#he uploaded his first video just a month ago and he has like 800 videos

[r-gm]

tumblr please look at my personal favorite asmrtist

[gashinabts]

peculiar taste| (m)

Words: 2.8k 

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Smut, Fluff, pwp

Summary: Unknowingly, you find out that your feet pics are roaming around twitter just to find out that your room mate runs the page. 

Warnings: FOOT STUFF, foot job ( idk if thats a thing), foot fetish

a/n:  There’s a lot of foot stuff so if that makes you uncomfortable then don’t read it. Btw if there’s other weird kinks/fetishes that you think a member would like just comment or message me. 

Twitter is a scary place, you never had it until your friend from work told you to download it because there’s funny memes. So when you downloaded it you were not surprised that there were weird foot pictures. See you were not one to shame someone who has weird fetishes but this was different. Oddly enough the picture had the same pedicure as you and the same tattoo on your ankle. Deciding to go on the page you notice there were pictures of your feet, the black heels you owned were there too. 

Is someone spying on you? There is a sudden noise from the kitchen and you jolt in fear, holding the phone close to you as you walk towards the noise. The fear disappears when you see your roommate slash friend Taehyung eating pickles from the jar. “ Hey, wanna go to the park? We can have a little picnic,” Taehyung munches the last part before putting it back in the fridge. “ What’s wrong?” He notices your worried face.

Shaking your head, not sure if you should tell him your worries. Taehyung would probably freak out more than you, he’ll probably call the FBI to install high tech cameras around the apartment. “ Nothing,” you smile. “ I’m down but I’m making the food. Last time you just packed onions and capri suns,” you move him aside to pull out bread to make sandwiches. 

He gives you his signature boxy smile, “ Sorry you don’t have an acquired taste,” he shrugs. 

---

When you guys get back from the park you immediately lay in your bed tired from all the running that Taehyung made you do. It was supposed to be a relaxing picnic, however Taehyung forced you to play tag with the children in the park. When you first met Taehyung you thought he was a quiet and stuck up person because of his emotionless face whenever he was sitting with people. But that all changed when you got to know him better, he was just a funny and weird person but in a good way. Needless to say you don’t ever want him to move out because he is just a fun person to have around.

The ping rings loudly on your phone, you get a message from your mom. You quickly text her back and then go on twitter to the foot fetish page to inspect it more. Maybe DM the person to see where they get these pics. Your eyes widen when you see a new picture that was uploaded a few minutes ago, your feet in your sandals that you just bought last week. Along with the picnic blanket that you use when you go to the park with Taehyung.

Jumping out of your bed you run to Taehyung’s room to demand answers from him, but he is currently playing Uno by himself. “ I’m trying to practice so I can win next time we play with Jungkook and Namjoon,” he places the green card down.

“ It’s Uno. The easiest game in the world, it was literally made for children,” you groan in frustration. Taehyung shrugs then goes back to his game and places the reverse card to the pile. “ That’s why I’m not here,” you shake your head. “ Why are my feet on a fetish page on twitter?”

His sharp eyes widen, you can’t tell if it’s due to shock or confusion. The brows are covered from his wavy black hair, lips parted in an ‘oh’ shape. “ Okay, don’t get mad. I have been posting you foot pics in exchange for money,” he puts his hands up when you throw his pillow at him. 

“ Taehyung! I can’t believe you,” you sigh. You became a renowned foot fetish star without any acknowledgment. What if people start to recognize you on the streets? Now you can never wear sandals.

“ I should’ve told you but I knew you were going to be against it,” Taehyung gets, ignoring the Uno cards and going up to you. His large hands come together holding them in front. “ If you want to take me to the police I understand. But make sure you feed the racoon that’s been secretly hiding in the garden shed,” he gives his puppy eyes. You can’t ever get mad at Taehyung, no matter what. It’s like he has this power that doesn’t make anyone upset.

Sighing, you gently push his hands down to his sides, “ I’m not turning you in,” you say. His remorse features immediately vanish, now becoming gleeful, as he engulfs you in a bear hug. If he’s getting paid you wonder how much he is making off of your feet. “ So how much money have you made so far?” The bed sinks as you sit down on it.

Taehyung's finger scratches his head, trying to remember how much the thirsty people on Twitter paid. “ Hmm, like a couple hundred. I’m saving the money so we can get a new tv.” 

The TV you guys had was found by Taehyung who was riding his bike around the neighborhood. An old man was giving it out and Taehyung called you excitedly asking you to bring your car so you can bring it back home. Upon your arrival you see an old blocky Sony tv that doesn’t even have an HDMI port. Taehyung convinced you that it was vintage and it would match the interior design of the apartment. “ Do people actually like that stuff ?” You ask while looking at your feet. What a weird thing to fetishize you think to yourself. 

Taehyung's hair floofs as he jumps back on the bed grabbing his phone that’s beside you. “ Yes. A lot of people,” he quickly unlocks his phone. “ Look, this man was willing to pay sixty dollars for you to have a foot massage,” you look at the DM. “ There’s also other requests. Like you wearing heels, stockings, and other weird things,” he shrugs putting his phone away.

People pay money for this, and you guys do need some money. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little extra cash for stuff. No one is ever gonna find out that it’s your feet. “ Let’s keep doing it,” you look at Taehyung, whose eyes widen at your words. 

“ Really?” Taehyung asked in a serious tone. Wanting to make sure that you actually want to do it not because of his stupid mistake.

“ Yeah, it would be nice to have extra cash,” you nod your head.

----

“ This feels really weird,” you flinch at the stickiness of the honey pouring on your feet. Taehyung makes a hand motion for you to keep pouring it as he films it on his phone. Your face is not in view so no one can see the weird faces you're making as the stickiness goes in between your toes. Just another weird request from a person. This guy is paying sixty dollars for this, so who cares that you are pouring honey on your feet.

Taehyung nods and gives the okay sign, ending the video. “ I feel bad that the bees are dying and we are wasting their precious honey on your feet,” he pouts before leaving to retrieve a wet towel. He tosses it to you so you can wipe the honey off before walking on the floor. 

The wet towel doesn’t help much so you decide to wash it. “ Yeah, we should visit the bee sanctuary to give our condolences,” you joke as you run to the bathtub to wash your feet with soap. 

“ That would be nice,” Taehyung smiles watching you wash your feet. He hears you laugh, “ Oh you were kidding,” he laughs along with you. The phone pings and he grabs it from his back pocket, looking at the DM’s. ***800 dollar request *** Taehyung reads loudly, eyes widening at the words. He reads the request to himself, heart beating fast because this is actually a sexual request. Also because this is the most someone is willing to spend on a video. For the past month it's only been under the hundreds that people spent on your feet.

Your voice startles him, “ What are they asking for you?” Turning off the faucet you give your undivided attention to him. 

Taehyung gulps then scratches the back of his neck, “ Uh- he wants you to use your feet to fondle someone’s dick,” he coughs at the end. There’s a silence that washes over you guys. “ Yeah,  I can just decline-”

“ Would I be fondling you?,” you ask. Taehyung tucks his phone back in his pocket then sits next to you. 

Taehyung puts his hand on your shoulder, his eyes are looking at you seriously. “ We don't have to do this.” 

 It’s 800 hundred dollars that you guys would be missing out on.“ I want to do it. Our faces won’t be showing, right?”  You really don’t mind just as long as Taehyung is comfortable doing it with you.

Taehyung exhales, nodding his head, “ Yeah no faces.” His heart beats faster as he looks at your feet.

***

“ Let me wash my feet one more time,��� you go get up to use the bathroom one more time. Taehyung tugs you back down the bed. 

“ You already did it twice before you came to my room,” he lets out a chuckle. “ Don’t be nervous,” he sits on his chair. He grabs your foot gently placing it on his thigh. Large hands rubbing your ankle to calm you down. “ I’ll give you a foot massage and we’ll go from there,” he says softly. There’s a different mood between the two of you. It’s not like the usual playful mood that you guys have. It's heavier, if that makes sense.

Nodding your head, his big hands rub your feet. Rolling out any tension on the center of your foot, you sigh not used to this kind of attention in that area. His hands are like magic making all the stress on your foot disappear. At one point you close your eyes in relaxation feeling your body get lighter. Immediately your eyes open when you feel lips kissing your ankle, his soft lips leave a few more kisses as your eyes meet his dark eyes. Looking down you see a hard on “ Taehyung,” you whisper. He puts your foot back on his thigh, “ Should I start recording?,” you ask. Your hands shake, bringing his phone into your hands. 

Taehyung lets out a quiet hum, indicating for you to do so. You hold the phone tightly, pressing the record button. Last night you did some research looking at feet groping and you feel kind of confident. Hopefully, you don’t embarrass yourself or make Taehyung immediately walk out of the room. Your right foot teasingly goes up and down his thigh, looking carefully at Taehyung’s reaction. He lets out a groan when you get close to his bulge but goes to the other thigh doing the same action as before.

“ Baby please,” Taehyung's voice is hoarse. The pet name surprises you in a good way but you quickly remind yourself that he is only calling you that so your name won’t be exposed. His hand goes to your leg, running his fingers against your calf. Listening to his request you trail your foot to his bulge, lightly brushing the tip of your toes. He lets out a breathy exhale, looking down at your foot taunting him. 

You never thought you’d be into this, maybe it is the position. There’s some kind of power you hold as you get to dictate whether you should make him feel pleasure by the pressure of your foot. The way Taehyung’s breath quickens when you apply more pressure, his eyes giving you a sultry look. Your foot applies more pressure, toes spreading feeling the outline of his bulge. Doing slow circles, trying to feel more of him. His hand tightens on your leg, “ Fuck, right there,” Taehyung closes his eyes for a quick second. The hardness of his cock turns you on, you feel the thickness of it beneath your foot and you know he probably has a big cock. 

“ Does my foot feel good, baby?” You condescendly ask. His eyes look into yours surprise of your tone and question. His jaw clenching, looking hot and bothered, a new look that you want to store in your memory. “ Look at you getting turned on just by my foot,” you tsk in disappointment. Applying more pressure you arch your eyebrow still expecting an answer from him.

Taehyung hisses in pleasure, “ Yeah, your foot feels good,” he tosses his head when you rub your foot harder up and down his clothed cock. “ It feels to fucking good,” he whispers more to himself.

“ Take your cock for me baby,” you command him. Taehyung gives you a face of relief immediately taking his cock out of his pants and briefs. And you were right about his cock being thick and big. Now you just want to feel it in your hands and your mouth, actually everywhere. The precum is leaking, begging to be touched. The heel of your foot meets his hard cock, and he flinches but then immediately going back to your touch. “ Spit on it,” you look down, indicating Taehyung to spit on his cock.

He groans loud at your assertion, not used to this. Taehyung never sees this side of you, having a higher authority. You're usually compliant and listen to whatever he wants to do. He follows your words, spitting on his cock, as he watches your two feet come together cupping the thickness of his cock. Jerking him up and down.“ Shit shit,” he curses at himself for wanting to come right now.

“ It’s not even my pussy and you're already a moaning mess,” you chuckle to yourself. His eyes are downcast to the slow movement of your feet. The small breathy moans are getting louder, and you love the sound of it. 

If your feet are this good he can’t imagine what your pussy would feel like. He wants to desperately ask if he can fuck it later but he puts his thoughts away trying not to moan your name loudly. The movements get faster and he thinks this is the fastest time he has ever come. “ I’m going to come baby. Can I come please?”  He looks up at your face, and notices a dark gaze, and he wants to kiss the evil smirk off your face.

You wouldn’t be surprised if you creamed your pants right now at the sight of his begging and climaxing. “ Mmm, so soon?” You teasingly ask. Taehyung shamelessly nods, his hands clenching at nothing. “ Come all over my feet dirty boy,” your eyes watch carefully at his pretty bottom lip getting bitten by his teeth.

Before you know it Taehyung is tossing his head back, “ Fuck,” he lets out a loud drawl. His head Adam apple is bobbing and his pretty collar bones are getting more exposed. White spurts all over your feet and you keep fondling him until he holds your ankle in place. He finally looks down at the mess he made, surprised at how much he come.

You stop recording, placing the phone down the bed. There’s a towel next to you, you pull your feet towards you wiping the come off your feet. “ Can you kiss me?” Your head snaps to Taehyung’s question. His eyes don’t have the same lustful gaze but some hint of fondness. 

Nodding your head, you are about to kiss him until you realize that you ate sushi about an hour ago. Fearing that he probably can taste it from your mouth you pull back shaking your head. “ Let me brush my teeth real quick,” you try to walk to the bathroom. Until Taehyung laughs brightly pulling you back and pecking your lips softly.

The kiss makes you swoon and want to kiss him more but he pulls away too soon. “ Why did you want to kiss me?” You ask him not wanting to get your hopes high. But your heart is already beating hard because it’s Taehyung who kissed you.

“ I like you,” Taehyung shrugs nonchalantly. “ Why did you agree to kiss me?” He asks you while holding your hand.

“ I like you,” you do the same gesture as him. Taehyung smiles and leans towards your lips and you clothes your eyes expecting a kiss until you feel him push you back. Opening your eyes you see him pull his shirt over his head, and you're surprised to his slightly defined chest and v line. 

“ Even when I annoy you and cause nothing but trouble for you?” Taehyung looks down at you biting his bottom lip, a nervous tick he has.

You smile bringing his large hand down, pecking it lightly, “ That’s the best part though,” then pulling him down to kiss him. 

[hypocrisyofandrewdobson]

Dobson's Patreon: An Addendum to His Monument of Sins

(The following is a submission from @soyouareandrewdobson, meant to be an addendum to the multi-post submission @ripsinfest made a while back. Ironically, this one also had issues when being submitted, so I’ll be copypasting it here with all the images and links originally intended.)

In 2018, user @ripsinfest wrote a multipart series of posts for THOAD, recounting Dobson’s attempt to establish a patreon in 2015 and how it resulted in failure on a massive scale, to the point that his patreon is arguably “a monument to all his sins”.

Personally I think the post series is extremely well researched, rather “neutral” in terms of tone (letting the posts provided as evidence speak more for themselves than the opinion of the writer) and gives a detailed but quick rundown on what went wrong. Primarily that Dobson overestimated his own “value” as an artist and did NOT attempt to give his few supporters what they wanted through his artwork posted around the time.

I do however want to use the opportunity to also point out at certain obvious things that in my opinion (and likely the opinions of others) added to the failure of the patreon account, that were not accounted for in detail and are primarily related to how the internet perceives popularity and Dobson’s inability to understand, how to “sell” and make himself look good to the public.

To begin with, let’s just point out a certain truth about making money via Patreon: To do so, depends a lot on your popularity as a content creator online. That is simply because the more popular you are, the bigger your fanbase is and as such the more likely a certain percentage of people may be willing to donate money to you and your work in hopes they get something out of it, even if it is just the altruistic feeling of having helped someone they “like”. It doesn’t take a genius to see, how e.g. internet reviewers such as Linkara or moviebob (around 2800 and 4400$ earnings via patreon each month respectively) can make quite some money, while other, more obscure content creator or artists barely make money to go by, earning essentially pocket money at best.

In addition, popularity is fleeting. A few years ago e.g. internet personality Noah Antweiler aka The SpoonyOne managed to earn 5000$ a month via patreon, just shortly after establishing his account. But his lack of content over the years AND his toxic behavior online resulted in a decline of popularity and with it people jumping off his Patreon. As such, Antweiler only earns nowadays around 290$ a month via Patreon and most of that money is likely form people who have forgotten they donate to him in the first place anyway.

And Noah is not the only one who over the course of the last couple of years lost earnings. Brianna Wu makes barely more than he does, despite having once been the “darling” of the internet when the Gamergate controversy was at its peak. Many Bronies who once made more than 2k via video reviews on a show about little horses at the peak of its popularity (2013-15) earn less than 300-800 on average nowadays because interest on the show as well as people talking about it has declined.

Heck, in preparation of writing this piece I found out, that one of the highest grossing patreons nowadays is “The last podcast on the left”, a podcast that earns more than 67k a month by making recordings on obscure and macabre subjects on a regular basis.

So there you have it folks: As the interests of the internet users change, so does the popularity of certain people online and -in case they have a patreon account or similar plattforms- their chances of making money via their content.

Which now brings us back to Dobson, who was not popular at all at that particular time and managed to become even less popular as the months and years passed by.

Sure, Dobson had his fans via deviantart, people knew who he was. But the later was more because of “infamy” than popularity and the number of fans he had accumulated online were representing people interested in him at least since 2005 and did not quite represent his actual present day numbers of supporters at the time.

And mind you, the number of supporters was less than 100k, most of them likely underaged deviantart users. And if my research indicates something, then that most content creators with a halfway decent patreon earning need at least 100k+ followers in total. Because of those fans, only around 1-3% will on average then spend money on you, if you actually create content they enjoy and on a regular basis.

Which brings up the next major problem: Dobson did not create content people enjoyed and that in more than one meaning of the word.

On one hand, as pointed out by ripsinfest, he barely released any content at all over 2015 after a few initial months, despite the fact that he was obviously active online a lot, as shown by his presence on twitter. On the other hand, the few things he did create were not the stuff people wanted.

As an example: If you go to a restaurant and pay for a pizza, you expect the cook to give you a pizza. If however for some reason he just gives you a soda, you get ripped off and never come back. In Dobson’s case, the thing people wanted was not pizza but comic pages. But what he delivered was mostly bland fanart, such as of Disney and Marvel characters crossing over or KorraSami. Sure, a few strips of “So…you are a cartoonist” were still released at the time, but not really many.

To give an overview: Taking the release dates on Dobson’s official SYAC site into account, he released around 16 strips of it between March and August of 2015, the last two being “No Leia” being titled “Zip line”

Afterwards, the next official strip released was “Anything at all” in October of 2016.

Now to be fair, there was at least one more strip at the time Dobson released via patreon, that is also save to see on kiwifarms and other plattforms, which has not been uploaded to his official SYAC page. Likely because he simply forgot about it.

But I think that in itself should tell you something about Dobson’s work ethics when it comes to his webcomics. He promoted his patreon in his own video as a way to ensure he can make comics in a timely fashion again for others to enjoy, but in an environment where certain artists are capable to create multiple strips per week at minimum, Dobson could overall not manage to produce more than 16 over a course of six months, which means an average production of 3 strips per month.

For comparison, Tatsuya Ishida of the infamous sinfest webcomic (a garbage fire of epic proportions from a TERF who I think should be put on a watch list) has produced on average 4 strips per week, including full page Sunday strips, for years and nowadays even releases stuff on a daily basis to pass the covid crisis. So a mad man who wants to see trnas people die, has better work ethics than Dobson.

In other words, people expected Dobson to actually get back into creating comics (with some even expecting a return of Alex ze Pirate), but he got in fact even lazier than before, releasing only SYAC strips and random fanart as a product. Which he then also tried to justify as his choice to make because a) he had mental health issues and b) no one can tell him what to do.

And sure, people do not need to tell you what to do. But when people pay/donate money to you expecting to get a certain product in return, they should get the product. Linkara e.g. by all means doesn’t NEED to review comics to have a fullfilling life, but he got famous for his reviews, people want to see his reviews and they pay him for those reviews. So obviously, he will continue those things.

Then there is also the fact that despite Dobson’s claims how he wants to create comics for everone to enjoy and that he aims to keep his artwork online for free so anyone can view it…(his exact words in his promotional video AND text on his patreon once upon a time)

…the reality was, that he wanted to use patreon as a paywall. Something I actually kinda pointed out at on my own account (shameless self promotion) once, but want now to elaborate a bit. Basically at the time Dobson opened up his patreon, he also was on the verge of leaving deviantart as a platform people could look at his work behind. Which he eventually did.

Meaning that the only major platforms for people to watch any “new” stuff by him were his patreon or art sites such as the SYAC homepage or andysartwork. Which granted, he did EVENTUALLY put his stuff on.

But unlike other content creators who would put “patreon exclusive” new content up on more public plattforms often within a few days, weeks or a month after making them “patreon only” at first, Dobson waited longer and did barely anything to promote his sites as places to look his stuff up for a public audience. In doing so creating a “bubble” for himself that hurt him more than it helped, as Dobson made himself essentially come off as a snob.

A snob who did not create content for everybody to enjoy, but ONLY for those willing to pay him at least one dollar per month. As evident e.g. by the fact that as time went by, certain content was never released outside of his patreon at all, such as a SYAC strip involving Dobbear screaming at the computer because he saw a piece of art that featured tumblr nose.

Lastly, there is the issue of his patreon perks and stretch goals.

See, his perks were essentially non existent. Aside of the beggars reward of “my eternal thank you if you donate 1 dollar”, two other perks that come to my mind were the following: If you donated up to 5$ at minimum, you got your name thrown into a lottery to potentially win buttons and postcards of his artwork. Unsold cheap merch from years prior he failed to sell at conventions basically. There was just a problem with that thing: That lottery thing, which he also was only going to initiate when he reached a stretch goal of 150 dollar a month? It was illegal!

Patreon itself has in their user agreement a rule that forbids people from offering perks that essentially boil down to “earning” something via gambling, which this lottery by Dobson was.

(THOAD chiming in here to add that, in addition to all this, he fully admitted he would be excluding Patrons that he “knew were clearly trolls” from the lottery. Which made the already illegal lottery also fixed, so...yeah.)

The next thing coming to mind was his “discount” on previous books of his he offered online, if you donated at least 10 bucks per month to him. Or to translate it: You would get a bare minimum discount at pdf files of books such as Alex ze Pirate and Formera (you know, the permanently cancelled Dobson comics) if you paid up 50-75% of their original price on Patreon already. And considering the quality of his early works, he should have given you at least a book per month for free if you dared to donate him that much.

As for the stretch goals… lets go through them, shall we:

100$: A wallpaper per month. Something he did provide with eventually, but barely. And after less than five of those he stopped to make them overall

150$: Monthly Gift basket Lottery, which as I stated, was illegal and almost got him into serious trouble with his account. Also not an initial stretch goal he made up but instead came up with a few months into his accounts existence. Finally it got temporarily replaced by Dobson playing with the idea to use 150$ per month to open up a server and art site where people could upload stuff for free similar to deviantart, but under his administration. Promising a “safe space” for other artists. Which considering Dobson’s ego and inability to accept criticism or delegate responsibilities would have likely ended like this:

175$: Establishing a Minecraft server for him and his fans to play on. Meaning Dobson would have just wasted time he could spend on creating comics to endulge in his Minecraft obsession.

200$: Writing a Skyrim children book. Aside of the legal nightmare that this could have been (I doubt Valve would have been happy of someone else profiting of their property) I have to ask, who was even interested in Skyrim by 2015 anymore? Sure, Skyrim was a popular game and it had its qualities, but it was also a trend that had passed by that time. So in other words, there was not a market to cater towards here.

300$: A strip per week guaranteed.

… are you fucking kidding me? 75$ per strip essentially? Something people expect you to produce anyway if you want to be considered a “prolific” creator worth supporting online? Imagine if certain internet reviewers would do that, telling you that if they do not earn at least a certain amount of money, they will not produce anything, period, or less than usual. And Dobson had already proven that he can release more than just one comic within a few days, if he is motivated by enough spite.

600$: Starting a podcast with his friends to talk about nerd culture. In my opinion could only work under the assumption that people even like the idea of listening to Dobson and his opinions. Which considering how very little people like talking to him sounds doubtful. Also, considering how Dobson tends to be late to the party when it comes to nerd culture, likely tending to be out of date faster than he could upload. Finally... what friends?

700$: Returning the love, as he says it, by donating some of the money patreon users gave him to other content creators. This in my opinion is the most self defeating cause possible. On one hand sure, being generous and all that. But essentially Dobson admits here he would blow the money people give him to support HIS art on others, essentially defeating the purpose of HIS own account. He also does not clarify how much of that money he would donate, meaning there was a high chance that he would spend less than 10% of it on other creators, only creating the illusion of support while putting the actual earnings/donations into his own pocket.

2000$: A massive jump ahead. 2000$ per month would result in him getting better equipment (as in a new computer e.g.) and as such “potentially” make more comics. Mind you, only potentially.

This goal in my opinion is also the most fucked up one. Primarily for the following reasons:

Lets say Dobson would have achieved the goal and actually earned over 2000$ per month for at least a year. His annual earning would have been 24k, minus whatever he had to pay as taxes and payment for using the patreon service. And what would he do with this money? Get himself a better computer and equipment by paying a minor fraction of it once. Then he could use that computer for years to come while still having over 10k in his account, plus his monthly earnings. And he may still just produce 3-4 comics a month of a series that has as much depth to it than Peppa Pig if not less.

Sure, many patreon users have 2k+ as a stretch goal on their accounts to signify that if they could make that much monthly, they could have the necessary financial security to focus their time primarily on their content instead of a regular job. And if the content they create is actually well made, many people would support that or be okay with it.

But 2000 dollars to buy ONE computer and not account for how this money will add up over time? And that in light of such profits people may actually expect you to create more than you barely do already? That is either a case of narcissism, plain stupidity because you can't look further than 5 feet or just shows how Dobson did not understand at all the tool he had at his disposal.

Bottom line: Dobson, like many times before, fucked it up. He overestimated the potential support and resulting profits he could make, he expected that his name alone would be enough to assure gainings instead of creating content to justify support and he was unwilling to really give his supporters anything worthwhile back.

And while I am sure that there were also many other factors guaranteeing his failure, those at least to me, were his "common" mistakes most other people familiar even with the basics of internet popularity would ahve avoided.

[troped-fanfic-challenge]

Chopped: Holiday Trope Exchange 2020 Masterlist!

A huge thanks to every person who signed up for our fic exchange, we got 21 really wonderful fics! We’re sorry it took us so long to get this out to you all! For anyone who isn’t sure what this was all about, this was a double blind gift exchange where each of our twenty-one (21!!!) writers were assigned four tropes from an anonymous recipient, and were tasked with writing a fic that fit our holiday theme, and included all the tropes. The only guidance from their recipient were a couple of brief notes they included during the sign up, and both the writer and recipient were revealed when we shared all the fics! A big thanks to the Tropesters who stepped up to write a second fic when we needed them! These fics, as with all our TROPED fics, were creative and unique, and found ways to utilise tropes that may seem so simple but were transformed in really spectacular ways! Please enjoy these wonderful holiday fics!

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roots in my dreamland (my house of stone, your ivy grows) (Rated M) [Bellarke]

Written by @captaindaddykru for @thelittlefanpire. The four assigned tropes were 1) Doppelgängers, 2) one character is a dancer, 3) first snow, and 4) kissing to keep a cover/a secret.

Summary: Clarke really wants it to work out with Bellamy, but as an A-list Hollywood actress there’s a lot of contractual obligations she can hide behind instead of confronting her own insecurities and past mistakes. Luckily, this Christmas she’s lucked out, and her stand-in Josie is more than willing to (completely selflessly of course) take her place.

Now comes the hard part.

brighter than moonbeams (Rated T) [Memori]

Written by @the-most-beautiful-broom for @thedefinitionofendgame. The four assigned tropes were 1) The characters play a game,2) Secret Santa, 3) Exes to Lovers, and 4) Surprise kiss.

Summary: Murphy and Emori fall in love fast, and then talk themselves out of it. Years later, their paths will cross again, and they realize that their might be parts of their story that are yet to be written.

What a way to start the year (Rated T) [Bellarke]

Written by @bellarkeshoe for @bellamysgriffin. The four assigned tropes were 1) Law enforcement partners, 2) Character gets BADLY injured and they hide it somehow only to reveal later that they are mortally wounded, 3) Characters hugging after they’ve been through hell, and 4) Kissing in the snow.

Summary: It’s New Years Eve, and Bellamy and Clarke got stuck working.

It’s Alright, It’s Okay (Rated M) [Clurphy]

Written by @sailawaymayday for @wwjacksparrowd. The four assigned tropes were 1) Found Family, 2) Groundhog Day/timeloop, 3) Character gets shot/stabbed/BADLY injured and hides the wound somehow, only to accidentally (someone else touches them and their bleeding, they collapse, etc.) reveal later that they are mortally wounded, and 4) Hurt/Comfort.

Summary: Clarke makes it onto the Ring with the rest of Spacekru. What happens when New Years Eve keeps repeating itself? And what does Murphy have to do with it?

Dancing in Graveyards: An Arkadia Anthology (Rated T) [Gen Fic]

Written by @justbecauseyoubelievesomething for @kinetic-elaboration. The four assigned tropes were 1) Small town gothic, 2) Christmas Lights, 3) First snow, and 4) Sneaking someone in/out of your window.

Summary: Three small town gothic stories intertwine as old friends reunite and try to make the best out of their lives. Raven returns home after her foster father’s death and is pulled like a magnet to her enigmatic highschool sweetheart. Jasper seeks solace from a tragedy and desperately attempts to outrun the ghosts of the past. Bellamy battles his inner demons and prays not to tear himself and his loved ones apart in the process. And all of them come to realize that they belong together, even if the place they call home is shadowed by sorrow.

do or die, you’ll never make me (because the world will never take my heart) (Rated T) [Bellarke]

Written by @shen-gong-oops for @probably-voldemort. The four assigned tropes were 1) Fake dating, 2) Amnesia AU, 3) Enemies to Friends to Lovers, and 4) Superhero AU.

Summary: As the youngest member of the Guard and the daughter of the Guard former leader, there are high expectations set for Clarke. The Marketing and PR teams at Ark expecting her to be prim and proper during any conferences, while simultaneously performing their well-rehearsed fight choreography to a T.

But when four unknown supes challenge the juggernaut that is Ark Industries, Clarke wonders if herodom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Merry Christmas, Lovebirds (Rated G) [Murven]

Written by @kinetic-elaboration for @shen-gong-oops. The four assigned tropes were 1) One character cautiously says “i’m going to kiss you now, okay?” or some variation of that, 2) Mutual pining, 3) A misunderstanding, and 4) Tattoos.

Summary: There’s never snow for Christmas on the beach, Murphy is a culinary genius, Raven has a boyfriend, and other presumed facts, too obvious to mention.

Once Upon Our Story (Rated G) [Bellarke]

Written by @andthelightbulbclicks for @bellamythology. The four assigned tropes were 1) break-up/make-up, 2) Did they or didn’t they, 3) Extremely biased flashbacks of the same event, and 4) Bookstore or library AU.

Summary: Bellamy returns with as much fanfare as one can imagine when driving a school bus decorated as Santa Claus through town, leaving Clarke shocked and all of their friends confused given he hasn’t been home in months.

(Or: Six months ago, Bellamy left Arkadia.

Six months ago, Clarke didn’t.

Six months ago, their friends knew the relationship ended, even came up with their own versions of what really happened. But the question that they all want to know for certain– is why?)

Dream A Little Dream of Me (Rated T) [Clurphy]

Written by @queenemori for @vmreed. The four assigned tropes were 1) One character has a child, 2) Protectiveness, 3) Only one bed, and 4) Soulmates.

Summary: It was just Murphy’s luck that right as he was starting to enjoy Earth, he had to leave. But he’d rather that than succumb to a fiery death wave. He and the other residents of the Ring remembered Clarke every year during their New Year’s Eve celebration. But even when they weren’t celebrating Clarke, Murphy couldn’t seem to get her off his mind. He wished his brain would stop playing tricks on him by making him think she was alive. Clarke was dead. Wasn’t she?

i don’t wanna burn out, so wont you please set me on fire again? (Rated M) [Murven]

Written by @kuklash for @sparklyfairymira. The four assigned tropes were 1) Protectiveness, 2) Exes and Lovers, 3) Small Town AU, and 4) Characters fall on each other and have a moment.

Summary: The wind nipped at Murphy’s nose as he stood in the doorway of the gas station on the edge of town. Work was slow, as it always was after sundown, especially in the mid-December cold, but someone had to make sure the good townsfolk of Arkadia could get their milk and gas after the small general store closed. All 800 of them. He watched the cars drive by throughout the day, recognizing each and everyone of them. Bellamy’s beat up truck he worked all highschool to afford, Clarke’s clean new sedan, even that jerk Finn’s loud ass motorcycle. He watched them all pass one by one, his old classmates returning home after another semester of college at the University of Polis. The only sign that time was passing at all.

The phone inside rang, breaking him out of his melancholy, at least for now.

“Great,” he thought, sarcastically. “A phone call 10 minutes before we close.”

He walked back inside and put on the most cheerful customer service voice he could muster.

“Dropship Gas, this is Murphy. How can I he-”

A familiar female voice cut him off, leaving him cold.

“Murphy? Thank god!”

It was his ex.

Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you (Rated M) [Bellarke]

Written by @sparklyfairymira for @captaindaddykru. The four assigned tropes were 1) Celebrity AU, 2) Meet Ugly, 3) Characters must share something, and 4) Characters aren’t together but are mistaken to be.

Summary: Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin are household names thanks to their music. They belong to the same label so they often work together on duets—even though they can’t stand one another. Their first meeting is disastrous and six years later they still can’t get along.

toward brighter days (Rated T) [Sea Mechanic]

Written by @reggieshamster for @/ashplana. The four assigned tropes were 1) Apocalyptic Log, 2) bed sharing, 3) road trip au, and 4) mythical creatures.

Summary: Dear Harper,

I am ridiculously out of it this morning. Last night, when we reached the campsite, Luna suggested we give Echo her own bedroll, since she gave hers up the night before.

Which meant Luna was sleeping with me.

Beside me.

Excerpts from Raven’s journal as she travels to Polis for the Winter Solstice Festival

three words, two hearts, one maybe (Rated G) [Bellarke]

Written by @bellamysgriffin for @bellarkeshoe. The four assigned tropes were 1) Youtuber AU, 2) best friend’s sibling, 3) frikdreina, and 4) miscommunication.

Summary: After an accident blinds Clarke, Octavia’s been encouraging her best friend to keep up with her artwork. In order to inspire her, she recruits the help of her older brother, Bellamy, who’s recently launched a new exhibition at his museum, to feature her work. Bellamy likes Clarke’s work, and he’s more than happy to help. But when she doesn’t show on the big day, he takes matters into his own hands. With an old video camera, he records people’s reactions to Clarke’s artwork so that she’ll know just how talented she is. But when he sends it to his sister, he doesn’t expect her to upload it to YouTube. And he definitely doesn’t expect to go viral.

Something Beautiful, Simple, and Bright (Rated T) [Clurphy]

Written by @wwjacksparrowd for @queenemori. The four assigned tropes were 1) Friends with Benefits AU, 2) Prank war, 3) characters are not together but are mistaken for a couple, and 4) Based on a Song.

Summary: Six months after Wonkru and Eligius manage to establish peace and divide Eden between themselves (with a little slice shaved off for Spacekru, of course), Clarke has a mission: plan a New Year’s Eve party for fifteen hundred people within three weeks.

Murphy’s mission? Stop her from burning out in the process. Oh, and if he could just get Monty to quit it with the freaking noisemakers, that would be great, too.

(…Okay, yeah, he’d also like to date Clarke for real instead of just sleeping with her. But that’s a pipe dream, right?)

put your faith in the devil and the deep blue sea (Rated M) [Clurphy]

Written by @probably-voldemort for @kuklash. The four assigned tropes were 1) Time Loop AU, 2) Characters fall on top of one another and have a ��moment”, 3) Enemies to Lovers, and 4) Superhero AU.

Summary: Twenty years ago, when the clocks changed from 11:59pm on December 31st, 1999, to 12:00am on January 1st, 2000, the world ended, exactly as the doomsdayers had predicted. Now, there are only a few livable months left on Earth, and the privileged are evacuating for a life in space, abandoning the planet.

But not everyone has given up.

Clarke was only three when the world ended, and she’s spent most of her life in her mother’s lab. Now, as the last space ships are preparing to leave, her mother’s machine is finally ready, and Clarke and her mother are heading back in time to try to stop the apocalypse from happening in the first place.

An attack on the lab leads to Clarke heading back to 1995 on her own, and the past isn’t quite how Clarke’s vague memories from the beginning of her life paint it. Clarke soon discovers that not only did the machine do more than just send her back in time, but she wasn’t, in fact, sent back alone.

Will she be able to stop the apocalypse before the clock strikes midnight? Or are some parts of history unchangeable?

All I Want For Christmas (Rated T) [Memori]

Written by @thedefinitionofendgame for @the-most-beautiful-broom. The four assigned tropes were 1) Fake dating, 2) Joke kiss turned real kiss, 3) One character is sleeping and the other character is watching them totally in love, and 4) Blanket fort.

Summary: Tired of being single, Murphy decides to take matters into his own hands and get himself a girlfriend before the annual Christmas Day dinner with his friends. Having had bad luck in the past with girls - all twenty four of them - Murphy is determined to make the twenty-fifth, the “Christmas Day” number, his forever.

Of course, this is easier said than done. When his fellow coworker, Emori, seems to be having similar problems and suggests them being each other’s “fake dates” to their Christmas parties in December, Murphy jumps at the chance. Fake dating is better than being totally alone, right? It appears that way, at least until Murphy starts to catch feelings; the ones that make you question everything you think you know. As their “fake feelings” start to become more real, Murphy realizes that Emori’s the one he wants for Christmas. But she’s got walls up and even though his heart doesn’t stand a chance, Murphy’s determined to break them down and show her what falling in love really means, maybe with the help of a little December magic thrown in.

As long as we’re together, no I can’t get much higher (Rated T) [Murven]

Written by @dylanobrienisbatman for @andthelightbulbclicks. The four assigned tropes were 1) Zookeeper AU, 2) Treasure Hunt, 3) secret places, and 4) Secret Santa.

Summary: Murphy has only known Raven for a little while, but the longer he spends getting to know her, the more he realises that there’s no hope of him not falling in love with her.

So when he gets her for Secret Santa, he makes it his mission to nail it.

before i knew you (Rated G) [Clexa]

Written by @dylanobrienisbatman for @sailawaymayday. The four assigned tropes were: (1) Pen Pals, (2) 3+1, 4+1, 5+1, etc., (3) surprise kiss, and (4) character meets another characters ex.

Summary: What do you do when your penpal, the person you know the best in the world, who you love, turns out to be the rather rude (if also rather pretty) sales girl from downstairs? Lexa is about to find out. or - 3 times lexa and clarke meet without knowing they’ve been penpals since childhood, and the 1 time Lexa figures it out.

when life gives you shit, you make kool-aid (Rated M) [Becho]

Written by @reggieshamster for @dylanobrienisbatman. The four assigned tropes were: (1) Bodyguard AU, (2) Bed Sharing, (3) Kissing to Keep Cover/a Secret, and (4) a Character gets shot/stabbed/badly injured and they collapse, being caught by their loved one.

Summary: Bellamy used to have it all, and then one screw-up cost him his career and his fancy life. Now, working as a bodyguard for alcoholic businessmen and their families, he gets a call from his sister for a job… escorting a hitwoman to testify against a man convicted of crimes against humanity. What could possibly go wrong?

and left the secret at the grave (Rated T) [Clurphy]

Written by @probably-voldemort for @justbecauseyoubelievesomething. The four assigned tropes were: (1) Murder Mystery, (2) Partners in Crime, (3) Exes to Lovers, and (4) Snowed In.

Summary: At 8:57 on the morning of December 23rd, eight year old Jordan Green discovered the body of Skybox Inn owner Vera Kane on the floor of the lobby. His screams woke up the other guests of the inn, as well as the live-in butler.

The discovery of the body was followed shortly by two more discoveries. The first was that the storm the night before had knocked out the phones and the internet, and the second was that the inn was completely snowed in with no hopes of escape anytime soon.

Thirteen people trapped in an inn.

Uncountable secrets.

One murderer.

One question.

Who killed Vera Kane?

what a tangled string of Christmas lights we weave (Rated T) [Linctavia]

Written by @thelittlefanpire for @reggieshamster. The four assigned tropes were: (1) Royalty AU, (2) Cyrano AU, (3) Characters fall and end up landing on top of each other and have a “moment”, and (4) Hair brushing and/or braiding.

Summary: When the royal family loses their beloved Prince Wells, the future king of Arkadia, all eyes are on them. The Queen remains as stoic as ever, the Spare grapples with his new responsibilities, the Princess drowns in her grief, and the King is threatening to abolish the monarchy forever.

At Christmastime, as tensions in the palace rise with the vicious tabloids outside, the royal family makes an escape to a castle in the mountains, hoping to find solace and reconcile with their loss.

Princess Octavia will try to mend her broken heart back together as she becomes entranced with the letters sent back and forth between herself and another. But when it’s revealed who the true penman is, will she rise above her sorrow or sink further into it?

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Take a read! Leave a kudos/comment! Our Tropesters worked so hard on creating some unique, festive fun fics from all the amazing tropes that were sent in. Thanks again!

[sahesubcmo1978-blog]

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[mrahmancr7]

What age is TikTok

Professionals on TikTok get on and Smash it now.

The world is changing. People have shorter attention spans. People want information quick. Short form video content (under 30 seconds) is getting more attention than the other sort of content on social media.

Are you continue to underestimating TikTok? Are you uninterested in Instagram’s snail-like growth? TikTok could seriously help grow your brand, much faster than the other platform. But why?

Here are 10 reasons why professionals and corporations should smash it on TikTok immediately in 2021:

1. Any Niche, Any Professional on TikTok

Yes, TikTok started getting famous due to dancing, but if you are doing not want to ascertain dancing, then TikTok will now show it to you. what's so successful about TikTok is that the algorithm. It gradually understands what you wish by watching what you've got watched and interacted with. If you looked for plumbing then watched a couple of plumbing videos, then the algorithm will recognize that and feed you more relevant content almost like that. you'll find many professional on the platform. I even have connected with doctors, lawyers, engineers and professional athletes to call just a couple of . If you're wondering what quite content you'll create for yourself or your business, you simply need to look for something similar by other professionals on TikTok, in your niche, to urge ideas. A baker can show baking bread, a chiropractor can show necks being clicked. The ideas are endless.

If you're lucky to figure for you own company then the chances are endless. Companies do encourage social media for promotion. Sam Fares (@thepatentattorney), who may be a Lawyer, says people at his work are surprisingly supportive. TikTok are often an honest marketing tool and even large companies are beginning to add a social media policies to make sure boundaries aren't crossed.

2. it isn't only for Kids

According to Comscore statistics, US TikTok users by age is: 33% children and 67% adults. This statistic was taken at the top of 2020, so it's fairly old now therefore the platform has matured even more now.

Even, Gordan Ramsey (@gordonramsayofficial) is using TikTok himself now and most of the large YouTubers like Mr. Beast (@mrbeast) are there already. Instagram Reels remains far behind TikTok - the videos on Reels are like what was being shown on TikTok two years ago, with mostly music only. you'll copy the platform but you'll not copy the audience. i buy many comments and messages by adults everyday on the platform and on the road . a number of these are passed on from their siblings too. Bare in mind, if you influence the younger generation, this also rubs off on the oldsters . So TikTok could even be an honest investment strategy if you are doing target Generation Z. But eventually 67% of TikTok users are adults.

3. TikTok Helps Growth on other platforms like IG and Youtube

TikTok provides links on your profile for both Instagram and Youtube. there's also a choice to add link to your website otherwise you can even put LinkedIn there if you wish . These links are quite other platforms need to offer. Instagram only allows you to insert one link on your platform, so does Twitter, and Clubhouse that only as two. These links gives an honest opportunity to spread your followers elsewhere. Social Media Strategist, Caleb Chin (@socialfeed) thinks that one among the quickest thanks to grow a following on Instagram in 2021 is to create a TikTok following. i might need to agree.

"The quickest thanks to grow on Instagram is to create a following on TikTok."

Successful TikTok accounts also can build an outsized number of subscribers on Youtube without even published one video on YouTube. Take writer and storyteller, Greg Hinthorn (@hinthorn) for instance . He reached bent his TikTok audience and told them he will published his first Youtube video when he reached 4000 subscribers on there. Now he has reached 4000 subscribers on Youtube from TikTok. he's now publishing videos on both platforms.

4. Most Downloaded App on the App Store

According to Appfigures data, TikTok is that the most downloaded app. 90% of all TikTok users access the app on a day to day . 

Furthermore, consistent with App Annie, TikTok's screen time at the start of 2021 overtook Facebook for the primary time. the typical screen time for a mean TikTok user is over 20 hours per month.

5. Engagement Can Attract Leads

Client opportunities, contacts, influence and leads - the engagement within the comments section on TikTok is insane. I even have never seen anything love it . there's also a messaging service on TikTok. this will be turned in settings, so anyone can send you a message. you'll also directly reply to an issue via a video which which is shared on your feed, which may helps engagement.

American Architect Tom Reynolds AIA (@tiktokarchitect) has been active on the platform for a year now confirms.

"I'm actually getting more work coming from TikTok now, than anywhere else."

6. TikTok is Authentic

TikTok is transparent and authentic. there's not many commercials or people trying to sell. you are doing not get many of us selling their eBook or spending the primary 5 mins asking you to subscribe because those sort of videos don't had best . TikTok is blunt, straight to the purpose and these are the videos that had best on TikTok. People try to offer something quickly. If you give value meaning something, then an audience will come. Vulnerability is additionally a key factor that folks like. the right filtered and edited photograph on Instagram isn't authentic, neither may be a highly produced YouTube video. People can relate to TikTok because its real - the videos that tend to try to to well aren't the over productive type. it's like what Youtube was 20 years ago. Transparency, vulnerability and authenticity goes an extended way on social media in 2021 and TikTok fits.

7. Learn on TikTok

TikTok has heavily invested $50 million into an ingenious learning fund on short form educational content, which might be the longer term for social media and online education. If you begin learning the way to give information or teach with videos now, this might bring many opportunities for your business or personal brand within the near future. it's not about selling something - its about giving value.

"We've partnered with over 800 public figures, media publishers, educational institutions, and real-world professional ... to supply us creative learning." -TikTok

8. Its Quick and straightforward 

If you're a business and employing a videographer to try to to you videos - take care . tons of media companies don't have much experience with short form video, or TikTok. it's a reasonably new thing. they're likely wont to top quality produced videos. Have they published many short videos? Have they built an audience before? These are the questions you ought to be asking them. Quantity is more important for brief form video content. The TikTok app has almost everything in it to make videos quickly, even green screen. you are doing not need to spend one to 2 hours during a room like Club House or spend every week editing an extended form video. Many creators are beginning to up the sport with mirrorless cameras rather than their phone, for higher quality, but this has not oversaturated the platform yet.

9. 100% Creativity

This makes it fantastic if you're within the creative industry. Creating videos displays your creativity. YouTube and TikTok are the highest creative media platforms.

On one hand, you've got you Instagram and LinkedIn where there's tons of individuals sharing other people's content? for instance , a number of the highest architecture accounts on Instagram are accounts reposting other peoples content. it is the same with LinkedIn. People even download other peoples videos on other platforms and repost them on LinkedIn. These videos don't have much creativity.

On the opposite hand, uploads on TikTok have very high creativity. one among my favorite and straightforward videos was made by Architect, Dory Azar (@dory.azar.architect) who actually drew a door swing under a door to elucidate how door swings are drawn. When lecture Dory on Clubhouse, he explained that folks like simple explanations - they appear to figure best.

10. More Organic Reach Than the other Platform

If you begin a replacement account on today with no followers, post something, that post has potential to succeed in more people than the other platform. there's only LinkedIn immediately that comes close. But, new businesses still slug away at Instagram and Facebook in 2021. These platforms tend to be more powerful for people that have already built an audience, have account authority, or want to pay via promotion. this is often partly the rationale why TikTok is so popular. Everyone features a chance for videos to try to to well and reach an audience. Social media apps like Instagram and Facebook are old matured platforms now. These reasons help make TikTok the platform of choice.

If you would like to create a brand, you ought to obviously start by getting to the platforms with the foremost reach. albeit you're still convinced the audience is just too young on TikTok, it could still be an honest marketing investment for you within the short to future .

It might be time to prevent shaking your head. Its a no brainer. TikTok and short form video content is here to remain .

RIBA Chartered Architect, Russell M. Henderson (@ArchitectRussell) is predicated in Tanzania, East Africa . He also 'edu-tains' his passion for Architecture Travel & Film with video content on YouTube , TikTok & Instagram.

Acquisition customer top 5 to use Tiktok 

Tiktok is presently gaining popularity with over 300 million active users worldwide. Most business owners feel Tiktok isn't ideal for business because it's crammed with entertainment and sometimes ridiculous videos.

But, that was what many said about Instagram and Snapchat. Today, these two platforms are getting used by top brands to get many thousands for his or her business monthly. 

There are numerous reasons why small business must use Tiktok to urge new customers. But during this post, we only covered top 5 reasons.

1. it's Easy to create Communities

With Tiktok for business, building communities is extremely easy. Tiktok may be a video content platform, and with video, grabbing people’s attention is extremely easy as modern-day users are more likely to consume video content than written content.

So, small business owners can cash in of this to make numerous videos of about 15 – 60 seconds to grab the eye of their audience and build their following. 

Some people are just on the platform to consume content and to not create. So, with this in mind, your job is to offer them something to consume and obtain their interest.

2. Over 500 Active Users Globally

The number of active users on Tiktok is insane. With over 500 million active users globally, this is often not a chance small businesses should ignore. 

Although the most important demographic of Tiktok users are between the age of 16 – 24. But that doesn’t mean people of older age aren't there.

Much like other previous “hot” social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, Generation Z was the primary to leap on them. So is that the same for Tiktok.

However, if you log into the platform now, you'll find freelancers, dentists, teachers, fashion designers, and even grandparents actively using the platform. 

3. it's Easy to Grab Users Attention 

Tiktok may be a video-sharing platform and videos are the sole quite content that grabs your attention without you approving it. It starts playing immediately you set your eyes thereon . 

Small businesses can cash in of this to share educational, entertaining, and promotional videos moderately. Users are on the platform to be entertained so small businesses must find out how to balance their content because it only takes a scroll to chop your video out. 

4. Top Brands Are Claiming their Spots

Go check in on Tiktok now and search if you won’t find top brands like Walmart, Family Feud, HP, and other top brands. numerous brands are now taking advantage of the trend to make awareness and obtain more customers for his or her business. 

5. A Platform to Sell with Fun

As a sensible marketer, you ought to be ready to promote your brand to your audience with less invasive techniques. Millennials are already conscious of most marketing tactics and thus they're going to ignore your videos if you are trying to travel the standard ways. 

Using stories in your content to pass your brand message will produce a win for you. you'll gain tons of attention by launching a hashtag challenge. A hashtag challenge is where you tell users to make a specific quite video and incorporate your branded hashtag thereto .

You can work with a Tiktok influencer to actually make this type of challenge go viral. 

What you need to know about TikTok 

TikTok is one of those social networks that grew in popularity VERY quickly, but if you are over the age of 30, you still might have NO IDEA what the platform is all about.

Let’s start with the basics:

Who uses it?

TikTok is primarily used by the under 30’s. 60% of US TikTok users are aged between 16-24, according to a November 2019 release from Reuters.

What is it?

TikTok is basically a re-branding of Musical.ly (don’t worry if you haven’t heard of that either). Basically, it is a social platform where creators can post 15ish second videos (up to 60 seconds) that are shared to their followers, with hopes of landing on the apps “For You Page” (FYP).

What is being posted?

This is a tough one. In the early days, TikTok was full of lip-syncing, and dancing. Today, the scope of content varies, and the algorithm that the platform uses is VERY advanced. Based on the types of videos you watch, and seem to enjoy – the algorithm will shoot out all sorts of videos that it thinks you may enjoy.

For this reason, you may see completely different content than someone else on the app. There are now “Sides” of TikTok as the youth are calling it. This basically means the type of content you are being shown. Political TikTok, Dancing TikTok, Alt TikTok, Straight TikTok, Food TikTok or many others!

Disclaimer: I am definitely on the Puppy and FoodTok side!

Can you make money?

Depending on your location, there is now a creator fund on TikTok for some users. This means that you can earn money per-view on your videos. Unless you have a very large following (we are talking in the millions) TikTok might not be a stable source of income, however, the exposure it brings can open LOTS of doors. Many famous TikTok-ers are now treated like typical celebrities, so sponsors and endorsements are a large portion of their income.

Is it for business?

It’s a powerful tool for the right companies, with the right demographics. We have seen a bump of tiktok of companies using influencers to share their products, creating original ads, or creating accounts and posting unique content. If your target demographic is under 30, this could be a perfect platform to explore!

Even politicians are getting in on the action!

TikTok is a very trendy app, with tons of young minds. Some political figures are using this platform to reach out to young voters and soon-to-be voters. This is an incredibly smart move in my opinion!

One Canadian example that comes to mind is Jagmeet Singh - check out his profile here!

Should you get TikTok?

This is a personal choice. If you are a fan of Instagram and social media in general, and you can use a smart phone with 60% confidence… why not give it a shot?

There have been privacy issues globally, and instances of banning in the US – so do your research and be mindful of what you are sharing, commenting, and engaging with on the App.

Overall, it is a fun platform with absolutely no pressure to ever post anything yourself. You can watch videos for hours, or if you are feeling up to the challenge – try posting a video for yourself!

Conclusion 

If your business targets millennials, Tiktok is the perfect platform to get new customers for your business. Small businesses willing to create entertaining and humorous videos can take advantage of this platform to create visibility for their brands and get new customers.

[topicprinter]

A few days ago I made a post about Instagram secrets which got a lot of hype. Later I made a post about the Facebook Fraud which too got a lot of hype.These both posts had a lot of common questions. One of them being the blue print of Instagram that worked for me after 11 months of research.If you haven't already - PLEASE - have a look at the post The Facebook Fraud or else you'll just hate all the techniques I'm going to discuss in this post. Yes - THEY ARE dishonest (a lot of cheating) - but I guess if Facebook, Instagram and billion dollar social media agencies are OPENLY fucking everyone over for making an extra buck then why should we be the righteous men?If you choose the honest path then I guess you should better leave all social media platforms as they themselves are nothing short of blackhat thieves.The Blue Print(Once again this would make sense if you had read the other two posts I made) You can check them here - https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/7ezgco/the_facebook_fraud/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/7erlr3/hushhush_secrets_to_instagram_no_one_would_share/Step 1Make an Instagram account that has possibility of getting monetized. At the end of the day - if you're going to work hard to build an Instagram audience / fan base - it has to give you something in return right?There are some niches that are BOOMING and always will get a LOT of hype on Instagram.Don't get me wrong - almost everything can be monetized but some niches are easier and quicker to monetize.My personal experience is that niches related to beauty, fashion, travel, hotels (basically industries that are super visual) will always convert quick.Think of your potential sponsors and then build up a niche related page accordingly.If Fashion - your sponsors would be - fashion brands, fashion events, fashion retailers, malls, beauty products, beauty services (salons, parlors) and so much more - almost every big city has a MILLION fashion retailers. They wouldn't mind giving you $1000 for a post. (If that statement makes you feel a bit confused - wait a bit - I'll explain later)If Travel - hotels, restaurants, bars, travel boards - all these would be your potential sponsors. I can name 1000+ travelers who travel the world for free and do it on the back of their YouTube / Instagram. Its pretty doable. And they get invited to stay at 5 star resorts - they travel first class AND they still get money on TOP of it.Step 2Post regular content. This one is so obvious. Have a clean feed that has a unique look and feel. A lot of Instagrammers develop a set of colors (filters) that they use for all their photos to make their feed look 'unique'. Not much to talk about here. Post good content. Thats all. A few tutorials on Lightroom and Photoshop and you're good to go.Step 3 (Cheating)Social validation is the key. Its the classic example of a bar. A girl would be more attracted to a guy who has himself surrounded by a few girls (and guys). That is social validation right there. A girl that is in demand would want a guy who has some social proof. This is just so BASIC.I'll tell you a short story. This is like year and years ago. A far relative of mine opened up a small snacks canteen in his town. The place had a small area for seating on the inside and a bit of outdoor seating for customers. The place (street) where he opened up this snack bar was one that saw a lot of school kids pass by as there were a lot of schools located nearby.What he did next was epic. He literally paid $10 each to a bunch of kids to come at his canteen everyday after school hours and sit and eat for free. As much as they wanted.What happened next was the fun part. All the other kids noticed that these kids are sitting there having snacks and just hanging out. You can guess what happened then. Social proof. Automatically in a weeks time the place started getting flooded with these school kids. They all made this place THE place to hangout after school hours.Every retailer does this in some way or the other. When I go out to dinner on a weekend with my friends - we obviously JUDGE the places (options) we have by the crowd size. I'd rather go to a diner which has 5 customers already than go to one that looks deserted. You see how we think? Its just so obvious. Don't you think?This applies to social media too. If 5000 people have likes your photo and then I see it. I have a higher chance of liking it (obviously if the content is decent enough). If your photo has a handful of likes - I probably won't like it UNLESS your content is just mind blowing.If I see an Instagram page that has 1 mil followers I immediately assume that this person is a big deal. Its just so natural. Do I care if that 1 mil followers are real or fake? Man who the fuck got time to check and shit? Haha. Yes, for us people who are actively building a base on social media and are marketers - yes we may give a fuck - but the general population? I guess not.They'd see that 1m on your Instagram page and worship you.Step 3 is simple. Buy yourself some social proof bruh! Ain't no way around it. Wait until you have like 100 posts (upload 4 a day that would mean in 25 days you have like 100 posts) and start pumping them fake followers.Do it to point where you have 100,000+ followers in about 3 months since you started. That would mean 90 days of posting and pumping. Lets put it out at 1000 followers per day x 90 days = 90,000 followers 4 posts per day x 90 days = 360 postsStep 4 (This happens alongside step 3)During the time in which you build your posts and followers (fake) - you will have to get yourself some engagement to match the growing base of followers right?This is where engagement pods come into picture. For the millionth time - these are groups of Instagrammers who come together on a chat platform and exchange engagement.99% of the engagement pods are FREE. My advice? Its really not worth joining a paid engagement pod. You'd just be disappointed.Just Google for Instagram Engagement Pods - there are a hundred of those out there. Join them all and see what works best for you.So far You have some social proof. You have a clean feed. You have 100k+ followers. You have 300+ posts. Your posts get 800-1000 likes per post and 100-200 comments per post via engagement pod.Step 5 (Laundering the blackhat followers into whitehat followers)This is the step that all billion dollar social media agencies that manage celeb accounts do that most of you always ignore.There a TIME and place to convert it all into reality.We faked it until step 4 and by step 5 we need to make it.Gaming the Instagram algo to get a ton of real followers daily.Instagram algo is changing drastically. Every day they are trying out something new or the other. Just like Facebook - Instagram is trying its best to fuck you over so that it can make money. So - if honest way is you motto - be ready to spend a million dollars to attract Pakistani and Egyptian followers who are bots and never engage (see my posts about The Facebook Fraud if you don't know what I'm talking about).To my knowledge - as I'm writing this post - Instagram is playing around with its algo.Instagram wants to get more local and less global (user experience/interaction). It wants peoples reach to become more local (so that if they wish to go global - get their posts noticed beyond their base - they'd have to pay) - Thats what Facebook did.Instagram now will show you content (explore / top post feed) based on what you interact with and whom you interact with. If you're follower a user A and that user liked a photo X then the chances are that you will see that photo X. I hope that makes sense.If you interacted with a user (watched their live video / checkout their stories in the past) - Instagram will show you that too.This is both good news and bad news. Bad news as top post page is no longer global and more tailored to the user (you).What you see on top post page for X hashtag won't be the same as the other user (unless if they're your friend / follower).So the reach is getting more limited (Thanks Instagram for fucking us over - we came - you said we could have fun on your platform for free but sooner or later you had to get greedy!)Off topic - Its funny when redditors get horny when someone (a redditor) offers something for free to the public and redditors go like (sure - sooner or later you will make it a paid thing and you'll fuck us over) - Haha. Funny isn't it? Thats exactly what everyone does isn't it? Somehow or the other they make that cash back. Either they sell your data for pennies like you're nothing but a piece of shit or they make you into an advertiser so you pay them cash and still get fucked over. Lol.Moving on ... In this step - you will need to inject (cheat) fake likes to your posts. There are a billion companies that provide this service called auto like. Meaning - whenever you post on Instagram you get X amount of likes based on your package right when you post. So lets say you buy a package that gives you 5000 likes per post whenever you post within like 15 mins of you posting.Thats a ton of social proof man. This will push your post and make it appear 'trending' to Instagram and make your post appear on top post and explore page to a wide audience.Get this done - buy a small package for the start - maybe 1000 likes per most and gradually increase it to 5000 likes per post.But wait. What is point of all of this?HERE IS ANOTHER SECRET - Getting thousands of likes (fake ones) from these services + getting a thousand real likes FROM engagement pods (that are filled with authority accounts like 10k,50k,100k,500k and so on) will get your post to appear to millions of people.As in this way you start out local - but you go global as all those people on pods are from all around the world - so NOT ONLY they will like your posts - but with you having a ton of likes - their own followers will see your posts. Thats when it goes global.STEP 6 (Becoming Jesus)Here is when you wash away all your sins. Its funny how every teenage girl who is obsessed with Instagram knows this but most mediocre marketers don't.THE GIVEAWAYYou have no idea how many giveaways Instagrammers (the ones who are serious) do. Thats the same with YouTube isn't it? All the YouTubers I follow (most of them are really famous) - they all have these giveaways right? Be it iPhone or a trip with the YouTuber itself or a chance to meet the said YouTuber and so on.Instagrammers are doing the same.You NEED to take part in giveaway loops. If you don't know what this mean (giveaway loop) then you are NOT AT ALL a serious Intagrammer. Basically - you connect with 5-7 Instagrammers that are IN YOUR NICHE and are big. Lets say you connect with 7 of them who are travelers (you too are one) and each of them have like 100k-500k followers right? You start a giveaway. You each put in X amount of $ and one of buys a bunch of iPhones and other X/Y/Z things to giveaway and you start a giveaway loop. That way you gain followers from each others base.You must be thinking (but my base is of fake followers - what will I give?) - nothing. Haha. Not for the start at least.You should make 2-3 giveaways every month for 2-3 months and you'd SURELY reach 500K with JUST that.Don't believe me? Checkout this company called Sunny Co Clothing. Its a swimsuit company and they got 600k Instagram followers in 48 hours. You know what they did? Everything I described above AND they went all in with giveaway. Basically they told that everyone who reposts their (Sunny Co) photo will GET a free bathing suit.What happened in next 48 hours? They gained 600k real followers? You see? You gotta be serious and smart if you gotta go big man. Stop fooling around with them bots and shit. Stop hating the game. Sooner or later we all wash away our sins. Haha.Partnering with the right Instagrammers for loop giveaway can be tricky but then again if you're in Instagram pods filled with amazing Instagrammers and you get to know them then you just have to shoot out a message to them. Chances are they too know you as they'd be commenting and liking your photo on a daily basis right?So it becomes easy.Yes - it will cost you money. But you gotta have money to make money.YouTubers these days do a lot of drama. Wherein they act and make drama as if there is a fight between two big YouTubers ... they start making diss tracks and exchange insults (drama) and what not.Everyone falls for this ... but its all a hoax. In this way - they both (the both Youtubers) get to have more subscribers.Lets say I have 1mil subscribers on YouTube. I am Nate. And lets say you have 1mil subscribers on YouTube and your name is Joe.What happens when Nate makes a diss track about Joe? And then Joe makes a diss track about Nate?Haha. Obvious. The both get A TON OF VIEWS and all that drama? Its funny as most of these drama people on YouTube after a few exhange of disses they make an apology video and become friends.That base of followers? Its get exchanged and they BOTH go BIG.So funny that no one realizes this (the marketers on Reddit specially).Its all game bruh. Either you play it and get that Lambo or someone else will and then you'd sit and cry.STEP 7 (Making money)Well by this time - say you have 500+ posts, with all the fake and real and engagement pods combined you have 10K likes per post - you are somewhere near 500K followers - its all good man. Haha.This is when you FIRST start trading shoutouts with the BIG sharks. If you're a traveler and you're sharing your Travel experiences via Instagram then reach out to those who are the BIG sharks. Ones which have big big big fan base. I'm talking about those who have 1mil or more. You have so much going on - the people you approach would surely reply to you won't they?Meet up with them - its FUN - collaborate - exchange drama - and exchange base (NO COST INVOLVED here) You see? Its all going to become real now.You got a fashion page? Get in touch with the big fashion bloggers and meet with them - call them - make some drama like YouTubers do. Repost each others stuff. Get the word out. Go even more bigger.Do this for a while and the next step will happen naturally.FINAL STEPGotta get that green stuff right?Honestly speaking - by this time - based on your niche - brands would be on their knees asking you to advertise for them. Would it matter that 6 months ago you started out with fake followers? I guess not. Haha. By now you have 600K+++ and only 100/200K is fake. So no harm to anyone bruh.If you have an engaged community then you can safely charge $600 per 100k followers. At 600K that would mean ~$3K per post.But then again - you should have experience working with brands. If you're a traveler - during the first few months (once you've crossed 100K by fake followers) - you should mail hotels for free stays. I doubt anyone would say no.Once you grow to 200-300K then approach larger hotel chains (5 star hotels and resorts) and ask them for more longer stays. I can name a 1000 travelers who travel the world on the back of their Instagram.Just keep doing this.By the time you reach 500K+++ you'd have all hotels inviting you to stay with them. They'd pay for your round trip. Expenses. AND pay you cash too.Aren't most of the travelers who are famous on YouTube and Instagram doing just that? Why can't you?Phew - Thats all for this post guys! This is a LOT of stuff. You guys can complain all you want down below. Just remember - if you ain't driving that Lambo - someone else will - and if Facebook and Instagram themselves LOVE stealing views and money, faking stats - then why can't you? Its all fair if in the end you come out clean is all I'm saying.Good Luck to all.FYI - DO NOT ask for recommendations on where to buy fake shit. Google is your friend. If you want to join pods or buy fake shit. Just Google it. When joining a pod - be sure that you DO NOT pay to join one. More often than not, you'd regret it.

[weflossindaily]

Supreme skaters Javier Nunez and Tyshawn Lyons, model Paloma Elsesser, Jen Brill, skater Tyshawn Jones, Chloë Sevigny, skaters Sean Pablo Murphy and Mark Gonzales, all wearing a mix of Supreme and their own clothing.

James Jebbia, the man who, in 1994, founded and to this day runs the SoHo-based company that has been making clothing and skateboards and a lot of other things that the people who love it absolutely have to have, doesn’t think of Supreme the way most people in fashion might—as a brand that started out in a small store on Lafayette Street and has since inched its way to legendary global status. He thinks of Supreme more as a space. When Jebbia was a teenager in Crawley, West Sussex, in the eighties, working at a Duracell factory, listening to T. Rex and Bowie on breaks and spending his spare cash on trips to London to buy clothes, it was always in a certain elusive kind of store—one that became the model for Supreme.

“The cool, cool shop,” says Jebbia, who is 54 and dressed in jeans and a plain dark-blue T-shirt, label-free and low-key, with closely cropped hair and deep blue eyes. “The shop that carries the cool stuff that everybody was wearing—no big brands or anything.”

His office a few blocks west of the Supreme store is adorned with a skateboard designed by Raymond Pettibon; some drawings by Jebbia’s kids, age 8 and 10; and a larger-than-life-size portrait of James Brown—whom Jebbia, crucially, sees as not just the hardest-working man in showbiz but as a guy who never played down to his audience. Jebbia is, likewise, ever-mindful of his customer, who is generally aged eighteen to 25 and wants simply to buy cool stuff—and who will pay for it, assuming it’s worth it.

Of course, what began as a generally male-focused enterprise has, with more and more frequency, been co-opted by women—mirroring both the rise of girl skaters and youth culture’s impressively genderless approach to dressing and living. (The recent surfeit of off-duty models posting Instagrams of themselves lounging, living, and partying in Supreme has only added fuel to the fire.)

“My thing has always been that the clothing we make is kind of like music,” Jebbia says. “There are always critics that don’t understand that young people can be into Bob Dylan but also into the Wu-Tang Clan and Coltrane and Social Distortion. Young people—and skaters—are very, very open-minded . . . to music, to art, to many things, and that allowed us to make things with an open mind.”

Recently the fashion world has been waking up to Supreme. In the past decade, the company has opened stores in Tokyo, London, and Paris, while the passionate devotion of their customers has brought it into the conversation with both teenagers at skateboard parks and the front rows of high fashion—with Paris in particular swooning over Supreme’s collaboration this fall with Louis Vuitton. Jebbia loved working with Kim Jones, Vuitton’s menswear designer, to make skateboard trunks and backpacks, bandannas and gloves, shirts and jackets. The feeling was mutual.

“When you see the lines for Supreme in New York or London,” says Jones, “you see so many different types of people, and they are people you can relate to—they understand high-low, they’re smart, they’re intelligent, and they’re humorous. They know what they want, and they are very loyal—and a customer who is loyal is a real aspiration for anybody with a brand.”

The Vuitton collaboration was also, for many in fashion, their first glimpse into the secretive world of Supreme, which has become a kind of shorthand for authenticity, immediacy, speed, and deftness in its way of doing business. More than just selling sweats and tees and hats, the brand brings out a new collection two times a year, like any fashion company—generally, an online look-book, followed by a few pieces dropped every Thursday, each item available both online and in the stores. A Supreme drop, for those who haven’t experienced it, is an event. “We can have a leather jacket for $1,500, and if it’s a good value, young people will understand that,” Jebbia says. “But we also want to have the feeling that this won’t be here in a month. When I grew up, I think everybody felt that way. It’s like, If I love this, it may not be here, so I should buy it.”

If Jebbia was anxious to get press when he started, now he worries about overexposure. Supreme keeps advertising to a minimum and works with people like Sage Elsesser, the pro skater, who models for its look-book. Elsesser is the kind of person marketers think of as an influential outsider but whom customers see as just a cool skater. “Supreme is family-oriented, and that matters most to me,” says Elsesser. Supremeheads understand the nuances of marketing nonsense; their nose, both for corporations pretending to be human and for brands trying to throw themselves at potential customers, is highly refined, a reason Supreme uses social media primarily as an exhibit space. “We’re not trying to overconnect ourselves,” Jebbia says. “We’re just trying to show people things that we do—no different from what a magazine did 20 years ago.” (They published six issues of their own magazine before developing their website around 2006.)

Founder James Jebbia at the Supreme office in SoHo. Photographed by Anton Corbijn, Vogue, September 2017

Nothing about Supreme was planned in advance, its success a coincidence of place, time, and hard work. By the time he was nineteen, Jebbia had left England and was a sales assistant at a SoHo store called Parachute. From there, he worked a table at the nearby flea market, then founded a store, Union, on Spring Street that sold British goods and streetwear. Union did well enough until it began to sell clothing designed by Shawn Stüssy, the skateboarder and surfer, at which point it did great. Next, Jebbia helped run a shop with Stüssy until Stüssy decided to retire. “Now what the hell am I going to do?” he recalls asking himself.

“I always really liked what was coming out of the skate world,” Jebbia says. “It was less commercial—it had more edge and more fuck-you type stuff.” So he decided to open his own skate shop on Lafayette Street. Lafayette was then a relatively quiet strip of antiques stores, a firehouse, and a machinist, but also a Keith Haring shop—a downtown art-scene connection that, in hindsight, was key. Jebbia built a spare space (the very notions of spare and clean soon becoming Supreme trademarks), then brought in good skateboards, cranked the music, and played videos constantly—wildly disparate things like Muhammad Ali fight videos and Taxi Driver—to draw onlookers.

The kids he employed, often skateboarders themselves, were cool, opinionated—and, yes, often scowling at the uncool—but allowed outsiders a view into their clique. The very first employees were extras in Larry Clark’s film Kids, written by Harmony Korine, who lived in the neighborhood and recalls Supreme as less of a store, more of a hang—though within a year, designers from uptown as well as Europe and Japan were paying attention. “They were easy adapters to a kind of dissonance, where you have several things at different points on the cultural spectrum that are all connected by a kind of aesthetic or vibe,” says Korine. Supreme started a magazine featuring the faces of the young downtown scene—Chloë Sevigny, Ryan McGinley, Mark Gonzales—a mix of models, artists, skaters. “James tapped into a secret sauce,” Korine continues, “and they’ve kept strong because youth propels the culture, and they are always on the side of the youth. You can’t fake that.”

Initially, Supreme made only a few T-shirts. Then their customers arrived wearing Carhartt matched with Vuitton, Gucci with Levi’s. Soon Supreme tried a cotton hoodie, realizing that if it was simply made a little better than what was out there, skaters would be willing to pay a little more for it. According to Jebbia, this sort of thinking isn’t unique to skate culture. “Gucci is saying, ‘Hey—just because you’re young doesn’t mean you won’t love this $800 sweatshirt,’” he says. Jebbia can’t say enough about designers who respect young buyers rather than simply use them to attract press. The genius of Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s creative director, as he sees it, is that he doesn’t just show young people wearing pieces on the runway; he hopes they’ll actually wear them as they go about their lives. “He’s creating exciting products for right now—today,” Jebbia says.

The hoodies worked, as did the fitted caps they tried next. Collaborations came early on, with artists making work for skateboard decks, as well as for T-shirts and other clothing. The painter Lucien Smith credits Supreme’s intimacy. “A lot of people don’t understand that this is a supersmall group of people who are just working on that original idea—that it is a skate shop,” he says.

The list of artists who have worked with Supreme over the last two decades could fill a gallery space: Christopher Wool, Jeff Koons, Mark Flood, Nate Lowman, John Baldessari, Damien Hirst—even Neil Young. But the collaboration that changed everything was the line of tees, shoes, and shirts produced with Comme des Garçons, in 2012. “I think that opened a lot of doors, a lot of eyes,” Jebbia says. “I have never met anyone with such a strong, single-minded vision who has always stayed close to his sense of values,” says Adrian Joffe, president of Comme des Garçons and Rei Kawakubo’s husband. “That’s why our collaboration was so meaningful—and why the growth of Supreme has in a way mirrored our own.”

Spend some time with Jebbia and you get to know his own favorite brands, which include well-known names like Patagonia along with a few you are not likely to have heard of, like Antihero, a skateboard company. “They’re very below the radar,” he says, “but they are very pure in what they do—I hold them in as much esteem as I do Chanel or Vuitton.”

I think a lot of brands reach a point where they say, We kind of have a formula—we’ve got it made,” he says. “Our formula is there’s no formula.” He mentions his wife, Bianca, who grew up in Elm­hurst, Queens, in a Chilean family and raises their children at their apartment in Lower Manhattan. “She’ll shop at Prada, she’ll shop at Chanel—and then she’ll shop at Uniqlo and she’ll wear something from Supreme,” Jebbia says. “And it’s not ‘Look at me dumbing this stuff down.’ She’s just wearing what she likes, and I think that people are more like that now.”

On one recent morning in his office, Jebbia stepped up from his desk and went out for coffee, passing through the studio from which the new Supreme motorized street bike was about to drop, the latest in the seemingly infinite collaborations—this one with Coleman. The space is big and open and white-walled and has the feeling of a workshop. The office staff—an industrious, no-frills team of about 40—is dressed elegantly but practically as they prepare to release their new Comme des Garçons Nike Air Force 1s, the long lines on Lafayette Street still a day or two from forming.

Out on the street, he offered a tour through his own history. “Parachute was there,” he says, “and Comme des Garçons had a store there. . . .” He pointed up. “I love that Alex Katz lives up there,” he says. “People can talk shit about the neighborhood, but I really think it’s one of the most vibrant places in the world.”

Jebbia doesn’t have a title. “My wife keeps saying I should just call myself founder, but I don’t know,” he says. “ ‘Just tell em I run a skate shop’ is how I usually put it. But I guess I kind of direct things.” He likes to stay out of categories, to be free of market demands. Growth, for instance, is something he is focused on, but at the Supreme pace: slow, but quick enough to satisfy customer demand. “We don’t want people to think we are a tricky, hard-to-get brand,” he says. “We can only do so many things,” he says. “The hat factory we use can only make so many hats.” Jebbia is also wary of anything that will raise his overhead or put his ability to take risks at risk. “We’re making stuff we’re proud of,” he says, “not doing stuff to stay alive. I don’t think enough people take risks, and when you do, people respond—in music, in art, in fashion.”

As we walk, Jebbia is greeted by people from the neighborhood, and when at last we sit he seems to almost relax for a minute talking about his weekends—which are, he stresses, decidedly unglamorous. “The kids have a lot of homework,” he says, “and I actually like not having any plans.” As with his stores, he likes to keep life clean and simple—dinner with his wife and kids, and maybe a weekend visit to MoMA. “I don’t have this lavish lifestyle,” he says, “so I don’t have this massive overhead.”

And with that, he’s back to being wary. “I’ve seen brands get comfortable,” he says, “but I’ve never felt comfortable. I’ve always felt every season could be our last.”

In this story:

Sittings Editor: Sara Moonves. Hair: Tamara McNaughton; Makeup: Romy Soleimani. Production: Patrick Van Maanen for Moxie Productions.

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vogue

Supreme, From Cult Skate Shop to Fashion Superpower

James Jebbia, the man who, in 1994, founded and to this day runs the SoHo-based company that has been making clothing and skateboards and a lot of other things that the people who love it absolutely have to have, doesn’t think of Supreme the way most people in fashion might—as a brand that started out in a small store on Lafayette Street and has since inched its way to legendary global status.

Supreme, From Cult Skate Shop to Fashion Superpower James Jebbia, the man who, in 1994, founded and to this day runs the SoHo-based company that has been making clothing and skateboards and a lot of other things that the people who love it absolutely have to have, doesn’t think of Supreme the way most people in fashion might—as a brand that started out in a small store on Lafayette Street and has since inched its way to legendary global status.

[soccernetghana]

VIDEO: Asamoah Gyan talks up dalliance with tennis; copying Roger Federer and love for Rafael Nadal

[caption id="attachment_824908" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Asamoah Gyan playing tennis with friends[/caption] Ghana legend Asamoah Gyan has revealed imitating the world's best serve and volleyer, Roger Federer, has sustained his interest in playing tennis. But the former Sunderland star says his favourite tennis player is the 'King of Clay' 19-time grand slam champion Rafael Nadal. He told TV3 Sports: ''I like it when people make point- like when you come to the net and you make the point like the serve and volley. I think Roger Federer is good at that. He's a master class. ''Honestly, I learnt that from him so anytime I'm in difficulties, I just try to place the ball to the corner and attack the net. I think I'm special in that. That was what brought me into tennis.'' Gyan can best be described as a late bloomer whose interest in playing tennis piqued just months ago. ''I had wanted to play around-if I could remember around 2006- We were in Kumasi. I think we were in camp around that that time and I saw two people playing on the court,'' Gyan told TV 3 Sports. ''I took the racket and my first serve over the fence so I decided not to play. I went back to Italy, got some rackets, came back on holidays. ''I played like once and I lost interest so it was like ten months ago I decided to play because I normally watch tennis and I said to myself I can play so that's where I started.'' At age 34, the man who has shone at major international football competitions, is far from winning a tennis satellite or circuit but he claims . ''I just recovered from injury. I started training now. I'm not fit like before but I have been able to beat people. I learnt the techniques and it's working,'' he added. ''When I am playing with somebody who is at my level, I think I have got the IQ- I have got two things- the football aspect and everything. I just use everything. I am ahead of the person.''   [video width="1280" height="720" mp4="http://cms.ghanasoccernet.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/WhatsApp-Video-2020-06-11-at-10.17.57-PM-1.mp4"][/video]   source: https://ghanasoccernet.com/

[csrgood]

How Technology Is Protecting Endangered Species

Cambodia is home to 16 globally endangered species, like the Asian elephant, tigers, and leopards. Conservationists there are working with a Harvard computer scientist to stop the poaching that is pushing so many species to the brink of extinction.

It's just one of a growing number of collaborations bringing technologists and conservationists together to fight to protect wildlife from being wiped off the face of the planet. Environmentalists have long had a daunting challenge ahead of them when it comes to protecting animals from poachers, habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. They're now hoping, though, that technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), drones, GPS trackers, smart cameras, and the cloud could give them the upper hand they've been looking for.

"It is horrifying to think about the possibility that we may be leaving a world behind where keystone species like tigers, elephants, and rhinos may just be gone," says Milind Tambe, the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and director of the Center for Research in Computation and Society at Harvard University. "We don't want to have to tell our children, 'Well, they're all gone.' We don't want a world like that."

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, which coordinates the organization's environmental activities, the earth is in the midst of a crisis, with 150 to 200 species of plants, insects, birds, and mammals reportedly going extinct every 24 hours. Biologists say that's 1,000 times the rate that's considered natural extinction. And a 2019 U.N. report notes that approximately 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. More recently, research from the University of Arizona suggests that one-third of plant and animal species could be gone in 50 years.

Here are some more alarming numbers:

In 2018, three bird species vanished from the earth.

In Tanzania, the elephant population has dropped by 20 percent in recent years.

Because of widespread poaching for their horns, as of 2018, there were only two northern white rhinos—both female and incapable of natural reproduction—left in Kenya.

An estimated 100 African elephants are killed each day by poachers seeking ivory, meat, and body parts.

Fewer than 450 North Atlantic right whales, including a little more than 100 breeding females, remain. With so many dying and so few being born, scientists warn that the species may not survive more than another 25 years.

With numbers so staggering and dire, conservationists around the globe increasingly are turning to technologists and tech to protect endangered animals and hopefully save them from extinction. Seeing the plight of many species, tech-savvy people are offering their time and expertise to track animals, analyze their habitats and availability of food, and better understand population dynamics.

It's not new for wildlife conservationists to draw on technology like cameras and tracking collars. What's new is the explosion in technologies like AI, machine learning (ML), the Internet of Things, 5G, wireless, and the cloud. And that explosion is touching many industries, including conservation.

"Every industry is going to be changed by it," says Jeff Kagan, an independent industry analyst. "It's transforming so much. It only makes sense that it's transforming wildlife protection. Where before they could never really follow the animals and the paths they take, and the things they're eating, and how they're living, now we can see exactly where these animals are and what they're doing. And think about how much it will advance in the next 10 years." 

Outsmarting the poachers

Tambe, who for the past 15 years has been working on how AI can benefit society, made a slight turn six or seven years ago when he began to wonder how technology could be used to protect animals.

The computer scientist is the creator and driving force behind Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security (PAWS), predictive AI software geared to analyze massive amounts of data and then use ML, game theory, and mathematical modeling to take on the poachers decimating many species of animals around the world, including Cambodia.

For instance, intensive poaching of both Cambodian tigers and their prey have caused a rapid decline in the big cats. Today, the World Wildlife Fund reports that there are no longer any breeding populations of wild tigers left in the country, making them functionally extinct there. As for wild elephants, it's generally estimated that only 300 to 600 remain in Cambodia, down from 2,000 in 1995 and 500 to 1,000 in 1999, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.

Normally, park rangers and environmentalists study maps trying to figure out where poachers may be laying traps or lying in wait to kill protected animals. The PAWS system goes beyond human gut instinct and crunches data to predict where the poachers will be working, where the animals are in the most danger, and the best patrol routes for the rangers.

Tambe has been extensively testing PAWS in Cambodia. Conservationists there are finding poaching traps five times more today than they were before they began using his AI-based system.

"I kept saying, 'I think AI can help,'" he says. "Where are the poachers going to hit next? There are thousands of square kilometers in national parks. There are hundreds of rangers. They can't be everywhere. If we can tell them where they need to be [to stop the poaching], that's important."

Now, Tambe's PAWS system is being adapted to work with 800 global national parks that use SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) software to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of conservation and wildlife law enforcement. With the help of an AI engineer from Microsoft, Tambe has been working for the past six to eight months to integrate PAWS with the SMART software and enable it all to run in the cloud. The system, which so far has been running only on an experimental basis, is scheduled to launch this spring.

"We are honored to be able to contribute," he says. "Some people think of AI being a technology that might be harmful in some ways, maybe taking jobs away. It's a surprise to people that you can apply AI to protect wildlife and use it for social good. The gift to us, as AI researchers, has been opening the door to new AI research challenges so we can advance the state of the art in artificial intelligence."

Saving the salmon

In the Northern California foothills of the Sierra Nevada range, a group of conservationists, the Friends of Auburn Ravine, has been working to protect the local wild Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon. The salmon's numbers have been slashed by logging, dams, overfishing, and pollution. Scientists estimate that 29 percent of the Pacific salmon populations have become extinct in the past 240 years.

The group of volunteers set up cameras to record video of the fish as they migrate upstream to spawn every fall and winter. They were trying to collect data on the number of salmon swimming through, to garner support to improve habitat and facilitate natural migration of adult and juvenile salmon.

The problem was that volunteers were sitting and staring at a seemingly endless amount of video to count fish swimming by.

"It's boring work looking at the videos," says Brad Cavallo, president of Cramer Fish Sciences and a board member of the Friends of Auburn Ravine. "It's easy to miss something because you just space out, but estimates are important so we know how to set harvest limits and how the fish are doing."

Eric Hubbard, a master technologist who has worked at Hewlett Packard Enterprise since 1999, came along and changed that boring, but important, work.

Hubbard says two or three years ago, his dad, who is a volunteer with Friends of Auburn Ravine, told him about video watch parties where volunteers ate pizza and counted fish.

"It was a cool volunteer effort," says Hubbard. "I saw their enthusiasm and effort, but it hurt me to see them doing it so inefficiently. It took huge amounts of hours to look at videos to count these fish. I knew we could automate this and make it so much easier on them."

Hubbard, using the annual 60 hours of paid volunteer time he receives from HPE through the company's community involvement program, HPE Gives, traded out the volunteers' security cameras, which used proprietary protocols that were difficult to work with, for new digital underwater and overhead cameras—dubbed salmon cams—with standard protocols and formats.

Using the Java programming language, Hubbard wrote 5,000 lines of code to create a software program, called FishSpotter, to detect and document passing fish. Raw digital video is uploaded to the cloud, where FishSpotter processes it. Using advanced image recognition to detect activity and identify salmon, FishSpotter automatically produces short GIF highlights of any passing salmon, so humans can then review it to confirm the fish species.

The 2018-2019 migration season was the first to be monitored with the new digital system.

By eliminating the need to watch this large batch of data, FishSpotter was able to pare down 1.6 terabytes and 2,416 hours of raw data into just 101 gigabytes and 20.4 hours of GIF highlights for volunteers to vet and verify as salmon (or other wildlife or activity). In future seasons, Hubbard hopes to further refine FishSpotter's image recognition capabilities to narrow this data set of possible suspects down even further to further accelerate insights.

"I live in a real tech bubble," says Hubbard. "Everyone around me is tech-savvy. I look at these nonprofits and they're outside that bubble. They don't necessarily have the expertise to know what's possible. It's been very gratifying. Initially, it started out as helping people more than the salmon. Then as I got more involved, I was drawn into how important these fish are."

Tech to protect polar bears and rhinos

Colby Loucks, vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Program at the World Wildlife Fund U.S., says technology is increasingly a vital tool in wildlife conservation. And as a leader in the organization's Wildlife Crime Technology Project, which focuses on using cutting-edge technology to fight poaching, he says tech advancements have opened doors.

That's what led the group to create WildLabs.net, a global online community joining conservationists with technologists, engineers, data scientists, and entrepreneurs. With more than 3,000 active users, the group's mission is to use technology to tackle conservation issues, like illegal wildlife trade and poaching.

"We had conservationists trying to use technology, but they weren't technologists by training," says Loucks. "There were a lot of technologists around the world who have the skill sets, knowledge, and desire to help in conservation. WildLabs.net is about connecting those communities. We're piecing together innovative ideas between people with a conservation background and a technology background."

For instance, Loucks says conservationists are combining cameras with ML software trained to distinguish between animals and people. When the system identifies humans, as opposed to zebras or rhinos, passing by a camera, rangers are notified so they can check to see if the people are poachers.

Others in Africa are using thermographic cameras that use infrared radiation to detect elephant and rhino poachers.

Loucks notes that the smart thermal camera technology was installed in 2016 in two different areas of Kenya's Lake Nakuru National Park, a site known for its rhino conservation work. The year before the technology was installed, there were 17 attempted poaching events in the park, he says. The year the system was installed, two poachers were caught, and after that, there were no poaching incidents for the rest of the year and none in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, the system was used to catch another four poachers.

"We feel like that is a big success," says Loucks.

Some scientists are even using environmental DNA (eDNA) technology, which can detect genetic material, such as traces of biological tissue and mucus, obtained directly from environmental samples like soil, sediment, and water. Loucks explains that scientists studying polar bears can scoop samples from streams or footprints in the Arctic snow. From that, they can pull up DNA and use that information to identify what the bears have been eating and even identify individual bears.

"The dream is that you might not see a bear, but if you get a polar bear footprint, you could still know quite a lot about it, which would be a big leap forward for tracking polar bears and seeing how climate change is impacting them," says Loucks. "It is an exciting time to be in the wildlife conservation space right now. We've seen a lot of developments and efforts using technologies to solve problems."

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/43983-How-Technology-Is-Protecting-Endangered-Species?tracking_source=rss

[visithamburg-co]

Is Hamburg worth seeing?

so with that welcome to this video as you know for almost more than half a year I've been living here in Hamburg Germany but I never took the time actually to take you around to show you the city a little bit I thought the best chance to actually do it is I have a good buddy of mine in town right now I'm gonna check out the city center the old town they're like new future world half and City I'm gonna do a few shots he's also behind the camera a lot shooting some cool video so you're gonna see some cool scenes of the city and the day of hours let's go so right now our first stop is pretty much the main building in the city the city hall where all the people take the pictures the other place around here is false young fatigue and pretty much what you can find here is one of the main cattle is the view is amazing and like one random fact that I'm not even 100% sure if it's true actually somebody commented in one of my videos is that Hamburg has like the most candles in Europe so this might be right now like I hope it's right worst-case someone in the comments will gonna show you out for being wrong about it as always so what we did is we took the public stock up bikes in Hamburg 30 minutes for free we're both into riding bikes so that was a good thing and yeah government flew me on here what's up guys tell us what you're up to so right now I'm you're on a bike lane yeah be careful that we don't get killed here from the bike so right now I just finished a lot of video projects within the last couple of weeks and so I didn't come to upload any own YouTube videos I myself to have a little youtube channel but that's what's gonna change right now so I'm gonna start making youtube videos again okay I'm running through the city with our big camera setups being looked at weirdly with all the people around then your life of a youtuber every film right now how I look can you phone right now and this right now is one of the few times that you actually get to see how I sometimes not often look when I vlog in public so there's one of my big quality setups this is it so right now we're passing through the shopping streets and actually this video started out already yesterday but it was a Sunday it was not very busy my camera died this happened as well like once we got into the city but so he's with me right now we're filming a few videos and I decided but when people stopped by I maybe just gonna show them around I'm gonna show you all the parts of the cities only the new to Hamburg once before I have absolutely no orientation I have not seen any of the sites I'm here for about one and a half days so you've got about 24 hours to show me the coolest spots and amber little under advantage right now because Florian they used to do like biking professionally ride we're gonna race to the inner city now sick on top off the river in Hamburg this is not a very touristy area but it's like very nice here you have like those nice restaurants that's where I usually get some ice cream so we might do that then hang around some of the united air really it's like a part of hamburg that looks very different to everything else so I'm gonna check that out and then head into the city center as I said yesterday was a Sunday so in Germany on a Sunday there's nothing going on behind me we have the shopping street so with all the shopping opportunity well like further down there what else I wanted to say and because it is a Monday today and it's very busy Florian got the idea for his channel to film the video about how is it to do public vlogmas but this is how you get the good shots okay and one thing the Germany is on the ones that famous for on the other side I sometimes take for granted is all the history and culture that is around you what I mean by that is example feat this building behind me when my family visited me a few months ago they looked at it they were like ah this looks similar to this building so I googled it and I found that this building is over 800 years old and just all of this city what I like is it's a mix out of extremely new buildings and things like that talking about new buildings let's head over into the city right now we are headed to the Opera Theatre here in Hamburg definitely one of the main sights in Hamburg the US cup you found the former Philippines video didn't you yes I see that yeah no actually it was Hamburg then I saw you Philippines video really Oh am I even filming us so just meeting a girl she's renting me like I heard Danny it happened once in Hamburg wait what that's somebody recognize me yeah so on our way to the Opera Theatre actually a girl recognized me here in this city that is always amazing stuff oh no I don't want to pretend like I'm super famous stop by and say hi wouldn't you see me I'm not there yet it happens very rarely so that's really cool that was a real moment that wasn't every other way passing through right now and I'm gonna show you more off in a few seconds is the spiciest stuff it's pretty much like an old area that used to be more of a less of a harbor or station where ships were arriving okay and with that we are here right now in the hoffman city i really like to come to this place every once in a while in the morning to film my videos it's not busy like as you see there's no one here right now but here we have like some ships and houses man those are really goals they build out this whole area in the last like ten to thirty years so it's all very very new and in terms of what my girlfriend the studying she's studying city planning pretty much and she tells me all the time about how futuristic and it's built here in terms of the structure of the whole area of the buildings I don't know anything about it but I do know it looks absolutely amazing and right over there this is pretty much just symbol of the city the Opera Theatre let's get there finally made it to the Opera Theater the so-called ALP Villa Mooney whew windy day he and humbug the usual weather check a car out that one it's like 7:30 so we are about to get some food we have been thinking about burgers and as you know I am right now doing my cutting dive my body transformation but because I do intermittent fasting what means that I like my breakfast has been it has been a good amount but so far I only had breakfast so every once in a while just can go out can enjoy yourself while getting in shape and and also what I move is very famously known for it all the harbor area huge cruise ship is who are pretty much traveling all around the world are pretty much settling in here and yeah this is pretty much the vibe of the city whoo and that has been the burger out the half and diner here in Hamburg what do you think that was a pretty solid burger really solid the video running yeah we reppin thinking like yeah let's catch the subway but as you know mean the bikes I'll ride around here it's gonna be like around 30 minute rides Gloriana doesn't mind and a good thing it's completely free let's get one and then all right buzz so flew and left Hamburg thank you very much for helping out got some cool shops that one make sure to check out his channel and I was adapt to come back to the title of this video in my opinion humbug Hamburg one of the most aesthetic cities that I know especially Germany probably my favorite city extremely worth traveling to if you ever get the chance and because I'm gonna be soon moving out of Hamburg I decided to cover and living more in my videos so a few more of that is coming up until then you get a role to see

https://youtu.be/y42eDpvgBnk

[walterlitfyafricablog]

Why digital literacy

Part two

In part one I did not get the chance to clearly point out the advantages of why we should invest in digital literacy. In 2017 together with friends we founded a charity  organisation called Mabvazuva Trust. Our mission was "To raise a generation that does not complain but is optimistic for the future". By not complaining i don't mean roll over and take it from behind i mean stop complaining for a second and see the opportunities around us. People who complain never found out the truth and they never contribute anything. The reason why we don't see the vast opportunities right in front of us sometimes. A dude from America Jeremy Johnson discovered that in Nigeria, Africa's largest country over half of young people were unemployed and he founded an organisation called Andela. This brings me to my first point:

JOB CREATION

We can create jobs in the field of computer science for those who are unemployed. Andela has a goal to produce 100 000 developers by 2024. Initially they launched in Nigeria receiving funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Andela is trying to solve the global tech talent shortage because their stats reviewed that there are five open jobs for every software developer looking for one in the U.S. alone. That means in the US they are looking for people to fill these job post and we are crying about unemployment here. The good part you don't need to go to America or struggle to get a visa etc you can work remotely. I read an article by Andela that claim that over two thirds of firms in america prefer to have remote employees. I believe we can create more jobs in the technology area if we invest in digital literacy and this is not fiction there are people already doing it. Andela has only accepted 1 200 developers out of 130 000 applications they have received. That means the other 128 800 applicants did not get the opportunity to fill this gap. I guess that's why econet launched Muzinda Hub to try to train as many developers as they can and its another article for another day about what they have done so far, whether they are succeeding and the fact that they can't close this gap alone.

HELP ENTREPRENEURS BECOME COMPETITIVE

African entrepreneurs especially my fellow zimbabweans need to understand that they can use technology to become competitive in a global world and use social media platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter not just to post how great they were when they went to church last Sunday but to use social media as a business tools. Some try by opening facebook pages  and just post their logo or something and that's it the page is abandoned. Would one claim to be on facebook or whatsapp if they are there once a year. A few months back when i was doing research about digital literacy i bumped into a company based in South Africa called Digify Africa. Digify Africa & Facebook Africa are on a mission to "DIGIFY" businesses owned by young people through their digital PRO STARTUP which is a 12 weeks digital training course to help young entrepreneurs take their business to the next level. The programme is aimed at helping youth enterprises become competitive through digital skills, in particular understanding facebook and Instagram as business tools.

 HELP ARTISTS MARKET THEMSELVES

When we founded Mabvazuva Trust it was one of our objectives to equip musicians, actors, poets, comedicians, painters, footballers etc with the digital skills they need to market their talent and expose themselves at a global stage. Having knowledge about technology enables one to use the internet to meet customers, fans, promoters and agents etc. The agent who discovered Lionel Messi by the name Josep Maria Minguella acknowledged in a interview the importance of technologies like fieldoo to discover talent. "Absolutely! Internet has totally changed the way a football agent does his/her job and the transfer industry. There are no more boundaries and limits – you can see, observe and connect with way more players (and other people) than years ago, as you’re not limited to physical presence. Not so many years ago you had to go around the world if needed, to see and meet players, while nowadays you can do it through the internet – with videos, detailed information and all you need to learn about the player you’re interested in." I remember in 2017 talking to football players trying to get them to open youtube channels so that they could upload their videos as a way to get noticed. Josep Maria Minguella also noted it was difficult to discover talent back then because the internet wasnt as developed as it is now. "Back then we hadn’t been operating through the internet on a daily basis as it had not been developed yet in all parts of the world. Because of that, I had to rely on videos I received from Rosario, where Leo Messi was playing." Now life is easy if you know how to use technology. Artists like Ann Kasiime used digital platforms to showcase their talents and it helped her grow. "According to recorded interviews that she gave in 2014, Anne began posting some of her sketch comedy skits on YouTube. She received positive feedback and that encouraged her to post more videos."

Iam happy these days when i see comedians like Comic Pastor using YouTube as a business tool to get their content to their audience and so many comedians are popping up online here in Zimbabwe. Digify Africa realised the need for equiping artist with digital skills and they have what they call OWN YOUR MARK. This programme is designed to give artists the skills they need to grow their creative hustles. The training program is designed to give artists the skills they need to make the most of the digital world and to grow their creative markets.

MAKING MONEY ONLINE

In this section im going to talk about someone i met on LinkedIn. His name is Taylor Chiyangwa a Digital Marketing and Online Entrepreneurship enthusiast.

After chatting with him online i started researching anything i could find about him and i started reading his blog. He has posted several blog posts about digital marketing. What inspired me the most was his story about how he was tired of his day job and knew that wasnt it for him until he used the exposure he had to computers and started teaching himself digital marketing. He kept his day job for a while when he was learning until he took a leap of faith quit his job and focused fulltime on his digital marketing and online entrepreneurship passion. Since then Taylor went on to open three online businesses that focus on digital marketing, content and copywriting services to businesses and forex education. He is now an entrepreneur and he has employeed a few guys in his company some working full time some as freelancers. Taylor wrote a free ebook called 25 ways to make money online. This book will show you that they are many ways one can make money online. And guess what all you need is a phone or laptop and internet to get started. 

PROBLEM SOLVING

Steve Jobs: “Everybody in this country should learn to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think”. I believe i think and have a problem solver mentality because im a programmer. Programmers write programs to solve problems. I think programming doesnt teach you to thing only but it teaches you endurance, perserverance and a never give up mentality. My friend Lionel said to me that the reason my ventures havent succeeded was because i did not have a thick skin. For a second i believed him but then it dawned on me the reason why i have succeeded as a software developer was because i had a thick skin. So maybe i was only thick skinned when it comes to code but if i apply the same concept in my business ventures i will suceed. It was because of my thick skin and never give up mentality that i did the Truworths Zimbabwe in a month with drupal a CMS i had never studied before. It was because of my thick skin i developed a ussd application with technologies i did not know about like nodejs, express, angular and  mongodb that when you dial *558# on your econet line you will see a seedco menu. I did that project with Tapiwa Jeka at Dataage Solutions and i remember we took turns having sleepless night to code that application and we usually slept at the office 2 nights a week until we finished that application. I remember talking to Seth Mutasa one of my students that you dont learn to code but you learn how NOT TO code. Which means you learn through the failures so a programmer should embrances errors and fix them otherwise you are toast. The worse thing for me when im programming is code that doesnt give me feedback where i did wrong that way im clueless what to do next. 

I strongly believe if we had more programmers we wouldn't be whinning too much but do something using technology to change our world one community after another. I taught my brother Rann web design and it 6 weeks he made a site to aware youths in our community about the dangers of drugs they were taking 

OTHERS

I did not point out every reason why we need digital literacy but i think you get the idea.i left out some other good stuff like reducing the digital divide, economic growth and reduced poverty.

[12thwomantamu]

The impact of suicide reaches further than some realize.

TWs include: suicide, loss of a friend, abuse, probably more, honestly.

A couple of nights ago, me and my two roommates started talking about our childhood best friends. We listed off names, shared memories about then, explained why they were no longer best friends with us (one party moved, argument, drifted apart, etc.). I told them about perhaps the most important friend I’ve ever had — the first one.

He was adopted from Russia when he was real young (if I remember correctly, it was right before he was a year old) but he was in an orphanage where human-to-human interaction was essentially nonexistent except for feedings and cleanings until he was adopted. I don’t know much about child/brain development but I’d imagine little to no contact for the first 11 months of your life is very problematic.

He was very left of center as a child and I think that’s why I gravafed to him — he was the perfect amount of weird. We became best friends immediately. I played my first video game at his house (Crash Bandicoot). He would come over to my house when his dad was being a dick to his mom. He got along great with my other two good friends. He was such a big reason on why my elementary school days were so absolutely amazing.

However, when we need to move on from the first grade (age 6) to the second grade (age 7), he was held back because of a learning disability that he had, and because of that, we started falling out of touch. He then moved to a different area in the city that went to a different elementary school, middle school, and even a different high school that was newly built.

We’ve had zero communication since we were seven or eight.

After we went to our rooms for the night, I decided to try and find him on FaceBook, the one childhood best friend I have yet to add; I’ve managed to reconnect with all of them but him.

I found his FaceBook page with some difficulty but his profile picture looked just like him just a grown teenager — gosh did it look like him. I got so excited. I had to text my mother that I found him, I actually managed to find him.

I started flipping through his profile pictures and he doesn’t have a lot, most everything is set on private and his last picture was uploaded in 2016. From the looks of it, he’s in the Navy and he likes cars. He’s attractive — he ditched the geek glasses and was definitely in shape. He had a goofy smile in his Navy uniform picture that made my heart feel so full. I felt like I had found a long separated brother, I was so unbelievably happy. I decide to go back and see his friends list to try and find his brother or parents in order to see if they have a current photo of him.

So I go back to his homepage and notice that right above his name says “Remembering”.

After the shock wore off and through tears, I started trying to figure out what happened and eventually discovered that he committed suicide back in 2016.

For over two years, I didn’t know that my first ever friend committed suicide. Two years.

I sat there, crying as I tried to process that he had killed himself, that he no longer existed. That I didn’t know for so long. That I didn’t try to reach out to him sooner like I did with most of the others. I should’ve been expecting it, really. I should’ve anticipated that he would be in a dark place when he got older, it makes complete sense.

I’m not good with words and that’s what makes this difficult: I cannot convey how much this hurts right now. I can’t express how happy he made my early childhood. My late childhood would result in traumatic events and some other not so happy occursances. I look back at memories I had made when I was younger — many of which with him — in order to try and forget about the older years.

I called my mother sobbing about him. I already called into work so that I can mourn him tomorrow. I can’t sort memories with him like I’ve done with the others. I can’t hear him talk about memories of us that I’ve forgotten. I won’t ever know what his voice sounds like (I can’t even remember what his voice sounded like when we were friends).

The last communication I had with him was at least 13 years ago, and yet I feel like someone has ripped my heart out of my chest. And I feel guilty for not knowing sooner.

You’re going to sit here and say, “no one would care about me if I died” because guess the fuck what? That’s not true, not even a little bit. I guaran-damn-tee that someone will suffer from that loss, even if it’s a friend you no longer know.

They may not seem that significant to you but damn you could mean so much to someone and not even know it so please, please call someone that can and will help you. Please.

United States Suicide Hotline: 1(800)273-8255

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

Kabul: Afghan forces ‘end Intercontinental Hotel siege’

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Media captionGuests tried to escape by using bed sheets to climb down from balconies

A 12-hour siege of a luxury hotel by gunmen in the Afghan capital has come to an end, security forces say.

Six civilians, including a foreign woman, died at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, along with three attackers, the interior ministry said.

Some 160 people were rescued after Afghan troops fought through the night to regain control of the building.

Questions are being asked as to how the heavily-armed gang was able to enter such a highly-fortified place.

No group has yet said it was behind the attack, although suspicion will fall on the Taliban who targeted the hotel in 2011.

One Afghan news agency is disputing the authorities’ latest on the siege.

Unconfirmed reports from Tolo News suggest there were five attackers, at least two of whom are still “alive and fighting”. It says two foreigners are among the dead and dozens of bodies have been seen inside the hotel.

Chaos and desperation

The gunmen burst into the six-floor hotel at around 21:00 local time (16:30GMT) on Saturday evening, as guests were enjoying dinner.

Afghan Telecom regional director Aziz Tayeb, who was one of dozens of guests due to attend an IT conference at the hotel on Sunday, said he saw the attackers arrive as he was heading towards the exit.

“Everything became chaotic in a moment,” he told the AFP news agency. “I hid behind a pillar and I saw people who were enjoying themselves a second ago screaming and fleeing like crazy, and some of them falling down, hit by bullets.”

The gunmen – armed with rocket-propelled grenades as well as smaller weapons – stormed through the hotel taking many of the guests hostage.

During the siege, one guest told AFP they were hiding in their rooms and could hear gunfire coming from “somewhere near the first floor”.

Several guests were pictured using bed sheets to try to climb down from a top-floor balcony. One of them lost his grip and fell to the ground.

Dramatic images on Afghan TV showed thick black smoke and flames rising from the imposing hilltop hotel.

Image copyright AFP

Image caption The hotel is a landmark in Kabul

Afghan special forces were lowered by helicopters on to the roof of the hotel during the night, an interior ministry spokesman said.

Forty-one foreigners were among those rescued. Seven people were wounded.

The interior ministry has promised an investigation into how the attackers breached security, which was handed to a private company two weeks ago.

Some reports suggest the gunmen entered the hotel through a back door in the kitchen.

Saturday’s siege comes just days after the US embassy in Kabul issued a warning about hotels in the city.

“We are aware of reports that extremist groups may be planning an attack against hotels in Kabul,” the embassy wrote in a public security alert published Thursday, though it highlighted another hotel near the international airport as a possible target.

“These groups may also be targeting public gatherings/demonstrations, government facilities, transportation, markets, and places where foreigners are known to congregate.”

The Intercontinental is a state-owned hotel – not linked to the global hotel chain of the same name – which often hosts weddings, conferences and political gatherings.

Security has been tightened in Kabul since last May, when a huge truck bomb killed at least 150 people.

However, there have been several attacks in recent months. They include a bomb at a Shia cultural centre last month that killed more than 40 people.

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