#corporate media since 2015

[scottguy]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obediallah at The Dean's Report:

No one can deny that Donald Trump has shown a significant level of cognitive decline since he first ran for President in 2015 at the age of 69 years old to where he is today at 78. But what we’ve seen with Trump is far more than normal aging. Trump—as countless mental health experts have stated—is showing symptoms of dementia.  While people can debate if Trump is in the early or mid-stages of severe cognitive decline, what can’t be debated is that this poses a very serious national security issue for our nation. Consequently, this issue demands far more media coverage. On Monday night, I interviewed, psychologist Dr. John Gartner--the founder of “Duty to Warn” –who was first on my show back in April when he was waving red flags about Trump’s mental decline. In April, Gartner noted that Trump “can't get through a rally without committing one of these” tell-tale signs of dementia, such as saying the incorrect word or “combining or mixing up people and generations.”  

He also directed my attention to a petition signed by more than 500 licensed mental health professions—including best-selling authors and well-respected psychologists—warning that Trump was exhibiting signs of dementia. Gartner noted in April that “we're noticing deterioration almost every day” with Trump. Here we are six months later.  After discussing what Dr. Gartner has observed with Trump over the past few months, I asked this simple question: “Does Donald Trump have some form of dementia?” In response, Gartner answered succinctly, “There's absolutely no doubt.” Gartner explained that on his podcast, “Shrinking Trump,” he has welcomed mental health professionals who specialize in dementia—such as from “Duty to Inform”-- and they reached the same conclusion. “We've had neuropsychologists, neuropsychiatrists on the show who have gone through their analysis” and confirmed what they are observing is dementia, Gartner noted. He added, “When you really talk to the experts and the super experts, it's even more apparent,” that Trump’s exhibiting symptoms consistent with this condition.

Dementia is not a term that should be thrown around whimsically to score political points. Dementia—as Dr. Gartner explained—is “brain damage.” He continued that it’s “a deteriorating organic process in the brain where the cognitive processes start to break down.” He added alarmingly that with people like Trump, “they only go in one direction. They keep sliding downhill.” Adding to the credibility of this diagnosis is that dementia runs in the Trump family. As Donald’s own nephew, Fred Trump III, explained on my show recently, Donald’s father, Donald’s older sister, Maryanne and Donald’s cousin, John Walters all had dementia. And as the NY Times reported ten days ago in an article on Trump’s cognitive decline, “Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately.”  They added, “He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical.”

Just look at Trump’s conduct in the past week that provides more jarring examples. At an event at the Detroit Economic Club when he was supposed to address economic issues, he literally began to speak of Elon Musk’s missiles landing, “Biden circles” that were “beautiful” but Biden “couldn’t fill them up” to “we’ve been abused by other countries, we’ve been abused by our own politicians”–all in the same incoherent answer.  I played that clip for Dr. Gartner who commented that it makes “you realize how completely lost Trump is.” In addition, Trump while appearing on a podcast last week literally delivered a 12 minute (yes, 12 minute) meandering answer that was so incoherent it caused the hosts to joke that Trump was not rambling, he was “weaving.” One host added that they “don’t even want to know the answer anymore,” they just want more “weaving.” They were humoring Trump who was not making sense.

And at a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, Trump told the crowd to vote on “January 5”—not November. That of course could simply be a minor mental flub, but what came next was truly bizarre. Trump told the audience that it was time to end the questions and just listen to music. I’m not kidding. The context was that two people had passed out from heat at the event, to which Trump asked, would “anybody else would like to faint?” Trump then declared, “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?”  Then—as the Washington Post reported—"For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped — sometimes stopping to speak — as he turned the event into almost a living-room listening session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist.”

Yes, Trump stood on stage for nearly 40 minutes at a packed Town Hall where instead of answering questions, he danced. I know it sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch, but it was real life. If President Biden had done that when he was the nominee, we would’ve seen non-stop coverage exploring his mental state. All of this is why this is truly a national security issue. As Dr. Gartner explained, a person with dementia like Trump could be easily manipulated by “corrupt businessman or any hostile foreign power.” He cited the examples of how devious people have taken advantage of those with dementia to get them to sign a will that makes the person the sole beneficiary. But in the case with Trump, we are potentially talking about Trump agreeing to allow wealthy backers like Elon Musk to financially benefit at our expense. Or worse, allow our enemies to take advantage of him—more than they even did in the past.

Dean Obeidallah succinctly explains that Donald Trump’s dementia is not only a political issue but also a national security issue.

[amyoffline]

It's done! The outline for—

—is below the cut. The goal of this project is to explore the following phenomena with as much context and nuance as I can manage, tracing our history over the past 15 years:

What about us, and what about Dan and Phil, drew in and continues to draw in a very specific audience. If they are a ranch metaphor, we are a pizza metaphor 🥗🍕🫶🏻

Why we were Like That™, by which I mean so parasocially invested in them that we became, at times, the most annoying people on the internet. Much of that reputation is undeserved, and the videos on the phandom to date have been strongly negative. So, uh, I guess I'm going to put my face on camera and (mostly) defend us.

Reblog, share in your Discord servers, reply, or send me messages/anon asks with feedback or resources if you have any! Especially if your experience being in this fandom community has been dramatically different from mine. There are TIT spoilers near the end of the outline, but I'm not tagging because certain individuals seem to be lurking over there. Thank you!

Chapters:

Full outline:

introduction

cold open

felt personally attacked by jonathan haidt's last press tour

showed up to the phrenaissance 11 months late

had an unexpectedly strong response to their new content, needed to find out why

what the hell are we doing here?

- phenomenology (academics are professionally insufferable) - research question 1: what drew the audience in? - research question 2: why were we Like That™?

what we're NOT doing here

- a strict content analysis or "wow we sucked" video - providing sources for things best left uncirculated, thank you

reflexivity (personal biases)

- american zillennial in public health - in the youtube audience by spring 2010 - lurking in the phandom on tumblr 2013-2015, back* since 2019 - fan behavior i did and did not engage in

(----): truly necessary background information, i swear

(pop) cultural trends, tech, and their intersection

- nerd/geek identity and the first online weirdos - broadcast tv & the music industry vs the internet - defining "emo" - blogging & vlogging - early internet comedy

broader social/economic trends

- so the U.S. economy collapsed in 2007 - a decade that sucked except for rom-coms and square enix games - the flip/slide phone + digital camera + mp3 player loadout

(05-8): early youtube and early phil

youtube: a great video uploader without a clear purpose

the content on the website

- crossposts, corporations, and creative/social outlets - omg guys it's amazing phil - contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: justin bieber

the audience of "early adopters"

contemporary social media sites and forums

(2009): origin story

a wild dan appears… in the comments

the global constant that is teenagers being messy online

daring my old school district to sue me

- "one town's war on gay teens" (literal rolling stone headline!) - epidemiology 101: rates of… ugh… "unaliving" oneself - ways kids cope when it seems no adults will help them

the earliest days of dan & phil

- hello internet + pinof - a chronically overexamined timeline - file deleted ---* so how big WAS the audience at the time? ---* acceptable funny/edgy language was just different

contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: lucas cruikshank

omg it's meeeeeee

- how amy & friends were using youtube - ways i was just destined to end up here - being in social environments with peers 3-6 years older

(2010): is it "twenty-ten" or "two thousand ten?"

youtube is a platform about to explode in popularity

- the algorithm before it was The Algorithm™, lost site features - let's take a trip through the wayback machine :3c - actual dan & phil content in 2010 - the green brothers found vidcon - contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: darren criss

social media: also about to explode in popularity

- facebook was cool at the time, believe it or not - law of equivalent exchange: 2010 amy cringe compilation - the birth of instagram and pinterest - youtube slash livejournal (the first phanfics… sort of) - shockfic and its place in the overton window

the beginning of "the great rewiring" as haidt calls it

- ways social media is about to dramatically change - third spaces become online spaces - confounding variable: changing expectations of teens

(2011): the end of an era, the start of an age

a very long tangent on fandom and pop culture

cultural exchange

counterculture and teenagers as concepts

the first british invasion: the 1960s

- beatlemania and its descendents - moral panic about the virtue of tween/teen girls - tv/film/fashion trends being imported from the uk - in parallel, star trek births the modern fandom

the second british invasion: the 1980s

- synth/new pop that came out of the punk movement (hi, emo?) - confined mainly to music and fashion - cool britannia

it's harry freakin' potter

- absolute titan of pop culture influence - the rise of online fandom: examining the horrors ---* what is "wank" ---* flaming, sockpuppeting, and general cyberbullying ---* censorship: ffnet purges, boldthrough, & strikethrough ---* other fandom shenanigans of the time (yaoi paddles, anyone?)

harry potter's over. now what?

- for those who needed coming-of-age hero's journeys ---* twilight and YA dystopia waiting in the wings ---* some pretty iconic tv shows start or hit their stride ---* the mcu's phase one ---* takeaway: the rise of "geek culture" generally - for those who just wanted to go to hogwarts ---* doctor who & the wider world of bbc programming ---* british vloggers, you say? where? on youtube? brb--

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

dan & phil in the first half of 2011

- a continuation of 2010… for now - the videos - british pancakes as a case study of bad fan behavior

streaming and social media

- the birth of snapchat, twitch, and younow - netflix starts developing original programming - multi-channel networks (mcns) - digitour

dan & phil in the second half of 2011

- and they were roommates (omg they were roommates) - fantastic foursome - youtube glitches out - the super amazing project - the first proper baking video + wait, is that the bbc?

~ baking interlude 1: christmas cookies ~

the family sugar cookie (sorry, delia)

amy's 2011

(2012): why is anyone nostalgic for this

the transition from desktop to mobile

- massive growth in smartphone ownership 2011-2015 - things one might do on mobile one might not do on desktop - non-online ways smartphones changed being a youth™

what is tumblr and why is my child using it

- how the site is meant to work - fandom, memes, aesthetics, and SOME public figures - want to be anxious and depressed in peace? come to tumblr - this site seems a little……… gay ---* tumblr's very queer, very neurodiverse userbase ---* legacy media representation in 2012: bad! ---* actual academic research on tumblr users (yes, it exists) - the tumblr experience for non-native english speakers

amy becomes a vibrating mass of panic and paranoia

- in context of the above - additional rant about the american public school system

the growing dan & phil audience

- investigating the origin of the term "phannie" - more collaborations = more viewers - more video uploads = more /invested/ viewers - younow and interacting with fans - watch time replaces clicks in the algorithm

online etiquette, or lack thereof

- mid-transition from the 2000s to the 2010s - "professional internet celebrity" is still basically brand-new - lack of boundaries - various ways to be an asshole online - unsupervised kids simply do not engage in best practices

the end of 2012

- dan and phil move to london - wikipedia vandalism - tiptoeing around a top contender for the phandom's greatest sin - super amazing project DONE, now it's BBC RADIO TIME

(2013): arguably the most important year

- wait. what's that six-second video platform over there--

[amy's curated vine compilation]

- a new wave of internet comedians (read: future youtubers) - the zillennial lexicon - other platforms start emphasizing short-form video content - magcon

emo is BACK - well, sort of

- fob hiatus ends, mcr breaks up. my god. you had to be there - more open ties to nerd/geek culture than in the 2000s - these things once again intersect at dan and phil

dan and phil in the first half of 2013

- siri, what's a "sex symbol?" why are you booing me i'm right-- - d&p are everywhere - radio shows, interviewing, hosting - youtube uploads on their individual channels

rapidly changing cultural attitudes towards queerness

- gay marriage will be legal in places other than canada soon - a lot of assimilationist rhetoric though tbh - parallels to the pop feminism of the decade

hey kids, let's talk about compulsory heterosexuality!!

- what is it and why do people do it - academic, tumblr-level, and anecdotal research - the dannies, the phillies, and the phannies

amy

- the closet™ - mental health stigma - 2013 dnp posts from my main blog

dan and phil in the second half of 2013

- subscriber milestones, vidcon - joint content before the gaming channel - phandom starts having a major presence outside tumblr

(2014): achievement unlocked!

it's time to talk about rpf

- definitions (a chance to be annoyingly pedantic) - academic perspectives and fan discourse on the ethics - when the subjects clearly aren't fine with it - so… we can acknowledge "shipping phan" was different, right? ---* sometimes the subjects are fine* with it, actually ---* how dan and phil started to handle the shipping ---* obvious differences between phan and other rpf ships ---* sharing my favorite passages as a first-time phanfic reader

dan and phil in 2014

- wikipedia vandalism 2: electric boogaloo - bbc request show → internet takeover - the 7 second challenge - youtube content, subscriber milestones, rewind - cons and award shows

tumblr reaches the peak of its influence

- yahoo's attempts to monetize the userbase - buzzfeed and aggregators steal our jokes and bait our clicks - legacy media dangles carrots and uses us for free marketing - the legend of korra breaks TV precedent, almost out of nowhere - the tumblr user experience ---* on mobile, without xkit ---* on desktop, with xkit ---* 2014 dnp posts from my main blog

gamergate and its long shadow

- trolling, renewed and revamped - algorithms push increasingly extreme content - the broad conservative backlash conglomerate - increased normalization of conspiracism in general

my greatest sin [not clickbait] [very funny]

- so, circling back to comphet… - the actual story

anyway, let's talk about danandphilgames

- a star is born: dil howlter - different types of gaming content on youtube at the time - why did 17yo amy not subscribe? well…

~ baking interlude 2: chocolate cupcakes ~

make your own frosting. it freezes well

roasting myself further

(2015): it's not queerbaiting when it's real people

facebook "pivots to video"

- mark zuckerberg lied. water is wet - causes other platforms to REALLY double down on video - the birth of musical.ly - corporate-branded creators (read: future youtubers)

queerbaiting enters mainstream public consciousness

- academic origins - early fannish and acafan writing - johnlock, destiel, and sterek - statistics 101: type i error, type ii error, and queerbait

dan, phil, and the phandom

- bbc, cons, & the brits - danandphilcrafts - phan conspiracies ---* japhan ---* body language experts ---* timeline truthers ---* floor plan investigators ---* no but seriously imagine it - regular youtube uploads ---* solo content ---* joint content ---* subscriber milestones, rewind - tatinof uk and tabinof ---* on "selling out" ---* revisiting the statistics 101 lesson: now with real people! ---* never meet your heroes (unless they're dan and phil)

amy's (temporary) exit from the phandom

- it's legal adulthood with a steel chair!! - growing discomfort with some fans' behavior - 2015 dnp posts from my main blog - the closer: final fantasy vii

(2016): season finale

vine's imminent demise

- content platforms behaving badly - content creators behaving badly

youtube after "the great rewiring" (as haidt calls it)

- version 1.0 of the modern youtube algorithm ---* deep neural networks for dummies ---* what's holding creators accountable, or not - advertising and sponsorships ---* basically every child and youth™ is watching now ---* the battle for our attention ---* regulators start to crack down on undisclosed ads - the rise of drama/tea content (and later, channels) ---* youtubers are now seen as regular celebrities ---* dan and phil as the butt of other youtubers' jokes ---* baiting the phandom for engagement

tatinof us and aus

- a proven new model for live show tours - show & documentary released to youtube red (now premium) - [sigh] the tour bus

sea change in online fandom

- the newer, sometimes queerer media in korra's wake ---* better and more representation in live-action tv shows ---* voltron (i'm sorry!!!) ---* the mystic messenger craze ---* alice oseman & heartstopper - the new dynamics of #discourse ---* proship is to anti as phannie is to phanti ---* the bad behaviors of the 00s get a new coat of paint ---* new, though: fans harassing creators ---* a personal note on ace discourse

dan and phil presence off-tour

- the internet takeover ends - regular content, subscriber milestones

so. uh. current events.

- brexit - sorry the united states is a font of chaos - ripple effects

closing out the year

- amy finally gets an anxiety diagnosis and treatment! hurray! - dapgo, rewind - bbc radio awards & the boncas - gamingmas

(2017): time for a rebrand

tangent - sit down!!! buckle up!!! today's lecture is on PSIs & PSRs!!!

"parasocial" as defined by the current zeitgeist

- summing up youtubers' and laypeople's opinions (not dan's) - an unfairly negative stance overall, imo

older academic literature

- the 1956 paper (yes, 1956) - with traditional celebrities - with fictional characters

current academic literature

- with youtubers and other content creators - positive effects on the audience - negative effects on the audience - broader societal implications

fandom spaces as a parasocial experience

- parasocial and truly social interactions with each other - phandom as a supportive, welcoming space for oddballs - what research i can find about neurospicy folks, + anecdotes - me and everyone else on planet earth move to discord

inherent transactionality

- the nature of celebrity - positive effects on creators - negative effects on creators

reexamining early phandom through a parasocial lens

- the good, the bad, and the ugly - the role audience demographics played in all of this - entering, exiting, and remaining in the phandom

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

vine is well and truly dead

- some had prepared to become primarily youtubers (smart) - some move to musical.ly, insta, facebook, or snap (less so)

the sun sets on danisnotonfire

- i am very normal about dan's hobbit hair, i swear. - the last dnp content before the rebrand - new apartment, new floor plan investigations

adpocalypse now

- youtube has become the village elder of platforms ---* increased scrutiny, increased responsibility ---* some youtubers had been getting away with !#$!#@% - the scandals ---* pewdiepie + logan paul ---* elsagate and being "family- friendly" (read: ad-friendly) - censorship and monetization ---* adsense revenue goes down as advertisers pull out ---* the glory days of posting whatever and making bank are over

amazingphil and ~daniel howell~

- youtube & younow content - that week in march - vacations and conventions - conjoined baking and the concept of a "soft launch" - daniel & depression → dan as a mental health advocate - truth bombs, ii announcement, rewind

(2018): the phandom vs the hiatus they told us not to worry about

interactive introverts

- "giving the people what they want" - in hindsight… - let's talk about dnp fans from the global south

youtuber burnout

- it wasn't just dan: (more examples than header fits) - the old model was simply not sustainable - newer contributing factors - research on burnout, plus personal anecdotal experience

other dan and phil content

- younow/rize lives - dan's last videos before… you know… - phil's solo content in 2018 (quiff!!) - pinof → wdapteo - the gaming channel

other stuff happening online and in the world

- youtube raises the barriers to monetization - many "pivot to video" creators are now independent - the modern youtuber's multiple streams of income - continuations of societal trends in 2016 - musical.ly becomes tiktok - notable: she-ra and the princesses of power

the hiatus™: part myth, part reality

- how long dan was actually offline - major confounder: tumblr implodes almost overnight - major confounder: perception of content density from '13-'16 - major confounder: rapidly maturing audience - major confounder: our temporal awareness is about to go way ↓↓

~ baking interlude 3: scotcheroos ~

minnesotans and their obsession with "bars"

amy has one last existential crisis (you know, to date)

(2019): demolishing the closet with a nail bat

phil videos in the first 5 months of this very important year

basically i'm gay

- my thoughts - its legacy in the canon of "coming out" stories - multiple things can be true at once

coming out to you

- my thoughts - its legacy in the canon of "coming out" stories - why phil waited (actual explanations, speculation)

amy's 2019

- return to the audience, not really to the phandom (rip tumblr) - strange coincidence that i also had a major life transition

dan and phil: still here, freshly queer

- twitter becomes the main nexus of phandom, by default - regular phil uploads + brief return to younow - vidcon

(2020): go home and stay there

so it's a goddamn global public health crisis

- infectious disease perspective - effects on overall well-being of adults - effects on kids and teenagers (sorry to all of you) - political and economic impacts

hitherto unforeseen levels of online content consumption

- tiktok replaces basically all short-form video content - yet another wave of new (otherwise unemployed) youtubers - you're watching a video essay. these got really popular now. - being young and isolated: thoughts from younger phannies

the Content™ bc that's the one word we use for this now

- phil's videos - when dan is around - that attitude magazine interview - pour one out for the phil solo project(s) the panini wrecked

further political disaster… avoided?

- checking in on the state of social issues previously discussed - unfortunately,

(2021): welcome to the 2020s, we have lingering trauma

THE PHOUSE?!?!?

- social media posts - the stereo shows

other dan and phil videos

- phil's solo videos - gay and not proud - hometown showdown - other joint videos - phil's #shorts (sounds normal in american english)

panini updates

- vaccines soon, uwu??? + entrenched misinformation - pros and cons of remote work - pros and cons of remote school - pros and cons of remote socializing

you will get through this night

- younger me really could have used this book too, dan - thoughts as a professional in a related field - reflecting on some of my more unique circumstances

daring my old school district to sue me (again!!)

- updates: racism and transphobia - updates: right-wing freaks take over the school board again - residents vote against improving mental health resources

(2022): dan returns (still not on fire)

hey so politics are um getting worse

- americans lose the right to reproductive freedom ---* the quickest of histories on where these freaks came from ---* this shit kills people. - trans kids become the punching bag of culture war discourse ---* fuck off! (gently) ---* fuck off! (i have a knife) ---* checking in on terf island

we're all doooooooooooooooomed

- dystopia daily my beloved - the style, the substance, the metatextual analysis-- - not everyone loved it, though. why? - the promo - dan on tour + sister daniel

amy's 2022

- i got covid - then i got long covid: brain fog, pots-like symptoms

some more news (i will work on my warmbo impression)

- dan joins tiktok + danisnotinteresting uploads - phil: uploading less, busy doing remote crisis management - twitter is acquired by an idiot jackass - heartstopper on netflix! ---* the show and what it means to people ---* drama (revisiting "real people can't queerbait") ---* why this has anything to do with the phandom

~ baking interlude 4: cinnamon rolls ~

- lovingly, recipe changes and corrections :) - if i have an opinion about anything, it's sweet yeasted breads

(2023): the phrenaissance

phil

- joins tiktok! - youtube uploads through september - what even is phannie tiktok. i've never used this app. help.

dystopia daily b-sides

- dan memes of 2022 - the 2023 dystopia daily episodes

amy: the doctoral candidacy process

- purgatory, privilege, poverty, and free pizza - checking in on what this is like outside the united states

pretending the panini is over

- complaining about post-adpocalypse censorship standards - honest take about "giving up" on covid - who gets the short end of the stick

the youtube algorithm is BAD and UNINTELLIGENT, actually,

- unhinged rant about not hearing about the gaming rephrival - because i was offline from other platforms. like, @amyoffline.

pov: you are a phannie (not me) on october 15th

- what i was doing on october 15th - saying goodbye forever, spooky week, and november - gamingmas - phil uploads through december

(2024): fifteen years of terrible, terrible influence

hey what the fuck is going on

- dan and phil ---* joint and phil videos ---* jokes they never would've made ten years ago ---* a collection of emotional posts about how far they've come ---* people want fun and silly content again. we'll get to why ---* nostalgia, hope, and other warm and fuzzy feelings - the phandom ---* ancient parasocial attachments, reactivated instantly ---* people are way more normal now. let's discuss why ---* tumblr vs twitter vs tiktok phandom

we're all doomed, youtube version

- my thoughts - thoughts on "dan should/shouldn't" do video essays - i can't objectively evaluate anything he makes bc [gunshots]

terrible influence tour

- legally phlonde - the concept: healing one's inner child / taking it back - we gotta talk about phannies in the global south again - no but seriously imagine it? ---*ogres are like onions, they have LAYERS ---* [placeholder for whatever does(n't) happen]

anglosphere current events once again

- the likely us tiktok ban - the tories get fired - [placeholder for whichever hell americans manifest] - witnessing genocide and feeling powerless

ffx full-circle moment to the intro of this video essay

- the night i found out they came back - why i am doing this, now with context - reflections on a nearly 15-year (parasocial) relationship

whatever youtube uploads we get during fall/december

AMY SEES TIT (nov 14)

- the vibes at the phamily reunion - buying merch to apologize for eternal ublock origin use - how much should i document?? (not during the show) - phanspiracies confirmed - atlanta confessions - favorite bits - the alternate universe where i went to tatinof and/or ii

(2025): the horrors persist, but so do we

whatever 2025 content is out while i'm still working on this

our parasocial social club

- let me be philosophytube for a second ---* every interaction has a parasocial element ---* what are we obligated to do as a phandom, actually? ---* as people who parasocially care about these two dorks? ---* what else should we be doing socially to be at our happiest? - "they're my gay uncles" vs "i'm a little in love, even now" ---* riffing about the boundary/overlap between these camps ---* sibling reads me for filth in a single text (sister daniel...) ---* at least we're all in this together

what's going to continue to draw people in

- grown adults drawing our cat whiskers back on - updates on queer/nd kids - updates on anxiety/depression rates - updates on tech and the broader environment of content - world still feels doomed

tangent - the "hard launch" and why people want it

what are people referring to, exactly

- general definition and other examples - when it comes to dan and phil - maybe they hard launched already and we just missed the memo

the ludonarrative of phandom

- if you got here early on - if you got here in the mid-2010s - if you got here after they came out - if you got here post-hiatus - final fantasy comparison: ffvii's chokehold over first-timers

a rom-com for the ages

- the tropes in play - brief tangent on the evolution of the genre - queer romantic comedies - final fantasy comparison: ffviii's plot and squall/rinoa

phriends… or…

- wholesome influence, slice-of-life - projection - final fantasy comparison: ffxv's gameplay loop, the chocobros

humans don't like ambiguity

- from a media perspective (narrative tension) - research from the hard sciences - final fantasy comparison: fanille ---* the first gay final fantasy characters, actually ---* ffxiii's character development process ---* fang and vanille in the text. brb, clawing at the walls ---* so, if anyone is looking for a phyuri au prompt…

tl;dr: reality is not fiction. make peace with not "knowing"

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

the phuture

- phil's big solo project when??? - dapg is just the joint channel now - youtube has changed since when dan last "regularly" uploaded - nothing lasts forever, and that's okay

~ baking interlude 5: ranch + pizza ~

- ranch propaganda and ranch metaphors - showing off my dough and sauce skills

conclusions

- a lot has happened in 15 years - [placeholders: don't write your conclusions before you do your research]

Proof this project can only be done in consultation with Tumblr: no other platform we're on could accommodate a post of this length and formatting detail lol

[todayontumblr]

Monday, July 3.

Nimona! *spoilers*

*WARNING! Major spoilers for Nimona follow.*

It's colorful, queer, and finally here. Trials and tribulations can make the victories all the sweeter, or so we are told. Only it seems there is some proverbial proof in the pudding: #nimona has finally made its way to Netflix after something of a bumpy ride, to put it lightly—and we are here for it. It's been a long time coming, too, with years and years spent in development hell.

Since its inception in June 2015, the film has survived a mega media merger between The Walt Disney Corporation and 20th Century Fox Animation (and delayed twice); in February 2021, one year before its projected release, Disney announced it was shutting down Blue Sky Studios, and production of the film was canceled entirely; it was then revived by Annapurna and Netflix; experienced several changes in creative leadership and a global pandemic (you may have heard of it) and a studio shutdown just as the film was finally coming together.

Now, the story that started life in ND Stevenson's beloved webcomic finally has made its way into silver screen heaven with its arrival on Netflix these past days. And it seems the dashboard's faultlessly loyal, long-time fandom can't get enough of this wild, wonderful, and life-affirming adaption.

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

So Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), the game which inspired the Battle Royale mode that came to define Fortnite, is doing a Chinese New Year promo themed around Journey to the West. Specifically it's themed around the trio of divine guardians who served as the primary protectors.

So briefly, I would like to discuss depictions of Zhu Bajie in popular media... who I generally refer to as Pigsy since, like many westerners - my first exposure to the character was the Japanese TV series Monkey (1978 - 1980) - in my case dubbed into English.

That's him on the right, with the muck rake. I also use this name because it's pretty much an accurate translation of the character's core premise after he is cast down into the mortal realm. It's how he's very consistently depicted:

Honor of Kings (2015)

Monkie Kid (2020 - )

It's pretty much consistent to the point where the issue with googling for examples is finding the specific product they're linked to since he always looks like a pig man.... just like the PUBG unlockables above depict him as.

So you can imagine my surprise to discover that at some point in the development of this promotion, someone from the PUBG Corporation doubtlessly asked "Have we got the design for Pigsy ready yet?" and the reply was apparently "Yeah, made her real fucking sexy for you too! Just like you asked!"

This is also a rare PUBG outfit that look kind of different on a male model, than on the female model... turning into a full crop top rather than just a sexy bra.

It's also one where the chest design etc would probably get covered pretty quick the moment a player gets a vest... but I haven't had either the opportunity... or the burning desire to test that.

-wincenworks

[mysteriouslytransparentwitch]

Hello Mysterious, I hope all is well and continues to improve with you.

You don’t need to post this ask,but I just wanted to express my thoughts on the expansion of the far right across the world, in relation to your last post about France and Macron.

1. Putin

2. Trump and GOP

3. Elon Musk

4. Nigel Farage

5. Marie Le Pen

6. Venezuela president Maduro Moros, plus Argentina’s president Milea.

7. Canadian conservatives now far right party.

8. Corporate right wing media in Europe, North America across the globe.

9. Money, laundered, bit coin or otherwise.

10. War in Ukraine.

All ten are connected, with the source being Putin. He’s been involved since 2015 when he stole Russia’s state money and the oligarchs money. He’s rumoured to be the richest man in the world at one point, and what better use of that resource than to fund a world in your vision of the future??? What we’re witnessing today are the dying throes of this evil heinous collaboration. Putin was very much behind the Conservative Brexit movement in Britain and behind Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Not to mention putting trump in the White House. Those were his successes. Putin desires the dissolution of the EU and NATO, a united Europe. Trump was espousing those wishes when he was ‘President’. Elon and Trump are his voice in the west. Maduro was pushing to start a war in South America for oil rich land in Guyana, and was blocked by Blair and Clinton recently. The Guyana president visited Britain when all diplomacy failed on his part. I’m originally from Guyana so I was paying attention to those moves.

Putin has been funding far right causes all across the world for at least a decade now. And he should be reaping the rewards of his hard work. But sadly, no.

The media companies don’t mind the marriage and getting in bed with Putin to consummate the unholy alliance. Money is money is money. Let it rain. They don’t even draw the line at promoting his blatant propaganda as they are doing right now in bashing Biden in the US. The US citizens have to wake up and make the right decision on November 5th.

Yes I believe you when you say Macron will have a fight on his hands in November. It will be directly as a result of the upcoming US elections and its results. All are connected. Sow doubt and fear in France, bring violence to the fore. See??? this could happen to you in the US, a civil war…. But what would you have Macron do?? Submit to the far right and plunge Europe into a proper World War 3? IMO Le Pen will always do as Putin asks, she is his wh*** he just has to say the word and she will obey. And proximity to Russia is also a factor in this. Again as in the US the media is heavily involved too. Right now they are flirting with WW3 in Ukraine. My guess is that war won’t end until after November 2024. A LOT of decisions will be made after November 5th. Just my opinion and observations. Thanks for listening.

I sincerely think that Macron and Lepen are ready to sell the French system for money. I'm serious this time. The complicity of journalists is beginning to be revealed. I can only see an explosion of the 5th republic.

I sincerely believe that the financial system wants the skin of the population. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, you know me.

There's too much of a weird connection. We talk again about links and traffic with Kadafi (Libya)

I need to sit down seriously and look at my cards

[blackswaneuroparedux]

So recently I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts while on a business trip by train through the Swiss Alps to Zurich. 'The Rest Is History' hosted historians Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland were quite topical talking about France under de Gaulle and the student riots of 1968 as well as its legacy towards France’s current troubles with civil disorder.

The recent riots starting in Nanterre and beyond were troubling and significant. However outsiders not knowing the French or their culture and history thought it was either the fall of the Fifth Republic or start of the collapse of Western civilisation itself. It was nothing of the sort. For the most part the French think it healthy to blow off steam and have a jolly good riot in the same way people in England blow off steam by writing an angry letter to the editor of the Times. It’s just how things are. As predicted, things have gotten quiet now.

In their podcast Sandbrook and Holland cheekily suggested that the fizzling out of les evénéments – the student protests of 1968, during which it seemed that another of France’s periodic revolutions might ignite - had something to do with the Whitsun holidays. Realising that their Parisian parents were setting off for their holiday homes in the French countryside or the southern coast, the elitist student leaders put down their high minded revolutionary leftist philosophical slogans aside for the bourgeois comfort of vacances en famille. There is a lot of truth to that.

All this is to say les grandes vacancies have already begun in France. The grand vacation of July and August is an entrenched tradition in the French psyche. So ingrained is this tradition that until 2015 there were regulations still in place dating back to the French revolution that governed when bakers in Paris could take their holidays, so as not to deprive the city’s populace of their daily bread (not quite baguette, because that was invented later by the Austrians camped out in the Champs de Mars after the fall of Napoleon - but that’s another story).  

That France is in the middle of les grandes vacances can be seen here in Paris. Parisians are leaving their apartments and heading out to the countryside or down south to the Med - to be offfeeling handedly rude and entitled towards the locals. Schools have been closed since June. Many shops are closed or not nearly as crowded as usual, most of the people wandering the streets have cameras around their necks. Of course not everyone goes and those that stay can feel freer until the first glut of tourists arrive.

For many France in August is definitely their favourite time of the year. And every summer I’m reminded just how much French language and culture are inseparable by the fact that there are words for people who take their annual vacation in July, les juillettistes, or in August, les aoûtiens.

Most French people have 5 weeks of paid vacation per year, and some have even more time off with the inclusion of their RTTs (essentially, personal days) for those who work more than 35 hours per week. I work close to 80 hours a week, so I'm ready for my break from the corporate treadmill.

So my blog will be shut down for the rest of the summer as I go away on vacation. I’ll be back in early September.

I use this time to switch off my phone and strictly no social media as I go off grid. It's a question of valuing one's mental health. I hope you can do the same.

Thank you for following my blog and appreciating my eclectic posts.

I wish you all the best.

Have a great summer!

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 13

354 AD – Early Christian writer St. Augustine was born on this date (d.430) Following the example of St. Paul, Augustine set the standard for confessional literature that was to flourish in the centuries that followed. The pattern, of course, is a detailed listing of one's sins, followed by a narration of some event or events that made one long for salvation, and then an enunciation of the pains and joys of penance with the hope of future redemption.

Augustine confessed not only to having fathered a son, but to friendship that was classically homoerotic. When he was a young man, his closest friend died and Augustine contemplated joining him in death. "I felt that his soul and mine were `one soul in two bodies'; and therefore life was to me horrible because I hated to live as half of a life; and therefore perhaps I feared to die, lest he should wholly die whom I loved so greatly. My longing eyes sought him everywhere." Augustine, of course, cast off all sins of the flesh and becoming one of the great founders of Christian doctrine, admonished us all to do the same.

1759 – In the Netherlands, minister Andreas Klink is banished for life for having committed sodomy. He defends his attractions as natural.

1879 – Marcus Behmer (d.1958) was a German writer and book illustrator, graphic designer and painter.

Marcus Behmer was a son of the painter Hermann Behmer. His uncle Rudolf Behmer, known as a breeder of Merino sheep - was the twin brother of his father. His brother Joachim Behmer was also active as an artist.

His artistic beginnings came with his first major success with the illustrations for Wilde's Salome in 1903. The early works show the influence of the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley.

On 1 October 1903 Behmer entered military service, was appointed a corporal in 1904 and promoted in 1907 to sergeant. From 1914 he participated in the First World War (in Flanders and in Poland). In the summer of 1917 he fell ill "after an operation in the field" and was six weeks in the military hospital of Jarny . During his time in the army, many so-called "comrades' portraits" emerged, usually reduced, although finely crafted profile views of young soldiers

From 1902 Behmer produced illustrations for books, designed initials and writings, and was responsible for carefully planned publishing facilities. He worked for the Cranach Press of Count Harry Kessler and illustrated numerous articles for the monthly magazine "The Island."

Behmer had been since 1903 a member of the first homosexual organization in the world in Berlin. Because of his homosexuality, Behmer was sentenced in April 1937 by a court in Konstanz to imprisonment of two years. At times he was given the opportunity to work as an artist in prison. The works produced in this period are mostly calligraphic tablets with Greek text (prayers and Bible quotes), and drawings full of bitterness and irony.

1950 – Charles Kaiser is an American author, journalist and academic administrator. In 2018 he was named Acting Director of the LGBTQ Public Policy Center at Hunter College. He is also a nonfiction book critic for The Guardian (US).

His book about one family in the French Resistance, The Cost of Courage (2015) received enthusiastic reviews from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor, among many other publications. It also won the grand prize at the Paris Book Festival (2015). In 2016 it was published in France by Seuil as Le Prix du Courage.

His blog about the media, Full Court Press, originated on the website of Radar Magazine in the fall of 2007. He continued it at the Columbia Journalism Review and the��Sidney Hillman Foundation until the spring of 2011.

The son of a diplomat, Philip Mayer Kaiser, he grew up in Washington, D.C., Albany, New York, Dakar, Senegal, London, England and Windsor, Connecticut. He has lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for many years.

He is the author of The Cost of Courage, 1968 In America, and The Gay Metropolis. The Gay Metropolis was a Lambda Literary Award winner, as well as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He was a guest on the Colbert Report, where he discussed a new edition of The Gay Metropolis. He wrote the afterword for a 2012 edition of Merle Miller's landmark work, On Being Different: What it Means to Be a Homosexual. That afterword was excerpted on the website of the New York Review of Books. In 2015 he was inducted into the LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame.

1955 – Caryn Elaine Johnson, best known as Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host. She is a strong supporter of the LGBT community.

On April 1, 2010, Goldberg joined Cyndi Lauper in the launch of her Give a Damn campaign to bring a wider awareness of discrimination of the LGBT community. The campaign is to bring straight people to ally with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community. Other names included in the campaign include Jason Mraz, Elton John, Judith Light, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Kardashian, Clay Aiken, Sharon Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne.

Goldberg's high-profile support for LGBT rights and AIDS activism dates back to the 1987 March on Washington, where she was one of few celebrities participating.

1969 – Today is the birthday of bi-sexual Scottish actor Gerard Butler. He is best known for his portrayal of King Leonidas in the intensely homoerotic film about the Spartans, 300. He also portrayed the Phantom in the 2004 film version of The Phantom of the Opera. He is slated to portray the iconic Scottish poet Robert Burns in an upcoming biopic.

In the gossip mags, there have been numerous stories of his romantic involvements - including several of romantic and/or sexual involvements with other male stars.

In a 2004 Movieline interview he said:

"I talk about my sexuality, but it's always glossed over. People seem to shy away from the issue. Whenever it is discussed, it's distended and exaggerated. Gerard Butler is Gay. No I'm not. I don't know myself what I am so it can be bewildering to see that being plugged. I have been in relationships with women. And men. That doesn't make me Gay. That doesn't make me straight. It's hard enough to go through these things in my mind without being scrutinised about it so there are times when you want to close the door and say my sexuality is my own personal business."

1999 – Josh Cavallo is an Australian professional association footballer who plays as a left back and central midfielder for Adelaide United. Cavallo has represented the Australian under-20 national team.

Cavallo was born in Bentleigh East, Victoria.

Cavallo represented both Melbourne Victory FC Youth and Melbourne City FC Youth. Western United. On 15 April 2019, Melbourne City announced that Cavallo would leave the club at the expiration of his contract at the end of the 2018–19 season.

On 24 June 2019, new A-League side Western United announced that Cavallo would join the club ahead of its inaugural season. He made his debut on 3 January 2020 in a 3–2 loss at his previous club. On as a 71st-minute substitute for Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, he earned a penalty when fouled by goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis, which was converted by Besart Berisha. Western United announced that Cavallo was leaving the club on 10 February 2021.

On 18 February 2021, Cavallo signed a short-term contract to play for Adelaide United. After a successful stint in the 2020–21 A-League, he signed a two-year contract extension on 11 May. He was rewarded with Adelaide United's A-League Rising Star award after a successful 2020–21 campaign, in which he started 15 games and made 18 appearances.

Cavallo came out as gay in October 2021. At the time, there were no other openly-gay male footballers playing professional top-flight football, in the world. In becoming the first to do so, he said in a statement, "I hope that in sharing who I am, I can show others who identify as LGBTQ+ that they are welcome in the football community."

[lizardsfromspace]

Someone did a study proving that critics talk about shows out of proportion to how popular they are and like. Yeah. Their example was that Succession is far less popular than Young Sheldon, but its finale had hundreds more articles about it than Young Sheldon's did (a measly 56), and. Lads, it's Young Sheldon. What are people going to say about Young Sheldon exactly? 950 articles on the Young Sheldon finale?

It's not even a new phenomenon to ignore boring or shitty 'popular' shows for ones there's more to say about. I'm sure 90s critics talked about Homicide: Life on the Street, The X-Files, and The Larry Sanders Show way more than they talked about Full House, Home Improvement, or Touched By an Angel, and that 80s critics wanted to talk about Cheers and Hill Street Blues more than...well, Full House. Sometimes the stars align and a massive hit does also have a lot of critical buzz about it like Seinfeld but it's not a new thing of "elitists" ignoring popular shows

I think there is a problem with "normie" TV not being covered but it's not that we need more Serious Analysis of Young fuckin Sheldon (lol) but that a lot goes unchecked when it shouldn't, and online people aren't aware of the odious shit being beamed into the homes of their offline uncles. It took a random tweet for the world to know that The Good Doctor, one of the biggest shows on TV, portrays autistic people as inherently transphobic, or that Law & Order was back and doing episodes about the Havana Syndrome. We need to know what deranged shit is being beamed into the brains of millions, since as the audience for linear TV becomes mainly conservative old people, they're gonna pander to that more

(I do also think some shows get unfairly put in that category. Superstore was frequently ignored for being a network workplace sitcom, but it was quietly a great show about labor, to the degree that "corporate sends in ICE to arrest undocumented employees as a ploy to quash unionization efforts" is a story arc. It's a more knowing show about capitalism than much prestige anti-capitalist media not in spite of being "that sitcom about a Wal-Mart" but because it's "that sitcom about a Wal-Mart")

Also the victims of TV coverage homogenization aren't the Young Sheldons of the world, it's all the b-tier shows and slow starters that would've received fair coverage circa 2002-2015, but are now lucky to get a pilot review, much less coverage of how they improve or what things they're playing with. We need more of that not 1,000 articles about one episode of Young Sheldon???

[proflaytonbigbang]

just curious who’s running this project! sounds like a cool idea and if i share it wanna know who to properly credit the idea to

The main person behind the account (and the one who's been answering all questions so far) is myself, Mimca! Hi!

About my modding experience, my first "big" experience as a moderator was for the French forum Nuzlocke France, dedicated to the Pokémon Nuzlocke Challenge, since 2014. From 2015 to 2021, every odd year I've been organizing an event called a Communitylocke. Basically, my job was to create a balanced, fair and easy-to-approach set of rules for participants, answer the participants' questions, and match-up participants when necessary. I've also helped create various timed events on several Pokémon roleplay forums, notably creating the scenarios and collaborating with the mod team in place to fit said scenarios into their setting. I've participated in my first zine as a writer in 2020, and became a Social Media Mod for one in 2021 (if you're interested, you can read all about my previous experience on my Carrd). After a few years, I wanted to go back to "my roots" and organize a more casual event, one that everyone could join — and it just so happened that Level-5 announced a certain New World of Steam, so, here I am! (This all sounded awfully corporate, but TL;DR: I've been modding fan events before, and I'll do my best to lead this new event to completion!)

As a Professor Layton fan, I've been a fan of the good British gentleman since the original release of Curious Village in Europe! I instantly fell in love with the characters and the setting of St Mystere. I've immediately preordered Diabolical Box (got the little Luke phone strap that came with it, he's been protecting my keys with vicious puzzles ever since!) and preordered every new Layton game since. My favorite game is Last Specter, and I'm a proud Mystery Journey defender. Ernest Greeves's got my heart.

Of course, I don't intend to lead this Big Bang all on my own, which is why the Interest Check will also double as Mod Applications! If we have enough interest (and I've got no doubt, with all the positive feedback we've got so far!), then I'll need some help to make the Big Bang a reality for all Layton fans out there! 🤎

[dextixer]

"Why criticize RT and not company X?" And why this whatabaustism is stupid.

Ever since ALL of the nearly 100 stories of RT abuses after Kdins story came out i have been hearing the same old excuses, the same old arguments and the same old bullshit in defense of RT. So many fans of RWBY keep saying "There are worse companies!" or in various ways try to point out some imagined "hypocricy" over choosing to criticize and not support RT. Recently i have read one too many of such opinions and decided to make a handy "guide" or a refutation of sorts to all of such bullshit and why its bullshit.

Logical Fallacy

Stop me if you have heard this one "RT is bad, sure, but Disney is worse! Why are you going after RT and not disney!?". I would imagine most of us have seen simmilar statements being made in defense of RT. This is something that is called "Whatabautism", its a form of a logical fallacy (Basically, shitty way of arguing) that is meant to excuse one wrong with another, perceivably bigger wrong. Its like a child smashing a window and then when caught saying "But my brother set a barn on fire!". Both are bad, but this fallacy is meant to excuse one by the perceived "smallness" of the act in comparison to the other.

Of course, to any person who has cleared the age of 10, it is pretty clear why such an argument is bullshit. Because a bad thing still remains bad even if someone else has done worse. The same goes with RT.

Is RT an uniquelly bad company in the entertainment industry? Fuck no. Disney does performative activism ALL the time as a key example. If we look at Holywood we can see that it is INFESTED with sexual predators of various kinds, for fucks sakes, Ezra Miller could run around on a crime spree and receive no punishment because they were protected by their showrunners. The entertainment industry is INFESTED with all kinds of bullshit like this.

That does not make what RT does good, does not excuse their actions. And does not make them above reproach.

Especially not since they are a PART of WB and we know for a FACT that them coming under WB Umbrella actually made them PAY their staff properly. Which is very strange, dont you all think? That the big evil corporation of WB somehow STILL made the work conditions in RT better? That reflects worse on RT than it will ever on WB.

Projection

This whatabautism is even more riddiculous once one realizes that it comes from a place of projection.

This is but one of many such cases of projection. The fans of RWBY will often talk about how those who criticize RT and RWBY should shut up because they also consume other media and some of them even go as far as create conspiracy theories that RWDE(Critics) actually secretly buy RWBY merch!

Of course, they cant prove any of that shit. What critics of the show can prove for a fact however is that NONE of these RWBY fans give a single solitary shit about what RT has done. After all, the BB merch sold out like hotcakes and many people keep calling for people to support RT financially to get V10 greenlit.

This being one of the examples. It is the fans constantly shouting about people to continue to consoom as much as possible and spend as much money as possible.

For those people to then project onto critics of the show and create conspiracies that the critics are the ones financially supporting RT is just silly.

Especially when...

Piracy

Piracy exists. This entire diatribe of "supporting" other companies presupposes that people cant just... Pirate. A good example is this message i received not too long ago.

And my answer was very simple to this person. I dont support Anime companies, Disney or any other entertainment corporation like this. Because Piracy exists. The last time i was in a Movie Theater was watching The Force Awakens in 2015. The last time i bought Anime or Anime themed merch? Never. I dont have Netflix, i dont have Disney+, i dont pay even a single cent to streaming companies, entertainment corporations or shitters like that, because i have websites on the internet for that.

Because it is THAT easy to avoid supporting shitty companies.

The same goes for Video Games. When Blizzard exposes came i dropped WoW and all Blizzard games. Currently i mostly play Indie titles or titles from companies i know arent dirty. Kenshi for example was made by one dude, Vampire Survivors, Baldurs Gate 3, Darktide, Underrail, Battle Brothers, Metal Hellsinger, Disco elysium, the list goes on. Most of these games were made by either small teams or single dudes.

When RT was first exposed, many people discussed Piracy as a form of protest. And so many people revealed just how little they know about the concept. Some of them tried and still try to pull the "Well, you cant avoid suffering under capitalism" kind of arguments. They are partially true, but in the end are wrong because...

Entertainment is one of the easiest things to drop to less human suffering. We all need food, water, housing. But for entertainment we as a generation are spoilt for choice, millions of books, fanfictions, animations, games, created for our enjoyment. Many made without suffering involved, and those that were are easily accessable without supporting the companies that created them.

You can hate RT

So, im going to finish with this. Hate RT with your entire heart if you so wish. These accusations of hypocricy? They are all bullshit. They are made by people who dont give a shit about people suffering, as long as they get their new fix of RWBY. They are made by people who will project onto you all of the shit THEY are doing.

So hate RT as any other shitty entertainment corporation and the leadership (Including those in CRWBY) that KNEW all of this shit was happening, and either hid it/suspected it (Ryan Heywood) or/and did NOTHING about it.

And these people trying to stop you from hating RT for GOOD REASON are just doing this because they LIKE RT.

It would be one thing if they rightfully called people while also hating RT. But they dont.

(This post can be found under the same name on Reddit)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

No, Donald Trump is not “flip-flopping” on abortion as some corporate media headlines are claiming. But the silver lining to this debate is that it elevates the issue of reproductive freedom to the forefront in the closing months of the campaign—reminding people Trump was “honored” to “kill” Roe v. Wade and that his abortion bans are literally killing women. What sparked the headlines about Trump’s so-called “flip-flop” on abortion was when Trump first stated last week that he opposed the GOP enacted six week abortion ban in Florida. Trump told Fox News this six-week ban was a “mistake,” adding, "I think six weeks, you need more time.” However, after the pro-forced birth activists and Christian nationalists expressed outrage, Trump reversed course, saying he would vote no on the proposed Florida ballot measure that would repeal the state's six-week abortion ban.

Trump did not “evolve” on the issue of reproductive freedom. In reality, he has no core beliefs other than racism and sexism. The convicted felon simply sees the same polls and election results we have when it comes to abortion. Trump gets that a recent Gallup poll found only 12% of Americans support the GOP’s total abortion bans—while 85% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or certain circumstances.  Add to that, a recent CNN poll found nearly two thirds of Americans oppose the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Trump simply wanted to appear more reasonable on abortion given new polls show Americans overwhelmingly trust VP Harris to handle the issue of reproductive freedom--which has contributed to a record gender gap.  This explains Trump’s latest proposal regarding in vitro fertilization (IVF) that he claims will force insurance companies to pay for the costs of in vitro fertilization (IVF.) I’m sure we will see this “amazing” IVF plan the same time we see Trump’s “great” healthcare plan that he repeatedly promised since 2015 he would be unveiling in “two weeks.” Never happened.

Trump’s new IVF is not even original--he stole it from the Democrats. In June, Senate Democrats proposed legislation known as the Right to IVF Act that would have both enshrined into federal law a right for individuals to receive IVF treatment and would’ve mandated coverage for fertility treatments under health insurance plans. In other words, what Trump says he now wants to do. However, that legislation was blocked by all but two Senate Republicans included Trump’s own running mate, JD Vance.

What Trump and the GOP don’t get—or care to grasp—is that stripping women of a 50-year constitutional right to reproductive freedom is not a political issue, it’s personal. In fact, nothing is more personal than Republican laws that force women against their will to carry a fetus to term. And that is exactly what Republicans have done in 14 states they control with their total abortion bans that in essence mean on day one of pregnancy, a women’s uterus becomes property of the GOP.  (An additional eight GOP controlled states have also implemented abortion bans still far more restrictive than under Roe v. Wade.) These abortion bans—as studies have now detailed—are literally killing women. One study found that “women in states with abortion bans are nearly three times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after giving birth.” A July study found that “the highest rates of maternal mortality can be found in the Mississippi Delta, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.” These states—as well as Texas and others--all have extreme abortion bans that have resulted in preventing women from receiving an abortion to address a women’s health needs. Rather, a woman must be on the doorstep of death before doctors are permitted by law to perform an abortion to save her life.

Abortion bans are harming and killing women, point blank. These have the imprimatur of Trump-appointed justices and GOP legislators across the nation, along with Trump himself.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Published: Sep 19, 2024

Regina Jackson and Saira Rao achieved a degree of fame at the height of the backlash in 2020 after police killed George Floyd, an unarmed black American accused of buying cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 note. For a hefty fee, rich white women would hire the pair to help them confront unconscious biases at dinner parties that featured such ice-breakers as, “Raise your hand if you’re a racist.” Guests may often have broken down in tears when told that their claims to be colour-blind were simply another brick in the edifice of white supremacy, but there was lots of interest. The two women were featured in many news reports and made a film about their dinners, “Deconstructing Karen”, in which a guilt-stricken participant confesses, “I am a liberal white woman. We are absolutely the most dangerous women.”

The media scrum has since subsided. The last “Race2Dinner” event took place a year ago. The pair now host screenings of the film instead. The problem, says Ms Rao, is not just that they are fed up with having to “sit across from a white person to tell them why they can’t use…the N-word”. It is also that public interest in matters of racial injustice has cooled. “The pulse of anti-racism, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, anti-genocide, is dead. There is no pulse,” Ms Rao laments.

Woke me up

Republicans love to blame everything they consider wrong with America on an epidemic of “wokeness”, by which they tend to mean anything that smacks of virtue-signalling or political correctness. Thus a bridge over Baltimore harbour collapsed earlier this year not, as it might have seemed, because it was hit by a wayward cargo ship, but because one of the nearby port’s six commissioners is a black woman whose human-resources firm helps companies assess how diverse their workforces are, among other things—or so a Republican candidate for governor of Utah asserted. Donald Tru.mp, when accepting the Republican nomination for president in July, blamed “woke” leadership for the failings of America’s armed forces. The party’s official platform this year complains of “woke…government” spurring politically motivated prosecutions. The implication is that woke attitudes are proliferating, and that only Republicans can stem their rise.

In fact, discussion and espousal of woke views peaked in America in the early 2020s and have declined markedly since. The Economist has attempted to quantify the prominence of woke ideas in four domains: public opinion, the media, higher education and business. Almost everywhere we looked a similar trend emerged: wokeness grew sharply in 2015, as Donald Tru.mp appeared on the political scene, continued to spread during the subsequent efflorescence of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, peaked in 2021-22 and has been declining ever since (see charts). The only exception is corporate wokeness, which took off only after Mr Floyd’s murder, but has also retreated in the past year or two.

The term woke was originally used on the left to describe people who are alert to racism. Later it came to encompass those eager to fight any form of prejudice. By that definition, it is obviously a good thing. But Democrats seldom use the word any more, because it has become associated with the most strident activists, who tend to divide the world into victims and oppressors. This outlook elevates group identity over the individual sort and sees unequal outcomes for different groups as proof of systemic discrimination. That logic is then used to justify illiberal means to correct entrenched injustices, such as reverse discrimination and the policing of speech. It is this sort of “woke warrior” that Republicans love to lambast.

Wide awoke

Our analysis subsumes both the advocates and the denigrators of woke thinking, by looking at ideas and actions associated with this sort of activism, for good or for ill. It measures, for example, talk of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) in the corporate world, regardless of whether it is being invoked as a way to correct the under-representation of women and racial minorities or as an example of pious window-dressing. Some of the yardsticks we use apply only to the more doctrinaire form of woke activism, such as the number of drives to censure academics for views deemed offensive. Others capture only the more positive aspects of the movement, such as polling data on the proportion of Americans who worry about racial injustice. Either way, the results are consistent: America has passed “peak woke”.

The simplest way to measure the spread of woke views is through polling. We examined responses over the past 25 years to polls conducted by Gallup, General Social Survey (GSS), Pew and YouGov. Woke opinions on racial discrimination began to grow around 2015 and peaked around 2021. In the most recent Gallup data, from earlier this year, 35% of people said they worried “a great deal” about race relations, down from a peak of 48% in 2021 but up from 17% in 2014. According to Pew, the share of Americans who agree that white people enjoy advantages in life that black people do not (“white privilege”, in the jargon) peaked in 2020. In GSS’s data the view that discrimination is the main reason for differences in outcomes between races peaked in 2021 and fell in the most recent version of the survey, in 2022. Some of the biggest leaps and subsequent declines in woke thinking have been among young people and those on the left.

Polling about sexual discrimination reveals a similar pattern, albeit with an earlier peak than concerns about race. The share of Americans who consider sexism a very or moderately big problem peaked at 70% in 2018, in the aftermath of #MeToo. The share believing that women face obstacles that make it hard to get ahead peaked in 2019, at 57%. Woke views on gender are also in decline. Pew finds that the share of people who believe someone can be a different sex from the one of their birth has fallen steadily since 2017, when it first asked the question. Opposition to trans students playing in sports teams that match their chosen gender rather than their biological sex has grown from 53% in 2022 to 61% in 2024, according to YouGov.

To corroborate the trend revealed by opinion polls, we measured how frequently the media have been using woke terms like “intersectionality”, “microaggression”, “oppression”, “white privilege” and “transphobia”. At our request, David Rozado, an academic based in New Zealand, counted the frequency of 154 of such words in six newspapers—the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Washington Times—between 1970 and 2023. In all but the Los Angeles Times, the frequency of these terms peaked between 2019 and 2021, and has fallen since. Take the term “white privilege”: in 2020 it featured roughly 2.5 times for every million words in the New York Times, but by 2023 had fallen to just 0.4 mentions for every million words.

We found largely the same trend in television, by applying the same word-counting method to transcripts from ABC, MSNBC and Fox News from 2010 and 2023, and in books, using the titles of the 30 bestselling books each week between 2012 and the middle of this year. Mentions of woke words in television peaked in 2021. In popular books the peak came later, in 2022, with only a small drop in 2023 followed by a much greater fall so far in 2024.

In academia, which is often thought of as a hotbed of wokeism, the trend is much the same. Calls for academics to be disciplined for their views, as documented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, peaked in 2021 with a total of 222 reported incidents. (Many of these calls came from the right, not just from the left.) A similar database, compiled by the College Fix, a conservative student newspaper, finds 2020 was the peak in calls for scholars to be censored or cancelled. These findings also dovetail with polling data: the share of Americans who think that expressions of racist views should be restricted rose sharply between 2016 and 2021, reaching around 52%, and has since declined slightly, down to 49% in 2022.

Teaching and research also seem to be shifting away from wokery, at least somewhat. The use of our set of 154 woke terms began to rise sharply in 2015 in papers on the social sciences collected by JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals. By 2022 the incidence of “intersectional”, “whiteness”, “oppression” and the like were at their peak. At our request, Jacob Light, an economist at Stanford University, counted the frequency of woke words in a collection of course catalogues from American universities. Classes that invoked woke terms in their name or synopsis rose by around 20% between 2010 and 2022, but remained stable last year.

In part, academia’s retreat from wokeness has been ordained by law. The Supreme Court banned race-based affirmative action in admissions last year. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 86 bills in 28 states have aimed to curb DEI initiatives in academia over the past year; 14 have become law. For example Alabama will from October 1st prohibit state-funded universities from having any DEI offices or programmes, from promoting “divisive concepts” about “race, colour, religion, sex, ethnicity or national origin” and from allowing transgender students to use the toilets of their choice.

Nine states ban academic institutions from demanding “diversity statements” from job applicants. Critics have assailed these personal meditations on the importance of inclusivity as ideological litmus tests. Earlier this year several prominent universities, including Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave in to pressure from donors and alumni and dropped them. Others, such as the University of California, have faced lawsuits over their continuing use.

Wokeness is also in retreat in corporate America, even though it appeared there only relatively recently. Mentions of DEI in earnings calls shot up almost five-fold between the first and third quarters of 2020, in the aftermath of Mr Floyd’s death. They peaked in the second quarter of 2021, by which point they were 14 times more common than in early 2020, according to data from AlphaSense, a market-research company. They have since begun to drop sharply again. In the most recent data, from the second quarter of 2024, mentions were only around three times higher than before Mr Floyd’s death.

The share of new job listings that mention diversity continues to grow, however, as ever more firms add boilerplate about inclusivity at the bottom of ads. But the evidence also suggests that firms are less willing to put their money where their mouth is, DEI-wise. The number of people employed in DEI has fallen in the past few years. According to Revelio, which tracks labour statistics at a group of big American firms, DEI roles as a share of overall employment doubled from the beginning of 2016 to the end of 2022 (to 0.02% of all employees, or around 12,600 roles). But in the most recent estimates, from July, these numbers were down by 11% from their peak (to 0.018% of employees, or 11,100 roles). According to Farient Advisers, a pay consultancy, the share of S&P 500 companies that tied bosses’ remuneration to diversity targets peaked in 2022 (at 53%) and dropped in 2023 (to 48%).

The fall in corporate enthusiasm for DEI could have several causes. First, in any belt-tightening, support functions are the first to suffer cuts. This is how DEI consultants explain away the recent shrinkage of DEI departments at big tech firms such as Meta and Microsoft. Second, after the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action in education, companies are scared that they may be sued for any practices that could be construed as discriminating against certain groups. A third possibility is that firms are taking note of declining public enthusiasm for corporate social activism. Gallup detected a big drop between 2022 and 2023 in the share of Americans who like companies to take a stand on matters of public debate. Less than half, for instance, think businesses should speak out on racial issues or LGBT rights. Bud Light, a popular brand of beer, suffered a big drop in sales last year after a promotional collaboration with a transgender social-media star. Its parent company’s shares have only recently recovered.

Asked why firms that two years ago were happy to talk up their DEI credentials were now ghosting The Economist, Johnny Taylor, from SHRM, an association for people working in human resources, says with a laugh, “Two years ago Budweiser was the number-one-selling beer in the country.” Other big brands including Disney, a media firm, and Target, a retailer, have also experienced backlashes for behaviour some customers considered too woke. Robby Starbuck, an activist who campaigns for firms with relatively conservative customers to abandon DEI, says he wants to “Make Corporate America Sane Again”. Egged on by the likes of Elon Musk, a billionaire conspiracy theorist, he has won concessions and grovelling apologies from Coors, Ford, Harley Davidson, Jack Daniel’s and John Deere. Mr Starbuck claims that whereas his first targets relented only after he posted castigating videos about them online, these days firms are beginning to drop DEI initiatives pre-emptively.

The wake of woke

Although our analysis shows a clear subsidence in wokery, there are several reasons for caution. For one thing, although all our measures are below their peak, they remain well above the level of 2015 in almost every instance. What is more, in some respects, woke ideas may be less discussed simply because they have become broadly accepted. According to Gallup, 74% of Americans want businesses to promote diversity, whatever the troubles of DEI.

Over time, attitudes to wokeness will doubtless change again. It’s easy to see how Mr Tru.mp might prompt a revival in woke activism on the left if he wins the presidency again. By the same token, if Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, becomes president next year, she may spur a reaction among anti-woke activists. After all, some of the biggest differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans concern social issues: 80% of likely Democratic voters believe the legacy of slavery still affects black people, for example, compared with only 27% of Mr Tru.mp’s supporters, according to Pew. There is also a chance that Gen Z, the most woke generation, retains this outlook as it ages, which would lead to a gradual increase in woke views among the broader population.

For now, however, advocates of woke thinking are in despair. Ms Jackson, from Race2Dinner, thinks things have got “much worse”, particularly when looking at “what’s going on with banning books, banning LGBTQ, banning trans folks, stopping DEI”. She thinks Mr Tru.mp has “given everybody permission to just be an asshole”. Critics are exultant: Ruy Teixeira of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, says, “I think people will one day look back on the 2015 to 2025 era as being a bit of a moment of madness.” But even though Mr Teixeira thinks the woke wave has set social progress back, he does note that, over the long run, America has been reducing discrimination and improving opportunity for minorities of all sorts. That trend, he believes, is lasting.

[mode-genesis]

The Legacy of Meadham Kirchhoff

by MODE GENESIS

Known for their outrageous interloping of romanticism and rebellion, Meadham Kirchoff had become an iconic brand in the early to mid-2000s. The brand was founded by designers Edward Meadham and Benjamin Kirchoff, both graduates from Central Saint Martins, which gained fame through its extravagant expression of whimsicality. An interview by Glamcult with Kirchoff verbalizes how he designs from instinct in a state of “aborted happiness,” and both feel the fashion industry is “based on a repetition of ideas, often aimed at product placement.”

Their inspirations ranging from Victorian dolls to Courtney Love lookalikes in the SS 2012 show, the duo expressed a fresh approach to fashion which became one of the signatures of their brand identity.

Each show transported you into a carefully crafted almost theatrical performance with scent, visuals, light, and music accompanying. Their rebellious spirit brought new design innovation through patchwork dresses in velvet and leather, stacked glittering platform shoes, and a runway decorated with what looked like blood-dipped tampons. Each piece in their collection was carefully made through tailoring research and using techniques such as Elizabethan lacework. The handwork which came in forms of hand embroidery showed in garments in almost all seasons, and detailed construction of each piece became a standard for the brand

Although their womenswear lines achieved most of the media attention, their menswear emerged as out of the ordinary on the London scene. The collections set the direction of modern-day menswear, anticipating the arrival of gender-fluid casting and boy-meets-girl styling. One of their final shows, SS 15, was reclaimed as a celebration of different bodies, genders, and races. The use of rubber, chiffon, color, and layered drapery was an ode to the liberation they stand for. They were chosen as LVMH Young Fashion Designers but weren’t included as finalists so in their show notes they elaborated, “Fuck LVMH corporate fashion,” which is admirable considering the nature of the fashion industry, LVMH, and celebrity culture. As a Dazed article states, “Because fashion doesn’t just have to be about seasonal trends; it can, at its best, be a broader reflection of society, and like riot grrl, BodyMap, Westwood, and Leigh Bowery before them, Meadham Kirchhoff is making clothes for the people they love: the dykes, fags, slappers, and freaks.”

The brand met its demise when most of their clothes they were making weren’t sellable; the market was too niche, and production costs of garments became too high. While it was believed for Meadham Kirchoff as a whole for their clothes to be either too expensive or costume-like, critics praised them, and many designers looked at them as an inspiration. As a Dazed Article states, “They were showing detailed lace on par and on time with the wonders that Alexander McQueen was showing on its runway. Some have even likened the brand’s jackets—particularly from years ago—as foreshadowing those that made Christophe Decarnin a star at Balmain.”

Most of the brand’s pieces have been long lost, as the archive was taken by their landlord and sold in 2015, leaving only pictures and memories of what once was. Since the brand shut down, the duo has gone on separate paths. Meadham launched a new label called Blue Roses, and Kirchoff has become a stylist and menswear consultant. While Meadham Kirchoff could not have survived in the corporate fashion world, they live on as a martyr of sorts through their fun, cheeky, whimsical yet rebellious spirit, which inspires the future of the industry and may even have been ahead of its time.

References:

[vague-humanoid]

There are a lot of similarities between the 2016 and 2024 elections, but the media ecosystem we have today is fundamentally different from the ecosystem we had in 2015-2016, during the first stage of Donald Trump’s political rise and the MAGA-morphosis of the Republican party. The Twitter and Facebook of that time are long gone, as are many of the methods of digital resistance that people employed on those platforms during the first Trump administration. The power and visibility dynamics on multiplying digital platforms, from TikTok to Truth Social, have rearranged dramatically since then, the “public sphere” is way more splintered, and our shared digital (and physical) spaces are decreasing. Moreover, the Big Tech oligarchs and private tech companies that profit from surveilling us and siloing us in algorithmically curated echo chambers have thrown their full weight behind Trump, and they will have even more power in a second Trump administration to shape our digital present and future.

How are corporate, independent, and social media changing the terrain of politics today? What does digital activism look like in 2024, and can it be an effective means of resistance during a second Trump administration? TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez digs into these questions with world-renowned science fiction author, activist, and journalist Cory Doctorow.

[riflebrass]

I've been seeing this post float around about how it's funny how the media doesn't care about age anymore now that Biden has dropped out. Media bias is totally a thing, it just works in the democrats favor.

Since Trump announced he was running in 2015 almost all corporate media outlets have been constantly screaming in your face about how terrible he is. Even when he's out of office they keep blasting you with it.

Meanwhile since 2020 when Biden's mental state came into question they covered for him. They assured you that everything was fine and his mind was sharp as ever.

A few months ago when Biden debated Trump we were forced to watch him struggle to string a few words together to form a complete sentence. The mask came off and that's when Biden's age became a matter of discussion in the media.

Now that Biden is stepping down the propaganda machine is in overdrive to prop up Harris. Her actions as attorney general and VP are being quietly ignored while they make her look like the cool wine aunt who is going to fix this mess.

Meanwhile the news doesn't need to tell you that Trump is too old. They're still screaming in your face that he's a danger to democracy.

The idea that the media bias is protecting Trump is laughable.