#i thought I had uploaded this or at least embedded it from youtube but I guess I didn't lmao

[themessengervevo]

Hello my followers. Today I'm posting something that's not a piece of art I made or a responce to an ask, because I need your help. Several days ago, with the help of my very supportful art teacher, I made a Google account and a Youtube channel as well. She wanted me to post my music on there because she liked it alot and wanted other people to discover it as well. I shared those thoughts too. I also wanted to have a Google account as well because I had one up until 2019 where a phone number being removed caused it to instantly remove my access to the Google account, and thus the Youtube channels I had, which included an earlier instance of a channel dedicated to my music. My most succesful channel only had a slight big over a hundred subscribers.

So I got the Google account, and the Channel set up to where I wanted it and started work on the first upload. It was supposed to a full upload of my album "Suffering Embedded in Logic" with a remastering done by me. I completed the full upload, and even gone through the effort of verifying my account for the purpose of being able to upload a one hour video without hassle. I uploaded it, the copyright checks went through fine, and I uploaded it to the channel. I, obviously considering the big steps I took to getting here, advertised it everywhere, and I wanted to advertise it on this account as well. But then, after a total of three days since creating the account, and not even a day after uploading the video, I was greated to a screen.

It said my video was removed because my account has been terminated. I was obviously very much distressed by this. What could've caused this termination? Why? Was it the full album I posted? Was it something completely different? Did I spent all this time wishing to have a channel again to then be euthanized like that? So I sent an appeal to Youtube regarding my channel.

I got an email confirming that they were looking into the appeal, and that I would get it in around 2 business days.

All well and good, right? Well, I woke up today to this lovely message in my Inbox:

This was obviously shocking to me. In the email regarding my termination, Youtube said my channel had "severe or repeated violations of [their] Community Guidelines". I believe that I wasn't doing anything that could break their Guidelines. What part of the Guidelines I was apparently breaking was not detailed in any way, so in my appeal I said for them to atleast guide me to where in the Guidelines I was breaking these rules, but in their reply not only did they not tell what I was apparently breaking, but doubled down on their decision and are keeping me terminated. Fun little fact, you can only make ONE appeal to them, and no more.

This was infuriating to say the least. Not only did they banned someone who didn't do anything, they didn't even include a reason or anything so at to why they did this. So in their Feedback form thing, I wrote them this:

Please, PLEASE read this fully if you want to see my thoughts on this, but if you really can't, here is a "tl;dr" on my thoughts.

I have 2 working theories that might explain why I was inexplicably banned from this platform. And both arent the brightest in their image.

The first theory I have is that this is all a work of a Bot that just so decided to screw over a person for some false reasoning that it sticked to. This theory is confirmed by several support threads on Google's own support forums regarding this exact issue (which are still being made to this day), the one linked as an example. From there, I saw many a person talk about their channels being unfairly banned for unexplained reasons, including a small martial arts group that were only uploading clips of them. that martial arts group got the reasoning of "spam, deceptive practices, and misleading material" for their ban. I believe their network of bots sometimes falsely flag people and terminate them, and that human support doesn't come to correct these bots for many of the smaller people, resulting in an unfair permanent banning. As such, I proposed for them to give reasons as to why they ban people, as well as up the amount of appeals you can do, as well as for them to make their bots better.

The second theory though has more serious allegations. I don't usually talk about where I live, mostly for privacy concerns and also that I believe you shouldn't give out all your information for strangers online, but I have to talk about it for this part. I live in Russia. I have been living in Russia for my whole life. It isn't the best place to live in my opinion, but I've been stuck on this patch of land since I was born. Ever since the Russo-Ukranian War started, the already somewhat negative outlook of people outside of Russia has dropped significantly, many people from there who catered to people outside of Russia received many threats. One of my best friends, who I like to call Reggie, that is working in a store dedicated to people with Autism, had to stop working in Global markets because there was so much hate for Russians at the time that the Dollar-to-Ruble ratio dropped massively, and it was just too much. Many sites put sanctions on Russian sectors, including PayPal, which led to many Russians who used it to basically be poor. Which leads me to believe this: The reason why Youtube terminated my account with no explanation is because either it's human support is xenophobic, or that Youtube itself is xenophobic. I do not like this though, but I'm more and more convinced that this is the case.

Which leads me to a wider discussion of how Youtube is fundamentally broken. From letting big youtubers to stay on the platform despite them breaking their own rules, to many spam comments and scam accounts that exist solely to harvest subscribers and unsuspecting victims, to the whole ElsaGate debocle an how it returned in BIG amounts with Youtube doing nothing, to innocent channels getting silenced and punished for just existing, I believe that what Youtube meant in "making sure that Youtube is a safe place to all" is that they would make sure that Youtube is a safe place to all the big channels that are making money for them, which include scammers, botted accounts, hacks, and big television networks. I say NO to that. I say

FUCK

YOUTUBE

Youtube has shown to be late to things that should've been resolved way earlier, that they do not care about serious violations of their rules unless it is explicitly called out on Twitter, that they are inherently racist, homophobic, and xenophobic as was shown in many cases prior to this one (CoryXKenshin immediately brings to my mind), and that they will let their biggest cashcows to continue thriving on their platform and giving them money, even if they are the most scummiest creatures of this earth. This should NOT be how Youtube is. It should be a safe community for many people to go about their lives posting things they want to do, knowing they are safe from the threats of people who would gladfully steal their work knowing they are bigger than you and can get away with it or the system not banning them for arbitrary things they dont know. It should be safe for all, but its only safe for the biggest. So I again say

FUCK

YOUTUBE

Please spread my story everywhere you can. Reblog this, crosspost this, blaze it, share it anywhere (but especially on Twitter) you can to let my story be known. Please let everyone know how broken Youtube is, and keep fighting. Even when my Youtube account gets restored, keep. fighting. Keep fighting for the hope that Youtube will FINALLY listen to their cries, and that they will start fixing their shit, because any win we have is one step towards a truly safe place for all. If you have/had any experiences like this, or you live in Russia as well, tell me your thoughts and your story! Hopefully, this will lead to more stories of Youtube being in the wrong, and this will lead to a better future.

Hope you read and understood all of this.

So now that you have read of my channel's unfortunate sudden end, you might be wondering this:

"Well that was sad to hear, but how can I help YOU specifically?"

Glad you're asking that! I would love to have your support in any way. So here are places where you can help!

Tumblr

Obviously, considering you where you're currently are, you can support me here on Tumblr by reblogging and following this blog, as well my side blog @mailyftw! Here I post the art I make, as well as any serious announcements, while on the side blog I like reposting various things and showing whatever doodles I made today. It would be very helpful for me. You can also support me on Newgrounds, it's basically my side art archive, and also a music archive! Speaking of music,

Bandcamp

This is where I primarily upload my music on. I've been making Caretaker-like music since 2020, and I would love for you lot to hear it, espcially since I improved from that time. I may upload the remastered version of the album I mentioned earlier with some new tracks added, since I was planning to do this for a while now. I also host on there my supergroup The Haggstrom's albums. We've had some stuff out for a while to enjoy, infact we're making an album ABOUT the problems Youtube has! We have a dedicated server where you can talk about them and even make a submission for our projects, so if you want to support not only my work but the collective works of many people, you can do so by clicking this sentence! It would be very much appreciated, since work has exponentially slowed down there.

WeVidi and BitView

These two Youtube alternatives is where I currently upload my work to. On WeVidi, I upload content related to my music, particularly my albums. And on BitView I upload everything else basically, including memes and animation (hopefully soon). If you want to support me on there, please make an account on these platform and subscribe and share my videos, it will not only help me to be seen, but also help these revivals to thrive as more people see them. Hopefully, they won't lead to a Vidlii situation! Hopefully.

Socials, also known as "Other"

If you want to support me somewhere else, here are some other places I frequent: - SpaceHey! It's a revival of MySpace, and it's really great. I'm always on there, and I sometimes make bulletins or blogs. Friend me if you want! I'll accept most people that are sane and like the things I like. - Discord! Message me at the___messenger and maybe friend me too! Again, I'll accept most people that are sane and like the things I like. If you're one of the "big people", and you want to interview me, go ahead! Though please, link this blog post and the big places I'm in, and be mindful that I don't have the best camera in the world so I'll most likely be doing this in text or on phone. - Reddit! I'm active on there under Spot_Mark, you can message me if you want. Again, I'll accept most people that that are sane and like the things I like, or people wanting to interview me. - Escargot! If you are particularly privy, you can message at TheSweet2014s@escargot.chat. Once again, I'll accept most people that that are sane and like the things I like, or people wanting to interview me. Note that you'll need an escargot account and a copy of Windows Live Messenger, preferably 8.5, to even begin messaging. - Anywhere else! I'm on many platforms and places, usually on the smaller side. You can find me under "TheMessengerVEVO" or a similar name on a place. Any support will be thankful. - I'm considering getting a Boosty account for people to help me monetarily, since we here are basically scraping by, plus the wole PayPal nonsense. Hopefully yall could help when it comes out, if at all.

If you supported me because of this, I have nothing but the biggest thanks for you! I'll try updating you on this situation as it goes on, and hopefully it will result in things actually being done. I'm very scared of whatever might come, and also relieved now that I revealed the whole Russia thing. I wanted to reveal that anyway for the past couple of months. Anyway, I hope this gets big and gets the attention of Youtube!

- May our strength guide us forwards, The Messenger.

[haydennation]

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A fan recording of Hayden showing up to the Star Wars Show and using a t-shirt cannon/gun afterwards. x

[rkyuna]

    ・  MBC DANCE CONTEST UPLOAD   ━━━━         ›  DON’T CALL ME ANGEL   ₊

to say yuna’s father had reservations ever since her stint on the mgas was an understatement. sure, yuna had thought he’d get over it sooner or later. but she didn’t think he’d be so against it up ‘til now -- she was still enrolled at hanlim, a place that cultivated the next, brightest stars on their generation so it’s come to be expected that yuna would find herself back onto her star-filled path sooner than later.

what yuna doesn’t expect is her father, in all his not-so-stern glory, sitting her down the day after her birthday with his doubts about the mbc dance contest flyer he had seen loitering by the floor of her bed.

“you were a wreck after you were eliminated, what if it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to again?”

yuna deadpans, a sudden sourness filling her mouth. “what -- you don’t believe in me, dad?”

it hurts, yes -- to be reminded of her blunder. after putting it all behind her, yuna had thought she’d been renewed. that after months of contemplating what would be her next step, for this to come falling into her lap just days before her sixteenth birthday, yuna could only deduce it as something called fate.

“it’s not fair for you to be treating me like some baby! jessica and yoona unni were able to send in their videos, what makes me so different?”

just because she was the youngest of her family -- didn’t mean she liked being babied. if her own siblings were allowed to join the contest, why couldn’t she? her arms stay crossed as she leans further into her seat, staring dejectedly at her father as he stared right back ; grimness filling in the lines that had grown around his face in the last few months.

“i just don’t want you to get hurt, yuna.”

“i won’t, i promise.”

not like it’s a promise she can keep -- but she crosses both her fingers behind her back, just in case.

                                                     ━━━━━━━━━━    

she’s not born with it. that is for sure, from her experience at mgas, to revisiting video upon video of her performances, one could tell from one look that yuna had a long way to go when it came to dancing. but it didn’t negate the fact that -- despite her missteps and rigid movements -- she looked good. and that’s what mattered, right?

( at least that’s what yuna liked to think )

but opinions change and somehow needing something to stimulate her interests back into its right path, she had signed up for some dance classes. to fix the rigidity, to up her visual fluidity and somehow translate it practically into dance. 

it didn’t help that the ahjummas that lived next door would not let her live down the embarrassment that was getting eliminated so early on in the competition. she wanted to be remembered but not for losing. even for yuna, there were some limitations to negative press. and that had been hers. 

she had grown dim, and while she didn’t love the arts, didn’t feel any romanticized attachment to it -- she enjoyed them enough to want to still try. a huge sigh as she stares longingly at the advertisement playing right before another one of the choreography videos she watches, mbc’s flashy logo appearing right before the dance contest details and the fast-approaching deadline end the ad.

ugh. there was no choice, was there?

and while she didn’t love dancing, nor did she believe it was her god-given birthright to somehow be good at it -- with her birthday coming in just a few days, and the deadline for the dance contest falling close behind -- yuna had to figure out something, quick, before her time was up.

                                                  ━━━━━━━━━━      PRESS PLAY .

she scours the web for a choreography that benefitted her in two ways: befitting of her skills -- figuratively speaking -- and was aesthetically pleasing and powerful enough to make a mark. because if she wasn’t remembered, what was the point?

if yuna had a say in what she wanted to portray herself as -- she wanted it to be impactful, memorable and well-ingrained in the minds of her viewers. she wasn’t a youtuber by any means. if tiktok or vine counted -- she’d call herself more of an influencer, than anything else.

but with the few videos she’s put up, and the following from her other social media accounts, somehow the subscriber list had grown to a point that yuna knew to be anxious for whatever she put up next. as a young girl who made a point to heavily ignore the critics on her comment section, she was also still a young girl with a sensitivity streak that rivaled no other.

( which adds to the reason as to why her father feared for what to come )

but it’s something she can’t have weighing her down.

the moment she turns on that camera to perform the choreography she had spent days searching for ( and even a few more learning ) there’s no turning back.

would this make up for her blunder on the mgas? probably not.

but it was worth a try.

kyle hanagami’s choreographies are challenging. they require a skill that yuna does not have but she fesses up all of what she can manage in favor of star quality -- and that was just what kyle’s choreographies all held. a spunk of individuality and rebelliousness that yuna felt was so deeply embedded into her own being that even her father couldn’t help but agree that it had yuna written all over the steps the moment she had shown him the choreography she was going to cover.

relying on confidence alone was risky but she thinks she’s improved enough in the last six months to shake the nerves that pelter through until the very tip of her nerve-endings. it wasn’t like she couldn’t just edit out her mistakes, right?

( or would that be cheating? )

the beat is heavy in the dance room, secluded among the rest as some of her peers loom behind the phone camera to watch her from the screen ; making sure she stays in frame rather than running off the side. it’s happened before when she had tested the lighting ( and while she didn’t have any professional equipment, and she couldn’t really trust her friends to hold the phone steady enough -- this would have to do ) and found that she wasn’t even in frame for the first 30 seconds of the song ( a majority of the choreo considering how long it actually was: if she recalls it was barely a minute ) .

it’s a lot of attitude -- she realizes, as she goes through the motions in her head before she signals for the song to play. it’s a performance of not only her body, but her face and she feels it reflexively stiffen at the sound of ariana grande’s chorus fading to welcome miley cyrus’s verse.

it’s definitely more sharp moves than any of the other choreographies she had practiced before -- a lot more hitting the beat of the song, never a misstep -- something yuna realizes she does often if she feels herself quickening in pace rather than keeping in tempo.

and unlike exo’s namesake song, yuna had taken ages to make sure she didn’t mess up her own tempo with the song.  

she breathes in deeply right before the beat jumps and she’s sauntering forward ; fast movements ensue for sharper movements. so fast that she feels the whip of blonde locks against the nape of her neck ( a part of her regrets not tying her hair up ) as she spins and her arms are moving this way and that -- a languid motion sped up to match the rhythm of the song as she crouches then rises.

as fingers run through her hair ; she feels the smile finally break -- the breath in her lungs ripped out of her as she’s moving from one side of the frame to another. each step bringing another motion to ripple through her features. she grows in confidence as the lyrics finally hit its core -- a nail to the coffin, empowerment stemming from the very breadth of her hair to every smile she flashes at the camera. the haughtiness in her expression running through her fingertips as she moves in the way her girls’ hip hop teacher had taught them just a week ago -- sensual, but powerful.

it didn’t need to be sexy -- not for yuna, no. she just wanted it to be impactful.

memorable.

because wasn’t that the point of it all -- just as she turns one last time to face the camera, as the song fades, and her smile is dripping with confidence, chest heaving with the need to breathe -- 

( if she could help it ) yuna just wanted to be remembered for trying.

( and not failing, this time )

[greghagger-blog]

Bass Beginners Guide

Hey everyone

Here are some details about my new Bass Beginners Guide.  I am super excited about as it is my first publication since forming Greg’s Bass Shed.  Have a read, because if you are a bassist, then this will help you to rapidly improve.

Click here to find out more information.

There is a chapter in there for absolute beginners, if you need it. As you work through the eBook, you will learn about rhythm, groove, reading music, scales, arpeggios, setting up your bass and amp, tone, technique and how to practise.  There is enough in there to keep you busy for some time, but it will help you to progress quickly.

The idea for this eBook was formed a long time ago, and I have poured over 20 years of teaching experience, and professional bass playing experience into it.  I started learning bass after reaching a high level on the piano and trumpet.  This meant that I could learn the bass to a professional level very quickly, as I had knowledge in three keys areas.

These form the backbone of the guide:

Music Theory

Ability to read music

An understanding of how to practise

I would like you give you one of my shorter eBooks resources which can help you all, no matter what level you are at.  It is ten pages long and helps you assess your current playing ability, pick three key areas to work on, and explains how to set up a successful practise routine.  Just follow the link to download this.

Target 3 Key Areas To Quickly Improve & Progress

Below I will answer some key questions from a recent survey I put out.

How long is the Bass Beginners Guide?

The guide is 120 pages long.

How much will the eBook cost?

The eBook will cost $19.99 (USA). 

What differentiates this guide to others?

I have made every effort to make this guide as practical as possible, by getting you playing from the beginning of the first chapter.  I also provide practical examples to illustrate how to apply the techniques in the guide.

You also have the back-up of my YouTube Bass Beginners Series to refer to, which contains many of the same topics, presented in a more condensed way.

Will it be printable?

Yes, it is in PDF form, therefore printable.

Will there be an audio companion?

Yes, there are at least 30 tracks to accompany the guide.  These are free, and a link to them is provided in the eBook.  I think this is a better solution to embedding each track, as this way, you do not have to be online whilst using the guide.

Will it include some online access?

I have included links, at the end of chapters, to bonus practice material on my website.  These are in the form of appendices, which will be updated on an ongoing basis.  There are of course, my YouTube video lessons too.

Would it be user friendly for an older beginner and easy to follow?

Yes, the guide is extremely user friendly and being in PDF form, means you can upload it to any device or print it out.

If there is enough interest, then I will bring out the guide as a book in the future.

Please comment under this article to share your thoughts or any more questions you might have.

Click here to find out more information.

[atopfourthwall]

State of the Wall: 12-2-17

New State of the Wall post! Lotsa stuff happening, so click under the cut to see what's happening!

Schedule of Upcoming Episodes 12/4 – Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Dark Holiday Special 12/11 – Sensation Comics #14: The Story of Fir Balsam 12/18 – Steam Wars Christmas Special 12/25 – Christmas with the Superheroes #2 1/1 – My Top 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W 1/8 – PATREON: Legion of Superheroes: The Great Darkness Saga 1/15 – Patreon Viewers’ Choice (NFL SuperPro #2, Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos #3, or James Bond, Jr. #1) 1/22 – PATREON: JLA/Avengers 1/29 – PATREON: Homestuck, Act 2

As always, the schedule is subject to change for any number of reasons, I’m pretty locked down with these choices… aside from MAYBE my Top 15 Favorite Episodes. I keep waffling on it, but for now it’s what we’re going with.

The Road to 500… and the 10th Anniversary 2018 will mark the 10th Anniversary of Atop the Fourth Wall! Needless to say, it’s going to be a big year for the show. If everything goes according to plan, there will be two storylines within it – the Contest of Champions arc that began in October as well as a shorter 10th Anniversary storyline whose name I shall reveal once we get to it, likely ending October 29th (if not the 22nd to coincide with the 10th Anniversary episode).

To celebrate this momentous time, every review that is not a Patreon-sponsored episode will be a follow-up to something from the past ten years! This would include sequel episodes to previous material, like another issue of something covered previously, a thematic follow-up like, say, from the same creators as a popular episode or could be thought of as following the same ideas as that episode. However, thankfully some of the Patreon-sponsored episodes themselves will be follow-ups, as indicated by the January 29th episode being the second act of Homestuck (which should hopefully make the many Homestuck fans asking for me to cover the next act happy).

Along those same lines, we’ll be doing the second Patreon Viewers’ Choice episode! The official announcement for the poll on that one will likely come at the end of the Top 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W, but I’m letting you see the choices now to start thinking about it. The choice will be between three goofy tie-in comics I’ve covered previously – another issue of NFL SuperPro, another issue of Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos, or going all the way back to James Bond, Jr.’s first issue. I did return to James Bond, Jr. for a live show that hasn’t been put up yet, but we haven’t seen it on the show proper since the end of 2009. A comment on that issue is the source of the infamous “You’ll never be as popular as the BeeGees!” comment that is now immortalized on the back of the second DVD.

But of course there’s even another big even happening in 2018 as part of the 10th Anniversary – we’re going to hit the 500th episode! I definitely want to do some special stuff this year for the 500th, most especially being another livestream like we had for the 300th. It’ll take some time to plan, but here’s a list of ideas I have currently for it: -More testimonials, trivia, and anecdotes like in the 300th -Showing some otherwise-DVD exclusive content from all my DVDs, including the Movie -Showing the previous “100th episodes” – Sonic Live #1, Spider-Man: One More day, Holy Terror, and Marvel Super Special #7: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band -A live showing of the conclusion to Pokémon Omicron, where we’ll take on the Elite 4 -Various Longbox of the Damned episodes -Special guests -Live-riffing some shorts

These are all just ideas for the time being, so if you have any of your own, feel free to let me know! We’ve got 5-6 months until the 500th and I’d love to know what people think!

Platform Change 4: The Revengeance of the Whils VidMe has announced that they are shutting down their services as of December 15th. As such, there are going to be some changes in how things are handled around here. This is the FOURTH time that a platform has failed and I have had enough. We hadn’t even really finished replacing the vidme embeds on the LAST embed player change, so screw it: we’re going all in on youtube. There might be an option for Vimeo down the road, but for now, here’s in the broad sense what’s going to happen: -All Atop the Fourth Wall videos, from here on, will be thumbnail images of the title card that you click through to go straight to youtube. -All Longbox of the Damned embeds will be made into youtube embeds. Next year’s Longbox videos are currently up in the air, but hey – we’ve got ten months to figure that out and maybe have a tried and tested system in place. For now, it makes more sense to make them youtube embeds because of people’s nature in marathon-viewing videos and Longbox videos are short enough as-is. -New videos like vlogs, side content, and Let’s Plays will follow the title card thumbnail process being used for Atop the Fourth Wall. Old videos are up in the air, but they will likely be embedded videos just to make life easier on us as we once again replace everything. -History of Power Rangers… well, that’s a bit of a beast all on its own. Refer to the History of Power Rangers section below for more details.

As always, I ask for patience during yet another period of transition. Plenty of videos will be unavailable during this time (including crossovers in particular), but we’ll try our damndest to get things back to working order as soon as possible.

History of Power Rangers I’m happy to report that FINALLY, all of History of Power Rangers is back up after so many months of being down due to ContentID striking many of them from VidMe. Minor edits have been made due to the lengths of certain clips used…

…And you can only enjoy them for another 13 days because VidMe is shutting down. Or rather you can DOWNLOAD them for another 13 days using a third-party downloader.

Simply put: I’ve had it. These videos were made for a different time, when Blip was the main video host and longer usage of video clips wasn’t an issue. The platforms have dwindled and it’s down to youtube and I’ve already tried to upload these videos to youtube once before and it didn’t end well. The audio quality of these videos isn’t that great compared to my current standards and many of them utilized low-quality pirated versions of episodes recorded off of TV. I own all of Power Rangers on DVD now and new Power Rangers content that I put out has to come from legitimate sources like DVDs anyway. I simply cannot make these older versions work anymore. Don’t bother trying to suggest another video host like Vimeo or DailyMotion. Aside from both having their own ContentID systems, I am tired of trying to accommodate an inferior product.

Work will begin anew on the revised History of Power Rangers videos. While I had wanted to work on them in order, it took forever just to get the SLIGHTLY-edited versions back on VidMe due to my busy schedule. As such, I’m going to release them on youtube out of order, starting with Overdrive through RPM (Samurai, Megaforce, and Dino Charge already exist on youtube) because of their already-decent audio quality. If you want the old versions (and sadly that will now include the SLIGHTLY-edited versions that I have put up more recently), feel free to download them however way you can, because I am no longer going to try to support it. Let it not be said that I didn’t TRY to keep them up after so many years of fighting with various platforms over them.

I had planned to announce that it was likely the In Space History of Power Rangers would be delayed as it is simply due to the busy schedules of others needed to work on the “Under Pressure” section, but, well, here we are. Hopefully we can see HOPR restored to something better than it was once the dust completely settles.

Let’s Play Pokémon Omicron As stated in the last State of the Wall, the Pokémon Omicron streams are on hiatus due to finally reaching the Elite 4. Due to the various things I’ve had do to these last few months (not the least of which being concluding a storyline, Longbox, AND getting married) I’ve had little to no time to work on Omicron videos. As I’ve said before, I’d like to do a major stream for the Elite 4. If you look above, I’ve suggested fighting the Elite 4 as part of the 500th AT4W Episode Celebration Live Show and would like to hear some feedback on that.

Storyline Compilations In case you haven’t been following the youtube channel (which you probably should be at this point given what’s going on with VidMe – link HERE), the Game Show Reviewer (who does a lot of the special effects for the show) has put together compilation videos of the AT4W storyline! They feature JUST the storyline segments and occasionally a clip or two from a review for context (or because he felt a joke was funny enough to include). At this time, everything through the “His Blue Soul” arc has been released. The other compilation videos are done and uploaded, but I’m currently waiting for some ContentID claims on the Royalty-Free music to pass before I release the rest. Otherwise, you can enjoy the compilations currently available thanks to this hand-dandy playlist.

DVDs and T-Shirts Sale In honor of the holiday season, IT’S SALE TIME! All INDIVIDUAL volumes of Atop the Fourth Wall DVDs have been reduced to ten dollars (until December 26th), including the most recent – Volume 3: Character Reboot. In addition, Shark Robot is still running their Black Friday sale through December 6th – just use the promo code “BLACKFRIDAY17” on the two Atop the Fourth Wall t-shirts – “I am a Man” and “Because Poor Literacy is KEWL!” You can find those shirts HERE!

I’m working on getting some other sales ready for both the Screenwave store and the T-shirts, so feel free to keep checking back here for any updates on additional sales!

Event Comics Month II The first Event Comics Month was such a big success we’re doing it again next year! As before, it’s a vote by patrons at any level picking two DC and two Marvel event comics! You can check it out HERE, become a Patron, and make your vote known about what you’d like to see reviewed next year!

Patreon As a reminder, the Patreon-sponsored review tier for Patreon is still closed for the moment, with details you can read HERE. While I still don’t have a date yet as to when I plan to reopen them, I’ve been taking your feedback about it into consideration. A common train of thought is that any non-comic review should at least be in some way linked to comics, be it about superheroes or, at the very least, linked to something I actually regularly do/am in some way interested in (for instance, the occasional sentai reviews are fine given History of Power Rangers, or video games could be Star Trek or Pokémon or the like). I don’t think that’s too unfair a compromise given what people are thinking, but I wouldn’t mind getting more feedback about it during this time, so feel free to make your feelings about it known if you haven’t already!

That’s all I’ve got for now! Feel free to let me know your thoughts/concerns/questions for everything going on!

[daleisgreat]

35 Years of NES - Flashback Special!

It took me 12 minutes to set up this shot of what encapsulates my NES fandom! Please sit down and listen for awhile as I recount my life and times as a NES kid! This October in a couple months will mark the 35th anniversary of the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America so that means it is time for another flashback special where I recount my personal history with the NES. This is the 11th platform that has gotten the flashback special treatment from me in the little over a year I have been doing them and if you want to get caught up with the rest make sure to check out the links at the bottom of this entry! Furthermore, if you are looking for a more traditional anniversary piece chronologically highlighting the history of the system and its top games I have you covered there too. At the bottom of this article I have embedded old podcasts of mine I recently uploaded to YouTube from my personal archives where we highlight the system as a whole on its 25th anniversary ten years ago. I additionally have podcasts from my history of RPG and comic book videogame series highlighting the NES entries from those genres that are all featured at the bottom of this article to keep that NES anniversary train rolling for the rest of the year! Being Introduced to the Power

I will never forget the first impression the NES made on me because it was the first time I ever witnessed and played a videogame! It was the Christmas shopping season of 1988 and I just got home from Kindergarten class to see my older sister playing some electronic contraption that was absolutely foreign to me. My eyes soon gazed upon the TV where a crudely pixelated man in red overalls was running and jumping across the screen to the catchiest of background music jingles that will always stick with me. She soon enough passed along the NES’s vintage rectangular controller to me and within minutes I was hooked as I sunk my teeth into my first videogame, Super Mario Bros.. Our family got the ‘Power Set’ which had the 3-in-1 cart featuring Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet along with the Power Pad and Zapper accessories. I was too little to figure out how to operate the Power Pad at the time and rarely played World Class Track Meet, but the family did get a decent amount of playtime in Duck Hunt and groveled over how we could never shoot that damn dog! We always kept coming back to Super Mario Bros though. I had no idea what I was doing as a five-year-old at that time, but I knew I had to give it my all to get Mario to jump to the top (and over???) of the flagpole at the end of most levels. Eventually I stumbled my way accidentally jumping into hidden blocks that contained SECRETS like extra lives, bonus coin blocks and vines that lead to bonus coin rooms and warp zones! Much like today how I have to explore every nook and cranny in the latest open world sandbox game, Super Mario Bros. planted the seeds for that gaming mindset in me to jump around and explore everything to find whatever secrets Nintendo had in store for good ‘ol Mario.

The minus world was the ultimate secret in videogames for so many years that it was the #1 secret of the top 100 secrets in the 100th issue of Nintendo Power. It took me about a couple years of trying over and over and taking advantage of all the warp zones and extra live secrets I could, but the original Super Mario Bros. was the first game I ever finished. When I thought I discovered all the secrets in the original Super Mario Bros. a friend or cousin would power it on and showed me all new secrets and tips that blew me away. First it was getting to time a jump just right on a koopa troopa coming down the block stairs so Mario would repeatedly jump on them to get near-infinite lives. Then they showed me the hidden warp zones….and then there was the day after much repeated attempts that my cousin showed me the much talked about ‘minus world’ in the game that perplexed me so much that I lambasted him with questions about said level’s eye-opening odd level design. ‘Why did the level never end? Why is this magical force sucking Mario through the bricks, cousin….IS MARIO A GHOST!?!?’ That tripped me out as a Kindergartner, but not as much as the most sinister-looking baddie in the game, the dastardly Hammer Bros!!!! No I am not talking about the adorably-huggable hammer bros. from Super Mario Bros. 3, I am talking about the spiky-squiggly-shaped monsters that chucked super-sharp-metal-thingies at Mario!!! The original Hammer Bros. petrified five-year-old Dale!!! Just see for yourself below…

Encountering the Hammer Bros. for the first time in a night level only amplified the terror they unleashed! I was terrified of them, but what was especially terrifying was how Nintendo gave them a paint of cuteness by their look in Super Mario Bros. 3 as you can see above on their right. You can almost look walk right up and give them a hug! Bring back the sinister OG hammer bro Nintendo! As much as I loved the original Super Mario Bros., I never got to put a lot of playtime into its sequels. I think they were always rented out at the local video store. I do recall watching my cousin finishing Super Mario Bros. 2 and watching in awe the quality of the ending ‘dream’ cinematic that stirs controversies to this day! I never played much original NES Super Mario Bros. 3 either until I got Super Mario All-Stars where I later played a ton of both of those games, but that is a story for another day. The Joy of Renting and Garage Sale-ing

Speaking of renting though, it was how I played almost all my NES games for the first couple years our family had the NES. I was too young to realize games could be purchased at the store and thought games could only be rented at the video store….at least that is what I think my mom caused me to believe anyways. Looking back I loved those early NES years perusing the local video store and only going by misleading box art on what to rent. There are four specific renting memories stood out from those years around the end of the 1980s. One is playing a ton of the first CastleVania and being perplexed at why the heart pickups did not restore health, second is perishing repeatedly in the original Mega Man right from the start which got me to swore off the franchise for a few decades (more on that later). Another time I freaked out at the video store receiving my copy of Tengen’s RBI Baseball and discovering how their black cartridges differed than the standard NES gray carts, but only to have the video clerk assure me they would work on the NES. Finally, my favorite rental memory was getting gleeful goosebumps as a result of the mesmerizing beats of what is my single favorite NES theme, yes I am talking about the ‘Moon Theme’ of Duck Tales. A theme so powerful it still gives me the shivers to this day.

Behold the single best NES stage music of all time!! Now listen to it for ten hours straight!!!! I mentioned in previous flashback specials how I grew up with divorced parents. I would visit my dad on the weekends and he would usually be a system a generation behind because he was big on garage sales and people were getting rid of their old systems typically when the next system was hitting. So when the NES was the primary system, I would play Atari 2600 at my dad’s on the weekends. Around the time SNES launched in 1991 was when my dad finally got a NES, and he would have another regular NES game or two every several weeks he found at another garage sale. I recall the first four games he got with his NES: Days of Thunder, Gauntlet II, Ikari Warriors and 10-Yard Fight!

My dad bought whatever he thought was a deal at the time of those garage sales, and the quality of games he brought back varied greatly. His garage sale bargain was how I first played classic hits like the original Legend of Zelda and Maniac Mansion. I was seriously into both of those games even though I struggled to make progress in Zelda because all I had was the packed in map to guide me in the pre-Internet and strategy guide days. I made my own dungeon maps in Zelda, and loved trying to figure out the way to get past its increasingly trickier dungeons and puzzles, but eventually got stuck after the third dungeon and could not deduce the pattern in its version of the ‘Lost Woods’ for the life of me. Maniac Mansion was the first adventure game I was exposed to and was instantly hooked, even with the clunky and censored NES port I was resilient in attempting to figure my way around the lighthearted obstacles of the mansion and trying to hide from its alien residents. Reflecting back on my fandom for Maniac Mansion, it got me confident that if I was aware of the PC gaming scene of the late 80s/early 90s instead of the NES scene that I would see myself being head over heels for the countless adventure games from Sierra and Lucas Arts at the time. There were other times however my dad would come back from a garage sale with not-so-desirable titles like XEXYX, Dash Galaxy and Rocket Ranger, but sometimes his picks were a surprise. I somehow got locked into the addictive nature of the stock market game of Wall Street Kid and played far more of that than I had any right to. My dad eventually got the four player adaptor for the NES and the family tried to do the unthinkable one day and dedicate an afternoon to finishing Gauntlet II. We loved that game, but never had time to finish it in a session because the levels just kept never ending and we presumed it had to end by level 100. So one of my favorite NES memories is when the family gathered determined to finish level 100…which we did, but our bravery was for naught when we were all stunned to see that was not the end of the game. I believe we got to around level 130-ish before we eventually threw up our arms and powered off the NES. How the hell were we suppose to know back then that the levels procedurally generated!?!

Gauntlet II and Ikari Warriors were two of the four games that came with the NES my dad purchased at a garage sale and thus we invested countless hours in both, yet both titles we failed at finishing! My dad, brother and I played far too much Ikari Warriors together. I know it is a sloppily designed game with a lot of glitches and other hiccups, but the setting and atmosphere of Ikari Warriors rode the coattails of the infectious Rambo-hype of the 80s. Ikari Warriors on the NES felt like more of a faithful videogame adaptation of that film than the actual Rambo NES games itself. Ikari Warriors was the next best thing by chucking grenades and wreaking havoc with a tank, especially with a second player in co-op! That game burned through lives to the point of where I expected there to be a cheat code to get more lives because it would hang at the game over screen for a good 10 seconds so eventually I mashed buttons until I memorized that ‘A,B,B,A’ unlocked three more lives! I was super proud of being able to figure out a cheat code on my own! The levels in Ikari Warriors went on forever though, and regardless of having near-infinite lives with that code, we would eventually get bored and/or confused at that awkward fourth stage with the bizarre piping the warriors would get hung up on. Over the years the odd gameplay quirks of Ikari Warriors I look back at fondly I came to discover that everyone else detested as one of the worst NES titles, which I feel is a bit much. If my words cannot do it justice, then James Rolfe captured the highs and lows of Ikari Warriors perfectly in an episode of Angry Videogame Nerd I highly recommend giving a watch by clicking or pressing here. Playing with a Different Sort of Power

Over the years I came to find out that the mega popular Nintendo Power magazine was the go-to source for NES fandom of that era. I am an outlier in this case as I was not aware of the magazine until well into the 16-bit era. I chalk this up to never buying games brand new at the time where most new games on Nintendo platforms came bundled with Nintendo Power subscription inserts which I did not become keen to until getting new GameBoy games in 1993. So where was I to get all my latest NES coverage in the late 80s and early 90s before the Internet and then completely oblivious to the videogame magazine market? Through super cheesy, early 90s videogame-themed TV shows! There was not an official Nintendo Power show, but there was an awesome game show on weekday mornings for a couple years in the early 90s called Video Power that showcased kids playing the latest NES games in various challenges. Nickelodeon had a videogame TV show too, which was another game show called Nick Arcade. They had kids answering trivia and competing in various arcade game and virtual reality-esque challenges. The magazine GamePro also endorsed a TV show at the time and it featured more traditional game coverage and I recall it having an over-the-top host showcasing the latest secrets and tips. If you are not familiar with these shows, they are fun to look back on as they capture the goofy ‘extreme kids’ nature that dominated the early 90s. James Rolfe once again does a nice breakdown video of Nick Arcade and Video Power I will embed below or you can click or press here to check it out. These three shows and the latest gossip with classmates and friends were the only ways I got my news about the latest NES games back then.

Nick Arcade and Video Power are dissected in the above video and those TV game shows were how I was initially glued into the latest NES games as a kid. NES ‘Rights of Passage’ For those that grew up with the NES, I bet you have a good idea where this is going. Anyone that owned the traditional rectangular NES with the flip cover of doom will know that model of the NES was notorious for only powering up games about half the time. Recess-rumors lead us all to believe that blowing into the cartridges made them work better, and while it usually did I still remember my dad buying cleaning kits at the store and insisting using it to clean the games instead of blowing into them…but I like many other NES-kids were super impatient and instead went with the blowing/jiggling the NES-cartridge ever so gently into place….and sometimes wiggling the cartridge up and down several times before firmly locking the cartridge into place and powering on the system. That was the way I convinced myself to get NES games to power on their first try with a 60% success rate! For younger readers here who are doubting me, I am not kidding. This was a thing….seriously! Click or press here for proof where the GameSpot crew of 2005 detail their near identical NES-troubleshooting demonstrations in their excellent video on the NES!

As the header above alludes to, that was one of several ‘rights of passage’ for all NES-kids of the era. The so-bad-its good animated show, Captain N the Game Master likely was part of your Saturday morning cartoon lineup (yes, I have the DVD set, be on the lookout for a review…eventually). Another one was ‘NES-thumb.’ I love Nintendo’s directional-pad, but on the NES longer play sessions with button-mashy-prone games would result in it leaving a scouring imprint on the thumb for hours! I feel safe to say a majority of NES-kids encountered an awful LJN-published game based off one of their personal favorite licensed properties of the 80s. For me it was the atrocious X-Men title, its agonizingly bad Back to the Future game and most of their WWF games. As much as I loved the Ikari Warriors code described above, the most popular code spread across several NES games was the ‘Konami’ code. Ask any then game player 35+ and they likely would be able to subconsciously spout it off to you instantaneously! John Cena turned the code into his best t-shirt design! Calling Nintendo’s long distance-fee heavy hotline for the latest tips from Nintendo’s endorsed gameplay counselors was another thing that got kids to surprise their parents with $100+ phone bills. The last big hurrah for NES-kids was going to see The Wizard at the end of 1989 to see a few precious minutes of Super Mario Bros. 3 gameplay a couple months before its release! I could go on about The Wizard forever, but that was why I covered it here on my blog last week instead so if you want to know all about the Nintendo adver-film, then click or press here for my entry on it! 8-Bit Sports Fun for Everyone! Talking to other core gamers and listening to many gaming podcasts over the years one irk-ing trend is of most ardent game players shaming sports game fans. I understand why the main EA Sports and 2K Sports games are sim-focused experiences that are not for everyone, but they continue to sell well and have their dedicated fanbase. Back in the 8-bit and most of the 16-bit generation, sports games were simpler pick-up-and-play affairs that worked for almost anyone, especially on the NES with its simpler graphics and only having two primary action buttons. The first sports game I got into on NES was Double Dribble which blew me away with its ‘cinematic’ dunks. Nintendo’s Ice Hockey was a huge favorite of mine and it featured fast, scoring heavy action, and had fights, overtime and shootouts all crammed into a NES cartridge. I thought it was the best hockey game on the NES, and then I discovered the more brutal and up close fights in Konami’s Blades of Steel! There were a deluge of baseball games on the NES and the two I got into the most were the original RBI Baseball and BaseWars. RBI Baseball had the illusion of realistic baseball, but simple enough for anyone to grasp. It had a twee-art style, happy-go-lucky background music to nod along with and was one of the first baseball games to feature real MLB players. BaseWars frigging ruled! Futuristic teams of robots duked it out on the diamond and would engage in battles when attempting a tag out!

For pigskin NES classics, the first one I got into was 10-Yard Fight! It had rather….particular…controls for a launch-era NES football game, but I eventually adapted to it. I know now that Tecmo Bowl and especially its sequel, Tecmo Super Bowl were the cream of the crop of NES football games, but I never got a chance to play them until many years after the fact (and I was still blown away by my friend’s first play he picked against me which was scrambling to the back of his endzone and unleashing a 100-yard touchdown pass!). My own personal top pick is NES Play Action Football, a gridiron game that will forever have a place in my heart! I have everlasting memories of my dad teaming up with me to take on the computer. The passing controls in this game are garbage so we only did running plays, but the players ran absurdly slow…and that was even when factoring in there was a turbo speed button! My dad and I however learned to own that ridiculous control scheme! I would hand off the ball to him and then I would take control of the linemen and block defenders for him as he ever-so-gradually-inched-his-way-across-the-field. I am not embellishing by saying it took a good two whole minutes to traverse about 80 yards. It was completely asinine, but I felt a huge sense of accomplishment with every first down and touchdown my dad and I accomplished with our teamwork! That covers the four major American sports, but there was also a lot of representation from the ESPN Ocho tier of sports games. I loved me some Super Dodge Ball and loved going through its world cup mode. Its adorable oversized character graphics carried over into Nintendo’s soccer game, Nintendo World Cup. Nintendo also delivered two excellent golf titles on the system with the self-titled Golf during the black box launch era of the NES, and a more fleshed out version of that game with a career mode and three courses in NES Open Tournament Golf. Konami’s pair of International Track & Field titles were excellent arcade conversions. Finally, I would be remiss if I was not to give Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out a little love here. I ate up the puzzle pattern boxing gameplay with its distinctive roster of foes for the affable Little Mac. I wish I was not awful at it as I could only get to Bald Bull before my inferior skills met their match.

I invested countless hours into marginally satisfactory NES wrestling games. The cream of the crud pictured above is Wrestlemania Challenge and Tecmo World Wrestling. The wrestling nut in me begrudgingly admits there is not a five star grappler on the NES. All the WWF games range from middling to atrocious. WWF Wrestlemania Challenge I would say was marginally solid because it had functinal enough gameplay, a decent roster with wrestlers not seen in many other games at that time like Rick Rude & Andre the Giant, featured finishing moves and best of all one of the few wrestling games that played AWESOME chiptune renditions of the wrestler's theme music throughout gameplay! Avoid Tag Team Wrestling and M.U.S.C.L.E. at all costs, both of those abysmal wrestling games make all the LJN WWF games seem competently made. Pro Wrestling is good for a launch era game, but it is very limiting all things considered. I had a lot of fun with WCW Wrestling back then, but its unique controls have not aged well. I would have to give Tecmo World Wrestling the nod as my favorite NES wrasslin’ game because of solid controls, Tecmo’s trademark cinematics and its goofy announcer providing nonstop text play-by-play on the bottom of the screen that constantly had my attention.

Some of my favorite driving NES games seen above are Micro Machines on the left and Super Off Road on the right. A Micro Machines game with the same style of core racing mechanics has appeared in almost every console generation since! Super Off Road is probably my favorite four player NES game. Driving and motorsports were another favorite of mine, and the NES was loaded with them! My two favorites were Super Off-Road and Super Sprint. The former because it was a pretty faithful conversion of the arcade game and had four player support my family and friends clocked many hours with. Super Sprint had a similar overhead view of the whole track, but felt like it had more realistic handling, yet still contained many increasingly tough obstacles to overcome. In a strange twist, I later found a couple years ago the developers of Super Off-Road made a F1 style of that game that is also four player compatible in Indy Heat, but it also features pit stops where you can ram over the pit crew! Excitebike was an early childhood rental favorite as I loved going over the ramps and wiping out and randomly assembling a mish-mash of parts of a course in the track editor. I was bummed the NES never got the excellent OutRun from the arcades so I had to suffice with Square’s take on the checkpoint-based driving game, Rad Racer and its sequel a couple years later which were almost, but not quite on par with Sega’s flagship arcade driving game. RC Pro-AM and Micro Machines I am a huge fan of both racing games that feature an overhead camera that locks on and follows the car from a birds-eye view unlike the average behind the car camera perspectives that dominated that era. Collecting for the NES As the 1990s wore on a local video store selling its excess stock and a local game store called Tiger Play were my go to spots for a few years for used videogames. I will never forget lucking into a $2 copy of Tengen’s Tetris at the video store. Eventually eBay opened the floodgates to track down a lot of the NES games I rambled on about above. A regional annual retro game convention, The Midwest Gaming Classic, I attended several times over the past 15 years also attributed to many of my NES games. One year I was ecstatic to get a fan translation of the original Mother game that Nintendo would later officially release on the WiiU as Earthbound Beginnings. I was also ecstatic to get a fan mod updated rosters version of Tecmo Super Bowl. I eventually got a NES-clone system towards the end of 2000s that handled NES games exponentially better than the original Nintendo system and also allowed the ability to play Japanese Famicom games. At MGC I would buy one or two random cheap Famicom games a year to make use of the Famicom slot. I only wound up with several Famicom games, with highlights being Baseball, Tetris and Mighty Final Fight.

The last trip I made out to MGC in 2018 I went in with the goal to finish off my Power Pad game collection and hunt down the last three Power Pad compatible games I did not own to officially have all eight or nine Power Pad games. After perusing the many vendors there I was able to track down the much treasured copies of Athletic World, Eggsplode/Street Cop and Dance Aerobics down, along with a bonus homebrew NES cornhole/bag toss game, Tailgate Party, that also took advantage of the Power Pad. A couple years ago YouTube creator, Pat Contri released his exhaustive Ultimate Nintendo Guide to the NES Library coffee table book/tome that reviewed every single NES game. I read it over the course of a year via a few pages a night before bed. It naturally turned me onto several games I either long forgotten about or completely went over my head and I wound up tracking them down online. That book got me wound up on a NES four player game kick and I have about a dozen four player NES games right now. One night a couple years ago I did a four player NES party night and managed to have a fair amount of fun with some friends going at it in Super Off-Road, Gauntlet II and Super Jeopardy. Right now my preferred way to play NES cartridges is via the Retron 5 system. I know that clone system is a little polarizing because of its emulation software it uses, but I love its performance at playing NES games and other cartridge based systems on my HDTV without the fuzzy graphics and lag that happens when plugging in old composite/RCA cables that came with the NES. I also love that it allows save states and the equivalent of Game Genie cheat codes. A couple years ago I finally got around to playing through SNK’s action-RPG, Crystalis and I would be lying if I said I did not take advantage of save states and a couple of the cheats. Official Nintendo NES Preservation Nintendo has been doing their part, for better and worse, at keeping the NES catalog alive digitally going back to the launch of the Wii in 2006. I picked up several NES games digitally for the Wii at $5 apiece for the Wii’s Virtual Console. I did the exact same thing a few years later for the WiiU and 3DS. The Virtual Console was a handy feature I took advantage of somewhat, but I think it far benefitted younger gamers who were being introduced to those classics for the first time. Nintendo spawned the mini-console craze a few years ago with them debuting the NES Classic, which packed 30 first and third party NES games into a pint sized version of a plug-and-play NES. It featured a solid lineup of games across all genres and was a great bargain considering strong library of games. The emulation quality was leagues better compared to the Virtual Console and the NES Classic feature better implementation of save states and now the ability to rewind gameplay. I brought the NES Classic over to family gatherings and it was a hit all night long.

The NES Classic and NES Channel on the Switch are my two top legitimate recommended ways to digitally dive into the NES library! The best part about the NES Classic was how easy it was to mod and upload your own games to. I know the various RetroPi’s and Mister devices have been capable of this for awhile, but there is something special about the NES Classic’s interface that makes it the preferred way for me to re-experience these NES gems. For a little last minute prep for this article, I loaded up Nintendo’s latest way to experience NES games via the NES Channel on the Switch. Right now it has a little over 50 unique NES (and a small selection of Famicom) games available to play in North America. I dabbled with a few different game for a little over an hour, and finished off my session by playing through the first several stages of Super Mario Bros. again. Nintendo once again stepped up their emulation efforts here by having even better functioning save states and rewind features and now the ability to do online two player. I got my nephew to play with me online and it worked surprisingly well…..other than my fifth grade nephew initially being a little crabby at the graphics being ‘old’ at least. I do not hear many people touting this feature that much and I think it is awesome that Nintendo made this back catalog online and all things considered is part of a great value for $25 a year for Nintendo’s online Switch service.

If those two options do not interest you than there are a ton of other NES games that got re-released as part of collections on many systems over the years. On the current gen alone I would recommend the first Mega Man Legacy Collection that collects the first eight Mega Man games, of which the first six are the NES games. That was how I first experienced Mega Man 2 after the aforementioned boycotting of the brand. Yes, it was after decades of reading testimonials on how Mega Man 2 is one of the all-time greats for the NES I finally played it off that collection a few years ago and loved it. It also allows save states thank goodness, or else I would never be able to conquer that final gauntlet leading up to Dr. Wily! Other recommended collections would include the digital collections Konami released last year rounding up the early entries of the CastleVania and Contra games, both of which have all their NES installments. I highly suggest getting Capcom’s Disney Afternoon Collection that has six of the best licensed NES platformers such as both Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers games. SNK released an excellent 40th anniversary collection last year too which includes several of their NES games including my beloved Ikari Warriors and its two lesser sequels. The Double Dragon and Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle gathers the Double Dragon trilogy, and a ton of Technos favorites like River City Ransom, Super Dodge Ball and nearly a dozen others that until now were exclusive in Japan. For younger readers not familiar with the NES library, these are all recommended ways to legit first experience a healthy chunk of some of the best games of the NES library! The Power Lives On…. I cannot believe it has already been nearly 35 years since the NES first launched in North America. Since it is the system of my childhood, I will always be super nostalgic about it. The NES introduced me to the world of videogames and I have been hooked ever since. My favorite game for it would have to be the original Super Mario Bros., with podium finishes going to The Legend of Zelda and yes, the dastardly Ikari Warriors. Whenever I go into a retro game shop or convention I almost instinctively find myself glomming towards the NES section in hopes of finding some long neglected title to have in my collection even though I constantly remind myself I have every game I want for it. Many thanks for making it through this beast of a read and indulging my lifetime of NES memories and I hope I have either introduced you to some new NES factoids and games here or at least had a fun trip down memory lane with me. If you want to indulge me in more NES retrospectives, but in audio form this time, I have embedded a few podcasts I recently un-vaulted from my archives below.

Here is the all-encompassing retrospective I did on the NES for its 25th anniversary 10 years ago.

And here is where we do a deep dive on all the comic book videogames on the NES.

To wrap it up, here is podcast deep dive on all the RPG games on the NES.

My Other Gaming Flashbacks Dreamcast 20th Anniversary GameBoy 30th Anniversary Genesis 30th Anniversary PSone 25th Anniversary PSP 15th Anniversary and Neo-Geo 30th Anniversary Saturn and Virtual Boy 25th Anniversaries TurboGrafX-16 30th Anniversary and 32-X 25th Anniversary

You have not lived the late 80s/early 90s NES fervor without watching a whole episode of Video Power. I present this episode above for your consumption!

Wait a Second, Did I Forget Some Games? Bonus Overtime!!!! I know, I know…I have rambled on forever so that is why I officially concluded this flashback just above. However, if you are somehow, someway still scrolling down and find yourself here I have a few more NES favorites and memories I would love to share so they do not remain on the cutting room floor. First off, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy on the NES I have to get some reflections on! That first game….what a mess of a platformer it turned out to be. I did love its theme music though! TMNT fever was ubiquitous during the NES generation and I was an ardent fan of the shelled heroes like almost all kids my age so I forced myself to put way too much time into it than I should have. Several years ago I revisited it and finally finished it, well after the help of Game Genie cheat codes that is. Even with the cheats that swimming level remains a tumultuous effort to persevere through.

TMNT II: The Arcade Game is exponentially better and is a pretty decent port of the first arcade game. While the graphics are dialed back significantly to run on the NES, that did not stop my friend Matt and I revisiting and romping through this and its sequel several times over the years. TMNT III: The Manhatten Project is a NES exclusive, and featured the same arcade brawling engine as its predecessor, but this one has colorful beach levels with foot soldiers that toss sand at the turtles!! Yes, I have played the NES version of TMNT Tournament Figheters and I will give props to Konami for mustering everything they could out of the NES graphically by late 1993 and making it the only proper 2D fighter on the NES, but it simply does not measure up to its vastly superior SNES counterpart. There are some first party Nintendo games I held off from touching on in the main feature because I have had only minimal experience with them. It is totally on me! There was one more renting memory I refrained from above, and that is dealing with Metroid. Bottom line, it spooked me too much around age six or seven to progress far into it and I remember being irate at going back a screen to see enemies I eliminated moments earlier had respawned again. I need to correct this and revisit it someday. Kirby’s Adventure I briefly played on the NES Classic to briefly try it out before moving on to different games and I never got around getting back to it. That is another NES regret I must rectify as I have played through and enjoyed past Kirby games before! Nintendo’s official licensed version of Tetris is a good playing and looking version of the classic puzzler, but it lacked one key thing the Tengen version had and that is multiplayer! My dad and I played a ton of competitive and co-op multiplayer of Tengen’s Tetris. The Tengen version also had the more Russian-flavored art style that made the visuals pop more. The co-op mode was surprisingly addictive teaming up with my dad to clear a wider, single drop box. I was surprised no other Tetris revisited this idea until it was announced days ago for the upcoming deluxe version of Tetris Effect on Xbox Series X.

Nintendo's Tetris is on the left, Tengen's Tetris is on the right. I love the unique aesthetics and music in both of them, but Tengen's version had an excellent 2-player VS. and co-op modes that made it highly sought after, especially after Nintendo got it banned from stores! The only traditional RPG I put a lot of time into on the NES was the first Dragon Warrior. I rented it, and borrowed it another time from a friend later on and enjoyed the early parts of the game before I ventured out under-leveled and was too young to grasp the concept of grinding to level up in order to properly square off against the tougher foes. I eventually got much farther into it when it was re-released on GameBoy Color. Wait a second, does Zelda II: The Adventure of Link count as an RPG? I have heard for years people argue whether the Zelda series is considered a true RPG and I have always been on the side of classifying them in the action-adventure genre, but Zelda II is incredibly different from all other entries in the series and has leveling up and experience points involved so I would make an exception that Zelda II be considered an RPG. Unfortunately, it was another one that was too brutal for me in my childhood and I never got that far in it. I want to finally wrap this beast up by applauding the preservation market for unearthing several prototypes and lost games that were finished, but never released. Some of the more famous examples of this are Capcom’s California Raisins, a NES version of SimCity and last year the UWC Wrestling title that was canned at the final minute before resurfacing with noticeable roster and gameplay changes as WCW Wrestling. I also want to commend the smaller publisher and indie game scene for finding the resources to release new games on actual physical NES cartridges. They may be unlicensed, but it nevertheless puts a smile on my face to see new NES games being released today! Okay, with that I am finished for real this time! Many thanks again for spending an afternoon powering through this!

You heard my favorite NES background music earlier with the Duck Tales' 'Moon Theme.' Now behold the worst NES music...no 1942 does not qualify. I am talking about this grinding, ear screeching exuse for music that is the general background stage music for Back to the Future. You are Still Here!? Even after all these videos and links and over 6000 words of my babbling of NES nostalgia? I guess then I have one more story to share since you made it this far. This one is not a moment I am proud of. Sometimes being a NES kid brings out a…..darkness among rival NES kids. I was spending an afternoon at a cousins playing NES games all day. The same one who showed me the Super Mario Bros. 2 ending. The same one who we decided to put on hockey gloves to mimic the fights in Blades of Steel, though thinking back in hindsight I think we got our mimicking of the hockey fight in reverse and we should have had gloves off.

My cousing introduced me to some of my favorite NES sports games like Double Dribble and Blades of Steel. And as you are about to see, it brought out the worst in us! Anyways, this day he was showing me Double Dribble and we played it all afternoon. It impressed the hell out of me by having the national anthem opening and its cinematic dunks! Towards the end of the day we were playing other games when my mom arrived to pick me up. As I was getting ready to leave and my cousin was distracted playing a different game my NES-darkness overtook me and I thought I could ‘borrow’ my cousin’s copy of Double Dribble without asking him. I think I slid another game in Double Dribble’s place where it was on the carpet and I was super slick by flipping it upside down so he would not see the label. Yeah, I only made it out about halfway to my mom’s car outside when he came barreling out and we play-wrestled on the ground for a brief moment until I forked over that copy of Double Dribble. I must have been around eight or nine at the time and one dumb kid to try and pull that off……I should have went for his copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 instead! I am kidding of course, kids do not be like dumb NES-kid Dale and mess with your friend’s games! Extremely not cool, hugging out with a heartfelt apology, now that is cool, no wait, it is emphatically…..Totally Rad!

[asfeedin]

A Preparation Checklist for Marketers

Raise your hand if you’d rather watch a video to learn something new than read about it.

Go ahead — you’re not alone. 59% of executives say they’d rather watch a video than read text, too. And really, that number makes sense — we are a society of video streamers. (I mean, hello, Netflix.)

But if you’re not sure how to run a live stream event on social media, fear not. We’re here to make sure you don’t just hit the “Live” button on Facebook and stare at the camera like a deer in headlights. Instead, we’ve come up with a comprehensive checklist to help you plan your first — or next — live stream. 

How Live Streaming Works

Live streaming is a way to broadcast your events to an online audience. It’s a digital alternative to something like selling tickets to an in-person event and allows you to reach people near and far with live video.

Brands use live streaming for a few different reasons, but according to a Brandlive survey, 74% of businesses used it to engage with their consumer base. So instead of being the proverbial “man behind the curtain,” you’re allowing viewers to put a face (or faces) to your organization’s name, all in real time.

Live streaming can be used for a number of different event types, as well. Everyone from the White House to fashion houses to chefs have live-streamed videos of economy briefings, runway shows, and cooking demos, respectively. Here at HubSpot, we’ve used it for things like interviews with thought leaders. So feel free to be creative — just make sure you’ve got your bases covered.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Live Streaming

When you’re ready to start learning how to live stream successfully, follow these steps:

1. Plan your live stream like you would any other event.

Think about some of the most popular talk shows. Can you imagine if the guests, sets, lighting, and schedules for something like “The Tonight Show” weren’t planned in advance? To say the least, it might be chaotic.

You’ll want to put the same thought and due diligence into your live stream that you’d put into an in-person event of its kind. And you’ll want to have your goals in mind as you begin to make those plans; those will dictate a lot of the logistics.

Who

Knowing your target audience will determine a few pieces of the planning process. If it includes an international population, that should factor into the date and time of your stream — be sure to think about time zones or holidays that might not be top-of-mind in your home country.

What

Then, think of what category your live stream falls into, and create a title for your event. In case you don’t find any of the above examples fitting to your business, we’ve got some ideas for ways businesses can use live videos.

HubSpot’s Social Media Marketing Manager, Chelsea Hunersen, stresses the importance of thoroughly researching the topic of your live stream in advance.

“Decide important points or stats to hit,” she says. And if you’re going to feature guests, “designate a moderator/host who can make sure these points are hit and can wrap up the conversation if necessary.”

Where

The platform you use (which we’ll get to in a bit) can also be dependent on who you want to view the stream. Different audiences use different channels, so you’ll want to pick the one that’s most likely to draw the crowd you want.

Finally, pick an optimal location from which you’ll broadcast your stream. Consumers have a low tolerance for a bad stream, watching for at most 90 seconds if the connection is spotty or poor-quality, so make sure your setting is conducive to a positive viewing experience. Does it have good lighting? Is it prone to a lot of noise? Is there a chance that your dog walker will barge in yelling, “Who’s a good boy?” loud enough for the entire audience to hear? (Not that that’s happened to me.)

Think of these contingencies, then pick a streaming venue that insulates you from them.

2. Choose your platform.

Here’s where you’ll really need to have your goals in mind since different platforms can achieve different things.

YouTube Live

YouTube Live Events tend to have “two goals,” says Megan Conley, HubSpot’s Content Marketing Strategist. “Registrants and attendees.”

So, if you’re looking to boost revenue — which 75% of marketing professionals are using video to do — YouTube Live is one of the best platforms to use.

Here’s how that works. First, if you don’t have one already, you’ll need to create an account on Google, which you’ll then use to create one on YouTube.

Once that’s done, you can use YouTube’s Live Streaming Events dashboard to schedule a future stream — just click on “Enable live streaming,” if you haven’t already set it up.

YouTube requires a 24-hour buffer between the time that you enable live streaming and your first live. Once that 24-hour period is up, all you have to do is log into your YouTube Studio.

Then, click the “Create” button in the top right corner.

This will prompt a drop-down that asks you to choose between uploading a video or going live. Choose “Go live.”

YouTube will then prompt you to complete some basic info such as its title and what age group the video is made for. You’ll also need to decide if you’re going live right away or scheduling it for a certain time. 

After that, you’ll need to indicate if you want your event to be public or private — here’s where you’ll decide how you want to use your live stream to generate leads.

The Unlisted option accomplishes two things:

I’ll be able to generate a link that attendees will get only after they fill out a registration form.

It won’t stream directly onto my YouTube page.

Once you’re done, click “Next” You will be asked to smile to take a thumbnail, so make sure you’re camera-ready. From there, you have the option to “Go Live” or “Share” your content.

Click “Share,” and that will generate your event’s URL. As I mentioned above, you can keep that behind a landing page where attendees fill out a form to register.

Conley says that, generally, this type of live stream is embedded on a thank-you page behind a landing page form. 

If you use the HubSpot COS, all you’ll need is the link, and the system will generate the embed code for you.

Just click “insert media,” paste the link you copied from YouTube, and you’re done.

If embedding isn’t an option, you can still just put a link there — the embed code just creates a seamless design that you can place right on your thank-you page. Either way, be sure to use the thank-you page as a place to remind your attendees of the date and time of the event.

There’s also the option to make your YouTube Live Event completely open to the public. That’s a good option, Conley says, for a major event that you “want anyone and everyone to be able to find.” But if you make your stream public, she points out, make sure you use the event to promote gated content you want your audience to download.

“An image CTA would do,” she notes, as would holding up clearly printed short links throughout the stream (Make sure you have those printed out in advance!). In the image above, you’ll also see that you can add a message to your video — you can mention your gated content there, too. 

Facebook

Facebook Live has been making quite a few headlines lately, and businesses stand to benefit from it — Facebook Live videos produce 6 times as many interactions as traditional videos.

Even without pre-registration, you can definitely promote streams on this platform in advance, which we’ll touch on later. In the meantime, if you haven’t used it before, check out my colleague Lindsay Kolowich’s overview of Facebook Live.

The interface for Facebook has recently changed, so you’ll have an easier time live streaming from your mobile Facebook app. 

Depending on your device, you may see the “Live” option right under the Composer when you open the app. Alternatively, you may need to click “Create Post” at the top of your News Feed, then select the three horizontal dots in the Composer. 

You’ll have a chance to write a comment about your video. Once you’ve done that, you can select “Go Live” in the bottom left corner. 

Instagram Live

You can also live stream on Instagram. With Instagram Live, a functionality in the Instagram Stories feature, you’re able to broadcast video streams and save the replay to your Stories. Users are able to engage through likes and comments during the stream. 

This is a great platform for live streaming since Instagram Stories are used by 500 million users per day, and one-third of most-viewed Stories are from businesses. 

Keep in mind that you cannot post to Instagram from your browser, so open the mobile Instagram app to begin your live stream. Then, select the camera icon in the top left corner next to the Instagram logo. 

At the bottom of the camera viewer is a menu that scrolls horizontally. Select “Live.”

The shutter button will change to a broadcast icon. This will immediately take you live if you tap it, so make sure you’re camera ready. 

  Twitter Live

Twitter’s advantage is that you can easily share and promote content to a large audience, even if you don’t have a large following. In addition, hot topics spread more quickly than other media outlets. 

If you want to hit the ground running and generate buzz, Twitter is a great choice. However, you cannot go live on Twitter from your browser, so open the mobile Twitter app when you’re ready to start your broadcast. 

Once there, open the Tweet composer by clicking the button with the feather and plus sign. 

Select the camera icon. 

At the bottom of the camera viewer is the choice between “Capture” and “Live.” Choose “Live.” 

The shutter button will be replaced with a button that says “Go Live.” This will immediately take you live, so make sure that you have everything set up before pressing it. 

TikTok

Since 2018, TikTok has had major buzz as the newest big player in the social media game as a platform for short-form videos. While TikTok’s audience trends younger with 41% of users between 16-24 years old, more people and brands are taking to the platform, as evidenced by its place as the fourth most downloaded app in 2018. 

One big drawback is that you can only go live on TikTok if you have 1,000 followers. For accounts where this isn’t a problem, here’s how to broadcast live: 

Open your TikTok mobile app and select the plus sign at the bottom of the screen. 

Then, enter the title of your stream and select “start.” 

It’s that easy!

The live streaming options certainly don’t end there. Major brands have also used platforms like Periscope, Livestream, and Twitch. They all have their own sets of features and advantages, so definitely take the time to look into which one best suits your needs.

3. Choose your equipment.

When it comes to the actual hardware required for your live stream, some of it is fairly intuitive: A camera is pretty standard, for example, or a device with one installed (like a laptop or phone).

But if you do use your phone, Conley says, be sure to use a tripod. “There’s nothing worse than recording a Facebook Live and having your arm start to fall asleep five minutes into the recording,” she advises. “Use a phone tripod to give your live streaming a professional look.”

Consider how professional you want your sound quality to be, too. Your camera might have its own microphone, but if your setting is more prone to noise, body mics might not be a bad idea, either.

And when you’re using an external camera, says Hunersen, you’ll also need some sort of encoding software (Facebook has a great step-by-step guide to that). That’s what converts the camera footage into a format that your streaming platform understands and can broadcast to viewers. The software you use might depend on your budget, but to get started, check out this one from Adobe.

Also, think about setting up a professional backdrop, like one with your logo. That can help to brand your videos and give them some visual consistency, which is a particularly good practice if you plan to do a lot of live streaming in the future.

Want to take that a step further? “Set up a makeshift studio in your office to speed up the prep time for all of your future recordings,” Conley says. “A beautiful, branded backdrop could be just what your Facebook Live needs to help grab the attention of someone quickly scrolling through their News Feed.”

4. Promote your live stream.

Congratulations! You’ve now completed a lot of the major planning and setup for your live stream. Now, how do you get people to watch it?

As we’ve covered, using a landing page is a good way to get enrollment on a platform like Hangouts On Air (or, as of September 12th, YouTube Live). Here’s an example of how we recently used one at HubSpot:

There’s a clear CTA here — “View The Video” — which, when clicked, takes the visitor to a registration form. (And check out this rundown of which channels drive the best conversion rates — it’s got some tips on getting people to your landing page in the first place.)

Once someone fills out the form on your landing page, it should lead them to a thank-you page, where you can share some promotional information about the live stream.

HubSpot’s Co-Marketing Demand Generation Manager, Christine White, suggests creating a “Next Steps” section here with actionable items like “add this event to your calendar” and “check back here on [the date of your event]” to remind viewers that’s where they’ll go to view the live stream.

And once you have contact information for your registrants, Conley reminds us, “you can email the people on that list on the day of, and remind them when it’s going to go live.”

But to promote your Facebook Live stream, says Conley, “It’s really about doing a social image and spreading the word that you are going live at a specific time.”

Don’t rule out using social media to promote live streams on other platforms, too. Some of them, like YouTube, allow you to link your social accounts and push content in multiple places. And if your guests are active on social media, leverage that by including links to their handles in any related content, and ask them to promote the event with their own networks.

5. Do a dry run.

There’s a reason why we do dress rehearsals. When I was in a high school show choir — a humiliating but factual piece of history — it was to make sure I didn’t trip over my dance partner in high-heeled tap shoes.

In the world of live streaming, though, we do dry runs to avoid more technical, but equally embarrassing, missteps. Improv can be hilarious, but not when it means you’re verbally unprepared or your equipment stops working and you don’t have a backup plan.

6. Prep any guest speakers.

Is there anything worse than a moment of awkward, dumbfounded silence?

As part of your dry run, make sure your guests are prepared for any questions they might be asked. Don’t over-rehearse, but do what you can to prevent catching them off-guard.

“It may help to give some questions in advance to a potential guest,” says Hunersen, “but save some follow-up or in-depth questions for on-air, so that you’re able to let them be both prepared and react in the moment.”

7. Test your audio and internet connection.

You might want people to talk about your live stream, but not if all they’re going to say is, “We can’t hear you.” Make sure all of your audio equipment is working both during your dry run and on the day of the stream. Having an extra microphone and batteries on hand probably won’t hurt, either.

Make sure your network can handle a live stream, too. If you’re streaming high quality video, for example, you’ll need both a wire connection and a 3G/4G wireless connection, according to Cleeng.

In other words, make sure your WiFi is working, but also, “grab an ethernet cord,” says Conley. “One thing you can’t help is if your internet connection unexpectedly goes out.”

We know — even the sound of “ethernet” seems terribly old school. But if your WiFi suddenly drops, you’ll be glad you busted that cord out of storage.

8. Set up social media monitoring.

One great thing about live streaming is your audience’s ability to join the conversation and comment in real time. 

Juliana Nicholson, Sr. Marketing Manager at HubSpot, advises to “Have a plan for audience engagement. Know when and how you plan to incorporate audience feedback and Q&As and then clearly communicate that information to your attendees.” This will make it so much easier to encourage participation.

But that’s not all you should do with regard to engagement. If you’ve watched any Facebook Live feed, you’ve seen that the comments roll in fast. So while it’s awesome to invite and answer viewer questions, it can be overwhelming, especially if you personalize your responses.

That’s why it’s a great idea to dedicate someone to monitoring social media, comments, and questions during the live feed.

That task can be made a bit easier with something like a branded hashtag created specifically for this live stream. For platforms with built-in comment feeds, for example, you can ask your viewers to preface any questions with it — that can help qualify what needs to be answered.

You could even take that a step further and use the hashtag throughout the planning process, making sure to include it on your landing page, thank-you page, and promotional messages leading up to the event. That helps to create buzz around the live stream. And if you use HubSpot’s Social Inbox, here’s a great place to take advantage of its monitoring feature, which lets you prioritize and reply to social messages based on things like keywords or hashtags. 

After Your Live Stream

It’s always nice to follow up with your attendees after your live stream has ended. Thank them for their time, give them a head’s up about your next event, and invite them to download a piece of relevant content. If you’ve followed these steps, you’ve probably done a great job of using your live stream to generate leads, so keep up the momentum and nurture them. 

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[angeltriestoblog]

I watched a couple of movies! (Part 1)

Back when I regularly had the luxury of long breaks, I spent my days binge-watching films, as you can see from my extensive knowledge of 80s chick flicks and all the cheesy tropes and disgustingly adorable, predominantly white leading men that come with them. Sadly, a side effect of growing older in the digital age seemed to be the diminishment of my attention span: the only things I could focus on were academic requirements, simply because I had to. But, thanks to several factors—the suspension of online classes, the sudden annoyance I developed towards Barney Stinson that prompted me to discontinue How I Met Your Mother, etc.—I decided it was high time to rekindle this lost love. So, here is an unsolicited review of the 17 films I managed to finish in a little over a week! Rest assured, I tried my best to venture out of familiar territory and brush up on some of the more cultured picks, according to Letterboxd, at least.

Bar Boys (2017, dir. Kip Oebanda) ★★★

The film that kickstarted everything, which I never would have seen if the director had not uploaded the full version on YouTube. This well-meaning tale of four best friends (Carlo Aquino, Rocco Nacino, Enzo Pineda, and Kean Cipriano) and the challenges they face in law school—terror professors, fraternities, and financial difficulties included—does have a lot of heart, and is sensitive enough to show how the effect of this experience differs depending on a student's background. But, what it lacked for me was a certain degree of specificity: I think the same premise would have been applicable in med school, or any other post-graduate degree for that matter. So, why did the characters choose law? I also would have appreciated some commentary on the shortcomings of the country’s justice system, and further fleshing out of the characters so the audience could have seen why we could count on them to fill in the gaps.

Legally Blonde (2001, dir. Robert Luketic) ★★★½

The rating might be surprising, considering that the courtroom scene was responsible for the short law school phase I had in Grade 5. As if I could ever make use of the rules of haircare in an actual cross-examination. Of course, I am compelled to admire Elle (Reese Witherspoon) and how her motivations for going to Harvard shift from winning back a boy to discovering what she never knew she had and using these gifts to help those around her (especially the manicurist, who I feel was given way more exposure than what was due to her). Ultimately, though it was inspirational at some points, it felt too good to be true and impossible to relate to. (But then again, shouldn’t there be a willing suspension of disbelief when consuming forms of media such as this?)

Lady Bird (2017, dir. Greta Gerwig) ★★★★★

I’ll probably end up making a separate post dedicated to this movie and how it singlehandedly called me out, as a sensitive, occasionally self-important product of an all-girls Catholic high school. For now, I am forced to condense my overflowing feelings into a couple of sentences. Lady Bird takes place over the course of the titular character's senior year, a pivotal moment in the lives of all teenagers. But, instead of focusing solely on the formulaic firsts like the normal coming-of-age film would, it shines a light on her dwindling relationship with her equally strong-willed mother. Saoirse Ronan’s colorful performance as the human embodiment of my pre-teen self's conscience, and Greta Gerwig’s tremendous ability to make even oddly specific scenes speak to any viewer shine through and speak to me the most, and easily make this gem something I will be recommending this to anyone who bothers to ask for as long as I live.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018, dir. Bryan Singer) ★★★

There’s a lot of controversy surrounding Bo Rhap, particularly its failure to portray Freddie Mercury in a manner that does him justice. While I understand that it is a valid concern for fans of the band, I admit I don’t know enough about who he was as a person to criticize the film in this aspect. Regardless of its factuality, this still was just average for me, the typical rise-and-fall type of biopic that is indicative of a rockstar’s legacy, but with laughably faulty editing. The redeeming factors were Rami Malek’s brilliant portrayal of the legend himself—his Live Aid performance gave me chills that lasted the entire 20 minutes, how alarming—and, obviously, the soundtrack that I kept on loop for several days.

About Time (2013, dir. Richard Curtis) ★

Apparently, this movie focuses on Tim (Domhnall Gleeson), who discovers at age 21 that the men in his family have the power to time-travel and thus revise and repair certain parts of their lives. He uses this to address the fact that he’s never had a girlfriend, and effectively so as he ends up bagging Mary (Rachel McAdams), a charming American who is the settler in this relationship by default. But, of course, this gift is not without its dire consequences—or at least, that’s what it says on Wikipedia. It’s hard to trash on this and admit that I bailed halfway because so many of my friends swear by this. But, I just couldn’t stomach the lack of chemistry between the two leads; the surprisingly boring dialogue for a screenplay crafted by Richard Curtis of Notting Hill fame; and the story that, although bore enough of a resemblance to “The Time Traveler’s Wife” to be interesting, was still not powerful enough to sustain my attention.

Your Name (2016, dir. Makoto Shinkai) ★★★★★

I’m a huge fan of plots that are sure to make my eyes swell and heart hurt—I can’t explain the psychology behind this either. So when this was recommended to me and I had made it through an hour without shedding a single tear, I was prepared to be disappointed. But, the events leading up to the conclusion proceeded to rip me into shreds, as if to taunt me and say, “You asked for it.” Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi) and Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki), teenagers living on opposite sides of the country, suddenly start switching bodies following the appearance of a comet. This unexplainable phenomenon causes them to forge an unbreakable bond that transcends the very limits of time and space. I know the description is not much, but it’s best to experience this unique plot for yourself. Besides its storyline, its charm lies in its excruciating attention to detail in depicting life in urban and rural Japan, both in the realistic animation of one picturesque scene after another, and the use of cultural elements to arrive at a twist viewers will not see coming.

Booksmart (2019, dir. Olivia Wilde) ★★★★½

I can't summarize what I imagine Booksmart to be for teenagers in the future, so here's an entire scenario: It's the year 2070. Two young girls of around 16 are sprawled on their bedroom floor, watching this on whatever device they use for streaming. (Maybe it's from an LCD projector embedded in their foreheads, who knows.) The credits roll, and they instantly think to themselves, "Man, we were born in the wrong generation!" (They simultaneously think of doing a high-five, and without raising their hands themselves, it happens because that's technology.) Anyway, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) are best friends who played by the rules all throughout high school and realized too late that they could’ve afforded to have a little more fun. On the eve of their graduation, they decide to cram four years’ worth of adventure in a single unpredictable and outrageous night, getting to grips with everything that comes their way in an exceedingly comedic yet refreshing fashion. Also, the protagonists have such a genuine and wholesome relationship: the way they hyped up their most ridiculous looking outfits, or overshared borderline uncomfortable stories is honestly my personal definition of an ideal friendship.

When Harry Met Sally (1989, dir. Rob Reiner) ★★★★½

Despite this film’s constant presence in every “chick flicks you must watch” list I’ve bothered searching up, I spent a huge chunk of my teen years in constant protest against the decision to cast Billy Crystal as the male lead instead of, I don’t know, literally any other actor on the planet. But, once I finished it, I realized that he’s a much better fit than I thought. The laidback Harry to Meg Ryan’s finicky Sally, both of them spare no effort exploring and debunking truths and misconceptions about modern relationships: examples of which are the idea of being high maintenance, and the quintessential question of whether a guy and girl can ever be just friends. Although their dynamic is the definition of slow burn, audiences can’t help but earnestly root for the pair—the frustration brought by the several almosts pay off in the end, as they lead to one of, if not, the most romantic love confession scene.

Hintayan ng Langit (2018, dir. Dan Villegas) ★★★★½

This tale adapted from a play by no less than Juan Miguel Severo is set in purgatory—a grandiose art museum-four star hotel hybrid of sorts—where souls can stop and rest while their papers for entry to heaven are being processed. It is here we meet Manolo (Eddie Garcia) and Lisang (Gina Pareno), ex-lovers with unfinished business. Things admittedly start off a bit slow, but it's understandable since there needs to be ample provision of context regarding the standard operating procedures of this unique waiting area. Once that’s done, the focus stays on the main actors, who drive audiences to tears with their powerful performances, and thought-provoking questions on matters of betrayal, forgiveness, and the afterlife. The ending had me rocking back and forth like a baby, my shirt soaked with tears, so do take heed and stock up on tissues!

The Social Network (2010, dir. David Fincher) ★★★★★

Within its packed first 15 minutes alone, you can easily see what makes The Social Network an example of cinema at its finest: an intoxicated Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) hacks into the websites of all Harvard dorms to create Facebook’s oldest ancestor from scratch, in an attempt to get back at his ex-girlfriend. The atmosphere is tense, the dialogue is loaded with witty one-liners and powerful insight, and the actors are so in touch with their characters they practically fuse into a single person. This remains consistent for the next two hours or so, making for an enjoyable and fast-paced, yet still informative glimpse into the human side of what is arguable the most powerful company of this era. I also heard that it’s much more fun if seen with the cast commentary on, so I’m gonna have to find a copy of that for myself!

Pretty in Pink (1986, dir. Howard Deutch) ★★★★★

I’m cheating here, I know: this has been a long-time favorite, but I guess I can still give a review if I was still 15 when I last saw this. Andie (Molly Ringwald) and Blane (Andrew McCarthy)’s classic “poor girl + rich boy = happily ever after” story is masterfully tackled by John Hughes, who manages to inject equal amounts of swoon-worthy romance and biting criticism of the inherent class divide in society. Others would argue that Duckie (Jon Cryer), Andie’s devoted best friend, is the true star of the show, and while I do agree that he has his shining moments (if you listen closely, you can hear Try A Little Tenderness playing softly in the background), I sadly inherited my mother’s adoration for Andrew, which I will pass on to my child and so on—truly the defining characteristic of our lineage.

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985, dir. Joel Schumacher) ½

I understand that being an adult in the Real World is bound to come with some grave mistakes and lapses in judgment. But, not a single character in this friend group redeems themselves by the end. While Ally Sheedy’s Leslie and Mare Winningham’s Wendy were just borderline forgettable (why did the latter even end up here with the Brat Pack?), Judd Nelson’s Alec cheats on his girlfriend and believes that marriage is what will make him change his ways; Rob Lowe’s Billy neglects the family he didn’t plan on having by fooling around with other women and making a home out of his favorite bar; Demi Moore’s Jules relies on cocaine and extramarital affairs to hide trauma she refuses to process, and Andrew McCarthy’s pretentiously cynical Kevin suddenly claims he knows what love is when Leslie pays attention to him for 10 minutes. But, none of them compare to Emilio Estevez’ Kirby, the sociopath obsessed with a girl he barely knows. It honestly resembles some sick contest of how many problems this gang can cause before they end up behind bars, with the last scene being a lazy and rushed attempt to wrap everything up, in the name of this surface-level “friendship”.

Before Sunrise, Sunset, and Midnight (1995, 2004, 2013; dir. Richard Linklater) ★★★★★

Guess it’s better to admit it now, but I made this post as an excuse to rave about how beautiful this trilogy is, the most authentic depiction of love in its purest form. Sunrise has been recommended to me by both friends and the Netflix algorithm, but I put off watching it again and again and again. I mean, what could I possibly get out of looking at two strangers roam around Vienna? Well, to answer that question: quite a lot. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy)’s relationship spans an entire trilogy, and throughout that period, they manage to define then destroy the idea of having a soulmate to call your own in approximately six hours. But certain constancies are present in each movie: the emotion intense even in the smallest of gestures (you don't understand the anguish I feel when the scene at the listening booth randomly pops in my head), the dialogue truly thought-provoking and natural, the settings so picturesque, and the chemistry of the actors so electric I have trouble believing that the director didn’t actually invade the personal space of a real couple and eventually get issued a restraining order.

High Fidelity (2000, dir. Stephen Frears) ★★

I’d like to think of this as an essay: I'm confident that the introduction is the protagonist Rob's soliloquy on his five biggest breakups to understand why he’s so flawed that everyone always leaves him, and the conclusion his attempt to win his ex Laura (Iben Hjejle) back. But as for the body, I’m not entirely sure. Interspersed between these moments are thoughtful top five lists of anything that can be enumerated, and occasional banter with the employees at his record store that may be charming, but do not enhance the film in any way, shape, or form for me. Also, I normally enjoy seeing John Cusack onscreen, but more often than not, he was nagging in front of the camera instead of talking to the people around him; no wonder his relationships failed!

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010, dir. Edgar Wright) ★★★

I wanted to enjoy this so bad, I swear! Sadly, the one thing I gained after seeing this is knowledge of where the “I’m So Sad, So Very Very Sad” meme came from. I get that it’s supposed to resemble a comic book or video game, and maybe the reason why I failed to appreciate this as much is because I was never a fan of either. I found the prolonged action scenes surprisingly boring, the storyline too fantastic, and the whole quest of having to defeat seven monstrous exes for the hand of a manic pixie dream girl not worth it in the end. Although I can’t give it less than three stars given its impressive visual effects, and appeal to the entire Tumblr community (gamers on one end, millennial film connoisseurs on the other), it’s definitely not something I would watch a second time.

There will surely be more where that came from! (I mean it. Since completing this post, I’ve finished another five films.) If you wanna keep tabs on what I’m watching without having to wait on another post, you can give my Letterboxd a follow. Wishing you love and light always, and don’t forget to wash your hands and pray for our frontliners!

[gigsoupmusic]

Sheep on Drugs, R.O.C., Micko & the Mellotronics (3 March 2020)

We're back once more at Paper Dress Vintage (you can't keep us away!), and again we are there for three very different bands, one of which (Sheep on Drugs) was a band close to the heart of one of these two reviewers (Tristán), having been raving to them in the mosh-pit as a young student in the very early 1990s in Camden Palace. This was going to be a nostalgia trip! But first, the support acts. First up was a band that were completely new to us: Micko & the Mellotronics. They have an interesting sound, with a nice rolling beat, a bit Buzzcocks in places.

Singer and guitarist Micko Westmoreland once played Jack Fairy in the Velvet Goldmine movie that starred Eddie Izzard among others. The other guitarist is Jon Klein, who was one of the founders of the Batcave, a trailblazing London goth club from the early 80s, and was part of Siouxie and the Banshees for seven years. Nick Mackay (drums) and Vicky Carroll (bass) complete the foursome.

Following a song called "Psychedelic Shirt" which was, according to Micko, inspired by growing up in Leeds, the band played the first real toe-tapper, a track called "The Now", which got very spacey in the second half, finishing with a really good instrumental. Unfortunately, the microphone that Micko was using was set up in a very unidirectional manner, which meant that we could only really hear the lyrics when his mouth was right in front of it. Every time he moved his head down to look at his guitar, the sound would cut out. Fortunately, Micko opens his mouth very expressively when he sings, so it was possible to fill in the gaps by lip-reading.

A lot of their songs were quite diverse, from the very dark "You Killed My Father" (…'now you must die'), which Micko told us was dedicated to people who have departed us, to the happy-bonkers "The Finger", which was their first single, released just last year. The highlight was when a chap in a suit started dancing in a joyous but crazy fashion at the front of the audience. 'It's Steve from accounts', we joked. We had no idea that it was a set-up, and thought that it was a genuine outburst of energy from someone who had spent far too long on Excel spreadsheets all day and was letting his hair down. So we recorded the end of the song and uploaded it to YouTube here: https://youtu.be/hJiL9aLescY We were a little disappointed when we got home and had a look at the official video of this song, only to discover that the video indeed features the same gentleman. Since not that many people knew who he was, as I imagine most of the audience were there for the next band, we are sure that we were not the only ones to be left very bemused by this.

The band finished up by playing a few more songs, culminating with a very screechy song about Imelda Marcos which certainly would have woken up anyone who was starting to drift off. It was time for a break and to get ready for band number two. R.O.C. were up next, a new-wave indie-electronica group from Brixton that have been going strong since 1990, and which was once championed by the late great John Peel. With at least seven band-members on stage (there could have been an eighth lurking amongst the smoke), this was another band with a wide variety of musical styles, as demonstrated by the opening three songs alone. Following a pleasant atmospheric intro, R.O.C. played a track from the first album (Bile & Celestial Beauty). It was called "Think Again", with male singer Fred Browning screaming in anguish down the mike, punk-style, lyrics such as 'I don't wanna go through this again, I'm sure I'll have to see it through again'. We have no idea what it was that he was describing, but we felt for him.

Unfortunately, it did appear that R.O.C. were going to be concentrating on the aforementioned new album, which we had not heard before and did not really know what to expect. We much prefer it when acts intersperse new stuff with old. But the first five songs were entirely from Bile & Celestial Beauty. Vocal duties tended to alternate between Fred Browning and Karen Sheridan. So when Karen took to the mike for the next song, we were hoping for something a bit jollier. However, this was another song full of anguish. Called "Journey", it includes lyrics such as 'I've got to-oo be strong, I've got to-oo move on'. We filmed the footage for your delectation. https://youtu.be/OgD-CDMX1cc Next up it was Fred's turn to sing. "Sea of Storms" had even more anguish, with lyrics such as 'what would be the point of staying around' and 'How can I keep on holding on. I've gotta gotta gotta gotta hold on'. A song called "Chateau" was up next, which was probably one of our least favourites, not just because Karen sings the lyrics 'I will kill you before you kill me'. However, the next song was old of the oldies! "I Want You I Need You I Miss You", which is from their 1994 album Girl With a Crooked Eye, has the joyful lyrics 'one day you will soon be mine', 'you're so sweet to me, like the fruit of the cherry tree, you're so good to me'…. This is a lovely song, cheesy as hell but such a breath of fresh air after all the angst.

Another great song followed, "Princess" from 2005, which was much more breakbeaty and very dancey. "Silver Highway" came next, which in spite of being from the new album was much more chill and laid-back. They finished off with another classic, "Cheryl", which came out in 1997, and was probably their most psychedelic tune, starting with a disco beat and ending a with great drum outro. R.O.C. are a very experimental band and there's nothing quite like them, to be honest. Their music is often interspersed with recorded video footage and various incongruous sounds, which work well. It is clear why John Peel championed them all those years ago. However, we found the lyrics on the songs from the new album just a tad too depressing for a Tuesday night. We needed cheering up. Thank goodness for the glorious and shameless fun that are Sheep on Drugs. A flash of bright yellow glowing in the UV lighting on stage immediately attracted our attention. This was someone's hair, and upon closer inspection it was none other than Dead Lee (Lee Fraser), the original guitar and keyboardist from Sheep on Drugs, his face painted up to look like a nose-bleeding drug-fuelled rock god.

Setting up her trusty keytar was the strikingly sexy techno-punk bundle of energy that is Johnny Borden, who has been part of Sheep on Drugs for well over a decade now. Sadly, no King Duncan, but Borden's vocals (and occasionally Lee's) combined are more than a match.

There is not a single down-tempo song among Sheep on Drugs' repertoire. It is banger after banger, mixing punk in with industrial techno, and occasionally very x-rated lyrics. After their intro, the first song was called "Step into the Light", and was from the brand new album, Does Dark Matter. But Sheep on Drugs know how to entertain a crowd. They knew that we were here for the classics. There was only one other track from the new album, buried towards the end of the set. That's the way to do it!

Next up was "Let the Good Times Roll", from their 1994 album …On Drugs. Proper rave classic. It was amazing what a great sound the two of them made on stage. Music speaks louder than words, so here is our footage from the beginning of our great trip down memory lane. We should however warn anyone with photo-sensitive epilepsy to look away now. https://youtu.be/dYqqUhIdzfs A special word really has to go out to the exceptional lighting that we enjoyed during Sheep on Drugs' set, as can be appreciated in the photos that accompany this review.

The lasers were particularly awesome, and it really did look as though they were actually emanating from the performers' instruments. Paper Dress Vintage certainly do have their lighting sussed.

Borden would occasionally play her keytar but most of the music was up to Lee, when he was not also on singing duty. Lee played guitar occasionally, but for most of the set he played a first generation Kaossilator that was embedded into a toy guitar (or perhaps the latter was one of those consoles used for playing guitar-based videogames). Onto his leg he had strapped a Kaoss Pad, which he used not only to distort the sound coming from the Kaossilator, but also for creating very fast looping and sampling. To do this while standing up, rocking out, singing and not looking at it is a talent that puts some of today's laptop musicians to shame.

Next up, the very punk-rave classic "Still Ill", from the band's quite remarkable 2010 album Medication Time. We filmed this one too, but we're afraid we were standing a little too close to the speakers, so the sound is very distorted. Not that it really matters. It's still eminently enjoyable. https://youtu.be/Z63gDyekeXY Next came two tracks from their ironically-titled Greatest Hits début album from 1993. "Track X" was the song that Grace Jones then went on to cover, calling it "Sex Crime" (a title that probably made more sense). It is easy to forget just how influential a band Sheep on Drugs actually were! Then Borden did something extraordinary, and appeared to set light to her leg. I believe she had some lighter-fuel-soaked tissue-paper tucked into her boots and it flared up and gave everyone a bit of a surprise. Did that really get past health & safety? Come on! do you really think Sheep on Drugs would clear anything with health & safety? Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission!

{#nofilter - none of the photos on this page have been Photoshopped. The lighting really was this good!}

With all this pyromaniacal excitement, we had forgotten to get the beginning of "Motorbike" on camera, which was the next song, also from the 1993 album. To make up for it, we let the camera roll on for "Hero on Heroine", which is on Medication Time and we loved it, and reminded us of some early Prodigy. Borden starts this song by taking out a whip, singing how she can 'take it harder', while a crudely-drawn cock-and-balls spins around on the projection behind her. It's all very raunchy. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/Q5xN0UUzmsc "Rip it Up", from their often ignored 2005 album F**K, was next, which featured some great vocal effects courtesy of Lee's Kaoss Pad. This had us bouncing around the floor, at times reminding us of Sigue Sigue Sputnik at their greatest. Then came what has to be the finest cover version of Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man" (Lou Reed would have loved it), followed by the only other song from the new album, called "Going Soon", which was very entertaining and ended with Borden holding a mannequin or doll's arm between her legs, in the style of a giant phallus. Well, her name is Johnny after all! This led us into into another song from Medication Time, "12 Good Years".

And then, the final two songs. The fantastic "15 Minutes of Fame" from their début album, and "Life's A Bitch", off of F**K, came next, and we filmed it for you here (with the usual caveat about flashing lights): https://youtu.be/-5KPIMUaCvU What a way to end. Punk rave at its finest, with Lee chanting shouts into the mike, and Borden on her keytar. Talk about finishing on a high!

We loved tonight. But we were mainly here for Sheep on Drugs, whereas we got the impression that a lot of the rest of the crowd were here for the first two acts. Had more industrial electro-punk acts been chosen as the support bands, not a single punter would have left before 11 o'clock. Mixing genres can be a fun concept, but it does mean that the last act sometimes doesn't get the crowds they deserve, especially if the support acts have a half-decent following of their own. We thought Sheep on Drugs were ten out of ten, tonight. Not just for sheer entertainment, but for talent also. We are also very appreciative that there were only two "new" songs out of the thirteen played, though since the new album is pretty fantastic we look forward to hearing more of it in future gigs, once we are a little more used to it.

So, now the question needs to be: how does the 1990 Sheep on Drugs compare to the Sheep on Drugs of thirty years later? Very, very favourably, to be honest! OK, there is no King Duncan, who was a real livewire on stage. And Lee doesn't have the same vocals. But Borden is an outstanding entertainer and an excellent singer, plus she has added all that crude and sexy pizzazz that Duncan didn't exactly have. Lee is a good singer, not enough people give him credit for that. We believe that some of the videos above, in particular the last one, will convince people that the man certainly does have a powerful voice. We would even go as far as to say that he was the best male singer of all those we had enjoyed listening to last night. No disrespect is meant to either Micko Westmoreland or Fred Browning. They were entertainers too, in their own way. But there's entertainment… and there's a show. And Sheep on Drugs gave us a show we will not forget in a hurry. Read the full article

[immigrantyouthconfessions]

MY AUTOETHNOGRAPHY    PROJECT

Autoethnography digital project proposal

The main theme of my project is immigration specifically child immigration but I will be connecting it to other themes like class and race as I seek to find what it was like to transition to another country and still feel connected to your birth nation. How had the course of their lives change considering the huge adaption that took place? Are they the same race here as back home and do they have a different idea of race considering they come from a different perspective? Did they lose or gain wealth in the transition? Is that dependent on how they migrated (refuge vs economic migrant) or what country they migrated from?  With these themes and questions of the like, I hope I can draw a picture of how a person’s outlook on America and its issues as well as themselves as a person can be affected by immigrating young which is a perspective I feel not explored enough.

The content of the Autoethnography will be interviews with at least five people from various immigration backgrounds who immigrated during early adolescence (5-13) and through questions I will pose we will explore and connect the young immigrant experience and perspective. I hope to share how they see themselves in terms of nationality, do they feel like they are more this nationality then that nationality, are they very patriotic if at all, how do they see themselves fitting in terms of Americas social stratification in terms of race/ ethnicity/ class, How well do they speak the language of their home country, when and how did they learn English, what’s their relationship with their parents, Does language affect that relationship, how did they get along in school, did they struggle socially or academically, is that connected to their background, how connected are they to their ethnic communities, if they have experience prejudice or discrimination, has living in Miami shape their identity as an immigrant, and what are their view on immigration.

My autoethnography has both local and transnational significance. Miami is a city of immigrants and it’s the reality of a lot of people here. Many are connected to the topic either through friends, family, or themselves. It is hard to avoid the topic in this diverse metropolis. These immigrants carry with them connections to other parts of the world and that shifts their perspectives, conduct, and interactions within America shaping themselves and their environments. I want to see through my autoethnography how that happens amongst young migrants in particular who have an influence from the outside but still a great enough time in their impressionable years in America that their experience and perspective is different.

The community I plan to work with are students at FIU here in Miami who are in their early 20’s who immigrated to America in their early adolescence which I am starting at 5 and cutting off at 13. This is applicable to many students at FIU and many friends of mine. To pool a diverse group, I will ask amongst friends, fellow students, and post it on social media. I will interview people one by one and spend the day exploring the questions person to person in a quiet yet open space. I think their experience will be interesting to the general public so I will display it in a public platform for all to access.

Course Readings:

Global Householding, Gender, and Filipino Migration: A Preliminary Review

Informality and the politics of temporariness: Ethnic migrant economies in Little Bangladesh and Little Burma in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Indigenous Autoethnography: Exploring, Engaging, and Experiencing “Self” as a Native Method of Inquiry

My American Girls: A Dominican story

Welcome to Malaysia

Books and articles:

1)Dona, G. and Veale, A. (n.d.). Child and youth migration.

Link: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=a07169f8-7178-4f16-85ce-305d1ea1ed97%40sessionmgr101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=fiu.036100421&db=cat06026a

This book takes into consideration youth migration in connection to are over globalizing world. So young people who migrate today can still keep in touch and hold on to their previous nationality through social media and the internet making it possibly harder to choose a singular identity. It also shows diverse groups of migrants and issues.

Q:  “ The methodological approach of this chapter thus helps make visible how children of migrants are actually and aspirationally embedded in migratory circuits and mobile worlds, and reflects the ‘global’ nature of emerging forms of mobility among them.”

2)Addressing the immigration status of illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. (n.d.). .

Link:https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113hhrg82156/pdf/CHRG-113hhrg82156.pdf

Dealing with immigrants I will happen upon most likely an undocumented person so I thought this piece was important.

Q:“With these principles setting the framework, we are here to discuss potential reform for the very young, the children who were brought illegally into this country as minors. These are the children and young adults that for all intents and purposes are culturally American. These are the children that grew up in the United States and go to school with our children and grandchildren, with my daughter. This is an issue of fairness, law, and compassion.”

3)Grigorenko, E. and Takanishi, R. (n.d.). Immigration, diversity, and education.

Link: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135213596

I thought this would be a great reference since I will ask them about their educational experience.

Q: “When children of immigrants currently constitute about one-quarter of the nation’s children (Hernandez et al., 2007), a proportion which is likely to grow according to the US Census, and when in states like California, one in two children born at the beginning of the 21st century are children of immigrants, young people who are second- and third-generation individuals are clearly a significant proportion of the nation’s future human resources. Their well-being, particularly their health and education, and their own investments in their futures, constitute a shared responsibility between their families and the public sectors.”

4) Islam, F. (2015). Immigrating to Canada During Early Childhood Associated with Increased Risk for Mood Disorders. Community Mental Health Journal, 51(6), pp.723-732.

Link: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=16&sid=a07169f8-7178-4f16-85ce-305d1ea1ed97%40sessionmgr101

I want to explore Mental health and the psychology of transitioning nationalities so young and adapting to a new sometimes vastly different environment with little control. This might not be set in America but I felt it was relevant.

Q: “Those who immigrated during early childhood (0–5 years old, 1.75 generation) were found to have the highest prevalence rates and risk of mood disorders compared to their other migration generation group counterparts. This study suggests that those who immigrate during early childhood have a similar prevalence rate of mood disorders to the general Canadian population (6.3 %) (Statistics Canada 2011b). This study corroborates Patterson et al.’s (2013) findings of an increased mood disorder risk for the 1.75 generation compared to first generation immigrants”

5)Faulkner, M. and Cardoso, J. (2010). Mexican-American Youth: The Impact of Generation and Gender on Outcomes in Young Adulthood. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 8(3), pp.301-315.

Link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15562948.2010.501283?needAccess=true

This was very relevant to my autoethnography. It touches on a lot of the themes im tryng to explore.

Q: “The Current Population Survey (2007) found that poverty in noncitizen, foreign-born households increased in 2006 from 19% to 21.3% in 2007. Although both foreign born and U.S.-born children live in immigrant households, foreign-born children are at greater risk for poverty than U.S.-born children (Capps, Fix, Ost, Reardon-Anderson, & Passel, 2004). In addition to an increased risk of poverty, parental education and language proficiency in immigrant families are lower than in families with native, U.S.-born parents.”

6)Stepick, A., Stepick, C. and Labissiere, Y. (2008). South Florida's Immigrant Youth and Civic Engagement: Major Engagement: Minor Differences. Applied Developmental Science, 12(2), pp.57-65.

Link:http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=26&sid=a07169f8-7178-4f16-85ce-305d1ea1ed97%40sessionmgr101

This piece was a great way to evaluate integration and patriotism. Those are two things I hope to undiscover with my line of questioning. It gave me ideas for more questions to see how immigration may shape their politics.

Q: “Using qualitative and quantitative data, this study compares the patterns of civic engagement of immigrant and nonimmigrant youth in Miami, Florida, a region of the United States with the highest proportion of immigrants. By almost all measures, immigrant civic engagement is statistically similar to that of nonimmigrants. Because immigrants engage more in civic actions that benefit their ethnic group, they are often missed by traditional civic engagement measures.”

6.My final Product will be uploaded individual vlogs on Youtube of each interview. The backgrounds will vary matching their interest to enforce their individuality as they talk about their commonality.

Week 6: Finalize people for interviews and finalize questions and settings for vlogs.

Week 8: Interviews a quarter way done.

Week 10 : Submit draft . Most of the interview finished. Project must be half way completed.

Week 12:  Start editing and posting as I complete.

Week 15: Finnish editing and posting all videos. Invite people to watch and review. Present project.

7.The only tools I need are a smart phone which I own to record and an editing software which I will download on my laptop.

[suzanneshannon]

Canary in a Coal Mine: How Tech Provides Platforms for Hate

As I write this, the world is sending its thoughts and prayers to our Muslim cousins. The Christchurch act of terrorism has once again reminded the world that white supremacy’s rise is very real, that its perpetrators are no longer on the fringes of society, but centered in our holiest places of worship. People are begging us to not share videos of the mass murder or the hateful manifesto that the white supremacist terrorist wrote. That’s what he wants: for his proverbial message of hate to be spread to the ends of the earth.

We live in a time where you can stream a mass murder and hate crime from the comfort of your home. Children can access these videos, too.

As I work through the pure pain, unsurprised, observing the toll on Muslim communities (as a non-Muslim, who matters least in this event), I think of the imperative role that our industry plays in this story.

At time of writing, YouTube has failed to ban and to remove this video. If you search for the video (which I strongly advise against), it still comes up with a mere content warning; the same content warning that appears for casually risqué content. You can bypass the warning and watch people get murdered. Even when the video gets flagged and taken down, new ones get uploaded.

Human moderators have to relive watching this trauma over and over again for unlivable wages. News outlets are embedding the video into their articles and publishing the hateful manifesto. Why? What does this accomplish?

I was taught in journalism class that media (photos, video, infographics, etc.) should be additive (a progressive enhancement, if you will) and provide something to the story for the reader that words cannot.

Is it necessary to show murder for our dear readers to understand the cruelty and finality of it? Do readers gain something more from watching fellow humans have their lives stolen from them? What psychological damage are we inflicting upon millions of people   and for what?

Who benefits?

The mass shooter(s) who had a message to accompany their mass murder. News outlets are thirsty for perverse clicks to garner more ad revenue. We, by way of our platforms, give agency and credence to these acts of violence, then pilfer profits from them. Tech is a money-making accomplice to these hate crimes.

Christchurch is just one example in an endless array where the tools and products we create are used as a vehicle for harm and for hate.

Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica scandal played a critical role in the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The concept of “race realism,” which is essentially a term that white supremacists use to codify their false racist pseudo-science, was actively tested on Facebook’s platform to see how the term would sit with people who are ignorantly sitting on the fringes of white supremacy. Full-blown white supremacists don’t need this soft language. This is how radicalization works.

The strategies articulated in the above article are not new. Racist propaganda predates social media platforms. What we have to be mindful with is that we’re building smarter tools with power we don’t yet fully understand: you can now have an AI-generated human face. Our technology is accelerating at a frightening rate, a rate faster than our reflective understanding of its impact.

Combine the time-tested methods of spreading white supremacy, the power to manipulate perception through technology, and the magnitude and reach that has become democratized and anonymized.

We’re staring at our own reflection in the Black Mirror.

The right to speak versus the right to survive

Tech has proven time and time again that it voraciously protects first amendment rights above all else. (I will also take this opportunity to remind you that the first amendment of the United States offers protection to the people from the government abolishing free speech, not from private money-making corporations).

Evelyn Beatrice Hall writes in The Friends of Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Fundamentally, Hall’s quote expresses that we must protect, possibly above all other freedoms, the freedom to say whatever we want to say. (Fun fact: The quote is often misattributed to Voltaire, but Hall actually wrote it to explain Voltaire’s ideologies.)

And the logical anchor here is sound: We must grant everyone else the same rights that we would like for ourselves. Former 99u editor Sean Blanda wrote a thoughtful piece on the “Other Side,” where he posits that we lack tolerance for people who don’t think like us, but that we must because we might one day be on the other side. I agree in theory.

But, what happens when a portion of the rights we grant to one group (let’s say, free speech to white supremacists) means the active oppression another group’s right (let’s say, every person of color’s right to live)?

James Baldwin expresses this idea with a clause, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”

It would seem that we have a moral quandary where two sets of rights cannot coexist. Do we protect the privilege for all users to say what they want, or do we protect all users from hate? Because of this perceived moral quandary, tech has often opted out of this conversation altogether. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook, two of the biggest offenders, continue to allow hate speech to ensue with irregular to no regulation.

When explicitly asked about his platform as a free-speech platform and its consequence to privacy and safety, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said,

“So we believe that we can only serve the public conversation, we can only stand for freedom of expression if people feel safe to express themselves in the first place. We can only do that if they feel that they are not being silenced.”

Dorsey and Twitter are most concerned about protecting expression and about not silencing people. In his mind, if he allows people to say whatever they want on his platform, he has succeeded. When asked about why he’s failed to implement AI to filter abuse like, say, Instagram had implemented, he said that he’s most concerned about being able to explain why the AI flagged something as abusive. Again, Dorsey protects the freedom of speech (and thus, the perpetrators of abuse) before the victims of abuse.

But he’s inconsistent about it. In a study by George Washington University comparing white nationalists and ISIS social media usage, Twitter’s freedom of speech was not granted to ISIS. Twitter suspended 1,100 accounts related to ISIS whereas it suspended only seven accounts related to Nazis, white nationalism, and white supremacy, despite the accounts having more than seven times the followers, and tweeting 25 times more than the ISIS accounts. Twitter here made a moral judgment that the fewer, less active, and less influential ISIS accounts were somehow not welcome on their platform, whereas the prolific and burgeoning Nazi and white supremacy accounts were.

So, Twitter has shown that it won’t protect free speech at all costs or for all users. We can only conclude that Twitter is either intentionally protecting white supremacy or simply doesn’t think it’s very dangerous. Regardless of which it is (I think I know), the outcome does not change the fact that white supremacy is running rampant on its platforms and many others.

Let’s brainwash ourselves for a moment and pretend like Twitter does want to support freedom of speech equitably and stays neutral and fair to complete this logical exercise: Going back to the dichotomy of rights example I provided earlier, where either the right to free speech or the right to safety and survival prevail, the rights and the power will fall into the hands of the dominant group or ideologue.

In case you are somehow unaware, the dominating ideologue, whether you’re a flagrant white supremacist or not, is white supremacy. White supremacy was baked into founding principles of the United States, the country where the majority of these platforms were founded and exist. (I am not suggesting that white supremacy doesn’t exist globally, as it does, evidenced most recently by the terrorist attack in Christchurch. I’m centering the conversation intentionally around the United States as it is my lived experience and where most of these companies operate.)

Facebook attempted to educate its team on white supremacy in order to address how to regulate free speech. A laugh-cry excerpt:

“White nationalism and calling for an exclusively white state is not a violation for our policy unless it explicitly excludes other PCs [protected characteristics].”

White nationalism is a softened synonym for white supremacy so that racists-lite can feel more comfortable with their transition into hate. White nationalism (a.k.a. white supremacy) by definition explicitly seeks to eradicate all people of color. So, Facebook should see white nationalist speech as exclusionary, and therefore a violation of their policies.

Regardless of what tech leaders like Dorsey or Facebook CEO Zuckerberg say or what mediocre and uninspired condolences they might offer, inaction is an action.

Companies that use terms and conditions or acceptable use policies to defend their inaction around hate speech are enabling and perpetuating white supremacy. Policies are written by humans to protect that group of human’s ideals. The message they use might be that they are protecting free speech, but hate speech is a form of free speech. So effectively, they are protecting hate speech. Well, as long as it’s for white supremacy and not the Islamic State.

Whether the motivation is fear (losing loyal Nazi customers and their sympathizers) or hate (because their CEO is a white supremacist), it does not change the impact: Hate speech is tolerated, enabled, and amplified by way of their platforms.

“That wasn’t our intent”

Product creators might be thinking, Hey, look, I don’t intentionally create a platform for hate. The way these features were used was never our intent.

Intent does not erase impact.

We cannot absolve ourselves of culpability merely because we failed to conceive such evil use cases when we built it. While we very well might not have created these platforms with the explicit intent to help Nazis or imagined it would be used to spread their hate, the reality is that our platforms are being used in this way.

As product creators, it is our responsibility to protect the safety of our users by stopping those that intend to or already cause them harm. Better yet, we ought to think of this before we build the platforms to prevent this in the first place.

The question to answer isn’t, “Have I made a place where people have the freedom to express themselves?” Instead we have to ask, “Have I made a place where everyone has the safety to exist?” If you have created a place where a dominant group can embroil and embolden hate against another group, you have failed to create a safe place. The foundations of hateful speech (beyond the psychological trauma of it) lead to events like Christchurch.

We must protect safety over speech.

The Domino Effect

This week, Slack banned 28 hate groups. What is most notable, to me, is that the groups did not break any parts of their Acceptable Use Policy. Slack issued a statement:

The use of Slack by hate groups runs counter to everything we believe in at Slack and is not welcome on our platform… Using Slack to encourage or incite hatred and violence against groups or individuals because of who they are is antithetical to our values and the very purpose of Slack.

That’s it.

It is not illegal for tech companies like Slack to ban groups from using their proprietary software because it is a private company that can regulate users if they do not align with their vision as a company. Think of it as the “no shoes, no socks, no service” model, but for tech.

Slack simply decided that supporting the workplace collaboration of Nazis around efficient ways to evangelize white supremacy was probably not in line with their company directives around inclusion. I imagine Slack also considered how their employees of color most ill-affected by white supremacy would feel working for a company that supported it, actively or not.

What makes the Slack example so notable is that they acted swiftly and on their own accord. Slack chose the safety of all their users over the speech of some.

When caught with their enablement of white supremacy, some companies will only budge under pressure from activist groups, users, and employees.

PayPal finally banned hate groups after Charlottesville and after Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) explicitly called them out for enabling hate. SPLC had identified this fact for three years prior. PayPal had ignored them for all three years.

Unfortunately, taking these “stances” against something as clearly and viscerally wrong as white supremacy is rare for companies to do. The tech industry tolerates this inaction through unspoken agreements.

If Facebook doesn’t do anything about racist political propaganda, YouTube doesn’t do anything about PewDiePie, and Twitter doesn’t do anything about disproportionate abuse against Black women, it says to the smaller players in the industry that they don’t have to either.

The tech industry reacts to its peers. When there is disruption, as was the case with Airbnb, who screened and rejected any guests who they believed to be partaking in the Unite the Right Charlottesville rally, companies follow suit. GoDaddy cancelled Daily Stormer’s domain registration and Google did the same when they attempted migration.

If one company, like Slack or Airbnb, decides to do something about the role it’s going to play, it creates a perverse kind of FOMO for the rest: Fear of missing out of doing the right thing and standing on the right side of history.

Don’t have FOMO, do something

The type of activism at those companies all started with one individual. If you want to be part of the solution, I’ve gathered some places to start. The list is not exhaustive, and, as with all things, I recommend researching beyond this abridged summary.

Understand how white supremacy impacts you as an individual. Now, if you are a person of color, queer, disabled, or trans, it’s likely that you know this very intimately. If you are not any of those things, then you, as a majority person, need to understand how white supremacy protects you and works in your favor. It’s not easy work, it is uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but you have the most powerful tools to fix tech. The resources are aplenty, but my favorite abridged list:

Seeing White podcast

Ijeoma Oluo’s So you want to talk about race

Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race (Very key read for UK folks)

Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility

See where your company stands: Read your company’s policies like accepted use and privacy policies and find your CEO’s stance on safety and free speech. While these policies are baseline (and in the Slack example, sort of irrelevant), it’s important to known your company’s track record. As an employee, your actions and decisions either uphold the ideologies behind the company or they don’t. Ask yourself if the company’s ideologies are worth upholding and whether they align with your own. Education will help you to flag if something contradicts those policies, or if the policies themselves allow for unethical activity.

Examine everything you do critically on an ongoing basis. You may feel your role is small or that your company is immune—maybe you are responsible for the maintenance of one small algorithm. But consider how that algorithm or similar ones can be exploited. Some key questions I ask myself:

Who benefits from this? Who is harmed?

How could this be used for harm?

Who does this exclude? Who is missing?

What does this protect? For whom? Does it do so equitably?

See something? Say something. If you believe that your company is creating something that is or can be used for harm, it is your responsibility to say something. Now, I’m not naïve to the fact that there is inherent risk in this. You might fear ostracization or termination. You need to protect yourself first. But you also need to do something.

Find someone who you trust who might be at less risk. Maybe if you’re a nonbinary person of color, find a white cis man who is willing to speak up. Maybe if you’re a white man who is new to the company, find a white man who has more seniority or tenure. But also, consider how you have so much more relative privilege compared to most other people and that you might be the safest option.

Unionize. Find peers who might feel the same way and write a collective statement.

Get someone influential outside of the company (if knowledge is public) to say something.

Listen to concerns, no matter how small, particularly if they’re coming from the most endangered groups. If your user or peer feels unsafe, you need to understand why. People often feel like small things can be overlooked, as their initial impact might be less, but it is in the smallest cracks that hate can grow. Allowing one insensitive comment about race is still allowing hate speech. If someone, particularly someone in a marginalized group, brings up a concern, you need to do your due diligence to listen to it and to understand its impact.

I cannot emphasize this last point enough.

What I say today is not new. Versions of this article have been written before. Women of color like me have voiced similar concerns not only in writing, but in design reviews, in closed door meetings to key stakeholders, in Slack DMs. We’ve blown our whistles.

But here is the power of white supremacy.

White supremacy is so ingrained in every single aspect of how this nation was built, how our corporations function, and who is in control. If you are not convinced of this, you are not paying attention or intentionally ignoring the truth.

Queer, Muslim, disabled, trans women and nonbinary folks of color — the marginalized groups most impacted by this — are the ones who are voicing these concerns most voraciously. Speaking up requires us to enter the spotlight and outside of safety—we take a risk and are not heard.

The silencing of our voices is one of many effective tools of white supremacy. Our silencing lives within every microaggression, each time we’re talked over, or not invited to partake in key decisions.

In tech, I feel I am a canary in a coal mine. I have sung my song to warn the miners of the toxicity. My sensitivity to it is heightened, because of my existence.

But the miners look at me and tell me that my lived experience is false. It does not align with their narrative as humans. They don’t understand why I sing.

If the people at the highest echelons of the tech industry—the white, male CEOs in power—fail to listen to its most marginalized people—the queer, disabled, trans, people of color—the fate of the canaries will too become the fate of the miners.

Canary in a Coal Mine: How Tech Provides Platforms for Hate published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[ionecoffman]

This Is What Happens When You Drunkenly Swallow a Live Catfish

One afternoon in April 2016, four friends in the Netherlands got drunk, took some ecstasy, and stared into a fish tank. They were feeling particularly inspired by an old episode of the TV show Jackass—specifically, a segment in which the stunt personality Steve-O swallows a live goldfish. So they dunked their empty glasses into the tank, scooping up a small collection of goldfish one at a time and gulping them down. The group washed the fish down with more beer.

Once all the goldfish were polished off, according to an in-depth case report published last week by physicians at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, a 28-year-old man volunteered to take his turn with the one fish in the tank that remained: a nearly 2.5-inch-long bronze catfish that another participant had found too large to ingest. A video reportedly shows the catfish-swallower attempting to gulp the flopping animal down with a swig of beer amid chants of “grote vis! grote vis!” (“Big fish! Big fish!”)

[Read: 1939: The year of goldfish gulping]

The man began to gag. His friends watched, horrified, as he vomited up beer and jammed his fingers down his throat. He started spewing blood into a bucket, and eventually was admitted to intensive care to have the fish dislodged from his throat.

Even Steve-O might have thought twice before swallowing a live catfish. Unlike the harmless goldfish, Corydoras aeneus, also known as the “Cory” catfish, is armored with strong, overlapping scales. And it shares a famous defense mechanism with almost all of its catfish cousins: spine-like barbs embedded within each fin. When the fish is distressed, these barbs straighten and lock into place, turning the animal from a tropical pet into a sort of aquatic shuriken.

When the man arrived at the hospital, all he was able to tell doctors through the drugs and alcohol was that he was having trouble swallowing, according to Linda Benoist, an Erasmus otorhinolaryngology resident who treated him. It wasn’t until the doctors spotted a fin in his throat that he could recall more specifically what had happened.

A CT scan shows the tightly lodged fish (Linda Benoist / Erasmus University Medical Center)

This is far from the first time someone has swallowed a live fish. What’s rare is for it to turn into a medical emergency: A recent study found 75 recorded cases of live-fish aspiration over the past several centuries, only four of which were voluntary. But those reports only account for failed attempts to down live fish. The practice has been a go-to gag for American goofballs and pranksters for decades. As panty raids, planking, and eating Tide Pods have come and gone, fish-swallowing has remained—usually in the form of goldfish, sometimes minnows or other teeny-tiny species.

The father of modern goldfish swallowing, the lore goes, was—perhaps unsurprisingly—an 18-year-old college student. In 1939, Lothrop Withington, Jr., a freshman at Harvard, reportedly prompted a friend to issue him the challenge alongside a $10 payout. The stunt was considered so outlandish at the time that the crowd that showed up to watch the spectacle contained multiple reporters. By all accounts, Withington chewed.

As the Harvard Crimson later recounted, Withington’s bold challenge quickly caught on. A Harvard sophomore won local notoriety—and job offers from multiple circuses—that same year after swallowing 23 goldfish in just 10 minutes. Soon, students at other schools were vying to break the record, and the Intercollegiate Goldfish Gulping Association was established to determine and enforce competition standards. There were only two rules: first, that each fish measured 3 inches long, and second, that the fish be kept down for at least 12 hours after consumption. Challengers emerged from campuses far and wide, until the last title on record went to Clark University’s Joseph Deliberto, who sucked down 89.

The height of the craze (and the IGGA) only lasted for the school year, but fish-swallowing has never really gone away. Pushback from animal-rescue groups led most colleges to outlaw the practice in the early 1940s, which likely helped fuel the rise of goldfish gulping as a fixture of collegiate hazing rituals. It’s now regularly listed as an offense on lawsuits and sanctions brought against fraternities and sports teams. In addition to Jackass’s rendition, the practice has popped up in at least three major films spanning four decades: A Fish Called Wanda, The Wolf of Wall Street, and, most recently, Aquaman. YouTube is full of videos of people of all ages throwing guppies down their gullets.

[Read: Are rabbits pets or meat?]

Even with restrictions in place, students have long played drinking games that incorporate the spirit of Withington’s original bet, chasing with beer just as their parents’ generations had. At Colby College in Maine, swallowing goldfish is a tradition during Doghead, an annual booze-soaked St. Patrick’s Day celebration with murky origins. A Petco employee in the nearby town of Augusta told me that he’s learned to spot Colby students shopping for Doghead goldfish each March and tries to avoid selling them any. (He asked to remain anonymous since he’s not authorized to speak for Petco.) Several other pet stores in the area only carry other types of fish.

In 2014, PETA implored Colby to put an end to the Doghead tradition. The college has noted that it does not sanction or support Doghead, and that “swallowing live goldfish is unsafe and at odds with Colby’s institutional values.”

Fish swallowing hasn’t been limited to campuses. Kate Paschal, the mother of one of my colleagues, remembers swallowing a goldfish at a youth-group event in the mid-’80s. She says that the youth pastor at her evangelical church in Iowa suggested the activity and sent parent chaperones out to purchase the fish. “Only a few of us participated,” Paschal says. “But I was the one who would tend to do stuff like that. ... It was pretty slippery and slimy. But I was probably too full of adrenaline to think about the taste.”

A few cases of goldfish-swallowing have resulted in police involvement. On January 8, 21-year-old Maxwell Taffin was arrested and charged with animal cruelty for allegedly swallowing a friend’s pet fish in a Louisiana State University dorm room. A year ago, a British man faced similar charges for a fish-swallowing video uploaded to Facebook.

The dubious legality of gorging yourself of goldfish raises an odd question: Where is the between pet fish and food fish? Swallowing goldfish poses little health risk, and the fish are hardly rare or endangered. In other parts of the world, live seafood remains a delicacy rather than a crime. Korean sannakji is a specialty dish of live octopus served freshly dismembered (and still squirming) beneath a garnish of sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. Odori ebi, or “dancing shrimp,” half-drowned in sake, are eaten in both Japan and Thailand. Yet many countries, including a few where these dishes have originated, have struck them from the menu over animal-cruelty concerns.

Living creatures with highly effective defense mechanisms, meanwhile, seem obviously unfit for consumption. The man who swallowed the catfish is now alive and well, though he has been careful not to share his name publicly, for fear of retaliation from animal-rights activists. The fish itself wasn’t so lucky: It died from either an onslaught of beer or simply being outside its tank for too long.

Even so, the fish has achieved eternal fame at the nearby Natural History Museum Rotterdam, where it remains a top attraction at the Dead Animal Tales exhibit, a grisly array of some of humankind’s most unfortunate encounters with the animal kingdom. The fish is mostly intact, but its tail mysteriously disappeared during the ordeal. It might have been the only part of the fish to actually make it down. The Intercollegiate Goldfish Gulping Association would be proud.

Article source here:The Atlantic

[nancygduarteus]

This Is What Happens When You Drunkenly Swallow a Live Catfish

One afternoon in April 2016, four friends in the Netherlands got drunk, took some ecstasy, and stared into a fish tank. They were feeling particularly inspired by an old episode of the TV show Jackass—specifically, a segment in which the stunt personality Steve-O swallows a live goldfish. So they dunked their empty glasses into the tank, scooping up a small collection of goldfish one at a time and gulping them down. The group washed the fish down with more beer.

Once all the goldfish were polished off, according to an in-depth case report published last week by physicians at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, a 28-year-old man volunteered to take his turn with the one fish in the tank that remained: a nearly 2.5-inch-long bronze catfish that another participant had found too large to ingest. A video reportedly shows the catfish-swallower attempting to gulp the flopping animal down with a swig of beer amid chants of “grote vis! grote vis!” (“Big fish! Big fish!”)

[Read: 1939: The year of goldfish gulping]

The man began to gag. His friends watched, horrified, as he vomited up beer and jammed his fingers down his throat. He started spewing blood into a bucket, and eventually was admitted to intensive care to have the fish dislodged from his throat.

Even Steve-O might have thought twice before swallowing a live catfish. Unlike the harmless goldfish, Corydoras aeneus, also known as the “Cory” catfish, is armored with strong, overlapping scales. And it shares a famous defense mechanism with almost all of its catfish cousins: spine-like barbs embedded within each fin. When the fish is distressed, these barbs straighten and lock into place, turning the animal from a tropical pet into a sort of aquatic shuriken.

When the man arrived at the hospital, all he was able to tell doctors through the drugs and alcohol was that he was having trouble swallowing, according to Linda Benoist, an Erasmus otorhinolaryngology resident who treated him. It wasn’t until the doctors spotted a fin in his throat that he could recall more specifically what had happened.

A CT scan shows the tightly lodged fish (Linda Benoist / Erasmus University Medical Center)

This is far from the first time someone has swallowed a live fish. What’s rare is for it to turn into a medical emergency: A recent study found 75 recorded cases of live-fish aspiration over the past several centuries, only four of which were voluntary. But those reports only account for failed attempts to down live fish. The practice has been a go-to gag for American goofballs and pranksters for decades. As panty raids, planking, and eating Tide Pods have come and gone, fish-swallowing has remained—usually in the form of goldfish, sometimes minnows or other teeny-tiny species.

The father of modern goldfish swallowing, the lore goes, was—perhaps unsurprisingly—an 18-year-old college student. In 1939, Lothrop Withington, Jr., a freshman at Harvard, reportedly prompted a friend to issue him the challenge alongside a $10 payout. The stunt was considered so outlandish at the time that the crowd that showed up to watch the spectacle contained multiple reporters. By all accounts, Withington chewed.

As the Harvard Crimson later recounted, Withington’s bold challenge quickly caught on. A Harvard sophomore won local notoriety—and job offers from multiple circuses—that same year after swallowing 23 goldfish in just 10 minutes. Soon, students at other schools were vying to break the record, and the Intercollegiate Goldfish Gulping Association was established to determine and enforce competition standards. There were only two rules: first, that each fish measured 3 inches long, and second, that the fish be kept down for at least 12 hours after consumption. Challengers emerged from campuses far and wide, until the last title on record went to Clark University’s Joseph Deliberto, who sucked down 89.

The height of the craze (and the IGGA) only lasted for the school year, but fish-swallowing has never really gone away. Pushback from animal-rescue groups led most colleges to outlaw the practice in the early 1940s, which likely helped fuel the rise of goldfish gulping as a fixture of collegiate hazing rituals. It’s now regularly listed as an offense on lawsuits and sanctions brought against fraternities and sports teams. In addition to Jackass’s rendition, the practice has popped up in at least three major films spanning four decades: A Fish Called Wanda, The Wolf of Wall Street, and, most recently, Aquaman. YouTube is full of videos of people of all ages throwing guppies down their gullets.

[Read: Are rabbits pets or meat?]

Even with restrictions in place, students have long played drinking games that incorporate the spirit of Withington’s original bet, chasing with beer just as their parents’ generations had. At Colby College in Maine, swallowing goldfish is a tradition during Doghead, an annual booze-soaked St. Patrick’s Day celebration with murky origins. A Petco employee in the nearby town of Augusta told me that he’s learned to spot Colby students shopping for Doghead goldfish each March and tries to avoid selling them any. (He asked to remain anonymous since he’s not authorized to speak for Petco.) Several other pet stores in the area only carry other types of fish.

In 2014, PETA implored Colby to put an end to the Doghead tradition. The college has noted that it does not sanction or support Doghead, and that “swallowing live goldfish is unsafe and at odds with Colby’s institutional values.”

Fish swallowing hasn’t been limited to campuses. Kate Paschal, the mother of one of my colleagues, remembers swallowing a goldfish at a youth-group event in the mid-’80s. She says that the youth pastor at her evangelical church in Iowa suggested the activity and sent parent chaperones out to purchase the fish. “Only a few of us participated,” Paschal says. “But I was the one who would tend to do stuff like that. ... It was pretty slippery and slimy. But I was probably too full of adrenaline to think about the taste.”

A few cases of goldfish-swallowing have resulted in police involvement. On January 8, 21-year-old Maxwell Taffin was arrested and charged with animal cruelty for allegedly swallowing a friend’s pet fish in a Louisiana State University dorm room. A year ago, a British man faced similar charges for a fish-swallowing video uploaded to Facebook.

The dubious legality of gorging yourself of goldfish raises an odd question: Where is the between pet fish and food fish? Swallowing goldfish poses little health risk, and the fish are hardly rare or endangered. In other parts of the world, live seafood remains a delicacy rather than a crime. Korean sannakji is a specialty dish of live octopus served freshly dismembered (and still squirming) beneath a garnish of sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. Odori ebi, or “dancing shrimp,” half-drowned in sake, are eaten in both Japan and Thailand. Yet many countries, including a few where these dishes have originated, have struck them from the menu over animal-cruelty concerns.

Living creatures with highly effective defense mechanisms, meanwhile, seem obviously unfit for consumption. The man who swallowed the catfish is now alive and well, though he has been careful not to share his name publicly, for fear of retaliation from animal-rights activists. The fish itself wasn’t so lucky: It died from either an onslaught of beer or simply being outside its tank for too long.

Even so, the fish has achieved eternal fame at the nearby Natural History Museum Rotterdam, where it remains a top attraction at the Dead Animal Tales exhibit, a grisly array of some of humankind’s most unfortunate encounters with the animal kingdom. The fish is mostly intact, but its tail mysteriously disappeared during the ordeal. It might have been the only part of the fish to actually make it down. The Intercollegiate Goldfish Gulping Association would be proud.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/netherlands-catfish-swallowing/581359/?utm_source=feed

[cheryljustinqa]

Should Education Marketers Use QR Codes?

Should Education Marketers Use QR Codes?

QR codes are growing in popularity. But should higher ed marketers use QR codes in their marketing strategies? I definitely think so. Here’s why.

Like barcodes, QR codes are symbols that convey information to computers visually. And like a barcode, QR codes require an application to read and translate the data for the computer.

This is what happens each time you or the clerk scans a barcode at the store. The scanner reads the code and translates it into the product information and price you see on the screen.

(Go ahead and scan the QR code in this picture with your smartphone! If you have an iPhone, all you have to do is take a picture of it.)

But the limitations of barcodes (which could only hold about 30 alphanumeric characters) created problems for retailers in Asia who needed codes that could contain Chinese and Japanese characters as well as Roman alpha characters.

Thus, the QR code was born and released in 1994.

It was called the “Quick Response” code because although it could hold up to 7,000 numerals, it could be read more than 10 times faster than other codes, even if the scanner were held at different angles.

The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of QR Codes

You might remember seeing QR codes everywhere for a brief time around 2011 to 2012.

But then, they suddenly began to disappear.

Despite all the technical benefits of QR codes, there were some major problems with making this a viable marketing tool.

For one, many people didn’t know what these black and white block images were for or how to use them.

Secondly, you had to download a QR reader app from the Apple or Google app stores.

While this only took minutes, many people didn’t know how to do it or didn’t want to deal with another app on their phone.

And then, what app did you choose? Was one better than the other? It was just a hassle.

Thirdly, most stores and public places in the early 2000’s and all the way to the 2010’s did not have public WiFi access. If you didn’t have a lot of cell data, it just wasn’t worth it.

And the last and most important reason they kind of disappeared is because most marketers just didn’t give people a good reason to download the scanner app and scan the code.

Many of them sent mobile users to a home page or other generic site that wasn’t very helpful, creative, or relevant.  More on this later.

For all of those reasons, QR codes looked like they were  going to be lost to tech history as just a fad.

The Comeback

But it wasn’t a fad. QR codes never actually went away. They were just not being used in visible, consumer marketing like they were in the early 2010’s.

QR codes kept being used extensively in packaging, logistics, and other industrial applications where information on individual products and packages needed to be scanned at various points across the supply chain.

However, Apple has recently released an iOS update that includes an active QR reader in the camera app. That means over 50% of the 1 billion iOS devices out there now have the ability to read QR codes natively.

This has opened the door for a big QR-code comeback in marketing of all kinds.

No longer do people have to figure out where to get a QR code reader or how they work.

The technology is now embedded in the operating system so that it’s just a matter of taking a picture of the code.

Why Use QR Codes?

QR codes have numerous marketing benefits that higher ed marketers can take advantage of.

Your target audience is already using it.

Companies like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Spotify, Twitter, and Kik have been marketing using QR codes for some time now. Many of these are platforms where large portions of your audience are hanging out.

You can do almost anything with them because they encode many kinds of data.

Just look at the kinds of information you can encode in a QR code with over 7,000 characters. It’s a really long list!

Text

Hyperlink

Telephone number

SMS/MMS message

Email (Send message)

Contact entry (vCard or meCard)

Calendar entry (vCalendar)

Product details

Offer details

Event details

Competition details

A coupon

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media page URL’s

A link to your YouTube video

You can place them on a wide variety of mediums.

QR codes can be easily scanned on many different surfaces. Pretty much any surface you can take a picture of with your phone.

Newspapers

TV ads

Billboards

Temporary tattoos (Think of the fun recruitment reps could have visiting high schools with QR code tattoos!)

Product packaging on school merchandise and swag

Clothing labels

Webpages

Emails

Social media posts

Images that you upload to Pinterest or other social media platform

Tradeshow banners

Banquet decorations like table cards

Signage on your campus

You can track QR codes.

Each QR code is unique, making it easy to track when they are scanned by your audience. By tracking your QR codes, you can literally see which locations, surfaces, and times produce the most traffic from your various campaigns.

Think of it. You can now track the metrics on your billboards and other print campaigns!

You can pique curiosity with QR codes.

By their nature, QR codes come with a promise: “Scan me and I’ll show you something you’ll like!”  If you place a QR code next to a picturesque view of your campus, people will scan it to find out what more they can learn about dorm life, cafeteria and food options, student activities, etc. They don’t know exactly what they’ll find, but the promise is there.

How to Leverage QR Codes

I hope your head is already spinning with the possibilities QR codes have for your higher education marketing strategies. But here are some suggestions you should keep in mind as you implement them.

Make sure your QR codes are worth scanning.

Every QR code holds the promise of something fun, useful, or creative on the other side.

Your prospective student or family is choosing to interact with your marketing message by getting their phone out of their pocket and scanning the code.

So make sure they’re not disappointed when they arrive at wherever you’re sending them!

Don’t send people to your homepage from a QR code. This needs to be a highly personalized, unique experience that ties in to the marketing message from which they’re scanning the code.

Take a look at how this museum in Poland used QR codes to attract young people to their museum.

Not every QR code needs to link to something this spectacular to be effective.

The takeaway here is that the museum marketers had thought carefully about the experience people would have when they scanned the code.

They created something interactive. Something that made their codes worth scanning.

Scan me for a special message!

At the very least, your QR codes should be relevant to the marketing message on which they’re placed. So if the QR code is next to a picture of your campus, they should find more information about your campus or campus life waiting on the other side.

If the QR code is next to a message about how affordable you are, then the code should send them to information about financial aid or something like that.

Make each QR code part of a unique and relevant marketing micro-campaign.

Make sure your QR codes are creative.

Right now, QR codes are still on the edge of technology and therefore, a part of youth culture. You’ve got to get a little creative on this.

That’s why I love the idea of temporarily tattooing a QR code onto your enrollment representatives’ arm or head before they head out to a high school recruiting event. It’s zany, fun, and stands out from the other colleges and universities.

If the prospective student scans a code on your enrollment rep’s temporarily tattooed arm, make sure they go to a landing page that offers them something in exchange for the action you want them to take.

Cool swag for signing up for a campus visit

A chance to win a scholarship for signing up

A free meal in your amazing new dining hall

Tickets to your next sporting event

Also, integrate personalized messaging or video to give prospective students a unique experience with your education brand. It could be a video testimonial from a current student like your prospective student.

So yes, higher ed marketers should seriously consider using QR codes in their marketing strategies. But don’t do it unless you’re ready to get a little creative and create unique interactions for your prospective students.

Want to Improve Your Digital Marketing Results?

Then you’ve got to know how to write for the web. That’s why we want to send you our latest ebook: Writing for the Web: 7 Secrets to Content Marketing Success for Education Marketers!

With this helpful resource from Caylor Solutions, you’ll learn how to:

Grab your reader’s attention immediately

Pull your reader’s attention deeper into your content

Write so that Google (and other search engines) find you easily

Increase your website’s conversion rates

In short, you’ll be able to write the copy that makes your digital marketing strategy work for you. Download your copy today!

Featured image by Bloomicon via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/should-higher-ed-marketers-use-qr-codes/

The post Should Education Marketers Use QR Codes? appeared first on edSocialMedia.

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[daleisgreat]

The Wizard

Today I am covering a movie I have been itching to write about here for years. It is an admittedly subpar film from 1989, but seeing it then as a six year old videogame kiddo, I absolutely adored it. Yes I am talking about the 1989 Nintendo adver-film, The Wizard (trailer). I have had a nostalgia-driven love/hate/love relationship with The Wizard throughout my life. Absolutely loved it as a kid, when I got around to re-watching it with adult eyes for the first time shortly after its first DVD run in 2006, I realized a lot of it then was hard to watch and thought the film took itself way too seriously. I embedded an old episode of my old podcast I recently un-vaulted at the bottom of this entry where we do a roundtable breakdown of The Wizard right after its first DVD release in 2006. Watching it again in 2020, I kind of came around to digging it again as you will soon read on to see. The Wizard never got a deluxe edition home video treatment until this year. Its DVD release in 2006, and initial 2018 BluRay release saw a basic home video release with no bonus material other than a trailer. After much fan outcry, Universal finally granted access to home video distributor Shout Factory to release a much desired special edition jam packed with extras. It hit BluRay at the beginning of this year, shortly after the film’s 30th anniversary. If you are unfamiliar with Shout Factory, think of them as the equivalent as the Criterion Edition, but for beloved B-movies instead.

This is a road trip film, where through the magic of Nintendo, a broken family is reunited…..yes I am embellishing, but only ever-so-marginally! After an earlier childhood crisis that is not revealed until late in the movie, nine-year-old Jimmy Woods (Luke Edwards) is left in a quasi-autistic state (his condition is never fully explained). Jimmy consistently runs away from home until his mother decides it is too much and puts him in a permanent childcare facility. Jimmy’s half-brother Corey (Fred Savage) would have none of this treatment to Jimmy and sneaks him out of the facility. Jimmy infamously references ‘California’ throughout, Corey decides to take Jimmy on a road trip to California to see just what Jimmy wants to go over there for. Along the way they meet Hailey (Jenny Lewis), who joins them on the run and helps discover Jimmy’s hidden talents at getting top scores at arcade games. The trio decide to embark to a huge videogame tournament in California they see a flyer for and think that must be what Jimmy is talking about that is awaiting them there. Watching the Wizard now in 2020 compared to the last time I saw it in 2006 what popped out to me was surprisingly the ‘heart’ of the family dilemma the whole film is predicated on. As I stated in my entries here chronicling the seasons of Roseanne, the reason that show is one of my favorite sitcoms is because my family was not too far off from how dysfunctional the Conners were. The Woods family here has their own twisted backstory that gets kind of fleshed out on why the family is split up and struggling to overcome a recent crisis that has had a lasting impact on them. I can relate to that with my various family qualms over the decades, so seeing Corey & Jimmy’s brother, Nick (Christian Slater) and father, Sam (Beau Bridges) go from being on rocky turmoil throughout the film, but managing to put their differences aside to go on the road after them kind of resonated with me a little bit on this viewing.

Nick and Sam playing catch-up on the road is an entertaining B-plot to The Wizard. The father and son team have a comedic foil in one Mr. Putnam (Will Seltzer), a professional tracker of runaway kids who I would imagine would be a realistic good kind of person, but the film portrays Putnam as a ruthless, slimy scumbag in it solely for the money. It is laughable to see Putnam get the villain stereotype checklist treatment. Balding, slicked back hair? Check! Cowboy-collar-string-tie? Check! Always chomping on gum? Check! Weasel-y voice? Double check! During their father-son road trek, Nick introduces his dad to videogames, and soon enough Sam is just as hooked as Nick in trying to conquer the dastardly original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on NES. Videogames are featured predominantly throughout The Wizard and goes to show how big arcades were in the late 80s to the point where you can find a stray machine or two at any gas station or restaurant. Watching Hailey and Corey train Jimmy to get as much gaming knowledge in time for the videogame tournament in Los Angeles was a riot. The requisite-training montage scene perfectly encapsulates NES-mania at the peak of its powers in 1989. As you can see in the linked video it has the perfect training material for any grade school game player of that era in the form of arcade game practice sessions, Nintendo Power magazines and calling the Nintendo-endorsed game counselor’s hotline for pro tips! Countless games are shown off throughout. One of the most recognizable scenes of the film is when Jimmy meets his antagonist in the form of pro-gamer, Lucas (Jackey Vinson) who makes his unabashed love of the Power Glove the must-have NES accessory of the ’89 Christmas season.

Eventually Lucas and Jimmy clash at the ‘Videogame Armageddon’ tournament in LA. They are two of the three finalists and for their final challenge the AWESOME over-the-top host (Steven Grives) bestows upon them a brand new, unreleased game in the form of the madly anticipated Super Mario Bros. 3! The three compete for the next three minutes of film in what is essentially an infomercial for SMB3. Nintendo and Universal timed The Wizard to hit theaters several weeks before the release of the game, which only fueled demand and likely played a factor into SMB3 selling more than 17 million copies worldwide. I vividly remember being on edge in my childhood viewing of that contest finale making SMB3 seem like the coolest game ever, and re-watching it 30 years later the scene still gets me wrapped up all over again! Just click or press here to see it for yourself! Jimmy’s family is so proud of him that the whole family vaguely patches things up in a touching moment at a tourist attraction shortly thereafter to end the film on a feel-good note. As positive as I am on the film so far, it is all in a so-bad-its-good, B-movie way. I could rag on the many imperfections of The Wizard with its out of touch dialogue, overuse of New Kids on the Block in the soundtrack, misrepresentation of some of the videogames and some out of date cultural norms, but as you can tell The Wizard is somewhat of a special film for me so I will leave that to you to scour the Internet for those astutely valid points of criticism.

As I alluded to above, this Shout Factory edition of the film is loaded with extra features. There is 38 minutes of deleted scenes! Highly recommend checking them out, as the deleted scenes mostly consists of early first act backstory setting up brotherly differences with Corey and Nick, and also a whole abandoned sideplot that sees Corey sneak Jimmy out of the childcare facility multiple times to introduce him to the NES and becoming a pro at videogames. Director Todd Holland has a feature commentary track filled with tons of insightful factoids. Some highlights include regretting how unsafe parts of the production were, justifying why a lot of scenes were cut, pointing out a blink-and-miss-it Toby McGuire cameo, fighting to the bitter end to get his feel-good family reuniting ending and how a throwaway joke panning Universal Studios lead to a last minute final re-cut of the film to omit that line due to peeved Universal executives. There are two Q&A panels included totaling an hour and a half. Both feature Luke Edwards along with original writer, David Chisholm and producer, Ken Topolsky. A lot of good anecdotes and memories from everyone involved, but not necessarily required viewing since a decent amount of their responses are touched on in the last of the bonuses. Rounding off the extras are three more behind-the-scenes bonuses tallying up just under an hour. Critical Analysis of The Wizard is a 12 minute look at Jimmy’s childhood trauma and the psychological effects of his condition. How Can I Help You is a six minute interview with a former Nintendo Game Counselor detailing his work experiences. Road to California is the standout making of feature with it being a 40 minute comprehensive look at how The Wizard came to be with interviews with most of the cast and crew. It dissects the casting, selecting the gameplay footage from Nintendo-provided tapes, explaining the ending, making all the cuts down to a 90 minute film, dealing with the critical fallout and the belated public adoration from fans online who grew up with the film and spread the love once it hit DVD. There are a couple heartfelt fan testimonials it included towards the end with some passionate stories from serious fans of the film!

These last several days have been a ride to say the least while taking in everything this Shout Factory edition had to offer. I knew a part of me enjoyed The Wizard in a guilty pleasure kind of way, but taking it all in again with a 37-year old perspective made the family crisis element of the movie, regardless of how corny it is implemented, somehow make an impact on me and appreciate it in a way I was not expecting. Combine that with it capturing the aura of late-80s NES fever, and seeing all the ubiquitous love from the cast, crew and fans of the movie in the bonus feature interviews and it all adds up to The Wizard going from guilty pleasure to childhood favorite that I did not expect to find myself still a big fan of today.

If you somehow quench for more Wizard coverage, then check out this episode of my old podcast I recently re-uploaded to my YouTube channel where we reviewed The Wizard right after its first DVD printing way back in 2006.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[chipwin08109]

Should Education Marketers Use QR Codes?

Should Education Marketers Use QR Codes?

QR codes are growing in popularity. But should higher ed marketers use QR codes in their marketing strategies? I definitely think so. Here’s why.

Like barcodes, QR codes are symbols that convey information to computers visually. And like a barcode, QR codes require an application to read and translate the data for the computer.

This is what happens each time you or the clerk scans a barcode at the store. The scanner reads the code and translates it into the product information and price you see on the screen.

(Go ahead and scan the QR code in this picture with your smartphone! If you have an iPhone, all you have to do is take a picture of it.)

But the limitations of barcodes (which could only hold about 30 alphanumeric characters) created problems for retailers in Asia who needed codes that could contain Chinese and Japanese characters as well as Roman alpha characters.

Thus, the QR code was born and released in 1994.

It was called the “Quick Response” code because although it could hold up to 7,000 numerals, it could be read more than 10 times faster than other codes, even if the scanner were held at different angles.

The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of QR Codes

You might remember seeing QR codes everywhere for a brief time around 2011 to 2012.

But then, they suddenly began to disappear.

Despite all the technical benefits of QR codes, there were some major problems with making this a viable marketing tool.

For one, many people didn’t know what these black and white block images were for or how to use them.

Secondly, you had to download a QR reader app from the Apple or Google app stores.

While this only took minutes, many people didn’t know how to do it or didn’t want to deal with another app on their phone.

And then, what app did you choose? Was one better than the other? It was just a hassle.

Thirdly, most stores and public places in the early 2000’s and all the way to the 2010’s did not have public WiFi access. If you didn’t have a lot of cell data, it just wasn’t worth it.

And the last and most important reason they kind of disappeared is because most marketers just didn’t give people a good reason to download the scanner app and scan the code.

Many of them sent mobile users to a home page or other generic site that wasn’t very helpful, creative, or relevant.  More on this later.

For all of those reasons, QR codes looked like they were  going to be lost to tech history as just a fad.

The Comeback

But it wasn’t a fad. QR codes never actually went away. They were just not being used in visible, consumer marketing like they were in the early 2010’s.

QR codes kept being used extensively in packaging, logistics, and other industrial applications where information on individual products and packages needed to be scanned at various points across the supply chain.

However, Apple has recently released an iOS update that includes an active QR reader in the camera app. That means over 50% of the 1 billion iOS devices out there now have the ability to read QR codes natively.

This has opened the door for a big QR-code comeback in marketing of all kinds.

No longer do people have to figure out where to get a QR code reader or how they work.

The technology is now embedded in the operating system so that it’s just a matter of taking a picture of the code.

Why Use QR Codes?

QR codes have numerous marketing benefits that higher ed marketers can take advantage of.

Your target audience is already using it.

Companies like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Spotify, Twitter, and Kik have been marketing using QR codes for some time now. Many of these are platforms where large portions of your audience are hanging out.

You can do almost anything with them because they encode many kinds of data.

Just look at the kinds of information you can encode in a QR code with over 7,000 characters. It’s a really long list!

Text

Hyperlink

Telephone number

SMS/MMS message

Email (Send message)

Contact entry (vCard or meCard)

Calendar entry (vCalendar)

Product details

Offer details

Event details

Competition details

A coupon

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media page URL’s

A link to your YouTube video

You can place them on a wide variety of mediums.

QR codes can be easily scanned on many different surfaces. Pretty much any surface you can take a picture of with your phone.

Newspapers

TV ads

Billboards

Temporary tattoos (Think of the fun recruitment reps could have visiting high schools with QR code tattoos!)

Product packaging on school merchandise and swag

Clothing labels

Webpages

Emails

Social media posts

Images that you upload to Pinterest or other social media platform

Tradeshow banners

Banquet decorations like table cards

Signage on your campus

You can track QR codes.

Each QR code is unique, making it easy to track when they are scanned by your audience. By tracking your QR codes, you can literally see which locations, surfaces, and times produce the most traffic from your various campaigns.

Think of it. You can now track the metrics on your billboards and other print campaigns!

You can pique curiosity with QR codes.

By their nature, QR codes come with a promise: “Scan me and I’ll show you something you’ll like!”  If you place a QR code next to a picturesque view of your campus, people will scan it to find out what more they can learn about dorm life, cafeteria and food options, student activities, etc. They don’t know exactly what they’ll find, but the promise is there.

How to Leverage QR Codes

I hope your head is already spinning with the possibilities QR codes have for your higher education marketing strategies. But here are some suggestions you should keep in mind as you implement them.

Make sure your QR codes are worth scanning.

Every QR code holds the promise of something fun, useful, or creative on the other side.

Your prospective student or family is choosing to interact with your marketing message by getting their phone out of their pocket and scanning the code.

So make sure they’re not disappointed when they arrive at wherever you’re sending them!

Don’t send people to your homepage from a QR code. This needs to be a highly personalized, unique experience that ties in to the marketing message from which they’re scanning the code.

Take a look at how this museum in Poland used QR codes to attract young people to their museum.

Not every QR code needs to link to something this spectacular to be effective.

The takeaway here is that the museum marketers had thought carefully about the experience people would have when they scanned the code.

They created something interactive. Something that made their codes worth scanning.

Scan me for a special message!

At the very least, your QR codes should be relevant to the marketing message on which they’re placed. So if the QR code is next to a picture of your campus, they should find more information about your campus or campus life waiting on the other side.

If the QR code is next to a message about how affordable you are, then the code should send them to information about financial aid or something like that.

Make each QR code part of a unique and relevant marketing micro-campaign.

Make sure your QR codes are creative.

Right now, QR codes are still on the edge of technology and therefore, a part of youth culture. You’ve got to get a little creative on this.

That’s why I love the idea of temporarily tattooing a QR code onto your enrollment representatives’ arm or head before they head out to a high school recruiting event. It’s zany, fun, and stands out from the other colleges and universities.

If the prospective student scans a code on your enrollment rep’s temporarily tattooed arm, make sure they go to a landing page that offers them something in exchange for the action you want them to take.

Cool swag for signing up for a campus visit

A chance to win a scholarship for signing up

A free meal in your amazing new dining hall

Tickets to your next sporting event

Also, integrate personalized messaging or video to give prospective students a unique experience with your education brand. It could be a video testimonial from a current student like your prospective student.

So yes, higher ed marketers should seriously consider using QR codes in their marketing strategies. But don’t do it unless you’re ready to get a little creative and create unique interactions for your prospective students.

Want to Improve Your Digital Marketing Results?

Then you’ve got to know how to write for the web. That’s why we want to send you our latest ebook: Writing for the Web: 7 Secrets to Content Marketing Success for Education Marketers!

With this helpful resource from Caylor Solutions, you’ll learn how to:

Grab your reader’s attention immediately

Pull your reader’s attention deeper into your content

Write so that Google (and other search engines) find you easily

Increase your website’s conversion rates

In short, you’ll be able to write the copy that makes your digital marketing strategy work for you. Download your copy today!

Featured image by Bloomicon via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/should-higher-ed-marketers-use-qr-codes/

The post Should Education Marketers Use QR Codes? appeared first on edSocialMedia.

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