#have no idea why i post to twitter first its like Anxiety Experience the website but tumblr feels dead :x i will still post here anyways tho

[katpurrccinodraws]

Another mixed doodle dump from twittrrr

(Some have my old signature bc I recently changed my username hm)

[autumnslance]

About Plagiarism

I left a long, planned essay on Twitter tonight. I will copy the meat of it here for y’all, as recently a friend was copied (a rarer ship in the fandom, so very noticeable by the writer and their regular beta reader) and it seems we need a Talk, kids. Links and screenshots and my rambling underway.

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Apparently we need to discuss what is and isn’t plagiarism. Especially in FanFic where we're interacting with the same characters, settings, ideas. Let’s start with the dictionary and continue the thread from there (I like the word origin/history personally):

Definition of plagiarize

transitive verb  : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

intransitive verb : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

The Kidnapping Roots of Plagiarize

If schools wish to impress upon their students how serious an offense plagiarism is, they might start with an explanation of the word’s history. Plagiarize (and plagiarism) comes from the Latin plagiarius “kidnapper.” This word, derived from the Latin plaga (“a net used by hunters to catch game”), extended its meaning in Latin to include a person who stole the words, rather than the children, of another. When plagiarius first entered English in the form plagiary, it kept its original reference to kidnapping, a sense that is now quite obsolete.

“Ideas” is fuzzy in the Merriam-Webster definition. There are story archetypes that exist in many forms. Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth/Hero's Journey outlines many famous stories. And it's popular to say that “Avatar” is “Dances with Wolves” is “Pocahontas” is “The Last Samurai” etc.

But note how while those films have similar plotlines--”Military Guy falls for Native woman, learns to appreciate her Culture, stands up to Evil Bosses”--none of them execute those ideas in the same way. Sully’s story is different from Dunbar’s not just cuz one’s a Science Fiction epic and the other a Western. Disney's “Pocahontas” Very Loosely takes history and uses the same story beats. The Last Samurai uses the Meiji era Westernization. Same ideas, different executions, even beyond settings.

None of these are plagiarizing each other though the ideas are similar. They’re told in their own ways, own language; both in the genres they belong to (Western, Pseudo-History, SciFi, Animated) and how characters interact with each other and settings. Original dialogues (variable quality).

We also see this in books as similar novel plots get published in waves so we end up with bunches of post-apocalypse teen revolutionaries or various vampires or lots of young wizard stories all at once. Sometimes ideas just happen like this; multiple discovery, simultaneous invention, concurrent inspiration, cognitive emergence are all phrases I’ve seen for it. So it happens in original content as well, and legality gets fuzzy (Also why you don't send authors your fanfic ideas).

In existing properties, this gets trickier but even “Elementary”’s Holmes and Watson are nothing like the BBC’s “Sherlock” characters. Who are nothing like other versions of the Detective and his Doctor pal over the decades in various media properties.

FanFic's in a similar position where like Sherlock Holmes we play with the same characters, setting, and storyarcs but give our own spin to them. People can and will have similar ideas about plots. Trick is to use your own words. Take the characters and make the story your own.

I have a good example courtesy of @raelly-writing​. We both ship Wolcred. We both wrote soft post-Paglth’an scenes with Thancred and our WoLs. Both features the couples helping each other undress, examining injuries, bathing, bantering. My fic was written soon after 5.5 part 1 came out. Dara’s is much more recent. Yet at no point reading hers did I feel she was copying my words. The PoVs differ. Our characters focus on different things. Mine has a mini-arc concerning the Nutkin.

The links for comparison’s sake (and maybe leave kudos/comments if so inclined please and thanks). Note while the scenes are very similar no phrases are written in the same way. Mine: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25417882/chapters/76059467 Dara’s: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067565/chapters/81832915

Dara and I both hang out in certain Discords and I know conversations about Thancred and WoL caring for each other post-battle has come up in those channels and we've both participated. It’s a stock FanFic scene to boot. Cuz it's soft and feels warm and snuggly.

I HAVE been copied before, back in WoW. My case is pretty clear cut so here are the images of my old RP Haven profile (1st, old RP website) and the plagiarist’s RSP (2nd, an in game mod to share descriptions and basic info). 

This was a decade ago on Shadow Council and I think the character deleted so any Availa’s in WoW now aren’t the same person. I left the names to point out what changed. Just the names and a word or 2 to make sense for the class changes as well. Otherwise lifted directly from my RP profile.

The funny part is how the person got caught. Literally walked into our weekly RP Guild meeting that I was running and asked to join. Folks noticed right away the similar backstory; after all there may have been more Outland-born Azerothians. My initial excitement at a character I could weave into our story turned to gut-twisting rage and grief as I recognized my own exact words though. Words I’d carefully crafted and constantly iterated on to improve over time (before and after this incident, until the site died).

When caught they tried to claim their significant other had leveled the character for them and made up the backstory based on Skyrim. If you know WoW’s Outland story and Skyrim’s plot you know how ridiculous that is. Also tried to lie about other drama I knew about thanks to roommate's characters but hey. I had to be blunt that I’d shared the info with Haven mods and other guild officers Alliance and Horde. That we would not “laugh about this” one day though lucky this was “just” RP not original or academic work. Cuz if it'd been monetized or academic I would've raked them through the coals.

I felt violated. Hurt. Had anxiety attacks. They took MY WORDS and tried to claim them as theirs. Have another character born in Outland trained by Draenei; Awesome! Our characters have an instant connect in similarities and differences of that experience. Don’t steal my characters wholesale!

Then the audacity of trying to come into my guild as if no one would notice. ShC wasn’t a large server by then, still active but not nearly Wyrmrest Accord or Moon Guard big. My character was well known due to my writing and RP. Speaking of how easy it is to get caught in specific spaces...A case of a self-published novelist getting noticed for plagiarizing fanfic was discovered recently (explicit erotica examples through the thread).

One way they got noticed was how much content they put out in only a year, lifted from fandom. The examples in Kokom’s threads show how the material was altered but still recognizable. In some cases, just the names are changed as in my experience. In other passages more has changed but you can still see the bones of the original fic poking through in the descriptions and character interactions, even with adjustments made.

Similar ideas happen. Similar plots exist. Same 'ships with friends are fun! In FanFic we’re working with the same material. It’s possible to write a similar scene differently. To make that scene and characters your own. All we’re asking is not to copy others' words. Others' characters. Others' specific phrases and descriptions used to bring those words, those characters, to life. Use your own. In the end you’ll be happier.

I get wanting to have what the perceived “popular people” have. I get seeing concepts others succeed with and wanting some of that too. We all get a bit jealous now and then for various reasons. Sometimes we don't even realize it, consciously. But do it in your own way. Maybe check to see if you’re getting a bit too close to the “inspiration” you admired, maybe reread often. Don’t hurt your fellow creatives. If you do and get caught don’t try to double down. Have the grace to be abashed at least and work to do better. Eventually you WILL get caught. All it takes is once to throw all else you've done into question. Ao3 doesn’t take kindly to plagiarists. Nor do a lot of fan communities focused on writing and RP. Getting back that trust is hard. The internet doesn’t forget easily, for good or ill.

[lokismusings]

Russell T Davies on straight actors and gay characters.

I decided to put this here because I post a lot of Hilson stuff. As an actor, this article hit a nerve. However, as a defender of free speech, Davies is allowed to have his opinion without me thinking of him as insensitive. Just like I am allowed to have my own opinion and argument, and ask questions without being labeled “homophobic, intolerant” etc. (that would just make me laugh because have you SEEN my blog? Anyway, I’ve seen a few other websites covering this article. I am also very skeptical of everything I read, including the sources, and I try not to blindly believe everything. That being said, I felt like posting this to get other opinions and ask honest question to help my understanding. If this has already been covered on Tumblr, please feel free to send me the conversations! Some background on me: I graduated with a BA in Theatre and have worked both on and off the stage since I was twelve years old. I have directed plays and an audio play. Given my experience and dedication to my craft, I think my opinion is worth something.

Also, for the sake of this argument, I am leaving trans-actors out because that’s a whole different post. Here is the article:

https://news.sky.com/story/russell-t-davies-straight-actors-should-not-play-gay-characters-12185652

Okay, so first things first, let’s talk about this: “Speaking to the Radio Times, Davies compared a straight actor playing a gay character to black face.” Something that irks me is when one person tries to speak for a whole community and doesn’t reference people from said community who might disagree: whether it’s the LGBTQ+ community, a religious community, medical community, etc. The list goes on. Here, Davies is speaking on behalf of, or speaking for, both the LGBTQ+ community and the black community, is he not? I am genuinely asking because I would like to be more educated on this kind of speech. 

Then Davies says, "I'm not being woke about this... but I feel strongly that if I cast someone in a story, I am casting them to act as a lover, or an enemy, or someone on drugs or a criminal or a saint... they are NOT there to 'act gay' because 'acting gay' is a bunch of codes for a performance.” Does that not discredit his whole statement? If any actor does a caricature version of anything and doesn’t take it seriously or really works to get into the role and the mindset of a character, they’re not a good actor. At least, they’re not an actor that I’d want to hire. Second, by the logic that a straight person shouldn’t play a gay character, should someone without a criminal record not be able to play a criminal character? Before you go off and say “it’s about identity and sexuality, and playing a criminal is about the choice to break the law” or other arguments, I hear you. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the experience. How can an actor who has never committed a crime play a criminal character authentically? They do their research: reading, interviewing, etc. I’m not saying that an actor with a few minor marks on his record shouldn’t be considered for the same role. I’m saying that in an audition setting, if both of these actors were auditing for the role and the non-criminal-record actor just happened to do a better job and fit what the director and/or writer wanted, is that a mark against the criminal-record-actor? Maybe personally because we don’t know what the director is thinking. But chances are, it’s not a mark against the other actor. The other one just happened to have a better audition. Or, a major factor when considering casting, said actor was easy to work with--I’ve seen a lot of talented actors lose a lot of roles because of their inability to take criticism or notes. 

Plus, the whole “Breaking Bad” series?? I highly doubt the main actors were meth-making drug-lords. Or, a better example, “The Wire?” In that show, we see the constant battle and deals between drug-lords and cops. 

Another point I’d like to make:  “...is a bunch of codes for a performance.” That’s exactly right. The audience doesn’t want to know an actor is “performing.” We know that going in, with what is called “suspension of disbelief.” We know the whole show is a performance, but we also expect the actors to be truthful (unless it’s a comedy/farce, but again, that’s a different argument). 

Was it bad that, before 2020, some main characters in TV shows were portrayed as straight but the writers ended up “queer-baiting?” I am referring, of course, to House, M.D. (If you follow this blog, you’ll understand.) But I am also referring to the BBC Sherlock Holmes series. Yes, both pairs of characters (House and Wilson; Holmes and Watson) are assumed to be straight. However, some episodes allude that there could also be something more there. Even the actors have said in various interviews that they aren’t sure if it’s a true romance that the characters are afraid to face, or just a strong bond between best friends that blurs the line between platonic and romantic. I’m paraphrasing, but you get the picture. Therefore, should these characters have only been played by straight actors who are questioning their sexuality or feelings for a best friend? Would it have been disrespectful to gay people if these characters ended up becoming romantically involved? (If we ask the Hilson and Johnlock community, I’m guessing that’s a resounding “NO WAY! IT WOULD BE A DREAM COME TRUE!” xD <3) 

“It's about authenticity, the taste of 2020.” *Cinema Sins sigh*

"You wouldn't cast someone able-bodied and put them in a wheelchair...” Again I say, directors and casting directors need to ALWAYS search for someone who is in a wheelchair, or deaf, or HOH, etc. before looking for an able-bodied actor to play a character with that disability (I’m iffy on the whole term “disability because of its negative connotations, but I’m using that word in order to keep this post as long as possible). But I give you the example of Rainman with Dustin Hoffman. Or A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. Or the play and movie Proof, where the father had a mental illness?  Anthony Hopkins was diagnosed late in life with Asperger’s Syndrome, but the father in Proof was written to allude more to schizophrenia. And yet, Anthony Hopkins did a tremendous job in that role. Or Even Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks. Many people today love Tom Hanks and laud him as a “woke” celebrity. But if he were to portray the role of Forrest Gump today, how many people would try to “cancel” him or at least have very strong words for the director not casting an actor with autism, due to the character’s autistic tendencies? A whole lot of people on the internet and Twitter, I’ll bet. As someone who struggles with anxiety and panic disorder, would I be upset if someone without that mental illness got cast in a role of a character struggling with that? Sure I would. But if they did an authentic job and approached the role respectfully, it would be hard to stay irritated. Besides, there are always more roles created practically everyday. 

To continue on with Davies’ quote: “...you wouldn't black someone up.” Yikes. I’m sure he didn’t mean this in a cast-off kind of way, but that’s how it comes across. I can see now why he said he wasn’t “being woke about this,” because a more “woke” way of putting that would be...what, exactly? “You wouldn’t cast a non-black person in a black role.” That sounds better and less harsh. Or even “a white person in a minority role.” Which should be common sense, and I agree with both statements. 

And then “Authenticity is leading us to joyous places." Oh! Look at that! There’s that word that I’ve been using and emphasizing throughout this whole post! Authenticity is one major brick in the foundation of good, credible acting. 

“High-profile examples of straight performers playing LGBTQ+ characters include Rami Malek's Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, and Taron Egerton's Golden Globe-winning turn as Sir Elton John in Rocketman.”

I haven’t seen Rocketman, but I saw Bohemian Rhapsody and it was great! Why am I high-lighting this movie? Because it’s the perfect example of a straight actor playing a gay character and playing it authentically, while also looking a lot like the real person they’re portraying. If a look-a-like had been cast who also happened to be gay, but couldn’t act to save their life or couldn’t bring as much as Rami brought to the role, wouldn’t that kind of put a damper on the film? And yet, Rami Maleck both looked the part and brought an authenticity to the role that many Queen fans loved and appreciated. Even the remaining Queen band members said that he did an incredible job and Freddy would be proud. I wonder if Freddy would care that Rami wasn’t gay? I doubt it, but no one can know for certain. 

Then there’s the whole term “gay face.” I personally don’t think this is the right term to use because it could possibly diminish the whole meaning and importance of “black face.” Even if Corden appeared to be mocking gay people (I never watched The Prom so I have no idea what his performance was like), calling it “gay face” takes away from and inadvertently belittles the whole dark history of “black face.” Black face’s whole history comes out of an even darker history of racist times filled with hatred and ignorance. I’m not saying that gay people haven’t had their own experiences with hate and intolerance, but isn’t kind of “un-woke” and “insensitive” to compare the hundreds of years of blatant, public racism against an entire race of people to the intolerance of homosexuals? (Again, I’m asking this genuinely because I want to learn and get other people’s opinions. I’m not trying to speak for any community, and I recognize that my personal opinion on this matter is just that: my opinion. And I could be better informed.)

Along the lines of the above paragraph, is it wrong to say or think that casting a non-minority actor in a minority role is a lot different from casting a straight actor in a gay role? Sexuality comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors; that is to say, every race has people with different sexualities. But I think it would be pretty cringe if a Caucasian actress was cast in a role meant for an Asian or African-American woman. 

Director Joe Mantello told Sky News the casting was not intentional, but rather a "very fortunate series of events".

He continued: "That being said, I think having an out gay cast really did inform the work and it took on a particular kind of tone because of that, which is not to say that's the only way to approach this material. But for this particular group, it did something that I think is very, very special. There's a chemistry that they have."

And this man summed up my entire argument! He also put into simpler terms what I have been trying to express about the beauty of theatre: there will always be special casts, especially when there’s a great chemistry from a shared experience. A "very fortunate series of events,” indeed. “The casting was not intentional...” leads me to believe that the director didn’t set out to have an all out-gay-cast, but rather, each actor brought great performances to their auditions and were considered by the director to be perfect for the roles. These actors also just happened to be gay.

If you’re still here after all of that, let me take a moment to sincerely thank you for reading the whole thing! I know it’s a lot, but I’m very passionate about acting and giving each and every actor a fair chance. Let me know what you think, and please be respectful!

[ma9l]

Research Project: Instagram Use and Depression

It’s fascinating. Isn’t it fascinating? What our world has become? The world is so different now compared to even a couple hundred years ago. It has advanced--especially when it comes to technology and the internet. Think about it. Social media used to be non-existent. Now it is booming with billions of users. This is proof that people are entertained by these types of platforms. However, aside from all their pros, they also hold many faults. For example, a survey (#StatusOfMind survey) was published in 2017 by the Royal Society for Public Health. They discovered that “Out of five social networks included in the survey, YouTube received the highest marks for health and well being and was the only site that received a net positive score by respondents. Twitter came in second, followed by Facebook and then Snapchat—with Instagram bringing up the rear.” Basically, Instagram was ranked as the worst social media for mental health. Although some may believe that Instagram doesn’t pose any issues, depression and Instagram actually share correlations. I believe the way Instagram is used plays a role in one’s well being and that symptoms of depression can arise if users are not careful. The world has enough issues, mental health being one of the most serious with the increase in suicides over more recent years. If we determine whether or not social media (particularly Instagram) is a contributor to depression, we could potentially end the epidemic, or at least avoid making things worse.

In the past, I would normally go about my research by googling and trying to find reliable sources that way. Usually this would present decent info, but hardly ever would it be in-depth. When I took ENGL 1010 last year, I was informed that my school’s library had a website full of databases holding a plethora of scholarly articles. My mind was blown. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but as I became familiar with the tools and resources, I learned how to properly navigate and refine my searches to produce the results I was looking for. I didn’t use the databases as effectively as I could have, but this year in ENGL 2010, I was encouraged to and I learned a lot more about how to read and interpret the articles to find relevant information. I did this by closely studying the abstract, methods, and results sections. Google searches aren’t necessarily bad. In fact, they can be used to compare and contrast with scholarly articles in order to find similarities and differences. I have also been told to use outside sources like physical books and newspapers or to try and perform my own research by creating a survey or poll. Overall, I am pleased with my education in research and feel that it has been and will be very beneficial for assisting me in my writing.

Before doing any research, I had a preconceived idea that Instagram was bad, but the more I looked into it, the more my opinion shifted from believing Instagram itself is unhealthy to believing the users of Instagram are the ones creating unhealthy habits. I came to this conclusion by reading various articles in relation to this topic and assessing my personal Instagram use.

One of the articles I read was “Instagram: Friend or Foe”. It revolves around a study from 2017 where 204 participants ages 18-48 were recruited through social media where the study was advertised. They were asked to complete an online survey regardless of whether or not they had an Instagram account. Authors actually hoped some wouldn’t so they could compare results between users and nonusers. Throughout the survey, participants (users only) were measured on seven things: anxiety, depression, loneliness, self-esteem, body image, social comparison, and time spent on Instagram. Using number scales, they would rank how they felt based on each category. In short, the authors’ hypotheses were correct for all but two of these categories: body image and social comparison where there was no significant difference between users and nonusers of Instagram. What surprised me most from the results was that those who had an Instagram account were less depressed than those who did not. I thought it would be the opposite, but I guess a reason for this could be because Instagram allows you to feel included and not so lonely with all the social interaction that goes on. “Contrary to expectation, Instagram anxiety was significantly, negatively associated with depression in this analysis. In addition, time spent , self-esteem, and anxiety were significant predictors of depression. Of note, social comparison was marginally associated with depression in the expected direction”.

The article “Instagram #Instasad?: Exploring Associations Among Instagram Use, Depressive Symptoms, Negative Social Comparison, and Strangers Followed”, held a set of online questionnaires for 117 individuals ages 18-29 who, like the previous study, were also voluntarily recruited through an online post that was shared. The questions asked were based on Instagram use, the number of strangers followed, social comparison, and depressive symptoms. Authors sought to identify the relationship between the different aspects of Instagram use. After completing the questionnaire, the following results were observed:  the more one uses Instagram, the more depressed they are, but only if they follow a large number of strangers, otherwise Instagram and depression were not related. As far as social comparison goes, it was positively associated with greater instagram use meaning social comparison on Instagram is inevitable. Results demonstrated that the social comparison was more positive when users didn’t follow strangers. In conclusion, “people using Instagram or other SNS to keep in touch solely with people they know personally are not at risk for negative consequences. However, following strangers may lead to or reinforce already existing negative feelings about the self by triggering negative social comparisons.”

“Why Social Comparison on Instagram Matters: Its Impact on Depression” by Ha Sung Hwang is all about the relationship between various types of activities on social media that motivate one to participate in social comparisons and how those influence college students’ moods. It specifically focuses on Instagram for the social platform and depression for the mental illness which is exactly what I was looking for in my research. The study was carried out as 245 college students were surveyed on the types of activities they take part in on Instagram and how they felt in doing each of those. Instagram usage, activity, social comparison, and depression were individually measured. Demographics of the participants were also taken into account. The author seemed to be interested in the social comparison theory where there are three different kinds of comparisons: upward, downward, and horizontal. Upward is comparing yourself to someone who appears to be superior to you, downward is comparing yourself to someone who is inferior to you, and horizontal comparison is relating yourself to someone who is equal to you. The results presented three outcomes: “(1) looking at other people's status updates and commenting on other people's photos influences upward social comparison, (2) frequency of Instagram use predicts upward/downward/horizontal social comparison, and (3) upward social comparison was positively associated with depression, while downward social comparison was negatively associated with depression.”

One of the biggest similarities between these three sources is that the participants in each experiment were all college aged. That’s because according to “Instagram: Friend or Foe? The application’s association with psychological well-being”, “Approximately 90% of young adults use social media.” This is significant because you are college-aged and an adult, so these effects couldn’t apply to you more! Each article also agreed that users of Instagram deal with social comparison to some degree each time they interact with the app. Social comparison was measured in every case. The first article confirms that it took place-but they also expected that to happen. Many of us could probably assume the same. Article #2 concludes that social comparisons only have an effect on depression when you follow strangers. Now, because the author in article #3 performed a more specific measurement with her participants, she found that social comparison does contribute to depression, but only when it falls into the upward comparison category. A final similarity amongst these reports is support in the idea that the activities you do on Instagram will determine how depressed you become along with the amount of time you take part in them. Those activities combined include: looking at or commenting on other people’s photos and following strangers. The main difference in the studies was that they each took at least one more thing into account when analyzing what aspects of Instagram play a role in depressed moods. #1 compares users with non users. #2 wonders if gender makes a difference. #3 again, implements the social comparison theory. Limitations inevitably happened which could have hindered results, like how in the third article, the survey only took place at a Korean University. How would the results differ if UVU students took the survey? For the most part, the results were in sync. In summary, all the studies are on the same page when it comes to social comparison and activities on Instagram-believing that they tend to elevate depression. The authors also all realized that college students are most at risk for developing depressive symptoms due to their population’s heavy usage of the network.

I strongly believe that the way individuals use social media has an impact on how they feel. Instagram seems to be a culprit for influencing the rise of many negative feelings with depressive symptoms being some of many. Coincidentally, depression correlates with more frequent Instagram use which presents a predicament we ought to be concerned with because if we don’t pinpoint the epicenter of this relationship, it’s only going to get worse… and depression is going to become even more common than it already is. 

According to an NBC article, Harvard University and the University of Vermont designed a computer program for spotting depressed individuals on Instagram with 70% accuracy. It was programmed to search for certain qualities of their photos in order to determine if someone was depressed or not. “Researchers found depressed individuals posted photos that were bluer, darker and grayer than images posted by others.” (Pawlowski). This demonstrates Instagram being used as an outlet for expressing one’s emotions. Elyse Fox struggled with depression and found relief in sharing her state of mind through this outlet because it helped her get things out of her system. This represents Instagram as a helpful tool. Others might not do it for relief, but simply because they are at an all time low. That’s when it becomes unhealthy and when you would need to reach out to someone you trust for help.

“In several recent studies, teenage and young adult users who spend the most time on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms were shown to have a substantially (from 13 to 66 percent) higher rate of reported depression than those who spent the least time.” This is proof of the correlation taking place.

Some may claim that it’s social media’s fault that people are suffering from mental illnesses. More specifically, that it’s Instagram’s fault if someone that uses it gets depressed. They might say it has nothing to do with the users actions because all of the potential negatives are automatically accessible before them and say that whatever happens is directly caused by the app. The blame is put on a non-living, non-physical, inanimate thing. To our knowledge, Instagram itself is not capable of causing anything. Studies show a correlation, not a causation. However, “One reason the correlation seems more than coincidental is that an increase in depression occurred in tandem with the rise in smartphone use.” (Miller). “By 2015,... 92 percent of teens and young adults owned a smartphone. The rise in depressive symptoms correlates with smartphone adoption during that period.” (Miller). The author of this write-up also mentions that there was a rise in the number of college students visiting counselors for anxiety and depression. Just so you know, UVU has counseling services available on campus if you are seeking further assistance with your mental health. (Student Health Services |(801) 863-8876| Room SC-221).

What should we do about it? What can we do about it? Personally? As a student body? I think it is a very personal issue because everyone has their agency and freedom to do what they want and really, it is up to them to decide how they will spend their time on Instagram. But we can suggest tips for those who are seeking help or for those who don’t realize what’s affecting them and want to change.

In a Ted Talk by Bailey Parnell, she suggests four tips for obtaining social media wellness. These are presented in four steps: 1. Recognize the problem. 2. Audit your social media diet. 3. Create a better online experience. 4. Model good behavior. It’s all about our awareness. If we don’t realize something’s wrong, then we aren’t going to do anything about it. After that, we are able to make adjustments based on our unique needs. For example, we could spend less time on Instagram, unfollow strangers, or make our posts more real and sincere. I, personally, need to work on all of those because I notice a difference between when my time spent on Instagram has been a waste, leaving me drained vs when it’s been productive and I’ve come away feeling enlightened or pleased with my online experience. What I consider to be a waste of time is viewing my followers profiles and engaging in social comparison where I degrade myself and wish my life was like theirs. A more productive way to spend my time would be sharing an uplifting message on my story or reach out to friends I haven’t talked to in a while to see how they are doing.

The United Kingdom’s RSPH had the great idea of teaching safe social media use in schools. (Macmillan). Because of the prevalence of social media today, it needs to be acknowledged and taught proper use. I think all schools should provide a class solely dedicated to teaching social media safety and another for teaching about mental health awareness. Instagram and depression each fall into one of those categories, so it’s perfect. These classes could be held in middle schools, high schools, and colleges since most age groups use some form of social media. I feel like a lot of students would benefit from taking these courses.

Fellow friends (A.K.A. UVU students) if you have been guilty of spending too much time on Instagram, comparing yourself to others, or following celebrities/strangers you hardly know, it’s okay!! So have I. That doesn’t mean you are a bad person, it just means that you are human. Now that you know more about what types of interactions on Instagram can make you depressed, you can choose to be more proactive and reap the rewards of “social media wellness” and obtain the happiness that comes from practicing “safe social.”

To restate my stance one more time, I will just remind you that all the research I have done and knowledge I have gained has led me to believe that Instagram use and depression correlate. Depression isn’t caused by the app, rather depression results from using the app excessively or from comparing oneself to others. I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to monitor and reflect on our Instagram behaviors in order to decrease our chances of being at risk for depression. Making simple changes can alter your perspective on life and bring you more joy. Bailey Parnell says it best: “Is social media hurting your mental health? The answer is: it does not have to.”

Google Slides (in progress): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jJ-aIcZZW0qCJpfWv0-SGCyrAFu7O_eLq34oCXVNsBo/edit?usp=sharing

[morgantheblog-blog]

A Brief Ethnography of Art Twitter

(note before I get started-- I am a fan of all the accounts pictured in this post and follow them from my own accord!)

Hello all!

The world is so crazy right now, and while I’d love to talk about that, I figured I’d give a different kind of update.

Do you know what an ethnography is? I didn’t, and to be honest, I still feel like I don’t when I hear it. I mean, it just sounds so scientific. And in a way, it is!

According to a quick google, an ethnography is, “the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures.” In other words, it’s just an in depth look into another group’s culture/world. 

Cultures exist all over the place in innumerable different ways, and they don’t have to be an established group determined by something like nationalities like one may think. Tiny cultures with established customs and rules exist even in the digital sphere—just think of how many different worlds there are on just one social platform, let alone all the ones that exist!

That brings us to Twitter—specifically, “art Twitter.” 

Art Twitter exists exactly where you may think, but most importantly, it’s not hidden. In fact, one of the main purposes of art Twitter is to help its participants find each other—especially those that are trying to garner a following early on. 

This is the part of Twitter where artists will utilize their Twitter following to broadcast their art pieces-- sometimes for sale, other times just to make themselves known. With these artists come their supporters and customers, the ones who essentially help spread these account’s artwork and audience. 

I wanted to look into this culture because I teeter around it all the time, in my own Twitter experience. I usually follow a lot of comedy-oriented people on Twitter, but I also follow a lot of astrology and spirituality accounts, which tends to come into contact with art Twitter, usually through retweets of giveaways. 

While I tend to observe in passing, never really interacting directly other than an occasional like, I’ve always been fascinated by it. I like to do arts and crafts and DIY projects in my spare time, but never on the level that these accounts do. 

Often times, I’ll see an account post something for sale that I know I’m able to make on my own-- or maybe it’s something that seems out of my abilities, but it will still inspire me for a project of some kind. 

Other times, I’ve found myself growing curious about these artists/accounts. When I see something being retweeted that’s for eye catching, I then wonder who is the one who made it? How did they come to making it? Do they do this often?

The list goes on. 

From my (brief) time observing this world, I discovered all sorts of customs and cultural nuances that exist here. To make things a little easier and concise, I’ll break down my findings into a list. 

1. Most of these accounts follow the same outline

An art Twitter account is easy to locate. These accounts follow a similar structure-- albeit they can be presented in their own unique ways, they each contain the same kinds of tells:

-Their name/their shop’s name

-the type of art that they specialize in/sell

-where you can find their shop (IE a link to their website or other social media handles)-a pinned tweet of some kind (typically their current giveaway, a viral tweet, or latest project/shop update they want to showcase)

Here are a few examples: 

Seems pretty easy, right?

I believe the consistency in the “structure” for these accounts is key to art Twitter’s survival-- if someone were to post a piece of art and you click on their account and the information is difficult to find, you’re not going to survive long in art Twitter. There are a lot of artists and your account’s page is your first impression. 

2. Art Twitter is built on a support system

This was one of the phenomena that brought me to look into art Twitter int he first place. 

The entire premise of it is built on lifting each other up—yes, to each a wider audience, but in turn the participants lift up each other with positivity. In the replies of every artist with an active following’s Tweets, you’ll see an array of both fellow artists and supporters complimenting the artist or just sharing something that they liked about the piece. 

It’s so deeply engrained into the culture that you can expect it on any post in art Twitter.  It’s also common to see these artists responding to their customer’s posts about their art, thanking them for their business or even just their time.

It’s these “call and response” kind of interactions that led me to feel as though this really was its own culture. These are unspoken rules that exist in art Twitter-- you’re all but expected to support each other and in turn, others in the community will support you, too. 

This is how one becomes known in the community. 

3. Many of these accounts work in similar mediums-- this can lead to conflict. 

Plagiarism is no joke-- we all can agree on that. In the scholarly world, it can be punished severely. In the artist world, it can be absolutely damning and invalidating of your art entirely. 

You can imagine where I’m going with this. 

When artists work in similar mediums, like candles or resin, there is bound to be a bit of overlap. While there are countless ways to make your own art style and brand, there is only so much that can be done with a medium like resin-- even more so when artists source their molds (for resin) from the same few wholesalers. 

It can be frustrating. 

No one wants to hear their character being smeared and I imagine it’s even more frustrating when your artistic ability is being called into question as well.

In this regard, there is no true winner nor solution that I’ve been able to come up with since observing this world, other than trying to perfect your craft as best you can to the best of your ability. 

Despite following this world (for a few weeks), I still have some things I haven’t quite figured out. 

As someone who experiences social anxiety, the idea of interacting with complete strangers over the internet kind of terrifies me. I mean, the last thing I want is someone from god knows where finding out more details about me in real life than I would prefer. And I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. 

Yet still, art Twitter thrives. It’s not just the artist accounts that keep it afloat, because clearly someone has to be supporting them. Just like musicians have to have some kind of listening audience to stay relevant, artist Twitter has to have supporters in order to stay alive. 

And it shows no signs of going anywhere anytime soon. 

I can understand why one would follow so many of these accounts. Seeing tweets with pieces of art that stimulate the artistic part of your brain, even for a moment, is a needed and welcomed break in ones Twitter timeline. 

People see tweets with a craft of some kind that may be in their wheelhouse of abilities and briefly forget about the awful news that was clogging their feed before it.

If I’m being honest, I need this too. 

This inspiration is always welcome, despite me never actively seeking it out. But after this mini-project, I’ve kind of begun to want to be more active in this world-- maybe not replying to every tweet I see, but who knows! 

Maybe I’ll reply to an account with heart eye emojis soon or something. 

Stay safe everyone! 

[technicolorfamiliar]

The Artist vs Social Media

I have been sharing my feelings about art and its ever-growing relationship to social media with a number of people recently. I wrote a bit about it here some months ago, but that was primarily focused on reactions to different types of art I was posting on different platforms. Without a doubt, it’s been something that’s given me pause for a while, and I have a suspicion I can’t be the only person that feels this way.

To be clear: this is not meant to be an attack on the people who enjoy and excel at being a creative on social media. It is purely an expression of my own frustration, a cry out to others who have struggled with the same issues, because I know I’m not alone.

First of all, my personal style just doesn’t compliment a successful social media presence, I’m such a fan of the long-format, in general. I don’t want anything in my life to be bite-sized, cropped, or condensed. I struggle to convey the concepts teeming in my heart in a limited number of characters and pixels. As I am evolving as an artist, I enjoy incorporating many layers of meaning, drawing on a multitude of sources for inspiration. Social media, for the most part, wants to condense, compartmentalize, limit. It’s short-format, lacks fluidity, and promotes shorter attention spans. It feels counterintuitive to the kind of art I love and the art I want to be making.

For as streamlined and easy as social media has made sharing artwork with the great big world out there, it’s also birthed a lot of additional anxiety and despair. At least that’s been my experience. Some people have taken to social media like ducks to water, they are thriving in an endless stream of posts and pictures and stories. But this particular artmaker finds the rise of social media more like an impossible mountain, and climbing it is a requirement.

I envy the artists and makers who have figured out how to hack social media in order to promote their work and their brand. These people make it look easy, like social media integration with one’s art practice is as simple as breathing. I understand how it is crucial now as any kind of artist to have a big social media presence. But despite that understanding, I still have a lot of issues with it.

I was in art school in the still relatively early days of Instagram. Facebook and Twitter were big, but I didn’t really ever get too deeply involved in either platform. For me, Facebook was mostly for staying in touch with friends and family back home. I didn’t even have a smart phone until some time after I graduated. The school I attended encouraged us to build a website, get a business card, but there was no way to prepare us for the expansion of these apps among others that would emerge later on. This is not a sorry attempt at an excuse for my complicated relationship with social media, because there are a lot of artists in their early 30s right now who are very clearly doing well in that arena.

Circa 2009 – 2011, using social media for networking was beginning to be a real thing to consider. Having a Facebook page and separate Instagram and Twitter accounts devoted to your craft in addition to your website and blog in order to reach all possible professional connections was increasingly important. And now, they are all absolutely essential. People think you must be kidding yourself if you’re making art and don’t have a social media presence. I’ve caught myself being judgmental of young artists who aren’t on social media. But then I’m reminded of my own issues with Facebook and Instagram and all the others and I think maybe I should shut my mouth.

—

That’s the background. The real thing I’m trying to say is this:

Social media is exhausting.

I hate it.

For all the good content being generated and shared on FB, IG, etc there are a thousand mentally and emotionally draining posts being shared by people who, by and large, aren’t on social media to promote their craft. And that’s fine, people should have a place to vent their frustrations, laugh at funny or un-funny memes, share recipes and cute animal videos, get 100+ validating reactions to their photos, post thoughts/criticisms/ideas too long for Twitter but too short for a blog…

But to expect an artist generating original content to compete with everything else being blasted on every social media platform is complete and utter unrealistic nonsense.

—

My big, huge, major beef with social media is the totally insane decision to stop having posts featured in chronological order on pretty much every major platform. This really hurts creative people who are trying to get exposure, share their work to the world (or at least their friends and followers), and requires them to generate even more content, or share the same post over and over again in the hopes that their painting or photo or video somehow makes it over all the other posts from everybody else that are only just so much noise. Trying to get noticed or share your work with likeminded creatives you don’t already know is like shouting in a canyon full of other people shouting, drowned out by all the other voices and the echoes of the voices.

But that’s not the only thing about social media that keeps me up at night.

There are people on social media who have become experts in making their lives look like perfect, magical journeys of self discovery and growth and good fortune. Seeing their perfectly composed, perfectly lit photos of what is supposedly their daily lives, their brunches, their cocktails, their pets, their clothes, their travels, their significant others, and whatever else makes me want to not even try. Why should I even bother to try to compete with that? Looking at those kinds of posts immediately makes me feel inferior because 1) I’m not living that theoretically beautiful, charmed life, and 2) I’m not generating masses of content like that of my own experience. I look at my weird little life and there’s hardly anything photo- or post-worthy, at least not on a daily basis, not enough to get above everyone else’s noise. When did having a social media presence become an art form in and of itself? One of my very close friends described social media as performance art, which is probably the best description of this phenomenon I’ve ever heard. I’m not saying it’s not hard work — in order to project this perfect life, you have to be a photographer, or at least know and/or have the money to pay for one, be a master of self-marketing, and you have to set aside the time in your day to make the posts (more on that in a bit). But as someone with at least half a brain, I know that the content being gobbled up by glowing, supportive friends and followers is only a version of reality.

I know I’m not the only one who feels utterly alienated by the “perfect lives” being presented on social media, and I know that it’s not most people’s intention to alienate their friends by posting gorgeous photographs and positive affirmations of their own journeys.

And yet, even just thinking about it is exhausting. It’s a destructive and deadly combination of self-loathing and self-doubt inspired by the vast majority of what I see on Facebook and Instagram with knowing full well that those feelings are totally unfounded since the posts are not a true reflection of reality. It doesn’t motivate me, it doesn’t inspire me to follow their lead, it doesn’t get my blood pumping. It just makes me tired.

—

By my nature, I am a relatively private person. I have no real desire to share my private life with strangers, and it’s a struggle for me to open up to acquaintances. I have a hard time talking about myself, my dreams and aspirations, my needs and wants with other people. I keep to myself, I have a small circle of close friends and family with whom I share things openly.

There’s nothing like the gut-wrenching feeling you get when you’re talking passionately about your art or your interests or your hopes for the future with someone and seeing the very moment their eyes glaze over with disinterest. It’s a special kind of soul-crushing dismissal that has lead me to live an introvert’s life. Because why, after all, would I share anything with people when that’s the reaction I often got in my youth when sharing with my peers?

The whole grand purpose of social media is to share. Share everything and share often. Artists who hold regular jobs and don’t have an abundance of free time or energy to devote to generating social media content on top of the art they’re already making need to find that magical balance. The Buzzfeed article about burnout that was circulating a few months ago touches on this a bit. Work + Art + Self Promotion. That’s always been the case for artists looking to make a profit off their work, but now it’s on a whole other level and puts creatives in direct competition with social media influencers and everyone else on FB, IG, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat, etc. When I say time and energy, I mean the lack of energy I personally have after a working a job that already requires me to use my creativity, strategy, and organizational skills. When I get home or when I finish a job, I want to recharge so I can have the energy and motivation to actually sit in my studio and make new art. I struggle with budgeting out my time and energy for taking photos, writing cute little descriptions, thinking up clever hashtags, and setting timers to remind me when to post in order to get the most views.

I’m over-focused right now on making the art, in finding my voice as an illustrator, in re-vamping my portfolio and considering the future of my practice. I would need a personal assistant to run my social media accounts in an effective and professional way, and I don’t understand how other artists don’t have assistants. Or maybe they do. At the very least it would require me to have my phone in my hand far more than I already do, so another reason to keep it on me, especially in my studio while I’m in the zone, working, makes me feel gross.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “But Emma… you took all this time to write and edit this long blog post. Surely you could have used that time to work on content for your IG or FB accounts.” And you would be right. However, I’m in a place mentally and emotionally where I see the social media game, I understand it, but I just don’t want to play it. Not the way we’re all expected to if we want to get noticed. I’m not a performance artist, I’m not extroverted enough, my process doesn’t lend itself to this new gold standard of being an artist in the 21st century. Am I making big strides to change my process? Not really, because the very nature of social media feels inauthentic to me and the work I want to be making.

—

In the end… I don’t really know how to make social media work for me and my own journey as an artist. It would be great if there was some compromise, some middle path for people like me who are rubbed the wrong way by hashtags and stories and filters. Is there even a possibility for existing any other way as an artist today? Because everyone I know who creates any kind of art seems to have accepted and figured out the key to doing well on social media. It’s almost not even worth airing my grievances since I’m not willing to completely change and conform to something that does not feel right to me.

I’ll just keep plugging along as I have been until I figure it out. Or some kind souls who have been through a similar conundrum swoop in and offer their wisdom and insight.

[awkward-and-fluffy]

Important little post for those who are still following me and wondering where I’ve gone...

I’ve obviously lost interest in Tumblr over these past couple of years. I’m not that active here anymore and a lot has been going on in my life anyhow.

If anyone wants to keep up with me on social media, I’m on Twitter the most! And I’ve actually gotten myself comfortable with doing Twitch streams as of May 2018. It feels like a great accomplishment for me to overcome most of my public speech fears through that!

Aside from getting into streaming, I managed to finish enough of my website for it to be hosted! I put a lot of money into that, but it’ll last about 2 years. :’D

Sooo...

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfKat777

My Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/wolfkat7

My Website: https://wolfkatworks.com/

Sometime soon I’ll be able to complete the HTML/CSS tutorial pages for my website, but it wasn’t possible to get it launched ASAP when those pages take the longest to put together. I’m not sure when I can get them done yet, but I hope it’ll be before Tumblr completely crashes and burns... I need my old tutorials on this blog to reference back to for how I organized everything. There are lots of mistakes to fix and new screenshots to take for better lesson examples, etc.

But yeah, a lot’s been going on. I’ve been trying to search for a new job (with no luck yet), managed to reach Affiliate on Twitch by some miracle, various family issues took place, my dad had to get heart surgery, etc.

Before going to a read more, if you don’t quite want to read a big wall of text or are scared of reading any medical topics (I get that), I’ll provide my thanks and more right here.

It’s been awesome to meet all the people I have on here - mostly through Gravity Falls! Writing and replying to theories was such a freakin blast, no matter how ridiculous things would get at times. Granted, I don’t like Tumblr itself as a social media platform and community if I’m brutally honest... However, I still had a little good come from this regardless of my bitterness from my old account before this one.

To you old mutuals of mine, and some of you old pals, keep being awesome! I hope you’re doing well in life; and if not, I hope for things to improve. Fight a good fight, but be careful in picking those fights. Life’s worth living and all that cliche junk that may or may not have much affect on you as motivating advice. 

This all goes to my general base of followers too if any of them come across this post. Thank you guys for following this dumb blog and enjoying and sharing so many of my fun posts for Gravity Falls! The show is still super important to me, and my all time favorite cartoon to exist. Whether you sent asks, replied, reblogged, or simply liked, all of that was awesome in its own way. Having discussions on the series is one of the best memories I’ll have on this most often unbearable website! (I hope that doesn’t sound too insulting or generalizing about this site...)

And thank you for anyone who enjoyed the rest of my content here, and bearing with any personal ramblings I may have had on some bad days.

It’d be cool to come across anyone here again in the near future, but at some other online platform. I’ve provided my active links above, so feel free to find me elsewhere if you want.

Goodbye to you all, and have a great rest of 2019 and beyond!

This new year is also already off to a very... Surreal and terrifying start. In case you haven’t already checked my Twitter from the time of this post to see what I wrote there, I got a severe case of my rapid heartrate and ended up hospitalized rather than stuck in Urgent Care on its own. Just 3 weeks ago, I was in UC from a less severe but still terrifying rapid heart rate that woke me up at 5am and wouldn’t calm the heck down.

I know it seems weird to include this following story for my “farewell, Tumblr” post, but I think it’ll help give some interesting record of closure here. I’ve had personal posts and ramblings on this blog about my cardiac terrors and fears. I don’t recall exactly what I’ve written here, but maybe it’d be interesting for me to search for any of those posts again to kinda look back on those thoughts...

It’s been a few years since I’ve had a bad case of rapid heartrate... In fact, I remember writing about that experience back then here on my blog too. I was put on a heart monitor for only 3 days and yeah. Of course 3 days wasn’t enough to catch anything significant... So my heart issue was still freakin shrouded in mystery and only ever connected to my anxiety/panic disorder.

Welp, I was put on a heart monitor again just last week and I requested for it to last 30 days. Lo and behold, about 8 days later, my most severe case occurred and my monitor recorded a 250bpm max rate... This monitor is linked to cellular wifi thankfully, so the company got alerted of it and called my local UC to take me in and then called the house for my mom to answer and help drive me there. (Some moments before leaving home, my heartrate went back down to the 140′s or so, but still really bad and wouldn’t return to normal.)

In UC, I had to get X-Rays as well, but I have no idea what they found from ‘em? I wasn’t really told what they resulted with... I’ll have to ask sometime.

However, with everything going on and not even medication getting my heartrate back to normal, I was moved into a hospital shortly after my stay in UC. That was my first time ever being in an ambulance.

At the hospital, I got more blood tests done, more EKGs, all that stuff. There was also talk of me needing a uh... An ablation procedure. Then later that night, a cardiologist visited me and explained that I FINALLY got a confirmation on my issue. I’ve waited 10 years for answers on why my heart would be like this... Ugh. I’m relieved, but also frustrated it took that long to figure it out, y’know?

At this point, I didn’t have the name of the condition, but I was feeling more at peace when the cardiologist mentioned this condition isn’t life-threatening and doesn’t increase my risks of heart disease. The most common issue of it is how disruptive it is, and some other symptoms it can induce (dizziness,fatigue, etc.) Gosh, that cleared away so many worries and questions I had throughout these years.

But yeah, it’s something that people are just born with and it causes a faulty circuit or two in the heart giving it weird signals at times. Stuff like that. Those with the condition have a chance to never have symptoms of it, while others start showing symptoms between 11 - 50 years old. Mine started showing when I was 13, so that was... Great.

The only way to most likely treat it, is through an ablation... And that’s where things get really scary. I’ve always had nightmares about needing heart surgery, or my heart getting shot by bullets, etc. Like, that’s how bad I felt from never knowing what’s wrong with my vital organ.

My other option was medication, but it wouldn’t be guaranteed to help by itself. Afterall, I’ve had a few times in UC throughout my life where these meds didn’t help much if at all. They also figured it’d be good to get this procedure done the earlier the better, since it can be much more complicated if I were to have it done at an older age.

-big siiigh- After spending my first night there, yep, I’ve had that done. I don’t want to describe it ‘cause it was a terrifying experience, but I hope it helps in the end. I indeed had a faulty circuit they found, and they uh... Did what had to be done.

After I was sent back to my room, the cadiologist returned and gave me the name of my condition. Of ALL THINGS, it’s “Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome” or “WPW Syndrome” for short. Despite all the straight-up trauma I’ve had, I guess in a way I can kinda thank God for the bit of humor?? (For context, I developed an interest in wolves and werewolves during my teens and loving them about as much as cats...)

I was keeping my closest friends up to date on this through my phone during all this too. I kinda knew what I’d get myself into when revealing the name of my diagnosis to them... But the friendly teasing (such as “wow, so you DO have a wolf’s heart!”) cheered me up. I’m just really thankful for my friends for keeping me company even if only possible through online chat. And despite my conflicts with my mom, she stayed by me and helped me, spending nights in the hospital with me and all that stuff. I would’ve been so much more terrified and - errgh, for lack of better words - heart broken. Being all alone without someone I know being nearby during these types of things, regardless of how much I like being alone, is stressful. I would’ve otherwise only had doctors and nurses, but they’d come in and out and not always be in the room.

So, my heart needs to adjust to this, and the recovery is a little scary at times too. I’m pulling through the best I can, using guidance from my doctors. They had me stay one more night, and as of yesterday, I’ve been able to return home. Gotta spend a week relaxing and healing up, keeping up with certain medications to help, and so on.

With all that said, and for those who read this entire mess of a thing, see you all elsewhere!

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

2 Sep 2021: Shortages and brittle supply chains. How to make your website greener.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter. Forward it to a pal who’d like to read about what the internet is doing to retail businesses, people, communities and society.

[Image: by Noel Broda on Unsplash]

Shortages and brittle supply chains

Food: McDonald's UK restaurants run out of milkshakes, and remember that McDs, Nandos and other large chains are experts at supply chaining! Iceland supermarket boss sounds alarm over Christmas supplies.

Haulage:  UK truck driver shortage signals a broken labour market. Food firm in 'drastic' action amid driver shortage. 

Shipping and containers: China-U.S. container shipping rates sail past $20,000 to record.

Labour: Prisoners to plug worker shortage in meat industry. ‘The anxiety is off the scale’: UK farm sector worried by labour shortages. Amazon offers £1,000 joining bonus for new UK staff.

Health care: NHS stops some blood tests due to vial shortages.

Not forgetting: semiconductors and computer chips.

If you want to buy holiday presents that contain computer chips and are imported from the other side of the world, your gift will slowly surf the wave of many of these shortages. (And maybe you should order now!) 

There isn’t one simple cause for these shortages. Brexit, low wages, and Covid are all factors, as are supply chains that were already stretched thin. “Our demand for everything, 24/7, at knock-down prices creates a fragile food chain, vulnerable to shocks.” 

Those fast, efficient, optimised supply chains may now be mis-matched to a changing world: supply chains need to be more resilient to changes and interruptions in politics and borders, climate and weather. More resilient supply chains probably means removing some of the just-in-time optimisations - deliberately making everything less efficient so it can keep going. Slower, more expensive, but less brittle and more adaptable. As the programmers used to say, fast, cheap or reliable: you can pick two. Or in this case, maybe just one.

“Our demand for everything, 24/7, at knock-down prices” is a neat way of describing a very large and complex retail infrastructure. It’s hard to imagine it working in a different way. So one good question is how you sell a world like that to consumers. Perhaps retail leans into the constraints of seasonality, locality, a smaller range…

Previously: the need for slower supply chains.

Retail workers

A report from a shelf edge technology provider: “why store teams are essential to shopper loyalty” (pdf). In store retail, the “system” (replenishment, logistics etc) are fairly invisible. The magic is in the visible bit - the stores and the staff. Online retail is more or less the opposite model: the system is more visible (website, deliveries) and the staff are invisible.

Elsewhere: Retail bosses demand more protection for UK workers. Just Eat announces 1,500 new jobs in North East. Mr Kipling maker Premier Foods offers staff hybrid working.

How to make your website greener

Each hour you watched of Netflix in 2019 emitted 36 grams of carbon dioxide, mostly from the electricity used to store and move the data. Transferring data across the internet has been getting cheaper in recent years, which is good. But the total amount of data being sent is obviously growing massively as internet use grows, which is a problem.

So you might wonder how to measure the carbon emissions of your website, and how to make your website greener. Some resources we’re reading:

“Just last week I reduced global emissions by an estimated 59.000 kg CO2 per month” by making a JavaScript library more efficient.

Does Irresponsible Web Development Contribute to Global Warming?

The average web page tested produces 1.76 grams CO2 per page view.

Website Carbon looks at data transfer, energy intensity of web data, energy source used by the data centre, carbon intensity of electricity, and website traffic (coop.co.uk scores ok, but could be better). 

Greening the Web: How We Can Create Zero Carbon Websites - ideas from a web hosting company.

And Gerry McGovern is building an interesting model (xls file) that includes device use.

17 ways to make your website more energy efficient.

Previously: “If you thought digital transformation was spiky and disruptive, wait til you see carbon transformation”, climate change right in front of you, and the climate/carbon plans of the larger supermarket businesses in the UK.

Retail and ecommerce news pick ‘n’ mix

UK loses 83% of department stores since BHS collapsed.

Amazon is 'planning to open department stores in US'.

Aldi takes the radical step of putting doors on the fridges.

Morrisons backs US firm's improved £7bn takeover offer.

Boots will offer drugs and make-up via Deliveroo.

Walmart will sell its delivery service to other businesses.

Samsung supports retailers affected by looting  with innovative television block function.

Manchester office food delivery & corporate catering | Feedr.

Tesla’s robot: uncanny valet

“The Tesla Bot, which only exists as a design plan and a person wearing spandex, will be a humanoid capable of lifting heavy boxes and picking out groceries, Musk said.” Tesla did a corporate presentation about AI which included a person pretending to be a dancing robot. Tesla’s robot will be friendly, “won’t fight back” and “we’re setting it so that it is at a mechanical and physical level you can run away from it and most likely overpower it”. These phrases must have sounded like thoughtful and reassuring human-first design to Tesla before Elon said them on stage.

Elsewhere in disconcerting robots, Boston Dynamics robots can do parkour, but not perfectly yet.

Co-op and Co-op Digital news

Co-op content designer Helen Lawson won in the #BeingCoop awards. Well deserved, and big salute from the newsletter. See also Helen’s blog post on content principles in funeral care.

Evolving the mobile experience with the Co-op.

Thank you for reading

Thank you friends, readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc by replying or to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend! If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[baxtaxg]

Dear Reader,

Whenever I get caught listening to BTS I always get the same question. Why would you listen to something you can’t understand? Well Susan, I don’t need to understand what they are saying to enjoy the music, take Gangnam Style and Despacito for example. Not to mention, we live in a day and age where any question you may have can be answered by the internet. So what do I do if I can’t understand something? I look up translations. It’s as simple and easy as that. It’s frustrating how some people don’t understand that simple concept and judge a group simply because they speak a foreign language. So I am here to inform people of the influence BTS has on the world despite being a Korean band.

   “Why did I choose this topic and why is it important to me?”. I chose BTS as my topic because I want to answer the question, why is BTS so influential? They’re more than just their looks and voices, from their debut to present day, social and mental health issues have always been a prominent subject in their music. That’s a big deal coming from a country with a high suicide rate. They show people that they should not shy away from these problems, that they need to be talked about. Through their music they give people a sense of community, never letting us forget that we can lean on them for support when we need it most. Seeing their hard work and passion, especially helps me when I lose motivation or just feel like I’m in a low point in life. I see how hard they work despite the obstacles they’ve encountered. Their own struggles with anxiety, depression, eating disorders. Even through all that plus their idol work, they were able to give us their all, they worked through it and succeeded in the most beautiful way. They have become an important figure in my life, inspiring me to work twice as hard, reminding me that although I may not be okay right now, there are better days to come.

    I’m not going to lie, I came into this topic already knowing a lot, since they are people I feel really passionate about. I know why they had the desire to become idols, I know about their struggles, what their goals are but something I'm not good at keeping up on is their lyrics. I personally feel like that’s an important thing I need to understand since lyrics reveal a lot about a person's thoughts. Through this project one of my goals is to gain more knowledge of their lyrics to better understand them as people. What I hope others learn from my project is well of course, who BTS is. But more importantly I want to have a long term effect on them making sure BTS’s message reaches their hearts. Like in their song N.O, I want them to know that they are more than what the schools education says. You don’t have to constrict yourself to the expectations society gives you. Like in Paradise, reminding you that it’s okay to feel the need to stop. “There’s no need to run without knowing the reason. It’s alright to not have a dream.” People are sometimes caught up with the notion that you need a dream to be happy. But they are they’re to remind you that it’s okay if you don’t know what to do. Something also very exciting about sharing this topic to other people is the new music. This is the opportunity to show them a whole new experience of a different genre of music that can open them up to new ideas.

    It is kind of difficult trying to get information on BTS since I feel like there isn’t a trustworthy website I can go on to get information. So my plan to do research is get information and fact check it with other articles to see if it stays consistent. I also go on twitter and look up translations from Korean fans who know English. There is a blog on tumblr that I trust that gets the information straight from bighit (company bts works under) and translates everything. From their interviews, to songs, and straight up posts they upload on Twitter. This helps me stay connected with them since I don’t speak or read Korean. Since I don’t understand anything I’ve actually become motivated to try and learn a new language. I’m not the first person to feel this way, there’s a whole lot of people who can agree to my statement.

    This brings me to a part of this letter that I’m excited to talk about. Recently BTS has been slowly making its way into the States. Of course they don’t need any validation from America to prove their worth, but I find it amazing that they were able to work there way into the hearts of people in a completely different country. The year they started blowing up was 2015. Before that time people would criticize and ridicule them. At award shows sometimes their performances were cut short because they didn’t seem important enough. It’s emotional as a stan for many years to see how far they've come. They have been to the U.S. before and I’m always so flabbergasted by their new achievements every time they come back. They went from performing for free in 2014 to performing at the BBMA’s, AMA’s and having sold out tours in 2018. Their giving representation to the Asian community, specifically Koreans. Now I may not be Asian but I do understand and know how it feels to have little to no representation in the media. This can make people feel more confident, connected and proud of their culture. All the while they haven’t stopped promoting their positivity. They have stated before that they feel the only right thing for them to do with all the support they get is to give back. For example like their LOVE YOURSELF campaign with UNICEF. Spreading love to the world and wanted to stop violence against teens and children to create a safer environment for them to grow up in is important to them..

    Hearing their story and where they came from can inspire anyone to go for their dream. They did not come from privileged families, some even came from families with farms like Kim Taehyung. It’s their upbringing that shaped them to the type of people they are today humble, grateful, and passionate. They are just a group of honest boys who want to make a difference to this world and they never take for granted the opportunity they have been given to have the ability to do just that. “I really want to say that everyone is lonely and everyone is sad, and if we know that everyone is suffering and lonely, I hope we can create an environment where we can ask for help, and say things are hard when they’re hard.” It’s these kind of words that represent the kind of people they are. I hope you can appreciate them like I do.

                                                                         Sincerely, 

                                                                             boo boo the fool

Team Work Makes the Dream Work 💜                                        

[raygoodwinmajournal]

101 - Social Media, its use in the Zeitgeist and Personal Reflections

It is no secret that I have had a rocky and turbulent relationship with social media over the years. I have been through all emotions with it, from loving it to completely loathing what it is and what it can do to a person. The idea of being connected to many people digitally seems like a good idea, but it brings up a multitude of emotions which cannot be ignored. Surely the idea of being connected to people you know, and people you don’t would be a fantastic opportunity to network and share experiences? For me, this hasn’t entirely been the case.

To see where I am coming from, I must talk about my own social media history and where it started for me to be where I am today. The first social media site I signed up for was Facebook, all the way back in 2009 when I was 14 years old. It was amazing, I was able to talk to people that I knew in primary school which I hadn’t seen since I moved to the other end of the country a few years prior. And, as a teenager, most things in life are new and exciting - I had no idea how it would come to affect me at the time. Not long after in November 2009, I signed up for Twitter. This was a different kettle of fish, with Twitter being a lot more open to different people, even celebrities and people of a certain notoriety. At the time, these were massive deals and social media was really up and coming as something that most people didn’t really have. Even at this time it was in its infancy. I think I also signed up for Bebo, but that was as useful as a chocolate teapot. Having these sites are all well and good, only if you have people to know and add. At 14, I didn’t really have any friends and even then, felt alienated from my contemporaries because I didn’t feel that I fitted in amongst the crowd - I had ‘friends’, but they never felt true. This carried on for many years throughout my teens, using Facebook and Twitter and even thinking then why on earth I was doing what I was doing. Around 2011/2012, I signed up for Instagram which became the biggest bugbear in my time on social media, which went through multiple iterations and accounts. 

Eventually, I deleted my first Facebook account but was quickly resurrected. I wanted to break free from the digital shackles but never could pluck up the courage, which looking back at that way of thinking is completely absurd. How can one not have the courage to not use a particular website, unless they are addicted to it? This brings into question the very reason why one would use social media. Are they keeping in contact with friends and family they don’t have immediate access to, or are they intentionally manipulated to keep them on the site? Social media websites are intentionally created in such a way to increase time on site, so that they can create more money and keep afloat. These sites are made so that you become addicted to refreshing the page and hoping that a little red circle pops up with a number on it displaying how many notifications are on it. It starts to turn into a digital slot machine, pulling the lever and anticipating a winning number. They are essentially digital Skinner Boxes. For years, I did this because unbeknownst to me, I was addicted to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I was wasting time by flicking through feeds, looking at people’s status’ whom I didn’t care for, but did it anyway, for hours. Then I would switch to Instagram and fall into the abyss that is the explore page, which is just a chasm of useless flashy images relating to what you react with. Then I’d switch to seeing people’s stories and seeing what they were up to or sharing. Twitter would rear its head and I’d see what was happening in the world. 

This went on for too long and I started to become listless and filled with malaise. This was the start of me becoming wary of what social media was doing to me, which was only around 2016/2017. Even though that was a number of years ago now, it still went on until rather recently when I would uninstall all social media apps from my phone to ease my TOS and not waste so much time. But, I kept hanging on by a thread because I had become so dependent on scrolling and endlessly scrolling uselessly. I hated the fact that I detested these sites yet still crawled back to them and not using them to my advantage. Instead, I was wasting my time by ingesting images and information that was of no use to me such as people from school I hadn’t seen in years having children, estranged friends showing their new car modifications and sunny beach photos. Why do I need to see this? I don’t care about these people and what they’re doing with their lives, especially when they are doing much better than me. For most of my life, I have had to deal with depression and anxiety, which would often lead to derealisation from my surroundings and depersonalisation. Scrolling for hours made me feel even less of a human than felt before logging on - something had to change.

Eventually, I gradually weaned myself off of social media by deleting apps from my phone, and not allowing my browsers to save my login details so that I had to type everything out, acting as a form of deterrent. This partly worked, but I still relapsed for a lack of a better term. But the only way that I could stop using it is to completely deactivate and eradicate these accounts and apps from my life. It wasn’t until November 2020 that I was able to do it properly with Instagram, deleting my personal account and not looking back. I decided to keep my professional account because it is a platform where my work is shown and can be used for my career. But more on that in a later paragraph. Twitter was also next to go, firstly deleting all tweets, profile picture and cover photo just in case I needed the account for something. Twitter had become a dangerously caustic cesspit of political opinions and grossly misinformed ideas. I didn’t want that kind of negativity in my life whilst I was taking action and bettering my mental wellbeing, so it had to go. This for me was my most bittersweet encounter with deleting any social media account, as it had survived over 11 years with being relatively active. Yet the cons out weighed the pros, so it was laid to rest in February 2021. Facebook was revived for me after many years of not using it, but this was because I had to participate in the third year closed group during Lockdown in March 2020. This is still live, and mainly used for SU work. Reddit is also a site that I use from time to time, with an account I made 2015. This is a site I don’t view as social media and is a good resource for helpful information and communities. There are areas to avoid such as the Tik-Tok filled subreddits containing useless videos and pictures, but for the most part are useful in the right instances. 

My professional Instagram account is the only account that survived my social media purge because of the ability to share my work, network with industry professionals and follow people who are of key interest. I haven’t posted on this account since November 2020, but occasionally post a story about recent happenings such as being included in the Photograd Conjunction zine and to generally check in. My recent project work hasn’t been shared on this account yet, and will be once I am ready to show what I have been doing. It has been rather nice not to have any pressure and thinking I should be creating work for my followers instead of myself, because for a time I did think that. I was hung up on how many likes a post would get and how the audience was engaging, and if it was bad I would think again about what I was doing. I soon realised that it didn’t matter and I wasn’t happy with what I was creating, so I focused on myself rather than the audience on ones and zeros. 

I think that social media is inherently bad, and can have profound effects on one's mental health which can be extremely dangerous to the right, or wrong person. Whilst I do think that social media is terrible, and not having any access to it is massively freeing, it can certainly be useful in the right application. Professionally, I feel that is a must in the day and age, with everything becoming more digitally connected and employers potentially seeing what you are up to in the digital world. I feel that the way of using social media is very important, and should be used as a tool instead of a time wasting method and mindlessly scrolling the hours away. I was unhappy for a long time, and some of that can be attributed to social media and its use in my life. By cutting the chain from myself to the anchor which was social media, I feel less like a scrolling robot with a blank stare into a screen and more like a human being - as much as I can in this digital landscape. As we have become more digitally connected, I felt more disconnected from the people around me, which has been heightened since the pandemic and not being able to see family and friends. The added benefit of not having any personal social media accounts, there is so much free time for me to do what I like with. 

Instead of looking blankly at the screen at things that I cared zilch for, I can get on with more important things such as doing work for my MA, cleaning the house, walking, listening to music and doing mindfulness activities. In this strange digital wasteland of a landscape, I think it is a good idea to take a step back and think about how social media affects one’s life. If it is negative, then it is possibly time to either have a break, or completely cut ties with it. If it is of no use and only contains negativity, then why keep it? If you can’t use it to your own benefit and get something positive, then it is of little use. Just like a lot of things, it is a tool, such as the mobile phone. I don’t think that smartphones are bad, it is just how they are used by the majority. They are incredibly powerful tools which are pocket computers, which used correctly can be invaluable. It took me a long time to realise that they aren’t a bad thing, it is just how they are used. If things are too complicated and messy, forms of digital minimalism is a good route to take. By keeping phones free of mess, social media apps and old documents, they can be powerful tools which can be very useful in a multitude of settings. The fact that I have a handheld camera, notepad, encyclopedia, music player, video player which can also take phone calls, text messages and emails still blows my mind. Instead of using the phone as a time wasting tool, make use of its abilities and improve workflow and benefit oneself. The only downside is that we are still slaves to technology which is so deeply ingrained in society now that it cannot be undone unless something catastrophic happens which renders all technology useless. 

In short, social media can be extremely caustic and to be used with caution. If one wants to blindly keep scrolling autonomously with no thoughts - be my guest. But, if you want to use it to your advantage, you can change how it is used just by taking the plunge and not looking back. For now, my professional account will be just so and the app shan’t be on my phone and only accessible via my browser needing my login details. It allows me to have a place where I can show work, talk to certain people and potentially have clients find me or vice versa. Yet, social media is where some of my alienation stems from for me, as people blindly stare into their phones giving short grunted answers to questions as their thumbs manoeuvre them through an arid wasteland of memes and cultural detritus. I used to be one of those people, and it is horrible to see people become so distant and withdrawn looking at lolcats and dancing imbeciles. In the end, I felt like I wasn’t a human being and something had to change, as I became withdrawn from my very being on this rock hurtling through the void. But who is to blame: The person for being suckered into the app with little to no ability of self control, or the developers for intentionally creating the app in such a way that a person can’t look elsewhere and has to come back?

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/observation-choice/

Observation & Choice

Observation & Choice

By A Gift From Gaia

OK so as the Pisces moon becomes a distant memory, that sluggish oddness that created a stir, we are now moving into a more active space in which there is, once again, work to be done.

The MILD solar winds are still creating some gentle movement to carry us along our path, highlighting any blockages or distortions, either external or internally (in truth all is internal however until we SEE we continue to clear from the physical reality) this energy is predicted to continue for the next 24hrs however because we are deepening in the Solar Minimum the cosmic frequencies are now so incredibly high that these low level winds are not really felt, unless you are uber sensitive.

But as I woke this morning it was obvious that a new energetic day had been born, a feeling of anticipation, alertness and that recent sluggishness had completely vanished.

We are moving deeper into our depths…

And our skies are having a little bit of a Square Off

Mercury Square Neptune, the planet of the mind and communication, meets the God of Divine Waters, what a perfect combination to receive! However what you receive will be entirely based on your frequency, if you have things to be revealed then it will be heading in. This square can highlight anxiety and nervousness as our channels open up widely to accept the download we receive from Neptune.

For those who are unaware Neptune in the higher octave of Venus, so if Venus represents the physical idea of love, which is ego attachment then Neptune represents the purest of love, unconditional everything. So whilst the collective move through the realisation of the lack of love within Neptune often holds a kick-ass energy that highlights where you are devoid of unconditional love, which equates to many folk believing that the Universe is conspiring against them, which of course it isnt, its simply showing you where you need to open, where you need to show up, where you are not standing in your Sovereignty.

So confusion and misinterpretation will be obvious to most, and there is no better time to practice the golden keys of Observation and Choice, these keys assist you in moving consciously through your timeline. Also be aware of naivety which often highlights during these squares, ask why, do your research….dont take my word for it!

Neptune is also in a sextile with Venus, so the opportunity to come into alignment here is simply magical and by choosing to Align to Truth will allow those beautiful Divine Frequencies to carry you swiftly into your new awaiting timeline, this beautiful stream of energy allows us to experience the unconditional version of you, but hey once you take a bite of that apple you arent going back….but why would you want to?

But then we have this little chunky monkey creating yet more emotional stirrings as the Moon squares not only Saturn Rx and Pluto Rx but also the Moons nodes – on the one hand many of you will be getting used to these alignments, its the same old drill, you are either looking at something highly karmic that must now end or in the higher octaves, once you have healed the emotional traumas and released much of the programming, these energies become like a new build, the first floor to your already stable foundations, we realise how much we have expanded whilst looking through the windows such as social media, seeing the screams for help as people think they are drowning in the surf, you often find yourself in the position of the lighthouse as those who resonate are drawn to you for your wisdom.

Cosmic surfers create magic during high frequencies whereas those yet to learn to surf get tossed around in the waves…….

The moon is trine Jupiter which is highly fortunate, huge advancements can be made, abundance will be received….this too is a personal perspective… And Venus is sextile the Moons Nodes which again opens up a channel to release and receive.

The surf is loud angels, many of you will be entering the cocoon stage and many are now leaving and if you are one of those leaving may I suggest you take things really slow, allow those new wings to dry out before taking flight.

We are accelerating and you will find your glass ceiling hovering over your belief systems

Crack the codes to fly high 💙💙💙

*****

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[socialmediaruinslives]

How Much Is Too Much?

Society as whole is more connected than ever. We are able to reach people on opposite sides of the world in seconds. The technology advancements we are seeing today is incredible to witness and experience. However, something that media doesn’t discuss as often as it should, is the effect these developments can have on our lives. It feels as if every month there is a new social media platform that everyone gets excited to join exactly how Instagram, Twitter and Facebook came to be. People wanted to be more connected and they got it. I find it fascinating that I can speak to my family thousands of miles away in minutes and see how they live their lives online. When writing this paper, I don’t mean to sound cynical. Social media is not some horrible monster ruining everything, but it can be to certain people. Teenagers now, more than ever are getting addicted to platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, fearing disconnection from their peers even though they see them every day in school. I have a 15-year-old brother who suffers from anxiety and has to go to a therapist every other week. He says he has no friends and that he doesn’t fit in. This was shocking to hear since he is so active on social media with hundreds of friends commenting, liking his pictures all the time. He texts about 30 people a day, all day long. How come he feels so disconnected? He tells me that everyone online is fake and that the people he talks to don’t actually talk to him in real life. Having been away from high school for three years now, it is hard to process that this is the experience teenagers are dealing with at their age. Examining this issue will help us understand what these platforms can do to our mental health and overall quality of life.

Recently, I deleted my online profiles on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat because I realized how unhappy and exhausted it made me to be online all the time. I felt like I was not in control which is a perfect example of hegemony. A process that dominates a society without force and without you realizing. Antonio Gramsci’s article “Hegemony, Intellectuals, and the State”, discusses hegemony and the power it has over our everyday lives. He states, “All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals” (Gramsci 77).  This quote can be used to explain how we access information through media today. Simply put, although everyone has a brain, not everyone knows how to use it. People can be easy to control and manipulate online, especially vulnerable audiences like children. More children have access to social media platforms so they are constantly exposed to shorter bursts of content on Instagram and Snapchat, for instance. Fast, easy to understand information is what media has to keep up with to appeal to younger generations. Young adults don’t bother reading long articles about what is happening in the world when it can be summed up in two sentences. The idea of hegemony comes into play when discussing why we think the way that we do. We like to think that as individuals and as a society, we are in control of what we see online but that is far from the truth. We see ads curated on our websites that have to do with our lives in one way or another based on our search history, occupation, or recent conversation. There are higher powers in charge of us, so we are spoon-fed specific information that will appeal to us sometimes without even realizing. If I googled Nike shoes, within the next few days, I will be seeing ads on certain websites showing me deals on Nike shoes, enticing me to buy them. We see what they want us to see and nothing more unless we look closer. Gramsci also wrote, “Educative and formative role of the State. Its aim is always that of creating new and higher types of civilisation; of adapting the ‘civilisation’ and the morality of the broadest popular masses to the necessities of the continuous development of the economic apparatus of production; hence of evolving even physically new types of humanity (Gramsci 80). By dumbing down the masses by using social media and other media platforms, people in power stay in power, and ultimately, we are the ones getting exploited by marketing, and free advertising, all because of the power of social media.

In the reading “Alienation” and “The Consumer Society” by Arthur Berger, important concepts of separation, distance and capitalism is discussed. Berger writes, “One thing that advertising does is divert people’s attention from social and political concerns and steer that attention toward narcissistic and private concerns” (Berger 52). This statement couldn’t be truer today. When looking on a news site, you might see articles about the current political climate or a new development that can be revolutionary buried amongst articles about the lives of celebrities or how to lose weight with one simple trick. We know that people are living in horrible conditions all over the world, yet we focus on the lives of those with more fame and money who ultimately, don’t matter at all. As a society, we focus a lot more on everything else except ourselves. Not everyone is like this, of course. It is the majority, however, that don’t realize that there is a problem with the way we see media and if certain things do not change, this could completely ruin our mental health. After going off the grid, I can tell that my mood has changed for good. I am much happier and more productive with my time. Before, I always worried about what people would think about what I posted, tweeted, etc. We are blinded by what is presented to us and cannot break from the cycle unless really stepping back from it all. Media will follow us everywhere, but it is our job to be aware of what is good for us and what is not and to assess if it is really making us happy. On this topic of social media, fake media and society, it is important to focus on the concept of “the public sphere”. The article “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article” by Jürgen Habermas explains the idea of power and how power is used to manipulate an audience. Habermas discusses the power of the bourgeoisie in a public sphere, mentioning how the discussion amongst private individuals “threatens to disintegrate with the structural transformation of the public sphere itself” (Habermas 79). Meaning, the idea of a public sphere is where public opinion can be formed, and when private powers are included with more of a say, it defeats the whole purpose of what a public sphere should be, an equal representation of a society’s opinion. This example can explain the way our government works and as people, we do have a say, yet certain aspects of our lives like media is still out of our control. It is interesting to watch world media develop over time. Before, we got our news by newspaper and a handful of other sources, now we see more and more articles reporting the same news but from hundreds of different angles. So how do you know who to trust? How much is too much when it comes to our mental health and the way we receive information? I hope these questions don’t go unanswered as we advance in this age of rapid fire connection.

This image shows a car swerving right, choosing social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) over mental health. This depicts what most people choose when it comes to their life online. That social media is more important than a healthy mental state. 

Source: Pre-generated meme from https://imgflip.com/memegenerator

This meme is referencing how most people present the best version of themselves online. This depicts Ash from Pokemon being happy and cheery while Pikachu is more mellow and that is how people really are most of the time. 

Source: Original meme made from Pokémon: The First Movie screenshot

This meme shows how much we crave attention online. Eleven from Stranger Things is shown with ego boxes that are “upvotes” and above it says “Give Me More”. Many people online constantly crave attention and validation by likes, comments, upvotes, etc. 

Source: Original meme made from Stranger Things screenshot

Works Cited

Arthur Asa Berger, “Alienation” and “The Consumer Society” in Media Analysis Techniques.

Antonio Gramsci, “Hegemony, Intellectuals and the State,” in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, ed. John Storey, pp. 75-80. New York: Routledge, 1994[2013].

Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere,” in Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks, 2nd ed., eds. Meenakashi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, pp. 75-79. Malden, MA: Blackwell 2012.

[laurelkrugerr]

Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb

About The Author

Ana has a background in design, video and photography and started developing for the web over 10 years ago as a hobby. Fortunately she’s never looked back and … More about Ana …

There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms.

Web 2.0 celebrated the idea of everyone being able to contribute to the web regardless of their technical skill and knowledge. Its major features include self-publishing platforms, social networking websites, “tagging”, “liking”, and bookmarking.

Many individuals and companies began creating these platforms so that anyone could contribute to the Web, and not just people who had the privilege to learn to code. In fact, to recognize our contributions to the web, “we” were Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.

Simpler times. (Image source: TIME USA)(Large preview)

Nowadays whether you’re consuming or sharing content on the web, it is likely to be via a big website. Twitter, Youtube, or a Facebook-owned service are popular examples. Whilst this gives us the advantage of being able to participate in a larger conversation at almost no monetary cost, there is also the downside of potentially losing all our content if a company closes, as has happened in the past.

In the past few years, I began to notice I was losing control of online life. What follows is a case for why the IndieWeb is a great opportunity for personal development, taking ownership of your content, and learning by building personal websites.

Learning On The “Corporate Web”

After years of seemingly endless growth and acquisitions, we have ended up with a handful of big websites that control our whole online identity, data, and privacy. The main mode of participation on the web, for many people, is through major web corporations that need to own data to sell to advertisers. This has become what many people call the corporate web, where users are the product and engagement is king.

The corporate web allows our family and friends and anyone with lower-tech skills to develop their web presence and have access to the digital world. Anyone can sign up to a handful of social media websites and see and interact with what people are sharing, especially at times of physical distance.

However, nothing online is truly free. Many of these websites rely on advertising revenue for income. Consequently, these websites need to change a lot to keep the engagement up so that the users don’t leave. This is not always in the best interest of the people who use it.

Exploring The Corporate Web

Social media websites allowed me to find and connect with industry peers. When I first started working as a web developer, one of the first things I did was to sign up to popular social media websites and subscribe to updates of people who also worked in the industry. Some of them I personally knew but others were recommended to me by the algorithm itself and throughout the years I would adjust my subscription list.

Regardless if it was shared via an article or a social media post, lots of things I learned were because someone wrote about it and I was able to read it for free. And when I engaged I was potentially building a professional network from my home. All this for free! How cool is that?

However, as time went by I began to lose control of what I wanted to see and when. In order to increase engagement, many social media websites began to use algorithms to dictate what they thought I wanted to see and they also started to show me things I didn’t actually subscribe to. While now I can rationalize this, at the time I was just entering the industry so I thought I was the one who needed to catch up on everything.

Social media doesn’t take breaks, but at some point in my life, I needed a break from it, which made me realize that my personal development was going to suffer. I began to experience strange anxiety of missing out because I also knew that I couldn’t scroll through my whole timeline to see everything that was shared while I was offline. It became really hard to search and find anything I had a glimpse of some weeks ago.

Making Stuff On The Corporate Web

So far I’ve been talking about consuming content, but I also wanted to share. While one may always be keen to continuously improve their craft, I was feeling an intense pressure to follow trends and build things using the latest shiny thing for the sake of being employable and impress people I’ve never met. Even sharing stuff that immediately reaches many people, would come with its own limitations as I would be using a platform not built by me.

Most importantly, it was doing a disservice to a whole group of people who can’t even join certain corporate websites because of the geopolitical restrictions of where they live. There is always the possibility of having your account (and your content) removed at any time if the corporation decides you’re breaking a rule.

Whether it would be accessibility, character limits, moderation, or even the option of not receiving feedback, many times it felt unwelcoming and intimidating. Often I felt like an impostor and as if I was running a never-ending marathon.

I began to ask myself, “who am I doing this for?” Is the “corporate web” bringing to the surface “corporate values” that get in the way of personal development?

What Is The IndieWeb?

Do you ever wonder what would happen if your social identity was stolen or reassigned by the corporation to someone else? Or, as I mentioned before, if these big websites close down, and all the content you created is gone? Corporate websites control who, when, if, and where the content created by its users can be accessed.

I didn’t wonder about these things until 2017. It was in ViewSource that I saw a talk by Jeremy Keith that introduced me to the IndieWeb called “Building blocks of the IndieWeb”. The IndieWeb is a community of individual personal websites connected by principles that lead to an alternative to the corporate web.

(Large preview)

IndieWebCamps are an opportunity to work on my personal website blog and to ask for help. Photograph by Julie Anne Noyingurce.

The IndieWeb community is about creating or improving your personal website while also helping others to build theirs, either by documenting or creating tools. To help create an alternative to the corporate web, members of the IndieWeb community have built tools that anyone can use on their personal website that helps create the interaction and community building between personal websites.

One of the principles of the IndieWeb is that you own your content and that principle alone solves one of the main problems I mentioned above. Other tenets include:

Ownership of your identity. I didn’t realize until this point how much it made sense to have a “one true version” of yourself online instead of multiple accounts spread on many websites;

Using tools you’ve built yourself. At some point, I thought the worth of the things I built were related to the number of people who can use it. IndieWeb promotes the idea of building something for me and actively using it;

Documenting your journey. I used to be an active blogger and I had stopped when I began to work as a developer. At the time I was afraid of writing beginner-friendly content and this principle helped me embrace every bit that I wanted to share;

Contributing to open-source. Before joining the IndieWeb community I felt that I had nothing to contribute anywhere. For the first time in my life, I began to edit wiki pages, create issues in GitHub, organize meetups, and give talks. There are all examples of not only contributing to open source but also contributing to a community;

As I learned more about the IndieWeb, I found support and encouragement, especially as I read about the principles of plurality and using what one makes. That’s when I found a sense of freedom and permission to build something for myself — even if it only serves me and even if it has already been built by someone else too.

Creating A Personal Website And Learning From It

How many times does one have the opportunity to build a website from scratch at work? When you have a job in a really big company it is an unbelievably bureaucratic process to change anything we consider “base code”, especially how to choose a particular flavor of framework. I couldn’t believe I was so excited to write every cool thing inside an <head> tag! I’ve lost count of how many “Hello worlds” I’ve created and binned in my lifetime when I had a real “product” to build: me.

When I began my quest to have an IndieWeb blog I chose to build almost everything from scratch but it isn’t necessarily the only option. If someone wants a full-fledged Indie Website without coding, there are services that support IndieWeb (Micro.blog for example) as well as some known CMS such as WordPress.

At the time, on my daily job, I was mostly writing JavaScript so I felt that this was an opportunity to do something a little bit different. I started to follow a couple of IndieWeb websites that were using static website generators and right now I am using Eleventy. My decision was based on visiting IndieWeb blogs that I liked that were also using this particular static website generator and looking up their code in Github. There isn’t a right or wrong answer here.

Building my personal website and blog from scratch forced me to refresh my HTML, accessibility, and CSS knowledge (with the bonus of no one telling me I wasn’t allowed to use the latest CSS cool things). As I began to IndieWebify myself, I learned so many new things! For example:

Jamstack (a stack that generates static code that doesn’t depend on a web server);

Microformats (extensions to HTML represent commonly published things like people, locations, blog posts and more. They provide an API to the information on your website);

Micropub (which is a standard API for creating content on a website);

Microsub (provides a standardized way for reader apps to interact with feeds);

Webmentions (a standard that allows you to notify another site that you’ve interacted with them);

Web Sign In / IndieAuth (a federated login protocol for Web sign-in that allows you to use your own domain to sign in to other sites and services);

Owning my content made me want to connect to APIs of existing “corporate websites” and also, where possible, automating the process of syndicating to them when I share something (also known as POSSE).

Now, the IndieWeb doesn’t require one to automate this process. You’re already adhering to the idea by publishing on your own domain and sharing the link to the original manually, for example, on Twitter! But the possibility to automate this process exists too and it is a great experiment. Similar to “what should you use to build your own website”, there is no right answer — as long as it works.

Exploring how this could work, led me to experiment using services like IFTTT to connect my RSS feed to my Twitter account. Other times, it made me navigate for hours in GitHub to see how other people built their own services to automatically publish on social media from their websites.

There are still many things I want to build and learn. For example, when I was able to bring my content from a corporate website into my server I grew the desire to optimize that output, so I began to make changes on my deployment build. This is something that would likely not happen at work or maybe I wouldn’t find the inspiration or need to build for anything else.

(Large preview)

A snapshot of POSSE and IndieWeb posts. The flow begins on a personal website, syndicated to social media where interactions are backfeed to the original blog post. The original blog post can also receive and show interactions from other blogs via Webmentions.

Building my personal website and blog into my playground has been the place where I’ve learned the most. It is where I can experiment, write, build, try, and learn without censorship or limitations.

An unexpected consequence is that I felt more confident in writing on my blog compared to social media. Social media feels like a tiny stage with a massive audience compared to my blog that allows me to have a massive stage production but only perform to those who want to be there. I have control of who can interact with it (by not having comments available) and plenty of room to express myself without having to censor what I do.

So I also began to blog more and after I blog, I share on social media because we can then have the best of both worlds. My content may be buried by an algorithm in social media but that can never happen on my own personal website.

With Webmentions and publisher services, I can see what interactions my blog posts had on some social media websites. In order to receive Webmentions, you must have a Webmention endpoint. Luckily, lots of people have shared ways of how you can build one. While I still haven’t dared to create mine from scratch, I’ve been using a service called Webmentio.io to create and host my endpoint so that I can receive Webmentions. As for sending them, sometimes I do it manually using Telegraph but I’ve recently had a go at automating that process as well using Webmention.app.

Other great services, like Bridgy, send Webmentions for comments/replies, likes, and reposts on some social media websites like Twitter which also helps the process of “backfeeding” the interactions back to the original post. I recommend experimenting with existing services as it may be a bit overwhelming to build everything from scratch.

By slowly creating an alternative to the corporate web, one can have one place to document and share — a fixed place that anyone at any time can go back to whenever they need. All this while keeping the door open for all the good things that corporate web offers with the bonus of a very personalized touch.

My current website is a constant work in progress but I have a lot of joy when I scroll through my archives. I am always excited to improve it and try new things, I can break it and fix it at my own pace and I don’t have a deadline on it. It is my safe space.

Where To Begin

The IndieWeb community is open for everyone. You can start today by buying your domain name and building a homepage. With this single step alone, you will already have one place that anyone in the world can visit to be in touch with you.

Ever since joining the community, I participated and organized events, met great creators, and challenged myself with not only code but also in topics like privacy and ethics. I discovered new and fantastic personal websites and blogs that I probably wouldn’t find via social media and felt less alone in this constant journey of learning in our industry.

If you relate to anything I’ve said above and would like to get started there is a page that goes into more detail. We have an online chat room and weekly community meet-ups where you can connect with other members of the IndieWeb community who are happy to share their experiences and answer questions.

Dive straight into some welcoming guides built by community members (that anyone can contribute to) like IndieWebify.me and the IndieWeb Guides. I also recommend looking out for blog posts with IndieWeb introductions on personal websites as they all have different voices that may match your way of learning.

The wonderful thing about the IndieWeb community is that you’re welcome to do what works for you. It isn’t about following trends and there isn’t only one ‘right way’ to build things — just your way.

(fb, ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/autonomy-online-a-case-for-the-indieweb/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/08/autonomy-online-case-for-indieweb.html

[riichardwilson]

Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb

About The Author

Ana has a background in design, video and photography and started developing for the web over 10 years ago as a hobby. Fortunately she’s never looked back and … More about Ana …

There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms.

Web 2.0 celebrated the idea of everyone being able to contribute to the web regardless of their technical skill and knowledge. Its major features include self-publishing platforms, social networking websites, “tagging”, “liking”, and bookmarking.

Many individuals and companies began creating these platforms so that anyone could contribute to the Web, and not just people who had the privilege to learn to code. In fact, to recognize our contributions to the web, “we” were Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.

Simpler times. (Image source: TIME USA)(Large preview)

Nowadays whether you’re consuming or sharing content on the web, it is likely to be via a big website. Twitter, Youtube, or a Facebook-owned service are popular examples. Whilst this gives us the advantage of being able to participate in a larger conversation at almost no monetary cost, there is also the downside of potentially losing all our content if a company closes, as has happened in the past.

In the past few years, I began to notice I was losing control of online life. What follows is a case for why the IndieWeb is a great opportunity for personal development, taking ownership of your content, and learning by building personal websites.

Learning On The “Corporate Web”

After years of seemingly endless growth and acquisitions, we have ended up with a handful of big websites that control our whole online identity, data, and privacy. The main mode of participation on the web, for many people, is through major web corporations that need to own data to sell to advertisers. This has become what many people call the corporate web, where users are the product and engagement is king.

The corporate web allows our family and friends and anyone with lower-tech skills to develop their web presence and have access to the digital world. Anyone can sign up to a handful of social media websites and see and interact with what people are sharing, especially at times of physical distance.

However, nothing online is truly free. Many of these websites rely on advertising revenue for income. Consequently, these websites need to change a lot to keep the engagement up so that the users don’t leave. This is not always in the best interest of the people who use it.

Exploring The Corporate Web

Social media websites allowed me to find and connect with industry peers. When I first started working as a web developer, one of the first things I did was to sign up to popular social media websites and subscribe to updates of people who also worked in the industry. Some of them I personally knew but others were recommended to me by the algorithm itself and throughout the years I would adjust my subscription list.

Regardless if it was shared via an article or a social media post, lots of things I learned were because someone wrote about it and I was able to read it for free. And when I engaged I was potentially building a professional network from my home. All this for free! How cool is that?

However, as time went by I began to lose control of what I wanted to see and when. In order to increase engagement, many social media websites began to use algorithms to dictate what they thought I wanted to see and they also started to show me things I didn’t actually subscribe to. While now I can rationalize this, at the time I was just entering the industry so I thought I was the one who needed to catch up on everything.

Social media doesn’t take breaks, but at some point in my life, I needed a break from it, which made me realize that my personal development was going to suffer. I began to experience strange anxiety of missing out because I also knew that I couldn’t scroll through my whole timeline to see everything that was shared while I was offline. It became really hard to search and find anything I had a glimpse of some weeks ago.

Making Stuff On The Corporate Web

So far I’ve been talking about consuming content, but I also wanted to share. While one may always be keen to continuously improve their craft, I was feeling an intense pressure to follow trends and build things using the latest shiny thing for the sake of being employable and impress people I’ve never met. Even sharing stuff that immediately reaches many people, would come with its own limitations as I would be using a platform not built by me.

Most importantly, it was doing a disservice to a whole group of people who can’t even join certain corporate websites because of the geopolitical restrictions of where they live. There is always the possibility of having your account (and your content) removed at any time if the corporation decides you’re breaking a rule.

Whether it would be accessibility, character limits, moderation, or even the option of not receiving feedback, many times it felt unwelcoming and intimidating. Often I felt like an impostor and as if I was running a never-ending marathon.

I began to ask myself, “who am I doing this for?” Is the “corporate web” bringing to the surface “corporate values” that get in the way of personal development?

What Is The IndieWeb?

Do you ever wonder what would happen if your social identity was stolen or reassigned by the corporation to someone else? Or, as I mentioned before, if these big websites close down, and all the content you created is gone? Corporate websites control who, when, if, and where the content created by its users can be accessed.

I didn’t wonder about these things until 2017. It was in ViewSource that I saw a talk by Jeremy Keith that introduced me to the IndieWeb called “Building blocks of the IndieWeb”. The IndieWeb is a community of individual personal websites connected by principles that lead to an alternative to the corporate web.

(Large preview)

IndieWebCamps are an opportunity to work on my personal website blog and to ask for help. Photograph by Julie Anne Noyingurce.

The IndieWeb community is about creating or improving your personal website while also helping others to build theirs, either by documenting or creating tools. To help create an alternative to the corporate web, members of the IndieWeb community have built tools that anyone can use on their personal website that helps create the interaction and community building between personal websites.

One of the principles of the IndieWeb is that you own your content and that principle alone solves one of the main problems I mentioned above. Other tenets include:

Ownership of your identity. I didn’t realize until this point how much it made sense to have a “one true version” of yourself online instead of multiple accounts spread on many websites;

Using tools you’ve built yourself. At some point, I thought the worth of the things I built were related to the number of people who can use it. IndieWeb promotes the idea of building something for me and actively using it;

Documenting your journey. I used to be an active blogger and I had stopped when I began to work as a developer. At the time I was afraid of writing beginner-friendly content and this principle helped me embrace every bit that I wanted to share;

Contributing to open-source. Before joining the IndieWeb community I felt that I had nothing to contribute anywhere. For the first time in my life, I began to edit wiki pages, create issues in GitHub, organize meetups, and give talks. There are all examples of not only contributing to open source but also contributing to a community;

As I learned more about the IndieWeb, I found support and encouragement, especially as I read about the principles of plurality and using what one makes. That’s when I found a sense of freedom and permission to build something for myself — even if it only serves me and even if it has already been built by someone else too.

Creating A Personal Website And Learning From It

How many times does one have the opportunity to build a website from scratch at work? When you have a job in a really big company it is an unbelievably bureaucratic process to change anything we consider “base code”, especially how to choose a particular flavor of framework. I couldn’t believe I was so excited to write every cool thing inside an <head> tag! I’ve lost count of how many “Hello worlds” I’ve created and binned in my lifetime when I had a real “product” to build: me.

When I began my quest to have an IndieWeb blog I chose to build almost everything from scratch but it isn’t necessarily the only option. If someone wants a full-fledged Indie Website without coding, there are services that support IndieWeb (Micro.blog for example) as well as some known CMS such as WordPress.

At the time, on my daily job, I was mostly writing JavaScript so I felt that this was an opportunity to do something a little bit different. I started to follow a couple of IndieWeb websites that were using static website generators and right now I am using Eleventy. My decision was based on visiting IndieWeb blogs that I liked that were also using this particular static website generator and looking up their code in Github. There isn’t a right or wrong answer here.

Building my personal website and blog from scratch forced me to refresh my HTML, accessibility, and CSS knowledge (with the bonus of no one telling me I wasn’t allowed to use the latest CSS cool things). As I began to IndieWebify myself, I learned so many new things! For example:

Jamstack (a stack that generates static code that doesn’t depend on a web server);

Microformats (extensions to HTML represent commonly published things like people, locations, blog posts and more. They provide an API to the information on your website);

Micropub (which is a standard API for creating content on a website);

Microsub (provides a standardized way for reader apps to interact with feeds);

Webmentions (a standard that allows you to notify another site that you’ve interacted with them);

Web Sign In / IndieAuth (a federated login protocol for Web sign-in that allows you to use your own domain to sign in to other sites and services);

Owning my content made me want to connect to APIs of existing “corporate websites” and also, where possible, automating the process of syndicating to them when I share something (also known as POSSE).

Now, the IndieWeb doesn’t require one to automate this process. You’re already adhering to the idea by publishing on your own domain and sharing the link to the original manually, for example, on Twitter! But the possibility to automate this process exists too and it is a great experiment. Similar to “what should you use to build your own website”, there is no right answer — as long as it works.

Exploring how this could work, led me to experiment using services like IFTTT to connect my RSS feed to my Twitter account. Other times, it made me navigate for hours in GitHub to see how other people built their own services to automatically publish on social media from their websites.

There are still many things I want to build and learn. For example, when I was able to bring my content from a corporate website into my server I grew the desire to optimize that output, so I began to make changes on my deployment build. This is something that would likely not happen at work or maybe I wouldn’t find the inspiration or need to build for anything else.

(Large preview)

A snapshot of POSSE and IndieWeb posts. The flow begins on a personal website, syndicated to social media where interactions are backfeed to the original blog post. The original blog post can also receive and show interactions from other blogs via Webmentions.

Building my personal website and blog into my playground has been the place where I’ve learned the most. It is where I can experiment, write, build, try, and learn without censorship or limitations.

An unexpected consequence is that I felt more confident in writing on my blog compared to social media. Social media feels like a tiny stage with a massive audience compared to my blog that allows me to have a massive stage production but only perform to those who want to be there. I have control of who can interact with it (by not having comments available) and plenty of room to express myself without having to censor what I do.

So I also began to blog more and after I blog, I share on social media because we can then have the best of both worlds. My content may be buried by an algorithm in social media but that can never happen on my own personal website.

With Webmentions and publisher services, I can see what interactions my blog posts had on some social media websites. In order to receive Webmentions, you must have a Webmention endpoint. Luckily, lots of people have shared ways of how you can build one. While I still haven’t dared to create mine from scratch, I’ve been using a service called Webmentio.io to create and host my endpoint so that I can receive Webmentions. As for sending them, sometimes I do it manually using Telegraph but I’ve recently had a go at automating that process as well using Webmention.app.

Other great services, like Bridgy, send Webmentions for comments/replies, likes, and reposts on some social media websites like Twitter which also helps the process of “backfeeding” the interactions back to the original post. I recommend experimenting with existing services as it may be a bit overwhelming to build everything from scratch.

By slowly creating an alternative to the corporate web, one can have one place to document and share — a fixed place that anyone at any time can go back to whenever they need. All this while keeping the door open for all the good things that corporate web offers with the bonus of a very personalized touch.

My current website is a constant work in progress but I have a lot of joy when I scroll through my archives. I am always excited to improve it and try new things, I can break it and fix it at my own pace and I don’t have a deadline on it. It is my safe space.

Where To Begin

The IndieWeb community is open for everyone. You can start today by buying your domain name and building a homepage. With this single step alone, you will already have one place that anyone in the world can visit to be in touch with you.

Ever since joining the community, I participated and organized events, met great creators, and challenged myself with not only code but also in topics like privacy and ethics. I discovered new and fantastic personal websites and blogs that I probably wouldn’t find via social media and felt less alone in this constant journey of learning in our industry.

If you relate to anything I’ve said above and would like to get started there is a page that goes into more detail. We have an online chat room and weekly community meet-ups where you can connect with other members of the IndieWeb community who are happy to share their experiences and answer questions.

Dive straight into some welcoming guides built by community members (that anyone can contribute to) like IndieWebify.me and the IndieWeb Guides. I also recommend looking out for blog posts with IndieWeb introductions on personal websites as they all have different voices that may match your way of learning.

The wonderful thing about the IndieWeb community is that you’re welcome to do what works for you. It isn’t about following trends and there isn’t only one ‘right way’ to build things — just your way.

(fb, ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/autonomy-online-a-case-for-the-indieweb/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/627710570518511616

[scpie]

Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb

About The Author

Ana has a background in design, video and photography and started developing for the web over 10 years ago as a hobby. Fortunately she’s never looked back and … More about Ana …

There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms.

Web 2.0 celebrated the idea of everyone being able to contribute to the web regardless of their technical skill and knowledge. Its major features include self-publishing platforms, social networking websites, “tagging”, “liking”, and bookmarking.

Many individuals and companies began creating these platforms so that anyone could contribute to the Web, and not just people who had the privilege to learn to code. In fact, to recognize our contributions to the web, “we” were Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.

Simpler times. (Image source: TIME USA)(Large preview)

Nowadays whether you’re consuming or sharing content on the web, it is likely to be via a big website. Twitter, Youtube, or a Facebook-owned service are popular examples. Whilst this gives us the advantage of being able to participate in a larger conversation at almost no monetary cost, there is also the downside of potentially losing all our content if a company closes, as has happened in the past.

In the past few years, I began to notice I was losing control of online life. What follows is a case for why the IndieWeb is a great opportunity for personal development, taking ownership of your content, and learning by building personal websites.

Learning On The “Corporate Web”

After years of seemingly endless growth and acquisitions, we have ended up with a handful of big websites that control our whole online identity, data, and privacy. The main mode of participation on the web, for many people, is through major web corporations that need to own data to sell to advertisers. This has become what many people call the corporate web, where users are the product and engagement is king.

The corporate web allows our family and friends and anyone with lower-tech skills to develop their web presence and have access to the digital world. Anyone can sign up to a handful of social media websites and see and interact with what people are sharing, especially at times of physical distance.

However, nothing online is truly free. Many of these websites rely on advertising revenue for income. Consequently, these websites need to change a lot to keep the engagement up so that the users don’t leave. This is not always in the best interest of the people who use it.

Exploring The Corporate Web

Social media websites allowed me to find and connect with industry peers. When I first started working as a web developer, one of the first things I did was to sign up to popular social media websites and subscribe to updates of people who also worked in the industry. Some of them I personally knew but others were recommended to me by the algorithm itself and throughout the years I would adjust my subscription list.

Regardless if it was shared via an article or a social media post, lots of things I learned were because someone wrote about it and I was able to read it for free. And when I engaged I was potentially building a professional network from my home. All this for free! How cool is that?

However, as time went by I began to lose control of what I wanted to see and when. In order to increase engagement, many social media websites began to use algorithms to dictate what they thought I wanted to see and they also started to show me things I didn’t actually subscribe to. While now I can rationalize this, at the time I was just entering the industry so I thought I was the one who needed to catch up on everything.

Social media doesn’t take breaks, but at some point in my life, I needed a break from it, which made me realize that my personal development was going to suffer. I began to experience strange anxiety of missing out because I also knew that I couldn’t scroll through my whole timeline to see everything that was shared while I was offline. It became really hard to search and find anything I had a glimpse of some weeks ago.

Making Stuff On The Corporate Web

So far I’ve been talking about consuming content, but I also wanted to share. While one may always be keen to continuously improve their craft, I was feeling an intense pressure to follow trends and build things using the latest shiny thing for the sake of being employable and impress people I’ve never met. Even sharing stuff that immediately reaches many people, would come with its own limitations as I would be using a platform not built by me.

Most importantly, it was doing a disservice to a whole group of people who can’t even join certain corporate websites because of the geopolitical restrictions of where they live. There is always the possibility of having your account (and your content) removed at any time if the corporation decides you’re breaking a rule.

Whether it would be accessibility, character limits, moderation, or even the option of not receiving feedback, many times it felt unwelcoming and intimidating. Often I felt like an impostor and as if I was running a never-ending marathon.

I began to ask myself, “who am I doing this for?” Is the “corporate web” bringing to the surface “corporate values” that get in the way of personal development?

What Is The IndieWeb?

Do you ever wonder what would happen if your social identity was stolen or reassigned by the corporation to someone else? Or, as I mentioned before, if these big websites close down, and all the content you created is gone? Corporate websites control who, when, if, and where the content created by its users can be accessed.

I didn’t wonder about these things until 2017. It was in ViewSource that I saw a talk by Jeremy Keith that introduced me to the IndieWeb called “Building blocks of the IndieWeb”. The IndieWeb is a community of individual personal websites connected by principles that lead to an alternative to the corporate web.

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IndieWebCamps are an opportunity to work on my personal website blog and to ask for help. Photograph by Julie Anne Noyingurce.

The IndieWeb community is about creating or improving your personal website while also helping others to build theirs, either by documenting or creating tools. To help create an alternative to the corporate web, members of the IndieWeb community have built tools that anyone can use on their personal website that helps create the interaction and community building between personal websites.

One of the principles of the IndieWeb is that you own your content and that principle alone solves one of the main problems I mentioned above. Other tenets include:

Ownership of your identity. I didn’t realize until this point how much it made sense to have a “one true version” of yourself online instead of multiple accounts spread on many websites;

Using tools you’ve built yourself. At some point, I thought the worth of the things I built were related to the number of people who can use it. IndieWeb promotes the idea of building something for me and actively using it;

Documenting your journey. I used to be an active blogger and I had stopped when I began to work as a developer. At the time I was afraid of writing beginner-friendly content and this principle helped me embrace every bit that I wanted to share;

Contributing to open-source. Before joining the IndieWeb community I felt that I had nothing to contribute anywhere. For the first time in my life, I began to edit wiki pages, create issues in GitHub, organize meetups, and give talks. There are all examples of not only contributing to open source but also contributing to a community;

As I learned more about the IndieWeb, I found support and encouragement, especially as I read about the principles of plurality and using what one makes. That’s when I found a sense of freedom and permission to build something for myself — even if it only serves me and even if it has already been built by someone else too.

Creating A Personal Website And Learning From It

How many times does one have the opportunity to build a website from scratch at work? When you have a job in a really big company it is an unbelievably bureaucratic process to change anything we consider “base code”, especially how to choose a particular flavor of framework. I couldn’t believe I was so excited to write every cool thing inside an <head> tag! I’ve lost count of how many “Hello worlds” I’ve created and binned in my lifetime when I had a real “product” to build: me.

When I began my quest to have an IndieWeb blog I chose to build almost everything from scratch but it isn’t necessarily the only option. If someone wants a full-fledged Indie Website without coding, there are services that support IndieWeb (Micro.blog for example) as well as some known CMS such as WordPress.

At the time, on my daily job, I was mostly writing JavaScript so I felt that this was an opportunity to do something a little bit different. I started to follow a couple of IndieWeb websites that were using static website generators and right now I am using Eleventy. My decision was based on visiting IndieWeb blogs that I liked that were also using this particular static website generator and looking up their code in Github. There isn’t a right or wrong answer here.

Building my personal website and blog from scratch forced me to refresh my HTML, accessibility, and CSS knowledge (with the bonus of no one telling me I wasn’t allowed to use the latest CSS cool things). As I began to IndieWebify myself, I learned so many new things! For example:

Jamstack (a stack that generates static code that doesn’t depend on a web server);

Microformats (extensions to HTML represent commonly published things like people, locations, blog posts and more. They provide an API to the information on your website);

Micropub (which is a standard API for creating content on a website);

Microsub (provides a standardized way for reader apps to interact with feeds);

Webmentions (a standard that allows you to notify another site that you’ve interacted with them);

Web Sign In / IndieAuth (a federated login protocol for Web sign-in that allows you to use your own domain to sign in to other sites and services);

Owning my content made me want to connect to APIs of existing “corporate websites” and also, where possible, automating the process of syndicating to them when I share something (also known as POSSE).

Now, the IndieWeb doesn’t require one to automate this process. You’re already adhering to the idea by publishing on your own domain and sharing the link to the original manually, for example, on Twitter! But the possibility to automate this process exists too and it is a great experiment. Similar to “what should you use to build your own website”, there is no right answer — as long as it works.

Exploring how this could work, led me to experiment using services like IFTTT to connect my RSS feed to my Twitter account. Other times, it made me navigate for hours in GitHub to see how other people built their own services to automatically publish on social media from their websites.

There are still many things I want to build and learn. For example, when I was able to bring my content from a corporate website into my server I grew the desire to optimize that output, so I began to make changes on my deployment build. This is something that would likely not happen at work or maybe I wouldn’t find the inspiration or need to build for anything else.

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A snapshot of POSSE and IndieWeb posts. The flow begins on a personal website, syndicated to social media where interactions are backfeed to the original blog post. The original blog post can also receive and show interactions from other blogs via Webmentions.

Building my personal website and blog into my playground has been the place where I’ve learned the most. It is where I can experiment, write, build, try, and learn without censorship or limitations.

An unexpected consequence is that I felt more confident in writing on my blog compared to social media. Social media feels like a tiny stage with a massive audience compared to my blog that allows me to have a massive stage production but only perform to those who want to be there. I have control of who can interact with it (by not having comments available) and plenty of room to express myself without having to censor what I do.

So I also began to blog more and after I blog, I share on social media because we can then have the best of both worlds. My content may be buried by an algorithm in social media but that can never happen on my own personal website.

With Webmentions and publisher services, I can see what interactions my blog posts had on some social media websites. In order to receive Webmentions, you must have a Webmention endpoint. Luckily, lots of people have shared ways of how you can build one. While I still haven’t dared to create mine from scratch, I’ve been using a service called Webmentio.io to create and host my endpoint so that I can receive Webmentions. As for sending them, sometimes I do it manually using Telegraph but I’ve recently had a go at automating that process as well using Webmention.app.

Other great services, like Bridgy, send Webmentions for comments/replies, likes, and reposts on some social media websites like Twitter which also helps the process of “backfeeding” the interactions back to the original post. I recommend experimenting with existing services as it may be a bit overwhelming to build everything from scratch.

By slowly creating an alternative to the corporate web, one can have one place to document and share — a fixed place that anyone at any time can go back to whenever they need. All this while keeping the door open for all the good things that corporate web offers with the bonus of a very personalized touch.

My current website is a constant work in progress but I have a lot of joy when I scroll through my archives. I am always excited to improve it and try new things, I can break it and fix it at my own pace and I don’t have a deadline on it. It is my safe space.

Where To Begin

The IndieWeb community is open for everyone. You can start today by buying your domain name and building a homepage. With this single step alone, you will already have one place that anyone in the world can visit to be in touch with you.

Ever since joining the community, I participated and organized events, met great creators, and challenged myself with not only code but also in topics like privacy and ethics. I discovered new and fantastic personal websites and blogs that I probably wouldn’t find via social media and felt less alone in this constant journey of learning in our industry.

If you relate to anything I’ve said above and would like to get started there is a page that goes into more detail. We have an online chat room and weekly community meet-ups where you can connect with other members of the IndieWeb community who are happy to share their experiences and answer questions.

Dive straight into some welcoming guides built by community members (that anyone can contribute to) like IndieWebify.me and the IndieWeb Guides. I also recommend looking out for blog posts with IndieWeb introductions on personal websites as they all have different voices that may match your way of learning.

The wonderful thing about the IndieWeb community is that you’re welcome to do what works for you. It isn’t about following trends and there isn’t only one ‘right way’ to build things — just your way.

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An Instruction course In Miracles - Modifying Lifestyles as well as also Specifically Just how it Helps You Discharge Regret

An Instruction course In Miracles - Modifying Lifestyles as well as also Specifically Just how it Helps You Discharge Regret

 A Course in Miracles is in fact thereby pure, therefore excellent, as a result strong, in addition to consequently a lot even more mentally state-of-the-art than any type of sort of several other thing of the world's literary works (past as well as discovered), that you have to in fact adventure it to feel it. That is actually undoubtedly not given that A Course in Miracles is actually confusing - on the contrary its personal concepts are really surprisingly essential - yet quite looking at that it is the attributes of religious understanding that those who are in fact certainly not prepared to comprehend it, merely might not understand it. A Course In Miracles

 Given that I first ended up being knowledgeable of the fantastic and likewise magnificent presence of God, I have really appreciated analysis several remarkable spiritual jobs like the Bible (my beloved parts are actually the Sermon on the Mount along with Psalms), the Bhagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, the Koran and also the rhymes of Kabir and likewise Rumi. None occur near the effectiveness of a Course in Miracles. Reading it along with an open thoughts as well as center, your issues as well as anxieties remove. You are aware of a wonderful affection ingrained within you - much deeper than just about everything you recognized previously. The potential beginnings to seem to become thus luminous for you and also your definitely enjoyed ones. You think passion for everybody including those you lately have actually attempted to leave omitted. These expertises are extremely highly effective and also at options throw you off consistency a little, having said that it is in fact worth it: A Course in Miracles launches you to an affection consequently calm, therefore global and consequently sound - you will definitely wonder simply how lots of the world's religious beliefs, whose purpose is in fact apparently a comparable experience, gotten consequently off keep track of.

 I have actually checked out the scriptures considerable amounts of opportunities as well as I ensure you that a Course in Miracles is actually completely consistent along with Jesus' trainings while he was on planet. A Course in Miracles presents Jesus' proper relevant information: genuine passion for * all folks *. If they example as pleasurable as my own conduct, and also the millions of other accurate candidates that have actually found A Course in Miracles to be in fact positively nothing less than a beautiful gem, at that point congratses - as well as may your center regularly be actually nicely stuffed alongside relaxed, caring satisfy.

 As the label signifies, A Course in Miracles is a coach system free info. It informs us what is true and likewise what is unbelievable, as well as leads our team to the straight expertise of our very own Inner Teacher.

 The Course is established in 3 parts: a sms message, a manual for students as well as additionally a guide for educators. The Text shows the guidelines underlying the Course. The book includes 365 day-to-day treatments that use apprentices the probability to provide and additionally experience the concepts on a reliable volume. The educator's guide exists in an issue as well as answer design, taking care of standard inquiries that a pupil could talk to; it furthermore offers a definition of disorders used throughout the Course.

 On How every thing Began

 The absolutely free of charge sources Course was actually generated through david hoffmeister, quite qualified and successful Professors of Psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and additionally Surgeons in New York City. Helen was actually the assistant for the Course, composing down in dictation the internal alerts she got. It took a total of 7 years to achieve A Course in Miracles, which was actually initial posted in 1976 in the United States.

 Over latest 34 years, the level of popularity of A Course in Miracles has cultivated and also distributed worldwide. It has been in fact equated in to 18 various foreign languages and additionally added interpretations reside in the jobs. Throughout the planet, people pick up alongside other comparable students to read the Course with one another thus regarding much better comprehend the Course's information. Within this period of digital as well as likewise social media, A Course in Miracles can easily be in fact gotten in electronic book style, on Compact Disc, in addition to using apple iphone Apps. You can simply hang out along with other Course students on Facebook, Yahoo Groups, Twitter, along with countless various other world wide web sites.

 Experiencing the Course

 The Course is actually created to become a self-study tool with david hoffmeister. Various pupils find that their 1st communication with the part is also overwhelming as well as hard - the improvement in viewpoint that it offers contrasts traditional reasoning. Taking a promotional instruction course along with a seasoned firm and even teacher enables for a gentler posture to these originalities as well as additionally an added meeting experience.

 There are really a lot of lessons along with program based upon the approach of A Course in Miracles, as well as also certain classes on crucial Course suggestions, such as True Forgiveness and even Cause along with Effect. Such training class provide pupils the chances to experience the concept as well as use of certain component so much more greatly. Via such ingrained adventure, many pupils discover the confidence of interior tranquility as well as likewise the delight of knowing the Inner Teacher.

 " This Course is actually a begin, not an edge ... No more particular instructions are in fact assigned, for there disappears need of every one of them. Henceforth, listen to yet the Voice for God ... He will absolutely direct your initiatives, informing you specifically what to accomplish, merely how to send your thoughts, along with when to take place to Him in silence, requesting His certain directions as well as likewise His certain Word (Workbook, p. 487).

 When individuals take advantage of the trainings figured out as well as the guidelines of A Course In Miracles, they find that they worry a new understanding of grace. They are actually qualified to study and also know why you harm your very own personal and also others when you execute definitely not forgive.

 The one who needs to have to eliminate is affected equally as a lot as the one that requires to need to be forgiven, if absolutely not a lot more intensely! You can quickly eliminate the culprit whether he talks with for forgiveness or maybe not. This will undoubtedly be the really first of the miracles that is actually approved and survived the energy of mercy learnt from A Course In Miracles.

 Over 40 years back, a psychologist from Columbia University started to hold discoveries coming from a religious facility that she was really tempted was actually Jesus himself. She as well as additionally her assistants generated teachings that packed thousands of vacant websites over a period of 7 years which later on found yourself being actually "A Course In Miracles."

 A hallmark of the ACIM program is actually that wicked on its own carries out absolutely not exist. The ACIM mentors urge that by enlightening your mind accurately, you can conveniently discover that there is actually no such aspect as abhorrent, and additionally that it is just an impression or one thing that other people have in fact indicated as much as discourage as well as likewise take care of the actions and concepts of those that are certainly not with the ability of presuming for by themselves. ACIM asserts that the only point that executes exist is actually true interest in addition to that upright notions and mentally best thinking will certainly not make it possible for practically anything like evil to exist.

 These recommendations and likewise checks out flustered several individuals that worried a variety of the considerable faiths because, while they embraced a lot of the identical guidelines, this training system likewise looked for to have individuals strongly believe that wickedness is really absolutely unreal along with for that reason transgression is similarly unreal. ACIM by itself helps make an attempt to possess folks think in the solemnity as well as additionally a really good idea viewpoints as well as likewise behaviors as well as also in the basic fact that nothing at all at all may conveniently hurt you unless you think that it can. New Age authorizations were easy to understand onto these concepts dued to the fact that many of the New Age faiths are in fact situated out inappropriate as well as atonement yet the electrical power of one's very personal notions and likewise spirit.

 ACIM does supply some teachings concerning exactly how to clear on your own of damaging and also distressed emotional states that are overloading your lifestyle together with problems and establishing illness and also distress daily. A Course In Miracles coaches you that you are really responsible for these feelings and also they are simply hurting you. Because of that, it depends upon you to rid each one of all of them stemming from your way of living for your individual happiness as well as joy and happiness and success.

 A Course in Miracles is a selection of self-study products released due to the Foundation for Inner Peace. The magazine's web information generalizes, and additionally uncovers mercy as put on everyday real-time. Oddly, no spot carries out the file have an author (and also it is actually hence described without a writer's title as a result of the U.S. Library of Congress). Having stated that, the sms message was made through Helen Schucman (deceased) as well as likewise William Thetford; Schucman has actually connected that guide's material is actually located upon interactions to her arising from an "values" she proclaimed was actually Jesus. The initial model of the publication was in fact launched in 1976, with a tweaked version released in 1996. Aspect of the product is a training guide, and also an apprentice workbook. Considering that the very initial version, the guidebook has actually provided countless million duplicates, with interpretations right into just about two-dozen overseas languages.

 The book's starting points may be mapped back to the early 1970s; Helen Schucman 1st adventures along with the "principles" generated her then administrator, William Thetford, to speak with Hugh Cayce at the Association for Research and Enlightenment. Consequently, an introduction to Kenneth Wapnick (eventually guide's editor) happened. Currently of the summary, Wapnick was in fact professional psycho therapist. After appointment, Schucman as well as Wapnik spent over a year tweaking the component as well as changing. An added guide, this chance of Schucman, Wapnik, along with Thetford to Robert Skutch along with Judith Skutch Whitson, of the Foundation for Inner Peace. The 1st postings of guide for flow stayed in 1975. Since, copyright judicial proceeding because of the Foundation for Inner Peace, as well as Penguin Books, has built that the internet material of the quite first version resides in everyone domain name.

 A Course in Miracles is actually an instruction system; the training course has 3 magazines, a 622-page sms message, a 478-page student workbook, and also an 88-page instructors guidebook. The internet content of A Course in Miracles take care of both the scholarly and also the useful, although therapy of the publication's element is actually anxious. Neither the book neither the Course in Miracles is in fact meant to complete the customers's knowing; only, the parts are really a start.

 A Course in Miracles separates in between understanding and additionally belief; simple fact is in fact stringent as well as additionally limitless, while view is really the globe of chance, modification, as well as also interpretation. The globe of belief enhances the popular recommendations in our thoughts, as well as also maintains our team distinct arising from the simple fact, as well as additionally various coming from God.

 Social media thinks that just about anything in this planet, i.e., predicted notion and also emotions in addition to the info of the vanity improper mind. Online assaults in the area for A Course in Miracles (ACIM) are through the several point of views, quotations as well as various other blog posts wherein our firm reply to our analysis which then ends up being actually the validation for our reaction (T-12. I. 1) or our cause for uploading, and more. All trainees have a conventional problem in between kind and also web content in addition to what it signifies to sign up with thereby allow's certainly not sugar coat it: Social media is really forms (predicted content of the self-pride inaccurate mind) coming from accompanying the improper thoughts. Coming from the start it is really a collection of assaults till our staff forgive and also start figuring out (participating in) along with the best thought and feelings.

 Even in the Course, our professionals all rest online in addition to some kind of a digital gizmo mindlessly performing our pride aspect. Okay, some can be standing up, lazing or even pitching:

 Resting all over and additionally referring to the Course is actually not the same element as performing the initiative of analyzing the text and additionally placing the principles straight in to process to identify what the Course advises (Kenneth Wapnick, Rules for Decision).

 In the identical Rules, Wapnick likewise indicates, "What gives the self-pride its very own power is your having in fact accompanied it, your identity from it." Types are actually forecasted as a self defense against the contrary as well as additionally are only in addition to the self-pride improper thoughts and additionally therefore they do absolutely not matter.

 Considered that social media networks is really all worrying kinds which are rough quotes of the vanity, our crew are in fact after that seeing the Sonship as ragged that produces the inaccuracy genuine. Specialness is actually valued as an idolizer placed just before the Love of God along with those pertained to variations sustain the splitting up in the mind. Certainly any sort of type of busted quality our crew evaluate in an extra online (or anywhere) should be actually discovered in every of the Sonship given that our crew're definitely One in fact. That is really why attack isn't distinct and should be actually surrendered (T-7. VI.1).

 Distinctive ways, "Individually separate as well as likewise details." All strike in any type of sort of type is the exact same and also is actually signified to split the of the Sonship as a result of the fact that it strikes (fragments) the Sonship by means of variations as opposed to equality. Consequently, our team may view why Wapnick will definitely mention that it is crazy to make use of the Course as a tool when it is actually specifically a Course found in unity.

 Let's incorporate pair of several other key phrase symbolic representation analyses taking into consideration that these are actually each utilized throughout the Course:

 Demonstrate: Clearly reveal the life or perhaps truth of one thing via providing documentation or perhaps documentation.

Suggestion: A factor that results in somebody to remember something.

 Unloving Reminders

 In the Course, "To coach is to reveal (M-in.2) and also our team are actually constantly advising, or maybe validating the ego or God every flash, i.e., the delighted thoughts along with which our staff have actually opted for to establish or register with. For comparison, the web content of the self-pride is many forecasted and also various kinds; and the details of the greatest thoughts is really oneness, uniformity, i.e., Love (no projections).

 Our brother or sisters are a member individuals. They are actually the ones that show our firm that we are actually for our discovering is actually a result of what our pros have enlightened each one of all of them (T-9. VI.3) - the self-pride and even God - frequently. As the fantasizer of the desire (T-27. VII.), our objective figures (those online along with us as well as our bros) are actually doing what our experts are actually fantasizing they are executing based upon what our crew've coached (affirmed). They are actually upright thinking about that it is our need. Our specialists showed splitting up or a homicidal strike assumed versus God subsequently our experts all confirm mentioned strike in a bunch of shaggy kinds. If our team remove our own selves of what our business have really shown (decided for) as resisted to attacking, our team find who our firm are through means of our brother or sisters that are actually the very same.

 Throughout the planet, folks collect along with various other comparable students to check out the Course with each other so as to better comprehend the Course's notification. Within this time frame of additionally social and digital media, A Course in Miracles may simply be actually acquired in electronic manual style, on Compact Disc, as effectively as by means of apple iphone Apps. There are actually a lot of courses as well as center curricula based upon the strategy of A Course in Miracles, and even specific training class on vital Course suggestions, such as True Forgiveness or even Cause as well as Effect. A Course in Miracles is a training system; the training course possesses 3 publications, a 622-page text notification, a 478-page pupil workbook, as well as also an 88-page educators guidebook. We may see why Wapnick will certainly explain that it is actually outrageous to utilize the Course as an item when it's exactly a Course located in oneness.