#great collection of essays and I encourage everyone to read it

[emergencybitch]

These tags are mine and Meg screenshotting them for emphasis reminded me of a book for further reading if anyone so desires:

Who’s Middle Ages? Teachable Moments For An Ill-Used Past

[quotevarchive]

hey! hope this ask finds you well. so, im a bit of an amateur digital historian (in that i take internet history seriously) and i like to write casual essays about websites from time to time. quotev flew up on my radar when i saw some yall on cohost, and ive been reading everything i can about it for the last several days. from what i've gathered, nobody really knew quotev's double life except for q users themselves. in fact, it's been such a well-guarded secret that most are unaware of quotev's existence, much less that it was a quiz site with a secret component to it. so i am putting out a call to you and any quotevians reading: would any yall be open to contributing to a quotev post-mortem? it seems like it was a pretty monumental site to many users, and as for the pain of its loss, i understand it myself: the website i consider basically 'my highschool years' went dark just last year, and knowing that it's essentially lost to everyone but those who were there for it bums me out. BUT quotev is still fresh in the minds of the people who called it home, and i'd love a chance to learn more about its unique culture and what made it so special to its users, even if many users now feel betrayed by it. if you do publish this ask (which you are under no obligation to do so), anyone reading it is free to send me an ask directly and i'll make sure my anon is on in case anybody wants to remain anonymous. also just in case i need to clarify, i'm not trying to write a smear piece or anything tabloidesque involving individual users - i want to know quotev as users knew it, whatever was loved and hated and why it will be bitterly missed.

yes hi!!! This ask is so exciting to me because I have been a little too into quotev history and dynamics and social interaction (hence the blog) for a few years now. I only started “archiving” in late 2022, but feel free to look through my older posts for any info. everything's a bit clogged up with the “quotev death” posts but back in the archive there’s a decent amount of stuff. I collect whatever i can. also feel free to hmu if you have any specific questions.

the hidden social media of quotev was always such a funny thing to me. Even older users who used to roleplay or make quizzes and fanfics there didn’t seem to be quite aware that it had become so centered around the activity feed, and of course any mentions of it on bigger platforms like youtube were always like “cringe 12y/o fanfic haha.” (Not that anything we actually did was any less silly.) anyway, i was always torn about this because i did NOT want quotev to become more popular, but i wished people knew about the crazy shit that really went down there. Your post-mortem is a great idea because you’ll be telling the story of social quotev with no worry of sending new users to the site…because he is already dead

I highly encourage any followers who have fond memories or stupid stories to submit them!

[germanpostwarmodern]

Mies van der Rohe was an architect of carefully chosen means and equally carefully chosen words whose late television appearances shaped the image we have of him: puffing away on his favorite Montechristo, Mies with a heavy German accent talks about his architecture and its foundations. But more than speaking it was thinking and writing that concerned Mies throughout his entire life. In a 1960 interview he confided that after breakfast he spends roughly three hours just thinking and occasionally writing something down. This practice alludes to Mies’ practice of soundly thinking through what he read in the classics, e.g. Baudelaire, Milton or Scheler, and probing their concepts in terms of applicability in architecture. One of the most interesting concepts he derived from literature is the comparison of architecture and language and Mies’ working on architecture as a language. In so doing he derives transtemporal principles by reusing past developments and confirming their soundness in the present. Accordingly, Mies also didn’t mind him being copied and regarded this as a sign of appreciation.

These and other insights have been elaborated by Vittorio Pizzigoni and Michelangelo Sabatino in their respective essays prefacing their book „Mies in His Own Words - Complete Writings, Speeches, and Interviews 1922 – 1969“, recently published by Dom Publishers. In a true diligence work the two collected Mies’ writings, speeches and interviews and make available an incredible resource for understanding one of the 20th century master architects. In line with his conviction that architecture should express the „Zeitwille“ Mies, as Pizzigoni explains, assigns great attention to his own contemporaneity and in this light revised and clarified his own positions in order to align them with reality, a reflective process that points at Mies ability and willingness to learn continuously.

It is exactly these findings that make the present book more than just a collection of spoken and written words but an excursion into the intellectual development of a 20th century master architect. Accordingly I highly recommend it and encourage everyone to embark on a journey through Mies’ mind!

[iambecomeabook]

what it’s like majoring in creative writing

considering majoring in creative writing ? let me tell you about it to help you make a decision :)

hello ! i am a current creative writing major (sophomore, going to be a junior next semester) and am going to share a bit of what it’s like, in case you are considering majoring in it, as well !

disclaimer: programs may (and probably do) vary from school to school, so my experience is not going to be one size fits all. but, i think that it could give you a general idea of what to expect.

firstly, get ready to read and write. a lot. i’m not kidding. my school requires all creative writing (henceforth referred to as cw) majors to minor in literature, which i personally was already planning on doing. on top of reading for lit classes, your writing classes will also most likely require reading. in my workshop classes, i was often tasked with reading poems and short stories by both other students and established authors. (pro tip: add the short stories on goodreads, it’ll help you reach your goal real fast). you will also be doing a lot of writing. in my intro to cw course, i wrote four poems, a piece of flash fiction, and a short story. i also had to revise them for the final portfolio. in my intermediate fiction workshop, i wrote two short stories and a craft analysis essay, which i revised for the final portfolio. i also had to annotate and give notes on others’ stories. currently, i’m in a craft class where i have to write three short stories and a craft analysis essay, and an intermediate poetry class where i’ve had to write three poems every week (revise five of them from the first half of the semester and then another five for the last half, then create a final portfolio where you once again revise those previously revised poems). for lit classes, you will also have to write essays. if you’re an english major in general, you will be writing so. many. essays.

next up, you have to be able to take criticism. you will most likely be involved in a lot of workshops, meaning you will share your work with others, who will in turn give you commentary and criticism on it. you will do the same for others. sharing work can be vulnerable and scary, but it is extremely helpful, and you will benefit a lot from it ! everyone i’ve workshopped with so far has been very nice, so i wouldn’t worry too much about anyone being mean. remember, everyone else is just as nervous as you ! and also remember not to compare yourself to others ! it’s very hard, trust me, i really struggled with it last semester, but you have to learn to be confident in your skills ! workshops will either boost or tank that confidence lmao. but it all will serve to make you a better writer !

my university requires that all cw majors write a thesis in their last two semesters, which could be a poetry collection, short story collection, or a novel. in addition, you will also have to do a reading of some of your work. once again, this may not be the standard for all schools, but i feel like it’s important information.

my school also has a literary magazine that they publish at the end of the fall semester. it’s open to all undergrad english and cw students at my school, as well as artists. on my campus it’s also run by cw majors, and it’s required that you work on it during one of your fall semesters in order to graduate. i am actually getting my first ever publication next month through it ! i don’t know if every university does this the exact same way, but lots of them have their own literary magazines. these are a fantastic way to get published. if your university doesn’t have one, there are still plenty of undergrad lit mags, so i encourage you to research them !

the last major thing i can think of is community. my campus has a great community for writers. my university is fairly small, so you tend to end up in classes with a lot of the same people. you kind of just end up becoming at least surface-level friends with a lot of people simply from being in so many classes together :) my campus also has a creative writing club and an english honors society, both of which i’m a part of, and those have been great for making other writer friends ! writing can be very lonely, so having a community can be very encouraging ! it also helps to have ppl keep you accountable haha

^^ the aforementioned cw club also does readings twice a semester, which are volunteer based, but are good for getting in practice ! (and just for sharing your work in general)

that’s all i can think of at this moment, and i hope it was helpful ! feel free to ask any questions !!

[mysticalserenity-tarot]

Hey there !!! 🙋‍♀️I’ll just give u a heads up… long ass review incoming !!!

I just went through ur recent pac reading of “What's coming for you in the next few months” and I have to say it was soo damn accurate !!!

Like the first couple of lines where u said u sense writers I was like laughing out loud. I just finished a creative writing essay for my college this evening after months of not writing much despite writing being my love and passion. Med school has been hectic so no time man. Anywho I was feeling ecstatic after writing something after so long and ur line bout writers was just like pure confirmation that it was indeed my pile. Another one which resonated was the recent pain from someone causing me to isolate and withdraw… Boy did that hit. Was just betrayed by my closest friends and hit hurt like hell. Able to manage my duties and responsibilities well but I’ve been quiet and just feel like pushing everyone away. Trust issues TM lmao 🫠🫠. I felt reassured and encouraged by the reading. Thanks so much and keep going love !! Love ur readings so damn much… u got some talent 🫶🫶

Anywho hope u have a great day/night ❤️❤️

Loads of love from India 🇮🇳

Have y'all collectively decided to make me cry with your beautiful comments and reviews? 😭😭

I'm so so happy it resonates with you and I loved the energy in it. I truly felt freedom and yes writers (hence the intuitive books pic eheh), which I salute because you guys have so much patience and creativity in you.

Oh dear, I'm so sorry for the betrayel, I know the feel unfortunately but better days are on the horizon, keep believing in them and in your uniqueness and potential 🙌 Don't worry, those who hurt you will face their consequences. Thank you so much for this beautiful long feeback/review and for taking the energy and time to write it, I appreciate it 🫂

Sending much love and blessings your way. May you rebirth like a beautiful Phoenix 🔥 Have a great ones too, love ❤️

Ps: I have Indian friends which I love so much! 😌

[n1ghtcrwler]

Hi, I was reading your reblog on the social media post and I was wondering how you define things?

Like I agree that the messaging apps aren't really social media, but like instagram has a lot of social features (like stories for instance)? What makes youtube a video hosting platform but not tiktok? Why can't tumblr be both a blogging platform and a social media site?

If i'm not imposing too much im curious how you see things!

You may not know this, so I should warn you that I am not great at writing brief answers. I'll try to include a workable tl;dr at the end.

It is important to understand that the internet today is a specific iteration of what the internet can be, but not the first (and hopefully not the last). There has been social media for a very long time--hell, my first social media account was on a site called Bolt that I and other teens were on in the late 90s and early 2000s--but it is a specific hallmark of this form of the web. The categories I assigned sites like YouTube and Tumblr are vestiges of a previous form.

At the heart of social media is the social aspect; that is, a social media site does not have social features, its very design is to become a society online. In the age of forums, this was distinct not because it enabled people to interact or to share things they created, but because you were encouraged to share yourself. Back then, we had a collection of different sites for different aspects of interaction. You went to a forum to talk about a specific interest, you shared your art on a hosting platform, you made posts about your personal life on a blog, you played games and read comics and found text stories on dedicated pages. But in real life, you would do all of this and more while sitting around in a living room. Social media is, by definition, an attempt to become an online living room. To be the place where all the socializing would happen, where you were supposed to be yourself instead of a character or a username or a faceless visitor. But being a one-stop internet doesn't work if people just pop in for a specific thing and then go to a forum and a webcomic and an AIM chat, so not only do they seek to have all of that on their own platform, but they seek to keep you there long enough that you rely on it to get all those things.

YouTube was not designed to be a place full of vlogs, it was a place to share clips from tv shows and music videos and informational videos, and it is still best at that. The video essay finds its home there because it was made for that purpose. User accounts are just channels, not a place where people are expected to really drop all their masks. The video suggestions are just suggestions, and it was only recently they started giving you the option to autoplay the next suggested video. You follow a channel, and it really makes very little difference to your experience of the site aside from the other videos it suggests. None of the social aspects are native to YouTube, and most of what they've incorporated don't really sit right with the feel of the site. TikTok, on the other hand, came out of the gate trying to be everything to everyone, expecting you to be yourself for public consumption, drawing you in with an endless scroll that promised everything you want from the internet in one place. On YouTube, the videos are hosted for wide engagement with very little depth; on TikTok, you are personally the hook that will keep people from looking for other aspects of the internet elsewhere.

So, look around Tumblr, and what do you see? People make posts about things that interest them, and they share each other's posts, and they may even engage with one another enough to build a friendship. But you aren't required to verify your identity, or limit yourself to one blog or account. They've tried rolling out things like chat, but it doesn't seem to have really caught on in a big way. In fact, most of the time when they try to integrate something from a social media site, the userbase pushes back because it doesn't fit the design of the site or our use of it! The draw of the site is the blogs, and the communal aspects are more related to shared interests (like forums were) than actual, personal connection. The social aspect is an afterthought, a side effect of having a bunch of social creatures in a shared space. We are screaming into the void and occasionally getting a response, not sitting on a couch together.

And that's the difference. A site like tumblr allows you to develop communities, if you want to, while you happen to be doing whatever you came to do; a social media site intends to be a singular community. Do people try to use other sites like they're social media? Sure, but that's more to do with them being used to social media as the default than the actual design of the site. And sites that try to make money off social aspects, without having the one-stop online society model at their core, tend to feel wrong. Essentially, once you've really used other sites as they are designed and experienced things that aren't social media, you get a sort of feel for what does and doesn't belong under that umbrella. At their core, sites like Pinterest are fundamentally different from sites like Facebook, not because they are used differently, but because one fills a niche in the ecosystem while the other attempts to become an ecosystem.

TL;DR: Social Media is a specific business model built around being a singular online society, not a use case.

Thanks for asking!

[odetojupiter]

this is absolutely random but I got caught up on your tag saying "I'm way too good at reading things that maybe aren't there" and listen. I don't know what you study (I remember you mentioning you take creative writing classes so??? sorry if you literally know this just trying to encourage you) but I study literature and in literary theory there's a lot of discussions about whether what the author wanted/meant/intended actually matters in interpretation and understanding literary works and well, a lot of theorists actually agree it doesn't so if you say it's there it's probably there, no matter if intentionally by the author, so ig please keep going off unapologetically we love to hear it

(also just in general, your analysis of the number three pretty much resonates a lot with Jacques Derrida's formal idea of deconstruction (basically tearing texts apart to the minute detail, and collecting and inter-connecting these details/words with associations of the reader to form a structure of meaning and it's all very abstract (a pain to learn during studies but cool to see in action!) so I just had to think about that)) yeah that's it have a great day

ahhh this is my first ever ask so thank u anon <333

and yeah, i did a joint honours english and creative writing degree (graduating in three weeks :/) and there were literary theory modules each year that were compulsory for single honours english students BUT because i was also in creative writing, i couldn’t actually take them bc they ran at the same time as my cw classes soooo all this to say that even tho i did study literature i wasn’t really able to study that much literary theory - tho of course theory is relevant in all lit modules but i didn’t take a class specifically for that. (i wanted to, cause i love that shit, but i wasn’t allowed) ((annoyingly in first year there was a module that covered not only advanced lit theory but also academic writing that i wasn’t able to take so i never learned how to write university essays? like that’s not inconvenient at all))

that being said, i’m of course familiar with the concept of intention vs interpretation mainly through barthes’ death of the author theory (and it comes up a lot in cw classes because in workshops people share every thought they have about your work and ur not allowed to defend urself!! cause ur intention doesn’t matter if someone interprets what you wrote a certain way!!!) and the thing is i get it, i do - and i love to analyse whatever i can, i tear things to shreds with no mind for intent - but i also know people outside of literary studies love to say shit just isn’t that deep.

im always watching and rewatching shows with one or two of my sisters and one of them especially makes fun of me a lot for analysing everything from the dialogue to delivery to lighting and staging and camera work because she thinks i get way too into it. she either stares at me blankly or tells me to shut up (which happens a lot it’s very annoying let me talk ffs) so i guess i mainly added that in the tags to ensure everyone knows that i know that i analyse a lot so hopefully no one feels the need to tell me?? i don’t know, i just get slightly self conscious about analysing things when i know i could be saying something slightly unhinged lmao.

but, i will of course, keep going off on here about aftg bc that’s what im here for lol (i got sad about not being able to share my thoughts anywhere)

oops forgot to say THANK YOU for reassuring me about my jean number 3 analysis i’m always thinking someone’s gonna say wtf r u on about mate 😭😭

[letarcunningham]

Booktok!

Hi everyone! My name is Leta and I live in Brooklyn, NY. I have two little cats (Penelope and Clementine) who are my study buddies and have gotten me through this program! I love reading literary fiction, essay collections, poetry, and of course romance novels.  This is my last semester at UB and I am crossing my all fingers for a job in the Brooklyn Public Library system as a Young Adult Librarian starting in December or November. I’m really excited for this course because I have worked a lot with social media professionally and am also a big fan of it in my personal life. I think social media is an amazing way to connect and I can’t wait to learn about incorporating it into library work!

I don’t know about y’all but I love TikTok, and especially “BookTok,” which is a community that discusses books and reading. Something really cool I’ve been seeing is the involvement of library TikTok accounts with BookTok. I think it’s amazing to create fun book and library content on TikTok to reach young audiences and connect with library community outside of your patrons. It’s also a great way to find out about new books to add to library collections or promote inside the library. I think the more personal the better—the TikToks should have lots of personality and feature the library workers in them to help create familiarity and the sense that the library is a safe and fun place to be with safe and fun employees. I’ve seen lots of library TikToks go viral which encourages patronage of your own library and also promotes libraries in general which is good for everyone! 

I encourage everyone to get familiar with BookTok by searching “#booktok” on TikTok and seeing the kind of videos people are making about books, and the amount of sub-communities there are inside BookTok! I think this a really important new way for libraries to connect with patrons, especially young adults.