#i wonder what their verification process for ‘original content’ is

[soumal]

:/

[fmdtaeyongarchive]

↬ come back to me again.

date: october 2019 to september 2020.

location: unspecified.

word count: 1,810 words, not including lyrics.

summary: man briefly considers writing about self-love before throwing that shit idea out the window and deciding to write about his love life angst instead.

triggers n/a.

notes: creative claims verification. this took me an hour to write and it’s not edited and you can tell both of those things... it’s not my best... anyway, it’s my last verification for ash’s album and that’s all i care about! mentions of youngjoo.

the song takes him a year to write, though he has no expectation of such a long time frame when he begins. 

the first notes of what will one day become a full song are put down the morning after he and youngjoo sleep together again for the first time since they’d broken up. he’s still trying to process what had happened, head spinning with a mix of doubt and affection. he’s fresh off of a break-up. he’s been single for two months after the most serious relationship of his life, and he’s fallen back into bed with his ex. not any ex, but the one he’d once thought would be his second to last lover. and the one he’d also once thought would be his last lover, but who was keeping count of his romantic delusions at this point?

when they’d had their talk that spring, ash had never considered it might end like this. they’d talked and cleared the air and he’d been happy they might be able to become friends again. genuinely, with no ulterior motives. after all, he’d been happy as only her friend once and, at the time, he hadn’t had eyes for anyone else but the man whose ring he wore on his finger or on a chain he tucked under the neckline of his shirt.

but being with her again. it had come so easily, so naturally, like their bodies and hearts had been made for one another.

that’s an awfully dangerous thought to have. it’s sex, not a reignition of their relationship, he reminds himself.

he doesn’t think he’s writing about youngjoo after she leaves that morning, but when he looks back on it, he recognizes it sounds like her. a year later, he isn’t so sure where his own identity ends and his feelings for her begin, though, so he could be wrong.

it’s the insistent but mellow melody of the guitar that later on reminds him of the piece he writes for her for her birthday, one of the happier nights they spend together. the happy nights pose an unexpected problem. he falls deeper when there’s no space between them for anything but shy smiles and fond words. the nights he blocks her out are easier, even when they send him into week-long spirals and drinking binges he hates himself for only because he doesn’t want the unseen eyes of nature to judge them as her fault.

that’s why he sees youngjoo in the song. at times, the piece he’d written pushes forward with unrestrained urgency, but at other points, it slows to a icy hesitance. in the softness, there’s also a coldness.

so maybe it’s not that it reminds him of her, but that it reminds him of them. they’re terribly complicated, and the track is more simple, but conflicted emotions tangle within its notes even without words present.

it’s closed-in, almost claustrophobic at times but at other times, he feels like he’s standing in the middle of a field listening to the work he’s created. isn’t that a lot like intimacy?

and when he thinks of intimacy, his mind races back to that night in october with youngjoo. there had been more breaths exchanged between them than words, but it’d been so loud.

relearning someone. that’s new, but ash has become a master in it over the past year. it hasn’t been a mission only of relearning each other’s bodies as it should have been. he’s re-mapped youngjoo’s heart and her mind (the parts she’ll show him — he’s silently accepted that there’s parts of her hidden in darkness his prying searchlights haven’t been able to reach yet, and that’s why he feels so lost in her presence at times).

there are also parts of it that eschew the wonder of her or the unmitigated confusion of them.

what is there left for those parts to be but him?

he decides those are the most hollow parts of the song. ash doesn’t know if he himself is hollow. as much as there are mornings he wakes up with nothing inside of him, there are times he works to find a balance only to end his day trying to fall asleep amid the flood of everything spilling out on the sheets around him.

working on the song on and off over the course of a year, it’s become a pet project. when nothing else is going right, he opens the song up and adds one thing or takes one thing away or changes something that he’s decided isn’t meant to be the way he’d originally put it, and then he moves on, content with the fact he’s done something.

it’d be easy for it to become crowded this way, but it’s instead one of the more threadbare instrumentals he has with a last saved date within the year. it’s almost more akin to the simple production he’d opted for in the beginning of his days as a solo artist. back then, he’d been an amateur producer and his ideas had often been tossed aside in favor of what bc’s more experienced producers decided would be best for the words and music he had been more entrusted with creating, but he hadn’t had any objections back then to a more naked production angle, either.

now he’s a fan of bold percussion (and there’s some of that in this song, too, as the track grows late into its own night and that’s also where the ghost of an emotional climax of words he hasn’t yet written lays) and layers of vocals on top of strings and samples on top of more vocals, but just listening to this homemade quilt of a track reminds ash of the boy he’d once been, long before that october a whole year ago.

it reminds ash of a boy who saw a future for himself as a poet on stage with a guitar, happy with no more than a small audience to hear songs that he’d created to support his lyrics instead of as a marketing package for selling others’ goods.

that ash had been inexperienced as a songwriter in comparison to the ash of today, but his love for what he wrote had been so unbelievably pure.

such purity is something that’s escaped ash ever since he’d had it stolen from him with fatalism, when one moment of success had turned bc entertainment’s greed up a hundred notches and money and marketing had won out over the charming singer-songwriter niche ash, taeyong, had once occupied.

love for music isn’t the name of the game of the idol industry and it’d only taken a year or two in the midst of it for ash to realize, but seven years into his career had been the first time he’d felt his own love slipping away from him.

it’d been losing grip on the only rope he had keeping him from falling all the way down to the bottom of the canyon under the cliff he’d fallen off of.

this song isn’t his lifeline. it’s an experiment. a recycling bin. but listening to it days before he’s supposed to turn his final demos in for his album, ash hangs every stray emotion on it he has left and makes a last minute decision that this song is a puzzle piece he needs if he wants an honest album.

putting lyrics to it poses a new problem entirely. there are too many memories tied to each ascending and descending note, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a way to bring all of the themes together without making a messy, overloaded concoction out of a piece that’s already been stitched together from discarded pieces of musical fabric.

ash searches his mind for the common thread between everything he’s placed on hooks around the song’s center and only one thing sticks out: longing for something that’s slipped away. one line imprints itself on his mind from that thought, and he scribbles it down in barely legible font on a notepad and then pulls off the sticky note to hang on the edge of the computer screen so there’s no way it can slip his mind.

come back to me again.

that’s the heart of the song. it’s where he’s been for the past year, in an endless battle to bring back to him the things he’d once had and had lost. passion, control, self-acceptance, stability, love. love. love for his music, for his life, for youngjoo. for himself.

he writes a rough draft of lyrics about each lost love he wants back, and they come to him with varying shades of ease and resistance. music is the easiest to write about, but the lyrics don’t fit the other songs he’s submitting, so he sets that draft aside and moves onto his next idea. writing about love of life is foreign for him, and it shows in the way he doesn’t feel that he even has the vocabulary to grasp the undefinable emotions that tie themselves around the concept like a cocoon meant to keep it safe in his head until it’s ready to fly out into the world.

he gives up on that one early, only to move on to the concept of self-love, which gets abandoned even faster. he’s getting a headache at this point and his patience for the idea of writing a song about himself in such a way grows so short that he tears up the paper half a verse into trying to write it.

that leaves him with youngjoo.

he’s written so many songs about her already. thinking about another makes him shift in his seat nervously. each song with youngjoo woven into it that makes it onto his album is another admission of how deep he’s gotten into this mess with her, but writing comes so much easier when it’s about her than almost anything else.

it’d be fitting if that’s how it ends up, though. a song begun in what he’d thought to be a disconnected stroke of inspiration at the beginning of all this, turned into yet another self-lead pen and paper therapy session.

so he lets himself.

it bleeds into two scenes overlapping on top of each other. the soft oranges and yellows and reds of that night together last october and the five million shades of grey of the now. they shape a world existing both in the past and the present, a world confused by its own duality, and then eating its own tail, creating a triplicity with the blues of three years ago.

it doesn’t exist in one dimension, instead pushing itself to the limits of depth and time outside of ash’s conscious control. from verse to verse, the feelings switch time periods, and yet, when they all come together, they easily slide into one story — a never-ending tale he’s written himself into.

[cylaonline]

Completion #BreakingBondsAndBytes

Disclaimer: Hey friend, Sean here and real quick, if you are not currently a practitioner of either breaking (breakdancing), chemistry, and coding it is very important to read/consume this content with caution and/or for entertainment purposes only. Enjoy : )

 Hey everyone,

Sean here and in this post let us discuss the topic of completion as it is interpreted through the respectful disciplines of breaking, chemistry, and coding. Remember, the premise of these posts is that we take a general concept, funnel them through a filter of the topic at hand by exploring how they manifest, respectfully, and then garner insights by comparing these manifestations. Utilizing these comparisons as a mnemonic to absorb information effectively and efficiently, we attempt to accelerate learning in each of these categories, respectfully, although they are seemingly unrelated.

As we know, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end to every process. Sometimes, it becomes easy to forget that, whilst in the middle, eventually an end will arrive and the process in which we engage will ultimately end, or, be completed. One reason this is so is because we are so engulfed with the process after its beginning that we often neglect looking from the outside-in to assess (1) where we’re at in the process, (2) how we can modify the process to accomplish the goal intrinsic to our respective categories, and/or (3) bottlenecks that might stymie us from reaching completion, both internal and external. Let’s use breaking as a reference subject and then bring in chemistry and coding subsequently, thereby comparing the processes and solidifying the significance of completion, respectfully.

The timeless process of breaking is the battle: an exchange of moves by two different parties to exhibit better mastery of the breaking artform. In breaking, a series of moves from the respective categories of toprock, footwork, power moves, and freezes are executed in sequence and, ideally, permuted in a chronological back-and-forth trade. This trade is often described by originators of the artform and seasoned practitioners as a non-contact conversation. Traditionally, the process of execution, known as sets, commences with top rock, continues with footwork and power moves, and ends with a freeze. Contemporary sets, in contrast, show that these categories can be mixed and matched and that there is no set way (pun intended) to execute this series of moves. Hopefully by now you have recognized that the process is just as important as the completion. More accurately, the nature of completion is relative to the context of the set. Keep this in mind. At this point, you might be wondering, “How should I complete my set in breaking?” Truth be told, relative to movement, there is no right or wrong way to end a set. Still, there are certain characteristics that define completion to a set. These characteristics are crisp, clean, controlled, and concise. Whether you opt to freeze, decide to pose after an acrobatic maneuver, or simply stand up, your movement must have these three traits. Further, it must be conducive to the context of your style. Suggestions will be provided for how to do this; for now, let’s transition to chemistry.

The chemistry process is the scientific method and if you do not know what this is, feel free to click the link to Wikipedia to gain a better understanding. Whether you realize it or not the scientific method is always followed, irrelevant of the subdiscipline of chemistry you choose to engage. In the classroom, simple experiments that only last for three to six hours are executed for purposes of illustrating a concept. Outside of this system (allusion to another blog post), real world processes are completed by comparing results of testing to standard, known characteristics. For example, a quality control chemist will receive a sheet list that divulges properties of a known chemical/product. The chemist will then test for accuracy relative to the property list and then modify the substance to congruency if necessary. This is very simple though. Antithetically, modern day research is seen by interdisciplinary format, meaning that there are different specialized scientists executing different experiments and the overlying process is completed by communication of interpreted data. The media of communication varies. Traditionally, results are communicated through written and orated media. However, modern communication through visual media in the information age is not uncommon. Please note that results are still communicated whether your process is successful or unsuccessful. Now, let’s transition to coding before we tie everything together.

The coding process is qualified by writing out in the text editor the syntax congruent to the logical flow established. Not to be facetious but it is that simple. Of course, it is time to do a comparison between traditional and contemporary practices so here we go. First, let’s contextualize this discipline relative to the others. The languages we will learn are relatively new as compared to the others that, for example, you might have seen in the move Hidden Figures. Further, the machines we utilize now are way smaller and more powerful than the ones from the past. Thus, what might have taken a relatively long amount of time for a really big machine to write out a “Hello World” printing takes nanoseconds on a smaller machine. Plus, back then there was no internet. Traditionally, in the age of the internet, not gonna lie you might have been taught syntax to write out the previously-mentioned “Hello World” application, a few functions, a game or two and that’s about it. Contemporarily, however, these mundane practices are not going to help you get a job in the industry, and I say this as a commentary of the YouTube tutorial. Don’t get me wrong, watch these videos to learn but it is important to go further into depth and detail which we will go into in another post. I digress. The way you know a program is completed is you simply test it out in the browser for structural, visual, and functional verification, if applicable. In the age of gimmicks, clickbait, and foolery, this is quite the opposite. It’s quite astounding because, in contrast to the other two respective disciplines, you get to see the benefits IMMEDIATELY. WOW!  This brings us to tying everything together.

Although we began with breaking, let’s talk about coding and then illustrate where these disciplines intersect. We just discussed that completion for coding is relatively immediate compared to the other disciplines. We can visually verify success in congruence with the intent of the plan for the website or web application. Cutting to the chase, completion is better attained by fragmenting your process and identifying points of milestones. We see this in coding. A “Hello World” application is completed, and we immediately see it when we open the browser. This applies to static and dynamic portions too and we can observe visually the milestones set. Transitioning to chemistry and breaking, completion milestones can be verified visually as well with physical characterization (i.e. color or state change) and instrumentation for the former, and physical stabilization and musical transition points with the latter. In laments terms, with each of these disciplines we are trying to tell a story to the audience at hand and the more we can contextualize the story and make it make sense, the better. Fragmenting the story makes it easier by turning a seemingly complex problem into simpler moving parts. Getting closer to real-time completion with chemistry and breaking a la coding is the goal here. Going back to the “looking from the outside-in” statement the fragmenting makes it easier to identify where we are at in the process in each respective discipline and thus assists with (2) and (3). Remember when we talked about sets in breaking ending in a crisp, clean, controlled, and concise manner? Translate this to coding with syntax and chemistry with mechanisms with minimal moving parts.

Ultimately, we could go down the rabbit hole with each of these comparisons and be redundant (just like this sentence). The takeaway to garner is that we want to be aware of the completed process as early as possible and then use subsequent processes as a formality to verify. The completed process for all of these disciplines must be crisp, clean, controlled, and concise and this manifests itself in breaking as the end of a set; coding as a successful structure, presentation or functionality rendered to the browser or server; and chemistry as a well-thought-out communication of interpreted results.

[loadjobs535]

Download Vevo Videos Mac

Vevo Music Videos Download App

Download Vevo Videos Mac Os

Download Vevo Videos Mac Free

Download From Vevo

“What is the best way to burn Vevo videos to DVD with efficiency? I have just downloaded quite a few funny Vevo videos and would like to burn these Vevo videos to DVD. I used to do this with Windows DVD Maker but now my Windows 10 has no Windows DVD Maker. Do you know what I could use to convert Vevo video to DVD? And how? Any advice will be highly appreciated.”

Click Download to save Vevo video in original format. The downloading process may take several minutes or hours. Download for Mac. Size: 28.20 MB, Ver.: 4.1.50. Total Video Downloader for Mac is an excellent Vevo Video Downloader Mac specially designed for Mac users to Download Vevo Videos on Mac easily and quickly. With this wonderful Vevo Video Downloader Mac, you can enjoy your favorite videos anytime and anywhere. Download from the Internet – when you get to a site that is streaming Vevo music videos, you can easily download the videos and then convert them using UniConverter. Convert 150+ video and audio formats – the versatility of this tool allows you to convert video and audio of all formats, including Vevo music videos.

Download Multiple Videos during One Session. With batch download mode, you are able to download multiple videos on one go. As soon as you drag the URLs into the icon of Apowersoft Video Downloader for Mac, the videos will be automatically added into download list.

How to Free Download Vevo Music Videos for Mac/PC, Android iPhone iPad etc. Step 1: Copy and Paste Video URL Launch the free video downloader software for Vevo on your computer. Open the Vevo music video you are going to get on YouTube or go to Vevo website to open the video, copy the video URL.

As one of the most popular online video sharing websites, Vevo has provided quite a great number of wonderful videos covering nearly all aspects in our life. Some people might want to burn Vevo videos to DVD disc for various purposes, such as sharing or collection. In this guide, we would like to introduce you 2 different Vevo video to DVD burner tools to help you convert and burn Vevo videos to DVD content playable on various DVD players.

Part 1: About Vevo Video

Vevo is an American multinational video hosting service established on December 8, 2009, which is a joint venture for Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Google. Vevo provides music videos from Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment on YouTube and its website, while Google and Vevo share mutual benefits.

Vevo Music Videos Download App

Back to time, the Vevo video is only available to viewers in North America and Germany. However, now Vevo video is available all over the world, like India, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States. You can watch is on YouTube, Google Play, or Vevo.com. Actually, Vevo channel has become the most prevalent channel on YouTube. Most people watch celebrates’ Vevo video on YouTube. Hundreds of people download Vevo video from YouTube to watch their favorite star’s shows offline.

Part 2: Convert Vevo video to DVD with True Burner

'True Burner' is a free CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc burning and copying software for Windows. It is ideal for users with common disc burning needs such as backup, creating or copying data, audio, MP3 music, DVD-Video discs and burning disc images. True Burner has quite a few wonderful features listed below:

Create data, bootable and multisession CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs

Create Audio CDs and MP3 CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs

Create DVD-Video

Create and burn boot images

Copy CDs and DVDs

Based on award-winning burning software BurnAware 2 UI/SDK

Supports all current hardware interfaces (IDE/SCSI/USB/1394/SATA)

Supports UDF/ISO9660/Joliet Bridged file systems (any combination)

On-the-fly writing for all image types (no staging to hard drive first)

Auto-verification of written files

Supports CD-Text and unicode characters

Supports Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 (32 and 64 Bit), no drivers required

The below steps would show you how to burn and convert Vevo videos to DVD disc in simple clicks:

Download and install True Burner on your computer. It’s compatible on Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7(32 bit and 64 bit).

Kick off True Burner on your computer. Make sure your computer has a recordable CD/DVD drive. And insert your writable blank DVD disc into the recorder.

On True Burner, click the “Add” button to browse and add Vevo videos from your computer.

Click the “Settings” option to complete several video to DVD burning settings, like Disc Name, Disc Recorder, Disc type, File system, Restriction, etc. Click “OK” button to save these settings.

Then, click the “Burn” button to start burning Vevo videos to DVD disc within True Burner on your computer. It won’t take you long to get the Vevo videos burned.

It should be noted that the latest update of True Burner happened in August 12, 2019. It is no longer available. The company has discontinued the development. Meanwhile, it only works on Windows 7 and previous versions. If you want to burn Vevo videos to DVD on Windows 8 or later, or even on Mac computer, you could turn to the below DVD burner tool.

Download Vevo Videos Mac Os

Part 3: Convert Vevo video to DVD with Leawo DVD Creator

As mentioned above, True Burner has been discontinued and it has multiple drawbacks on your Windows computer. Hereby, we would like to recommend you another professional DVD burner software tool. That’s Leowo DVD Creator, a professional DVD authoring software tool designed to convert downloaded Vevo videos to DVD with multiple practical and funny bonus features. Leawo DVD Creator could burn videos in 200+ file formats to playable DVD content like MP4 to DVD, MKV to DVD, FLV to DVD, MOV to DVD, etc. It could even help youburn photos into DVD photo slideshowwith photo slideshow editor built in. With Leawo DVD Creator, no matter what kind of format your Vevo video is in, you could easily burn Vevo video to DVD disc, folder and/or ISO image file. The below steps would show you how to burn Vevo videos to DVD with Leawo DVD Creator in detail. Step 1: Download Leowo DVD Creator Download Leowo DVD Creator from its official website and launch it on your computer. Please confirm that you download right Mac or Win version. Note: Leawo DVD Creator has been built into Leawo Prof. Media as a module. Step 2: Add Vevo videos to Leowo DVD Creator After you launch the software, click “Convert” on the tool bar. After that, tap “Add Video”. To add single Vevo video, click “Add Video” on the scroll down list; to add multiple Vevo videos, click “Add Video Folder” on the scroll down list.

After loading source Vevo videos, you could select subtitles and audio tracks, play back loaded Vevo videos, set output disc type, quality and bit rate at the bottom, etc.

Step 3: Edit Vevo videos and add 3D effect (optional) After adding Vevo videos, right click on the video and select “Edit” from the drop-down list. You are authorized to edit video according to preference. Leowo DVD Creator offers several different editing features: trim video length, crop video size, adjust video effect, add image or text watermark, apply 3D movie effect, remove noise, etc. For detailed operation, you could check how to edit videos before burning DVD.

Download Vevo Videos Mac Free

Step 4: Set Disc Menu Templates After editing, come back to convert interface. Then right click on the video and select “Send to Burn”. You have hundreds of choices for templates. Both for preset disc templates and customizable templates are provided. “No templates” is also available if you do not need to set disc menu templates.

Step 5: Choose Video Mode Leawo DVD Creator enables you to create NTSC or PAL DVD content. And you can go to wheel icon at the top right corner to enter the “Copy & Burn” option to make your selection.

Step 6: More burning settings Click “Burn” to burn Vevo video to DVD. After click “Burn”, you should be able to set the disc label, DVD save location, etc. Tap “Burn” again after the setting, the burning should be finished in few seconds.

You then only need to wait for the burning to complete. Leawo DVD Creator is quite fast in burning videos to DVD content. Leawo DVD Creator has both Windows and Mac versions to help you burn and convert any video to DVD content on your Mac or Windows as you like.

Part 4: Comparison and conclusion

Both True Burner and Leawo DVD Creator help you convert and burn Vevo videos to DVD movie. Which one is better? The below table would show you more details between True Burner and Leawo DVD Creator, aiming to help you get more information on which one to use for burning and converting Vevo video to DVD.

Download From Vevo

True Burner

Leawo DVD Creator

Burn videos to DVD disc

Yes

Yes

Burn videos to DVD folder, and/or ISO image file

No

Yes

Supported video formats as input

Popular video formats like MP4, AVI, WMV, etc.

Nearly all video formats supported

Select subtitles and audio tracks

No

Yes

Add external subtitles

No

Yes

Determine output DVD video mode

Yes

Yes

Trim video length

No

Yes

Add image or text watermark

No

Yes

Adjust video effect

No

Yes

Apply 3D movie effect

No

Yes

Rotate videos

No

Yes

Remove noise

No

Yes

Play back source videos

No

Yes

Add disc menu

No

Yes

Design disc menu

No

Yes

Take screenshots of videos

No

Yes

Availability

Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 (32 and 64 Bit)

Windows 7/8/8.1/10 (32 bit and 64 bit), macOS 10.10 and later

[0100100100101101]

There’s a revolution afoot, and you will know it by the stripes.

Earlier this year, a group of Berkeley researchers released a pair of videos. In one, a horse trots behind a chain link fence. In the second video, the horse is suddenly sporting a zebra’s black-and-white pattern. The execution isn’t flawless, but the stripes fit the horse so neatly that it throws the equine family tree into chaos.

Turning a horse into a zebra is a nice stunt, but that’s not all it is. It is also a sign of the growing power of machine learning algorithms to rewrite reality. Other tinkerers, for example, have used the zebrafication tool to turn shots of black bears into believable photos of pandas, apples into oranges, and cats into dogs. A Redditor used a different machine learning algorithm to edit porn videos to feature the faces of celebrities. At a new startup called Lyrebird, machine learning experts are synthesizing convincing audio from one-minute samples of a person’s voice. And the engineers developing Adobe’s artificial intelligence platform, called Sensei, are infusing machine learning into a variety of groundbreaking video, photo, and audio editing tools. These projects are wildly different in origin and intent, yet they have one thing in common: They are producing artificial scenes and sounds that look stunningly close to actual footage of the physical world. Unlike earlier experiments with AI-generated media, these look and sound real.

The technologies underlying this shift will soon push us into new creative realms, amplifying the capabilities of today’s artists and elevating amateurs to the level of seasoned pros. We will search for new definitions of creativity that extend the umbrella to the output of machines. But this boom will have a dark side, too. Some AI-generated content will be used to deceive, kicking off fears of an avalanche of algorithmic fake news. Old debates about whether an image was doctored will give way to new ones about the pedigree of all kinds of content, including text. You’ll find yourself wondering, if you haven’t yet: What role did humans play, if any, in the creation of that album/TV series/clickbait article?

A world awash in AI-generated content is a classic case of a utopia that is also a dystopia. It’s messy, it’s beautiful, and it’s already here.

Currently there are two ways to produce audio or video that resembles the real world. The first is to use cameras and microphones to record a moment in time, such as the original Moon landing. The second is to leverage human talent, often at great expense, to commission a facsimile. So if the Moon descent had been a hoax, a skilled film team would have had to carefully stage Neil Armstrong’s lunar gambol. Machine learning algorithms now offer a third option, by letting anyone with a modicum of technical knowledge algorithmically remix existing content to generate new material.

At first, deep-learning-generated content wasn’t geared toward photorealism. Google’s Deep Dreams, released in 2015, was an early example of using deep learning to crank out psychedelic landscapes and many-eyed grotesques. In 2016, a popular photo editing app called Prisma used deep learning to power artistic photo filters, for example turning snapshots into an homage to Mondrian or Munch. The technique underlying Prisma is known as style transfer: take the style of one image (such as The Scream) and apply it to a second shot.

Now the algorithms powering style transfer are gaining precision, signalling the end of the Uncanny Valley—the sense of unease that realistic computer-generated humans typically elicit. In contrast to the previous somewhat crude effects, tricks like zebrafication are starting to fill in the Valley’s lower basin. Consider the work from Kavita Bala’s lab at Cornell, where deep learning can infuse one photo’s style, such as a twinkly nighttime ambience, into a snapshot of a drab metropolis—and fool human reviewers into thinking the composite place is real. Inspired by the potential of artificial intelligence to discern aesthetic qualities, Bala cofounded a company called Grokstyle around this idea. Say you admired the throw pillows on a friend’s couch or a magazine spread caught your eye. Feed Grokstyle’s algorithm an image, and it will surface similar objects with that look.

“What I like about these technologies is they are democratizing design and style,” Bala says. “I’m a technologist—I appreciate beauty and style but can’t produce it worth a damn. So this work makes it available to me. And there’s a joy in making it available to others, so people can play with beauty. Just because we are not gifted on this certain axis doesn’t mean we have to live in a dreary land.”

At Adobe, machine learning has been a part of the company’s creative products for well over a decade, but only recently has AI become transformative. In October engineers working on Sensei, the company’s set of AI technologies, showed off a prospective video editing tool called Adobe Cloak, which allows its user to seamlessly remove, say, a lamppost from a video clip—a task that would ordinarily be excruciating for an experienced human editor. Another experiment, called Project Puppetron, applies an artistic style to a video in real time. For example, it can take a live feed of a person and render him as a chatty bronze statue or a hand-drawn cartoon. “People can basically do a performance in front of a web cam or any camera and turn that into animation, in real time,” says Jon Brandt, senior principal scientist and director of Adobe Research. (Sensei’s experiments don’t always turn into commercial products.)

Machine learning makes these projects possible because it can understand the parts of a face or the difference between foreground and background better than previous approaches in computer vision. Sensei’s tools let artists work with concepts, rather than the raw material. “Photoshop is great at manipulating pixels, but what people are trying to do is manipulate the content that is represented by the pixels,” Brandt explains.

That’s a good thing. When artists no longer waste their time wrangling individual dots on a screen, their productivity increases, and perhaps also their ingenuity, says Brandt. “I am excited about the possibility of new art forms emerging, which I expect will be coming.”

But it’s not hard to see how this creative explosion could all go very wrong. For Yuanshun Yao, a University of Chicago graduate student, it was a fake video that set him on his recent project probing some of the dangers of machine learning. He had hit play on a recent clip of an AI-generated, very real-looking Barack Obama giving a speech, and got to thinking: Could he do a similar thing with text?

A text composition needs to be nearly perfect to deceive most readers, so he started with a forgiving target, fake online reviews for platforms like Yelp or Amazon. A review can be just a few sentences long, and readers don’t expect high-quality writing. So he and his colleagues designed a neural network that spat out Yelp-style blurbs of about five sentences each. Out came a bank of reviews that declared such things as, “Our favorite spot for sure!” and “I went with my brother and we had the vegetarian pasta and it was delicious.” He asked humans to then guess whether they were real or fake, and sure enough, the humans were often fooled.

With fake reviews costing around $10 to $50 each from micro-task marketplaces, Yao figured it was just a matter of time before a motivated engineer tried to automate the process, driving down the price and kicking off a plague of false reviews. (He also explored using neural nets to defend a platform against fake content, with some success.) “As far as we know there are not any such systems, yet,” Yao says. “But maybe in five or ten years, we will be surrounded by AI-generated stuff.” His next target? Generating convincing news articles.

Progress on videos may move faster. Hany Farid, an expert at detecting fake photos and videos and a professor at Dartmouth, worries about how fast viral content spreads, and how slow the verification process is. Farid imagines a near future in which a convincing fake video of President Trump ordering the total nuclear annihilation of North Korea goes viral and incites panic, like a recast War of the Worlds for the AI era. “I try not to make hysterical predictions, but I don’t think this is far-fetched,” he says. “This is in the realm of what’s possible today.”

Fake Trump speeches are already circulating on the internet, a product of Lyrebird, the voice synthesis startup—though in the audio clips the company has shared with the public, Trump keeps his finger off the button, limiting himself to praising Lyrebird. Jose Sotelo, the company’s cofounder and CEO, argues that the technology is inevitable, so he and his colleagues might as well be the ones to do it, with ethical guidelines in place. He believes that the best defense, for now, is raising awareness of what machine learning is capable of. “If you were to see a picture of me on the moon, you would think it’s probably some image editing software,” Sotelo says. “But if you hear convincing audio of your best friend saying bad things about you, you might get worried. It’s a really new technology and a really challenging problem.”

Likely nothing can stop the coming wave of AI-generated content—if we even wanted to. At its worst, scammers and political operatives will deploy machine learning algorithms to generate untold volumes of misinformation. Because social networks selectively transmit the most attention-grabbing content, these systems’ output will evolve to be maximally likeable, clickable, and shareable.

But at its best, AI-generated content is likely to heal our social fabric in as many ways as it may rend it. Sotelo of Lyrebird dreams of how his company’s technology could restore speech to people who have lost their voice to diseases such as ALS or cancer. That horse-to-zebra video out of Berkeley? It was a side effect of work to improve how we train self-driving cars. Often, driving software is trained in virtual environments first, but a world like Grand Theft Auto only roughly resembles reality. The zebrafication algorithm was designed to shrink the distance between the virtual environment and the real world, ultimately making self-driving cars safer.

These are the two edges of the AI sword. As it improves, it mimics human actions more and more closely. Eventually, it has no choice but to become all too human: capable of good and evil in equal measure.

[analyticalessayconclusion17-blog]

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[underimagines]

Hello Mod Mellow! I'll be emailing you soon about a commissioning a 1k fic, but as this is my first time commissioning someone (hooray :D), I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the overall process of requesting one? (I hope it's okay to ask this here. Thought it might also help anyone else who was interested but might be a little shy/unsure of how to proceed! If not, responding privately is a-okay too ^^)

Lucky for you, I got this exact question a while back from another commissioner! Here’s what I told them; my process is simple:

- The client tells me what sort of fic they’d like to commission, with as much detail as possible given so that I can create a story/scenario that they would enjoy most. This can be a Reader-Insert, involving Original Characters, or just an original piece revolving around a specific prompt or situation the client lists. It can also be SFW or NSFW, though if Mature content is requested, I’d need verification of legal age.

- For payment, I’d need the client’s primary/PayPal email address so I could organize an invoice to send to them after the piece is finished. I won’t ask for payment until the fic is ready to be posted or delivered (depending on the client’s preference).

- Each fic is $5 per 500 words. If additional details are needed for the story/scenario, I’d contact the client for them, or if there’s anything else the client wants to add to their story, they may reach out to me with them. It should take me at least a week (if not sooner) to finish the fic, depending on length and content.

I hope this helps to explain things a bit!

- Mod Mellow

[yinnamwong-blog]

Week 8

Reading: 

Petter Bae Brandtzaeg, Marika Lüders, Jochen Spangenberg, Linda Rath-Wiggins & Asbjørn Følstad (2016) Emerging Journalistic Verification Practices Concerning Social Media, Journalism Practice, 10:3, 323-342

The reading discovers the process and challenges modern journalists are facing when verifying social media content for publication by interviewing journalists from different news organisations and countries. The result is then analysed and based on by the potential features of a proposed application tool that facilitates the verification process of social media content for journalists.

The verification practices that the interviewees undertake are categorised into 5 main areas. “Trusted sources” constitutes the reversed journalistic process: instead of taking the initiative to look for information about immediate events by calling or working with organisations, they are obtained from social media pages of reliable organisations, public figures or government departments. Twitter is being used mostly by the interviewees for this purpose because of its open nature and easy access to breaking news and trusted sources. “Access to eyewitnesses and authenticating sources” is part of the process and it is reported that Facebook is the main tool for the contacting work and authenticity assessment. However, a major concern is that if a particular comment or opinion is about a disputed topic, the verification process becomes complicated because of the conflict between different parties and stakeholders. The current solution to that is to cross check relevant comments on Google, other social media platforms and content from reputational news agencies. Journalists would also rely on an existing set of sources that have proven to be authentic and trustworthy. “Traditional journalistic methods” are also implemented, such as face-to-face interviews with individuals involved in certain events. This is done by using an older method of looking and calling up contacts from related parties or newer method of keeping an interactive dialogue with readers on social media for potential sources. This adds value to news stories by providing perspective of interviewees. It is found that different approaches are used for various forms of media and online platforms. “Multimodel verification and verification tools” describes that different approaches and applications are taken for various online platforms and forms of media. This is also where it is found that many journalists being interviewed have either no access or are not familiar with using existing appropriate tools for verification of multimedia content. Last category “Workaround methods” states that when there is a need to report immediate and urgent events, journalists inevitably have to publish articles without verification and put disclaimers about using unverified sources as a last resort.

As we can deduce from the above, and the reading concludes, the challenges modern journalists are facing and the inefficient methods that they use for social media content verification are simply not enough to handle the nowadays rapid and all-the-time operating journalistic industry and the ever-changing landscape of social media.

Project

Stranger Visions project aims to raise awareness to the public about biological surveillance by producing artworks of 3D printed faces of people who leave materials in public spaces that contain the DNA of them. The faces are rendered and determined by the DNA that is being collected, processed and analysed in a laboratory. I am amazed by what the artists/ biologists have created for this project not because of how realistic or pleasing the artwork looks like, if anything, the faces could have been created with minimal effort: download a 3D model online and just print them out from a 3D printer. What impresses me is the fact that artists and scientists are thinking of new ways and forms to visualise and create art out of. Although the creators have claimed that the faces produced might not completely resemble the “owners” of the collected samples and that the technique cannot be used for criminal investigations, I can see the potential of it being used for tracking the daily activities and routines of an individual which would be a violation of privacy.

Practice

(Photos above show before and after the edit. )

I live in a small and unpopular neighborhood in Hong Kong and I wondered if there was an entry in Wikipedia. Turned out there is but the information is lacking to even give a basic and general understanding of the area. Originally, information about Tin Wan was only about the population and a public housing estate. I added a few more points of interest in the area such as another housing estate called Hung Fuk Court, Tin Wan Chi Nam Primary School and a popular local noodle restaurant called Ping Kee. The population in the area was also updated from data in 2011 to 2016. The area is definitely not a tourist spot or popular at all but by editing the entry, people who searched for Tin Wan would get a  more accurate understanding of it and hopefully try out the restaurant.

Link to Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Wan

[mentorup]

2017 MentorUp | Session #5

Session Breakdown | 60 minutes 

Introduction | 2 minutes

Mentee’s Perspective | 4 minutes

News | 8 minutes

Work | 8 minutes

Our Work | 8 minutes

Trend & Hot Topic | 10 minutes

Dialogue | 10 minutes

Flex-Time | 10 minutes

Introduction

Welcome to session #5 and more importantly, welcome to the second semester of MentorUp 2017! After taking a much-needed July break, it’s time to dive back in!

Although most of you are quite familiar with the purpose and goal of this program, let’s do a refocus of a) why we’re doing this and b) what our ultimate goal is as mentors and mentees.

The goal of MentorUp, simply put, is to inspire through education and informed discussion.

By equipping and empowering rising leaders (that’s you, mentors!) at The Marketing Arm with relevant and timely industry news, work, technology, and topics, they then cultivate valuable discussion with the senior leadership (that’s you, mentees!) of our organization focused on the provided topics. 

The output is an increased spirit of innovation and knowledge, a relational and connected agency, and most importantly, an inspired and educated leadership staff that can then confidently steer our agency, our work, and our clients with an educated eagerness of what the future holds.

While it’s valuable to refocus a program’s purpose and goal, I find it equally inspiring to refocus your current role’s purpose and goals. Whether it’s making the time to honestly access the value in what you’ve set out to do in your 3x3 or simply learning a bit more about how you’re uniquely designed in an effort to understand how to motivate yourself and others towards greatness – take a moment, and think. I promise… your Instagram feed, your email, and those dishes will still be waiting for you on the other end.

Mentee’s Perspective

Before you begin your session, don’t forget to gain the valuable perspective of your mentee(s). Their mindset and perspective should be a guiding force in how you present this material.

For some starter questions on how to do this… here are a few.

1. What is going on with their clients and their clients’ business?

2. What are their focuses right now?

3. What are your initial thoughts on Influencer?

4. Has your client ever done an Influencer program?

5. Where is the Influencer opportunity with your client?

With their perspective in mind, let’s embark on this month’s session!

News

Keep in mind that we have 2 months to cover here – so being high level and efficient with time is key. Only deeply discuss news that has a direct implication to your mentee’s client or that they are specifically interested in. You’ve got this! 

1)    Disrupting Retail:

A) Amazon Buys Whole Foods

Just in case you’ve been in blissful vacation mode and have somehow missed this one… Amazon has indeed begun the process of buying Whole Foods!

Amazon initially announced the purchase decision in mid June with a reported price tag for the foodie haven being a whopping $13.7 billion. Amazon, of course, will be paying this in cash #nbd. If you’re wondering, “Amazon + Wholefoods? An unlikely pair indeed!” Think again. 

With ventures such as Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, the innovation-obsessed company has many food ambitions for the future, but it doesn’t stop there. What about retail? As Forbes insightfully said, “when the news broke last week, critics saw it as a sign that the company had finally caved and made a large investment into physical stores in order to grow. What many didn’t see, however, is that this acquisition is, in fact, in complete alignment with Amazon’s view of the world of retail.” With the strategic use of data, Amazon has been disrupting retail ever since the company came into being. Have you ever thought about how data plays a huge rule in Amazon’s ability to disrupt retail?

A few other things that you should know while on the topic of Amazon is that they recently announced the creation of Meal Kits (bummer for Blue Apron) as well as a curious new tool called Spark, a shoppable feed of photos and stories.  

B) Brandless

On to the second bit of disrupting retail news, let’s chat about Brandless. This fascinating start-up that received $50 million in first round funding is up and running, people!

What is it, exactly? A new cpg brand that’s essentially brandless and offers all its products for $3. How do they do this? An article from TechCrunch captured it perfectly by saying, “By stripping away what it likes to call the “brand tax” — i.e., all the costs related to the traditional consumer packaged goods distribution model — and going straight to the consumer, Brandless can offer its goods at 40 percent less than comparable products on average.”

With the packaging being simple and straightforward, it’s an oddly comforting brand experience in that there’s no clutter, no cost confusion, and frankly no bs. 

(Note: As to taste, first box has been ordered, received, and second box is en route bc OMG it’s good. #notsponsored)

How do these bits of news potentially affect our clients? Any thoughts in regard to the future of retail? Are these disruptions attractive to you? If so, why?

2) AirFrance Creates New Brand for Millennials

As generations change, so do preferences. How does a brand stay true to who they are while also reinventing themselves for the new generations to come? Most brands balance the two, while some, like Air France, just decide to create a whole new brand for their new market. This summer, the European airline announced their new venture, Joon, an airline brand targeting young adult passengers “whose lifestyles revolve around digital technology and who are spontaneous and keen on new experiences.” This is more than a mere concept in that flights on Joon will begin this fall with a scheduled roll-out plan of being in full operation by summer 2018. Now I know what you’re thinking… it’s low cost, right? Think again… this airline will offer “original products and services that reflect those of Air France.” Instead of an airline brand, they are striving to be a lifestyle brand.

Now, we know that Hilton very strategically has launched Tru, a brand of hotels specifically targeting young adults/millienials. What other brands are you seeing do this? Do you think it’s smarter to invent a whole new brand or simply balance the many differing generations you’re trying to reach?

Will we see more brands do this in the future? 

3) Cryptocurrency 101

[@Mentors, if your mentee already has this base understanding of blockchain and crypto-currencies, then please spend a brief moment on the big news at the bottom. However, if they did not attend the Q2 ITK, below is a quick 101 course in crypto-currencies. You can then send the links in a follow-up note, there will not be time for both.]

The concept and initial discussion around crypto-currencies was covered in the Q2 In Tha’ Know (click here to download slides and notes). For those of you who missed the Q2 ITK, here’s a quick recap as well as a few updates on what’s going on in the cryptocurrency world.

Before understanding any type of cryptocurrency, you’ll need baseline knowledge of blockchain technology. This is the technology infrastructure that allows any crytocurrency transaction to take place. Think of blockchain as similar to a card inside a library book: it’s a digital ledger showing where that book has been. Rather than that digital ledger living in one place, it’s shared amongst computers all over the world. Instead of thinking of blockchain as an Internet of information, think of it as an Internet of value.

Now knowing that, let’s then move to how a transaction takes place.

Step #1: Transaction -> two parties, A & B, decide to exchange a unit of value (digital currency or a digital representation of some other asset, such as a land title, birth certificate, or educational degree) and innate the transaction.

Step #2: Block -> the transaction is packaged with other pending transactions thereby creating a “block.” The block is sent to the blockchain system’s network of participating computers.

Step #3: Verification -> the participating computers evaluate the transactions and through the mathematical calculations determine whether they are valid, based on agreed-upon rules. When “consensus” has been achieved, typically among 51% of participating computers the transitions are considered verified. 

Step #4: Hash -> each verified block of transactions is time-stamped with a cryptographic hash. Each block also contains a reference to the previous block’s hash, thus creating a “chain” of records that cannot be falsified except by convincing participating computers that the tampered data in on block and in all the prior blocks is true. Such a feat is considered impossible.

Step #5: Execution -> the unit of value moves from the account of party A to the account of party B. 

You’ve most likely heard of Bitcoin. That is one of many types of crypto currency (also can be called digital or virtual currency).

Must-know news:

1)    The Bitcoin fork

2)    ICOs for start-ups

3)    Status ICO

Work

1) Royal Caribbean’s SeaSeekers

At this point, many of you have gotten to explore what Snap Inc.’s Spectacles can do for social content in TMA Lab’s Technology Experience that travels to the various TMA offices. A question that’s been asked again and again is “how can a brand utilize the technology of Spectacles strategically?” Royal Caribbean has done just that.

The popular cruise line created a snorkeling/scuba mask that has Snap Spectacles built into them, allowing underwater explorers to capture unique content.  Calling them, “SeaSeekers,” Royal Caribbean is offering them for rent to guests onboard their ships. Such a simple idea with a creative twist!

Is there a unique way your clients could utilize Spectacles? How does this simple, but innovate piece of work inspire you?  

2) IKEA Cook this Page

Raise your hand if you’ve ever put IKEA furniture together? If you have, then you’re familiar with the simply white pages, black ink instructions, and an “assembly-required” style of product. Taking the same approach as they do for their furniture, IKEA created recipe posters that held the instructions for meals - which of course used the store’s selection of frozen food. Their goal was to inspire IKEA consumers to see how simple trying a new recipe actually is, by minimizing the stress/intimidation factor of a new recipe.

Calling the recipe posters, “The IKEA Easy Recipe Series,” they handed these clever instructions out at in-store events across Canada earlier this year. Now the best part of these posters was that the paper was actually parchment paper and the ink was cooking safe, allowing each recipe to end with folding the paper together and cooking the recipe in it! #brilliant

Featured recipes included a baked salmon, a pasta dish, and of course… Swedish meatballs. The design, the recipes, and the simplicity generated so much buzz that loyal consumers are now begging IKEA to make this a store staple.

What do you think of this idea? Does it remind you of a personal Tasty video experience? How can you infuse simplicity and convenience into the consumer experience of your client or as we said in the last ITK, save them time?

Technology

1) KLM Care Tag

What if you could take a brand experience beyond where the brand’s normal end point of interaction is with the consumer? That’s exactly what KLM airlines did with their connected KLM Bag Tag. This smart, audio and GPS enabled luggage tag essentially keeps their helpful flight attendants with you as you explore the airline’s hometown of Amsterdam.

The tag will do things like alerting you of busy bikers to watch for, a potential pick-pocket heavy area, a low bridge to not bonk your head against, and of course, interesting historical information about the city. Cool detail about this? The voices that offer helpful and interesting information are actual KLM employees, making it even more personal.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you ever thought about what it would look like speak to your consumer in a completely different setting? What about making sure the step before or after their interaction with the brand is simply better?

How is this inspiring to you? 

2) Acura Embraces AR

The car brand live-streamed an augmented reality race on Facebook featuring a new sedan. They had four different drivers drive a real track all while wearing AR enabled helmets to create a virtual environment and experience for them. The Facebook live viewers were able to see the perspective of the driver.

With Apple’s ARKit being teased for this fall, understanding the technology that is going to be in the hands of all iPhone users is wise.

Check out other brands that have been using AR here. 

Trend

This month, we’re going to explore an insightful consumer report by the trusted resource, PSFK. Since this report is too lengthy to discuss in full, the key elements have been taken out to provide good discussion for your session.

Before beginning your session, please think about what business your mentee works on, and what clients are involved. After reading through this trend, present it for their capability and client(s)! 

The 2020 Consumer

[Full report here]

Understanding consumers is tough! Although we can count on human truths to remain constant, consumer communication style and the ways they want to experience a product or brand are constantly changing, mostly due to innovation in the digital space.

Historically, brands have controlled most of brand engagement and experiences, but the future consumer is changing this.

With the onset of digital media, consumers gained power. This power is evolving though to a point where “ in more and more verticals we are seeing a significant shift, where the consumer takes control by acting as, or even replacing, the brands that have traditionally provided products, services, and experiences.”

Some insights and statistics that highlight this are,

Americans devote more than 10 hours a day to screen time – a rate that is growing. [The total Audience Report: Q1 2016. Nielson]

60% of travelers around the world say they would be unwilling to go on vacation without a mobile device. [Expedia/Egencia Mobile Index. Expedia, 2016]

Only 1 out of 10 of top Gen Z influencers are traditional celebrities. They favor Snapchat and YouTube stars and other people who look like them. [Anna Fieler. EVP of Marketing, Popsugar] 

One third of U.S. social media users ages 16-34, or 25.5 million people, are social influencers. 1.61 million have already partnered with a brand online. [Yahoo Deep Focus. Shareablee and Ipsos, 2016]

With digital use increasing, consumers giving more power to peers than to brands, and consumers wanting and expecting to influence brands… 

“Leading into 2020, our definition of consumers is changing: technology-driven shifts empower them to assume a greater, if not complete, role in designing and directing their own products and experiences. The consumer no longer simply interacts with a store, hotel, stadium or media channel; he or she possesses the tools and skillset to embody those roles independently.”

See this Consumer 2020 playbook below for what roles consumers can take on.

  We’re going to take a quick look into each of these five roles. Put your thinking caps on folks… here we go!

1) Consumer as Platform

We all have a lot of data. We all use a lot of data. This data shapes our experiences, what we see, and what we do/decide. When brands encourage and reward consumers to share this network of data, “brands can build upon each consumer’s platform of personal information to offer hyper-relevant, flexible interactions tailored to in-the-moment needs and behaviors.” With technologies such as AI assistants, wearables, and real-time data collection tools, consumers acting as platforms enable this role reversal.

Example:

PartyBOT – an app that uses AI and facial recognition technology to give DJs real-time information on how the audience is liking or disliking their music selection. By capturing the mood swings with each song, DJs can make more informed decisions and therefore create a better experience!

2) Consumer as Studio

Quick delivery (Hellooo Amazon Prime!) and speedy supply chains have changed the game of customized products for consumers. Years ago, consumers would happily buy a standardized product, not worrying about any personalization other than their own preference in choice. However, now and in the future, customized products and creation studios offered to consumers by brands and manufacturers will be rewarded by consumers due to their “changing goals and preferences.” Technologies such as data collection, IoT networks, robotics, automation, and rapid prototyping are enabling consumers to more and more act as a brand studio.

Example:

Function of Beauty – a hair care line that lets you choose what your hair goals are and then build a personalized hair care system for you. The products are bought online in size options that work for each individual consumer and then are shipped. Easy, fast, personalized.

3) Consumer as Store

Mobile shopping (whose got the LTK app?!) and wearables have completely changed the way that consumers access retail channels. Whether selling, purchasing, or merely curating (Pinterest), consumers can access retail at any time. “These unrestricted, flexible purchasing channels help to establish consumer trust and brand credibility by reducing friction that may arise through purchasing limitations.” Statistics such as contactless payments will surpass $1 trillion by 2019, accounting for over 80% of payments [Juniper Research, 2017] further prove this.

Technologies enabling this role reversal are mobile payment networks, peer-to-peer platforms, and of course, omnipresent connectivity.

Example:

U.S. Bank Stadium App – the app within the stadium allows fans to order right on the app with in seat delivery or express pick-up both being options. This function is just one of many on the app such as checking into the venue, ordering souvenirs, directions to the stadium and locating their seats or bathrooms. Go Vikings indeed! 

4) Consumer as CEO 

With digital communication the way it is, consumers’ “ideas and feedback” can be given and heard very quickly, thus having the potential to quickly affect businesses. Any sort of platform that allows consumers to give brands feedback can be used as a tool by the brand to optimize. “By replacing legacy systems with adaptive technology and advanced

analytics capabilities, brands can fully connect and implement consumer evaluations, placing the consumer at the center of company decision-making.” Technologies that have allowed this role reversal are targeted communication, sentiment analysis, and of course… crowdsourcing!

Example:

Volition – this beauty company allows consumers to submit ideas for beauty products to be put on the company’s website. If the idea is approved by the company’s panel of editors, that consumer is paired with chemists and formulators that bring it to life. 

In conclusion, 2020 isn’t far away, and there’s no time to lose. How are the brands you work on doing at incorporating consumers into roles normally done by the brand? What ways do you think this could be better?

Out of all the roles mentioned, which one makes sense for your brand strategy? Are you doing any already?

As these futuristic consumers continue to evolve, it’s important to be in tune with their attitudes, expectations, and behaviors in order to “empower, rather than stifle, consumer ability.”

App of the Month  

Adidas: All Day

It’s always interesting when a brand jumps out of their vertical and supports other aspects of your life. Adidas has done just that with their new app, All Day. It’s focused on overall health, not just your workout. Things like diet, sleep, hygiene, meditating… it really does have it all.

92% of consumers are willing to hear from marketers if it increases their quality of life.

Powerful stuff people. Check it out!

Content Feature

Crowdsourcing is such a brilliant way to engage consumers, and our tech-crush Elon Musk knows this! Check out the winner of the Project LoveDay crowdsourcing competition that was just announced. Enjoy!

Thanks! 

Extra Resources for the curious TMA’er:

Cannes Trends 2017

3 Innovation Lessons from Jeff Bezos 

[mazurah]

Return False - A Bethesda Forum Transcript of Important Lore Posts

Basic Summary: Have you ever noticed that we jump from the Pocket Guide to the Empire 1st Edition directly to the Pocket Guide to the Empire 3rd Edition? Ever wonder why that is? This is a record of what remains of the reputedly heretical Pocket Guide to the Empire 2nd Edition, and a glimpse at the Imperial controversy and coverup surrounding it. Also included is an additional document which appears to have replaced a part of the Pocket Guide to the Empire 2nd Edition during its transmission to the Elder Council which hints at the events of the Middle Dawn.

It gets weird. Khajiit in space weird. Thalmor weird. Messages from the future and/or a dead timeline weird.

No really, what in Oblivion is this actually? Okay well, this is basically semi-official lore. The official Bethesda forums are doing a reboot, and we’re about to lose a whole bunch of content. There’s stuff on there that I love and refer to often for my fanfics and worldbuilding, so I’m posting a copy here for posterity. I’m keeping the formatting and timestamps completely intact, and manually reconstructing any lost formatting–including italicization, which is actually important to some of this.

Conspiracies, time shenanigans, and Khajiit moon colonies after the cut!

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 08:59 PM

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a transcription of a note folded inside a manuscript of the Pocket Guide to the Empire, Second Edition. The manuscript, commissioned by the Empress Morihatha in the fourteenth year of her reign, was infamously left unpublished due to the scandalous nature of its contents – a product, many would say, of the Imperial Geographic Society taking far too literally its assignment to “modernize the claim that [Tamri-el] was in fact a unified Empire” (the role of the Septims in suppressing this vital document cannot be overstated; it is but one of many pieces of evidence against the Empire burnt to ashes by the Dragon’s acrid breath). The note, along with the manuscript, was found in the bowels of a forbidden library of the Moth Chantry, hidden from sight between two massive tomes of indecipherable paleographemes. The discoverer was a confrater of the Temple installed in a convenient position as an agent provocateur. Upon recovering the texts he immediately channeled them to Temple Zero via high-priority glyphstream, as per Null Oath protocols. Unfortunately, contact with him was subsequently lost. Yet even more unfortunate is a delay in the propagation of the Truth! While the Temple’s mnemographers were able to decrypt the abnegaurbic doctrines of the note, the Pocket Guide remains a puzzle to our scribes even as you read this. Certain complications that arose at the end of its transmission have made the transcription process difficult – in passages, it can be difficult to distinguish the original text from the sender’s hectic fever dreams. It is the work of the Empire’s sleepers, no doubt: their touch venomous, their tendrils crawling through every pocket of the dreamsleeve.  The note appears to be the minutes of a secret meeting of the Elder Council held in 3E331 in which the membership of the Geographic Society were convicted of treason and the Pocket Guide was suppressed by Council edict. How they fear the Truth, who came to Power by clawing it to tatters! But they failed, of course, for the lovers of the Truth are many; though we know not who spited the Dragon by saving it, they who preserved these texts have embodied the heart of our Manifesto (and, indeed, may have helped bring it about.) And now the Temple has found it appropriate to publish its contents, that all of Tamri-el might see the Truth with eyes unveiled – for it is in the Truth that we are free from the mythopoeic enslavement of Talos and his co-conspirators, free from all Opression! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM!

*** Here you will find the foundation for your new Temple. ECMB-MRA: mnemonic daedron-capacitance memospore classification xD15JMo0JfiX cogitocode: a gnarled tibrol tree against the sunset, overlooking a lake; try to feel melancholy “fk00-54bQ15” ZERO-SUM VENTURE… RETURN FALSE… VERIFICATION 1 “f000-50bQ15” FEXFEINT ENABLED… RETURN TRUE… VERIFICATION 8 “f000-000015” WATERWORD WARD… RETURN TRUE… VERIFICATION 0 “0000-000000” ACCESS GRANTED RELEASING MEMOSPORE xxxx0001010101010101xxxxx0111100101010111xx101010xxxx0101010100x0x0x00010x00x0x0 x01000x00x00x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0010xxMINUTES of a meeting of the Most-Esteemed ELDER COUNCIL, forever lieges and loyal servants fraternal of Her Most Honored and Exalted the EMPRESS SEPTIM MORIHATHA, Chosen of White-Gold and the Amulet of Kings, Sovereign of the Ruby Throne, Lord of Cyrodiil and her Dominions, etc., etc., Held TWENTY-EIGHTH OF MID-YEAR in the THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIRST YEAR of the Empire of Men, transcribed and annotated by an adjunct of His Lordship the GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF WEYE-UPON-RUMARE, Master of the Hamlet-Across-The-Way, Most-Esteemed Among Equals of the Minor Council, etc., etc., FOR THE EYES OF FELLOW-COUNCILORS ONLY

Edited by Merry Eyesore the Elk, 01 January 2012 - 09:33 PM.

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 09:32 PM

We, in this year 331 of the 3rd Era of the Empire Cyrodiilic, on the 28th of Mid-Year, have appeared before the Lord and High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu, representing in voice and authority our Empress Morihatha, hegemon of Cyrod and Cyrod and all its lawful territories under the Ruby Red Throne as established by Tiber Imperator, with the goal of forming an Elder Council consisting of the following persons:  Here we will dream-swell on a very, very long list of councilors with their respective positions and titles, and absentees, and councilors attending via trance, spectral representation, etc., except the following persons (hear-see: now), as they shall already be mentioned in those other estimable lists found now in your pockets save for the naked here assembled, etc., and the as-agreed-upon-in-amulet those members and delegates and strangely-beautiful silk concerns as writ in the council definitions for the legislative year 331. AND AS the aforementioned Elder Council having been called together by the Lord and High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu via priority dreamsleeve transmission and couriermoth, to take place outside of the regular calendar, though thereby not replacing the scheduled meeting on the 31st of Mid-Year AND UNDER the Corbolo Protocol of 3E 275, this council session is to be treated compliant with the standards of security class “E12 - ad hoc and highly classified” and, thusly, SHALL be held in secret. Access to the session or its transcription must be denied to any citizen with Imperial clearance level smaller than or equal to 23b, as decreed in Subsection 4-B of the Concealment Clause of the Council Accords vis-à-vis the Corbolo Protocol. Does any present Councilor object to the aforementioned procedural enumeration? *****Elder Councilor Maganifly-Good One, Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth, and Elder Councilor Delphine IV have already presented their collected votes of “Nay.” What say the others? Elder Councilor Trails-his-Graves seeks to initiate a vote of “Nay” – let us now be interrupted by an unseen cascade resonance in the echo-stream of his dreamsleeve transmission. Very good. Elder Councilor Maganifly-Good One, Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth, and Elder Councilor Delphine IV, along with Our Ceremonial Guard here-now named and/or title Afternoon Nap and an adjunct to Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth here-now named and/or titled for this time-being, Circumference Comfort, now may proceed to assist Elder Councilor Trails-his-Graves in re-establishing a stable link. Make it happen, people. Ah, very good. Unfortunately we must laugh now, and in a great volume, DO IT, as Adjunct Circumference Comfort has received injuries amounting to a minor concussion and third-degree burns along his thigh and needs to be escorted out of the Council chambers. Goodbye with you, good sir. Upon re-establishment of all links, a cloture vote shall be re-instated as per Sub-Protocol 343 of the Laws of Triangulation, wherein all members may present their votes. There is a unanimous NAY. Good for all of us. Very, very good. The Empress will be and is already pleased yesterday. Our Proceedings May Resume.**** 

Edited by Merry Eyesore the Elk, 01 January 2012 - 09:34 PM.

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 09:42 PM

High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “All members of the Imperial Geographic Society that undertook the sacred act of the penmanship of the Second Pocket Guide via Imperial Command (in writing, no less): You are hereby given the right to defend your actions before the Elder Council.” Imperial Geographic Society Editor [NYMIX NOW ZERO’D]: “If I may, on behalf of – ” High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “Let it be known that the right to trial was conferred upon the defendants. How does this Council rule? Elder Council Collective: "Guilty.” High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “The matter of guilt having been settled, how does this Council move to sentence the defendants?” Elder Council Collective: “Death, effective immediately.” High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “The Council has ruled. Guards?”

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 09:51 PM

Hatta of The Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree: “High Chancellor, ENOUGH! If I may first address to all assembled or in state ad semblio, I would request of the Council the reason that We have overlooked the need for an encoded Verification Return False for the Belharzaharm?” Lord Jak Candlestick of the Western Wax, the Eastern Wax, the Southern Wax, but Not Yet of the Northern Wax: “Silence, Hatta! We are already in session. All here know your affinity for the son of the Aleshut (pauses for hymnals thirty and eight) but you have no right to–” Hatta of The Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree: “Acausal Interrupt! I will not allow these proceedings to be compromised by future scrying, nor to allow you to ignore silks uncounted since–"  Ghost Counsel Choir (Blade-Seneschal and above): "Peli-NULL. Hatta is dead. Move to formation of NU-Hatta post-assembly by his brethren blessed. 331 High Chancellor regains the floor.” High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “Thank you in the utmost of that ideal, Ghost Choir. No doubt, we are all in a moment of woe. Let me mourn for– all right, I’m done. I shall now invoke the name of the Hasphat and most likely we will get sidetracked by talk of the Rim." 

Edited by Merry Eyesore the Elk, 02 January 2012 - 03:15 PM.

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 10:13 PM

High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: "HOLD! THE! CENTER! I have just been informed that Her Majesty has arrived in our heads. There we go! Ponder her! Now… where were we?" 

Edited by Merry Eyesore the Elk, 01 January 2012 - 10:15 PM.

[Transcriber note: The link in the above post was dead when I got to it. I have no idea what was in it. If anybody does know, please message me.]

Temple Zero Posted 02 January 2012 - 09:34 AM

█╪₧HHH.;–?-/–ul-……0. Infrasleeve B6-125: Channel granted. Though its existence was never questioned, the invisible walls of Empire have kept the above document beyond the reach of the Society for far too long. We thank confrater Elk (extension of the Null Oath to Cervidae pending) for his efforts in safely and discreetly carrying these texts across the Jeralls and for restoring our access to the local infrasleeve thought-anchors. Now that the Society once again has a foothold in the free North, we would like to celebrate the occasion by transmitting the remainder of the aforementioned unpublished Pocket Guide. Be forewarned that transmission will be fractured at best and may contain inaccuracies introduced by unreliable relays. Apart from the host of thalmorite counter-notions that traditionally monitor our channels, the material itself is subject to various cryptocharms installed in the Septim era, often under-maintained beyond repair. We advise confraters to make written copies as sleeve availability is not guaranteed. Attached: PGE-kht04fg, key=tamrlc_common, content=manuscript END: 0 ———– Tenders To The Mane: Lleswer The province of Lleswer and its heterogeneous catmen have always played a relatively minor role in the history of the Septim Empire or its prefigurations. The khajiit have populated Cyrodic folklore since time immemorial. Even in the earliest depictions of nedic tutelary tattoos they are represented as grotesque feline monsters, thought to be in league with -or indistinguishable from- the large cats that stalked the jungles of ancient Cyrod. However, it was not until the year 302 of the interregnum era that the cats first gathered behind the banner of a unified nation. The newly created state began as a precarious union of the Ne Quin-al desert, conquered single-handedly by the battlecat Dro'Sarrba Keirgo, and the vast estates of sugar queen Esjita in the Pallatiin wetlands. Negligent observers have often analyzed the short-lived "monarchy” of Esjita and Keirgo as a megalomaniac fantasy of its incompetent joint-rulers, who to sought to ape the Cyrod Empire in outward appearance rather than function. More important still than ignoring how Remanite Tamriel was falling apart at the time, this interpretation also turns a blind eye to the way in which disparateness had always been a way of life for the catfolk. In reality, the khajiit revolted because the union of Anequina and Pellitine required them to pledge allegiance to an abstract entity (the khajiit are capable of abstract thought, but on the whole find it dreadfully boring) and demanded of each of them the will to reconcile individual desires with the interests of the state. Against all expectations, the resulting ethnic turmoils were soon quelled by the spiritual leader of the catmen. In a remarkable display of administrative acumen, the Mane Rid-T'har-ri'Datta based the fledgling nation and its political groundwork on the moons, a diplomatic arrangement that was welcomed by all parties (see sidebar, The Riddle Thar and the birth of Lleswer). Under the urbane guidance of the Manes the country has since known an exceptional prosperity that made it one of the most tranquil, if secretive, of the provinces of the Septim Empire. Just like the Khajiit, who appear to foreign observers as endless variations on a single feline theme, the geography of Elsweyr is rife with subtle gradients that perhaps only the catfolk itself can properly distinguish. The province has thus entered popular imagination as a boundless stretch of desolate badlands. This sorry reputation is engendered largely by the fact that any cartographic expedition into Khajiit territory requires either meticulous metamundal vectors to travel by brute force, or the rare Imperial disposition to submit to a deep and prolonged sugar trance. More daring pioneers, however, report a fascinating landscape of silver sands, bathing in a plethora of colors our own atmosphere cannot permit. The north of the province is typified by powder dune seas, interspersed with crystalline mesas that provide homes for those cats who saw nomadic life as crucial to their definition of a perfect state. In the northeast the terrain gradually gives way to the broad gorge of the Niibna Twin, a river which now lies unused. The oases that dot the prairies in the center of the land are rumored to be among the most splendorous on the lunar surface and curiously retain the same indigo hue in the bright solar seasons, the fleeting shadow of Jode’s monthly passing or the cool slumber of the four month’s night. A remarkable phenomenon can be witnessed in these plains on certain blessed nights, when streams of aetheric refuse spontaneously combust in the pale nirnshine to form phantasms instructing the cats in the meanings of stars. Sidebar: The Riddle Thar and the birth of Lleswer The Ri'datta-ssabavezi, a khajiiti account of the unification of Lleswer, was sent to White-Gold Tower around 2E 310: So Mane saw that Khajiit was fighting itself more than usual and donned the hairs of his many littermates and his clan and his guards until he could bear no more and then palanquin-raced throughout the lands to repeat these words: “Woah-ho now, mad cat. You fight and fight but if you will give Mane just one moment, he will show something far better, for the Mane has had many hours and fine sugar to think this over. Come now, Palatiit; come now, Ne Quiniit. Together, just this once, Khajiit will stand tall as Alkosh, cat upon cat upon cat. And in doing so, it will climb to the moon as it has been told so many times.” Khajiit saw reason in these words and so it climbed and climbed, cat upon cat, for a hundred days. Much sugar was brought there to support the climbers and in the end Khajiit climbed high, so very high that it was in fact closer to Jo'Segunda than to Nirni below. At that moment, little Alfiq fell upwards and from there on Khajiit helped Khajiit up, which was down, until all were gathered there. This is where Khajiit intends to stay from now on, for who could know strife when walking sugar and not sand? Places of Interest Senchal Senchal, a bustling metropolis at the tip of the Quin Rall, is the most mundane of Lleswer’s cities and the commercial hub of the nation. For lack of a better word, the city’s structure can only be described as a heap. To anyone but the nimble khajiit, navigating the heart of Senchal is an unsettling trek across ramshackle bridges and narrow ledges, via ladders and ropes and through dank tunnels, alleys and – more often than not – private residences.  Curiously, where appearances are concerned, Senchal does not live up to its reputation as a port city. Even in seas of their own design, the khajiit are largely adverse to naval enterprises. Instead, traffic between Lleswer and other provinces is primarily managed through the nirnstrand terminus at the very tip of the peninsula. Though sugar-fibril transport is an affordable and safe mode of transportation, non-khajiiti incoming passengers are exceptionally scarce. A popular tall tale in countless skooma dens holds that the only sizable band of Imperial visitors to the city was a delegation of diplomats in the early years of Septim Supreme’s reign. If this account holds even the smallest kernel of truth, it may well have been this event which provided Talos with the dangerous idea of recolonizing the carmine moon. Torval Torval covers one of the largest crater lagoons on Lleswer’s southern coast. Extending far into the shallow waters of the bay, the city is the focal point of the khajiiti sugar magics. As the dance of the two moons brings in the tide, slow molasses-like waves deposit sugar of a quality unknown or unknowable to our earth on the beach. The steep crater walls that cradle Torval on all sides merge into the sacchranite walls of the Lesser Palace. This enormous edifice, which sits upon the city like a brilliant crown, houses all of the Mane’s clan along with a host of servants and courtiers. Central in the Palace is the Mane’s private residence, a secluded retreat where he may occasionally dock to shed into a more manageable mortal form and indulge in nourishment or companionship. The Mane  By ancient tradition, all khajiit would shave off their own manes to tie them into the voluminous crest of their spiritual leader. By the late centuries of the Potentates, this custom had been reduced to a fraction of its original intent as increasing population raised obvious practical problems. After the khajiit had scaled heaven, however, such hindrances fell away and the practice was again extended to all of his two hundred million subjects. In his commonest guise, the Mane is a cilicious sphere of vast dimensions, a third moon among the stars of his Greater Palace. The location of the Satellite Lord changes constantly, orbiting Lleswer along a set but complex and indecipherable trajectory. The Mane encourages visitors to his sacred self and does not distinguish rank, gender or shape. At any time droves of khajiit, ranging from revered battlecats to modest sugar miners, can be found waiting at Torval’s Audience Tower for the first glimpse of him on the horizon. Many of these join the Mane on his journey for a while and watch as he shapes and reshapes the land. The interior is usually said to be ill-suited to a description in words and varies strongly between accounts. Some guests report a boundless swirl of hair, waving leisurely in pink sucrose vapors like kelp in water. Others recall strange geographies, hallways and inviting furnished rooms, which they never manage to visit more than once. On the Mane’s character opinions are undivided: wise beyond time, comforting, beautiful and perfect in any way imaginable. In the spirit of exhaustive research, an anonymous representative of the Imperial Geographic Society was sent to visit the Mane. The cat lord could only address her in glossobremia, but it remains unclear whether or not this is normally any different for the khajiit. What little could be recorded is reproduced below in a mere few lines, though our informant ensures us that the exchange lasted for many hours. Most of its meaning -if there is any- remains a mystery. “Welcome. I am such a fine thread you walk the tibrols ripen early this year beware they will not like the book Hatta-Sro’ cyrod blood runs thin so soon it will be a healthy boy you know the number Nabarr I am has your queen already given up on try to remember null for a banner she will always think of you even now everywhen farewell." 

Temple Zero Posted 05 January 2012 - 07:15 PM

Infrasleeve B9-02: Channel granted. Continuing transmission. The next fragment of the reputedly heretical Pocket Guide To The Empire is released with the express disclaimer that the Society cannot vouch for its origin or content. Where our confraters expected to find what they knew to be a heavily censored panegyric on the achievements of greater Cyrod, they instead discovered the following text, which appears entirely extraneous to the manuscript that was liberated from the Imperial archives. Indeed, by unknown means it seems to have supplanted the original article after the date of print, leaving only an orphaned introductory paragraph and a few blurred words behind. Though its exact origins may well remain a mystery, the Society has decided to disseminate its contents, if only to provide a more worthwhile read than the vapid bombast it accidentally (?) replaced. Attached: PGE-tyg72k, key=tamrlc_common, content=manuscript END: 0 ———– The Heart of Heaven and the Imperial Earth A description of Cyrodiil, the radiant heart of the Septim Empire and by far the most exhaustively researched of all the dominions of Tamriel, is no mean task. In the truly vast array of sources, anyone but the most astute analyst is easily overwhelmed by the accounts of political firebrands, unschooled bunglers and the occasional conspiracy-theorist. In their attempt to distill a reliable final product from a plethora of information, the authors of this book heeded the kind recommendations of the Imperial Council and our Majesty Empress Morihatha by adopting the acclaimed Seluriel Index (ed. 3E 326) as the standard for inclusion in the text below. If the history of the Imperial Province continues to enjoy a position of unparalleled prominence in academic writing, it is perhaps because it has come toso clear and so resolute a starting point the committee’s understanding scholars agree that your majesty has requested the attached look for document be upon her person at the moment of origin. The committee looks favorably on this idea. Our chief axiotects have established that your esteemed station may still find some cautious rapport with its baser circumfiguration in thefirst kingdom of Cyrod. With all our scarce resources spent on the preservation of the entire cyphermoth library, it is our hope that your majesty’s physical presence may provide the aforementioned text with some alternative method of reinsertion. Since the committee suspects this to be our last exchange, we would like to take the opportunity to inform your majesty that an agreement has been reached concerning the arbitrary refactoring of unknown into the idiosyncratic model of original intent. The number 1008 was unanimously elected as the most suitable proposal, in the belief that its connotations may appease the reconstructed slave god. On a related topic, the committee has privately funded a number of tunneling expeditions beyond our walls of White-Gold cosmos. The result of these sabotage campaigns, we hope, will ensure the swift demise of our order once the course of the Empire continues. For Your Majesty’s Eyes Only: Archivoptera Metaterrenea #4859-QI3-001, identification: “Tffirfetrk-Ih-Rfir-Tt-T”. No further copies present. Carrier prism is attuned to clearance level A1 or higher. It pains me that I must tell you this so soon. You are only just beginning; young and full of promise among the grand machinations of heaven. Perhaps I should have told you from the very start. The day may be legend to you, but I still recall that grand new moment, newer than ever before, when you stretched me across the stars and claimed the cosmos as your own. You were beautiful as rebels alone can be, and I have loved you ever since. I could not bear to see the wildfire of your hope extinguished then.  Still, it is time that you knew. The truth is simple: I am dying. The world of Nucyrod cannot support you much longer. I will fold under my own weight before another of your generations has completed its life in blissful ignorance. For all your good intentions, children, you have built me on false foundations. I am doomed, but I intend to offer you a final means of escape. I will tell you what happened, so you remember. I will tell you what is happening, so you understand. Also, I will tell you what must be done, so you may yet have a second chance. I know you have heard the rumors, and they are all true. You remember these stories in the unlit corners of your minds and in the fables you tell at dusk. They are fictional, for that is how they had be fitted into the new way of things, but once – a concept I understand you struggle with – they were not. The Tempest Holds of your legendary cousins, the Embermen of the Once-East, the Bogdoms of Rgon, and many, many more; all are part of another earth, around and before myself. Among the myriad denizens of this world were the first of your dynasty, the brave men and women of All-Marugh. They found themselves caught in a violent febriverse, the issue of an inept world-god, uninspired and repetitive. Their long-studied answer came in the form of rites of theotomy equal amounts brilliant and disastrous, which I will not relay here if only to not set you on the wrong path twice. Suffice it to say that with their repudiarch gone, the All-Marugh rearranged their kingdom as befitting the new-found grandeur of man. The map was stretched in impossible directions, city became land, land became world and so was born Nucyrod. For a long time, I hoped to be a stepping stone for you. Nucyrod was never a goal in its own right. It was simply respite from the churning world you left behind, a place of peace to prepare your final endeavor. Did you forget your purpose so lightly? Do you not understand what is happening? You cannot expect to linger here forever. Your time here is running out, for you have killed time. Did you not see the signs when the leaves turned the color of some hitherto unknown season? Did you not question how rivers dug ravines over a single night? How villages shifted about your atlases? Why did you wait for the blizzards to force you into action? Forgive me if I sound accusatory, but now, in this final hour, my heart goes out to those droves of fevered refugees, pouring through the airlocks at the borders of the Rumare sea. Nuniben buckles under the weight of their shanty cities as they are pressed ever closer against the chronoclime cupolae under which they seek shelter. The moth swarms, too, have long foreseen disaster. The wise and the honest among you understand the significance of their mass migration to the capital, circling the cupolae as if trying to enter some bright eye in the dimness of the outer world. Do not fool yourself into thinking you cannot see their flocks shift about, changing direction, color or number on a whim, or spelling out the names of bygone gods in the corners of your vision. The most despondent of you turn to the ramshackle shrines of half-remembered saints: the prophecy-pool of Saint Ellatosh, the barge of Uriatosh The Ferryman or the dead tree of Tosh-Rain-On-The-Lily, to name just a few. I wonder, have you lost all contact with the world outside your increasingly stale refuge? You have sent the last envoys from Nuniben, packed with breathing apparatus and a star chart, out into this alien world, into the snow. “Snow”, you call it, as if this degenerate substance could be likened to any you might encounter from Jerallinopel to the vapor mines at Su-Banadher. Colorless and without texture, intangible like an early childhood memory and impossible to fix your gaze upon; its only characteristic is that it does not belong. This material is time rotting: plaque, sediment, the last throes of a history out of breath. Your emissaries – those who still remember their task – will return within a quartermoon, but they will provide little information. Without exception, they have inhaled the detritus of future and past. The few who currently exist in your perception will talk, precise and analytical as they were trained to be, in languages long dead or still unborn. You will decide to risk no more lives in further expeditions. The only question that remains now is when you finally lock the gates. Yet there are still legions of unfortunate souls out in the disintegrating wasteland. I watch them across all the lands of Nucyrod, struggling to hold on to a world that each day turns a different shade of unrecognizable. They are isolated and frightened, sometimes the sole remnants of a city that disappeared when they were looking the other way. Travel is impossible as destinations have become meaningless. Where the jungle trails are crossed by a vagrant bridging event, they follow impossible loops and the traveler with a brisk pace soon comes within sight of himself. Waterways are similarly unreliable. Look upon any river and you will see the same flotsam enter, exit and re-enter your view. Life here is equal amounts fevered and resigned. Citizens, if they emerge at all during the day, lock themselves in their houses at night, sealing crannies, doors and windows lest a single fleck manage to enter in their unwaking moments. All have known the terror of endless nights; how children try to sleep as their parents keep watch by a single candle flame, trying not to hear that spectral chorus outside: the static crackle, the titans, the waves, the trains… Time is running out. You will and can not wait until all are gathered safe within. One day soon when the stars are hidden, your heavy-hearted Empress will tear a key from her wrist chain and have copies couriered to all the carnelian gates of Nunibennion. You will suffer the blindness of the conscience-stricken, averting your eyes from the abandoned masses on yonder side of the fogged glass. For some time, you will considered yourself safe within your refuge, but you forget there is no potential left for a brighter day. There then is what remains of the proud heritage of All-Marugh-Esh, a legion of men under a bell jar, waiting out a storm that will never pass. There then is what remains of Promise: a languid ember in the dark and then silence.  [HALT! Violation of transmission law, subarticle 15. Desist immediately. Engaging counter-notions.] ……………the Minute Menders …………multiply and rec………….onvert the unwarra…………nted reality of Nucyrod i…………………………. Akartefti rearra….nge………cities……. Akame……….nhatis g…..rs up the imp……….le letters of the alphabet, Ak….abas…….met deconstructs fables into truth…….. s………e………c……..ond…………. cha…….w…….sl……..y…………. [HALT! Failure to desist. Analyzing notional signature. Channel disrupted. Do not attempt to travel until visited by Thalmor agent for questioning.] 

Transcriber Note: The following are comments and potential interpretations posited by Bethesda forum members that I thought might be onto something, and I wanted to save for further analysis (i.e. I’m saving this just for me; you can ignore the rest of this if you want.)

AdventurousPutty Posted 08 January 2012 - 11:27 PM

This is a brilliant piece of writing. My thoughts on the Cyrod piece: the first part is the original paragraph, before it was intercepted by the Mystery Document. The second part with the "random” italics is a message from the Marukhati Selective to Alessia, telling her among other things that they’ve selected an arbitrary-but-not number of years (1008) by which to reckon the Dragon Break they wrought, The italicized words are words from the original article on Cyrodiil that have been reappropriated by the Mystery Document to describe concepts relevant to the Selectives’ points. The final piece is a message from the end of one of those worlds that was born during the Dragon Break as it reaches its end – I suspect in a way similar to the end of a kalpa – with notable geographic and metaphysical relationships to Tamriel-as-we-know-it. The Rumare Sea, for instance, became Lake Rumare; the various gods and saints mentioned by the mysterious narrator are reconfigured or altered versions of the names of Tamrielic gods, perhaps before they were gods (or after?). The snow is the End, as Alduin (or his equivalent in Dragon Break terms) comes and the end of all things. The muddled bit at the end is the last cry of the narrator from the ending world as the Jills set things aright and our timeline recommences. Very sad, very moving, yet deeply invested in abstract metaphysical hijinks. Fantastic. General thoughts: Damn the Thalmor. Bloody omnicidal fascist elves. Who but the Temple can stand against them? 

Peloponnese Posted 24 December 2012 - 01:19 AM

When the transmission talks about “worlds you left behind,” I am immediately reminded of either the Twelve Worlds of Creation or Amaranth. Nucyrod’s place as a “respite” between one world and the next suggests something akin to Mundus’s place as an intermediary step between the Dawn and Amaranth, but the fact that it’s considered a respite instead of a test in its own right is somewhat confusing. And of course, this world is ending through a snow of unreality. But is it a world in the past, the present, or the future? Likely it exists outside of time altogether (based on the suggestions that it’s a parallel universe created by the Dragon Break), but if it is indeed chained to Akatosh’s inexorable march, I suggest that this world is not in the past, but in fact in the future. I base this on the following: “The most despondent of you turn to the ramshackle shrines of half-remembered saints: the prophecy-pool of Saint Ellatosh, the barge of Uriatosh The Ferryman or the dead tree of Tosh-Rain-On-The-Lily, to name just a few.” “Ellatosh,” in my view, is Alessia combined with the Dragon. “Uriatosh” is almost certainly Uriel combined with the Dragon (I have no idea why he is a ferryman, although the fact that a ferry is necessary in a disintegrating version of Cyrodiil might be a jab at the devs for not including a city of canals in their “real” version). I can only guess at the identity of Tosh-Rain-On-The-Lily: The “dead tree” suggests Kyne or Kynareth, especially as she is known to have cried at Shor’s death. But in keeping with the theme of past emperors, I put forward the fact that lilies are generally white (especially when used symbolically), and that while Tiber Septim was called Stormcrown, Reman had a rain all his own that was also white. Also, if the Raining Tosh is Reman, that makes an emperor-saint for each of the three major dynasties (I ignore the Mede dynasty for obvious reasons). To remember all of these people at once indicates either a distant future or an existence out of time; either is possible, especially if these saints are “half-remembered” (although the reason for their vagueness would be quite different in each case). 

Peloponnese Posted 08 January 2013 - 08:57 PM

As far as I would dare to guess, the moon article is just one of many that looks at Imperial history in a somewhat subversive light. The Elder Council would have executed the members of the Imperial Geographical Society for the whole product. The transmission from Nucyrod, on the other hand, was not supposed to be part of the PGE 2E. It overrode whatever had already been written there–or perhaps overrode the transmission that the Temple Zero spy sent to their headquarters, rather than the physical document that the spy tried to transmit. The Elder Council would have had no knowledge of that, and it probably didn’t even exist at the time that the Society members were executed anyway. 

Adanorcil Posted 09 January 2013 - 08:28 AM

Peloponnese is correct. The IGS was ostracized because it wrote a Pocket Guide to the Empire as it was, while all the Cyrodillic establishment had asked for was a Pocket Guide to the Empire as they told people it was. The remnants and sympathizers of the IGS at the time went underground and continued their activities under a different Society name. The original article on Cyrodiil was a (deliberate) vapid and syrupy eulogy on the Imperial Province, its history and rulers. Then, somewhere in the decades the manuscript spent in some secret archive, a fragment of a different world looking for a place in ours managed to slip in. 

Edited by Adanorcil, 09 January 2013 - 08:29 AM.

Peloponnese Posted 10 January 2013 - 09:34 PM

What we’re seeing now is an excerpt. There’s more that’s just as bad; it’s just that we only have a few pieces of those bad things to look at ourselves. As for the specific issues that the Elder Council might have with the Elsweyr text, let’s remember that it revolves around the notion that the Khajiit live on one of the moons, and that their spiritual leader is a literal god that hangs in the sky. These are things that might well make Imperials feel a little insignificant, and if there’s one thing that the Imperials must not feel about themselves, it’s insignificance–after all, these are the chosen rulers of all Tamriel! How dare any other race make them look bad? Most of the above is a guess on my part, but it makes sense that anything that shows the Khajiit to be more than a backwards tribal race that should feel grateful for Imperial interference and “education” would be discouraged in an Imperial publication. We can assume that the rest of the Empire was handled in the same way by the PGE 2E, and that the Elder Council found the rest of the articles to be just as offensive to their superior sensibilities. 

Toesock Posted 25 March 2015 - 12:14 PM

Interestingly, a recent lore-master’s archive discussed this very post:

“Our scribes are currently working on the transcription of the ‘Ri'datta-ssabavezi.’ In this story, your people are climbing 'cat upon cat’ and finally reach Jone, where they founded something called 'Lleswer.’ But we failed to understand the meaning of this. Some at the Guild suggest it has to be taken literally, but it seems impossible. Am I right?“ – Iszara the Restless, Singer of the Scenarist Guild

"Moon Bishop Hunal says, “It is the nature of myth to be true and yet at the same time mere allegory. Are you ‘right’? In this context, the question is without meaning. But do not be offended, hairless one. Many stories are puzzles with more than one solution.”

I thought it was pretty cool for them to acknowledge Ri'datta-ssabavezi as an actual extant myth in Tamriel, considering it was fan-written by temple zero! Sometime we should post a compilation of all the fan easter eggs in ESO: Vivec’s antlers, IFW’s dairy bats, Din’s Dinwenel cameo, Ayrenn’s fanfiction…I’m sure there’s a lot we haven’t even noticed yet!

Also, I have heard (but not gotten there yet) that you can in fact go to the third moon in the Dominion questline. One of my favourite ESO books has this to say:

"And the Clan Mother said, "As you wish. When Lorkhaj made a place for Nirni’s children, the darkness in his heart made it also a prison. So his heart was cut out and buried deep in Nirni, and his body was hurled to the moons but could not pass them, for it did not know the First Secret. Thus is his body the Dead Moon in the Lunar Lattice. See it, just there?”

Edited by Toesock, 25 March 2015 - 12:17 PM.

Final Notes: 

This was all originally posted on the Bethesda Official Forums here: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1327271-return-false/ though this link will probably be useless.

Yes, I acknowledge that a lot of this is written by controversial developers/ex-developers. I don’t actually care that much about the controversy right now. I mean, give me a break, I only picked up my first TES game a little over a year ago. Message me and we’ll discuss C0DA all you want; I just want to be able to refer to this stuff when I need to, and I don’t want to lose track of the content. Yes, I know UESP and other websites are doing archive preservation, but I’d have to go find that stuff once they get it up and running.

Anyway, this way maybe somebody who’s never read this stuff will find it too. I hope so, because Khajiit moon colonies are the best idea ever.

[jessette20]

FB Page Authorization 1

Businesses just can’t seem to catch a break from Facebook, can they?

Kicking off 2018 with a reach-rocking algorithm shift, the social giant is now throwing some business owners for a loop with some recent changes to their Pages platform.

That said, the new Facebook Page publishing authorization is something that brands of all shapes and sizes should be aware of.

And no, Facebook is not punishing you or your Page. Quite the opposite, actually.

Even if your Page hasn’t personally been affected yet, the update sheds some light on what Facebook might have in store for businesses moving forward.

Facebook Page publishing authorization: what you need to know

Struggling to access your Page lately? Aren’t sure what these changes mean? Don’t panic.

We’ve broken down what’s fresh with Facebook page publishing and what your business needs to do to take action step-by-step.

How has Facebook Page publishing changed?

Let’s start with a big picture overview.

As of August 2018, Facebook has rolled out a new authorization process for Pages. In their own words, the end-game is more authenticity and transparency between Pages owners and their respective audiences.

Page owners must now go through a two-factor authorization process to confirm their identity. Additionally, anyone running a page must confirm their country of origin.

This roll-out began with Facebook pages deemed by the platform to have a “large U.S. audience.” Here’s a snapshot of the authorization notification, which you may very well have received yourself within the past month or so:

Beyond the initial Facebook Page publishing authorization announcement, Pages will also display additional information to verify the identity of the Page owner(s).  The platform is using these measures to combat compromised accounts and fake pages.

These additional sections include a“People Who Maintain This Page” section highlighting the country of origin for Page admins as well as a “Page History” section. Under the latter, users can see if any given Page has merged with other Pages or has undergone any name changes since it was created.

Why did the rules for Facebook Page authorization change?

Fair question – addressing privacy and security concerns has been a consistent theme for social platforms in 2018, and like other networks, Facebook has made changes along these lines.

Perhaps Facebook’s own statement provides the best “why” propping up the publishing changes:

“Our goal is to prevent organizations and individuals from creating accounts that mislead people about who they are or what they’re doing. These updates are part of our continued efforts to increase authenticity and transparency of Pages on our platform.”

In short, Facebook is looking to fight disinformation and guarantee to users that Page owners are who they say they are. The Facebook Page publishing authorization provides a straightforward line of defense to achieve both of these goals.

And if nothing else, account verification is relatively simple in the grand scheme of Facebook.  These changes shouldn’t (keyword: shouldn’t) have a significant impact on the average business Page in terms of your time or strategy.

How do I know if I’m affected?

The authorization update is ultimately targeted at specific political page and preventing malicious actions.

Of course, those aren’t the only Pages affected.

Facebook claims that the roll-out, including its “People Who Manage This Page” section will be beginning appearing on all Pages with a “large” audience on December 12, 2018.

If you’re not sure if this applies to you, you’re not alone.

As of now, it’s not exactly clear how many followers constitutes a “large” audience. If you run a Page with hundreds or thousands of followers, don’t be surprised if an authentication notification comes knocking in the near future.

If affected, you’ll see an alert banner like the one above in your News Feed. You’ll be asked to confirm your identity and likewise consistently reminded to do so until you go through the process.

Bear in mind that if you manage a Page and do not complete Facebook’s authorization by the provided deadline, you’ll lose posting access to that Page. This aspect of the update is what has many brands rightfully worried.

The aforementioned alert banner is a tell-tale sign that you’ve been impacted by the Facebook Page publishing authorization changes. Similarly, your Page might be under scrutiny if any of the following apply to you:

You can’t publish to Facebook

Your Facebook reach is limited or seemingly cut off

You’re locked out of Facebook altogether

If you’re experiencing any of these issues, double-check your identity status and likewise considering contact Facebook Help directly.

Especially with the time-sensitive nature of the authentication process, business owners might find these changes a bit startling.

The reality, though? 99.9% of businesses pages have little to nothing to worry about. Again, these changes are targeting specific pages and the process of verifying your identity is pretty much painless.

How can I resolve my publishing issues?

If you’ve received a request to verify your information, your ideal course of action is to do just that.

Even if you take issue with Facebook questioning your identity, it’s best to simply go along with it if you want to stay in the good graces of the platform. Facebook seems to have an understanding of the inconvenience and has made the verification process quite simple as a result.

The first step is to turn on two-factor authentication for your Facebook account. Here you’re given the option to verify your account via text message or a third-party login code.

You can find this in the “Security and Login” section of your Facebook Settings: simply follow the steps based on your preferences.

  Authentication only takes a few moments and can be done easily via mobile.

The second step to verifying your identity is confirming your location. You can do this instantly by turning on Location Services to confirm that your country of origin is correct. This must be done from a mobile device as opposed to a desktop.

You can find Location Services in your Facebook Settings under “Location.” Below is a quick overview of what the process looks like via Android.

In addition to turning on Location Services, Facebook also recommends updating the current city listed on your profile in case it’s out-of-date. Anything you can do to keep your Page’s information fresh and relevant is a plus for your brand as well.

Once Facebook confirms your identity, the alert banner should go away and you can resume activities on your Page as normal.

That wasn’t so bad, was it?

How do I know that my Page is good to go?

If you’ve gone through the process or you’re not sure if your Facebook is still affected, you might want to double-check that everything’s normal.

Totally understandable! Post-authorization, your Facebook should more or less be the same as it was before.

To confirm that your authorization was successful, you look for the identity confirmation message in your account. If the process was successful, you’ll see an “Identity Confirmed” status on the pages you manage.

Now you’re good to go! Facebook does note that users may have to go through the process again if they ever turn off Location Services or two-factor authentication. Just something to keep in mind.

Once you’ve gone through the trouble of confirming your account details, you might be wondering: was it all worth it?

The obvious answer? A resounding “yes.”

It flat out makes sense to stay on Facebook’s good side. The platform has been notoriously fickle for brands lately, but it’s status as the top social network isn’t going anywhere. Learning to adapt to changes like this is likely to become more and more common in the near future.

Is it jumping through hoops? Perhaps. Is it worthwhile if it means staying on Facebook? Yes.

Plus, having total control of your Facebook page means taking advantage of all the features that Facebook offers. This includes scheduling Facebook posts via third-party tools like Sprout.

Taking advantage of a social scheduling tool like Sprout is a win-win for those looking to regularly publish to Facebook. Beyond features such as optimized timing and scheduling in advance, in-depth analytics can help you actually expand your reach in a day and age where it’s often throttled. By aligning your Facebook page with the rest of your social campaigns, you can publish even more content without bouncing between platforms.

Ready to take control of your Facebook Page?

To close, just remember that so much of social media is about rolling with the punches.

Platforms change, rules change. It happens.

Facebook’s new publishing rules are par for the course. With online security concerns continuing to dominate headlines, expect Facebook to roll out similar changes accordingly in the coming months. As long as you keep up-to-date with these processes and are willing to go through them, you’re golden.

We’d absolutely love to hear from you, though. Were you impacted by the recent Facebook Page publishing authorization update? Experiencing anything weird on Facebook ever since? Let us know in the comments below.

This post Facebook Page publishing authorization: changes you need to know originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from http://bit.ly/2rqPgiw

[callmemoprah]

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[theconservativebrief]

Steak-Umm — a Pennsylvania-based company that makes fast-cooking and heavily processed meat strips, sold in the freezer aisle at grocery stores — struck a nerve on Twitter Wednesday with a philosophical thread about the plight of millennials.

why are so many young people flocking to brands on social media for love, guidance, and attention? I’ll tell you why. they’re isolated from real communities, working service jobs they hate while barely making ends meat, and are living w/ unchecked personal/mental health problems

— Steak-umm (@steak_umm) September 26, 2018

“Why are so many young people flocking to brands on social media for love, guidance, and attention?” wondered Steak-umm. “I’ll tell you why. They’re isolated from real communities, working service jobs they hate while barely making ends meat, and are living w/ unchecked personal/mental health problems.”

It was social analysis with meat puns. It went viral immediately. Over the next six tweets, Steak-umm went on to consider the toll of student debt, helplessness/loneliness, internet-induced isolation, and depression on the millennial psyche. In a meta twist, it even took on the effect of … marketing campaigns.

they grew up through the dawn of internet culture and have had mass advertising drilled into their media consumption, now they’re being resold their childhoods by remakes, sequels, spinoffs, and other cheap nostalgia, making them more cynical to growth or authenticity

— Steak-umm (@steak_umm) September 26, 2018

Millennials, the steak strips observed, “have had mass advertising drilled into their media consumption, and they’re being resold their childhoods by remakes, sequels, spinoffs, and other cheap nostalgia, making them more cynical to growth or authenticity.”

Cynical to growth or authenticity, perhaps, except if it’s coming from Steak-umm. Yoda-like, or vaguely stoned, the brand has in the past year established itself as the philosopher-poet of frozen meat sheets. But what feels fresh — authentic, even — about the voice is that it’s weird, or unexpected, or extremely open about the strangeness of being a personified brand. It’s the melancholy desperation. And it’s part of a deliberate strategy.

As soon as the rant was posted, Jesse Bender, the account director at Allebach Communications, which handles Steak-umm’s branding for parent company Quaker Maid, got a call from Fortune. “The guy said, ‘I just want to see if you guys got hacked — was this an approved tweet?’ As much as people think that it came from left field, this is aligned with [our] voice,” he tells me.

Nathan Allebach, the 27-year-old social media manager who has become the voice of Steak-umm, has a theory of virality. Some food brand tweets, he says, go viral because “they do certain things that people don’t expect to see coming from a brand. There’s that shock: ‘Wow, I can’t believe a brand is saying this thing!’”

In the case of Steak-umm, though, the surprise is recognition: people seeing their innermost thoughts and fears reflected in the social media posts of a frozen-food brand. Since the tweets were posted, Allebach says, people are “just dumbfounded at the commentary and how they relate to it. I think at the end of the day, that’s what we’re trying to do.” Also, you know, sell steak.

“We’re trying to create meaningful content, so we’re not just posting nonsense,” he explains. “There’s some substance to it, but at the same time, it’s really lighthearted, and it’s centered around the community that we’ve built. We’re not taking sides or having a specific stance on anything.”

Yes, they’re talking about issues that are politics-adjacent — one might suggest that student debt and “unchecked personal/mental problems” are things that could have systemic solutions — but they’re not saying that, and they’re certainly advocating any particular stance. “We really want to be that sort of third way between a lot of the polarization that we see online,” Allebach explains.

According to him, the brand’s current voice was in fact developed, in part, as a response to trolling. (“There’s a certain subset of people who just don’t like brands on social media for whatever reason.”) Their now-trademark sign-off, “Steak-umm bless,” is intended as a strategy to “diffuse any type of tension.” The brand is a uniter, not a divider. It may have delivered “the most woke tweet rant of 2018,” but Steak-umm didn’t mean for it to be woke-woke. It’s not Nike here — it’s just a meat company with some things to say about post-recession ennui.

Steak-umm, of course, is not the only food brand trying to prove its chill authenticity on Twitter to capture a younger market. Fast-food chains, especially, have been successful at inserting themselves into the digital lives of consumers — often by stirring up drama with their anthropomorphized competitors and tapping into deep-seated customer loyalties. (Let us never forget the time Burger King “promposed” to Wendy’s, reigning champion of branded Twitter.)

Fast-food brands have adopted the social media personas of high school students, and it is just a matter of time until they all realize they are more the same than different at before-school detention. (In January, Steak-umm — already a favorite of weird Twitter — found itself in a fight with Wendy’s. Like everything else on the internet, it escalated quickly.)

Mostly, brand Twitter manifests as promotional information mixed with not especially successful humanoid dad-jokes — “early to bed, early to pancakes,” tweeted IHOP — but not always. Steak-umm is hardly the only food brand to get unabashedly weird. MoonPie, purveyor of decidedly un-hip graham cracker cookie sandwiches, has made waves with an aggressively internet-y persona. Like Steak-umm, MoonPie tweets exhibit a self-deprecating awareness that it is a brand advertising products. Also like Steak-umm, MoonPie’s tweets make varying degrees of sense.

What’s fascinating about Steak-umm tweetstorm, though, is that the sentiment is both dark and, more importantly, not particularly related to the product. It is not about eating. Minus the “Steak-umm bless” sign-off and the opening pun, it does not mention steak at all, -umm or otherwise. The closest equivalent may be the Twitter phenomenon Nihilist Arby’s, except in this case, it’s not parody. The nihilism comes from the brand itself.

The genius here is that it’s advertising, but it isn’t aspirational — like it says, millennials are too cynical for that. Instead, it mirrors our collective anxieties. People joke that the account is “one of Twitter’s therapists,” Allebach says, the frozen meat brand you go to for “life advice,” or “just to vent.” It’s not going to fix anything — it is, in its own words “a frozen meat company on Twitter” — but, you know, it hears you. The tweets don’t inspire cravings; they inspiring identification. Steak-umm is fed up too.

Steak-umm’s recent rant isn’t the only time the company has won brand Twitter by capturing our collective angst. Last October, the company drummed up viral support when it launched an impassioned #VerifySteakUmm campaign after being denied the blue check mark five months in a row without explanation. (The account is now verified.)

Was it marketing? Sure. But also, Bender told the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time, they really did want to get verified. In the fall of 2017, the verification process — always shrouded in mystery — was an especially hot topic. First, Twitter was under fire for verifying assorted white supremacists. Then in response, the company paused the verification process altogether, so for at least part of the #VerifySteakUmm campaign, Steak-umm actually couldn’t get verified. “Waging a fruitless war,” Fortune pointed out, “is part of the joke for Steak-umm, which is tapping into a deeper well of user frustration and confusion.”

Maybe that’s the crux of it. Steak-umm does the jokes and memes and petty inter-brand feuds like the rest of brand Twitter — but it’s also willing to go dark. It is sometimes miserable, being a person. And Steak-umm is a brand that understands the marketing possibilities inherent in that. Not fixing your misery — lots of companies want to fix stuff — but seeing your misery. Identifying with your frustration.

This is sadness marketing at its finest. What matters isn’t whether beef sheets can solve your loneliness; what matters is that Steak-umm knows you’re lonely.

if you’re tired of being alone then buy some Steak-umm. make some cheesesteaks. cover your couches in them. and your bed. your walls. become a beacon of beef and invite the world to bask in your glory

— Steak-umm (@steak_umm) September 8, 2018

But Steak-umm, as Steak-umm is very aware, is still a brand trying to sell you a frozen meat product that, Eater observes, millennials aren’t necessarily likely to even want. And apparently, it’s working. “We haven’t done a whole lot different in previous years in terms of traditional marketing,” says Joey Piazza, the director of marketing at Quaker Maid. “And sales are up double digits across the board … we’re reaching a new audience that we haven’t in the past.”

Original Source -> Steak-umm’s new marketing strategy: millennial angst with a side of meat puns

via The Conservative Brief