means that Tumblr’s statements about art being exempt from the new rules are basically meaningless, because anything can get automatically flagged anyway.

The only thing that I bet is going to remain untouched is all the Nazi shit that I keep seeing, because Tumblr has never, not once, shown any interest in getting rid of any of that, because ~ free speech ~ I guess.

So this is the future I predict: no, Tumblr is not going to implode overnight and disappear on December 17th. But it is going to get a lot less fun/interesting to use, leading to people using it less. Less active users means less content, making it even less fun for the remaining users and so on and so forth, so more and more people will abandon the site until there is nothing going on here anymore and then Tumblr will just wither and die.

And it makes me really sad. I’ve been on this site since 2011, which seems like the saddest and most pathetic thing to even mention, but yeah, that means I’ve been here my entire adult life, actually. And oh, it has been a journey. Tumblr can be such a dumpster fire of bullying, terrible opinions, hate, actual illegal stuff, fandom wars and bad hot takes. But more than that, for me it has been at least a jumping off point to learn more about social justice and the ways in which people are marginalized, it has been a treasure trove of interesting and weird trivia, of hilarious and surreal humour (of both the intentional and unintentional kind), of book/film/series recommendations, of actual peaceful fandom discourse and always, always, of beautiful pictures. Seriously, people from out there in meatspace mostly don’t understand how much I just love looking at collections of beautiful pictures as an escape from everyday life and a way to calm myself when I’m stressed and anxious, and as inspiration. And I love how, despite it being theoretically a “social media site”, you don’t have to interact with anyone if you don’t want to. You can just keep to yourself and look at nice things. There is no other site quite like this one. Pinterest would probably come closest to replacing what I like about Tumblr, but it’s missing the “Gesamtkunstwerk”-feel that you get from your own Tumblr blog.

Yeah, to sum up, despite its many, many, many flaws, I always really liked Tumblr and I don’t want to say goodbye.

(* if you’re wondering why I write LGBTQ+/Queer instead of choosing one term or using them interchangeably, it’s because some people from the community consider Queer a slur, but some other people from the community are very very opposed to considering it a slur and don’t want to avoid it because they say it’s a perfect umbrella term for people who don’t want to fit themselves into any narrower box than “not hetero” and/or “not cis”. I’m just trying to cover my bases here)

[thecompleteguidetomisery]

Gratitude is for Quitters

Welcome to The Complete Guide to Misery!

Each post in this absurd series will promote a different form of human suffering and encourage readers to adopt self-destructive habits that will bring them mountains of anguish.

This silliness is intended to be satire, not self-help. However, if readers’ lives are enriched in some way beyond laughter, all the better.

Despite the attempts at humor, this is not meant to make light of the suffering of blood-filled people by the world’s myriad forms of abuse.

**

Please assume that you have free will.

Of all the choices you make every day, one of the most important is: where do you focus your attention?

Because how you focus, and on what, make an enormous difference in your quality of life.

Attentional focus is also one of the easiest things to change. Following is an exercise to illustrate the point.

**

Take a moment to think about something to which you’re looking forward.

Maybe you can’t wait to get together with friends you haven’t seen in a while.

Or are eagerly anticipating seeing the leaves change colors.

Or fantasize about your upcoming trip to Cancun. Or is it Cozumel? I can never remember which is which.

And notice what focusing on an enjoyable future does to your mood.

**

Now take a moment and focus on an aggravating or disappointing moment from your past.

You might remember the person who didn’t say, “Thank you” after you held open a door for them.

Or that time when you tripped and dropped an arm load of dishes.

Or when your least favorite cousin gave you a charley horse.

Now how’s your mood?

**

Hopefully you got the point: changing where and on what you focus can alter your internal experience of this moment.

As you go about your day, notice where your attention automatically tends:

Do you concentrate on the past, present or future?

Do you focus your mental energy on yourself or others?

Do you zero in on things you can control or those things you can’t?

Do you revel in tasks and accomplishments or feelings and relationships?

Whatever your tendencies, it’s important to know you have options. You can choose to focus on something different and, in time, it will become as much of an unconscious habit as your current practice.

Optimistic types fool themselves by focusing on a positive future that they can control, while maintaining an awareness of their place in the wider social context, and are alert to the needs of other human beings. They claim it is part of their larger mission of being “happy.”

Is it just me or does that sound exhausting? Planning and thinking ahead, delaying gratification, monitoring progress, being mindful of others, showing empathy, etc.

No, let’s leave all that happiness for the uptight, obsessive types who have too much to prove and don’t have anything else to do with their lives.

Much better to filter out that naïve nonsense and get right to heart of the matter. Because you don’t want to convince yourself that life is going well only to have the universe kick you in the teeth.

Better to disregard the positive and concentrate on the miserable. And that brings us to our first skill: Filtering.

To filter means to discount any evidence contrary to your beliefs. And the beliefs you’ll want to protect are those that maximize misery.

Look for trouble.

Mentally note anything that goes wrong in your life and how miserable every setback makes you.

Overlook the hundred things that go right every day.

Take for granted all the stuff that works in your world.

Remember: Gratitude is for quitters!

Encircle yourself with negative people who can help you notice and remember all the ways the world has treated you horribly.

Or just continue to spend time on social media. Those algorithms will take care of the rest.

In summary, the most effective filter to increase your misery is anything that makes you a victim.

**

CASE STUDY: KEN’S DAY AT THE PARK

Ken got together with friends at a local park one afternoon. On the way there, someone cut him off in traffic. He got to the party without any other problems and made good time doing so.

When he arrived, he was greeted by some buddies, who helped him carry and setup his Foosball table. He played a couple rounds of Cornhole and, like a lot of people, wondered for just a second about the person who named that game.

A new person arrived, was introduced to Ken, and gave him a bland, distracted greeting.

Ken got back to the festivities and crushed a few games of Foosball. He had an amazing dinner of ribs, corn-on-the-cob, baked potatoes, and pie thanks to everyone’s collective contributions.

While he and his buddies sat around their campfire and chatted about this-and-that, the guy with the lousy greeting disagreed with Ken’s point about the negative economic impact of COVID on small businesses. The moment passed, the party continued and Ken left a couple hours later when things were winding down.

The next morning, Ken made his weekly call to his parents. He knew they were looking forward to hearing about his time at the picnic.

He appreciated their interest in his social life, but felt like they didn’t understand him. They’d admitted to him multiple times over the years that they didn’t understand all his misery.

When his parents asked how he enjoyed the picnic, Ken said, “Oh, what a waste of time. First, there was this jerk-face who cut me off on the road. Ohhh, that idiot made me so mad. People like that shouldn’t be allowed to get a license.

“But that’s not even the best part. Next was this new guy who totally ignored my greeting and was about as exciting as a dishrag. Why did some like that even bother coming to a party if they aren’t going to try to have a good time? I hate people like that; they shouldn’t be allowed at parties.

“Oh, and then, and then, the kicker was that this same dishrag thought he was suddenly some kind of expert on economics and attacked me about some stuff I was saying about small businesses. People like that jerk always seem to have something to say. He’s just a know-it-all. Damn, people like that just make me so mad. He should know when to keep his stupid mouth shut. Seriously, I’ve got a subscription to The Economist, for Pete’s sake and I’ve actually read some of the short articles. I mean, I own a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and plan to read it one day. What has the dishrag ever done?”

Ken was proud of himself for giving his parents such a complete picture of his day.

**

What We Can Learn from Ken

Ken narrowed his memory of the picnic to the parts he didn’t like and framed himself as the victim each time. He told his parents he was cut off by another driver, ignored upon introduction, and intellectually attacked by a new arrival to his social circle.

Ken didn’t mention, because he didn’t notice it in the first place, what went right, such as the entire drive to the party except the moment he was cut off, freedom to gather with friends, blessing to have people to help with the Foosball table, chance to play Cornhole, opportunity to meet a new person, and joy of sharing a great meal.

Ken demonstrated his expert-level misery skills by repeating how others made him mad. This disavowal of responsibility is one of the sine qua non for a lifetime of misery.

Please note Ken’s relentless consistency. He framed himself as the victim and blamed others for making him mad three times in that short tale.

Remember readers: the key to lasting change is practice, practice, practice!

**

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next installment of The Complete Guide to Misery!