#ceo playbook

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Corporate Bullshit

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Corporate Bullshit: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America is Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen's 2023 book on the history of corporate apologetics; it's great:

https://thenewpress.com/books/corporate-bullsht

I found out about this book last fall when David Dayen reviewed it for the The American Prospect; Dayen did a great job of breaking down its thesis, and I picked it up for my newsletter, which prompted Hanauer to send me a copy, which I finally got around to reading yesterday (I have gigantic backlog of reading):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/27/six-sells/#youre-holding-it-wrong

The authors' thesis is that the business world has a well-worn playbook that they roll out whenever anything that might cause industry to behave even slightly less destructively is proposed. What's more, we keep falling for it. Every time we try to have nice things, our bosses – and their well-paid Renfields – dust off their talking points from the last go-round, do a little madlibs-style search and replace, and bust it out again.

It's a four-stage plan:

I. First, insist that there is no problem.

Enslaved people are actually happy. Smoking doesn't cause cancer. Higher CO2 levels are imaginary and they're caused by sunspots and they're good for crop yields. The hole in the ozone layer is only a problem if you foolishly decide to hang around outside (this is real!).

II. OK, there's a problem, but it's your fault.

An epidemic of on-the-job maimings is actually an epidemic of sloppy workers. A gigantic housing crash is really a gigantic cohort of greedy, feckless borrowers. Rampant price gouging is actually a problem of too much "spending power" (that is, "money") in the hands of working people.

III. Any attempt to fix this will make it worse.

Equal wages for equal work will cause bosses to fire women and people of color. Protecting people with disabilities will cause bosses to fire disable people. Minimum wages will cause bosses to buy machines and fire "unskilled" workers. Gun control will only increase underground gun sales. Banning carcinogenic pesticides will end agriculture as we know and we'll all starve to death.

IV. This is socialism.

Income tax is socialism. Estate tax is socialism. Medicare and Medicaid are socialism. Food stamps are socialism. Child labor laws are socialism. Public education is socialism. The National Labor Relations Act is socialism. Unions are socialism. Social security is socialism. The Fair Labor Standards Act is socialism. Obamacare is socialism. The Civil Rights Act is socialism. The Occupational Health and Safety Act is socialism. The Family Medical Leave Act is socialism. FDR is a socialist. JFK is a socialist. Lyndon Johnson is a socialist. Carter is a socialist. Clinton is a socialist. Obama is a socialist. Biden is a socialist (Biden: "I beat the socialist. That's how I got the nomination").

Though this playbook has been in existence since the nation's founding, the authors point out that from the New Deal until the Reagan era, it didn't get much traction. But starting in the Reagan years, the well-funded network of billionaire-backed think-tanks, endowed economics chairs, and latter-day propaganda vehicles like Prageru breathed new life into these tactics.

We can see this playing out right now as the corporate world scrambles for a response to the Harris campaign's proposal to address price-gouging. Reading Matt Stoller's dissection of this response, we can see the whole playbook on display:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-price-gouging-vs

First, corporate apologists insisted that greedflation didn't exist, despite the fact that CEOs kept getting on earnings calls and boasting to their investors about how they were using the excuse of inflation to jack up prices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power

Or the oil CEOs who boasted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine gave them cover to just screw us at the pump:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/15/sanctions-financing/#soak-the-rich

There are all these out-in-the-open commercial entities whose sole purpose is to "advise" large corporations about their prices, which is just a barely disguised euphemism for price-fixing, from meat-packing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

To rents:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

That's stage one: "there's no problem." Stage two is "it's your fault." That's Larry Summers and co insisting that a couple of stimulus checks a couple years ago are responsible for inflation, because it gave you too much "buying power," and so the only possible fix is to jack up interest rates and trigger mass layoffs and sharp wage decreases across the economy:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/14/medieval-bloodletters/#its-the-stupid-economy

Stage three is "any attempt to fix this will make it worse." When Isabella Weber pointed out that there was a long history of price-controls being used to fight price-gouging, corporate apologists lost their minds and brigaded her, calling her all kinds of nasty names and insisting that her prescription didn't even warrant serious discussion, because any attempt to control prices would destroy the economy:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/lately/article-the-millennial-economist-who-took-on-the-world/

You may recognize this as cousin to the response to rent control proposals, which inevitably trigger a barrage of economists screaming that this will not work and will actually reduce the housing supply and drive up prices, which is true, provided that you ignore all evidence and history:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

And stage four is "this is socialism." Look, I am a literal card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America and I can assure you, Kamala Harris is not a socialist (and more's the pity). But that didn't stop the most eminently guillotineable members of the investor class from hair-on-fire, ALL-CAPS denunciations of the Harris proposal as SOCIALISM and Harris herself as a COMMUNIST:

https://twitter.com/Jason/status/1824580470052725055

The author's thesis is that by naming the playbook and giving examples of it – for example, showing how the "proof" that minimum wage increases will destroy jobs was also offered as "proof" not to abolish slavery, ban child labor, add fireproofing to textile factories, and pay women and Black people the same as white guys – we can vaccinate ourselves against it.

Certainly, we've reached a moment where the public is increasingly skeptical of claims that we can't fix anything because the economists say that this is the best of all possible worlds, and if that means that we're all going to boil to death in our own skin, so be it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

In other words, after 40 years of subordinating politics to economics, there's a resurgence of belief in politics – that is, doing stuff – rather than hunkering down and waiting for the technocrats to fix everything:

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/seeing-like-a-matt

Corporate Bullshit is a brisk and bracing read – I got through it in about an hour in my hammock yesterday – and, in laying out the bullshit playbook's long history of nonsensical predictions and pronouncements, it does make a very good case that we should stop listening to people who quote from it.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/19/apologetics-spotters-guide/#narratives

[askew-d]

YIZHAN FIC REC LIST

— if you just got into the fandom, you might know switched, yizhan or yizhan through the years, so let’s go through other stuff! we’re gonna take another ride. also, if you care about this, green will be for bjyx dynamic, red will be for zsww and blue will be for lsfy. from my point of view, ofc. orange will be for the not specified, couldn’t grasp. let’s go.

• where else but home, by purplemoster — fluff story where wang yibo accidentally returns home to xiao zhan every time. super sweet read!

• ⭐️ cool boy gets a life, by saezutte — xiao zhan’s a writer and his character, cool buy wang yibo, gains life. it’s wonderful, i want a cool boy for myself. who wrote this did an awesome job.

• ⭐️ i’m not as good as you think (or as bad as they say), by ilyria — aaahh, what a gorgeous story! basically, xiao zhan becomes yibo manager and the idol, well, falls in love. there’s a sequel!

• follow shot, by cataclysms — cameraman wang yibo freaks out about idol xiao zhan. because, come on, it’s xiao zhan! we get you, boy. beautiful.

• xiao zhan’s graphic design playbook, by augmenti — this one’s absolutely gold! fantastic. xiao zhan as graphic designer and yibo as someone who thinks his prices are too small. sexual tension ensues.

• caffeine addictions and brain malfunctions, by little_passions — if you want a coffeeshop yizhan au, here’s your to-go! cute!

• query: cardiac, by iluvnaruto1412 — our radiographer technician wang yibo discovers that doctor xiao’s a hottie. there’s a whole series that’s outstanding, don’t mind the mcd in the last part, you’ll understand as you read.

• an ode to love, by spoonful_of_sugar — sappy reminiscent of their story. truly so fluffy i had toothaches the entire read.

• ⭐️ one feline war for love, by ilyria —a fierce cat becomes a human after xiao zhan saves him, and this human wants xiao zhan all for himself. so very good, i died and resuscitated. worth it.

• chef’s kiss, by jalpari — chef xiao zhan in day day for an episode and becomes enemies with wang yibo. but for a short time. love this development for them!! so well done.

• ⭐️ this is what they say, by xiaoyibao (a_storm_of_frustrations) — yibo thinks xiao zhan’s breaking up when the man’s actually trying to get married to him. comic, lovely, poetic!

• set me into motion, by deinde — backup dancers wang yibo and xiao zhan being whipped towards one another. an angel wrote this.

• ⭐️ finding yibo, by vesna (mrsronweasley) — kidfic where yibo transforms into a young version of himself and xiao zhan takes care of him. i’m losing my head. it’s great!

• ⭐️🎖️never close our eyes, series by thirtysixsavefiles — catboy wang yibo and kinda batman xiao zhan. perfect through every part. i’m flabbergasted.

• 119 my cat is struck, by serendiiii — fireman yibo, cat owner xiao zhan, you can have my heart! adorable!

• a spot of light, by akatsukishin — this is for everyone who loves a drama! delivery boy xiao zhan and successful ceo wang yibo.

• a story of others to tell, by deinde — this author has some seriously good plots. in this one, yibo pines enough to end up in cql world. extra nice!

• cut to the feeling, by vesna (mrsronweasley) — drama pa and the huge star xiao zhan. is there anything better?

• love thy neighbour, by jalpari — single dad xiao zhan and neighbour who becomes babysitter wang yibo. marvellous!

• ‘cos you make me feel electric, by chajatta — fansite xiao zhan loves his inspiration, wang-laoshi from uniq. i love this for them, genuinely.

• ⭐️🎖️ world of cultivation, by eggo — yibo and xiao zhan meet each other through a game; well, not only. hilarious! chaotic! romantic! perfect!

• gravitating towards you, by bittersweetirony — high school au with student council president xiao zhan and sports freak wang yibo, we all know we needed it.

• 181.3 cm high, by eleven14 — wang yibo wakes up high in anaesthesia. you might imagine what comes after. excellent!

• ⭐️ we are made to love, by jalpari — xiao zhan writes columns receives one letter questioning on love. aah, so poetic! definitely worth every second.

• no path better than our own, by athousandfaces — harry potter au! we’re lucky to have this gorgeous story. i had a lot of fun reading it.

• my future in your laugh, by timelykey — doctor xiao zhan falling in love with overworked wang yibo. wow, what a journey, you’re losing it if you haven’t read it yet.

• love in the time of coding, by thevoiryflute — a hacker au for yibo fits him so much, i don’t know why. just know that this perfectly-written story caused butterflies in my stomach.

• summer surf shop, by anonymous — yibo goes to a variety show and gets much more than he imagined. absolutely gold.

• pick me, pick me up, by domeneec — wrong number au for yizhan, we need it. and it’s so well-written too.

• escape velocity, redefined, by thirtysixsavefiles — i have to admit that this au of pirating away together with royalty made me suspicious at first. but after i read it, it’s so goddamn brilliant.

• 缘分 | (yuánfèn), by fyredancer — royalty au, give me more yizhan royalty. good writing, good development, good plot, had a good time reading it.

• signal fire, series by fireflavoredwhiskey — spiderman yibo! spiderman yibo! spiderman yibo! spiderman yibo! if he knew about that, he’d be happy to know that in an universe he gets to be his favorite superhero.

• ⭐️ the magic position, by sophiahelix — just a sweet, short story with yizhan being cute together and it melts my heart away every time.

• ⭐️🎖️ with joy and purpose, by feenwitch — android wang yibo living alone in a planet until xiao zhan crashes his plane there. it’s just perfect. and the writing’s wonderful.

• perfect match, by sandorara — personal ai for xiao zhan turns out to be more than he expected. gorgeous wang yibo affecting xiao-laoshi and changing his course of life. incredible!

• 🎖️ their kindred encounters, by fireflavoredwhiskey — can i have this printed, please? actually, i think there might have. it’s a the age of adeline au, xiao zhan doesn’t get old. melancholic in the ideal dosage. angst. comfort. everything.

• the ruby ox and the golden boy, series by aces_low — a mafia au that attracted me. i’m usually not into these kind of aus but aah this one… it’s unique.

• ⭐️ half is loss, half is gain, by yin_chi — celebrity xiao zhan needs a bodyguard and guess who it is? well, yeah, this story’s a blessing upon us here. i couldn’t stop reading once i began, just warning y’all. addictive, i want more.

• ⭐️🎖️ between holocenes, by fireflavoredwhiskey — this author broke the heart of so many people by just vanishing from the fandom, but ah how greatly they write and how extraordinary their works are. this is a the time traveler’s wife au and it rocks.

• fixtures and fittings, by ella_minnow — interior designer xiao zhan and motorcyclist wang yibo! believe me when i said i screamed during the development of their relationship.

• ⭐️ 为战而爱, series by anonymous — bits of sdc moments with established relationship yizhan, the works are seriously stunning.

• what i could do (if i didn’t love you), by trestle — one-night stand au with architect xiao zhan. seriously really good through and through.

• ⭐️ hand in glove, by pessoa — brat yibo; you have my heart. the development in this work’s crazy, it’s a whole rollercoaster of feelings. neighbours au!

• say you love me (again and again), by lanwuxiann — sweet story of yizhan growing up together and loving each other through every step of the way. hella soft!

• ⭐️ four of hearts (l-o-v-e me zhan-ge), by eleven14 — yibo being silly to win over xiao zhan’s heart, and of course, it works. short, but very funny and lovely.

• a head’s up, by madfilaments — xiao zhan arrives at sdc without giving a head’s up and yibo’s frustrated. a pretty satisfying thing to read. awesome.!

• 7 reasons to support your local cat café, by buttstrife — host wang yibo, cat café owner xiao zhan, a romance for the history books. they’re so very lovable.

• ⭐️ the bravest man i ever knew, by biscuitpoo — another hogwarts au! this time, xiao zhan’s a bit more slytherin-like, and it’s a whole show.

• ⭐️🎖️ so happy you could come; so happy to be here, by alex_mtg — a masterpiece! betrothed yizhan with royalty and the uniq boys and this sweet development of their relationship. just amazing! :)

• ⭐️ threads, by planet_b612 — a sherlock and watson au! it’s phenomenal! in fact, this author has only good works, so it’s definitely worthy to check out.

since i’m doing this already, might as well recommend some of my own stories, so i’ll be adding the ones i favour (sssh):

• half a bottle is enough — yizhan fight and xiao zhan gets home carrying a cardboard wang yibo. just some silly boyfriendos!

• falling; never broken — yibo has bulimia (please, be aware of the trigger warnings) and xiao zhan’s a doctor who helps him.

• a best friend and a lover — xiao zhan goes on different dates with different versions of wang yibo to look for a ‘type’. they’re both stupidly in love, your honour.

• darling you, play it cool — yizhan bodyswap au where only wang yibo’s famous though. i wrote this in 2023 and i’m the most proud of it.

• sleep tight until the moonlight — yizhan enemies to lovers where both of them spend their time being radio hosts in university :)

• whispering through dusty aisles — my au where xiao zhan’s a literary deity and yibo’s still famous, they meet occasionally and sparks fly. it’s my most poetic creation.

everyone, please remember this is my opinion! of course, there a lot of other works — famous or not — who aren’t in here. if you want to check out more recs of mine, see my bookmarks! thank you :)

[ikjun]

i am bemoaning the length of the dongjae spin-off because i think it is very well done. the case is constructed in a way that it’s not boring, you just have to pay attention to everything said and shown because it is all relevant to solving it, and to the overall plot, duh, in a manner that’s very stranger-esque. dongjae being able to make a breakthrough due to a minor interaction in one of the first episodes is so the si-mok playbook that i couldn’t not love it and similarities between his team-up with police officer hyun-woo is also a nice callback. but the show is still distinctly dong-jae in tone and feel, he’s sometimes the butt of the joke but he also gets to succeed and win - we actually see him be good and sufficient at his work, which would explain why someone like him got to stay in his line of work for twenty years.

in that vein it is also great to see them put so many callbacks to his time as a character (third lead !!) in stranger into this show, which rewards longtime fans a lot. his relationship to won-cheol, showing how much medication he’s got prescribed after the events he went through, using his malpractice case from s1 as a hung-up and roadblock for him in the prosecution, and how scared he was when the internal investigator in ep7 said he’d want to interview si-mok as a witness and how dong-jae was vehemently against it right away. it makes sense to the audience that knows him while keeping first-time watchers curious what the deal with that and dong-jae is exactly.

then there is nam wan-seong as a villain. he only works as one because dong-jae is the main character. someone like si-mok wouldn’t give a man like ceo nam or his family the time of day, any temper tantrum would fly right over his head or go past him while he’d solve the case and prosecute him. but nam wan-seong can push every one of dong-jae’s buttons and so does the involvement of his son at the beginning of the case. dong-jae has two achilles heels: his opportunism and his investment in cases involving teenagers and kids. he loathes child-bullying and teenage delinquents, he doesn’t want to see teenagers (teenage boys specifically) go down this path because, for whatever reason, he is affected by that as a father himself. so he can’t let sleeping dogs lie in that regard and nam gyeo-re is the perfect segue way for him to start an investigation and that leads to him clashing more with ceo nam. ceo nam, who bribed dong-jae when it was still en vogue for dong-jae to indulge in that, and who knows how to play someone who is pliable. he’s the type of man dong-jae has to rise against because he is everything dong-jae was and somewhat is somewhere still inside of him, so to win against him also signals a character progression for dong-jae, which would also be signified in such a big case possibly getting him back to seoul.

it’s fun, even bordering on downright hilarious (the inner monologues, the soundtrack!, the physical comedy of dong-jae being dong-jae), it’s engaging and thrilling, it’s a cat and mouse game, a procedural, and more than anything it feels like a victory lap dedicated to the fans of a franchise who gave their time and energy to this character over and over again, honouring the original writing of the show as well as lee joon-hyuk’s best and most signature role. that’s our dong-jae indeed, and our show (and i wish it got the sixteen episode order to carry it home.)

[ariendiel]

Using my lunch break to do some snooping on the company that's bought Fusebox Games and what they have to offer and:

"We see a large opportunity in building an IP-based global gaming business that benefits from our core base in India, where we can support global studios through enhanced user acquisition strategies, data analytics, live operations, and new initiatives such as implementing our in-house AI playbook."

The CEO also "believes there are unlimited use cases of AI that the company can deploy" when making games, and also to "throw all the data being generated by the players during their activity to the AI to make a lot more personalized offerings which will help increase engagement as well as better monetization through advertising and user acquisition."

In other words, expect more AI. Not only for making the games either, but for using all the data generated when playing to try and get more money from the players (you all). I might do some more research on the company later, but I'm honestly just tired of all the fusebox bs – and not really active in the fandom anymore.

[davidaugust]

Trying to get workers to believe a deal is about to happen when it isn’t, in hopes workers will turn against their union leaders is a union-busting move from probably at least the 1890s. Don’t believe when AMPTP media says it.

The AMPTP is using a Victorian labor playbook in the 21st Century and damaging themselves and others by doing so. The CEOs need to make a deal, for their own sake.

#ActorsStrike #SAGAFTRAstrike #SAGAFTRAstrong #UnionStrong #u1 #union

[pb-dot]

Some Thoughts on the Reddit Blackout

Like many new arrivals on Tumblr these days, I used to be a Redditor until recent developments encouraged me to take my business elsewhere, and I have been following the development of the story as thoroughly as I can without actually giving Reddit any more traffic. With the most recent development of the Reddit admin corps taking on a suite of strategies lifted straight from the depression-era railroad baron playbook, I figured the time has come to talk a little about the wider implications of this whole story.

The Tech sector is, to the best of my understanding, in a vulnerable place right now. After the Web 2.0 gold rush and years of consolidation and growth from the biggest actors, your Alphabets, Twitters, Metas, and so on, many of the larger sites and services are reaching the largest size they can expect to grow to. How, for instance, could Facebook or Twitter grow much more now that everyone and their mother is on Facebook and Twitter? Prior to the Musk buyout, Twitter seemingly settled on upping engagement, making sure people were on Twitter longer and invested more energy and emotion in the platform, usually by making damn sure the discourse zapping through that hellhole was as polarizing and hostile as possible. Meta, meanwhile, has been making bank on user data as advertisers, AI folks, and any number of other actors salivate over getting their hands on the self-updating contact and interest registry that is Facebook.

With the rise of what we apparently have decided to call AI, data is now more valuable than ever. I consider this to be yet another Tech Hype Bubble on the level of NFTs or Metaverses, but, like with the two above, I can imagine it's hard to explain that when you are a Tech CEO and your shareholders ask you "Hey, how do you plan on earning us money off of this AI/NFT/Metaverse thing?" This is not to say CEO Steve Huffman isn't handling this whole thing with the grace of a three-legged hippo, but merely to suggest that his less-than-laudable decisions and actions in this mess don't arise from his character alone but also is a result of wider systemic issues.

One of these issues is the complicated role user data plays in modern websites and -services. Since its inception as a publicly accessible space, the question of how to monetize the Internet has been a tricky one for site and service owners. Selling ad space on your website or service has long been the go-to, but this in itself presents its own issues, having to curate content that is considered ad-friendly, malicious or careless actors making using said service or website less attractive for customers, and finally how to convince your advertisers that they get what they pay for in the first place, ie. "how do I know people even look at our ads?" All of this is before you even stop to consider how ads massively favor large, established actors.

It's no small wonder, then, that several startups in the era of internet mass adoption chose to forgo ads, or at least massively deprioritize them and/or relaunch them as "promoted posts," in an attempt to escape the stigma around ads. Meta/Facebook is probably the biggest fish in this particular pond, but we also see other services such as Twitter and Reddit follow the same pattern.

What makes this work is that the data these platforms collect from their users isn't all that valuable on a person-to-person basis, knowing that so-and-so is 32 years old, lives in a traditionally conservative part of the city, goes to Starbucks a lot, and listens to Radiohead isn't particularly useful information for anyone but a dedicated but lazy stalker; When viewed as an aggregate, however, large collections of data on a large population becomes quite valuable. This is especially true if you're working with, say, targeted ads or political campaigns. Look no further than the Cambridge Analytica data scandal for an example.

Now, all this is to illustrate the strange position the user occupies in Web 2.0. We tend to think of ourselves as the customer of Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, and so on, but it isn't the case. After all, we don't pay for these services, and if we do it's to buy freedom from ads or other minor service modifications. It is more correct to say that we make up the product itself. This is true in two respects, first, an active social community is vital for social media to not be entirely pointless, and second, we generate the data that the platform holder seeks to monetize. This hybrid product/participant role doesn't map cleanly to traditional understandings of "worker," but I argue it is a closer fit than "customer."

All of this is to say that it is immensely gratifying to see the Reddit Blackout taking the shape of a strike rather than the more typical boycott model we've seen in the internet-based protests of yesteryear. Much of this, I think, we can thank the participating Reddit moderators. While the regular platform user can be *argued* to be a worker, the moderator inarguably is one, and the fact that they aren't paid for their efforts is more a credit to the prosocial nature of humans than to the corporate acumen of the platform holders. Either way, moderating a subreddit is work, if the subreddit is large, it's quite a lot of work, and moderators keeping malicious actors, scammers, and hatemongers out of everyone's hair is a must for any decently sized social space to not be an objectively terrible experience. So, if you were to, for example, withhold your labor (moderating for free) which you as a worker can do, it would be plain irresponsible to leave the place open for said bad apples to ruin everyone's bunches, thus the shutdowns.

I don't think it's a controversial take to claim that the Reddit admins also view this more as a strike than a boycott, given their use of scabs, intimidation, and other strikebreaking tactics in an attempt to break the thing up. This is nothing new, and the fact that Reddit admins are willing to stoop to these scumbag tactics tells us that their bluster about the shutdown not affecting their bottom line is nothing more than shareholder-placating hot air.

As this entire screed has perhaps demonstrated, I believe the Reddit Blackout is important. My stay at Tumblr so far has been excellent and will probably continue past this strike no matter what outcome it has, but for others in my situation, or perhaps entirely alien to the Reddit biome, I ask you to consider: If we do not stop this level of consumer and user-unfriendly bullshit Reddit have been pulling on the API change, where will it pop up next? Who's to say the next bright idea in corpo-hell isn't "Hey boss, how about we charge these nerd losers a dollar per reblog? And maybe a fiver for a Golden Reblog (TM)?"

This is perhaps getting into grandstanding, but I believe we are way past due for a renegotiation of what it means to be a platform holder and -user on this hot mess of an internet. If we as users do not take an active, strong stance on the matter, the Steve Huffmans, Elon Musks, and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world will decide without us. One does not have to be a fortune teller to see that the digital world this would create would not have our best interests in mind any more than the current one does.

So, in closing, I wish to extend my wholehearted support to the participating Moderators of Reddit and everyone who has decided to take their business elsewhere for the duration of the shutdown. Even without getting into the nitty-gritty of the API situation, this is a fight worth having, and may we through it make a world that's just a little bit less shitty.

Become Ungovernable

Become Unprofitable

Stay that way.

[mariacallous]

In early September, Warner Bros. released a teaser for A Minecraft Movie, the studio’s new film based on Mojang’s nearly 15-year-old sandbox game. Directed by Napoleon Dynamite helmer Jared Hess, it was, frankly, very goofy. Jack Black was Steve; Jason Momoa was sporting maybe the worst hairdo he’s ever had. Everyone involved, even the animated creatures, seemed to think they were in a different movie.

But that wasn’t what the trolls latched onto. Instead, they fixed on the fact that a Black woman—Orange Is the New Black’s Danielle Brooks—was in the Overworld.

As the trailer racked up dislikes, right-wing influencers like Elijah Schaffer and Nick Fuentes posted Brooks’ image next to disparaging comments and made references to “forced diversity” and “woke” Hollywood. It was Gamergate 2.0—a reimagining of the decade-old harassment campaign aimed at rallying against diversity, equity, and inclusion—but aimed at a kids’ movie, rather than a video game.

According to Wendy Via, cofounder and CEO of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which just published a report looking at the far right’s racist comments about the trailer, the response comes from a new, and also quite old, playbook. “Large-scale campaigns against trailers specifically are a relatively new phenomenon, but attempting to frame ‘wokeness’ as an invisible enemy infiltrating the entertainment industry is not,” Via says.

Via points out that back in spring of 2023, the far-right X account End Wokeness made similar noise about a “Protect Trans Kids” flag that appeared briefly in the trailer for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The goal of these campaigns is to target “spaces where young, white men are influenced,” like sci-fi movies and video games, which appeal to younger audiences, Via adds. “Providing racist and homophobic commentary on popular franchises through large social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube serves as an effective means to propagandize and recruit young people to hate movements.”

Take, for example, The Acolyte. Earlier this year, the Disney+ show found itself the target of fan backlash while star Amandla Stenberg was subjected to racist comments online. So, too, was Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose Tico in the most recent Star Wars movie trilogy. The minimizing of her role in the last installment, The Rise of Skywalker, perhaps emboldened diversity detractors further.

Reception of The Acolyte seemed, almost, to be a solidification. Fan unrest in the Star Wars universe is a cousin to, if not a direct descendant of, Gamergate, and since former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon harnessed the energy of that movement and used it to fuel the then burgeoning so-called alt-right, influencers have used similar tactics to convince aggrieved men that their games, their shows and movies, and their country are somehow being taken from them.

By the time the Minecraft Movie trailer dropped, the script was already set. Influencers just had to pick which lines to say.

Whereas 2014’s rallying cry was a more broadly misogynistic, racist one, the Gamergate of 2024 seems focused on the idea of the “DEI hire”—a woman, LGBTQ+ or BIPOC person who ends up blamed for “ruining” something. Pundits used this language to attack Vice President Kamala Harris. Right-wing talking heads pointed the finger at female Secret Service agents for not fully protecting Trump during the July attempt on his life. Fans have lobbed it at the inclusion of a Black samurai in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Campaigning against diversity in games came into particular focus earlier this year when Sweet Baby Inc., a Canadian consultancy, became the focus of a group of players upset at what they viewed as the “wokeification” of video games. Online harassment of the company’s employees hit new heights last winter when a Steam curation group called Sweet Baby Inc Detected popped up purporting to list all the games the company had advised on, giving people an easy way to boycott certain titles or post bad reviews of them. Even though the company hadn’t touched several of the games, and as founder Kim Belair told WIRED this winter, the company “[doesn’t] want forced diversification either,” the harassing comments continued for months.

On September 4, the same day the Minecraft Movie trailer went up, the US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against two employees of the state-backed Russian news network RT, in which it alleged that they had secretly funded the right-wing influencer network Tenet Media. The DOJ accused the company of posting content full of Kremlin-approved talking points, though individual influencers working for Tenet say they knew nothing about the ties to Russia and are not accused of wrongdoing. A WIRED analysis of Tenet’s videos, since taken down by YouTube, found several frequently used three-word phrases. Among them: “Black Lives Matter,” “diversity equity inclusion,” and “Sweet Baby Inc.”

Into this firestorm landed Minecraft. As Adrienne Massanari, an associate professor at American University’s school of communications and author of the forthcoming book Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right, points out, Minecraft (the gaming platform), already had some right-leaning fans. Its creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, who sold Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, has sent some dumb tweets about race, and Minecraft “has a reputation for being connected to the far-right pipeline,” Massanari says. Being based on a game connects the Minecraft Movie to Gamergate-like responses in some ways, but it’s also possible that a movie based on “this particular game,” she adds, has activated a certain kind of fan.

Back in August, Deadline reported The Acolyte would not be getting a second season. It was, Stenberg would later say, “not a huge shock” considering the response online. Other reports claimed it didn’t get a second season because it was expensive and didn’t attract a huge viewership. Regardless of the reason, Via says the far right saw it as a victory of the “go woke, go broke” narrative they’ve been pushing.

“Going after The Minecraft Movie may be an attempt to recreate this ‘victory’ and provide the far right with the opportunity to craft the narrative about a series or film themselves,” Via says. “If Minecraft were to perform poorly at the box office, they could point to “diversity” as a reason for its failure and justify petitioning for more media that excludes everyone but straight, white men.”

[vivalavi-daa]

Fav 2022 K-Dramas/Movies

1. My Liberation Notes

About: Three siblings, exhausted by the monotony of day to day adulthood, seek to find fulfillment and freedom from their unremarkable lives

Honestly, no one did it like My Liberation Notes. The way they captured the mundane lives of adults, the longing for happiness, freedom, and the loneliness of it all. The way they depicted all that through raw lines, monologues, and even silence that gave even deeper meanings. To say I love this show is an understatement 🥺

2. Extraordinary Attorney Woo

About: Woo Young Woo, a woman on the spectrum that tackles challenges as a newbie at a top law firm

This show is popular for a reason. It has everything you could ask for in a kdrama: feel good vibes, heartwarming stories, heart-fluttering love, found family, and interesting characters (with brilliant acting). Although we couldn't expect Woo Young Woo to be representative for all people with autism (since autism is considered as a spectrum), but I love the way her portrayal in this show was educative while also really fun to watch 🤍

3. Twenty Five Twenty One

About: In a time where dreams seem out of reach, a teen fencer pursues her ambitions and meets a hardworking young man who seeks to rebuilds his life.

Couldn't express how much it's comforting to watch the two main characters build connection in the pursuit of happiness. The fact that these two people share different perspectives in life (one was hopeful & optimistic, while the other one was realistic) was its charm. Not to mention the growing bond of the friendship between them and their friends. Together, they make every scene seemed refreshing and entertaining to watch. It was truly an uplifting youth show that brightened last year's atmosphere ✨

4. Alchemy of Souls

About: A powerful sorceress in a blind woman's body encounters a man from a prestigious family, who wants her help to change his destiny.

Love, love the world building of this one! Also, the gripping love stories that took "I'll love every version of you" seriously 🥺. It was captivating how observant every characters in this show were & the way they unfold the stories. Even the action scenes portrayed like an art. Therefore, even though it has many episodes with long duration, I wasn't bored at all.

5. Little Women

About: Three sisters become embroiled in a major incident and face off against the wealthiest family in the nation

The fact that two of my fave actresses (Nam jihyun & Kim goeun) casted in one kdrama was such a dream!! It's a women centric kdrama i could say, from the way the main characters, writer, & director are all women <3. I love that it has such morally grey characters and a story that's full of intriguing misteries. It kept me on the edge of my seat.

6. 20th Century Girl

About: A teen girl has her eyes set on a boy for her lovesick best friend. However, things become complicated when she falls in love and is forced to choose between love and friendship

A heartening youth stories that every fan of 2521 should watch! Again, the plot seemed cliche but it still managed to enthralled you with sweet & fun interactions between the main characters, their growing romance, and what comes for them in the future. It was a rollercoaster of emotion but I really enjoyed it to end <3

7. Business Proposal

About: Hari, a regular employee, shows up to a blind date in disguise of her rich friend to scare him away. Things go awry when he turns out to be her CEO and makes a proposal.

Normally, a kdrama with a cliche plot and some cringe lines wasn't my piece of cake. But Business Proposal is something else I guess. It managed to make even the cliche plot entertaining to watch, still. I didn't expect that I'd laugh this much while watching this show, but I did. Their actings were so fun to watch and it's such a light kdrama that i enjoyed to watch.

Addition: Fav K-Drama (Not Released in 2022) that I've Watched Last Year

Prison Playbook

About: a legendary Korean baseball player whose life change after he chases a man who harasses his sister and finds himself spending a year in prison.

This is such a gem for a slice of life genre! From the director of Hospital Playlist & Reply series, you could expect some heartwarming feels coming from every characters' background stories. Despite the serious & harsh life we could thought of from prison life, this kdrama have many comical scenes, a series of roommates bickering, & such a moving found family. I wish the director would make more of these 🥺🤍

K-Drama Recommendations: 8/?

[monsterkong]

12 Ways the System is Limiting Your Potential—and How to Fight Backv

🚨 Ever feel like the world is set up to keep you down? You're not imagining it. We asked artificial intelligence what a government might do if it wanted to control its citizens, and the response was an eerie reflection of our modern-day society. Here are 12 ways the system might limit your potential—and more importantly, how you can fight back. 👊

1. Education That Kills Creativity 🎨

Our education system isn’t designed to create innovators; it’s designed to create followers. With a focus on memorization and conformity, students are taught to follow instructions rather than think critically. But the truth is, creativity and critical thinking are essential for personal growth. The solution? Encourage yourself and others to question the norm and explore creative outlets. 🧑‍🎨

2. Normalized Debt 🚨

Debt has become a way of life for many, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The AI suggests that normalizing debt is a way to keep people financially constrained, unable to take risks or invest in their personal growth. Want to break free? Start by reevaluating your financial habits, cutting unnecessary expenses, and paying down debt aggressively. Financial freedom leads to personal freedom. 💸

3. Fear-Based Messaging 🧠

Fear is a tactic governments have used for decades to keep people from making bold moves. Whether it’s fear of terrorism, economic collapse, or health crises, keeping the population in a constant state of fear ensures compliance. To rise above, recognize when fear is being used as a control tactic and learn to push through it. True personal growth happens when you act despite your fears. 💪

4. The Illusion of Consumerism 🛍️

In a world where happiness is often equated with material possessions, it’s easy to fall into the trap of consumerism. But the AI points out that this consumer-driven society is just another way to keep us distracted from meaningful personal fulfillment. Remember, the path to true happiness lies in experiences and personal connections, not in the latest gadgets or designer brands.

Wrapping It Up 🎁

The AI has laid out a playbook for control, but now that we know the game, it’s time to change it. By encouraging independent thought, seeking financial freedom, and recognizing fear tactics, we can take back control of our lives and reach our full potential.

🚀 Want to learn more about breaking free from these systemic traps? Join The Agogi—our coaching group that’s all about becoming the CEO of your life. Let's work together to overcome the obstacles and live our best lives.

[beardedmrbean]

NPR defended embattled chief executive Katherine Maher against "online actors with explicit agendas" on Wednesday as her old social media posts continue to go viral for exposing her personal left-wing ideology. 

What seems like a never-ending supply of social media messages Maher posted before running NPR have been unearthed in recent days by critics of NPR, including Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo. 

Maher, who served as the CEO for Web Summit and Wikimedia Foundation prior to taking over NPR last month, showed her support for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 while regularly sharing liberal talking points and criticizing Donald Trump. Many feel that someone with such blunt partisan views running NPR on the heels of veteran editor Uri Berliner penning a scathing takedown that detailed the "absence of viewpoint diversity" at the organization could be troublesome, but the organization chalked up the resurfaced tweets as "bad faith" attacks. 

"This is a bad faith attack that follows an established playbook, as online actors with explicit agendas work to discredit independent news organizations," an NPR spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

"In this case, they resorted to digging up old tweets and making conjectures based on our new CEO’s resume," the spokesperson continued. "Spending time on these accusations is intended to detract from NPR’s mission of informing the American public and providing local information in communities around the country is more important than ever."

Rufo has also unearthed old video of Maher saying the First Amendment makes it too difficult to censor "bad information." But much of the controversy surrounding her is the result of posts on X, the platform previously known as Twitter. 

Before taking over NPR, Maher tweeted essentially whatever was on her mind. For example, she once shared details of a dream where her and Kamala Harris were on a road trip together "comparing nuts and baklava from roadside stands" before she "woke up very hungry." 

Others were more political. 

Maher wrote on X in May 2020 that while "looting is counterproductive," it was "hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people's ancestors as private property." In another post on the thread, Maher said that property damage was "not the thing" Americans should be upset over. 

In another 2020 post, Maher is seen donning a Biden for president hat and said it was the "best part" of her efforts to get out the vote.

"I can’t stop crying with relief," she wrote after Biden won. 

Maher also took issue with the infamous New York Times Tom Cotton op-ed in 2020, saying it was "full of racist dog whistles." She argued it was based on the "false premise that the country is in a state of ‘disorder.'"

Several of her old posts that have resurfaced reference concern over White privilege and "White silence."

In June 2020, Maher declared "White silence is complicity." 

"If you are White, today is the day to start a conversation in your community," she continued. 

Maher identified herself as an "unalloyed progressive" supporting Clinton in the 2016 election. However, Maher had some criticism for Clinton at the time, saying she wished the then-Democratic presidential nominee "wouldn't use the language of ‘boy and girl,'" because it was "erasing language for non-binary people."

In 2018, she wrote, "I’m angry. Hot angry, slow angry, relentless angry. This anger is going to fuel and burn for a long time, and it will deliver back exponentially," during Christine Blasey Ford's testimony accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Rufo joined Fox News on Tuesday to explain why he’s been busy circulating Maher’s old tweets. 

"I spent the last day or two digging through her tweets to show people exactly what she believes. It’s actually incredible. It is the most vapid, left-wing propaganda imaginable," Rufo said on "Jesse Watters Primetime."

"She’s been at it for year. She’s a supporter of BLM, she believes in the pseudo-science of White privilege, White fragility, she criticized her own Whiteness," he continued. "It’s like Mad Libs for left-wing women." 

In addition to the deluge of old social media messages being resurfaced, NewBusters reported on Wednesday that Maher has donated to Democratic candidates such as Stacey Abrams. NPR did not immediately respond to a request for comment about her donations.  

Berliner, who resigned after blowing the whistle on NPR’s liberal bias, doesn’t think Maher is fit for the job. 

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner told NPR media reporter David Folkenflik prior to quitting. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Berliner also scolded Maher when he stepped down. 

"I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years. I don’t support calls to defund NPR," Berliner wrote in a statement published on X. "I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism."

"But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cited in my Free Press essay," Berliner continued.

[moerusai]

BOC's CEO out here publicly pushing the narrative that if an alleged abuser is friendly to me, that means he's incapable of hurting women behind closed doors, while their acting coach wishes him well and hopes for him to come back.

(translation by @idcabuu)

I need them to shut their mouths and keep their ignorance out of public forums because they're not only damaging the company's supposed neutral stance, they're taking a page out of the "how abusers get away with abusing" playbook, giving the crazy stans of the aforementioned abuser's further cause to harass his accusers.

Get a fucking PR team and stop turning a shitshow into a bigger shitshow.

[ausetkmt]

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

In the spring of 1999 the heads of the world's largest processed food companies, from Coca-Cola to Nabisco, gathered at Pillsbury headquarters in Minneapolis for a secret meeting. On the agenda: the emerging epidemic of obesity, and what to do about it.

Increasingly, the salt, sugar, and fat laden foods these companies produced were being linked to obesity, and a concerned Kraft executive took the stage to issue a warning: There would be a day of reckoning unless changes were made.

This executive then launched into a damning PowerPoint presentation, 114 slides in all, making the case that processed food companies could not afford to sit by, idle, as children grew sick and class-action lawyers lurked. To deny the problem, he said, is to court disaster.

When he was done, the most powerful person in the room, the CEO of General Mills, stood up to speak, clearly annoyed. And by the time he sat down, the meeting was over. Since that day, with the industry in pursuit of its win-at-all-costs strategy, the situation has only grown more dire.

Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese (triple what we ate in 1970) and seventy pounds of sugar (about twenty-two teaspoons a day). We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food. It is no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese.

It is no wonder that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes. The processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales, and the total economic cost of this health crisis is approaching $300 billion a year. In this book the author explores his theory that the food industry has used these three essential ingredients to control much of the world's diet.

He traces the rise of the processed food industry and how addictive salt, sugar, and fat have enabled its dominance in the past half century, revealing deliberate corporate practices behind current trends in obesity, diabetes, and other health challenges. Features examples from some of the most recognizable and profitable companies and brands of the last half century, including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, Frito-Lay, Nestlé, Oreos, Cargill, Capri Sun, and many more.

Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese and seventy pounds of sugar. Every day, we ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt, double the recommended amount, almost none of which comes from the shakers on our table.

It comes from processed food, an industry that hauls in $1 trillion in annual sales. In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how we ended up here. Featuring examples from Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Frito-Lay, Nestlé, Oreos, Capri Sun, and many more, Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, eye-opening research. He takes us into labs where scientists calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages, unearths marketing techniques taken straight from tobacco company playbooks, and talks to concerned insiders who make startling confessions. Just as millions of “heavy users” are addicted to salt, sugar, and fat, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again. Praise for Salt Sugar Fat “[Michael] Moss has written a Fast Food Nation for the processed food industry. Burrowing deep inside the big food manufacturers, he discovered how junk food is formulated to make us eat more of it and, he argues persuasively, actually to addict us.”—Michael Pollan “If you had any doubt as to the food industry’s complicity in our obesity epidemic, it will evaporate when you read this book.”—The Washington Post “Vital reading for the discerning food consumer.”—The Wall Street Journal “The chilling story of how the food giants have seduced everyone in this country . . . Michael Moss understands a vital and terrifying truth: that we are not just eating fast food when we succumb to the siren song of sugar, fat, and salt. We are fundamentally changing our lives—and the world around us.”—Alice Waters “Propulsively written [and] persuasively argued . . . an exactingly researched, deeply reported work of advocacy journalism.”—The Boston Globe

“A remarkable accomplishment.”—The New York Times Book Review

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Laura Bassett at Men's Health:

LESS THAN A year after launching his independent campaign for president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began shopping around his endorsement—and the loyalty of his small but significant base—to both major political parties in exchange for a cabinet position. Kamala Harris reportedly rejected a meeting with him outright. Donald Trump, however, has taken him up on the offer, announcing that in exchange for Kennedy’s endorsement, he’d let the anti-vaccine candidate “go wild” on health, food, and medicine if he wins a second term. Kennedy says Trump has promised him control of multiple government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—which includes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—and the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Therefore, a hybrid anti-vax and Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement was born: MAHA, short for “Make America Healthy Again.”

Supporting this movement to push Kennedy voters toward Trump is the MAHA Alliance, a Super PAC led by Del Bigtree, former communications director for the Kennedy campaign and CEO of the anti-vax group Informed Consent Action Network. The operation appears to be widely geared towards men, partnering with right-wing influencers like Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson who champion traditional masculinity, and aims to combine “the health-conscious, independent-minded voters with Trump’s proven ability to disrupt the status quo,” according to its mission statement. “This includes prioritizing regenerative agriculture, preserving natural habitats, and eliminating toxins from our food, water, and air.”

Some of MAHA’s goals sound pretty great in theory—especially during a time when public trust in the medical system and American food safety are so low. Incentivizing sustainable farming, improving soil health, protecting natural habitats, and cleaning up our air, water, and food are goals everyone should be able to get behind, paired with a viable policy strategy and leaders who are actually willing to take on the big oil and big agriculture lobbies to address our systemic environmental problems.

[...]

Meanwhile, other ideas being pushed by the movement and by Kennedy himself—like eroding public trust in vaccines and peddling pseudoscientific alternatives to vaccines—are downright dangerous to public health. In an October 25 post on X, Kennedy threatened to dismantle the entire FDA if Trump is elected, accusing the agency of “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”

Many of these buzzwords he’s using—ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in particular—are just snake oil alternatives to the Covid vaccine that don’t work, and in some cases, actually kill people. Jennifer Nuzzo, Ph.D., Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, told me that Kennedy’s tweet “is straight from the anti-vaxxers' playbook that aims to sow doubt about credible medical approaches in order to sell and profit from unproven alternative approaches.”

[...]

Encouraging people to drink raw milk is another very dangerous health trend being promoted by supporters of the movement. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Fla.) recently waded into this one, tweeting a glass of unpasteurized milk with the caption, “Raw milk does a body good. Make America Healthy Again!” The problem is, by skipping the process of killing off harmful bacteria in milk, we are leaving it potentially contaminated with lethal pathogens. “Pasteurization has been one of the most effective public health measures ever, essentially ending the illnesses that used to come from drinking tainted milk,” explains Dr. Nestle. “Infectious diseases used to be the leading causes of death and disability among Americans. Public health measures effectively ended them. It makes no sense to bring them back.”

One thing MAHA gets somewhat right is addressing the serious health harms of microplastics and “forever chemicals,” which have been linked to chronic disease, heart attack, and stroke. It’s great that we’re starting to pay attention to those. Unfortunately, though, the Trump administration created a loophole during his final few months in office that allows companies to dodge having to report how many forever chemicals they’re discharging into the environment.

Laura Bassett wrote in Men’s Health what the MAHA movement gets right and wrong (and it’s mostly wrong) about our state of health.

[gacmediadaily]

Does it feel like Texas is suddenly taking over the national entertainment industry?

Megaproducer Taylor Sheridan – Wind River, Hell or High Water, and now the blockbuster Yellowstone– raised in Fort Worth, is making Western culture popular again and filling rodeo arenas with city folks. 

A new force in streaming and cable

Another Texas-based player may be an even more disruptive force in the U.S. entertainment industry. 

Great American Media (GAM) is suddenly an overnight contender in the U.S. streaming and cable television space, winning regular coverage in industry flagships like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and it has the entertainment industry sitting up and taking notice for its success attracting audiences to faith and family content.

“We’re on our way to being America’s most uplifting and inspiring network,” says CEO Bill Abbott, who founded Great American Media in 2021.

Abbott follows a familiar playbook – his own — perfected over 35 years in family entertainment.

Abbott’s resume includes senior leadership roles at Fox Kids, Fox Family Channel, and ABC Family, plus more than 20 years as the architect of the Hallmark television brands. Now he has launched another TV brand in the burgeoning Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, a big community with small-town sensibilities and a dedicated and talented populace, he says.

As the engineer of the next big thing, Abbott pulled on both experience and his friends, instantly creating a crew of iconic TV stars, including Mario Lopez, Danica McKellar, Cameron Mathison, Alexa and Carlos PenaVega, and, of course, Candace Cameron Bure.

These stars are making an appearance at iconic venues across the nation for spotlight events and movie production. Carlos and Alexa PenaVega spent the day at AT&T Stadium in Dallas – right down the road from the headquarters of Great America Media – filming their upcoming holiday premiere movie. Not only is the AT&T Stadium recognizable by many, but this production further solidifies Abbott’s dedication to creating uplifting, quality content.

Today, his startup boasts over 70 million viewers and subscribers to its cable television channels and streaming service, a remarkable feat in any environment. The last three years have been some of the most tumultuous in television and entertainment history, with a record decline in cable subscribers and increasing competition among streaming services. Yet Great American Media is on the rise.

The success is a testament to early mornings, continual conference calls, coast-to-coast travel, and non-stop team building. Every Friday, Abbott hosts a company-wide review of the market and a company performance where he answers employees’ questions nationwide. One staffer describes it as a master class in cable and streaming television.

Great American Media’s Fort Worth headquarters includes production and administrative offices, while its sales and executive offices are in New York. Its member services center, a call center supporting a committed fan base, is in Phoenix.

“One of the most rewarding parts of my jobs is to read viewer emails,” says Abbott, who regularly corresponds with a group of over 25,000 loyal Great American Media Insiders. “Our viewers know what they want and it’s our job to give them a great uplifting experience free of the stress and contentiousness of their already overly complex world.”

Great American Media’s portfolio of brands now includes Great American Family, Great American Pure Flix, Great American Faith & Living, Great American Adventures, and Pure Flix TV.

As the company’s flagship cable TV network, Great American Family, features quality original movies and classic series that are inspiring and emotionally connecting. The business strategy is to align the content and convert cable viewers to streaming subscribers, a riddle many in Hollywood are attempting to solve.

Great American Pure Flix is GAM’s leading subscription on-demand streaming service and the most successful faith-based content provider of its size. A recent Financial Times story described GAM as the Netflix of faith-based content, to which Abbott responds, “Not bad company to be in after only three years.”

Great American Faith & Living features mostly unscripted lifestyle programming that celebrates family-friendly traditions every day and every season.

Great American Media is also home to a FAST (free ad-supporting streaming TV) channel with Great American Adventures, which offers both scripted and unscripted content, including cooking and do-it-yourself programs, and Great American Community, a free direct-to-consumer streaming app featuring short-form original series hosted by well-known lifestyle experts and TV stars. There is also a Pure Flix FAST channel.

“We are creating an oasis in a cultural desert,” says Candace Cameron Bure, star of many Great American Media original programs, including hit My Christmas Hero. She joined Abbott at the film’s screening on Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Washington.

Abbott agrees, saying, “I think that the culture overall needs what we’re offering. And there is just so little content out there that serves family and faith and yet is done in a quality way. It is a very big part of what our mission is and what we do, and the demand is huge.”

Not His First Rodeo

Abbott founded Great American Media in June 2021 with backing from Dallas-based investors, including Dallas businessman Doug Deason. Abbott credits Deason with the company’s steady focus on strategy.

“After running companies that possess varying levels of leadership and judgment exercised at the board and ownership level, I know first-hand that these qualities can make or break a business, and Great American Media’s success starts with Doug in his role as Chairman of the Board,” says Abbott.

Deason, who most recently demonstrated political acumen by leading an initiative to get Texans to set aside $1 billion to expand Texas state parks and co-chaired the expansion of Dallas’ Centennial Parks.

“Without Doug’s unwavering support, vision, and courage, Great American Media would lack the ability to stand firmly behind the values conveyed in our faith and family content,” says Abbott, “and in fact, it’s quite likely the business would never have gotten off the ground.”

Deason credits Abbott, who he points out is unique among broadcasting executives, who more typically are finance types or lawyers and rarely schooled in stories, let alone moral tales. Abbott is an English and Literature graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, a private Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts, a foundation he puts to good use by reading every script and participating in creative development with his producers and stars.

GAM’s CEO is deeply respected in the industry and serves on the boards of the Parents Television & Media Council and the International Radio & Television Society Foundation. He was inducted into Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame in 2017. 

Previously, Abbott served for two decades as a senior executive and then CEO of Crown Media Family Networks, the parent company of Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Mystery, Hallmark Drama, and Hallmark Movies Now. 

“We had tremendous success with creating a destination that was family-friendly and themed around the holidays,” explains Abbott. He is credited with creating the Christmas television genre, expanding the network’s romantic comedies, and launching its mysteries channel.

After 20 years, Abbott left Hallmark and looked to Texas to build a new network: Great American Family.

“We’re proud to say we celebrate faith, family, and country,” explains Abbott, “and we have an investor group where we all believe in the mission of family-friendly and faith-based content.”

Equipped with funding and a vision, Abbott acquired Fort Worth’s independently owned equestrian and western channel Ride TV and a music video channel called Great American Country from Discovery. This gave his fledgling dream two traditional cable television linear channels. As the company sorted through its inherited programs and shows, Great American Media was quickly rebranded.

“Now we had something to work with, and we went to work,” he explained.

The entertainment world suddenly noticed when the new GAM network acquired Michael Landon Jr.’s When Calls the Heart spin-off, When Hope Calls,” and began hiring the most well-known talent in the genre to appear in its own slate of made-for-TV movies. 

GAM also quickly established Great American Christmas premieres and seasonal rotation around Christmas, including 12 original movies in its first year. Now, they’re producing more than 20 original Christmas movies per year.

Dream Streaming

While building a traditional cable offering, Abbott heard from Sony Pictures Entertainment, one of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates. They owned Pure Flix, a niche faith-based streaming video-on-demand service with a loyal fan base.

“Pure Flix had been sort of under the radar,” explained Abbott. Sony had only recently acquired the streaming service and began looking for a means of growing it. Sony executives saw the synergies between Abbott’s startup, the Great American Family channel, and their streamer and proposed a merger.

The merger enhanced both platforms’ content library and created synergies between cable and streaming services, meeting customer expectations for a fulfilling, uplifting, and inspiring entertainment experience. Since the merger, SVOD subscriptions have increased, and the customer experience has been enhanced through several platform upgrades, making the streaming service intuitive and user-friendly.

“Our brands and diversified content distribution capabilities have helped us reach substantially larger and broader audiences on each platform, creating a family- and faith-friendly streaming service unlike any other,” he added. “Our business strategy is becoming more and more clear to the industry.”

And they’re noticing. Great American Media ncluded 2023 as the fastest-growing channel on cable television, and its ad sales were up 25 percent. Under Abbott’s watchful eye, the economy balances with creative excellence, allowing the GAM channels to increasingly share the same programming vision, creating the brand synergies critical to growth. 

Great American Media’s programming and development team steers all original scripts from concept through production with an eye toward brand integrity. Abbott and the leadership team ensure every frame it controls is on brand as promised.

Great American Media has made headlines for the stars it has drawn in its first few years, including Candace Cameron Bure, Danica McKellar, Trevor Donovan, Jill Wagner, Jen Lilley, Cameron Mathison, and Jen Lilley.

In February, Great American Media announced it signed Emmy Award–winning host and actor Mario Lopez to a multi-picture, multi-year deal to star in content across the company’s vast media portfolio. Lopez will be a major part of Great American Christmas 2024. His first film in the partnership will include a holiday film starring alongside his wife and Broadway star Courtney Lopez. Lopez will continue hosting NBC’s Access Hollywood and Access Daily.

Abbott cites the dedicated Fort Worth team and the talent across Texas as a critical aspect of GAM’s success, noting that programmers and production crews work around the clock and maintain a high commitment to the brand and its viewers.

As conglomerates continue to obliterate brands, Abbott is on a mission to maintain his company’s commitment to bringing high-quality family content with a faith focus to a new heyday. 

“We are not replicating the past; we are creating a new bright future, diverse in genre and format, but all wrapped in high-quality family programming that features romantic comedies, Christmas, drama, faith-inspired lifestyles, and even drama series,” says Abbott. Mysteries are now a cornerstone of the broad programming, with Great American Mysteries’ inaugural launch, The Ainsley McGregor Mysteries: A Case for the Winemaker, starring Cameron Bure, premiering on July 25.

 “We’re about faith, family, and country,” said Abbott, “and those values can be reflected in uplifting and inspiring ways across all genres, including mysteries.”

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

According to the CEO of Switzerland-based pesticide manufacturer Syngenta (now owned by Bayer) at that time, the new regulations led to a loss of $75 million for the company that year. (That Syngenta did $13.6 billion in total sales in 2019 is beside the point.)

- The Playbook

[alexissara]

The Iconic Matriarch

[Art by Kanesha Bryant from Thirsty Sword Lesbians: Advanced Lovers and Lesbians]

The Matriarch in Thirsty Sword Lesbians is one of my artistic prides and joys. I've created lots of comics, short stories and worked on several games. The Matriarch to me is a design stand out. I want to talk about the design of that playbook more specifically sometime but instead I just want to talk about the iconic for the playbook here. The iconic here is an AU version of my OC Jillain Owlnight. Jill originated as a NPC character in a roleplay that was the adoptive mother of one of my partners OCs. I really loved her and so did she. Jillian was a lawyer who did her best to help people, she was a scrapy woman in independent practice and single just doing her best. Still she was wise, she loved magical stuff, was a big fan of birds and was did her best by her new kid.

She recurred in some other roleplays as a mother figure as a staple wink and a nod or as someone's lawyer. Eventually though, she was brought into Love Beyond The Holy Light, which was a webnovel I had been working on for a while as a powerful witch with an affinity for owls, a POV character and the mother of another POV character. This fantasy version of her was probably my most in-depth dive into her as a character. This and the following modern roleplay really finished the refinement of what this character was.

Jillian is a trans woman who lived a really hard life with bad parents, runs away from home and has fend for herself or is taken in by some magical bird, either way she is living a fairly different life than other kids. She gets a lot of skills because she needs to be all around good to survive and the lesbian falls in love with a girl, typically after years there is a sad break up, she goes through a flop era and gets her shit together when there is a kid in need that she had to care for. From there on Jill is a mega mom, she does everything for her kids and tries her best to make the world a better place. Maybe she slips up at one point, sells her morals for the kids safety or comfort but eventually turns around to do right by her kids.

Which brings us to this iconic AU version of Jillian. I wanted a version of her to do something new with less baggage. I think I said to just warrior her up at first but I was asked to provide a bit more detail and I suggested a bit more of a Sci-fiy kind of vibe. Kanesha then used the very little guidance to make this master piece. I don't know what they intended but clearly they took inspiration form the playbook too, where they gave Jillian mob boss vibes since one of the examples for The Matriarch is a mob boss. The amazing details were basically all their idea.

After getting it here is kinda how I picture everything about her working but this is just my headcanon, I hope people take her and do whatever their brains come up with for her. To me this version of Jillian runs a queer gang. Their all about bashing back and smashing the system. She is a very proud mom of her kids wearing stuff they made for her. Each color of bean represents a different kid she has taken under her wing. The eye patch was made by a sweet daughter of hers as well and the bracelets were gifts from her oldest daughter. She rips off the rich and gives back to the queers posing as a CEO or something to explain the luxuries her organization affords people.

Her family mechanic is her right hand in the mob, one of her older kids and her wife. Jillian has Been around from her experience living on the streets and traveling for jobs and warm food. Then she has In The Family due to her crime family being a known force that is not to be fucked with.

Anyway, that was my idea for the iconic here. Have you played The Matriarch, if you have what were they like? Do you have any ideas for one or been in a game with one? Did the Iconic art give you any ideas like it did for me? I'm also just always happy to hear about any TSL OC, let me know in the replies and stuff.

If you enjoyed this or anything else I've wrote, consider subscribing to my patreon to help me make more good lesbian and trans art. https://www.patreon.com/AlexisSara