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shihalyfie · 3 years ago

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I’m a diehard 02 fan who does not want a reboot and never wanted a reboot, and here’s why

This is one of my few editorial-esque pieces, but this is something some friends and I have been discussing for a while, and given what’s going on right now, I feel like this needs to be said at some point.

Sometimes I feel like there’s a really massive gap between what 02 fans want (especially diehard ones) and what people think 02 fans want. I'm not saying that media should only be catering to hardcore fans, and if more casual fans of 02 or people who simply just happen to have a stake in the full franchise have their own opinions on what they wanted to see out of 02-related media, that’s perfectly fine, and they have a right to have those expectations. What I’m mainly writing this about is sentiments that talk about how Toei is apparently doing 02 a disservice or sweeping it under the bus by not rebooting it (which basically comes with an implication that giving it respect would mandate it being rebooted just because Adventure was), or talking about how doing a reboot would please 02 fans just by giving their favorite characters more rep. (Although, I suppose the simultaneous reveal of an actual 02-related movie kind of killed any grounds for claiming that the lack of a 02 reboot meant sidelining 02. You can’t really claim that they’re sidelining 02 when they’re making a whole movie, after all...)

Of course, I don’t claim to speak for every single 02 fan out there (so if you’re a 02 fan who doesn’t agree with anything I’m about to say, I apologize and hope I don’t sound presumptuous), and I highly doubt I represent the mainstream, but I felt I should input my perspective as a 02 fan who’s friends with a handful of other 02 fans, who have discussed this extensively and all have the same feelings on the topic, and why it’s kind of frustrating to keep hearing this kind of thing from people who assume that all fans of something should want to see more things that resemble them by default without any more nuance to it.

It won’t actually improve much that’s worth it

I’m going to be blunt about it: I think more people who supposedly want this 02 reboot are people who hate or dislike 02 than people who actually are fans of the series, because they’re doing this under the sentiment that “this was a bad series, so a redo would improve it.” You can especially tell because a lot of people acting like a reboot is in 02′s best interest are the same people being scathingly critical of the current Adventure: reboot right now, so you can see that this kind of mentality comes from people who clearly understand that a reboot won’t necessarily be something everyone likes all that much, and thus believe 02 is so unsalvageably bad that you couldn’t possibly make it worse. So you can probably understand why I’m not exactly patient with this kind of take.

If we are to be charitable, though -- if this sentiment comes out of a genuine feeling that 02 had missed potential that could be addressed by the reboot -- I want to ask everyone if they really believe that this theoretical reboot would be a net improvement, especially one that’s worth all the time and effort involved, and even more especially given the writing style that the current Adventure: reboot is employing. You don’t have to claim it’s a perfect series or anything to understand the sentiment that it held up enough by itself to not necessitate a whole anime series being made to do another take on it.

Something I would like to remind people who love to claim that 02 is such a despised series is that it made around 89% of Adventure’s revenue at the time it aired, and despite those who despise 02 being very vocal on the Internet, the actual mainstream tends to be very positive about it, especially in terms of anything to do with Ken (whom most reasonable people will agree had a character arc that deserves acclaim). So in other words, if you want to do a reboot, most likely you would want to do it without offending the base that likes the series already, right? (Especially since, you know, recent events have proven that upsetting the real-life 02 fanbase is actually a pretty inadvisable idea...)

Here’s the thing: Once you filter out most of the “scapegoat” reasons people tend to criticize 02, the one that’s generally the most agreed upon is how disorganized the plot gets in the second half. So this so-called ideal situation reboot would supposedly iron out all of the messy plot writing and make use of the “wasted potential” the series had -- but 02 was way more than just a narrative storyline with characters walking around in it, and when it comes to the reasons people were so drawn to it, they’re tied to the series themes about regrets and making up for the past, and about the unreasonable pressures that society places on children. That, and also the most important one, the central theme of human relationships, and the charismatic and well-developed (yes, really) characters. The so-called “messier” second half of 02 was full of payoff for a lot of what was set up in the first half in regards to its themes, and a lot of its subplots or character flairs are packed in really small nuances that are easy to miss on the first watch.

What this means is that 02 is a series that works off of a lot of delicate balances. Adventure could be “rebooted” because everything was very clear-cut and straightforward, which meant that you could change almost everything about the plot and still relatively adhere to the primary points of “kids gain self-awareness through a journey in another world”. (Like, I really hate to break it to those who put Adventure on a pedestal, but this is mainly possible because Adventure doesn’t really have much of a plot besides “defeat enemy” followed by “defeat bigger enemy”...) In the case of 02, everything regarding the story is, for better or for worse, much more deeply tied to the plot, the narrative behind the Kaiser and the traces of psychological horror laced into everything, and the second-half evolution mechanic, Jogress, has a lot to do with the developments related to the human relationships narrative. Moreover, a lot of the reasons that people call it “bad” for are deeply tied to the exact same reasons a lot of people like it -- that its takes on certain topics were heavily nuanced and unconventional, meaning it could cover ground that most media wouldn’t go anywhere near -- and so the series loses too much of its identity if those aspects are removed, even if it ostensibly seems like “streamlining” it.

So if you mess with one thing, a lot of it falls apart -- and in fact, considering the writing style that the Adventure: reboot is using right now, it’s hard to imagine that applying it to 02 would make it any better. Actually, it seems like it wouldn’t address any of the grievances anyone has with it to any substantial degree, and it’d be more likely to axe all of the stuff that were integral to 02′s identity, like the social commentary, or the heavy focus on human relationships, or the unusual sort of character nuance it employed, and...basically, we go back to the same question: is this actually worth it?

02 itself was about not having this kind of sentiment

The main reason most 02 fans get upset about the 02 characters not being included in Adventure canon-related things that should rightfully include them is that, quite simply, they’re part of the canon! In fact, most 02 fans like Adventure too, so they like the way 02 built on Adventure’s worldbuilding, and moreover they’re attached to the web of relationships between the Adventure and 02 groups -- 02′s additions to Adventure’s worldbuilding and the nature of what it established around the neighborhoods of Odaiba and Tamachi were not only added on but also deeply entangled with what was established before, so you can’t just act like none of it exists!

So this also means that once we’re talking about a completely different universe, absolutely none of this applies and there’s no expectations to adhere to any of this. The 02 quartet doesn’t exist in this universe? Cool.

Funny thing about 02: one of the biggest themes the story revolved around was “not getting caught up in the past, and moving forward with what you have instead,” so it’s probably pretty understandable that a lot of people who like 02 would be the type who wouldn’t be fond of rehashing stuff too much (and even more so it involves 02 itself), especially since being okay with 02 as a sequel likely means being okay with change in general. To make something really new out of it, you might as well...actually make something new out of it, or cover some truly new territory, instead of bothering with this whole reboot business, you know?

One thing you might notice about a lot of 02 fans is that they’re not actually all that fond of the idea of canon putting the group through more massive suffering or emotional ordeals after 02 compared to most. I mean, I think it’s pretty normal to enjoy your favorite characters going through emotional trouble, but the aversion to it often tends to be much stronger than usual, regardless of what country’s fanbase we’re talking, and even the official staff for Kizuna seems to have somewhat recognized that the 02 group is most in its element when in the context of fun and silliness. All things considered, this probably isn’t particularly surprising when you take into account the fact that “just being able to hang out with each other as casual friends at all” was considered such a blessing, and such a difficult goal to reach, that there’s a natural aversion to seeing them go through more emotional suffering again. The new trailer for the upcoming movie seems to have Daisuke in a relatively good mood (and even then, “please don’t make it too emotionally vicious for them” is a pretty common plea).

So if you want to talk about rehashing all of their old problems, seeing it all over again is just not very fun. It’s like holding Ken’s sins over his head again, even if it’s in a different universe; it just doesn’t feel right when the series itself endorsed the best possible outcome for these kids to be “to live happily and at peace with themselves, no matter what happened beforehand”. They worked so hard to get out of it, so to decide we have to do this entire rodeo again for the sake of doing it again, instead of trying something new is...well, it’s not that appealing of an idea, I have to say.

The real-life impact would be intolerable

It’s no secret that the 02 hatedom is a bit uncomfortably vocal about it, but what tends to be really frustrating about it is how many of them love to dunk on the series based on misremembering it. It’s fair that, if you don’t like a series, you probably wouldn’t want to watch it again, but as someone who’s spent a lot of years unpacking all the little details in the series and noticing that it’s much deeper than it initially seems on the surface, it’s honestly annoying to see “criticism” of the series that’s actually just dunking on it based on details that are genuinely factually incorrect (it’d be one thing if it were a question of subjectivity, but no, so many of the insults 02 often gets are based on things that legitimately did not happen in the series).

In the end, I admit that 02′s penchant for ridiculous subtlety probably worked against it a bit too much, and I’ve already covered its impact on how the series gets misread a lot. Thing is, this kind of subtlety was a thing in Adventure too, and it all leads to the unfortunate effect that a lot of people tend to forget what actually happened in Adventure if they haven’t seen it for more than a few years. With the current reboot right now, you’ll see people saying that certain characters are the same as they were in the original series, even though in most respects they’re actually the opposite -- because a lot of said people only remember them by the surface characteristics that seem to be similar.

So when you look at 02, and consider the fact that even official media -- including the official American English dub��and V-Tamer -- has been a bit too prone to not handling Daisuke’s character tastefully and reducing him to traits that make him easy to dislike, you might realize that handling these characters improperly runs an extremely high risk of actually turning them into the flat, unlikeable characters that people tend to accuse them of being -- imagine Daisuke where his entire character is about fixating over Hikari and being impulsive, or Miyako being nothing but self-centered and selfish, or Iori being genuinely stoic and missing the nuances of constantly holding his emotions back. And making it worse is that this would basically solidify these negative perceptions of the characters even further -- because people, especially those inclined to hate the series, would take it as further evidence that the characters have always been like this, reflect it back on the original, and everything would really just become a miserable experience. (Those who are particularly inclined to be malicious against 02 would probably even claim a reboot to be “better than the original” no matter whatever it is, because of the belief that 02 is so incredibly terrible that literally anything would be better than it.)

It’s not my business to dictate other people’s opinions, but it’s already been a frustrating twenty years of dealing with this kind of thing, so of course I’m not going to be enthusiastic about the idea of putting up with more of it...

#digimon #digimon adventure 02

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susandsnell · 4 years ago

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sheilannah + 4

Thank you so much for this!!!

Angst/Fluff Prompts: 4. “I thought things were going great.”

“Oh, they were - still are,” Susannah’s all too quick to reply, all haste and heartiness and very, very little conviction. Coward, she scolds herself, her hand curling so tight around the hem of the plaid skirt it’s a wonder she doesn’t rend fabric. “It’s just. Well, I’m sure you know how they are. Boys.”

Sheila doesn’t meet her eyes. Still remembers to pull a face, but avoids eye contact - and of course, Susannah notices. Just as she notices the pregnant pause, counts eight whole rest beats across two measures, before she answers: “Oh, yeah. They’re great for some things - well, y’know, the obvious -” All haste and heartiness and very little conviction, Susannah thinks, “But the next second, you just need to breathe. The fact that he’s apparently been pitching fits -”

“I didn’t say that,” Susannah protests a little too loudly.

This time, Sheila does roll her eyes. “Fine, the fact he’s been shedding delicate tears into all five of his monogrammed handkerchiefs because you two haven’t gone all the way yet, can’t be making it any easier.”

Despite the tightness of the air between them a moment prior, the image Sheila conjures of Francis, gone full Hollywood glory as he removes his fogged spectacles and wails into some fancy hankies (which he does, in fact, actually happen to possess) sends them both into stitches. Susannah can’t even genuinely say she feels guilty about it, although she knows she ought to.

Then again, there’s plenty she ought be that she just simply isn’t. It occurs for her with some annoyance, and not for the first time, that perhaps the real question is who it is that’s deciding the ought-to-be’s in the first place, only for once, the answer that comes to mind isn’t a simple ‘everyone’. And she’s looking directly at the reason why that is, her jetty hair whipping in every direction as she laughs, as insistent on getting free of the ponytail as she is - once was - of getting free of this joint.

She doesn’t buy for a minute the assertions that she ‘doesn’t go in for that kinda flowery stuff’; Sheila’s no poet, but she can still spin a yarn in such vivid detail that it becomes a wide web. The other girls, Susannah included, are so eager to see where it goes, test its geometries, that they don’t even realize until much later they’re the flies entangled. It’s a nice sort of unaware tangling, though - a peaceful unconsciousness preceding the rush of panic accompanying the realization Sheila’s ankle is wrapped about hers where they perch on the unused game table.

Because she feels she must - again, says who? - Susannah forces a nervous laugh, a world of difference from the genuine mirth of moments ago, and dislodges herself. If she wasn’t so preoccupied with averting her eyes again, she’d swear the tips of Sheila’s ears looked pink. “I mean, that’s how it’s supposed to be, right? With, with boys. You accept the bad with the good, and some things you’re just meant to be different about, but that’s what having girlfriends - you know, girls who are friends, close friends - are for.”

Not that Susannah has any such experience with close female companionship. With school out of the question and what few opportunities for socializing with other youngsters going south more often than not (her fault, she was convinced) he was relegated to books and TV shows, prior to coming to Nation, to eke out the vague impressions of female companionship. Maybe that’s always been an additional draw to girl groups - they’re always sisters and cousins and dear friends, always laughing and making music, always together.

And when it comes to romance, well, muddled as she is, she has to work backwards, understanding through its blank spaces, through its absence. Her folks sleep in separate beds, a proper military family, but also sit on opposite ends of the table, want to watch the opposite sorts of things on television (Mom always yields before there’s even a discussion), demand opposite things of her that she doesn’t know how to give. Any disagreement is largely omitted, or smothered, and all in all, they seem to avoid each other - the ‘after’ that logically follows the ‘Happily Ever After’ scrawled in cursive over the wedding or kiss at the end of the movie.

While she and Francis talk much more, which at first had been a colossal improvement, Susannah understands her relationship through absences, too. The absence of interest in his face when she’s talking, the absence of joy or excitement pounding in her chest when they kiss.

Love just isn’t like it sounds in songs - more than once, she’s wondered if that’s why they’re written that way, to forever have a small pocket of the magic you were promised preserved in the music. No, for women, and especially for her, it’s a lot more about compromise. Things are going great.

Which is why talking to Sheila’s so damn distracting, to the point of frustration. Because next to such a strong and vibrant presence, she finds nothing absent or lacking at all.

#love in hate nation #lihn #sheilannah #joe iconis #susannah sonn #sheila nail #thank you so much for sending this in!!!! I'm trying to get back into the swing with these two #and this turned a lot more introspective than anticipated but i hope you enjoy nonetheless!!

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silverdaddyrdj · 5 years ago

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Imagine: Veteran lawyer Hank Palmer wants to spoil you rotten but you’re unsure about the idea. But, he’s persistent and can put up a very good argument.

Rating: Explicit/18+ (you shouldn’t be on this blog if you’re below 18, anyway)

Request your imagine headcanons and we will write a little something for you. And you get a bonus silver daddy picture to go with it. :)

"Anything you want, sweetheart. And I mean anything."

His voice is silky, playful, and he knows you're caught, like prey, in the carefully spun webs of his charm.

It started three weeks ago at the local café, where you stood waiting for your morning coffee. You checked and rechecked your watch, and willed for the line to move faster, but it didn't budge. If looks could kill, the cashier and the four people in front of you would've died on the spot.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, you picked up your coffee and prepared to dash to your office across the street. If you timed it right, you could slide into the conference room just before the San Francisco office dialled in. You prepared to sprint, but, clearly, fate had other plans. Just as you were about to run out of the café, you bumped into a solid mass of designer suit and expensive cologne that reminded you of spotless sandy beaches and calm, clear ocean hundreds of miles away from the busy morning rush of Chicago. That's when you felt the warm dampness spreading down your front — the content of your cup was mostly on the ground, but it was also staining the beige top you wore, primed and ironed for the meeting.

"Fucking asshole," you said before you could stop yourself, and the hand holding out a silk napkin before you froze.

"I'm so sorry."

You looked up, ready to give the offender a piece of your mind for ruining your morning. But, you caught yourself in time and the words froze at the tip of your tongue. Later that night, you swore to your sister that you had seen the most beautiful pair of eyes ever known to man — and its owner, the apologetic culprit who spoilt the start of your day, wasn't all that bad. After all, he had graciously accepted your apology for the caffeine-deprived outburst and offered to pay for the dry cleaning bill.

That's how you agreed to meet him for a drink. You had gone to the pub intending to make up for your lack of manners and end the encounter on a friendly note because Chicago has an uncanny ability to appear very small sometimes. In your line of work — you’re a corporate lawyer at an investment bank — you deal with jocular finance bros all day, and almost everyone knows everyone else. And judging by the man's outward appearance — hand-cut suit, leather shoes, silver-dotted wavy hair that begged for your fingers — you had assumed he was someone important. But all of your strategic calculations went out the door that night, when, after three drinks, you tumbled into your queen-sized bed with him, your fingers in his hair, his lips on your thighs.

***

You shift in bed, a solid mass pressing into your back. He traces a finger along the side of your ear, down the column of your neck, coming to rest on your bare chest. You're pleasantly sore and aching all over, and there are at least a handful of bruises on your skin — he's an attentive lover; last night, he broke down your defenses with methodical precision, tearing away at your sense of propriety as he left you squirming under the firm weight of his body, awash with such overwhelming pleasure that you didn't give a single fuck if your next-door neighbours heard you as you screamed, begged and urged him, your voice straining, to go harder, to push deeper, to take his pleasure from the dripping warmth between your legs. And, he obliged.

"Well?" he nudges, resting his chin on your shoulder, his hands drawing circles around your navel. "You've gone quiet."

You try to pull away from him, but only half-heartedly, and he doesn't appear to be in a hurry to let you go. The two of you stay entangled in a heap of limbs and skin, in need of a shower and some concealer to cover up the secret you've chosen to keep from your friends.

It's complicated, you've argued, as you debated telling them the truth after he had left at the crack of dawn on your first night together. He's an influential man, you've got your own career ambitions; he's almost twice your age, never married, and avoids the topic of past dalliances. He isn't even interested in your history of failed or mismatched relationships, and yours lean more towards physical gratification.

You've been meeting him whenever work lets you both escape for a brief time. It’s one of the upsides of having your office be less than a block from his. He takes you to lunch, you flirt with him over texts when you’re back at your desk, you both grab quick dinners from nearby restaurants. The nights end like clockwork: With him in your bed, climbing on top of you, or sometimes you’re straddling him, or he’s bending you over the chaise, pressing you into the wall, taking you against the floor-length window or by the door; he’s all over you, inside you, rocking your world, like clockwork. You enjoy the routine and he's adaptive enough that it doesn't feel monotonous.

But you've still been wary about where this ends up — as much as the two of you connect physically, you've noticed his aloofness when he isn’t in bed trying to make love to you. Both of you roam in different social circles; he likes rock concerts, you prefer off-Broadway theatre; he plays golf on weekends, you're at Wrigley Field screaming your lungs out; he knows every Michelin star chef in town, you love Chinese takeaway from the shop three blocks from your apartment.

***

You sigh. He's waiting for an answer. "I think it's a little weird," you say, finally, and it earns a soft-bellied chuckle from him. He looks cute when he laughs, it brings out the dimples on his cheeks. "Look," you say, gesturing around, "all this is great. The sex is definitely amazing but I can't accept gifts like this. It's too much."

"Can't a man spoil his lover?" he asks, and there's such an infuriating innocence in his tone, you can't bring yourself to call him out on the hint of cockiness in his statement.

Instead, you shake your head and this time, when he leans in for a kiss, you pull away and turn sideways so that you're both facing each other directly. You press a palm against his cheek and say, "As much as anyone in my place would be thrilled to have someone pamper them, I can't just spend your money so recklessly because you're telling me to." You hold up a hand when he looks like he's about to protest. "Let's do a trade-off. I'll let you buy me something nice like you want just this once if you let me take you out to a fancy dinner tomorrow like I’ve been wanting to. It’s only fair I get to spoil you rotten too once in a while."

He considers the proposal and smirks. "Deal."

It takes you another hour to get dressed, after both of you get carried away in the shower, where he has you pressed against the glass, your legs quivering as the pleasure drags on, setting your nerves on fire. He doesn’t stop moving when your body tenses up for the second time and it knocks the breath out of your body; you hold him like both of your lives depend on it. You clench down hard around him and he moans, his thrusts finally faltering and pushing him over the edge.

***

You end up spending the afternoon along the Magnificent Mile and you're impressed — for years, you've walked past the glass facades and fancy storefronts, admiring the catalogue of colourful designer bags, shoes and clothes on display, straight off the runway, sometimes, but you have always known any one of those items can do some serious damage to your bank balance. He seems to know every store attendant by name and they appear almost reverential in his presence. As the afternoon progresses, your resolve starts to crumble and every time you give in, he triumphantly, and with genuine delight, hands over his credit cards.

After your seventh purchase of the day, having spent at least a year's worth of rent in the city, you call it quits. He looks disappointed, like a kid who's just been told no, but at least he offers to put the bags in the car. That evening, you insist on taking him to the best pizzeria in the city. It's dirty, greasy, smelly and exactly why it's a fan-favourite. Watching him, the same man who wines and dines in the country's most elite fine-dining establishments, devour a large slice of pepperoni without a care in the world is perhaps, you think, the greatest present he could’ve ever given you. It makes you grin from ear to ear after as you walk back to the car, your hands entwined.

He looks pleased with himself. "I can't remember the last time I had this much fun," he says as you get in the car and you can see there's a tinge of regret in his eyes. Perhaps with time, you can uncover the mystery behind those brown orbs that look like they have seen the world a hundred times over — if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve fallen for them. Just a bit. You look forward to learning more about him and think, maybe, just maybe you might tell your friends the truth tomorrow. For now, you smirk and unbuckle your seatbelt, climbing over onto his lap, and the shocked look on his face is worth it. The indoor parking lot is pretty empty at this time of the evening. You think back on how he spent the entire week rocking your world, seven ways to Sunday, and, as you reach down for his zipper, you reckon it's time someone shakes up his world a little.

"If you thought that was fun, you're gonna love what I have in mind."

Fortunately for you, and maybe it's the added experience that comes with his age, he catches on quickly and the sudden smoulder in his eyes almost dares you to do your best. Never one to shrink from an honest challenge, you grin and crash your lips together.

#hank palmer #rdjedit #robert downey jr #rdj #the judge #rdjgifsdaily #dailyrdjposts #actoredit #fic #silverdaddyrdj #silverfoxrdj

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gothsic · 5 years ago

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LITTLE CHARACTER THINGS

Just a fun little character game. Fill in the below categories with 3-5 things that your character can be identified by. Repost & tag away !

tagged by: @citialiin suplexes you into the sun bc i luv u tagging: whomever wants to !!

EMOTIONS / FEELINGS:

001. DISGUST – Filth, filth, it’s all filth. Everyone is squirming underneath his boot heel, and they’re doing it with a smile. How awful. And yet, he can’t help but smile right back at them. So delighted that they understand their place. If only he could sleep, he might very well get some god-damned peace...

002. ISOLATION – Why is it that looking at the sea reminds him so much of the things that he’d lost? Maybe that’s why he spends so much time sitting out there in the sand, looking out at the ocean as it ebbs and flows, leaves behind the darkened, wet sand. Sometimes, he planted footprints there, and watched them vanish as the water took them away. And no, it wasn’t a comfort. It was, maybe, some sort of reminder to himself.

003. ENVY – WHY does it always have to be that way? Smiling faces admiring another’s work - someone younger than him... he wants it all. He’ll take it for himself if he has to. Why can it not be him at all hours of the day? Always worshipped, always admired. Look at his talent, bask in it... but why do they all head the opposite direction? Could it be that... he’s losing relevance? No, it couldn’t be. And yet, that pain in his stomach simply won’t go away...

004.YEARNING – He has always had a habit of grabbing at things he can’t have. If he can’t have it, he only wants it more. Once he has it, he holds onto it as if he had been utterly fulfilled every which way.

005. RAGE – Always seeing red, always wanting nothing more than to tear at those that denied him a chance at success. Claws that have grown over the years, from frustrated, suppressed anger that originated from the time he was born, perhaps. Now, they slash at whatever they can find; not enough to kill, but enough to leave a scar. A wound. A reminder that he was there once.

GREETINGS:

001. A sarcastic remark, a seemingly chatty man. He seems to have opinions on everything, no matter what the subject. He seems remarkably interested in you, but only insofar as to how involved you are in the subject at hand.

002. He offers you a half-smile. A laid-back appearance. Extends his hand to meet yours to greet you. When you shake his hand, you make note of how strangely callous his hands are. How cold they are, made even colder by the metal rings on his fingers that brush uncomfortably against your skin.

003. He pokes fun at you, makes jokes. But they’re never meant to necessarily harm you. That would be rude, oh no. He can be a bit much, but he only means to make you laugh. But there’s still a strange distance to him. You can’t seem to penetrate him, necessarily - no matter how you may retort. But maybe, if you say something right on point at the right moment, he might just remember you.

004. After an exciting conversation, he asks for your number. Or your contact details. Anything to potentially arrange another meeting down the line. It’s a sign that you’ve attracted his attention in some way. Maybe he’ll contact you down the line.

005. Perhaps, after some time of meeting, if you’re lucky, he’ll show you his genuine smile rather than his half-smile. Right then, you realize that the man you met way back when may actually have more secrets than you could have ever comprehended - if his smile was fake, what else is fake?

COLOURS:

001. Pitch black, of course - the color of choice for the ex-goth.

002. Crimson red, the color of beating hearts and throbbing flesh.

003. Forest green, the color of D.’s forest before it began to rot as a consequence of his deteriorating psyche.

004. Murky blue, the color of the ocean at midnight as the moon is hidden in the Los Angeles smog. It seems endless the more he looks into it.

005. Earthy brown, the color of Annie’s sweater the night she vanished into the darkness forever.

SCENTS:

001. A consistent reek of cigarette smoke on his clothes, his breath, his every word.

002. A faint scent of hair gel and mousse - faintly applied, to keep his hair as voluminous as possible.

003. The equally as faint trace of after shave after he’s taken care of himself. Though there is a stronger smell of hair dye, as he obsessively covers every white hair that may emerge on his head.

004. The strong smell of permanent marker, inking pens, and lead from his furious sketching.

005. Then, there’s his own natural smell - cinnamon mixed with a musty pine; it’s a bit like the smell of a forest filled with pine trees after a heavy rain. Overwhelming, powerful, and stuffy.

CLOTHING:

001. Three skull rings on each hand, on your index, middle, and ring fingers. It’s perfect symmetry, and they shine against whatever light might hit it. But they are always so very cold to the touch.

002. Black, black, and more black - but the occasional muted green or brown enters the palette. Never any colors brighter than those, however - it would be far too much of an eyesore for someone like him.

003. Three gold and black earrings on the top of his ears. Again, symmetry is key. Keeping that image of control and collection is exactly what he wishes above all things; that alternative look.

004. Combat boots, black and laced up to the top. They’re impeccably buffed and shined, though the soles look a little worse for wear. It must be all the walking he does at night when sleep simply won’t come.

005. Baggy shirts and sweaters, occasionally dress shirts, that hide his figure. He’s disproportionate, far too thin; the longer the clothes, the better he can hide how odd and lanky he truly is from his point of view.

OBJECTS:

001. His drawing tablet, always sketching something idly while at home and daydreaming. There are hundreds of random sketches collected on the pages, though some consistencies are quite visible if one took a closer look.

002. His collection of various statuettes and figurines. He has placed them in detolfs for everyone to see, fawn over, and be amazed by. If anyone so much as looks incorrectly at his more precious ones, he will have a close eye on them in fear that they will somehow break merely by being looked at.

003. Signed copy of one of the few produced vinyl records of Oingo Boingo’s Forbidden Zone hanging on his wall. It’s framed, and he’s very proud of it! Often shows it off, in fact. He’s a big fan of theirs.

004. A safety deposit box filled with his biggest secrets - specifically a thumb drive filled with Annie’s e-mails to him. He backed them up there so he can read them on occasion and not have people discover them on his actual computer - he’s quite the paranoid man.

005. Post-its on the walls of his workroom. There is literally no more space for plaster, only post-its of notes and ideas that he has while he conducts research for his next project.

VICES / BAD HABITS:

001. OBSESSIVENESS - Look at him, so utterly fixated on someone who will never love him back. But what he feels isn’t love, oh no. It’s rather a completely unhealthy adoration and veneration of someone he felt understood him. But it is arrogant, of course, to assume that you are so complex as to feel as if there are only a select few who understand you ( in his very unfortunate case ). He has gone to horrific lengths to keep tabs on Annie, and does so as covertly as possible. Nowadays, he uses his intelligence to fuel his obsessive tendencies.

002. LYING - Covers the truth up with layers and layers of sarcasm and lies so that he, or rather his true self, can never be discovered. The result is that he keeps people in a web of extremely elaborate deception, the likes of which they can never escape. But there are cracks in the facades occasionally, they just have to be found.

003. COVETING YOUTH - He is so obsessed with youth that he cannot handle anybody or anything maintaining the status that he had when he was their age (20s, in other words). He especially applies it to himself, though no amount of primping and covering up the blemishes on his face can ever erase the fact that he’s slowly growing crow’s feet around his eyes, made even worse by the bags under them - and my, they’re growing a fine mixture of blue and purple, like fresh bruises.

004. UNWARRANTED SELF IMPORTANCE - He is completely self centered, and thinks of the entire world on his own terms. This is how he’s been wired ever since he can remember, and he always puts himself and his survival first. He makes friends and connections based on this principle, and has a great amount of pride because of this. It is unfortunate, but it is one of his biggest flaws and ultimately what has led him down the slippery slope to irrelevance and isolation.

005. LACK OF EMPATHY - On top of being self involved, he struggles to feel for the plight of others. In fact, it can be said he struggles to feel much of anything, as he worries far more for his current predicament rather than for the difficulties of those in his life. He will only assist or even understand if he can relate in some way from personal experience, or if it benefits him and his career. There is very rarely an instance he will help someone or something because he feels it is the right thing to do.

BODY LANGUAGE:

001. The aforementioned half-smile - the Jonathan trademark, something he has rehearsed ever since his career started to take off. Perhaps even before then, while he was still in high school. It is boyish, youthful, playful - and it is always followed by a sarcastic or joking remark.

002. Hands in pockets - The sign of deceit, hiding something, keeping his distance from you. He is very secretive at all times, and often feels uncomfortable in social situations, and feel better as long as he has his hands in his pockets. That said...

003. Wild gesticulations - When passionately discussing something, he has a tendency to make hand movements of all kinds. Circling his hands, stretching his arms out, pointing, doing anything and everything to get his point across. He becomes expressive in a rather charismatic way. It’s truly odd, considering how often he keeps his hands in his pockets.

004. Hunched over - Slouching half the time, his true height is hidden by this decision to constantly look as if he’s three inches shorter than he is. Rather it is a symptom of his insecurity over his appearance ( he does think he’s weird looking to begin with ), or from a life of leaning over a desk, he certainly rarely stands up straight.

005. Leaning on his right foot versus the left - When standing, and talking to someone, he always puts all his weight on his right foot, and leans to that side. It’s his dominant side, and it gives him his lackadaisical appearance. This likely helps people approach him in many ways.

AESTHETICS:

001. BIOMECHANICS. - Feeling flesh on metal is one of the most skin-crawling sensations, but Jonathan is fascinated with it. He draws it, he lives and breathes it, one of his favorite films of all time is Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Not because he himself would want to put metal on his body, but the very idea is where he believes humanity is headed in the next decade or two. Biomechanics, while cold, is something that gives Jonathan some sense of comfort - that there is a way to marry technology and flesh. Maybe he, too, can be a biomechanical humanoid - so he fantasizes.

002. GOTH ( AS IT SHOULD BE ). - A goth since his teen years, Jonathan knows the fashion and subculture inside and out; or at least, he did once. Though an ex-goth from his early 30s, he still maintains some interest in the culture all the same. He may have stopped dying his hair and wearing “goth” accessories and clothes, but he enjoys the lifestyle and still generally keeps it close to his heart. Just don’t call him Goth Bomb.

003. BODY HORROR. - Flesh mutating and intermingling with itself, a David Cronenberg nightmare that he experienced firsthand in his own dreams. Eyes in places they shouldn’t be, hair where it should never grow... the list goes on and on. It, like biomechanics, sends chills running up and down his spine in a way that excites him. Perhaps he is like Tetsuo, a man who finds a grotesque fascination in manipulating the flesh with the unnatural. But in this case, it’s how naturally manipulation can occur without the introduction of foreign objects, to word it somewhat scientifically...

004. SCI-FI HORROR. - The darkness of space, it’s vastness. It’s quite horrifying, the more he thinks about it. But it’s exciting too. All the possibilities that lie in the stars, all the worlds he could visit as someone quite tired of Earth... but what horrors await behind each planet, each moon, even within each star? They would simply jump at the chance to devour an unimportant human whole, and Jonathan is unsure if he wants to take that chance. All the same, he dreams of that world, hoping that one day he may get to experience it - but, perhaps, from a distance.

005. DEEP COLORS IN CINEMATOGRAPHY / CHIAROSCURO. - Intense lighting, mood lighting, anything that brings out the terror or intensity of a scene is something Jonathan imitates in his works. By deep colors, it is meant that he adores the use of intense reds, blues, and purples in cinema - these often pop up in his work as mood lighting for his set pieces. They signal to him a fantasy world that is not our own. Chiaroscuro simply refers to the film noir technique that he grew to adore from a young age. The harsh black against white, signalling mystery and evil lying behind every corner entranced that young and intelligent mind, sparked his terrified imagination to what monsters could hide in the faces of his favorite noir protagonists...

SONGS / PIECES:

001. montezuma ── fleet foxes

002. little lennon ── asian kung fu generation

003. sabertooth tiger ── cage the elephant

004. controller ── oingo boingo

005. dark entries ── bauhaus

#DRAWN SO FAST I FORGOT I HAD IT IN MY SKETCHBOOK. - DASH MEMES.#( this took way longer than it shoULD HAVE GKDMKSLAD )#( i have a few things to do for tomorrow night and monday so i'll do them then!! )#( that includes starters ask memes and replies. )#( 4 now have this infodump on why jonathan vastielle is a horrible person )#( but also why he is i hope a tragic horrible person )#( he made the choice to be complicit )#( sad. )

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prorevenge · 6 years ago

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But I Don’t Even Have a Contract!

When I was 16, I had a stint as a small-time social media star on Twitter — not because I’m particularly interesting or anything, but for two reasons: a) I got on Twitter really early in 2007 when it was way easier to get followers and engagement due to the site being less noisy and more ‘stupid�� in terms of algorithms and b) I stood out from a lot of other minor Twitter stars because I didn’t let it get to my head; while a lot of them were egotistical and haughty, I followed everyone back, turned ‘haters’ into friends instead of retaliating, etc.

Through this fleeting fame, my former boss found me. He said he was setting up a regional media studio to help small- and medium-sized local businesses with their social media marketing, and he planned to eventually franchise the business into other cities. He hired me on the basis of my large social following (81,000 followers at the time). Obviously, having a large social following doesn’t automatically mean you know how to market businesses on social media, but I adapted and studiously researched how to do my job properly.

My boss didn’t come from a creative background or a marketing role — he came from a property background, and was just sort of winging it in finding an alternative source of income after the housing crash. Being as young as I was at the time, I didn’t really think about any of this stuff. The outcome was that I never received any training, had no real guidance in what I was doing, and was generally left to my own devices. Younger me thought it was great! I saw it as ‘freedom’, but looking back, I realize it was far too much freedom.

The side effects of this disparity between my social media skills and his inability to communicate creative ideas manifested themselves as people trying to cut past the business and come straight to me, asking me directly as an individual whether I’d do work for them rather than give my boss the money. I was respectful (or naïve) enough to open up to my boss about this, and that’s when things started getting a little bit manipulative. He told me I could go my own way or remain part of a business that’d soon be growing across the country.

Fair enough, I thought. So I stayed, and one year in (I was 17/18 at this time) I realized that managing brands via social media had naturally morphed me into something of a graphic designer. A lot of my time was spent creating eye-catching visuals in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign etc. and so I suggested to my boss that we expand our media offering to include logo, graphic, and print design, and visual branding consultancy. Again, I received no training — I worked all day and self-studied late into the night.

This pattern snowballed over the years. By the time I was 21, I was a social media manager, visual branding designer, copywriter, photographer, video editor, and web developer — all skills I developed independently with no input or guidance from my boss. The business was still operating in just one city, and my boss had started spending less and less time in the office. I still didn’t realize this wasn’t particularly normal, until clients who came to the office to meet me constantly asked where he was.

One day, a client went as far as to say: “You’re basically running the business at this point!” It was a huge ‘glass shatter’ moment for me, and I suddenly realized that, yeah, although I wasn’t actually managing the business and its admin work etc., without me, there wouldn’t be a service or product to sell. What’s more, my wages hadn’t gone up, even though my ‘this is great, I have so much freedom!’ mind-set had motivated me to continue working on stuff related to the business when I got home.

As I was nearing 22, the owner of the building where the business’ office was located asked me if I’d help him fix his computer (it was just running really slowly because he hadn’t managed his files very well). Not really thinking of it as work, I agreed, and headed into his office after work to help him out. As luck would have it, my boss walked in to hand over that month‘s rent, so he saw me there. He looked surprised, but didn’t comment — he just gave the dude the rent and left the building.

The next day, my boss wasted no time in probing me about what I was doing. He was speaking to me like a cop would speak to a suspect, asking me how long I’d been doing work for the landlord, what kind of work I was doing, why I hadn’t folded the work into the business, etc. I explained I was just fixing up his computer, and he leapt into a lecture about how we needed to keep all work inside the business, or else we would never be able to grow into other cities.

I turned 22. I’d been there for five years, my wages hadn’t gone up, I wasn’t allowed to do any work outside of the business, I hadn’t witnessed any of the growth I’d initially been promised, my boss was only in the office 25% of the time, and I saw him uploading Instagram Stories from him lunching, working out at the gym, walking his dogs, taking day trips etc. while I was in the office managing everything. A lot of the time he didn’t even warn me he’d not be in the office. It became the norm that if he didn’t turn up, I’d be running everything for the day. Because I’d grown with the business from my youngest working age, I didn’t know any different, so all of this felt completely normal to me. And because I worked all day and all night and had no firm social life, I never got any outside perspective, until one day, on a whim, I opened up to the landlord about it. He hadn’t even realized I was the one doing all the work — he figured it was split fairly 50/50. He said the amount of work I was producing was on the same level as an agency with three or four employees.

I started managing all of the branding, social media, and website maintenance for the landlord’s business, but didn’t broadcast that news to anyone. As I was nearing the age of 23, I met my now-fiancée, a perfectly feisty woman who, as soon as I told her about my situation, passionately advised I start my own media studio. This is where I entered the ‘long breakup’ period of my job, where I got increasingly depressed at work and physically felt my productivity slow to a near-halt. My boss noticed, but never talked to me about it face-to-face. He started sending me irritated emails full of swear words demanding explanations for why I hadn’t delivered certain work by certain times and dates, while he was off sunning at the beach. It was like someone had pulled out his cork and let all the toxicity out in one torrent. My girlfriend hated him, and gently pushed me to the point where I felt like I was ready to confront him about the dead end we’d wound up in.

I asked a few of my friends about it, just to get a wider set of viewpoints on how I should go about it. They asked me things like, what does your contact say about you leaving the company and working with other businesses independently? Legal stuff, y’know. And that’s when I realized my lack of training over the past six years had also left me ignorant of the formalities of employment — I never had a contract! The real kicker was, I never had employee liability coverage either. My boss wasn’t even doing the admin stuff properly.

Obviously, that meant he also had no control over me when it came to contracts, so I literally just walked in (without my laptop — I’m now just realizing he never provided equipment either, yikes) and sat there waiting for him to arrive. Thankfully, it was one of the days he decided to turn up. He went and sat down in his chair, asked me where my laptop was and why I wasn’t working etc., and so I just straight-up told him that I was leaving the company to start my own media venture.

He laughed a patronizing laugh and simply said, “Alright, good luck then.” Part of me felt like this was normal, because he was usually quite cold like that, but another part of me knew that there should have been some sort of emotion and deeper discussion in that moment. I wanted to say, “so that’s it, then?” to try to flesh the talk out, but that really was it. He just turned to his computer and began typing away as if I wasn‘t there. So I just turned around and left, went home, and that was it.

He did WhatsApp me a message later that day (all his caring and considerate communication came through digital means — perhaps he hired someone on a zero-hour contract to inject emotion into his texts?) asking if we could meet at the pub for a proper goodbye. And we did. It was a nice gesture, but it felt very awkward and forced, as if he’d spoken to someone about it and they’d coaxed him into doing it. He shook my hand, wished me good luck (much more genuinely this time), and we parted ways.

Three months later, I’d tripled my income as a freelancer. All of those clients who’d try to come to me directly over the years — it was like a floodgate had opened, and they all came rushing to me. I hadn’t told them I’d left, but obviously, they realized it themselves when they went to the office and I was never there. I felt bad about ‘stealing’ clients away from my former boss, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just abandon the people I’d been working with just because of morals. That‘d be immoral, if anything. I continued working with the landlord and even travelled with him a few times to build my solo filmmaking portfolio by documenting his brand’s work across the UK, including his talks at business seminars. We developed a very close working relationship, to the point where just my work for his company was earning me more than all the work I did for my former boss. He started sharing a few bits of gossip with me about how my old boss had begun paying rent later and later. I figure perhaps his cash flow had something to do with it, but the landlord also showed me an email my old boss had written in which he’d expressed his anger at the landlord for ‘colluding’ with me and pushing me to leave his company.

The further I distanced myself from the company, the more I realized how toxic he behaved towards everyone he came into contact with. I could never see it from the inside. Every time I checked the old company’s website, a new service had been removed, because it wasn’t something he could offer anyone anymore.

Back in November 2018, the landlord told me that he was kicking my old boss out of the office after he failed to pay rent for three months. A few weeks after that, the landlord proposed that we go into business together to create a separate media studio solely focused on the industry his business operates within. He said that we’d take the old company’s office once my former boss had moved out, and that I could also use that office for my own freelance venture, free of charge.

One year after leaving, I’ve taken 25% of my old boss’ clients, occupied his office, and quadrupled my income.

There’s a part of me that feels guilty about all of this — he’s a guy who didn’t quite know what to do after the housing market crashed and tried something out which didn’t go too well. But at the same time, I can’t feel too bad for someone who I believe took advantage of me for half a decade. If you treat someone with disrespect, you end up with very little. If you treat someone with respect, they give you a free office and offer to start a new business with you.

TL;DR: Boss never did anything properly — no training, no contracts, no insurance, very little respect, not much guidance, empty promises about business growth, etc. Everything I learned independently resulted in me quadrupling my income and taking over his office within a year of leaving his company.

(source) story by (/u/Adingding90)

#prorevenge #by /u/Adingding90 #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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fatehbaz · 6 years ago

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Brief Introduction to the Neoreactionary Movement, the Dark Enlightenment, and the Left’s Response (for non-weirdos - with sources!)

I’ve recently received a couple of messages asking where you can learn about how New Atheists, nihilists, and other formerly moderate groups were targeted and lured by far-right racists during Gamergate, ultimately coalescing around the global, far-right Neoreactionary (NRx) movement. So, I prepared a quick primer exploring the key concepts, ideologies, philosophies, origins, and thought-leaders of the two branches of Neoreactionary movement, the Dark Enlightenment and the Traditionalists. I also cover the Left’s use of the same philosophical concepts and how certain groups on the Left are countering this movement. I hope this helps to understand what is rapidly becoming a formidable and popular force. If you do not have time to read, please do not overlook the 3 most important links that best recount the birth and growth of the movement: Harrison Fluss and Landon Frim, Salvage magazine, December 2017, “Behemoth and Leviathan: The Fascist Bestiary of the Alt-Right”: http://salvage.zone/in-print/behemoth-and-leviathan-the-fascist-bestiary-of-the-alt-right/ Yuk Hui, e-flux, 2017, “On the Unhappy Consciousness of Neoreactionaries”: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/81/125815/on-the-unhappy-consciousness-of-neoreactionaries/ Park MacDougald, The Awl, 2015, “The Darkness Before the Right” https://www.theawl.com/2015/09/the-darkness-before-the-right/ PART ONE: What is the Neoreactioanary movement? I apologize that I’m away from home doing summer research stuff, so I’m not near my hard-drive with better lists of sources, but I think I have some fun recommendations for (1.1) introductions to the two branches of the Neoreactionary movement; (1.2) New Atheism’s fusion with the movement; and (1.3) the degree to which Neoreactionaries influence popular culture. 1.1 -- Introduction to the two branches of the Neoreactioanry movement: Sources for exploring the Neoreactioanry (NRx) movement would depend on which “half” of the movement you are interested in, since NRx is split into two distinct ideologies: (1) the Dark Enlightenment, and (2) the Traditionalists. Both branches of NRx are united in how they both openly hate modernity; are passionately Counter-Enlightnement; irrationalist; want to disband democracy; explicitly abhor multiculturalism; want to reverse egalitarianism; are Social Darwinist; and value meritocracy and hierarchy. Both movements also subscribe to a sort of nihilistic mysticism based on object-oriented ontology, which began as a radical left-wing, quasi-Marxist philosophy before being co-opted when Nick Land defected from Marxism to become the de facto founder and leader of the Dark Enlightenment. Nick Land is probably the single most important individual to learn about; he is definitely the thought-leader of NRx, and his writing has certainly been the most influential in attracting new recruits. He’s like an honest-to-god apocalypse-cultist and cyberpunk villain; though that description would flatter him, because he loves cyberpunk as a genre and much of his writing makes use of cyberpunk tropes. So, the current alliance-of-convenience between the Dark Enlightenment techno-commercialist futurists and the tribalistic, ethnonationalist Traditionalists is because they both genuinely want to facilitate the acceleration of neoliberal decay to provoke an apocalyptic collapse of global economic order. Following such a collapse, Dark Enlightenment people hope to establish a global technocracy ruled by "high-IQ" Silicon Valley-type tech geniuses to implement unfettered commercialism; whereas Traditionalists would establish tribal ethnostates under the ultimate leadership of a Russia-type military defender of its status quo. One of the best and most thorough introductions to the quasi-mystical ideology of the NRx, and the alliance-of-convenience relationship between both branches of NRx, is in the 2017 article at Salvage by Harrison Fluss and Landon Frim, “Behemoth and Leviathan: The Fascist Bestiary of the Alt-Right”. A quick summary of the distinctions between the two branches: (1) Traditionalists -- value Orthodoxy, especially religious; kind of isolationist and primitivist; love ethnonationalism; races are inherently different; want to escape modernity by reverting to the past with pre-Enlightenment values; describe themselves philosophically as Arctogaians; think of themselves as earth-bound and tribalistic; believe civilization decays and collapses naturally; idealize modern Russia as a model; includes many occultists, neopagans, and mystical fascists in the vein of Julius Evola (2) The Dark Enlightenment / techo-commercialists -- value secular hierarchy; want to escape modernity and Enlightenment by propelling into a technocratic future; believe the masses should be left to starve and only the smartest should hold power (to be fair, they propose giving “the plebs” a universal basic income to keep them satiated and prevent revolt); think of themselves as contemporary pirates, like corporate raiders; idealize modern Chinese authoritarian capitalism as a model Thought-leader of Traditionalists: Aleksandr Dugin Thought-leaders of the Dark Enlightenment: Nick Land, Mencius Moldbug, Peter Thiel A quick note about the relationship between Silicon Valley and the Dark Enlightenment: Peter Thiel is the notorious co-founder of Paypal, the founder of Palantir, a close friend of Trump, the guy who personally paid for the lawsuit that took-down Gawker, and a close friend of Nick Land. Thiel’s Palantir literally tracks online movements and behavior of everyone it comes into contact with, creating behavior profiles of pretty much anyone online. Thiel is open about his desire to have authoritarian capitalist governments use similar technology to enforce social order in times of upheaval. He’s a good example of what the Dark Enlightenment envisions for the future: technocratic micro-states and wholly unregulated corporate control. This isn’t an un-fair characterization; they are open about these desires. 1.2 -- New Atheist fusion with NRx: During Gamergate, it seems that (1) New Atheists merged with (2) the Manosphere, (3) Traditionalists, and (4) the Dark Enlightenment to form a more clearly-defined misogynist core of the NRx. So, by taking a look at how formerly moderate internet communities gradually coalesced into a powerful, ambitious movement, we can identify some of the core values and concerns of the Neoreactionary movement generally, using New Atheists as a case study in radicalization. A brief but accessible description of how this coalescing happened is nicely explored in Alex Dibranco’s “Mobilizing Misogyny” (2017), which traces the gradual fusion of internet atheists with pick-up-artist communities and Traditionalists until the alt-right emerged. (Linked below). DiBranco does a good job recounting how the internet, even in the 90′s, had always been a cesspool of misognyny and a hub of radicalization for misogynists. She recounts how the early internet pick-up-artist (PUA) culture and Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) slowly evolved and gradually became mainstream. Meanwhile, on a different trajectory, the already-radical identitarians and neofascist communities began to deliberately recruit moderate misogynists by appealing to their frustration with empowered women. This proved an effective recruiting tactic.DiBranco demonstrates how formerly moderate “skeptics” and “rationalists” were deliberately targeted by more-radical racist communities; they lured New Atheists into their fold by appealing first to misogynist language and masculine posturing of Gamergate, before ultimately persuading them with additional racist rhetoric. Another great discussion of this coalescing is the more-informal but still-thorough 2017 Salon article by Phil Torres, “From the Enlightenment to the Dark Ages: How ‘new atheism’ slid into the alt-right.” (Linked below) It is specifically the Dark Enlightenment branch of NRx which has attracted the New Atheists. The Dark Enlightenment branch is attractive to New Atheists because the movement is secular, nihilistic, led by Silicon Valley tech-bros, and believes in unregulated commercialism and governance by those with the highest IQ - qualities shared by the “skeptic” community. 1.3 – To what extent does NRx influence popular culture? How serious is this movement? Should we be worried? Yep. It’s bad and you should be worried. I think it’s important to note that the NRx movement is the truer, grander ideological force behind the relatively cruder alt-right and Trumpism. The Dark Enlightenment in particular, through the sardonic, self-aware, and tech-savvy writing of Nick Land, has attracted the most young men to the movement. I think two of the very best introductions to the cultural appeal, and ideology of the Dark Enlightenment are these: Yuk Hui, e-flux, 2017, “On the Unhappy Consciousness of Neoreactionaries”: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/81/125815/on-the-unhappy-consciousness-of-neoreactionaries/ Park MacDougald, The Awl, 2015, “The Darkness Before the Right” https://www.theawl.com/2015/09/the-darkness-before-the-right/ A good measure of how NRx is quickly becoming a formidable cultural force would be to observe how the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) led by Jordan Peterson has lately been legitimizing in mainstream media over the past year. I think that this is the very best exploration of the cultural power of, and a great refutation of, the Intellectual Dark Web: Brent Cooper, Medium, 2018, “Enlightening the Intellectual Dark Web: Calling Out the Public Discourse for Lack of Criticality” https://medium.com/the-abs-tract-organization/enlightening-the-intellectual-dark-web-41f3a1e81b3e If you enjoy beautiful, critical debate (and if you find it cathartic to see Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro get put in their place) you will love this! PART TWO: Key concepts to know Shared post-postmodern concepts driving Neoreaction and the Left’s new theories, alike: -- object-oriented ontology (originating with Graham Harman; used by Dark Enlightenment and others on Left) -- neoliberalism, globalized finance capital -- speculative realism -- weird realism (Graham Harman) -- capitalist realism (Mark Fisher) -- Chthulucene (purposely misspelled, by Donna Harraway) Neoreactionary concepts / topics: -- Nick Land (founder of Dark Enlightenment) -- The Dark Enlightenment -- accelerationism -- Traditionalism -- the Intellectual Dark Web, Jordan Peterson -- Eurasianism -- right-wing transhumanism -- thought-leader Mencius Moldbug -- mystical fascism and Julius Evola -- Peter Thiel (Silicon Valley far-right leader) -- Palantir (surveillance tech from Thiel) -- Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt -- neofeudalism -- Asatru, Volk, esoteric Nazism The Left’s answer to the nihilist/mystical NRx concepts: -- conceptualizations of the Anthropocene, the Capitalocene, and Donna Harraway’s Chthulucene (purposefully misspelled) -- cosmopolitics -- Graham Harman’s “weird realism” -- Mark Fisher’s “retrofuturism” -- dark ecology (articulated by Tim Morton) -- hyperobjects (articulated by Tim Morton) -- Deleuze and Gauttari, their concept “capitalism and schizophrenia” and the “geophilosophy” concept -- the ontological turn in anthropology -- multi-naturalism, animism, totemism, and panpsychism as alternative perspectives of assigning realness to objects in non-Western cosmologies PART THREE: The Left’s relationship with object-oriented ontology. and it’s answer to the Dark Enlightenment I’m going to make this embarrassingly brief and sloppy and lazy. So if anyone wants to know more about this section, let me know, because I’ve made some big generalizations. Here’s how the object-oriented ontologists and dark ecologists of the radical left are using similar philosophies to counter the NRx movement. Nick Land, the thought-leader of the Dark Enlightenment, was originally friends with a group of leftists now working to counter the inevitability of neoliberalism. These leftists include, most prominently, Graham Harman, Tim Morton, and the late Mark Fisher. All of these people, in the mid-90’s, were originally interested in cyberpunk and futurist media, so they got together in study groups to assess Information Age technology’s effects on globalized culture. But Nick Land went on an amphetamine binge, moved to Shanghai, and became a far-right ideologue before writing seminal “The Dark Enlightenment” text. Mark Fisher (in early and mid 2000’s) used music, pop culture, retrofuturist cyberpunk aesthetics, and fiction in late capitalist culture to demonstrate how haunted the neoliberal imagination had become – leading to the articulation of capitalist realism. And then, his friend Graham Harman took this aesthetically-informed anti-capitalism and took more cues from horror literature and sublime experiences – giving us weird realism, speculative realism, and object-oriented ontology. Finally, Timothy Morton applied object-oriented ontology to human-ecology relationships and environmentalism to conceive of a new human approach to the crisis of the Anthropocene, and so we get dark ecology, which is basically how indigenous environmental knowledge is incorporated into environmental geography/anthropology, a sort of secular re-mythologization of the world. Mark Fisher, Graham Harman, and Tim Morton all had/have a close relationship with Zero Books. I think that Zero Books (check their webpage and YouTube channel) is perhaps the best and most easily accessible site to explore the Left’s use of object-oriented ontology to respond to the NRx movement. Some great, brief introductions to dark ecology, the ontological turn in anthropology, and the use of object-oriented ontology in building equitable Marxian society are included below. PART FOUR: Quick references Introduction to the ideology of the Neoreactionary (NRx) movement: 1 – A great intro to the philosophies, esotericism, and mysticism that drives the thinking of NRx, and an exceptional examination of what differentiates the two distinct branches – Harrison Fluss and Landon Frim, Salvage magazine, December 2017, “Behemoth and Leviathan: The Fascist Bestiary of the Alt-Right”: http://salvage.zone/in-print/behemoth-and-leviathan-the-fascist-bestiary-of-the-alt-right/ 2 – A longer, but even better, exploration of the beliefs, motivations, and leaderss of NRx – Yuk Hui, e-flux, 2017, “On the Unhappy Consciousness of Neoreactionaries”: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/81/125815/on-the-unhappy-consciousness-of-neoreactionaries/ 3 – A great discussion of and refutation of Nick Land and the Dark Enlightenment, very entertaining and cathartic – Park MacDougald, The Awl, 2015, “The Darkness Before the Right”: https://www.theawl.com/2015/09/the-darkness-before-the-right/ Relationship between New Atheists and NRx: 1 – Academic article summarizing how the New Atheists joined racists, the Manosphere, and pick-up artists during Gamergate – Ani Dibranco, 2017, “Mobilizing Misogyny” -- http://www.politicalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/PE_Winter2017_DiBranco.pdf 2 – An engaging and expansive Salon article that gives a the run-down on how moderate atheists turned into the alt-right, really good stuff – Phil Torres, Salon, 2017, “From the Enlightenment to the Dark Ages: How ‘new atheism’ slid into the alt-right”: https://www.salon.com/2017/07/29/from-the-enlightenment-to-the-dark-ages-how-new-atheism-slid-into-the-alt-right/ The Left’s answer to neoreactioanry nihilism; leftist use of object-oriented ontology and dark ecology 1 -- What is the ontological turn in anthropology, and how are indigenous and non-Western views being incorporated in environmental and cultural studies? --> Adrian J. Ivakhiv, “On animism, multinaturalism, and cosmopolitics” (2011) - http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2011/01/10/on-animism-multinaturalism-cosmopolitics/ 2 -- What is Tim Morton’s concept of “dark ecology”? --> Tim Morton -- “What is Dark Ecology?” http://www.changingweathers.net/en/episodes/48/what-is-dark-ecology 3 -- What are speculative realism and weird realism? Here is an intro to Graham Harman and these concepts which have since been co-opted by the Dark Enlightenment. --> Brian Kim Stefans, 2013 – “Let’s Get Weird: On Graham Harman’s H.P. Lovecraft”-- https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/lets-get-weird-on-graham-harmans-h-p-lovecraft/ :)

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wickedbananas · 7 years ago

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Getting Real with Retail: An Agency’s Guide to Inspiring In-Store Excellence

Posted by MiriamEllis

No marketing agency staffer feels good when they see a retail client getting reviews like this on the web.

But we can find out why they’re happening, and if we’re going above-and-beyond in our work, we just might be able to catalyze turning things around if we’re committed to being honest with clients and have an actionable strategy for their in-store improvements.

In this post, I’ll highlight some advice from an internal letter at Tesla that I feel is highly applicable to the retail sector. I’d also like to help your agency combat the retail blues headlining the news these days with big brands downsizing, liquidating and closing up shop — I’m going to share a printable infographic with some statistics with you that are almost guaranteed to generate the client positivity so essential to making real change. And, for some further inspiration, I’d like to offer a couple of anecdotes involving an Igloo cooler, a monk, reindeer moss, and reviews.

The genuine pain of retail gone wrong: The elusive cooler, "Corporate," and the man who could hardly stand

“Hi there,” I greeted the staffer at the customer service counter of the big department store. “Where would I find a small cooler?”

“We don’t have any,” he mumbled.

“You don’t have any coolers? Like, an Igloo cooler to take on a picnic to keep things cold?”

“Maybe over there,” he waved his hand in unconcern.

And I stood there for a minute, expecting him to actually figure this out for me, maybe even guide me to the appropriate aisle, or ask a manager to assist my transaction, if necessary. But in his silence, I walked away.

“Hi there,” I tried with more specificity at the locally owned general store the next day. “Where would I find something like a small Igloo cooler to keep things cold on a picnic?”

“I don’t know,” the staffer replied.

“Oh…” I said, uncomfortably.

“It could be upstairs somewhere,” he hazarded, and left me to quest for the second floor, which appeared to be a possibly-non-code-compliant catch-all attic for random merchandise, where I applied to a second dimly illuminated employee who told me I should probably go downstairs and escalate my question to someone else.

And apparently escalation was necessary, for on the third try, a very tall man was able to lift his gaze to some coolers on a top shelf… within clear view of the checkout counter where the whole thing began.

Why do we all have experiences like this?

“Corporate tells us what to carry” is the almost defensive-sounding refrain I have now received from three employees at two different Whole Foods Markets when asking if they could special order items for me since the Amazon buyout.

Because, you know, before they were Amazon-Whole Foods, staffers would gladly offer to procure anything they didn’t have in stock. Now, if they stop carrying that Scandinavian vitamin D-3 made from the moss eaten by reindeer and I’ve got to have it because I don’t want the kind made by irradiating sheep wool, I’d have to special order an entire case of it to get my hands on a bottle. Because, you know, “Corporate.”

Why does the distance between corporate and customer make me feel like the store I’m standing in, and all of its employees, are powerless? Why am I, the customer, left feeling powerless?

So maybe my search for a cooler, my worries about access to reindeer moss, and the laughable customer service I’ve experienced don’t signal “genuine pain.” But this does:

This is genuine pain. When customer service is failing to the point that badly treated patrons are being further distressed by the sight of fellow shoppers meeting the same fate, the cause is likely built into company structure. And your marketing agency is looking at a bonafide reputation crisis that could presage things like lawsuits, impactful reputation damage, and even closure for your valuable clients.

When you encounter customer service disasters, it begs questions like:

Could no one in my situation access a list of current store inventory, or, barring that, seek out merchandise with me instead of risking the loss of a sale?

Could no one offer to let “corporate” know that I’m dissatisfied with a “customer service policy” that would require me to spend $225 to buy a whole case of vitamins? Why am I being treated like a warehouse instead of a person?

Could no one at the pharmacy see a man with a leg wound about to fall over, grab a folding chair for him, and keep him safe, instead of risking a lawsuit?

I think a “no” answer to all three questions proceeds from definite causes. And I think Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, had such causes in mind when he recently penned a letter to his own employees.

“It must be okay for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.”

“Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the 'chain of command.' Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere. A major source of issues is poor communication between depts. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between depts, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be ok for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen. In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a 'company rule' is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.” - Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla

Let’s parlay this uncommon advice into retail. If it’s everyone’s job to access a free flow of information, use common sense, make the right thing happen, and change rules that don’t make sense, then:

Inventory is known by all store staff, and my cooler can be promptly located by any employee, rather than workers appearing helpless.

Employees have the power to push back and insist that, because customers still expect to be able to special order merchandise, a specific store location will maintain this service rather than disappoint consumers.

Pharmacists can recognize that patrons are often quite ill and can immediately place some chairs near the pharmacy counter, rather than close their eyes to suffering.

“But wait,” retailers may say. “How can I trust that an employee’s idea of ‘common sense’ is reliable?”

Let’s ask a monk for the answer.

“He took the time...”

I recently had the pleasure of listening to a talk given by a monk who was defining what it meant to be a good leader. He hearkened back to his young days, and to the man who was then the leader of his community.

“He was a busy man, but he took the time to get to know each of us one-on-one, and to be sure that we knew him. He set an example for me, and I watched him,” the monk explained.

Most monasteries function within a set of established rules, many of which are centuries old. You can think of these guidelines as a sort of policy. In certain communities, it’s perfectly acceptable that some of the members live apart as hermits most of the year, only breaking their meditative existence by checking in with the larger group on important holidays to share what they’ve been working on solo. In others, every hour has its appointed task, from prayer, to farming, to feeding people, to engaging in social activism.

The point is that everyone within a given community knows the basic guidelines, because at some point, they’ve been well-communicated. Beyond that, it is up to the individual to see whether they can happily live out their personal expression within the policy.

It’s a lot like retail can be, when done right. And it hinges on the question:

“Has culture been well-enough communicated to every employee so that he or she can act like the CEO of the company would in wide variety of circumstances?”

Or to put it another way, would Amazon owner Jeff Bezos be powerless to get me my vitamins?

The most accessible modern benchmark of good customer service — the online review — is what tells the public whether the CEO has “set the example.” Reviews tell whether time has been taken to acquaint every staffer with the business that employs them, preparing them to fit their own personal expression within the company’s vision of serving the public.

An employee who is able to recognize that an injured patron needs a seat while awaiting his prescription should be empowered to act immediately, knowing that the larger company supports treating people well. If poor training, burdensome chains of command, or failure to share brand culture are obstacles to common-sense personal initiative, the problem must be traced back to the CEO and corrected, starting from there.

And, of course, should a random staffer’s personal expression genuinely include an insurmountable disregard for other people, they can always be told it’s time to leave the monastery...

For marketing agencies, opportunity knocks

So your agency is auditing a valuable incoming client, and their negative reviews citing dirty premises, broken fixtures, food poisoning, slowness, rudeness, cluelessness, and lack of apparent concern make you say to yourself,

“Well, I was hoping we could clean up the bad data on the local business listings for this enterprise, but unless they clean up their customer service at 150 of their worst-rated locations, how much ROI are we really going to be able to deliver? What’s going on at these places?”

Let’s make no bones about this: Your honesty at this critical juncture could mean the difference between survival and closure for the brand.

You need to bring it home to the most senior level person you can reach in the organization that no amount of honest marketing can cover up poor customer service in the era of online reviews. If the brand has fallen to the level of the pharmacy I’ve cited, structural change is an absolute necessity. You can ask the tough questions, ask for an explanation of the bad reviews.

“But I’m just a digital marketer,” you may think. “I’m not in charge of whatever happens offline.”

Think again.

Headlines in retail land are horrid right now:

The mall crisis is secretly morphing into a full-on Armageddon - Business Insider

America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning - Bloomberg

Retail Wreck? Over 1,000 Stores Close in a Single Week - NBC

8 Companies Amazon is Killing - Investopedia

These major retailers have closed more than 5,000 stores in 2017 - Clark.com

If you were a retail brand C-suite and were swallowing these predictions of doom with your daily breakfast, wouldn’t you be looking for inspiration from anyone with genuine insight? And if a marketing agency should make it their business to confront the truth while also being the bearer of some better news, wouldn’t you be ready to listen?

What is the truth? That poor reviews are symptoms smart doctors can use for diagnosis of structural problems. What is the better news? The retail scenario is not nearly as dire as it may seem.

Why let hierarchy and traditional roles hold your agency back? Tesla wouldn’t. Why not roll up your sleeves and step into in-store? Organize and then translate the narrative negative reviews are telling about structural problems for the brand which have resulted in dangerously bad customer service. And then, be prepared to counter corporate inertia born of fear with some eye-opening statistics.

Print and share some good retail tidings

Print your own copy of this infographic to share with clients.

At Moz, we’re working with enterprises to get their basic location data into shape so that they are ready to win their share of the predicted $1.4 trillion in mobile-influenced local sales by 2021, and your agency can use these same numbers to combat indecision and apathy for your retail clients. Look at that second statistic again: 90% of purchases are still happening in physical stores. At Moz, we ask our customers if their data is ready for this. Your agency can ask its clients if their reputations are ready for this, if their employees have what they need to earn the brand’s piece of that 90% action. Great online data + great in-store service = table stakes for retail success.

While I won’t play down the unease that major brand retail closures is understandably causing, I hope I’ve given you the tools to fight the “retail disaster” narrative. 85% more mobile users are searching for things like “Where do I buy that reindeer moss vitamin D3?” than they were just 3 years ago. So long as retail staff is ready to deliver, I see no “apocalypse” here.

Investing time

So, your agency has put in the time to identify a reputation problem severe enough that it appears to be founded in structural deficiencies or policies. Perhaps you’ve used some ORM software to do review sentiment analysis to discover which of your client’s locations are hurting worst, or perhaps you’ve done an initial audit manually. You've communicated the bad news to the most senior-level person you can reach at the company, and you've also shared the statistics that make change seem very worthwhile, begging for a new commitment to in-store excellence. What happens next?

While there are going to be nuances specific to every brand, my bet is that the steps will look like this for most businesses:

C-suites need to invest time in creating a policy which a) abundantly communicates company culture, b) expresses trust in employee initiative, and c) dispenses with needless “chain of command” steps, while d) ensuring that every public facing staffer receives full and ongoing training. A recent study says 62% of new retail hires receive less than 10 hours of training. I’d call even these worrisome numbers optimistic. I worked at 5 retail jobs in my early youth. I’d estimate that I received no more than 1 hour of training at any of them.

Because a chain of command can’t realistically be completely dispensed with in a large organization, store managers must then be allowed the time to communicate the culture, encourage employees to use common sense, define what “common sense” does and doesn’t look like to the company, and, finally, offer essential training.

Employees at every level must be given the time to observe how happy or unhappy customers appear to be at their location, and they must be taught that their observations are of inestimable value to the brand. If an employee suggests a solution to a common consumer complaint, this should be recognized and rewarded.

Finally, customers must be given the time to air their grievances at the time of service, in-person, with accessible, responsive staff. The word “corporate” need never come into most of these conversations unless a major claim is involved. Given that it may cost as much as 7x more to replace an unhappy customer than to keep an existing one happy, employees should be empowered to do business graciously and resolve complaints, in most cases, without escalation.

Benjamin Franklin may or may not have said that “time is money.” While the adage rings true in business, reviews have taught me the flip side — that a lack of time equals less money. Every negative review that cites helpless employees and poor service sounds to my marketing ears like a pocketful of silver dollars rolling down a drain.

The monk says good leaders make the time to communicate culture one-on-one.

Tesla says rules should change if they’re ridiculous.

Chairs should be offered to sick people… where common sense is applied.

Reviews can read like this:

And digital marketers have never known a time quite like this to have the ear of retail, maybe stepping beyond traditional boundaries into the fray of the real world. Maybe making a fundamental difference.

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godaddywebsitebuilder285 · 4 years ago

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Daily Ethical Design

Suddenly, I realized that the people next to me might be severely impacted by my work.I was having a quick lunch in the airport. A group of flight attendants sat down at the table next to me and started to prepare for their flight. For a while now, our design team had been working on futuristic concepts for the operations control center of these flight attendants’ airline, pushing ourselves to come up with innovative solutions enabled by the newest technologies. As the control center deals with all activities around flying planes, our concepts touched upon everything and everyone within the airline.How was I to know what the impact of my work would be on the lives of these flight attendants? And what about the lives of all the other people working at the airline?Ideally, we would have talked to all the types of employees in the company and tested our concepts with them. But, of course, there was no budget (or time) allocated to do so, not to mention we faced the hurdle of convincing (internal) stakeholders of the need.Not for the first time, I felt frustrated: practical, real-world constraints prevented me from assessing the impact and quality of my work. They prevented me from properly conducting ethical design.

What is ethical design?

Right, good question. A very comprehensive definition of ethical design can be found at Encyclopedia.com:

Design ethics concerns moral behavior and responsible choices in the practice of design. It guides how designers work with clients, colleagues, and the end users of products, how they conduct the design process, how they determine the features of products, and how they assess the ethical significance or moral worth of the products that result from the activity of designing.

In other words, ethical design is about the “goodness”—in terms of benefit to individuals, society, and the world—of how we collaborate, how we practice our work, and what we create. There’s never a black-and-white answer for whether design is good or bad, yet there are a number of areas for designers to focus on when considering ethics.

Usability

Nowadays usability has conquered a spot as a basic requirement for each interface; unusable products are considered design failures. And rightly so; we have a moral obligation as designers to create products that are intuitive, safe, and free from possibly life-threatening errors. We were all reminded of usability’s importance by last year’s accidental nuclear strike warning in Hawaii. What if, instead of a false-positive, the operator had broadcasted a false-negative?

Accessibility

Like usability, inclusive design has become a standard item in the requirement list of many designers and companies. (I will never forget that time someone tried to use our website with a screen reader—and got absolutely stuck at the cookie message.) Accessible design benefits all, as it attempts to cover as many needs and capabilities as possible. Yet for each design project, there are still a lot of tricky questions to answer. Who gets to benefit from our solutions? Who is (un)intentionally left out? Who falls outside the “target customer segment”?

Privacy

Another day, another Facebook privacy scandal. As we’re progressing into the Data Age, the topic of privacy has become almost synonymous with design ethics. There’s a reason why more and more people use DuckDuckGo as an alternative search engine to Google. Corporations have access to an abundance of personal information about consumers, and as designers we have the privilege—and responsibility—of using this information to shape products and services. We have to consider how much information is strictly necessary and how much people are willing to give up in exchange for services. And how can we make people aware of the potential risks without overloading them?

User involvement

Overlapping largely with privacy, this focus area is about how we deal with our users and what we do with the data that we collect from them. IDEO has recently published The Little Book of Design Research Ethics, which provides a comprehensive overview of the core principles and guidelines we should follow when conducting design research.

Persuasion

Ethics related to persuasion is about to what extent we may influence the behavior and thoughts of our users. It doesn’t take much to bring acceptable, “white hat” persuasion into gray or even dark territories. Conversion optimization, for example, can easily turn into “How do we squeeze out more revenue from our customers by turning their unconsciousness against them?” Prime examples include Netflix, which convinces us to watch, watch, and watch even more, and Booking.com, which barrages our senses with urgency and social pressure.

Focus

The current digital landscape is addictive, distracting, and competing for attention. Designing for focus is about responsibly handling people’s most valuable resource: time. Our challenge is to limit everything that disrupts our users’ attention, lower the addictiveness of products, and create calmness. The Center for Humane Technology has started a useful list of resources for this purpose.

Sustainability

What’s the impact of our work on the world’s environment, resources, and climate? Instead of continuously adding new features in the unrelenting scrum treadmill, how could we design for fewer? We’re in the position to create responsible digital solutions that enable sustainable consumer behavior and prevent overconsumption. For example, apps such as Optimiam and Too Good To Go allow people to order leftover food that would normally be thrashed. Or consider Mutum and Peerby, whose peer-to-peer platforms promote the sharing and reuse of owned products.

Society

The Ledger of Harms of the Center for Human Technology is a work-in-progress collection of the negative impacts that digital technology has on society, including topics such as relationships, mental health, and democracy. Designers who are mindful of society consider the impact of their work on the global economy, communities, politics, and health.

[caption id="attachment_7171650" align="alignnone" width="1200"] The focus areas of design ethics. That’s a lot to consider![/caption]

Ethics as an inconvenience

Ideally, in every design project, we should assess the potential impact in all of the above-mentioned areas and take steps to prevent harm. Yet there are many legitimate, understandable reasons why we often neglect to do so. It’s easy to have moral principles, yet in the real world, with the constraints that our daily life imposes upon us, it’s seldom easy to act according to those principles.We might simply say it’s inconvenient at the moment. That there’s a lack of time or budget to consider all the ethical implications of our work. That there are many more pressing concerns that have priority right now. We might genuinely believe it’s just a small issue, something to consider later, perhaps. Mostly, we are simply unaware of the possible consequences of our work.And then there’s the sheer complexity of it all: it’s simply too much to simultaneously focus on. When short on time, or in the heat of approaching deadlines and impatient stakeholders, how do you incorporate all of design ethics’ focus areas?Where do you even start?

Ethics as a structural practice

For these reasons, I believe we need to elevate design ethics to a more practical level. We need to find ways to make ethics not an afterthought, not something to be considered separately, but rather something that’s so ingrained in our process that not doing it means not doing design at all.The only way to overcome the “inconvenience” of acting ethically is to practice daily ethical design: ethics structurally integrated in our daily work, processes, and tools as designers. No longer will we have to rely on the exceptions among us; those extremely principled who are brave enough to stand up against the system no matter what kind of pressure is put upon them. Because the system will be on our side.By applying ethics daily and structurally in our design process, we’ll be able to identify and neutralize in a very early stage the potential for mistakes and misuse. We’ll increase the quality of our design and our practices simply because we’ll think things through more thoroughly, in a more conscious and structured manner.But perhaps most important is that we’ll establish a new standard for design. A standard that we can sell to our clients as the way design should be done, with ethical design processes and deliverables already included. A standard that can be taught to design students so that the newest generation of designers doesn’t know any better than to apply ethics, always.

How to practice daily ethical design?

At this point we’ve arrived at the question of how we can structurally integrate ethics into our design process. How do we make sure that our daily design decisions will result in a product that’s usable and accessible; protects people’s privacy, agency, and focus; and benefits both society and nature?I want to share with you some best practices that I’ve identified so far, and how I’ve tried to apply them during a recent project at Mirabeau. The goal of the project was to build a web application that provides a shaver manufacturer’s factory workers insight into the real-time availability of production materials.

Connect to your organization’s mission and values

By connecting our designs to the mission and values of the companies we work for, we can structurally use our design skills in a strategic manner, for moral purposes. We can challenge the company to truly live up to its promises and support it in carrying out its mission. This does, however, require you to be aware of the company’s values, and to compare these to your personal values.As I had worked with our example client before, I knew it was a company that takes care of its employees and has a strong focus on creating a better world. During the kick-off phase, we used a strategy pyramid to structure the client’s mission and values, and to agree upon success factors for the project. We translated the company’s customer-facing brand guidelines to employee-focused design principles that maintained the essence of the organization.

Keep track of your assumptions

Throughout our entire design process, we make assumptions for each decision that we take. By structurally keeping track of these assumptions, you’ll never forget about the limitations of your design and where the potential risks lie in terms of (harmful) impact on users, the project, the company, and society.In our example project, we listed our assumptions about user goals, content, and functionalities for each page of the application. If we were not fully sure about the value for end users, or the accuracy of a user goal, we marked it as a value assumption. When we were unsure if data could be made available, we marked this as a data (feasibility) assumption. If we were not sure whether a feature would add to the manufacturer’s business, we marked it as a scope assumption. Every week, we tested our assumptions with end users and business stakeholders through user tests and sprint demos. Each design iteration led to new questions and assumptions to be tested the next week.

Aim to be proven wrong

While our assumptions are the known unknowns, there are always unknown unknowns that we aren’t aware of but could be a huge risk for the quality and impact of our work. The only way we can identify these is by applying the scientific principle of falsifiability: seeking actively to be proven wrong. Only outsiders can point out to us what we miss as an individual or as a team.In our weekly user tests, we included factory workers and stakeholders with different disciplines, from different departments, and working in different contexts, to identify the edge cases that could break our concept. On one occasion, this made us reconsider the entirety of our concept. Still, we could have done better: although scalability to other factories was an important success factor, we were unable to gather input from those other factories during the project. We felt our only option was to mention this as a risk (“limit to scalability”).

Use the power of checklists

Let’s face it: we forget things. (Without scrolling up the page, can you name all the focus areas of design ethics?) This is where checklists help us out: they provide knowledge in the world, so that we don’t have to process it in our easily overwhelmed memory. Simple yet powerful, a checklist is an essential tool to practice daily ethical design.In our example project, we used checklists to maintain an overview of questions and assumptions to user test, checking whether we included our design principles properly, and assessing whether we complied to the client’s values, design principles, and the agreed-upon success factors. In hindsight, we could also have taken a moment during the concept phase to go through the list of focus areas for design ethics, as well as have taken a more structural approach to check accessibility guidelines.

The main challenge for daily ethical design

Most ethics focus areas are quite tangible, where design decisions have immediate, often visible effects. While certainly challenging in their own right, they’re relatively easy to integrate in our daily practice, especially for experienced designers.Society and the environment, however, are more intangible topics; the effects of our work in these areas are distant and uncertain. I’m sure that when Airbnb was first conceived, the founders did not consider the magnitude of its disruptive impact on the housing market. The same goes for Instagram, as its role in creating demand for fast fashion must have been hard to foresee.Hard, but not impossible. So how do we overcome this challenge and make the impact that we have on society and the environment more immediate, more daily?

Conduct Dark Reality sessions

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates used a series of questions to gradually uncover the invalidity of people’s beliefs. In a very similar way, we can uncover the assumptions and potential disastrous consequences of our concepts in a ‘Dark Reality’ session, a form of speculative design that focuses on stress-testing a concept with challenging questions.We have to ask ourselves—or even better, somebody outside our team has to ask us— questions such as, “What is the lifespan of your product? What if the user base will be in the millions? What are the long-term effects on economy, society, and the environment? Who benefits from your design? Who loses? Who is excluded? And perhaps most importantly, how could your design be misused? (For more of these questions, Alan Cooper provided a great list in his keynote at Interaction 18.)The back-and-forth Q&A of the Dark Reality session will help us consider and identify our concept’s weaknesses and potential consequences. As it is a team effort, it will spark discussion and uncover differences in team members’ ethical values. Moreover, the session will result in a list of questions and assumptions that can be tested with potential users and subject matter experts. In the project for the airline control center, it resulted in more consideration for the human role in automatization and how digital interfaces can continue to support human capabilities (instead of replacing them), and reflection on the role of airports in future society.The dark reality session is best conducted during the convergent parts of the double diamond, as these are the design phases in which we narrow down to realistic ideas. It’s vital to have a questioner from outside the team with strong interviewing skills and who doesn’t easily accept an answer as sufficient. There are helpful tools available to help structure the session, such as the Tarot Cards of Tech and these ethical tools.

Take a step back to go forward

As designers, we’re optimists by nature. We see the world as a set of problems that we can solve systematically and creatively if only we try hard enough. We intend well. However, merely having the intention to do good is not going to be enough. Our mindset comes with the pitfall of (dis)missing potential disastrous consequences, especially under pressure of daily constraints. That’s why we need to regularly, systematically take a step back and consider the future impact of our work. My hope is that the practical, structural mindset to ethics introduced in this article will help us agree on a higher standard for design.

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muhamedshafaan · 4 years ago

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Online Reputation Management

Online reputation management involves a combination of marketing, public relations, legal and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to promote, protect and defend your online image or business reputation.

What factors influence your online reputation?

Your online reputation is impacted by what you post online and what others say about you or your business online. The total amount and visibility of positive, negative, and neutral content when people search online for your name, company, brand, products or services determine your online reputation.

We are living in an era of radical transparency and the first impression for an individual or business is frequently online. The idea of privacy — our own and others’– is changing in very dramatic ways. It is scary navigating this brave new world. What we see online is not a mirror of reality but a distortion of reality.

How does online reputation management work?

Google relies on a complex algorithm to determine which search results appear on what page. High authority content is likely to rank among the first results for any search term, while low authority content may not rank at all. While every reputation management campaign is unique, the best online reputation management companies will typically use some of the following tactics:

Monitoring online mentions of an individual or brand and coordinating a thoughtful, rapid response

Publishing professionally written content on trusted web sites with high search engine authority and maximum visibility

Interlinking high impact positive web content

Optimizing existing websites and social media profiles to rank higher in the search results for select keywords

Contacting the source to edit or remove negative content

Filing a formal complaint with the search engine or webmaster

Promote Positive Customer Reviews

Article and Content Marketing to Blogs, News Sites and Web 2.0 Sites

Business Profile Development

Social Media Profile Optimization

Press Release Distribution

Sponsor Contests and Giveaways

Online Reputation Monitoring

Why do you need reputation management?

According to a recent study, 78% of the respondents said they believe it is very important to look up information about people and/or businesses online before deciding to interact or do business with them and 74% would most likely refuse to interact or do business with a person or company if they found negative information about them online. Bad reviews, misleading news and blog articles, negative comments in forums and online defamation by angry customers, former employees or competitors can destroy your business and your reputation. Reputation management online is more important than ever before and a positive reputation is your most valuable asset.

Benefits of Online Reputation Management

1)Reviews as a ranking factor

Research carried out in 2017 confirmed that online reviews were an important ranking factor and there was a clear correlation between volume of reviews, responses and number of negative reviews with local search results.

2)Reviews can improve click-throughs from Google My Business profiles

Consumers put their faith in online reviews—87% of consumers look for 3-5 star reviews before they will use a local business. If you aren’t regularly achieving an average 3-5 star rating or aren’t actively soliciting reviews, chances are that those potential customers will look elsewhere. Once you get your business listed in the Google Local 3-Pack, your positive reviews can actually help with the click-through rate, too:

3) Reviews act as social proof

Social media is a crucial part of the consumer purchase process. With so many business pages indexing highly in Google for the business name, it’s easy for a shopper to turn to a business’ Facebook page to find out more information. Just as they do on review platforms and search engines, Facebook reviews and recommendations act as social proof of the quality of your business.

Social commerce is also on the rise, meaning reviews on social platforms can impact on purchase decisions in other ways, too.

4)You can use reviews as trust signals on your site to increase conversions

Your business’ reputation is your #1 asset. More than ever, potential customers go online to look at reviews so they can make decisions about which local businesses to patron, which products to purchase or which service to use.

With more than 8 in 10 consumers trusting online reviews as much as a personal recommendation, displaying carefully chosen 5-star reviews on your website emits a strong trust signal and validates their decision to do business with you.

Furthermore, a growing number of consumers read more than 11 reviews before they feel they can trust a business—so the easier the access to reviews you can provide on your owned media channels, the higher the likelihood of conversions.

5 Online Reputation Management Strategies You Can Use

1. Answer Promptly and With Empathy.

Sometimes the best ORM happens before a negative comment or review is posted. When customers ask questions, whether by messaging you directly or posting on social media, you should respond right away. Equally important is answering with empathy. If you don’t respond to customer questions quickly, it can cause a private message to turn into a negative public statement.

2. Address Negativity Up Front.

It can be tempting to discount negative comments and reviews from customers. After all, why would you want to draw attention to them by responding? But the truth is that you’re doing your company a disservice by ignoring unhappy customers. Of the 82% of consumers who read online reviews, 97% also read the business’s responses. Addressing negative reviews is a way to show customers that even if they have an issue with your company, you will be there to take care of it.

So when customers leave negative comments and reviews, always respond. Address their issue with patience and determination. Lack of response on your part can come across as a confirmation of bad press.

3. Own Up To Your Mistakes.

If your company faces scrutiny for a real or perceived scandal, it always helps to apologize.

Showing remorse diffuses tense customer situations and strengthens relationships with consumers. It also shows shoppers that your company is honest and transparent.

Craft your apology with a genuine intention to own up to and resolve the issue. Directly address the main concerns raised by consumers and the media, and describe what you are going to do to resolve the situation. Everyone makes mistakes—even companies. Stating what you will do to fix the issue or prevent it from happening again shows consumers you are an honest company that will own up to its mistakes.

4. Stay on Top of Your Search Results.

Most marketers think of SEO as a way to keep their brand visible. But it’s also an essential tool for minimizing visibility of negative press and content associated with your brand.

Ideally, you want your company’s page to show up first when your company’s name is searched. After all, the number one result on SERPs gets more than 31% of all clicks, and customers are 10 times more likely to click on the first search result than on a page 10 spots down.

Use an incognito window to monitor your brand’s search results so you see what customers see. Competitors can bid on your branded keywords to make their information show up first, so you may have to bid on your own keywords to retain the top spot. Another way to improve search results is by encouraging happy customers to submit positive feedback on ranking review sites. This improves your average rating, which is what potential customers see before clicking in to look at individual reviews.

5. Automate Online Reputation Management.

Instead of manually combing through websites and social media on your own, save time by using software that automates ORM tasks.

One of the simplest monitoring tools is Google Alerts. Simply enter your brand name in the tool, and receive notifications of media and news stories that talk about your company. That way, you will know right away when your company is being talked about, and you can quickly respond if necessary.

https://transorze.com/

#online reputation management #social media #posts #reviews #google #traffic #reach #transorze #tumblr

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

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It’s Time for the Eternal September to End

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

For nearly 30 years, the internet’s culture has been defined by a corporation’s move that seemed to, without any care about what was left behind, ensure that a sense of order would never again drive the growth of this series of tubes.

This phenomenon is, in many ways, the central tension on which the modern internet is built. And it’s a tension that most people aren’t aware of, even though it is an undercurrent secretly framing our online interactions.

I am, of course, discussing the Eternal September, a 1993 move by AOL to allow its users into the free-for-all that is Usenet. In the decades since, the conflict that move created, although long forgotten today, lingers in the way that technical users and not-so-technical users interact.

And, in too many ways, it is the basis for digital conflicts that have nothing to do with back then and everything to do with right now.

It’s time to retire the Eternal September. Twenty-seven years is long enough.

“September 1993 will go down in net.history as the September that never ended.”

— Dave Fischer, a Usenet user, discussing the start of the Eternal September in 1993, the point at which the chaos created by mainstream interest in the internet began to overwhelm the early discussion forums that originally attracted technical users to computer labs on college campuses and pokey modem connections at homes.

At its root, perhaps we can blame AOL for all of this. Image: sarahe/Flickr

How the Eternal September set the stage for decades of online conflict

For decades, internet culture has struggled with the n00bs. For generations, as new people entered the digital gates, there was an inevitable sneer that awaited them as they hit the onramp.

If you’re not in the know, what do you know?

The internet is, of course, not alone in owning this dynamic. It plays out in all sorts of areas that traditionally have nothing to do with technology: High school, internships, sports teams, organized crime syndicates. The little guy knows nothing and has to work their way up. Most don’t. You get the idea.

But on the internet, we all technically should be on equal ground. After all, knowledge is at our fingertips at all times.

Yet tribalism has long defined the internet. We are built around subcultures upon subcultures, and these subcultures have only hardened over time, creating shells of insularity that have proven impenetrable.

And perhaps its most notable form came about in the mid-1990s, when the “Eternal September,” a concept involving the n00bs taking over Usenet, took hold. For those who don’t date back to this era, here’s the general gist: Each school year, thousands of new students would flock to Usenet groups for the first time, hoping to find community or learn from the folks already there. The problem was that they were green and didn’t really know much of anything, so they faced rejection until they got the gist.

In September of 1993, AOL added Usenet access, turning a controlled situation of steady ongoing community growth into something of a flood of never-ending n00bs. Suddenly, the social norms that the Usenet community was built around were broken at the seams, never to be repaired.

This was a major communal shift, and one that put early online users on the defensive. To put it simply, people were dismissive of their fellow users based on nothing other than the domain attached to their email address. It was an easy signifier; if you had an AOL.com email address, you were a dork, or beyond saving.

An essay on the commercialization of the internet, written in 1995 by MIT student Christopher R. Vincent, put the situation like this:

As accessing the Internet continues to grow easier for the novice user, it is inevitable that many of these social guidelines will fall to the wayside. This is not to say that new users should be denied access to Internet resources. It has been the first reflex in many newsgroups to flame any user who posted from an online service provider. Some of the larger providers, such as America Online have not received a very warm welcome to the network (note the formation of the alt.aol-sucks newsgroup). This reaction does not necessarily stem from elitism, but from a genuine fear that as more and more users appear, Usenet will fall apart. Indeed, this is a valid concern. The current system is not designed for the commercial-oriented direction the Internet is now taking.

Over time, the close association between AOL and lamers subsided, in part because our online access points evolved toward providers decided by local area, rather than consumer-oriented services.

So many flame wars fought over digital turf. Image: Anthony Cantin/Unsplash

But this dynamic of conflict and savvy emerged in other ways. When web-based communication alternatives emerged to replace Usenet, new types of turf wars appeared: Apple vs. Microsoft; open source vs. proprietary; Something Awful vs. Fark; Digg vs. Reddit; liberal bloggers vs. conservative bloggers; early adopters vs. technical laggards; iPhone vs. Android. You get the idea.

In many ways, these ideological battles of the digital age only found gasoline with the advent of social mediums, which helped to better connect people, but failed to account for the side effects that came with all that.

But the internet, early on, played into this tribalism in ways that allowed it to evolve into something dangerous.

“The newbies could not be forced to accept what we now understand as a central tenet of cyberlibertarianism: that cyberspace, too, was a place, separate from the world, and thus free. For it all to work, all the visionaries needed was for everyone to recognize a small set of self-evident truths.”

— Bradley Fidler, a researcher with the UCLA Computer Science Department, discussing in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing the rise of what he calls the Eternal October—the understanding that “it is no longer possible to pretend (no matter one’s privilege) that cyberspace can circumvent the politics of civilization.” At the time he wrote this, it was October 2016, ahead of a U.S. election that helped bring some scary forces into the world. I can only imagine how Fidler must feel in October of 2020.

The calendar never stops. Image: Eric Rothermel/Unsplash

Why, in many ways, the Eternal September is still going strong

Look, I’m not going to tell you that we have a constant influx of newbies hitting the internet at all times. That certainly is not what I mean when I describe the Eternal September as an ongoing thing.

But I do think that the spirit that led to the Eternal September becoming a landmark in the first place is still very much there. It has simply taken new forms.

There’s a modern term for what this is called, in fact: Gatekeeping. The idea that, because of your identity or lack of experience, you shouldn’t have access to an online community.

Now, to be clear, there are lots of kinds of gatekeeping in terms of the internet—for example, the technical barriers created by large companies to shape the broader network, whether internet service providers like Comcast or Verizon, or major tech firms like Google or Facebook. Those figures deservedly need their callouts.

But in this case, I’d like to focus on a particular cultural kind of gatekeeping, the kind that leaves people out for reasons of elitism, fear, or simple “othering.”

Earlier this month, a great example of this type of gatekeeping emerged on Twitter when a user claimed that they assumed anyone who used a mouse to program was a junior programmer. That user (rightly) got criticized over it—though I’ll pass on linking the viral tweet, because who needs to add to that kind of drama? But examples that don’t get called out in quite that way abound online, and they represent the way that users tend to focus on their own tribes.

Back in 2017, before our world became even more divided, CBC News columnist Ramona Pringle wrote a piece about how digital tribalism has proven a nasty side effect of highly amplified online echo chambers:

In and of themselves, tribes aren’t inherently bad. We all long to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and tribes fulfill that need. But where we get into trouble is when we introduce borders, which separate my land from your land, and by extension, my tribe from your tribe. When borders are violated, we fight. This, in broad strokes is the root of all war.

The Eternal September, in many ways, was the opening salvo in decades of division on the internet. And in the years since, it has only gotten worse.

In many ways, we understand the people around us even less than we did a few years ago. We aim for the jugular instead of the handshake. And by the time the word “compromise” is thrown around, it’s already too late. It’s a sign of weakness.

It is perhaps sad to think about, considering the early internet was built around utopian dreams. But it’s where we are. I’ll let you draw the through line between ’90s programmer/IT elitism and some of the internet’s modern day problems, because ultimately all those programmers helped lay the foundation for today’s tech infrastructure.

I’m still idealistic that some of that utopian spirit is out there, if you know where to look. But I wonder if, in the big fight for protecting netiquette, the early internet set a bad example for all the people that came after, who jumped in not looking for help, but looking for a fight. The initial separation between the normal and the technical that the Eternal September fostered underlined the tribalism that other internet users follow without even thinking about it. It discourages people from taking part in communities—especially those underrepresented in STEM fields—and sows the kinds of division that attract users to misinformation.

And I wonder if the same types of users who criticized the n00bs way back when are the same folks who can help get us back—by setting an open-arms example that other communities can follow.

At a time when Godwin’s law is less an observation and more a genuine worry, perhaps there are bigger fish to fry than whether or not someone asked a technical question the right way … and those technical users might need to shift their plan of attack accordingly.

“We need to make sure that Rust is prepared to welcome people who are just learning about Rust today. We don’t want anyone to feel like they’re late to the party.”

— Tim McNamara, a software developer and writer who focuses on the Rust programming language, making a case for leaning into the Eternal September, as far as the Rust community goes. It’s a refreshing take from someone in a technical community, and an approach that others should follow.

So, you might be wondering: Why write about this topic, and why now?

Honestly, what got me thinking about it was one specific reaction to a recent piece I wrote about the mainstream demise of FTP. I aimed really broad with that piece, because honestly, that’s usually who I write for—someone who knows something about technology, but who doesn’t know everything and is curious about learning more.

Functionally, the point of my piece was that plain vanilla FTP is on its way out, a vestige of the past for the vast majority of people, thanks to its forthcoming removal from major web browsers. But there are people in narrow spaces who likely will never stop using it—or, who choose not to stop.

While I can get technical, I generally write for regular people who know a thing or two about technology but who, perhaps, aren’t engineers.

And well, this user was a technical user in a highly technical role. And they decided to mock it for not covering specific technical cases where it might persist, rather than spending five seconds considering that they may not be the target audience for this piece. Cockroaches are everywhere—you don’t have to tell me.

I’ve seen this with other things we’ve written as well. Last year, I ran a piece about OS/2’s continued use on the NYC subway system, and I spotted a reader who got upset because we focused on the obvious novelty of a vintage operating system being used in a high-profile way, rather than focusing on the low-level technical aspects that may appeal to that specific user but may go over everyone else’s heads.

I get it. You might get upset if you dive into this with the expectation that we’re going to talk about code or infrastructure on here, and that’s not what you get.

But the reason that technology content is often written more broadly is because, well, writers often want to open up the gates and encourage people to take a deeper look into tech. As much fun as it is to do a deep technical dive into the nuances of how a system is designed, there is a deep threat of losing people if you go too deep without explaining why they should care.

Tying back to our discussion of the Eternal September in this piece, I would also like to make a broader point: We have to figure out a way to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical users online. To pretend that there isn’t room to offer a helping hand, or that we can just focus on our own tiny bubble, just isn’t working anymore.

In September of 1993, well-established users who felt their territory was being encroached on by people who didn’t earn their place in the digital culture reacted by being inhospitable to those users.

It’s nearly three decades later, and in the years since, tech has very much won. Our world has been redefined by it, in ways large and small. And while technical corners can and should exist, we should no longer pretend that technical users have a monopoly on these stories.

And, honestly, given the way that technology has negatively affected the lives of so many, we need to do a better job explaining it to the average person, so they have a chance to grab a hold of the ways that algorithms define what we see online, or how automation might reshape our lives and careers, in ways good and bad.

The Eternal September is over. We’re well into October now. We need to open up the gates.

It’s Time for the Eternal September to End syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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thecosmicstudyblr · 7 years ago

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No two professors are exactly the same; however, many of them can fall into a particular category that defines their general teaching style. These generalizations can be good or bad, and its important to know how your professor works so that you can adapt your work accordingly. The following list is a breakdown of all the types of teachers I’ve encountered over the years as well as a tip on how I’ve dealt with them. Please enjoy!

The Slacker: This professor can’t be bothered to grade assignments outside of school. With this professor, it’s expected that the class will fall behind schedule. This usually results in The Slacker trying to cram in all of the remaining lesson in the last two painful weeks of school. It doesn’t help that they don’t give you back any of your previous assignments so you’re forced to ballpark what you THINK your grade might be. TIP: Keep a record of how you believe you did on all of their assignments to help keep track of your grade. Also read ahead, this way you aren’t bombarded with information in the final weeks.

The General Education Professor: You are only taking this class because your school requires this. This professor KNOWS this, and they treat the class as exactly what it is. They don’t ask very much of you, and their study guides seem an awful lot like the quiz they give you during the following class. This can be a good or bad thing; if you are uncomfortable with the subject, then this professor is sparing you from a difficult semester. However, if you were actually interested in the class, the lack of enthusiasm may be frustrating. TIP: If you are not confident in your abilities to do well in the subject, befriend the teacher enough to voice your concerns. In my personal experience, teachers like this will take the students’ feelings into account when teaching material and making exams. If you are on the other end of the spectrum and genuinely wanted a challenging class, try reading up on extra material outside of class and form your own projects! It’s a lot of fun and will still help when it comes to exam time.

The Perfectionist: Missing a comma? Two points off. Margins of the page slightly off? One point for every page that is wrong. This professor finds their joy in finding the smallest reasons to deduct points on assignments. No one in the class is safe from their scrutinizing eye. TIP: Always go to a writing center or have a friend proof-read before submitting any essays. If all else fails, attempt to meet with The Perfectionist during office hours to look over the paper. It’s better that they catch those tiny mistakes early so you have time to correct it.

The Scrambler: The only way to follow this professor’s train of thought is to write down literally every word they are saying. If you zone out for even a second, there is no way to figure out how they changed the topic to something seemingly unrelated. This makes note-taking a difficult task, but with practice (and often a shorthand key) you can make sense of their multi-directional lectures. TIP: Although I’m not one for rewriting notes, this is the one instance where it can be a major help for understanding the professor. When you rewrite your notes, you can connect trains of thought that were scrambled during the class period. Also, if allowed, record you professor’s lecture so you can ensure you don’t miss anything.

The Tech-Savy: This professor likes to flaunt his technical know-how by assigning a plethora of projects utilizing web applications. By the end of the semester, you have a handful of new accounts that you will probably never use again and don’t know what to do with anymore. For people who enjoy technology this is fine, but for people who struggle to pick up on website mechanics, this could prove dangerous for your grade. TIP: If you see the projects on the syllabus, ask about the technology as soon as you can. Professors have slightly more free time in the first few weeks of the semester and may be able to walk you through the required programs. Also keep a log in the front of your class notes for any new accounts you signed up for, along with their password so you don’t forget them.

The High-Expectation Syllabus (Good): This professor wants to see you put out your best work, and provides many opportunities for you to showcase your knowledge. The course load is heavy, but it is also thought provoking and keeps you engaged during class. Even though the class requires some late night work sessions, you don’t mind as much because the professor gave you a chance to put your personal spin on a project and challenged you to go above and beyond. TIP: As corny as this sounds, make the most of this class. These professors have been some of the best (in my opinion) and they want nothing more for you to succeed. Keep an open line of communication with them so they see you’re putting in as much effort as they hope for and they’ll likely be more than willing to give you extra time if you fall behind on their demanding syllabus.

The High-Expectation Syllabus (Bad): This professor tries to demand a large amount of work from the class, but unlike the good high-expectation syllabus professor that provides engaging work and is flexible enough to work with you, this professor leaves the class to crumble under a mountain of work. In short, this is the professor that gives you more work than all the rest of you classes combined and complains when the class struggles to keep up. In more severe cases, you will notice a significant amount of students dropping the class in order to salvage their GPA. HUGE TIP: With this professor, the most important thing you can do is talk to other people in the class with you. There is a high chance that you are not the only one overwhelmed, and forming a reliable study/work group can help keep your head above water. In extreme cases, I advise going with classmates to speak with the professor in an attempt to reach a compromise on the syllabus. If a majority of the class is showing the same problems with the workload, the professor is likely to ease up on the demands.

The Team-Builder: This professor sees the good in assigning group projects and are not afraid to force clashing personalities together. For students who prefer to work alone, this power-wielding professor is their worst nightmare. They try to make sure that friends are separated into different groups to “avoid slacking off” and is adamant about not letting people change groups or work on their own. TIP: In reality you have two options here; you can either try to beg the professor to work on your own or you can instantly began making allies. The second you realize it’s a team-based course, look for people that seem trustworthy. If there are randomly assigned groups, try to look into the topics in advance so there isn’t an awkward ‘no one wants to step forward’ moment. If you know the subject material and take charge, you can delegate responsibility and make sure everyone does their share.

The Pushover: In this classroom, its more likely that the class clown or the popular kid are more in charge than The Pushover is. This teacher appeases their students one time too many and ends up being the butt of their students’ jokes. As a result, not much gets done in this class because the students are creating too much of a ruckus and the professor has to fight to wrangle everyone’s attention. TIP: Ignore the antics of your fellow classmates and do you best to show your professor respect. They will respect you back.

This Best Friend: This is the professor you are totally going to friend on social media after their class ends. They are friendly and approachable and they make every class they teach interesting. People aren’t rushing out of their seats the second the bell rings because they will sit back and answer questions. The best part is, because they’re so approachable, there isn’t much apprehension in raising your hand if you’re confused. They’re just an awesome professor and an awesome person. TIP: Enjoy the class!

This is all based on professors I’ve had in the past, so there may be a few types I am missing. If you guys liked this, let me know and I can make a part two!!

#studying #studyblr #new studyblr #study #studyspo #study inspiration #study tips #thecakestudyblr #Architstudy #stawbeestudy #stvdybuddies #college #professors #rhubarbstudies

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roughentumble · 7 years ago

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DISCLAIMER I PROBABLY PULLED ALL OF THIS OUT OF MY ASS AND ITS PROBABLY A BAD INTERPRETATION BUT ITS MINE SO BACK OFF

SORRY. IDK WHY I SUCK AT EVALUATING THIS MOVIE IN PARTICULAR imo, theres a LOT of emphasis put on control. they talk about dictatorships, how they repress both art/culture, AND knowledge/learning. i'm gonna avoid talking about what i think Really Happened, because i havent entirely worked that out for myself, but for themes and what they represent and why this story's being told... i think it's largely a meditation on the ways we're repressed by society at large, our smaller and more insular social groups, and the closest relationships with loved ones(so essentially, the world at large and at every level of interpersonal relationship and society in general) we're given a tale of two physically identical people to illustrate two extremes in behavior and personality, and how the same outside forces conspire in the same way to tear them apart, tear them down, and force them into roles they dont want to inhabit. it also forcibly strips them from their individuality, their personhood, and their self expression- they will never be a single, unique person ever again, because they will always know there's someone else out there wearing their face. going back to the extremes in behavior n such... it's easy to be an academic and look at someone who is an actor, or an artist, and think of them as the penultimate in self-expression and personal freedom. but at the same time, if you're a creative it's easy to look at someone in a more stable, academic or scientific role and think that they have more freedom to be themselves, in that they dont need to constantly maintain an Artsy Appearance to Stay Relevant n such. they can literally just be who they are, and if they have no inspiration they can just go back to work until true inspiration strikes. but thats ultimately not true, because NO ONE is allowed true self expression. neither of these men are allowed to be their authentic selves!! the teacher spends nights drinking wine and plowing his fuckbuddy, sure, but it's PASSIONLESS, it's rote and he's sick of it but he has nothing else. everyone(including his own mother) tells him he has a good apartment, a great career, he should be happy and thankful for what he has, but what he has doesnt FULFILL him. but he keeps doing it anyway, because it's the narrative society's constructed for him, the Correct Life Path. he's miserable, and trying to communicate so gets him shut down and told there's something wrong with him. he's held to the expectations of that life, whether he wants it or not and the actor man sees his casual fuck buddy and his complete lack of immanent baby-having and sees him as the pinnacle of freedom, because this isnt the life he wanted for himself either. anthony's miserable, he feels trapped, and he has no outlet to escape into the life he WANTS to live. he wants to be single, he wants to drink and fuck and he absolutely doesnt want a baby. he doesnt want to be a father. also, it's interesting to note how adam steps into anthony's life at the end. they both look the same because they're both put under the same pressure to conform to society's expectations, and he's capable of putting on a persona and playacting as anthony, but it's as fake and miserable and heavy as his last one. and it only brings to light how REPLACEABLE he is. even in anthony's death(assuming he died in that car crash), adam is STILL NOT GRANTED HIS OWN AUTONOMY! he still cant escape the knowlede that he's not his own person, he's a puppet of society who doesnt get to feel genuine joy or self determination because NONE OF THIS IS THE LIFE HE WANTED TO LIVE, but both are the life he's now forced to inhabit. so like.... lets talk about this from different levels. starting with the closest ring(wife, mother, best friend, other close relationships), then the second closest(work friends, neighborhood, social groups you choose to be part of like your local DnD group or soccar team or whatever your niche interest is), then the farthest ring(society as a whole) so. well actually maybe its fairly obvious, and i dont need to get into it??? hmm. well, obviously anthony feels trapped by his wife. he doesnt like that she's pregnant or that he's being tied down, and as much as adam isnt big on his current relationship, hes not exactly thrilled by the pregnant wife either, because of the way she represents a loss of self identity she shows how easily he can step into someone else's life to replace them, AND how easily he himself can be replaced, and how he can never truly be himself. she also imposes a lot of ideas of how he should be onto him. same with the mother, she's cruelly dismissive of adam's wants and desires and creative self expression, all in an attempt to love him and "look out for him"- because if he's financially stable then he's provided for and safe and that's all that matters. not his actual happiness, but rather how "safe" he is and how much she can pat herself on the back for having raised such a "respectful" child things turn awkward in adam's life whenever he expresses a dissenting opinion(he isnt a huge film fan, but most people are expected to have at least a passing interest in film, and when his coworker brings up films as a neutral topic and he expresses that he isnt a fan, it turns the conversation awkward and stilted until he's given a film to watch anyway, because that's the social expectation) what's funny though, is that despite their ultimately antagonistic relationship and the way they reflect a loss of individuality and personhood, the only reason they meet is because of the intersection of knowledge and culture, and they find in each other a sense of community, commiseration, and relatability. who do they understand instantly and intrinsically? who do they seek out? who do they actually SHOW THEIR TRUE EMOTIONS TO throughout the film? EACH OTHER. on the phone with each other for the first time, adam starts stumbling over his words and saying things in the worst possible way, and admits he only gets this way when he's excited, yet we never see him act like that again throughout the film... because nothing else EXCITES him he's excited by the thought of someone else understanding. of someone to commiserate with, to relate to. someone who feels what he feels. a sense of true community. and he gets that, but in doing so looses the one thing that he truly thought of as unique(viewing himself as one of the only- or at least the few- who felt stifled and lacking in true creative outlets in their lives) (i also think thats why anthony responds with more joy and amazement, because for him he's reassured by the communal feeling and the fact that even someone in a Respectable Job could feel that way, whereas adam is horrified because EVEN PEOPLE IN CREATIVE JOBS FEEL THAT WAY) society at large held them both down to such a startling degree that anthony viewed his wife as a spider, himself caught in a web of commitment, while adam felt every day blur together as he shambled through life in a daze, both steeped in misery. they hated their lives, lives imposed on them by a society that operates through subjugation and a suppression of individuality. and they both embodied one of the two major things you can use to combat such a society- and they were both held back and burdened by expectations specifically tailored to hold back those ideas, and keep that individuality from blossoming. but then adam's knowledge met with anthony's art/culture, and they were able to OPEN UP to one another. knowledge became aware of art, and together they forged themselves a small space to really try and feel what they felt and develop who they are as people, without all these expectations weighing them down and moulding them into people they didnt wanna be. and did they ultimately crash and burn(no pun intended)? yeah. they did. but they tried. and they only failed so spectacularly because of a society that wanted them to fail, that kept their emotional growth in that area stunted to keep them from ever rising up against these ingrained ideas that are ultimately harmful now, am i saying these were two good and pure men deserving only of nice things, who never made a mistake???? no. they were both huge assholes. i mean, anthony wanted to fuck adam's GF... WHILE SHE THOUGHT HE WAS ADAM. he tried to push her out a goddamn moving car. adam tried to fuck her while she was asleep at one point, and then fucked anthony's wife while SHE thought HE was anthony---- these are SHITTY PEOPLE. but i mean... i dunno, its, the point isnt to be about perfect people, but instead to show how badly all these limitations and expectations can fuck people up, leave them emotionally stunted and miserable, how it can lead to depression and a lack of identity or a sense of self... how it leads to tragedy, basically.

#enemy tag #long post tag

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tumblunni · 7 years ago

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Some random npc character ideas I had for the monster petshop game idea! With some badly made mockup appearances in a random avatar maker flash game, cos WHY NOT

IT’S GRANDPA

this is our required quotient of daily vitamin gramp! I usually make grumpy grandparent characters, but this time its gonna be INCREDIBLY SAD GRAMP OF RELATEABLE SELF HATE ISSUES

He’s sort of the underdog ‘rival’ in monster farming, whose biggest strength is just making you feel incredibly bad for beating him. He is a very poor and sad gramp constantly failing through no fault of his own, yet blaming himself every time. And his personality is very timid and generous to the point of it actually becoming a problem. He can never stand up for himself about anything, and will crumple like a stack of cards and obey anything anyone tells him. He values himself so lowly that he’ll sacrifice everything he owns for the sake of anyone and everyone, and he won’t even feel like he’s a good person for it. “I’m not doing anything special, anyone would agree that you deserve this more than me.”So he’s constantly extending the hand of kindness to his enemies, and making homemade casseroles for our dorky dumbass protagonist even as he’s going hungry himself...

And then his backstory is that he’s actually the secret identity of a formerly famous monster trainer, who dissappeared from the competitive scene after one big mistake. His main monster used to be some sort of huge bull dragon lizard thing of scaryness (haven’t designed it yet), though it was very tame and gentle at heart. Despite this, there was a horrible accident and one of his young fans got fatally injured during a match. And then nobody would believe that this monster wasn’t a rabid beast! He lost his career at this moment, and because he refused to let them euthanise his monster friend he ended up losing his farm, fortune and social status too. In the end, all he was able to do was keep the poor monster alive, but at a cost. The poor creature is trapped under a web of legal limitations, branded as dangerous for life, forced to be kept caged indoors in an environment that’s really unhealthy for it. And now the two of them live out in the boondocks, and they lack the self confidence to start their career all over again, especially when they’re both so old and struggling with ptsd. And when the poor monster doesn’t understand why it can’t see that lil kid anymore, who was always the leader of the fan club... And poor grandpa only even keeps going because he feels like he doesn’t deserve to ‘take the easy way out’. He’s staying alive so he can someday meet the family of the kid who died, even if he doesn’t know what he could possibly say to them to apologise.

his design here is kinda meant to be more like lysandre/ganondorf type hair And imagine him being like super chubby and drawn in an art style of ABSOLUTE SAD. He’s like if gravity has increased tenfold on his body, or something! I wanna try and make him look like someone who was once maybe a confident hero type, but he’s just melted into depression man. That’s why the random metal greaves on a scruffy farmer outfit, yknow? Also the second design is just cos i wanted to see him wearing an apron but there wasnt any option to add it as an accessory to other outfits, it just comes with the whole starbucks uniform

This equally unnamed lady here is his current farm assistant! I wanted the dress to be more like the style of the one on the right, but it didn’t come in green.

She’s kinda equally as low confidence as him, but she’s more of a shy sort. She tries to put on a generally chipper face and takes it upon herself to cheer people up, even being a bit of a class clown. I was considering maybe her nickname could be Dotty? I just feel like it’d be in-character that she’d play up her own clumsy failures to try and make her boss feel like.. more competant in comparison. She’d be kind of a foil to the protagonist’s assistant, Justy, because they’re both more competant than their bosses but Dotty kinda wishes she wasn’t. In her case its not that she’s an expert and her boss is a total newcomer, its just that he’s lost the will to keep trying, and won’t believe in his own epic skill, gah!! So yeah. Dotty kinda just rushes around everywhere trying to do EVERYTHING and help this ranch get back to its former glory. and help poor grandpa to take better care of himself! But while she’s good at cleaning and bookkeeping and being Everyone’s Mom Friend, she can’t just take his place in tournements. Which is weird because you’d think she’d be just as hyper competant at those, right? Maybe she’s just trying to make her boss face his fears on his own, or maybe she has her own fears keeping her from entering the arena...

Plus it’s very curious that her boss keeps stopping her from entering a certain barn supposedly containing something too dangerous for any human to ever see. And why won’t he say anything about whatever backstory event caused his whole shame spiral??? Dotty is very curious about this, because she only wants the best for her boss! And also because... she might not exactly have the purest motives for being here. *DUN DUN DUNNN* Seriously, WHY did she appear out of nowhere and take a super low paying job with this failure farmer guy that everybody else hates? And why is she pretending to be less skilled than she is? And why is she trying to break into that barn with what appears to be a lockpicking kid hidden in her hair bun? DISREGARD THAT LAST STATEMENT! Thus our protagonist is faced with a lot of mysteries about this woman! Is she just a genuine philanthropist who means all she says about motivating this gramp to get back in business? Is she some hapless thief who’s gonna get more than she bargains for when she finds a dangerous monster instead of treasure? Is she a completely different third solution to all of this, which bunni is deliberately misdirecting you from??? ;^)

The third npc for this particular sidequest chain! I also don’t have a name for her! Also not sure which outfit would work best? I just feel she’d have tomboyish fashion sense. And I kinda think maybe the green works better than the blue, but those other two outfits didnt come in green in the avatar maker. And maybe not that exact shade of green either. I DUNNO!

This gal is gonna be more of a supporting role to the others, and kinda a gateway character to introduce our protagonist to the plot of the other two. She’s a reckless lil goofball who keeps sneaking into the farm to visit the Secret Monster Pal. Yo, somethin so cool ain’t dangerous! Why you believe all that stuff so easy?? And at first you’re just trying to catch her and get her to stop coming back, before she gets hurt. And she’s a total trickster who keeps outfoxing you and finding a way to keep hugging this monster no matter what! But because she’s a huge fan of this monster, she helps you discover all the stuff about the backstory, and so on! And just provides some light comic relief amidst the self-hating grandpa time! But maybe even she might have her own secrets....

#monster shop game #i have like a whole complex web of plots between these three all worked out #and even epilogue ideas for their own personal good endings #yet i still have no damn names for them #and havent even designed the protagonist yet #whyyyyyyyy

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suzanneshannon · 6 years ago

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Daily Ethical Design

Suddenly, I realized that the people next to me might be severely impacted by my work. I was having a quick lunch in the airport. A group of flight attendants sat down at the table next to me and started to prepare for their flight. For a while now, our design team had been working on futuristic concepts for the operations control center of these flight attendants’ airline, pushing ourselves to come up with innovative solutions enabled by the newest technologies. As the control center deals with all activities around flying planes, our concepts touched upon everything and everyone within the airline. How was I to know what the impact of my work would be on the lives of these flight attendants? And what about the lives of all the other people working at the airline? Ideally, we would have talked to all the types of employees in the company and tested our concepts with them. But, of course, there was no budget (or time) allocated to do so, not to mention we faced the hurdle of convincing (internal) stakeholders of the need. Not for the first time, I felt frustrated: practical, real-world constraints prevented me from assessing the impact and quality of my work. They prevented me from properly conducting ethical design.

What is ethical design?

Right, good question. A very comprehensive definition of ethical design can be found at Encyclopedia.com:

Usability

Accessibility

Privacy

User involvement

Persuasion

Focus

Sustainability

Society

The focus areas of design ethics. That’s a lot to consider!

Ethics as an inconvenience

Ideally, in every design project, we should assess the potential impact in all of the above-mentioned areas and take steps to prevent harm. Yet there are many legitimate, understandable reasons why we often neglect to do so. It’s easy to have moral principles, yet in the real world, with the constraints that our daily life imposes upon us, it’s seldom easy to act according to those principles. We might simply say it’s inconvenient at the moment. That there’s a lack of time or budget to consider all the ethical implications of our work. That there are many more pressing concerns that have priority right now. We might genuinely believe it’s just a small issue, something to consider later, perhaps. Mostly, we are simply unaware of the possible consequences of our work. And then there’s the sheer complexity of it all: it’s simply too much to simultaneously focus on. When short on time, or in the heat of approaching deadlines and impatient stakeholders, how do you incorporate all of design ethics’ focus areas? Where do you even start?

Ethics as a structural practice

For these reasons, I believe we need to elevate design ethics to a more practical level. We need to find ways to make ethics not an afterthought, not something to be considered separately, but rather something that’s so ingrained in our process that not doing it means not doing design at all. The only way to overcome the “inconvenience” of acting ethically is to practice daily ethical design: ethics structurally integrated in our daily work, processes, and tools as designers. No longer will we have to rely on the exceptions among us; those extremely principled who are brave enough to stand up against the system no matter what kind of pressure is put upon them. Because the system will be on our side. By applying ethics daily and structurally in our design process, we’ll be able to identify and neutralize in a very early stage the potential for mistakes and misuse. We’ll increase the quality of our design and our practices simply because we’ll think things through more thoroughly, in a more conscious and structured manner. But perhaps most important is that we’ll establish a new standard for design. A standard that we can sell to our clients as the way design should be done, with ethical design processes and deliverables already included. A standard that can be taught to design students so that the newest generation of designers doesn’t know any better than to apply ethics, always.

The advantages of daily ethical design

How to practice daily ethical design?

At this point we’ve arrived at the question of how we can structurally integrate ethics into our design process. How do we make sure that our daily design decisions will result in a product that’s usable and accessible; protects people’s privacy, agency, and focus; and benefits both society and nature? I want to share with you some best practices that I’ve identified so far, and how I’ve tried to apply them during a recent project at Mirabeau. The goal of the project was to build a web application that provides a shaver manufacturer’s factory workers insight into the real-time availability of production materials.

Connect to your organization’s mission and values

By connecting our designs to the mission and values of the companies we work for, we can structurally use our design skills in a strategic manner, for moral purposes. We can challenge the company to truly live up to its promises and support it in carrying out its mission. This does, however, require you to be aware of the company’s values, and to compare these to your personal values. As I had worked with our example client before, I knew it was a company that takes care of its employees and has a strong focus on creating a better world. During the kick-off phase, we used a strategy pyramid to structure the client’s mission and values, and to agree upon success factors for the project. We translated the company’s customer-facing brand guidelines to employee-focused design principles that maintained the essence of the organization.

Keep track of your assumptions

Throughout our entire design process, we make assumptions for each decision that we take. By structurally keeping track of these assumptions, you’ll never forget about the limitations of your design and where the potential risks lie in terms of (harmful) impact on users, the project, the company, and society. In our example project, we listed our assumptions about user goals, content, and functionalities for each page of the application. If we were not fully sure about the value for end users, or the accuracy of a user goal, we marked it as a value assumption. When we were unsure if data could be made available, we marked this as a data (feasibility) assumption. If we were not sure whether a feature would add to the manufacturer’s business, we marked it as a scope assumption. Every week, we tested our assumptions with end users and business stakeholders through user tests and sprint demos. Each design iteration led to new questions and assumptions to be tested the next week.

Aim to be proven wrong

While our assumptions are the known unknowns, there are always unknown unknowns that we aren’t aware of but could be a huge risk for the quality and impact of our work. The only way we can identify these is by applying the scientific principle of falsifiability: seeking actively to be proven wrong. Only outsiders can point out to us what we miss as an individual or as a team. In our weekly user tests, we included factory workers and stakeholders with different disciplines, from different departments, and working in different contexts, to identify the edge cases that could break our concept. On one occasion, this made us reconsider the entirety of our concept. Still, we could have done better: although scalability to other factories was an important success factor, we were unable to gather input from those other factories during the project. We felt our only option was to mention this as a risk (“limit to scalability”).

Use the power of checklists

Let’s face it: we forget things. (Without scrolling up the page, can you name all the focus areas of design ethics?) This is where checklists help us out: they provide knowledge in the world, so that we don’t have to process it in our easily overwhelmed memory. Simple yet powerful, a checklist is an essential tool to practice daily ethical design. In our example project, we used checklists to maintain an overview of questions and assumptions to user test, checking whether we included our design principles properly, and assessing whether we complied to the client’s values, design principles, and the agreed-upon success factors. In hindsight, we could also have taken a moment during the concept phase to go through the list of focus areas for design ethics, as well as have taken a more structural approach to check accessibility guidelines.

The main challenge for daily ethical design

Most ethics focus areas are quite tangible, where design decisions have immediate, often visible effects. While certainly challenging in their own right, they’re relatively easy to integrate in our daily practice, especially for experienced designers. Society and the environment, however, are more intangible topics; the effects of our work in these areas are distant and uncertain. I’m sure that when Airbnb was first conceived, the founders did not consider the magnitude of its disruptive impact on the housing market. The same goes for Instagram, as its role in creating demand for fast fashion must have been hard to foresee. Hard, but not impossible. So how do we overcome this challenge and make the impact that we have on society and the environment more immediate, more daily?

Conduct Dark Reality sessions

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates used a series of questions to gradually uncover the invalidity of people’s beliefs. In a very similar way, we can uncover the assumptions and potential disastrous consequences of our concepts in a ‘Dark Reality’ session, a form of speculative design that focuses on stress-testing a concept with challenging questions. We have to ask ourselves—or even better, somebody outside our team has to ask us— questions such as, “What is the lifespan of your product? What if the user base will be in the millions? What are the long-term effects on economy, society, and the environment? Who benefits from your design? Who loses? Who is excluded? And perhaps most importantly, how could your design be misused? (For more of these questions, Alan Cooper provided a great list in his keynote at Interaction 18.) The back-and-forth Q&A of the Dark Reality session will help us consider and identify our concept’s weaknesses and potential consequences. As it is a team effort, it will spark discussion and uncover differences in team members’ ethical values. Moreover, the session will result in a list of questions and assumptions that can be tested with potential users and subject matter experts. In the project for the airline control center, it resulted in more consideration for the human role in automatization and how digital interfaces can continue to support human capabilities (instead of replacing them), and reflection on the role of airports in future society. The dark reality session is best conducted during the convergent parts of the double diamond, as these are the design phases in which we narrow down to realistic ideas. It’s vital to have a questioner from outside the team with strong interviewing skills and who doesn’t easily accept an answer as sufficient. There are helpful tools available to help structure the session, such as the Tarot Cards of Tech and these ethical tools.

Take a step back to go forward

Daily Ethical Design published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

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